This was hashed out in a Slashdot interview with a copyright lawyer. If you're sending a notice to an ISP saying that "You're hosting work 'A' which is an unauthorized copy of my work 'X', take it down", the perjury part only applies to your ownership claim of 'X'. For example, if I put up a copy of OpenOffice and my ISP gets a takedown notice from MS saying "You're hosting an unauthorized copy of MS-Office, which we swear we own" then MS is free and clear. They/do/ own the copyright for MS-Office. And it's/hardly/ their fault that they mistook OpenOffice and MS-Office. Whoops. No harm, no foul!
I agree the system is broken, I just wanted to clarify the perjury part.
Then Google finds out that people would rather use Yahoo or MSN Search for $0.00/search than Google for $0.10/search.
Yahoo or MSN? I'm sorry. They didn't pay their "premium interactive latency" fees to AT&T, so you'll have to wait about 30 seconds per connection attempt. But, hey, at least it's free!
Then Google and AT&T discover that colluding to keep a competitor out of the market is a violation of antitrust law.
Hahahahahahahaha. You must be new. First, neither Google nor AT&T have monopolies in their respective fields. Second, who is "the competitor" here? If Google simply bids high enough to get a guaranteed chunk of dedicated bandwidth from end-to-end, it's up to Yahoo to bid enough to get back that chunk. No one's colluding with anyone. And even if -- by some freakish warping of the seventh dimension there was a judge who decided that there were possible antitrust violations -- it'd move with the blazing speed of the.... judicial branch. So assuming Google and AT&T started colluding (*snicker*) in November of 2007, the case would finally be resolved in.... (carry the one)... January of 2015.
But until then you'd have nearly a decade of idyllic, free-market free-for-all on the Internet. Joy!
St. Louis election officials say hundreds of potentially bogus voter registration cards were submitted by a group that's been repeatedly criticized by other election leaders for registering invalid and potentially fraudulent voters.
OK, you're getting closer. You've found an article that's within one order of magnitude of your current claims. Kind of.
As in, 15,000 with problems, and at least 1,500 so far that are likely fraud.
Impressive. Fifteen words and yet you're still so off. It looks ike ACORN employees tried to break the law in a few cases (and are rightfully paying the price)... but... c'mon. Let's read this together:
At least 1,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration cards were turned in by the St. Louis ACORN branch leading up to Wednesday's voter registration deadline for the Nov. 7 election, St. Louis City Board of Election Commissioners chairwoman Kim Mathis said.
[...]
ACORN spokesman Brian Mellor told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which first reported the potential fraud, that prosecution could be warranted.
[...]
"We work hard to bring new people into the democratic process and work to maintain good quality control," Hurd said. "In the rare cases where an employee has done something wrong, ACORN has not only fired that person, but worked to have them prosecuted where appropriate."
[...]
This year in Missouri, ACORN has turned in about 40,000 new voter registrations. Half of those were in St. Louis city and county. The other 20,000 or so were collected in the Kansas City area, according to election officials.
Kansas City also is questioning some voter registrations turned in, including some that came from ACORN, said Ray James, director of the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners. But he noted that questionable registrations come in every election.
"I don't have good numbers at this point. I can roughly tell you that thousands have been turned in with signatures that don't match previous registrations, duplications, unreadable ones and incomplete ones," James said. "It's hard to iron all this out and pin a certain amount on ACORN at this point."
Let's review: there are 1,500 potentially fraudulent registration cards that have been turned in (and the last time I checked, "potentially" did not mean "likely"); and of the ones with potential problems, it's uncertain how many actually have problems and of those that do have problems, which ones came from ACORN. Granted, that's 1,500 more potentially fraudulent registration cards than the BOE should have to deal with, but I'm sure the people who tried to pull a fast one will be properly transferred from dealing with the Board of Elections to the Board of Corrections.
As for the 15,000... dude, that number wasn't even in the news article. Did you get that number with the help of your proctologist?
The use of the phrase "such as" means "here are a couple examples", not "this is all we've found"
If i say the employee database at work has employee names in it, such as "bob johnson" and "larry anderson"; that doesn't mean there are only two names in the database.
you undermine your own argument when you misinterpret statements like that.
First off, the GP claimed that the fraud was on the order of "thousands of registrations", but the only places in which his article mentioned numbers were the 7 duplicates and 1 dead person, along with 4 people getting 2 counts of fraud-related indictments. Stretching it a bit, I could see dozens. But it you want to talk about misinterpreting statements, talk to the GP poster.
An unfortunate history of election fraud in certain parts of the South? (this coming from someone born and raised in Virginia) election profiling?
Just an understanding of history. Both long ago and not-so-long-ago.
I agree that if an area has a history of problems with elections, I'd probably want to institute things like a mandatory recount in those areas so that you verify the accuracy of the results, but a history of illegal behaviour isnt itself evidence of criminal activity.
And I wrote that I was 100% certain fraud had occurred.... where, exactly? I believe I was simply saying that something was rotten in Denmark and it was time to actually get to the bottom, not make unfounded accusations of "thousands" or "tens of thousands" of fraudulant registrations. At the very least, the GP needed to find a better source for their numbers because they one they cited conflicted with their claims by at least two orders of magnitude.
The Florida election board made a rule saying that there would be no recounts in districts using paperless voting systems because there were no ballots to count in a recount. Districts that used systems that produced paper ballots would still be subject to recounts.
To an extent. The exact details of the recount statute and court ruling are complex, but it boils down to this:
o the only time a county can initiate any recount is if the totals are within one-half of one percent of votes cast
o even then, a manual recount may not be ordered if the number of overvotes, undervotes, and provisional ballots is fewer than the number of votes needed to change the outcome of the election
o in the unlikely event that a recount does occur, the first recount must be done electronically, either by re-printing the results from the touchscreens or by re-running the ballots through a scanner
o after the initial "recount", the only way they can move onto a manual recount is if the new totals are within one-quarter of one percent of each other
o even then, the only ballots that may be examined by hand are those that were deemed to not have a vote on them (undervote) or a vote for too many candidates (overvote).
