Court Filing On How 2004 Ohio Election Hacked

chimpo13 writes "A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush."

Comments

This just proves

[EraserMouseMan]

hhat we need a bigger more anti-Republican government to control the election process.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

or a nonpartisan transparent one that works and is sized in proportion to the population, area governed, world role, and gdp

Re:This just proves

[cgenman]

Sadly, I fear that the DNC response is probably "We need to figure out how to do that too."

Re:This just proves

[Jawnn]

Sadder still, the electorate will continue to care more about American Idol, instead of rising up in utter outrage about what has been done to their nation.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

They already do. It's called "ACORN." How do you think Obama won in 2008?

That said, didn't a recent commission investigate the Ohio election in 2004 and found something like four instances of fraud, total? I could have sworn that was in the news recently.

Re:This just proves

[ravenshrike]

They're working on how to export the Chicago model to the rest of the country instead.

Re:This just proves

[kilfarsnar]

I'm not sure they haven't. I have been following this story for years, since I learned there were shenanigans going on with the electronic voting. Back before the 2008 election, Hillary pulled a surprise victory in the New Hampshire primary, defying exit polling. After what went on in 2000 and 2004, it caught my notice. If you accept the theory that there is a power elite that stands behind the government, these rigged voting machines could be used to swing elections in any number of ways.

Re:This just proves

[dkleinsc]

Actually, what you need is a political culture in your state that values integrity and good ideas over party loyalty. A great example of this is New Hampshire: Their Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, has been in office since 1976, throughout both Democratic and Republican governorships and legislatures, mostly because he's very good at his job and widely seen as valuing clean elections expressing the will of the voters.

Compare that to Ohio, where Secretary of State is often a very politicized position and where Ken Blackwell (the defendant) was doing everything he could to ensure that his party would win. These kinds of things were widely reported in newspapers:
- Rejecting voter registrations from heavily Democratic areas because they were on the wrong paper stock.
- Rejecting voter registrations from liberal political groups because they had, in order to comply with applicable laws, submitted all the registration forms they got, including ones from Mickey Mouse and the like.
- Refusing to do anything at all about churches explicitly endorsing Republican candidates (if a religious body endorses a candidate, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status).
- Putting fewer voting machines in precincts likely to vote Democrat than in precincts likely to vote Republican, so that Democratic voters had to wait for hours to vote while Republican voters took about 15-30 minutes.

Re:This just proves

[Lumpy]

Minorities came out to vote in larger numbers than the rich old whites did.

Honestly, you Repubs should be very afraid. If someone finally motivates the Poor and Minorities to get out and vote, all of your GOP candidates in every election will lose in a landslide as the poor outnumber you 100 to1.

The problem is that most poor and minorities do not trust anyone in government as all they do is screw them. If someone get's past that you are utterly doomed.

Honestly, the best thing Obama could do is have press conferences publicly smearing the GOP. "The republicans want to protect the rich while screwing the poor, I am fighting for the poor! remember this in the next election!"

If he pulled that on TV in every speech and was able to motivate the masses.... it would be game over.

Re:This just proves

[AlamedaStone]

I'm not crazy about monolithic elite-class conspiracies, but I could buy into competing elite-class conspiracies. I don't think the same interests would be served by both GWB and HRC administrations.

Re:This just proves

[Opportunist]

But while we're at it, why not replace the old fashion voting with an American Idol style one? I mean, it's not like money didn't already rule the whole deal, let's at least be honest about it. And while we're at it, we could use that lot of 1-900 money to balance the budget.

It's not like it matters what sock puppet sits on the throne.

Re:This just proves

[sycodon]

"Just remember, this is the United States of America. We write 80 million checks a month. There are millions and millions of Americans that depend on those checks coming on time," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner

Well, THERE's your problem.

And of course, it seems the more he talks, the less people like him.

Re:This just proves

[JediOSU]

(if a religious body endorses a candidate, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status) - only if its a 501(c)(3) a church doesn't have to be 501(c)(3) to be tax exempt

Re:This just proves

[shadowfaxcrx]

That would be closer to the truth if the sock puppet wasn't able to start wars (whether he calls them wars or not) at a whim and with no oversight.

Re:This just proves

[Lance Dearnis]

Or, take a look at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401441.html where you have the evidence of election staff being -convicted- of tampering with the election! Ohio law requires that 3% of votes be manually counted as selected at random, and if there's a discrepancy, to have a full recount to weed out potential tampering; this is a case where workers were convicted of picking ballots they knew would not force a recount.

We need to actually have a system for revotes rather then recounts in our elections. We've had multiple tainted elections now. Wish to god people cared enough to have fair elections in America.

Re:This just proves

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Actually it just proves that we should trust neither slashdot nor truth-out.org for headlines. If you read TFA it essentially says that a case is made that the architecture made it *possible* for fraud to have occurred; and TFA is apparently trying to slant that as proof that it *did* occur. It is less clear whether or not those pursuing the case are trying to make the same point; or if their point is only to prove that the architecture allowed the possibility of fraud.

Re:This just proves

[fruitbane]

So long as each state is wholly responsible for their own election standards and processes, even for presidential elections, there will be no way to address problems centrally in an organized fashion.

Re:This just proves

[TheGratefulNet]

+1 insightful.

I agree with you, if he called it for what it is, a class rebellion, the 1000x poor folks vs the 1x rich folks would finally have their say!

but think about it - 100.0% of the politicians are NOT the poor folks! they and their cronies will be up against the wall when the rev comes. no one in power WANTS the revolution; they have everything to lose!

calling attention on class struggle is never going to happen here. obama, while black, still acts like a 'rich spoiled white guy'. he's not a leader of his people OR the poor or even the middle class.

you can't expect the fat cats who are PART of the system to want to change the system. that's foolishness.

Re:This just proves

[Vidar Leathershod]

Yeah, because poor people are poor as a result of rich people stealing from them. Yeah, this works with uneducated people, and people who for whatever reason are just born with fewer mental capabilities. But, as you said, not only do some blame others for their poverty or other problems in their lives, they also have that same outlook in politics. Somebody else is responsible for the morons that get sent to Washington.

In reality, of course, those people who feel that they are primarily responsible for their outcomes tend to do things to improve their own lives. They also tend to be more conservative, and try to spread the message of their success to others. As a result, they are often vilified as some servant of the white/rich man, as if they were a paid spokesperson. Instead of looking at the success and learning from it, the feeling of victimhood and jealousy and anger intensifies.

This does indeed work for some socialists, especially if they have some public speaking skills. They are able to harness that emotional response, tie it in with the rest of their platform, and get some votes. Between those, and the wealthy individuals who have a subconscious sense of superiority ("they can't help themselves, we should do it for them!") while maintaining a conscious sense of guilt (albeit a small one, as they want to give someone else's money away), they manage to win elections in mostly urban areas. One needs only look at the messy candidates that rise out of New York and Chicago. Especially in State-level politics.

Luckily, there are enough people still living in rural America who really have to put their nose to the grindstone to become successful. They can't rely on a city job to make a lot of money by the time they are 35. It usually takes more time, and they learn while they earn. They learn how hard it is to start and run a business, to meet payroll obligations, work shifts when employees are sick, deal with various state and federal regulatory agencies. Some consider themselves to be Democrats (mostly due to family history). They will vote for Obama. Start talking in a direct way about how the rich are screwing the poor, and they will vote for the other guy. They may stay "Democrat", but future "D" candidates will be more coy about their class warfare politics.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

Minorities came out to vote in larger numbers than the rich old whites did.

Honestly, you Repubs should be very afraid. If someone finally motivates the Poor and Minorities to get out and vote, all of your GOP candidates in every election will lose in a landslide as the poor outnumber you 100 to1.

The problem is that most poor and minorities do not trust anyone in government as all they do is screw them. If someone get's past that you are utterly doomed.

Honestly, the best thing Obama could do is have press conferences publicly smearing the GOP. "The republicans want to protect the rich while screwing the poor, I am fighting for the poor! remember this in the next election!"

If he pulled that on TV in every speech and was able to motivate the masses.... it would be game over.

Yes, fear the ignorant, unhealthy folks and the minority of people!

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

obama, while half black, still acts like a 'rich spoiled half white guy'.

FIFU

Re:This just proves

[Grizzley9]

Actually, what you need is a political culture in your state that values integrity and good ideas over party loyalty. A great example of this is New Hampshire: Their Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, has been in office since 1976, throughout both Democratic and Republican governorships and legislatures, mostly because he's very good at his job and widely seen as valuing clean elections expressing the will of the voters.

Compare that to Ohio, where Secretary of State is often a very politicized position and where Ken Blackwell (the defendant) was doing everything he could to ensure that his party would win. These kinds of things were widely reported in newspapers: - Rejecting voter registrations from heavily Democratic areas because they were on the wrong paper stock. - Rejecting voter registrations from liberal political groups because they had, in order to comply with applicable laws, submitted all the registration forms they got, including ones from Mickey Mouse and the like. - Refusing to do anything at all about churches explicitly endorsing Republican candidates (if a religious body endorses a candidate, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status). - Putting fewer voting machines in precincts likely to vote Democrat than in precincts likely to vote Republican, so that Democratic voters had to wait for hours to vote while Republican voters took about 15-30 minutes.

Honestly, these seem like bogus claims after the fact to justify the result. Just giving some possible explanations to these generic claims. Wrong paper stock? Could be due to mass manufactured forms and fake names. Rejecting voter regs from liberal political groups. I notice you carefully don't say all forms were rejected. Proof of church related sponsorship of a candidate would need to be implicit and you know, have actual proof, not hearsay. About the number of voting machines? Some places always have longer wait times to vote. Couching it as a election manipulation is just sad unless there is again more than hearsay.

Re:This just proves

[hairyfeet]

And the real bitch? They didn't need to hack shit to rig the election, just run off those they didn't want to vote. Look up videos taken in Ohio of the 04 election and you'll see the poor neighborhoods would get one or two broke ass machines while the rich areas got MUCH more machines than required, those that tried to hand voters a slip that pointed out their right to ask for a provisional ballot, since they were making people wait several hours in line only to tell them "you're in the wrong place" and expect them to go do it all over again were first threatened and then arrested, the whole thing was a scam from the word go.

Of course with BOTH parties now owned legally by the megacorps thanks to Citizens United you might as well not bother, hell the ballots might as well only have two choices "Show your love, vote for supermegacorp!" or "Teach those guys in DC a lesson, vote for supermegacorp!".

Re:This just proves

[gnick]

Honestly, you Repubs should be very afraid. If someone finally motivates the Poor and Minorities to get out and vote, all of your GOP candidates in every election will lose in a landslide as the poor outnumber you 100 to1.

I agree with most of your sentiment, but this is a little ridiculous. If the poor outnumber the rich 100-to-1, that makes them 99%+ of the population. In that case, unless you're defining the entire nation as impoverished (which would be really shallow considering third world conditions), they're not poor, they're average. The remaining 1% would just be richer than average.

Unless of course I misinterpreted and you're suggesting that 99%+ of the population constitutes a minority rather than the "poor"...

Re:This just proves

[ArcherB]

Look up videos taken in Ohio of the 04 election and you'll see the poor neighborhoods would get one or two broke ass machines while the rich areas got MUCH more machines than required, those that tried to hand voters a slip that pointed out their right to ask for a provisional ballot, since they were making people wait several hours in line only to tell them "you're in the wrong place" and expect them to go do it all over again were first threatened and then arrested, the whole thing was a scam from the word go.

You do realize that elections, even federal ones, are handled locally, right? This means that if "poor neighborhoods" had faulty equipment, then it was the fault of the local officials who brought in faulty equipment. It's not like Karl Rove sat in his command center and dictated which precincts would get what equipment. These decisions are made locally, just as the "butterfly ballot" in Florida 2000 was designed by a Democrat.

Re:This just proves

[ArcherB]

So long as each state is wholly responsible for their own election standards and processes, even for presidential elections, there will be no way to address problems centrally in an organized fashion.

You could also say:
So long as each state is wholly responsible for their own election standards and processes, even for presidential elections, there will be no way to corrupt them centrally in an organized fashion.

Re:This just proves

[bucky0]

Not to comment at all on the rest of it (I've got a paper to write!) but, I thought it was strange people jumped on that number and conflated it to mean that our government is supporting 80 million freeloaders (not saying you specifically, but if you look at the rabid articles about it on the internet, that's the impression I get)

a) There's no comparison made to other countries, so that's just an arbitrary measurement in arbitrary units (If I told you the higgs boson was 114 GeV, and didn't give you any sense of scale, would you think that was big or small?)

b) When you look at the breakdown, 55 million of those checks come from only social security. Are we now arguing that people who collect SS are freeloaders?

c) Of the remaining 35 million checks, 10 million checks comes from tax refunds (they obviously cluster around april 15th, but when you amortize it, it's 10 million/month)

d) We're down to 25 million checks then, and pay for veterans benefits (4.1 mil), retirements (2.6 mil), and contractors (1.4 mil) out of that leaving us with ~16.9 million or so checks.

The breakdown I found has more categories, but I picked off all the things that would be pretty non-contentious (I didn't include medicare or medicade, which seems to be a lot of people's big target these things). It's not like our government is a freewheeling money-printing machine like people keep making it out to be

Re:This just proves

[rednip]

Republican success money raising and voter turnout is clearly a winning strategy, and then you wonder why so many Democrats are eager to take the money and issues? Wow.

Re:This just proves

[ArcherB]

Actually it just proves that we should trust neither slashdot nor truth-out.org for headlines. If you read TFA it essentially says that a case is made that the architecture made it *possible* for fraud to have occurred; and TFA is apparently trying to slant that as proof that it *did* occur. It is less clear whether or not those pursuing the case are trying to make the same point; or if their point is only to prove that the architecture allowed the possibility of fraud.

TFA is guilty of not having any idea how computers work. They claim the vote totals were manipulated by a "man in the middle" machine that received votes from the precincts, changed them, and then forwarded them on be counted. The site assumes that electronic data is the same as paper data, meaning that once you send it, you no longer have a copy of it. The article never makes any attempt to show that the data forwarded by the supposed "man in the middle" computer was somehow different than the data it received and even implies that such verification would be impossible. All TFA does is say that the servers that collected the data changed it, as if it were fact, for no other reason than a result they didn't expect, even though it matched polling data prior to the election.

Here is just a single example of the crap from the article (emphasis mine):

The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.

So the vote totals went from the precincts (article doesn't say how GovTech received the data or where from, so we have to assume), and sent it to a "partisan Republican server", (can a server be partisan?) out of state, which is where the vote totals changed. What happened to the totals after they hit SmarTech? Does SmarTech host a website that simply posts vote totals to the public? Article doesn't say. We are left to assume that somehow, SmarTech then forwarded the totals to the Ohio Secretary of State. So, according to TFA, the votes went like this: precincts --> GovTech --> SmarTech --> (We don't know, but somewhere official), instead of precincts --> Secretary of State servers. Why?

Seriously? No independent, or even partisan group has bother to look at the vote totals, reported precinct by precinct on every news network in America received directly from the precincts themselves, and realized that the numbers that reported then were different than the final count?

This article is pure BS. I think the point is to accuse Republicans of vote tampering to insulate the Democrats from any accusations in the next election. Or maybe they are just hoping that GWB was never really elected. Who knows. It's BS either way.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

At the very least you are saying that the poor shouldn't be able to place votes if they can't afford the machines. Sad really to see the long term results of the reactionary media on otherwise logical people.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not 'their' country. It belongs to the rich and the corporations. The bottom 98% are just fuel for the machines and the sooner they learn their place and glory in their usefulness to their betters, the smoother this transition will be.

Re:This just proves

[DavidTC]

He was using 'tax exempt' as a shorthand for donations to it are tax exempt.

There are various types of non-profits that exist in various ways. 501(c)(3) is 'charitable' organizations. To be a 'charity', which means people can donate money to it and those donations be tax deductible, it cannot endorse a political candidate. It must serve the public good, or at least not do various things that the government explicitly excludes from 'the public good' list, and promoting individual candidates or legislation is the most obvious exclusion. (And the other most obvious one is that it must be organized to help society at large, or at least some subset of society, and not just members.)

Other non-profits, generally under the 501(c) area of code, do not have to, for example, pay income tax, but people cannot deduct donations to them from their taxes. For example, the Freemasons are a 501(c)(10). You cannot deduct the dues to the Freemasons from your taxes.

Almost all churches attempt to fall under the 501(c)(3) 'charity' banner. If they endorse candidates, they risk losing their 'charity' status, which means people cannot get a tax deduction from donations to them.

The law's over here. Although the 'you can deduct the donation from your taxes to a 501(c)(3)' rule is somewhere over under the personal income tax code.

Re:This just proves

[number11]

You do realize that elections, even federal ones, are handled locally, right? This means that if "poor neighborhoods" had faulty equipment, then it was the fault of the local officials who brought in faulty equipment.

That is true, if by "locally" you mean "whoever controls the state level or lower". The state (at least my state, in Wisconsin apparently it's whatever political hack holds the county clerk job and has a copy of Excel on her personal computer) "type approves" equipment and software. ((rant)My municipality has chosen to use Ranked Choice Voting, but three years later is still hobbled because the state has not approved equipment and software. OSS is not in the running because it doesn't have a "manufacturer" who will pay the fees and post bond. ( /rant)) Local (county or municipal) officials purchase, maintain, assign equipment to voting places. The "poor neighborhoods" have little control on their own, it's whoever controls the municipal/county political machine.

Re:This just proves

[JediOSU]

thanks for the clarification

Re:This just proves

[Hartree]

Guess I don't understand things. I thought that the mantra last year was Republicans were large numbers of ignorant rural tea party types in the flyover states like the one I live in. And that they were the unwashed hoards that eroded Democrat numbers in the elections last year.

But now, you're saying that they're old rich whites and few in number.

Or is it all the result of vote fraud. Like the well known legacy of vote fraud in that Republican bastion of Chicago?

(Actually, I think it proves you have a somewhat distorted view of the electorate, and what the voters in both parties are really like. Here's a clue. You likely met at least one of each in the past day and thought them quite unremarkable. i.e. "They", whichever "they" you're referencing are us.)

Re:This just proves

[Dishevel]

RNC uses computers.
DNC uses dead union members.

Re:This just proves

[nschubach]

The fact that it matters that he's "half anything" is the biggest problem. I was kind of hoping that we would have gotten over the whole race thing and not made such a big deal about the color of our President but it seems that racism still has some way to go. I guess it's pure naivety on my part since we still have organizations setup simply to "benefit" people based on race.

Re:This just proves

[Doc Ruby]

No, the elections are run by the state they're in, not "locally". In Ohio, they're run by the Secretary of State, who was Ken Blackwell. That's why Blackwell is the defendant in this court case. Blackwell was also simultaneously the Bush/Cheney 2004 Ohio Campaign Manager, the clearest possible conflict of interest. Evidently that conflict itself is not illegal in Ohio, though it's probably up to the SoS (Blackwell) whether that conflict is prohibited. But in this case the conflict evidently saw the Bush/Cheney campaign manager to change the votes cast to hand Bush/Cheney the state's Electoral Votes. Not to mention how the conflict saw Blackwell short poor/Black (Democratic) neighborhoods of machines in which to cast original votes.

And of course Ken Blackwell executed directly to whatever plans Karl Rove dictated to him. That's what state campaign managers' jobs are. And both of them have lied about it for years now.

The real question is why you are lying about how elections are run. You're a Republican, right? And don't tell me you're a "Libertarian", or an "independent". Did you vote for Bush in 2004? 2000?

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

"It belongs to the rich and the corporations."

... and the unions and the other special interest groups..

Re:This just proves

[Doc Ruby]

The top 2% of Americans own 80% of the wealth. That's 99% "poor" compared to the vastly richer people at the top. The bottom 20% own less than 1%.

The ratios aren't precisely 100:1, but the actual ratios are bad enough.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't care if you are rich or poor.
The stupid though should be prevented from voting at all costs.

Re:This just proves

[haruchai]

A dear friend of mine, one of the most talented and intelligent women I've ever met, fluent in 6 languages and a certified pilot on several large jets incl Boeing 767s complained on Facebook that Obama ( who she likes and voted for ) annoyed her by interrupting her viewing of the Bachelorette.

Re:This just proves

[Dishevel]

Then you have the states.

10 Million people getting unemployment checks.

Fuck. In California they have decided that there are not enough people getting food stamps.
In order to get more they changed the name of the program to "Cal Fresh" and are spending shiloads of tax dollars to advertize
how awesome it is to get government handouts.

Don't get me wrong. I have no love for the Pubs.
I live in California though. Here the Dems have 100% control over the state.
When they tell me they need to spend more of my tax money because not enough people are taking full advantage of my tax money
I get upset. I get upset at the program of course but more than that it pisses me off that you can say that.

Shouldn't that have to be some hushed up back room deal that could never see the light of day to work.
How did we get so all fuck stupid that we can sit there and watch commercials encouraging people to get on "The Welfare"?

Re:This just proves

[mevets]

ditto for arrogant, self-aggrandizing dolts.

Re:This just proves

[Grishnakh]

The breakdown I found has more categories, but I picked off all the things that would be pretty non-contentious (I didn't include medicare or medicade, which seems to be a lot of people's big target these things).

What's contentious about MediCare, unless you're an extremist? MC is just like SS: it's something you pay into when you're young, and then you receive payments when you're old. It just has a different aim; SS gives you a pension, while MC is health insurance for old people. But it's certainly not freeloading, because you have to pay into the system with your FICA taxes of 15% while you're working. Taking away MC is basically stealing, because those people paid into the system for decades of their working years, so it's only fair that they receive the benefits they were promised in return for their contributions.

Medicaid of course is a separate issue as it's not funded by contributions from working people to be returned to them later, it's a hand-out to the poor who never paid into the system, and that money has to come from somewhere.

b) When you look at the breakdown, 55 million of those checks come from only social security. Are we now arguing that people who collect SS are freeloaders?

Actually, many of them are. SS isn't one system, it's two systems with the same name. Part of the system is a retirement pension system, where people pay in when they're working, and then collect a pension after they retire. This obviously is not freeloading at all, and IMO should be strongly protected because these people were made a promise. The other part of the system is for poor and disabled people who frequently haven't paid into the system at all. This part is rife with abuse, and isn't funded by contributions from the recipients. How many of those 55 million checks are going to illegal immigrants with anchor babies, people who have a "bad back", etc.? While some recipients here may be genuinely needy, it's not a system funded by the recipients' contributions, but by the taxpayer, and worse it's full of people who are leaches on the system.

Re:This just proves

[pixelpusher220]

There goes most of /. (me included ;-) )

Re:This just proves

[Grishnakh]

I was kind of hoping that we would have gotten over the whole race thing and not made such a big deal about the color of our President but it seems that racism still has some way to go.

The problem is that all his supporters still make a big deal out of his color, and worse, accuse anyone who doesn't like him of being a racist, even when he's doing things exactly the way Bush did, or in some cases, doing things much worse than Bush. I don't think 6-year-old children had to worry about being molested at airports when Bush was President, but now with Obama in office, they do. There were also a lot less troops in Afghanistan when Bush was Pres, but with warmonger Obama we're now involved in not two, but three wars.

Re:This just proves

[Doc Ruby]

Thanks for that clear, concise and cited explanation ("cexplanation"? ;).

Re:This just proves

[Reverand Dave]

yeah voter turnout is real great when you get the votes for everyone, not just the people that voted for you as well as disallowing people to vote against you to vote at all.

Re:This just proves

[enjerth]

Do the judges get 1 save to use to override a vote and save their favorite candidate?

Re:This just proves

[Monchanger]

"Just remember, this is the United States of America. We write 80 million checks a month. There are millions and millions of Americans that depend on those checks coming on time," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner

Well, THERE's your problem.

I have no idea what your point actually was, if you even had one, but assuming it was intended to be related to the post you responded to here goes...
80 million checks a month has little to do with the poor and suggesting otherwise reeks of ignorance and/or intentional deceit. That number includes active duty, reserves, VA, federal employees, student loans, as well tens of thousands of federal contractors and other service providers (doctors who are paid by medicare/medicaid) who otherwise would not have the ability to meet private payrolls.
Social security (which is a large part of the 80) isn't strictly related to poverty. I'm comfortably above the median household income and I qualify to get one of those checks when I retire. So I may be among the few who don't strictly "depend" on a check per the Geithner quote. Then, if the 80 million figure is based on a yearly average including tax refunds, those would account for over ten million checks a month (111M individual refunds a year, which is before counting businesses & non-profits), which again is not related to poverty. Again, many of these aren't included in the "depending on" category but many are, including small private businesses.
Rhetoric-debunking aside, shutting down government, which the Republicans nearly did on the budget, and are so casually playing around with again now is a serious short-term issue to millions of citizens even before the longer-term implications of default. If those millions properly attributed their hardship to the Tea Party and its blind faith in a ridiculous economic anti-theory and acted on it, election results would be obvious, as Lumpy pointed out.

As for your quip about people not liking Obama because of his speeches, the WaPo article doesn't state that. Rather, it's that people are eating up his opponents' rhetoric about a supposed lack of job increases and an "obsession with tax hikes" as well as the usual misattributed economic conditions (e.g. the $80 gasoline bit, which isn't under presidential control, yet they always get blamed for it). If anything reflects on the president himself it's his lack of ability to act (the expectation built during his campaign) which is distressing those who voted for him. There's no evidence that people are turned off by what he has to say- that's just you pushing the right-wing agenda in portraying Obama as the extreme leftist he most certainly is not.

Re:This just proves

[pixelpusher220]

10 Million people getting unemployment checks.

That. They. Paid. For. You and your employer pay unemployment premiums so that if you get laid off, you have *something* coming in.

Now ask yourself what caused so many people to get laid off? It wasn't anything Obama did....

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

The DNC will just try to get more people in to vote. There are plenty of graveyards that they haven't canvassed yet, especially in Mexico.

