Heres an excerpt from a Wired articleon this very subject which was debated here on/. recently:
Behler first informed Bev Harris, owner of the BlackBox Voting site, of the situation. Harris has spent a year investigating problems with electronic voting systems, and is the author of a forthcoming book on the technology. She said the practice of patching systems after they've been certified opens the possibility for anyone -- from Diebold employees to local election officials -- to install malicious code on a machine that could alter election results and then delete itself to avoid detection.
According to Harris, this scenario is particularly worrisome in light of what happened in the Georgia gubernatorial race, which ended in a major upset that defied all polls and put a Republican in the governor's seat for the first time in more than 130 years.
Republican candidate Sonny Perdue managed to unseat Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes with only 51 percent of the vote. It was the first time an incumbent governor had not won his second term since Georgia law allowed back-to-back terms in 1978.
Pundits have attributed the upset to dissatisfaction with the incumbent for altering a Confederate symbol on the state flag and to effective stumping by President George W. Bush on behalf of Perdue.
Harris acknowledged no proof exists that anyone rigged the election systems, but she said, "We'll never know exactly what happened in Georgia because there's no paper trail to verify the votes."
Does anyone know the difference in the polling vs. the results?
What are our options on election day?
on
CNN Reports on Diebold
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
What are our other options here? If I go into my polling place on election day and see Diebold Electronic Voting Machines can I demand another voting method? Should I plan on voting absentee? Seriously, is there a way to refuse to use those damned machines and still participate in the election?
Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh for your news. This is typical right wing bullshit. Enron got into trouble for minipulating the stock market. The Attorney General of Texas had to recuse himself from the case because he was on the Board of Directors! Unfortunately for California, they also used their influence with the Bush administration to change the Energy Policy for the US. These new laws made it possible for them to rip off California to the tune of 17 BILLION dollars during the fake 'energy crisis.' California appealed to Bush for help and they were told to 'Go To Hell.' Bush is still telling the investigators to go to hell by refusing to turn over documents detailing just how much influence Enron had over the country's energy policy and the Bush Administrations role in the California energy 'crisis.' These are very evil people in Washington.
I cannot believe we can impeach a President over lying about having an affair and yet stealing billions from the citizens, stonewalling a federal investigation, defying the UN and lying to justify a war for oil (did you know that every US contractor which won bids to rebuild Iraq were major contributers to Bush and Co.?). This is perhaps the most currupt, frightening administration in recent history. With the help of their Diebold buddies, perhaps the end of true democracy in this nation.
Once in a while the people surprise the party bosses and elect someone besides the hand picked candidate they have pre-selected for us. The Dean campaign is a perfect example of this.
The movers and shakers of the Democratic Party want Gephart or Kerry to win. The people are rallying behind Dean. He is ahead by double-digits and has raised millions from small donations by regular people everywhere.
No matter how you feel about Clinton, he was also an outsider who wasn't supposed to win. It may have been possible to thwart the Powers That Be, but perhaps Diebold will change that.
The world is full of non-geek AOLers. Their advertising said, "So easy to use, anyone can do it." Box computers by the millions shipped with the little "Click here for 2 Free months of AOL" on the desktop.
Computers are marketed at the masses. All the advertising implys it is like a stereo, hook it up and go! Of course, we know it is far more complicated than that now. Security is suddenly important and most non-geeks are completely ignorant about it.
I must agree with the uncomfortable feeling it gives me to have someone switching stuff on or off inside your machine, but it's about time AOL took responsibility for the millions of insecure boxes they have put on the net.
I wonder how much of the timing of this is related to to the latest critical warning issued this week by MS which was directly related to this service. Perhaps AOL is trying to stave off millions of tech support calls when the worm is released.
In California, the absentee votes are not counted unless the difference between the number of votes for each candidate is less than the number of absentee ballots.
In other words, if Candidate X wins by 5 million votes and only 3 million absentee ballots were cast, it would not change the outcome of the election and the votes will not be counted.
What if a voter makes a mistake and then claims his vote is recorded incorrectly? Do they void the vote and let him vote again? Or if it's "too bad you pushed the wrong button" what's the point of the validation?
This whole Diebold saga, combined with sooo many other things going on, leaves me scared for the future of this country. I fear a revolution if the present Administration is re-elected, either in this country, or perhaps a world-wide revolution against the United States.
