How easy is it to Steal an Election?

[BeFree]

Let's say Kerry had a 10 point lead, (he didn't, or did he?) that means that only 5.1 percent of the votes needed to be changed to turn loser bush into the winner.

In 1 million votes, that is only 51,00 votes changed from Kerry to bush.

Roughly that many votes could come from as few as 2,000 precincts with an average of 500 votes each. That equates to 26 votes per each of the 2,000 precincts being changed, ON EDIT:, or .052% of each precinct. Corrected: 5.2%

Totally doable, given the broad reach of E-voting.

[liberal N proud]

1. Wouldn't even require the use of electronic voting

If you had the right people in the right places, say Secretary of State who control the election. It becomes easy to just skim those votes here and there and it would fall in the margin of error in each of those areas. No one can put anything together that would stand up to prove fraud.

[BeFree]

2. 26 votes times 2,000 precincts is easy?

What, do they just issue a memo to the 5,000 or so people working those polls? Must have missed that one, eh?

No, what you state would not be easy when 5,000 people are involved. But how 'bout when there are just two or three? That, my friends, is the signature of E-voting: just two or three fingers in the pie.

[Febble]

3. You might want to check your data

Some useful info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004

Total vote is about 122 million. If Kerry had a 10 point lead for real, you are going to have to flip about 6 million votes to Bush. You will need a few more than 2000 precincts, I think.

Or are you talking about a single swing state?

[BeFree]

5. Actually

We know Kerry had a 51-48 win according to the uncooked exit polls.

1 percent of 122 million is 1.22 million.

The finals say 48-51, a 6 point drift.

To flip that only 3.66 million votes needed to be changed. 3 x 1.22

At just 26 votes flipped per 500 vote precinct, it would have taken just 7,320 precincts, nation wide.

[Febble]

7. Well that sounds

more realistic.

Edit, after coffee

except that makes only 190,320 votes by my calcs (7320*26). Don't you need a few more?

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

[BeFree]

10. You are too kind, Febble

I am not a mathematician, I just play one on DU...lol

Mathematicians are a different breed, eh? All those numbers, all those numb-ers.

I see your point...back to the calc.

On edit:

So, playing around, (correct me if I am wrong), I get this:

3,660,000 is 3% of 122 million
Half of 3,660,000 is 1,830,000.(the number needed to be flipped)

Divided by 26 = 70384 precincts.

=====================

Anybody...How many precincts are there in America?
And how many had e-voting? Anybody?

[OnTheOtherHand]

11. dunno, but as long as we are doing back-of-the-envelope

First of all, let's bear in mind that the number or percentage that needs to be flipped depends on the goal. If you are trying to change 51-48 Kerry to Bush-by-a-nose, then it's about 3% in margin or 1.5% in vote share, so 1.5% of votes need to be switched (something like 1.8 million, as you said). If you are trying to change 51-48 Kerry to 51-48 Bush, then it's 6% in margin or 3% in vote share, so 3% or 3.6 million need to be changed (or maybe closer to 3.7, whatever).

If we are assuming for envelope purposes that precincts are of equal size, or even that fraud isn't strongly correlated with precinct size, then we don't really need to know how many there are. We can say that to flip 3% of the vote, you might flip 10% of votes in 30% of precincts, or 30% of votes in 10% of precincts, or 5% of votes in 60% of precincts, or any two numbers whose product is 3%. (In case anyone's head just exploded, 10% * 30% = 0.1 * 0.3 = 3%.) Or of course you can mix-and-match to taste: 10% of votes in 20% of precincts (2%) plus 2% of votes in 50% of precincts (1%) would do.

[Febble]

12. And according to the

E-M report, the proportions of each type of machine in the 1250 precincts they study in detail (a few states omitted) are:

Paper Ballot	3%
Lever Machine	9%
Touch Screen	29%
Punch Cards	13%
Optical Scan	46%

Yay! Finally figured out how to get tabs to work! :woohoo:

http://www.exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pdf

page 40

[BeFree]

13. That's 88% unsafe

88% of the precincts studied for the exit-poll were precincts that in one form or another could be electronically altered! Damn, that's a lot of territory to hide in.

It was so easy to hack. Will be again if we don't get an effectual audit going the next time. Any good ideas about good audits, anyone?

[Febble]

15. Some good ideas here

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/election_officials/Audits_Monitoring.pdf

and here:

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Paper_Audits.pdf

Ensuring that protocols for recounts are both do-able and done seems like a good idea to me. At the moment it seems there is too much incentive for BoE officials to bend the rules to save hassle. And once you bend the rules to save hassle, you are opening the door to corruption, IMO.

Work for practical and transparent protocols, including custody of ballots between vote, count and recount, and random selection of precincts for audit, and then stick to the rules.

My two pence.

