***HELP US ALL! OHIO 'EXPERIMENTAL' ELECTION SOFTWARE PATCHES

[elleng]

must be disclosed and SHOUTED ABOUT in media, to POTUS, campaign, senators, congresscritters.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251195868

Good 'connection' to Rachel, Lawrence, etc? e.mail etc???

[SCliberal091294]

1. ..

Obama team knows. probably working behind the scene.. Will ve investigated if something goes wrong

[Grateful for Hope]

2. Exactly n/t

[elleng]

3. You know this how?

[ladjf]

4. Too late to start guarding against computer fraud. nt

[elleng]

5. And???

We let it happen? We don't ANNOUNCE that it is planned, that everyone, in Ohio and elsewhere, should be aware? Been there; Done that.

[ladjf]

12. No, I don't mean that. The time to start setting up mechanism that guard against

computer fraud is a couple of years before the election. It takes time to setup regulatory processes and it takes time for computer experts to have "hands on" examination of the existing vote counting computers. To start worrying about it six days before the election is mostly non-sense.

I have been attempting to get traction on the issue of computer fraud for years on DU with no success what so ever. There's always some talk about it after an election where it seems obvious that something went wrong but within weeks the talk dies down.

[elleng]

13. You're correct, of course,

and the 'reaction,' non-reaction of which you complain, is plain human-nature, imo. (encouraged by repugs, who simply take advantage of the situation.)
Among the problems, election 'process' is left to the states, so virtually impossible to regulate/monitor nationally.

[ladjf]

15. I've got an idea how the votes could be verified without compromising the principle of the

invisible ballot.


When voting on the computer vote counting machines, it shows your votes at the end of the process and asks you to verify. That verification should either be mailed to your home address, which is on your voter registration or it should print it out for you to take it with you.

Further, that results report should assign you a login name that you can use to verify online that the tallied votes on your receipt are the same as your online report. The security vulnerability here is that crooks in charge of the voting machines could have two final tally files, one that real and the other that has been rigged. But, the feds would only have to focus their attention on the chain of evidence as it related to that one file.

Next, the Feds are spending billions annually snooping on everyone's electronic transactions. I would propose that for about a week, every single vote counting machine be monitored by the NSA, with the results copied on the NSA backup media. In that way, there would be a discrete copy of every vote cast on election day. The total number of transactions would be less than 150 records, a piece of cake for their giant computers.

Finally, as the crooks realize that if they cheat, they will be caught, prosecuted, fined and imprisoned, they will stop attempting.

I haven't tried to compute the estimated cost of implementing these suggestions. However, I believe it to be less than a billion dollars, a bargain for what it would accomplish. If each candidate can afford a billion for advertising, the federal govt could afford to pay a billion for absolute security. The Nation wants and needs it.

I have other ideas on the computer software side but I won't bore you with that now.

I've been noticing your hard work on the board today. I commend you for that. Please keep it up.

ladjf

(The "lad" of my login name originally meant "lan administrator", which would my title back when I was a DBA and lan administrator for a large Corporation.)

[SickOfTheOnePct]

18. Much easier way to validate that woudn't compromise privacy as your idea would

When you validate that the choices are correct, a receipt should print out with the choices printed. You verify that the info on the receipt is correct, press the "VOTE" button on the screen, then drop the receipt into the ballot box.

At the end of the day, the printed results should match the electronic results.

[ladjf]

19. Yes, that would also work. And, later you could still look up your vote using your unique

ID to verify that it hadn't been changed.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

21. I'm against that completely

I don't believe that there should be any connection between a voter and his or her vote maintained on government computers.

There is no reason whatsoever to do this when there is are paper ballots that can be hand counted.

[Marthe48]

20. GROCERY stores can create detailed rec'ts

Why can't we have detailed paper rec'ts when we vote? It is inexcusable that we have to worry that our votes are secure and that our votes are counted. And Republicans think this is American how?

[SickOfTheOnePct]

22. I agree 100%

We see the receipt, validate that it is correct, and drop it in the locked ballot box as we leave.

[Squinch]

6. Ellen

Someone here did a post that had a list of contact twitter and email addresses for press people. I can't find it, but maybe you can do a post asking if anyone remembers it and knows how to find it.

[elleng]

8. Thanks, Squinch. Will do.

Sent to Melissa H-P, and Jennifer Brunner (Former Ohio Sec. State.)

