Slashdot Mirror
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.
Goverments have been overthrown for less than this.
-Dipster
Voting fraud... If Florida??!! What is this world coming to?
... when I simply say: Bastards!!!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Mirror
Carousel is a lie!
...as programming the american public to be a bunch of scared sheep to vote for you.
Something about this story bothers me. If Curtis has been involved in a long running dispute with Feeney ranging back to 2002, why would Feeney have anything to do with him? I mean, this would not be the first example of foolishness in politics, but it would certainly be the dumbest.
Perhaps Feeney was trying to set Curtis up?
M
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.
Presto, the Republican wins!
sulli
RTFJ.
They can be hacked. News at 11. Maybe we should have another election. We can all put a red marble in a jar for GW and a blue marble for JK. The perfect infallable voting system.
This isn't just a dupe of a previous story... it's not just a dupe of the top story... it's a dup of an incredibly outrageous story that makes the radical right's Clinton Suicide scandals look almost sane.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the right-wingers are astroturfing the 'net with outrageous vote-rigging stories. This helps ensure that the real story of the Green/Libertarian recount in Ohio won't be taken seriously. Karl Rove is probably laughing his butt off.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
this is hardly journalism. www.therawstory.com is obviously a left wing biased publication and I would not trust it further than I would Rush Limbaugh's website. However, there needs to be a full investigation. I would like to see a little more than one person's testimony befor curcifying this guy. If the request for developing this software took place in a meeting, who else was there and what do they have to say about this?
story
interview
blog
The trouble with blogs, is that no-one writing them has the time to follow up these stories. If a mainstream journalist breaks them there's a chance (albeit not much of one in the present climate) that they'll keep digging away, and uncover a Watergate-style conspiracy (which isn't to say that this is necessarily one of those).
But if Woodward and Bernstein were bloggers, they'd've been happy to publish the skimpy information that started their investigation -- smug that they put one over on the press -- and let the whole thing degenerate into a partisan "Nixon Sucks!" style-flamewar.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
jeb jeb hes our man, if he cant do it, noone can!
This is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Who is Clint Curtis? What is his background? Criminal history? Most importantly, what evidence does he bring to the table? Is it his word against someone else's?
Can he produce call logs? Appointment books? Witnesses? Tapes or memos? Can he demonstrate an extraordinary knowledge of voting systems in the state of Florida?
There is a troubling taint of money on this: a "$200,000 award being offered by the nonprofit group Justice through Music for proof of voting fraud..." He is claiming he doesn't want the reward; money may have nothing to do with it. But we may have a grifter going after a score, directly or indirectly, by telling people what they want to hear. I am not saying either one: we simply don't know until more facts come out.
I fully believe we have arrived at a stage in american politics where a politician (yes, sure, a Republican politician) would tamper with an election. There is already plenty of documented funny business. I'm speaking of the felon purging in FL, stop-and-search roadblocks in OH, for instance.
Let's not forget the real moral of this story, illustrated by one thing Clint says certainly rings true regardless of the rest of his claims:
"I can't believe the Democrats were stupid enough to allow [this]," he says. "I can't imagine anyone going to a bank and not getting a receipt. But yet we have our voting machines that way. It strikes me as really odd that machines like that could even exist."
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
This turns out true... $50,000 in legal expenses.
America losing all faith in it's electoral processs... Civil War
John Titor being right... Priceless For all your time-travel needs, theres cash, for everything else, there's mastercard.
In Soviet russia, only old Koreans profit from pictures of Natalie Portman stored on Beowulf Clusters.
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.
And did he do this before, or after, he typed up the Bush National Guard memos?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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
It can't hurt the citizens, but it could hurt the voting machine companies and elected officials. If there is something funny going on I am sure that they will quickly put an end to any disassembly. If the people found that someone had cheated their way into office that someone would get the boot awfully fast. (p.s. cheat means rig, not slander your opponent or create misleading TV spots, that is perfectly OK because everyone does it ... sigh)
Philosophy.
Legitimate things like this go on all the time. It is commonly referred to as "white hat" hacking, as we all know. That may not be the case here, but it sounds more to me like the programmer is disappointed with election results and wants to pretend he's a whistleblower.
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.
Do they mean this fella?
I saw this link a few days ago. Unfortunately he removed much of his more hilarious tin-foil hat content. The guy would actually do screen prints of sorta-related newspaper stories, then black out the names to make it look scandalous.
