So whose up for running for senator for Florida, cause i think your odds just skyrocketed!

Check out some of the discussion on Bruce Schneier's (a highly respected computer crypto/security consultant/writer) web site:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/open_voting_fou.html

If you Google around a bit you can even find photos of the mainboards, which clearly show the presence of an infrared data port on some models. Pretty interesting from a theoretical hacking perspective. If you had the right equipment, presumably, you could simply walk past the machine, flash its memory, and set up the votes however you wanted -- without so much as turning a screwdriver. Remote-control stuffing -- a "great" advancement over the time-dishonored usual method?

Now I've not seen any proof that this is the intended usage...

Bernice.___There will Not be an impeachment as long as Congressman Conyers continues to violate the law, and sits on the HR-333 impeachmint bill.

It is truly ironic, that Conyers had Cindy Sheehan arrested for demonstrating in front of his office door, and he is breaking the law by not placing the bill on the house floor for a vote.

One man,__ not Nancy Pelosi anymore, is now preventing the legal impeachment process, and no one in congress is doing anything about it.

This is another reason to impeach now, while there is still some time to change laws and system BEFORE the 2008 election instead of weeping over it afterwards.

Walter Wallis, There is no doubt that cheating was done with payoff money, especialy so in those areas of the country where wards ruled. It is a problem that can and must be corrected.

Electronic voting is a problem that cannot be corrected. As Paul so well stated here, any expert hacker can fix any election and no one will ever be able to prove it had been done or who did it.

Anyone want to know how to cheat in an election with paper ballots and a hand count? Bring $10,000 cash and the secret is yours.
Try this test again like in the real world. Test and validate the settings, then seal the machines under guard, the way voting machines have been protected for a hundred years or so.

CRCox, if I had the hacking skills, believe me, we would have Kucinich 2008 and a whole lot more.

"In Denmark, when they have an election, you get your voting card sent by mail — voting registration is automatic."

It should be automatic here too--I mean, honestly, if the idea of this country to build a democracy, then why does the government employ the same tactics as AOL (giving you "three months free" and then counting on your business, laziness, forgetfulness, etc to garuntee that you will pay after the trial is over.) It should be as easy as possible for people to vote, since, hopefully, the goal is to have more voters, not less.

I heard that Harper's victory in Canada surprised and disappointed quite a number of Canadians -- in the end, they won't be invaded by the US. Rather, they'll server their provinces over on a platter to US policy.

It's not just the machines that matter, it's who's allowed on the largest media outlets, who is dead to them, and where the ballots are sent for official counting.

I've heard that Republicans own the voting machines. As power mad as they are, is it a surprise that they rig presidential elections? I'm wondering why this is allowed in a so-called democracy. Electronic voting machines should be done away with. The Canadians use paper ballots and have no problems with their elections. Why is it such a problem here in the U.S.? Are we already a fascist state or what.

i would never vote on a digital machine as i would never play a digital slot machine..

i have been reverse engineering computer code for 30 years..a company can make it hard for me to see what they are doing, but it is impossible to keep me out if i want in..

ken

Hope everyone read PAUL Bramscher's post at 9:38am 29 July. He tells it all and he is well qualified to tell it.

Just remember, we haven't had an actual election since 1996. Bush was appointed the first time by the Supremes after election fraud was detected and the recount threatened Bush in 2000

2002 was filled with voter fraud and electronic nightmares.

2004, Bush was unelected again by massive voter fraud and "caging" in key states, which has since been investigated and aired, but no one will throw the bums out.

2006 was filled with electronic voter fraud, much of which was detected.

2008 approaches, and every agency charged with selecting electronic voting machines is finding it easy to hack them, many without the advantages of the California hackers.

Yet there seems to be a great fear amongst officialdumb of having a voter verified paper trail for recounts. Apparently, the voice of the people, properly recorded and counted, would upset the desired results.

abbybwood July 28th, 2007 8:48 pm

"Only vote absentee, Xerox your ballot and all ballots should be counted in each precinct by the PEOPLE. Even if it takes weeks to do it.

The People need to COUNT the ballots, then the People will tell the MSM who won. Period."

The People may tell the MSM who won, but will the MSM tell the People who won? How does each state report voting results to the MSM News Election Service and is there a system in place to verify the accuracy of the numbers they receive and/or report to the People?

