I know I'm preaching to the Slashdot choir, and it's been said a thousand times before, but as long as we have closed voting processes, we're going to have people screwing up by doing things like having voting machines accessible with hotel minibar keys. We hate Microsoft for their closed-source software, yet we continue to accept this kind of idiocy.
A mention of "closed source" software (as opposed to "open source").
Quick question: If we have viable alteratives, such as those presented by the Open Voting Consortium, why do we continue to bother with these stupid Diebold machines? I know, dumb answer, because Diebold pays the people who decide lots and lots of money.
One of the main tenets of OVC is to use open source software. (And to answer the question, because unseating traditional commercial vendors in ANY space is difficult. And none of the legislation required anything that the OVC espouses.)
Or even better, when we see nothing at all and Richard M. Stallman is mysteriously elected President in a write-in landslide.
Another clear reference to "open source". (What else does Stallman refer to? And to joke that Stallman is mysteriously elected president implies that the software would be able to be hacked by people like the slashdot community precisely because it's open source. And yes, I realize this is a joke, but it still speaks to the original poster's clear intent that voting systems should be open, as in open SOURCE. Indeed, that is another main tenet of OVC.)
Look, I have nothing against open source...quite the opposite.
Again, my first point was to say that any voting system, open, open source, or no, is useless UNLESS it has a paper trail. Now, maybe people think that's intrinsic to an "open" system, but it's definitely not to an "open source" one. The requirement for a paper trail still must be legislatively mandated. This is not in conflict with anything OVC says, but it's not articulated in the original post, and was the only reason I brought it up: open source alone does not solve the problem. And yes, I know the OVC doesn't say that. But the original poster doesn't specifically mention the need for a paper trail, which in my mind is MUCH more necessary than simply going to open source. And if open source or OVC recommendations aren't real or politically viable options, we should be concentrating on the paper trail. Everyone thinks I'm trying to argue with or somehow contradict the original poster. All I wanted to get across with my post was to remind people who may be reading and NOT clicking the OVC link who interpret the post as an argument for open source voting machines that open source without a paper trail is useless, period.
My second point was to say that we'd be more effective at simply demanding paper trails via legislation, no matter WHO the vendor is, instead of thinking we need to displace the traditional vendors (which isn't likely).
They don't really have the means...Diebold is a company that has thousands of programmers, engineers, sales, marketing, and other staff working in many divisions, including Election Systems. What you're claiming is that just because a corporate leader makes an absurd comment, no matter how inappropriate, is that represents "motive". I would argue that there is a massive disconnect between what he says in the capacity of a corporate leader in Ohio who happens to be a Republican, and actually engineering an undetected mechanism that would have to be known about by many people at various levels to rig elections for Republicans. Given the differences in implementations in every county, much less anything else, it would be a massive undertaking that could not possibly be kept secret.
On exit polls, the Rolling Stone asserts that the exit polls are already statistically impossible. But that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, either:
[...] the Kerry voters were angry at Bush, and that anger made them more willing to respond to the surveys. Nationwide, refusals clearly were Republican.
Anyone who says that exit polls are the most reliable kind of survey "only demonstrates that the person making that statement knows very little about how surveys are done,"
... The majority of exit polls carried out in European countries over the past years have been failures....
Of the ten battleground states that the exit poll showed Kerry winning, he ultimately lost four -- states that, you could say, cost him the election. These were Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico. But in none of those states was Kerry's lead outside the poll's margin of error. In other words, the poll results showed a race that was too close to call, and it is impossible to use such a poll to prove that fraud occurred.
I really am concerned when people think that there are active and massive (yet always unprovable) campaigns to literally rig and steal elections, and that it's only the GOP at that, and that they'll be even more pronounced in 2008. If all this is true, what happens if a Democratic candidate wins? The Republicans just didn't "cheat enough"? Or people were *so* fed up that even all of Diebold's hidden secrets to sway the numbers just weren't enough to flip it? Why would a Democratic victory be any more sound given how unbelievably insecure and corrupt it is claimed that the voting machines are, and indeed, that the system itself is? The answer is undeniable: it wouldn't be. And that's exactly why we need a trusted process with a paper trail.
I do agree that a paper trail solves a lot of this, if only to go a long way to restoring faith in the system. But I really am legitimately surprised and concerned - and I'm not just saying that - when people actually think wholeheartedly that there are current, ongoing, massive conspiracies, that somehow miraculously can't be firmly uncovered or proven, to steal elections, only the part of ONLY Republicans no less. Especially in an environment where the most secretive government agencies in the country can't even keep their own classified information, that FAR fewer people would necessarily know about, secret. If you care to discuss this further, feel free to IM or email me at any of my listed contact mechanisms.
Since any system will always be able to be compromised via some means, the only thing that will solve this problem sufficiently is that of a paper trail.
Then we can go back to fielding claims of disenfranchisement because of road closure conspiracies, long lines, people handing out flyers saying election day has changed, and voter intimidation.
Christ...are you actually saying you think I was directly responding to Diebold ATMs and whether they have locks that can be picked??
I just picked a couple of examples that show ATMs in general aren't necessarily 100% secure and foolproof either. This isn't about locks and keys: this is about the fact that ANY electronic or physical systems can and will be compromised via various means.
And there is nothing deliberate about lack of physical security on devices that use generic security keys that are always supposed to be under the stewardship of the same people we have always trusted with our elections. There are a variety of reasons to do it: laziness, no need for individualized key management, cost, and so on. But that doesn't mean it's intentionally designed to be subverted.
Any physical security can be defeated by someone determined enough. As I've said about a half dozen times now, what we need to be concentrating on is a permanent voter-verified paper trail. Without it, any system is useless and intrinsically untrustworthy.
No, I won't admit I was wrong, because that's not what I meant. I know exactly what the Open Voting Consortium advocates.
The original post was alluding to "closed source" and "open source" software, Richard Stallman, getting the proprietary machines out, and so on. It made no reference to a paper trail, and made several references to open machines, replacing machines with open machines, and so on.
I said that open (source) machines without a paper trail are useless. And that's true. So, while I've admitted I've been wrong plenty of times here and elsewhere, now is not one of those times, since I knew exactly what OVC stands for and advocates and was merely making a statement so that people who think that open source is the solution understand that it's just as useless without a paper trail, and that, indeed, if we're going to work for ANYTHING and actually have a hope of it succeeding, it should be a paper trail, not trying to oust traditional vendors in this market space, which is exactly what I said.
Your mistake is using the logic, "These machines have security issues; therefore, they must be designed that way." That's fallacious, not to mention not provable, as is the subsequent assertion that since they MUST be designing them as insecure, one side must be benefiting since there's no reason to do it unless one side benefits more. No doubt many people believe that along with you: that these systems are intentionally designed as such so that Republicans benefit - of course, that's not provable, either. (Remember, I'm not a Republican - if you want to label me by voting record, if ANYTHING, I'm a Democrat since Democratic candidates have gotten most of my votes; I know you'll say I'm laying to create a "sympathetic environment" for myself).
