Diebold Insider Comments on Voting System Flaw 466
Call Me Black Cloud writes "A Diebold insider is blowing the whistle on the company's continued lack of concern about security holes in its voting software. The insider wrote to Brad Friedman, a somewhat shrill political blogger, claiming the company is instructing technicians to keep quiet about the security flaws. This is despite the vulnerability being listed on the US-CERT website for the last year. A Diebold company rep admits the software can be remotely accessed via modem, but states, "it's up to a jurisdiction whether they wish to use it or not...I don't know of any jurisdiction that does that." The insider disputes that, claiming several counties in Maryland made use of the feature in 2004." This in addition to the fact that Blackboxvoting already hacked the system using a chimp last year.
Re:Chimp (Score:2, Informative)
Why are people scared of recounting? Why is it this way ? Even if someone wins with 95% of the vote, why not have a recount to verify it????
Re:Two words (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, their chances of getting their candidate selected retroactively are quite low. So far, all the evidence seems to point that Bush was, indeed, elected for the second term (suck it up!). As far as I know (I must admit that my knowledge is based on what I've read from the press), there's no real evidence of any vote fraud. Even this 'insider' has no evidence of actual fraud.
Re:Two words (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Scary (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the law of conservation of energy?
Physical ballots do not spontaneously materialize and disappear. Electronic ballots, on the other hand, can do just that.
Burning boxes of ballots in fields is nothing new. One could postulate that tampering with computer ballots leave much more of a trail than traditional tampering.
The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security.
Electronic voting systems are pure voodoo to 99.99% of the population. Remotely tampering with them, especially when the security on them is made of swiss cheese, involves much less risk of being caught and can be done on a muchc broader scale -- one person can only haul of and destroy so many physical ballots, but one professional electronic vote-rigger can conceivably modify every single ballot cast.
Re:Chimp (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Scary (Score:4, Informative)
The difference is that if you want to burn ballots in the field, you have to physically go get the ballots, physically transport them, and physically destroy them. All of which carries some amount of risk of being caught by widely-understood, traditional methods of security.
Vote tampering is almost an institution in the US. From the very dawn of America. I really don't want to get into giving a history lesson, but I suggest doing a google search for vote tampering and only clicking on the
I know that your points are great in theory, but unfortunately history disproves you.
And who is going to rig an election? (Score:3, Informative)
Most cases of election fraud aren't "rogue anarchists," its the local political machine. Generally, it is done by the police, the Sheriff's office, or someone else in the local political establishment.
Online liberalism only focuses on the national political scene, but politics is a rough sport, and generally takes place on the ground... busing people to polling stations, driving around neighborhoods to "get out the vote," and the Sheriff's office losing/finding ballots...
It's a fantasy about how democracy works from an online-only world that ignores the reality that all politics are local, and there is only one election in the US that is semi-national (the President/Vice President, because while the mechanics involve electing electors, people vote for a national candidate). All the OTHER raises from school board/city council, through state legislatures, through the Congress, are all LOCAL or at most state-wide elections.
Alex
this says it all.... (Score:3, Informative)
right click and save as.
glad to know there are so many Diebold and ES&S supporters on slashdot...
it's in wmv format but mplayer will play it just fine.
Re:Scary (Score:3, Informative)
Openvoting.org (Score:5, Informative)
http://openvoting.org/ [openvoting.org]
Not only open voting, but open source for the firmware that takes your vote.
They have been doing good things in California.
Re:I want my fucking piece of paper (Score:2, Informative)
It's being fought because this special ID is not free -- therefore, it's the equivalent of a poll tax -- and the Georgia gov't doesn't have plans to put registration locations in convenient areas. Do some research on the subject before you dismiss the reason for fighting this out of hand.
Re:I want my fucking piece of paper (Score:2, Informative)
What's the argument against having to show ID?
In Michigan, as well as most states, a Driver's License or State issued ID costs money (albeit, $12 for 4 years in MI). Still, this constitutes a poll tax and as such is unconstitutional.
Re:Somebody please tell me (Score:3, Informative)
Hennepin County Minnesota changed procedure (Score:3, Informative)
In Hennepin County the scanner system, not Diebold scanner machines, the precinct results were no longer modemed in to the county office but hand delivered in the September election.
Ramsey County Minnesota uses Diebold scanners with the suspect central counting software. Public Test of Ramsey Voting Systems [umn.edu]
Not quite so shrill, (Score:3, Informative)
But when all the other "dirty tricks" are factored in, the electronic voting machine fraud that occurred in many other states besides Ohio, begin to look like a coordinated and concerted effort to effect the outcome of national elections by illegal means. The number of states employing fraudulent lists of felons to be barred from voting increased considerably from the 2000 election fiasco in Florida and Georgia -- the same company's database was employed in a dozen states in the 2004 national election to disenfranchise voters. Upon passage in Arizona of Proposition 200, which (among other things) increased the penalties for illegal aliens registering to vote, the voter registration lists in only one AZ county dropped by nearly 10%. (Check the archived news links at "www.cis.org" for details.)
