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.
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
The CEO of North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold, Inc., Walden O'Dell has been oft-quoted for his 2003 Republican fund-raiser promise to help "Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." O'Dell himself was a high-level contributor to the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign as well as many other Republican causes.
Is this not a conflict of interest?War Dialing (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not taking issue with the submitter because I hear the term applied to liberals alot -- but I wonder when the alternative of stubborn complacency and "going along to get along" became ideals in our democracy.
Because you don't get things fixed thinking like that.
Depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, as geeks know better than journalists, there is no sane, moral, or legal reason for paperless touchscreen voting machines to even exist. Almost everyone who is knowledgable in this discipline gets it pretty quickly - because it's extremely obvious, and also because paper is integral to secure systems everywhere, from secure logging on printers in machine rooms to ATMs and even slot machines... You just don't store things like votes on non-user-verified, let alone rewriteable, media.
In fact, if I recall, the state of Nevada was a little while ago in the awkward position of having vastly superior standards enforced for gambling devices than they had for voting machines... although I think now they are one of many states that has put this craziness under some scrutiny...
Yet there really are a few people out there (I've met some on slashdot for instance) who argue to defend this practice anyway. These days, ignorance and stupidity is no longer funny. It's becoming terrifying.
If we lived in a sane country, the people who made these machines would be prosecuted, since their level of negligence certainly rises to the level of criminal even if they have no intent of their own to rig elections, and all of the politicians and bureaucrats who ordered, "evaluated," "tested," and approved these systems should follow not long after. We would know all this, prima-facie, even if Diebold hadn't had a pants-down security incident and exposed their internal emails to the world, showing us their gaffes in first-person detail. We would know even if direct results of their incompetence weren't widely documented [blackboxvoting.com]
The simple, bedrock need for secure voting systems, and the absolutely impeccable engineering doctrines involving voter-verified paper, are almost universally accepted among credible experts. All explained many times before, better than I could anyway. It's inconceivable there is any debate at this point. Why would we have a voting machine that was deliberately made insecure?
The most credible argument I've ever heard (relatively speaking) is, "Who would cheat anyway? You're just being paranoid."
But you all know the answer to the question of who would cheat at election time: probably, the first person who thought they could get away with it. [blackboxvoting.com]
Credibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Where is the outrage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'd agree with that. But good luck with a congressional investigation, they probably won't even be able to get a real room to have meeting about it. Just like Downing Street [inthesetimes.com]. Karl Rove is a genius.
What butthole did the democrats have there heads up when let this scam be part of the 2004 election? They had 4 years! How you can have a company with the contract to build paperless voting machines being run by a loyalist to the incumbant party and not have the opposition do anything about it - IS RIDICULOUS!
I hope there is an upset in 2006, or it is going to be another 2 years of a radical Whitehouse running around unchecked, digging the US into deeper holes at every turn.
But really, were is the outrage? I mean this is your democracy?!
Exact same words... (Score:4, Insightful)
"So what? You voted, you had your chance. *snicker*"
Are you sure it's an insider? (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping Vulnerabilities Quiet (Score:4, Insightful)
However, keeping it quiet because they think that will improve security rather than fixing the problem is NOT reasonable. That's why we have whistleblower protections. A company that has this much of a role in our country - by way of their products - should be held to the highest standards. And from what it sounds like, they are not.
Which Diebold exec was the roommate of which politician?
Re:Chimp (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but it's fucking shady as hell -- that's for sure. What's even worse is that they know about flaws and not only do THEY not care but both the government (duh) and the PUBLIC don't care either.
We have hashed out what needs to be done to make this a secure system [slashdot.org] and one is to allow all the code and hardware to be opened to the public that will be using it.
Of course that will never happen and I will continue to use paper ballots like every other sane American should.
Kerry Won Maryland by 9% (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody please tell me (Score:5, Insightful)
Putting on my tin foil hat, I don't think they are idiots at all. I think it was done on purpose. The bigger question is, why aren't WE doing more about this? The integrity of our democracy is at stake. How can shit like this be allowed to happen? How can we 'help' Iraq setup their new democracy when we are so utterly fucked up?
Yes, I'm mad. Mad at this happening, mad at this not getting more attention, mad at people who think I'm crazy for bringing it up. This is unacceptable.
Re:Depressing (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll give you a hint, none. You'll never be able to go back see your vote and insure it was counted correctly if at all.
