Kentucky Officials "Changed Votes At Voting Machines" 494
The indispensible jamie found a report out of Kentucky of exactly the kind of shenanigans that voting-transparency advocates have been warning about: a circuit court judge, a county clerk, and election officials are among eight people indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. As described in the indictment (PDF), the election officials divvied up money intended to buy votes and then changed votes on the county's (popular, unverifiable) ES&S touch-screen voting systems, affecting the outcome of elections at the local, state, and federal levels.
Re:Treason (Score:3, Interesting)
Bear in mind that the people who write the laws are the winners of elections.
That's why it's critical that this be handled harshly. When the guardians deliberately attack their charges, the penalties must be severe.
Re:Election Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Standards of democracy? (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect that in elections from 2000 to 2006, the standards of democracy in the US fell to below what we would consider acceptable in emerging democracies. Where there would be monitoring from outside observers.
Actually, many international Organizations wanted to monitor the US-american elections.
They were not allowed.
Go figure...
Re:Treason (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Election Fraud (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Election Fraud (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Election Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things I like about slashdot, after the number of people with true expertise, is the wide representation of many view points. On a few other popular sites I visit things feel much more slanted in one direction or another. Here in discussions of politics or religion (to name a couple of the more inflammatory topics) there seems to be a good number of people from all over the spectrum. I prefer that to an echo chamber. (Yes, we are pretty bad about the FOSS thing - but I'm willing to let that slide.)
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Election Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
The F/OSS thing doesn't have a particularly controversial position. If you understand it, your probably support, endorse or apply it. If you don't understand it, you probably don't. I have yet to know someone who both understood F/OSS and didn't also support it or use it. My brother is a hard core Microsoft supporter but also uses F/OSS because it works... the Microsoft thing pays for his house and stuff like that though.
Doesn't surprise me (Score:3, Interesting)
It really doesn't surprise me about this. A lot of judges and officials really just don't "get it" IMHO for stuff like this. During this last presidential election, the lines were very long in some areas depending on where you went to vote (I waited until about 5:30 and didn't have to wait but about 30-40 minutes, so it wasn't too bad).
Now, I work in government, so the election committee was discussing turnout on the mass email the next day. One of the judges wrote, commenting about low long the lines were and how ridiculous it was, and actually suggested that perhaps just calling (by phone) a random subset of people and basing the whole election off the sample would be better than letting each and every person vote.
Sure, no possible way THAT could be abused . . .
Re:Election Fraud (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody said that Democrats could not do evil things and betray the trust of the people.
What we're saying is that when Republicans do it, the criminals are protected and sheltered by the party. When Democrats do it, we eject them from the party and prosecute them.
And on Slashdot, no matter the discussion, we add fuel to the fire.
Quote - "affecting the outcome of elections"... (Score:3, Interesting)
"affecting the outcome of elections at the local, state, and federal levels. "
Source please? Not saying your wrong, I just missed that detail when I RTFA.
Re:Election Fraud (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it clearly says that WW and CW were the Democrat and Republican election officials for a certain precinct. Meaning that both Democrats and Republicans were in on it.
--The FNP
Solved problem (Score:1, Interesting)
There is a system, that provides verification *and* allows the voter to take the verification without being able to sell it. It's so simple anyone can understand it.
The vote is divided into two images, each with random pixels. They are printed on transparent media. When they are lined up, you can read the votes.
The person votes electronically. The vote is printed, it stays behind glass, in a clear chute. The voter verifies it then presses a button. Each of the two images drops down a separate chute. The voter chooses which one to take. From verification to division to storage, the entire handling of the verification media is visible behind glass. No monkey business possible.
If a verification must be done, the voter brings in their image and it's combined with the retained image. Any alteration on either shows up. They can only be read when re-combined, so the vote remains private.
Verification, papertrail, tamper-proof, secure, simple.
I really just don't understand the professional ethic that allows someone to build a sell a machine that sucks, when building a good machine is trivial.
Re:Standards of democracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, many international organizations with an axe to grind thought it would make good political theater to offer to monitor them. When countries like Cuba offer their expertise in running fair, open democracies, that's not really a comment on the US, is it? It's evidence of just how dumb their propoganda machines think everyone else is. When Hugo Chavez mentions his willingness to help, though, we should take him up on it. That will give him something else to think about for a day, besides using violence and prisons to crush his own election rivals. I understand that Iran also offered to help out. It's hard to deny that allowing them to do so would make for great fun.
Re:Election Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
you have it backwards, since I didnt vote, I can bitch at the rest of you for picking morons.
Re:Put up or shut up (Score:1, Interesting)
A couple of things:
I'm not a Republican. I'm one of those Libertarians you mentioned a while back.
We're not talking about "the Media". Looking in "the Media" is how I found out the guys in question were Democrats. "The Media" didn't hide the fact at all. What we're talking about is /.
Now, the problem may be that /. editors don't like story submissions that mention that Democrats are scoundrels. I have no evidence one way or another.
Or it may be that people who submit stories don't like to point out that the Democrats are scoundrels. Again, I have no evidence one way or another, since I never pay attention to who submitted a story.
