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Diebold CEO Resigns Under Cloud
Philip K Dickhead writes "After numerous ethical lapses and much controversy, Diebold CEO, Wally O'Dell resigned to the applause of the markets. Diebold's price improved more than 5% today, as the story broke. Business Week is reporting that O'Dell is leaving for "personal reasons", although the news blog Raw Story cites board action on imminent securities fraud litigation, and legal challenges by states claiming fraudulent certification of Diebold voting machines. Latest vulnerability tests show an impossibly negligent attention to vote security and privacy." Not overly surprising, considering their recent childish antics in NC.
Going to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison? Hey, a guy can hope.
anyone here really trust the age of digital voting? i dont even have faith in the system when votes are done by hand, much less so in digitizing it.
Huh? The ad says "Anti-Bush Gifts and Gear". That doesn't strike me as a very credible news site.
Looks like a good time buy some puts on Diebold.
Man, I wish I'd heard about this while the market was open.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
A small price to pay for four more years. Go ahead and mod me troll, but you know it's true.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Boy, is this long overdue. This man bears a lot of responsibility for the current lack of confidence in the legitimacy of our elected officials and elections.
Whether or not you believe that elections in this country were stolen, you must admit that Diebold's response to questions about the security of their machines and software have, to put it mildly, not been helpful.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
god's party is the majority of his favorite country
Since when were Republicans touched by his noodly appendage?
I can not say i did not see this coming..
another contract for Haliburton to take over.
We geeks need to contribute to the open source voting software efforts!!
There are only two very early stage projects for the US market:
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
http://www.softimp.com.au/index.php?id=evacs
I'm trying to help out openvotingconsortium.org and am reading up on the other one which I just found out about.
What are you doing??
Working in the software business I can tell you customers expect the world from software but aren't willing to pay for it. The blame belongs to the customer (i.e. the government) for accepting lowest bidder contracts instead of the software developers. Sometimes paying less costs more than doing it right the first time. Your tax dollars at work, folks.
He delivered Ohio to Bush, as promised.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You keep using that word...
The head of Diebold is also a top fundraiser for President Bush's re-election. In a recent fund-raising letter Diebold's chief executive Walden O'Dell said he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
'Nuff said.
..or does someone not like Diebold?
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
You know things are up to no good when ./ puts up the Privacy, Business, and Politics icons up.
All together now:
Ding, dong, the witch is dead.
Damien
Many of us know from experience that lots of users cannot figure out what seem to us to be rather simple computer interfaces. And, we've probably all encountered people who will not use a computer. Many of these folks tend to be older; I know several of them.
Now, if people in Florida in 2000 couldn't figure out the "butterfly ballot" (yes, a needlessly convoluted "interface" if you will, but not really all that tough), how do you think people are going to figure out a voting machine? Am I making too much of a leap in guessing that the same demographic (who I described above) that would have trouble with the butterfly ballot would have trouble with this too?
I have voted on rudimentary machines a long time ago (probably 1996-ish), and it wasn't exactly rocket science. But, isn't another election debacle being set up here with a move to voting machines?
Do you have any idea what Halliburton is and what they do?
Obviously you and the moderators don't because that comment was made without having a clue.
I understand slashdot is a place for techies with leftist bents but the rampant idiocy being encouraged and rewarded is ridiculous. At least try to get the facts because you just looked foolish with that comment.
I seem to recall rumors that these guys used some really insecure system(access? sql-server?) contributing to their problems. Wonder if they fixed that problem too; or just changed the figurhead in charge.
Oh, what a beautiful symbol it is though!
The downside as I see it is that there’s an excellent chance that in the long run Diebold will be depicted as a good company that was badly run for a while by one bad man, but once he left, returned to goodness. This would make his resignation, ironically enough, a setback for that vanishingly small minority of us who care deeply about the legitimacy of our nation’s electoral process.
But hey, I’d love to be wrong about this.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Zonk submitted a story worth reading.
Guess you snobs are all eating your words now, eh?
I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist, but given all the contraversy over Diebold's products, and if their board of directors is aware of of said contraversy, could this just be a feel good measure to divert public attention from the real issues? So the CEO is resigning due to "personal reasons", but is the company really going to change, or is it more of a "See? The Bad Guy(TM) is gone, you can trust us now!" type deal.
Somehow I don't think he was VOTED out of his office.
"Impossibly negligent" --> malfeasance ?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If it's good enough for fostering democracy, it ought to be good enough to maintain it!
