The emperor has been strutting around butt naked for way too long, hasn't he? Rebecca nails it purely and simply. When will we just kick these slimeballs out of our democracy, and why can't we demand a refund?

by Nancy Tobi (79 articles, 4 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments) on Friday, Jul 27, 2007 at 9:34:09 PM

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this issue is not going to go away. If they don't deal with it properly now, it will continue to halt them every year and every election to come until they fix it, and it will be constantly thrown up in their faces as good reasons to replace them with politicians who care about what the people want and about fair and trustworthy elections -- and it will get worse for them as time goes by.

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 12:57:24 AM

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Here is Maryland, voters have been writing and complaining about Diebold machines for several years now. Legislators won't budge, because they hate admiting they were wrong, and that they made a costly mistake at taxpayer's expense. They'd rather "fix" the mistake with band aids, rather than start all over.

Hopefully California will adandon the machines, and will set an example for the other states.

Open source voting is gaining ground… see here...

click here

by John R Moffett (89 articles, 18 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 697 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 10:20:04 AM

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but please don't tell us that this is OVC, Open Voting Consortium, because all that is- is software to be used in a computer. The so-called "Supporters", when they learn the truth about what  they purportedly  endorse, withdraw their support. We also have the Diebold infestation here in Lassen County as well as five other counties in California and it's going to be almost impossible to get rid of it.  All we can hope for is that the voters decide to reclaim their elections loudly and forcibly enough so that their respective Boards of Supervisors will follow the will of the people. The old fashioned way is not only the cheapest, it is the most trusted way to vote.

by Chuck Garner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 118 comments) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 11:02:03 AM

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_alan_dec_070727_san_francisco_or_new.htm

 It was written by the CEO of OVC apparently. As an IT person myself, I would much prefer off-the-shelf equipment running open source software. The proprietary nature of DRE's is one of their biggest problems. Optical scan is fine by me too, as long as they are not proprietary. I don't care what equipment they use, as long as it is public and accurate, not "a trade secret".

by John R Moffett (89 articles, 18 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 697 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 11:20:19 AM

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 which I mistakenly thought you were aware of, but apparently not. A good start would be a visit to the website of a fellow IT professional, who makes his living from being hired to hack into a company's security system to reveal it's weak spots. He says, "The problem with computer security is thinking there is any." There isn't. Absolutely NONE. He shows you how to, step-by-step, hack an election to get any result you desire. Be sure to check out the humor page.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/archive.htm,  

Then read anything by Nancy Tobi or Andi Novick, or the links provided by Rob Kall.     

by Chuck Garner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 118 comments) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 12:21:39 PM

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Having been involved for many years in IT myself, I will say that there is absolutely no need for computerized voting or tallying. There is no need to produce election results 10 minutes after voting booths have closed.

Paper balloting though it may be slow, and may be hacked (ballot box stuffing etc,) the scale to which it may be done is much more limited, and the perpetrators can be more easily identified and apprehended -- mainly because you now need to move paper, and not electrons.

While I love and value open source software -- voting is not the place for it. The solution to the voting dillemma lies in decentralization and localization of the voting and the voting count.

by Bleeding Heart Liberal (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 48 comments) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 12:22:21 PM

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I understand computer security. Open source can be quite secure if you know what you’re doing, but of course election officials don’t usually know very much, so I comprehend that looming problem.

But you all obviously realize that ballot box stuffing and “disappearing” has happened since voting was first invented. There is nothing secure about any voting system if the poll workers are going to cheat. That includes paper ballots. Truckloads of ballots have disappeared in the past.

I would say based on my readings that hand counted paper ballots have a fairly high error rate compared with mechanical voting machines, and possibly some optical scanners. Paper ballots are also very labor intensive. Many precincts can't get enough people to volunteer to staff the polls. How would you get all the people needed to count 100 million votes by hand?

I think the main issue is that many precincts have partisan people operating the polling places and devices. I am not sure how you can eliminate that, no matter what voting method you use. In any case, computers would work fine if they were not “secret”, if you had competent staff deploying them, and if the poll workers were honest. But many other systems would work fine if you could meet those conditions.

by John R Moffett (89 articles, 18 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 697 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 2:37:06 PM

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 And I say, every one of your objections have already been raised and answered- and so what I only hinted at, I'll say it clearly- You are completely ignorant of the huge body of literature that exists on this topic. I thought that your article of July 26, 2007 "Dear Progressives: Organize or Squabble, Which Is It?" addressed this issue by starting out with "There is a enormous chasm forming among liberals, progressives, and leftists, and the reason why is obvious." The "enormous chasm" is quite different to those of us who want to head off any more stolen elections, meaning between those who know for a fact that part of the theft was enabled by the use of Republican voting computers, and those who think the use of Republican voting computers is perfectly acceptable. There are those of us who view anybody advocating the use of computers in elections as bought off by the Republican voting machine cartel, who stand to lose billions of dollars and even worse, the complete control of future elections.

by Chuck Garner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 118 comments) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 4:45:28 PM

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Quote:

Truckloads of ballots have disappeared in the past

 But that has happened in spades over the last two general elections - only electronically -- much more difficult to trace than truckloads of paper ballots!

by Bleeding Heart Liberal (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 48 comments) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 5:02:52 PM

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the will of the people is the only Constitutional foundation for this Republic. Whether we the people are fit to govern ourselves and will make the best decisions is of no import; it is the supreme law of the land. 

by Better World Order (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1110 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Saturday, Jul 28, 2007 at 2:06:13 PM

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