Millions of US voters will vote electronically in 2004. Most of these machines make no paper record (even gas pumps do), but their manufacturers--the owners of which who are likely Republican--say that the machines can be implicitly trusted, they are so reliable that no recounts will be necessary. Question is, do you think these machines will give unearned votes to Republicans?

These machines are questionable... but not for these reasons. They can't be trusted, but not because republicans make them. What kind of nonsense is that?

There would be a huge incentive to some people for the software within the machines to give unearned votes to Republicans. It would be worth $billions to some people, who'd likely pay millions to whomever could ensure that the machines would do it. I don't think it's nonsense. I think it's a distinct possibility, especially since there's no paper trail to allow a recount--a paper receipt would have been so simple to include and so much in demand that its omission is an indication that the machines may be intended for vote fraud.

I don't believe that the machines are specifically designed to favor the Republican ticket. I do believe that they are problematic and should not be used this fall.

I'm one of the people who will be using them. I missed an earlier opportunity to use them in a local election, but I'll be there this fall for sure.

How do you know that the owners of these machines are Republiucans without even checking out to see? You make aqusations that are unfounded because it could be a Democrat that makes all of them just as well!

It's possible but unlikely. Big business votes Republican. That's their party.

It's possible but unlikely. Big business votes Republican. That's their party.

Riiight. Businessmen hate Democrats. They ignore them completely, and guys like Bill Clinton and John Kerry get all of their support from individual citizens.

Can I move to your world?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4281626,00.html

http://www.blackboxvoting.com

You know, just to look at another side of this: Is there ANY form of voting that won't be a train wreck this year? Are there ANY circumstances under which we will have an uncontested election in Florida? Can we EVER agree on election results again?

Maybe. How long are you willing for it to take, how much paper do you want to count?
The point is how good can you make it? It looks to a foreigner, ie me, that your system is rather complex, and the electronic voting systems are too potentially exploitable. So, better stick to paper, right?

The big problems will occur not from votes being added, but being removed by voting systems instructed to do so. Reports coming from Florida point out thousands of voters who were unable to vote in 2000 due to their names being incorrectly on lists of felons who were not allowed to vote. Many of the names were not supposed to have been entered into the system, but were. There are reports out of Florida that this is happening again, and there is a huge effort underway to correct this before the election. The only problem is that people my not know they're on the list until Election Day comes, and then it'll be too late.

Additionally, there have also been reports of errors in the counting of votes by machines. Of course these aren't as firm as the reports of people who should have been able to vote in Florida, but weren't allowed to. Essentially, people would vote for a candidate, and it would count it as a vote for the other, indicating that the machine was incorrectly programmed as to which button corresponded with the particular candidate. Unfortunately, you can't do a recount with these electronic voting machines and to this day we have no idea exactly how prevelent this was.

Further causing concern, the head of DIEBOLD, the top electronic voting machine manufacture has been quoted as saying, (paraphrased) "We’ll make sure Bush gets the electoral votes he needs."

Best wishes,
Will Kirby

Mod Note: No spaming.

Further causing concern, the head of DIEBOLD, the top electronic voting machine manufacture has been quoted as saying, (paraphrased) "We’ll make sure Bush gets the electoral votes he needs."

Got a reference on that?

I mostly agree with a quote in the link Mr. Chips posted above:

From Activist: E-Voting to Be a 'Train Wreck' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4281626,00.html):
“I never looked at this as a computer problem or even a conspiracy,” said Harris. “I always looked at it as an auditing problem, the exact equivalent of taking away canceled checks, invoices and receipts. You take away oversight - someone will steal. I guarantee it.”

Except I do call it a conspiracy, because otherwise the makers would have included an audit trail that allows a recount. It’s just point blank obvious that these machines should have that.

As a software developer, I know how some programmers would salivate at the opportunity to embed some malicious code within these systems. Throwing an election their way (or the way of some paid backer) would be the ultimate achievement. They could make the code very hard to detect. Should we trust that a few companies have enough checks & balances within them to prevent such code? Thus putting the entire country’s trust into the hands of a few unelected executives, who also have a huge incentive to manipulate the code? Obviously not.

I predict that these systems will have audit trails after the exit polls of a few big elections differ widely from the tally of the machines. I give it about 5 years.

Got a reference on that?

It’s in Electronic voting needs a paper trail (http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/0629-Electronic-121945.html):

The problems with electronic voting machines are numerous and grave, starting with the fact that the software that runs them is considered "proprietary information" by the companies that make them. In other words, they won't tell anyone what it is, how it works or anything else about the systems, meaning we have no way of knowing if they're clean, reliable or even functional.

