Inside Electronic Voting Machines 398
Alien54 and several other people wrote in about a couple of stories published in a New Zealand webzine: an examination of an electronic voting system, and some less interesting political speculation about it. Diebold voting systems are in fairly wide use, and apparently provide zero security to keep election officials from writing in whatever election totals they want.
First vote! (Score:5, Funny)
And then rig the results.
Re:First vote! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First vote! (Score:5, Informative)
At least in Florida, no one was encouraged to vote the DAY AFTER the election.. the final "unofficial" recount had Gore winning by a wide margin, except for one thing...
Ever wonder how in 2000 there were an unusual amount of "Florida military ballots" that went through the postal system LATE and WITHOUT POSTMARK?
That normally does not happen (especially since mail ballots are sent EARLY and mail can't be routed without a postmark).
Next election will be worse with Saudi control (Score:4, Informative)
Next election will be even more corrupt for military ballots. Military personnel will vote online in 2004
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/126504_vote14
The company that has been contracted to provide this service was just bought by a group of Saudi investors.
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzelec0227.sto
"Election.com, a struggling Garden City start-up scheduled to provide online absentee ballots for U.S. military personnel in the 2004 federal election, has quietly sold controlling power to an investment group with ties to unnamed Saudi nationals, according to company correspondence."
You wanna see how computerized voting really works?
Go here:
http://www.cntrybob.com/Fun/Voter/voter.html [cntrybob.com]
Why bother to vote at all. Just resign yourself to fighting a revolution. If you value freedom and democracy.
Re:First vote! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First vote! (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about it: How many people would it need to care about rigged elections in order for it to be brought to light ? There is lots of evidence that the 2000 elections were less than proper, but so far there has been very little response to these allegations. A normal reaction would be absolute outrage by ALL politicians and an inquiry that brings up every last bit of evidence. The fact that this has not happened shows that politicians are happy with the status quo (two parties, for outsiders absolutely indistinguishable that exchange the baton every four to eight years).
As if the only subjects you can differ on are abortion, healthcare and whether or not we should endorse a government religion.
I need my meds.. (Score:4, Funny)
[tinfoil_hat]In the near future we will be given ballots containing RFIDs which will tie the voter to the vote. mwahahahaha![/tinfoil_hat]
Re:I need my meds.. (Score:2, Informative)
Hanging Chads (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course (Score:5, Funny)
good website about this whole topic (Score:4, Informative)
I'll take 500,000 (Score:2, Flamebait)
Abuse potential (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Abuse potential (Score:4, Interesting)
But if democracy is going to be done away with through the adoption of flawed technology, I feel I have no choice but to act. Luckily, I believe budgetary constraints are preventing these 'upgrades' in my area.
Re:Abuse potential (Score:5, Insightful)
Except in Florida.
Re:Abuse potential (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Abuse potential (Score:4, Informative)
As our friend the Peruvian senator [slashdot.org] pointed out, in a real democracy the people would have access not only to the raw data of elections but also to the software used to compute the outcome of said elections (amazingly he said this before our 2000 election debacle).
Anyone have any idea what sorts of physical voting mechanisms the Peruvians use to interact with those OSS voting systems?
Diebold. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually (Score:4, Informative)
Most banks are rushing to get security features like this in place, because these are the things that government bank examiners have field days on. Don't blame this on the bank, this is out of their hands.
Re:Diebold. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Diebold. (Score:3, Informative)
Electronic voting in U.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
The short story is that they were all very flashy and glitzy, but all had severe problems with security and/or usability. We eventually decided to run a pilot program in last year's off-year election and try out 5 of the most promising machines in a real-world election. The final winner will be used across the state in 2004.
No more hanging chad, but I think we are going to have a whole new set of problems to deal with.
Re:Electronic voting in U.S. (Score:2)
messiness of reality, preferring the aesthetic
sheen of fantasy and fraud.
Does it really take a computer... (Score:5, Funny)
Eletronic voting in the real world (Score:5, Informative)
Concerns regarding accuracy of the self-auditing systems caused the legislature to mandate a retrofit of 3% (some 12,000 machines) to produce a paper ballot that the voter could peruse and deposit in a box for recount (the first large-scale use of the "Mercuri Method" -- described more fully here "A Better Ballot Box? [ieee.org]").
