Ah, the pretense of fairness. Remember the good ol’ days when election fraud was a given and no one tried to hide it? Well, it’s baaaack!
We’ve posted numerous items about the ease with which electronic voting machines can be hacked. What possible reason could someone have for not wanting to ensure a fair election? I wonder what it could be…
Why doesn’t the GOP want Ohio’s voting machines tested?
Ohio Republicans have blocked a proposal to test electronic voting machines prior to the 2008 presidential primary.
By a 4-3 vote, Republicans on Ohio’s State Controlling Board blocked Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s proposed $1.8 million unbid contract for voting machine testing. Brunner had already set aside the $1.8 million for the test. Her specific request to the Controlling Board was a waiver for competitive bidding. Her office had hoped to complete all testing by November 30, 2007.
A former judge, Brunner is successor to the infamous J. Kenneth Blackwell, who helped engineer the theft of Ohio’s electoral votes for George W. Bush in 2004. Brunner won election as a reform candidate, vowing to guarantee the public access to the polls—and an accurate vote count—in 2008.
The New York Times has now joined that consensus, calling for an outright federal ban. “Electronic voting has been an abysmal failure,” the Times said. “Computer experts have done study after study showing that electronic voting machines, which are often shoddily made, can easily be hacked. With little effort, vote totals can be changed and elections stolen.”
Apparently, the Ohio GOP is not anxious to have a state study add to such conclusions.
This next part is un-fucking believable.
Both Brunner and Hoke stressed the lack of security measures now used at Ohio’s polling places. The issues of so-called “sleepovers” used in some Ohio counties, like Hocking, were cited. This practice involves often untrained poll workers to take hackable voting machines home with them the weekend before an Election Day.
Brunner had already set aside the $1.8 million for the test. Her specific request to the Controlling Board was a waiver for competitive bidding.
Misleading much? The 1.8 million is already set aside, and the actual item blocked was a waiver for competitive bidding? That sounds to me like they blocked her from assigning the bid to whomever she wants (non-competitive). Why shouldn’t she be forced to allow bids on the contract?
While I agree that voting machines should be taken out of the election until such time that their security can be verified. This is a hack piece at best.
Here’s a question for the techie guys here:
Why can’t our voting machines print out a human (and OCR) readable ballot?
The PRINTED ballot would be the official one. This way, the voter can check it before voting and there would be something to recount — by hand if needed.
Isn’t this this the obvious solution?
>>Isn’t this this the obvious solution?
Sure it is, but try slipping that one past the Cheney/ Diebold cabal. If there were no way to diddle the results, how would they get any candidates into office?
I live in Ohio, and the voting machines I used last November had a paper tape (cash register sized) that you could see through a little window scrolling by as I submitted my votes. The thing I wasn’t too keen on was that it looked like thermal paper, which degrades too easily IMHO, and all it takes is leaving the roll inside a car in the sun on a hot day to turn the whole thing black.
They won’t do that because so many people think it’s cool to have computers and technology as the answer to everything. Paper, no way! Why we should get rid of the pollin g place entirely and do everything online.
Check out Hacking Democracy if you want to get really ill over the situation.
Where I voted there was a 70+ year old man in charge of the machines, he was totally confused the whole time I was there. Anytime one of the people asked him a question about what they were doing on the machines it clogged the line up for 10-15 minutes while they found the volunteer kid from WashU to come over and explain it to the geezer.
It was sad to watch.
This whole thing shows that the system is broken. Neither side wants to solve the problem because then they could not blame the other guy.
The Republicans don’t want to have the machines inspected.
The Democrats want to give a no bid contract to their trustworthy friends to settle the issue.
I think both parties need a wakeup call. I would suggest that people register as independent. And I mean everyone. The Republicans had a great opportunity starting in 1994 to actually do something and they completely blew it.
And how about the Dems? Clinton, Biden, Kennedy, Edwards, Kerry, Obama……spare me. They are no better.
I say register as an independent, refuse to give any opinions to the “expert pollster” and refuse to make any political donations. I am not advocating that you drop out of the political scene. Take an honest look at the “fringe” candidates. Vote FOR someone, not AGAINST someone. Make a statement. Let them know that both the Democrats and Republicans have failed for the last 20 years or more.
If you go over to Greg Palast’s website, gregpalast.com, you will see that the hacking of voting machines is not the only way that some people want to control the vote.
Personally, I think that there is something wrong when we turn over our public elections to a private corporation, who has helped fund the candidates.
We still use paper ballots in Canada and I hope we never change.
#11 – I agree. It’s funny how GW “stole” two elections but JFK’s was straight up.
It’s amazing that Australia and others have managed to make electronic voting work pretty well and we can’t. Actually, it’s not amazing, more like depressing.
Official Ruling: By using a graphic from The Onion, this is not a hack thread. Carry on.
In a democracy, where the vote means everything, why is it that we don’t treat demonstrable election rigging and vote fraud in the same way we punish treason? They both represent an attempt to undermine or overthrow the rightfully elected government of the people, so what is the fundamental difference that justifies such vastly different legal penalties between the two?
As a resident of Ohio, I find this whole debacle to be shameful, but this latest news is as much as our local Republicans admitting malfeasance. What other possible motive could there be for blocking an investigation into the function of elections? This is one of their -basic- duties!
I want to say I am too stunned to comment…but…
What the world needs just about now….Mother Earth / MOM
US you are a bad country…bad, look at the mess you made!! Now go pick up all your bombs, guns, Democracy and go over there away from all the other countries. When you think you can apologise and play nice with everyone you can come back and not before…and I don’t want to hear any back talk either or you will get a smacked bottom. Now off you go!
