3 Republican House members have now signed on as co-sponsors and there are rumors that at least 10 more will sign on. Not surprisingly, most come from the NE, including Chris Shays, who is one of the few principled Republicans left. Kudos to all the supporters.
Internet poll from Lou Dobbs. (Yes, I know it's not scientific.) _____________ Do you believe digital voting machines should be required to print a paper record of each vote? Yes 96% 5896 votes No 4% 239 votes Total: 6135 votes This QuickVote is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole.
Have any of you guys ever actually watched the vote counting process? A good friend of mine was an election judge in Houston for many years. She used to go down to the Astrodome and sit on the floor and pour over ballots by hand on election night. She said that, every year, hundreds of cards were tossed out, messed up, mishandled, etc. She said she observed the same thing in several other states when she visited them during primaries. The fact is that you have a system run primarily by folks who volunteer to help and often are party loyalists on both sides. Many of them have been doing this for YEARS. There are actually voting boxes in Houston run out of people's garages. There's a famous one still on the west side of town that has been there since the 70's. This is still a very primative system for the most part. The electronic voting, IMO, creates a whole host of problems that have yet to be addressed. Despite the laborious nature of vote counting on punch cards and other methods, there is a physical way to track the votes if there is a problem. Occassionally voting boxes from specific precincts might were "lost" in a close election on election night. But, if they could find the box, they could find the fraud. In the case of electronic voting, we are placing our political future in the hands of people who know how to run the system and, as a result, know its weak spots. There better be unbelievable redundancy in the systems and multiple layers of individuals monitoring them from all sides of the political spectrum or voter fraud may get worse before it gets better.
Yes, I've seen it and yes it can be messy. Still, most folks seem to be realizing that we are better off with the devil we know. Well, maybe except for Florida... __________ Florida won't require printouts of touch-screen votes By George Bennett, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 6, 2003 California will require that its touch-screen voting machines provide paper printouts for each ballot cast, but Florida's top elections official says she does not favor a similar standard here. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's recent paper-trail edict is scheduled to take effect by 2006. The action in the nation's largest state -- and America's largest market for new voting hardware -- hands a potentially precedent-setting victory to opponents of paperless electronic voting. "You have to wonder if it will California-ize the market, if paper trails will become a de facto requirement," said Doug Chapin of Electionline.org, a nonprofit group that monitors election reform. As manufacturers develop ballot printers to accompany touch screens, Florida will be "very open-minded" in reviewing any printers submitted to the state for certification, Secretary of State Glenda Hood said this week. If printers are certified, Hood said, counties would have the option of using them. But Hood said making a paper trail a statewide requirement is not necessary because Florida has multiple safeguards to assure the accuracy and security of touch screens, which are used in Palm Beach County and 14 other counties. "Florida has led the nation in providing security and certification," Hood said. "At this point in time, with the satisfaction that the supervisors continue to show... and the fact that we haven't had complaints from voters, I have a high confidence level." With punch-card ballots falling from favor after the 2000 election, paperless touch-screen systems have emerged as the leading new technology. A small but vocal group of computer scientists, Internet posters and other critics has charged that electronic voting machines are susceptible to errors and fraud and need a paper backup if questions arise about an election. The criticisms gained attention in July with a Johns Hopkins University report claiming security problems with Diebold touch screens. This week, a report by the Ohio secretary of state's office found security flaws in touch screens made by all four of the nation's major manufacturers. The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections issued a six-page statement last month defending touch screens and their reliability. The association says touch screens reduce voter errors and are more accessible for voters who are disabled or don't speak English. Also, the association says, paper receipts would add costs and create "a new set of issues and challenges such as paper jams, running out of ink and paper and the realization that they are a mechanical piece of equipment." The supervisors' report accuses touch-screen critics of "committing a huge disservice to the voting public. The continued unfounded attacks on these systems erode the public's confidence." Touch-screen manufacturers have defended the accuracy and security of their products but have also positioned themselves to take advantage of any demand for a paper trail. Sequoia Voting Systems, which makes the touch screens used in Palm Beach County, will market a ballot printer early next year that would add about $500 to the cost of an electronic voting machine, said company spokesman Alfie Charles. Elections Systems and Software, which makes the touch screens used in 11 Florida counties, says its products are secure and accurate. But spokeswoman Becky Vollmer said ES&S is developing a printer "for those who would like an added layer of confidence."
