Blackboxvoting.org Raises Vote-Audit FOIA Request 1023
aacool writes "Blackboxvoting.org has raised the largest Freedom of Information request in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit. Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips."
Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Interesting)
They do? (Score:4, Informative)
Secondly, Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, said that about only Ohio, because he lives and works in Ohio, and is a GOP backer.
Bad taste? Yes. "Interesting" that a CEO of a company is a Republican? Nope. Do I wish he would have had the scruples to stay out of politics since his company is making voting machines? Yep.
But please, take off your tinfoil hat. When he said he was committed to delivering Ohio to Bush, he meant that as a GOP campaigner, contributor, and backer. Not that he was going to secretly have a 13,000-employee company rig a presidential election.
Re:They do? (Score:4, Insightful)
I still wish that there were some way of doing a recount, even though it doesn't appear to be necessary in this case. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if there were shennanigans; I've heard of various ugly games played to influence voters. But here it seems that the Deibold machines did their jobs. I stil don't trust them but I'm not going to dispute the results.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They do? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you'd like to see how well this works out for the Republicans, check out these jokers [blogs.com].
It's a lot easier to be worried about white church issues when you don't have to worry about putting food on the table. Mississippi has a poverty rate approaching 20% whereas the national average is nearly half that for all races but 23% nationally for blacks. Quite frankly, it's also the reason I think hypocrite whenever I hear white folks getting all uppity about "values" when black communities are still stuck with the same statistical difference on lifespan, education, home ownership and business ownership, infant mortality that they've always had with white people.
This country has never properly compensated it's black population for 300+ years of racism and slavery and the statistical numbers show it. The GOP will never increase it's vote among the black population until it quits playing lip service to these issues and actually does something about it. Bill Clinton was America's "First Black President" for a reason.
Hell, you couldn't pay Republicans enough to walk the neighborhoods I have to get the vote out. The most poignant satirical illustration of this I've seen was the faux South Park cartoon in Bowling for Columbine. White America seems to pretty much be oblivious when it comes to how other people live and running scared because of ignorance. Racism in this country isn't dead, it's just gotten a hell of a lot more subtle.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, your above statement is a racist generalization. Lumping "White Folks" or "Blacks" together when making blanket statments is the definition of a stereotype. Next are you gonna say that white folks can't dance and black people love chicken?
_PEOPLE_ are concerned about things that are important to them - it doesn't matter what color they are.
The people who have to _distinguish_ the color are the ones with the problem. Every person is an individual. When the whole world starts to think like that, we won't have a need for the word "Racist".
Do all Black people want the same thing? That's what it sounds like when you say, "Only Washington DC has a higher concentration of black folks (61%, no wonder they can't get representation in Congress".
I didn't realize that Black people were a new Borg Collective! Support all people, rich, poor, from any background. Promote that.
Peace.
Re:They do? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Compensation and Reparation" and the general backward-looking "but your great-great-great grandparents were bad to our great-great-great grandparents" thinking is what leads to things like "ethnic clensing" TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS after one ethnic group invaded another in the general area of the world we know today as Bosnia.
Remember it, Resent it, whatever, but every time you bring it up you lose market-share. Ask the IRA.
White people became world invaders because for century after century the different white countries were invading eachother and taking eachoters candy. It was all an accident of geography and erosion (great farmland right next to very-old mountains with easily accessible coper and tin).
Don't fish for reperations. The (us) white people wont buy it. If we generally subscribed to the doctrine of reperations we would spend so much time paying eachother for slights going back thousands of years that your three-hundred would barely make hay.
Ask the Scotts.
Ask the Irish.
Ask the Slavs (from which the word SLAVE is derrived for a reason which you can rather easily guess.)
Ask the Jews.
And it isn't that white people are evil, but with generation after generation of this struggle for the verdant lowlands of europe they were just *bound* to come up with "might makes right."
Let's face it, if Africa or India had such easy access to metals, and if their farmland was better, then their older cultures would have totally owned Eurpoe and Asia long before the Greeks decided that gravity was explained by "the fact" that apples contained little spirits that wanted to be closer to the earth.
Dont say "we deserve better treatment than we are getting because of the last 300 years" (etc) it makes you sound craven and helpless.
Say "we deserve better treatment than we are getting" and leave it at that.
This white culture that you blame is pretty tied up in "god helps those who help themselves" and "might makes right" and all sorts of things like that.
Exercise your power, demand fair pay for fair work (and then some 8-), speak to the future. Stop talking about what you deserve because of past events. Look to the future. Own today.
Any white person who thinks reparations would be a good idea, is thinking it (secretly at least) in a "give them a pat on the head and they'll go away" way. You don't _want_ a pat on the head... trust me.
Really, Ask a Scott, they were taking it from behind 700 years before Britton even knew there _was_ an Africa. They haven't forgotton, but they did figure out quite a while back that there never would be thirty acres and a mule.
Ask yourself why English is a pollyglot of French and German.
It would be nice to imagine that "Manifest Destiny" was the last gasp of that sort of thing, but it wasn't.
Every day you are doing, through your government, to Iraq and the middle east AND Isrial, the EXACT SAME THING over Oil, that Dibers did to Africa over diamonds and "peices of india."
It would take a little less than a glance through a good encyclopedia to make most of this stuff evident.
I think you have completely missed my point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Talk about how things are today. Talk about how they must be better tomorrow. Give numbers. Provide passion. All of that is good, and it works. You'll at least have a chance of getting your message across.
But say "300 years" and it all flys out the window, you might as well have stayed home.
This is not a "racest position" this a statement of well understood cultural bias. I am comming right out and _telling_ _you_ what that alien thing is that seems to secretly unite white men of european dissent. This is what is happening in our minds behind that inscrutable and perplexing white-man-grin. That is what is passing between us when we do that glance-around as you are speaking. It's what is happening behind-the-scenes when you get that strange feeling that you are losing your audience. Honestly and truely.
I'm a pragmatic liberal white male, a truck-driving pusdo-redneck, a homosexual, and a European mongrel of the most pervasive kind. I am a prime example of one of your greatest potential allies in the white establishment(*), and even _I_ cannot force my self to keep listening when people talk about "historical injustice". I have been pre-programmed to tune that out, and that programming runs almost impossibly deep. What chance do you think you are going to have with an old-south good-old-boy.