Re:Two words (Score:4, Insightful)
*raises hand* I do. In a non-democratic state, you couldn't even make such accusations without having to fear imprisonment or death.
Re:Somebody please tell me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chimp (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very sad that this is such a commonly repeated phrase. I really want to know why people think it's *so* horrifying to be labelled "paranoid" -- especially when it comes to the state of our nation.
I realize that paranoia is looked down upon, especially in a time where everyone is more interested in the voting results of Survivor, American Idol, or (ironically) Big Brother, but it saddens me deeply when I am looked down upon for being behind our country's values.
PARANOIA IS WHAT WE NEED! Especially when people just have NO DESIRE to understand the goings on behind political power.
"Seacrest out!"
Re:Depressing (Score:4, Insightful)
The quality control on gaming machines is crazy high. You know why? If there was any faintest whisper that the gaming corporations were not playing a fair game with the suckers, I mean gamblers, people would play less.
But voting? Nevada cares far more about the bottom line than it does about the politician of the week.
Re:Depressing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
You take your paper ballot, after you touched the screen, and put it in a box. Unless ALL vote counters from ALL parties are compromised (a definite possibility) then you have a backup way to manually count the votes.
When you JUST have a machine that's storing the votes (which are easily modifiable and untraceable) there's no way to manually count the votes that the VOTER verified were the same.
That's how.
Why are we accepting this fraggin' mess??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn I'm really pissed about this eternal bul...it - counting votes is so important these days and we all are acting like fuc...ing sheep...
Re:I want my fucking piece of paper (Score:4, Insightful)
I know, I'm asking for a lot. I was told by a coworker that it's a stupid request. After all, if I have an electronic voting system, isn't that suppose to eliminate the need for paper?
Want to know how to shut him up? Take his printer access away and when he bitches say "Hey, that's a stupid request after all, you have a computer and weren't computers supposed to eliminate the need for paper and usher in the era of the paperless office?"
Re:I want my fucking piece of paper (Score:4, Insightful)
This will never fly because of #1. And #1 alone would likely eliminate a whole lot of fraud.
I think that Georgia is attempting to require an ID for voting and it is being fought tooth and nail by various public interest groups (or perhaps "public interest" groups).
Re:Two words (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow- not to be an ass- but the US isn't a Democracy. It is a representative republic.
A true Democracy in the US would be sort of scary- Imagine mob rule. Think about it.
A well Written article on Democracy v. Republic
http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/deta
Republic v. Democracy
by David Barton
We have grown accustomed to hearing that we are a democracy; such was never the intent. The form of government entrusted to us by our Founders was a republic, not a democracy.1 Our Founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America and chose not to. In fact, the Founders made clear that we were not, and were never to become, a democracy:
[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.2 James Madison
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.3 John Adams
A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.4 The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.5 Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment
We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.6 Gouverneur Morris, Signer and Penman of the Constitution
[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.7 John Quincy Adams
A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils.8 Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration
In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.9 Noah Webster
Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.10 John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration
It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.11 Zephaniah Swift, Author of America's First Legal Text Click link for more
Does it matter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Both candidates are given "campaign contributions" by (often foreign-owned) corporations.
The copyright "reforms" in the last 20 years were all passed by 100% of Senators and (iirc) 100% of the house.
The bankers were able to buy bankrupcy "reform" whereby a corporation can declare Chapter 7, but you can't any more.
As long as both viable candidates hold the same views on all the issues (views that have been paid for in cash), what difference does it make which candidate wins? And besides the possibility of jail or fiines, why should I obey their bought and paid for laws? Is it any wonder why so many young people these days profess themselves to be anarchists?
I, for one, would like to see some viable third, fourth, and fifth party candidates like they have in more civilized countries.
Here's a hint: why is the US the only industrialized nation without universal health care? The corporations own the government.
Were we to have a half dozen parties instead of two, perhaps fewer corporations would be able to afford to bribe all teh candidates, and maybe we would have a viable choice.
Now, here's a question: in the last Presidential election, the Libertarians were on the ballot in all fifty states. Ralph Nader was not.
So why was Nader talked up so much by the media, while the Libertarians were never mentioned? Could it be that the news outlets are all owned by the same people as the rest of the corporations?
Behind every evil corporation is a million evil shareholders. Are we going to continue to let them run our lives?