These paper-trail machines were successfully used during the October 6, 2002 election, and it is hoped that their other machines will eventually be retrofitted as well. Further discussion on this subject can be found in the article: "The importance of recounting votes [notablesoftware.com]" by Michael Stanton (originally published in Portuguese as "A importância da recontagem de votos", on the website of the Agência O Estado de São Paulo, November 13, 2000, http://www.estadao.com.br/tecnologia/coluna/stant
Need paper trail (Score:5, Interesting)
OTOH... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, any system that lets the voter check their vote also lets someone forcing them to vote one way or another to verify that they've done as commanded.
Re:OTOH... (Score:2)
few years of cryptography. For example, the voting
machine could issue a receipt from which any possible
combination of votes can be derived. Only the
voter knows which key is correct. The voter can
report a false key to a coercer.
But frankly, I think the option of a receipt is
preferrable, even if the system does not preclude
vote-buying certification. The amount of fraud in
the last two elections was orders of magnitude
higher than in the preceeding decade,
Re:OTOH... (Score:3, Interesting)
Scrutiny of the system would scale with the amount of interest in it. If ten isolated people in Florida report their votes miscounted, no biggee. If those ten people get their friends to verify their votes as well and there emerges a pattern of claims, an investigation can begin. A single case of claimed miscounting - whether it be genuine miscounting, voter fraud, or senility - need not trigger an investigati
Re:Need paper trail (Score:4, Funny)
Find 99% of 18 year old's SSNs, enter into voting machine, instant winner.
Re:Need paper trail (Score:3, Insightful)
And how can you assure voting is anonymous when the
machine can keep the votes ordered by time and it's
easy to note when a voter verified his identity?
Re:Need paper trail (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok for the receipt to the commission, but I'm not completely sure about the receipt to the voter: let's say that some days before the elections someone comes to you telling how you should vote, "or else". And he requires that after the elections, you show him a proof that you actually voted as you were told.
This went so far in some areas of Italy that on the last (regional) elections the usage of photocameras and videophones were explicitly forbidden in the voting booth. And yes, someone actually tried anyways and was discovered (and his vote invalidated).
So, in some way, being unable to prove to someone else how you voted is not entirely a bad idea.
(of course it can be objected that the nasty guys could come after you anyways if the result of the elections is not the expected one, regardless of how you actually voted...).
This article raises an excellent point (Score:5, Interesting)
The only solution I can suggest for an all-electronic voting system would require extensive use of cryptography. Every voter would have to register a public key and every vote would be cryptographically signed. This would require a database of public keys outside of any political influence and it would also require that voters keep their private keys secure, both of which are enormous problems.
Given these drawbacks, an antequated punchcard system doesn't seem quite so bad...
Re:This article raises an excellent point (Score:2, Interesting)
We could use stand-alone systems with a touch screen. Once all of the selections are made, have a 'confirm selections' and print a hard-copy that is automatically put into a sealed tray.
By sealed, I mean that voters have no access to it, so the officials running the booth have to collect the printouts occasionally. It could even remain locked until a certian number of printouts are collected, say 100, to help ensure anonyminity (yeah, I'm pretty sure that's spelled wrong). There could also be a tim
Re:This article raises an excellent point (Score:2)
Nobody can trust anyone else to properly count their votes. So I say to hell with this system based on trust. Anarchy for everyone!
Plenty of Security (Score:3, Interesting)
They could certainly be abused, however, in smaller state and local elections where a small handful of votes can make a huge difference.
Re:Plenty of Security (Score:2)
Re:Plenty of Security (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like in Florida? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Plenty of Security (Score:4, Informative)
You're forgetting that the exit polls declared Gore the winner in Florida, by a pretty good margin. However, the *official* ballots told a different story, mostly because of all the accidental Buchannan votes. So without an audit trail, vote riggers could just say "Gosh, I guess those people reporting their votes to the exit pollers were mistaken or lying."
Re:Plenty of Security (Score:2)
Re:Plenty of Security (Score:2)
There were no VNS exit polls in 2002.