In short, it is essentially impossible for a manual recount to occur, and when it does it will leave well over 98% of the ballots unexamined. I'd say that's a pretty good attempt at banning manual recounts.
The Florida election board made a rule saying that there would be no recounts in districts using paperless voting systems because there were no ballots to count in a recount. Districts that used systems that produced paper ballots would still be subject to recounts.
That rule was thrown out by the Florida court as a violation of state law that requires a manual recount be possible and required the paperless systems to produce some way for a recount to be possible.
Until, of course, the state-level decision was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court, allowing the
Or do you mean "stolen" as in "trying to fake up thousands of democratic-leaning votes?
And by "thousands" you mean "about eight"? From TFA:
The four indicted--Kwaim A. Stenson, Dale D. Franklin, Stephanie L. Davis and Brian Gardner--were employed by ACORN as registration recruiters. They were each charged with two counts.
[...]
The Kansas City Election Board told KMBC they found suspicious forms, such as seven applications from one person and an application for a dead man.
And no one has indicated, once, that there was anything suspect about the actual results. Plenty wrong with the people actually understanding how to cast a vote, but that's rather a different thing, isn't it.
Really? That's news to me. And to respected statisticians who have looked at the results:
They concluded, based on voting and population trends and other indicators, that irregularities associated with machines in three traditionally Democratic counties in southern Florida may have delivered at least 130,000 excess votes for Bush in a state the president won by about 381,000 votes. The study prompted heated critiques from some polling experts.
[Dr. Charles] Stewart of MIT was skeptical, too. But he ran the numbers and came up with the same result. "You can't break it; I've tried," Stewart said. "There's something funky in the results from the electronic-machine Democratic counties."
So, other than just repeating that meme, what's your actual evidence that what you're saying is actually true?
Oh, I don't know. Means, motive, and opportunity, perhaps? Results that just don't add up? An unfortunate history of election fraud in certain parts of the South? (this coming from someone born and raised in Virginia) Grounds, at the very least, to count the paper ballots (the practive of which Florida attempted to ban somewhat recently)?
What I smell is a frenzied effort to have, in pocket, a handy explanation for why fewer people that some political camps might wish will actually vote they way they're stamping their feet and insisting that they do.
Indeed. Damned partisan hacks stamping their feet and trying to block out reality. How dare they?
I haven't seen a link for the paper, so they may have accounted for this issue. However, let's assume for a minute that households owning computers are likely to be slightly more affluent than households that don't own a computer. Were those households spending more money on music before Napster? And given that the economy had a downturn around, oh, 2002, would it be reasonable to assume that the total spending on music (a luxury item) across all households approached a more uniform amount? In other words, before 2001 computer owners spent $40/year on music and non-computer owners spent $36. After 2001, though, both dropped to around $35? Or some variant of this data? Anyone have an answer for this hypothesis?
No he wasn't. That was essentially the handiwork of Linda Lamone. Maryland started the move towards DREs before Erhlich even came to office. He simply approved the system that Lamone -- with the help of the NFB (and their $1M grant from Diebold) -- selected.
Republicans have been pretty poor about election integrity at the federal level, but at the state level most of the worst offenders -- Lamone, Cathy Cox, Conny McCormack, George Gilbert, etc -- are Democrats.
There hasn't been any general opposition by the Maryland Democratic Party, or even amongst a larger Democratic contingent.
Then why did the MD House pass an election reform bill 137-0 this summer, only to have the Democratic "leadership" in the Senate derail it in their house? How do you explain the fact that this summer Erhlich allocated $21 million to switch to an opscan-based system, which was promptly appropriated by the State Senate and given to State Election Administrator Linda Lamone to purchase her precious electronic poll books (you know, the ones that crashed after 40 voters checked in) in a no-bid contract from Diebold? Details and supporting documentation -- usually in the form of internal documents from the Board of Elections themselves -- for all of these allegations can be found at the TrueVoteMD website.
Yeah, this is all just some elaborate political ploy by the Republicans. There's no electoral crisis in Maryland. Everything is going well. Move along, nothing to see here, people!
My God, the next thing you will read is that the ice is getting thicker in Antarctica and Greenland.
Congratulations, you fail Reading 101. Please return to elementary school. From TFA you cite:
But will it happen? Scientists divide the Antarctic into three zones: the east and west Antarctic ice sheets; and the Peninsula, the tongue of land which points up towards the southern tip of South America.
"Everybody thinks that the Antarctic is shrinking due to climate change, but the reality is much more complex," says David Vaughan, a principal investigator at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK.
"Parts of it appear to be thickening as a result of snowfall increases. But the peninsula is thinning at an alarming rate due to warming.
"The West Antarctic sheet is also thinning, and we're not sure of the reason why."
Summary: One-third of the Antarctic is thickening because of snowfall. The other two-thirds are thinning -- some dramatically, if you actually read the full article -- and they're struggling to figure out why.
Sorry you weren't able to read past the one line that supported your position. At least fish around for and quote the uncertainty the scientists mention.
Diebold systems use Microsoft Access as the underlying file format for everything, including the audit logs. So it's not even that they're claiming the file format is theirs -- it obviously "belongs" to Microsoft -- they're claiming that the table layout they came up with for Access is theirs. Which could be interesting, given that if the state programmed the ballot layout themselves, it's possible that some of that table layout was generated by the Diebold program. So you've got one Diebold program generating a table layout for the MS-Access file format, and Diebold is claiming that generated table layout is theirs.
NOTE: I have been dealing with the NC State Board of Elections for about a year now, first as a technical adviser to the subcommittee that drafted the unanimously-passed law, and more recently as a citizen trying to explain to others what the SBOE did wrong here.