Thank you for pointing out what the Open Source Community needs to remember. "Is Linux ready for the desktop?" It depends on whose desktop it's on! Its ready for mine, but not most of the people I know.
As long as you don't have change anything from the default setup, it's no problem, but God help Joe User when it's time to install packages, figure out dependencies, command lines, change hardware settings, etc. My first year working with Linux reduced me to a quivering mass of frustration more than once. Yes, it's come a LONG way since then, but if we ever hope for Linux to truely compete against MS, we need to remember that most people just want it to WORK!
An interesting benefit of waiting to fix IE was made in the article: Adding these improvements to Longhorn may give people a (percieved) reason to upgrade their OS when they otherwise may not have.
I hate websites that throw up a bunch of requirements in order to view the
website. The ones listed above will probably leave 50% of the web population
unable to view their fancy flash animation. What is the point?
What if you went to the mall and the sign on the door read:
Requirements:
Blue clothes only
American Express Card
1998 or later model car
Would you wonder why they weren't getting much business?
I live in a rural area and don't have broadband.. Believe it or not, most people
are still using an old dial-up connection to access the net. Even in areas where
it is available, not everyone wants to pay 40 bux per month just to check their
email and do a little surfing. I wish developers would remember this. Seems
pages are taking longer and longer to load these days.
This might not be as bad as it sounds. Within a few years, Linux will be running on many large business and government systems around the world. We may be MS-centric here in the US, but the rest of the world is looking at alternatives.
Someone will have to supply the hardware of the future to these new Linux users. There will be plenty of businesses who will cater to the non MS users of the world, and if you think Asia and India, someday they may outnumber the Windows users.
That doesn't explain the world-wide layer of iridium and shocked quartz right at the diving line between dinosaurs and no-dinosaurs. Also happens to coincide perfectly with that huge crater off the coast of the Yucatan. Ocean gasses may have been a byproduct of the big collision, but I'm pretty convinced there was a collision of some sort.
I respect many of the third party candidates and their causes. I would love to vote Green or Independent. Unfortunately, in a close race every vote counts. If those people who voted Green or Independent had voted Democrat, GWB would be back in Texas right now.
There is something to be said for voting for the major parties in a close race.
OK, flame me, mod me down....but please educate yourself, then VOTE!
In my last job as a basic computer application instructor at a community college, I saw MANY people who were going back to school at age 50+ to 'learn how to use computers' so they could get a job. That nice nest-egg they thought they could live on disappeared with the stockmarket crash.
It is truely pathetic to see these people who worked most of thier life, saved, invested, did everything right, looking for some menial position to pay the mortgage.
Funny, many of these same people will support GWBush & Co. to the end.
Deregulation was signed into law by a former Republican governor (Pete Wilson).
Under the Bush Administration, The US energy policy was rewritten by these same
Texas
companies and our Vice Prez, Cheney. This permitted the systematic raping
of California, brought on the bankruptcy of the world's fifth largest economy
and the recall of our governor.
How any Californiaians could vote Republican after what they did to us is beyond
my comprehension.
Why not use Knoppix as a desktop system? I have a persistant directory which stores my files and configs. I can really stretch the space on my little toshiba laptop with a great os and software which takes no hd space.
"Furthermore, in one recent case, a college student was told that just by filing an answer in court, the cost of any final settlement would rise by $50,000."
This is perhaps the most disturbing quote for me. Translated: "If you dispute this in any way, it will cost you another $50,000.00."
Who could afford to fight this, even if you were innocent?
This is not a Troll. Is it possible that the worm(s) caused the power outage? Could a computer or network failure in some little power plant have caused the cascading effect thorughout that whole region? They have as yet not identified a cause..so is it possible?
Slashdot Mirror
Heres an excerpt from a Wired articleon this very subject which was debated here on /. recently:
Behler first informed Bev Harris, owner of the BlackBox Voting site, of the situation. Harris has spent a year investigating problems with electronic voting systems, and is the author of a forthcoming book on the technology. She said the practice of patching systems after they've been certified opens the possibility for anyone -- from Diebold employees to local election officials -- to install malicious code on a machine that could alter election results and then delete itself to avoid detection.