His demonstration program is underwhelming. You could make the same kind of thing to show any program could be trojaned.
Don't get me wrong, the e-voting situation is crazy and needs substantial reform, examination, and a general fixin'. But this guy is just another conspiracy guy trying to sell a book.
Stuff like this does NOT help address the real problems in e-voting.
That would explain why there were no votes for Kodos...
Dear diary: Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender.
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
Folks, we need paper ballots. Counting them by bubblesheet scanner may be acceptable, but we need that paper trail.
If there was fraud in Florida, that's our opportunity to spread the word: that kind of fraud could be prevented by paper ballots.
Paper ballots are cheaper and more reliable than electronic machines, but the huge savings in money is nothing compared to the transparency, the paper trail and the difficulty in committing fraud that only paper ballots can deliver.
See what I've been reading.
Oh wait, this is America. Just go about your business, turn on Fox...nothing to see here. Everything is fine. Nascar anyone? @-)
Currently bidding on sig
Nicely written up here.
Like all good conspiracy stories it will be almost impossible to prove. It's the magic bullet all over again. I expect this to become American lore just like JFK's assassination conspiracies.
It is astounding to me that this country always manages to produce stuff like this. In my unscientific way it only leaves me to conclude that America is nuts - one way or another.
I think I remember an episode of MacGyver where he overthrew a violent dictator with a rubber band, 2 bottle caps, and some navel lint.
Beat that.
I read this story here and my brother (somewhat computer illiterate) begged me to submit it but I thought against it because of all of the political overtones. For those that are interested in more details, including some possible conspiracy theories, you should read it. It discusses where the financing came from and links it directly back to the Bush family. It further alledges that President Bush's money trail has been exposed by the CIA in retaliation for his recent house cleaning there. It also mentions several elections that were adjusted during the testing phase of the illicit program.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
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
I've already ranted on this shitty story:
1 90 9&cid=11014994
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13
In a nutshell, I spent about an hour going through goolge links of a few of the people involved in this story (either posting it or writing it or making it up) the URLs are in my original post. Anyway, they all have long histories of being politically biased, and spewing liberal FUD.
some points to consider:
- Would a undetecable application that is mneant to be cross platform be written in VB?
- why would a journalist, that is former NSA, and supposedly has all these tech credentials use an AOL addres? Fine it may work, and he might like it, but an AOL email address takes away a lot of credibility IMHO. (see original reply).
- If this had any validity, why was it not brought up sooner? There were articles on it back in 2002. It seems like the main stream Dems would have been all over this two or three years ago, if they thought there was any truth to it.
What I find disturbing is that slashdot would run this story twice. Clearly every article and source is biased, a quick google search quickly verifies that fact.
So what we get here is supermarket fluff and liberal FUD. We won't tolerate MS FUD, but leftwing FUD must be soooo MmmMmm Good that we get a double dose!
From archive.org, we have the original story. It looks like the voting machine part was added to bring this back into the newspapers. This wouldn't be hard, considering his original job was programming for the FDOT ... *and* Yang, his *prior* employer.
Thank you, archive.org:
Sunday, June 09, 2002
---
Feeney's role in FDOT contract dispute questioned
By LAURA ZUCKERMAN (laura.zuckerman@news-jrnl.com)
Staff Writer
TALLAHASSEE -- Clint Curtis thought he was doing the state a favor last May when he alerted investigators at the Florida Department of Transportation about what he claimed was fraudulent billing by an Oviedo computer firm represented by House Speaker Tom Feeney.
Today, Curtis is still adding up the personal and professional costs for doing what he calls "the right thing" and what Florida law requires of anyone who suspects mismanagement or the waste of public funds.
"I can't believe this is how it's supposed to work," says the veteran computer programmer who worked as a technology consultant for FDOT. "I thought I was doing my duty; now I wonder if I was just stupid."
Last May, Curtis "blew the whistle" on what he believed were violations of state law by Yang Enterprises of Oviedo in an $8 million technology contract with FDOT. Curtis worked for Yang prior to being hired by FDOT, and based some of his allegations on his involvement with the state contract while at Yang.
In the filing with FDOT's inspector general, who is charged with investigating suspected misdeeds, Curtis said Yang engaged "in a practice of false billing" and employed an illegal alien, a violation of state law and cause for the immediate cancellation of the contract.