I just grabbed the first couple examples of ATM vulnerabilities I came across. Remember, since I'm not actually a spinmaster or political operative, I don't devote my life to proving that other things might be just as shoddily designed as e-voting systems. Also, ATMs are much more mature and have had much greater demands placed on them by their corporate banking users. E-voting systems have had no similar such requirements or scrutiny, allowing the ugly entropy of laziness and bureaucracy to create the crap we have today.
As to voting machine companies providing "detailed instructions" to candidates on how to actively compromise machines to rig elections - instructions that would no doubt have to be executed by groups, including those who are charged with the security and integrity of the elections themselves at the county level - we'd certainly know about it. Face it: the machines are shoddy, and like a lot of shoddy things, it's not by design. It's because it's tolerated, and allowed to happen. Congress passes some relatively vague legislation requiring e-voting machines, and counties and municipalities are left with equally vague contract requirements to fill from e-voting vendors. Then, we get machines that are only vaguely functional.
I do agree, though, that even if the machines themselves met some definition of "secure" that satisfied a particular person or group, there would still be people claiming fraud. And maybe in some places there would be. But all that aside, if some groups of people are NEVER willing to trust our electoral process, what will solve that problem?
Yes, when I say "receipt", I don't mean it as something someone takes with them, though "receipt printers" are discussed generically in this context. I am in no way insinuating or implying people should get a piece of paper to take along with them. All I'm talking about is a piece of paper that can be verified by the voter, at that time, and then gets stored in accordance with the same mechanisms we've used for voting for decades.
I know that they and others advocate for a paper trail; but for those reading the grandparent thinking "open source" is the solution, my point is that by itself it's not: as I said, open source is just as useless without a paper trail.
And further, initiatives designed to unseat traditional enterprise and commercial vendors in this space may have less chance of getting anything done than just simply working for a paper trail on ANY systems in use, no matter where they come from, "open" or no.
The "point" was to actually fix some of the problem areas from the 2000 election, in addition to things like efficiency and automation. There were Democratic and bipartisan initiatives, like the Help America Vote Act (2002), that mandated electronic voting systems, but neglected to include a paper trail.
The problem, though, that you bring up is an interesting one: even if all of the systems were totally open source and all had permanent voter-verified paper trails, [insert losers here] would still be clamoring for a recount in every election. Ultimately, the only benefit from electronic voting, then, is on the backend and in uniform management and use of the systems.
In the end, it might just be better to go back to paper (and maybe have the paper read by scanners, as some jurisdictions to now), but then we'd end up right where we were back in 2000, with claims of lack of uniformity, confusing ballots, antiquated machines, lines, and so on.
So while it seems like a no-win situation, the best we can do is still demand a permanent, auditable, voter-verified receipt process.
Open source systems are just as useless as the Diebold equipment without a permanent voter-verified paper trail.
It's no surprise that enterprise and commercial vendors of all stripes will maintain closed and proprietary software.
What we need to require is a permanent, voter-verified, auditable paper trail, as I have discussed here.
That's the easiest and simplest course of action, and is a goal we should all be working toward, rather than trying to unseat established enterprise equipment vendors.
--- Temporary disclaimer, since this seems to have been an issue for people reading my posts lately: I am not a Republican, did not vote for Bush in the last election, and have always voted for more non-Republican (usually Democratic) candidates since I have been voting.
Electronic systems - including electronic voting machines - will always be able to be tampered with, no matter who makes them, no matter what their CEOs stupidly say, no matter what ongoing audit mechanisms are implemented, whether they're open or proprietary, and no matter what legislation or other initiatives mandate or recommend them.
Finding out that computer systems can be tampered with and that some large-scale enterprise-class systems can have shoddy security, physical and otherwise, should come as no surprise to us, particularly in this community. On this particular issue, a generic security key is used because of key management issues and the fact that casual access is what's being prevented. Neither of which excuses this or any of the numerous other glaring shortcomings and flaws in this equipment. No one - citizen, politician, or party - benefits from universally shoddy security on electronic voting systems. No one.
Remember, too, that voting legislation, in large part in response to issues in the 2000 election, designed to ensure fair, uniform, and universal access to voting for all citizens by mandating electronic voting equipment, such as HAVA (2002), were Democratic and bipartisan efforts.
The real issue is that Congress screwed up: they inherently, and erroneously, believed that since we trust so many critically important things to machines, certainly reliable electronic voting is possible, and indeed, we use automation, computers, and machines in almost every aspect of our lives to increase efficiency and reliability - why should voting be any different?
Except for one problem: when you're trying to administer a one-vote-per-person system that also maintains anonymity, and also disallows any external entity from discovering who voted for which candidates, when there is no permanent, voter-verified paper trail, the system as a whole cannot be trusted, since any level of security will always be able to be overridden. This has nothing to do with open source versus proprietary, or how shoddy physical security on e-voting systems is. A permanent, voter-verified paper trail solves all of these problems.
The only problem is that no legislation mandating electronic voting systems includes or speaks to any provisions requiring permanent paper receipt printing capability. All of the major e-voting vendors - Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia - have this capability, but it's an add-on that requires retrofitting existing equipment, or in some cases, purchasing new equipment. And that takes money many counties and municipalities - particularly in the most hotly contested areas - don't have. (Hint: it's not just poor areas that have long lines)
Our focus now should be on passing legislation that requires permanent voter-verified paper trail capability on all newly deployed e-voting systems, and allocates funds and creates a timeline for deployment on existing systems. Please, continue to raise this issue with both your county election officials and your elected representatives.
This issue is too important and too critical to the integrity of our election process to let rest.
--- Temporary disclaimer, since this seems to have been an issue for people reading my posts lately: I am not a Republican, did not vote for Bush in the last election, and have always voted for more non-Republican (usually Democratic) candidates since I have been voting.
For the 2004 presidential election, I voted in relatively affluent Madison, WI, on the west, suburban side of the city, about 2 blocks away from one of the wealthiest developments in Madison (High Point Estates). My wife and I waited about 45 minutes to vote when we went at 7:30am. The line was very long, and about 90% of the people in line were white and at LEAST middle class, with mostly upper middle class (and quite a few who would qualify as upper class or wealthy, given the area that is contained in this precinct).
Madison is one of the most liberal, left-leaning cities in the country, and Dane county one of the most liberal/"progressive" counties. From a financial perspective, the city and county governments aren't hurting. I know some people will think I'm lying or making up the wait, but anyone who voted at the polling station on McKenna Road can easily verify this. The point? There can be lines anywhere, and there were...all over Dane county, but particularly in Madison.
Does this mean there was a concerted effort to suppress the upper middle class white vote on the west side of Madison?
1. I don't have "canned responses" for everything; this was the only post in this story (and I've had many, as you can see, most of which are modded down simply because people don't agree with their content). I acknowledged they were previous quotes of mine from just a few days before; why should I retype something that addresses the exact issue at hand?
2. globalsecurity.org is hardly a right-wing propaganda aggregation service. You'd find the identical information at, for example, FAS. globalsecurity's job is aggregating information on global security. Are you alleging that globalsecurity.org has ulterior motives? I've NEVER seen or heard of it referred to as a propaganda source before by anyone. (I suppose things like truthout and commondreams (or the Rolling Stone) are "hard news" to you?)