First, the guy the state hired to oversee the bidding, contracting, and purchasing process -- Keith Long -- is a recent Diebold employee. Second, comments from one of the other vendors indicate that the claim that none of the vendors could comply with the escrow provisions is wrong. See this story in a local paper, and note the stance of ES&S:
Election Systems and Software, another voting-machine maker, has no problem with the law as written because the company writes its own software for its touch-screen voting machines, a spokeswoman said Monday.
And remember that Diebold was the only one who took the state to court claiming that they couldn't meet the escrow provisions? Within hours of losing that case, they handed over code. Just not all of it, it seems.
There are all sorts of other problems with the certifications that I won't go into here, but the complaint from EFF is pretty straightforward.
Use of a known OS on a closed system such as a voting kiosk is no more or less risky whether or not you have disclosure of all the source code.
The state can't change the code, no, but it allows the state to determine a) whether or not the vendor has modified the OS (i.e., rewritten low-level drivers like Diebold has donein a few cases and quite frequently), and b) allows the state to determine if the OS is truly at fault (as a vendor might claim) or if it's the vendor's code that screwed up.
As for the sections you quoted that presumably limit the scope to the OS level, why? That seems like a gapping loophole.
Politics. The lawmakers were only willing to stomach so much "and you could plant a trojan in the BIOS or the compiler to modify the results" before they cut it off. The OS was as far as they were willing to go.
By this, I mean what if the hand tallies are recorded or communicated electronically....you want to have the source for all systems used to record, transmit or communicate those results also available for disclosure?
North Carolina uses something called the State Election Information Management System (SEIMS) in all counties to manage and transmit results. This program was written in-house (by the State IT department) and is, I believe, available under a FOI request. I'd have to double-check that.
Call me cynical, but if someone really wants to muck with the system they'll find a way....voting machines or no voting machines, [...] Don't kid yourselves into thinking you've really reduced the odds of vote tampering by requiring source code disclosure for the systems used to record votes.
I disagree. We're reduced it, we just haven't eliminated it, which is, as you correctly point out, impossible. Every step which increases the transparency of the system reduces risk in some form or another. This just makes it more difficult -- and more risky -- for a vendor (or a rogue programmer) to try a fast one.
No company will be able to comply with the law it seems if they have to hand over OS Source + all developers who worked on it, then they ought to have to hand over hardware firmware too, plus all the code they write that actually is the voting system...
There were four companies other than Diebold that placed a bid, so it seems that either they're lying about what they're disclosing (which is now a felony) or they developed an in-house system.
Even if Diebold persued a shared source license with MS, I don't think that gives them the right to distributed the source code to a third party.
Even if they got a Government Security Program license? Keep in mind that one of the primary reasons for coming up with the Shared Source program was to keep governments happy. Diebold just didn't try.
And you can say "Diebold isn't distributing, they're just placing it in escrow" well, someone is going to audit that code, and it won't be someone from Diebold, so now you have a third party combing through code they aren't legally allowed to see.
"Legally" on what grounds? Violating an NDA? The Shared Source license removes that problem. Trade secrets? That's a state, not federal, issue, so the state sets the limits of trade secrets and confidentiality. The law says that only certain election officials and each party chair -- or three people hired by each of the above -- can see the escrowed code, and none of these people are allowed to work for competitors of the vendor.
However, I worry as I stated that even a well intentioned, complete, secure, open source solution would be disallowed under this law, as I see no reasonable way to comply.
Again, four other companies felt they could meet these provisions without resorting to a lawsuit. I think you overestimate the frequency of use of off-the-shelf OSes and applications used by the vendors.
Combine source code they disclosed plus affidavit from executives saying that's what's running on the voting machines and sprinkle in some felony charges for this not being the case, and you've got a pretty strong incentive for them to not pull a Georgia or California and install uncertified versions.
Maybe your intent was to prevent loopholes for the vote tallying/tracking code being classified with the OS as non-disclosed, but you certainly didn't need to require disclosure of ALL software running on the voting machines.
For a voting machine, yes, we most certainly do need disclosure of all software.
BTW are you really requiring the source to all software running on the voting machines? So you get application code and OS code. What about all the source and authors for embedded code on the machines such as the BIOS used at bootup? How about the drivers and APIs for all display and input devices? Even if you did, do you really have the resources to review it for potential hidden problems? I doubt it.
The law implicitly draws a line at the OS level -- "all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system, including, but not limited to, a complete copy of the source and executable code, build scripts, object libraries, application program interfaces, and complete documentation of all aspects of the system including, but not limited to, compiling instructions, design documentation, technical documentation, user documentation, hardware and software specifications, drawings, records, and data" is the exact language -- but they must document hardware components. It is/possible/ that a vendor could tweak the BIOS or some firmware like the hard drive controller, but that was getting a bit excessive.
Besides, there's only so much technobabble and worst-case scenarios lawmakers are willing to consider before their eyes start rolling back in their heads.:)
As for the resources to do the review, we know that the SBOE isn't even going to bother (not in any real sense, anyway), but the law gives each political party the right to hire up to three people to conduct the audit. We're working on getting that started right now.
Did you consider that maybe your overarching requirements prevented a local startup from bidding on a viable solution...with Red Hat based in NC, seems some local company might have been itching to build a voting machine leveraging RHEL or Fedora that met your TRUE needs. Who knows their solution might have toppled traditional vendors such as Diebold, even leading to creation of new jobs in your state.
It seems to me that the best solution is a combination of an optical scan system and accessible ballot marking devices. Less complex (engineering-wise), less costly, and (statistically speaking) fewer problems.
As for cutting out the bit players like start-ups, the SBOE did that well enough by requiring a $7.5 million dollar bond to cover damages due to a machine malfunction (such as a new statewide election, if necessary). It was amazing; before the law passed the SBOE said a state-wide election would cost about $3M, but after the law passed that number magically doubled (and then some). Small companies weren't going to risk bidding in the first place, and the SBOE smiled like a cat after the canary went missing (feathers in teeth and all).