The US military wants to use windows (Score:5, Interesting)
But there is a bad thing - the system they are promoting runs on MS Windows - including Win 95/98 - using Internet Explorer (5.5 and up) and Netscape.
Somehow they have in their minds that if they run HTTPS and require anti-virus software that the machines will be secure enough so that votes made through those machines won't be buggered.
Oh, and did I mention that the voter registration occurs through the same machines and same web-browser/https mechanisms?
Seems to me that this is a recipie for disaster - I don't consider any operating system safe from tampering, particularly none of the MS products. And these machines will likely be shared by many people, configured by DHCP (itself a security risk), perhaps with programs being loaded over insecure nets from insecure file servers, and crossing the internet via web proxies, "transparent" web caches, WCCP, and who knows what else.
This could make Florida 2000 look like a picnic.
How is this different than with paper ballots? (Score:2)
So long as the data from the electronic machines is still available for a recoun
Re:How is this different than with paper ballots? (Score:5, Informative)
And a lot easier to forge.
To stuff a ballot box, you need the right paper, ink, and print format BEFORE the election. This creates a paper trail and gives us time to stop you before you do it.
It also requires multiple criminals, which may very well turn state's evidence.
To change purely electronic data, it can be done on the fly, during the election, by one angry man, leaving apparently NO traces, according to the analysis of the machines currently used. And their would be no way to recover the original data.
The original paper ballots can and DO get checked by hand. To really fix any election that has paper ballots, it is MUCH harder than a pure electron one.
The perfect colution... (Score:2)
This would have saved the Florida election officials so much time in the 2000 elections.
Commodotize Voting Machines (Score:5, Insightful)
My only big design point is Dual Receipt, like a credit card transaction. Fast electronic count, paper count for them, paper count for me.
Some observations (Score:5, Interesting)
But the biggest problem with there report is that they spend a lot of time talking about essentiallly one issue, that the tables are available for anyone with the password to edit and manipulate. There doesn't seem to be any type of tiered access and because they use access, a TRUE audit trail can not be created.
I would think that a voting system would be important enough to warrant the extra time to create a custom DB that audits absolutely everything to a file/table that can't be touched by anyone but the app (e.g. only the app can add rows and rows can never be deleted). I assume that Diebold was able to use Access because it made their bid lower and the company that actually had a decently secure system was underbid.
I smell a voter's lawsuit, oh to be a lawyer.
Who needs voting machines? (Score:2, Informative)
and
American expats will be able to vote in the 2004 US election over the Internet following the launch of a new experiment. [expatica.com]
What ever happened to the concern? (Score:5, Insightful)
Three years later, and it seems that equipment manufacturers have managed to blithely ignore every bit of it. And apparently, so have the people purchasing the stuff.
Electronic voting is stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Somebody Call Georgia (Score:2)
How many installations do you think are using the default password?
Re:Somebody Call Georgia (Score:4, Insightful)
Voting is one domain where Microsoft needs to step aside and let someone else do it right.
A little inflammatory (Score:4, Interesting)
Fortunately, as someone who has served as an election judge (working the polls) in Minnesota, I can tell you that these concerns are a little overblown. We use the optical scan machines here, and we submit the precinct detail report (list 1 for those who read the article) to the county electronically and in paper format (3 copies). Additionally, we have all the paper ballots that were filled out by the voters carefully stored in the machines during the voting period, and then mailed to the county in sealed envelopes and signed by all the election judges.
Not only is the written process pretty fail-safe, but I worked an election where there was a discrepancy between our ballot count (kept as people vote) and the machine count at the end of the day. We hand-counted all the ballots (they were bubble test style, so no hanging chads or dimples) to make sure the count was accurate. Even if someone had hacked the voting machine, there was little chance for them to bust into the voting machine to steal or alter the ballots.
Additionally, although some nefarious person could hack the machine, I have no idea when they would. Most polling places have a team of election judges present from the time the machine is unlocked until after the results have been transmitted. Judges are not supposed to linger near the voting machine for any length of time. Certainly it's important to implement appropriate safeguards in the software (such as the automatic numbering system that was disabled for the log file), but chances of election fraud due to machine tampering are pretty darn low.
