Brennan Report and HR 550

[welshTerrier2]

source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jonathan_060629_brennan_report_and_h.htm

Election Integrity activists must be very careful about allowing the Brennan Report to be parlayed into a convenient bipartisan rush (sorry) for the shelter of Rep. Holt's proposed bill HR550.

Going to Congress to fix this mess is a sucker's play. Allowing even apparently "good" federal legislation to be the chalice carrying our fond hopes leaves those hopes at the mercy of a Conference Committee which will be taking its marching orders from Karl Rove. Then the word-up will be "problem solved, move on."

But it won't be solved, not by a long shot, it will only be federalized and hence even more under the regime's control. It won't be solved until we either: 1) get rid of the machines altogether, or 2) implement an effective mandatory jurisdiction-wide handcount sample protocol to test overall results, not merely the stray machine. Voter verified means NOTHING when dealing with black-box computers. Auditability means virtually NOTHING when chain-of-custody is violated, when there are Blackwells in the picture, when the fees are prohibitive, when results thresholds are set for audits.

[mom cat]

1. k&r ...good post.

[BeFree]

2. Given the choices...

Getting rid of the machines altogether is the best option. Since the machines are federalized going through the feds to get rid of the machines makes perfect sense.

Our problem is that the DC machine heads will either ignore us, or will make any new law even worse. But given the recent exposures of the machines there is an outside chance that any new law may be an improvement. 'May be' being the operative term.

Pretty much what we are faced with is getting rid of the machines through a process of 'death by a thousand tiny cuts'. In each of our locales we can make a few tiny cuts.

Spending too much energy on trying to get audits going is potentially useless, but it can also be part of the tiny cuts scenario. IOW, we can show how terrible the machines are by using the common sense approach that audits are now required because of machine use. Our argument then would be: if we just got rid of the machines, audits would not be needed.

[PATRICK]

3. Why can't they step back and really look?

Nothing is removed from the "flaws" of handcounted paper ballots- the people/paper system. Even when fully implemented as replacing the entire system with fingertouch/bits codifying, blame is still placed- and infinitely more possible- on people problems. This layer of techno-dazzle is daunting, hypnotic and a whitened sepulcher for the American ballot. All that money for endless insecurity, confusion, difficult machinery and the only benefits are what could obtain by keeping the digital hands off the actual ballot. They can count and record faster for unofficial results. They can organize data and set parameters to set beside a myriad of human counters and their particular judgment. There would still be discrepancies and the possibility of weighing bad digital parameters(spoiled ballots or accepted) versus reliable human judgment for ever smaller and more honest differences between the two totals- wherein the paper ballot and its human reading reigns supreme and naked to public inspection.

In this expensive con game the Democrats are premier suckers, there is no doubt about it. It is not about fraud but about stupidly wasting money on a sham that can easily wreck elections.

Step back. What do you get? Secretly counted elections with malleable invisible balloting where one human intervention has more potential of defrauding more people with less evidence than ever before in ways so numerous that the imagination proposes and then easily discovers real ones to add to the list that is never fixed.

And the illogic continues. Fixes under lax supervision by parties in power can be as easily unfixed and methods become even more subtle and sophisticated to violate the ballots. The whole system from simple registration and records to the counting of digital file ballots has been swallowed up into an ocean of malleable operations. And the fraudulent companies of course betray themselves by having the nerve to accuse- still- the precinct workers of messing things up. Why not let the precinct workers then be the end and all of a simpler, cheaper, more visible and less widespread danger? That is when the pathetic and insufficient presumptions become the gold standard: we have to help the disabled! we have to count fast and sleekly modern and transcend human error!

Why can't we get the bureaucrats to step back from their meek mesmerized acceptance of digital superstructures and their mountain of shell game verbiage and see what utter nonsense, a complexity of
open ended expense and unstoppable invisible danger, is merely blanketing the old system and vaporizing its sole physical mark of of accountability? And the complex duties of people who can now do nothing to guard the vote will make them the first targets of failures in the systems by those who own access to all its inner workings. Which inner workings can NEVER be fully examined or regulated by anyone else except those private firms and anyone they choose to favor.

I know a conspiracy of crooks or a bunch of dolts would buy into this howling madness, but are the rest of sane merely intimidated so easily and grateful to hand away their responsibility and our freedoms to the pitchman's and the federal bully's easy demands?

You don't have to be computer literate to see the absurdity, but you do have to be a born sucker or coward to let these machines in with the solid information already showing horrific results and criminal behavior by strangers demanding total trust- and who will blame you if things go "wrong".