Printing out receipts combines the best of both worlds -- the accuracy of e-voting and the hard evidence of hand-tabulation. I just don't understand why a print-out is such a big deal.
I don't understand the reticence to offer a printed copy either - why would that be a problem? Just give them an official number, etc.,....shouldn't be that difficult.
I'm sorry if this has been hashed up but I have a habit of jumping to the end of a thread when I'm p.o.'d. Regarding the 2000 voter fraud in Florida, read: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast. When Palast uncovered what had happened and went to the guy in charge of voting to question him (on camera), the guy literally froze and fled to a back room (slamming the door and not coming out; the book provides photos of these moments as proof). The voting machines in Florida, and the actual voting process, was completely rigged. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people were disenfranchised in Florida. Why? First Florida dumped felons from the voting roll. No big deal, except that most of those not allowed to vote should have been allowed. Ex-felons who moved to Florida from another state should have their right to vote reinstated. OK, so let's say, So what? They committed a crime, and wherever they did it, hell with'em, don't let'em vote. But FL didn't stop there. Names and SSNs that even RESEMBLED those of the disenfranchised were often dumped from voter rolls. A county official in charge of voting also received a letter saying she could not vote. Problem is, she had never committed a crime in her life (that she was arrested for, anyway). Greg Palast called CBS to get "60 Minutes" to run the story. 60 Minutes called Jeb Bush's office (I love this!) and asked Jeb if the story was true. "Of course not," says the brother of the President. Story dropped. Greg Palast admits that he is liberal but the book has a few pointed things to say about Clinton as well. But about this subject, being generous and impartial, he factors that up to 100,000 people were disenfranchised. Half were black. 90% were low income. You figure the math on who won Florida. Hanging chads? I could give a s*** about hanging chads. What happened in Florida still hasn't been reported across the U.S. We had someone over at the house to repair our computer and he starts in on this subject about "the recount was done 5 times, those people are still screaming about Florida," so I showed him the book and the information. To his credit, he got very quiet after that. Oh, and by the way: the son of Supreme Court (In)Justice Antonin Scalia is a member of the law firm that represented Bush before the Supreme Court in the election process. Conflict of interest?
Nevada goes to printouts. What's funny is that they had slot machine experts look at the systems and did not go with Diebold because of a "legitimate threat." Have we fallen so much that slot machine guys are now our leaders in the fight for voting integrity? ____________ Nevada decides on new voting machines - - - - - - - - - - - - Dec. 11, 2003 | Secretary of State Dean Heller said Wednesday that Nevada has become the first state to demand a voter-verifiable receipt printer on new touch-screen voting machines being purchased for the 2004 elections. Heller picked Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems over Diebold Election Systems of North Canton, Ohio, as the supplier of the new direct-recording electronic voting machines that will be bought with federal funds. Heller also decertified all punch-card voting machines in Nevada as of next Sept. 1, just before the state's primary, saying it's his duty "to provide voters with the highest level of confidence that elections in this state are fair, unbiased and secure." "A paper trail is an intrinsic component of voter confidence," Heller said in explaining why he insisted that Sequoia -- which already has nearly 3,000 machines installed in Clark County -- include the receipt printers on new machines for the upcoming elections. The printers must be added on existing machines by 2006. Heller mentioned the Florida elections in 2000, saying, "The Florida debacle and the chaos created by the 'hanging and pregnant chad' controversy clearly demonstrate the need to move forward with advanced technology." While the printers add to the cost of the voting systems, Heller said "money takes a back seat to accuracy, security and voter confidence." The printers let voters see their ballot choices before finalizing their votes. The decision to go with Sequoia machines was based in part on a review by the state Gaming Control Board's slot machine experts who issued a report saying the Diebold machine that was analyzed "represented a legitimate threat to the integrity of the election process." Marc McDermott, the GCB's electronic services division chief, said the Sequoia machine "represents a much more secure option." Heller also said more than two-thirds of the state's voters already use Sequoia voting machines, and Clark County -- encompassing Las Vegas -- has used Sequoia for the past 10 years. He added that now every polling site in the state will have the same voting system and technology, and that will help as the state shifts to a statewide voter registration system prior to the 2006 elections. Funding for the Sequoia machines and the printers will come from federal funds allotted to the states under the Help America Vote Act. Nevada will get a minimum state allotment of $5 million under part of the act, followed by another $15 million under other provisions of the new law.