Anyone who knows anything about business knows the cardinal rule: A people recruit A people, B people recruit C people. The CEO of Diebold was an F person and it's likely the whole company is now filled killers, thieves, and lawyers.
he gets to live the rest of his days in absolute luxury, his family, children nor him ever need to work again!, with a multi-million dollar pension, on top of a multi-million dollar bank account and living in a mansion (compared to N.O residents) and holiday homes in the caribbean he doesnt have to worry about much, even if he went to prison, 10years for a few more million pays a lot more than a consulting job
dont let anyone tell you crime doesnt pay, it does and it pays well
Why...looking for a new cellmate? ;)~
God doesn't vote.
Good news:
People who believe in God are easily manipulated into thinking that of Kerry won, they would be forced to marry someone of the same sex.
I think I got those backwards.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We've had electronic voting booths for ages (we had incredibly complex mechanical ones until the old clockmakers that built them for us all died or retired).
But we still haven't had any election fraud attributable to the machines.
Basically, it's because we have so few electors our votes aren't worth stealing.
Not to be specifically mean to you, but is there a rule I missed where every reference to the FSM has to include that link? Are we actually afraid that there's someone, somewhere, that doesn't know what that's about?
"In today's news, Diebold announced that they would be pulling out of Carolina. A frustrated Carolina could not be reached for comment."
Can the impossible be done and have this machines produce a paper trail now?
Thank the gods of real democracy this guy is gone.
I still want him indicted though...
--ken
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
*snort* That's rich.
Face it. If there's any activity which is truly steeped in human sin, vanity, arrogance, and utter foolishness, it's politics. There is nothing divine about it. Why would God have anything to do with politics at all? Didn't someone once say something like, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's"?
Be a disciple of Christ, and go out and feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and visit the imprisoned. Christianity has everything to do with serving the poor, and nothing to do with politics.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
Here's a picture:/ us_elections/glossary/a-b/1037172.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2000
So, if the pages were not perfectly aligned, you would end up voting for someone you didn't want to.
A computer interface would be simple to do. Primarily because only an IDIOT would want one that didn't generate a paper trail.
The paper trail should be the ballot and it should be very clearly printed with the name of the candidate you voted for.
The computers are just to make choosing and counting easier.
Even if he's indicted, tried by a jury, found guilty and sentenced to a PMTA prison, his alleged services to the current administration would probably buy him a "Get out of Jail Free" card in the form of a presidental pardon for all crimes.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The trouble comes in throwing out the paper altogether. There has to be a way for an untrained human to look at a ballot and know what it says. The voting machines should just be more accurate at producing the ballot, which a voter then examines and puts in the box. Maybe they have to put it in the box once it's printed, or maybe you keep a tally of how many people don't.
Behind the scenes, the votes should be tallied by two separate systems: electronically (inside the voting machines, without regard to what happens to the paper ballots) and also mechanically, by examinining the paper ballots. The electronic method would be essentially realtime, so the unofficial results would be available as soon as the polls closed. The official results should come from the paper. If the two differ by some small margin, do an audit.
There, was that so hard?
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
These so-called "faults" with voting machines are anything but an accident. Witness the case of Senator Chuck Hagle magically winning his senate seat in Nebraska after being far down in the polls (the first republican elected to the senate there in 24 years, at the time). It turns out that 80% of his votes were counted by ES&S machines (a company that he has ownership ties to). That is just one of many, many examples. Check out these links: http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Oct/gee20031 009022127.htm
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/vote_fraud_vot e_machines_under_scrutiny.htm
http://www.infowars.com/print/evoting/hired_felons .htm
If we can't trust Diebold with our votes, why trust them with our money? I'm thinking we should start avoiding ATMs build by Diebold too.
While I'm sure there'll be plenty of partisan blows over the Diebold machines, at the end of the day this is about a company that, at the very least, was thoroughly negligent in the machines that it put out. There are serious questions not just to be answered by Diebold, but by various officials who approved these machines.
It's rather sad that it is, to some extent, turning into a partisan battle, because one would hope that all people; politicians, voters and investigators, irregardless of their political leanings, would care more about democracy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
why the company's machines were even used in the first place. The minute he announced his very partisan feelings on the election, his machines should have been instantly pulled as suspect. It should have been up to Diebold to prove they were secure and accurate instead of up to the public to prove that they weren't.
I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
machines this time right? I mean, after all this has gone on, surely the government would find another contracter whom voting source was open, right?
The "e-voting" concept should be ... the computer prints the ballot and that paper ballot is your vote. That ballot lists ONLY the names you chose. You read that and drop it into the ballot box.
The computer counts the number of paper ballots it has printed for each candidate. This number can be released to the news agencies. But the real vote is the paper ballot.
At the end of the day, the names of the voters who used that machine are counted, the paper ballots are counted and both of those are compared to the total number of votes the machine says were cast. If they don't match, there is a problem.