Alternatively, it may be that Democrats are assumed to be scoundrels by default, and that it's only worth mentioning when a Republican is a scoundrel. Which is basically silly, since both Democrats and Republicans are scoundrels by default.
Re:Treason (Score:3, Interesting)
In the context of the U.S., its Founding Fathers were very reluctant to label as treason anything that could be used by a tyrant to strike down on legitimate internal opposition. Therefore, they were left with only two very specific acts that would be considered treason:
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. (...)"
"Conspiracy to rig an election" is just not on that list.
I understand but to my point of view the highest treason possible against a democracy is tampering with the voting process because it is faith in that process that serves as the underpinning for the entire society. If you cannot trust the vote, what can you trust? Tampering with the vote should have the same sense of shock and horror we reserve for pedophilia and necrophilia. The consequences should be drastic and dreadful so that even a Nixon wouldn't dream of incurring them. Frankly, it's the only crime I can think of worthy of the death penalty at a federal level, and this is coming from someone who doesn't support capital punishment in practice because the system is too flawed to carry it out equitably.
Re:Election Fraud (Score:5, Interesting)
Which I would have expected just from the tactic.
Historically, Democratic election fraud takes the form of ballot stuffing, voter fraud and otherwise directly tampering with the election system. They certainly don't have a lock on it, and there are definitely known cases of Republicans using such tactics (Palm Beach in 2000), but it is the traditional domain of Democrats. In effect, any time you see vote tampering or over-voting, there's probably a Democrat behind it.
Republicans, on the other hand, have generally done a better job of voter intimidation and lock-out. Again, Democrats have been known to send out the police to harass and scare opposition voters the day before an election, or break voter registration procedures such that it takes a lot of work for a ballot to be cast and it is likely to be discredited after the fact anyway, but this is more traditionally associated with Republicans. In effect, any time you see voter intimidation or under-voting, there's probably a Republican behind it.
Of course, down the thread it looks like this was a 50/50 job, so I guess we're both wrong... but mostly you.
Re:Treason (Score:2, Interesting)
Look how smart people do it (Score:1, Interesting)
A lot of Americans are conditioned to believe that technology is the appropriate solution to every problem. The truth is, optimal solutions are almost always a well thought out mix of people, processes and technology.
Take a look at how electronic voting machines are used in India - Indian electronic voting machines have been widely used in various elections at the state and national levels for several years now and they have been wildly successful.
http://www.slate.com/id/2107388/
Actually, I think the above article's claim that "The Indian machines are vulnerable to retail fraud (but, because of the basic design, are much less subject to wholesale fraud)" is incorrect.
The Indians solve potential for "retail fraud" by putting in strong polling and counting processes with automatic checks and balances. For example, the procedure for opening of polls at a polling station involves, each candidate's authorized representative voting in a mock-poll-and-count in the presence of the presiding officer. The machine is used for actual polling only once the representatives certify that the machine functions as expected.
http://eci.nic.in/faq/evm.asp
The Indians may not be using any fancy-schmancy touchscreens but they do have a solution which works. Kudos to them.
RTFA now (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing about this article supports you.
So, quit banging your own drum when you don't even know the tune being played.
I am so tired of you "Bush stole the election freaks". Any excuse to ignore the fact that the person whose views you supported was not accepted by the majority. So how does the 2008 election get a pass? Is it only because the person you wanted to win did so?
Really, I want to know, is it only a problem when you lose?
Re:Election Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, because Larry Craig, Tom DeLay and their ilk are still so very much sheltered by the Republican party..
Meanwhile, Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, Barney Frank and the like are in the worst position for the country: rather than being prosecuted for sweetheart loans and campaign contributions from AIG, they're actually being entrusted with fixing the current mess that they largely helped create. Way to go.
Re:Election Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
If you think the Democrats are immune to fraud just wait a few years. They haven't been in power long enough yet to get as corrupt as the GOP was.
Re:Election Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
You forget another culprit: the system.
Systems are shaped by many idiocies of the moment--legislators adding convolutions designed to help or hurt some group. The tax code is so horribly complicated it's nigh impossible to do taxes right. Elections are also like this. For instance, in Texas neither R's or D's got on the ballot in time. In 2005, Texas changed the lead time from 60 days to 70 days. Why? Who knows, but it's just the sort of thing to trip up political parties. It's hard to imagine they had a valid reason for that change. Red light cameras and parking meters are well known to be revenue generation schemes, whatever authorities try to claim about safety.
Other schemes generate dirt. Of course some politicians are dirty rotten cheating scoundrels. But if you want to find reasons why any particular politician is a scumbag, and you aren't worried about being fair, you won't have far to look. There's all kinds of hoked up crud you can nail anyone on. As said in All The King's Men, "there's always something". Tax cheating seems to be the flavor of the moment. It's little wonder our best people don't want to go into politics. We've had many calls for "kinder gentler" politics, working with the opposition, reaching across the aisle. But many prefer vicious, bloody, dramatic fights, no mercy, no forgiveness. You can help by curbing your desire for the latter.