Vince Lawrence -

Go here and weep:

http://www.openvotingfoundation.org/tiki-index.php?page_ref_id=1

WHY ARE THERE NOT A GROUP OF REVOLUTIONARY HACKERS OUT THERE BEATING THE R'S TO THE PUNCH ON THIS. WHY DON'T WE JUST GO AHEAD AND HACK THE DAMN MACHINES OURSELVES? THE TIME IS LONG OVERDUE FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ON A TRULY GRAND SCALE! OBVIOUSLY, PLAYING BY THE RULES DOES NOTHING BUT PERPETUATE THE UNBEARABLE STATUS QUO, RIGHT?

Why would anyone be surprised? Any semblance of "democracy" in this country is obviously disappearing faster than a snowman on the 4th of July. American elections are starting to be uncomfortably reminiscent of those dog-and-pony shows that were a fixture of the old Soviet propaganda apparatus. Elections were held regularly, people dutifully lined up to cast their ballots, but everybody understood that it didn't mean anything.

Like the Soviets of old, the American corporatist ruling class increasingly offers the empty form of democracy, but with none of the substance. It's no longer enough for them to preselect the "viable options", taking care to ensure that no one who ascends to any position of real power represents even the remotest threat to their interests or power monopoly. Now they have successfully gamed the system so that -- absent some truly lopsided repudiation of their favored candidate -- the most stridently reactionary, corrupt and militaristic faction of the Republicrat duopoly can reliably be expected to prevail.

Again, I have to say that a well-organized and disciplined united front alliance of progressives - whose focus is not on contesting elections per se, but on comprehensively overhauling and rewriting the rulebook (Constitution) - is not only the best, but really the only viable strategy for effectively engaging our oppressors.

Obviously, a uniform standard covering all aspects of voting eligibility, registration, vote casting and vote tallying would be one of the most fundamental and critical reforms. States could then be graded on how closely their current systems conformed to this ideal. Those with failing grades could be targeted for boycotts, work stoppages, and other acts of civil disobedience.

I spent some time yesterday perusing a web site organized by a bunch of Fred Thompson groupies who like to call themselves "Fredheads". The way these pathetic simpletons seemed to view this third-rate thespian as a cross between their hallowed Saint Ronald and Paul Bunyan was nauseating beyond belief. But hey, I have to show some grudging admiration for the fact that at least they're in there pitching. Whereas so many self-styled progressives - and I'm certainly not excluding myself - seem to be (in Elvis Costello's words) "overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed."

I don't know why it is, but evil designs invariably seem to motivate people more strongly than noble ones. Somehow we need to find a way to alter that equation. If not, we can look forward to a lot more of the same, and worse.

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either rods or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass

One more quick note. The reason violent revolutions (not that I would enjoy a necessarily violent one) have historically taken place only when it has become blatantly obvious that the system itself has, by very design, lost its ability to react to the demands of the demos. This voting machine problem is right up there with any abuse of state power I can think of. I think in America we are quickly approaching that very state of affairs; when the only way we can take back control of the political apparatus - if indeed we ever had it - is to cause it to fall apart in a dramatic and public way.

In Denmark, when they have an election, you get your voting card sent by mail -- voting registration is automatic.

It is clearly stated on your voting card where your voting precinct is located (usually the local school).

The people watching over the polling places are mostly local politcal party operatives. There are dozen or so political parties in the Happy Little Kingdom (and six of them are represented in parliament) therefore there is a broad range of interests reperesented.

The ballot(s) are paper and you make your marks with the soft lead pencil given you.

I've never had to wait more than a few minutes to vote. The polls close at 8PM, but before they close, they go outside to see if anybody is trying to make it just before closing time. The closing is then announced and the ballot boxes are locked and sent to the place where they are counted.

The people who count the ballots are also people from the political parties. The ballots are tallied and the counting finished before midnight. If a particular race is very close there will always be a heavily moderated recount.

How is this possible? Are pencils, paper and humans more reliable than touch-screen computers?

Frankly, I think humans have a racial bias against robots!

Just scanned the comments above to see if any poll workers posted here. Encouraged by the November '06 election I volunteered to be a poll worker (only to find out I would get paid for it - guess I'm naive) and worked as a "rover" (was assigned 6 polling places to circulate between to fix problems with machines, supplies, etc.)in a May election here in Ohio.

