"Unsecured Memory Card" Prompts Election Fraud Investigation In Georgia (ajc.com)

McGruber writes: On Tuesday, there was an election in Dekalb County, Georgia. An area of the county known as LaVista Hills voted on a referendum on whether they should incorporate into a brand-new city or whether they should remain an unincorporated part of the county. The referendum failed by a mere 136 votes, less than 1 percent of all votes cast. The second in command at DeKalb County's office of elections is now alleging there were very serious irregularities regarding the LaVista Hills cityhood vote. Piazza says voters were turned away at their polling places, voter material wasn't properly secured, and that "there was a memory card that collects citizen votes loose in the office." Piazza's allegations have prompted Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to open an investigation. Local Atlanta television stations are reporting that Piazza first reported the irregularities to his boss in Dekalb County and that she responded by putting him on leave. One TV station is also broadcasting footage of state investigators removing election equipment from Dekalb County offices. (Those reports are not yet posted on their websites.)

Comments

revolutionary technology

[beckett]

canada has pencils and paper they use for voting. when the voting is done, the ballot boxes stay in the room, and designated counters stay there with observers until the count is complete. we got our election results within 4 hours of the last poll closing in our last federal election. the scrutiny, traceability, and physical counts of paper ballots makes it difficult to do the type of election tampering described in the article. There is no need for electronic voting machines.

Re:revolutionary technology

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes too much sense. It would never work here in the US.

Re:revolutionary technology

[beckett]

trees are farmed. won't someone please think of the carrots too?

Re:revolutionary technology

[TWX]

We had pencils and punch cards once, when democracy was hanging by a chad.

That kind of voting was not based on marking a piece of paper with a writing implement. That kind of voting was based on pushing a mechanical button that had to make a physical change in the paper medium over which it was placed. That system was unsound because it required maintenance of equipment and was subject to the abuse that the average person could put on a mechanical device.

I do not have a problem with electronic-tabulated voting so long as the medium on which the voter casts the vote is human-readable and human-markable. That pretty much means optical scan, a technology that has been used for a couple of decades now. Optical scan means that the results can be tabulated as the voting occurs and be known as polls close, but in contests where there is a need to recount it's still possible for humans auditing the individual ballots to read the ballots with their eyes, without any special equipment at all.

Either way, human-tabulated from the outset or computer-tabulated and capable of being human-tabulated or human-audited, the process needs to allow for tabulation without any special equipment whatsoever.

Re:revolutionary technology

[riverat1]

There really are no "Federal" elections in the US. In the elections for President/Vice President the individual states hold elections for electors to the Electoral College and those electors actually vote for the person who will be President. The number of electors each state has is equal the the number of Congressional seats they have (based on population) plus two for the two Senators. In all but two states it's winner take all and the electors will be those who stood for the state's winner. In Maine and Nebraska the winner in each congressional district will get an elector for them and the two electors for the Senators will go to the state's overall winner.

So the Federal Government makes some general rules for elections (such as no discrimination based on race, religion, etc.) but the states are the ones who make the detailed rules for their state. The actual elections are mostly run at the county (or parish) level. Here in Oregon it's the County Clerks who are responsible. So in general it's the county's Clerk or Director of Elections, taking into account the Federal and State rules, who determines exactly how the ballots are produced and processed leading to some variety even within a state.

Re:revolutionary technology

[PopeRatzo]

You want depressing? Here is the current GOP frontrunner in his own words:

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain. And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists have said, ‘well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how-’ you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.

Yes, Dr Carson, it's "the scientists" who are saying there were ancient aliens that built the pyramids, you ignoramus.

What good is having fraud-free elections when there are only frauds running for office? And don't get me started on Hillary. I'd rather see candidates picked at random from the phone book than what we're going to get next November.

Re:revolutionary technology

[jaseuk]

Dunno how things are done in the US, but ballot boxes are sealed here (with actual lead / hard to change seals). The boxes are then couriered (with several different people accompanying the box) to a central location. There are various different registers that show who has attended the vote, what papers have been used. ie. Double Entry. with different people responsible for each register. Usually with a completely separate observer overseeing the ballot box.

At the count all the politicians and representatives can watch the boxes opened and counted. The teams responsible for counting boxes will not know ahead of time which box(es) they are counting. There are careful initial checks to count the papers, to ensure they tally with the registers. There are usually teams of about 8-9 people per box, with an overseer. The room is sealed / guarded. Politicians and representatives can ask for a recount. It is done then and there.

Any deviation from an X in one box on the voting paper, is carefully considered by a team of very senior well trained staff, with a very comprehensive manual to consider all the various ways that a vote can be considered valid or spoiled.