Re:A little inflammatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Electronic voting in US (Score:2, Insightful)
Electronic Voting... (Score:2)
Re:Electronic Voting... (Score:2)
for any desired definition of "correct".
No different than from voting in South Texas (Score:5, Funny)
Oh My God ... (Score:4, Funny)
(From the article - emphasis mine)
At the county office, there is a "host computer" with a program on it called GEMS.
GEMS receives the incoming votes and stores them in a vote ledger. But then, we found, it makes another set of books with a copy of what is in vote ledger 1. And at the same time, it makes yet a third vote ledger with another copy.
The Elections Supervisor never sees these three sets of books. All she sees is the reports she can run: Election summary (totals, county wide) or a detail report (totals for each precinct). She has no way of knowing that her GEMS program is using multiple sets of books, because the GEMS interface draws its data from an Access database, which is hidden.
What's next? NASDAQ running off of Access?
MS Access?!?! (Score:2)
Re:Oh My God ... (Score:2)
AFAIK, Microsoft is one of the leading makers of 'undocumented features' [eeggs.com] in the industry.
Pun intended.
Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Deliberate abuse just one of many factors (Score:4, Interesting)
I found this gem on alternet [alternet.org]:
While we may look at hacking or intentional fraud as one of the only (or few) potential abuses WRT electronic voting, we might forget about structural abuse like we've seen in Florida. It makes me laugh when someone comments on a vote saying "the people have spoken". We should just roll dice instead...Source code availability (Score:2, Interesting)
They mention that there is some corruption of some files, and offer
and some are password protected, and recommend:
Personally, as someone who also does configuration management, I found the Motherlode in Vol 2: cvs.tar, which does, indeed, have the entire cvs source code tree. Note that it is damaged, and about 1/3rd of the 72M of code won't untar (though I suspect that someone with a good familiarity
Won't Prevent Voter Fraud (Score:2)
1. Voter registration is nothing more than filling out a postcard with name, address and political party. No ID needed. Easy to create "fake accounts."
2. When you go to the polls. They don't look at your ID. In fact, they are not allowed to ask for ID. Easy to fake as long as you know some voters or previous voters in the area.
3. Voter rolls are not regularly purged so people that have moved or died can still
Re:Won't Prevent Voter Fraud (Score:5, Informative)
The reason I've been told that one isn't allowed to ask for an ID to vote is that it would be a violation of the Constitution - specifically, the 24th Amendment [findlaw.com].
Now, you're asking yourself, "why would asking for an ID violate the prohibition of poll taxes?" Think about the time you got (or last renewed) your driver's licence. It wasn't free, was it? Ta-dah! A poll tax.
So, if you've got to show a photo ID to vote, the state's got to provide a free photo ID. And most states right now are too broke to even think about something like this.
And as far as point 3 - Purging of the voting roles led to big problems in the 2000 election in Florida. Basically, some voters that shouldn't have been purged were purged. When they showed up to vote, they were told they couldn't. Big disaster. I suspect most places would rather have voting roles with ineligible voters (99.99% of whom won't show up to vote, because they've moved or are dead - and if "they" do show up, it's unlikely anyone will find out about it, thus causing problems for the officials running the election) than voting roles missing eligible voters (who will make a huge stink if they show up and are told they can't vote, which will cause a problem for the officials running the election).
You can read about the Florida voting list purge here [gregpalast.com] if you wish, and check the mention in the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' report here [usccr.gov].
zerg (Score:2)
Electronic voting machines are a bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Electronic voting machines are a bad idea. There is NO reason to use them for general voting.
By electronic voting machine, I mean a machine with a display that allows you to select candidates and keeps the tally electronically. You the voter directly interact with this machine.
Ultimately there is no way to be 100% certain that the machine is doing what you want. The only real backup is a paper trail for a hand recount. These machines don't offer that. Result: the machine can make up numbers and you'd be hard pressed to tell.
Okay, so the machine can print out a verification receipt that you also file. That solves the problem. Of course, then what has the machine gained you? The voter still needs to verify that the printout says what it should (and what do you do if it doesn't?). This just adds an unnecessary double check that voters have to worry about.