Re:This just proves

[tbannist]

You do realize that the machines in question were owned by the State of Ohio and the machines for poor neighbourhoods were re-allocated by Kenneth Blackwell, the states returning officer and head of the state campaign to elect George Bush (an obvious conflict of interest that should never have been allowed) to more affluent neighbourhoods?

This decision was made by a guy who publicly promised that his state would vote for G.W.B. before voting had even started.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, the best thing Obama could do is have press conferences publicly smearing the GOP. "The republicans want to protect the rich while screwing the poor, I am fighting for the poor! remember this in the next election!"

Isn't that exactly what he does in every single speach he gives? He blaims the republicans, he blaims George W Bush, and he blaims rich white people. He never accepts the fact that HIS actions have caused most of the current problems.

He has spent more during his first two years than ALL of the previous presidents combined. Now the government needs the debt ceiling raised, again. This he blaims on rich white people.

He has not been able to get a budget to vote, even though the democrats had a supermajority, and could force laws through, like Obamacare, without a single republican vote. Yet he blaims this on the republicans.

The arabs hate him, the Israiles are starting to. All he wants is to have the nuslems love him, so he snubs the Israil prime minister, making him use the servents entrance at the White House, and tells them that they need to give up even more to people who are constantly killing them. It hasn't worked in the past, but Obama is sure that it will work this time.

The unemployment figure is over 9% for most of his term, even though he has spent over $200,000 per job to save/create them. And that figure doesn't include those who have completely given up. If you include those, it's probably over 17%. His solution, tax the rich white people. Obviously taking even more money from business owners will create more jobs.

I guess I'm a typical white person, who is terrified when he sees a black person. Can't even name all the 58 states. I'd say more, but my teleprompter just shut down.

Re:This just proves

[SnarfQuest]

Wow, way to rip Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner a new one, since it's a direct quote from him that upsets you so much.

Re:This just proves

[tbannist]

No, there already is a way to corrupt them centrally in an organized fashion: it's called political parties.

As long as the same parties are running in each state, then there will exist a central organization to corrupt them. In fact it's probably much easier to corrupt the election without anyone noticing when you have 50 different sets of arcane rules.

Re:This just proves

[tbannist]

Seriously?

They faked the results of a recount to try and avoid a full recount.

Smartech was owned by Bush and Blackwell hired them to server as a "mirror" in case of failure, then when it looked like Bush wasn't going to win in Ohio even with the other dirty tricks he pulled, Blackwell sent the people responsible for running the systems home and moved operations over to the "failover", giving Bush (and more importantly Cheney) direct control over the machine where the vote counts were being stored. Yeah, I'm sure that's perfectly legit. There's absolutely no conflict of interest in the Head of the Ohio Campaign to elect Bush to unilaterally turn over the final vote counting to a company owned by Bush. Frankly, we may never know absolutely 100% sure if fraud occurred, but frankly, if it looks like fraud, smells like fraud, and sounds like fraud, it probably is fraud.

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

You and the other moron completely miss the point. The Government has become a giant tit that everyone sucks at. Some necessarily so, but the vast majority of those draining the government dry do so because of decades of congressional morons adding program after program after program and that were/are either necessary altogether or could have been handled by private concerns.

You are looking individual trees and I'm saying the whole fucking forest is on fire. Time to make a fire break and to do that some trees have to die.

Re:This just proves

[EraserMouseMan]

Exactly. If you don't like the way your vote got counted become an activist at the state level. Not the Federal level. Regulate your state's problems within your own state. Leave the other states alone.

Re:This just proves

[dcavanaugh]

What I have seen is the opposite. In many states, ID requirements are weak, and urban districts are notorious for less than robust verification of IDs. Illegal aliens have a number of ways to slip through the cracks and vote. Although the Ohio system may have been designed to facilitate fraud, the low-tech systems of other states were designed to facilitate other types of fraud. There are many ways to rig an election.

The beneficiaries of tax-and-spend policy are those who receive the spending, not those who pay the taxes. Considering how much money gets pumped into welfare and medicaid, I find it hard to believe that poor people are under-represented at the voting booth.

Re:This just proves

[bucky0]

Sorry, I wasn't really articulate. I wasn't trying to say that people collecting SS or medicare/medicaid were freeloaders. I was just frustrated at the number of people who saw the 80 million checks/month quote, then conflated it to mean that there was 80 million people getting money from the government every month, and they're obviously all idiots and we should cut all that spending, etc etc..

Re:This just proves

[superdave80]

The top 2% of Americans own 80% of the wealth

Nope, it's closer to 20% own 80% of the wealth:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/estimates-of-wealth-distribution-are-widely-wrong

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#half-of-america-has-25-of-the-wealth-2

Is it fun pulling numbers out of the air to try to make your point?

And just because you aren't in the top 2% or top 20% doesn't make you poor.

The ratios aren't precisely 100:1...

If by 'aren't precisely' you mean 'aren't anywhere close too', then your statement is correct.

Re:This just proves

[Grishnakh]

Sorry if I'm being a nit-picker, I was just pointing out that 1) only a nut would describe Medicare recipients as "freeloaders", but 2) part of those Social Security checks (the non-pension ones) in fact DO go to "freeloaders", and your numbers don't separate the two SS programs.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, Medicare is actually part of Social Security, or more properly, the "Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" (OASDI) program. From Wikipedia: "The larger and better known programs are:
        * Federal Old-Age (Retirement), Survivors, and Disability Insurance
        * Unemployment benefits
        * Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
        * Health Insurance for Aged and Disabled (Medicare)
        * Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs (Medicaid)
        * State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
        * Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
        * Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"

Many of these can certainly be called "freeloading". The first line lumps together retirement pensioners, survivors, and disability recipients. The first is certainly not freeloading, the second might be, and the third easily could be (and from what I've seen, is rife with abuse). The second line isn't freeloading, as that's generally paid by separate unemployment insurance contributions I believe. But the third is obviously something that could be called "freeloading", as it's not paid by the recipients. The fourth is Medicare which isn't freeloading, the fifth is Medicaid which is, the sixth certainly is freeloading (children can't work to pay into a program), the seventh (SSI) is freeloading as it's a hand-out to low-income people and comes out of the general Treasury fund, and the eighth is ObamaCare which has some provisions that are freeloading (changing requirements for Medicaid, subsidizing people up to 400% of poverty level to purchase health insurance, etc.).

So if your number for SS checks includes all these "freeloading" programs, and that's 55 out of 80 million checks, then that's quite a large number of those checks that can be said to be going to "freeloaders".

Now, before anyone gets their panties in a bind and starts calling me horrible for not wanting to give money to the poor or somesuch, I'm only pointing out that there's a big difference between government programs that take money from a group of people for a specific purpose, and then give it back to those same people later, and programs which take money from taxpayers in general and give it to people who haven't earned it in some way, either through contributions during their working years, or through a career of military service (which is the justification for VA pensions). If you want to have a social safety net, that's fine, but you have to admit that this is a separate issue from these other programs, and are basically a hand-out, and a valid target for anyone wanting to cut such programs.

Re:This just proves

[rednip]

Why do reactionaries think that they are so clever when implying corruption without proof?

Re:This just proves

[Opportunist]

You think it may do that without first consulting the hand in its ass?

Re:This just proves

[Opportunist]

Sure, why change a system that has been proven? It worked well in 2000, didn't it?

Re:This just proves

[Vegeta99]

The beneficiaries of tax-and-spend policy are those who receive the spending, not those who pay the taxes lol what? I pay $120 something a year to drive my car around, plus like $0.16 per gallon when I do. In return, I get to use a rather damn-well built interstate system where I can drive from Maine to California in a few days. Hell, in PA it was only $36/year with a higher per gallon tax, but it's a damn miracle that even gets me ONE road that is, shockingly, plowed every once in a while.

Re:This just proves

[haruchai]

One of the reasons why the Tea Party did so well as unseating House Democrats last year was because most of the extra people who turned out to vote for Obama in 2008 STAYED HOME.

Re:This just proves

[JDevers]

Read his others posts in this topic...of course he doesn't see the conflict of interest.

Re:This just proves

[MadMartigan2001]

Regardless of country or culture, any citizen who is afraid of a (government/tyrant/dictator/power structure) shutdown is a threat to freedom and a minion for the status quo.

Re:This just proves

[Monchanger]

Did you get that nonsense off a stick of gum? I hear Ethiopia is lovely this time of year. You'll love it there- shutdowns are the status quo. France is a good alternative- segments of their economy come to a standstill on an almost predictable schedule.

If a shutdown serves a purpose, that's perfectly fine by me. An economy grinding to a halt, market instability, and people who can't feed their kids aren't my idea of a good time.

Re:This just proves

[dcavanaugh]

My guess is you don't drive much, because you are certainly not paying attention at the gas pump.

The national average for gas tax is 48.1 center per gallon (of which 18.4 cents is federal). I don't know which state you live in, but there are zero states in which you are paying anything less than 18.4 cents. In my state, they collect property tax on motor vehicles, hefty fees for registration, the second highest gax taxes in the country, and now adding tolls. Even so, I don't mind paying for what I use, and the highway system is one of the few government programs that operates anywhere near a break-even level.

Rest assured, the highways were not paid for with "other people's money". You ARE paying for it, you might as well enjoy it.

Re:This just proves

[uniquename72]

The beneficiaries of tax-and-spend policy are those who receive the spending, not those who pay the taxes.

Right. Unfortunately, those people also generally vote Republican: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

Re:This just proves

[tverbeek]

"It's not like it matters what sock puppet sits on the throne."

The thing is... it actually does. Maybe not as much as it should, but in ways that are still important, it does.

I don't know what would have happened afterward if it had been Al Gore listening to kids read a book about a goat on the morning of 9/11, but I'm sure the world would be a recognizably different place today. Possibly for the worse, probably for the better. But definitely different. I don't know who Dukakis would've nominated to the Supreme Court when Thurgood Marshall retired, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been Clarence Thomas. On a more personal level, I don't know what John McCain would've done last year if his staff told him about a campaign of online videos assuring gay teens that "it gets better", but I'm sure it wouldn't have been this.

So yeah: it matters.

Re:This just proves

[KahabutDieDrake]

Once the evidence supports the hypothesis of one conspiracy, it necessarily supports the concept that there may in fact be several conspiracies operating independently of one another, but potentially still inter-linked. For instance, the same group of people that rigged the Ohio election in 04 are probably NOT the same group that rigged the New Hampshire election for Hilary. The theory that best fits the facts is absurdly simple. People in power are corrupt, they rig elections and otherwise manipulate information to gain more power for themselves and their interests. There is no monolithic structure of deceit, this is simply how american politics works. It's how it has worked for more than 50 years, and it doesn't show a single sign of changing.

Which brings up the only really pertinent question... what are we gonna do about it?

Unfortunately, the answer appears to be nothing what so ever.

Re:This just proves

[h4rr4r]

Rural America is the biggest taker of Federal money. They live off Farm subsidies. The ones who don't are on welfare.

Re:This just proves

[unitron]

Don't care if you are rich or poor.
The stupid though should be prevented from voting at all costs.

Tempted as I am to agree, I'll continue instead to insist on your right to vote not being abridged.

Re:This just proves

[unitron]

....
I live in California though. Here the Dems have 100% control over the state...

Which is why when the looting of PG&E came back to bite everyone on the backside, Democratic governor Gray Davis was able to escape any fallout and serve out his full term until another Democrat was elected to the office.

Re:This just proves

[dcavanaugh]

Although I wonder if you can call the top 10 states Republican, you can definitely say the bottom 10 are mostly Democrat. Either way, I wish they would adjust that list for the effect of indirect federal spending. For example, Connecticut is ranked 48th at 69 cents on the dollar. But it's also Santa's workshop as far as Pentagon spending is concerned. What Connecticut fails to receive in direct federal spending it receives via indirect Pentagon spending. Connecticut is where they make submarines, helicopters, jet engines, tank engines, and all sorts of avionics. Defense spending is the ultimate perpetual "stimulus" program. Other states have large federal facilities (such as NASA and military bases) that probably escape the tax ROI calculation.

Re:This just proves

[Doc Ruby]

Sure, you're pulling numbers from 2007, and so getting them wrong. In 2007 the actual distribution left the top 1% with 43% of wealth; the next 4% with 29%; the next 5% with 11%; that's the top 10% with 83% of wealth. The next 10% (80-90%ile) with 10%, and the bottom 80% with 7% of the wealth. The bottom 20% owns something like 0.1%; the 20% above the bottom owns something like 0.2%; that's the bottom 40% owning maybe 0.3%. And that's 2007. But even then, top 20% owning 83% of the wealth (and a top 20%er owns 554 times a bottom 40%er) is pretty disproportionate, and extraordinary among nations.

Since 2007 the Financial Crisis (4+ years now) deleted much of the wealth below the top tiers, but added it back to the top tiers. The richest get bailed out; the poorer lose their jobs, pensions and investments.

You're just another person picking numbers that support their totally skewed image of how wealth is distributed here. Look at that page I linked to for Figure 4, the summary of research by Norton & Airely and Johnston in 2010 showing how wrong people are about how wealth is distributed, grouped by their income and other related factors.

Re:This just proves

[riverat1]

llegal aliens have a number of ways to slip through the cracks and vote.

LOL. If I were in the country illegally the last thing I'd want to do is draw attention to myself by voting. Seriously, can you point to even one instance of enough illegal voters voting to change an election? Maybe in an election decided by one or two votes but not likely.

Re:This just proves

[fruitbane]

For state elections this is fine, but for presidential elections I find it unsuitable. Presidential elections should follow federal election guidelines. As in, there should be federal election guidelines to help ensure election of the president is somewhat uniform. Any election other than presidential is a different game.

Re:This just proves

[riverat1]

He has spent more during his first two years than ALL of the previous presidents combined.

Why should I believe a single thing you way when you spout ridiculous shit like that?

Re:This just proves

[riverat1]

s/way/say/

Re:This just proves

[shadowfaxcrx]

That hand is going to change along with the sock puppet. Rove doesn't tell Obama what to do, after all. Someone else gets that job.

Re:This just proves

[superdave80]

Sure, you're pulling numbers from 2007...

Uh, the first link is from a 2010 article (although it does not list what year the data is taken from). The 2nd is from 2007. They both match up (more or less). And your link also supports my numbers.

...and so getting them wrong

No, that would be you, as evidence by your next statement:

In 2007 the actual distribution left the top 1% with 43% of wealth; the next 4% with 29%; the next 5% with 11%;

So, the top 10% own 83%, so your original statement of 2% owning 80% is only off by a factor of 5. Well done.

You're just another person picking numbers that support their totally skewed image..

Hilarious, considering that you picked the chart that put the number closer to your skewed image. You picked financial wealth over total net worth. Had you picked total net worth (which is, you know, how much total assets people have), the numbers would be 20% controlling 85% of the wealth, which would have put you off by an entire order of magnitude.

Look at that page I linked to for Figure 4

I did, and it supports my statement (20% own 80%), not yours (2% own 80%). Strange that you didn't use that chart, hmmm?

Since 2007 the Financial Crisis (4+ years now) deleted much of the wealth below the top tiers, but added it back to the top tiers.

Really? What do you base that on? Nothing, I'm guessing.

showing how wrong people are about how wealth is distributed

Wow, random, average people don't know the distribution of all of the wealth in a country of 300 million? Shocking. And not really relevant to your original wrong statement.

Re:This just proves

[hairyfeet]

LOL wut? Dude the red states are the poorest in the nation by a pretty long shot. States like MS, AR, LA,OK, these states are traditionally poor as fuck and vote republican year in and year out.

Now if you wanna argue that the MIC is sitting there with their hands out and we waste money on crap like planes and aircraft carriers we don't even need? Right there with ya pal. But trying to say people vote D because they are getting a check simply doesn't jive with the numbers. Hell every one of the poorest states voted McCain in 08!

Re:This just proves

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no problem with you blaming anyone you want.
My problem is that I look around and see people who have made a choice that collecting unemployment for a year or two is a better financial choice than getting a shitty job.
Once you make collecting a government check better than not collecting one you have set up things to only get worse.
There is NO WAY that will ever work out well.

Re:This just proves

[Vidar Leathershod]

Except that does not actually bear out. People like Ted Turner are the recipients of Farm Subsidies. But it was nice of you to prove my point about the attitudes of wealthy liberals towards people who have lower incomes.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2002/04/Farm-Subsidies-for-the-Rich-amp-Famous-Shattered-Records-in-2001

Farm subsidies have been opposed by fiscal conservatives since their inception. They have been supported and expanded by leftists, often against the wishes of the farmers they purported to help.

Re:This just proves

[pixelpusher220]

My problem is that I look around and see people who have made a choice that collecting unemployment for a year or two is a better financial choice than getting a shitty job.

And you know this *how*? Sources please. Show me anything that shows a significant percentage of people collecting unemployment *want* to do that rather than work. A few cases don't make your point, you need to show that lots of people are doing this.

The economy sucks, there aren't jobs available to take. Worse, companies are now saying they won't hire people who aren't currently employed or are only recently unemployed. Having college grads take minimum wage jobs isn't the answer because then the HS grads can't get work and everybody is worse off.

Once you make collecting a government check better than not collecting one you have set up things to only get worse.

If that were the case, then you are assuming that everyone is a lazy SOB. Why are you a lazy SOB? oh wait you aren't, just 'them'. Who is 'them'?

And again sources, how is unemployment better than collecting a paycheck? Comparing to not getting anything is not a fair comparison. Unemployment payments create more money than they cost. Literally. Why? Because unemployed people still need to eat. So that money goes directly into the economy and starts returning tax revenue as the retailers then by product to replace what was bought with the unemployment insurance.

Unemployment insurance is like the shock absorber in your car. It softens the bumps but makes them last a little longer. In the long run the ride is smoother.

Reducing spending *will* hurt the economy. If the government stops spending $1 trillion dollars, that's $1 trillion dollars that isn't being paid out into the economy for goods and services. What effect do you think that will have? The only solution to this crisis is to bring tax rates in line with spending. That will require movement of both sides, tax rates up and spending down....over time. In a recession, cuts will only make the recession worse.

There will be increased cost associated with continued deficit spending in terms of the interest paid, but it will be far far less then pulling something like 8% of the economy out of circulation.

Re:This just proves

[bstender]

no way. if Gore or Kerry had won we'd have pretty much exactly the same shit today but for different rhetoric, different inconsequential bones thrown out, but as far as wars for Israel and laws that affect the cash flow, identical

QED: Obama

Re:This just proves

[Rakarra]

My problem is that I look around and see people who have made a choice that collecting unemployment for a year or two is a better financial choice than getting a shitty job.

Really? And these shitty jobs are just.. you know, out there for anyone to have?

Do you have an education? And a good job? If so, you don't know how how difficult it can be to get one of these shit jobs that you think are abundant.

Unless it's a limited time or contract job, employers don't want to hire people who will bail immediately because they get a better job offer, nor do they want someone who feels like they're above the work that they'd be doing.

So if you're well-educated and have experience working a non-shitty job, you'll find yourself shut out from the crappy jobs because you're 'overqualified.' Doesn't matter how good you'd be at the job, how much you need the work, or pretty much any other factor unless you get lucky. Having trained for 'good' jobs means they'll be the only offers you'll get. You and the many other hundreds applying for the same few dozen jobs you are.

Re:This just proves

[Rakarra]

I'm only pointing out that there's a big difference between government programs that take money from a group of people for a specific purpose, and then give it back to those same people later

Is that really the case though? I'd love to see some numbers on how many people, say, end up getting more in Social Security than they had originally put in, and the same with Medicare. There are, of course, those on the other side, who pay in more than they end up withdrawing. In fact, I'm willing to bet that a number of the conservative arguments look at it from that angle, that they'd rather have it handled in a more 401k style where each individual's personal allowance is tied to exactly how much they deposited.

Re:This just proves

[Rakarra]

Ah. So government == tyrant == dictator.

Re:This just proves

[Rakarra]

There were also a lot less troops in Afghanistan when Bush was Pres,

Actually, that was a problem, not a desirable state. Afghanistan is all sorts of fucked up precisely because Bush decided to launch into Iraq.

Not that Obama is really better, what with the whole three wars thing. Calling what's currently happening in Iraq today a 'war' is a bit of a stretch. It's more like "two wars and an annoying occupation."

Re:This just proves

[Rakarra]

Farm subsidies have been opposed by fiscal conservatives since their inception. They have been supported and expanded by leftists, often against the wishes of the farmers they purported to help.

Actually farm subsidies are supported by any politician who think it's extremely important to carry Iowa in the primaries and the general election.

Re:This just proves

[Rakarra]

He has not been able to get a budget to vote, even though the democrats had a supermajority, and could force laws through, like Obamacare, without a single republican vote. Yet he blaims this on the republicans.

What I find amazing is that both Obama and Boehner are not in control of their own parties. Obama, supposedly the leader of the Democratic party, has little rein over Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Similarly, Boehner has little control and ability to force the Republicans into a compromise, Eric Cantor as the unofficial Tea Party spokesman is in control. I'm not sure we've had a point in recent history where the two major negotiators for the political parties were little more than ambassadors for other power-holders. Unfortunately, it doesn't say good things for either Obama or Boehner.

Re:This just proves

[Grishnakh]

Is that really the case though? I'd love to see some numbers on how many people, say, end up getting more in Social Security than they had originally put in,

Everyone gets more out than they put in; that's the whole point of "investments": they grow in value over time, even if they're crappy investments like T-bills. There wouldn't be much point to a retirement system where you only got out what you put in, thanks to inflation.

Now, if you're talking about adjusting the numbers for both inflation and interest accrued by the T-bills that SS is supposed to be invested in (if it weren't constantly raided by Congress), that would be an interesting thing to look at.

and the same with Medicare.

Um, do you even understand the whole point of insurance??? The idea is a large number of people pay a small amount of money into a fund, and then a small number of them have problems that force them to make claims, and receive large payments out of that fund to cover their expenses (in this case, due to health problems). You're supposed to get more out than you put in, if you have problems. If you don't have problems, then you're subsidizing those who do, but again that's the point of insurance: they're there to cover you IF you have a problem. Why do you think people buy fire insurance? It's a good system as long as the claimants aren't taking more money than is put in, but this is true for any insurance system, not just government-run ones.

There are, of course, those on the other side, who pay in more than they end up withdrawing.

Yes, that's the entire point of insurance, even medical insurance. Do you even know what insurance is?

And yes, this happens with Social Security (retirement) as well, as it's sort of a cross between an insurance program and a retirement investment account. You get more out if you pay more in (your pension is based on how much money you put in over your lifetime, and when, as it's adjusted by CPI), but ONLY if you survive to retirement age, and only as long as you live past that age. But again, this is no different from any other pension plan. Before the 401k system came out, it was quite common for people to work for the same big corporation their whole life and then draw a pension after retirement, until the day they died (unions also provided this benefit to people in some industries, taking the place of the employer in administering the pension plan). SS is no different. If you're a trucker that's part of the Teamsters and you work 40 years and then retire on their pension plan, and then die a month later, you only get one month of pension; they keep the rest of the money you contributed and that finances all the other people who retire and live longer.

The whole idea behind these kinds of things is that there's safety in numbers; by contributing to a common fund, you don't have to worry about suffering extreme hardship if fate is cruel to you, even though there's a chance you won't get out as much as you put in, or as much as other people put in. If you're an Ayn Rand follower, this may be anathema to you, but for most civilized people, it's a good exchange, and that's why they purchase insurance, and why governments frequently require people to have insurance if, for example, they drive a car or run certain types of businesses.

Re:This just proves

[Grishnakh]

Actually, that was a problem, not a desirable state. Afghanistan is all sorts of fucked up precisely because Bush decided to launch into Iraq.

Wrong. Afghanistan is "all sorts of fucked up" because it's Afghanistan, just like Zimbabwe is "all sorts of fucked up" because it's Zimbabwe. Sending troops in there and installing a puppet government is not going to change it, in fact it just makes it worse. And, it costs a fortune, and gets lots of our soldiers maimed and killed, for nothing. All those troops who have died or had limbs blown off in Afghanistan did it for nothing (except maybe the ones involved in the initial actions where they were bombing AQ facilities and destroying their ability to train terrorists, but that was done a long time ago, and has nothing to do with the rest of the country).

You can't force a nation to be a prosperous, civilized place by stationing troops there. The only sensible thing to do is pull out, just like we finally did in Vietnam. These days, Vietnam is actually a pretty decent place, and improving rapidly, no thanks to the Americans. They had to get the fuck out and leave them to their own devices before they got their act together.

Calling what's currently happening in Iraq today a 'war' is a bit of a stretch. It's more like "two wars and an annoying occupation."

War, occupation, same thing. I didn't bother to differentiate the two, as there's little difference: troops are on the ground shooting at the locals and getting shot back at.

Re:This just proves

[h4rr4r]

If they hate them so much why do they keep accepting the money?

Considering the republicans are the ones who are supporting farm subsidies I have trouble seeing how it is a leftist policy.

Re:This just proves

[Vidar Leathershod]

You seriously ask that question? How is one farmer supposed to survive trying to compete against farmers who get subsidized by the government? How can he sell his product in a free market fashion at a price high enough to support the running of the farm when no one else needs to get that price. There are myriad other issues involved, none of which you seem to be aware of. Nor would you care if you were. The existence of these troubling facts threatens your flimsy ideology.

Re:This just proves

[h4rr4r]

No flimsy ideology here. If they hate these subsidies so much they would either make due or vote against them. Yet year after year these people vote for the politicians that promise to bring the subsidies to bumfuck iowa and the rest of the corn belt.

Unexpected?

[cmdr_klarg]

Unexpected? Really? When the CEO of Diebold was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president"?

Re:Unexpected?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sec of State, and Ohio co chairman of the Bush campaign, was given unsupervised access to the main tabulator.

We need to watch Wisconsin. Walker has closed down DMV's in Democratic leaning communities and extending hours in Republican leaning communities. This comes on the heels of a new law that makes a photo ID the only form of ID, other than a conceal carry permit, accepted at the polls.