[Febble]

17. More good ideas here:

http://www.electionauditinstitute.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2&forum=1

[Peace Patriot]

4. Flipping votes from Kerry to Bush would not result in discrepancies

between no. of voters and vote totals. There were nearly a hundred reports of touchscreens flipping Kerry votes to Bush votes, and almost never the other way around (impossible odds against it). But I think the main fraud would occur (and did occur) at the central tabulator level, with no interference on election day itself, but way before it, in the pre-programming of the tabulators (one hacker, a couple of minutes, untraceable). I think, mainly, Kerry votes were flipped to Bush votes (in both Democratic and Republican districts), and some were "distributed" to third party candidates, and some were 'disappeared'--by means of lines of code/formulas inserted into the secret software prior to the election, and given "self-destruct" orders, so that this code could never be found.

One of the reasons I think it happened this way is the very visible, overt suppression of Democratic voters in Ohio (especially against black voters)--ten hour long lines and all that. Why would they DO that--risk public exposure for egregious violations of the Voting Rights Act--when they had control of the electronic machines? I think the reason was the need to pre-program the fraud, limiting them to a certain percentage tweak, and unable on election day, on the massive scale needed, to overcome a Kerry surge. Kerry won the exit polls by 3%. They flipped that over in the east coast time zone and in some battleground states (according to exit poll analysis; see www.TruthIsAll.net), and it wasn't enough. So they had to short the number of Dem precincts and voting machines, unfairly challenge Dem voters, and all the other voter suppression they did, to retain their pre-programmed advantage. When all is said and done--all the Dem vote suppression, all the discarded provisional ballots, all the purges of black and brown voters nationwide (which Greg Palast estimated at 1 million, for black voters), all the shredded Dem voter registration cards--Kerry probably actually won by a 4% to 5% margin or higher.

The remaining voter pool--the non-purged and non-suppressed--produced the 3% exit poll margin for Kerry. This means that 6% of the vote (of voters who made it to the polling booth) was messed with--flipped, scattered or 'disappeared.' 6% of the total vote (120 million) is 7,200,000. Divide it by 52 states, that's only about 140,000 votes per state--easily flipped, just in Republican precincts alone (where there are always some Dem voters, and, I suspect, in this election, quite a few cranky Repub voters who had had it with Bush.)

The Berkeley statistical group did a study of Florida's main Dem counties, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach and found 130,000 to 330,000 phantom votes for Bush, in 2004--electronic vs. paper voting.

Here at DU, ignatzmouse did a 2004 analysis that showed a 15% advantage to Bush in electronic vs. paper. Bush may have won NC anyway, but the stolen votes would be to pad his popular national majority (and I think they DID entirely flip the Senate election there.)

In addition to these kinds of studies, there are several studies of the exit polls, and other evidence, that point to massive fraud, inexplicable anomalies in the numbers, and a loss for Bush.

When you put all this evidence together with the HACKABILITY of the electronic systems, the non-transparency and the Bush partisan control over vote tabulation, you have to leave your brain at the door NOT to conclude that we have the wrong man in the White House.

Recently, in Ohio, four ELECTION REFORM initiatives, that were predicted to win by 60/40 votes were flipped over on election day to 60/40 LOSSES--the most audacious flipover yet. (The machines and their masters are now dictating election policy and preventing reform--a chilling Orwellian twist.)

See Bob Koehler's article about the Ohio initiatives:
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824


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People come at this issue, often, with a lot of questions based on speculation, like, how could they do that, wouldn't too many people have to be involved? or, surely the war profiteering corporate news monopolies wouldn't put FAKE exit poll numbers on TV (har, har), or surely the Dem leaders wouldn't let that happen (ahem).

The answer to all of these questions is that it looks very much like it DID happen, so we have to think back, not to how we would EXPECT people to behave (except, perhaps, for the Bushites, whom we know have an inclination to crime--to say the least), and not what we think is LIKELY or FEASIBLE, but, rather, how could it have been accomplished, given the evidence that it WAS accomplished?

And the answer to that lay in the design of the election system, which could not have been better designed for easy, massive, untraceable changes of the votes--performed by a couple of computer techs at Diebold and ES&S headquarters (or some basement somewhere), put in place before the election in the innards of the machines, and unseeable by the human eye during the election, with virtually no audit/recount capability for verification.

Calif Sec of State Kevin Shelley tried to get hold of Diebold's source code, in a lawsuit prior to the election. He sued Diebold for lying about the security and certification status of their machines. But before that source code could be disclosed, a vicious campaign was mounted against Shelley in Calif., based on unproven charges of fraud, and he was driven from office, and replaced with a pro-Diebold Schwarzenegger appointee.