More than a year after they were lodged, the allegations only now are being fully investigated by FDOT. The delay stems in part from the fact that FDOT shifted the focus of its investigation from Yang to Curtis and the FDOT manager who approved his hiring, Mavis Georgalis.
Curtis says the shift was prompted by Yang and its allies, including Feeney, to quiet Yang's critics.
Yang's attorneys say that's not true. They deny any instances of overbilling and say the character and conduct of Curtis and Georgalis are suspect.
The charges and countercharges have touched off a series of events and repercussions that are still being felt.
The tale stretches from Seminole County to the state capital, encompassing everything from lawsuits over intellectual property to claims of influence peddling by Feeney and culminating in the firing of Curtis and the resignation of Georgalis, who was in charge of the Yang contract.
It is the kind of drama best viewed through the high-powered lens of politics, for on its fringes stands Feeney, one of the state's most well-connected players, and at its center are questions raised by Yang and its defenders about the motives of Curtis and Georgalis.
The story is laced with conspiracy theories and conflicting commentaries, much of which is spelled out in court documents and other public records examined by The News-Journal during the course of a weeks-long investigation.
ALLEGATIONS ALL AROUND
Curtis says he now believes Feeney used his position as House speaker to stifle any investigation of Yang by FDOT, which, if true, would be a violation of state ethics laws.
But Feeney, an attorney whose clients include Yang Enterprises, denies he used his influence to benefit Yang and says he played no role when the firm secured an eight-year contract with FDOT in 1999 -- with a price tag not to exceed $8 million -- to provide a computer program to manage large volumes of information.
The relationship between Feeney and Yang predates the Oviedo Republican's rise to power two years ago as House speaker, with its origins traced as far back as the 1980s, when Tyng-Lin Yang, the company's co-owner, wor
This could be a good example of cred poisoning tactics.
Soon there will be a "Programmer made up fraud story" headline and the public will go Ahhh...see...it wasn't any vote fraud going on...just some wacko guy and a bunch of tin foil hats
Cred poisoning has been used for ages all around the world with great success.
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
Black Box Voting, a group researching voting fraud, is basically in agreement with you.
They are very concerned about stories like this that may derail public outrage from legitimate investigations to unrealistic conspiracy theories that are easily discredited.
They are looking for recommendations on migrating their forums to something more secure, and to a better service provider, since they have been compromised several times. If anyone on slashdot could recommend solutions to them, I think they'd appreciate it.
-------
Incite and flee.
Guess the programmer never heard of Perl, eh?
Sorry, we had forgotten that
Republican == "Upstanding, never lie, cheat or steal, or in any other way do anything wrong"
Democrat == "Lieing Commie pervert bastard who would do anything to anyone, just because".
Or maybe there are some good people with different points of view that arrive at them honestly on both side of the equation, and some that dont on both side of the equation.
If you believe the former, then *why* didnt those lieing cheating Democrats win this last election?
emt 377 emt 4
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.
I strongly disagree that this claim is extraordinary.
There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about the claim that somebody might want to steal an election. The fact is that government contracters do a hell of a lot of stealing in plain sight, by hiring influential lobbying firms to steer business their way, or to move legislation and regulation in a way that is specially favorable to them. An election is worth a lot of money.
Nor, unfortunately, is there anything extraordinary about the claim that somebody might want to discredit a politician he didn't like with a story that can't definitively be proved. There is enough ill will that any kind of accusation will "stick" in the minds of plenty of people.
My own personal policy on stories like this is to keep an open mind. There needs to be a proper investigation of this accusation. At the very least, Mr. Feeney deserves to have his reputation cleared if this is manufactured.
Of course one possible (or perhaps even the most likely) outcome of such an investigation is that nothing can be proved. In which case we should extend Mr. Feeney the benefit of the doubt. However, this points out the big flaw that everyone here knows and that practically nobody in the general public knows: the electronic voting systems that are currently in use cannot be verified against tampering.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
...to tell is this is genuine Sarcastic Wit or genuine Caustic Right-Wing Bush Supporter Rhetoric!
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
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
Here's the link proving it...
l l.pdf
http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/Documents/ExitPo
You mean you don't have access to any copy of the source code, let alone every revision of a system used to determine elections? In that case the spec needs to be rewritten and the bank accounts of those responsible for making such a cretinous decision examined for evidence of taking bribes. This is one of the points where the "are you stupid, are you corrupt, or don't you care about doing your job" question needs to be asked, since there does not appear to be any other options available.