For two thousand years "western culture", or the men in it anyway, have been weened on "suck it up" and "take it like a man." It's _engrained_ in our cultural psyche. Take. Own. Conquer. Belittle and discard the weak. We are raised to devalue *ANYONE* who compains about past injustice. Just watch any two white boys, age 12, pick on a third and you will get the picture.
Really.
I'm just trying to tell you something here.
Watch some "hick comedy" sometime. "(She|They) are talking about *that* again" is the gal-darn _refrain_ of every white male complaining about "them" no-matter _who_ "they" happen to be this time.
Most of the glass ceiling that women and minorities run into is simply a loss of audience. Like magic, there are certian things you can say or do that turn your words to "blah blah blah" _instantly_. When you do those things that make any particular people stop listening to you, you lose the power to influence those people. If you want to get anywhere with us, you have to cut that out.
Why do you think that the white-male media always trots out King's "I have a Dream" speach? It was by no measure the most intellegent or insightful thing he said. He was much deeper and more eloquent later in his mission. But it is a powerful image and it unremittingly looks forward. We are *programed* to respect that. Read a press release some time, any press release, but especially one from a company who has "had a bad last quarter."
I'm not telling you your wrong to _feel_ the ways you feel. I'm just trying to tell you that when you *say* it you are shooting yourself in the foot.
The word "injustice" is almost enough right there, but "historical injustice"? Please. You might as well put on floppy shoes and a clown nose. There has been virtually no _historical_ _justice_. The "injustice" is just background noise. Everybody, every ethnic people, every cultural group, every political class, was screwed for "their turn" in european/western history.
You will *NEVER*, no matter how you "[call] a spade a spade", find your ideas or solutions have fallen on fertile ears when you cast your argument in terms of reparations of *ANY* sort. The very mention of the idea _salts_ _the_ _earth_ you are trying to sow.
There has never, in all of recorded history, been a conclave of white european men gathered together discussing "reparations" for the socally injured, where that conversation did _NOT_ end in a chuckle of "yea, sure, any day
Re:They do? (Score:5, Informative)
You could start with the record number of black appointments to Federal positions. Clinton connected with black Americans in a way that gave them hope, he made them feel like the promises of the Civil Rights movement would come true if he had anything to do with it. I'd say that's concrete, to make a person who feels like a second class citizen realize the their guarantees under the Constitution will be upheld. It's lasting as well. Bill Clinton gave Black folks hope, I don't know if you can measure how much that was worth, and nobody can take it from them.
Your qualifier of lasting is a bit difficult. Did a Republican Congress or Administration make a thing less lasting? Like Bush I's cuts to Head Start or his assault on Affirmative Action.
The general idea behind Clinton's policies was to preserve the programs, such as Affirmative Action and anti-poverty programs like Head Start, while creating a rising tide that would lift all boats.
Re:They do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Clinton connected with black Americans in a way that gave them hope, he made them feel like the promises of the Civil Rights movement would come true if he had anything to do with it.
I won't disagree here, he did give them hope and I don't want to belittle that but what did he do for them other than appoint many black judges?
Like Bush I's cuts to Head Start or his assault on Affirmative Action.
Affirmative action is a band-aid for the underlying problem of racism. In the 60's it served its purpose well, shocking the racist masses into a reluctant realism that this segment of the society could actually perform as equals when given the opportunity. Unfortunately this has morphed to the notion of lowering standards for admission and employment to ensure a certain level of diversity. This does nothing to address the underlying problem... why are african-american children performing below the necessary standards? Why do we wait and allow these children to fall short of their potential for the first 18 years of their life, only to offer a college degree as reconciliation? Is racism part of the problem? Maybe a little bit, but there are plenty of socio-economic stones to turn over that have nothing to do with racism.
As for head-start... my wife was an elementry school teacher so I will have to defer to her experience in this. Head-start is nothing more than state-sponsored day-care... no more, no less. It is simply a crutch to force the black community into permanent submission by encouraging a cycle of single-parent, non-family-care-giver child-rearing. Do I want to see poor, unmarried women with no child-care options? Of course not,... but what ever happened to consequences for ones' own actions?
Re:They do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think I'm being sensational? The Iranian parliament just voted unanimously to resume uranium enrichment. Thanks to Bush and Co. going around the world like the Roman Empire threatening everyone, nuclear proliferation is now inevitable. The whole world is terrified of the U.S. and sees mutually assured destruction as their only ticket to security.
If in addition to the silly "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" shit, there was also rigging of the elections, maybe we all really deserve to be a-sploded with "nucular" weapons.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Manuel Noriega is still rotting in a Federal prison. The story [nwu.edu] of his unprecedented trial of a head of state on drug trafficking charges.
Saddam is of course sitting in an Iraqi jail under U.S. authority.
The U.S. pretty much grabbed the president of Haiti and put him on a plane to Africa, against his will, while he was still Haiti's President while U.S. backed rebels were closing in on him. Its most books it might be called kidnapping a sovereign head of state.
I don't remember the exact sequencing but I think war crimes charges were laid against Milsoevic while he was still Serbia's head of state.
It is kind of sweet being America since you can have a double standard on everything.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem I have is that you have NO IDEA whether the Diebold machines did their job do you?
I have no interest in disputing the results, at this time, either. HOWEVER, I most certainly retain the right to dispute the results should an audit suggest anything was out of line.
I most deffinately want to see the results of the audits. Then, and only then, will I form a solid opinion on whether these machines 'did their jobs' or not.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny; I've already seen a lot online discussing the inaccuracies in the exit polls. NPR had a program on the topic a couple hours back, where the exit-poll reps admitted that they overestimated the Kerry vote by 5% or more. They seemed especially bothered by the fact that so many polls were off by roughly the same amount.
They didn't quite say it, but one obvious suspicion was a systematic 5% (roughly) error in counting the votes.
The other obvious suspicion is a systematic bias in all the polls. But it's more difficult to see how this might happen, given the wide range in political stances of the polling organizations.