Re:Unexpected?

[Anonymous Coward]

because your interpretation is totally what he meant instead of misspeaking like every one else on earth

Re:Unexpected?

[Thing 1]

because your interpretation is totally what he meant instead of misspeaking like every one else on earth

There is truth in humor -- and also, often, in misstatements/Freudian slips.

Funny how

[lemonhead_bastard]

when something positive happens for a Republican or something negative happens for a Democrat it is considered "unexpected". Unemployment goes above 8% and stays there, it's "Unexpected" even though there were plenty of people saying that a trillion dollar slush fund wouldn't do squat for the economy. Bush won, and won twice. Get over it.

Re:Funny how

[Tsingi]

The thing is, he didn't win, he stole the election. The same thing happened in Florida.
That ass should be in jail for so many reasons.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

RRR...RRRRAAAAGEEEEEE!!!!! (this ad brought to you by moveon.org)

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your facts. News orgs. did check in FL after the 2K election and found that Bush would have won. He did not steal the election. However, I disagreed with the Supremes when they wrote that it was too late and gave Bush the win.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

He stole the election and therefore did in fact win. But there is no need for the CT stuff, Ohio was stole the old fashioned way... by making sure that the people that aren't going to vote for your guy have a harder time voting. In this case by manipulating the allocation of voting machines.

Re:Funny how

[Overzeetop]

Most of those people are the same ones that said if you leave the financial instruments market unregulated, all hell will break loose.

8% - that's quite revisionist. I believe they were talking "north of 10%, and possibly 15%" before the stimulus. But hey, believe whatever Rush tells you today.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your facts. News orgs. did check in FL after the 2K election and found that Bush would have won. He did not steal the election. However, I disagreed with the Supremes when they wrote that it was too late and gave Bush the win.

Except for that whole removing thousands of democratic voters from the roles even though they were qualified to vote thing, right? I'm sure that had no possible impact on an election that hinged on a few hundred votes, right?

Re:Funny how

[ByOhTek]

Umm... The unemployment numbers have always been garbage. The length of time that unemployment could be collected has been increased, so the numbers went up.

The Republicans would drop it to a month, and the numbers would be down to a couple of percent, and they'd say "Look how we improved things! Low unemployment!" while people are jobless, starving in the streets.

Re:Funny how

[kilfarsnar]

RTFA:

Spoonamore also swore that "...the architecture further confirms how this election was stolen. The computer system and SmarTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SmarTech computers."

The 2004 election was stolen the new fashioned way. If people haven't they should really Google Stephen Spoonamore. He has this shit down.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the fact is that he won. Whether you win by pure methods or win by cheating you still win. I understand he won by Hanging Chad. I'm not sure why Chad needed to die, or why they didn't use lethal injection, but apparently it was a move that allows for a win. Some strange rules on the US side of the pond for sure...

Re:Funny how

[Kagato]

That depends on how you recount. If you recount the entire state gore wins. If you only do the contested areas then bush wins.

Re:Funny how

[Lumpy]

You are correct. Unemployment is closer to 25%.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your facts. News orgs. did check in FL after the 2K election and found that Bush would have won. He did not steal the election. However, I disagreed with the Supremes when they wrote that it was too late and gave Bush the win.

I'd like to see where you saw this. Everything I've read says that if the entire state was recounted, Gore would have won. The problem was that Gore only asked for a few counties to be recounted and that's where the U.S. Supreme Court stopped him. The U.S. Supreme Court should not have intervened because voting is a matter for the states (in Republican speak, "states rights"). The Florida Supreme Court was about to rule in Gore's favor, that is, he would have gotten his recount.

As for Ohio, it's like someone said, he stole it the old fashioned way.

Fortunately, as we sow so shall we reap. George W. Bush will likely go down in history as the worst U.S. President. I'm sure Jimmy Carter's thankful for W.

Re:Funny how

[CrimsonAvenger]

I believe they were talking "north of 10%, and possibly 15%" before the stimulus.

Hmm, a quick Google, and I find that unemployment rates under Bush peaked at about 7% when he left office (average over his terms looks to be between 5% and 5.25%, based on a quick eyeballing of the graph).

Since then, it's been higher, though it looks like it may have peaked at about where it is now.

Note that these numbers are the official numbers, and thus don't include people who are no longer collecting unemployment.

Note further that the unemployment extensions voted into place over the last few years would tend to result in an apparently higher unemployment rate, IF people tend to be unemployed for longer than the "standard" unemployment period, but not so long as the "revised" unemployment period. Otherwise, it would tend to hide the long-term unemployed from counting as unemployed.

Re:Funny how

[phlinn]

No, they weren't. The projected unemployment rate was 8.8% without stimulus and just under 8% with stimulus, with a footnote that some private forecasters said it would get as high as 11%. There are numerous other sources for that report, that was the administrations take on it, and their model was clearly crap one way or another since the actual unemployement rate with stimulus was higher than their models allowed for without it. There is no actual evidence that the stimulus decreased unemployement (it may have provably saved a few specific jobs, but those could have come at the expense of others). Politifact continues to use numbers from the CBO, which are useless for actually proving that jobs are saved, if for no other reason than they use the same model that was proven wrong by reality already.

Re:Funny how

[ArcherB]

That depends on how you recount. If you recount the entire state gore wins. If you only do the contested areas then bush wins.

If you change the rules and recount the whole state, then Gore may have won. However, as I remember it, James Baker, the representative for the Republicans in FL 2000 wanted a full state recount but the Gore people rejected it, opting to only recount the heavily Democratic areas trying to squeeze every vote out of the areas where he was likely to get more votes and leave the Republican areas as they were.

If what you say is true, and I have heard nothing to back that up, then it sounds like the Democrats screwed themselves. So Bush didn't steal the election. Democrats gave it to him.

Re:Funny how

[m50d]

Democrats made a stupid mistake prosecuting the court case, and it cost them. Shows you the problem with an adverserial justice system.

Re:Funny how

[bluefoxlucid]

Barrack Obama is going to take "Worst President," Bush did pretty good until he started a war. War is a necessary thing, but expensive and economically crippling; warfare must be precise, effective, efficient, and carefully considered. This was not a war we needed to fight--at least not so viciously. It should have been easier to pull off our global political goals without bumbling around like retards..

Still, I'm looking at these asses running our country and what do we get? Republicans raving about crazy vicious communist liberals, democrats trying to look more professional while lobbing a constant stream of low-brow attacks at conservatives. All of you shut the fuck up and get some work done.

Re:Funny how

[antifoidulus]

If what you say is true, and I have heard nothing to back that up, then it sounds like the Democrats screwed themselves. So Bush didn't steal the election. Democrats gave it to him.

In more ways than one. The outrage over Clinton's handling of the Elian Gonzalez debacle enraged the quite sizable Cuban American community in Florida. And while Gore did some half-assed back pedaling on the issue, there were probably more than 500 people who were so mad over how Clinton, and by extension Gore, handled the whole thing that they either changed their vote, voted for a 3rd party, or abstained. Had Clinton just let the whole thing slide then the election may have turned out very differently.

I guess you could consider the whole thing a study in chaos theory. Had Gonzalez's family waited another year to try to flee Cuba history may have turned out differently.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

And you recounted the entire state? No doubt using the "hanging chad" methodology?

You don't know shit.

Re:Funny how

[ArcherB]

Umm... The unemployment numbers have always been garbage. The length of time that unemployment could be collected has been increased, so the numbers went up.

The Republicans would drop it to a month, and the numbers would be down to a couple of percent, and they'd say "Look how we improved things! Low unemployment!" while people are jobless, starving in the streets.

The unemployment numbers are not based on how many people are drawing unemployment. They are based on how many people are actually looking for a job that don't currently have one. If they were based on what you think they are, wouldn't that make Democrats morons for extending benefits and artificially inflating the statistics?

You are correct that the numbers are skewed, and unemployment benefits are a likely cause, but not in the reason you would think. See, as long as people can live their lives without having a job, many won't. Another problem is that many will continue to receive unemployment benefits while working "under the table". While these people may be gainfully employed, they will gladly be counted as unemployed to leech off the government tit for as long as possible.

Another problem is that when people give up on finding a job, they are no longer counted as being "unemployed", even though they may not actually be employed. There is a reason for that, however. You don't want every house-wife/husband, parents on maternity leave, retirees, students, children, and those working "under the table" counted. On the other hand, you DO want to count all these /.'ers that are sitting in their mom's basement playing WOW all day who don't have jobs, and don't really care to get one. (I envy those bastards!)

Glad to set you straight, but I'm sorry that I've taken away one of your made up justifications for hating Republicans. I'm sure you will hate them no less, regardless of the facts you run across that disprove your bias. Besides, your facts are so much more convenient as they help justify the hatred you already feel and make you feel OK for hating someone. It would kinda make you an asshole if you were to find out that Republicans really don't want to see people starving in the streets and still hated them like you do, now wouldn't it.

Re:Funny how

[TheGratefulNet]

bush brought religion to the US from day-1. sorry, but I consider that to be his worthless act #1.

after that, it was an endless stream of crimes against americans. liberties taken, wars started, economies collapsed, companies getting more powerful and the state also getting more powerful. government in your bedroom and 'every child left behind'.

you want more? I got LOTS more.

he was a hated asshole and I hope he has a very bad terminal illness and suffers great pain for the rest of his life. he fucked us REAL good and I hope he gets justice for what he did.

Re:Funny how

[flaming error]

> War is a necessary thing
I'll let Switzerland know.

> This was not a war we needed to fight
Except for our "global political goals"?

> --at least not so viciously.
I here we've already booked Joan Baez and Amy Grant for Warstock Iran, sponsored by Nerf, Bungie, and Patagonia.

Re:Funny how

[Entrope]

And the Democratic media called Florida for Gore before polls closed in the heavily conservative panhandle parts of Florida, deterring residents there from registering their preferences. There are a thousand and one counterfactuals about things that might have changed the results but didn't.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see killing thousands of innocent hard working people, screwed over by global scale events outside their control, though starvation is worth killing a few genuinely work-shy bastards as well, nice to know how much you value human life.

Re:Funny how

[bill_mcgonigle]

Unemployment is closer to 25%.

Citation provided.

Re:Funny how

[lemonhead_bastard]

No, Obama said that the stimulus would keep unemployment from going over 8%. Didn't work out so well, did it.

Re:Funny how

[operagost]

And they counted any ballots that had a small dent next to Gore for Gore, and they counted any overvoted ballots that happened to have a vote for Gore, and they... STFU.

Re:Funny how

[Toonol]

The thing is, he didn't win, he stole the election. The same thing happened in Florida.

You're taking that on faith, not on evidence. That's a poor way to make decisions.

Re:Funny how

[Tsingi]

You're taking that on faith, not on evidence. That's a poor way to make decisions.

And you know this how exactly?

Re:Funny how

[bluefoxlucid]

Switzerland is QUITE prepared for war, and when somebody invades Switzerland there will be a VERY short and VERY efficient war. If someone THREATENS to carpet bomb Switzerland, I don't imagine they'll hesitate long to mobilize--not longer than it takes to make it quite clear that the pompous ass threatening them will either disarm or be burned to the ground.

Nobody has tried because nobody sees any end result beyond having their ass handed to them.

Re:Funny how

[dkleinsc]

Bush did pretty good until he started a war.

Depends what you mean by "pretty good". He spent a large percentage of his time on vacation in Texas, basically ignored National Intelligence Estimates about Al Qaida, and the only major legislation he pushed through before 9/11/2001 was the giant tax cut, mostly for the wealthy, that now has the budget in a serious hole. So if you like tax cuts on principle, you think he did pretty good. If you think the job of the president includes protecting the US from terrorist attack and responding appropriately if they are attacked, then he did a lousy job.

And then, as you noted, started not 1 but 2 wars that were basically unnecessary, accomplished exactly 1 of the stated goals after 10 years (for the record, longer than WWI and WWII combined), at enormous cost.

Re:Funny how

[flaming error]

So if there's a guy who sleeps with a loaded gun under his pillow, that proves home invasion robberies are necessary?

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

And they counted any ballots that had a small dent next to Gore for Gore, and they counted any overvoted ballots that happened to have a vote for Gore, and they... STFU.

Liar.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Democratic media called Florida for Gore before polls closed in the heavily conservative panhandle parts of Florida, deterring residents there from registering their preferences. There are a thousand and one counterfactuals about things that might have changed the results but didn't.

Lol... Democratic media my ass. You hyper-partisan types will always see massive bias, but don't realize it's just your own reflection. And it was called based on exit polls, which are usually pretty accurate. Guess that doesn't apply if someone's been screwing with the votes though.

Of course you dismiss the disenfranchisement of thousands of people based on your idea that the violation of one of their most basic Constitutional rights in our democracy is somehow not a major problem because you see bias in the media. Interesting to see where far-right conservatives are willing to overlook such violations of people's rights when it suits them.

Re:Funny how

[haruchai]

You're taking that on faith, not on evidence. That's a poor way to make decisions.

Seems to work quite well for the right-wing as a decision-making process.

Re:Funny how

[riverat1]

Perhaps unemployment officially peaked at about 7% under Bush but the economy was shedding over 800,000 jobs a month (IIRC) when he left office and that's something Obama wasn't going to turn around instantly no matter what he did. I'd have to give Obama at least a 6 month pass on that after he took office.

Re:Funny how

[riverat1]

The stimulus wasn't big enough and included too much tax break and not enough actual stimulus.

Re:Funny how

[CrimsonAvenger]

I'd have to give Obama at least a 6 month pass on that after he took office.

Well, and since I don't believe ANY President has any meaningful ability to do anything about the economy in general and joblessness in specific (except muck it up), I'd give him a pass on that too.

And for longer than six months, to boot.

On the other hand, it's pretty clear that his stimulus package and attempts to keep unemployment low (since he claimed his attempts would keep unemployment below 8%, he's on the hook for it - never claim that you'll fix something you can't) didn't have the desired/intended effect. Hence his low approval ratings right now.

It should be noted that there have been three one term Presidents since WW2 (and one of them wasn't even elected at all - not to President, not to VP). The elected one term Presidents both lost out on a second term due to economic conditions. And Obama is headed in the same direction right now.

Course, that could change in a heartbeat if the economy takes off this next year. Which won't happen till the government stops monkeying with it and just lets things stabilize a bit.

Re:Funny how

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... The unemployment numbers have always been garbage. The length of time that unemployment could be collected has been increased, so the numbers went up.

This isn't insightful. It's fucking wrong. The amount of people using unemployment benefits is not a factor in calculating the unemployment rate.

Seriously, do you think that if all unemployment benefits were cancelled, the government could claim that everyone is working?

If you want to be a partisan shill, that's fine, but at least back it up with TRUE facts (not just the ones you want to believe are true). But when you come across with accusations like that based on falsehoods, you not only look like a dumbass, you make everyone on your side look like dumbasses.

On the bright side, you are not the dumbest one in the room. I'm afraid that award would have to go the non-functioning retard that modded you comment up.

Re:Funny how

[riverat1]

You're probably right, a President doesn't have as much ability to affect the economy as most people think.

You know, I voted for Ford over Carter. That was the last Republican I've voted for for President (although I did vote for independent John Anderson).

Re:Funny how

[bluefoxlucid]

I liked the tax cut because, 6 years later, I decided to play with the numbers and I found that, a year and a half later, the GDP (not GNP; GDP is in adjusted dollars) went up 20%. That means the nation as a whole got wealthier. The federal income dropped--by almost 0%, just a bit more than that.

These tax cuts happened in 2001 and 2003. It looks like in the surrounding years (up to 2006), the rich got somewhat richer (from $113,000/year average for those over $70,000/year to $126,000/year average). It looks like the average for each group below that didn't go up; however, the proportion of people in the lowest income groups shrunk and the proportion of people in higher income groups grew. In other words, rich got richer; poor got richer. Probably a result of more jobs opening up.

At the moment, I dislike this analysis because it's fuzzed over by a war occurring at the same time; war has strange effects, often being mistaken for making the economy better while it's making it worse.

Re:Funny how

[bluefoxlucid]

This wasn't a proof argument, it was a consequences of trying to invade Switzerland argument. The original argument was an insinuation that war is not necessary for Switzerland; in truth, Switzerland doesn't have to worry about wars because Switzerland is highly militarized. In other words: Switzerland has seen that a war is the well and good choice in response to an invasion, and has made itself very effective in that response. If Switzerland had been a state of non-violence and peace and diplomacy for its entire existence, with no guns and no weapons and no martial training at all, it would have been overrun long ago and taken for slaves and resources.

Quit playing with undistributed middle arguments.

In America it's quite simple: there are cats and there are mice. Mice can't hurt cats; mice are afraid of cats. Cats toy with mice and kill them as they please; other mice do not attack the cats. In many places in America, people will stand around and not make a move to help someone being beaten to death because they fear for themselves... so nobody is afraid to rape and mug people.

Criminals with guns are playing a risk game: the gun makes them a kind of god, with unlimited powers and the ability to command men to their bidding; but if they're arrested, the gun is a huge liability and ends in a MUCH harsher sentence. Many criminals stick to fists and knives because everyone's a pussy anyway and nobody will stand up for anyone else. Harsh penalties for illegal possession or illegal use of a gun are good; I'm not so sure eliminating legal guns is an effective strategy (worked for drugs, right?) versus regulating legal gun ownership in an effective way.

Of course, I've little interest in firearms. If you taught every individual Judo and you told them that they should take up for those who can't take up for themselves (liberal philosophy seems to only like that concept when money is involved), what would you have? A bunch of criminals who knew Judo, that's what. Now, tell me who wants to rape a girl who knows Judo, win the ensuing miniature Judo match, and continue the rape with a broken arm? More generally, who wants to pull a knife in an alleyway to mug some guy who knows Judo, and risk 6 other guys who know Judo noticing this while passing by? Do you want to fight 6 guys who know Judo? I sure don't.

I wouldn't go for a unilateral strategy--or even a weapons-free one. I want to instill a sense of honor and god damn responsibility for others into the people of this country. I'm not stupid enough to send them all out to scream and flail at each other; self defense training is a good thing. Everyone should learn some basic hand-to-hand martial arts--something soft (Judo, Aikido, Pentjak Silat), something hard (Muy Thai kickboxing), not necessarily mandatory that everyone study the same thing--but also should be allowed to pursue personal interests. That can mean honing their skills with their bodies (fists, legs, etc) or taking up a weapon (sword/bokken, three sectional staff, jo, etc).

I feel that this flexibility allows people to become comfortable with a part of themselves--for example, I hate knives and will reject a knife in favor of my bare hands, but I instantly found an affinity for the Jo and could wield it somewhat skillfully, moreso than anything I'd actually practiced with. I dislike knives because they're too limiting... I can do a lot of non-leathal damage and bruising with a jo, but knives are exclusively for cuts and gnashes and crippling and fatal blood loss.

That comfort, the confidence in their ability to competently defend themselves, a feeling of community with other people who will come to your aid and who you feel a responsibility for if they require aid, and the ever present fear of immediate and unavoidable retribution from society (as in everyone, not just the police that you're so sure won't ever catch you) for violating the very base rule of society (that is: a society must

oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberals claim that every election that Republicans win was stolen. It won't be long until the 2010 Congressional election is claimed to have been stolen. Computerized election security is atrocious, and has always been atrocious. This whole argument is "it could have happened, therefore it happened." Exit polls don't mean squat.

Re:oh please

[Hatta]

This whole argument is "it could have happened, therefore it happened."

If you care at all about the integrity of our electoral system that's the position you have to take, no matter who benefits from the error. We won't send a man to jail when there's reasonable doubt, why should we elect a president on less?

Re:oh please

[ByOhTek]

And the republicans do the same thing.

The sad thing is. Both parties do it, and it is an injustice to the American people. It's nothing more than two groups of greedy bastards trying to get money and power at the expense of the sheeple who won't do anything about it.

Re:oh please

[elrous0]

Oh, there is way more to this one than mere liberal whining and "it could have happened, therefore it happened." I fully concede that the whining over the 2000 election was unwarranted (and frankly made the Dem's look like sore losers, which was embarrassing). But in the particular case of Ohio in 2004, there was some REALLY FISHY stuff going on there. The CEO of the company making the e-voting machines was a major Bush fundraiser (which is highly unethical and a serious conflict of interest in and of itself), promising to help deliver Ohio for Bush in fundraising letters. Combine that with the discrepancy between the results and the exit polling, and you have a situation where serious questions have to be raised about the whole situation there. And O'Dell later resigning from Diebold amid charges of insider trading a year later didn't exactly bolster a reputation for honesty on his part. The whole thing cast a real cloud over the legitimacy of the results in Ohio.

Does all that NECESSARILY point to corruption? Of course not. But it sure as hell raises the question of it.

Re:oh please

[PopeRatzo]

Does all that NECESSARILY point to corruption?

Yes, pretty much, it does.

And the court document described in the article certainly does.

Re:oh please

[kilfarsnar]

Computerized election security is atrocious, and has always been atrocious. This whole argument is "it could have happened, therefore it happened." Exit polls don't mean squat.

Except that, until recently, the exit polls pretty much matched up with the election results. When they began to diverge, the reaction was, "Gosh, why are the exit polls so far off?" Hint: It wasn't the exit polls that were off.

RTFA, this issue goes way beyond "It could have happened, therefore it did". It has been shown to have happened. Additionally, this is a non-partisan issue. Stephen Spoonamore, one of the most outspoken and credible critics of electronic voting, is a Republican.

Re:oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

I got yer hanging chad right here.

Re:oh please

[bughunter]

Not only that, but the Secretary of State in Ohio - they guy charged with making sure the voting process was fair and uncorruptable, and that all precincts had enough resources - was the leader of the Bush campaign for Ohio. The systems engineer was a Rove operative. Everything's done in secret and no one can audit the system. And when the votes are cast, there's a deviation from the poll results that make statisticians suspicious.

What? The? Fuck? How does that pass ANY sniff test, ever? Especially Blackwell's conflict of interest?

You know, you can have one orange finger and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Two orange fingers, and you'll still get the 'innocent until proven guilty' treatment. But when your whole hand is orange and there's cheese powder on your lips and teeth? Dude, I didn't have to see you do it to know that you stole the fucking cheetos.

Re:oh please

[neonKow]

Uh. You're completely reversing the analogy.

You are supposed presume innocence, but you still do your best to investigate something suspicious.
You presume Bush got elected correctly because that's what the results show, but you still investigate if the elections were hacked.

Please don't apply "reasonable doubt" willy-nilly to support whatever side of the argument you're on if you don't want debates to devolve into stupid "uh huh"/"nuh-uh" arguments.

Re:oh please

[sycodon]

A "court document" means shit. It was submitted by party with a vested interest and essentially says "See! see!? They COULD have done it."

Re:oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

You Americans! You set up a system where the guy who gets most votes sometimes doesn't win - Gore received more votes than Bush in 2000. Then you have the supreme court decide that it's more important to get a fast answer than to get it right. Then you have rampant voter fraud in key states.

Strange thing is that every weird thing gets decided in favor of republicans. I guess they subscribe to the view "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

And you have the unmitigated gall to try to tell other countries how to run an election.

Re:oh please

[itsenrique]

Frankly, things were, and are still shady in Florida when it comes to voting. Votes not being counted to due to incorrect precincts (error on the part of the state, not the voter), "Felons" who were never felons or already had their voting rights restored. Now they are doing away with clemency, wonder who that helps? There were literally thousands of uncounted democrat votes. Anyone who lives here and votes here (especially if your live in the inner city) knows just what a dog and pony show it all is.

Re:oh please

[Hatta]

Not guilty and not elected are both the null hypothesis.

Re:oh please

[haruchai]

There were quite a bit of shenanigans in the 2000 election as well. Of over 90000 excluded voters in Florida, purportedly because of felony convictions, over 95% of them were found to have been unfairly excluded.

Re:oh please

[unitron]

...I fully concede that the whining over the 2000 election was unwarranted ...

Google "Ray Lemme" and see if you still feel that way.

Re:oh please

[unitron]

Speaking of Florida, google "Ray Lemme".

Re:oh please

[riverat1]

Exit polls don't mean squat.

You know, before the advent of DRE electronic voting machines exit polls were in general remarkably accurate reflections of the actual voting.

Correlation is not causation but it makes you think.

Re:oh please

[shentino]

All they have to do is retain plausible deniability long enough to survive initial scrutiny.

By the time anyone starts digging up the public's already lost interest and nobody cares enough.

Also, by that time the regime's most likely entrenched enough to whitewash whatever doesn't look good.

Working People

[cgfsd]

Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?

All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?

All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.

Yeah, that must have been it. Douchebag.

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, because the people who conduct exit polls and political pundits in general are complete ignorant of the factors involved.

in fact i suspect this is nothing but a rouse so they can continue to call themselves experts despite having gotten the prediction so wrong.

i mean, really, who could possibly concieve of any one affiliated with the bush camp (not going to tar the whole party) performing such and amoral and illegal act. they're all so cuddly.

surprised there's not been a beanie bear range made after them.

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is he a 'douchebag'. Because he doesnt agree with you? And he's the douchebag? nice

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?

All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.

Agreed

Re:Working People

[fredrated]

How would you like to have all of your money, no government, and have to protect it every night against people trying to steal it? That would be a great improvement!

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. I am sure that works for you on the Glenn Beck forums.

There are several links to this on Reddit, along with the 2008 diagram showing the MITM SmarTech system. http://www.reddit.com/search?q=SmarTech

Re:Working People

[ByOhTek]

I'm just glad to have a job, which I wouldn't have, were it strictly a Republican rule for an extended period of time. So, yeah, I'll take the tax hit.

Then again, I'd probably be stuck on welfare/disability if it were a Democrat rule, which would also suck.

I can safely say, I'm happy to have a mix, those two groups fighting each other lets the American population have some defense against their predation.

Re:Working People

[kilfarsnar]

Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?

All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.

Yeah, I'm sure that's it. Because that was Kerry's platform after all...