Also, what lawsuit did you work with the GA on? The articles referenced by the parent implied that no one has been accused of breaking the law yet.
Diebold applied for and got a TRO that prevented the state from punishing them for breaking the law. We're not even sure if the SBOE sent a lawyer to that hearing. So/this/ lawsuit was by the EFF on behalf of a NC election integrity advocate in an attempt to compel Diebold to follow the law (and the SBOE, too). There were a lot of discussions among certain members of the GA about whether or not to get involved, i.e., "What we meant was everything, not only what Diebold is willing to hand over."
So how exactly did you expect anyone to comply? There will always be an operating system, probably either windows or a *nix.
Or a home-brew embedded system. Which is how four other vendors were able to comply with the provisions of the new law and bid without also filing a lawsuit. The computer world is not just Windows, *nix, and Mac.
And while you're right in that the auditors won't go through most of the code, it's useful to have the whole ball of wax for several reasons, such as being able to recreate the entire system on a whim and ensuring that running systems actually conform to what the vendors say they're running.
If the government makes an acknowledgement that certain components of the working system, including hardware and software, are proprietary materials owned by unrelated third parties and that Diebold is not responsible for the intellectual property pertaining to those components, then Diebold ought to be more than willing, certainly able, to comply with the order for those materials specifically under their own control.
That argument is fine for commercial activities like banking, airplanes, etc, etc, but this is voting we're talking about here. No one forced Diebold to use Windows. It was a design decision. I'm all for the free market solutions, but when the problem is how citizens select their representative government, any arguments in favor of "secret counting methods" just won't fly.
Why not just put a Diebold employee at each precinct and have each voter whisper their choice to that person through a curtain? Then, at the end of the day, the Diebold employee just tells us what the total is. If anyone questions their accuracy, they can point to some tic marks they made on a piece of paper (not that any voter actually saw these tic marks made) to "prove" they did it right.
Oh, and Diebold won't let us do background checks on these people because they hired some of these people from a temp company, and that temp company doesn't like publicising who works for them. Does that sound fair?
Besides, the source code is being held in escrow and is available only to certain NC Elections employees, and under NDA. If, even then, Diebold doesn't want to or can't comply, it's not our fault. It's my vote, not your experiment.
To be honest, I think that the software's the wrong thing to be looking at. Simply require an audit trail that's independent of the machine count and will let you verify whether the machine tallies are correct without having to assume any part of the machine side is accurate, eg. a paper ballot printed, inspected by the voter and deposited in a ballot box handled seperately from the machine's memory packs.
The law also requires that. But examining the source code also gives you insight into the development process, not just the product.
Then mandate random comparisons of a sample of the machine results with the audit trail, with any significant discrepancy triggering an automatic across-the-board audit.
The law also requires that. It's a pretty good election reform law, across-the-board.
Diebold is trying to interpret the statute to mean more than it says.
Actually the statute says exactly what Diebold was afraid it was saying. The state wants the source code to everything running on the voting machines. The second you start splitting the software into "disclosed" and "non-disclosed" boxes, the vendors will find a way to hide as much of their source code as possible. So we cut that off by requiring everything.
Note: I worked with members of the General Assembly on the original draft of the law, its numerous revisions, and the lawsuit.
Note: I have been working on voting integrity issues in North Carolina for a little while now, and advised the committees that drafted the bill in question.
The state passed a pretty comprehensive election reform bill, which included the provision that all vendors must hand over all code that runs, is installed on, or is otherwised used in the operation of the voting machines. No if, ands, or buts.
Our State Board of Elections did not like this. They want paperless voting machines, and badly. Like a six-year-old that's been told to clean up its room, they're dragging their feet on enforcing these (and other provisions). When writing the Request For Purchase (bid requirements), some staffer added a "clarification" that the vendors only had to hand over "available" software, and simply explain why they couldn't hand over the rest. In other words, "Here's why I'm going to be breaking the law today."
Lawmakers were not happy. The SBOE, however, didn't particularly care. They didn't see a problem with only handing over a portion of the code, and wanted to interpret the law as loosely as possible.
Diebold pointed out that "available" was different than "everything", and actually got a restraining order that prevented the state from suing them for not complying with any of the new provisions of the law. This case essentially overturned that ruling, saying "Uh, no, you actually have to comply with the law." Technically it says, "Ask your lawyers for legal advice, not the court, we're not going to pre-judge the law before there's an actual conflict (i.e., you actually get sued for violating these provisions."
So Diebold is going to take their ball and go home, since they would actually have to play by the rules. Oh well.
On a side note, I didn't see any evidence that Diebold actually tried to get a Shared Source license from Microsoft, which would actually let them escrow the code. Maybe Diebold didn't actually want to escrow, well, anything?
Sony stated that they did not intend to use the patent they filed on this for the PS3.
Well, that settles it! Given the outstanding track record for telling the truth they've established over the last two weeks, I have no choice but to accept their denial at face value.
I'm willing to be this sounds a lot like the experience of most engineering majors. And you know what: good. Engineering isn't supposed to be easy or glitzy or sexy. You either get things right or they're just flat wrong. A civil engineer doesn't get credit if "most" of the bridge stays up. A chemist doesn't get acclaim if their product only harms people instead of killing them.
Granted, it would be nice if more TA's spoke english. But you know what won't help that? English-speaking students who bail because it's "too hard". Call it a downward spiral, a self-fulfilling prophecy, or whatever you want.
And it would be nice if professors were better teachers. But they're not professors because they're good teachers. They're professors because they do research. And even at big, hoity-toity schools, student tuition is a tiny fraction of the school's income. So even if you're forking out $40K/year for tuition alone, you're still a small part of the equation. Don't delude yourself into thinking that you and your classmates are paying your professor's tuition. You might be adding an extra 10% - 20% on the top, but it's research that puts food on their table and a roof above their head.