According to Harris, this scenario is particularly worrisome in light of what happened in the Georgia gubernatorial race, which ended in a major upset that defied all polls and put a Republican in the governor's seat for the first time in more than 130 years.
Republican candidate Sonny Perdue managed to unseat Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes with only 51 percent of the vote. It was the first time an incumbent governor had not won his second term since Georgia law allowed back-to-back terms in 1978.
Pundits have attributed the upset to dissatisfaction with the incumbent for altering a Confederate symbol on the state flag and to effective stumping by President George W. Bush on behalf of Perdue.
Harris acknowledged no proof exists that anyone rigged the election systems, but she said, "We'll never know exactly what happened in Georgia because there's no paper trail to verify the votes."
Does anyone know the difference in the polling vs. the results?
What are our other options here? If I go into my polling place on election day and see Diebold Electronic Voting Machines can I demand another voting method? Should I plan on voting absentee? Seriously, is there a way to refuse to use those damned machines and still participate in the election?
Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh for your news. This is typical right wing bullshit. Enron got into trouble for minipulating the stock market. The Attorney General of Texas had to recuse himself from the case because he was on the Board of Directors! Unfortunately for California, they also used their influence with the Bush administration to change the Energy Policy for the US. These new laws made it possible for them to rip off California to the tune of 17 BILLION dollars during the fake 'energy crisis.' California appealed to Bush for help and they were told to 'Go To Hell.' Bush is still telling the investigators to go to hell by refusing to turn over documents detailing just how much influence Enron had over the country's energy policy and the Bush Administrations role in the California energy 'crisis.' These are very evil people in Washington.
I cannot believe we can impeach a President over lying about having an affair and yet stealing billions from the citizens, stonewalling a federal investigation, defying the UN and lying to justify a war for oil (did you know that every US contractor which won bids to rebuild Iraq were major contributers to Bush and Co.?). This is perhaps the most currupt, frightening administration in recent history. With the help of their Diebold buddies, perhaps the end of true democracy in this nation.
God help the USA.
Once in a while the people surprise the party bosses and elect someone besides the hand picked candidate they have pre-selected for us. The Dean campaign is a perfect example of this.
The movers and shakers of the Democratic Party want Gephart or Kerry to win. The people are rallying behind Dean. He is ahead by double-digits and has raised millions from small donations by regular people everywhere.
No matter how you feel about Clinton, he was also an outsider who wasn't supposed to win. It may have been possible to thwart the Powers That Be, but perhaps Diebold will change that.
The world is full of non-geek AOLers. Their advertising said, "So easy to use, anyone can do it." Box computers by the millions shipped with the little "Click here for 2 Free months of AOL" on the desktop.
Computers are marketed at the masses. All the advertising implys it is like a stereo, hook it up and go! Of course, we know it is far more complicated than that now. Security is suddenly important and most non-geeks are completely ignorant about it.
I must agree with the uncomfortable feeling it gives me to have someone switching stuff on or off inside your machine, but it's about time AOL took responsibility for the millions of insecure boxes they have put on the net.
I wonder how much of the timing of this is related to to the latest critical warning issued this week by MS which was directly related to this service. Perhaps AOL is trying to stave off millions of tech support calls when the worm is released.
In California, the absentee votes are not counted unless the difference between the number of votes for each candidate is less than the number of absentee ballots.
In other words, if Candidate X wins by 5 million votes and only 3 million absentee ballots were cast, it would not change the outcome of the election and the votes will not be counted.
You can add to Bush's list of accomplishments the fake California energy 'shortage' engineered by Enron and Cheney which sent 17 billion dollars from California to Texas. Or how the investigation of the energy policy manipulation which permitted it, is currently being stonewalled by the White House.
Many districts and jurisdictions have mandatory recounts if the margin is small. That helps.
Great Point!! How will recounts be possible in close races? Doesn't the Diebold model violate the law?
What if a voter makes a mistake and then claims his vote is recorded incorrectly? Do they void the vote and let him vote again? Or if it's "too bad you pushed the wrong button" what's the point of the validation?
This whole Diebold saga, combined with sooo many other things going on, leaves me scared for the future of this country. I fear a revolution if the present Administration is re-elected, either in this country, or perhaps a world-wide revolution against the United States.
God help us.