Re:Working People

[smelch]

How would you like to have none of your money, 100% government control, and be unable to protect yourself from the masses? That would be a great improvement! You can be a normal fucking person and realize that "too much in taxes" doesn't mean "I want no taxes or government" it just means "I think this is too much in taxes." Or you can cast people who disagree with you off in to a position that isn't theirs, but you don't have to think about and can reject on its face. That's political discourse, right?

Re:Working People

[hesiod]

Or you can cast people who disagree with you off in to a position that isn't theirs, but you don't have to think about and can reject on its face. That's political discourse, right?

It seems you have been paying attention to the world around you. Yes, that is the essence of politics: trying to demonize the "other side" and try to get the idiot populace to hate and/or look down upon them.

Re:Working People

[fredrated]

"Or you can cast people who disagree with you off in to a position that isn't theirs,"
I didn't cast this person or their position anywhere, I suggested that if his position was taken to an extreme the results would be deliterious.
So take your own advice and don't cast my position into one i didn't advocate.

Re:Working People

[sycodon]

When was the last time a Democrat didn't explicitly or implicitly ("fair share "bullshit) call for raising taxes?

Re:Working People

[Entrope]

Your position, taken to an extreme, would also be deleterious. Guess what: Most people don't take their own positions to the ultimate extreme. People who don't want to engage the other person's actual position do that. It is called attacking a straw man.

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

Why am I talking to myself in the 3rd person?

Re:Working People

[Svartalf]

Why was this moderated "Troll"? It's an observation of what MIGHT have actually occurred. Why attribute malice to something that's easily explained with other things- it can go either way there.

Re:Working People

[operagost]

I'm just glad to have a job, which I wouldn't have, were it strictly a Republican rule for an extended period of time.

Government worker, huh?

Re:Working People

[operagost]

I guess Clinton didn't in his second term, because he'd already raised taxes for everyone in his first.

Re:Working People

[operagost]

I was going to say "you must be new here", but your ID is one digit smaller than mine.

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

Why am I talking to myself in the 3rd person?

And why am I always arguing with myself? Seriously, it's like I got 50 alts in here with me...I wish I would just leave me alone!

Help! AC nervous breakdown in progress! Somebody? Anybody? ...

Re:Working People

[itsenrique]

Just imagine how great it would be if there was more than 2 effective parties, huh?

Re:Working People

[kilfarsnar]

In 1992 Clinton ran on a platform to lower taxes. In 2004 Senator Kerry said that he would repeal the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes over $200,000, but not the middle-class tax cuts, which he would make permanent. He also proposed a new refundable tax credit for higher education expenses, and changes to the estate tax. On balance, these provisions would reduce federal revenues by at least $425 billion over ten years. For businesses, Senator Kerry proposed a 5 percent (1.75 percentage point) reduction in corporate tax rates, financed by increasing the tax on US corporations that produce goods and services overseas for third-country markets and by the elimination of corporate tax loopholes. From http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/1000634_KerryPlan.pdf

So it's not quite a stark as you seem to think, but your knee reflex is working just fine.

Re:Working People

[scot4875]

So you agree that we need some level of taxes?

Can you convince your like-minded folks to seriously shut the fuck up about how government's stealin' your money and switch the conversation to how much money they should be stealing?

It's like we've got a debate going on about which color to paint something, and you idiots keep yelling "I want it to be square!" It's not productive and does nothing to further the discussion.

--Jeremy

Re:Working People

[smelch]

I think very few people want no taxes, but at the next meeting I'll bring it up.

Re:Working People

[shentino]

Anyone strong enough to kill me and/or take my money away is already the de-facto government.

Re:Working People

[riverat1]

When was the last time a Republican didn't explicitly or implicitly say that lowering ("job killing") taxes would solve all of our problems?

Re:Working People

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is he a 'douchebag'. Because he doesnt agree with you? And he's the douchebag? nice

No, because he decided to smear an entire group of people as being unemployed freeloaders without anything to back it up. Maybe he should look at the facts before he starts shitting on people who were stuck in ridiculously long lines because the Ohio government fucked them over by ensuring that they wouldn't get a decent number of voting machines in their district. Some people couldn't afford to wait and had to go to work, losing their chance to vote. Of course this self-righteous motherfucker will shit on them because he believes himself superior.

Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Clear Politics poll aggregation showed that Bush led Kerry going into the election in Ohio, and had led nationally since the September before the election - it would have been surprising if Kerry won. Exit polling can be and has been unreliable - that's why it's only used as an indicator and not on it's own (precinct turnout is usually more indicative of who's going to win).

Really, just let it go. Kerry just lost - sometimes that's all there is to it.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[rockclimber]

But Thats the Problem with election Machines, or E-Voting.
You can't know. You can't Recount. You don't know the source. YOU CAN NOT VERYFY.
This is why e-voting undermines the base of democracy.
What we need is a competition for voting macines, like for encryption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard. To declare an open standard after the worlds brightest securtiy people tried 4-8 years to break it.
Oh, and Voting over the Internet or by text messaging? I can think of so many things that can go wrong that it should be illegal.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the lack of verification is not intrinsic to electronic voting. You just need a paper trail. Unfortunately, there usually isn't one.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[phlinn]

Personally, I prefer human readable paper ballots. It's simply not as easy to fudge physical ballots as elecrontic ones.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[grimmjeeper]

You think so? Ballot stuffing has a long and glorious history in elections around the world. Since ballots have no way to track them back to the person casting the vote, there's no way to tell if someone actually cast any ballot. That kind of anonymity is a perfect breeding ground for fraud.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's OK, Washington State's Gubernatorial election in 2004 shows that even if you have paper ballots, they can be corrupted as well. And you can keep finding bags and bags of votes that break 70/30 for one candidate (when the district they came from broke 55/45 for that candidate) for weeks on end, until just enough votes are found to give a 124 vote margin and declare a winner.

.
You don't need e-voting to blow elections - just corrupt officials and complicit courts.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[SydShamino]

So inherent flaws in voting systems still in use today in some parts of the country don't bother you, just because this one time you think the election results were accurate?

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[last-omega]

But let us not forget the "Hanging Chads"...

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh...yeah because no one ever cheated in elections prior to computers. Rather than try to hold back the use of technology why don't we try to make the technology open and as good as possible. There will never be a perfect system as long as it has bad actors in it (aka humans). As a result maybe we should focus on making the systems (manual or electronic) as good as possible. Simply attempting to quash use of technology has never worked to my knowledge.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just let it go"? If real evidence for election fraud comes up, it will be necessary to investigate to prevent similar things from happening in the future. Surely you don't think that a stolen election is going to retroactively make Kerry the U.S. president? So what, then, is it you fear?

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Kerry just lost - sometimes that's all there is to it.

I think the important thing here is not who won, but leveraging the court case to examine the usefulness of e-voting, and illustrating proper audit trails and such. If the court finds the current audit rules lacking, there may be recommendations on how to improve things if we're going to be stuck with e-voting.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[boristdog]

The secret word: LBJ

-oh all right, Julie Andrews.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[e3m4n]

I had given this great thought at one time, how to make a perfectly fair non-corrupt election. I had come to the conclusion that the only true non-corrupt method is the one used by the U.N. when Iraq had their first post-war elections. The paper ballot and the purple thumb print. The ink doesnt wash off for several days, its hard to vote twice this way. The unique thumb print is preserved on the ballot making it possible to contest a sudden 250 extra votes stuffed into a ballot, how many thumbs can one person have? The drawback? It took nearly a month to count them. In our microwave-oven world of instant gratification we did not like it in 2000 when it took a month to find out who was declared the winner. It is however, the best example of a free election IMO.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[boristdog]

So you say because one poll said one thing and another poll said another, we should trust the first poll more? Had Kerry won under the same circumstances, what would you be saying?

The issue here isn't who won or lost, it's the fact that the system used is highly flawed.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not all there is to it if there was election fraud. It makes a sham out of our democratic system and reinforces the belief of many that our votes don't really count.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[cpt kangarooski]

Ballot stuffing has a long and glorious history in elections around the world. Since ballots have no way to track them back to the person casting the vote, there's no way to tell if someone actually cast any ballot. That kind of anonymity is a perfect breeding ground for fraud.

So long as votes remain anonymous -- which is probably for the best -- that's going to be a danger.

However, it's somewhat difficult to actually do this with paper ballots, especially if you can manage decent security around the box itself, especially since it doesn't scale well. A conspiracy to rig one ballot box would take several people, but a conspiracy to do it statewide would probably be unmanageable. Well, at least so long as the government is generally not so corrupt that no one cares.

Manipulating electronic voting systems seems to have a bigger payoff (if the system is standardized across the state, it should be fairly easy to attack all of them), and fewer risks (by keeping the conspiracy smaller).

On the whole, I'd rather have paper ballots and manual counting, with some simple security measures in place, e.g. have a large group of representatives of rival parties and non-partisan groups present prior to the opening of the polls to verify that the box is not rigged, keep them there to verify that the box is not swapped out, and when the box is opened and the ballots are counted. And keep the box and the counting videotaped from all angles so that there's a record to look at to see if there was tampering.

If there's a concern about having people insert multiple ballots (disguised as a single one by sticking the papers together), you could probably come up with a countermeasure (for example, off the top of my head, ballots must be inserted in a cylindrical case, the case fits into an slot that only accepts one case, and the slot has to be cranked around to drop the case with ballot inside into the box; multiple ballots in a single case are all discarded). But again, it's harder to attack a clean election by recruiting hundreds or thousands of people to carefully stick two ballots together than it is to attack it by other means, so I doubt that such methods will be necessary.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Cajun Hell]

Really, just let it go. Kerry just lost - sometimes that's all there is to it.

Letting Bush-vs-Kerry go is easy. That's all done.

Saying "that's all there is to it" is total bullshit, though. How many other races were decided by the same machines in the 2004 elections? How many other elections were these machines used for? Did you check the exit polls for all of those too?

How do you feel about the next election, which is likely to be run based on identical policies, known to be vulnerable?

If you find a security hole in your server, and then determine that your companies' losses were probably not caused by one particular attacker at one particular time, exploiting that one particular bug, you don't say "that's all there is to it," and decide to not fix the bug.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[RicktheBrick]

The republicans have already stated that if they win they will save the rich 700 billion dollars. Now how many think there isn't a small number of the rich that would invest a billion or two to ensure that the republicans win? The only sure way is to cheat. The only sure way to avoid that is to make sure the election can be verified. Bush's election cost the average Americans well into the trillions of dollars. Now they want to make the middle class pay for it.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[phlinn]

I didn't say otherwise. It's just harder to edit large number of ballots, or "find" boxes of missed ballots, than to use an append query to add a number of false ballots.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[grimmjeeper]

There's a lot more chances to defraud elections when it comes to "ballot stuffing". Ballots can magically disappear just as easily as they can appear. Ballots don't have to be stuffed at the polling place. They can be pre-stuffed. They can be post-stuffed. And, as we have seen with "hanging chads", the actions of the counters can cause punch out bits to fall off. Though thankfully most districts have eliminated punch cards of any kinds and are going to writing on paper instead. The key problem in paper ballots is that there is a human element required in handling ballots.

I agree in principle that an election system connected to the internet is probably easier to manipulate through hacking than paper ballots. But unless every single one of the ballots are handled in view of a camera 24/7, you're going to have fraud. Hell, it's even possible to defraud the election with cameras in place if you know what you're doing. Illusionists have been tricking people while doing everything in plain view for centuries.

Elections are part of politics. Politics involves money and power. Money and power bring corruption. Corruption brings fraud. I don't want to sound defeatist but really, that's just the way this world works.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

India does its votes electronically, with dozens of candidates running for each office and hundreds if not thousands of election precincts with local candidates for each. This for over a billion people, reaching areas that "rural" doesn't begin to describe. It has one standardized platform, it's reliable, auditable, tamper-resistant, and it's worked for many elections now.

Then again they treat their elections like they were actually important, which is perhaps the biggest difference.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[DavidTC]

Because technology can not be observed. I do not understand why this is not obvious to people.

There is a secret vote. People must not be able to see the votes after they are made.

Meanwhile, the system must be set up where votes cannot be added or removed in secret. (It means jack-shit if you can prove your vote was in there if you can't prove if the other votes were or not.)

You could do one or the other with a computer. You could have a computer that does the first, easily. You could have a computer that does the second, easily.

You cannot have a computer that does both. No, I don't care what sort of stupid mathematical tricks you get up to...you can perhaps verify that your vote is in there, but you can't verify that votes were not added by some piece of software somewhere. (And now you've added vote buying if you let people see their vote, and you've rendered the system useless if you don't...it's pointless to prove the vote is 'there' if you cannot actually look at it add to the vote totals.)

This is because computers will do whatever you tell them to, and barring decades worth of time with electron microscopes, no one can ever prove what that is.

Luckily, we appear to operate in a universe with actual laws of physics, and one of those rules is 'no teleporting'. So, if instead of putting the votes in a computer, where they can magically be added to or removed, we can put the votes in a big box that we make sure is empty to start with, and then watch the box.

It's not fucking rocket science. If we ever come out with teleporters, or with nanotech that can run around changing the print on ballots, we'll have to reevaluate the process, but until then, using the actual laws of physics seems much saner than pretending we can keep track of everything that might happen in a computer.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[racermd]

Las Vegas casinos have better security than what we (collectively) put on election systems. There's a good reason for that as Las Vegas casinos need to be vigilant about their income else they risk violating a bunch of laws under which they operate. After all, they need to pay taxes on that money. The more money they bring in, the better for them and the better for their community. There are cameras that watch the entire flow of money coming in and going back out to make sure that nobody is trying to beat their system.

There is certainly as much motivation to tinker with election results as it would be to get a little more money out of a casino. Why we aren't putting better security measures in place for elections than what already exists completely baffles me. How can I trust that my vote actually counts as I cast it? How can I trust our government at all if they don't value our votes as much as a casino values their money? And the only thing I trust about casinos is that they're legally and openly screwing their customers while filming it to ensure they're doing it properly and it doesn't violate any rules. That should tell you how much I trust our government, regardless of which way the political winds blow - but that's a story for another time.

At this point, I am so dismayed that we (collectively) can't get this crap figured out. It's not difficult. It's not terribly more expensive than what we already have (which amounts to nearly nothing). Either let's get it done or tear it out and start over.

I'll be back over here shaking my fist at the kids on my lawn, now...

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, we shouldn't trust what voters say just after they voted. Instead, we should rely on aggregating polls, including "push" polling, and so on.

We can't judge the accuracy of elections by trusting what voters say after they just voted. This is how we judge foreign elections, not our own.

I wish the rabble would understand that they don't deserve to have their voice heard if they can't manage their own finances, or can't even find a job. How can their opinions be trusted if they are still middle class by the time they're in their 40's?

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Exit polling can be and has been unreliable - that's why it's only used as an indicator and not on it's own (precinct turnout is usually more indicative of who's going to win).

I think it was really funny a few months later, when there was an election in Ukraine and the exit polls did not match the result. When commenting on it the Bush State Department had the nerve to point this out as evidence of fraud. So evidently in Ukraine the exit polling is the best indicator, but in Ohio...

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that Bush got into office illegally in 2000 and 2004, it's clear the the purpose of proprietary voting systems is to control the outcomes. For elections to be credible in the US or any other country, voting systems must be publicly owned free/open source software and private corporations must be barred from having any role in the election process.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Toonol]

True. That Washington state recount was as blatant election fraud as anything that's happened in the last couple decades, but there seems to be no outcry about it. Is it because of the party of the declared winner? Or is it because a governor is just not as sexy a story as a president?

I agree that a verifiable paper trail is important, but as you say, it's an issue with both paper and electronic voting, and the solution is not as easy as it seems at first impression... at least not if you also want to retain anonymous voting.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Have you ever lived in Chicago?

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[gl4ss]

pfft. if you stuff the ballots, the recount tells there's something wacky. and that's why you have people from ALL parties participating as the vote counters. usually americans use the excuse that they don't have enough volunteers though!

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[grimmjeeper]

What recount? The recount of the same ballots that were stuffed? What is that going to show? It doesn't take much to falsify the rolls to account for the extra (or missing) ballots. Hell, dead people have been voting in Chicago religiously for decades.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Clear Politics is also a CONSERVATIVE group, of course they will aggregate poll data to show that.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[gknoy]

The requirement for people reading ballots to count them is less of a problem, because it means that the problem is now massively distributable,and points of failure (or corruption) are spread out enough that one bad data point will have less of an effect (and mass bad data points will be likely to be noticed).

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous. Stop making sense!

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't 'veryfy' any kind of balloting. Paper ballots get damaged (hanging chad), more every time they're re-re-counted. Bags of uncounted ballots mysteriously turn up before a recount. The very fact that recounts - of any flavor - come up with different numbers is proof of any system's imperfections. Yes, sure, of course, more work and care can be done to improve our systems, but the kneejerkisms of X BROKEN Y PERFECT is soooo tedious.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Politburo]

The found votes were from different areas, not all in one district. In King County, Gregiore got 65% of the additional votes. She got 57% of the total votes in that county. All of the King County votes were found in a 3 day period (and most were on one day), not "weeks on end".

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[BarC0d3z]

I'd love for the middle class to pay for it. I'd love for the lower class to pay for it too. I'd love for the upper class to pay for more of it.
The fact of the matter is nearly half of Americans who are whining about the rich not paying their fair share, pay no federal income tax. Considering those are the same people who demand free health care, free school lunches, for the government to pay them not to work, I'm not so sure it's the wealthiest Americans who need to pay their "fair share". As soon as the number of Americans paying something that resembles taxes - even if it's just $100/year - gets closer to 20%, I'll listen to you bitch about the how the Rich aren't paying their fair share.

P.S. I'm middle class.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Darinbob]

Election officials and secretaries of state are not given those jobs because they know a lot about elections, but instead because they're low level political lackeys hoping to climb the ladder. I theorize that they have these primary concerns:

- Avoiding a media frenzy or other embarrassment due to hanging chad
- Having everything run smoothly with no embarrassing recounts, and not being the last precinct to report results
- Save money

These people don't have the training nor the desire to actually worry about whether these machines work or not. The machines fit the first two criteria nicely, whereas now that they already have them they feel it would be a waste of money to replace them just for some trivial matter like accuracy. Of course it was a waste of money to get them in the first place but there was this mass hysteria to upgrade after the Florida fiasco.

Las Vegas has a better system because there's something important involved: money and taxes. Election machines are a worse system because accuracy and fairness of elections is not considered to be very important.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Darinbob]

With paper ballots it is actually possible to have a recount, impossible with electronic voting machines. Ok, they have a "retabulate" but there's no way to scrutinize the numbers. With paper ballots you have the opportunity to guard against fraud, point cameras at the boxes, surround it with guards, etc. With electronic voting machines the tampering is finished by the time it leaves the factory and the election officials are all in the "computers are hard, you have to trust who makes them" camp.

Here's the thing. We saw all these television cameras watching Florida officials recounting ballots and the nation panicked. They felt that everything being done there was wrong. However the reality is that a lot of things were happening correctly. Actual humans scrutinizing the ballots, bickering over what something meant, taking their time instead of rushing things through, etc. The electronic machines are only here to calm some human insecurities but like the TSA machines they just mask the real issues instead of solving them.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Darinbob]

But then you get rid of the profit motive, and without a profit motive how to you get self-serving corporations to pretend to be patriotic? Buying lavish gifts for election officials isn't cheap you know.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[grimmjeeper]

When I saw the Florida recount, I saw people who didn't want chads to fall off delicately handling each and every ballot while those who wanted them to get knocked off were handling them roughly. All in plain view of the cameras.

I agree that electronic voting, especially with closed source software, is far more vulnerable than paper ballots. But there's still plenty of methods to perpetrate fraud with paper ballots too, not the least of which is to add or remove ballots. What good is recounting paper votes when someone has stuffed the ballot box with extra ballots? The recount will only serve to confirm the fraudulent vote.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Exit polling can be and has been unreliable

Strangely enough, exit-polling's "unreliable" results seem to correlate in places with suspicious voting-systems... So, unless certain voting systems influence voters to make them liars...

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Darinbob]

When you look at the Florida elections, the big problems weren't really with the recounts. It was systemic issues that these machines don't solve. Bickering over who is and isn't allowed to vote, having one party unilaterally purge names from voter roles, and other political issues unrelated to people actually sitting down and doing the hard work of manually counting ballots.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hanging Chads"

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

True dat!!

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[SilentChasm]

I see two problems with the ink thumb print method:

1. As far as I can tell, ballots in the US are supposed to be secret (as in not linkable to an individual) and having a uniquely identifying piece of information like a thumbprint doesn't fit well with that.

2. Do you really trust the government not to collect all those ballots and run them through some kind of criminal database to "catch criminals", or "protect the children", or even just for the sole purpose of adding more people to the database for tracking? Just look at what's happened to the DNA database being expanded to searches for familial matches. If you give anything like that to the government, they will abuse it.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[e3m4n]

I suppose the could run prints through a database, but all that will really tell them is that you were there on that day. Technology for that still takes a while to scan each print and run it through a database, so that search would trail by days. That paper doesn't match up to who signed into the book and time is never recorded there either. I don't see it as a very effective dragnet.

I could see them adding prints to the database as jane/john doe's if they arent paired with a known identity. This would be similar to tracking your Kroger shopping card or some other rewards based card where they track a bar code not a actual person.

as far as being anonymous, they have always had the ability to pull prints off any paper ballot since the technology of print matching became available. Computerized is the most anonymous, but its so anonymous that even the computer gets to vote several hundred times too.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[LynnwoodRooster]

Sorry, they were still finding unopened ballots in April 2005. It wasn't just '3 days' of ballot finding. Ballots "found" as late as December 17 - 6 weeks after the election - and still included in the final tally. And it was quite interesting that all of the found ballots were from King County, and - like you said - broke a lot heavier for Gregoire than the county in general.

.
You don't need e-Voting to steal elections - just "find" new ballots as needed. And when in doubt (remember the infamous write-in for Chris Rossi that was counted as a vote for Christine Gregoire over Dino Rossi?) just decide it the way you want...

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[riverat1]

Proper procedures will counter most of the fraud possibilities with paper ballots. Pre-stuffing should by countered by multiple poll workers verifying that the ballot box is empty before the poll opens. Post-stuffing should be countered by placing a tamper-proof seal on the ballot box when the poll closes. A proper chain of custody record of voted ballots should prevent most opportunities for shenanigans. It may not be perfect but at least it requires a whole lot more effort to mess with paper ballots than with an electronic record.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[grimmjeeper]

All of that would help for sure. But records can be doctored after the fact. Tamper proof seals aren't ever really tamper proof. The chain of custody is only as strong as the people who are in it. That being said, all of that should still be mandatory in every district in the country. It won't prevent fraud but, like you say, fraud would require a lot more effort. That would reduce the occurrence of fraud and that's never a bad thing.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[sjames]

And yet there were a number of well documented irregularities that would only happen if someone wanted to alter an election. It's hard to believe that much manipulation would happen just for funsies.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Mr Bubble]

Actually, exit polling is pretty reliable, but the real issue here is not the sense of surprise, but rather the deep entanglement in the election process of Republicans and plenty of proof of wrong doing. The bottom line is an election system this much in question should never be allowed to exist. But, I haven't seen any major changes.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Mr Bubble]

What we need is for the election computer to print out a ballot that is both human readable AND machine readable. The machine should not hold election results data. The voter collects their ballot from the machine, verifies it, and puts it in the ballot box - just like a punch card. The chits can be read by an optical scanner and also can be easily hand-counted on a random, scheduled basis or as the result of a call for a recount or any suggestion of an anomalous outcome. This isn't rocket science. What the fuck is wrong with our country?

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Thing 1]

Election machines are a worse system because accuracy and fairness of elections is not considered to be very important.

Exactly; the MIC is in charge, it doesn't matter who the meat votes in.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Let go of a major crime?

Exit polls have become increasing wrong because of major corruption in the vote tallying process.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[wallsg]

Personally, I prefer human readable paper ballots. It's simply not as easy to fudge physical ballots as elecrontic ones.

Yeah...

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[dave87656]

Actually, exit polling has always been accurate to within less than 1 percent in the US and in Europe since the 1960's. Only after the installation of electronic voting machines in 2004 did that change, and interestingly, always in GWB's direction. Your information doesn't agree with anything I've read or heard and, in fact, is completely contradicted by election results since the 1960's when reliable exit polling started.

The amount of information pointing to huge election irregularities is pretty overwhelming.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is, that this is not true. The race was always close in Ohio, and there were as many polls showing Kerry winning Ohio as Bush. This is why it was such a surprise, not that Bush won (a close race will be one by someone) but that is was with such a clear margin.

The other surprises are how easy it apparently is to foil the election! I mean, someone tells the supervisors to go away, and they just do so! Someone should have called the police, the press, the white house and anyone else that would listen that they were being removed from their monitoring duty...

And lastly, no one questioned that the result was sent off to a republican controlled data-center before the count was shown or verified by anyone!

Basically, even if nothing on-towards happened, the whole procedure is wrong and the election should have been voided. Either removing Ohio from the national count or postpone the result until a re-election had happened. Like in Florida, where the declaring of a winner should have been postponed until the votes had been properly counted (Simply adding a rule to the election laws that winning by a margin smaller than X% means complete manual recount before the result is shown)

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Clear Politics poll aggregation showed that Bush led Kerry going into the election in Ohio, and had led nationally since the September before the election - it would have been surprising if Kerry won. Exit polling can be and has been unreliable - that's why it's only used as an indicator and not on it's own (precinct turnout is usually more indicative of who's going to win).

Really, just let it go. Kerry just lost - sometimes that's all there is to it.

and just who do you work for.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Politburo]

Not all the found ballots were from King County. They didn't break all that much heavier than the county as a whole, and it's not unreasonable that absentee voters would have a different voting pattern than the county as a whole.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[acidreverb]

It's simply not as easy to fudge physical ballots as [electronic] ones.