All of the county pols seemed dedicated to helping the residents here get out and vote and were courteous, and hard-working. I did, however, discover something quite disturbing that I've not seen addressed elsewhere. Probably the most important operative in this process was not a county election official or even a state official, but an employee of Diebold, whose machines are in use here. Between elections each and every machine has to be "loaded" with the ballot screen programming for the next upcoming election and I'll give you three guesses who does that programming (and the first two guesses don't count.)

Figured it out yet? That's right, the Diebold guy does the programming, because of course, the software inside is "proprietary information." Couple this with the fact that the CEO of Diebold outrageously told a gathering of GOP fanatics that Ohio would deliver the votes for Bush in '04 and you can begin to understand my skepticism and unease.

I think the whole situation stinks and there are many scenarios that I can conjure. I'm no software expert but I can imagine several ways these machines could have already served their purpose. The '04 election was the first time they were used and what if they ran a one-time only program to ensure Bush's re-election and then the traces of this pre-fix were automatically (and without further human invol vement) wiped from the machines?

I didn't volunteer to be a poll worker to go hunting for wrongdoing. I'm always looking for ways to be involved in my community in a non-partisan and secular fashion (harder to do than you may think.) For decades we used punch-card ballots without any problems for seniors or the disabled, and that system automatically produced a paper trail without any need for redundancy or "add-on" devices. So ultra-partisan GOP operatives create a "crisis" in Florida and we end up with "Help America Vote."

Perhaps it should have been called "Let's Help America 'Choose'." I welcome any criticism of my suspicions and would like to see posts from other election officials here in Ohio with more complete knowledge than my very limited involvement allows.

As others have already sighted on this thread, the end to democratically elected representatives of the people has arrived. Once they removed direct paper ballots; open, fair and equal ballot access at state levels; and open debates on national levels, we allowed the man behind the curtain to seal the deal with hackable, faulty electronic voting machines throughout the country, many with no paper trail.

Will California's problem be resolved correctly and efficiently for the voting integrity of that state's electorate? Will electronic voting machines across the country be checked also. And if found hackable, be replaced immediately? And will the two corporate controlled parties that make decisions in this country pass laws to make our elections fair and our electoral process open to ALL candidates for the people?

You know the answer as well as I do.

Our country's democratic institutions have be hacked into and hijacked right before our eyes...and we do nothing about it. Yet, time and again, even on great sites like Common Dreams, we will get excited about and eagerly converse on such trivial issues like the Democratic Party beauty pagaent. What difference does it make what Hillary Clinton said, or what big business interest backs Edwards, or what gaff Obama said, or why Kucinich isn't listened to when the end result has already been determined. What difference does it make if Nader or Greens or Libertarians get a fair deal on the national level? What difference does it make if 300 or 300,000 turn out for an anti-war march? What difference does it make if Congress fails to impeach? What difference does it make if global warming is taken seriously or not? These are all results of a faulty process - a process that begins with voter registration and works it way right through ballot access, media coverage, public vs private campaign finance and open, fair debates - right down to the hackable electronic voting machine. We waste our time on trivial conversations which, of course, is perfectly fine with the powers that be. We play right into their game, being redirected into fluff, our focus cleverly diverted away from the real hard electoral issues that are facing us now.

I suggest that sites like Common Dreams proof their articles first to weed out the fluff on party beauty pageants and focus our attention on the real issues that need attention in this country, like our screwed up electoral system for starters! (Sometimes I wonder whether Common Dreams is more concerned with the Democratic Party sideshow of presidential candidates than baring the underlying problems that should be addressed in this country)

Until we change the electoral system, it will continue to work against us at every level, holding down and turning back any attempt at progressive, compassionate development of humanist ideals for America.

"If voting could change things they'd make it illegal."

The 2000 elections proved our system was broken. We've had seven years to put in place a verifiable uniform process and nothing has been done. If anything it's gotten worse. Think, how fricking hard can it be to place a vote and have it counted properly? This isn't rocket-science. It's fairly simple. Yet all efforts to fix this problem have been abandoned. Even the simple things like voting on Saturday or scrapping the antiquated Electoral College haven't been addressed.

Now I ask you, with this obvious evidence of corruption of our election system what makes anyone think the next election won't be rigged? Government of the people, my ass.

"Those that vote don't count, those that count the votes do." Stalin.

This country is a farce. We don't even have a country. We have multi-mega-international corporations that own our government who put on a Dog (Dems) & Pony(Repubs)Show to give us the illusion we have some say in the affairs at hand. And the ignorance of the public to keep falling for this charade would be laughable it it wasn't so tragic.