[Peace Patriot]

4. I love your mind, BeFree! Why do we need audits? BECAUSE THE MACHINES

ARE EXTREMELY INSECURE, AND INSIDER-HACKABLE, AND ARE RUN ON 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY PROGRAMMING CODE, OWNED AND CONTROLLED BY BUSHITE CORPORATIONS!

Why do we HAVE this extremely insecure, and insider-hackable, voting system with SECRET vote tabulation, owned by Bushites?

Hm-m-m. Good question. Follow the money. Diebold: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser, who promised to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004." ES&S: spinoff of Diebold--similar computer architecture--initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals. Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship--they are run by two brothers, Tod and Bob Urosevich.

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes (including votes for Congress) in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy. You wonder why Halliburton--Dick Cheney's retirement fund--got a 600% increase in Bushite contracts this year? You wonder how Donald Rumsfeld can "lose" a billion+ dollars in Iraq and not go to jail? You wonder how Congress can kill the Voting Rights Act and pass a flag-burning amendment in the same breath? You wonder why you can't afford to live any more?

Our voting system has been thoroughly corrupted, that's why--quite deliberately, engineered by the biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (abetted by Bilderberg 'Democrat' Christopher Dodd), with their so-called "Help America Vote Act" ($4 billion boondoggle for Bush's buds at Diebold and ES&S, who, in return, "count" all our votes with secret programming).

Transparent elections are NOT difficult. People vote, and you count the votes in public view.

There is NO NEED for all this difficulty--all these hackable machines, all this esoteric gobble-de-gook of electronic voting systems, all these arguments about inadequate audits, all these struggles even to get a paper trail (let alone a real paper ballot backup). Why is this happening?

BECAUSE OUR VOTING SYSTEM HAS BEEN GRAVELY COMPROMISED BY CORRUPT BUSHITE POLITICIANS--using the esoterica of electronic voting to obscure the bald crime of TRADE SECRET VOTE COUNTING.

Non-transparent elections are NOT elections. They are tyranny. That's what we have. And the method of this tyranny is ELECTRONIC VOTING.

And the Diebold Congress is going to "fix" it? Right.

Jonathan Simon is the man who gave early warning on the 2004 stolen election. It is because of him that we know what they did with their "trade secret" vote tabulation. This second warning from him should be heeded: Our loss of our right to vote is about to be cemented into federal law.

You can always tell fake election reformers--Common Cause, the Brennan institute--because they NEVER MENTION trade secret vote tabulation. Oh, they'll mention everything else--how the machines need to be made "more secure"; how we really ought to have a "paper trail" (I mean, how silly of Tom Delay to forget that); how "top scientists" have reviewed the whole situation, and they think some kind of half-assed audit might do the trick (fool all of the people all of the time). Etc. Etc. I've been wondering why the war profiteering corporate news monopolies have permitted a few election fraud stories--and "grave warnings" about election security problems--to leak out to the public. Now I know. They're going to codify corporate "trade secrets" into our election system, to kill democracy once and for all, starting with killing the election reform movement. Then they will proceed with centralized voter purges. Your name will be wiped off the rolls, and you will have to go all the way to Washington DC to try to get back your right to vote. All done electronically, with the efficiency of the SS.

You will register electronically. You will vote electronically (if you vote the right way and don't get purged). And it'll all be run from the White House.

And they've got us in such a desperate plight that we hunger for a mere "voter verified paper audit trail" in the HOPE that election officials corrupted by that $4 billion boondoggle MIGHT do an honest audit of 1% or 2% of our so-called "votes."

They've got us fighting over security measures and paper trails and audits--and they are laughing all the way to the bank.

I repeat my question from many previous posts: Is our Democratic leadership insane? Do you know they all VOTED for HAVA--for electronic "trade secret" vote tabulation with no paper trail? (--with two surprising exceptions--Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, the ONLY Democratic Senators in the Anthrax Congress who voted against HAVA!)

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Here is the brief rundown on HR 550, that I've been posting here at DU:

Russ Holt's HR 550 requires a real paper ballot, bans secret software in "voting machines", and has more than 170 co-sponsors, but the audit required is too weak, it promotes electronic voting and centralized power, and the secret software might be permitted to continue in the central tabulators (the bill is not clear). At lot of discussion at DU of the loopholes/pitfalls in HR 550 (many DUers support the bill):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x422926
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421136
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=422967&mesg_id=422967
To sign the HR 550 petition: http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

(Note: Senate Bill-SB 330 and House-HR704 simply require a "voter verified paper audit trail" (VVPAT), which may be best for the moment.)

