E-Voting: Is The Fix In?

[yowzayowzayowza]

E-Voting: Is The Fix In?

Aug.8, 2004

(CBS) To avoid a fiasco in this fall's election, Congress offered the states $3.9 billion to buy modern voting equipment, reports David Pogue, technology editor of The New York Times.

This fall, 30 percent of us will cast our votes by touching a screen on a computerized voting machines. No muss, no fuss - and no chads.

snip...

If there's any good news at all, it's that all this bad news has put this year's election under more scrutiny than the Hope diamond. Maryland will be introducing random surprise spot-checks at the polling places, and half the contested machines in California have already been fixed and re-certified.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

Also:

"I've come up with a new ice cream flavor: Fudged Election Confection."
Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry's ice cream

Appears to be mostly an overview.

[Albert Einstein]

1. Yep n/t

[whistle]

2. These touch-screen voting machine certifications are bogus....

...<link to Bev Harris book on Security Breaches>

http://thoughtcrimes.org/bbv/bbv_chapter-13.pdf

The entire system is corrupt and should not be allowed to be put into use.

[TychoBrahe]

18. Wait, wait, wait, wait

Hold on a sec... surely they are not still using the exact same system as described in the Thought Crimes book? Are they seriously using an Access MDB database on the back-end???

Access MDB files essentially do not have even a moderately strong security model. Even if they implement usergroup security, it is riddiculously easy for even a complete newbie to hack into the system. Adding in a password is a joke; there are at least 15 different programs on Download.com to crack any Access password scheme they could implement.

Surely they have moved to a more secure database system by now?

[BadGimp]

3. It's not even a valid question anymore

The fix is most certainly in.

THis NYTimes article really made me feel ill:
http://badgimp.blogspot.com/2004/07/lost-record-02-florida-vote-raises-04.html

God Help Our Democracy..

[yowzayowzayowza]

4. The video...

attached to the CBS story goes into the Fla data problems too.

[Zorra]

5. Is this the same Gilles Burger that contributed to a republican campaign?

From the original posted article:

Maryland used these machines in three recent elections. Gilles Burger, Maryland's election-board chairman, gives them his vote of confidence.

"Voters are delighted with the system," he says. "We have completely accurate results, so we're very high on the system."

The good news is, these machines don't have any of the problems of paper ballots. The bad news is, they may have much worse problems all their own.
-----------------
Individual Contributions Arranged By Type, Giver, Then Recipient

Contributions to Political Committees

BURGER, GILLES
GAITHERSBURG, MD
MARCHFIRST

MORELLA, CONSTANCE A
VIA CONNIE MORELLA FOR CONGRESS COMMITTEE
10/16/2000 250.00 20036350370

Total Contributions: 250.00

http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/qind/

MORELLA, CONSTANCE A ID: H0MD08021
CHALLENGER

Office Sought: House
State: Maryland
District: 08
Party: REP (Republican Party)

http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/can_detail/H0MD08021

E-voting glitches anger critics
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:38 p.m. ET March 3, 2004

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Super Tuesday voters in Maryland, Georgia and California encountered scattered technical problems Tuesday as electronic voting machines got their biggest U.S. test so far.

Elections officials blamed improperly trained poll workers unfamiliar with new machines, especially in Maryland and California, where dozens of counties switched from antiquated punch-card and lever systems to touchscreen terminals.

Some polling places in Maryland received wrong encoders, and one Georgia county apparently forgot to program them. Voters in both states resorted to paper ballots kept as backups.

In Maryland’s Howard County, a computer server could not receive electronic data over a conventional modem, forcing a 90-minute delay while poll workers hand-delivered data cards to the registrar.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4424621/

Many voters in California, Maryland and Georgia whose voting machines malfunctioned completed paper ballots that precincts kept as backups.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/03/03/state0339EST0046.DTL

Completely "accurate" results can mean many things. I reckon if a machine is programmed to record only votes for republicans, and the machine then records votes only for republicans, then the results are "accurate". Dishonest, yes, but still "accurate".

[SOS]

6. Yes

With the current system, Kerry cannot win.
See the current issue of the Nation, which explains clearly how Bush will steal the election:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&s=dugger
email this article to friends and congress.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Very important article. I hope Kerry does have the 2000 lawyers ready

SOS posted this article "How They Could Steal the Election This Time": http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&s=dugger

Kerry may need the lawyers: Pointing out in a recent speech at the NAACP convention that "a million African-Americans were disenfranchised in the last election," Kerry says his campaign is readying 2,000 lawyers to "challenge any place in America where you cannot trace the vote and count the votes"

[MrPrax]

7. Interesting Tidbit from the Computer Geeks...

Good thread over at /.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/06/1930205

Hackers, Public Differ Greatly On E-voting

"Sorry to be touting one of my own Computerworld stories, but I only covered it because I found it so interesting. The Ponemon Institute surveyed 2,933 members of the general public and then 100 DEFCON and Black Hat attendees to get their views on electronic voting. 'The degree of difference was startling,' said director Larry Ponemon. It was the biggest split between 'experts and the public he'd ever found. For example, 83% of the experts said e-voting is less or much less secure against election tampering than paper ballots, compared with just 19% of the general public."

The Computerworld story can be found at http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,95094,00.html

There needs to be a lot more education out there...

[yowzayowzayowza]

19. Thx for the ...

Computer World link. They also have a good issue page:
http://www.computerworld.com/news/special/pages/0,10911,2825,00.html

[Piperay]

8. We can win a fair election BUT

my biggest fear is that the cheating, thieving repukes will steal this election too. :mad: If they steal this one they will fix it once and for all so that we never ever win again. :cry:

[VoteDemocratic2004]

10. They tried it already and it worked in 2000 & 2002

I am so sick inside and I keep feeling that they are going to do it again.

My feeling is that Kerry will win in a landslide and 5 mins. later our TV's will shut off and they will come back on and say that they made a mistake and Bush won.

We have to get rid of the corporate owned media or we will be screwed for many years to come.

[rustydog]

9. All you have to do to defeat e-voting it to ask your county

elections registrar for an ABSENTEE ballot.mail it in, you have your paper trail. make them hand count the vote.

Ain't no big thing. at all.

[VoteDemocratic2004]

11. What if the right wing nut jobs

Have special plans for the absentee ballots like tossing them out or erasing our vote and putting Bush in.

Who's knows they might make their own absentee ballots up to look like the ones that we mail in and toss ours out :tinfoilhat:

[Karenina]

14. Paper is flammable.

Ya know...

[VoteDemocratic2004]

16. I wouldn't put it past the rethugs

I wonder what they are going to do with the Military vote.

They want to make us think that all of the military loves Bush but they don't. The military vote will be stolen.

[Karenina]

20. The Neocons who have seized

the American gub'mint have NEVER let a mere "election" stand in their way. Nor will they in November.

[Ravy]

15. That counts YOUR vote (and I plan to vote absentee) but what...

... about other people voting Democratic on the machines whose votes are altered or "lost".

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Vote by Mail-In or by Absentee Ballot when you can

[nolabels]

17. Not to over react but I think it the head line is correct

Second to last paragraph says

if there's any good news at all, it's that all this bad news has put this year's election under more scrutiny than the Hope diamond.

Maryland will be introducing random surprise spot-checks at the polling places,

and half the contested machines in California have already been fixed and re-certified.

We know the crooks were going to do it. They must now figure our banana Republic is no different then much any place else (they do seem quite blatant, as of late).