[Mc Mike]

14. Other recent election protection posts had some contact info

From O.P.s by post-ers Bkkyosemite and ProgressiveLeftist :

Bkk posted info from Michael Collins and OpEdNews. He posts here as "Autorank". Contacting him may also put Professor Mark C. Miller and News From Underground into the loop, information wise.

Bkk posted Justice Dept contact info that is a key resource,
Correspondence to the Department, including the Attorney General, may be sent to:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
By Phone
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000

Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555

By E-Mail
E-mails to the Department of Justice, including the Attorney General, may be sent to [e-mail]. E-mails will be forwarded to the responsible Department of Justice component for appropriate handling.


Post-er "Dalai 1" added Ed and Rachel contact info.
Ed Schultz ? @WeGotEd
Rachel Maddow MSNBC ? @maddow

Bradblog is a key resource. Brad and VelvetRevolution post on the DU site, I can't get to the site today, despite several attempts. Wordpress keeps saying there's a problem.

Bkk added essential UN contact info.
Contacts
Thomas Rymer
Spokesperson
Public Affairs Unit
OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
Ul. Miodowa 10
00-251 Warsaw
Poland
Office: [phone]
Mobile: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
[e-mail]
Elections Department, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
Ul. Miodowa 10
00-251 Warsaw
Poland
Office: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
[e-mail]
Following an official invitation from the United States Mission to the OSCE, and based on the findings and conclusions of a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM), the OSCE/ODIHR has deployed a Limited Election Observation Mission (LEOM) for the 6 November 2012 general elections.

http://www.osce.org/odihr/94913

Post-er "The time is Now" indicated that they were able to send info to Nate Silver.


Key info from ProgressiveLeftist's O.P.:

Puts Campbell and James from the UKProgressive site on the record and in the loop regarding evidence of electronic voting machines defrauding voters. Post-er "HannahCares" had a media link to the LAProgressive site, and she had a connection to The Brennan Center’s Lawrence Norden, Sheila Parks, Verified Voting, and Common Cause. Other post-ers added connections to the NUMB3RS TV show, Congressman John Conyers for Democratic Congressional oversight, Robert F. Kennedy and the Rolling Stone, and the Truthout site. (I have seen William Rivers Pitt post here).


These 11 links are to a good number of the key players involved in voter and election protection:


http://www.aflcio.org/Legislation-and-Politics/Voters-Rights/
http://www.866ourvote.org/about
http://www.vote411.org/
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/index.php
http://www.freepress.org/index2.php
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/newVR/
http://protectourelections.org/
http://www.bradblog.com/
http://markcrispinmiller.com/
http://www.votescam.org/
http://colorofchange.org/campaigns/

[Liberty Belle]

7. Send them my interview with a Diebold whistleblower who explained how patches threw an election:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_insider__alleges_company_plagued_1206.html Within two days after my story ran, the CEO of Diebold resigned in disgrace and shareholders filed a lawsuit. They ultimately sold off their election machines division.

I also won a national journalism award from ASJA for my reporting on electioni integrity issues here: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-3141-monkey-business.html

I'm swamped reporting on other stories right now but hope someone will foraward this to other media outlets to show them just how easy it is to rig an election with machines in the hands of the wrong people. I am very worried about Ohio.

[elleng]

9. Thanks, Belle.

And good luck w your reporting.

[gkhouston]

10. "Patches". Cringe. Reminds me of a story.

Several years ago a colleague of mine was visiting a guy he was collaborating with at a national lab. While the guy's showing him around, a man stomps past them, storms into the "bullpen" and loudly declares, "No more binary patches while the plane is in the air!" Apparently they'd been simulating flight of an aircraft and the plane was zooming along at Mach 2... at an elevation of 3 feet.

[elleng]

11. HA!

[flamingdem]

16. We can be grateful they got the documents

Now the next steps, not sure what they are but for sure lawyers are involved.

Well, we're doing that much better than prior elections.

Obama's legal team seems to be extremely strong in Ohio, plus his lead has opened up.

Can you imagine the chaos if they try to pull this off?

The suspicious part was that it was difficult to get this contract, they held it back, and the patches were installed after the machines were certified. That sounds illegal.

[elleng]

17. flaming, I'm TERRIFIED of the chaos if they try to pull this off!

As I recall reading (been out most of the day so not 'tuned in' yet; I VOTED!!!) 'experimental' does not require pre-certification, clearly a 'rule' made by repugs just FOR this situation.

[begin_within]

23. Why isn't there already a lawsuit over this in the works?

[elleng]

24. There is.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021695642

[begin_within]

25. Ok thanks