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Electronic Voting in the News
heymarcel writes "After a negative review of the Diebold voting machines by the State Gaming Control Board, it looks like Nevada has gone with a competitor for the upcoming election. And Secretary of State Dean Heller is requiring paper receipts. According to the Associated Press story, Nevada is the first state to do so." There's another story about Nevada voting machines as well. zapf writes "It appears that the major e-Voting machine vendors have banded together to form the 'Election Technology Council.'" Reader SemperUbi writes: "Demand for a voter-verified audit trail is really gaining momentum these days. The Voter Verification Act, introduced yesterday by Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), would require a voter-verified paper audit trail, ban the use of 'undisclosed' software and wireless communications for voting machines, and require mandatory surprise recounts -- all in time for the November 2004 election. Rep. Holt's HR2239 in the House requires much the same thing. Resistance to both bills may focus on the aggressive timetable, but the effort is worth it -- as Warren Slocum once said, democracy ain't cheap. Take that, Diebold!" And finally, a Maryland newspaper dredges up an internal Diebold email that recommends gouging Maryland if the state wants paper printouts for its Diebold voting system.
Geeks 1.
Diebold 0.
We did it.
What happened to the goons that were supposed to hush this under the rug? They failed?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Must be anonymous and verifiable...
the best Scheme(method) I have heard involves a unique key assigned to each vote and given to each voter... Each voter can then check up on that vote at any time to ensure that it is counted... Further, the list of votes could even be published and publicly browseable... such that each citizen or perhaps restricted to voters could identify and verify the vote.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
"The candidate you are about to choose is not supported by us and may cause instablity in your state: Are you sure you want to continue?"
I'm amazed that companies whose sole purpose is to provide secure, reliable data management (ATMs, and now voting machines) would be so incredibly stupid regarding security and integrity of systems. Diebold's attitudes toward their voting machines make me wonder about their ATMs, and if they are as insecure and poorly implemented as the voting machines were demonstrated to be.
This is one place where we should definitely push for open source software with peer review. Otherwise we'll have elections under control of a few people without any recourse.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In the US, you get the best democracy money can buy!!!
How about EEG? I want a nice cushy job subverting Democracy for the shadow government, with all the perks!
Not to shamelessly promote EFF or anything, but they have some really good information on e-voting on their website. Here's a pre-made letter to your senator (for those living in the US) asking him/her for support in the fight for secure elections.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
We used to vote with paper and a pencil. Then we got those computers to vote with, because it was cheaper and more efficent. Now those PC need to print your vote on a piece of paper.
In short we succeeded in replacing a cheap pencil by an expensive computer with totaly no advantages.
It is reported that the American people are very happy to have receiptless electronic voting machines. No dissenting reports can be found...
A state that needs total accountability for its main industry (gambling) requires the same in the voting process. Right now, in Florida where I live, there is no accountability for fraudulent voting practices so long as you vote for the party in power. I almost want to move to Vegas now.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
For a good source on the electronic voting issue in general and the push for Rep. HR2239 in particular, see Verified Voting.
E-Voting machines.
Big business hides the memos,
Congress wants answers...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
I had $500 on Diebold!
...which is another way of saying "Maybe Bush will be democratically-elected this time around."
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
I'm tempted to cruise Monster's website looking for someone name Ken who is recently unemployed.
The sad thing is I should actually look at Diebold's corporate page and see who's been appointed a new VP in Corporate Strategy named Ken.
"My fingers Emit sparks of fire in Expectation of my future labours." William Blake
If everything goes right, its easier to have a machine count it- they are usually much better and less error prone than humans (thus, the improvement over pen/pencil).
But if they are just as prone to hacking as humans are ("count this in favor of John Steed or your family gets hurt!") , then there is no advantage.
It comes down to convenience vs. auditability. I don't trust people not to cheat. I want that auditability.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
...guaranteed to give you 25% more republican votes or your money back
"I'd really like to have [yin-yang] explained to me anatomically, with the assumption that almost any place it would be would be painful," she said.
"...would require a voter-verified paper audit trail, ban the use of 'undisclosed' software and wireless communications for voting machines, and require mandatory surprise recounts -- all in time for the November 2004 election."
Pointy-haired bosses with no tech background writing the specs and setting the drop-dead date... yet again. The result will either be a rush-job kludge or very late. The specs are not bad but the timeline should be targeted for the 2006 elections, at the earliest.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
Even if you do produce a paper receipt, most people won't even look at it. Even those who do look at it will probably just toss it in the trash bin on the way out. We're such a consumer culture, the average american tosses printed receipts several times a day.
Now if we printed out a decorative "Don't blame me, I voted for so-and-so" certifiate people could use to impress their friends (seeing as voting is for the most part a social event nowadays for a lot of people, so they can discuss politics at cocktail parties)...
====
Crudely Drawn Games
According to news reports, a hacker broke into the Ohio company's servers using an employee's ID number and copied a 1.8-gigabyte file of company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999.
I'm sure the subject has been discussed before, but what if the original hacker is caught? It's clear that the information "stolen" is of critical importance in the debate over the trustworthiness of Diebold, and electronic voting in general. But will that hacker be able to use the importance of his/her discovery as a mitigating factor in court?
It seems like a parallel situation would be this: My neighbor has a tall fence, topped with electrified razor wire, plastered with "NO TRESPASSING" signs, and a tiger prowling the grounds for added security. I suspect that he is planning to commit a crime on his property -- say I've heard he's planning to kill his wife for the insurance money. If I ignore the signs, scale the wall, avoid the tiger, and take pictures of his detailed murder plans (which he conveniently leaves on his dining room table), I may prevent Ms. Neighbor's untimely demise.