I, personally am not voting for any more Republicans or any more Democrats. I'm going to "waste" every single vote, from now on. Because the way I see it, wasting your vote is the only way to not waste it.
Re:Two words (Score:2, Insightful)
if you really want a tight grip, make sure no one even knows you have a tight grip in the first place.
in fascist america, there is no spoon unless the govt tells you there is.
anyone fool enough to raise their voice and tell the truth, is first ridiculed, then discredited, then meets with an untimely demise like martin luther king, john lennon. typically a small private plane is involved but sometimes it's a "crazed" fan or a "white supremist". never mind that the FBI and CIA have been caught numerous times impersonating others in order to meet their objectives.
that's what they learned... make sure the orwellian future looks like apple pie and the flag. and discredit anyone who says otherwise. and oh yeah, send other people's kids to fight for your pet wars. we're so glad we have a press and media that acts like a watchdog and not corporate and fascist cheerleeders, it might give the wrong impression to say, the deliberately uninformed/misinformed public.
and oh yeah, almost forgot. make sure you have shills patrolling the online forums. you don't want some poor citizen reading about things that show the esteemed govt and its cronies in a bad light. never mind that they earned every bit of their reputations, that's just heresay.
making people disappear is too obvious. it's better to make sure people think the person is crazy or find some dirt on them or just do what the presstitutes do, make shit up.
have a good day citiz... slave.
You know what would be cool? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Depressing (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why the lever pulls are still around in a few places...
Re:I have a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of the method and tone of the discussion. Shrill, in this usage, means "betraying some strong emotion or attitude in an exaggerated manner." Obviously, shrill is generally a subjective descriptor.
Many pundits and bloggers use a shrill manner to draw attention to themselves and their arguments -- Limbaugh, Coulter, Franken, etc.
The reason being shrill is looked down upon by a lot of serious politicos is that the message can be overwhelmed by the tone -- if the argument needs to be shrill to get attention, how valid can the argument be?
"Because you don't get things fixed thinking like that." [re: 'going along to get along']
Although shrillness can draw attention to an issue, it won't get anything solved either. The ideal is that we can all pay attention to issues and work on resolution, without resorting to exaggeration.
Re:Where is the outrage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, right-wing organisations are oppressed by the liberal media monopoly and must struggle to get their messages out. After all, white folks are oppressed by affirmative action and political correctness, Christians are oppressed by the secular school system and the activist judges, and the right-wingers are oppressed by the liberal media. As such, it's only appropriate that they can be voluminous and angry.
So of course, any outrage from the left wing is absolutlely preposterous. Don't suggest something so insultingly unamerican.
Re:Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
: *raises hand* I do. In a non-democratic state, you couldn't even make such accusations without having to fear imprisonment or death.
That kind of retaliation would happen only if you pose a real threat or they have nothing to lose by imprisoning/killing you. For the US, the mass media ensures to show criticisms of the government and big corporations (which is becoming more and more the same thing), so you are not a real threat; on the other hand if government acts on you, they may wake some people up who have the illusion of democracy, so they do not. I gues when they really need to act they label you as a terrorist first. There are already many new restrictions on free speech. There are designated free speech zones during meetings etc. in the US! What the fuck does that mean?
Re:Depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps one of the scariest moments imagineable is when paranoia and common sense intersect. That's when you know something obviously isn't right, and there's nothing you can do to reverse the situation since any notion of your dissent will automatically label you paranoid.
The sad thing is that all of this should be redundant, but only a small few realize.
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Outrage? Do you folks think these through? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends largely on his intent. His full quote was "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Was then emphasis on "I" (as I took them to be) or was the emphasis on "to the president" (presumably meaning the current president, then running for re-election).
Yes, the guy's a Bush contributor, but that doesn't mean he's a perpetrator of fraud.
FWIW, I'm a registered Republican, and I am as paranoid as anybody else about this. I'm 100% behind blackboxvoting and VVAPT, because I sincerely believe not only in the voting process, but that what goes around comes around.
Re:I have a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
You say this as if arguments or ideas gain attention in our society on the merits of their content alone. This is plainly absurd, as anyone with any familiarity with politics, media, or marketing knows far too well. Sometimes screaming is the only way to be heard.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I have a question. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even in this particular instance, the topic was written up in a rather sensationalistic manner (complete with an annoying animated GIF of an emergency vehicle light at the top). That doesn't mean the information is incorrect or not worthy of consideration, but it does make it more difficult to take it seriously as unadulterated fact when it comes from an obvious partisan with a penchant for sensationalism.