Part of the problem is the "get-rich-quick" mentality most people seem to have nowadays. I don't want to actually put the hours in to get paid, I just want to make it big in real estate. I don't want to actually deal with solid right-and-wrong fields like engineering, I want "gaze-into-the-crystal-ball" fuzziness of day trading that might get me my piece of the pie tomorrow. Screw waiting until I retire! I want it now!
So combine one part get-rich-quick with one part affirmative-action-grading (i.e., HS grades not reflecting actual performance because that might hurt poor Thomas and Dakota's feelings), sprinkle with one part actual-challenge, and toss in one part less-than-ideal-teaching, and you've got the perfect mixture for a decline in engineering.
Slashdot Mirror
Next season?! How did you know that happens next season?!! It was top secret! WHO TOLD YOU?!!
[/me pulls out his gun and pistol-whips hazem]
WHO'S THE LEAK? TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW! NOW!!
This was hashed out in a Slashdot interview with a copyright lawyer. If you're sending a notice to an ISP saying that "You're hosting work 'A' which is an unauthorized copy of my work 'X', take it down", the perjury part only applies to your ownership claim of 'X'. For example, if I put up a copy of OpenOffice and my ISP gets a takedown notice from MS saying "You're hosting an unauthorized copy of MS-Office, which we swear we own" then MS is free and clear. They /do/ own the copyright for MS-Office. And it's /hardly/ their fault that they mistook OpenOffice and MS-Office. Whoops. No harm, no foul!
I agree the system is broken, I just wanted to clarify the perjury part.
-jdm
Then Google finds out that people would rather use Yahoo or MSN Search for $0.00/search than Google for $0.10/search.
Yahoo or MSN? I'm sorry. They didn't pay their "premium interactive latency" fees to AT&T, so you'll have to wait about 30 seconds per connection attempt. But, hey, at least it's free!
Then Google and AT&T discover that colluding to keep a competitor out of the market is a violation of antitrust law.
Hahahahahahahaha. You must be new. First, neither Google nor AT&T have monopolies in their respective fields. Second, who is "the competitor" here? If Google simply bids high enough to get a guaranteed chunk of dedicated bandwidth from end-to-end, it's up to Yahoo to bid enough to get back that chunk. No one's colluding with anyone. And even if -- by some freakish warping of the seventh dimension there was a judge who decided that there were possible antitrust violations -- it'd move with the blazing speed of the .... judicial branch. So assuming Google and AT&T started colluding (*snicker*) in November of 2007, the case would finally be resolved in .... (carry the one) ... January of 2015.
But until then you'd have nearly a decade of idyllic, free-market free-for-all on the Internet. Joy!
-jdm
No, I mean "thousands."
OK, you're getting closer. You've found an article that's within one order of magnitude of your current claims. Kind of.
As in, 15,000 with problems, and at least 1,500 so far that are likely fraud.
Impressive. Fifteen words and yet you're still so off. It looks ike ACORN employees tried to break the law in a few cases (and are rightfully paying the price) ... but ... c'mon. Let's read this together:
Let's review: there are 1,500 potentially fraudulent registration cards that have been turned in (and the last time I checked, "potentially" did not mean "likely"); and of the ones with potential problems, it's uncertain how many actually have problems and of those that do have problems, which ones came from ACORN. Granted, that's 1,500 more potentially fraudulent registration cards than the BOE should have to deal with, but I'm sure the people who tried to pull a fast one will be properly transferred from dealing with the Board of Elections to the Board of Corrections.
As for the 15,000 ... dude, that number wasn't even in the news article. Did you get that number with the help of your proctologist?
-jdm
The use of the phrase "such as" means "here are a couple examples", not "this is all we've found"
If i say the employee database at work has employee names in it, such as "bob johnson" and "larry anderson"; that doesn't mean there are only two names in the database.
you undermine your own argument when you misinterpret statements like that.
First off, the GP claimed that the fraud was on the order of "thousands of registrations", but the only places in which his article mentioned numbers were the 7 duplicates and 1 dead person, along with 4 people getting 2 counts of fraud-related indictments. Stretching it a bit, I could see dozens. But it you want to talk about misinterpreting statements, talk to the GP poster.
An unfortunate history of election fraud in certain parts of the South? (this coming from someone born and raised in Virginia)
election profiling?
Just an understanding of history. Both long ago and not-so-long-ago.
I agree that if an area has a history of problems with elections, I'd probably want to institute things like a mandatory recount in those areas so that you verify the accuracy of the results, but a history of illegal behaviour isnt itself evidence of criminal activity.
And I wrote that I was 100% certain fraud had occurred .... where, exactly? I believe I was simply saying that something was rotten in Denmark and it was time to actually get to the bottom, not make unfounded accusations of "thousands" or "tens of thousands" of fraudulant registrations. At the very least, the GP needed to find a better source for their numbers because they one they cited conflicted with their claims by at least two orders of magnitude.
The Florida election board made a rule saying that there would be no recounts in districts using paperless voting systems because there were no ballots to count in a recount. Districts that used systems that produced paper ballots would still be subject to recounts.
To an extent. The exact details of the recount statute and court ruling are complex, but it boils down to this:
o the only time a county can initiate any recount is if the totals are within one-half of one percent of votes cast
o even then, a manual recount may not be ordered if the number of overvotes, undervotes, and provisional ballots is fewer than the number of votes needed to change the outcome of the election
o in the unlikely event that a recount does occur, the first recount must be done electronically, either by re-printing the results from the touchscreens or by re-running the ballots through a scanner
o after the initial "recount", the only way they can move onto a manual recount is if the new totals are within one-quarter of one percent of each other
o even then, the only ballots that may be examined by hand are those that were deemed to not have a vote on them (undervote) or a vote for too many candidates (overvote).