Slot machine vendors are held to a higher standard, the Nevada gaming board. Voting machines on the other hand...
Diebold can't even keep their emails safe and we want to trust them with votes? ________________ Diebold e-mail discusses price gouging Maryland E-Mail This Article by Steven T. Dennis Staff Writer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dec. 11, 2003 ANNAPOLIS -- An e-mail found in a collection of files stolen from Diebold Elections Systems' internal database recommends charging Maryland "out the yin-yang," if the state requires Diebold to add paper printouts to the $73 million voting system it purchased. The e-mail from "Ken," dated Jan. 3, 2003, discusses a (Baltimore) Sun article about a University of Maryland study of the Diebold system: "There is an important point that seems to be missed by all these articles: they already bought the system. At this point they are just closing the barn door. Let's just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts." "Ken" later clarifies that he meant "out the yin-yang," adding, "any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive." The e-mail has been cited by advocates of voter-verified receipts, who say estimates of the cost of adding printers -- as much as $20 million statewide -- have been bloated. "I find it appalling," said Del. Karen S. Montgomery (D-Dist. 14) of Brookeville, who plans to file a bill mandating a voter-verified paper trail. "I'd really like to have [yin-yang] explained to me anatomically, with the assumption that almost any place it would be would be painful," she said. Montgomery said that the price to add printers should be much lower and that she thinks it is being high-balled in part to keep people from talking about the printing system. Diebold spokesman David Bear would neither dispute nor confirm the accuracy of the "yin-yang" e-mail on Monday, saying it is "at best the internal discussion of one individual and does not reflect the sentiments or the position of the company." Last week, Diebold dropped threats to sue voting rights advocates who published the e-mail and other reportedly stolen documents or linked to an online archive of Diebold files from their Web sites. According to news reports, a hacker broke into the Ohio company's servers using an employee's ID number and copied a 1.8-gigabyte file of company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails dating back to January 1999. The purloined files include discussions of the security of Diebold's voting machines, which has been a contentious issue in Maryland and other states. State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone told The Gazette last month that Diebold had given a preliminary estimate of $1,000 to $1,200 per machine to add printouts, or up to $20 million for the state's more than 16,000 machines. She said last week that she could not recall whether she got the figure from Diebold or media reports. Lamone, who said she had not seen the e-mail and did not know if it was accurate, also said she believes that a clause in the contract requiring that Diebold give Maryland the lowest price of any state for hardware should guard against price-gouging if the General Assembly mandates voter receipts. But some portions of the contract still would have to be renegotiated, she said. Bear said he did not know the particulars of the contract. The issue of voter-verified paper receipts continues to gain momentum nationally, with California's secretary of state announcing that all electronic voting machines there must include paper printouts by 2006. The cost cited by one of Diebold's competitors, according to news reports, was about $500 a machine. Aviel D. Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who wrote a report earlier this year that found the Diebold machines to be riddled with potential security holes, has advocated for voter-verified receipts. Without such a check on the machines, he said, errors or fraud could go undetected. Rubin's report prompted Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to ask for an independent investigation by SAIC Corp., which affirmed that the system was "at high risk of compromise." Bob Urosevich, president of Diebold Elections Systems, declined to estimate a price in an interview last month, saying the cost would depend on a number of factors. Lamone also said that adding paper printouts to the machines before the November presidential election would be difficult, but not impossible, if the General Assembly should mandate it. All of the equipment would need to be retrofitted, retested and recertified, new procedures put in place, and judges retrained, she said. Montgomery's bill would allow voters to correct errors they find on a paper printout. It also would require random checks of paper records in 2 percent of election districts against the computer records to ensure that there has been no tampering with the computers. The paper records would be used as the final arbiter in the event of a recount. Lamone said she retains confidence in the system: "I think they've undergone so much study now that everyone in the world understands what their weaknesses are and what processes need to be put into place to make sure they are not compromised. We here in Maryland have taken giant steps to ensure the security of the voting system." Lamone said local jurisdictions are excited about the