One's 'shrillness' is an entirely nonpartisan attribute, easily applied to liberals, conservatives, and those that belong to sundry other groups. Personally, I think we'd all be much better off without it.
Re:Depressing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I want my fucking piece of paper (Score:5, Insightful)
Georgia is attemting to pass a law that requires voters to have an official state ID, namely a driver's license or, barring that, a surrogate state ID available for a fee. People are opposed to it because the effect (if not the intent, but really the intent too) is to disenfranchise the kinds of people who don't have driver's licenses and for whom buying a replacement ID is an onerous burden, namely the poor, which is to say to a great extent, the black residents of the state. In the 19th century this was called a Poll Tax and it served exactly the same purpose, namely to disenfranchise minorities. It was ruled unconstitutional then and hopefully will be again if Georgia insists upn promulgating this 21st century version.
Re:Chimp (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many reasons why places shy from allowing them that have nothing to do with coverups.
Most people just want it to be over with once the election is done. Dragging it out over months while the votes are re-counted and re-re-counted just rubs in the fact that the losers lost and makes the winners feel nervous that their win will be taken away from them. And in most cases, you aren't going to discover anything that would significantly change the outcome.
Re:Somebody please tell me (Score:3, Insightful)
Based on what I've seen, most local voting districts don't care about security. They're interested in making the election process happen for as little money as possible. Quick and dirty is fine for them. Since they aren't demanding security, Diebold sees no reason to spend the time making a secure system.
Besides, if there's going to be any vote tamering or fraud, it's most likely to be conducted by the same people who decide what voting systems to purchase.
Re:Depressing (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's a very different kind of security (Score:5, Insightful)
So ATMs actually have essentially.no protection against the bank being fraudlant They contact the bank (via an encrypted channel, using IBM crypto cards) and ask how much money you have. If you have enough, they dispense it. The bank could easily lie to them, they'd never know. But that's not in the bank's intrest to do so, and banks are watched by eachother, the feds, etc, etc.
In essance, with an ATM, you can trust the operator.
Voting machines are different. You CANNOT trust the operator. It may well be in their intrest to alter the voting records. Perhaps they have been bought off, perhaps they have very strong feelings towards a party, etc. Point is you have to assume that the person who operates the machine ants to tamper with it.
Well that's a whole different problem. Now you have to design a system that is capable of not only keeping users (who only have access to a limited UI) from messing with it, but operators as well (who have access to the internals). That's a much tougher design spec.
If you give me a computer and tell me someone will only have screen, keyboard and mouse access, and ask me to secure it, I'll whip something up in a couple days and pretty confidently say there's nothing they can do to break in. If you tell me they'll have physical hardware access, I'm sorry, I'm afraid that's out of my league.
unfortunately people could care less (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
For the love of all that is good and holy, will you PLEASE stop confusing concepts like that. "Democratic" is not the anti-thesis of "opressive", etc. It is for the purposes of proganda, but dammit, stop.
Not to mention the complete illogical nature of your statement "In a non-democratic state you couldn't even make the accusation that the state is not democratic". Come on!
If people didn't go all wide-eyed and emotional everytime a politician says "freedom" t them, then you might be able to actually have a functionning democracy, and not a bunch of sheep voting for who they're told to vote.
voting is immaterial (Score:2, Insightful)
Here is the quote that matters:
rothschild - "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
Re:Where is the outrage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Whereas those on the right spend all their time complaining about the directions America is taking, which is proud patriotism.
See the difference?
KFG
Re:Two words (Score:1, Insightful)
Massive exit-polling discrepancy IS (circumstantial) evidence of vote fraud.
"The press" reporting there is no evidence of vote fraud doesn't impress me even marginally.
Re:Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is why Diebold must go. I don't for a minute thnk election fraud in 2004 was any more widespread than any other presidential election, but can anyone *prove* it? OK, admittedly, even with a paper trail you can't prove there was no fraud, as ballot boxes can be swapped out in transit and such, but in practice this can't be done on a large scale without it becoming obvious due to screwups by the fraudsters.