Why's that?

We trust people not to replace a truckload of votes before they get to the tallying location. But that doesn't mean they couldn't do it. Or, more nefariously, one could manipulate the tally by legislating which votes are acceptable. Consider the hanging chads fiasco; or, changing the rules of when absentee votes are, and are not, acceptable.

A paper ballot can not be traced back to you as a person. So how is it more secure? What's to stop counterfeit ballots?

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[acidreverb]

You can't know. You can't Recount. You don't know the source. YOU CAN NOT [VERIFY].

You can recount paper all you want. But if the paper has been manipulated you're not really verifying anything at all.

E-voting has been implemented all-wrong. I'm not going to argue that. But if is was done correctly, with audits of the system and audits of the tallies, it would be every bit as, if not more secure than, paper.

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[Anonymous Coward]

How can this be insightful to say one poll you like is reliable and another poll you dislike is unreliable? Slashdot used to be better than Fox News...

Re:Bush led in pre-election polls in Ohio

[LynnwoodRooster]

So you don't find it disturbing that ballots found weeks after the election, with no thorough chain of custody, were still included in the count? It's just as easy, perhaps easier, to cheat with paper ballots as it is electronically... But this is /. and the shiny techno-geek approach to voting is always the more suspect method.

Mod parent FUNNY

[damn_registrars]

Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?

That's a good one, there. We heard about the massive lines in the largest cities in Ohio, where working people had to stand in line for several hours to vote if they lived in less-than-affluent districts. Many people were unable to take enough time off of work, and simply walked away from the line, not casting a vote at all.

Re:Mod parent FUNNY

[operagost]

Whose fault was that? Who chooses when the polls are open? Who chooses the polling places? And am I supposed to believe that not only do all "working people" vote Democrat, they all voted Kerry?

Re:Mod parent FUNNY

[damn_registrars]

Whose fault was that?

The significant choices that were made by the republicans in charge included the number of voting machines available per location, which directly influences how long it takes to get through the line. There was nothing even remotely approaching equality in terms of voting machines per capita in various voting districts in Ohio. Suburban whites found they could vote in 5 minutes, urban blacks found it took 5 hours or more.

And am I supposed to believe that not only do all "working people" vote Democrat, they all voted Kerry?

No, but you should be aware of the blatant voter suppression effort that took place in Ohio at the hands of the republicans. If all people in Ohio had genuinely equal ability to vote, the results could have been vastly different.

Re:Mod parent FUNNY

[a_nonamiss]

Who chooses when the polls are open? Who chooses the polling places?

Uhhh... this guy. And it's fishy as hell that he happened to have been a huge Bush fundraiser in Ohio as well as a dyed-in-the-wool partisan Republican. I won't say he's a crook, I have no idea. You have to admit, though, it all smells pretty bad.

Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest?

[elrous0]

Well, when the CEO of Diebold (the company making the voting machines), Walden O'Dell is also doubling as a major Bush fundraiser and promising to "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President", is anyone really surprised that serious questions were raised about these e-voting machines--which were already controversial long before Wally O'Dell ever started fundraising?

Some things are still best done the old-fashioned way. And voting is one of them.

What if scenario

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I wonder what it means if this suit succeeds? Does it mean that mean that all laws Bush signed after the 2004 election are illegal along with all executive orders from the same time period? Personally I doubt that will be the case but I do wonder especially since the article didn't go into what the suit was about. For those who would like to complain about the 2000 election that one already went all the way to the supreme court so we are kind of stuck with that decision.

Re:What if scenario

[war4peace]

Being someone who lives on an entirely different continent, I don't really care about this whole affair, but I am nevertheless curious as to what's going to happen if this suit ends with concluding that the elections were stolen.

Maybe they will throw Bush into jail. So what? What's past is past, and having someone serve prison time won't help a bit. I mean, prison time is to punish someone for their deeds and hopefully teach them to not do it again. Bush won't do it again anyway, and punishing him could get a bit more creative.
Maybe they will throw some small fish into jail. Bah, nobody would care after a few months anyway.
So I wonder if there's indeed a goal for this trial. "Bringing the truth to the surface" is not really a goal, is a welcome addition to the goal itself. So... what's the goal?

Re:What if scenario

[goldspider]

Well, it's not like we have more important issues to discuss, such as the impending default, or... oh wait...

Re:What if scenario

[pauljlucas]

Maybe they will throw Bush into jail. So what? What's past is past, and having someone serve prison time won't help a bit. I mean, prison time is to punish someone for their deeds and hopefully teach them to not do it again.

Prison time also serves as a deterrent to prevent others from doing it.

Re:What if scenario

[black soap]

It means all the laws stand, but we put an asterisk by his name in the history books. Other than that, we promise to try really hard not to let election fraud go unnoticed next time, and it is back to business as usual.

Re:What if scenario

[Bob the Super Hamste]

So just like MLB records during the steroids era then.

Re:What if scenario

[Amouth]

sadly the US public as a whole wouldn't handle having a President (even W) in Jail. hell we can't even get senators in Jail when it is completely and bloody obvious to everyone what happened (Ted K.)

Re:What if scenario

[Danathar]

No.

Bush is gone. He was president and now it's over. They didn't invalidate Rutherford B. Hayes laws after he stole that election and they'll not invalidate GW's either if it turned out he did.

Re:What if scenario

[Nethemas the Great]

You really should care. Losing the US to power mongers with no ethics and self-serving agendas will most certainly have (as was already evidenced by the Bush/Chenney/Rove period) dire consequences for the rest of the world. The particularly unsettling bit about all of this is that most Americans will either remain in the dark or dismiss happenings such as these as "conspiracy theories." Which is to say preposterous ideas invented by mentally unsound people and should be given the same consideration as the crazies standing on the street corner preaching the world is ending. The scary thing is, should we see more and inevitably worse, of the same, it just might be.

Re:What if scenario

[MozeeToby]

My guess and it's just a guess: Bush was still, at a federal level, the legally elected president of the US. After all, what matters is how many electoral votes he received and how a state spends it's electoral votes is up to it. A state could pass a law saying that the state legislature decides who their electoral votes go for and the federal government would have to roll with it. In fact, a state could pass a law saying that their electoral votes go to whoever wins the popular vote on a national level, such a system has been suggested as a way to prevent people winning the popular vote and losing the election.

Re:What if scenario

[sgt scrub]

I wouldn't mind seeing the people he appointed to offices, including judges, being replaced. It isn't going to happen. At least, not until after this next presidential election. I'll freely go out on a ledge, huge as it is, and say that the 2012 elections will be bathed in corruption.

Re:What if scenario

[smelch]

Why do you think we would default when only 1/10 of our revenue is required to service the debt? Is it because you think Obama will choose to pay for relative fluff than pay our creditors?

Re:What if scenario

[AlamedaStone]

relative fluff

Sorry, is that the veteran's benefits fluff, or grandma's groceries fluff? I get them mixed up.

Re:What if scenario

[war4peace]

Where I live I've been through worse, MUCH worse than the Average Joe conceives. Dictatorial Communism, anyone?
So please excuse me, but I'm not going to lose any fluffy life style, I won't lose my house (I have none to speak of), I won't lose my savings (no savings) and if I lose my job, I'm gonna get another (albeit less paid, but I'll still manage).

"The world" means a hell of a lot of places where the Great Fall of the US of A won't really affect anyone. I plan on going to such a place rather soon; hopefully I'll be there by the time everything happens. If not, well then I'll manage anyway.
And such thing is not "scary". It's worthy of knowing about, but that's pretty much it from my point of view.

Re:What if scenario

[smelch]

How about any number of on-going federal projects that aren't really in the realm of veteran's benefits or social security? The whole descretionary budget is up for grabs before default and entitlements. Obviously not forever, but until the ceiling is raised. This scare tactic of starving grannies, dying vets and default is ridiculous when we have revenue to cover those things, just not everything. Why pick the most harmful ones to showcase as being what won't be paid? That's like saying a pay cut cost you your home when you paid for a brand new kitchen after being notified. Sure, it would have been nice to have the new appliances, but don't you think keeping the house is more important?

Re:What if scenario

[BarC0d3z]

One basic flaw in teaching that the U.S. is a democracy is the fact that we're actually a Republic. Popular elections don't vote in our president, the electoral college does. The electoral college is real people, not automatons, who could (depending on state law) decide to take the popular vote into account when making their decision - or decide the voting public are ignoramuses and vote their own way. In some states, it's possible to win only part of the electoral votes. Regardless of the outcome of this suit, for better or for worse, President George W Bush was our legally elected president and everything he did as President stands.

Re:What if scenario

[publiclurker]

Anything but executive bonuses and jet writeoffs is fluff.

Re:What if scenario

[CrimsonAvenger]

Maybe they will throw Bush into jail.

Or not.

First, this is a civil trial, and jail isn't an option.

Second, there's nothing linking Bush to anything, even if whatsisname DID commit election fraud.

Re:What if scenario

[rocket rancher]

Being someone who lives on an entirely different continent, I don't really care about this whole affair, but I am nevertheless curious as to what's going to happen if this suit ends with concluding that the elections were stolen. Maybe they will throw Bush into jail. So what? What's past is past, and having someone serve prison time won't help a bit. I mean, prison time is to punish someone for their deeds and hopefully teach them to not do it again. Bush won't do it again anyway, and punishing him could get a bit more creative. Maybe they will throw some small fish into jail. Bah, nobody would care after a few months anyway. So I wonder if there's indeed a goal for this trial. "Bringing the truth to the surface" is not really a goal, is a welcome addition to the goal itself. So... what's the goal?

There is more to a justice system than teaching somebody a lesson. This is a tort, ie, a civil case, not a criminal case. The punishment in tort cases will be lost money, and lost reputation for the losing party -- two things that will make people who still have both take notice, and hopefully deter that kind of behavior in the future.

It was hacked?

[KermodeBear]

I read through the article and all I found was information that it was possible to do so - but we at Slashdot ALL know that all electronic voting systems are heavily flawed. I didn't see any evidence in the article that voter fraud actually did occur, only that it was possible.

What IS mentioned is that an intermediate vote count was transferred to another server, but that just means that early vote totals were made available, not that fraudulent votes were cast.

What is with Slashdot and the craptacular headlines lately?

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously now... I didn't even RTFA and I believe you. Slashdot is utter crap. I have been a regular for years, but this is the last story I have read on this website. Bitcoin. Anonymous. Hacking. Cracking. Stealing. Maybe. Might have said. Was probably. Etc. Etc. Too much bullshit around here.

Goodbye, Slashdot, it was a bumpy ride.

Re:It was hacked?

[kilfarsnar]

I think you're referring to this:

The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.

It's not clear whether Connell testified that the vote shift happened, or it was determined some other way.

Re:It was hacked?

[phlinn]

Well, they copied the headline verbatim from a known partisan website. It's worth noting that truthout.org made a stronger claim than the actual legal filing did, as far as I can tell. Blame chimpo13, not slashdot.

Re:It was hacked?

[nahdude812]

It says that they were set up to be a fallback authority with complete control to be able to modify votes in case the primary systems failed. Those who were responsible for overseeing the systems were sent home by agents of Blackwell, and during that time, control was sent to these fallback servers even though there was no evidence there had been any failed systems to spur it.

They could only steal votes if they were granted the failover scenario, and the architecture made it easy to do so should that have happened - so easy in fact that it appears evident that it was designed with this purpose in mind. Then, private contractors take control of things late in the evening of the election, transfer control to the fully-falsifiable system, then transfer control back, all without any evidence that there had been failures to trigger the transfer of control.

They had motive and opportunity, and the design of the system is such that any actual proof against tampering could be falsified without means of detection. You're right, it doesn't say "votes were tampered with," but the only remaining possible evidence would be a confession. The one man who began to disclose more details died in a mysterious plane crash shortly after.

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

I reached the same conclusion...including about the /. headlines, though I don't thing the bent is anything new here.

Re:It was hacked?

[Baloroth]

Oh thank God, someone on Slashdot actually has some sens. All it takes is one quick visit to TFA to see that that news site is the most biased news outlet I have ever seen. Its literally more sensationalist than Fox News, just in the other direction. The people who wrote the article authored no less than 4 books like "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election". The entire things takes "it might have been possible to hack the election" to "look! It was possible, so they did!" They don't say "reveals how it might have been hacked", which would be true, they say "was hacked", which they have absolutely no proof of whatsoever. Just suspicions, and their suspicions at that. And saying people died in "a suspicious plane crash"? Thats some nice inuendo right there. They are literally suggesting that Bush had a person killed for testifying against him. Over the top, much?

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

And to think some people pay for the privilege.

Re:It was hacked?

[Charliemopps]

lol, that news source isn't biased at all...

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like the same amount of evidence used to convict people of murder when there is no body...

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed - there may not be any direct proof that votes were changed, but there's one heck of a lot of circumstantial evidence to indicate that at the very least there was a conspiracy to tamper with the votes whether they did it or not. Even if they can't find the smoking gun to indicate that the actual vote numbers were changed, I think this is sufficient to say that the votes were "tampered" with, in that they were intentionally handled in an innapropriate way which could have affected the outcome. I'm not sure it's enough to win a criminal case, but since this appears to be a civil case, it really looks like the preponderance of the evidence is leaning towards the plainiffs, and I really thing there should be a criminal case once this is over...

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not voter fraud, it is election fraud. Voter fraud is like Ann Coulter voting in two states. Election fraud is like machines flipping a percentage of the votes to the opponent, or uncertified firmware updates in the eve on the election (Georgia 2004), and then the race swings to the candidate losing in the polls.

One way you can spot planned election fraud is when exit polling is banned.

Re:It was hacked?

[chrb]

The claimed evidence is:

1. The SmarTech servers were hired as fail-over protection. Vote counts were only supposed to be transmitted to SmarTech if there was a fail-over condition. Though there is no record of a fail-over occuring, vote records WERE transmitted to SmarTech servers sometime after 9 p.m. on election night.
2. In the network topology, SmarTech's servers were placed in between the vote reporting computers and the vote counting computers instead of parallel to the vote reporting computers as specified for the failover backup.
3. Suspiciously, the state IT specialist for the Ohio Secretary of State's office was unexpectedly sent home at 9 p.m. on election night, and was told that contractors would be handling the rest of the evening's IT work.
4. The unpredicted shift in Ohio's voting patterns occured after the state IT specialist was sent home.

(Those points are taken from some other sites, not just TFA. I'm not saying that is what happened, just explaining what the article is going on about.)

Re:It was hacked?

[dcherryholmes]

More information here. Yes yes, Maxim. Still a good article.

http://www.maxim.com/amg/humor/stupid-fun/86265/mysterious-death-bushs-cyber-guru.html

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

bury that head.

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0601-34.htm

This is probably a better source.

Re:It was hacked?

[Schnapple]

The one man who began to disclose more details died in a mysterious plane crash shortly after.

As opposed to all the people who died in plane crashes that aren't mysterious.

All plane crashes are mysterious and suspicious. Planes aren't supposed to crash. They're supposed to stay in the air until they land safely and if they don't then something went horribly wrong. And if you're going to dispose of an enemy, why do so in a manner that the government is sure to investigate?

Re:It was hacked?

[nahdude812]

And if you're going to dispose of an enemy, why do so in a manner that the government is sure to investigate?

Two things come to mind:

1. Doesn't the government investigate most unexpected deaths? Seems like there ought to be quite a few ways you could sabotage a plane which would not be evident due to the severity of the wreckage.
2. One of the major players in this case was the attorney general of that state. The same person who ultimately bears responsibility for investigating that incident

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, Sir, are hopelessly naive.

Re:It was hacked?

[swilde23]

What is with Slashdot and the craptacular headlines lately?

Trying to compete with a certain cable tv news network perhaps...

Re:It was hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends, now doesn't it?

Are the complaining that the election was stolen, or showing that the concept of electronic voting is flawed due to a lack of oversight and accountability?

Are these things mutually exclusive?

Disclaimer: I have very little invested in this. I'm not even American.

Re:It was hacked?

[LeonPierre]

I literally do not think you know what that means.

Why John Kerry lost

[snsh]

Kerry's biggest problem in 2004 was not the voting machines in Ohio or Pennsylvania, but his inability to coherently and succinctly answer a simple question.

In 2004, a ham sandwich would have out-polled George W, but the Democrats nominated John Friggin Kerry. Vote tampering in Ohio does not excuse the Democrats for losing that election.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the Democrats would not have won anyways does not excuse anyone from tampering with votes.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[CraftyJack]

Vote tampering in Ohio does not excuse the Democrats for losing that election.

No, but a weak candidate doesn't excuse vote tampering either. No matter which way I vote, I'd like to know that it counted. I'd like to know that it's not being tampered with for profit, malice, or mischief.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[phlinn]

Hey, but the ham sandwich didn't serve in Vietnam!

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2008, McCain/Sandwich could have won, but the republicans decided to put Palin in.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Kerry's biggest problem in 2004 was not the voting machines in Ohio or Pennsylvania, but his inability to coherently and succinctly answer a simple question.

Perhaps you were simply too unsophisticated to understand the all the myriad nuances and delicate shadings of Mister Kerry's answers.
 
/sarc

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried one from 7-11? Maybe it did.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to know if it counted, or if it *was* counted? It's statistically very likely that the counting of your vote was successful. Did it mean shit to the outcome? Probably not, even if it were on paper.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. John Kerry lost because the swift-boat campaign cast doubt on his record as a grade A genuine war hero, which he is.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[FoolishOwl]

Given that a major election year issue was that the Bush administration had used deceit to justify an invasion of Iraq, and that most anti-war activists looked to the Democratic Party for leadership, it was at best perverse for the Democratic Party to run a candidate who campaigned on his status as a Vietnam War veteran and who advocated invading Syria and Iran.

My theory is that the Democratic Party leadership intended to lose, rather than win and become discredited by the DP's unwillingness to stop the war at the height of popular opposition to it, and the DP leadership concentrated on using the election campaign to deflect and disorganize the anti-war movement, while trying to maintain just enough credibility to challenge the Republicans later.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[dcavanaugh]

Let's not forget how Bush became President in the first place. The Democrats nominated Al Gore in 2000. Everyone remembers how Florida results were within the margin of error for their stupid punch card ballots. But nobody seems to remember that Gore lost his own home state (Tennessee), which in my opinion should result in automatic disqualification. If your own state won't vote for you, go directly to epic fail.

Bush was one of the weakest candidates in modern times. In a way, he was similar to Nixon. Both were weak candidates who enjoyed the benefit of weaker opponents. Nixon defeated Humphrey in 1968 and McGovern in 1972; Bush defeated Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. Obama might fit into the same discussion, having defeated the Republican throwaway ticket of McCain/Palin in 2008. It remains to be seen if the Republicans can nominate a weak enough candidate to give Obama a second term.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

John Kerry is actually not that bad at speaking. Neither was Al Gore. Listen to some of these guys' better speeches when they're not running for anything and you'll see what I mean. Take for example Kerry's speech at the '08 convention, or Gore on Iraq in 2002, or in his global warming film. They're both bold, passionate, smart people who can turn a phrase well. I think their image problems in 2000 and 2004 was that the campaigns were too cautious about appearing anywhere outside the center, and so they would not let the candidates be themselves. Therefore the public perceived them as dull.

I also think the DC press somewhat encouraged this peculiar definition of "playing it safe" with false narratives about Bush's effectiveness against terrorism (in 2004) and "Clinton fatigue" (in 2000). So even though Bush was awful at preventing terrorism, Kerry had to play against the idea that he was great at it, and even though Clinton polled very well with the general public in 2000, Gore had to "distance himself".

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[dcavanaugh]

I disagree. McCain was not considered "conservative enough" for the Republican base, so their support of McCain was half-baked. McCain was a strong candidate in 2000, but by 2008 he had nothing left in the tank. With no real chance of running on Bush's track record, the RNC was left with a rebuilding strategy: Sacrifice the 2008 election. Experiment with Palin to see what happens, with the understanding that anyone with a pulse can defeat Obama in 2012. The only problem with the strategy is that the Democrats tried it against Bush and it didn't work.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[dcavanaugh]

You ask for a lot. It's one thing to get your vote counted, but how many unqualified voters are voting against you? Although the Ohio system appears to tolerate fraud on a grand scale, other forms of voter fraud are designed to operate at a lower level. ID requirements are incredibly weak in many states. Do you think this is really because people find it so hard to get a government-issued photo ID?

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Pope]

I voted for adding the mustard before I voted against it!

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Arterion]

As someone who lives in Tennessee, I don't really blame Gore for losing here in 2000. Gore's political ideas were far too progressive for this backwater hellhole. Mainly, he wasn't christian enough, in that he had respect for non-Christians, and in that he relied heavily on science for making decisions, rather than the bible. It really would have been wasted effort if he'd tried. I mean, the people here think that god punishes america with natural disasters because of abortions and gays.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[dcavanaugh]

But they elected him to the Senate, right?

As for relying on science to make decisions, the evidence suggests politics trumps science in Gore's mind. Al Gore Mea Culpa: Support for Corn-Based Ethanol Was a Mistake At least he admits a mistake. But look at the motivation and apply the same principle to Gore's other favorite causes with the same degree of analysis. Not that the problem is limited to Gore; politicians are always lining up behind various causes to trade government funding for votes.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[snowgirl]

The Daily Show has a running gag about how Kerry can't give anything but a rambling statement extemporaneously. Sure his prepared speeches may be good, but then President Bush II was able to sound somewhat coherent when he had a speech writer speaking for him.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[jafac]

Yes. Same for 2012 and Obama. Yet, a ham sandwich will probably win.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Noren]

Every losing candidate, with the possible exception of sitting presidents, looks weak in retrospect. Let's look at a few more of them: Dole, Dukakis, Mondale - all of them now perceived as weak candidates.

This isn't a grand coincidence that one party always happens to nominate a weak candidate, but a byproduct of the fact that the process and result of losing the election makes them be perceived as much weaker in retrospect than they actually were during the campaign.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

They elected him to the Senate in a very different political landscape, namely the 1980s. He was tapped for veep in '92 and the South turned much more solid red in the years that followed.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[steelfood]

I'm not sure they have a strong candidate. Nobody in their right mind wants to run against Obama, despite the Senate Republican leader mouthing off about how their only goal is to ensure that Obama is a one-term president.

The worst part is, Obama isn't going to win on his own merits. He's going to win because the Republicans have disenfranchised their support base by selecting the wealthiest and most rabid right-wing nutjubs as the bulk of their constituency. The moderates are such a powerful swing force because they're not being properly representated. The Democrats tend to be too liberal for their tastes, and the Republicans are too pro-large corporation.

If any time's appropriate for a 3rd party to show up--a moderate party--now is it. The key is to start on the right and move center, because that's where most of the disenfranchised voters are right now.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[Anonymous Coward]

You underestimate Shrub a little. (Everyone does; that's how he got by.)

Bush was a colossal mediocrity, but he was an excellent campaigner. I have no doubt Gore was smarter than Bush in every intellectual category, except the converse when it came to campaigning; evaluating crowds, what people were thinking, and conveying ease and assurance in public. You don't "feel" good voting for a guy who's supposed to be smarter than everyone in the room, but seems like a big phony (because he doesn't feel comfortable in public and doesn't get how humans evaluate each other). Most voters pick by feeling, not a checklist of criteria. Politician is a sales job. Gore wasn't any good at selling.

Kerry was dumber than Gore, and just as bad a salesman. All Bush had to do was fool the American people twice. Apparently, its not so hard.

Another thing to realize; Bush's malapropisms and speaking flubs was all an act. I wouldn't be shocked if they were all calculated. Early in his political career, he was creamed by a local who kept mocking him for being raised in the East. Bush's well constructed sentences, not resembling the grammar fails of the West Texas locals hurt his election chances.

I was floored by Bush's public, afternoon speech during the banking meltdown in 2008. It was supposed to "reassure" the public. He did not make one grammatical or pronunciation error, particularly the ones he was famous for. He even pronounced "nuclear" correctly. His speech was crystal clear. That's when I realized that I was the dupe, not him.

For some retarded reason, American people want someone mediocre, just like them, in office, rather than obviously superior in intellectual acuity. Bill Clinton knew that.

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[unitron]

So instead of a ham sandwich, they just went with a ham?

Re:Why John Kerry lost

[scot4875]

But nobody seems to remember that Gore lost his own home state (Tennessee), which in my opinion should result in automatic disqualification. If your own state won't vote for you, go directly to epic fail.

That's just stupid, as others have pointed out.

So, essentially, every liberal presidential candidate from Idaho and every conservative candidate from New York should be automatically disqualified?

--Jeremy

And I predict...

[Anonymous Coward]

... that of this startling revelation absolutely nothing will come.

The people don't care, the politicians only mind when it is used against them and the people with money are working both sides anyway.

Oh, there may be a lot of hot words thrown around, endless suggestions on how to prevent a repeat of the problem (some might even work) and a even handful of fixes that don't really do anything (or may even make the problem worse).

But a real solution? Ha!

How much is incompetence

[Bob the Super Hamste]

How much of this is incompetence and how much is really malice? As much as everyone seems to like a good conspiracy I have a feeling that this is probably going to be more like the Sony PSN security breach and less like the Sony rootkit DRM fiasco

Re:How much is incompetence

[Will.Woodhull]

Why does it matter whether it was incompetence or malice?

When the results are critical, there is a need for society to protect itself from the incompetent asshole as well as the malicious bastard. Burning all of those responsible, no matter what their intent might have been, can be an effective deterrent to both the assholes and the bastards. There is no need for us here on Earth to sort them out.

Re:How much is incompetence

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Frankly it doesn't' matter as either way we get screwed. I just didn't want people to get going off half cocked about a grand conspiracy that involves the Illuminati, Masons, Tri-Lateral Commission, and Bigfoot. If it is just incompetence then hang them out to dry and punish the corporation and individuals involved in design, if it was malice then line everyone involved up against a wall.

Re:How much is incompetence

[shentino]

The fuckups were incompetence.