Am I guilty of trespassing? And even if I am, was it worth it? I'd say yes -- I'd commit a small crime to prevent a much larger one. Was the Diebold hacker thinking along those lines? Or were they just out for a walk with the tiger?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Buying voting machines at $3,500 a pop is just plain silly. Why don't some of you code monkeys quickly gen up some software that will:
1. Interface a generic touch-screen monitor
2. Run on FreeDOS (linux is overkill for this one)
3. Allow the Supervisor of Elections to load a database with the election particulars
4. Allow any old cheap PC to read the election database and arbitrate an election via the touch-screen.
5. Print out a ballot which the voter then verifies and drops into a box for later counting by humans.
If all voting and counting are done at the precinct level, in public with witnesses, then it will be damn hard to cheat on the election. By the way, to those who cringe at the thought of counting all those votes, most precincts have no more than 3000 voters registered . . . and only half of them ever vote. The last Canadian Federal Election was counted in less than four hours. One other detail, give each voter a bar-coded tag when he checks in to vote. The tag is his ticket to drop one (1) ballot in the box.
These paper receipts are a poison placebo, that will keep us screwable at the voting booth. What are we supposed to do with a receipt? They merely give the false illusion of security, while papering over the same insecurity problems. We should just inspect the pretty-printed "receipt", and drop it into a slot if we like it enough to cast it as a ballot, before leaving the booth. Optical scanners can get an early sanctioned count at the close of polls, but the official record must be the actual cast ballots. In the current fraud climate, any candidate requesting a recount, by human hands, if necessary, should be accommodated, no questions asked.
The paper ballot should never leave the booth. Many voters might be intimidated by buyers/threats into bringing the receipt to a vote controller, even if there are easy ways to vote differently from a receipt. By settling for a paper receipt, we're handed the illusion that there's a paper trail, so the pressure's off. But the fraud will continue unabated.
--
make install -not war
"which is another way of saying "Maybe Bush will be democratically-elected this time around.""
Clinton, then, was not democratically elected. Like with Bush, the national total votes did not matter. It only mattered that they were popular in enough states to get the electoral vote.
for electronic voting. Sure, it's "modern" to have a computer-driven thing, but the old-fashioned way seems to have far less problems in theory. I'll grant that the implementations have sometimes been poor (I now have a new phrase 'hanging chads', which sounds rather unfortunate), but if you're going to spend this much money, why not simply make a good implementation of a normal system ?
:-)
...
:-)
In the UK (about 1/6th the population stuffed into 1/50th the area, so our voter-density is far higher, and hence counts will be higher) there has never been much of a problem. Sure, it takes 12 hours or so for the tallies to come in from all around the country, but how else to deploy the 'swingometer'
Simple system. Pencil. Anonymous paper. big dirty cross in the box for the candidate you want. Big separation between the candidates. 2 crosses or ambiguity means a spoiled vote (effectively "none of the above"). Count them all (done by volunteers) and you're done.
Sure, we get some recounts, but the system is so simple it's hard to justify flipping a vote from one candidate to another.
Just seems like it's a mountain out of a molehill
Simon. (dons flameproof suit
Physicists get Hadrons!
What is the actual benefit of voting electronically? Many countries use the tried and true method of voting using paper and pen -- just mark your X in the square next to the name. Volunteers tally up the votes at the end of the voting day and, within hours of closing, you get your results.
It's something everybody understands. The paper waste is minimal compared to the paper output of election-related things -- government paperwork, campaign signs, and flyers in your mailbox and everywhere else. You absolutely don't get hanging chads, broken levers, or some other malfunctioning convoluted contraption. Recounts and verifications are simple -- get those same volunteers to count 'em again.
Geek factor aside, where's the benefit of going electronic?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Let's remember something else.. the state puts out the contract for these, and ACCEPTED them.. they were the ones responsible for spending the money wisely, NOT Diebold.
If the state failed to insist on a paper trail, how can you scream at Diebold for not providing one?
Passed the bill a bit back. And with the same cut-in year as Nevada.
s
So no way Nevada is first.
I'm glad both states did so, all should do so. I don't know if it was reported on slashdot.
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1026950/post
To code an OSS solution? Or someone at least funding an OSS voting system? Seems like there would be a lot of prestige, not to mention publicity. How about one of the colleges? It makes since to have big business in a lot of things, but not our ballot boxes.
Quack, quack.
How else could the vote be audited at random as specified in Bob Graham's bill?
For the last decade, when I vote, I fill in circles on a sheet - sort of like filling out the SATs. When I am done, I feed my ballot into some box/machine.
I don't know where or when the ballots are counted, but we have long had machines which could read these ballots. There is a paper trail. Every time an idiot plays the lottery, he also practices filling out a ballot (as the lottery tickets use a similar method).
Obviously, this must spend lots of money getting fancier systems which are no more acurate, and for now leave no paper trail.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
I think the idea of the paper trail is mainly important so there is a record folks can understand-but with good encryption it shouldn't be necessary. What _is_ necessary is better means of monitoring low tech vote fraud-and that probably means cameras at the polling places-and _never_ allowing ballots or media out of the view of a camera--and good encryption on those records.
Going on and on crying about not seeing the source code. Maby when you grow up and move out of your parent's basemnet, you'll understand that real people don't really care about source. The inportant thing is does it get the job done.
Now go run along and go play with your little computer. The big boys will take care of this.
E-mail stolen from Diebold is a call to gouge Maryland
E-Mail This Article
by Steven T. Dennis
Staff Writer
Dec. 10, 2003
ANNAPOLIS -- An e-mail found in a collection of files stolen from Diebold Elections Systems' internal database recommends charging Maryland "out the yin-yang" if the state requires Diebold to add paper printouts to the $73 million voting system it purchased.
The e-mail from "Ken," dated Jan. 3, 2003, discusses a (Baltimore) Sun article about a University of Maryland study of the Diebold system:
"There is an important point that seems to be missed by all these articles: they already bought the system. At this point they are just closing the barn door. Let's just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts."
"Ken" later clarifies that he meant "out the yin-yang," adding, "any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive."
The e-mail has been cited by advocates of voter-verified receipts, who say estimates of the cost of adding printers -- as much as $20 million statewide -- have been bloated.
"I find it appalling," said Del. Karen S. Montgomery (D-Dist. 14) of Brookeville, who plans to file a bill mandating a voter-verified paper trail.
"I'd really like to have [yin-yang] explained to me anatomically, with the assumption that almost any place it would be would be painful," she said.
Montgomery said that the price to add printers should be much lower and that she thinks it is being high-balled in part to keep people from talking about the printing system.