That uncomfortable situation was rather dramatically underlined when Walden (Wally) O'Dell, chairman and CEO of Diebold Election Systems and a Bush campaign "Pioneer" (meaning he raised at least $100,000), wrote in a 2003 fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." Diebold was trying to get on Ohio's "favored vendor" list and is now on it. Elections Systems and Software, the country's largest maker of the machines, also has a Republican pedigree.

Wow. I thought at least there'd be some government oversight on the code. Even slot machines are well-tested by the government. This is scary stuff.

Also therein:

There are bills in both the U.S. Senate and House to require paper trails in time for the 2004 election, but they're stuck in committee. Take pen in hand and write (or e-mail) your elected representative, ASAP.

If Bush gets re-elected, what do you suppose that odds are that these bills will be permanently stuck in committee (like how campaign finance reform goes nowhere forever)? I say pretty high.

Funny how you didn't mention before that he was an electoral representative, and was speaking in that context. They all say that, Democrat and Republican alike, so it means nothing.

I certainly agree that that's a questionable position for him to take, given that his company is supplying the voting equipment for the election. In fact it's a wrong position completely. But if it is your contention that he intends to CHEAT on the election, you'll have to prove that.

http://www.diebold.com/whatsnews/inthenews/executive.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm


for those who don't know, the easiest way to manipulat the votes on the DIEBOLD machines is to avoid using the built-in applications. When the files are pulled from the machines, they are stored as MS Access files. this is not a problem, as long as the files are only used with the DIEBOLD applications, which keep track of the votes history (ie, if things are changed, there will be a record). However, with a simple procedure, one can remove the password protection on the MS Access file, make any desired changes to the file (and the vote counts), put the password back, and save all the changes. At that point, there is no audit trail on the changes, and no way to know that the vote counts were changed at all.

the one good thing that's happened as of late is that diebold accidentally left an FTP site on one server open; some white-hat hackers got in and stole some of the code. While it has been determined illegal, and is hard to find, it is still available around the web. it is poorly written, full of hacks, ammendments, etc...
There have even been cases of the code being certified for use in an election, and then being changed *without notification to election officials* the day before the election. Untrusted code used for the election, only discovered after the election was final.
They've had instances of thousand of people voting in cities with only a few hundred voters. its a shambles, and the O'Dell's connection to the Bush campaign only serves as an additional conflict of Interest.

Funny how you didn't mention before that he was an electoral representative, and was speaking in that context. They all say that, Democrat and Republican alike, so it means nothing.

I certainly agree that that's a questionable position for him to take, given that his company is supplying the voting equipment for the election. In fact it's a wrong position completely. But if it is your contention that he intends to CHEAT on the election, you'll have to prove that.

Well the California Attorney's General is investigating that as we speak.

Best wishes,
Will Kirby

Mod Note: No spaming.

But if it is your contention that he intends to CHEAT on the election, you'll have to prove that.

That's the issue. It can't be proven. The code is proprietary, so the public has to trust him. Millions of votes are riding on the public's trust of a few active Republican supporters.

Of course it can be proven. Don't get so hung up on technology that you forget the value of a few well-placed telephone calls and a hopefull whistle-blower or two.

What we need to do, however, is create an environment in this country that supports independent and objective reasoning. If that phone call comes in right NOW, in THIS environment, and you'd just have people on the right wing checking the whistle-blower's background for known left-wing connections. Round and round and round we go, where it stops nobody knows....

REASON
EVIDENCE
THOUGHT
OBJECTIVITY

THOSE are the watch words of the 21st century.

I mean that it can't be practically proven. It's like proving that Enron was behind the California blackouts. It may take years to prove. There'd have a lawsuit first, to gain access to the proprietary technology.

Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/)
Link: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-dvote28jul28,0,2442513.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
Title: "Loss of vote data in Miami-Dade raises worry over machines"
Date: July 28, 2004

Well ... if this isn't just what we needed:

Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near.

The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary. A citizens' group uncovered the loss this month after requesting all audit data from that election.

A county official said a new backup system would prevent electronic voting data from being lost in the future.

But members of the citizens' group Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition said the malfunction underscored the vulnerability of electronic voting records and wiped out data that might have shed light on what problems, if any, existed with touch-screen machines . . . .