In case of recount, the paper ballots are hand counted.
A random number of machines should also be checked against the ballots cast at them.
Multiple checks.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/1303 7.html
"New information obtained by Black Box Voting investigator Jim March shows that mail-in votes in upcoming Nov. 8 elections will lack crucial safeguards. The Diebold "GEMS defect" -- the ability for anyone with access to change vote results on the "mother ship" that tallies and controls election results -- has now been acknowledged by Diebold, but has not been mitigated in most locations, and it is worse for mail-in votes. The GEMS defect has been proven. The risks are significant. Mail-in votes are at exceptional risk because they are counted on a system that lacks protective features found on polling place machines. While the precinct-based optical scan machines made by Diebold produce a results tape, the same machines, when counting mail-in ballots, use a different program and do not store vote tallies on a memory card, nor do they produce an independent results tape. Therefore the defective GEMS program holds the only record for absentee vote totals. "
Hey Black Box dudes - why aren't the mail-in ballots themselves a pretty good paper trail for themselves!?!?
The company with the slogan "We won't rest... until American democracy is destroyed" (my twist) needs to be destroyed itself.
The American people need to exclaim: "Paper trails, or we're shutting down the 2006 election". No more election theft!!!
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Diebold is a major manufacturer of ATMs. If they're so terrible at security, I guess I'll think twice before inserting my ATM card into one of their machines.
Just getting rid of the Diebold CEO does not fix the problem because the problem is the *system* rather than just one man. It is the system that allows one company to submit voting systems for use by the public with no oversight of their accuracy and integrity and it is the system that enables corrupt elected officials to allow Diebold to do as it pleased. The next Diebold CEO might be worse than the last one. Even worse, there will likely be other diebold-like companies springing forth to provide similar voting systems. Until the American public are able to throw off their cloak of indifference, timidity and cowardice and stand up to the Diebolds in their local jurisdictions, the system will remain broken.
No. The simple solution is to not use holes. Have the name of the candidate and the party printed on the ballot when that ballot is cast. That way there's no question of voting incorrectly.
Unless those pegs are not aligned. Again, the easiest way is printing the candidate's name.
My bet is that he'll either take a position as a highly-paid lobbiest for some corporate interest, or he'll end up as an appointee for some politician currently in office, where he can then wield influence from the inside.
You're either a sub median IQ freepers troll or one of the turned crooked feds looking for more people to "suicide" if they get too close to the fascist reality of this coup-in-progress we are living under now. One or the other or both. The net stinks of them. I'm not a big D supporter either, but the evidence of this current crop of goose steppers being dirty, in as many ways as they can dream up, including fixing elections, is simply overwhelming.
You can't be sane and not realize that Bush is a fuckwit with an evil agenda. The "fair and balanced" media makes him appear credible by NOT pointing this out, making it implicitly pro-Bush. The question is whether you are part of that evil agenda, or just plain ignant, in which case you need to go back to collecting NASCAR memorabilia and leave the voting to others.
Simple. Have representatives from each party ride along with them.
You don't trust them, they don't trust you. So each side watches to make sure that the other side doesn't swap anything.
Not to mention that they'd have to swap the computer and the ballots or else the number of ballots and the computer's vote total won't match.
Die, Diebold!!
actually no. There is no proof in tampering/removal of the mail-ins vs what was counted by the machine. Scenario.
Feed in Ballots...
Find out Canidate X lost by 450 votes.
Alter Machine Total via documented exploit.
'Loose' 451 Cadidate Y mail in ballots.
Where the tape shows how many were read-in vs how many are present.
* We dance where angels fear to tread *
This open-source system was developed by a number of well known names in the open source community - including - Andrew Tridgell (Samba), Martin Pool (Apache), and Rusty Russell (ip-tables / netfilter).
All elections for the ACT government in Australia are now run using this system. Votes are lodged either at an eVACS terminal or - if lodged on paper ballot sheets - are manually entered into the electronic system for counting. That is - all votes end up in electronic form before counting / preference distribution is done automatically by computer.
more info and source code from the electoral office and the government recommends continued use following a full review after the last election.
There are a couple of factors that meant electronic counting / voting were going to come sooner rather than later in the ACT: the useful base of some well regarded open source leaders + the ACTs difficult Hare-Clark preference distribution scheme (allowing the part of your vote unnecessary to elect your prefered candidate to go on and help elect your next prefered candidate).
+laughing at US politics paragraph+ Obviously the $200,000 cost of development of such an open, accurate, and secure system is clearly not high enough to give US governments' bank rollers the belief they are getting value for money from their political donations! Maybe Halliburton can develop such a system for use in the US for a billion or so?