You might as well just initially fill out a paper ballot and have a machine scan it. Machine scanned paper ballots can be simple for voters to use, simple for machines to scan, and simple for a hand recount. If a machine doesn't like the ballot it can reject it and a poll staff person can explain the situation ("The machine rejected your ballot. I can force it through, but one or more of your votes might be thrown away. Or I can shred this ballot and give you a new one. If you like, a poll staff member can help you fill out the new ballot.") This is exactly the situation here in Madison, Wisconsin and it works great. The ballots are really simple (there is a two inch arrow with a one in gap in the middle pointing to each candidate's name with, you just fill in the gap on the arrow pointing to your choice). It's easy to fill out. It's trivial for a machine to scan (it's like the fill in the bubble tests, but with much larger, easier to read fill in areas). The big arrows are trivial for a hand recounter to check. You can do occasional random hand recounts to verify that the automatic tabulators are working correctly.
Black Box Voting should be a great book on this. (Score:3, Informative)
Bev Harris' Black Box Voting: Ballot-tampering in the 21st Century [blackboxvoting.com] has much to offer on this, most notably a chance to preorder Harris' book on the topic. I don't have any connection to her or the book, and I make no money from saying this. My awareness of her comes from reading the website and listening to her radio interviews describing her findings and research. She offers compelling evidence on what has gone wrong with Diebold's machines, Sen. Hagel's connection to Diebold, and how votes get lost. She writes in a manner that is accessible to technical and non-technical people alike. I think this book will be another must-read investigative journalism highlight just like Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" on the 2000 presidential election in 2000.
Canadian? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a troll about Florida, etc. but rather a comparison. America uses punch cards and fancy voting machines and all that stuff.
Canada, OTOH has a piece of paper. With some names on it, and circles next to the names. you put a mark (check, X, your initials, whatever) next to the person you want to vote for. If there's a mark in more than one (and not just a small pencil mark like a dot. Something that actually looks like you meant to vote for more than one person) or no marks at all, the vote is thrown out. Everything is counted by humans.
So, why is it that they're looking for new fancy ways to (screw up) voting, when countries like Canada managed to use circa 1868 technology and have a more efficient (based on 2k elections) system?
Digital Magic (Score:3, Insightful)
Where did the perception that replacing a practical solution with a technical one erased all need for the practical precautions associated with that solution?
"We used to keep personnel files in a locked cabinet in a locked room, but now we just keep them on a SMB share with a null password."
"We used to keep voting half-way honest through careful ID and ballot controls, but now it's just Diebold's problem."
What gives?
-Peter
"Paper Trail" Bill (Score:5, Informative)
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996 [house.gov]
and contact your congresscritters...
So this is how the security is SUPPOSED to work (Score:3, Interesting)
- begin here -
Security in the Georgia Voting System
Britain J. Williams, Ph.D.
April 23, 2003
Introduction: The State of Georgia replaced all voting systems statewide with a computer-based voting system. This system, known as a direct recording electronic (DRE) voting system, was first used in the November 2002 election. This voting system, described in the next section, is computer based. As a result, questions have been raised regarding the vulnerability of the system to attacks by hackers and persons attempting election fraud.
Overall security of any computer-based system is obtained by a combination of three factors working in concert with each other. First, the computer system must provide audit data that is sufficient to track the sequence of events that occur on the system and, to the extent possible, identify the person(s) that initiated the events. Next, there must be in place well defined and strictly enforced policies and procedures that control who has access to the system, the circumstances under which they can access the system, and the functions that they are allowed to perform on the system. Finally, there must be in place physical security; fences, doors, locks, etc.; that control and limit access to the system. This article describes how these factors are incorporated into the election system in the State of Georgia.
Overview of the Georgia Voting System: The computer-based election system deployed in the State of Georgia is classified as a direct recording electronic (DRE) system. The components of the system consist of the following:
Standard personal computers running an executable module known as GEMS, Global Election Management System. This system, called the GEMS computer, is used to define the election, enter the candidates and questions, and format the ballots for the voting devices. This computer also accumulates the votes after the polls close and prints various reports and audits.