One of the false charges against Shelley was "abuse of HAVA funds." What really happened is that he withheld HAVA funds from the counties for purchase of Diebold's crappy, insecure touchscreens (the worst of their election theft machines). Some of the county election officials (most but not all Republicans), who were Diebold shills, joined the campaign against Shelley. And they were led by a Dem, Los Angeles election head Connie McCormack, another Diebold shill, who said she wanted to "drive a bulldozer" into the Sec of State's office to spring all that money loose for her good buds at Diebold. (--literally good buds--her best friend is the former chief Diebold salesperson for Calif., Deborah Seiler.)

And this, I'm afraid--and other such scenarios of corruption--is why I said "ahem" to the idea that the Democrats wouldn't let this happen (would they?). They DID let it happen. And corruption is a good part of the reason.

I found this out AFTER the 2004 election, after I had reviewed the evidence of election fraud (which is compelling**), and, with others, began seriously looking into the design of our election system (more and more appalled, the more I looked*). The question is not, how COULD it happen? The question is, how DID it happen? And, what the hell do we do NOW--with a fraudulent election SYSTEM in place for '06?

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Besides all the work on educating and mobilizing the public, filing lawsuits, and trying to change laws, I think we need VERIFICATION tools in '06, to catch the fraud, and try to challenge results as they occur, and ALSO to build the case--and build momentum--for fundamental reform prior to '08.

Independent exit polls

We need the Dem Party (or someone!) to fund INDEPENDENT exit polls. We got doctored exit polls in 2004--which the news monopolies CHANGED (from a Kerry win) to MATCH Diebold's and ES&S's secretly arrived at "result"(Bush won). They've promised to PREVENT us from getting hold of their REAL exit poll results next time.

Other verification tools

We need "parallel elections" and other verification tools, and close monitoring of the election systems and their results. (See www.UScountvotes.org, www.verifiedvoting.org, and votersunite.org for more information.)

And, ultimately we need...

1. Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)

or, at the least...

2. Paper ballot (not "paper trail") backup of all electronic voting, a 10% automatic recount (at least), very strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code! (...jeez!).

Russ Holt's bill HR 550 will stop the corporate privatization of our elections in its tracks, and reverse it (by banning undisclosed software, among other things). It has 169 co-sponsors (mostly Dems). Sign the petition. http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

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** For the recent GAO report on the horrendous insecurity of our election system in 2004:
access to pdf: http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-05-956
text only: http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05956.html

* For analysis of the 2004 election results and exit polls:
www.TruthIsAll.net

[BillORightsMan]

16. Did somebody say Paper Ballots?

I've been thinking about this awhile now. We need complete and total transparency in our voting process. This is about the third or fourth iteration. Please add your comments/changes below.

Here's my suggestion:

****PAPER, PEN & PEOPLE****
1. Paper and pen is the obvious choice for casting ballots.
2. Instead of having appointed people, there should be a pool of all registered voters, that are picked AT RANDOM, much like the way jurors are picked. (Perhaps BOE officials should be elected, too!)
3. Add to this that companies MUST give employees PAID days off for training and working Election Day. It's OUR Republic and OUR democracy! Let the voters run their own elections! Tell me, what red-blooded, patriotic American wouldn't take two PAID days off work to ensure their democracy is working? Give the voters OWNERSHIP of the PROCESS! Power to the People!
4. This would also include no funny black boxes counting votes: Paper and pen and hand counting. This is how they STILL do it in Canada! No more republican-backed companies (ES&S, Diebold, Sequoia, TRIAD, et. al.) getting a WAD of OUR TAX $$$ on bogus, insecure machines and stealing our elections! Use Web-Cams to monitor the voting and counting, too.
5. Each precinct can use a simple adding machine with a triplicate paper tape. They FAX their results to the BOE of their county. The same process is repeated for counties to report totals to the state BOE. Instant Paper Trail!

I'd add that IF we MUST use ANY electronic tabulation, that it be OPEN-SOURCE code, available to the General Public for review. (Australia uses this now.) Hardware would also have to be scrutinized, since WiFi can easily be incorporated in any electronic device - takes about three chips. BUT Paper Pen and People! should be the way of the day! Any electronic machine (especially the central tabulators) can break down or be hacked, no matter how secure!

Also, the paper ballots could use any number of security devices, similar to how money and checks are printed (microprint, bar codes, security threads and so forth) to prevent ballot duplication.

All over these threads I keep seeing how this county or that state is weighing the virtues (?) of these shadowy black boxes. Dems as well as GOP seem to be falling all over themselves to get the shiny new machines. Call me old-fashioned, but we really need to take a serious look at hand-counting paper ballots and begin pushing this idea as a HUGE cost saver!