The failure of oversight that was designed to prevent it was malice.

Seriously, making excuses?

[Lance Dearnis]

Exit polls are, frankly, more reliable then our actual vote tallies now. The Florida ballot was, quite clearly, confusing. Go look at it from a statistical perspective - Buchanan's results were clearly skewed, as acknowledge by everyone but Bush (Meaning, Buchanan agreed they were screwed up too!), because only Bush had soemthing to gain. Oh, and he was elected president without a plurality popular support. In Florida, back then, the Republicans clearly proved that they were in this to win the presidency, not win an election. If you want to contest this, offer more proof.

Meanwhile, in this article, the argument is not as simple 'It COULD have happened therefore it happened", which would be the grounds you would use to contest any election in any system no matter what. No, here, you have a clearly partisan system, you have an unexplained security lapse, you have an unexplained vote shift. You have strong circumstantial effort of foul play - and while it's not enough to convict someone, this bloody well should have invalidated the election results and forced a revote. You need to know that your election system is clean and reliable, and in this, Ohio's system failed - there's just too great of a chnce for the election to have been stolen to tolerate it. We're America. Run another election. We're supposed to care about that, right?

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Florida ballot was, quite clearly, confusing.
Perhaps it was, but it was also a system that had existed for a long time and had been used across the country. If it was unsuitable, it should have been dealt with before a major election and not during because you think you can recount a few select counties and win. Personally, I still think scanned paper ballots are way to go for the foreseeable future.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're supposed to care about that, right?

Why? The American economy would have imploded in 2008 just as readily under a Kerry administration. We were already in our overseas wars deep enough that they would have persisted through his entire term. Domestically, little would have changed as well: the investment banks were playing Jenga with our entire economy well before 2004. The only major difference I can see is that the electorate would have (mistakenly) blamed Kerry and the Democrats for the collapse instead of (mistakenly) blaming Bush and the Republicans.

Nobody cares because nobody is given a reason to care.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Attila Dimedici]

What are you talking about? Several media organizations that favored Al Gore conducted their own independent recount and concluded that by any reasonable standard George W. Bush won the Florida vote in 2000. Additionally, even though Al Gore received more total counted votes nationwide than George W. Bush this does not take into account that states stop counting absentee ballots when the number of remaining ballots is less than the current difference between the candidates. The reports I have seen indicate that nationwide there were significantly more absentee ballots not counted than the difference between the national vote count for Al Gore and George W. Bush. The absentee ballots in the 2000 election favored George W. Bush by a significant margin. What this means is that we do not know what the actual number of nationwide votes for either Al Gore or George W. Bush were in the 2000 election, because no one counted all of the votes.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Anonymous Coward]

How are exit polls more reliable than the real deal? Because they favor the left by a wide margin? Because only idiots actually take the time to answer the questions? Because they only hit a few select polling locations? I've never even seen someone running an exit poll at my polling location, and considering that I'm in a evenly split district in Ohio you would think we'd be good candidates...

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Danse]

Perhaps it was, but it was also a system that had existed for a long time and had been used across the country. If it was unsuitable, it should have been dealt with before a major election and not during because you think you can recount a few select counties and win. Personally, I still think scanned paper ballots are way to go for the foreseeable future.

I agree that it should have been addressed earlier, but that doesn't mean that it should be considered valid when the problems it caused were significant enough, and the election close enough, that it could have caused a change in the outcome. Even more so for a presidential election.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[phlinn]

Winning an election by the rules is not the same as winning the popular vote. The republicans proved that they were interested in winning an election, and they surely would have liked to win the popular vote too, but that wasn't as important.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Lance Dearnis]

In 2000, because the ballot was clearly screwed up. You clearly had a problem in people voting for Buchanan, in a more then large enough margin to swing the state and a Presidential Election. You're joining the problem here in that you're ignoring, the same way that Bush (And I admit, Gore too) did - assuming that there was 'nothing that could be done' about the screwed up Buchanan votes. That should have forced a re-election. Yes it would have been expensive, yes it would've been a pain, and you can start by taking the money straight from the officials in Florida who didn't fix this problem before hand. But in all seriousness, if at my job, I ran something that screwed up, tried to say 'nothing could be done', and forced through a change based on bad testing, they'd fire my ass, and maybe even take me to court for negligence to take the cost of fixing it out of my paychecks. And, this is why I consider the exit polling more reliable - not because exit polling is awesome, reliable, or favors either side, but because it's done in public and thus has more accountability then these voting systems people have got. In other words, it's the failure of the competition that makes them arguably superior.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[hesiod]

The only major difference I can see is that the electorate would have (mistakenly) blamed Kerry and the Democrats for the collapse instead of (mistakenly) blaming Bush and the Republicans.

Yet somehow, they are now trying to blame Obama... the bunch of freaking weasels.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[dwillden]

Because winning an election by the rules is winning . Period, end of statement.
Under the Electoral College system winning the popular vote is not required. Bush wasn't the first to win the White House without winning the popular vote. But winning by the rules is still winning, otherwise it wouldn't be winning and/or wouldn't be by the rules.

Both parties were interested in winning. Both parties are always interested in winning. Both parties have members who occasionally step over the bounds of the rules, that's because both parties are made up of Humans. The Democrats have as long a history of vote tampering as the Republicans. My opinion is that the rule breaking by the two parties cancels itself out when accounted for across the nation.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[phlinn]

I agree. The purpose of my previous post was to take issue with "the Republicans clearly proved that they were in this to win the presidency, not win an election." which seemed to conflate the popular vote with the election.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[sycodon]

Not to mention the fact that the ballot was put together by a Democrat.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Megane]

Buchanan's results were clearly skewed

Two words: Butterfly Ballot. My theory has long been that Democrat organizers bussed a bunch of elderly to the polls and told them "If you don't vote for the second guy, you'll lose your Social Security!" Normally, the first name on the ballot is the Republican and the second name is the Democrat. Well, guess who was the first guy on the right side of the butterfly, and thus the second hole? Pat Buchanan.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[kenh]

The issue in the 2000 election was the fluid, ever-changing, inconsistent standards being used to count votes in Florida.

In a per curiam decision, the Court ruled that the Florida Supreme Court's method for recounting ballots was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also ruled that no alternative method could be established within the time limits set by the State of Florida. Three concurring justices also asserted that the Florida Supreme Court had violated Article II, 1, cl. 2 of the Constitution, by misinterpreting Florida election law that had been enacted by the Florida Legislature.

Source: Wikipedia

A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.

Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff -- filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties -- Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.

But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to ''count all the votes.'' [emphasis added]

Source: NYTimes.com

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[jimbolauski]

Exit polls are very accurate if done properly, Ohio wasn't the only state with discrepancies in 2004 Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Iowa exit polls all showed Kerry winning and none of them he did win. Either there was a fundamental flaw in the exit polls of those swing states or there was election fraud in many states.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[number11]

Two words: Butterfly Ballot. My theory has long been that Democrat organizers bussed a bunch of elderly to the polls and told them "If you don't vote for the second guy, you'll lose your Social Security!" Normally, the first name on the ballot is the Republican and the second name is the Democrat.

If they "normally" put the Republican first, that in itself is a means of skewing the election, since being first improves chance of winning.

But that's so obvious that I doubt it's the policy anywhere. It's pretty standard practice to list candidates in random order. Which will likely be different for every variation of the ballot (e.g. different election for dog-catcher).

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, yeah. Look W VA primary, I agree, was heavily influenced by his Dad's money. And Illinois, yeah just surprising how Chicago delivered enough votes to get him elected but the election's over. Oh wait, you're talking about 2004 not 1960. Sorry.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Attila Dimedici]

First of all, the ballots were only screwed up in one county. There were not enough Buchanan votes in that one county to change the outcome in Florida. Finally, the person who made the ballot that you are complaining about was a Democrat. What caused the problem in Florida in 2000 was that the difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush was inside what a poll using the exact same numbers would have called the margin of error for the poll.
If you think there was something irredeemably wrong with the way the votes were cast/counted in Florida, there are two possible legitimate resolutions. The first is that the Florida legislature passes a bill selecting the Electors for the state of Florida, such a bill would have resulted in Florida's electoral votes going for George W. Bush. The other solution was for Florida's electors to not be seated. This would have resulted in the election being decided by the House of Representatives, which would have resulted in George W. Bush being sworn in as President in January of 2001.
The Constitution provides for a resolution to the sort of problem that you are contending existed in Florida in the 2000 election. Following that procedure would have resulted in George W. Bush being President. The Florida Supreme Court inserted itself into a situation where it had no Constitutional authority. This lead the U.S. Supreme Court to insert itself into the same situation and to make a ruling that exceeded its Constitutional authority. However, if the U.S. Supreme Court had made a ruling consistent with its Constitutional authority, the outcome would have been the same.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy died after his plane mysteriously fell out of the air in flames. His plane was tampered with previously, so it wasn't the first time. He and his wife were receiving death threats. He was personally warned not to fly. Conspiracy? Probably. But this all has to do with not sending Rove & co to jail. Remember, he was Rove's right hand IT man. Rove, in turn, was someone else's henchman (not Bush's).

The real money men behind the election "issues" probably don't even know about this sort of detail, and could care less. No one that powerful would risk dirtying their hands. See Murdock's example; can you pin anything on the guy? No. Guys have mysteriously died around the scandal? Yes. Who is going down? The dirty lieutenants. Even Murdock's wife will circle the wagon and protect him. Murdock knows how to pick 'em.

Powerful people hire very "motivated" lieutenants because these hires get things done, and because the powerful guy can look the other way if things get messy.

Can you and I play at that level? No. Not even close.

As far as you and I are concerned, we have to buy the story fed to us. It does not matter how much you don't like the lie, it is all you have to live with; get on with your ordinary life.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[rednip]

The reports I have seen indicate that nationwide there were significantly more absentee ballots not counted than the difference between the national vote count for Al Gore and George W. Bush.

What reports?

To the best of my knowledge, no authority in this country shovels unopened absentee ballots into the trash, even when 'they won't count'. Sure they won't do a recount in many condions, so the number might not be 'perfect' but that's not the same thing as wholesale dismissal of ballots. I'm not sure where one would gather such misinformation other than the reactionary media.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[unitron]

With paper ballots you can rotate who's at the top of the list, but with punch cards, or pretty much any other machine readable system, all the ballots have to be laid out identically.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[Attila Dimedici]

I did not say they threw them away, I said they did not count them. I know that California stopped counting absentee ballots when the remaining number of absentee ballots was fewer than the margin between the candidates. I believe this to be the correct use of resources. Since the total number of votes nationwide is irrelevant to the outcome of the election, the only thing that matters is whether there are enough votes to change to outcome of the election in that particular state. There is no reason for a state to count the remaining absentee ballots if the difference between the votes for each candidate was 50,000 and there were only 20,000 remaining absentee ballots to be counted in that state there would be no reason to count the remaining absentee ballots since even if they all voted for the candidate that had fewer votes it would not change the outcome of the election. My understanding is that this is a common practice in most states and, as I said, it is the correct usage of government resources.

Re:Seriously, making excuses?

[number11]

With paper ballots you can rotate who's at the top of the list, but with punch cards, or pretty much any other machine readable system, all the ballots have to be laid out identically.

Here we have printed paper ballots that are machine readable (scanned), and the names rotate. Not in any given ward (or area in which the races are all identical), so the machines just need to be set up differently for different wards (which will have different orders). That's not perfectly random, but it's probably close enough to negate the advantage that being first on the ballot gives in all but the most local election. And you'd have to print the ballots differently for the next ward (which has a different city council race) anyhow.

It should be simple enough to randomize (or just rotate) the order of presentation on any on-screen system to the point that successive voters get different candidate orders. Punch cards I dunno, I've never seen those as ballots. But ISTM you could have them printed in (more or less) random order, and one prepunched column that identifies the layout of the ballot (e.g. a "1" punch in Col. 1 means for Col. 2: 1=Elmer Fudd 2=Spiderman 3=Peter Pan, whereas a "2" punch in Col. 1 means for Col. 2: 1=Spiderman, 2=Peter Pan, 3=Elmer Fudd). After the butterfly ballot fiasco, is anyone actually using punch card ballots any more?

So what?

[FiloEleven]

By the time it comes down to actually voting for one of two "viable" candidates, the statist agenda is bound to be fulfilled. There are meaningful differences between Republican and Democrat, but on the whole they will both tend to do things that increase the role of federal government in our everyday lives and insidiously undermine our rights.

Give me a third party with the size and principles to actually change the course of government and I'll care more about what happens in the final round of elections.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

FRY
                                                  These are the candidates? They sound
                                                  like clones. Wait a minute. They are
                                                  clones!
 

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beautifully said. So true. I do find it funny when people get all pissed off at a progressive republican (like a Bush) not realizing that they are simultaneously touting a candidate whose progressive tendencies are even more dangerous (like an Obama). The fallacy was not properly identifying the source of the problem. The problem is state-ism, progressivism, socialism, communism, and tyranny. They are all of the same cloth yet somehow, our political elites have managed to pull a "trick" on the people. We have leftists pointing the finger at the "right wing" for failure. The problem is that, all of the failures can be traced to leftist policy. Often the "right wing" gets wrapped up into it and literally pushes the agenda further. The left has it made... Republicans try to implement socialism and get burned for it. Democrats implement socialism and are praised for best intension by the media regardless of results. Every failed socialist policy is converted into an argument against conservatism. "If only those damn conservatives weren't screwing up all our Utopian plans." The "Utopian" plans didn't account for a major obstacle: The John Galt Effect.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone keeps waiting to be given a third party then there will never be one.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

statists this statists that, the state serves a purpose you know. assuming you are a libertarian, the state exists to make sure all of us can live

Re:So what?

[alphatel]

Give me a third party with the size and principles to actually change the course of government and I'll care more about what happens in the final round of elections.

Here you go, vote with your heart.

Re:So what?

[Doctor_Jest]

There are no meaningful differences between Republicans and Democrats, unless you count their donors. It is, and has been for some time, a one-party system with the veil of "choice" pulled over the eyes of the voters. Both parties increase the power of the Federal government (against the constitution and the will of the people), and both parties want more of our money.

The only difference (if you can call it that) between the parties (besides the mascot) is their stance on "scary social problems" like gay marriage and abortion. Both of which have nothing to do with governing and the federal government, if it were Constitutionally sound and legal, would not be involved in either item at all. The Constitution makes clear what the federal government can do, yet we keep electing these asspiles who ignore it.

I wish there was enough outrage to give a third party support, but it appears the deck is stacked against any candidate that isn't an elephant or donkey.

Re:So what?

[e3m4n]

After the oil spill incident I realized it doesnt matter who wins, they still follow orders of some other puppet master. For two months the POTUS didnt even comment on the spill let alone take action. It was if he was told to run interference. In 2003 our current president, then senator, was adamant against war in general. I truly believe he was against war. After 3 years the gitmo base is still open (something he was against), we still have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. We supposedly announced troop withdraw in Iraq but the numbers are still much higher than their 2003 - 2006 levels pre-surge. Now we are in a third war in Lybia. In fact the president is blatantly violating the war powers act (60 days) by another 30 days and counting. The white house response? This isnt a war, its "kinetic military action". I kid you not, that was the word play used to side-step the constitution. This is not a warmonger, quite the opposite. For the current president to do the same sort of thing we blasted the previous president of doing, seems to prove they are just front-men for the real people calling the shots. The elections are just a competition to see who gets lifetime retirement benefits for a small length term.
 

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the Tea Party, who are currently trying to cause America to default, are the party for you. Moron.

Next time, try to think about what's happening instead of giving a ridiculous boilerplate response to everything.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Give me a third party with the size and principles to actually change the course of government and I'll care more about what happens in the final round of elections."

You're so macho.

Re:So what?

[Cajun Hell]

Give me a third party with the size and principles..

Maybe someone should give you a pony too.

It's particularly disappointing that you want the size given to you. It sounds like you're saying you refuse to vote for real candidates (assuming someone else does the job of giving them to you), unless a bunch of other people vote for them first (of course, by then, it's too late and the candidate has lost, because you refused to vote along side them, since that candidate's victory had not already been assured).

Your attitude is why we can't escape the Democrats and Republicans. You are the problem that you're complaining about.

Imagine the world where Thomas Jefferson wrote:

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, we can only hope that someone gives those people what they want. King George is bad, and we humbly request him to appoint a new king. (We don't care who; that's not our problem.) If he refuses to do so, we will continue to recognize his authority but we'll be slightly irked.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The problem is all those damn ____ casting blame on someone else."

Rest In Peace, Irony. Rest In Peace.

Re:So what?

[gl4ss]

what? there's a difference in the donors?

Re:So what?

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

After the oil spill incident I realized it doesnt matter who wins, they still follow orders of some other puppet master. For two months the POTUS didnt even comment on the spill let alone take action. It was if he was told to run interference. In 2003 our current president, then senator, was adamant against war in general. I truly believe he was against war. After 3 years the gitmo base is still open (something he was against), we still have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. We supposedly announced troop withdraw in Iraq but the numbers are still much higher than their 2003 - 2006 levels pre-surge. Now we are in a third war in Lybia. In fact the president is blatantly violating the war powers act (60 days) by another 30 days and counting. The white house response? This isnt a war, its "kinetic military action". I kid you not, that was the word play used to side-step the constitution. This is not a warmonger, quite the opposite. For the current president to do the same sort of thing we blasted the previous president of doing, seems to prove they are just front-men for the real people calling the shots. The elections are just a competition to see who gets lifetime retirement benefits for a small length term.

Why all the wars? It's fairly obvious that the president (whoever is in there) has good information about how much oil is left in the world, better information that probably anyone else in the world, and he (whoever is in there) realizes that it's vital to do everything possible to make sure the USA is in control of as much of the world's oil as possible before the oil endgame begins.

Analyzing the behavior of nations in the early part of this century is a lot like analyzing the behavior of humans. With humans everything ultimately boils down to successful reproduction aka SEX. When analyzing the behavior of nations during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, everything is about OIL. Everything!

Re:So what?

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

Give me a third party with the size and principles..

Maybe someone should give you a pony too.

I'm in for one of those free ponies. PM me.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of the Libertarian party? It's the biggest third party and more people join it every year. It's going to gain more momentum as more people start to understand what you have already described and realize the only way to fix our problems is to ditch the two parties that have created them.

Re:So what?

[Sebastopol]

"The only difference (if you can call it that) between the parties (besides the mascot) is their stance on "scary social problems" like gay marriage and abortion. Both of which have nothing to do with governing and the federal government, if it were Constitutionally sound and legal, would not be involved in either item at all. The Constitution makes clear what the federal government can do, yet we keep electing these asspiles who ignore it." A budding federalist, I see? "Nothing matters... except these small irrelevant issues". For you they are irrelevant, but for gays and women, they are quite huge. States rights or not, these are big issues that need federal referees, and hence, federal policy. I'm not condoning the idiocy on the hill, but dismissing two very, very large issues as "scary social problems" which you believe have no federal responsibility is quite cavalier, and IMHO, a horribly pretentious and elitist philosophy which completely ignores the entire concept of government.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been living in a box lately?

This old line about there being no difference between the parties has been soundly thrashed by the furlough of 4000 FAA employees, the national health care changes, and this tea party run at default.

I'm not arguing for or against any of these or other important matters of federal governance, but for pete's sake can we stop with the crap about the parties being the same?

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if that's your attitude I'm hoping you'll back up your position by not voting.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no meaningful differences between Republicans and Democrats, unless you count their donors.

Their donors are the same too.

Re:So what?

[HiThere]

Given the current electoral system, I don't think outrage would suffice. Not even enough that there was rioting in the streets of all major cities. Third parties just let you feel that you're letting them know that you're upset. (Hint: They don't care.)

But there are good reasons why the bodyguards of all major political figures have been increasingly strengthened. Once upon a time the president was willing to shake hands with the populace. Today that would probably be considered suicidal. And correctly, because the percentage of discontented people had increased dramatically.

N.B.: It isn't all the politicians fault. People aren't designed to understand complex systems, and the world is a very complex system. But they barely try for real public support anymore. Propaganda, yes, but that's a *very* different thing than caring. And people sense that, even if they can't articulate it.

FWIW, I believe that my Representative attempts to promote the goals of the community that is nominally represented. But note that a Representative represents a far smaller number of people than most other elected officials. Even then, many of the Representatives are more interested in running for Governor or Senator than in supporting their local district. And for that funding sources are much more important than popular support. Funding can create support. (But can't deal with caring.) Even our mayor, who is quite a local figure, is less caring that she was as a councilmember. You can't care for people if you don't know them (at least superficially). And people are limited in the number of people they can care about. It varies, depending partially upon how intensely you care about your core group, and partially upon your personality, but the upper limit is probably between 100 and 250.

N.B.: This does allow for "hierarchies of caring" to exist. But they can't make effective use of mass media. Because each member can probably only "care about" 50 "subordinates". (If they don't have a personal life outside of work, they probably can't care about anyone.) Note that this is a far greater fan out than administration can handle. But to "care for" someone in this sense means to hear their problems, understand them, and attempt to provide help if appropriate. And to pass up to you "superior" what kinds of problems you are dealing with.

You'll notice that this bears a resemblance to the organization that some "city bosses" used to have, with "ward heelers" being analogous to the lowest level of the "hierarchy of caring". It's not an exact match, of course. Even then the real purpose of the organization was to concentrate power. But it involved more actual caring than does today's government. (I'm not claiming it was a good system. But then I certainly wouldn't call the current system good, either.)

Re:So what?

[e3m4n]

With humans everything ultimately boils down to successful reproduction aka SEX. When analyzing the behavior of nations during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, everything is about OIL. Everything!

I agree on the quantifying everything on oil. In the early 90's I read a book called the First Millennial Foundation: Colonizing the stars in 8 easy steps. They often quantified everything in barrels of oil at nearly every step. Even the OTEC ocean thermal power generators were rated in how much in barrels of oil they would contribute to global power. We use so much coal and oil I have to laugh at the people that honestly think wind+solar+wave power is going to completely replace oil and coal. Our demand alone is in the hunderds of terrawatts and these wind generators cant even produce 1kw per square meter. Its more like 20% of that.

Re:So what?

[FiloEleven]

Yes, I lean libertarian, though I reserve the right to disagree with them too. I am not an anarcho-libertarian. I am aware that the state serves a purpose. If you do not see that the state is overstepping its bounds in at least some ways, and that it is a continuing trend, then you are blind. People will disagree on the specifics, naturally, but I'd be surprised if many in the Slashdot crowd see all of the "security measures" taken in the US as anything but intrusive. TSA, warrantless wiretapping, the likelihood of domestic drones, and secret prisons are all pretty unpopular in decreasing order of degree. You don't have to be an anarchist to say that the emperor has outgrown his clothes.

Re:So what?

[FiloEleven]

I disagree. There is a real difference, and a big one, between the collectivist tendencies of Democrats and the individualist tendencies of Republicans. I think the corporatist tendencies of both parties (one more overt than the other), their propensity for ignoring the debt problem, and the aforementioned concentration of central power is more important than these differences, but that doesn't make the differences meaningless.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

MMP

Re:So what?

[FiloEleven]

Speak for yourself, buddy =)

Re:So what?

[Doctor_Jest]

I never said they were irrelevant to me. I said they were irrelevant to the FEDERAL government. Read just a little bit before you start your axe a' grinding.

The Federal government has no business in EITHER of those things... because that is not part of THEIR Constitutionally enumerated powers.

It's not cavalier... it's exactly HOW the government of this Republic is supposed to function. And yes, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. If it doesn't pass Constitutional muster (are you seriously going to fucking argue that Gay Marriage is an Interstate commerce issue?) it is NOT the job of the Federal government.

This nation was founded by "Federalists"... and they had it right. When we deviate from their idea, THAT is when we get the current mess... a bloated, overspending federal government that swallows up liberty as fast as it does OUR money.

Re:So what?

[FiloEleven]

In actuality, I do support, vote and promote third parties. Let me finish the quote you started:

Give me a third party with the size and principles to actually change the course of government and I'll care more about what happens in the final round of elections.

I have voted third party when possible ever since the first time I visited the polls. None of the national candidates had a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but it wasn't for my lack of effort--and I mean talking with people about them and funding the candidacies, not just casting a vote. My post was in response to news of the hacked results an election where only one of the Two Blessed Candidates could have won. Yeah, the hacking itself is actually important to be aware of. My point was that I'll be a lot more concerned with the integrity and outcome of the final election when there's integrity present to be concerned about: in the form of a candidate who isn't just another cog in the American political machine.

On a related note, your attitude is a contributor to why we haven't (not "can't"--who's defeatist now?) escaped the duopoly. You had a chance to engage someone who you perceived was a non-voter and perhaps to add another voice to the growing dissent. Instead you chose to be sarcastic and belittling. Now, it is The Internet, and few people really intend to have meaningful interactions on it and perhaps you'd act differently in person, but there are far too many people who look down on those who are unfamiliar with or uneducated when it comes to third parties, preferring to call them "sheeple" and bemoan how stupid they are instead of attempting to engage them in conversation and have a chance at getting them to (re)consider the path to third party viability. You will never see a candidate act that way, because they know it hurts the cause instead of helping. I wish more folks who are aware of the issue were also aware of how to generate interest and goodwill.

Re:So what?

[Doctor_Jest]

If you can't see that both parties are the same, then it is YOU that has been living in a box, under a rock. In the last decade, have you noticed ANYTHING has changed, even with a new asshole in the Oval Office? Obamacare doesn't count, because the very administration that championed it has given so many fucking exemptions to corporations that it's about as effective as telling Congress NOT to spend money.

If you truly believe there are two choices from the major parties on election day... stay home. Please. Because you're part of the fucking problem. And why we're still sucking the aft-most tit.... THEY ARE BOTH THE SAME corporatist bullshit artists.

Re:So what?

[Doctor_Jest]

Nah, I just have to vote to cancel your vote out...

Re:So what?