One, uh, "interesting" thing I ran across a few weeks ago was a discussion of a growing difficulty that pollsters have in the US: There are a lot of states now using proprietary electronic voting equipment that can't be audited or examined by outsiders. It's essentially impossible for a pollster to estimate the bias introduced by such equipment and add it to the poll estimates. And, of course, if a poll turns out different from the final vote tally, it's a huge embarrassment to the polling company.
It was interesting hearing them discuss this problem openly. It was as if they just accepted the bias of the equipment as a given that we all know about. Their problem is that they couldn't poll the machines and determine their biases, which makes for a large unknown in their calculations.
Well, it'll be interesting to see what blackboxvoting discovers, if anything.
Decision criteria for voting lost on me... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a non-American, that is what boggles the mind.
With everything going on, the election is decided on "moral issues"? Me no understand...although, you gotta hand it to Bush's campaign people for realizing near the end that it was the only type of campaign they could win.
Re:Decision criteria for voting lost on me... (Score:4, Insightful)
The sitting Prez has done everything but be a good old-style Republican, aside from some tax cuts that I'll argue were largely misplaced and mistimed. (Unlike most people think, not all of us old-style Republicans would cut taxes to zero - most of us would rather see the debt paid off than lower taxes right now, as we think its a greater risk to the country's fiscal stability.) We've gotten government bloat on a grand scale (Dept Homeland Security, TSA, etc.), loss of personal freedom (pick any moral legislation that's been attempted, or the trampling of the law on freedoms we still enjoy, hoping we won't know the law) loss of controls over government intrusion into our lives (PATRIOT and secret warrants), and general dishonesty and disregard for evidence at hand when making important decisions (environment, Iraq, pick any two). As they said last night "God, Guns, and Gays" is what the new Republican party is all about, and aside from guns, I don't think any of that is the government's business.
To tell you the truth, I don't know where my side of the Republicans went. I think we've been 0wn3d by the militant, puritanical Christian right-wing. I'm incredibly liberal when it comes to keeping government out of purely personal issues, especially those that are only despised because of someone's religious beliefs. So I voted for all sorts of things yesterday in four different parties (including one Republican), including John Kerry for president. As a lifelong conservative, that hurts a bit.
Signed,
One of dying breed of Republicans
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not so sure about this. I've heard enough stories about people hitting kerry on one of these touchscreens only to see it say bush when it asked them to confirm their votes. And I've heard them from a variety of places and states. Of course even a paper trail wouldn't help us in this case unless the voter took the time to look over the choices made by the machine. It's possible that these stories are the exceptions rather than the rule, but they still make me wonder.
Personally I liked the ballots that we used here in Boulder, Colorado. Big printed paper ballots with a square next to each option. You fill in the square with a blue or black pen. It's about as easy as you can make it, and I know exactly how my votes got counted. On the downside, they take longer to count (as of noon today only about 5% of Boulder's precincts had reported in) but personally, I would be perfectly happy to wait until the Friday after election day to see the results if it meant I wouldn't have to worry about whether my vote counted.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is strange, considering that Kerry was and is against legalizing gay marriage. Ah, hey, were you one of those Republican trolls who stood outside Democratic precinct polling places, falsely claiming Kerry wanted to legalize gay marriage [nypost.com]?
Republicans taught us more ways to lie and cheat this past election season.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why the Pilgrims left the Netherlands where they were obviously free to practice religion as they chose. They left because they didn't want their children influenced by the progressive Dutch mentality of the time.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Informative)
Um, you weren't up last night were you? CNN and most of the other major networks *REVISED* their exit polling numbers to match the election around 1 or 2:00am (PST). The poll numbers all day indicated Kerry was going to win almost all of the swing states. Then he doesn't, then the poll numbers were revised... I don't get it either
Re:So this is how you do it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, no you are wrong. The early EXIT polling showed Kerry with a wide lead. They were leaking to the Internet, the Kerry camp was dancing in the aisles, the Bush camp was in the dumps and the networks had major problems calling early states like Virginia and North Carolina, because the exit polls showed them to close to call. When the actual poll numbers started rolling in they were so far in disagreement with the exit polls the network predictions were tied in a not.
In the middle of the evening the Fox team, Kristol in particular, was about to break out crying because, based on the exit polls, it was clear Bush was losing. Then they devolved in to hours worth of bashing the exit polls as completely wrong every five minutes, and Republican big wigs like Melman and Racicot were chiming in. Now after its over everyone says the exit polls exactly matched the results. Go figure.
So we have these options:
A. All the Bush voters voted late in the day so the early exit polls favored Kerry but in the end they swung to Bush
B. The polling models were bad early on and they were "fixed" later in the day. Question is were they right when they were showing Kerry winning or after they were fixed and showed Bush winning.
C. The election was rigged, the early exit polls were accurate while the returns were falsified. In order to cover up the discrepancy the networks fudged the exit polls late in the day so they matched the real(falsified) numbers. Of course if they did that there was no reason to do the exit poll in the first place.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
They only mirror the results because CNN adjusted them to remove this little embarrassment.
If you saw the exit polls when the polls actually closed (9-10 oclock or so) they favored John Kerry by a significant (2-4%) margin. Only later (around 1:00 am) did the exit polls start to drift towards the actual numbers reported by the polls.
Where did these numbers come from? Were there more exit poll results reported at 1:00 AM? It seems odd that this little discrepency was silently corrected once it was determined who would "win". I'm not a conspiracy thorist, but presumably the exit polls that were inaccurate at 10:00 when the polls closed should still be inaccurate this morning, but that is not the case.
Something odd happened here, don't accept cnn's exit poll numbers.
There discrepancy was slight (Score:4, Insightful)
So, are you, too, alleging that CNN falsified its exit polling numbers? Because that's what i get from your allegations.
Is it that hard to believe that polling might have indicated one thing in certain areas and another thing in others? The exit polling dipped and rose with the actual election returns, and there was always a ~+/-5% margin of error.
But the final, aggregated numbers more or less match the actual results. Are you saying that CNN has fudged these to match, i.e., lying about the numbers, meaning they are manufacturing artificial exit poll data? And if you are, what possible motivation would they have to do that?
If there was a big discrepancy, they'd (not to mention the $300 million Kerry campaign) want to be all the fuck over it...ESPECIALLY in the state that is deciding the election.
So I hate to break it to you, but Bush won, and there was nothing fishy to speak of going on.