What is the US Secret Service doing?
l eges_company_plagued_1206.html
...
It is supposedly their responsibility to see that election fraud doesn't happen, yet the evidence of fraud is clear as a day.
Why? Are americans happy with this?
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_insider__al
Shortly before the election, ten days to two weeks, we were told that the date in the machine was malfunctioning, the source recalled. So we were told 'Apply this patch in a big rush. Later, the Diebold insider learned that the patches were never certified by the state of Georgia, as required by law.
Also, the clock inside the system was not fixed, said the insider. Its legendary how strange the outcome was; they ended up having the first Republican governor in who knows when and also strange outcomes in other races. I can say that the counties I worked in were heavily Democratic and elected a Republican.
It has nothing to do with jesus and his deeds, it has to do with beeing judgemental, prejudiced, cruel, barbaric, negligent, greedy, cheating, stealing and lying though your teeths. That is the average fair from Christians today. I haven't seen a christian in a long time that even follow jesus teachings. And I can assure you that those who do, have nothing to do with GOP.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Actually, Christ did both; he both served the poor and was politically involved. Christ not only fed the hungry and clothed the homeless, but also spoke out very harshly and very publicly against the political and religious leaders of his day.
*grin* Most of the folks you identify as Christians, unfortunately, are anything but.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
He rarely spoke out against political leaders of the day. He spoke out frequently against the religious leadership of the day, but usually when he did that it was to condemn their materialism or the way that they had fallen from their own faith. He certainly did not get involved in the political process of the Roman Empire, and only barely touched the Jewish leadership. His primary ministry was with the poor and the forsaken.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
Try Australia, or even India. Australia used fully open source voting machines with a paper trail - electronic voting entirely transparent and accountable to the voters. The voting machines where made by a private company using requirements drawn up by an indpendent body. The resulting code was then made available on the internet for full public scutany (and several bugs where found and corrected due to public involvement), and company employees where not allowed anywhere near the machines or the voting - no late "patches", no special "help" from the company on voting day.
To clarify this, this happened once in an election in the Australia Capital Territory (ACT), which doesn't even rank as a state.
In fact we have paper voting in Australia. The votes are counted at (or near) the place of voting, which is usually the local public school, to minimise tampering while in transit. They are counted by volunteers, without state allegience. These volunteers, while they are counting, are observed by scrutineers, that is representatives from (at least the two major) political parties, who stand behind their backs.
This arrangement IMHO constitutes the minimum (we don't for instance have clear perpex ballot boxes as some other countries do) requirement for a fair vote. All voting machines, whether or not they use open source software, leave a paper audit, or whatever, have a far greater ability to be rigged.
Mod Parent up. In the US these radicals seem to be obsessed with turning the the Message of Jesus on its head, preferring instead of the Beatitudes, the law and rule of the Old Testament. And thats just the Pastors...
Resignation is not enough, I want prosecution
Only the Right seemed to really hate him, and they would have hated anyone their radio gods told them to hate. *shrug*
My girlfriend and I were talking about the typical ideology that is espoused on the conservative front, and it's always hate.
God hates fags.
Liberals hate America.
Liberals hate freedom.
Etc. etc. ad nauseam. It's either that or the age-old attack of "democrats have no plan! Democrats have no plan!".
Sigh. I'd like less rhetoric and more responsibility from the conservatives. That, and a return to their old values. Lack of government, fiscal responsibility, that sort of thing. That would be fantastic.
(for what it's worth - I'm a centrist Democrat. Kerry, to me, was just Iowa fucking it up for America. Again. I think they're secretly Republicans)
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
god's party is the majority of his favorite country.
That may have been true when Bush won, but Likud seems not to be doing so well now. Speaking of which, what does the election of Bush have to do with Israel?
(You do realize that "God's Favorite Country" cannot apply to the US, right? Israel has a very good claim as His Chosen, and Rome has something about apostolic succession that I don't quite remember since I'm Protestant. Besides, if the US were God's favorite country, why did 9/11 happen? El Al has a pretty good track record as far as avoiding hijackings, by the way....)
Ah jeez. Listen people, God doesn't play politics. Frankly, He's got better things to do. I wish people would quit trying to claim God is on the side of their party. If you people would bother to actually read what Christ taught you might understand this. [generalization]Republicans are sorely lacking the social justice of Christianity and Democrats are sorely lacking the moral judgements of Christianity[/generalization]. Republicans don't care about Christ any more than the Democrats do and vice versa. Quit using religion as a political tool.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Since it seems you made an effort not to use any other informal spellings in your posting you might be interested in this.
