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Kentucky Officials "Changed Votes At Voting Machines"
The indispensible jamie found a report out of Kentucky of exactly the kind of shenanigans that voting-transparency advocates have been warning about: a circuit court judge, a county clerk, and election officials are among eight people indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. As described in the indictment (PDF), the election officials divvied up money intended to buy votes and then changed votes on the county's (popular, unverifiable) ES&S touch-screen voting systems, affecting the outcome of elections at the local, state, and federal levels.
Elected officials subverted the voice of the people for personal profit. Execute them. I am serious. There needs to be an example made, quickly and decisively.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Apparently the people told voters that hitting the "Vote" button would complete their vote, when it actually just brought up a confirmation screen. It was after the voter left that the people charged went and changed the votes, then completed the vote.
So, yeah, that's definite election fraud and those involved should go to jail for a nice long stretch. But the headline leads you to believe this was somehow a voting machine flaw, rather than a social engineering attack based around shitty UI design ("Vote" means vote, not, "Confirm my Choices").
From the article:
, the Election Day scheme, carried out in primary and general elections in at least 2004 and 2006, was accomplished by taking advantage of a "feature" on all DRE (usually touch-screen) voting systems and "voter unfamiliarity with new voting machines."
Essentially, they tricked voters into leaving the 'booth' after pressing the "Vote" button on the ES&S iVotronic. That button, does not actually cast the vote, as one might think (and as these voters were told), but instead, it brings up a review screen of the voter's "ballot."
So this looks like basic social engineering, not exploiting any specific flaws of the electronic machine (other than poor UI design).
I suspect that in elections from 2000 to 2006, the standards of democracy in the US fell to below what we would consider acceptable in emerging democracies. Where there would be monitoring from outside observers.
Actually, many international Organizations wanted to monitor the US-american elections.
They were not allowed.
Go figure...
a circuit court judge, a county clerk, and election officials are among eight people indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006
You see, this is why I don't vote;
Those guys are much more qualified to pick a candidate than I am. Why bother?-)
The flaw exploited would be the fact that the voter had no 'receipt' or evidence of what they voted. Had there been such a thing, nobody would leave without it.
Perhaps this AC is under the impression that the Slashdot demographic is primarily democratic? I observe that we have quite a mix here and if there is anything disproportionate from the general public, it would be a larger than normal portion of Libertarians and other alternatives.
Democrats and Republicans are both evil in their own ways. They both serve the interests of business and heavy contributors. Their games are very well established and you can't get elected through any of those parties unless you play their games and participate most fully. (Gotta get dirty with them to keep the political career going.)
(What we need is a "judge dread" to clean the system out... the system will not clean itself out.)
Quite so.
But it should be pointed out that /. tends to mention the Party of a wrongdoer if the wrongdoer is Republican, and omit it if he's a Democrat.
Sorry, treason is explicitly defined in the Constitution. I doubt seriously the definition can be stretched to fit this.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It might be easier if you ask them who paid BEFORE they are swinging from the rope. Unless you plan on hanging them by their ankles.
But it should be pointed out that /. tends to mention the Party of a wrongdoer if the wrongdoer is Republican, and omit it if he's a Democrat.
You must be new here. /. is full of Liberation engineers and IT industry protectionists. Neither of which really have a home in the US two party system. You might confuse the trend in the last 8 years of Bush bashing with Democratic leaning, but it was actually just a low tolerance for idiocy. Rest assured, the idiots in the current majority party will also be called out.
Voting machines can work .... but ....
Press the button on the the screen marked "Obama" the machine prints out your vote...you check it says you have voted for Obama , you put this in the ballot box
What you put in the ballot box is not kept by you ...
It is easily machine readable so is quick to count ...
The voting machine does not need to remember who voted, how many votes etc ...it cannot be gamed
The paper voting slip is as anonymous and as verifiable as the old "place cross here" system ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Alas, it doesn't really matter what /. is "full of". But it is true that the Party of a Republican in the news tends to be mentioned in the summary, while the Party of a Democrat in the news tends to be quietly ignored in the summary.
Note this case as an example. Nowhere does it mention that the people doing this were Democrats, though it wasn't terribly hard to determine.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
No way. Absolutely not. Secret ballot is vital to our system. It allows people to vote without ANY outside influence. People can vote their minds and not their peer pressures. Secret ballot removes outside influence on votes. There is no other way around that.
Actually, it clearly says that WW and CW were the Democrat and Republican election officials for a certain precinct. Meaning that both Democrats and Republicans were in on it.
--The FNP
Vote for Joe Schmoe and bring me the receipt to prove you did it or you'll lose your job", that type of thing.
No, it's not a lottery ticket that you take home. The voter checks the receipt and immediately puts it in a box or something. It is an audit trail that election officials can check against the electronic count.
I'd trust this story a whole lot more if Slashdot had quoted the actual newspaper article rather than the frothing partisan political hackblogger's "report."
If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
Really...How is the ejection going on all those tax cheats like Rangel?
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
All politicians are liars and crooks.
I choose the party that's going to steal for me.
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