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No Secret Ballot for Military Personnel?
belmolis writes "According to this editorial in today's New York Times, US military personnel for whom regular absentee ballot procedures are inconvenient are being provided with a questionable alternative, the Electronic Transmission Service, run by a private contractor, Omega Technologies. According to the NYT, the secrecy of ballots could be breached when they are faxed or emailed from the field, when they are in the hands of Omega Technologies, or when they are in the hands of local officials. The NYT was unable to obtain any information on security procedures from the company or from the Pentagon. A manual describing the system can be downloaded here [pdf document]. Like Diebold, Omega is far from non-partisan. Omega President and CEO Patricia Williams has donated $6,600 in this election cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee and is a member of its Business Advisory Council."
here
Ballots *could* be compromised at all sorts of places along the chain. The NYT article seems to be making political hay out of the fact that there happen to be some additional points along that chain for overseas military ballots.
Ballots could be compromised by the electioneers at your local library/fire station/place of baloting-- that was never the real check. The check on ballot tampering has always been:
- statistical anomalies to spot possible tampering
- ballot counting to verify/disprove tampering.
This may seem simpleton, but it's how things have been done for the length of the republic. I don't see how adding some more stages (with the same checks at each stage) would fundamentally alter that-- unless you're a newspaper trying to raise the spectre of a rigged election 2 months before voting starts...
davejenkins.com |
There are many, many situations of this nature. See Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government
the problem is not only that secrecy can be breached, but that it will be breached. After all you have to waive your right to a secret ballot.
As if this wasn't bad enough already (though you might make an argument that it is justifiable in some extreme situations), the company that handles the ballots is far from non-partisan and there is no way to independently verify that the ballots are handled the way they should be handled.
Finally, as an outside observer, I just don't get it that after the distater of the last presidential election in Florida, that also involved problems with absentee ballots from military personal, btw., things like these are still possible in the US. I get the feeling, that either the US can't get its act together (though I think that is very unlikely), or those in charge don't want to get their act together.
US government so far didn't give any sign it would prosecute people based on their vote. The real problems, in the order importance are lack of choice (Republican vs Democratic, what if I disagree with both on different issues?), people not voting and only then mistakes in vote count.
Human rights violations with 9/11 as an excuse raise a vague concern that someday a "pro-terrorist" vote will become an issue. But as of today, anyone who is affraid of being punished for voting Democratic or Republican probably should be isolated from society because of mental instability.
This begs the question why is voting anonymous anyway? Am i somehow under threat if i vote for kerry or bush or even the communist party candidate and gasp someone finds out :o ....it seems to me that if it was simply published then we could actaully see if the sytem is fucked....ie hanging chads and all that. I think our democracy is more threatened by the possibity of faulty even intentional voteing fraud created having an anonymous voting proceedure then some proceeved unknown risk of having each vote stamped with a name.
stendec@gmail.com
Fox Mulder, is that you?
Little Bricklets
The NYT editorial board sez: Omega Technologies is not an acceptable choice to run the program. Its chief executive, Patricia Williams, has donated $6,600 in this election cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and serves on the committee's Business Advisory Council.
.. not the people.
Is it really so terrible to give money to a political campaign? At least one member of the family which owns the New York Times (Dr. Judith P. Sulzberger) donated $2000 to the John Kerry campaign, $5000 to 'Victory Campaign 2004', and $20000 to the Democrat National Committee.
Does this mean I can no longer trust the New York Times to treat facts with a modicum of fairness? Is it inappropriate for me to get factual information about political campaigns from them?
The NYT editors should quit their whining. Almost every person in the US has some political preferences, whether he or she has given money to a campaign or not. Having a strong political preference does not automatically make a person untrustworthy.
They should stick to criticizing the process here
Thousands Registered to Vote in 2 States-Report
"But the newspaper found that between 400 and 1,000 registered voters voted twice in at least one election, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68 percent are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans and 16 percent didn't align themselves with a party, the newspaper reported on Sunday."
Feel any better?