3. I've never posted on Free Republic or anything like it.
4. I didn't vote for Bush in 2004, and most candidates I have voted for since I've been voting have been non-Republicans (mostly Democratic candidates).
5. I'm not "part" of any propaganda. I love how people such as yourself can't stand those with views that differ from your own. Anything that supports or contributes to those views is propaganda, and indeed the ideas themselves are propaganda.
Also, what you said about Iraq with regard to WMD is bullshit. What I said is true as of 2003. Yes, there were widely varying opinions on what this meant and what action should/could be taken. But UN 1441 is proof enough. It was passed by the whole of the Securty Council, and no one was under duress. Read it. But I suppose now even UNSEC resolutions are "propaganda" to you.
Sounds like there was already a good description of this class of weapons that I had already trained for as a first responder. Why did the term "WMD" come up to describe what we were already calling "NBC"? Did it poll better or something?
WMD didn't come around recently. The first recorded use of the term was in 1937, and didn't encompass nukes at all (as the person I was responding to implied it ONLY referred to). The term was again used in the international arms control community by the UN, in the Atomic Energy Commission, predecessor to the IAEA. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972, an international, multilateral treaty framework, explicitly includes both chemical and biological weapons within the WMD framework.
Many people now believe it's a term used for political means, and it may be. But the term "WMD" wasn't invented by people who thought it "polled better". It was around for a half-century, and didn't even describe nukes initially. Further, "WMD" differs frm "NBC" in that "WMD" implies weapons specifically designed as such, in order to inflict mass casualty indiscriminately. NBC might describe items, events, or scenarios that don't represent weapons usage.
First off: WMD was a term created to mean "something bad that isn't a nuke"
Sorry, that's not true. It is an internationally recognized arms control term that encompasses nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons, and loosely, weapons capable of indiscriminately killing large numbers of people. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972 explicitly includes biological and chemical weapons. Do some reading. Here's a reasonable place to start.
It's also untrue that no one believed Iraq had WMD. The US did. The UK did. The UN did. Much of Europe did. Since such large quantities of weapons were unaccounted for in 1998, and every indication was that Iraq was continuing in noncompliance, especially when all UN-required oversight was gone, there was no reason to believe Iraq DIDN'T still possess the WMD it was still KNOWN to be in possession of (or couldn't prove were destroyed) as of 1998. The UN never had full access to facilities. And yeah: by 2003, Iraq may not have had any WMD left. It had conveniently all left the country. While much of that might be aged and useless in any event, the swarm of binding, in-force UNSEC resolutions (678, 687, 1441, etc.) made it clear how Iraq was supposed to behave, at the urging, and indeed, requirement, of the international community.
But none of this is really the point, which is that there are a lot of people who think the US (and/or West (usually UK)) is exclusively what's wrong with the world, simultaneously failing to see the potential for anyone else to do extreme things that could have global implications.
Rolling Stone one of the "last" mags that runs real, important news?
...
At least we have a frame of reference on where you're coming from now.
(What about, oh, I don't know, Newsweek, US News, Time, The Economist, etc. etc. etc.? I suppose they're all run by the "corporate machine" and won't tackle "real news" like the 2004 election being stolen or other "news" you want to see?)
Also, even if every single thing Kennedy says in the Rolling Stone article is true, can you not comprehend the fact that he's writing to support a particular position and idea? Do you think he would present studies, news articles, reports, websites, and so on, that didn't support the position he was writing about? Do you think the article is unbiased? Do you think it's possible to fill an article with "references" and "proof" and still be one-sided? Would you feel equally about a Weekly Standard article by William Kristol about some topic, even if it contained its own "references"?
Considering the source is one of the most important aspects of recognizing potential bias, even if every factual item contained therein is true.
Um, I read the article *months* ago. You know, when it was published. It's now been covered THREE TIMES on slashdot. What are we going to learn that's new this time?
Further, there's not going to be any huge "rise" and then subsequent "discrediting" of the article: the country has already moved on.
And when I say consider the source, I do mean both Rolling Stone and Robert Kennedy, Jr. (What if I posted a Weekly Standard article by Bill Kristol with its own references about something?)
What I'm responding to is the general idea that the elections - either 2000 or 2004 - were "stolen" at all. The Rolling Stone article doesn't "prove" anything. Do you think Kennedy took any stories, articles, references, or quotes from anyone that don't support the idea HE is trying to get across? My post isn't a "rebuttal" of the article; it's exactly what it is, which is my thoughts on this whole "election was stolen" story. We're so close to margins of error - which WILL occur in any election of this scope - in 2000 and 2004 that it's incredible.
Worse yet, you say I have given "no factual information" (???) when all I was doing was giving some commentary on this issue. I don't need references to say there has been fraud in elections since the beginning of elections, and that all the fraud isn't Republicans. If you don't believe that, you're deluding yourself. And even still, the post wasn't intended to act as a point-by-point rebuttal of the items brought up in the Rolling Stone article: I can't believe you come back with this "no factual information" crap when it's blindingly clear that my post is nothing more than a general commentary on the state of affairs.
The only "F" that should be given out here is one to you for wanting a post you don't agree with modded down as a troll for no other reason than that you don't agree with it.
Diebold does not claim that they can't produce a paper copy. Current equipment (and retrofits for much existing equipment) from Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia provides for the addition of the capability to add a permanent voter-verified paper trail functionality to e-voting systems.
There are a huge number of reasons that this isn't easy now: one is the prevailing belief on the part of many that we should be able to trust machines to do something as "simple" as voting when we trust machines with pretty much every other aspect of our lives, including financial, and the fact that politicians (remember, these were Democratic and bipartisan efforts) failed to include REQUIREMENTS for paper trails in the initial e-voting legislation. Further, elections are handled at the county level, with widely varying clout with their respective states with regard to budgets, not to mention financial capability within the county itself, and with some of the most hotly disputed counties being the poorest, even concerned municipalities have a lot of trouble justifying to themselves, their populations, or anyone else that they now need to spend $ on retrofitting or purchasing new equipment to add a paper trail. (And no, it's not as simple as you might imagine it to be.)
But nonetheless, a paper trail is exactly what we need, and we should all be working to that end instead of harping on whether the 2000/2004 election was "stolen" years after the fact.
I bet you didn't say anything like that in public in 1996 when Clinton was reelected, reassuring us that any purported Democratic vote fraud was "nothing new, don't worry your pretty little head about it".
No, in fact, I didn't.
Democrats didn't "stand by idly", but were locked out of any action. As you'd know if you'd RTFA, rather than just rush to First Post some spin to excuse Republican vote fraud "because everyone does it".
Don't you think that Harris saying 2004 in Ohio was as bad as it's ever been, meaning it's worse than almost every other election?
Yes, that's not a good thing.
If 2006 is rigged even worse, will that still be OK?
I take issue with your use of the word "rigged". But if you mean "If fraud is worse in 2006 (or 2008, or whatever) will it be OK?" then my answer is "no".