It would take an amazing level of conspiracy and corruption to rig a count in the UK. There are no volunteers, these people are usually paid (and paid well enough) for their role in the ballot and count. Consequences for interfering with the vote in any way are harsh and will include criminal charges as well as most likely loss of employment (staff typically are Local Government staff).

All these protocols would expose fraud or deception quite easily. It'd be simpler to put a gun to people on the way in to the count and tell them who to vote for and check they do this, than to actually create a convincing scenario where the count itself is corrupted.

I know techies often think traditional paper counts are more open to abuse, absolutely no way. If you've ever been at a count or worked with the people at the polling stations you would understand. The only problem is that a vote is expensive with all the oversight and double checking.

Jason

Re:revolutionary technology

[Altus]

Its like someone who got their entire understanding of history from a mix of the bible and the manual to Civ II

Re:revolutionary technology

[david_thornley]

Around here, we use optical scan. I fill out my ballot, and it's fed to the scanner, which drops it into the ballot box. The box is sealed and stored, except that spot audits are conducted in random precincts. The sealed boxes are kept in a secure place. All processing of the paper ballots is done with party representatives on site.

It would be possible to replace the boxes, but if the paper ballots were significantly off the machine totals that would raise suspicion, and that would cause an investigation.

It fundamentally depends on enough people being willing to work towards a fair election, but that's true of all voting systems. If the system is sufficiently corrupt, the elections will be rigged, no matter what the mechanics.

Ethics reform passed

[Gim Tom]

One more reason that the ethics reform initiative passed by greater than a 90% margin. It seems to be sorely needed

Re:Ethics reform passed

[sunderland56]

One more reason that the ethics reform initiative passed by greater than a 90% margin.

One reason it passed was that the ethics reform vote wasn't tabulated by voting machines.

Re:Bitcoin

[cheater512]

Yep so each vote is stored with a hash that includes the vote plus every vote before it. Hence why it's called a block 'chain'.

If you were given a print out of the hash your vote generated it would prove that your vote was still present in the chain at the end, it would not reveal any information about previous or future votes nor your identity.

Update: Piazza took memory card & copied info

[McGruber]

There's more information about the scandal on the AJC's (easily circumvented) paywalled site: MyAJC:Voting irregularities alleged in LaVista Hills election

The article includes a key detail not mentioned in the slashdot summary:

Leonard Piazza, the second in command in DeKalb’s elections office, said there were serious problems regarding the LaVista vote.....Piazza said he took the memory card and copied information from DeKalb’s voting tabulation server so that he could try and prove tampering. But those actions aren’t allowed, and he has been placed on paid leave.

Enough of the voting machines.

[aXis100]

Many countries around the world have proven that paper and pencil voting is reliable, traceable, and scalable. Even in countries with mandatory voting where the turnout density is higher than the US.

In Australia, most public schools & town halls become voting centers for the day, so most people don't have to travel far and the numbers are manageable. A small army of trained electoral commission recruits control the process, and do the counts at the end of the day. The results are in that evening, which is plenty fast enough.

Paper voting has several distinct advantages:
1) It has a visible and tangible chain of trust, and can be directly inspected by the lay-person.
2) It directly involves people in the democratic process, not machines
3) A lot of the money required to run the election goes to individuals, not corporations.

Re:Only if DNC loses

[riverat1]

Everyone know there is no such thing as election fraud, that is why we don't need voter ID laws. I've been told that countless times. That is unless the DNC looses the election, then it is obviously fraud even if no evidence can be found.

Voter fraud is practically nonexistent, especially in person fraud at the polls which is the only thing Voter ID laws would prevent. (Voter fraud is fraud done by an individual voter). Election fraud which is what the story is about is fraud perpetrated by people running the elections. What would Voter ID laws do to prevent that?

Re:Obviously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Know the players. I'm a Dekalb county resident, but not in Lavista hills area.
Dekalb county is a majority black county (whites = 36%). It is one of the most diverse in the nation.
The government is almost all black people and regularly votes democratic. The white people tend to be liberal as well. Their US congressman is Hank Johnson, a Buddist. The infamous Cynthia McKinney was from here.
It is one of the easiest places there is to cast a vote in normal elections with numerous polling places and long periods of early voting.

The Lavista Hills election was about a bunch of white people wanting to form their own a city in a Dekalb county, but have the county continue to provide all services while the city grabs off a bunch of commercial areas and their tax revenue.
It's been a bitter fight.
if there is any voting fraud by the existing power structure, which I highly doubt, then it would be black people committing the fraud.
On the other hand, this is a government that has had some serious corruption in recent times.

How could this happen?

[rickb928]

In the US Democrats assure us that election fraud is nonexistent, unles Republicans commit it. DeKalb county is not Republican.

Electronic voting in the US can only serve to enable fraud. It solves no problem.