(Disclaimer: I didn't vote for Bush.)
Re:They do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Marginalizing those of us who have done our research on Diebold with your tinfoil hat references just serve to show how little you understand the risks posed by Diebold and their voting machines.
Let's list some facts about Diebold and their machines:
I've highlighted the really important bit. It's the giant pink elephant no media organization wanted to touch, and there's no logical explanation for it except to enable vote tampering.
People arguing for the use of voting machines seem to ignore all our warnings because they seem unable to grasp that any company/person would be capable of doing something like this. Once you get rid of that childish notion, you'll be buying your own roll of tinfoil mighty fast.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Naturally Diebold disputes it - I don't see that as noteworthy. I'm not very impressed with the auditing they undergo either, as the software which was leaked was software which had been deployed on voting machines, had passed audits, and was FULL of problems. So all things considered I'm going to dismiss that. There's a lot of problems with Diebold machines, and while I don't think that outright election fraud is one of them (at least not organized - maybe there's a rouge developer or three, but I emphsize that I have no proof of that) I think that they are real problems none the less. The "workarounds" for procedural issues (like printing "System Tests passed") should be familiar to anyone who's worked in government or even a lot of corporate software development. It's slapping stuff together to make it work and keep your users from looking too closely at it. I think that for something this important that sort of behavior shouldn't be tolerated.
Finally, I think that the Kerry campaign, even if they suspected election fraud, wouldn't do jack without hard-edged, totally irrefutable proof. It'd be a political nightmare and they're going to swallow it and try again in 4 years. The Democrats took an enormous hit over Gore pursuing the Florida thing, and that was with evidence of widespread abuse and inconsistencies in the voting record (including from Diebold machines). Did those abuses and incosistencies change the 2000 election? Maybe. Probably not, but they did exist.
Relying on someone else to validate a distrust of the system is pretty much always a bad idea. It's even worse when the person you're replying on is part of the system. It'd be like saying that CNN couldn't have edited it's poll results, because FOX would have reported on it. I kinda wish Kerry did push it, because there's a lot of problems with our election system (all that crap in Florida last time didn't only happen there, that's just what got the press cause it was the swing state), but on the other hand it'd be political suicide for him in 2008, it'd cause a lot of animosity, and even if they weren't actually partisan (fat chance) anything they brought up would be dismissed as partisan.
Re:They do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I have serious issues with any election method that does not admit the possibility of a human readable ballot that can be recounted in the case of a mistake. In other words, as far as I'm concerned, if there isn't a paper ballot involved, I am unsatisfied with that method.
All that said, shouldn't we be waiting until *after* the audit to argue? Personally, I think that auditing the machines is a *good* thing. I just wouldn't hold out high hopes that it will say anything that Kerry supporters want to hear.
I suspect that the Kerry/Edwards campaign will wait until after the audit as well. They have until December 13th to protest the vote results. If the audit confirms the original results, that will be a good time for Kerry to renew his call for reconciliation and unity.
Exit poll shenanigans (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe they didn't require a paper trail. Simply can't believe it.
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Funny)
I work with computers every day, and I can tell you they always work perfectly.
And every touch screen I have ever used is always calibrated perfectly well.
There is no need for a paper trail because they ran tests on 50 votes and found the machine was perfect.
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:4, Interesting)
We've All Lost the Right to Vote (Score:5, Interesting)
Others have already said the obvious: the exit polls don't match up to the Diebold tabulations. The record number of new voters all casting ballots for an embattled incumbent seems incredibly unlikely. In my mind, this portents a new era in American politics: the most cunning cheater always wins. And with the Republicans gaining more and more ground thanks to Diebold and other dirty tricks, they'll be the ones in the best position to cheat.
We can be certain that the Republican's new electronic apparatus will entrench itself further and grow in sophistication--unless it is stopped right now. Diebold will be emboldened by this victory, and the people Diebold put in power won't lift a finger to stop it. In few short years, even the Supreme Court will probably be stacked with men who essentially owe their jobs to Diebold.
The media is filled with cowards will we now shift to the right in response to the wind. If the Diebold story doesn't make huge headlines now, then it never will.
What difference does it make it you can get record number of people to the polls if an evil nazi-nerd can push a button and erase all those votes?
Reform of the election process should become everyone's #1 issue. Protests of epic proportions are needed, because as of right now, all the suffrage gained since the dawn of the Union is in peril.
Right now, no one aside from Diebold has the right to vote. Not even the white landowners.
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ohio and Florida (Score:5, Insightful)
And here's the problem with American politics - idiots treating it like it's a sporting event, rooting for "their team" instead of understanding issues.
Concession speech in 3, 2, 1..... (Score:5, Funny)
So much for that....
Illegal! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Illegal! (Score:5, Informative)
If, however, it should turn out that he has won Ohio, for example, when all the ballots are counted, then he will still gain Ohio's electoral votes and, presumably, the presidency, in spite of the fact that he has conceded defeat. That is not going to happen, as a practical matter, but it is at least theoretically possible. Elections boards don't stop counting just because one candidate or the other admits defeat - they still have to have a final count for the records, if nothing else.
Re:Illegal! (Score:5, Funny)
As a Red Sox fan, I'm entirely confident that it WILL HAPPEN.
Fortunately, as a Red Sox fan, I'm also used to dissapointment.
Re: Illegal! (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as taking a lot of work, while Ohio has a lot of punchcard ballots (70%?!?) they do have a uniform criteria in place to determine whether a "hanging chad" is valid or not, unlike Florida 2000.
Re:Concession speech in 3, 2, 1..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm surprised at all americans...Florida in 2000 has been proof that it is exactly the process which CAN'T be trusted. Striking thousands off the rolls based on having nothing more than the same last name as a criminal, or contesting your right to vote based solely on the fact that you didn't reply to a letter
Add to that the fact that the largest supplier of voting machines, which have been proved beyond any doubt to not be secure, has ties with the ruling party and has publically said that he will do anything to help said party...
How could anyone in their right mind not be suspicious of the process? Especially when it has demonstably been abused in the past.