Trust me it hurts much more to watch it happening to my own country. Now that Bush apparently has a double digit lead, It is begginning to become obvious that not only will BU__SH__ probably win, he may even win by getting the popular vote this time.
I can only hope that the rest of the world realizes there are still some people in america who are AGAINST Bush and everything he stands for.
First of all, it's kind of lame that the company would not give any information about its security procedures, while another source (it would seem) was readily available that details the whole thing.
Second, the Business Advisory Council is (in my opinion) a total crock of shit. I used to work for a company whose CEO won the Business Advisory Council's "Businessman of the Year" award. Let me tell you, the award is (in my opinion) pretty much given to people who donate large sums to the party. Oh did I mention that the company mentioned above is now under the control of a receiver, and is also under investigation by the IRS Criminal Investigvation Division? Oh, did I mention the grand jury preceedings? But I digress......
Remember, you cannot trust anyone, the whole damned system is corrupt, and all parts biased, one way or the other. (The "in my opinion" statements above are merely a CYA thing)
bash: rtfm: command not found
That wouldn't put a huge dent in the military, which tends to vote republican 80+ percent of the time (I saw a statistic at one time that showed military officers voted republican 8 to 1 over democrat... Here's an article about the Duke Study ).
I'd have to say from my own experience (former military officer talking here) that the percentage is probably higher than they think. I can count on one hand the number of real liberal democrats I encountered during all my years in the military.
Bush is respected by almost all the current and former US military personnel I know, in distinct contrast to Bill Clinton. When I was in the service, many officers and enlisted so despised Clinton that they refused to display any certificates, awards, decorations, citations, etc with his signature on them. Despite the prohibition on using "contemptuous words" against the commander-in-chief and elected officials, most guys were (privately) very frank about how they felt... The level of enmity was really remarkable.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I know several people in the military, who were absolutely enraged with the last election because their absentee ballots were'nt counted. See this for example. They were far more angry that their vote was usurped, then they were concerned about someone seeing their vote.
Kerry never voted against flack jackets
Everytime a story like this is posted I'm scared by the way people react.
Obviously without even bothering to read the article people tell us that everyone who is concerned about these kinds of things should take of their tin foil heads.
They tell us that 6 000$ isn't much, as if this was the point.
And they immediately start the old Democrats vs. Republicans game. For every instance of republican foul play I will post at least one instance of the democrats doing something wrong. As if it did matter who deprived voter of their basic rights.
Now take into account that this story is not the only reason to be concerned (Diebold anyone?) and what has hapend in Florida during the last Presidential election and it should be clear to anyone that there is reason to be concerned.
The moment the outcome of an election is decided not by the people voting but by judges who decide if counting the votes one side wants to count or counting the votes the other side wants to count something is wrong and needs fixing. Seeing what is happening lately in the US this situation seems far from solved, on the contrary seems to get worse.
What will happen to a country whose citizens don't seem to be concerned if their most basic right is undermined?
Here's the data:
o &c ycle=04&criteria=OMEGA+TECNOLOGIES+INCORPORATED%2F PRES
.
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.com for her for any other election or candidate. Note, too, that I had to do some hunting to find this - in the database, the company name is mis-spelled "TECNOLOGIES" each time (rather strange, that). Nothing listed for '00, even though the company was founded in '91. If you go to the website, you'll see that it is not a big company, but is officially a "minority, woman-owned, small disadvantaged business." http://www.omega-its.com/about.htm If you had read even the summary carefully, let alone the editorial, you would have noticed that she's part of an advisory board - one usually doesn't do that for opposing parties.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/finance.asp?type=i
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
OMEGA TECNOLOGIES INCORPORATED/PRES
VA
600
03/04/2003
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
OMEGA TECNOLOGIES INCORPORATED/PRES
VA
1,250
04/29/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,000
06/27/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,250
06/30/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,250
07/30/2003
NATIONA
Note that it's all soft money - none directly to the candidate. That's a sign of an insider. There is nothing listed at Campaign Finance
I can't in the 10 minutes I've chosen to dedicate to research this particular one manage to find evidence that Ms. Williams is on the Business Advisory Board, but here's a description of that board:
What is the Business Advisory Council?