technology and conducting successful mock elections, with a voter education effort planned for late January. Urosevich told The Gazette last month that the Diebold system is secure. He also noted that the system passed extensive independent testing at both the state and federal levels, and said his company had already fixed the security issues found by SAIC. Lamone criticized Another e-mail from the archive, sent Dec. 18, 2002, and purported to be from Sue Page, one of Diebold's Maryland project managers, criticizes Lamone by name. "Linda Lamone ... makes public statements airing dirty laundry and casting doubt. She's about power and control. She feels powerful when she makes negative comments. What she misses is that her negative comments reflect negatively on her. She should be proud of and support her initiative of a state wide voting change, rather than casting doubt on her own decision." Page writes that the State Board of Elections has a negative approach, mandating to county election directors instead of working with them, and threatening University of Maryland researchers rather than building a positive relationship. Advice on how to deal with the media fell on deaf ears, she writes. "There's not much that we can do, other than hope that a new Republican Governor will effect change." Asked about the e-mail on Thursday, Page said, "I'm not allowed to comment." Lamone, a Democrat, has been battling to keep her job amidst efforts from Ehrlich to install a Republican elections chief. Four of the five board members would have to vote to remove Lamone; three are Republicans and two are Democrats. Lamone said last week she had not seen the e-mail. "I don't know whether they are really hers or not," she said, but she defended the agency's actions. Lamone said that the agency has a very positive relationship with the University of Maryland and a collaborative effort with the counties. "I don't know what she's talking about," Lamone said. "We try to be as collaborative as possible."
Criminals working for Diebold... and these are just the convicted ones... ___________ Critics: Convicted felons worked for electronic voting companies RACHEL KONRAD Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO - A manufacturer of electronic voting machines has employed at least five convicted felons as managers, according to critics demanding more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine software. Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a subsidiary of Diebold Inc., one of the country's largest voting equipment vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted fraudulent stock transactions, and a programmer jailed for falsifying computer records. The programmer, Jeffrey Dean, wrote and maintained proprietary code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of Global Election Systems Inc. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002. According to a public court document released before GES hired him, Dean served time in a Washington correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree of sophistication and planning." "You can't tell me these people passed background tests," Harris, author of "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," said in a phone interview. Michael Jacobsen, a spokesman for North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold, emphasized that the company performs background checks on all managers and programmers. He said many GES managers - including Dean - left at the time of the acquisition. "We can't speak for the hiring process of a company before we acquired it," Jacobsen said. He would not provide further details, saying company policy bars discussion of current or past employees. The former GES is Diebold's wholly owned subsidiary, Global Election Management Systems, which produces the operating system that touch-screen voting terminals use. Dean could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., announced a bill last week that would require stringent background checks on all electronic voting company employees who work with voting software. The bill, which the California Democrat plans to introduce in January, would toughen security standards for voting software and hardware, and require touch-screen terminals to include printers and produce paper backups of vote counts by the 2004 presidential election in November. Harris and Andy Stephenson, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state in Washington, conducted a 10-day investigation in Seattle and Vancouver, where the men were convicted. Harris and Stephenson released the findings in a 17-page document online and at a news conference in Seattle. Also Tuesday, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed announced legislation that would require electronic voting machines in Washington to produce a paper trail. If the legislature approves it, touch-screen machines in the state would be required to produce paper receipts by 2006. Voters would get to see but not touch or remove the receipts, which would be kept in a county lock box. Computer programmers say software bugs, hackers or electrical outages could cause more than 50,000 touch-screen machines used in precincts nationwide to delete or alter votes. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced Nov. 21 that touch-screens in the nation's most populous state must provide paper receipts by 2006.