The Founding Fathers warned us against everything we've turned into. We're not even a Democracy. We weren't meant to be. We're a Republic, or at least we use to be. The FF warned against political parties. They warned against a standing army. They warned against foreign intervention. They warned against career politicians. They warned against a centralized bank. And they warned us that this fragile system of government could be easily taken over from within by forces directly opposed to all that the Constitution implies. They warned us against all these things and we failed - miserably.

Byronw. You must be pretty young, that is exactly how it used to be done, and the poll workers were just like the folks blogging here. They cared and they worked hard all day long and into the night and there were ample volunteers who were fully trusted by their respective parties.

They volunterred and worked for free and there was one from each party, one Repub, one Dem and one Indi counting the votes and checking one another to insure the count was correct before the ballots were sealed. there were others to allow ample pee and lunch breaks.

It workd__ but the TV media didn't like it. It took too long for them. It was too hard for anyone to cheat. Cheating was previlent in a few places in the country, Texas and Illinois were the most prominent exceptions. Dead people put Johnson in office in Texas and Boss Daley insured JFK won Illinois.

That cheating can be corrected to a large extent, but electronic voting will absolutely "ensure" our form of government continues to be fascism!! Democracy is dead in America. Bush gave it away to Iraq.

How about this. At EVERY polling place, ONLY paper ballots are used. No electronic counting. People would be glad to be hired at minimum wage to film the crew counting the ballots in Real Time. Groups of people one from each party, say at least three at each table must agree on the results of each group of ballots. When each stack of so many ballots or so much time gone by has been counted, the ballots are sealed in secure locked storage, numbered by people who counted that stack, so they can not be mistakenly re-counted without a process in place that does just that. As the votes are counted for each table, at intervals staggered by number of votes or by time, the person doing the filming gets the group of people at that table on film saying how many votes are cast for each thing on the ballot in this stack of ballots or this time period. So this stack of sealed ballots with serial number abcdefgetc contains this result. This is preserved as a video record so that at least this part of the voting can't be rigged. The vote totals are continuously reported and updated live after the polls in Alaska have closed, NOT before.

Cost of the entire thing provides employment for a month or more to poor people who really need income. Only people who do not already have jobs are allowed to be vote counters at the tables. Total cost probably less than we spend on the occupation for that period of vote counting. After about four weeks of waiting we would have the results, poor people would have some income and we might feel a bit more like a democracy. (Seriously, I know the voting machine companies would never go for it, but it is a dream of how it could in theory be done. Before the days of electronics they used to count paper ballots. Only the scaling upwards and security parts are different.)

Siouxrose: I believe you are correct. Nobody would make a blanket purchase of untested equipment, and then hang out the loss of millions of dollars as liability unless they -- deliberately -- had planned some monkeybusiness.

What consumer today would buy a car without taking it on a test drive? Purchase a home without an inspection? These unnamed California officials failed their public duty either by their negligence or by their co-option, and ought to be tossed out. We shouldn't even give them the benefit of the doubt.

In our society power/management/etc. is a top-down thing. People are promoted by being pulled up, selected for their sycophantic tendencies, rather than being recognized by their peers or underlings for expertise, integrity, etc. from down below. Everyone is hired or promoted by someone still further up, and so on -- straight to the top. It's led to perhaps the most incompetent administration (and perhaps other sectors in our society as well) in US history.

It may well turn out that some bottom-up power needs to assert itself to correct this problem rampant in our culture. People need to simply insubordinate when they see someone who is titled a manager, but whose gross incompetence or co-option (it doesn't matter which) suggests their being wholly unfit for the capacity.

I've worked in civil service (county & state) or a big-10 university for 20 years, and I have seen this crap many times. A corrupted elected official is one thing -- their term will eventually end, and they need to pass through the election unscathed if they are to remain. A corrupted civil service is something else. They're there for life -- unless someone whistleblows, insubordinates, etc.

I've been a computer programmer for over a decade in a big-10 research environment, degree in computer science (along with my liberal arts degree) and I couldn't trust my own system if I had to write election software. Why's that? Well, it would have other people's code as well -- the system would presumably have BIOS, some sort of networking capability, perhaps even an operating system. Any other layer, outside of my own code -- however good -- could be corrupted. And so I'd have to recommend that we abandon electronic voting machines altogether.