[Cajun Hell]

On a related note, your attitude is a contributor to why we haven't (not "can't"--who's defeatist now?) escaped the duopoly.

A fair cop on me being a total asshole. Sorry.

Re:So what?

[FiloEleven]

Don't sweat it. Like I said, it's the internet!

Re:So what?

[Doctor_Jest]

I think the individualist tendencies of the Republicans collectively is almost nil. Sure they talk a good game, but about the only thing they tend to focus on is regulation and based on their corporate donors, it's usually environmental issues that get shot to hell... The binding arbitration nonsense, and making it hard on whistleblowers. They are the classical definition of "corporate stooge", but when the Democrats point that out, it's really just as hypocritical. I mean, hello kettle? :)

In the case of Democrats, their donors want more control over your personal life (DRM, internet "police", "hate speech" regulations)... so their big push is with restricting freedom to protect perpetual copyright... They also want more restrictions on choices that may harm groups like Unions... etc. They despise a market-based approach to anything, and judging by the track record of their counterparts in the Republican camp, they want to "keep the status quo"... though the definition of what exactly that is continues to be shifting and debatable. Republicans want to keep new business from out-performing the old guard... and democrats want the new guard to be unionized or there's no deal...

I suppose you could say that the difference is significant, but the conclusion is the same... more power to the government, and less liberty to us.

Re:So what?

[shentino]

The deck isn't merely stacked against them, the casino management got paid off to kick them out.

There is nothing here

[Hutz]

I just read the whole packet. There is nothing in it. My absolute favorite is the Rolling Stone Article. Not only for it evidential value, but for footnote 11. It's the only footnote on a particularly damning paragraph:

11) Facts mentioned in this paragraph are subsequently cited throughout the story.

Normally footnotes refer to supporting material and don't just tell you how important they are.

You can hack paper votes

[circletimessquare]

You can hack mechanical voting machines

But the problem with electronic voting is that your hack can happen in seconds, and do far more damage than an army of corrupt vote counters and ballot stuffers and truck drivers who get lost while delivering paper ballots. Plus your attack vectors are orders of magnitude more numerous, because you're dealing with a more complex systems.

Democracy is about trust. Voting should not be a black box: votes in, sausage out. We on Slashdot are all technophiles: anything can be improved with software and electronics, we believe.

But maybe, just maybe, so that the process is transparent, verifiable, and easy to understand, even to the most suspicious and hostile voter: maybe voting should be on paper, forever, in the most advanced nation and the most poor.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[goldspider]

This is America, damnit!

Why do it RIGHT when you can do it EASY.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[xeube]

It's funny that you say that. Here in Canada, we still use the good old pen and paper technique! Sure, it might seem antiquated, but it works. We have one system through all provinces and territories as to exclude result seen in Florida where certain counties would have older voting machines that produce an unbelievable amount of discarted votes. Also, it would be nice to see, in the US, a government arm-length agency that would be responsible to oversee the election, just like Election Canada, as to prevent what happen in Florida and/or in other States.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[lysdexia]

Just wondering ... are you a Perl coder by any chance?

Re:You can hack paper votes

[asylumx]

Wish I had mod points!

Re:You can hack paper votes

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you could do a movie about voting zombies. That would be great.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[LynnwoodRooster]

Hey, you can hack those as well - even after the fact! Check out the 2004 governor's race in Washington State - bags and bags of ballots found, unsecured, well after the election. And counted. Never mind they broke heavily (way beyond the other ballots from the precinct) one way only...

Re:You can hack paper votes

[j-beda]

To be fair, Canadian elections tend to have a much simpler ballot, with just one set of choices for the local Member of Parliament. In the US one is often voting for members of the House, the Senate, the Governor, the President, various judges, local sheriffs, possible referendums, and all sorts of other crazy things. Making those things easy to fill out and easy to count is not always simple.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[Nethemas the Great]

Wouldn't that make him a VB or PHP coder?

Re:You can hack paper votes

[DavidTC]

I agree, but actually voting by paper ballots does involve a black box. The ballot box.

But it's a black box we can understand. It's a box we can see is empty before the vote starts, it's a box we can see each and every person walk up, it's a box we can see emptied at the end and look at the votes.

All the box does is scramble the relationship between the votes and the people putting them in. It cannot add votes, it cannot alter them, it cannot removed them.

You know, unlike a computer can.

And, yes, there certainly are 'attacks' that can be made against ballot boxes. Most of which involved subverting an entire precinct from top to bottom, and most of which have been rendered impossible at this point anyway, or could trivially be rendered impossible.

For example, we have very cheap cameras now, why not record the movement of ballot boxes? Hell, put a camera on the box itself, complete with real-time streaming and GPS tracking.

We can either use physical ballots, and make rigging an election require an Ocean's-11-type heist with split second time and misdirection, and just like banks we can make it more secure over over time...or we can use electronic voting, and make rigging an election required running exactly one line of code on a computer.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[circletimessquare]

EXACTLY!

please mod parent up, they framed the problem so much better than i did

Re:You can hack paper votes

[davide marney]

NO, paper is a horrible medium for tallying a vote. Paper can be lost, destroyed, ripped, etc. and the error rate can run as high as 1-2%. Electronic voting by contrast is highly reliable, and removes the complexity and mess of a physical ballot. There are lots of cross-checks and controls built into the voting process that make it extremely unlikely that a voting machine could be compromised. Please volunteer to be a poll worker, so you can see what I'm talking about. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Many people are so focused on absolute accuracy for a recount, but recounts are actually very rare events - something like only 0.5% of the races ever need a recount. It is MUCH wiser to optimize for the 99.5% of the races that don't involve recounts. Forcing 99.5% of the races to use a paper-based system with an error rate of 1-2% would be taking a huge step backwards in the trustworthiness of the voting process.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[circletimessquare]

TRUST

if the people don't TRUST the black box, they don't trust the sausage that comes out the other end

if they can't smell, touch, feel, see their vote, they don't TRUST the process, they don't BELIEVE their government is legitimate

do you understand that is a problem?

a far worse problem than the problems you have described?

Re:You can hack paper votes

[davide marney]

OK, I'll bite:

- Do you trust your bank to keep your records? It's a black box, you have no idea what they do.
- Do you trust your email app to save your emails. That's a black box, too.
- Do you trust your best friend to keep your secrets?

You can't smell, touch, feel, see your data or your secrets. However, you do trust them because they've been reliable in the past.

The same is true of voting machines. They run sample votes before they put the machines into service. The sample votes are double-blind. (In my city, a machine has NEVER failed one of these test votes, by the way.) That's how you establish trust.

The people who handle the machines put them under lock and key while not in use, and apply physical seals to them when they are moved. The people who open the machines verify that the seals are unbroken, and record the serial numbers, which are cross-checked at the end of the day. That's the kind of process that also establishes trust.

At the end of the day, you're ultimate trust is in the people who run the system, not in the machines.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[xeube]

Yeah, you're right. They vote on various issues (i.e.: Congresspersons, Senators, Governors, President, Judges, Sheriffs, Referendums). Maybe it would be time to simplify the US political and judicial systems...

Re:You can hack paper votes

[circletimessquare]

tactile feel and simplicity do invoke more trust

it's simple human psychology

this is not to mention that paper voting is more trustworthy in point of fact: less vectors for attack, harder to pull off big hacks.

Re:You can hack paper votes

[j-beda]

Sure, just put me in charge of everything. First we switch to metric, then outlaw everything but Robertson screwdrivers.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives

uncle sam totally unresponsive, walking dead

[Anonymous Coward]

still showing up here there & everywhere

should it not be considered that the domestic threats to all of us/our
freedoms be intervened on/removed, so we wouldn't be compelled to hide our
sentiments, &/or the truth, about ANYTHING, including the origins of the
hymenology council, & their sacred mission? with nothing left to hide,
there'd be room for so much more genuine quantifiable progress?

you call this 'weather'? much of our land masses/planet are going under
water, or burning up, as we fail to consider anything at all that really
matters, as we've been instructed that we must maintain our silence (our
last valid right?), to continue our 'safety' from... mounting terror.

meanwhile, back at the raunch; there are exceptions? the unmentionable
sociopath weapons peddlers are thriving in these times of worldwide
sufferance? the royals? our self appointed murderous neogod rulers? all
better than ok, thank..... us. their stipends/egos/disguises are secure,
so we'll all be ok/not killed by mistaken changes in the MANufactured
'weather', or being one of the unchosen 'too many' of us, etc...?

truth telling & disarming are the only mathematically & spiritually
correct options. read the teepeeleaks etchings. see you there?

diaperleaks group worldwide.

Title

[Anonymous Coward]

The title should be "Court filing on how the 2004 Ohio election was hacked".

Feed the trolls day at /.

[Overzeetop]

Yeah. That's exactly it. Most single earner families making less than $60k (yeah, that's right - 60 grand - more than half the households in the US make less than that) pay less than 2% of their gross in Federal income taxes. The big chunk on the paystub is social security and medicare. And yet I haven't heard a single Republican (or Democrat, for that matter) suggesting that we eliminate those programs to save working class people the 7.5% - almost 4X what they pay in Federal Income tax.

Re:Feed the trolls day at /.

[Anonymous Coward]

i make ~60K and pay nearly 1/3 of my money to gov't programs - about 22% in income taxes. Where do you get your numbers?

Re:Feed the trolls day at /.

[Toonol]

On the other hand, take a paycheck from anybody making $30,000 or more per year. Subtract net pay from gross. You'll see 25% or more missing, due to all the various forms of taxes. That's certainly something every working stiff is acutely aware of.

Re:Feed the trolls day at /.

[Svartalf]

2% of their gross? Really?? FICA being more than the Income Tax?

Here's the 2010 1040 Tax Tables

Please look at the first slots of the tax table. Note that the minimum tax for where you've earned any money is $1. Note that this is owed for $5-15. Now, look at the $1300 starting point on the next column is $130. The reality is that you're dead wrong on things. The minimum is 10% of gross income.

FICA Tax Rate Table

Please look at the line for 1990 and later. W2 employees will pay 7.65% of their gross earnings. Self-employed people will pay in 15.3%. Unless you're self-employed, you will never exceed your Income Tax liability in FICA. You will exceed your liability for FICA taxes, if self employed, when you earn approximately 60k/yr.

I suggest you do a bit of research before spouting off figures. You're gravely wrong on this subject. And it's appeals to emotion without proper facts behind them that has brought all of us to the situations we now face these days.

Re:Feed the trolls day at /.

[Andraax]

Did you take into account the various credits and deductions? My daughter earned about $6k last year working part time. She had a total of about $100 taken out through the year for federal income tax (plus SS and FICA). She got a refund at the end of the year of nearly $700 - yes, she got refunded more than she paid in, due mostly to the EIC and other credits.

I thought it was fairly well known that approximately 47% of US families pay no - that's 0, zippo, nothing - in Federal income tax. Per the IRS.

Re:Feed the trolls day at /.

[scot4875]

Did you take into account the various credits and deductions?

Of course he didn't, because that wouldn't make for a sensationalist argument.

Almost none of the people bitching about tax rates ever have any basis in reality. Hell, a large percentage of them believe that moving into a higher tax bracket means you take home less money -- as in, if you make money in a higher bracket, your *entire* income is taxed at the higher rate. The truly sad thing is how many people clearly have no understanding of how taxes actually work.

--Jeremy

Re:Feed the trolls day at /.

[Overzeetop]

You realize that, if you filled out your W4 properly, none of that is Federal Income Taxes, right? If you didn't, your Federal Income Tax refund will very close to the amount that was withheld.

It's been a decade since I've looked at my paycheck - that's when I started my own company - but I can tell you that most of what is coming out is for other things:

SS & Medicare: yes, you're paying into the system in return for (you hope) benefits when you're old and can no longer work
State Taxes: Remember all the cuts the Feds are making? Guess who's having to pick up the slack.
Heathcare: Do you kick in for your company health care costs? Gov't has nothing to do with this.
401k: Money from you today, to you tomorrow. You're not really relying on SS are you?
Cafeteria Plan: You know all the stuff your company healthcare doesn't cover, well the money you put here never shows up on your taxes and you get to spend it on healthcare stuff tax free
Union Dues: Don't look at me, I'm not in one.

There's a lot of shit that comes out of your paycheck, but most of it is done that way SO YOU DON'T PAY TAXES ON IT. It's called "above the line" deductions, and it reduces how much your employer said to make to Uncle Sam. With the exception of SS and State Taxes, the rest are all stuff that's directly for you, and never get's sent to any government.

Re:Feed the trolls day at /.

[Overzeetop]

Please look at the first slots of the tax table. Note that the minimum tax for where you've earned any money is $1.

Well, it does appear you can read, which is a good start. I suggest you look up the tax forms to determine what "line 43 means". I'll give you a hint: it's not what you earn. For the typical household - married, one child (not you personally, I didn't post about you personally)

401k and Cafeteria plan (I'm going to ball park here, but you should be putting away 10%) = ($2800)
Personal Exemption $3650 x 3 people = ($10,950)
Standard Deduction ($11,600) (I won't even put a guess on itemized deductions - we'll assume renters)
So using the least advantageous method of getting a typical AGI, I come up with $25,350 in deductions/exemptions right off the top. But wait, there's more! You get a $1000 tax credit for your kid, which means that you can make up to $35,350 a year and pay ZERO taxes.

Now, it's going to take a little math, but using our tax-planner disadvantaged family, I come up with the 2% mark for Federal Income taxes at about $43,000 ($866 taxes after the child tax credit). It's true - if you've got no good deductions - $60k will put you all the way up at 5.5%. Which is less than you'll pay in FICA, at 7.65%.

Although I was a couple of percent off at the 60k number, I stand by the statement that FIT is very low for most of the US population.

Conspiracy theory much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both parties do this after every election.

Plane crash needs more investigation

[arnott]

Mr Connell was president of GovTech Solutions and New Media Communications. A web designer, he had created a website for Ohio's secretary of state that presented the results of the 2004 election in real time as they were released

He had refused to testify or to hand over documents relating to the systems he had created for the 2004 and 2006 elections but was compelled to do so by subpoena in October and appeared in court in Cleveland, Ohio – the state which gave President George W Bush victory in 2004 – to give a deposition the day before Barack Obama won the presidential election.

source : George Bush aide dies in plane crash.

Slashdot no longer relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

This was on reddit 24 hours ago

Mix Feelings

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone from Ohio, I have mixed feelings about this one. Kenneth Blackburn was one of the most corrupt public officials we've had, so I wouldn't put any of this past him. He was one of those guys that wasn't just a liar, he was an unabashed poor liar.

But the 2004 election was lost solely because of the gay community. Bush riled them up with his whole 'defense of marriage' amendment and all the homosexual interest groups took the bait. Kerry actually came out against gay marriage but only in the same wishy-washy way that Obama is. So for many Ohio voters, it was a choice between the guy from Massachusetts who was wishy-washy on gay marriage and the guy from Texas* who was staunchly opposed to gay marriage.

Basically, Karl Rove calculated that just by proposing a defense of marriage amendment the gay community would freak out and many moderate democrats and independents would rather vote Republican than take the 'gay' side. If the gay community actually believed in getting a Democrat into office they wouldn't have held all those protests and written all those editorials and railed on and on about their right to marriage. It was obviously, at the time, a losing battle. In politics you have to know when to pick your battles. Rove did, Democrats didn't. Four years of Bush because of a bunch of uppity homosexuals.

*Connecticut, but the people who voted this way didn't know that

Even if they prove this

[Murdoch5]

Even if they prove this last time I checked George W isn't in office anymore and you can't go back in time.

Re:Even if they prove this

[SydShamino]

No, but maybe they can fix the system so it doesn't happen again. And putting some of the people involved in jail might deter them and others from trying.

Re:Even if they prove this

[spidey3]

...you can't go back in time.

You cannot go back in time and fix the broken election.
But you CAN prevent future broken elections, by exposing to the wider public the fundamental flaws in electronic voting systems.

Re:Even if they prove this

[Murdoch5]

I would like to point out the fact that everyone knew Bush won the first time by not counting votes. He only won because people liked his daddy, the fact he won again is actually pointless, the US already let the most unqualified leader in history into office and let him financially destroy the country.

Re:Even if they prove this

[Bob The Cowboy]

You're a fucking moron.

Here are the reasons:

1) If it could have been done once, it could be done again. Maybe you liked Bush as a president, but if someone opposite your political views used the same trick, you might feel different.
2) It's still illegal, even if it happened 'back in time'. We don't just let crimes go because it happened 'back in time'
3) It's highly unethical, to say the least. This would (should?) have fairly far-reaching implications on corporations involved with politics and government contractors.

Please, please, please never breed or speak to anyone ever again. Or at least take some ethics classes. Consult your local community college. If you're old enough?

Thanks.

Re:Even if they prove this

[Murdoch5]

Well I'm so glad you called me out because a true moron wouldn't read the replies. If you had any slight reading ability you would of seen that I mentioned he only won the first time based off votes not being counted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount

He only made office because people liked his dad, Bush was totally unqualified to be a president, yet lead a country. It's like letting your down syndrome brother run a country. He should of never been in office once, yet alone twice. The US screwed up the first time, so what if they find it happened again, surprise, surprise. Standards to the US are like ethics to a Nazi. missing.

so as for this

Please, please, please never breed or speak to anyone ever again. Or at least take some ethics classes. Consult your local community college. If you're old enough?

Fuck you. Bush should of never had a second chance to be in office, maybe if a qualified person ran the country it wouldn't be in the shitter right now, thank god Obama is now there to save the day.

Re:Even if they prove this

[shentino]

The corrupt scumbags that got into office will make sure that doesn't happen.

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Here's what's really annoying about that particular quote: I can't find the full text of it, least not in 15 minutes of noodling around on Google. There are tons of references to that quote, plenty of references to the responses to the quote, but nothing at all which could put that quote into context. I'm not saying it's a case of misinterpretation... but I am saying that we don't have the facts. What we have is a great soundbite.

Then we have this FTA:

Spoonamore also swore that "...the architecture further confirms how this election was stolen. The computer system and SmarTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SmarTech computers."

Which sums it up nicely. The filings show how it could have been stolen - but do not prove that it was stolen. It seems to me that the same can be said of any election using this equipment and architecture.

In spite of that, I agree with your statement. The old fashioned way seems to be the one that is most foolproof. While that process can obviously be hacked as well, it typically needs to be done on a machine by machine basis and is quite a bit more traceable.

Lack of transparency

[grimmjeeper]

Most of the accusations of voter fraud stem from one horrible shortcoming in American elections. Quite simply, it's a lack of transparency. If the election work was done out in the open for all to see, we wouldn't have so much fraud. But that's exactly why it's done in secret. Both sides WANT fraud. When things aren't going their way they want to have all sorts of leverage to shift the election to them. Ballot stuffing has a long and glorious tradition in this country. The Republicans are being accused today, though there isn't any hard evidence that would convict beyond a reasonable doubt (again, transparency). The Democratic machine in Chicago is legendary for their fraud. If elections were done out in the open where people could see what's going on, a lot of this fraud would become substantially more difficult.

But here's the kicker. It really doesn't make all that much difference who actually gets elected. We had a Republican who got us into two wars. He was replaced by a Democrat promising to get us out of war but all he did was get us involved in a third war. Every time one party takes over, they seem to outspend the party they just replaced. And it doesn't matter which party replaces which, the spending just keeps going up. For all of the talk about about the other issues, it seems to me that day to day life doesn't change. All of the bickering about the hot button topics (abortion, gay rights, gun rights, the environment, etc.) is just a way for the parties to pander to the masses, keeping them distracted from what's actually going on behind the curtain. I firmly believe that the Tea Party movement was engineered by the Republicans to distract the more radical portion of their base. They get themselves in a lather about everything, yelling slogans and rallying against big government but end up voting for the Republican candidate as a means of voting against the Democrat. Win for the Republican machine.

I've said it for a long time. The only real difference between the parties is who they take money from and who they give it to.

Re:Lack of transparency

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

I firmly believe that the Tea Party movement was engineered by the Republicans

In other news: Water is wet. The sky is blue and bears do shit in the woods.

Re:Lack of transparency

[grimmjeeper]

Yea right. Next thing you're going to tell me is that the sun will come up tomorrow no matter what.

And that's what makes voting machines dangerous

[Opportunist]

The voting machines are not beyond doubt. Any time they are being used, the losing side can cry foul. Even if they were "secure", which they are not.

The reason is that the majority of affected people cannot verify their honesty. I could audit them. Probably. Provided I'd be allowed to. Can you? Possibly. Can Joe Randomvoter? No. Joe'd have to trust us. But why should he? Why should he trust you or me? We could be part of the big conspiracy. We've been bought by those that want to steal the election. And there is actually no good way to disprove it.

With pen and paper, it's easy. Here, Joe, have all the voting cards, you can read, you can count, go check. It's very easy to debunk conspiracy theories like that with good ol' paper voting. Nearly everyone can recount that.

This is why voting machines are dangerous to democracy and faith in it. Not because they are insecure and can be rigged. The danger is that it is very hard to prove beyond doubt to technical illiterates that their pet candidate didn't lose because of shenanigans.

Re:And that's what makes voting machines dangerous

[DavidTC]

Well, I have to disagree that's the danger. I think the fact that someone can rig them is more important than the fact people might think people can rig them.

But you are correct, people have already lost so much faith in the political process, and voting machines seems purposefully designed to make them lose more.

The danger isn't that people will have conspiracy theories, the danger is that people will continue to simply vote less and less, as a sort of general dissatisfaction with the entire system. Conspiracy theories about the vote will be part of that.

Electronic voting machines are one of those things there's literally no justifiable reason for, at all. They cost more, they are more work, they serve no purpose at all. No one can explain them.

They're much like people making the 'prove your ID' laws harsher to vote. This county has literally no instances of people voting under fake IDs in the last few decades and no instances of people in this country illegally voting. (Voter fraud exist,yes, usually by people deliberately attempting to vote in the wrong precinct under their actual names.) If the media would actually do their job and point this out, we might get somewhere.

Re:And that's what makes voting machines dangerous

[Opportunist]

It's not even that people would believe that conspiracy theories. The problem is already that you cannot simply debunk them and calling them bull will only fuel them and make people believe that these conspiracy nuts actually might have some case.

Stealing an election is, at least IMO, a minor threat compared to the threat of people losing faith in the whole system altogether. That's essentially what brought the Communist systems down. A lack of support in the population.

FJirst po5t

[Anonymous Coward]

The choosing Driven out by the world-spanning of open-source. effort to address LiTe is Straining it's going, reformatted

And the usual IT guys sent home

[Anonymous Coward]

And the usual state IT guy, Bob Magnan, sent home, and an outside contractor brought in.
And the website gwb43 tied to the servers doing the count, a website ran out of the Whitehouse on election night.
And both switch to that server DESPITE there being no failure.
And the server being placed such that it can change both the tally and the count.
And the sudden swing in the predicted outcome after that switch.

So it's not that there *could* be, there are strong indications that it both *was* and was designed to steal the election.

This is sufficient that criminal investigations need to be pursued, and if they have nothing to hide them Bush supporters for 2004 should not oppose such an investigation. Only those who have something to hide should fear it.

Rep screwed this country.

[Anonymous Coward]

The bottom line is Bush was a lying, cheating hack but really who is suprised? He lied about WMDs, started wars for the hell of it, made a trillion dollar surplus turn in to a billion dollar deficit, tanked the economy and couldn't speak to save his life. He was the worst president we have ever seen. His legacy will be one of corruption and f*ckups. The best part is the GOP and Rep. want us to believe the problems with the economy is the fault of the Dems. What actually happend though is the Rep. took control with a surplus that was left in place for the previous Dem.(Clinton), drove the economy through the ground and we are now trillions in the whole. This country began to fall apart when the Rep. took control and the GOP and Rep. want to try and put the blame on the Dem. Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining. The GOP and Rep are only good for one thing....target practice with a .50 cal. Happy hunting.

Re:Rep screwed this country.

[Doctor_Jest]

Not to feed the troll... but remember when someone says "surplus"... you have to know exactly what they're referring to. Clinton and the Republican Congress did a better than fair job of reigning in spending but because it had been going like gangbusters since Carter, but the accumulated debt was (and still is) a burden. When the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, Clinton's surplus was closing in on another deficit, due to many economic factors (and the contention that somewhere someone said it was a good idea to "spend your way out of a recession"... hasn't worked since the Depression, so why do we keep trying?)

I thought Clinton was a prick... but he did work with the Republicans and made some meaningful fiscal changes... HOWEVER... Shrub is still beat out by Carter for the worst president in the last 100 years. Sorry, but your partisan bootlicking doesn't change that fact. If you happened to be alive in the 70's (I was, unfortunately)... the economy, the outlook, and the rest of it all was as bleak as you hear everyone say it is.

But that's a while ago... we don't repeat our problems do we? Yes we do. Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Clinton, Obama... all have been guilty of the SAME tired line... "give me more money, and I'll make it better for you." Funny thing is, Clinton held more to Libertarian ideals (with the exception of Health Care by his witch of a wife) than any president since. And yet, people still think the current idiot in the oval office is better. Makes you wonder what the electorate is smoking....

America will get there,...

[SLOGEN]

I always kinda liked this saying by WC:

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” -- Winston Churchhill

(Actually, it applies in other places too :)

Re:America will get there,...

[unitron]

But the really important saying, several versions of which are attributed to Stalin, perhaps incorrectly, is the one about what counts not being the votes themselves, but rather by whom they are counted.

How's this for a theory?

[RogueWarrior65]

What if there were an anti-hacking group actively monitoring the progress of the election and once they saw the effects of hacking they went in to the machines and corrected the error? But of course everyone knows that nobody but Republicans would engage in stealing elections.

Re:How's this for a theory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh...no. The Dems don't go hacking systems...they just submit fraudulent voters...

In Texas.
In Colorado.

It's not only in Chicago where the dead (and apparently the illegal...) vote early and often.