Re:Concession speech in 3, 2, 1..... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I have one friend who was never sent his absentee ballot from Florida, despite their multiple claims of sending it... and when I have another friend who had her proper identification challenged by a Republican poll worker in Madison, WI, retrieved more proper identifications, and was challenged again by the same person, requiring a poll manager to allow her to vote... it's kind of hard to trust the process.
It's absolutely amazing to me that in this day and age that we can't even take a simple count.Re:Concession speech in 3, 2, 1..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I *don't* trust the process. I consider this election to be a fraud at the presidential level, and possibly from top to bottom. I'd be willing to be convinced otherwise (the evidence is, I will admit, quite shakey), but the needed evidence is not only hidden, it's in custody of the presumptive villians. So it's going to be quite difficult to come up with evidence that I will consider more reliable than what I already have (i.e., not very reliable).
The process was designed to be difficult to verify, so WHY should it be trusted?
This is it, folks. Donate! (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you call yourself a Geek!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do you call yourself a Geek!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is it, folks. Donate! (Score:4, Insightful)
My $50 won't help all that much toward such a huge task, but it'll still have more effect than that one measley vote I cast yesterday.
Re:This is it, folks. Donate! (Score:5, Insightful)
How many audit's do you think have occurred at this point? Here's a clue: the number's big and round.
Come on now people, black box voting is trying to address the inherent, proven issues with the current state of electronic voting. This has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the results of the election. This has EVERYTHING to do with technology. And yet a flame like this is moderated insightful.
Really, wtf. No wonder Bush got voted in again.
Ah well, I should be happy. I'm Canadian and the loonies soaring quite well today thanks to the results.
Re:This is it, folks. Donate! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am absolutely thrilled that there is an organization devoted to ensuring that the electoral process is clean and that electronic voting systems are being used appropriately and without tampering. I am also glad that Kerry did the manly thing today and condeded when it became clear that the numbers couldn't add up to his victory in Ohio any way you sliced it.
Despite the fact that I accept the election results (though personally I don't like them), I still want to know that the election was carried out in a fair way, and to ensure that the much debated electronic voting systems aren't being tampered with and are being run in a secure manner, and thank God these people are trying to make sure that is the case.
Find (and fix) the problems now (Score:5, Insightful)
Same thing here. Find and fix the problems now, when the race has been conceded, and the result isn't in doubt, so that, when we need to be able to count on the system to count every vote, we can.
What are the possible consequences? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What are the possible consequences? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are the possible consequences? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What are the possible consequences? (Score:4, Interesting)
What should happen, if there was fraud, is to invalidate the election and schedule another one. In the new election, throw out (or make illegal) whatever machines were used to create the fraud. Plug the holes and do it right. You can't declare anyone a winner if any fraud was involved without holding a new election. Yeah, it would be a pain in the ass, but it would be the right way to go about fixing it.
Re:What are the possible consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly why these FOIA requests are a good thing. The only way to remove the concerns of fraud and illegitimacy is to have a fully transparent process. My guess is that there wasn't any widespread fraud in this election, and the result is representative of Bush's ability to mobilize his base and sway enough of the middle. However, suppose we say there was no fraud this time so the electronic machines must be trustworthy. What happens in twelve years when there is massive fraud, and we have no way to detect it?
Let me put it this way. My company will save municipalities money by providing paper ballots and all associated equipment for all elections and performing all counting duties. No, you can't watch us do the counting. No, you can't have the ballots back when we're done with them, either. I'm sorry, we can't really even let you see the ballots. So, will your county hire us? Can we get a contract with your state?
If not, how can you possibly support electronic voting machines that aren't open for examination and public scrutiny?
(Note that "you" as used here is the general "people who think we didn't have a problem and don't see the need to worry", and not the parent poster.)
Re:What are the possible consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
What shocks me now and really disheartens me is that a majority of my countrymen preferred Bush, knowing exactly the kind of person he is and what his administration is capable of.
Honestly I'm just kind of treading water right now mentally, it's kind of like learning that a close family member did something truly horrifying, and you just can't believe that they actually did something that horrible.
I am genuinely terrified of what is going to come in the next 4 years now that Bush can drop all pretenses since he no longer has to worry about reelection.
Wow, that's a lot of data... (Score:4, Insightful)
Before it's slashdotted, here is the request: (Score:5, Informative)
From: Black Box Voting
To: Elections division
Pursuant to public records law and the spirit of fair, trustworthy, transparent elections, we request the following documents.
We are requesting these as a nonprofit, noncommercial group acting in the capacity of a news and consumer interest organization, and ask that if possible, the fees be waived for this request. If this is not possible, please let us know which records will be provided and the cost. Please provide records in electronic form, by e-mail, if possible - crew@blackboxvoting.org.
We realize you are very, very busy with the elections canvass. To the extent possible, we do ask that you expedite this request, since we are conducting consumer audits and time is of the essence.
We request the following records.
Item 1. All notes, emails, memos, and other communications pertaining to any and all problems experienced with the voting system, ballots, voter registration, or any component of your elections process, beginning October 12, through November 3, 2004.
Item 2. Copies of the results slips from all polling places for the Nov. 2, 2004 election. If you have more than one copy, we would like the copy that is signed by your poll workers and/or election judges.
Item 3: The internal audit log for each of your Unity, GEMS, WinEds, Hart Intercivic or other central tabulating machine. Because different manufacturers call this program by different names, for purposes of clarification we mean the programs that tally the composite of votes from all locations.
Item 4: If you are in the special category of having Diebold equipment, or the VTS or GEMS tabulator, we request the following additional audit logs:
a. The transmission logs for all votes, whether sent by modem or uploaded directly. You will find these logs in the GEMS menu under "Accuvote OS Server" and/or "Accuvote TS Server"
b. The "audit log" referred to in Item 3 for Diebold is found in the GEMS menu and is called "Audit Log"
c. All "Poster logs". These can be found in the GEMS menu under "poster" and also in the GEMS directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, as a text file. Simply print this out and provide it.
d. Also in the Data file directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, please provide any and all logs titled "CCLog," "PosterLog", and Pserver Log, and any logs found within the "Download," "Log," "Poster" or "Results" directories.
e. We are also requesting the Election Night Statement of Votes Cast, as of the time you stopped uploading polling place memory cards for Nov. 2, 2004 election.