KEM: It's been fun watching you grow disillusioned with being in virtual drag! Pretty funny how you put old Evelyn to rest. You're developing your humor bone on this site. I think you should try your hand at writing short stories bringing into play the components you feel justifiably righteous about (D.U, voter fraud, etc.) People will often entertain IN fiction what their logical minds will turn away from as absolute fact they're unprepared to face. This is why the FOOL (Colbert, Robin Williams) is often the best situated to tell the king/kingdom ("Who Will Tell the People" style) the truth!

RESTORE DEMOCRACY: Thank you for raising the point about voting in churches. It gave me the creeps when I lived in Gainesville, Florida, with a Baptist church on EVERY block! A friend of mine told me her daughter when for a teaching job in Tallahassee and was asked what church she belonged to. This is supposed to be PUBLIC school mind, you! This dissolution of the line between church and state is a very slippery slope, for when people are deluded into faith-based conjecture, they will do almost anything their "religious" leaders tell them to do.
PAUL BRAMSCHER: I take it you're a man of character and principle. The Light beholdeth the darkness and understood it not. What if the goal WAS elections that only LOOKED real and the FIX was intended? You say, "Whoever approved a blanket purchase of untested equipment should be asked to turn around, a steel-toed boot planted in their ass, and they should be dismissed forthwith from public service." I think they knew exactly WHAT they were purchasing. The voting equivalent of "give them cake."

Out the door and pummeled.

Forced to junk millions of dollars in machines if they decertify them? Only in government would you find a pissant bureaucrat who'd allow a contract to go through that didn't lay out, in clear terms, what the security requirements were to be. They'd get one model, certify it, then if it failed they'd return it to the company -- at no cost to the voter. If the machine passed, they order as many as they needed, clearly specifying that the new models must be identical. They'd certify those also, every machine. If any of them failed, they send them back to the company and and tear up the contract.

Whoever approved a blanket purchase of untested equipment should be asked to turn around, a steel-toed boot planted in their ass, and they should be dismissed forthwith from public service. Out the door!

Rigged elections have been taking place in the USA for a long time.

We do not have a democracy any more than we have liberty and justice for all. It's totalitarianism disguised as democracy.

Democracy plus liberty and justice for all in the USA are illusions. It's what they like us to think that we have so that we'll stay out of their way.

Any men who can sleep at night after making decisions that result in the needless deaths (and maiming) of thousands of people including women and little children, are not going to be bothered at all by rigging elections.

To those beasts, it's all about money, power, and the survival of what they call "the fittest". Their days in power are numbered. They will soon fall.

Voting in San Francisco alone, in recent years, apart from computer factors, has included practically no proof of identity or of registry... I cannot count how many times I was not asked for ID, or how often I saw voting booths staffed by certain population groups notorious for political corruption as well as rampant underworld-market dispensation of fake ID papers and cards and abuse of property and citizenship laws.... so why would there be any more honesty in stuffing the ballot-boxes for chosen business interests?
If this is happening at a nationwide level, no wonder we have made-up underworld creatures like Bush (and Schwazi the CokeNazi) in office. The international-fascist-controlled CIA brought its age-old election corruption tricks home to our Homeland.. to destroy our true national security while they call it 'National Security', true to the Fascist doublespeak standards set by Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, and Chiangkaishek the slippery 'christian' Fascist.
Voting needs to be done on paper AND polls need to be closely monitored by carefully chosen monitors, not neighborhood mafia puppets there for show.
And with separation of Church and State as provided by the US Constitution, what's with all the voting polls in churches?... something reeks of ideological hypocrisy.

This is why ALL voting should be done on paper. It takes longer and is more expensive, but is worth it. We could learn a thing or two from the Mexicans here, who use see through vote recepticles to prevent things like Philadelphia Democrats from opening the voting with 1000 votes already cast.

But if we did mail-in voting then how the hell would Bush and his ilk fix elections and control the outcome of the world, and police the entire planet and save all us heathens from ourselves and our destructive dirty habits and don't we all really want to have an ex-coke head (maybe) frat boy turned neo-Christian loser telling us how to live our lives. Come on people Big Brother wants nothing but the best for us all.

So the writer thinks that vote-hackers won't have access to the expensive high tech needed to bypass the machines? My guess is the Republican or Democratic parties have enough money to buy what they need to steal an election! Who does the author think wants to steal the election? Some hacker looking to get "Mickey Mouse" elected to the Senate?

You got it "Abbybwood", right on.

