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Diebold Demands That HBO Cancel Documentary
Frosty Piss writes "According to the Bloomberg News, Diebold Inc. is insisting that HBO cancel a documentary that questions the integrity of its voting machines, calling the program inaccurate and unfair. The program, 'Hacking Democracy,' is scheduled to debut Thursday, five days before the 2006 U.S. midterm elections. The film claims that Diebold voting machines aren't tamper-proof and can be manipulated to change voting results. 'Hacking Democracy' is 'replete with material examples of inaccurate reporting,' says Diebold. 'We stand by the film," said a spokesman for HBO. 'We have no intention of withdrawing it from our schedule. It appears that the film Diebold is responding to is not the film HBO is airing.'"
I hadn't heard of this before, but now I'm sure to record it (assuming it gets on the air).
I love publicity-bringing lawsuits, don't you?
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
You have to figure HBO has a pretty sizable legal department, and wouldn't air a documentary that wasn't accurate (for fear of being sued). So if diebold's claims are untrue, all they are really doing are serving to help publicize the documentary before it airs. Brilliant move, haha. I know I had my DVR set to record it, but I can imagine many other /.ers did not... and now undoubtedly, some will.
... "The letter says Diebold wasn't in the electronic voting business in 2000, when disputes over ballots in Florida delayed President Bush's victory for more than a month and raised questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines." I would like to see an actual fact that states whether their claims are true or not. For instance, maybe they weren't in electronic voting business in 2000, but that doesn't mean they didn't still tally many paper votes (the aggregate of which amounts to 40% of the votes in the election)-- or that he hasn't screwed up interpreting what the film says (since he apparently hasn't seen it). Regardless of which, I think it's probably safe to assume if HBO isn't backing down, and does air the documentary, that this is largely smokescreen on the part of Diebold to try and convince the public that HBO is just an extension of the "liberal media" lying to them.
..but rather that HBO's spokesman is actually suggesting they are responding to this film, VoterGate, and not Hacking Democracy, whose UK working title is listed as "VoterGate" and whose tagline says, "Computers count America's votes in secret. 'Votergate' hacks the votes." The co-mingling of the word "Votergate" does lead to some confusion, even though the directors of each film are totally different, one is produced by "Digital Bazooka" productions and the other by "Teale-Edwards" Productions (which produced another good, but sad HBO documentary that I would reccomend watching -- Dealing Dogs). My suspicions are probably best supported by the line,"The company, which hasn't seen the film, based its complaints on material from the HBO Web site, Bear said." ..if they haven't seen the film, it's a bit difficult to suggest it is full of eggregious errors, and maybe they are commenting about 2004's VoterGate.
Regarding Diebold's claims, although the article is a little short on facts, for instance, following this section, "According to Byrd's letter, inaccuracies in the film include the assertion that Diebold, whose election systems unit is based in Allen, Texas, tabulated more than 40 percent of the votes cast in the 2000 presidential election."
Furthermore, the article is short on explanation, but I don't think this is just a crass comment, "It appears that the film Diebold is responding to is not the film HBO is airing."
On a personal note, I am a documentarian, and no documentary can ever be completely "true" to everyone. Laymen make the mistake of thinking to shoot a documentary you just point some cameras at stuff, edit it, and voila. But there is so much more than that.. a documentary is about capturing the "truth" the documentarian sees. For (s)he to use cameras and mics to tell the story that (s)he saw. There is always some bias in this, and one important trick to being a good documentarian is divorcing yourself from this bias as much as possible.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Apparently, Diebold actually did comment on the wrong documentary and screwed up factually too. Already reported on the BRAD BLOG .
If the reporting is truly unfair, the Diebold should sue, in a court of law.
Anything else is just posturing, and should be treated (read: ignored) as such.
Now this being Slashdot, I think we all know how we feel about whether or not their machines are secure.
Should we show the Diebold documentary?
Yes: 25%
No: 21%
Republican: 54%
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I don't understand why an open voting system wouldn't work. (And yes I know the major hurdle would be beating the peoples in power to transition to one)
Source code is 100% open to find exploits and bugs, when you vote you're given a ticket with a number, anyone can go online and see how everyone voted but only you are able to tell which vote was yours by the corresponding ticket number. That'd allow for everyone to do their own count if they wanted.
I've just don't like technology getting a bad name because people abuse it. An electronic voting system would be more secure then a paper trail with PEOPLE manually counting each vote.