In short, it is essentially impossible for a manual recount to occur, and when it does it will leave well over 98% of the ballots unexamined. I'd say that's a pretty good attempt at banning manual recounts.
The Florida election board made a rule saying that there would be no recounts in districts using paperless voting systems because there were no ballots to count in a recount. Districts that used systems that produced paper ballots would still be subject to recounts.
That rule was thrown out by the Florida court as a violation of state law that requires a manual recount be possible and required the paperless systems to produce some way for a recount to be possible.
Until, of course, the state-level decision was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court, allowing the
Or do you mean "stolen" as in "trying to fake up thousands of democratic-leaning votes?
And by "thousands" you mean "about eight"? From TFA:
And no one has indicated, once, that there was anything suspect about the actual results. Plenty wrong with the people actually understanding how to cast a vote, but that's rather a different thing, isn't it.
Really? That's news to me. And to respected statisticians who have looked at the results:
So, other than just repeating that meme, what's your actual evidence that what you're saying is actually true?
Oh, I don't know. Means, motive, and opportunity, perhaps? Results that just don't add up? An unfortunate history of election fraud in certain parts of the South? (this coming from someone born and raised in Virginia) Grounds, at the very least, to count the paper ballots (the practive of which Florida attempted to ban somewhat recently)?
What I smell is a frenzied effort to have, in pocket, a handy explanation for why fewer people that some political camps might wish will actually vote they way they're stamping their feet and insisting that they do.
Indeed. Damned partisan hacks stamping their feet and trying to block out reality. How dare they?
-jdm
I haven't seen a link for the paper, so they may have accounted for this issue. However, let's assume for a minute that households owning computers are likely to be slightly more affluent than households that don't own a computer. Were those households spending more money on music before Napster? And given that the economy had a downturn around, oh, 2002, would it be reasonable to assume that the total spending on music (a luxury item) across all households approached a more uniform amount? In other words, before 2001 computer owners spent $40/year on music and non-computer owners spent $36. After 2001, though, both dropped to around $35? Or some variant of this data? Anyone have an answer for this hypothesis?
-jdm
No he wasn't. That was essentially the handiwork of Linda Lamone. Maryland started the move towards DREs before Erhlich even came to office. He simply approved the system that Lamone -- with the help of the NFB (and their $1M grant from Diebold) -- selected.
Republicans have been pretty poor about election integrity at the federal level, but at the state level most of the worst offenders -- Lamone, Cathy Cox, Conny McCormack, George Gilbert, etc -- are Democrats.
-jdm
There hasn't been any general opposition by the Maryland Democratic Party, or even amongst a larger Democratic contingent.
Then why did the MD House pass an election reform bill 137-0 this summer, only to have the Democratic "leadership" in the Senate derail it in their house? How do you explain the fact that this summer Erhlich allocated $21 million to switch to an opscan-based system, which was promptly appropriated by the State Senate and given to State Election Administrator Linda Lamone to purchase her precious electronic poll books (you know, the ones that crashed after 40 voters checked in) in a no-bid contract from Diebold? Details and supporting documentation -- usually in the form of internal documents from the Board of Elections themselves -- for all of these allegations can be found at the TrueVoteMD website.
As for Lamone, she's done her best to silence her critics, bury contradictory reports, hide information from the Governor and the citizens, and then go lie to the legislators in another state about how well everything has gone, finally stating that she will support paper on her touchscreens "over [her] dead body"?
Yeah, this is all just some elaborate political ploy by the Republicans. There's no electoral crisis in Maryland. Everything is going well. Move along, nothing to see here, people!
-jdm
Thank you for stealing an earlier post of mine absolutely verbatim.
-the real jdm
Brilliant! I bow to your unassailable logic and the power of your selective quoting.
Using the same type of argument, based on your earlier quote of
We can determine that you, sir, are obviously an Osama bin-Laden-supporting terrorist, should be sent to Gitmo, tortured, and executed.
The proof is here.
-jdm
My God, the next thing you will read is that the ice is getting thicker in Antarctica and Greenland.
Congratulations, you fail Reading 101. Please return to elementary school. From TFA you cite:
Summary: One-third of the Antarctic is thickening because of snowfall. The other two-thirds are thinning -- some dramatically, if you actually read the full article -- and they're struggling to figure out why.
Sorry you weren't able to read past the one line that supported your position. At least fish around for and quote the uncertainty the scientists mention.
-jdm
Diebold systems use Microsoft Access as the underlying file format for everything, including the audit logs. So it's not even that they're claiming the file format is theirs -- it obviously "belongs" to Microsoft -- they're claiming that the table layout they came up with for Access is theirs. Which could be interesting, given that if the state programmed the ballot layout themselves, it's possible that some of that table layout was generated by the Diebold program. So you've got one Diebold program generating a table layout for the MS-Access file format, and Diebold is claiming that generated table layout is theirs.
Brilliant!
-jdm
NOTE: I have been dealing with the NC State Board of Elections for about a year now, first as a technical adviser to the subcommittee that drafted the unanimously-passed law, and more recently as a citizen trying to explain to others what the SBOE did wrong here.
First, the guy the state hired to oversee the bidding, contracting, and purchasing process -- Keith Long -- is a recent Diebold employee. Second, comments from one of the other vendors indicate that the claim that none of the vendors could comply with the escrow provisions is wrong. See this story in a local paper, and note the stance of ES&S:
And remember that Diebold was the only one who took the state to court claiming that they couldn't meet the escrow provisions? Within hours of losing that case, they handed over code. Just not all of it, it seems.
There are all sorts of other problems with the certifications that I won't go into here, but the complaint from EFF is pretty straightforward.
-jdm
Use of a known OS on a closed system such as a voting kiosk is no more or less risky whether or not you have disclosure of all the source code.
The state can't change the code, no, but it allows the state to determine a) whether or not the vendor has modified the OS (i.e., rewritten low-level drivers like Diebold has done in a few cases and quite frequently), and b) allows the state to determine if the OS is truly at fault (as a vendor might claim) or if it's the vendor's code that screwed up.