Item 5: We are requesting every iteration of every interim results report, from the time the polls close until 5 p.m. November 3.
Item 6: If you are in the special category of counties who have modems attached, whether or not they were used and whether or not they were turned on, we are requesting the following:
a. internal logs showing transmission times from each voting machine used in a polling place
b. The Windows Event Viewer log. You will find this in administrative tools, Event Viewer, and within that, print a copy of each log beginning October 12, 2004 through Nov. 3, 2004.
Item 7: All e-mails, letters, notes, and other correspondence between any employee of your elections division and any other person, pertaining to your voting system, any anomalies or problems with any component of the voting system, any written communications with vendors for any component of your voting system, and any records pertaining to upgrades, improvements, performance enhancement or any other changes to your voting system, between Oct. 12, 2004 and Nov. 3, 2004.
Item 8: So that we may efficiently clarify any questions pertaining to your specific county, please provide letterhead for the most recent non-confidential correspondence between your office and your county counsel, or, in lieu of this, just e-mail us the contact information for y
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:3)
The biggest can of worms in the world (Score:5, Interesting)
In the aftermath, I am afraid that, if the audit indicates there are irregularities or foul play involved in the elections, reply might simply be 'It is counting error on your end, you don't have capacities for competently performing an audit of this size.' Besides, I just might think not enough of Americans will actually care.
Bottom line... I sure do hope the audit works out. I sure do hope it proves elections were rigged (being from a former communist eastern european state myself, I saw a number of those
We failed America (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no accountability, no log, no going back. And it's OUR fault. We knew, and we didn't take action. We KNEW this would come.
It's not about who votes. It's about who counts them.
-1, Who Needs Facts (Score:5, Informative)
#1, The election results were statistically similar to the exit polls in Ohio and Florida.
#2, only 20 out of 88 counties in Ohio (IIRC, I may be fudgy on the exact number) used Diebold machines, the rest were punch card ballots.
Re:We failed America (Score:5, Informative)
What makes you think that? I live in a suburb of Cleveland and we had the same old paper ballots as previous years.
Favourite quote (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not necessarily unreasonable... (Score:4, Informative)
and none of it will make a damn bit of difference (Score:5, Insightful)
they could find all the evidence they need of record tampering... of votes being miscast... of these machines being totally unfit for the democratic process....
and you would never see anything about it in the mainstream media....
Fishy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fishy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fishy? (Score:4, Informative)
No secrets... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are too many questions about electronic voting, and the legitimacy of the election in question. If these requests are not filled, it will really help to calm down the cries of voting fraud.
So many requests (Score:4, Funny)
Touch Screen Voting (Score:5, Interesting)
After tapping my choices with a stylus -not really that easy for a left-handed-choice-tapper on a right-handed machine, I had to re-do a lot of them- I pressed the vote button. And the screen flashed something like "vote recorded" and then it went blank.
There was nothing to drop in a ballot box, nothing to show me that the machine was really hooked to anything, and of course, nothing that anybody could re-count if there was a question of fraud.
The friendly octogenarian on duty assured my that the it was all run by computer and that we didn't need a paper trail, since they could recount the computer records if they needed to do a recount. And since it is impossible for hard drives to die and memory chips to fail...
Yeah, it probably worked this time but the empty feeling I had as I walked out of the polling station left me strangly envious of those days when I could look at my punch card to make sure that none of the chads were hanging.
Voting machines? (Score:4, Informative)
Every 5 years, we vote for our president and sometimes mayors / deputies as well.
It takes roughly 3 hours after the closing of the voting offices before we know the name of our president, without room for contestations over the regularity of the vote.
How come we can achieve that by using such a primitive method as ballot-paper-goes-into-ballot-enveloppe-goes-into
national security (Score:5, Interesting)
The radical right now control the White House, the Senate and the House. Some of the senators voted in last night make Barry Goldwater look like Ted Kennedy. This faction will not allow anyone to look behind the curtain.
4 MORE YEARS! (Score:4, Funny)
What I don't get... (Score:5, Interesting)
I also find it surprising that Florida was so clearly for Bush given how tight it was last time. (Maybe retirees care more about terrorism and Iraq than I thought?)
Much of Ohio uses Diebold voting machines, which leave no paper trail. Early in the campaign, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, a GOP fundraiser, promised [commondreams.org] to deliver [newshounds.us] Ohio to Bush. :(
Question: If someone committed fraud, would it be better to make it a decisive victory in order to avoid scrutiny?
These guys should start with the big counties in states such as Florida and Ohio that seemed to turn out contrary to prediction.
Consistent Voting (Score:5, Insightful)
If America is the greatest country in the world, with it's freedoms and the right to vote, why can't they decide on a consistent form of voting? It seems to be, watching from the outside, there were so many different ways to vote, depending on where you were, whether it was electronic voting machines (and each of those were from different vendors)or paper ballots. In addition, the whole confusion and legal challenges to "provisional" and "absentee" ballots just muddied the waters even further. I also find it scary that something so important as voting can be done using hap-hazard machinery which is unauditable and unreliable. Hearing some of the stories coming from the different news agencies (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.), it almost sounds like the voting system is a 3rd world style system.
What's needed is a voting system that's consistent across the country with checks and balances to ensure audit trails. I know that Americans take pride in the fact they vote for their government. Their system needs to be first class to ensure their vote doesn't become a circus. The American government need to ensure validity of the vote by ensuring voting is done in a consistent manner across the country, and if that is electronic voting, then they need to ensure the voting results are NOT subject to fraud or manipulation.
Please note this is not a "bashing America" rant, but the zaniness about electronic voting has to stop!
Re:Consistent Voting (Score:5, Insightful)
If a square is really a rhombus, why aren't all triangles purple?
How can we ever know unless we look? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is -- until we look and until there's a paper trail we just don't know.
For all we know, Diebold could be sucking votes out of the system like a cancer sucking the life out of a body. Do we just turn our heads and not go to the doctor for a test? We do need to know what happened in an objective, non-partisan manner. Perhaps Bev Harris is the one to do that, maybe not, but it needs to be done.
Additionally, we need to fix the voting system. We need to form a true non-partisan grass roots effort to get accountability back into the system. I don't want people to ever question the results of an election. We need to have ballot initiatives lawsuits, whatever. I'm not an expert on how to force these changes on the voting system, but I'm willing to learn and it needs to be done.