Elections should be of paramount importance. We must conduct them in a timely fashion. and take the time___ to count, every, single vote. Screw the makers of the computer ballot machines and any damn fools who purchased them.

Only vote absentee, Xerox your ballot and all ballots should be counted in each precinct by the PEOPLE. Even if it takes weeks to do it.

The People need to COUNT the ballots, then the People will tell the MSM who won.

Period.

"IF" there is an election next year I'm at the point that I would be satisfied to just sit and watch the MSM SQUIRM because they can not call the freakin' election!

I'd like to hear every other word coming out of their rotten mouths be ABSENTEE BALLOTS...blah, blah ABSENTEE BALLOTS...blah, blah ABSENTEE BALLOTS...

The thing that gripes me about this is that it's well known in the computer world that if you have a million eyes looking at a piece of code, they will find the faults faster than if you have fifty. And the more open software is, the more likely it is that it is secure, NOT the other way around. For the love of God, we have schools in this country that teach people how to do black box breaking, why do these companies insist on the opposite? Because they have money in it. And your vote should be worth more than money.

These are the same companies that make ATM's, and you're telling me that they can't even make a machine that COUNTS properly? They make machines that do that, as well as the rest of the math functions, every day a million times, and they VERY RARELY ever have problems. They make machines for lottery tickets that keep track of every ticket, thousands of times a week. But counting up who puts what check mark in what column is too hard for them to deal with properly?

There should be NO proprietary software used, IF you insist on using the damnable machines at all. I would say no, but that is just me. Make the market for these machines SO cheap that no one would WANT the order.

When you have the president of one company saying that his goal is to deliver his state to one candidate or another, then you clearly have problems. And we do. Right here in River City. With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for polling machines. And money.

You ever wonder if the companies that make voter machines intended to send out flawed programs for the purpose of securing the market rather than for the malicious of changing results of elections? Let me argue some flawed logic for a second:

Once the State shifts over to Touch screen they are kind of fixed. Bureaucracy changes slowly, if it changes at all. If the program turns out to be flawed, then it needs to be fixed. Company X says, "oh, sorry. We have the upgraded version ready with the bugs fixed. Please send a check"

Windows. Bill Gates. Nice racket.

You ever hear the one about the wonder pill for weight reduction? with a money back guarantee?

10^6 people go for it. Shell out $25 for 3 months. 90 days later, 1/3 write back, "lost more weight than ever before! Send me more!". Another 1/3 say, "Not exactly what I expected, but I guess I've lost some weight Please send me more". The last 1/3 said, "Hey, this is a sugar pill. Give me back my money, Huckster!"

The company writes back to 2/3s of the people: "Thank you for your interest in our product. We have had quite an amazing amount of success, however some folks reported they did not lose as much as they had
hoped for in the first 90 days. Well, the good news is we've reformulated our product! The results should be better than ever. The not so good news is that we've had to make a slight increase in the product to pay for the scientific research and for the new reformulated product. But, don't worry, it's a small increase of only 17%. Please don't hesitate. Limited supplies! Buy now!"

The company writes to the last 1/3: "We're sorry you didn't have satisfactory results. 2/3s of our customers are satisfied with the results they have achieved with our pill. However, we have great news. Recently reformulated our product! The results should be better than ever. The not so good news is...(etc) ...Buy now!"

Bev Harris (Black Box Voting) has been trying to tell us this since before the 2004 election. She and many others hve gathered tons of evidence that the machines are easy to hack and in any case cannot be trusted. forget paper trails- they would only report the fraudulent results the computers feed them. paper ballots is the obly way to go.
But something else is wrong here. If ordinary citizens have known about this for so long, why do state governments keep on buying those bogus, fatally flawed machines? Could it be our leaders don't want us to vote at all anymore?

Kem Patrick - The gods are on your side! You no sooner raise this issue on another thread than this article pops up on good old CD. Power! And I agree with you and others - we must never again use electronic voting machines, never again, not for anything, not even dog-catcher.

You're right Sadie.

I like to think of it this way. How come the Federal Reserve can clear millions of checks daily with little problems and we cannot count votes?

Mel

What is this "Forget a third party candidate winning a presidential or congressional election" business?

A third party should be a shoe in since all the voting machines are built to be hacked...

It doesn't matter who votes.
It matters who counts the votes.

If they can make a perfect lottery system with a paper trail then why can't they can do the same for our voting system????