As for the sections you quoted that presumably limit the scope to the OS level, why? That seems like a gapping loophole.
Politics. The lawmakers were only willing to stomach so much "and you could plant a trojan in the BIOS or the compiler to modify the results" before they cut it off. The OS was as far as they were willing to go.
By this, I mean what if the hand tallies are recorded or communicated electronically....you want to have the source for all systems used to record, transmit or communicate those results also available for disclosure?
North Carolina uses something called the State Election Information Management System (SEIMS) in all counties to manage and transmit results. This program was written in-house (by the State IT department) and is, I believe, available under a FOI request. I'd have to double-check that.
Call me cynical, but if someone really wants to muck with the system they'll find a way....voting machines or no voting machines, [...] Don't kid yourselves into thinking you've really reduced the odds of vote tampering by requiring source code disclosure for the systems used to record votes.
I disagree. We're reduced it, we just haven't eliminated it, which is, as you correctly point out, impossible. Every step which increases the transparency of the system reduces risk in some form or another. This just makes it more difficult -- and more risky -- for a vendor (or a rogue programmer) to try a fast one.
-jdm
No company will be able to comply with the law it seems if they have to hand over OS Source + all developers who worked on it, then they ought to have to hand over hardware firmware too, plus all the code they write that actually is the voting system...
There were four companies other than Diebold that placed a bid, so it seems that either they're lying about what they're disclosing (which is now a felony) or they developed an in-house system.
Even if Diebold persued a shared source license with MS, I don't think that gives them the right to distributed the source code to a third party.
Even if they got a Government Security Program license? Keep in mind that one of the primary reasons for coming up with the Shared Source program was to keep governments happy. Diebold just didn't try.
And you can say "Diebold isn't distributing, they're just placing it in escrow" well, someone is going to audit that code, and it won't be someone from Diebold, so now you have a third party combing through code they aren't legally allowed to see.
"Legally" on what grounds? Violating an NDA? The Shared Source license removes that problem. Trade secrets? That's a state, not federal, issue, so the state sets the limits of trade secrets and confidentiality. The law says that only certain election officials and each party chair -- or three people hired by each of the above -- can see the escrowed code, and none of these people are allowed to work for competitors of the vendor.
However, I worry as I stated that even a well intentioned, complete, secure, open source solution would be disallowed under this law, as I see no reasonable way to comply.
Again, four other companies felt they could meet these provisions without resorting to a lawsuit. I think you overestimate the frequency of use of off-the-shelf OSes and applications used by the vendors.
-jdm
Combine source code they disclosed plus affidavit from executives saying that's what's running on the voting machines and sprinkle in some felony charges for this not being the case, and you've got a pretty strong incentive for them to not pull a Georgia or California and install uncertified versions.
-jdm
Maybe your intent was to prevent loopholes for the vote tallying/tracking code being classified with the OS as non-disclosed, but you certainly didn't need to require disclosure of ALL software running on the voting machines.
For a voting machine, yes, we most certainly do need disclosure of all software.
BTW are you really requiring the source to all software running on the voting machines? So you get application code and OS code. What about all the source and authors for embedded code on the machines such as the BIOS used at bootup? How about the drivers and APIs for all display and input devices? Even if you did, do you really have the resources to review it for potential hidden problems? I doubt it.
The law implicitly draws a line at the OS level -- "all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system, including, but not limited to, a complete copy of the source and executable code, build scripts, object libraries, application program interfaces, and complete documentation of all aspects of the system including, but not limited to, compiling instructions, design documentation, technical documentation, user documentation, hardware and software specifications, drawings, records, and data" is the exact language -- but they must document hardware components. It is /possible/ that a vendor could tweak the BIOS or some firmware like the hard drive controller, but that was getting a bit excessive.
Besides, there's only so much technobabble and worst-case scenarios lawmakers are willing to consider before their eyes start rolling back in their heads. :)
As for the resources to do the review, we know that the SBOE isn't even going to bother (not in any real sense, anyway), but the law gives each political party the right to hire up to three people to conduct the audit. We're working on getting that started right now.
Did you consider that maybe your overarching requirements prevented a local startup from bidding on a viable solution...with Red Hat based in NC, seems some local company might have been itching to build a voting machine leveraging RHEL or Fedora that met your TRUE needs. Who knows their solution might have toppled traditional vendors such as Diebold, even leading to creation of new jobs in your state.
It seems to me that the best solution is a combination of an optical scan system and accessible ballot marking devices. Less complex (engineering-wise), less costly, and (statistically speaking) fewer problems.
As for cutting out the bit players like start-ups, the SBOE did that well enough by requiring a $7.5 million dollar bond to cover damages due to a machine malfunction (such as a new statewide election, if necessary). It was amazing; before the law passed the SBOE said a state-wide election would cost about $3M, but after the law passed that number magically doubled (and then some). Small companies weren't going to risk bidding in the first place, and the SBOE smiled like a cat after the canary went missing (feathers in teeth and all).
Also, what lawsuit did you work with the GA on? The articles referenced by the parent implied that no one has been accused of breaking the law yet.
Diebold applied for and got a TRO that prevented the state from punishing them for breaking the law. We're not even sure if the SBOE sent a lawyer to that hearing. So /this/ lawsuit was by the EFF on behalf of a NC election integrity advocate in an attempt to compel Diebold to follow the law (and the SBOE, too). There were a lot of discussions among certain members of the GA about whether or not to get involved, i.e., "What we meant was everything, not only what Diebold is willing to hand over."
-jdm
So how exactly did you expect anyone to comply? There will always be an operating system, probably either windows or a *nix.
Or a home-brew embedded system. Which is how four other vendors were able to comply with the provisions of the new law and bid without also filing a lawsuit. The computer world is not just Windows, *nix, and Mac.