:patriot:

[philb]

6. Its easy to steel an election; if you control the election system

Lots of ways to do it: one or combination of ways
Election was swung in several states and many districts in both 2000 and 2002 and 2004 elections

1. Touch Screen switching
2. Registration manipulation
3. voter roll purges
4. Absentee ballot manipulation/mechanization (vote for those who don't vote or don't plan to vote)
5. Tabulator manipulation(easily done for touch screens, optical scan, punch cards,etc.)(some equip. has wireless remote access)
6. Rules that voting in wrong precinct doesn't count and dirty tricks/manipulation to confuse voters on proper precinct
7. Allocate too few voting machines, poll workers, etc. to minority or opposition dominant precincts
8. Allocate faulty equipment to minority or opposion dominant precincts

All of these happened in significant degree in many districts of many states in 2004
http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html
http://www.flcv.com/summary by states
http://www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html Ohio & total vote

[Zan_of_Texas]

9. More on remote capabilities.

Everybody knew going into the 2004 election that Ohio would be a crucial swing state, with lots of electoral votes (20).

The statistical documentation shows that a large part of the Bush popular margin tallied in Ohio comes from a handful of counties, particularly in the SW part of the state, and including the county where there was that fake terror alert and the public and media were shut out of observing the count.

So, swing just a handful of counties in one state, you swing 20 electoral votes, which swings the entire election. (I believe other states were rigged too though.)

But, if you control the entire state's tabulation system, maybe you steal more than a few counties in Ohio.


More on remote stuff:


EVEN A REMOTE CHANCE?
by Pokey Anderson
January 10, 2005

http://www.votersunite.org/info/evenaremotechance.htm


Imagine sitting in your favorite easy chair with a remote control, and being able to just push EJECT and get George Bush out of office. Or, let's say you're on your laptop, and you can dial up a regime change.

"Hmm," you say, "I'm feeling like blue today. Blue is a nice color. I think I'd rather have Kerry for president." Let's say you're up late, it's November 2nd, you see that Kerry is losing in Ohio, and you say, "the HELL with that!" So, with your laptop, you dial into the tabulator for, let's just say, 41 of 88 counties in Ohio. And, you switch 14 votes per precinct from Bush to Kerry. Voila. Kerry wins.

Could that happen?

Or, um, the other way around -- Kerry is winning, and someone dials in and changes a dozen or so votes in each of roughly half the precincts in Ohio, and VOILA, Bush wins Ohio. (A flip of a dozen votes in 5000 precincts would result in a net change of 120,000 votes in Ohio, more than the current margin separating the two candidates.)

Remote control of elections? Science fiction, right? Start playing the Twilight Zone music? Not exactly.

MORE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FIVE MONTHS AFTER THIS ARTICLE, here's what Bob Fitrakis of Free Press.org reported:

Bob Fitrakis: "What he {an installer of technical equipment in the Secretary of State's office of Ohio} told us that concerned us greatly is that the Secretary of State had for the first time what he called override and overwrite capacity to the county board of election results. And that there were quote points of vulnerability in the system, which he described as at least two federal agencies that he knew of, that he was willing to swear to. And one state agency actually had access to the Secretary of State's voters data base, which includes everything from registered voters to access to all the tallies from every county. And they can be altered."

Interview with Bob Fitrakis, by Pokey Anderson
Sunday Monitor
KPFT Radio
June 19, 2005

[kiwi_expat]

14. I don't think that Ohio was stolen by widespread tabulator fraud.

"But, if you control the entire state's tabulation system, maybe you steal more than a few counties in Ohio." -Zan

It is possible that there was tabulator fraud in one or two corrupt Ohio counties, but I can't see how it could have been very widespread.

Every county that was stolen by tabulator fraud would also have to have the BoE in on the scam - in order to avoid having the vote-switching detected in a 3% manual recount.

If the apx. 120,000 vote Bush "victory" margin was the result of widespread tabulator fraud, a random 3% manual recount would have picked up about 20 vote-switches per county, if the tabulator fraud was evenly spread throughout all the counties. Even non-random precinct selection would not conceal the fraud, unless the precincts were specifically chosen to avoid tabulator-fraud detection.

[philb]

18. Ohio was stolen by a combination of all the methods noted in post 6

and the numbers from each part were given by the documentation for each of the Ohio counties
http://www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html

as has been previously shown and discussed

[kiwi_expat]

19. Agree that there was almost certainly enough voter suppression -

- when combined with uncounted votes - to steal Ohio.

But it is worth exploring the possibility that, in addition, the actual-vote win was stolen by tabulator fraud and Kerry actually won the votes CAST. Although, as I explained, I doubt that is the case.

[autorank]

8. So true and Wally O'Dell's commitment to 'do anything' to get * elected.

Think about it. Diebold has a whole bunch of voting devices and, lesser known by some,many tabulators used in 2004 are Diebold equipment. How about that!

Not that hard at all.