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Programmer Built Vote-Rigging Demo for Florida Politician
Syre writes "therawstory reports that a programmer named Clinton Curtis says in a sworn affidavit (mirror) that he developed prototype vote-rigging software at the request of then-Florida state representative Tom Feeney. The affidavit has been turned over to the House Judiciary Committee, of which Feeney is now a member. Should we call for inspection and disassembly of all the voting machine code to see if it contains any of these secret vote tampering functions he was asked to include in his prototype?" A follow-up interview is available. A point to emphasize: he's not making any claims of actual fraud occurring in the Florida elections.
Mirror
Carousel is a lie!
Is it just me, or is this exactly the same story as the one DIRECTLY BELOW IT?
Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
story
interview
blog
Whether or not www.therawstory.com is a biased publication is irrelevant, since the PDF containing the affidavit is not a biased source in and of itself.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
See comments from Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting on this here:d sen/120604madsen.html
http://blackboxvoting.org/#feeny
and why this may be disinformation here:
http://onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/120604Ma
Google is your friend. This guy has been accusing the same people (Feeney, etc.) of everything from overbilling the Florida Department of Transportation to spying for the Chinese for years now.
The real story is the uneven distribution of resources (e.g. voting booths & machines) to precincts based on their voting history. Traditionally Democratic precincts had their vote capped by doing this, preventing large numbers of people from voting, and the trick probably swung the presidential election. As that fact began to come out, sudenly there is an enourmous movement pushing the Black Helicopter theories.
Go figure.
--MarkusQ
Blackboxvoting.org has a story regarding why this story sounds like disinformation.
Why the Feeney vote-rigging story sounds like disinformation
ABOUT DISINFORMATION: Like a good lie, it has elements of truth. Trouble is, the truth doesn't relate to the nuts and bolts of the story. For example in the Tom Feeney vote-manipulation story, people are documenting relationships between Tom Feeney and Yang, and between the writer of the story and other scandals, but so far the evidence presented does not back up the vote manipulation story itself.
DISINFORMATION IS DANGEROUS TO THE CLEAN VOTING MOVEMENT: Black Box Voting is finding real evidence consistent with fraud. We are even finding, in one of our investigations, evidence consistent with a systemic, or widespread breakdown in security, possibly exploited. Getting the facts is tedious, unexciting work, consisting of auditing and personal interviews, and it takes time. Many Americans want a magic bullet, a single shot that will blow the lid off everything at once.
That's risky. If the mainstream media continues to be bombarded with stories that sound credible, but aren't, when the real thing comes down the pike it will be ignored.
While MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and I had a run-in last week, I agree absolutely with Olbermann's earlier critique of the Madsen homeland security story, and this new Madsen story is just as weak. Most of both Madsen stories are bait and switch.
While real journalists "write tight" and include only the information directly relevant to the topic, Madsen wanders all over the place, recapping unrelated information from real news agencies, piggybacking onto their credibility, with only the most tenuous ties to what he is actually trying to prove. Analyze the meat of the story, taking out all the loose references to other stories, and Madsen's work gets very weak indeed.
Here are questions raised by the Feeney vote-manipulation story:
1. One of the most significant problems is that, while Clint Curtis describes a technique of writing a program, he never mentions HOW he supposedly got this program into the voting machines.
2. A second significant problem is that several of the Florida counties used different software in 2000 than they do now, and that various Florida counties use different manufacturers and different systems. Writing one program that would tamper with ES&S punch cards and Diebold optical scans at the same time is somewhat unrealistic. The questions this raises are these:
a. Which specific counties was this software supposedly used in for 2000, 2002 and 2004? Actually, from reading both the affidavit and the Madsen article, there is no evidence it was used anywhere.
- Madsen does a bait and switch when he discusses Volusia County. He starts by saying it is Feeney's district, and then actually goes on to report a story broken by Black Box Voting in October, 2003, about minus 16,022 votes for Bush in Volusia -- which appears to have nothing to do with the Feeney story. What systems was his vote rigging program for? Which manufacturers?
3. The techniques used to program a vote-rigging system in the Madsen article don't actually match the techniques in the affidavit by Clint Curtis, and neither one makes much sense. It's a simple matter to re-map a touch-screen to flip votes, and you don't need a special program for it. Simply switch the candidate ID numbers and it's done.
4. Most political shenanigans are not conducted by the candidate himself, but by operatives. It is certainly possible for a politician to hold several meetings in which he commits a felony in front of several witnesses, but that's not usually how it is done. A more common technique is an envelope full of cash left in a drawer of an operative, with at least one, sometimes more, buffer layers between the operative and the politician.
Clint Curtis says Feeney himself had meeting after meeting to directly discuss election rigging software. Could happen, certainly, but this seems unusual.