Where is your limit to accepting vote fraud, where you no longer think "bad enough" is OK?
I don't think any is good, but it happens, and since we have essentially a two party system, and both commit fraud, I don't think it's particularly fair to point the finger at one party.
What I have said in my other posts is that all of the voting legislation designed to ensure fair and equal access to voting and uniformity at polling stations requiring electronic voting systems were all supposed to FIX disenfranchisement issues, and were generally Democratic-sponsored or bipartisan in nature. Further, the counties with the highest claims of disenfranchisement are generally Democratic-controlled counties from a local government point-of-view. The key thing missing from the e-voting legislation, however, were requirements for a permanent voter-verified paper trail from the beginning, which would go a LONG way to mitigating concerns about tampering, systems being proprietary, and so on. But even if there were a paper trail, I'll guarantee you there will still be increasing claims of disenfranchisement, rigging, and stolen elections.
When Democrats do it someday?
You mean like they already do and have done to various levels?
While I appreciate that you're fairly sensible when you talk to me, you use half of your post to discredit what I'm saying based on things you think might be true about me instead of speaking to any of my points. I'm not saying vote fraud is a good thing. You don't really have to believe anything I say, but I'm genuine when I say it. It's pretty easy for people to find out who I am and what I do. I'm not astroturfing and I'm not trying to create disenfranchisement to swing future votes "to the right".
Also, I'm not saying OR implying that it "cancels out". I'm just saying that the two elections since 1996, along with the rise of the internet since 1996, and the ability to exchange and collect information that comes along with it, combined with the increased use of machines that many people feel may lend themselves to tampering (whether or not they actually ARE tampered with), and given that the Republicans have been in power in the White House for the last two elections, creates an environment where people will certainly be digging for everything they can that might support that Republicans "stole" the election(s), and many, many people will read and spread only things that support and reinforce that view in themselves and others.
You don't have to believe me when I said I didn't vote for Bush in 2004. But it's a point of information, and I find it ironic that you're doing the very thing I have a problem with, which is attributing even what *I'm* doing to a conspiracy theory of sorts, albeit a small one. I vote for candidates of many different political stripes, mostly Republicans and Democrats (as opposed to independents, libertarians, etc. - and even then, mostly non-Republicans in 2000 and 2004, as it happens). Different candidates at different levels of government often have different ideas and ideals, some of which are more or less applicable to politics and government at local, state, and federal levels.
As far as US foreign policy is concerned, I definitely do espouse neoconservative positions, and indeed believe in many of those principles firmly. I also believe that the general neoconservative movement is missing a lot of pieces and ignores a lot of other critical factors. But aside from that, I legitimately believe that, e.g., Panislamic radicalism and continuing US/Western access to critical resources (in light of demands on the same from China and India, and even considering potential future alternative replacements) are the two greatest challenges of the next fifty years. Does not that not mean other things aren't important? Of course not. But I think those are two items of grave concern to the United States and Europe in particular.
Yes, I read the article back when it was published. I'm speaking more to just the general idea that the election was stolen, and one of the more common things people tend to bring up (e.g., Diebold).
As far as exit polls, see http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=4027...that's just one of many, but there is no reason to believe that anything was stolen on the basis of exit polls either.
And as to black populations, as I said in another post, this is a county issue. Sure, there's a lot of problems in terms of some of these counties not having the resources, but the claims of the most disenfranchisement are, for whatever it's worth, often in solidly Democratic controlled counties, in terms of both voters and county government. And the legislation (like HAVA) to ensure equal access and begin mandating electronic voting machines was all either Democratic or bipartisan.
I don't know where you get the idea that I'm a Republican, because:
1.) I'm not. 2.) I have voted for more non-Republican candidates (with "non-Republican" almost always meaning the Democratic candidate) since I've been voting, including in 2000 and 2004.
Do you deny that electronic voting and other new technologies make massive vote fraud easier than ever before. I know you, and I know you are a master of spin, so I'd like a yes or no, unqualified answer to that.
How am I a "master of spin"?
But to answer, it's not that simple, and you know it. Without a permanent voter verified paper trail, OF COURSE e-voting and any new technologies that are missing that crucial piece make the potential for fraud easier - not just for Republicans, but for anyone who wants to do it (unless people believe the e-voting vendors are somehow rigging votes centrally).
So, as it stands right now, "yes". But remember, these were Democratic and bipartisan initiatives that began to phase in and mandate electronic voting. No party benefits from the lack of a paper trail, since anyone of any stripe could potentially tamper with machines, and I fail to see why Republicans would be any more savvy or capable than anyone else at doing it.
Democrats were caught cheating long ago, there haven't been any democratic vote scandals on the same scale for years. If you ca refute this with evidence, I invite you to do so. This story does a good job of showing what the Republicans have done, if you are so sure the Demcrats have operated on the same scale, why don't you provide some references? Otherwise, it's just your opinion, isn't it?
I'm not a Republican operative or consultant (and didn't even vote for Bush), and I don't spend all my days and nights collecting references and examples of vote manipulation on either side. Since you've already acknowledged that everyone cheats, why are you still insistent on wanting the Republican cheating to be "worse". Elsewhere in this thread, someone acknowledged they both cheat, but the Democrats overvote and the Republicans deny voters their right to vote (paraphrasing what he said), again in an attempt to say, essentially, "they may both cheat, but the Republicans do it more/worse/etc." That's just ridiculous.
And I'm sure it's not *identical* between both parties. But I think it's really anyone's "opinion" on who's worse. I personally think there are a lot more people collecting data, information, and anything else they can get their hands on to "prove" that the Republicans stole the elections, because they're the ones in power. It always happens like this: no matter who's in power, the other side always thinks they're up to something. Sometimes they may be. But since the Democrats didn't win either election, it's probably not a priority for the Robert Kennedys of the "other side" to go digging on what the Democrats did wrong, is it?
Further, why has this story been trotted out on slashdot alone 3 times? What can we possibly learn new from the sure-to-be-divisive (or self-reinforcing) "debate" that is going to happen here?
Do the Democrats still cheat? Sure. Do they do it as much as the Republicans? Probably not. Is that why they lost the election? Partly, but their snooze-o-rama candidate probably did far more to lose the election for them than their opponants ever could. As a democrat, I can admit that. Can you, as a Republican admit that perhaps this cheating isn't as bipartisan as you make it out to be? If not, pony up some references or we will all know how much your opinion is really worth.
Where did you get the idea I was a Republican? Remember, I didn't vote for Bush in the last election.
Agreed with regard to being a CEO of an e-voting vendor and even putting yourself in a position to say something remotely like that. It's stupid, and I'm dumbfounded that he'd even do that.
Slashdot Mirror
...that it is the Republican Maryland governor fighting for paper ballots and the Maryland Democrats fighting to keep everything on e-voting.
The original post says:
I know I'm preaching to the Slashdot choir, and it's been said a thousand times before, but as long as we have closed voting processes, we're going to have people screwing up by doing things like having voting machines accessible with hotel minibar keys. We hate Microsoft for their closed-source software, yet we continue to accept this kind of idiocy.