From the New Oxford American:
If everyone stopped using the wasted 'ir' in front of regardless think of all the bandwidth we could save
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
To quote the latest article on the Black Box Voting site (and then some background below that):
---
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/1559 5.html?1134523376
Due to security design issues and contractual non-performance, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho told Black Box Voting that he will never use Diebold in an election again. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. He will issue a formal announcement to this effect shortly.
Finnish security expert Harri Hursti proved that Diebold lied to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the memory card.
A test election was run in Leon County today with a total of eight ballots - six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thomson and by Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked.
At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A "zero report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.
The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.
Correct results should have been:
Yes:2 No:6
However the results tape read:
Yes:7 No:1
The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the GEMS central tabulator. The central tabulator is the "mothership" that pulls in all votes from voting machines. The results in the central tabulator read:
Yes:7 No:1
This proves that the votes themselves were changed in a one-step process that would not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure - using only a credit-card sized memory card.
Diebold Elections Systems head of research and development Pat Green specifically told the Cuyahoga County board of elections that votes could not be changed on the memory card.
According to Public Records responses obtained by Black Box Voting in response to our requests shows that Diebold promulgated this misrepresentation to as many as 800 state and local elections officials.
In other news, according to Bradblog a stockholder suit was filed today against Diebold by the law offices of Scott and Scott:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002153.htm
Permission to reprint granted with link to http://blackboxvoting.org/
---
Jim again. Let me fill you in on the background.
Six months ago Leon County elections administrator Ion Sancho asked us (Black Box Voting) to "test hack" his Diebold optical scan system. We brought Finnish security expert Harri Hursti and Dr. Hugh Thomson from Florida along.
Dr. Thomson proved that the central tabulator's database (in MS-Access of all things) can be hacked without a retail copy of MS-Access present. He used Visual Basic to control the MS Jet database engine directly, using very small script files...small enough to be typed in via MS-Windows Notepad at the tabulator console. We already knew the MS-Access database was tamper-friendly but this was real-world proof that you didn't need to bring in and load a copy of Access to tamper. The same things can almost certainly be done in Java and probably other ways as well.
Harri Hursti pulled off something new.
The report co-written with Bev Harris proved it's possible to doctor the poll tapes. These are the end-of-day printouts showing the number of votes for each candidate or issue taken in on that machine. It's basically
The computer prints the ballot along with a unique identifier, which is your receipt.
Two lists are published on the web: a list of the names of people who voted, and a list of identifiers and what votes they placed.
Anyone can verify the two lists are the same size.
Anyone can examine the list for deceased people or other suspicious populations of voters.
Anyone can tally the votes themselves.
And anyone who voted can compare their receipt against the website and verify their vote is properly tallied.
Cheap, simple, easy, and I'd think pretty hard to hack.
one by one, their creepy crawly tactics will get them all. diebold as rehabbed and taken through chapter 11 by the K street machine might as well go all the way down, LeFebure makes nice auto teller machines, and IBM does real good POP workstations for banks.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Go to your bank/credit union, etc. and (knowing full well in advance)
ask the teller who supplies the ATMs.
When they say "Diebold", then you appear to consider this and then
withdraw money from your account and DO NOT tell them where it is
going.
After the transaction is concluded to your satisfaction, tell them
"well now I know that my money will be safe".
If you cannot vote at the polls, vote with your money.
AC
I'd vote for Osama Bin Laden before I'd vote for Kerry
Judging by what happened when the monkey won, you did.
I imagine Kerry would have been rather sheep like in the manner of Jimmy Carter. But I doubt his intentions would have been as reprehensible as either Bush.
to the "true believers" that remain among my fellow Americans, but firing Walden W. O'Dell will not automagically bring back integrity to the voting system here in the U.S. Most slashdotters are savvy enough to know that paperless voting using secret, proprietary code can be easily manipulated. We will not be safe from this type of fraud until paperless voting is outlawed in ALL states.
Also, many slashdotters have knowledge of the "Law of Large Numbers", and know that a well-designed exit poll should be accurate within its designed level of confidence. Large statistical "anomalies" between exit polling and "recorded votes" associated with the 2002 (Georgia, Minnesota), 2004 (Presidential election, many states) and 2005 (Ohio referendums) verge on the quasi-impossible, until you factor in deliberate fraud. Exit polls do not lie, and when the margin of error is exceeded time and again, all with identical bias, we can be sure that the system is being gamed. Exit polls, after all, are how the fairness of elections is assessed in those "corrupt, third-world" countries.
At least be comforted the "powers that be" that really control the country still feel the need to throw us dogs the "bones" of legitimacy. In the words of Frank Zappa,
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see a brick wall at the back of the theater."
His primary ministry was with the poor and the forsaken.