Diebold spokesman David Bear would neither dispute nor confirm the accuracy of the "yin-yang" e-mail on Monday, saying it is "at best the internal discussion of one individual and does not reflect the sentiments or the position of the company."
Last week, Diebold dropped threats to sue voting rights advocates who published the e-mail and other reportedly stolen documents or linked to an online archive of Diebold files from their Web sites.
According to news reports, a hacker broke into the Ohio company's servers using an employee's ID number and copied a 1.8-gigabyte file of company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999.
The purloined files include discussions of the security of Diebold's voting machines, which has been a contentious issue in Maryland and other states.
State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone told The Gazette last month that Diebold had given a preliminary estimate of $1,000 to $1,200 per machine to add printouts, or up to $20 million for the state's more than 16,000 machines. She said last week that she could not recall whether she got the figure from Diebold or media reports.
Lamone, who said she had not seen the e-mail and did not know if it was accurate, also said she believes that a clause in the contract requiring that Diebold give Maryland the lowest hardware price of any state should guard against price-gouging if the General Assembly mandates voter receipts. But some portions of the contract still would have to be renegotiated, she said.
Bear said he did not know the particulars of the contract.
The issue of voter-verified paper receipts continues to gain momentum nationally, with California's secretary of state announcing that all electronic voting machines there must include paper printouts by 2006. The cost cited by one of Diebold's competitors, according to news reports, was about $500 a machine.
Aviel D. Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who wrote a report earlier this year that found the Diebold machines to be riddled with potential security holes, has advocated for voter-verified receipts. Without such a check on the machines, he said, errors or fraud could go undetected. Rubin's report prompted Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to ask for an independent investigation by SAIC Corp., which affirmed t
go ahead and mod me down, but mod the parent back up, because it really is true. I spent some time at a SIGGRAPH discussion session this summer and heard some very informed people discussing our IP laws. Surprise of surprises, the statement "we have the best laws money can buy" was tossed out and met with general agreement. How else do you explain the DMCA, almost anything Senator Hollings introduces, copyright extensions, and a whole host of legislation unrelated to news for nerds?
The golden rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules.
What'll be really interesting to watch is billionaire Souros's campaign against Bush. Money vs the entrenched power. Think of it as a test case for the parent's statement.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If people got to keep their receipt, it would do away with the secret ballot system that American democracy is founded on. Others posters have mentioned the practical consequences of eliminating the secret ballot system.
There's not much less interesting to a politician that a zillion copies of the same letter. It just plain smells.
Write your own! If you want, look at the EFF letter as a model. But don't just rephrase it. Use those parts which get your dander up more than the rest, and write your own words as to why it pisses you off so much.
Infuriate left and right
Citing poor security, Ohio has canceled plans for installing e-voting systems for use in 2004. They are going to use punch cards instead.
link here.
When all else fails, run.
1) let a few democrats win, but only those that are republicans in disguise.
2) do not allow any positions of real power to fall to non-republican candidates
3) continue to enslave the people through simple entertainment, cognitive dissonance, and SSRIs for those that the cognitive dissonance doesn't work on.
4) profit
Yeesh. We could do this quickly and accurately with PAPER and PENCIL, people!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Especially since I haven't heard one remotely reasonable explanation why companies (like Diebold) that make a large number of electronic transaction devices (ATMs, food/entry access, etc.) all of which have/require paper trails and full auditability suddenly found themselves incapable of providing paper trails and auditability to something as important and potentially controversial as elections.
When this is actually fixed, maybe I'll be less cynical. Maybe.
"...is requiring paper receipts. According to the Associated Press story, Nevada is the first state to do so." Actually, AP says that Nevada is the first state requiring paper receipts "in time for the 2004 elections." Previously (in November) California's Secretary of State Kevin Shelley "ordered that all new machines purchased after 1 July 2005 must have the functionality, and existing machines must be retrofitted by 1 July 2006." (from the Register article, at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34142.html
ANNAPOLIS -- An e-mail found in a collection of files stolen from Diebold Elections Systems' internal database recommends charging Maryland "out the yin-yang" if the state requires Diebold to add paper printouts to the $73 million voting system it purchased.
The e-mail from "Ken," dated Jan. 3, 2003, discusses a (Baltimore) Sun article about a University of Maryland study of the Diebold system:
"There is an important point that seems to be missed by all these articles: they already bought the system. At this point they are just closing the barn door. Let's just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts."
"Ken" later clarifies that he meant "out the yin-yang," adding, "any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive."
The e-mail has been cited by advocates of voter-verified receipts, who say estimates of the cost of adding printers -- as much as $20 million statewide -- have been bloated.
"I find it appalling," said Del. Karen S. Montgomery (D-Dist. 14) of Brookeville, who plans to file a bill mandating a voter-verified paper trail.
"I'd really like to have [yin-yang] explained to me anatomically, with the assumption that almost any place it would be would be painful," she said.
Montgomery said that the price to add printers should be much lower and that she thinks it is being high-balled in part to keep people from talking about the printing system.
Diebold spokesman David Bear would neither dispute nor confirm the accuracy of the "yin-yang" e-mail on Monday, saying it is "at best the internal discussion of one individual and does not reflect the sentiments or the position of the company."
Last week, Diebold dropped threats to sue voting rights advocates who published the e-mail and other reportedly stolen documents or linked to an online archive of Diebold files from their Web sites.
According to news reports, a hacker broke into the Ohio company's servers using an employee's ID number and copied a 1.8-gigabyte file of company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999.
The purloined files include discussions of the security of Diebold's voting machines, which has been a contentious issue in Maryland and other states.
State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone told The Gazette last month that Diebold had given a preliminary estimate of $1,000 to $1,200 per machine to add printouts, or up to $20 million for the state's more than 16,000 machines. She said last week that she could not recall whether she got the figure from Diebold or media reports.
Lamone, who said she had not seen the e-mail and did not know if it was accurate, also said she believes that a clause in the contract requiring that Diebold give Maryland the lowest hardware price of any state should guard against price-gouging if the General Assembly mandates voter receipts. But some portions of the contract still would have to be renegotiated, she said.
Bear said he did not know the particulars of the contract.