A mention of "closed source" software (as opposed to "open source").
Quick question: If we have viable alteratives, such as those presented by the Open Voting Consortium, why do we continue to bother with these stupid Diebold machines? I know, dumb answer, because Diebold pays the people who decide lots and lots of money.
One of the main tenets of OVC is to use open source software. (And to answer the question, because unseating traditional commercial vendors in ANY space is difficult. And none of the legislation required anything that the OVC espouses.)
Or even better, when we see nothing at all and Richard M. Stallman is mysteriously elected President in a write-in landslide.
Another clear reference to "open source". (What else does Stallman refer to? And to joke that Stallman is mysteriously elected president implies that the software would be able to be hacked by people like the slashdot community precisely because it's open source. And yes, I realize this is a joke, but it still speaks to the original poster's clear intent that voting systems should be open, as in open SOURCE. Indeed, that is another main tenet of OVC.)
Look, I have nothing against open source...quite the opposite.
Again, my first point was to say that any voting system, open, open source, or no, is useless UNLESS it has a paper trail. Now, maybe people think that's intrinsic to an "open" system, but it's definitely not to an "open source" one. The requirement for a paper trail still must be legislatively mandated. This is not in conflict with anything OVC says, but it's not articulated in the original post, and was the only reason I brought it up: open source alone does not solve the problem. And yes, I know the OVC doesn't say that. But the original poster doesn't specifically mention the need for a paper trail, which in my mind is MUCH more necessary than simply going to open source. And if open source or OVC recommendations aren't real or politically viable options, we should be concentrating on the paper trail. Everyone thinks I'm trying to argue with or somehow contradict the original poster. All I wanted to get across with my post was to remind people who may be reading and NOT clicking the OVC link who interpret the post as an argument for open source voting machines that open source without a paper trail is useless, period.
My second point was to say that we'd be more effective at simply demanding paper trails via legislation, no matter WHO the vendor is, instead of thinking we need to displace the traditional vendors (which isn't likely).
They don't really have the means...Diebold is a company that has thousands of programmers, engineers, sales, marketing, and other staff working in many divisions, including Election Systems. What you're claiming is that just because a corporate leader makes an absurd comment, no matter how inappropriate, is that represents "motive". I would argue that there is a massive disconnect between what he says in the capacity of a corporate leader in Ohio who happens to be a Republican, and actually engineering an undetected mechanism that would have to be known about by many people at various levels to rig elections for Republicans. Given the differences in implementations in every county, much less anything else, it would be a massive undertaking that could not possibly be kept secret.
On exit polls, the Rolling Stone asserts that the exit polls are already statistically impossible. But that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, either:
http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=4027
[...] the Kerry voters were angry at Bush, and that anger made them more willing to respond to the surveys. Nationwide, refusals clearly were Republican.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kenn
Specifically, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kenn
Anyone who says that exit polls are the most reliable kind of survey "only demonstrates that the person making that statement knows very little about how surveys are done,"
Of the ten battleground states that the exit poll showed Kerry winning, he ultimately lost four -- states that, you could say, cost him the election. These were Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico. But in none of those states was Kerry's lead outside the poll's margin of error. In other words, the poll results showed a race that was too close to call, and it is impossible to use such a poll to prove that fraud occurred.
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/12/have_
etc.
I really am concerned when people think that there are active and massive (yet always unprovable) campaigns to literally rig and steal elections, and that it's only the GOP at that, and that they'll be even more pronounced in 2008. If all this is true, what happens if a Democratic candidate wins? The Republicans just didn't "cheat enough"? Or people were *so* fed up that even all of Diebold's hidden secrets to sway the numbers just weren't enough to flip it? Why would a Democratic victory be any more sound given how unbelievably insecure and corrupt it is claimed that the voting machines are, and indeed, that the system itself is? The answer is undeniable: it wouldn't be. And that's exactly why we need a trusted process with a paper trail.
I do agree that a paper trail solves a lot of this, if only to go a long way to restoring faith in the system. But I really am legitimately surprised and concerned - and I'm not just saying that - when people actually think wholeheartedly that there are current, ongoing, massive conspiracies, that somehow miraculously can't be firmly uncovered or proven, to steal elections, only the part of ONLY Republicans no less. Especially in an environment where the most secretive government agencies in the country can't even keep their own classified information, that FAR fewer people would necessarily know about, secret. If you care to discuss this further, feel free to IM or email me at any of my listed contact mechanisms.
A permanent, auditable, voter-verified paper trail is exactly what I'm arguing for.
Since any system will always be able to be compromised via some means, the only thing that will solve this problem sufficiently is that of a paper trail.
Then we can go back to fielding claims of disenfranchisement because of road closure conspiracies, long lines, people handing out flyers saying election day has changed, and voter intimidation.
Christ...are you actually saying you think I was directly responding to Diebold ATMs and whether they have locks that can be picked??
I just picked a couple of examples that show ATMs in general aren't necessarily 100% secure and foolproof either. This isn't about locks and keys: this is about the fact that ANY electronic or physical systems can and will be compromised via various means.
And there is nothing deliberate about lack of physical security on devices that use generic security keys that are always supposed to be under the stewardship of the same people we have always trusted with our elections. There are a variety of reasons to do it: laziness, no need for individualized key management, cost, and so on. But that doesn't mean it's intentionally designed to be subverted.
Any physical security can be defeated by someone determined enough. As I've said about a half dozen times now, what we need to be concentrating on is a permanent voter-verified paper trail. Without it, any system is useless and intrinsically untrustworthy.
No, I won't admit I was wrong, because that's not what I meant. I know exactly what the Open Voting Consortium advocates.
The original post was alluding to "closed source" and "open source" software, Richard Stallman, getting the proprietary machines out, and so on. It made no reference to a paper trail, and made several references to open machines, replacing machines with open machines, and so on.
I said that open (source) machines without a paper trail are useless. And that's true. So, while I've admitted I've been wrong plenty of times here and elsewhere, now is not one of those times, since I knew exactly what OVC stands for and advocates and was merely making a statement so that people who think that open source is the solution understand that it's just as useless without a paper trail, and that, indeed, if we're going to work for ANYTHING and actually have a hope of it succeeding, it should be a paper trail, not trying to oust traditional vendors in this market space, which is exactly what I said.
Hi spun. :-)
Your mistake is using the logic, "These machines have security issues; therefore, they must be designed that way." That's fallacious, not to mention not provable, as is the subsequent assertion that since they MUST be designing them as insecure, one side must be benefiting since there's no reason to do it unless one side benefits more. No doubt many people believe that along with you: that these systems are intentionally designed as such so that Republicans benefit - of course, that's not provable, either. (Remember, I'm not a Republican - if you want to label me by voting record, if ANYTHING, I'm a Democrat since Democratic candidates have gotten most of my votes; I know you'll say I'm laying to create a "sympathetic environment" for myself).