No?
*DrugCheese rants*
In other words, in the light of allegations of insecurity and the ease of which a Diebold DRE or tabulator (GEMS) can be modified, they nitpick the date in which they got into the voting machine industry.
Bravo, Diebold.
Also, the article's implication if I'm not mistaken is incorrect:
If I'm not mis-reading this passage, the article is implying that Florida ballots in 2000 raised questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines. The only problem is that the problems in Florida were due to "hanging chads" and the poor design of "butterfly ballots" in Palm Beach County, two problems which are entirely specific to paper voting methods. Maybe they meant to say "and raised questions about upgrading their voting technology" but who knows.
Is anyone else reminded of Jim Carey in Liar Liar?
Fletcher: Your honor, I object!
Judge: Why?
Fletcher: Because it's devastating to my case!
Judge: Overruled.
Fletcher: Good call!
Perhaps these will be of interest http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ and a write up. http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ar s
Lou Dobbs on CNN was talking about the Sequoia voting machines operated by the Venezuelan company, and I think we should bring to his attention the Diebold ones too. Please take a moment and send a polite comment at their feedback form
Try other big media outlets. We need the general public to become aware of this potential debacle before it's too late.
Looking back to an election that was pretty much STOLEN (by the Bush brothers and a cousin, just to mention a few), one has to wonder just how it was pulled off
"pretty much stolen"? Is that like being kind of pregnant? Which is it? Are you confusing "didn't turn out the way I wished it would" with "stolen?"
Or do you mean "stolen" as in "trying to fake up thousands of democratic-leaning votes?
A huge portion of the votes tabulated in Florida were done so on Diebold voting machines.
And no one has indicated, once, that there was anything suspect about the actual results. Plenty wrong with the people actually understanding how to cast a vote, but that's rather a different thing, isn't it.
America and our Democracy are being stolen right out from under us
So, other than just repeating that meme, what's your actual evidence that what you're saying is actually true?. The fact that someone could screw with what a piece of technology can do doesn't mean that's happening. Diebold could also screw with your bank account while you're withdrawing money through one of their ATM's. No question they could. Does this mean they're undermining the economy? What I smell is a frenzied effort to have, in pocket, a handy explanation for why fewer people that some political camps might wish will actually vote they way they're stamping their feet and insisting that they do.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm really forced to wonder if the Slashdot group-think would hate Diebold as much as they do if Gore won in 2000 or Kerry won in 2004. I sincerely doubt it. If anything, they'd probably be considered as heroes in that case.
Call that a flame or troll if you want (and I'm sure that politically-charged mods who love to abuse their mod privileges will be more than willing to do so); but with the collective hatred for anything republican on Slashdot, things have finally gotten to the point where any statements against Diebold are as knee-jerk or fashionable as the rampant anti-Microsoftism and anti-republicanism that we all see. They're almost as cliché as the "overlord" and "you insensitive clod" comments.
Unfortunately, as both the NYT and Washington Post report, the documentary itself is a stinker. They both claim it does little to present actual problems, showing instead unfeasible hacks that admittedly would never work, and contenting itself to merely cast doubt over the voting machines rather than providing any solid evidence. And let's be honest -- it's easy to cast doubt on anything, including paper voting or anything else. On top if it all, the woman at the center of it all reportedly comes off as a crackpot, rather than someone with whom the public would actually empathize.
Not having seen it myself, I can't make any conclusions of my own, but if the reviews are accurate, this film does a disservice to the concept of secure voting by further validating the fringe/crackpot image that people already have regarding this issue.
The real news is that Diebold is so furious over such a vague "expose." What they should be doing is simply ignoring the whole thing, unless questioned specifically. By launching their own campaign against it, they're legitimizing the film -- which may actually be a good thing -- and giving it more attention than it may have otherwise received.
Personally, I think there are much bigger problems with the voting system than the machines that count the votes. Primaries, party politics, and campaign financing all throw much bigger wrenches into the gears than a couple of districts in Ohio that might have gotten shafted.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Well, if you do a German-to-English translation of "Diebold" on Babelfish, it comes back with "thief old".
Even worse, if you rearrange the letters of Diebold Election Systems, you get So Dems Lose Indetectibly.
Coincidence? You decide.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
You are so twisting the story.