The issue of voter-verified paper receipts continues to gain momentum nationally, with California's secretary of state announcing that all electronic voting machines there must include paper printouts by 2006. The cost cited by one of Diebold's competitors, according to news reports, was about $500 a machine.
Aviel D. Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who wrote a report earlier this year that found the Diebold machines to be riddled with potential security holes, has advocated for voter-verified receipts. Without such a check on the machines, he said, errors or fraud could go undetected. Rubin's report prompted Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to ask for an independent investigation by SAIC Corp., which affirmed that the system was "at high risk of compromise."
Bob Urosevich, president of Diebold Elections Systems, decli
" It doesn't change the fact that the last election was decided in a courtroom and not at the ballot box."
That is not a fact. Indeed, it never happened. The last election was decided at the ballot box same as the one before it. All the Court did was make sure it stayed that way (decided by voters and not lying attorneys).
"Do you think I'm fucking stupid?"
Yes, based on your silly statements about the election being decided in a courtroom. Either that, or you were born yesterday.
mindstrm is right
Also, no one likes it when the customer keeps changing his order after you've already started the build.
It is quite common actually to use pricing as a means of discouraging the customer from doing things like this. But the "up the ying yang" story makes it look like Diebold wants to discourage Maryland form having fair elections. That might be a nice bonus for Deibold, but here this otherwise normal behavior is being observed out of context.
"1) let a few democrats win, but only those that are republicans in disguise."
Hasn't worked: the vast majority of the democrats are real left-wingers. The "republicans" like Zell miller are rare.
"2) do not allow any positions of real power to fall to non-republican candidates"
Well, the voters decide the elections. That is how it works out.
"3) continue to enslave the people through simple entertainment, cognitive dissonance, and SSRIs for those that the cognitive dissonance doesn't work on."
Hasn't happened either. In fact, dissent has flourished (look at the nonfiction bestseller lists).
The poster has obviously not kept up with the Diebold debates.
There are two goals in voting. Quickly and accuratly counting votes, and making sure no one cheets. Paper and pencle voting were great for the later. All that was needed was good physical security and oversight. Computers are supurb for the former. Press the button and out pups the reuslts. It is finding a system where both goals, Accountibility and Efficiency, are met that is the issue.
Computer data, as has been shown on slashdot overe and over, in vonerable to an infinate number of changes. With out an audit trail there are any number of ways to stuff the ballet box, particularly if your company makes the voting machine.
By having the computer produce a hard copy, there can be public review of the vote. And sence the computer can be designed to create uniformally accurate paper ballets, there will be none of the hanging chad debates. The computer can ensure that every ballet it prints is valid and clear. It can also tabulate results quickly. If there is then a question as to whether the computer was misprogramed, the user varified paper trail is still there to be counted. And sence it was produced in a uniform way and verifird by the voter, even a recount will be much faster and more accurate then the old pencil and paper methode.
I think that the origional poster knows all this and it just trolling, but five slashdot moderators can't be wrong. Just hope I'm not the one to M2 this post.
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
What prevents a paper-receipt from being abused?
Things like, all union members must show their receipt to prove they voted for canidate x. Or an abusive husband controlling the voting his wife. Or a wife withholding sex from her husband because he didn't vote for a canidate.
We can pass a law against it, but having a verifiable receipt will really change things.
This is another win for the collective voice of the people, and /. was in the vanguard of this, good going guys, next time some cynic tells you you cannot do anything about stuff, remember this.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
Given the crappy security on the diebold machines, they couldn't be that hard to reverse engineer.
"require mandatory surprise recounts"
Mandated surprises tend to lose that "surprising" quality.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
They're more than happy to charge you an arm and a leg and the valididy of your vote for it. ;)
As long as a voter gets to keep any confirmation of his or her vote, the secret ballot system is fundamentally broken. An abusive spouse, a vote buyer or a mafioso can all force a voter to positively verify his or her vote as long as there is a receipt that acts as a key. Only if the voter has no verifiable record of his or her actual vote is the voter secure from such coercion.
You make a very valid point here. Robert Cringely makes this same point another way in I, Cringely:
I, Cringely linkage...
Seeing the story of Diebold wanting to gouge Maryland for adding printers & an audit trail to their voting systems makes me think that Diebold did not just forget to put in a printed audit trail, but they deliberately do not want one.
I'm all for your suggestion. REQUIRED open source software in voting machines, with an extensive audit trail, not just of the machines, but the servers, protocols, etc. Competent crypto should be used extensively to protect the systems' integrity.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
We do not want a bunch of Bush goons deciding who wins the Democratic primaries.
photosMy Photostream
Holy Shit! My Rep actually did something both intelligent & useful. Time to send the "Good Boy" fax.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
If any receipt can be a fake, all receipts have just been rendered useless.
1) Have two parties that are both controlled by the ruling class.
2) Have each party "win" on a rotating basis, so the slaves think change is both possible and is occuring.
3) Have the media shout incessantly about how the parties are so different, so that different sections of the slaves think one party is "good" and the other "evil", while both parties obey their true masters in all respects.
4) Profit.
Anyone else find it amusing that VOTING is managed by the State's Gaming Commision?? They've prolly got the best skillset but I'm still chuckling.
B
What is the sudden obsession with "upgrading" our current voting systems by the next election regardles of whether the new systems are better that what we already have? I recently wrote a letter to my senator and state representitives and the main thing I emphasized is that we should not upgrade unless all of the below are demonstratably true:
1) The new system must be at least as reliable in recording and talling votes as the current system.
2) The new system must be at least as secure from fraud as the current system.
3) The new system must be no more prone to user error (by voters or election volenteers) as the current system.
4) It is also preferable that the new system be more time, labor, and cost efficient although those considerations are all supeceded by the previous ones.
I did not present a preference for electronic in general (all systems are electronic to some extent - almost no one hand counts all the votes any more), except to point out the poor implementation of many upcomming systems, and that the most complex solution is very often not the best. It is absolute foolishness to switch to something worse than what we have today.
I mean, seriously, with everything that has happened it is about time hackers not only whine about it, but actually steps up and creates a system that does it right. There's nobody more qualified to do it than a bunch of hackers anyway, and it should be an ideal field to show what can be created, and it should be a rock-solid business plan: You sell hardware and open code.