Civics lesson? (Score:4, Informative)
There are no Federal elections in the United States; all elections occur at the State level or below. Since the Federal Government doesn't run elections, they won't have any documentmation about them.
As a matter of fact, it's a historical accident that the People vote for President at all:
Perhaps it would be better for everyone if the State legislatures just nominated the Electors themselves instead of leaving it to the People.
Open Voting Consortium (Score:5, Insightful)
Bev Harris and BlackboxVoting are certainly doing great work in exposing fraud and corruption among DRE voting machine makers (and other types, for that matter).
But the real solution to the problem, long term, past the current election, is to get electronic voting machines based on open source code, and that produce voter-verifiable paper ballots. It just so happens that there's an organization for that purpose that could really use some assistance (financial and otherwise) right now: the Open Voting Consortium [openvoting.org].
Just to be extra-sexy, our reference system uses Linux and Python :-).
BTW. Some readers will think: "What's wrong with plain old paper and pencil?" Actually, there's not so much wrong with that. I just used a pencil to vote in Massachusetts yesterday, and it worked great. Paper ballot. Zero line at the polls. Perfectly transparent. Great security (just look at that padlock on the ballot box).
But electronic machines do have a few good things, as long as their source code is open and the print out paper ballots after selections are made: Multi-lingual; blind accessible (using audio interface) and special interfaces for motor-impaired voters; large fonts for vision impaired voters; prevent overvotes and unintentional undervotes.
Public vote database? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me we could fairly easily do a pretty good job of verifying the vote. Here's how we'd handle a single vote for a single community of voters (whether a precinct or the whole country):
Here are some consequences:
There are a few problems with this; for one thing I don't know if whether a given person has voted is supposed to be public information; for another it would be hard to look for illegal voters. But I think this is a big improvement over the black box we have now!
Secret ballots, etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
A single hacker could have fixed the election. (Score:5, Interesting)
As for fraud, it wouldn't have to be a conspiracy at all. A conspiracy means a group of more than one. Yet in a case like this, a single coder with access to the voting machines, say, someone working for Diebold, could throw an entire national election.
If the code were self modifying and obfuscated it could be very difficult to detect. Especially as the Diebold code used in this election has never been publicly scrutinized and may never be. And as the system is running Windows, it will have nearly endless areas in which an illicit bit of code could be inserted.
This single hacker could write a very small bit of code with any number of tests and checks to insure it only ran during an actual election. It could also have tests to insure it only skewed votes in districts with little oversight. I've only given it a moment's thought, but I've come up with a few good tests, I'm sure a bit of thought and intimate knowledge of voting procedures could devise even better ones.
Most obviously, these systems certainly have clocks, so the illicit code could wait until November 2nd. Then it could check for very complex schedules of events that only occur during an actual election. For example, the machine being turned on for many hours, yet only being asked to record a vote once a minute or less, on average.
A simple test like that could get past most quality assurance testing efforts. Most tests would fail to activate the hidden application because QA testers usually run through a testing process much faster than actual users (voters) use the machines. The hidden application could combine those tests with a bunch of other tests.
The illicit code could be designed to only skew the voting when the votes for a certain candidate (Bush) were overwhelming. Meaning it would never skew results in the districts strongly the other way, or districts with close finishes. So the districts with most of the monitoring would never have their votes altered.
But in each strongly republican district, this sort of check would change the tally to give Bush just a slightly larger percentage of votes than were actually cast.. I suspect few people would give a moment's thought to Bush winning a strongly republican district by 65% instead of 60%.
Yet skewing results exclusively in strongly republican districts could shift state-wide election totals by a percentage point or more. A close election such as those seen in any number of states this year could be stolen by just such an effort.
The system could have further checks to insure it was never activated when being tested or monitored. It could wait to skew results until it was uploading data back to the source. That source machine could have an otherwise innocuous vendor setting that the illicit application would recognize as the trigger to skew results.
Such a system could even potentially print extra paper receipts to cover its tracks in the case of a cursory audit. But that would probably not even be necessary. Because recounts cost candidates a lot of money. And I can't imagine a democratic candidate paying for a recount in an uncontested, heavily republican district.
This is not some nightmare scenario, if it hasn't happened yet, it is bound to happen sometime. Only by returning to some sort of user fulfilled ballot can we prevent a single hacker from fixing a national election.
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
* lost the popular vote in 2000 (winning by a hair on the basis of some very sketchy events)
* started a War on false pretenses (WMDs?)
* sent over 1000 young Americans to their death.
* and many thousands more mamed and disabled.
* not to mention many thousands of dead innocent Iraqis.
* who's Vice President's (prior?) employer received gigantic government contracts on a silver platter.
* Putting the nation into the Largest Debt ever. (20% and 420 billion dollars over budget in 03!)
All the while...
* Millions of Illegal Aliens have flooded into the country --over 12 million now make up the general population.
* the nation's Economy lost more Jobs than it has in over 70 years. Hundreds of thousands!
* average Wages are down.
* the Stock Markets have stagnated.
* Education, Health Care and Energy costs have risen multiple times more than the normal inflation rate.
* and plenty of other nasties.
And now you're telling me that he honestly earned _more_ of the popular vote? Why?
* Because homosexuals want to get married?
* Becasue he gave you a few dollars back on your tax return --and a whole lot of YOUR dollars to _millionares_?
* Becuase scientists want to use unviable fertility clinic embryos (_not_ abortion embryos) in order to try to save lives like Chris Reeves?
* Because he'll protect us better? Funny I think two big buildings were blown up on _his_ watch.
Again, you're telling me this President got _more_ of the popular vote this time around?
In an election where
* _all_ the exit poles are 5-10% "wrong"?
* in which more of the youth voted --voters well known to lean to the left.
* a larger turn out translated into more Republican votes, which has _never_ happened in history.
* thousands of new unverifiable e-voting machines have been used in, guess what, mostly Democratic and Africa American strong holds. Huh, that's odd.
...
If you haven't realized by now that this election has been rigged again, even better than the last time, then you are a dope.
OSCE (Score:5, Interesting)
Some things the observers from OSCE said:
* In some areas, they (as official observers!) had less access to the polls than during the elections in Kasachstan.