I just grabbed the first couple examples of ATM vulnerabilities I came across. Remember, since I'm not actually a spinmaster or political operative, I don't devote my life to proving that other things might be just as shoddily designed as e-voting systems. Also, ATMs are much more mature and have had much greater demands placed on them by their corporate banking users. E-voting systems have had no similar such requirements or scrutiny, allowing the ugly entropy of laziness and bureaucracy to create the crap we have today.
As to voting machine companies providing "detailed instructions" to candidates on how to actively compromise machines to rig elections - instructions that would no doubt have to be executed by groups, including those who are charged with the security and integrity of the elections themselves at the county level - we'd certainly know about it. Face it: the machines are shoddy, and like a lot of shoddy things, it's not by design. It's because it's tolerated, and allowed to happen. Congress passes some relatively vague legislation requiring e-voting machines, and counties and municipalities are left with equally vague contract requirements to fill from e-voting vendors. Then, we get machines that are only vaguely functional.
I do agree, though, that even if the machines themselves met some definition of "secure" that satisfied a particular person or group, there would still be people claiming fraud. And maybe in some places there would be. But all that aside, if some groups of people are NEVER willing to trust our electoral process, what will solve that problem?
Yes, when I say "receipt", I don't mean it as something someone takes with them, though "receipt printers" are discussed generically in this context. I am in no way insinuating or implying people should get a piece of paper to take along with them. All I'm talking about is a piece of paper that can be verified by the voter, at that time, and then gets stored in accordance with the same mechanisms we've used for voting for decades.
I know that they and others advocate for a paper trail; but for those reading the grandparent thinking "open source" is the solution, my point is that by itself it's not: as I said, open source is just as useless without a paper trail.
And further, initiatives designed to unseat traditional enterprise and commercial vendors in this space may have less chance of getting anything done than just simply working for a paper trail on ANY systems in use, no matter where they come from, "open" or no.
Yep, that's the problem.
The "point" was to actually fix some of the problem areas from the 2000 election, in addition to things like efficiency and automation. There were Democratic and bipartisan initiatives, like the Help America Vote Act (2002), that mandated electronic voting systems, but neglected to include a paper trail.
The problem, though, that you bring up is an interesting one: even if all of the systems were totally open source and all had permanent voter-verified paper trails, [insert losers here] would still be clamoring for a recount in every election. Ultimately, the only benefit from electronic voting, then, is on the backend and in uniform management and use of the systems.
In the end, it might just be better to go back to paper (and maybe have the paper read by scanners, as some jurisdictions to now), but then we'd end up right where we were back in 2000, with claims of lack of uniformity, confusing ballots, antiquated machines, lines, and so on.
So while it seems like a no-win situation, the best we can do is still demand a permanent, auditable, voter-verified receipt process.
After all, these machines were never seriously designed with security in mind...they were designed to be easily compromised.
That's bullshit, and you know it.
When these systems are vulnerable, it's just as easy for ANYONE to take advantage of that fact. Not one party or one political stripe.
As for ATM security:
Citibank ATM fiasco "worst ever"
ATM reprogrammed to give out 4 times more money
Diebold ATMs hit by Nachi worm
Open source systems are just as useless as the Diebold equipment without a permanent voter-verified paper trail.
It's no surprise that enterprise and commercial vendors of all stripes will maintain closed and proprietary software.
What we need to require is a permanent, voter-verified, auditable paper trail, as I have discussed here.
That's the easiest and simplest course of action, and is a goal we should all be working toward, rather than trying to unseat established enterprise equipment vendors.
---
Temporary disclaimer, since this seems to have been an issue for people reading my posts lately: I am not a Republican, did not vote for Bush in the last election, and have always voted for more non-Republican (usually Democratic) candidates since I have been voting.
Electronic systems - including electronic voting machines - will always be able to be tampered with, no matter who makes them, no matter what their CEOs stupidly say, no matter what ongoing audit mechanisms are implemented, whether they're open or proprietary, and no matter what legislation or other initiatives mandate or recommend them.
Finding out that computer systems can be tampered with and that some large-scale enterprise-class systems can have shoddy security, physical and otherwise, should come as no surprise to us, particularly in this community. On this particular issue, a generic security key is used because of key management issues and the fact that casual access is what's being prevented. Neither of which excuses this or any of the numerous other glaring shortcomings and flaws in this equipment. No one - citizen, politician, or party - benefits from universally shoddy security on electronic voting systems. No one.
Remember, too, that voting legislation, in large part in response to issues in the 2000 election, designed to ensure fair, uniform, and universal access to voting for all citizens by mandating electronic voting equipment, such as HAVA (2002), were Democratic and bipartisan efforts.
The real issue is that Congress screwed up: they inherently, and erroneously, believed that since we trust so many critically important things to machines, certainly reliable electronic voting is possible, and indeed, we use automation, computers, and machines in almost every aspect of our lives to increase efficiency and reliability - why should voting be any different?
Except for one problem: when you're trying to administer a one-vote-per-person system that also maintains anonymity, and also disallows any external entity from discovering who voted for which candidates, when there is no permanent, voter-verified paper trail, the system as a whole cannot be trusted, since any level of security will always be able to be overridden. This has nothing to do with open source versus proprietary, or how shoddy physical security on e-voting systems is. A permanent, voter-verified paper trail solves all of these problems.
The only problem is that no legislation mandating electronic voting systems includes or speaks to any provisions requiring permanent paper receipt printing capability. All of the major e-voting vendors - Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia - have this capability, but it's an add-on that requires retrofitting existing equipment, or in some cases, purchasing new equipment. And that takes money many counties and municipalities - particularly in the most hotly contested areas - don't have. (Hint: it's not just poor areas that have long lines)
Our focus now should be on passing legislation that requires permanent voter-verified paper trail capability on all newly deployed e-voting systems, and allocates funds and creates a timeline for deployment on existing systems. Please, continue to raise this issue with both your county election officials and your elected representatives.
This issue is too important and too critical to the integrity of our election process to let rest.
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Temporary disclaimer, since this seems to have been an issue for people reading my posts lately: I am not a Republican, did not vote for Bush in the last election, and have always voted for more non-Republican (usually Democratic) candidates since I have been voting.
For the 2004 presidential election, I voted in relatively affluent Madison, WI, on the west, suburban side of the city, about 2 blocks away from one of the wealthiest developments in Madison (High Point Estates). My wife and I waited about 45 minutes to vote when we went at 7:30am. The line was very long, and about 90% of the people in line were white and at LEAST middle class, with mostly upper middle class (and quite a few who would qualify as upper class or wealthy, given the area that is contained in this precinct).
Madison is one of the most liberal, left-leaning cities in the country, and Dane county one of the most liberal/"progressive" counties. From a financial perspective, the city and county governments aren't hurting. I know some people will think I'm lying or making up the wait, but anyone who voted at the polling station on McKenna Road can easily verify this. The point? There can be lines anywhere, and there were...all over Dane county, but particularly in Madison.
Does this mean there was a concerted effort to suppress the upper middle class white vote on the west side of Madison?
1. I don't have "canned responses" for everything; this was the only post in this story (and I've had many, as you can see, most of which are modded down simply because people don't agree with their content). I acknowledged they were previous quotes of mine from just a few days before; why should I retype something that addresses the exact issue at hand?