5. There are some statements that don't hang together from
That's all that comes up in Google. Can anyone find out more? A "suicide" of an inspector general staff member of anything is inherently suspicious.
Support the bills already in the House and Senate that will fix this, instead of fantasizing about how the 2004 election was "stolen" (it wasn't).
A frequent charge levied after the 2000 election was voter disenfranchisement and ballot spoilage due, in large part, to antiquated, malfunctioning, or broken mechanical voting equipment. Legislation was introduced guaranteeing a minimum standard for the equipment and processes associated with voting in all jurisdictions. Since we are living in the 21st century, electronic systems were specified. $3.9 billion was set aside under HAVA to replace all mechanical punch card systems with electronic systems by 1 January, 2006. The goal is to ensure a consistency and fairness in the appearance and operation of the voting systems, both for voters and local election officials.
After the 2000 presidential election, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA):
To establish a program to provide funds to States to replace punch card voting systems, to establish the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of Federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain Federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election administration standards for States and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of Federal elections...
The putative reasoning for going with electronic systems was likely that since we have managed to design accountable and reliable electronic and computing equipment for the management of our power, medical care, money, etc., it likely was more or less assumed by the legislature that such accountable systems could also be applied to voting.
A bill has been introduced to amend HAVA. H.R.2239 and its twin Senate counterpart S.1980, discussed further here, will amend the Help America Vote Act such that there is "a voter-verified permanent record or hardcopy" attached with each and every ballot cast by every voter, and that "any voting system containing or using software shall disclose the source code of that software to the Commission, and the Commission shall make that source code available for inspection upon request to any citizen".
Additionally, the three electronic voting manufacturers already have the ability to add permanent, individual voter-verified paper audit trails to their products. Some e-voting critics make it seem like vendors are resisting. However, it is the local election boards that are resisting (as well as the slow march of bureaucracy). The e-voting vendors will build - and sell - whatever municipalities will buy.
Disclaimer: this comes from a previous post of mine on the subject
Seems that the US is no better than all those Banana Republicans, sorry, I mean Banana Republics that our "liberal" media loves to trash and our beloved Emperor, er, pResident loves to bring "democracy" to ... :-(
I've been very intrigued at how the once accurate (within 2% accuracy to the actual voting numbers) exit poll data that has been used since 1965, the same methods being used across europe as well suddenly is to blame for the descrepancies in 2000, 2002 primaries and 2004 where opti-scan and other black box voting has occured.
Dr.Stephen Freeman of U of Penn, made a statisical analysis of the unweighted exit poll data of the 2004 election and came to the conclusion that the odds that the exit poll data could be that wrong in only 3 combined swing states together (Florida and Ohio included) was conservatively at 622,000 to 1. I have read a critique of his use of data, but essentially there was something majorly significant with the way the exit poll data differed.
Then of course you consider how the companies who create the machines are
1. major Bush backers, 2.Fought against paper audits of their machines. 3. Fought against the code being open to public scrutiny, 4. The software testing is done out of public eye, by a private company closely attached to the voting machine creators. 5. In 2002 Rep. Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska ran the first "field test" of the vote couting software, running for senate while still CEO of ES&S (basically a sistercompany as Diebold, same software, machinesetc..). His company counted the votes and his victory, in a predominantly black and Democratic district which had not
voted Republican in a hundred years, and involving a multi-point swing from pre-election polls, was considered by the press "an amazing upset."
A very good summary of the facts...
http://www.bartcop.com/110904votes.htm/
You dont have to be a liberal or conspiracy theorist to be more than majorly alarmed at this.
Im surprised more americans are'nt up in arms.
I dont necessarily believe that just voting machines harmed the election, jeez, just look at the legal mess in Ohio right now in general...Hmmn maybe thats why Bush's ohio vote was ratified today, 6 days early:
"Judiciary Committee Demands Explanation of Irregularities in Ohio
Election Law Reform In a fifteen page letter to Ohio SoS Kenneth Blackwell, The House Judiciary Committee has asked for explanation of widespread voting irregularities in Ohio. These include:
1) Warren County lockdown - The admin building where votes were counted was locked down on election night and the public and the press excluded from the process. County officials claimed this was done in response to a terrorist warning that neither the FBI , nor Blackwell's office knew of,.
2) Perry County counting discrepencies - Poll books examined after the election show more votes cast than actual voters voting. Computer errors were blamed for other problems where votes were counted twice.
3) Perry County registration peculiarities- Very high percentage of registered voters in the county (91%) many registered in the same year and lacking signatures on file.
4) Unusual results in Butler County - A Supreme Court candidate for office received 5,000 votes more than did the Kerry ticket, whereas the Bush ticket got 40,000 more votes than the Republican judicials candidate.