Start with a prototype that does what the proposed bills say, based on a free OS. Then move up to implement the best things out there (there was this crypto proposal here a couple of weeks ago), and then strip down the OS to the bare essentials needed for the operation. That way, conducting an exhaustive review of the complete source becomes managable.
Really, hackers should see this as a great business opportunity!
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
A receipt would prevent anonymous voting; it's what you'd provide to -- oh, Enron -- to prove that you voted for the "right" candidate. Then they pay you. (Maybe a meal, or by not firing you, or whatever.)
An audit trail is what's needed. And a paper, voter-verifiable copy of the ballot you just filled out is exactly the right thing there. But it must never leave the polling place,
Let's stop having slashdot advocate that the world make it even easier to sell out to corporations and other organizations that are corrupting the political process. Stop calling them "receipts" in the stories, and get editors who stop making such mistakes. Let's try to be up-level from the Faux News Network.
These voting machines are unnecessary. They're solving a problem that doesn't exist.
Punch cards work fine. Yeah, yeah, the Florida recount crap... solution: have a sign on the ballot booth reminding people to be sure the hole is poked through all the way, or their vote may not be counted. Period.
Have it defined in state law that hanging chads, or "dimpled" holes, invalidate that entire ballot. Period.
Or if you really hate punch cards, go to paper ballots and a big X in the box next to the name. We really can wait a couple days to find out who won. Most of us don't care anymore anyway.
"a very large proportion of the population believe that the 2000 Presidential election was rigged by the GOP."
It's a small proportion, actually, a lunatic fringe of 15& or so haters with little knowledge of Constutitional matters (i.e.; they think that winning the election does not matter if a Bad Guy does it). There is a similar group on the Right who did not think Clinton was a legitimate President either.
The right-wing kooks were whining about the country having elected a President they did not like. Now it is the left-wing kooks.
And you will say "but it is different!" Yeah, sure it is.
With all the articles about these voting machines recently, wheres the complete step by step guide for a geek to give 50000 votes to CmdrTaco?
Im sure if Rob where elected into office, the public (the politicians) would realize that they made a huge mistake somewhere...
Please we would get a new Microsoft court case every other week to keep us entertained.
hmm... maybe something would be done about software patents too..
This
Yes, Jeb Bush plotted to STEAL the Florida vote, and he disenfranchised the Florida voters. This is why the voters hated him so much that they voted him out in a landslide in the last Gubernatorial election in that state.
I recently received a recruitment letter from my county election board. Apparently because I am a registered Republican, an endangered species in this part of the state. The only prerequisites for the job are to be a registered voter and to attend a training session at the board of elections.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
If you are going to hand count the votes anyway, why do you need a computer in the first place?
"Let's try to be up-level from the Faux News Network."
If you want to move up from fake news (CNN), change the channel to Fox News. Unlike CNN, they are centrist and try to deal with facts.
This is the first time I've heard the point made that secret votes should not leave the polling place. That would invite corruption. Parent is right that we need a paper audit trail. So the ballot that was just cast get printed and checked by the voter, and he can either invalidate the ballot with the option of re-voting, or the ballot counts and the printout goes in the audit box in case of a recount, system crash, network failure, discovered software bug, or any of the hundred other circumstances that could call the electronic results into question. And if none of those circumstances arises, then the electronic machine serves its purpose by giving an immediate count at the end of the day.
"The 2004 Election? In My opinion, the votes have already been counted for 2004, if you catch our drift."
Yes, the 2004 election is over. The economy is improving, and there no sign Bush will lose the center. The Democrats are poised to nominate a left-wing extremist, so there is no sign that they can get any of the center.
(The only Democrat who has the clue that he should appeal to most Americans instead of the left-wing base, Lieberman, is getting shut out of things).
Howard Dean has "GOP Landslide 2004" written all over his face.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/free/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vote/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freevote/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/votesystem/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kbvote/
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
Look here....
I'd design a system based on a vote registration protocol. This protocol would be subject to RFC and open. Then, I'd require that each polling station vote as follows:
There are two machines at the station, one for casting the votes and one for recording the votes. They are made by SEPERATE VENDORS and both understand the Voting Protocol (VP). Now, the vote casting machines are created to have an easy UI, and after voting you are presented with a machine and human readable reciept (a packet, if you will). The machine readable format is controlled by the voting protocol. You take this reciept to the recorder machine. It reads it in, asks you to verify that it is correct (a screen says you voted for Joe Bob for President, and yes on proposition 69), and if so it spits the paper into a secure bin and records your votes. Recounts, if necessary, are done on a third vendors recording machine.
This is essentially similar to what we do here in my area of Arizona. You fill out your ballot with a pen and then stick it into a little recording machine that records the votes and stores the paper for later recount.
This system would be open, verifiable and expandable.
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
Thanks. Now I'd like to see a US based project with a OSI approved licensing scheme.
Quack, quack.
He is the one who stood up to Diebold and published the links on his website.
And he is running for President.
Time for libertarian geeks to both talk the talk and walk the walk.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The implied advantage is in tabulating the results
The computers still do the counting, they just don't do the voting. Having voters mark a piece of paper that both computers (original count) and humans (potential recounts) can read is the best solution. Computers are not the best solutions for all problems.
You can't possibly be implying that Kucinich is attractive to Libertarians? He may overlap with Libertarian interests on this one issue, but on virtually every other issue is diametrically opposed to Libertarian philosophies.
What fool at Diebold, and the others, wouldn't consider have a paper printout of the votes as a positive option that their sales force should promote.
The added printer technology etc. can certainly be considered a potential profit making venture.
Diebold would get additional margins for the additional gadgets included, and everybody is a lot happier in the end.
I just find it hard to fathom that Diebold and the others are resisting the technology unless they feel that they already have a liability issue or that they really are trying to steal an election.
If Diebold isn't looking at the full profit potential then their investors need to look more closely at the company.
Caution: Contents under pressure
like Dennis Kucinich, who really started the ball rolling on the Diebold situation by publishing links to the memos on his Congressional website.