2. globalsecurity.org is hardly a right-wing propaganda aggregation service. You'd find the identical information at, for example, FAS. globalsecurity's job is aggregating information on global security. Are you alleging that globalsecurity.org has ulterior motives? I've NEVER seen or heard of it referred to as a propaganda source before by anyone. (I suppose things like truthout and commondreams (or the Rolling Stone) are "hard news" to you?)
3. I've never posted on Free Republic or anything like it.
4. I didn't vote for Bush in 2004, and most candidates I have voted for since I've been voting have been non-Republicans (mostly Democratic candidates).
5. I'm not "part" of any propaganda. I love how people such as yourself can't stand those with views that differ from your own. Anything that supports or contributes to those views is propaganda, and indeed the ideas themselves are propaganda.
Also, what you said about Iraq with regard to WMD is bullshit. What I said is true as of 2003. Yes, there were widely varying opinions on what this meant and what action should/could be taken. But UN 1441 is proof enough. It was passed by the whole of the Securty Council, and no one was under duress. Read it. But I suppose now even UNSEC resolutions are "propaganda" to you.
Sounds like there was already a good description of this class of weapons that I had already trained for as a first responder. Why did the term "WMD" come up to describe what we were already calling "NBC"? Did it poll better or something?
WMD didn't come around recently. The first recorded use of the term was in 1937, and didn't encompass nukes at all (as the person I was responding to implied it ONLY referred to). The term was again used in the international arms control community by the UN, in the Atomic Energy Commission, predecessor to the IAEA. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972, an international, multilateral treaty framework, explicitly includes both chemical and biological weapons within the WMD framework.
Many people now believe it's a term used for political means, and it may be. But the term "WMD" wasn't invented by people who thought it "polled better". It was around for a half-century, and didn't even describe nukes initially. Further, "WMD" differs frm "NBC" in that "WMD" implies weapons specifically designed as such, in order to inflict mass casualty indiscriminately. NBC might describe items, events, or scenarios that don't represent weapons usage.
Or was it just a trademark issue with NBC?
No.
First off: WMD was a term created to mean "something bad that isn't a nuke"
Sorry, that's not true. It is an internationally recognized arms control term that encompasses nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons, and loosely, weapons capable of indiscriminately killing large numbers of people. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972 explicitly includes biological and chemical weapons. Do some reading. Here's a reasonable place to start.
It's also untrue that no one believed Iraq had WMD. The US did. The UK did. The UN did. Much of Europe did. Since such large quantities of weapons were unaccounted for in 1998, and every indication was that Iraq was continuing in noncompliance, especially when all UN-required oversight was gone, there was no reason to believe Iraq DIDN'T still possess the WMD it was still KNOWN to be in possession of (or couldn't prove were destroyed) as of 1998. The UN never had full access to facilities. And yeah: by 2003, Iraq may not have had any WMD left. It had conveniently all left the country. While much of that might be aged and useless in any event, the swarm of binding, in-force UNSEC resolutions (678, 687, 1441, etc.) made it clear how Iraq was supposed to behave, at the urging, and indeed, requirement, of the international community.
But none of this is really the point, which is that there are a lot of people who think the US (and/or West (usually UK)) is exclusively what's wrong with the world, simultaneously failing to see the potential for anyone else to do extreme things that could have global implications.
...
At least we have a frame of reference on where you're coming from now.
(What about, oh, I don't know, Newsweek, US News, Time, The Economist, etc. etc. etc.? I suppose they're all run by the "corporate machine" and won't tackle "real news" like the 2004 election being stolen or other "news" you want to see?)
As to exit polls, see http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=4027 for an example. So, can you respond to that? See? It works both ways.
Also, even if every single thing Kennedy says in the Rolling Stone article is true, can you not comprehend the fact that he's writing to support a particular position and idea? Do you think he would present studies, news articles, reports, websites, and so on, that didn't support the position he was writing about? Do you think the article is unbiased? Do you think it's possible to fill an article with "references" and "proof" and still be one-sided? Would you feel equally about a Weekly Standard article by William Kristol about some topic, even if it contained its own "references"?
Considering the source is one of the most important aspects of recognizing potential bias, even if every factual item contained therein is true.
Um, I read the article *months* ago. You know, when it was published. It's now been covered THREE TIMES on slashdot. What are we going to learn that's new this time?
Further, there's not going to be any huge "rise" and then subsequent "discrediting" of the article: the country has already moved on.
And when I say consider the source, I do mean both Rolling Stone and Robert Kennedy, Jr. (What if I posted a Weekly Standard article by Bill Kristol with its own references about something?)
What I'm responding to is the general idea that the elections - either 2000 or 2004 - were "stolen" at all. The Rolling Stone article doesn't "prove" anything. Do you think Kennedy took any stories, articles, references, or quotes from anyone that don't support the idea HE is trying to get across? My post isn't a "rebuttal" of the article; it's exactly what it is, which is my thoughts on this whole "election was stolen" story. We're so close to margins of error - which WILL occur in any election of this scope - in 2000 and 2004 that it's incredible.
Worse yet, you say I have given "no factual information" (???) when all I was doing was giving some commentary on this issue. I don't need references to say there has been fraud in elections since the beginning of elections, and that all the fraud isn't Republicans. If you don't believe that, you're deluding yourself. And even still, the post wasn't intended to act as a point-by-point rebuttal of the items brought up in the Rolling Stone article: I can't believe you come back with this "no factual information" crap when it's blindingly clear that my post is nothing more than a general commentary on the state of affairs.
The only "F" that should be given out here is one to you for wanting a post you don't agree with modded down as a troll for no other reason than that you don't agree with it.
Diebold does not claim that they can't produce a paper copy. Current equipment (and retrofits for much existing equipment) from Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia provides for the addition of the capability to add a permanent voter-verified paper trail functionality to e-voting systems.
There are a huge number of reasons that this isn't easy now: one is the prevailing belief on the part of many that we should be able to trust machines to do something as "simple" as voting when we trust machines with pretty much every other aspect of our lives, including financial, and the fact that politicians (remember, these were Democratic and bipartisan efforts) failed to include REQUIREMENTS for paper trails in the initial e-voting legislation. Further, elections are handled at the county level, with widely varying clout with their respective states with regard to budgets, not to mention financial capability within the county itself, and with some of the most hotly disputed counties being the poorest, even concerned municipalities have a lot of trouble justifying to themselves, their populations, or anyone else that they now need to spend $ on retrofitting or purchasing new equipment to add a paper trail. (And no, it's not as simple as you might imagine it to be.)
But nonetheless, a paper trail is exactly what we need, and we should all be working to that end instead of harping on whether the 2000/2004 election was "stolen" years after the fact.
I bet you didn't say anything like that in public in 1996 when Clinton was reelected, reassuring us that any purported Democratic vote fraud was "nothing new, don't worry your pretty little head about it".
No, in fact, I didn't.
Democrats didn't "stand by idly", but were locked out of any action. As you'd know if you'd RTFA, rather than just rush to First Post some spin to excuse Republican vote fraud "because everyone does it".