First of all, he was offered the whole shebang at one point. But he knew enough to wait to be made the potentate by the one who would allow him to stay in office to time indefinite.
And he spoke to all and sundry. What rattled hs cage the most was the hypocricy:
The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness. There was no reason a rich or powerful man should be ostracised by him.
It does not appear to have been in his nature either. I doubt he'd have had much time for the Diebold people though. Nor the scammers intent on evading due process of law.
...namely, the board told him that he personally would be fired if he didn't...
Amen The fact that this is such an obvious solution and that it is so trivial to implement is what makes the chosen convoluted, hackable, no-recount alternative so suspicious. What honest and experienced company would chose anything but that easy and elegant solution you describe if not because they want to open the possibility to election fraud??? No amount of electronic tweaking will make the system secure. There is always a weak link. Even if Diebold had the best intention in the world, how can they be sure that a partisant lone coder did not sneake a line of code within I'm sure what are millions of lines, converting say 5% of the votes. This could be done at any point in the chain of programs that handle the votes; from the user interface, to the final tally, through the individual machine databases, the talying computer etc. I have programed plenty and I can tell you that, it would be very easy to implement the "bug" so that it happens ONLY on the day of the election and previous and following tests show no bias. a paper trail is necessary!
To add yet another layer of verification, an ASCII-armoured copy of the encrypted vote could be printed out and placed in a ballot box. You want an encrypted form, to prevent someone removing votes they don't like. If you can't read the vote, you can't tell who the ballot is for. The papers would then be scanned in and compared with the encrypted copies kept in the public archives, in the event of a dispute.
This method relies on the principle that if those attempting fraud cannot read the ballots OR know how to write them in a way that would be valid, then an attack between the terminal and the vote count is rendered impossible. It still doesn't prevent someone tampering with the terminals, except that (as I said) it would be possible for individuals to deliberately cast unique votes to ensure that these did indeed end up in the list of decrypted ballots. In which case, those voter interest groups would have a fairly solid case to go to court with, rather than just suspicions.
A second method is a derivative of the first, but reduces (or eliminates) the vulnerability of the terminals. Provide everyone with an electronic tablet, surface-area about the same as a letter-sized piece of paper, and maybe half an inch thick. This device is a wireless computer, which will upload the options on election day and then download the (encrypted) results over a TLS-encrypted session. To make it impossible to detect when a vote is cast, random transmissions
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
But I'm curious - can you tell me why you hate Kerry so much?
I honestly don't understand all the Kerry-loathing that's common even in people of my party (Democrat).
+++ATH0
I should have previewed. Forgot to put the Plain Old Text option.
Furthurmore
Consider,
If you were Diebold and you were designing a voting machine you would have two options:
Hire an expensive team of delveloppers responsable for surveying all the code components of your system to make sure everyone one of them are 100% secure and bug free. A feat that no leading software company (say MS) has succeded in doing for their own software even after decades and millions of man-hours of debugging and re-engineering.
Or,
add a small printer similar or identical the ones used for printing lotto tickets or even those good old receipt printer that are part of *every* cash registers.
Which option do you think is less expensive?
What would be the motivation for even trying the first option other than you _want_ to leave doors open?
Someone says "pound me in the ass federal prison" and that somehow makes it a romance?
-=Lothsahn=-
Faltering economy, an illegal and unjust war, destroying our reputation abroad, trampling liberty, and out and out gross negligence in leading the world's only superpower. You have a lot to answer for, Mr. O'Dell!
-- dR.fuZZo
... is, "Who's 'Cloud'?"
http://outcampaign.org/
... To Diebold or not to Diebold, that is the question ... ... the answer is 42
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
> at the end of the day this is about a company that, at the very least, was thoroughly negligent
I'd hardly classify it as 'negligent' when you deliberately try to sell a defective product.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Didn't someone once say something like, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's"?
Yeah, and that's why Diebold is so keen on giving votes to Republicans.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Ah jeez. Listen people, God doesn't play politics. Frankly, He's got better things to do.
Well, He shouldn't have better things to do. Look at the consequences of not intervening in the 2000 elections.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
about 10% of US pop. But our method scales easily. More voters? Use more election workers.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
but it's funny to think about our "recent election" considering we're in the middle of another one.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
The issue of a "paper trail" is a distraction away from the real issue which is auditability. You can have all the paper receipts in the world, but if no one spots anything fishy about the tallies, there will be no examination of the receipts.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If the allegations against him are true - and there is every reason to believe they are - then Bush's lies killed over 2000 American soldiers and over 30000 Iraqis for no good reason. Kerry has no such blood on his hands.
+++ATH0
A) It's new-fangled compared to voting itself,
B) It costs money, and
C) Given a transparent voting process, the checks and balances are supposed to make it impossible to cheat.