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And here's what I think about it now: I think the ban on secret software will never make it out of committee. That makes the bill almost worthless. And the trade-off of getting a real paper ballot backup will be smothered in the loss of sovereignty by the states--the federalization of our elections--which will make it nearly impossible to get rid of the secret software and the corporate control of our election results (AND our voter rolls!), by pressure in state/local venues, where ordinary people still have some influence. There is also the clear danger of SOMETHING WORSE being put IN the bill by junta operatives in the Diebold Congress. HR 550 already promotes electronic voting and centralized power. What if it MANDATES electronic voting--takes away the state/county power to revert to paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (the only truly transparent, verifiable method of voting)?

I know that activists in the states that have been 100% Diebolded (touchscreen voting with no paper record at all) are desperate for a "voter verified paper ballot" or "voter verified paper audit trail" (VVPB or VVPAT). But I have to ask them: Is it worth it, to lose your sovereignty? What happens when you get rigged results EVEN WITH a paper record? How do you get rid of the machines if they are mandated by Congress? What are you going to do when you discover that it's the central electronic tabulators, also run on trade secret code, where the fraud actually takes place? VVPBs and VVPATs merely allow you to POSSIBLY discover fraud--IF you can get a decent audit, or IF you can get a (much rarer) recount--in a highly riggable system? You think you will have a chance in Bush-appointed courts to get justice on any of these matters? A VVPB or VVPAT are not justice, in and of themselves--when the system is run on trade secret programming. You have to PROVE the fraud, against hostile, secretive election officials, and in unfriendly courts, with a great deal of trouble and expense. VVPBs and VVPATs have some deterrent power, and that's about all. If the (s)election is important enough to the powers-that-be, they'll just go ahead and rig it, and take their chances in their bought and paid for court system.

We've seen this Diebold Congress commit outrage after outrage. Do you really think that they are going to give us back our right to vote? Do you really think they WANT transparent elections? And if your answer is "No"--the only reasonable answer, given their record--is it not very foolish, indeed, to push them on this issue? And do you really trust our own Democratic representatives in Congress, who have been utterly negligent on our right to vote up until now? What are THEIR motives? How much stock do THEY have in electronics in government? How dependent are THEY on (s)election by Diebold/ES&S? How blackmailed are THEY? How bribed are THEY? How many of THEM really believe in democracy? And even the good ones, who do, have been unable to stem the fascist tide on any other issue. What makes anyone think they can prevent a "fate worse than HAVA"? Electronic voting is the fascists' lock on power forever more. It was DESIGNED by them for this purpose. They are NOT going to give it up. And I think I can just about guarantee you that NOTHING that comes out of THIS Congress is going to break corporate control over election results, and they will more than likely SOLIDIFY corporate control.

Why not simply support Senate Bill-SB 330 and House-HR704--to get a VVPAT--and not risk the codification of electronic (corporate trade secret) voting, mandated by the worst Congress this country has ever seen?

[kster]

6. At this point, WE CANNOT LET THEM CONTROL THE PAPER

ballots thats the one thing, they can't claim their proprietary games with!

There should be no limit to what percent of the ballots we are entitled to count, Otherwise we are letting them CONTROL THE PAPER ballots.

They own the machines, WE OWN THE PAPER BALLOTS!

[Peace Patriot]

5. Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy! Title: "Poll Shock" 11/24/05)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

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"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." --Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

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Them's fightin' words!

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Never give up on your right to vote! NEVER!

[Reckon]

7. You have to know the Diebots

have been picking who they want to win the Dem primary as well. Like maybe the one they "THINK" they can beat (Kerry --Nam Senate hearings). They would've preferred the exit polls didn't make their cheating look so obvious.

You also have to figure some of the Dems were elected because the Diebots wanted them elected.(They will play ball)

Their plan is redundant --The media plays a huge role in making a candidate look good or riping him to shreds (Dean). In a way they tell us who we like and pick our candidate for us. I don't think the best people will ever make it past the primary. Democracy is just an illusion and the web has let the cat out of the bag.

There's a reason we don't see a stiff resistance from the Dems. It is because there's a hidden hand that controls both parties and depending on their goals (shock and awe) they select the party they want to take power. They own the banks, TV media, newspapers, radio and they're trying to get control of the internet. Lucky for us the hidden hand has two trains of thought of how to achieve their goals. A tug of war, you might say, but both have the same goal, world domination.

No, I'm not a writer, but I know what I know.