1 4492
a s_the_2004_election_stolen
First off, you link to a new site which has reposted a blogger post from "Say Anything" blog - who apparently will say anything to make his point, even if it doesn't make sense. Most conclusions on his blog page are completely illogical.
The actual article to which you refer is here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/kmbc/20061102/lo_kmbc/102
and the leadership of ARORN had nothing to do with the fraud - they immediately fired the people involved.
Now contrast this to the litany of counter examples and suspicious patterns listed here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/w
"Pretty much pregnant"? Attacking the phrasing I used is needless. I made my point. To be honest, I did not "like" either candidate.
In response to the link you included, I never once stated that nobody else has an interest in rigging votes. I was NOT taking political sides here. A democrat is just as "able" to resort to such means as a republican. Your link merely backs up my assertion that vote tampering/harvesting is taking place. Thanks.
As far as the results in Florida being in question, have you actually researched that? I am not touting it as being "THE" truth, but the documentary "Farenheit 9/11" certainly raises questions about the validity of that race and the results of it. I research issues for my OWN benefit, NOT to persuade people to change their own opinions. If you look at my statements, you may notice that I suggest that readers view the show and then do their OWN research. I do NOT direct them to any information specifically, as that can be construed as biased information based on the idea that it was "provided"(such as the link you provided).
But I'll humor you. http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
The gist of my post was to point out that people need to inform themselves. In order to do so, one must have access to information. The documentary in question is simply that. It is not incontrovertable, thus my suggestion to follow up with research into the issue. Your statement that "just because the can, does not mean they are..." is besides the point. The simple fact that they CAN, is, in itself, sufficient justification to question the whole premise of e-voting.
The patterns in the exit-poll discrepancies that correlate with the use of electronic voting machines, the presence of Republican governors, and battle-ground states.
None of the various alternative hyphotheses that have been floated to explain this seem to hold water: e.g. were Bush fans reluctant to talk to pollsters? Answer no: it looks like there may have been some slight avoidance of pollsters on the part of Democrats.
Or do you mean "stolen" as in "trying to fake up thousands of democratic-leaning votes?
And by "thousands" you mean "about eight"? From TFA:
And no one has indicated, once, that there was anything suspect about the actual results. Plenty wrong with the people actually understanding how to cast a vote, but that's rather a different thing, isn't it.
Really? That's news to me. And to respected statisticians who have looked at the results:
So, other than just repeating that meme, what's your actual evidence that what you're saying is actually true?
Oh, I don't know. Means, motive, and opportunity, perhaps? Results that just don't add up? An unfortunate history of election fraud in certain parts of the South? (this coming from someone born and raised in Virginia) Grounds, at the very least, to count the paper ballots (the practive of which Florida attempted to ban somewhat recently)?
What I smell is a frenzied effort to have, in pocket, a handy explanation for why fewer people that some political camps might wish will actually vote they way they're stamping their feet and insisting that they do.
Indeed. Damned partisan hacks stamping their feet and trying to block out reality. How dare they?
-jdm
"The question is addressed to those enthusiasts that do care and will sort the matter out in a few hours..."
LOL. MOD PARENT UP. I love the feeling of power that technically knowledgeable people have. And it is increasing. (I'm not suggesting that anything illegal be done; I just love the feeling of knowing how things work.)
Talking about power, anyone need Diebold parts? You must have an account with them, but hey, no problem, right? Just tell the local elections boss, "Oh yes, we'll need two of those fazongas immediately." Response: "Well, if you say so, order them now." Check out the memory card at $155.00 for 128 MB. Ohhh, it's "industrial grade". Well, all right.
Off topic: Did you know that George W. Bush had a top-of-the-charts song written about him? The song, "American idiot", was number 1 on the music charts in Canada, number 3 in Britain, and in the top 10 in many other countries. No matter whether you vote Democrat or Republican, you'll have to admit that is amazing.
--
Funniest George W. Bush Comedy Videos
CHeck this out wow http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2609 065&page=1 news
No wonder i like opensource, we should be able to create a comunity sponsired project in direct oposition ti diebold, s%*t we do a better job than them at least.
"Too bad that bureaucrats' hunger for power is never matched by greater quantities of wisdom or intelligence!!--Could it
Much harder.
Especially considering that the Dow isn't a good direct indicator of economic health. If you consider how well the dollar isn't doing, the DOW isn't doing that hot.
