Letting the Voter Count

[tw]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

TW's standards are a theoretical machine, not a real one, so we might as well add some way of randomizing the order of votes on the media.

The machine is theoretical because the standards - at least those developed by scientific study - do not exist. HAVA money mysteriously was not spent (as have many other programs authorized by Congress). Curiously, Iraq has cost far more than the $87billion authorized. That Iraq bil, estimated to be currently in the neighborhood of $200billion, must come at the expense of other things - such a doing research so that the 2000 FL fiasco does not happen again. How does one build an election machine on HAVA standards when HAVA standards do not exist? Money to create HAVA standards never appeared. And since the government debt is so high (in excess of what it should be if budgets were under control), one can only assume all those unspent moneys went elsewhere. Ross Perot said it best. If he did accounting as this government does, then Ross Perot would be in jail.

Privatize SS - another lie. The SS money has long been spend on current bills. Where is the cash so that private investors can reinvest their own SS accout? It too is accounting fraud. The money has been spent. But not on HAVA.

Maybe the powers that be are happy to have less secure voting practices? House of Representatives or the Supreme Court tend to rule for the powers that be. And yes, it is possible that the House of Representatives gets to choose the president next time. Just another good reason not to have secure voting that can be audited.

[tw]

From the Washington Post of 20 Oct 2006:

Officials Probing Possible Theft of Voting Software in Md.
The FBI is investigating the possible theft of software developed by the nation's leading maker of electronic voting equipment, said a former Maryland legislator who this week received three computer disks that apparently contain key portions of programs created by Diebold Election Systems.

Cheryl C. Kagan, a former Democratic delegate who has long questioned the security of electronic voting systems, said the disks were delivered anonymously to her office in Olney on Tuesday and that the FBI contacted her yesterday. The package contained an unsigned letter critical of Maryland State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone that said the disks were "right from SBE" and had been "accidentally picked up."

Lamone's deputy, Ross Goldstein, said "they were not our disks," but he acknowledged that the software was used in Maryland in the 2004 elections. Diebold said in a statement last night that it had never created or received the disks. ...

The disks bear the logos of two testing companies that send such disks to the Maryland board after using the software to conduct tests on Diebold equipment. ...

The disks delivered to Kagan's office bear labels indicating that they hold "source code" ...

[Griff]

This will turn out to be a Democratic scandal, since the GOP already owns the source code.

[Happy Monkey]

The scandal is that the source code isn't open in the first place.

[Griff]

Apparently some of these electronic machines make winning by write in voting almost impossible. They use a wheel and click deal to put each letter in individually.... yay 2 party system...

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Griff

Apparently some of these electronic machines make winning by write in voting almost impossible. They use a wheel and click deal to put each letter in individually.... yay 2 party system...

I used this machine (or one of its evil cousins) for the primary in September. I specifically asked to use it, and I asked the poll worker to rig for blind user. I did ask him to NOT disable the screen, but that option was available. I put on the headset and conducted my vote through the keypad like the one on the phone 1-9, 0, * and #. I did try to write in a candidate. It was agonizing. I had to spell out the name by using 2 for a, 22 for b, 222 for c, 3 for d, 33 for e, etc. Then every choice had to be confirmed with * or #, I forget, but it wasn't consistent. At one point # was confirm/continue and later # was go back. Idiots.

I asked him about my "receipt", which was printed on a roll of paper like a register tape (tits on a boar to a blind voter...). No braille was available.

The whole process was brutal. Even when I used my hearing and sight the machine was clunky at best. They did have a ups on the system, I didn't see any exposed ports, but I wasn't trying to crash the machine, just inspect the tidiness of the setup. I'm...underwhelmed. It's a tablet pc with a touch screen, running windows (that's a guess, but an educated one). It looked somewhat "ruggedized" but I doubt it would enjoy a fall from the wispy tripod it was setup on. It's gonna be ugly.

[Flint]

Politicians will give speeches about "technology" - but when the government says "technology" they mean "shitty technology" . . .

Our ballots here are going to be in Spanish, English, and Navajo. That should prove interesting. I think I'll vote all in Navajo. :p

[tw]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Our ballots here are going to be in Spanish, English, and Navajo. That should prove interesting. I think I'll vote all in Navajo.

Do Navajo have latin letters? What is font for Navajo? It sounds like a comic question. But the question is serious. How does one read Navajo?

[tw]

Originally Posted by tw

Much of this is traceable to voting officials (political appointees) who have as much technical knowledge as women do about skin creams.

Voting machines in Ohio, due to spending money on products from companies such as Diebold and ESS, do not meet minimal security standards. As was obvious in original posts here, those computer voting machines are defective. But those who are 'computer literate' (?) bought them anyway. Why? If computerized; therefore it must be better? Why do we need immigrants? View what political party appointed officials did in Ohio? Simple research shows why all 'less than two year old' voting machines are defective. From the AP by Julie Carr Smyth on 14 Dec 2007:

The state's top elections official recommended Friday that Ohio counties replace their touch-screen voting machines because the devices in use for roughly two years are vulnerable to manipulation. ...

The state's review involved touch-screen machines built by Election Systems & Software, Hart Intercivic and Diebold Inc.'s Premier Election Solutions. Some Ohio counties started using them in November 2005, and the rest in May 2006.

This voting official did not purchase these machines; she inherited the problem. After doing simple research, Ohio's voting machines, bought years after above (2004) The Cellar posts, have problems defined in these posts.