. . . . The news of the lost audit data comes two months after Miami-Dade elections officials acknowledged a malfunction in the audit logs of touch-screen machines. The elections office first noticed, but did not publicly announce, the malfunction until after municipal elections last fall, around the time that the system crashed and the 2002 audit data was lost.

[b]Source:{/b] Sun-Sentinel (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-dvote28jul28,0,2442513.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines)

Welcome to Florida? Why, just today, a Florida swing-voter mentioned his fears regarding the Democratic ticket. Perhaps there's no point in fighting for that vote, eh? It may not matter how you vote if you live on down America's wang.

There's actually a question that goes here. To put it into context:

• When Bush became president, did we really expect things to go as they have?

The real question:

• Could we have imagined e-voting going over so horribly?

I mean ... sure, I had concerns, but I didn't think we'd be hearing about this.

Welcome to Florida. Welcome to America.

I will borrow and adapt a line from Belle & Sebastian:

If you feel you've got a Truth
Then take it to the voting booth
The chances are you'll probably feel better
If you stay and play with yourself
______________________

• Goodnough, Abby. "Loss of vote data in Miami-Dade raises worry over machines." South Florida Sun-Sentinel. July 28, 2004. See http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-dvote28jul28,0,2442513.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
----- see also http://nytimes.com/2004/07/28/politics/campaign/28vote.final.html (registration required)

Both Democrats and Republicans ought to be afraid of e-voting.

Gee, what if we went back to the paper ballot marked with a green sharpie marker and dropped into a wooden box with a slot cut in the top and a padlock on the front? Make it a two-parter, like a movie ticket. Put a serial number on both halves and give the receipt to the voter. Let the parties assign representatives to manually count the votes and certify the results. Put braille and embossed circles on it for the blind.

Why on earth would this be a bad thing? You know how many show up tp vote at a precinct. You know the starting and ending serial numbers on the ballots. If the numbers don't match, then something funny is going on. The ballots themselves exist in perpetuity, allowing examination at any time. Put 'em in a box with dual keys like a missle silo - nobody can look at them unless reps of both parties are there to turn the keys.

While we're at it, let's declare a two-day national holiday while this all happens, and let's also prohibit the news media from saying a single word about the election or its results during this forty-eight hour period. Let's also declare that if you show up at the voting place you get a receipt that is good for a $500 deduction on your taxes.

One more thing - I guess I can understand why we would want to disenfranchise incarcerated people from voting - but why is it ethical to permanently disenfranchise felons when they have "paid their debt to society", as they used to say. Seems a little unconstitutional to me.

I like the idea of votes being fully auditable. I’d support e-voting if the machine (or my printer) spit out a receipt with a serial number on it. Lottery tickets are fully auditable, why not votes?

I don’t like the national holiday idea. Too many as it is. Hardly any services are open and those that are, are crowded. No need for time off for voting since people should be able to vote from home at 10pm with e-voting.

Just thought of something—with an absentee ballot you can vote a month before the election. If e-voting were allowed early then you can bet that someone will tally the votes “so far” and tip off one party or the other. Presumably the losing party will work harder to catch up. Just another way that e-voting might change elections.

Felons haven’t fully paid their debt to society until they die. Otherwise they’d be allowed to vote! The thinking is that their vote is likely for sale.

Both Democrats and Republicans ought to be afraid of e-voting.

Exactly right.

It's also (IMO) a classic case of people (in this case government pinheads) leaping to the conclusion that new technology solves everything just *because* it's hi-tech. They get won over by fancy promises and embrace something they really don't understand in part *because* they don't understand it.

They should instead embrace the old slogan about things that are "too good to be true".

Oh paallleeeeaase! What a bunch of shrill nonsense!

First, the vote needs to be a verifiable vote, but this is pure bunk about these machines being a Republican conspiracy or whatever the original poster is trying to make it out to be.

In personal experience I can show where democrats (on a local level) have manipulated votes and certified elections that should have never been certified. In fact, they have been taken to court several times, and lost several times. But, by the time that happens, the democrat who 'won' has been in office for several years and are already running for the next election. The corruption is so rampant, there is no point to challenging a loss.

The original posters suggestion that this is a Republican created issue I think is an irresponsible and a chicken shit statement. No matter a person’s party affiliation, those who knowingly and purposefully engage in election deceit and fraud should all be thrown in prison and stripped of their privileges.

The reason it would likely be Republicans manipulating the machines is because they own the companies that make the machines. They also have the money & motive to buy off the manipulators.