It isn't the hackers from the OUTSIDE that I fear, but those on the INSIDE. It is fairly clear that the last election was carried in no small part thanks to the voting machine industry (Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse is a great place to start on this story). I have read a number of people on this site suggest that Bush and company won't leave when the next election comes around and, in essence, I believe these readers are correct, but I think they misunderstand the method of maintaining power. The arch-conservative sociapathic party (isn't that the official name?) will want to keep the illusion of democracy, so they will want to change the garb of the guard while leaving the same system standing. It is unlikely that they will maintain power by martial law as long as the elections remain within their grasp, as they have been for the last two presidential elections.

www.unknown-arts.org/politics

Scrap voting machines or demand a paper trail. Include paper ballots, phone-in, mail-in ballots and Internet voting on secure sites with passwords and/or charge a minimal credit card fee for each vote. Make hacking the vote a crime punishable by thirty years in prison. Better yet dump politicians and use direct online democracy. Check out Mike Gravels National Initiative.

You know Drex, state legislators are subject to graft just like our legislators are in DC. There are state lobbists too, and there is big big money in selling those electronic voting machines.

A few years ago they had a sting operation in Arizona and taped several state legislators taking cash for votes. It is the same old tune. MONEY!!!

Then there are many who believe that computers are it,__ "nothing else" is any good. I've seen two companies go bankrupt after buying computer systems to run their financial operations. It is all in the hardware and computer hardware can be hacked into and often is. When it is our votes that are subject to computer hackers, we can never regain our lost democracy.

Kem Patrick, I couldnt agree more. Electronic balloting should be forever abolished in the United States.___ Period.
What makes me shake my head is why there is even a debate about using the damn things. This test in California only proves what anyone that has a computer knows so why would any State think their systems were safe enough to use in an election?

I told you so.

Forget a third party candidate winning a presidential or congressional election.

Change the vote counting procedures first.

Steve Wier protests, saying giving the sofware secrets out is like giving a burgler the keys ot your house.

Don't tell us that those software secrets could not be secretly given out to anyone by an employee of the company who designed the software. Money does talk and you can bet your butt, there are already political hackers with all of the computer info needed to alter an election.

Electronic balloting should be forever abolished in the United States.___ Period

Yes -- paper ballots and pens and actual counting of all ballots.

However . . . of course the computer voting machines are a scam --
and journalists have tried to tell us about this since the late 1960's . . .
[See the book "VOTESCAM" or go to their internet site]

We also seem to be trying to block the reality that our press has KNOWN that our elections are frauds probably since at least that time.

Absentee ballots are PAPER ballots --
I'm not saying that they can't be dumped or stolen or destroyed -- just that they are PAPER BALLOTS.

I'd be even more cautious about voting . . .
I'd give every voter a copy of their vote which shold be mailed to either the party they voted for -- or perhaps to the United Nations for a second count?

We use paper ballots in Canada. And Pencils. And we know the election results by the end of the night.

The companies that supply the voting machines are all VERY Bushco freindly, and there have been previous reports that later inspections of the software have revealed some surprising results. Such as '0' for the Democratic party slate equaling -10000. Or '0' for the Republicans equaling +100000.

Oops.

Democracy in the US is dead. You let this happen. Now you have to find a way to deal with this, before and after the next illegal war in the Midle East.

Want to eliminate election fraud? Try this…

"A Better Election System" By Paul Magill Smith 3-8-2K6

"To begin with, in the United States there must be a powerful demolition of the old political order: We need elections where all votes are cast and counted. The campaign against voter repression is the essential civil rights struggle of our time, even though most progressives don't seem to realize it yet. Prevailing will require fundamental reform such as the introduction of nationwide vote-by-mail (the Oregon system). Without that, and also many relentless prosecutions, nothing else will be achieved".---JAMES K. GALBRAITH March 30, 2006 "Taming Global Capitalism Anew"---(April 17, 2006 issue of The Nation Magazine)
James K. Galbraith, chair of the board of Economists for Peace and Security, teaches at the University of Texas and is senior scholar with the Levy Economics Institute