The Bush spend and spend fiscal policy has pushed the US debt to the greatest it's ever been. As Alan Greenspan tried to explain, increasing the national debt is the worst thing you can do for the economic health of the US. At least the Democrats want to balance the income and the outgo, as anybody with a pocketbook and a job should understand.
As far as the Republicans being tougher on terrorism: prove it. Prove that Iraq wasn't a distraction from real terrorism. Prove that Iraq didn't contribute to terrorism, as a recent intelligence report indicates.
So, assuming you weren't being obliquely ironic, you are a nard. If you were being all ironical and stuff, I apologize. I'm not in the most subtle of moods right now, as there are a lot of Bush apologists out there, considering he's an asshat with a terrible approval rating, and I'm really worried that Bush and his gang have fucked us over to the point of no recovery.
In any case, Allah Be With You.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Let's see.
Tens of thousands of voters from poorer (usually Democratic) counties being erroneously included on a list of felons, thus not being allowed to vote. The list was compiled by a company in the employ of Republican campaigners.
Per-capita, older and fewer machines being sent to Democratic counties.
Unofficial recounts that indicate that Gore won.
State-initiated opposition to recount requests.
And the list goes on.
There's good, solid evidence the 2000 election was stolen, pure and simple. Whether it was intentional or not is another question. But there were more than enough anomalies without electronic voting to make it . . . irregular, to say the least.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Actually you said something rather juvenile and insipid. It doesn't really matter whether the machines are being used to favor democrats or republicans. I'm sure they get messed with by whomever happens to be running things in a particular district. The point is that they are bad for democracy. The implementations are extremely shoddy and provide no way to verify the actual vote that doesn't depend upon the machines that are already in question. Until such time as a sound, verifiable method of operation is implemented, these machines should not be used. Simple as that. And regardless of whatever bias you perceive, Slashdot has all sorts of people, and all sorts of opinions get aired here. If we all thought the same, we wouldn't have so many huge argument threads all the time.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You want actual, concrete evidence? OK. Here is a transcript of a piece that was originally broadcast in 2004 on This American Life, a syndicated public radio show out of Chicago:
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2004/10/jack_hitt _on_re_1.htm
I think it's pretty damning. If you want to refute the idea that there's shady stuff going on -- and that it's largely performed by Republicans -- the burden of proof is on you. Personally, I don't see why you could put anything past Rove, Cheney, or Rumsfeld. Why would you trust those people?
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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. -- Mark Twain
It wasn't Gore's intention to "game" the system by asking for the first recounts to be in those four counties in Florida. Rather, that was the legal mechanism he was supposed to follow in order to eventually trigger a state-wide recount. I think he should have taken a page from the Republican playbook and said "screw the law, we're going to win this in the court of public opinion and then make a new law". He should have loudly and immediately agitated for a full state-wide recount regardless of Florida's electoral procedures. He really opened himself up to Republican attacks by giving the appearance of wanting a selective recount.
There was, of course, one full state wide recount, the NORC recount done after the election by a consortium of media groups. That recount used six possible criteria for spoiled ballots and found that Al Gore won the state under all six scenarios. Further, the judge that would have ruled on a state wide recount said that he would have insisted that overvotes be counted, that is, votes where voters punched a chad for Gore and also filled the write-in field Gore due to ambiguous instructions. This alone would have given Gore more than enough votes to win the state and the presidency regardless of butterfly ballots and Katherine Harris's various manoeuvres.
And no one has indicated, once, that there was anything suspect about the actual results.
"In Precinct lB of Gahanna, in Franklin County, a computerized voting machine recorded a total of 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 votes for Kerry. In that precinct, however, there are only 800 registered voters, of whom 638 showed up. Once the "glitch" had been identified, the president had to be content with 3,893 fewer votes than the computer had awarded him."
Though, admittedly, that can't really be called "suspect" so much as "horrifying."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
- CEO promises to help Republicans win the vote
- CEO is actively involved in Bush re-election campaign
- CEO's company makes voting machine with no paper trail, no audit capability, no way at all to verify that the numbers being spit out are related to actual votes.
- Company's voting machines are used in states with close outcomes
- Company's voting machines are used in states whose election outcomes were starkly different from the straw polls, but the difference was not randomly distributed--the variation benefited only one political party, the very one the CEO promised to keep in office. Straw polls are mathematically reliable enough to be use to spot actual election fraud on other nations. Even if you don't consider them reliable, they are still used to spot election fraud, meaning statisticians do consider them reliable enough to analyze election results.