With no paper trail, someone committing vote can have a huge impact with a very small chance of being caughtin the act, and no chance at all of finding the fraud afterwards. We absolutely need a system where intense scrutiny after the fact is likely to turn up evidence of the crime. This will be a much greater deterrant, but more importantly will give us a much higher confidence in the system.
Computer *aided* voting is a great idea. Have a touch-screen with pictues to help roor readers, have adjustable finst to help the vision-impaired, have an interface that allows the blind to vote in private, print a ballot that is guarenteed to be properly marked. But the result needs to be a marked ballot, not a set of bits. A completely seperate process can automate counting the ballots -computer-printed optically-scanned ballots work extremely well, with no sacrifice of a paper trail.
Re:I have a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi. I'm the submitter. The reason I wrote "shrill" is because when I read through his site the image came to mind of my wife berating me. If that's not shrill, I don't know what is (and I can safely write this non-anonymously because she's probably never even heard of slashdot.)
I wasn't referencing his point of view or that he isn't "going along to get along." I applaud his efforts at bringing this issue to light and I'm very happy the article was accepted for the front page. I'd hate for this to fall off the radar, especially since I live in MD. It's just that I found the tone of his writing a bit grating...
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Never said it wasn't - just that electronic tampering has the potential to be even easier to pull off than the physical kind. On the other hand - well designed and implemented electronic voting systems can greatly assist in preventing the physical tampering you are talking about.
It is basically a situation where if you implement electronic balloting poorly, then you greately increase the risks compared to paper balloting. But implement it robustly and you greatly decrease the risks instead.
So far, we've had way too much of the poor implementations.
Worse than scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, within that one state you just have to swing enough votes to tip the scales.
That means flipping half the difference. Using a made-up example, if the state of Bushsylvania has 10 million likely voters and polls show they'll vote 49% D and 47% R, you have to reverse just over 1% of the votes to push it to the R column. That's only 100,000 fraudulent vote reversals, or 110,000 if you include a 10% safety factor. Hell, it wouldn't even take much money to outright BUY that many votes, much less rig the voting machines. (Note that "ballot box stuffing" is less efficient than "flipping" -- to win Bushsylvania, for example, would require 220,000 phony ballots to be added, which is a much bigger task.)
And you might not even have to spend that much. If there are (say) four undecided states with the power to affect the outcome, go to the two with the narrowest margins, and twiddle theirs.
Remember to limit your exposure as much as possible. Restrict tampering to as few districts as you can. Prefer those with the highest numbers of voters, but with historically low turnouts. (Poverty stricken areas are ideal for this kind of tampering.) You don't even have to make every tampered-with district put in "wins" for your candidate -- you just have to reverse a total of 110,000 votes.
You want to keep it local as much as possible. Run it like a terrorist cell -- tiny groups of insiders who each know very little about the overall plan or about other people. Choose your fall-guys in advance, maybe plant some evidence 'in reserve'; in case someone turns coat you can blame a few overzealous campaign workers, and cut them loose before they start reporting further up the chain.
One Word: Audit Trail (Score:1, Insightful)
In an ATM, the history of every transaction can be traced from beginning to end via an Audit trail.
This allows fraud and honest mistakes to be detected and fixed, after the fact. An ATM with buggy software may still be effectively secure, for that reason.
In a Voting Machine, the history of every transactiion MUST NOT BE TRACED from Beginning to End. In particular, the identity of the voter must not be traceable, in order to prevent coercion or the selling of votes. And yet, the Voting Machine must still be secure, in order to prevent fraud and to ensure that trust in the electoral system isn't undermined.
For that reason, securing a computerized, networked Voting Machine is MUCH HARDER than securing a computerized, networked ATM. So hard that it may be practically impossible.
Paper is still the most practical solution.
Re:Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
One could postulate that the sun will rise in the East. If you postulated that "that tampering with computer ballots could leave much more of a trail than traditional tampering.", you would have an argument (a weak one but something). The facts are:
1) At least one existing system (the Diebold system in the FA) is not only not tamper evident, it appears to have features specifically designed to conceal tampering (a timestamp mod utility, separate DBs and functionality for voting and auditing and no tx sequencing spring to mind).
2) Physical tampering does not scale. In order to affect the presidential outcome, one would need to have a number of people in each of 10000+ locations involved. A single skilled individual can achieve the same effect with electronic voting.