Forget the shiny new technology, if the entire voting process is not open to scrutiny it is open to abuse. A few jobs with a quick and nasty software company in a marginal electorate is not worth the potential for abuse. Perhaps a Federal election organisation running free, fair and consistant elections (two out of three is not good enough) like you see in other countries is the way to go - instead of things being down at the state or county level. There are a lot of countries that have built on a combination of the USA and Swiss election systems over the last century that may be worth looking at.
Here's the google links to the search for Ukraine voter fraud. They state that the primary evidence for fraud was the US and Western nation paid exit polls data.
e +voter+fraud&btnG=Search+News
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Ukrain
I realize it's tough spinning your way out of your leader endorsing exit polls as proof of fraud just last week. You'd think after stealing an election, he'd have the good sense to stay off the record regarding how accurate he thinks exit polls are... but that your problem, not mine.
I am astounded at this statement: "I can't believe the Democrats were stupid enough to allow [this]," he says. "I can't imagine anyone going to a bank and not getting a receipt. But yet we have our voting machines that way. It strikes me as really odd that machines like that could even exist.?"
Why not, the goons keep beer and gas prices down, and let loose the dogs of dumbed down drooling mediocrity in the form of bread and circuses "entertainment". That's all the herds of mouth breathers REALLY care about, and it's obvious as can be.
Here's the deal as "raw" as I can make it.
The government of the US was hijacked by globalist insiders who are members of the loosely termed "military industrial complex" as coined by president Eisenhower on his retirement speech. This is a fact, time to grow up and deal with it.
They control the top levels of the D and R party through bribery, intimidation, blackmail and extortion. Everything from honeytraps to bags of cash and everything in between, plus the implied threat of ultra violence should one priveleged enough to attain that status seek to go against their wishes and mandates. There is no crime they will not commit, or haven't committed. None.
The two parties cooperate and run the US as a massive profits center, after all the US is the worlds wealthiest nation (so far) and it's worth a LOT OF MONEY to control the government, so they cooperate in this junta, and it IS a sophisticated police state junta.
High level Military officers and the (paramilitary)Police are also in on the deal, is is more common that not for them to finally pension out then immediately become "officers" in various Transnational industries. This is "normal" and an expected part of the payout.
High level intelligence agents/bosses are chronic serial abusers of the law and got their fingers in any number of legal and illegal profitable pies, such as drug and aarms smuggling, bankruptcy court shenanigans, stock manipulations (you think echelon isn't valuasble economic intel?). Google CIA corruption for a starter. The current head cheese Goss is "gross" in that respect, as a "for instance".
High level Governmental Bureaucrats are in on the deal, And lower level governmental employees/normal workers know full well you NEVER "rock the boat" or you will definetly get into trouble, whistleblower statutes not withstanding. I imagine that can be confirmed right here on this thread from any number of "nom de forume" named posters who work for uncle sugar.
The "vote" has been rigged for a LONG time now, google "votescam".
The latest electronic voting methods are just a smoother way to control the vote, and the election process is a joke, the "nominees" are picked in advance and the primaries are a dog and pony show to keep the rubes and rabble amused and faked out that they actually have a "vote" that means anything other than the military industrial complex maintaining control. Nothing that would jeopardise that is allowed to occur.. For instance, several internet-researchable references knew that edwards would be the dems VP pick well in advance,and publically predicted it, because it followed a pattern,i.e; those who get the sacred invites and blessings to the bilderberger conferences get the election nod. The shrub attended as well this past year when he went to coincidentlly "visit the pope" during the same exact time that the conference was being held reasonable close by. He got his next set of marching orders then. This happened and is again, googleable. And kerry got picked because out of the pack, he was the other skull and bonesman, and do not neglect that factoid in its importance and it is part of this mans "wonderment" about why the "dems aren't pushing it hard". It's because it was rigged so that the dem K guy wouyld take a fall after a "close and valiant and hotly contested election", again, part of the dog and pony show..He took a dive on purpose. The grassroots got suckered again. The el
There are two bills before the US Congress that have been buried in committee since their introduction. Both these bills would require the use of open source software on voting machines and an auditable paper trail.
House: House Bill Senate: Senate Bill
I urge all US citizens to write their representatives requesting action on these bills.
In my searches for open source voting software the best I've found comes from The Open Voting Consortium.
It is time to _stop looking back. It is time to take action for positive change in the US system.sign me "Concerned Citizen"