The Business Advisory Council is a small, prestigious group of conservative businessmen and women, who have joined with the NRCC to advocate a progressive, conservative, pro-business agenda. The Business Advisory Council allows for these individuals to pool their expertise and know-how to to bring some common business sense to Washington.
(I have to admit that I find the use of the term "progressive, conservative" hilarious, as they are by both their dictionary definitions and their historical ideological meanings antonyms.)
Let's try not to make too much of the fact that organizations outside the gov't having to do with voting (Diebold, Omega, et al) support conservatives moreso than liberals, politically.
This is largely because the right is much more pro-business and -capitalism than the left, who are typically seen to increasingly resent the wealth builders and creators with the more wealth they build and create.
If some organization seemed intent on taxing and regulating me out of business, I probably wouldn't support them much, either.
What party a business supports in a moot point, regardless. If someone is paranoid enough to have visions of conspiracy by right-supporting businesses, then the same untrustworthiness must therefore be assumed about all left-supporing organizations as well. While I don't understand paranoia all that well, maybe in the minds of those so afflicted, these two opposing conspiracies would cancel each other out...?
There's no substitute for thinking.
I live overseas and inside the envelope there is a letter that says you have the option to fax in your ballot, but you must sign the waver about the secret ballot. BUT you can mail the thing in and you have the secret option.
It's quite obvious that it's not some crazy conspiracy, if you fax in you must also incude your voter card (or else someone will do a DoS attack) The mail in letter is unique and could be easly identified as a fourge.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Those percentages are an artifact of the sample - people from New York City who summer in Florida. Do you know what the votes were like in New York City in the 2000 presidential election? 1,633,525 for the Democrats, 375,792 for the Republicans (I'm counting the party votes, not the individual votes - see the official report here, specifically here - because we don't know how the New York Daily News would have categorized votes for "conservative" and "liberal" in their study - it's interesting that those numbers show a much closer split, 25,130 Conservative [Bush] versus 29,386 Liberal [Gore]) out of a total of 2,283,261, for total percentages of 71.5 percent Democrat, 16.5 percent Republican (if you include the Liberal numbers with the Democrat, you get 72.8%, and if you include the Conservative numbers with the Republican, 17.6%). For a sample size of 46,000 out of 2.3 million, those numbers are pretty similar.
Note, too, that it gives the percentages of people that are registered in both states - 46,000
Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68 percent are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans and 16 percent didn't align themselves with a party, the newspaper reported on Sunday.
- but not of people it thinks VOTED in both states - 1,000 at worst:
But the newspaper found that between 400 and 1,000 registered voters voted twice in at least one election, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
That 1,000 is not a good sample of the 48,000, because their motivations are different. The difference between those two numbers is the difference beween neglect and deliberate fraud. The 48,000 are simply registered in two states - since registrations usually aren't "closed" - you usually don't call the town you're moving out of and ask them to take you off the voter rolls - they could very well be people who registered to vote in Florida, and voted in Florida, when they got down there, and registered to vote in New York, and voted in New York - in a different election - when they got up there. You can't apply the "neglect" numbers to make an argument about which party is more likely to commit intentional voter fraud.
Since the percentages almost exactly reflect their sample, the study tells us nothing about Democratic versus Republican voter fraud. Indeed, the newspaper study (from an historically conservative newspaper), at least as it is characterized by the Reuters article, looks as though it deliberately limited its sample to New York City in order to come out with a result that would embarrass the Democratic Party. Now you'll probably say "well, they chose New York City because it's a New York paper and that's what their readership would care about." Ahh, but you see, the Reuters article cited the percentages, but didn't contextualize them by citing the overall voter percentages of their sample - a classic tactic of those who want to lie with statistics. So either the Reuters article is representing what the New York Daily News reported, or they left out the context, and thereby distorted what the New York Daily News reported.
Note that this took me 6 minutes to work out, using Google and your posting. I'm sure that the New York Daily News author, or the author of the Reuters article, could have done the same thing. I wish I knew whether they did or not.