You want democracy? Then vote for politicians who have made a career of fighting corporate power.....like Dennis Kucinich....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
If you are a Libertarian who believes that the economy is an issue of no importance, and that it is OK to give the government full control over economic decisions, why, yes, you can be a Libertarian for Kucinich.
Libertarians have nothing to fear from a government that is truly democratic, as such a government only acts in the interests of the people.
IMO, the only move that makes any sense is to a paper ballet as optical scanners are far more accurate than punch card readers which makes for fewer recounts.
Someone needs to start an OpenEVOTE on Sourceforge.
By the People, For the People.
"You want democracy? Then vote for politicians who have made a career of fighting corporate power
Dennis' solution is to take power from both individuals and corporations and give it to the largest (and least accountable) corporation in the United States: the government.
In that, he is the worst corporate shill of all of them.
...like you might have in Europe. They still have private property there (in fact, in some western euro countries, more people own homes than in the USA). THey still have lots of capitalism there. In fact many of their consumer goods are of the highest quality in the world...
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Normally a company with this kind of reputation would be declacring bankrupcy about right now, but its deep connections with the GOP means they'll be around for a while and your state will probably be buying Diebold machines.
Soon we'll be hearing, "No one ever got fired for buying Diebold." When the opposite should be true.
Corruption, cronyism, quid pro quo, etc we've have it all here. The market should be eliminating reckless companies like these, instead we've got the GOP doing their best to keep them afloat. That's wrong, Americans of every political stripe should be demanding their state to divest from Diebold ASAP.
He is the one who stood up to Diebold and published the links on his website
If Diebold had links to Democrats, he'd keep the issue a secret.
And he is running for President
Seriously: he is not. He has tailored his campaign to appeal to 1% of the voters. That is not a serious effort, and it has failed. He is not even trying.
He just wants to give more power to the people, as opposed to rich investors and corporations.
Since when is giving more power the same as taking away ALL power.
Please don't try to create a strawman argument.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
(in fact, in some western euro countries, more people own homes than in the USA).
Which countries? Cryo? When I was in a few European countries, I saw a much greater concentration of apartment buildings/flats, and a much lower incidence of houses scattered across the hillsides or even in rows on the streets than in the united states.
Or are these Europeans owning condos inside of large buildings?
I'm checking his views again. He favors forcing workers into unions (as opposed to letting each worker decide whether to belong). That is taking power away from workers.
He favors cutting free trade. That is taking decisions away from individuals who might want to buy a product from another country because it is better product.
A strawman? He looks more like the cowardly lion.
His main issues are:
1. universal health care. About 60-70% of all Americans want it, according to polls. The so-called "serious" candidate, Howard Dean, does NOT advocate universal health care. Now how is serious?
2. Ending the Iraq war. About 50% of the people want to end the war now. How is Kucinich's position not serious?
3. Fighting for the rights of people against corporations. Diebold, for example. How do YOU feel about it? Howard Dean never said squat about the DMCA abuse, even while Kucinich was courageously publishing the Diebold memo links. I guess if you have some balls and stand up against abuse of corporate power, you must not be a "serious candidate".
4. Decriminalizing marijuana. Again, if you agree with 50-60% of the American people, you must not be a "serious candidate"....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
universal health care
That is a buzzword for the government taking over all of health care. That is a big power grab.
Ending the Iraq war. About 50% of the people want to end the war now
No, it is about 40%. The more people understand about his "turn over Iraq to terrorists" plan, the more they reject it. Also, once the U.S. left, the war there would keep going on (just as it was before the US was there). He does not favor "ending the war".
guess if you have some balls and stand up against abuse of corporate power, you must not be a "serious candidate".
No, he is not serious since he has appealed to almost no one. At least Sharpton makes us laugh (surprisingly often within him, not at him). Anyone who is appealing to 1% of the voters is a joke.
Decriminalizing marijuana
So, he's in the back pocket of the dope pushers.
Kucinich not a socialist, more a social democrat
You mean he wants an oppressive state to run and ruin our lives, as long as it is democratically elected.
Iraqui elections were managed by Diebold...
Chernobyl had a Diebold emergency system.
Titanic and Exxon Valdez had a Diebold iceberg detection system.
how long until
You're forgetting: the duty to produce a list of voters who should NOT be allowed to vote because of their ex-felon status was delegated to a private firm. This firm produced a list and gave it to Harris saying 'hey, this list is over populated and needs to be rechecked by your officials - who should know who really IS an ex-felon in your state.' KH said 'No problem, just make it as "comprehensive" as you can, we'll sort it out!' So, the overloaded list was handed to KH... what did she do? She turned around and distributed it to the counties and their polling places, as is, and claimed that it was carefully reviewed before being put in to use. End result? Hundreds, if not thousands, of eligible voters were turned away at the polls. No negligence? Ok...
By the way, most modern industrialized (and even some not so industrialized) nations have realized that blocking ex-felons from voting is just another way of disenfranchising a class of voter - akin to poll taxes and the like. Reconstructionist bullshit, to put it nicely. We'll see changes in how this is handled within the next 10-20 years.
"any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive."
I would fire this guy right away. This is bad business no matter how you look at it. They charged the state 73 million for the machines, making any additional modifications 'prohibitivly expensive' just means Diebold doesn't get the contract to modify them. It's very likely that Diebold designed the system poorly in the first place, making it prohibitivly expensive for them to add/make modifications. Using expressions like 'closing the barn door' and 'charging out the yin-yang' should be terminating offenses in the first place. This is the kind of person that winds up being CEO eventually. Which would explain why fiasco's like Diebold's happen in the first place.
TallGreen CMS hosting
In California the ACLU has been opposing a paper trail claiming it will negatively affect the experience of blind voters.
Well, personally I don't doubt that it would probably be a negative for blind voters.
Myself, I have a slight case of cerebral palsy and I'd certainly be upset that I had been inconvenienced at the polls, but I would at least have the fortitude to understand that I shouldn't put my one need above the needs of the many.
I can hardly see the justification behind supporting a fairly small proportion of the popilation while causing the rest of us to suffer.