3) Virtually all methods of tampering with physical ballots still work on electronic systems! In light of the fact that in the last election an apparently malfunctioning balloting machine was removed to a private warehouse and returned to service while the polls were open, I'd like to see you justify your implication that somehow e- machines are harder to tamper with than plain ballot boxes.
To give a real world example, there is very strong statistical evidence that Ohio's results were tampered with and in a way that could not be done with physical ballots.
Re:It had to be said. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is another election in 2006. This one is Congressional. Depending on the outcome of that one, Dubya may not have another two years.
There is plenty of evidence for impeachment, but only a few Congress-critters who don't have their own asses also hanging in the wind of corruption.
Re:I want my fucking piece of paper (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't just the cost; Georgia's scheme is seriously flawed in a number of ways. For example, there is currently no place in the city of Atlanta to get one of these cards. They have plans for opening one location in the near future. All told, there are roughly 150 (if memory serves) locations in the entire state where you can get these cards.
Let's say you're 68 years old and you live forty miles from the nearest ID registration area. You have no car, and you're living on a fixed income. There is no mass transit in your area, and to hire a cab would cost you three weeks' worth of "disposable" income. What do you do?
Let's say you're a twenty-two year old mother of two; your husband is stationed overseas. You're lucky to have time to brush your teeth in the morning, let alone spend seven hours of buses and queueing to get this ID card you'd only ever use to vote. Is it really worth sacrificing one rare day of vacation in the pursuit of a voter ID card rather than in the company of your kids?
The reality of life for millions upon millions of people in our country is that something that is so seemingly trivial to you or I is actually a fairly significant task. It just so happens that the folks who have the most trouble with this kind of thing tend to be poor, old, overworked and non-white.
I'm all for pulling ones' self up by the bootstraps, but you gotta have the boots in the first place. Go visit at our inner cities. Go visit our rural backwaters. Go speak to these Americans, and witness first hand just how hard life can be for your fellow countrymen. There exist people who, through no fault of their own, simply cannot afford to spend the time or money necessary to jump through hoops that you or I consider mere inconveniences.
Georgia's scheme is disenfranchisement coated in a thin layer of identity verification. Why else would a ten-year ID card ($35) cost significantly more than a five-year card ($20)? [washingtonpost.com] Shouldn't it cost the state less if they only need to process a voter once every 10 years rather than twice?
Re:Depressing (Score:1, Insightful)
I'll give you a hint, none. You'll never be able to go back see your vote and insure it was counted correctly if at all.
Here's how it works: The ballot box is in clear public view at all times. In the morning the box is assembled and demonstrated to be empty. Anyone who wishes may visually confirm this. Once everyone is satisfied, it is sealed and placed on the table (in clear view of all 20 or so people in the room including you if you so choose). When you cast your ballot you have the option of putting the ballot in the box yourself. The invigilator and a 2nd witness watch you do this.
At this point, your ballot has become anonymous (that's important). So how do you track it? Suppose the following conditions are met:
1) You keep the box in view at all times.
2) You witness the emptying of the box and counting of ballots.
3) You witness that no ballots are removed or discarded and that the box is now empty again.
It follows that your ballot was counted. So was it counted correctly or not?
Lets suppose that each ballot is held up by the counter in such a way that observers from each of the major parties can see it. All three parties must agree on the intent of the ballot otherwise it is set aside (NOT discarded). It follows that, for every ballot with clear intent, each ballot was counted correctly. Since we know from part 1 that your ballot was amongst those counted and from part 2 that all of the ballots counted were counted correctly, it follows that your ballot was counted correctly.
Now we need to ensure that the results are reported and tabulated correctly. Since we have a room full of witnesses to the final count it is trivial for those witnesses to confirm that number against the publically posted reported outcome for that box.
This is not some ideal pie-in-the-sky complex deployment. This is a real traditional pencil-and-paper system that is in use in many countries (even parts of the US).
I cannot think of any way to replicate this with a purely electronic system until humans grow a few more senses.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why are we accepting this fraggin' mess??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Having worked in elections for many years, I'm convinced that most voting errors are committed by voters who are not able or not willing to follow the instructions. The voting system can only go so far to prevent a voter from making an error when he is determined to do so. This is not to say that the systems are perfect - there is much room for improvement.