D) Given a voting process that prohibits cheating, why spend all that money when it could be spent on doing the main process right (or, using pen and paper and volunteers for the main paper - on the general budget)?
Does that satisfy your curiosity - or are you just trying to detract from the main points being discussed?
Sorry to break the news to the "true believers" that remain among my fellow Americans, but firing Walden W. O'Dell will not automagically bring back integrity to the voting system here in the U.S. Most slashdotters are savvy enough to know that paperless voting using secret, proprietary code can be easily manipulated.
Er, it doesn't seem like you've broken any news at all. You just said that the "true believers" aren't slashdotters, so if you want to disabuse them of their fantasies, maybe you should choose some other forum.
Just a thought.
Phiwum's law: anyone that names an obvious law after himself and then puts it in his own sig is just pathetic.
And only America...Correction, that's Amurica
01/20/09
You see, they really told the truth about the memory card: Once WE put what we want into the card, YOU can't change it!
Oh, the irony...
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
This all reminds me of the Soviet and American responses to the problems of writing implements in space ie. lack of gravity and temperature issues.
The americans spent squillions to design a groovy pen that writes in zero-g, a vaccuum, underwater, freezing cold, super hot, blah blah
And the soviets used a pencil.
So, please techie slashdotters, computers are great for some things.
For elections, THEY ARE USELESS !
UNNECESSARY. TOO EXPENSIVE. INHERENTLY UNRELIABLE.
Paper trail or no, they are still useless. They let you believe that
a 6 hour turn around on voting is more important than an ACCURATE count. Please consult your programming course notes about the purpose of a program. Is it just to write the shortest piece of code as fast as possible to make the screen go BSOD or to actually DO something ?
Before flaming me, check out the German electoral system, or the Swiss multi-level votation mechanisms.
And then tell me why Americans have to waste BILLIONS on technology, when all they need is to adopt a new electoral law, and a pencil or two.
Please tell me why, cause it looks like rank stupidity from here.
...I'd almost swear I was experiencing the Office Space experience right at the moment...but then, one could also say the same thing about living la vida Dilbert as well... Something about management wearing as suit and tie... Oh, there was a another movie talking to that one...something with Michael Fox in it...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"Or how about the CEO being close friends to Dick Cheney and a top republican supporter while his competitors supported both parties instead?"
You're trying to punish this guy for making his allegiances clear, while simultaneously giving kudos to people who don't.
I don't understand this reasoning, and I don't see how intentionally obscuring your motivations is any better than obscuring your code.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
You're completely right--it isn't funny. It's very, very scary. It's the reason people here are scared of going to jail. Sadly, a jail sentence almost guarantees cruel and unusual punishment in the form of anal rape. Last week on The Boondocks they covered this topic. One character is a lawyer who has always been straightlaced because of the threat of anal rape.
I remember, from a few years ago, an anti-rape activist (found his name thanks to Google: Tom Cahill) who was protesting the Vietnam war while living in San Antonio, and the police basically caused him to be raped. They threw him in a room with a bunch of career criminals and allowed him to be raped for about 24 hours continuously. That was his punishment for protesting the war.
By the way, I found his current website.
I personally believe that almost all prisons in the US today violate the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. But hey, the retards in my government routinely extract suspects for torture in the name of fighting terrorism, so I shouldn't be surprised. Yet another example of why it is shameful to be an American. I just pray they don't reviolate the First Amendment by bringing back prayer in school (ahem--Intelligent Design).
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Because there's no REAL proof.
I'm not saying it didn't happen, but relying on conjecture and suppostion (which is all you have, and no amount of griping will change that) IS NOT SUFFICIENT PROOF FOR THIS CHARGE.
You see, the question I always ask myself when I see outrageous speculation like this is, "If the evidence is so credible, WHY HASN'T SOMETHING BEEN DONE?"
And like any government conspiracy, you're relying on the competence of the FUCKING GOVERNMENT to keep this secret.
Now of course, there will be the inevitable crap flood of opinions, but they ignore one fact.
There are literally hundreds of reporters with a burning desire to make a career for themselves, and the allegations of voter fraud, if true, would cement their job forEVER if proved.
The fact that no one but cranks bring it up should be a clear indication of how credible your "facts" are.
Wow. Fix this IMMEDIATELY
Digital is great because of a few of its attributes:
Now what else does this list encompass... Oh that's right, the exact opposite of what you want from voting results!
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
What is this fallacy the Democrats keep trying to pass off that they only lose elections because of fraud? I guess the best defense against your own actions is to constantly accuse others of the same? Otherwise known as "The Big Lie".
Informative only on Slashdot because of the irrational Bush hate that exist here.