Touch-screen voting stations are used for in-person voting.
Optical ballot scanners are used for absentee and provisional voting.
Each county election office in the State is equipped with a GEMS computer. This computer is used to define elections and format the ballots for both the touch-screen voting stations and the absentee (paper) ballot scanners. The system also produces files that can be sent directly to a printer to print the absentee and provisional ballots.
When the election definition is complete, the GEMS system produces PCMCIA cards, also called PC memory cards, which are used to program the touch-screen voting stations and the ballot scanners. One card is produced for each voting station and ballot scanner.
While still in the county warehouse the voting stations are arranged by precinct and the PC cards are inserted. In the days just before the election a series of tests called Logic and Accuracy tests are conducted. These tests are designed to confirm that the voting stations have been properly prepared for the election and that they correctly register all votes cast. These tests are open to the public. At the completion of the Logic and Accuracy tests the voting stations are sealed and delivered to the precincts.
On the morning of Election Day the Precinct Manager and Assistant Precinct Manager break the seals and prepare the voting stations for the election. The first step in this process is to print out a 'zero totals tape'. This tape verifies that no votes have been recorded on the voting stations prior to the opening of the polls. As the voters cast their ballots on a touch-screen voting station their choices are recorded on the PC memory card. The absentee ballots and provisional ballots are processed through ballot scanners and their votes are r
Old-Fashioned Insecurity (Score:3, Interesting)
Now we have big flatscreen computers - backlit screens with huge fonts and a color behind each candidate's name. There's no curtain,
Text here: (Score:5, Informative)
Text:
Bigger Than Watergate!
How To Rig An Election In The United States
Column: C.D. Sludge
07/08/03: (Scoop) The story you are about to read is in this writer's view the biggest political scandal in American history, if not global history. And it is being broken today here in New Zealand.
This story cuts to the bone the machinery of democracy in America today. Democracy is the only protection we have against despotic and arbitrary government, and this story is deeply disturbing.
Imagine if you will that you are a political interest group that wishes to control forevermore the levers of power. Imagine further that you know you are likely to implement a highly unpopular political agenda, and you do not wish to be removed by a ballot driven backlash.
One way to accomplish this outcome would be to adopt the Mugabe (Zimbabwe) or Hun Sen (Cambodia) approach. You agree to hold elections, but simultaneously arrest, imprison and beat your opponents and their supporters. You stuff ballot boxes, disenfranchise voters who are unlikely to vote for you, distort electoral boundaries and provide insufficient polling stations in areas full of opposition supporters.
However as so many despots have discovered, eventually such techniques always fail - often violently. Hence, if you are a truly ambitious political dynasty you have to be a bit more subtle about your methods.
Imagine then if it were possible to somehow subvert the voting process itself in such a way that you could steal elections without anybody knowing.
Imagine for example if you could:
- secure control of the companies that make the voting machines and vote counting software;
- centralise vote counting systems, and politicise their supervision;
- legislate for the adoption of such systems throughout your domain, and provide large amounts of money for the purchase of these systems;
- establish systems of vote counting that effectively prevent anybody on the ground in the election - at a booth or precinct level - from seeing what is happening at a micro-level;
- get all the major media to sign up to a single exit-polling system that you also control - removing the risk of exit-polling showing up your shenanigans.
And imagine further that you;
- install a backdoor, or numerous backdoors, in the vote counting systems you have built that enable you to manipulate the tabulation of results in real time as they are coming in.
Such a system would enable you to intervene in precisely the minimum number of races necessary to ensure that you won a majority on election night. On the basis of polling you could pick your marginal seats and thus keep your tweaking to a bare minimum.
Such a system would enable you to minimise the risks of discovery of your activities.
Such a system would enable you to target and remove individual political opponents who were too successful, too popular or too inquisitive.
And most importantly of all, such a system would enable you to accomplish all the above without the public being in the least aware of what you were doing. When confronted with the awfulness of your programme they would be forced to concede that at least it is the result of a democratic process.
How To Rig An Election In The United States
So how would such a system actually work?
Well one way to run such a corrupt electoral system might look like this.