Now go and read a book.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast is one person who originally turned up the bogus use of military absentee ballots in Florida in the 2000 election.
You'd think they would have straightened it out, but as this story reports the absentee process in Florida if anything has gotten worse!
Now, four years later and the process is not fixed, and is arguably worse than ever. Accidental or planned?
So .. um .. people can't support a political party and still do their job without prejudice? I'd like to believe that at least some of us have a shred of decency. I'm curious that if intead this company's CEO had donated money to the Green Party would it have made front page news? Probably if perhaps the tinfoil hat has a hole in it ....
Let me rephrase that... newspapers are a fundamental part of the political process, so of course they have an editorial line. But with regard to facts, they are also subject to a public fact-checking process, so any newspaper or other news source which constantly distorts the facts will quickly become known as such and lose credibility.
Omega Technologies are not subject to public fact-checking, so they should not be used.
No partisan interest here. It's been going on a long time: 24 wars since WW2. Creating fear so rich people can profit.
However, you seem to say that the 3 movies and 35 recently published books in this article are all wrong, even though they written by all kinds of people, Republicans, Democrats, generals, former government leaders, a Pulitzer Prize winner, political commentators, editorial writers, environmental organizations, and members of the public: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Name ONE statement that is in error. I'll investigate (again), and if you are correct, I will change it.
Most people don't know that the situation in Iraq began in the 50's, when hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after. The U.S. government supported Iraq against Iran, supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein at a very high profit for the rich owners of U.S. weapons companies. The Bush family has long owned part of a company that owns weapons companies. Cheney was head of Halliburton, a company that profits when there is war, especially since Halliburton was able to arrange a secret, no competitive bid contract.
What do you say about that? Is the university that hosts the documents all wrong?
Obviously, there is too much material for any one article. Should I not discuss the corruption of today because there was corruption in the past?
Actually I've discussed the question with a few military people, and none planned to vote for Bush. Indeed, one Army officer pointed out to me that, given the "backdoor draft" going on, members of the Guard and Reserves "would be idiots" (his words) to vote for Bush. (Of course, I live in a pretty solid "blue" state.)
Right, I'm going to take the word of an Anonymous Coward on this. As if all the bombing and shooting was actually just an old Iraqi way of greating visitors.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
... no, he was not right.
There's a significant difference between allowing communists (self-admitted, reported, suspected, or just disliked by others) in sensitive positions and allowing known spies in sensitive positions. The best option is to have no clue about someone's political views, to avoid fallacious thinking. That's why employers are required to disregard religion, ethnic background, political view, etc. when hiring -- none of it matters. What does matter is the integrity of the individual, which can only be judged on a per-case basis.
The secret ballot helps preserve this distinction, but we must be ever vigilant against this sort of profiling. A communist is not a traitor, and neither is a republican. A more effective spy would pose as a moderate, and might even be a moderate -- who said money can't buy allegiance, regardless of political conviction?
No, instead Bush deserted the military for over a year. He then went on to earn the recognition of a drunk driving conviction. Next he would found an oil company which did business with the Bin Laden family. In August of 2001 he would ignore a daily briefing pointing out that one of the Bin Ladens was planning to highjack airplanes and fly them into American building. When it finally happens, over a month later, upon being informed of most devestating attack by foreign forces on the U.S. mainland, Bush sits there for. He just sits there. For 7 and a half minutes. He just sits there. He doesn't call out the Air Force. He doesn't authorize shooting down the enemy. He just sits there. In recent times he has entered the United States of America into a war of choice against the nation of Iraq. This war of choice has a main beneficiary: Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corporation. Cheney's Halliburton Corp. has taken over $17 Billion dollars in no-bid contracts and counting. This is U.S. taxpayer money Bush is shuttling into a private corporation without any oversight. Speaking of taxes, I love a guy who can give the majority of his tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans (people who make over $250,000 every year) while cutting funding to schooling, healthcare, social security, the environment, scientific research, and military pay.