- People get suspicious
- People like you are suddenly mystified why the hell anyone would be skeptical. You can't think of any reason, any reason at all, why someone would be less than credulous about Diebold election machines.
It must be liberal bias, you say. Yep, liberal bias. Nothing to see here. Did you strike your head? I'm not calling you a flame or a troll--I'm calling you deliberately obtuse. Even if Diebold is in actuality as pure as the driven snow, even if in actuality their voting machines are not crooked, it still stinks to high heaven. There is EVERY reason to be skeptical. You have proven, admitted bias, plus a black-box voting scheme where it is (by design) possible to steal an election and not get caught, and then the results don't match the straw polls, the very polls that were considered reliable BEFORE your vote tallies didn't match them. Are you serious?"One common law I have a problem with: denying those with previous felony convictions the right to vote."
I agree wholeheartedly. These people have been through the fire, figuratively speaking, and they should have their votig rights restored. Treating them with some semblance of dignity, respect, and reacceptance after their incarceration could even help them integrate into normal society. That is unless you feel that "rehabilitation" is synonymous with "lifelong ostracism" as many people do.
It is outrageous that dead people and illegal aliens get to vote while someone with the same name as a registered felon who completed their prison term 20 years ago gets turned away from the voting booth. Selective enforcement of sufferage rights is tantamount to vote tampering and reeks to hell.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Anyway, here's the actual tallies from the NORC recount.
-PREVAILING STANDARD: County election officials told Florida journalists how they would define votes
if required to do a recount and in this scenario the majority standard was imposed statewide. In
punch-card counties, ballots with at least one corner of a chad detached counted as votes. In optical
scan counties, where voters are required to fill in blanks on a paper ballot - like on a standardized
test - ballots with any affirmative marks counted. That means a vote counted even if the oval was not
completely filled in or a candidate's name was circled or underlined; so did ballots on which a voter
correctly filled in the oval and also wrote the same candidate's name in the space for write-ins.
Result: Gore ahead by 60 votes.
-TWO-CORNER STANDARD: At least two corners of a chad must be detached to count as a vote, a position
that had been argued, at times, by Bush supporters. Same as prevailing standard for optical scan
ballots.
Result: Gore ahead by 105 votes.
-MOST INCLUSIVE: Ballots with dimpled chads count as votes, an argument often made by Gore supporters.
Same as prevailing standard for optical scan ballots.
Result: Gore ahead by 107 votes.
-LEAST INCLUSIVE: Only cleanly punched chads count as valid votes. For optical scan, only fully filled
ovals and those ballots on which a voter filled in the oval and wrote in the candidate's name, too.
Result: Gore ahead by 115 votes.
-COUNTY-by-COUNTY: Drawn from the county election officials. It accepts results from Broward and
Volusia counties because those counties completed hand counts that were included in state-certified
election totals. For those counties that said they would not count overvotes, relies on prevailing
standard.
Result: Gore ahead by 171 votes.
-PALM BEACH STANDARD: Based on a standard Palm Beach election officials briefly used, this counts
dimpled chads as valid votes if a pattern of dimpled chads exists elsewhere on the same ballot. Same as
prevailing standard for optical scan ballots.
Result: Gore ahead by 42 votes.
Here's some media reaction from the time:
A close examination of the ballots suggests that more Floridians attempted to choose
Gore over Bush.
-- Chicago Tribune
Gore would have won most recount scenarios that included "overvotes," ballots that
showed votes for more than one candidate. Democrats long have contended that a plurality of Florida voters intended to cast
their ballots for Gore but that thousands spoiled their votes because of confusing instructions, badly
designed ballots or other obstacles. The study adds evidence to bolster that case.
-- LA Times
One of the most compelling questions since the election has been: Who would have won
if all the uncounted ballots were hand-counted using the same standards? If that had happened using the counting methods most widely used in the state, the
study shows, Bush would have gotten an extra 3,607 votes, Gore an extra 4,204 -- giving Gore the state
by a scant 60-vote margin.
-- Orlando Sentinel
But if Gore had found a way to trigger a statewide recount of all disputed ballots,
or if the courts had required it, the result likely would have been different. An examination of
uncounted ballots throughout Florida found enough where voter intent was clear to give Gore the