Ohio was lost for the same reason why the Senate and House are still under Republican control. Democrats fail to deliver a message that a majority of Americans respond too. Instead of telling us how the other guy is wrong why not tell us what the hell you can do for us? I am not talking about the no-tax paying leeches on the government, I am talking about those of us who pay taxes, watch our future disintegrate under the orgy of Republican & Democrat spending binges, and see how you buy votes of people who produce nothing.
Damn both parties to hell
http://www.spr.org/pdf/struckman.pdf
http://www.spr.org/pdf/struckman.pdf
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/hivpj99.htm
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/women/#TopOfPage
http://www.spr.org/en/factsheetattitudes.html
Now where's the Mea Culpa AC? Or are you just going to run your idiot mouth and fade into the background hoping no one will notice you made a fool of yourself?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
"It deal with coercion in prisons. In fact, in the summary it basically says that rape really does not occur that much, but that "coercion" does. In fact, it mentions a rate of only 1.3 %, which in many states would be considered a low rate. It is losely associated with Rape."
No you fucking abortion, it doesn't. It questions previous results in light of the new results, which you would have see IF YOU'D BOTHERED TO READ PAST THE PART THAT YOU THINK MAKES YOU RIGHT.
For example
"Usable surveys were returned by 1,788 inmates (25%) and 475 staff (25%). Results showed that 21%of the inmates had experienced at least one episode of pressured or forced sexual contact since incarcerated in their state, and 16% reported that an incident had occurred in their current facility. At least 7% of the sample had been raped in their current facility."
I notice you conveniently leave that out.
And this
"You then show a report on male guard abuse of female prisoners. Once again nothing to do with the rates or prisoner-prisoner rape rate"
How colossally stupid are you that you don't understand RAPE IS RETALIATION? What the hell is wrong with you that I have to explain that to you?
If you're not going to read the links (and you didn't obviously, you scanned them briefly without actually reading them) they why am I going to waste time with you?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Speed of election results? That's about the only plus-side. And for that you're willing to risk the integrity of the election? What I don't trust is anybody who still supports this B.S. after even a cursory review of the facts.
Anyone who supports Diebold machines obviously does so precisely because they can be hacked.
BTW, where is the media hubbub for Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who admitted to taking bribes for defense contracts? What national story could possibly be more important? The ability of the U.S. government to stifle the mainstream press even in the face of the Internet simply astounds me.
Want to know which news sources are "owned"? Google News the Cunningham story and see which ones ran the "Cunningham admits taking bribes" headline and which ones tried to obfuscate with the headline "Cunningham guilty of tax evasion."
Why go digital at all?
(Score:0)
by danpsmith (922127) Alter Relationship on Wednesday December 14, @11:27AM (#14256711)
Just because computers are good for some things, doesn't mean they are good for everything. I don't know why people don't get this concept.
Digital is great because of a few of its attributes:
* Malleable - Digital media can easily be altered in order to keep up with changing information
* Manipulability - Digital media can be altered automatically and even remotely if desired
Now what else does this list encompass... Oh that's right, the exact opposite of what you want from voting results!
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"His primary ministry was with the poor and the forsaken." That is interesting considering that those two groups are the ones most ignored and hurt by the Republicans, or as the GP said "God's Party."
Yes it is interesting, isn't it?
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
"'God is a liberal!', 'God is a Democrat!', 'God wants you to vote Republican!' - Never trust a man who puts his words in the mouth of God and says it's absolute truth . . . "
(And no, this isn't the philosopher, this one's actually a rather amusing musician from New York City, and that's from his song 'God Thinks' - and I happen to agree with the overall sentiment of the song, which is basically "Prejudice and crime is prejudice and crime, and cloaking it in holier-than-thou phrasing and religious rhetoric doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Can't we all just get along?")
Patrolling ftw
The State legislature then overrode members who argued for the necessity of a voter verified paper trail. Again, guess which side the Dems were on in that debate and which side the Republicans were on. (The Republicans simply argued that a paper trail was unnecessary.) So Blackwell signed a $100-million contract for voting machines with two companies who'd both shown a political bias toward the right.
Google "Plain Dealer" and "Diebold" and you'll get a bunch of stories like that. There's no shortage of evidence of bias, all through the whole system, and lots of "We can't assume the worst" excuses for not doing anything about it. Stinks to hell.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
By "someone, somewhere that doesn't know what that's about", do you mean me? I certainly never heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster myself - at least not until today.
I must admit, though, that the Flying Spaghetti Monster's heaven certainly sounds a lot more fun than sitting around on fluffy clouds and playing bright, cheerful melodies on a golden harp.
Patrolling ftw
Blasphemer.