- Each voting precinct (or booth) could be fitted with electronic voting systems, optical scanning systems, punch card voting systems or the more modern touchscreen electronic voting machines;
- At the close of play each day the booth/precinct supervisor could be under instructions to compile an electronic record of the votes cast in their booth;
- They might print out a report that contains only the details of the total votes count fo
Re:confusing (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe if you looked outwards more, at countries who can already run a fair election for example, then p'raps you could get around to helping us all out much quicker!!!
Re:So? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So, why is this insightful? (Score:3, Insightful)
More here. [onlinejournal.com]
Re:So? (Score:2)
That's what radar detectors are for....
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2)
I know the origins of the VRA, and frankly, I'm not a fan of the court ordered gerrymandering, but until we get a decent USSC, we have to abide by it.
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2)
Why not extend the suggestion and only allow literate white males who make $150,000 a year or more to vote?
The argument usually goes is that since the government acts on behalf of the people, everyone it purports to act for should have a say in its operation. But many people would rather that the government attach more weight to their interests at the expense of everyone else. Ah, selfishness, it is what makes our societ
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2, Informative)
Just my 2 cents because the goverment takes the rest!!
Paul
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2)
With the help of court gerrymandered House districts, they pretty much give some people no option at the polls, but it might be the one chance to crush this law, assuming we can get some new justices before 2008.
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:5, Funny)
Try this cool Slashdot method I've developed:
1) THINK
2) THINK AGAIN
3) POST!
4)
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2)
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2)
The fact is there ARE minimum standards already in place for people to vote. Must be 18 for instance. People under 18 pay taxes, and they don't get to vote. How about resident aliens, they pay taxes, and don't get to vote.
You do have a poi
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:2)
You say citizens who don't pay taxes shouldn't get to vote. You also say we should vote Libertarian.
But isn't the Libertarian party the one who supports tax abolition? If you guys win, who gets to vote?
Re:Solve all voting machine problems (Score:3, Informative)
As it stands now, the few are at the wims of the majority. If the Few (rich) are at the wims of the majority (poor), the majority will always think that they are entitled to what the Few have, and take it by means of Taxation, and redistribute it according to arbatrary (meaningless, random) guidelines. Want more, vote for the people who will give you more, while taking more from those that have it.
The only
Literacy = Segregation tactic years ago (Score:2)
Believe it or not, this was one of the ways the southern states kept blacks from voting. The other was a land ownership clause, and since few blacks were anything other than sharecroppers(and sharecroppers didn't own the land they worked), they were disqualified.
Re:restore Jim Crow, the neat 'n' easy way! (Score:3, Informative)
Go here [gregpalast.com] and you can read Greg Palast's version of the story and the evidence he collected (e.g. pages 60 and 61 of the Chapter 1 PDF).
Where is the public outcry?
Good question. Ask the American public.
Who's freedoms? (Score:2, Interesting)
It did seem funny that republicans in many races made remarkable surges on election day. I wonder why exit polls were suspended during the 2002 election?
Re:oustanding! (Score:2)
What was released today is just the tip of the iceberg. Bev said it is just 10% of what is to follow.
If we cannot trust the integrity of the vote, then our system will collapse. Democracy is based on trust and openness.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
It may interest you to check campaign contributions from executives at Diebold. They seem to like to give quite a bit of money to the Republicans. Just a quick taste:
Walden W. O'Dell
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Diebold
2/14/01 $2,015.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
12/17/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
1/30/01 $3,950.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
8/16/01 $500.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
12/17/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
6/30/00 $1,000.00
DEWINE FOR US SENATE
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
Chuck Hagel still owns stock in ES&S's parent company. He has won every election that used ES&S machines to count the votes.
You might *think* you're joking but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a gander at this article [thehill.com] from the Hill.
Chuck Hagel is the Senator from Nebraska. 80% of its ballots are done electronically. It just so happens that Hagel owns a stake in the company(ES&S) that produced those voting machines. And he failed to disclose as much too.
Searching Google for more information turned up this con
Re:Highly Biased Article (Score:5, Informative)
Ahhh, fuck it, why am I even bothering? Just go and watch Fox News and be happy.