Fix the system for the larger population and then work on it for the handicapped among us.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Ireland - 80%
Greece - 78%
Norway - 76%
Portugal - 76%
Belgium - 73%
UK - sans Scotland - 70%
United States - 68%
Italy - 65%
Scotland - 63%
Finland - 62%
Sweden - 60%
Luxembourg - 55%
France - 55%
Netherlands - 53%
Denmark - 50%
Austria - 50%
Germany - 40%
So it looks as if Spain, Ireland, Greece, Norway, Portugal and Belgium all have better home ownership rates than the US. A more interesting figure is which way the rates are headed over time. Home ownership rates in Germany and France, for example, are dropping very quickly.
Not that I have much of clue as to exactly how this pertains to anything under discussion.
And let me just mention that the lameness filter sucks when the majority of one's post is tabular data. The only purpose of this final paragraph is to increase the average character count per line so as to get this post through the lameness filter.
"By the way, most modern industrialized (and even some not so industrialized) nations have realized that blocking ex-felons from voting is just another way of disenfranchising a class of voter - akin to poll taxes and the like"
Leave it as is. If you choose to commit a felony, you are choosing to throw your right to vote away. You don't HAVE to commit felonies, after all. The felons disenfranchise themselves.
Most rights, such as the absolute right to personal property that is the philosophical underpinning of Libertarianism, that offer protection to the minority from the majority are not necessarily part of a democratic system. The only right necessary for a democracy is the right to vote. Most (if not all) of the other freedoms and rights that most people associate with democracy can exist as easily in other political systems. A constitutional monarchy, for example, could allow for personal property rights, freedom of speech, etc.
3 of those sources are not valid sources of news.
"Salon" is a left-wing opinion journal, like "National Review" is on the right. It is used to find out what a particular wing is thinking. Not to find out about news.
Greg Palast, in Harpers, is left-wing pundit. He makes biased arguments, like any pundit left or right. Not a source of any fact: just a source of opinion. Palast has a long record of making false claims in his editorials.
The "Bradenton Herald" article presents no facts about the Florida situation. The only news in it is its description of a smear-job fiction film someone made.
The only objective source of the four is the Harvard study.
I asked the question. It turns out that the 4 European countries I was in happened to have lower home ownership than the U.S. Hence, my impression. I was not in the ones with higher home ownership.
Yours was a very informative answer.
Try finding out what is happening in western europe. That is where Kucinich wants to take us. Just try reading this URL with an open mind:a cism/ar ticles/welfare.htm
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/r
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Because without the clearly illegal hacking of their systems this probably wouldnt have happened.
ARE THEY INSANE? Don't they know that Bush has an election to win. Anyway rest assured that corporate America isn't going to let a little thing like an election stand in the way of making sure their #1 cash cow doesn't get back into the saddle. Yippee Ki-yay Mother Fucker...Bush will be back destroying America in no time.
How much worse off could we be? Definitely better than letting the Supreme Court pick the winner.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Try finding out what is happening in western europe. That is where Kucinich wants to take us
Let him go, and take his supporters with him. There are enough boats. The other 99% of us can stay, remembering that so many of our ancestors came FROM Western Europe because America had a better way of doing things, and realizing that it still does.
Hillary and Chuck Schumer aren't going to oppose this legislaton. Gee, I wonder who will...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
What's really needed is a public SQL database, so that both the government and the voters can download and count the votes themselves. Come on, a DB with less than 300 million people, and a couple hundred issues, storing binary 0/1 data types isn't that big. I'm sure quite a few university professors would download it and count it - you'd have an official .gov vote counting computer, and sites mirroring it kind of like the sourceforge files. Now this info wouldn't make everyone's vote public - you wouldn't go by the social security number, but everyone would request a separate voter ID, which you must absolutely keep private. This way your boss wouldn't know what you voted, and in case your voter ID gets compromised, you go log on to some .gov site, and request a new random voter ID online. Of course it's your job to keep track of your past voter ID's, that is what it was in what election. Of course the voter ID database would be secret, but even if it's breached, the worst thing that happens is that your boss finds out how you voted. But anyone who gets caught knowing or collecting other people's voter ID's without those people's knowledge is guilty of some crime. The worst thing you lose is privacy anyway, so it's not fatal.
This system would ensure full transparency and true democracy down to the individual's level - I could hop online any time, through my computer, and query the system against my votes. Anytime my vote is missing somewhere that I voted, I can start stirring trouble.
Anyone have a comment, how to make such a system better, or if it couldn't work, why not?
Wonder what's the big deal with electronic voting machines in the US? We just had a 5 state election in India where such machines were used without any fuss !!
Hey, cut the young ensign some slack...he had his fifteen minutes of fame, and that's more than you and I have had.
Also they offered "carrots" like, in Ohio, the potential of manufacturing the machines themselves in the state.
These were competitive bids, and there's at least a significant appearance of a conflict of interest. Something is wrong not just with this company, and not just with irresponsible states, but with the lack of an appropriate process for giving out the contracts. So you're right -- moaning that Diebold is evil (and has the worst PR department in the history of banking) isn't quite up to the level of this problem.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
That still does not absolve the state. You can rely on the expertise of a contractor to figure stuff out, but YOU still have to approve it, and make sure it meets your own requirements.
"So I am assuming that George W. Bush should not have the right to vote because he committed felonies but that he was not caught"
He committed a misdemeanor, not a felony (the drunk driving). Your knowledge of the way the felons throw away their vote is scant: they lose their voting rights if they are convicted of a felony. They don't lose them if someone makes false allegations that have nothing to do with a court of law.
You are ignoring some very important facts:
1) by the time it got to the Supreme Court, the votes had been counted a few times.
2) The total votes were checked after the Supreme Court decison. Gore lost this as well. (Gore only counts if you count voteless ballots as Gore votes).
"He got what he wanted in Florida because of Harris stopping the election, his brother's manipulations, more money than God, and a determined Republican block in the Supreme Court."
No, he got what he wanted because more people in Florida voted for Bush than voted for Gore. That is what the record shows. That is how it works. That is how it supposed to work.
"Greg Palast had some of his findings on the 2000 election broadcast on the BBC. Does that mean that the BBC is not a reliable source of information?"