The latest round of corruption in our government stems from the biggest executive crime of all. In collusion with the Supreme Court our glorious president/dictator/tyrant "stole" the election of 2000, with another criminal (Tom DeLay) "stole" a majority in the house through re-districting, and with corporate henchmen in Diebold & Company "stole" another presidency in 2004. Whether you agree with the presidential election results or not there were statistical anomolies, and thousands of citizen complaints that should have required greater scrutiny & inquiry.
Since the 2000 presidential election our national coffers have been looted to the tune of trillions of dollars, and with almost three more years to go in this theocratic oligarchy there is still much more damage to come. Our financial ruin, through an unsustainable balance of trade deficit, massive fiscal deficits, and a consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few individuals & corporations, bodes ill for generations of Americans to come---IF there are generations to come after the effects of global warming, a state of perpetual global war, and depleted uranium have their way with us.
A bleak picture-yes-but there is cause for hope. Going under the assumption most Americans have a streak of common sense, and an inbred respect for 'the rule of law', the first step toward retrieving our now stolen democracy is restoring honesty to our electoral process. Accountability, verifiability, and transparency are not luxuries; they are necessities if democracy in America (the world) is to be viable.
With these considerations in mind I propose an entirely new election system for this country. It uses, for the most part, existing equipment & technology already in place throughout the entire country, and would only require the development of some software. Election expenses would be reduced, election theft would become a thing of the past, and national referendums on key issues would become a possibility. The 'will of the people' would become king, instead of the preferences of King George/Dick/Karl/Donald/ etc.
So here is the idea. Currently in the US there are 368,000 ATM machines. They are easy to use (even from a car), provide a paper trail, accessible by use of a card with security features, and very accurately keep track of billions of transactions every month (a 1% accuracy error, which is acceptable for most elections, would land bankers out of their jobs & very likely jailed).
OK, so the first part deals with voting at ATM's, except when they are being used for elections they would become AVM's (Automatic Voting Machines).
The issue of verifiability would be very simple also. Since each registered voter would receive their own magnetic credit-card type, individually numbered card (requiring a personalized identification number-PIN-to make it work), each voter would have a specific number, and security that they were the only one who had the secret code to access the AVM. Following an election their unique number, along with the way their vote was recorded would be published in the local paper & on the internet at a specific site. Since all the voter numbers could be placed in numerical order it would be easy to scan down the list to your number and verify your vote was cast for the person you wanted it to be.
If it was an election with candidates in a number of positions your vote would read as a multi-character number. An example would be 1324113 in which you voted for 7 different people for as many electable posts. The AVM would have given you a hard copy receipt to be used to verify against the posted list.
ATM's are already linked to central computers, so collection of the total votes from all the machines should present very little problem. Election officials would be necessary at these institutions to verify all the votes were retrieved, but the elimination of officials at each precinct polling place would eliminate much of the costs of holding elections as with our current system. As a further dis-incentive to election fraud, caused by computer tampering, if a certain percentage or number of voters provide their AVM receipt to election officials, and their vote code doesn't match that of the central computers, the election results are AUTOMATICALLY declared void, resulting in a new election.
Since I have only begun thinking & writing about this new system I am sure there are many details to be considered and worked out. The bottom line is the current election system is broken, with millions of Americans lacking confidence in the extant election process & results.
As the world's oldest democracy, holding our 'system' up as a model for budding or want-to-be democracies around the globe, it behooves us to make sure our own system is the best we can possibly make it, and the one others will wish to emulate. "Do as I say" is not good enough. If America is to 'talk the talk' we must 'walk the walk' also.

Paul Magill Smith
Richmond, VA
Rockitz.net

I understand your argument CRCox and sort of agree that everyone should have to vote. However, if we wish to have a free society and our rights of freedoms, we should have a right to not vote also. Like it is now.

I wish everyone did vote, but to be forced or penalized, comes very close to a dictitorial form of govenment. If that was found to be Constitutional, we could then be forced to do many other things, the legal precident would be set.

Paper ballots, a pencil and an adequate number of workers at the polls and ample polling places,___ absolutely. If we were forced to vote and especially if it was electronic voting, I would not like it and believe many otheres would feel the same.

Io Q. Lellity: Well put. Not just Denmark either. Most every country I have ever traveled to, which is more I think fifteen now, also has a system of voter registration and participation that is so simple and infant could figure it out, and usually there are ten times the amount of polling stations as we do. In Budapest, Hungary, for example, there is a polling station within walking distance of virtually every address in the city. Plus, you can opt to mail it in if you don't feel like walking. I could go on and on about this. In Brazil, you can lose the right to get a passport if you don't vote! I love that idea. Take away people's driving licenses or something if they don't vote, but only after we go back to a paper trail.