And while you're right in that the auditors won't go through most of the code, it's useful to have the whole ball of wax for several reasons, such as being able to recreate the entire system on a whim and ensuring that running systems actually conform to what the vendors say they're running.
-jdm
If the government makes an acknowledgement that certain components of the working system, including hardware and software, are proprietary materials owned by unrelated third parties and that Diebold is not responsible for the intellectual property pertaining to those components, then Diebold ought to be more than willing, certainly able, to comply with the order for those materials specifically under their own control.
That argument is fine for commercial activities like banking, airplanes, etc, etc, but this is voting we're talking about here. No one forced Diebold to use Windows. It was a design decision. I'm all for the free market solutions, but when the problem is how citizens select their representative government, any arguments in favor of "secret counting methods" just won't fly.
Why not just put a Diebold employee at each precinct and have each voter whisper their choice to that person through a curtain? Then, at the end of the day, the Diebold employee just tells us what the total is. If anyone questions their accuracy, they can point to some tic marks they made on a piece of paper (not that any voter actually saw these tic marks made) to "prove" they did it right.
Oh, and Diebold won't let us do background checks on these people because they hired some of these people from a temp company, and that temp company doesn't like publicising who works for them. Does that sound fair?
Besides, the source code is being held in escrow and is available only to certain NC Elections employees, and under NDA. If, even then, Diebold doesn't want to or can't comply, it's not our fault. It's my vote, not your experiment.
-jdm
To be honest, I think that the software's the wrong thing to be looking at. Simply require an audit trail that's independent of the machine count and will let you verify whether the machine tallies are correct without having to assume any part of the machine side is accurate, eg. a paper ballot printed, inspected by the voter and deposited in a ballot box handled seperately from the machine's memory packs.
The law also requires that. But examining the source code also gives you insight into the development process, not just the product.
Then mandate random comparisons of a sample of the machine results with the audit trail, with any significant discrepancy triggering an automatic across-the-board audit.
The law also requires that. It's a pretty good election reform law, across-the-board.
-jdm
Diebold is trying to interpret the statute to mean more than it says.
Actually the statute says exactly what Diebold was afraid it was saying. The state wants the source code to everything running on the voting machines. The second you start splitting the software into "disclosed" and "non-disclosed" boxes, the vendors will find a way to hide as much of their source code as possible. So we cut that off by requiring everything.
Note: I worked with members of the General Assembly on the original draft of the law, its numerous revisions, and the lawsuit.
-jdm
Note: I have been working on voting integrity issues in North Carolina for a little while now, and advised the committees that drafted the bill in question.
The state passed a pretty comprehensive election reform bill, which included the provision that all vendors must hand over all code that runs, is installed on, or is otherwised used in the operation of the voting machines. No if, ands, or buts.
Our State Board of Elections did not like this. They want paperless voting machines, and badly. Like a six-year-old that's been told to clean up its room, they're dragging their feet on enforcing these (and other provisions). When writing the Request For Purchase (bid requirements), some staffer added a "clarification" that the vendors only had to hand over "available" software, and simply explain why they couldn't hand over the rest. In other words, "Here's why I'm going to be breaking the law today."
Lawmakers were not happy. The SBOE, however, didn't particularly care. They didn't see a problem with only handing over a portion of the code, and wanted to interpret the law as loosely as possible.
Diebold pointed out that "available" was different than "everything", and actually got a restraining order that prevented the state from suing them for not complying with any of the new provisions of the law. This case essentially overturned that ruling, saying "Uh, no, you actually have to comply with the law." Technically it says, "Ask your lawyers for legal advice, not the court, we're not going to pre-judge the law before there's an actual conflict (i.e., you actually get sued for violating these provisions."
So Diebold is going to take their ball and go home, since they would actually have to play by the rules. Oh well.
On a side note, I didn't see any evidence that Diebold actually tried to get a Shared Source license from Microsoft, which would actually let them escrow the code. Maybe Diebold didn't actually want to escrow, well, anything?
Imagine that.
-jdm
Sony stated that they did not intend to use the patent they filed on this for the PS3.
Well, that settles it! Given the outstanding track record for telling the truth they've established over the last two weeks, I have no choice but to accept their denial at face value.
--jdm
I'm willing to be this sounds a lot like the experience of most engineering majors. And you know what: good. Engineering isn't supposed to be easy or glitzy or sexy. You either get things right or they're just flat wrong. A civil engineer doesn't get credit if "most" of the bridge stays up. A chemist doesn't get acclaim if their product only harms people instead of killing them.
Granted, it would be nice if more TA's spoke english. But you know what won't help that? English-speaking students who bail because it's "too hard". Call it a downward spiral, a self-fulfilling prophecy, or whatever you want.
And it would be nice if professors were better teachers. But they're not professors because they're good teachers. They're professors because they do research. And even at big, hoity-toity schools, student tuition is a tiny fraction of the school's income. So even if you're forking out $40K/year for tuition alone, you're still a small part of the equation. Don't delude yourself into thinking that you and your classmates are paying your professor's tuition. You might be adding an extra 10% - 20% on the top, but it's research that puts food on their table and a roof above their head.
Part of the problem is the "get-rich-quick" mentality most people seem to have nowadays. I don't want to actually put the hours in to get paid, I just want to make it big in real estate. I don't want to actually deal with solid right-and-wrong fields like engineering, I want "gaze-into-the-crystal-ball" fuzziness of day trading that might get me my piece of the pie tomorrow. Screw waiting until I retire! I want it now!
So combine one part get-rich-quick with one part affirmative-action-grading (i.e., HS grades not reflecting actual performance because that might hurt poor Thomas and Dakota's feelings), sprinkle with one part actual-challenge, and toss in one part less-than-ideal-teaching, and you've got the perfect mixture for a decline in engineering.
-jdmP.S. Nyah! Get off my lawn, you stupid kids!