Palast did not "find" anything. He is an opinion columnist who merely makes opinion. The BBC would have been unreliable if they had reported his opinion as fact. They would have been OK if they had said "Columnist Greg Palast thinks this..."
Send us your George Bush voting stub for your $50 gasoline rebate cheque!
With their universal health care, western europeans live longer lives (up to 3 years more), and work fewer hours during a year.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Hey folks, I know I've posted this in previous stories, but the more people read the memos, the safer our democracy is :-)
Browse & Download the memos
Free Speech, Free Software, Free Culture
Funny someone should mention the Or check out the author's website
Funny someone should mention the Best Democracy Money Can Buy Or check out the author's website
If everyone who reads Slashdot let their senators and representatives know they support HR 2239, it would have a much better chance of passing.
That is, if such legislature can still get past this administration... let's rally while we can!
"I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears..."
No, they are centrist if the left is Stalin and the right is Hitler. Away from the extremes, they are between Senators Kennedy and Dole.
The problem is that the left wing has dominated TV news for so long that no one knows how to handle Fox News, which is centrist.
Can't imagine what would happen if there was an actual right-wing network the way CNN is left-wing.
"The total votes were checked after the Supreme Court decison. Gore lost this as well. (Gore only counts if you count voteless ballots as Gore votes"
a .html
WRONG, you goddamned LIAR!
gore won when ALL readable ballots had been counted in all FL counties
"Bush lost not only the national popular vote by more than a half million ballots, but he would have lost the key state of Florida and thus the presidency, if Florida's authorities had been allowed to count the votes that met the state's legal requirement of demonstrating the clear intent of the voter"
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/112101
I find it hard to give Diebold too much grief about that email.... anybody that is contracted will charge through the nose if you want to change anything.
Not that their previously expressed feelings on democracy are much better. An the fact that a company making voting machines is actually contributing to the campaigns of politicians bothers me deeply.
I have a proposal for a new law: No company making voting machines should be allowed to make political contributions. Period. There's way too much of a conflict of interest there....
What is it with America's love of voting machines? They don't use them virtually anywhere else.
Haven't you bloody Americans learnt the KISS system - Keep It Simple Stupid.
This means no bloody machines, period !!! If Australia (& also virtually the rest of the democratic world) can do hand counted paper ballots, then so can the US.
The only reason they use machine systems in the US is to cut costs, but the simple fact is they arn't as good (they invalidate more votes then hand counts do, they intimidate & confuse a good percentage of voters & they increase the odds of something fucking up (murphy's law)
Look at the mess, as well as the fucked up punch card machines you have counties with lever machines, other with optical machines, toggle switch machines, push button machines & also touch screen systems too. Then there are places like Oregon where all votes are of the mail in variety (which obviously discriminates against the homeless & disorginised). The simple fact is that huge numbers of people are intimidated with this complicated mess that's one of the reasons why most Americans don't vote & why the US has about the lowest voter turnout in the OECD.
Look at all the people that are intimidated by machines & even now still refuse to use Automatic Teller Machines, & there are plenty more people like that then just the illiterate, the elderly & immigrants that have poor 2nd language skills.
Its as if the bureaucracy in the US are on purposefully trying to discourage the masses from voting.
The only way to go is to Keep It Simple Stupid. Which means aiming at the lowest common denominator & designing a system that the stupidist simpleton can understand.
Which means 'X marks the spot' / 'tick the box' hand ballots.
That means a piece of paper with the candidates listed in a columne & another columne of boxes on the side with just one box next to each candidate.
Here are a couple of examples of 'KISS' paper ballots, the 1st one is an example of an Australian preferential ballot (any Americans who support 3rd parties should be demanding that the US system be made either preferential or proportional, otherwise no 3rd parties will ever make any long term headway), the 2nd ballot is an example of an 'tick the box' ballot.
As far as counting goes the US should be doing what Australia does (& most of the rest of the developed world does similar) & hold the vote on a Saturday (I wonder how many blue collar workers in the US chose not to vote because of the incoveniance of voting on a Tuesday), using local schools as voting centres. Then leasing indoor stadiums & convention centres nationwide which are to be used as counting centres for the thousands of temp workers employed to count the votes. Each counter also has a Labour & conservative coalition scrutineer looking over his/her shoulders. You see by voting on Saturday it means there's a huge availability of temp workers to count ballots (useally teachers & other public servants after extra dosh) & party volunteers to scrutineer counting, which wouldn't be available if voting occured for some bizarre reason on a Tuesday
Sure its labour intensive, but as any UN election observer will tell you this is the best system if you want high turnouts with low rates of invalid votes & a result that's as accurate as can be, by Monday morning at the latest (actually in the vast majority of elections we know who's won by about 8pm the same night).
Also all politicians must be removed from any decision making processes as far as the running of elections are concerned, etc.
Look at the way democratic afiliated local officials OKed the hand count iin Palm Beach & then the Republican Florida SoS blocked the hand count (& she was Bush's co-campaign manager, which makes it an even worse conflict of interest). That sort
"gore won when ALL readable ballots had been counted in all FL counties"
No, he lost by hundreds of votes. He ONLY wins if you use your imagination and count ballots with stray marks and odd dents in them as Gore votes. The ballots in which the voters actually voted came out with more Bush votes.
"if Florida's authorities had been allowed to count the votes that met the state's legal requirement of demonstrating the clear intent of the voter"
The "voter intent" was a result of changing the law after the fact. It is a way for the counters to "imagine" intent and turn voteless ballots into Gore votes.
Gore lost. Bush won.
"With their universal health care, western europeans live longer lives (up to 3 years more),"
European longevity stats are cooked because they exclude some people who die early BEFORE they do the averages (the fair numbers in the U.S. include these people).
"and work fewer hours during a year"
Yes. It works out this way since unemployment is much higher there.
Your last big about certain parties and uneducated stupid masses isn't really that specific. On the one hand, we have the Democratic Party and on the other hand, we have President Bush making speeches about his vision for democracy in the middle east, or better yet a speech given to the National Endowment for Democracy. His first words are: The roots of our democracy. I see you don't post much, so I won't call your effort to educate us about the nature of the country flamebait, but the rest of it is partisan bullshit. Which party i'm not sure, but bullshit nonetheless.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!