* The computer systems in many places were less secured than in Venecuela.
* A polish observer said the polls in Serbia(!) were easier to watch and more transparent.
That's a bunch of slap-down from professionals with years of experience. The US has, election-wise, officially fallen to the standards of a third-world country.
Re:great... (Score:5, Insightful)
What will your response be when their request is denied?
Re:great... (Score:5, Funny)
In orther news (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:great... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's MUCH more going on than "Bush & Kerry (Score:5, Informative)
This is indeed going to be a hell of a lot of data, but our resources are considerable.
We were going to do this no matter WHO won. Because it's not just about the top of the ticket: more money gets tied up in local bond measures, construction projects and the like than in the "top of ticket campaigns" in many states. Check out how much money went into the California propositions, for starters.
It's also not just about the races themselves: folks, there are legal standards for the use of electronic voting machines at both the Fed and State levels. The garbage put out by Deibold for sure and probably ES&S, Sequoia and others DO NOT meet those legal standards!
But we have to prove it. For that, we need data.
We've gotten one KEY piece already: proof that King County hacked into their audit log and destroyed three hours worth of records on election night during the WA state primaries.
The fact that they COULD (on a Diebold box) proves that the gear doesn't meet legal security standards. The remaining question is "why did they hack the log?". Two possible answers:
1) It's possible the vote tally box went massively wonky, it took 'em three hours to clean up, and they didn't want to admit it had puked so they edited the log. Still an illegal-as-hell destruction of records and the fact that it's even possible is a gross condemnation of the gear in question...
2) They actually rigged the race with some crude clueless technique that left an audit trail item - so they scrubbed the log.
------
Speaking generally, this sort of "broad net" approach to FOIAs that BBV.org is undertaking is a pain, but it's how you scoop up killer documents that blow the lid off. Go watch the mostly factual movie "Erin Brokavich" for a real-world example of this.
We have a new advantage in California - Prop59 just "supercharged" our version of the FOIA (California Public Records Act) by establishing a constitutional right to public records. That will have a positive effect on the California requests.
--------
Speaking personally, I'm pretty sure Bush won it fair overall. If I'm eventually proven wrong, I don't think it'll be in Ohio, it'll be in Florida.
Full disclosure: I'm a Libertarian-leaning Republican who supported Bush over Kerry despite reservations. But I'm also a flat-out enemy of concealed-source, zero-paper-trail voting systems.
Jim March
More on the BBV FOIA process... (Score:5, Informative)
We're more interested in the machines.
Let's be clear what's going on with this effort:
An "audit", when done properly, means using multiple pieces of information and matching them up to make sure the pieces fit right - and if they don't, figure out why.
We have basically three sources of info on what really happened last night for any given county:
1) Media reports;
2) Eyewitness reports from various election observers;
3) The FOIA (or state-level equivelent) data.
As just one example: media reports say that a Volusia County memory card went blotto last night. Observers saw the flurry of activity that surrounded this. There are also supposed to be "help desk trouble tickets" generated for any such malfunction, and the runaround needed to recreate the data (this was an optical scan Diebold county thank GOD!) should leave an audit trail.
So we'll be looking at this case from ALL angles. Carefully. The media report says it was a dead memory card, based on interviews with county elections officials. OK, no problem if true - with optical scan, you can go back to paper and recover, by hand if necessary.
But remember that in 2000, we *know* somebody attempted an inept hack of one of these same memory cards (PCMCIA). They duplicated a card, probably in a laptop on the way back from the field to county HQ and hacked the duplicate so it registered 16,022 negative votes for Gore and 4,000ish for Bush, in a precinct with 900-something voters tops.
Sure, it got caught and fixed, and somebody let Gore know in time for him to cancel his concession phone call - but the perpetrators were never caught and the county still has egg on it's face from this.
Did the same morons try something similar?
Dunno. But we'll find out. Bet on it.
Jim
Re:There's MUCH more going on than "Bush & Ker (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And so it begins... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd go farther than that. I'd say that having made such a comment should either make Diebold ineligible for the election, or should make him lose his job. That's the kind of thing you don't joke about when you're in a position of power.
It would be like the Supreme Court justices joking that they would make sure that Bush got elected before rendering their 2000 decision.
Re:And so it begins... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter! (Score:5, Insightful)
Miami-Dade was supposed to be incredibly Democratic and they only got a 54-46 margin.
Very suspect.
I agree with your conclusion, but not with your reason.
The Diebold touchscreens are a bit of a red herring. Yes, they are a concern and should be audited (and auditable)
The Diebold tabulators are the real concern. Like the touchscreen machines, they produce no paper trail and are difficult or impossible to audit
The tabulators are the big computers that collect millions of votes and tallies them up. They are used to count votes from touch screens, as well as from other precincts using everything from op-scan sheets to punch cards. A two digit back door code will let you change voting totals, with absolutely no evidence that you've done so.
In every other country, when exit polls differ significantly from the official results, it is generally considered a pretty strong indicator of voter fraud. In the United States, CNN simply changes their polling data to match the official result
I have no idea if the elections in Ohio and Florida were rigged, or if Bush won legitimately. I truly hope it is the latter. I don't expect the US to emerge from four more years with much intact in the way of its economy and influence in the world, much less with many of the social gains of the last quarter century still intact, but it would be far worse for America if Bush stole this election than if he won it legitimately.
The problem is, with machines that are designed to be impossible to audit, and with tabulators that have a software feature designed to facilitate fraud, we can't know.
Ever.
And that is terribly disturbing.
To any critically thinking mind, the legitimacy of this entire election is serious doubt, and would have been irrespective of who won. Using unauditable equipment in an election undermines the entire process at its most fundamental level, and does more to destabilize the political climate in America than a thousand bin Ladens could possibly ever achieve.
Diebold and others who produce similarly shoddy election equipment need to be put out of business, immediately and perminently.
Yes -- but ... (Score:4, Insightful)
A better way to phrase it would be, "we'll never know if there was wholesale or widespread fraud in the election, but since it looks like he won, and it's certainly credible that he did, why don't we just go with it?"
That sentiment makes a lot of sense -- but I'm still glad they're checking into it as best they can.