And as for privatizing the system, this is largely true already. All DRE systems, machine readable ballot counting hardware and the vast majority of central tabulating software is produced by private companies. I personally know of one company that does contract election work for cities and counties, that is, they take over the entire vote counting operation. They do a fine job, but no better or worse than their government counterparts.
Only problem is you named the wrong party (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is that both parties will do anything they can to either get or stay in power. It's shameful on both sides. Anyone claiming that cheating is only occurring on one side or the other is a partisan hack.
(similar to how anyone that claims their party is 100% moral while the other is 0% moral is a partisan hack)
Re:It had to be said. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually that is why it appeared that so many people voted for John Kerry, I mean cmon, I know that alot of people said they were going to vote for, but when push came shove, no one in their right mind voted for him.
I'm a real Republican (not a neocon) who voted for Kerry. Being a choice of lesser evils, it wasn't an easy decision, but I believe events have shown that I was in my right mind. If we get Hillary in '08, it will be due to Bush in '04.
Re:It had to be said. (Score:3, Insightful)
You're on. [pollingreport.com]
Folks are tired of all the bullshit that's been going on the past 5 years. There is nobody to blame except the party which has made a big deal about how they are in complete control. All of the spin trying to place blame elsewhere merely gets them in deeper. It's political quicksand, and nobody is interested in throwing a rope.
Re:Two words (Score:3, Insightful)
Of the 3,258 names on the original list, therefore, the county concluded that more than 15 percent were in error. If that ratio held statewide, no fewer than 7,000 voters were incorrectly targeted for removal from voting rosters.
Bush's margin of victory in Florida in 2004 [uselectionatlas.org] was 380,978 votes.
Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)
The trouble is that the US population is not self respecting. Look at average weights of people, teen pregnancy levels, and I suspect also declining literacy, and you have a population ripe for the picking if you're a power crazed family like the Clintons or Bushes. Things just aren't that bad in most of the country, so it would take a widespread depression over several months before uprisings would even take place. It's nothing like Ukraine where a fishy election had the population massing in the streets until justice was served to them with the help of democratic countries like the USA and Canada sending election representatives who knew what they were doing.
I think EVERY democratic nation should conduct their elections with international observers in some polling places. It would serve a two fold purpose:
1) Keeps the country's election honest, or at least flagged.
2) Distributes electoral HOWTO to nations with less experienced, or imperfect electoral systems.
Every nation could benefit, including Canada and the USA.
Re:Worse than scary (Score:2, Insightful)
The Diebold system would probably make hiding fraud easier. Compromise a couple of people where the *ouch* MS Acess files are send to, and you're in business. Even if I were a neocon, this would make me nervous. If Diebold is part of a "vast right wing conspiracy" who's to say that the Diebold system won't be used by the other side someday to keep neocons out of office?
Until politicians suddenly get honest, paper ballots have a lot going for them. So does having statewide balloting to decide what our voting districts look like. Our current system lets politicians decide amungst themselves who's in their home district; give me a safe district, and I'll give you one. If congressman actually had to worry about their re-election prospects more, special interest money would have to lose some of it's power in the process.
Re:Imagine the Response... (Score:3, Insightful)
What if he predicted that a city that can mobilize the poor to vote with the aid of city and school busses wouldn't bother to do the same to move those same voters out of harm's way because the school busses weren't comfortable enough according to Mayor Nagin and they wanted to wait for the feds to send greyhounds?
And what if he had screamed "murderer" at Clinton and cried "where was FEMA?" and "the federal government and the president are racist because they didn't evacuate or help the 1,000 mostly poor, old, and black people who died in the Chicago Heat Wave [noaa.gov]?
What about those? Or are those points not on your anti-Bush agenda?
Democrats have been cheating for years (Score:3, Insightful)
That's for sure. I have to laugh at the Democrats. They blow off concerns about dead voters, illegal-alien voters, and repeat voters as just so much unavoidable noise and friction in the system, or at worst, a chance for the "disadvantaged" to level the playing field a bit.
But if anyone proposes a requirement for a picture ID, or cutting back on lax absentee voting rules, or weeding the rolls of dead people, or God forbid a white policeman should pull over a non-white driver on Election Day, and oh my god it's Voter Intimidation and back to the days of Jim Crow.
One is the flip side of the other. Adding an invalid vote for one candidate has exactly the same effect as suppressing a valid vote for his opponent, all else being equal. If one is immoral, so is the other.
-ccm