Thank you for pointing out what the Open Source Community needs to remember. "Is Linux ready for the desktop?" It depends on whose desktop it's on! Its ready for mine, but not most of the people I know.
As long as you don't have change anything from the default setup, it's no problem, but God help Joe User when it's time to install packages, figure out dependencies, command lines, change hardware settings, etc. My first year working with Linux reduced me to a quivering mass of frustration more than once. Yes, it's come a LONG way since then, but if we ever hope for Linux to truely compete against MS, we need to remember that most people just want it to WORK!
An interesting benefit of waiting to fix IE was made in the article: Adding these improvements to Longhorn may give people a (percieved) reason to upgrade their OS when they otherwise may not have.
I did a website last year for a guy who insisted on using Netscape 4...augh!! If you can get it to work there, it'll work anywhere.
Requirements:
1024 x 768 Screen Resolution
Flash MX Plugin
Broadband Connection
I hate websites that throw up a bunch of requirements in order to view the website. The ones listed above will probably leave 50% of the web population unable to view their fancy flash animation. What is the point?
What if you went to the mall and the sign on the door read:
Requirements:
Blue clothes only
American Express Card
1998 or later model car
Would you wonder why they weren't getting much business?
I live in a rural area and don't have broadband.. Believe it or not, most people are still using an old dial-up connection to access the net. Even in areas where it is available, not everyone wants to pay 40 bux per month just to check their email and do a little surfing. I wish developers would remember this. Seems pages are taking longer and longer to load these days.
This might not be as bad as it sounds. Within a few years, Linux will be running on many large business and government systems around the world. We may be MS-centric here in the US, but the rest of the world is looking at alternatives.
Someone will have to supply the hardware of the future to these new Linux users. There will be plenty of businesses who will cater to the non MS users of the world, and if you think Asia and India, someday they may outnumber the Windows users.
That doesn't explain the world-wide layer of iridium and shocked quartz right at the diving line between dinosaurs and no-dinosaurs. Also happens to coincide perfectly with that huge crater off the coast of the Yucatan. Ocean gasses may have been a byproduct of the big collision, but I'm pretty convinced there was a collision of some sort.
Putting on asbestos suit
I respect many of the third party candidates and their causes. I would love to vote Green or Independent. Unfortunately, in a close race every vote counts. If those people who voted Green or Independent had voted Democrat, GWB would be back in Texas right now.
There is something to be said for voting for the major parties in a close race.
OK, flame me, mod me down....but please educate yourself, then VOTE!
In my last job as a basic computer application instructor at a community college, I saw MANY people who were going back to school at age 50+ to 'learn how to use computers' so they could get a job. That nice nest-egg they thought they could live on disappeared with the stockmarket crash.
It is truely pathetic to see these people who worked most of thier life, saved, invested, did everything right, looking for some menial position to pay the mortgage.
Funny, many of these same people will support GWBush & Co. to the end.
Deregulation was signed into law by a former Republican governor (Pete Wilson). Under the Bush Administration, The US energy policy was rewritten by these same Texas companies and our Vice Prez, Cheney. This permitted the systematic raping of California, brought on the bankruptcy of the world's fifth largest economy and the recall of our governor.
How any Californiaians could vote Republican after what they did to us is beyond my comprehension.
Why not use Knoppix as a desktop system? I have a persistant directory which stores my files and configs. I can really stretch the space on my little toshiba laptop with a great os and software which takes no hd space.
The directions in the article are much too complicated for my non-tech husband. He perfers a simpler method of computer destruction: chain saw
Mod Points for Sale! Offer expires 9-9-03
"Furthermore, in one recent case, a college student was told that just by filing an answer in court, the cost of any final settlement would rise by $50,000."
This is perhaps the most disturbing quote for me. Translated: "If you dispute this in any way, it will cost you another $50,000.00."
Who could afford to fight this, even if you were innocent?
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. "
Thomas Jefferson firmly believed that a revolution every few generations would be necessary to keep the government honest.
I'm sure he would feel we are way overdue.
More quotes from Thomas Jefferson.
I can hear the party at Hillary Rosen's house from here.
This is not a Troll. Is it possible that the worm(s) caused the power outage? Could a computer or network failure in some little power plant have caused the cascading effect thorughout that whole region? They have as yet not identified a cause..so is it possible?