Re:How's this for a theory?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simple, really: the dominant political party of the region will use any means necessary to keep winning. It really doesn't matter if they're blue or red.

"Give me"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice. How about doing it yourself instead of insisting someone else give it to you?

Re:"Give me"

[FiloEleven]

To respond to you and several others,

I make myself aware of the current third party options, and I support the ones I like both monetarily and by spreading awareness of them. Even the ones that don't suit me but may suit someone I am talking with I will bring up.

I recognize that having a third party--any third party--big enough to challenge the duopoly is a good thing and in my opinion a necessity for the well-being of the country. Given the chance to vote for an R or a D or an X, where X is any third party candidate with sizable support, I will vote for X. If no third party with sizable support exists, then I will vote for my preferred third party candidate. I will not vote against my interests, but I put the long-term health of the political system (and therefore the country) ahead of some policies from a viable outsider that I disagree with.

Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[wbav]

We have a different type of electronic voting. Oregon uses vote by mail, and each person fills out a scan-tron form (something a 2nd grader can do). Not only is there a paper trail, but it is proven technology.

Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home and you don't have to deal with crowded poll places. I don't understand why more states don't do this.

And now for the tangent, more and more we are seeing the evil republican label. Similarly, it is the socialist, Marxist liberals. Both labels are hyperbole. The two parties aren't all that different really, they agree on most things. The thing that kills me is people don't realize that to make it to congress, you must be at least millionaire. You want to know why the Bush tax cuts haven't expired? Why the democrats haven't beaten the republicans over the head with it? They don't want to see their own taxes go up, just like the republicans. They just have to talk a good game to continue to be elected.

It is only when their supporters really get pissed off that they do something, because they like their cushy job and free, government run health care.

As for claims of vote hacking, neither side really wants an investigation. Think about it, right now the US is seen is fat, lazy and stupid. Do you really want to add slow to that mix? While it would make a lot of us feel good, from the outside, if a former president is put in jail, what does it look like?

Probably something like, we're stupid, fat, lazy, slow and cannot properly investigate a crime. The last thing anyone on either side wants to do is suggest that our law enforcement is somehow inadequate, it would just invite others to exploit that. It is the same security theater as TSA, just on a different stage.

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[garytencents]

Another Oregon voter for mail-in/drop-off ballots... If you have a politician who supports, votes, or in any way endorses electronic widgetry voting, guess what - he's a crook and a thief. Paper is the only real trail you will ever have. It's ridiculously cheap, easy to count (and recount) and much, much harder to defraud on a massive scale. I pity this country. Gary Malcolm

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[Gort65]

Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home and you don't have to deal with crowded poll places.

One problem with that is that intimidation can be on a domestic level. Say an abusive partner is very controlling over their other half or children (if old enough to vote and staying with them), and demand to see who the others in the household vote for before sealing the envelope and sending it off, or fill it in for them, forcing a signature. The home for some can be a very intimidating place. Thing is, privacy in a voting booth outside the home lessens such domestic coercion... or at least the physical side of it. Sure, there are problems with voting booths, but there are also problems with mailing in your votes.

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[Toonol]

We have a different type of electronic voting. Oregon uses vote by mail, and each person fills out a scan-tron form (something a 2nd grader can do). Not only is there a paper trail, but it is proven technology.

Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home and you don't have to deal with crowded poll places. I don't understand why more states don't do this.

It's not a complete panacea. There is still potential of voter intimidation and fraud; intercepted mail, spouses voting for each other, and so on. At a polling place, at least a voter needs to present a voting card. The vote by mail just sends it to a particular address, and assumes the right person fills it out.

Still, it seems to work ok, and I think it makes large scale voting fraud very difficult. That's the real problem with electronic voting... when one agency can flip thousands of votes from one candidate to the other.

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[Zak3056]

We have a different type of electronic voting. Oregon uses vote by mail, and each person fills out a scan-tron form (something a 2nd grader can do). Not only is there a paper trail, but it is proven technology.

Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home and you don't have to deal with crowded poll places. I don't understand why more states don't do this.

You think this is less prone to voter intimidation? It seems that something like, "bring your ballot to Joe's Bar at 2:00PM on Friday. We're going to fill it out and vote for $CANDIDATE, then we're going to drop it in the mailbox. If you don't comply, I'll break your legs," would be a rather trivial exercise.

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[wbav]

We have a different type of electronic voting. Oregon uses vote by mail, and each person fills out a scan-tron form (something a 2nd grader can do). Not only is there a paper trail, but it is proven technology.

Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home and you don't have to deal with crowded poll places. I don't understand why more states don't do this.

You think this is less prone to voter intimidation? It seems that something like, "bring your ballot to Joe's Bar at 2:00PM on Friday. We're going to fill it out and vote for $CANDIDATE, then we're going to drop it in the mailbox. If you don't comply, I'll break your legs," would be a rather trivial exercise.

Wow, that is absurdly stupid.

Seriously, committing one crime, conspiring commit another and telling people when and where you're going to do it? With master criminals like you, we could halve the police force.

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[number11]

We have a different type of electronic voting. Oregon uses vote by mail, and each person fills out a scan-tron form (something a 2nd grader can do). Not only is there a paper trail, but it is proven technology.

Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home and you don't have to deal with crowded poll places.

I've never understood why this eliminates voter intimidation. How do you ensure that the ballot is filled out in the home, and that only the voter (and not friends, acquaintances, family members, etc.) is present when voting? It seems to me that intimidation by family members must be far more likely than by goons who venture into the polling place to try to watch how a person votes.

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[wbav]

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Intimidation

While the article specifically calls out remote voting as a possibility for not having the privacy, look at the list of examples. All require actual polling places to affect and disenfranchise a number of voters. Doing that on the same scale with vote by mail is considerably more difficult and you're likely to get reported/caught.

Yes, single cases can still occur, so perhaps I was too strong with my initial statement. Large scale voter intimidation is eliminated.

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[unitron]

...Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home...

...and there's no one there to witness that you aren't being influenced or intimidated?

Really?

Re:Meanwhile here in Oregon...

[Anonymous Coward]

What an absurdly stupid reply. It's quite easy to imagine how the given example can be refined to avoid easy detection of the perpetrators. If we had police like you, we would probably have to triple the force in order to solve the most basic crimes.

And nothing is really new

[jdev]

There are some documents that were released in the court proceedings, but I didn't really see anything new here. The details on the backup/man-in-the-middle arrangement were already well known. The info on Michael Connell was already out there, including that he did work for Karl Rove (like the web site Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) and he still got the contract to host voting results for Ohio.

Here's a good article about the whole thing. It also includes details on the plane crash and an interview with Michael Connell's wife who thinks her husband's death may not have been an accident.

Another way they stole votes in Ohio

[billstewart]

One of the magic phrases in your note was "and that all precincts had enough resources". The new electronic voting machines were complex and had lots of parts that you needed, and some precincts didn't get all the parts, or enough of them to run all their machines, and ended up opening late with two-hour lines out the door on a rainy election day. (I think this was Columbus, but might have been Cincinnati; it's been a while since I saw the movie that documented it.) Surprisingly, this did not happen in the mostly-white suburban precincts that were likely to vote Republican, it happened in the black urban precincts which were likely to vote Democrat, and where people were more likely to have jobs where they had to go to work instead of professional flex-time jobs, so a 2-hour wait meant they couldn't vote. The movie that documented it showed one precinct where they were only able to open because there was a local city council woman who came to the precinct and started making lots of phone calls to get the election people to show up.

MITMing the reporting and generating fake votes were theoretically possible, but this was an Offense In Depth strategy.

MOD PARENT UP

[Alaska Jack]

The second-hand source seems to be this New York Times article:

MACHINE POLITICS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/business/yourmoney/09vote.htm

But, like you, I cannot find a copy of the alleged letter *anywhere*. Strange.

- aj

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

The opening paragraph of that article is very interesting:

IN mid-August, Walden W. O'Dell, the chief executive of Diebold Inc. , sat down at his computer to compose a letter inviting 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends to a Republican Party fund-raiser, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year," wrote Mr. O'Dell, whose company is based in Canton, Ohio.

Contextually, that tell us that he did this in his capacity as a supporting member and fundraiser. I think this makes it more likely to mean that he intended to raise funds either from Ohio constituents, or simply to show financial support within the state of Ohio. The connection between this and voting machine fraud seems to have been a fabrication of later media reports and/or bloggers -- but again, without the full original letter to provide context, we really can't be sure.

But here's another way to consider it: do people really believe that a high-profile person planning to engage in election fraud would commit that intention to paper and mail it out in hard copy to a couple hundred people in the form of an invite?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Contextually, that tell us that he did this in his capacity as a supporting member and fundraiser.

I don't think there was ever any question as to the context of the quote. The problem with it is that while the immediate context was fundraising, his position as CEO of Deibold was the larger context. He clearly didn't intend to announce a campaign of vote tampering.

Given Diebold's official position that paper trails were unnecessary and that the internal operations of Diebold's voting machines could not be inspected even by the districts purchasing them, making that statement gave the appearance of impropriety. At the very least, he was guilty of very poor judgement and an utter lack of understanding the situation he had put himself into by demanding that the public trust his company's impartiality and then publicly declaring his overwhelming partisanship.

To me, that quote represents just how little importance the people running the show have given to assuring fair elections. The ongoing, almost uniformly republican opposition to verifiable voting machines doesn't help either. It shouldn't be a partisan issue, but for a variety of fairly petty reasons it has become one.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

The problem is that while your perspective is rational - *almost* every single article I found discussing that quote put it explicitly or implicitly put it into the context of announcing plans to fix the votes.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[tnk1]

I think the issue with paper trails has been somewhat misunderstood. Its not necessary for Diebold to want to fix an election for them to not want a paper trail. They merely have to want their machines to be considered the same as paper ballots in terms of utility. While a ballot is technically a paper trail, once you toss it in, it ceases to be connected to you. If a voter gets a receipt from their voting machine with their vote, then the vote ceases to be anonymous. While this is beneficial in the machine-based fraud situation, it is not beneficial in the strong arm "show us who you voted for or else" side of election fraud. Even if the receipt is barcoded or and even somehow encrypted, all that takes is some time and access, possibly even easier than fixing the vote inside the machines. There is no statute of limitations on when the brute squad can show up at your door and break your legs for casting the wrong vote or your union or party can shun you for the same. Somebody other than you needs to be able to read that receipt for it to be useful for any sort of confirmation, and if someone else can read it, with enough effort, anyone can.

I think e-voting is the way we should be going in the future, but it would make a great deal of sense to make sure it is open sourced, that the machines use a firmware that is precertified to be what is in the open code and inserted under supervision, and then the network technicians in question work in teams whose members are not beholden to any single entity, much like the counting room for paper ballots. Electronic voting can be made as safe as paper ballots, and when the possible fraud controls are up to spec, the machines open the possibility for much better interfaces and capabilities for users.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Danse]

What he said was ambiguous. Highly partisan people can't help but express themselves this way though. He wants to raise money. He wants to make sure the Republican wins. He happens to also have the motive and opportunity to ensure that that happens. This is very bad. The state shouldn't be using bullshit voting equipment like that anyway, but the fact that this guy is so openly partisan just feeds the suspicion. We need secure, accountable machines. The damn courts seem to be no help on this subject. Texas courts have let this stuff slide already. It's insane. It only seems to happen because those in power want to keep things the way they are. That's the system that got them into power, after all.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You misunderstand the intent of paper trails.
They aren't for the voter to use to verify their vote ala a receipt.
They are for recounting purposes only. The idea is that you vote electronically, it kicks out a paper ballot with all of your choices conspicuously spelled out and then that ballot goes into a lockbox, just like paper ballots do now.

While paper ballots are subject to various tampering issues, they are all well understood and their exist standard precautions for mitigating those issues. The same is not, and probably never will be, true for purely electronic balloting.

easy enough to add paper to e-voting machines

[Chirs]

It would be straightforward to add a paper trail to e-voting machines:
1) e-vote
2) results are printed on a paper ballot, which is displayed behind a clear panel
3) if the paper ballot is correct, hit "confirm" and it drops into a locked bin, otherwise hit cancel and it visibly gets shredded/mangled/voided and drops into a different bin
4) electronic results are available instantly, paper trail is there for validation

Re:easy enough to add paper to e-voting machines

[circletimessquare]

i actually don't have a problem involving computers in the process: OCR machines for tabulating paper ballots

but the computer should NEVER be the input machine. untrustworthy

do you see how convoluted your scheme above is? how just using paper is easier and cheaper and less complicated?

it's like, out of technophilia, you're just trying to shoehorn the computer in the process. but did you ever stop and ask yourself: why do we even need a computer in the process? maybe a computer in the process makes voting worse, along the lines of trust and hackability?

Re:easy enough to add paper to e-voting machines

[DavidTC]

*SLAP*

Look, just stop it. We know it would be possible to do 'electronic voting' correctly by just using computers to print finished ballots. We're not idiots, and probably 90% of us want to see that happen.

We also know that everyone standing up and saying so is just unwittingly supporting the existing system.

Every time you say 'Electronic voting can be made secure', the masses also hear e-voting companies say 'And our system is one of those', even though it's not.

Of course, what you are talking about is not electronic voting. It's just computer-assisted ballot filling.

So just...Shut. The. Fuck. Up.. Sorry to be so blunt, but you're hurting things. You are making them worse with your suggestion, even if it's a perfectly good one.

Remain quiet until we actually finish explaining how insanely dangerous and tamperable electronic records are. Until people have gotten it through their heads that computers do whatever people tell them to do, including lie.

At that point, after we've fixed this insane undemocratic bullshit and made people understand that manipulating paper is the only way to have safe elections, then you step forward and say 'But surely we could print on the paper ballots with computers? I mean, the computers could hardly tamper with it after it's on paper.' and everyone will nod and you can even pretend you thought of it yourself.

Re:easy enough to add paper to e-voting machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you could do a movie about luddite zombies. That would be great.

The only thing this proves...

[DesScorp]

...is that some editors here may have no shame.

CmdrTaco: Truthout.org? Seriously?

This is your source? The people that "scooped" the "Karl Rove has been indicted" story? And they never retracted it, even when it became apparent that there wasn't even a scintilla of fact to it?

  And from the story you linked:

"That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory."

This is demonstrably false. Bush led in pre-election day polls in Ohio, as other posters have noted here. My link... which actually has verifiable evidence... shows that Bush led Kerry in close to a dozen major polls the week leading up to the election, and that the Ohio results near-exactly matched those poll averages.

You have, whether deliberately or not, I'm not sure, promoted a conspiracy theory.

Truthout? Is Slashdot's credibility worth that little to you?

Re:The only thing this proves...

[unitron]

I see that the site you link leaves out the Cleveland Plain Dealer pre-election polling, which had been famously accurate for years until Bush-Kerry 2004.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Marx said it best

[kurt555gs]

"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."

It's a politial non-profit

[Quila]

It's a liberal politial non-profit working on the side of the Democrats that mainly publishes liberal opinion pieces. They were rabidly anti-Bush during his term..

These are the people who claimed Karl Rove had been indicted over the Plame thing, and when told it was false continued to press the claim. Rove was never indicted.

In Russia, Election Hacks You

[Anonymous Coward]

What's next? Elections being treated as people like corporations?

Seriously, it might serve to edit headlines a little better. The election *was* hacked, perhaps.

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

Humm...how about: Motive + Opportunity = ?
Simple math.

Vote selling

[bigtrike]

Doesn't this allow people to sell their votes? I'm against any system that allows people to prove that they voted one way or another, which allows coercion.

Re:Vote selling

[gl4ss]

*proper* pre-voting is done at designated pre-voting places, and you do the voting in secret, alone, as you would on the voting day. in finland post offices etc work generally as such. any system which let's you verify who voted what or let's another person see the voting piece of paper is flawed and straight out of the soviet union. It's baffling how much trouble usa has over voting systems, it's not like that stuff hadn't been thought to their logical extremes already.

Re:Vote selling

[wbav]

There is no proof which way you voted, just that you did.

The voting form is kept in an inner envelope which is separated from the outer envelope specifically to keep your vote secret.

Yes, you could sell someone your ballot, just the same as you could take a picture with your camera phone of your vote. Canvasing a neighborhood trying to buy ballots will likely get you reported to the cop. The risk is far more than the reward. Voting by mail doesn't eliminate all problems, but it does significantly reduce them.

Presidents elected without the popular vote

[Quila]

John Quincy Adams in1824
Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876
Benjamin Harrison in 1888
George W. Bush in 2000

That's the American system.

"In Florida, back then, the Republicans clearly proved that they were in this to win the presidency, not win an election."

So was Gore, trying to win an already lost presidency in the courts. He thought it was owed to him as VP. Guess not.

You can't hack an election with a server!

[davide marney]

I wish more technical people would volunteer to work the polls, and could spread the word about the controls built into our voting process.

The first thing they'd learn is that votes are counted at the PRECINCT level. There's no "master server" in the sky where votes can be manipulated. The real votes are counted machine-by-machine, under the eye of volunteers who swear under oath that it has been operated properly. The machines print out a paper receipt of the tally, and that gets backed-up on hard disk and flash. The paper tape total is called into the Registrar. The paper records of the vote are certified by a local Board of Election, the machines are sealed, and the paper and flash media is typically also sealed and sequestered under a local Court.

The servers used at the state levels are merely there to REPORT the results of the counts made at each precinct. They are not the actual vote tally. If the database is wrong, the Board goes back to the paper trail and updates it with the correct tally.

Paper receipts at the voting machines are actually NOT a good idea, IMHO. Paper is a horrible medium for conducting an election: it can get lost, smeared, ripped, crumpled, folded, etc. There's a reason we don't run our accounting systems using ledger-books anymore, but instead use a computer. Those reasons apply double for voting. A computer-based tally is a dream to manage compared to the nightmare that is paper.

I would like to see better use of paper for making spot-certifications that a machine is operating properly, but I would never want to run a whole election using paper. The error rate of paper can run as high as 1-2%. The error rate of a computer tally is minuscule by comparison.

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

Which sums it up nicely. The filings show how it could have been stolen - but do not prove that it was stolen. It seems to me that the same can be said of any election using this equipment and architecture.

In spite of that, I agree with your statement. The old fashioned way seems to be the one that is most foolproof. While that process can obviously be hacked as well, it typically needs to be done on a machine by machine basis and is quite a bit more traceable.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Mix low-tech and high-tech

[Anonymous Coward]

What about using paper ballot, then you put your ballot into a hardware scanner (like a dollar bill in a vending machine) after you complete the voting to have it counted? That way there is a backup for hand count, you can still get instant polling figures, and the voter can be satisfied their vote WAS counted real-time and not rejected due to hanging chads (if the machine can tell what you meant then so can a recounter).

Seriously, we have this tech in schools for students to take multiple choice tests, why not bring it to the ballot box and reject ballots that have errors on them so the person can "fix it" rather then have their vote not counted?

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty much been the problem with all these electronic voting initiatives since day one. They all seem to be purposely designed to make any kind of auditing or verification impossible, and any complaints to that effect are hand-waved away.

Democratic elections require trust to be considered legitimate. These systems seem purposely designed to undermine that trust. Still can't figure out why anyone who isn't making money from selling them is in favor of them.

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[snowgirl]

Which sums it up nicely. The filings show how it could have been stolen - but do not prove that it was stolen.

This case is being tried in civil court. One need merely prove beyond a preponderance of evidence, not to the much more difficult beyond a reasonable doubt. In such cases often mere motive and opportunity is enough. (c.f. OJ Simpson)

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

"Here's what's really annoying about that particular quote: I can't find the full text of it, least not in 15 minutes of noodling around on Google."

Your google noodling needs work. Three minutes: http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/wally-odell-letter.pdf

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/7659/71024.html

Google keywords: o'dell 2003 letter full text

First link given.

Well, we know what fluff it *isn't*...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it *isn't* taxpayer money given to corporations enjoying record profits, it *isn't* a few percentage points extra on the "relative" handful of people making over $250,000 per year, it *isn't* money for blowing shit up in the Middle East and it *isn't* money to chase marijuana smokers to their graves.

Anything else is only speculation at this point, but we know what isn't on the table...

Bad Link

[DERoss]

I went to the link [http://www.truth-out.org/new-court-filing-reveals-how-2004-ohio-presidential-election-was-hacked/1311603015] in the article. It froze my PC. I had to disable JavaScript in order to regain control.

Can we put this moranic talking point to bed?

[Uberbah]

The Democrats nominated Al Gore in 2000. Everyone remembers how Florida results were within the margin of error for their stupid punch card ballots. But nobody seems to remember that Gore lost his own home state (Tennessee)

Bush didn't win his home state, either. He's from Connecticut, not Texas. Same thing went for Poppy Bush.

Morans.

Re:Can we put this moranic talking point to bed?

[HarvardAce]

He's from Connecticut, not Texas.

It's ok, Texas can have them. They can take Lieberman while they're at it, too.

Sincerely,
A Connecticut Resident

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Good find; I did the same search but without the year, and got page after page discussing the results but no primary or secondary sourced links to it. The context does tend to support my original thought - he's not promising the Diebold as a company will deliver the election, in spite of the slant that numerous blogs gave it - he's only saying that he as a party member wants to make sure that Bush gets Ohio's votes (doubtless the old fashioned way - money for bribes, etc ;)

no it's only blatent fraud

[publiclurker]

because you don't like who actually won. We are talking about actual fraud, not someone having a partisan hissy-fit.

Why not

[publiclurker]

As some of these posters have shown, they wouldn't believe in fraud if they guy pulled a "side show bob" on fox news.

The difference is

[Anonymous Coward]

One party is the Borrow & Spend.
The other is the Tax & Spend.

One party is Steal from the rich & give to the poor.
The other is Steal from everyone to "protect" us because We know what's good for you better than you do.

Not All Ohio Votes Were Purely Electronic

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived in Butler County in Ohio in the 2004 election and I voted in that election. The votes were not completely paperless. Being a regular Slashdot visitor I was worried that my vote wouldn't count. However, when I finished voting it printed my electronic ballot onto a roll of paper under glass, so there was a paper trail. I cannot speak for all counties and districts.

Election Fraud Analysis: Confirmation of a Kerry L

[Anonymous Coward]

Election Fraud Analysis: Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide

Richard Charnin (TruthIsAll)

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/2004-election-fraud-analysis-confirmation-of-a-kerry-landslide/

Introduction: To Believe Bush Won

1. When Decided
2. Bush Approval Ratings
3. The Final 5 Million Recorded Votes
4. The Final Exit Poll: Forced to Match the Vote
5. Within Precinct Discrepancy
6. New Voters
7. Party ID
8. Gender
9. Implausible Gore Voter Defection
10. Voter Turnout
11. Urban Legend
12. Location Size
13. Sensitivity Analysis
14. Did Kerry Win 360 EV?
15. Election Simulation Analysis
16. Exit Poll Response Optimization
17. Florida
18. Ohio
19. New York

Appendix
A. Election Model: Nov.1 Projection
B. Interactive Monte Carlo Simulation: Pre-election and Exit Polls
C. 1988-2004 Election Calculator: The True Vote
D. The 2000-2004 County Vote Database
E. Statistics and Probability: Mathematics of Polling

Re:Wow, who could have seen a conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the WHOLE point... We can't change the past! We can't remove the damage Bush have done. What we CAN do is try and secure that it does not happen again. Putting those responsible in jail (If it was the other way around, the conservatives would ask for the responsible being killed in a public square somewhere!) and remove the possibility to forge results in the future.

E-Voting is not inherently evil or flawed, there are ideas and like E-Banking in Europe, if the ideas are first tested and an open std. is selected that have been thoroughly tested by anyone who wanted to (As with encryption) the system will work. One of the major problems is recounting, so a paper-trail needs to be simultaneously produced. This could easily happen with a slip being printed when you have made your selection, you verify that the paperslip contains the same candidate you voted for, and then put it in a monitored container like you do with a paper ballot now. Then the estimated fast-counts of the paper-slips should roughly coincide with the computer result, otherwise an "error" have happened. A simple measure but very effective against this sort of manipulation.

About electronic fixing, ahem, I mean voting

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

as long as the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

is viewed at the candidate level, it will obscure the real problem. it's not a kerry/bush problem, it's a hacking problem. can either political party be trusted?

Public key encryption and a voting system

[BenJeremy]

An ideal electronic voting system uses three machines:

1) Key card issuing machine - Provides a scan card with public and private keys printed in a bar code at the top. The private key is in a tear-off portion.

2) Selection machine - scan card is inserted and citizen makes selections. When finished, after proper review of selections, an encrypted bar code is printed in the remaining blank portion of the scan card.

3) Tally machine - The user then proceeds to the tally machine, where they are instructed to tear off the private key portion of the card (leaving the public key intact, along with the selections), and they insert the scan card into the tally machine, which provides feedback on the results read from the encrypted card to the voter.

The tear off portion can be kept, and a readable number on the card can even be used to verify the vote is in the system over the web (the key might even be used to verify the identity of the voter, without actually being TIED to the voter).

The scan card would then provide traceability, and the voter's tear off strip provides further confirmation. The cards could easily be re-scanned if there was an issue with the vote count.

Just my 2 cents worth... not that any politician, on either side of the aisle, would want a verifiable, reliable voting system in place.

Re:Public key encryption and a voting system

[BenJeremy]

Hmmm... just thought of a few improvements... on the back of the card, the current vote # and tallies could be printed, further enhancing the audit trail.

For those not understanding public key encryption (might be a couple here on Slashdot, unlikely as that seems), the public key allows you to unencrypt the data encrypted with the private key. This provides for data integrity, since nobody can easily defeat such encryption - ONLY THE PRIVATE KEY could make a valid encrypted chunk of data for the selection, and the user keeps that, not providing it for the tally machine - and has the secondary check of seeing that the tally machine accurately read out his votes; the scan card can be re-read at a later time if there is any dispute int he totals, since the public key is intact with that encrypted data.

All of these steps provide redundancy and validation for the voters that use these systems.