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Diebold Insider Comments on Voting System Flaw
Call Me Black Cloud writes "A Diebold insider is blowing the whistle on the company's continued lack of concern about security holes in its voting software. The insider wrote to Brad Friedman, a somewhat shrill political blogger, claiming the company is instructing technicians to keep quiet about the security flaws. This is despite the vulnerability being listed on the US-CERT website for the last year. A Diebold company rep admits the software can be remotely accessed via modem, but states, "it's up to a jurisdiction whether they wish to use it or not...I don't know of any jurisdiction that does that." The insider disputes that, claiming several counties in Maryland made use of the feature in 2004." This in addition to the fact that Blackboxvoting already hacked the system using a chimp last year.
It's even worse than that, as I understand most counties won't do recounts unless the final result between the candidates is a narrow 1% (ie. 50% 49%).. and on top of that, it's illegal in many states to do a recount if the result isn't within those narrowly defined boundries....
Why are people scared of recounting? Why is it this way ? Even if someone wins with 95% of the vote, why not have a recount to verify it????
Unfortunately, their chances of getting their candidate selected retroactively are quite low. So far, all the evidence seems to point that Bush was, indeed, elected for the second term (suck it up!). As far as I know (I must admit that my knowledge is based on what I've read from the press), there's no real evidence of any vote fraud. Even this 'insider' has no evidence of actual fraud.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
not necessarily. the way that a government is elected does not have to have a direct relationship with how its laws are enforced, or what they are.
Many would say it is much easier to tamper with a paper ballot election. Ballots dissapear, ballots materialize out of nowhere etc.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the law of conservation of energy?
Physical ballots do not spontaneously materialize and disappear. Electronic ballots, on the other hand, can do just that.
Burning boxes of ballots in fields is nothing new. One could postulate that tampering with computer ballots leave much more of a trail than traditional tampering.
The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security.
Electronic voting systems are pure voodoo to 99.99% of the population. Remotely tampering with them, especially when the security on them is made of swiss cheese, involves much less risk of being caught and can be done on a muchc broader scale -- one person can only haul of and destroy so many physical ballots, but one professional electronic vote-rigger can conceivably modify every single ballot cast.
Uh, manu Sub/Ex urban areas had significant lines, although nothing like the inner city polling places. The Republicans were out in force in Democratic polling districts challenging a large percentage of voters. This led to voting taking an average of nearly double what it had in the past. I personally had to wait over an hour to vote. My mother was almost arrested when she requested the listing of all Democrats that had voted in her precint, as is required by law. Luckily the county prosecuter happened to show up and told the officer that he was to do no such thing and that in fact he was requesting that the Republican challenger be removed from the voting place for illegal interference.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Okay- I see your point. Not to be argumentative- but my friend, .edu's.
The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security.
Vote tampering is almost an institution in the US. From the very dawn of America. I really don't want to get into giving a history lesson, but I suggest doing a google search for vote tampering and only clicking on the
I know that your points are great in theory, but unfortunately history disproves you.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Jherek Carnelian writers, "The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security."
Most cases of election fraud aren't "rogue anarchists," its the local political machine. Generally, it is done by the police, the Sheriff's office, or someone else in the local political establishment.
Online liberalism only focuses on the national political scene, but politics is a rough sport, and generally takes place on the ground... busing people to polling stations, driving around neighborhoods to "get out the vote," and the Sheriff's office losing/finding ballots...
It's a fantasy about how democracy works from an online-only world that ignores the reality that all politics are local, and there is only one election in the US that is semi-national (the President/Vice President, because while the mechanics involve electing electors, people vote for a national candidate). All the OTHER raises from school board/city council, through state legislatures, through the Congress, are all LOCAL or at most state-wide elections.
Alex
http://www.electiledysfunction.org.nyud.net:8090/C onyersOhioHearing_chunk_1.wmv
:-)
right click and save as.
glad to know there are so many Diebold and ES&S supporters on slashdot...
it's in wmv format but mplayer will play it just fine.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
I think the quote is: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Support -
http://openvoting.org/
Not only open voting, but open source for the firmware that takes your vote.
They have been doing good things in California.
It's being fought because this special ID is not free -- therefore, it's the equivalent of a poll tax -- and the Georgia gov't doesn't have plans to put registration locations in convenient areas. Do some research on the subject before you dismiss the reason for fighting this out of hand.
What's the argument against having to show ID?
In Michigan, as well as most states, a Driver's License or State issued ID costs money (albeit, $12 for 4 years in MI). Still, this constitutes a poll tax and as such is unconstitutional.
ATM machines print out all of their transactions on an internal paper roll as they are being used. You can usually hear the printer Bzzt!ing away whenever you use one.
For the two largest counties in Minnesota, one has some sort of response to election security problems.
In Hennepin County the scanner system, not Diebold scanner machines, the precinct results were no longer modemed in to the county office but hand delivered in the September election.
Ramsey County Minnesota uses Diebold scanners with the suspect central counting software. Public Test of Ramsey Voting Systems
so much as right on target.
But when all the other "dirty tricks" are factored in, the electronic voting machine fraud that occurred in many other states besides Ohio, begin to look like a coordinated and concerted effort to effect the outcome of national elections by illegal means. The number of states employing fraudulent lists of felons to be barred from voting increased considerably from the 2000 election fiasco in Florida and Georgia -- the same company's database was employed in a dozen states in the 2004 national election to disenfranchise voters. Upon passage in Arizona of Proposition 200, which (among other things) increased the penalties for illegal aliens registering to vote, the voter registration lists in only one AZ county dropped by nearly 10%. (Check the archived news links at "www.cis.org" for details.)