5) Unusual results in Cuyahoga County - Unusually high votes for third party candidates (in one instance, 215 votes for one candidate versus 8 votes for all third-party candidates combined in 2000).
6) Spoiled Ballots - Undervotes for president in one county were as high as 25% (6,000 votes!), with a total of 93,000 for the state.
7) Franklin County overvote - 4,258 votes counted for a precinct with only 800 registerd voters.
8) Miami County vote discrepency - 19,000 votes were added to election totals that had been missed, all for Bush.
9) Mahoning County machine problems - Numerous voters reported problems with not being able to select Kerry on voting machines which defaulted to Bush.
10) Machine shortages - In Franklin County long lines were
From the affidavit (bolding theirs): Of course, why you'd tell someone what you intend to do is beyond me. No one seems to come off very classy in this business. You'd also figure that if they were that free with their information, surely there'd be more people around to corroborate this guys story if it's true.
No Ohio County used Diebold Electronic Voting Machines (See Press Release Below) Ohio did not use modern electronic voting machines in this election. Six counties use an older form of electronic voting, which has a means of verifying the accuracy of the vote. In 69 Ohio Counties, punch card ballots were used.
(July 16 Press Release) Blackwell Halts Deployment Of Diebold Voting Machines For 2004 July 16, 2004 COLUMBUS - Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell today halted deployment of Diebold Election Systems' electronic voting devices in Ohio for the 2004 General Election. The decision is based on preliminary findings from the secretary of state's second round of security testing conducted by Compuware Corporation showing the existence of previously identified, but yet unresolved security issues. Hardin, Lorain and Trumbull counties had selected to use new Diebold equipment this November. Those counties will use their current voting devices in 2004. "As I made clear last year, I will not place these voting devices before Ohio's voters until identified risks are corrected," Blackwell said. "Diebold Election Systems has successfully addressed many, but not all, of the problems that were identified in our first security review. The lack of comprehensive resolution prevents me from giving county boards of elections a green light for this November.
http://www.ohiodems.org/index.php?display=ReleaseD etails&id=192686
Some of the alleged felons purged were purged for felonies allegedly committed in 2007, even though that is still in the future.
There wasn't even the simplest reality check done.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Read the farking afidavit. The person who wrote it is a republican.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
In the scientific sense, neither assertion is credible unless somehow independently verified. In practical terms, one could probably not evaluate either claim scientifically. There's simply not enough evidence, nor a way to verify the evidence that exists.
Your post actually brings up a good point. Even though the statement "I just saw a 5'11" white guy with one eye" seems reasonable, without proof, one cannot validate that claim scientifically. In fact, the claim is no more or less scientifically valid than "I just saw a 11'5" green guy with two heads". Neither claim has any empirical evidence to back them up, therefore neither are valid in the scientific sense.
For instance, in the above example, you would weigh the two claims using the total evidence available to you (including a lot of background information about humans). This would probably lead you to accept the first claim and reject the second.
You have given me no scientific reason I should accept the first claim. In addition, you've given me no reason to reject the second. Perhaps the 11'5" tall green person with two heads was a siamese twin walking on stilts and wearing body paint.
My point was tangental to TFA. The phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" is often applied to science. It is an untrue statement. Extraordinary claims require empirical proof and an independently verifiable method, just like ordinary claims do.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
The buzz is he is going to be one of the people testifying at the Conyers hearing in D.C. This will be blogged here:
http://www.truthout.org/cblog.shtml
Everyone has been speculating like wild over whether this is true and what the implications are. The affidavit also provides backup evidence to anecdotal accounts that police patrols may have been placed in spots intended to suppress the Black vote in Florida, for instance. It's really about intent, more than means.
Someone had to do it.
It's coral-cached if needed. Seems to be holding up so far.e comes...p =479 f fidavit_12060 4.pdfA ffidavit_120604.pdf
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=479
b
http://www.bluelemur.com.nyud.net:8090/index.php?
likewise,
http://rawstory.com/images/pdfs/CC_A
becomes
http://rawstory.com.nyud.net:8090/images/pdfs/CC_
(See http://www.scs.cs.nyu.edu/coral/)
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Josef Stalin
No, the draft bill was introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel in order to call attention to the fact that the war in Iraq is being fought disproportionately by African Americans. Rangel sought to open a debate on the need for equitable sacrifice by everyone during a time of war. Giving huge tax breaks to the most well off members of a society while the poorest join the Army due to limited opportunities is surely not asking for shared sacrifice during a time of war. What ever happened to Kennedy's challenge to "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country?"
FreeSpeech.org
Site...
l l.pdf
http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
link to pdf of study...
http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/Documents/ExitPo
Cheers,
Craig
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.