The Republican controlled US Congress passed a $6 Billion USD piece of legislation to furnish electonic voting machines across the country after the "hanging chad" problem became public in FL in the 2000 election, but without establishing the appropriate standards and guidelines for security or recount capability. Until the US government investigates the increasing number of vote count fraud cases that independent investigators keep uncovering from the 2004 national election, this country would be far better off (small "d" democratically speaking) to revert to individual paper ballots (perhaps validated with the Iraqi equivalent of an indelible ink thumbprint.
The regime currently in power in the USA seems to have a very flexible and pragmatic view of what constitutes a democracy, here or abroad. Bolivia and Venezuela (both oil rich) have "corrupt" democracies that tend to favor the majority (poor) over the wishes of the elite. Taiwan has a democracy that the US Department of State finds "problematic" when they publically express their desire to remain independent of Communist China. The appearance of democratic "principles" in Egypt and Pakistan are far better than the Islamic revolution that would occur in either country with true democracy. But a neighboring country (Iran) that has a more valid claim to democracy is somehow another "corrupt" (but oil rich) oligarcical regime. Anyone else beginning to see the Dubya/neo(Con)artist hypocracy at work?
Something stinks in the USA, and it isn't the dead , bloated bodies of poor people in New Orleans. The $2 Billion USD it would have taken to fix the levee system there was diverted to the Iraqi war. The National Guard troops (and their equipment) were in Iraq instead of being available to aid the people of Louisiana and Mississippi in theri time of need. But the Dubya regime can NOW find the $200 Billion USD to fix the results of the hurricane disaster. It does not make up for the loss of life in any way, shape , or form. And watch the same defense/government contractors scrambling for their piece of this pork pie as have been feeding at the USA's Iraqi $$$ trough.
Blackboxvoting hacked the Diebold optical scanners (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf [blackboxvoting.org]
Re:Somebody please tell me (Score:2, Informative)
Because they don't trust them.
. .
Because they really, really don't trust them.
The OPs post had two parts. I responded to only one of those parts. You responded as if I had responded to the part to which I did not respond.
KFG
Halloween is coming up... (Score:2, Informative)
Heck, at the next big game, chat with your non-geek friends about it.
Things are getting worse not just because the elected people are twits (there are a few good ones...) things are getting worse because the American people are electing jack-asses.
When was the last time YOU actually went to a library and did some research on what's happening?
How about Israel? Why are the Jews there in the first place? What's the big deal about Gaza? What do Moslems really believe?
If you can answer, how about your brother-in-law? He have a clue?
To pick up a current conservative thread - let's stop blaming other people, and take some responsibility ourselves.
Educate, people, educate!
Re:Depressing (Score:3, Informative)
The only way to invalidate paper ballots is by tampering with them to create overvotes or "spoiled" ballots. This can't be done on a large scale without being detected by simply comparing the numbers of invalid ballots to those cast in other elections. So while the paper trail is not "verifiable" by the voter, it still goes a long way towards preventing fraud, and is far preferable to DRE systems.
Those who ok the use of such systems.... (Score:3, Informative)
There is no other reason to put in use or allow the use of such a system that can and has been used to misrepresent the public vote.
Re:I want my fucking piece of paper (Score:3, Informative)
Here is the Georgia State DMVS fee schedule [ga.gov].
A non-driver ID costs $20 for five years, or $35 for ten. That's $3.50-$4.00 per year. This is NOT an "onerous burden." This is four cans of soda. What's more, is they offer an ID card "for voting purposes only." Cost: free. Tempest, meet teapot.
For god's sake, Jimmy Carter is on board with this. While I often disagree with the former president's politics, I have no doubt about the man's integrity and honest desire to do the right thing. I would certainly trust him to not craft a system that disenfranchises poor voters.
My story from Ohio (Score:3, Informative)
What has our democracy come to when those who vote a certain way are given precedence over others who vote differently? Was there a link between Blackwell being both the Sec. of State *and* the co-chair of Bush's ohio re-election campaign? If there wasn't, it certainly didn't do anything to help his credibility-- especially once stories surfaced about the horribly inept (intentional?) placement of voting machines by precinct.
It's deplorable, inexcusable, and I think they should be brought up on trial for it. And I'd say the same if all those being discussed were democrats rather than republicans.
Re:Worse than scary (Score:1, Informative)
you dont need to fix every marginal state.
exit polls are actually very accurate, historically & internationally, its only in the recent us elections that they have differed greatly from the claimed result.
this is normally an indicator of fraud.
and finally, there have been several whistleblowers from diebold, and damning leaked e-mails that are available on the internet (try google)
just because you choose to ignore the evidence doesnt mean that fraud didnt occur.
Re:well DUH (Score:2, Informative)