The Republican controlled US Congress passed a $6 Billion USD piece of legislation to furnish electonic voting machines across the country after the "hanging chad" problem became public in FL in the 2000 election, but without establishing the appropriate standards and guidelines for security or recount capability. Until the US government investigates the increasing number of vote count fraud cases that independent investigators keep uncovering from the 2004 national election, this country would be far better off (small "d" democratically speaking) to revert to individual paper ballots (perhaps validated with the Iraqi equivalent of an indelible ink thumbprint.
The regime currently in power in the USA seems to have a very flexible and pragmatic view of what constitutes a democracy, here or abroad. Bolivia and Venezuela (both oil rich) have "corrupt" democracies that tend to favor the majority (poor) over the wishes of the elite. Taiwan has a democracy that the US Department of State finds "problematic" when they publically express their desire to remain independent of Communist China. The appearance of democratic "principles" in Egypt and Pakistan are far better than the Islamic revolution that would occur in either country with true democracy. But a neighboring country (Iran) that has a more valid claim to democracy is somehow another "corrupt" (but oil rich) oligarcical regime. Anyone else beginning to see the Dubya/neo(Con)artist hypocracy at work?
Something stinks in the USA, and it isn't the dead , bloated bodies of poor people in New Orleans. The $2 Billion USD it would have taken to fix the levee system there was diverted to the Iraqi war. The National Guard troops (and their equipment) were in Iraq instead of being available to aid the people of Louisiana and Mississippi in theri time of need. But the Dubya regime can NOW find the $200 Billion USD to fix the results of the hurricane disaster. It does not make up for the loss of life in any way, shape , or form. And watch the same defense/government contractors scrambling for their piece of this pork pie as have been feeding at the USA's Iraqi $$$ trough.
Anybody seen the Hari Hursti report yet?
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf
Clients will catch maybe 25% of those errors against them. . .
.the bank will catch 75% of the errors against them and successfully have them reversed.
Because they don't trust them.
. .
Because they really, really don't trust them.
The OPs post had two parts. I responded to only one of those parts. You responded as if I had responded to the part to which I did not respond.
KFG
In addition to the Knoppix CD's we'll be giving the little ghosts-n-goblins, perhaps we ought to include a position paper on Electronic Voting.
Heck, at the next big game, chat with your non-geek friends about it.
Things are getting worse not just because the elected people are twits (there are a few good ones...) things are getting worse because the American people are electing jack-asses.
When was the last time YOU actually went to a library and did some research on what's happening?
How about Israel? Why are the Jews there in the first place? What's the big deal about Gaza? What do Moslems really believe?
If you can answer, how about your brother-in-law? He have a clue?
To pick up a current conservative thread - let's stop blaming other people, and take some responsibility ourselves.
Educate, people, educate!
The only way to invalidate paper ballots is by tampering with them to create overvotes or "spoiled" ballots. This can't be done on a large scale without being detected by simply comparing the numbers of invalid ballots to those cast in other elections. So while the paper trail is not "verifiable" by the voter, it still goes a long way towards preventing fraud, and is far preferable to DRE systems.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
...are themselves corrupt.
There is no other reason to put in use or allow the use of such a system that can and has been used to misrepresent the public vote.
People are opposed to it because the effect (if not the intent, but really the intent too) is to disenfranchise the kinds of people who don't have driver's licenses and for whom buying a replacement ID is an onerous burden, namely the poor, which is to say to a great extent, the black residents of the state.
Here is the Georgia State DMVS fee schedule.
A non-driver ID costs $20 for five years, or $35 for ten. That's $3.50-$4.00 per year. This is NOT an "onerous burden." This is four cans of soda. What's more, is they offer an ID card "for voting purposes only." Cost: free. Tempest, meet teapot.
For god's sake, Jimmy Carter is on board with this. While I often disagree with the former president's politics, I have no doubt about the man's integrity and honest desire to do the right thing. I would certainly trust him to not craft a system that disenfranchises poor voters.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I voted in a suburb of Columbus (pickerington, fairfield county) that is predominantly republican. I voted in a gymnasium of an elementary school... there were ~50-60 machines in the room. It took me 20 minutes to vote. I have friends that live on OSU campus and other precincts in Columbus that are traditionally predominantly democrat, and they had to wait anywhere between 2-6 hours to vote.
What has our democracy come to when those who vote a certain way are given precedence over others who vote differently? Was there a link between Blackwell being both the Sec. of State *and* the co-chair of Bush's ohio re-election campaign? If there wasn't, it certainly didn't do anything to help his credibility-- especially once stories surfaced about the horribly inept (intentional?) placement of voting machines by precinct.
It's deplorable, inexcusable, and I think they should be brought up on trial for it. And I'd say the same if all those being discussed were democrats rather than republicans.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
you dont need troops to alter electronic vote totals.
you dont need to fix every marginal state.
exit polls are actually very accurate, historically & internationally, its only in the recent us elections that they have differed greatly from the claimed result.
this is normally an indicator of fraud.
and finally, there have been several whistleblowers from diebold, and damning leaked e-mails that are available on the internet (try google)
just because you choose to ignore the evidence doesnt mean that fraud didnt occur.
Of course, some are doing a good job of cheating without hacking a single voting machine.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.