Don't you think that Harris saying 2004 in Ohio was as bad as it's ever been, meaning it's worse than almost every other election?
Yes, that's not a good thing.
If 2006 is rigged even worse, will that still be OK?
I take issue with your use of the word "rigged". But if you mean "If fraud is worse in 2006 (or 2008, or whatever) will it be OK?" then my answer is "no".
Where is your limit to accepting vote fraud, where you no longer think "bad enough" is OK?
I don't think any is good, but it happens, and since we have essentially a two party system, and both commit fraud, I don't think it's particularly fair to point the finger at one party.
What I have said in my other posts is that all of the voting legislation designed to ensure fair and equal access to voting and uniformity at polling stations requiring electronic voting systems were all supposed to FIX disenfranchisement issues, and were generally Democratic-sponsored or bipartisan in nature. Further, the counties with the highest claims of disenfranchisement are generally Democratic-controlled counties from a local government point-of-view. The key thing missing from the e-voting legislation, however, were requirements for a permanent voter-verified paper trail from the beginning, which would go a LONG way to mitigating concerns about tampering, systems being proprietary, and so on. But even if there were a paper trail, I'll guarantee you there will still be increasing claims of disenfranchisement, rigging, and stolen elections.
When Democrats do it someday?
You mean like they already do and have done to various levels?
spun,
While I appreciate that you're fairly sensible when you talk to me, you use half of your post to discredit what I'm saying based on things you think might be true about me instead of speaking to any of my points. I'm not saying vote fraud is a good thing. You don't really have to believe anything I say, but I'm genuine when I say it. It's pretty easy for people to find out who I am and what I do. I'm not astroturfing and I'm not trying to create disenfranchisement to swing future votes "to the right".
Also, I'm not saying OR implying that it "cancels out". I'm just saying that the two elections since 1996, along with the rise of the internet since 1996, and the ability to exchange and collect information that comes along with it, combined with the increased use of machines that many people feel may lend themselves to tampering (whether or not they actually ARE tampered with), and given that the Republicans have been in power in the White House for the last two elections, creates an environment where people will certainly be digging for everything they can that might support that Republicans "stole" the election(s), and many, many people will read and spread only things that support and reinforce that view in themselves and others.
You don't have to believe me when I said I didn't vote for Bush in 2004. But it's a point of information, and I find it ironic that you're doing the very thing I have a problem with, which is attributing even what *I'm* doing to a conspiracy theory of sorts, albeit a small one. I vote for candidates of many different political stripes, mostly Republicans and Democrats (as opposed to independents, libertarians, etc. - and even then, mostly non-Republicans in 2000 and 2004, as it happens). Different candidates at different levels of government often have different ideas and ideals, some of which are more or less applicable to politics and government at local, state, and federal levels.
As far as US foreign policy is concerned, I definitely do espouse neoconservative positions, and indeed believe in many of those principles firmly. I also believe that the general neoconservative movement is missing a lot of pieces and ignores a lot of other critical factors. But aside from that, I legitimately believe that, e.g., Panislamic radicalism and continuing US/Western access to critical resources (in light of demands on the same from China and India, and even considering potential future alternative replacements) are the two greatest challenges of the next fifty years. Does not that not mean other things aren't important? Of course not. But I think those are two items of grave concern to the United States and Europe in particular.
Yes, I read the article back when it was published. I'm speaking more to just the general idea that the election was stolen, and one of the more common things people tend to bring up (e.g., Diebold).
...that's just one of many, but there is no reason to believe that anything was stolen on the basis of exit polls either.
As far as exit polls, see http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=4027
And as to black populations, as I said in another post, this is a county issue. Sure, there's a lot of problems in terms of some of these counties not having the resources, but the claims of the most disenfranchisement are, for whatever it's worth, often in solidly Democratic controlled counties, in terms of both voters and county government. And the legislation (like HAVA) to ensure equal access and begin mandating electronic voting machines was all either Democratic or bipartisan.
I don't know where you get the idea that I'm a Republican, because:
1.) I'm not.
2.) I have voted for more non-Republican candidates (with "non-Republican" almost always meaning the Democratic candidate) since I've been voting, including in 2000 and 2004.
Do you deny that electronic voting and other new technologies make massive vote fraud easier than ever before. I know you, and I know you are a master of spin, so I'd like a yes or no, unqualified answer to that.
How am I a "master of spin"?
But to answer, it's not that simple, and you know it. Without a permanent voter verified paper trail, OF COURSE e-voting and any new technologies that are missing that crucial piece make the potential for fraud easier - not just for Republicans, but for anyone who wants to do it (unless people believe the e-voting vendors are somehow rigging votes centrally).
So, as it stands right now, "yes". But remember, these were Democratic and bipartisan initiatives that began to phase in and mandate electronic voting. No party benefits from the lack of a paper trail, since anyone of any stripe could potentially tamper with machines, and I fail to see why Republicans would be any more savvy or capable than anyone else at doing it.
Democrats were caught cheating long ago, there haven't been any democratic vote scandals on the same scale for years. If you ca refute this with evidence, I invite you to do so. This story does a good job of showing what the Republicans have done, if you are so sure the Demcrats have operated on the same scale, why don't you provide some references? Otherwise, it's just your opinion, isn't it?
I'm not a Republican operative or consultant (and didn't even vote for Bush), and I don't spend all my days and nights collecting references and examples of vote manipulation on either side. Since you've already acknowledged that everyone cheats, why are you still insistent on wanting the Republican cheating to be "worse". Elsewhere in this thread, someone acknowledged they both cheat, but the Democrats overvote and the Republicans deny voters their right to vote (paraphrasing what he said), again in an attempt to say, essentially, "they may both cheat, but the Republicans do it more/worse/etc." That's just ridiculous.
And I'm sure it's not *identical* between both parties. But I think it's really anyone's "opinion" on who's worse. I personally think there are a lot more people collecting data, information, and anything else they can get their hands on to "prove" that the Republicans stole the elections, because they're the ones in power. It always happens like this: no matter who's in power, the other side always thinks they're up to something. Sometimes they may be. But since the Democrats didn't win either election, it's probably not a priority for the Robert Kennedys of the "other side" to go digging on what the Democrats did wrong, is it?
Further, why has this story been trotted out on slashdot alone 3 times? What can we possibly learn new from the sure-to-be-divisive (or self-reinforcing) "debate" that is going to happen here?
Do the Democrats still cheat? Sure. Do they do it as much as the Republicans? Probably not. Is that why they lost the election? Partly, but their snooze-o-rama candidate probably did far more to lose the election for them than their opponants ever could. As a democrat, I can admit that. Can you, as a Republican admit that perhaps this cheating isn't as bipartisan as you make it out to be? If not, pony up some references or we will all know how much your opinion is really worth.
Where did you get the idea I was a Republican? Remember, I didn't vote for Bush in the last election.
Agreed with regard to being a CEO of an e-voting vendor and even putting yourself in a position to say something remotely like that. It's stupid, and I'm dumbfounded that he'd even do that.