“Awwwwwwwwwshucks……..”
Cheers
I find it amusing that people consider the current system so fool proof to begin with. I live in Ohio and I’ve seen the average poll worker. They aren’t your standard educated professional. Generally they are retired or part time workers that want to make a little extra money. It seems extremely easy to crack this system if someone wants to. That said, it’s obvious that a simple paper tape would be the answer. The machine could even print out two copies, one for you and one for the vote count. Count the paper tapes and count the electronic votes. Obviously they should match. It even ads a simple check to system. The idea is so simple that it’s unbelievable that these machines are still an issue. It’s a shame that our tax money is so blatantly wasted on bureaucratic nonsense!
#10 – Milo,
I really need to look into moving to Canada.
In NYC, we still use the same type of voting machine my Mom used back in the late 60s and early 70s. We’ve got a big red lever, pull to one side, click levers … clickety clickety clickety … pull lever back with a nice resounding kathunkita!
I love the old technology for stuff like this. And, I’m a geek. I wouldn’t trust software with this if I could avoid it, especially after watching Hacking Democracy.
How about a group of hackers rig as many elections as they can, all for third party candidates?
I can understand Dems. being upset with their loss in 2000. Gore got more votes than Bush and still lost. Still, the notion that the U.S. Supreme Court gave the victory to Bush, rather than just ruiling on the law, is untrue. In fact, it was the Florida Supreme Court that tried to steal the election for Gore and was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court, something Dems. seem to forget.
But when you start talking about 2004, the Dems bailed on Howard Dean after one bad speech, and I think Dean could have beaten Bush.
So when I read a statement like this “A former judge, Brunner is successor to the infamous J. Kenneth Blackwell, who helped engineer the theft of Ohio’s electoral votes for George W. Bush in 2004.”, I want to puke.
You Democratic apologists picked the wrong candidate. Kerry ran a shitty campaign, he picked a sleezy trial law as VP, he couldn’t muzzle his billionaire wife, and he was a Yalie in the same secret society as Bush was.
So let me be clear as someone who actually wanted to vote for someone other than Bush in 2004, I voted for no one because I thought Kerry would be even worse than Bush. The Republicans didn’t steal the 2004 election. You Democrats fucking blew it, so quit your whining!!!
#20 – jz,
What about the machines in Florida that gave Gore a negative vote count? Exactly how did that happen legitimately?
People, people.
Public voting. Your boss fires you for not voting the right way.
Paper ballots. Counters put pieces of lead under a fingernail and when they see the count going the wrong way, they start marking afor a second candidate on the same ballot,, rending that ballot no good.
Old mechanical machines. Amazing that some levers, in some districts wouldn’t work. And it was usually the same party, but different levers each time.
New machines:2004. didn’t do Ohio any good when dozens of machines scheduled for Democratic districts stayed in the warehouse until after the election. And voters quit without voting, sometimes after spending hours on line.
Besides, red or blue. Diebold is headquartered in Ohio. Which makes it the last state to find a problem with ‘their’ equipment….
Rog: The point is not whether there is some system that prevents vote fraud. The point is how easy it makes it. Of your methods above it is obvious that the hardest way to rig elections is with paper ballots, counted by hand.
Electronic voting machines are beyond the ken of most voters. How can you expect accountability from a system people don’t understand?
How about a ballot marked by a single hole punch counted by machine and humans concurrently to check for discrepancy.
If you can’t figure out how to work a hole punch should you be voting?
diebold’s machines are such crap, that they themselves tried to sell the division that made the voting machines to distance themselves from the swirling shit-storm,
in fact, the machines are such crap that no one even so much as bid on the division, and so ashamed that such crap bears their name that they renamed the division to try to protect their brand’s image
true story — look it up anywhere
So basically Republican Ken Blackwell had people take the voting machines home and hide them under their pillows for the weekend and we’re still wondering how Bush won Ohio.
2, you are right, IT COULD…
OK, anyone here a decent programmer?
How easy is it to lock down ALL ports, on a machine??
How easy is it to lock down a WHOLE machine??
Its not like we are block HEAVY duty hackers, as they would only have access to the machine for 5 minutes. They wont be able to get INTO the machine hardware. And if you lock down all the ports, USB, SERIAL, PARALLEL, Floppy, CD/DVD, its going to be a PAIN to get anything working to admit NEW programming. and most of that can be done thru the BIOS.
then run a TSR to watch the checksum of the main program for alterations and port initiation and sound an alarm.
#20 – You Democratic apologists picked the wrong candidate. Kerry ran a shitty campaign, he picked a sleezy trial law as VP, he couldn’t muzzle his billionaire wife, and he was a Yalie in the same secret society as Bush was.
Kerry ran a fine campaign but between liars in the White House, Swiftboat Traitors, and all the other misinformation being spread around, the message got lost… and he still managed to get half the vote. Don’t act like this wasn’t a down to the wire election.
Kerry picked a competent and charismatic lawmaker as a running mate.
Real men don’t vote for men who muzzle women.
Kerry is an honored Yale grad and decorated Vietnam Veteran with a long and distinguished career of public service. Bush is a legacy Yalie with a C average who with a keen sense of nepotism rode Daddy’s coattails through college, an AWOL guard career, a series of failed businesses, and a fat electric bill for Texan executioners.
Bush Sr served only one term, and while I never liked him, he never struck me as incompetent like his drooling idiot son, who will serve two terms only because he had the good fortune of having been the benchwarmer in the Oval when a national tragedy occurred.
You Democrats fucking blew it, so quit your whining!!!
I’d argue that it was you who fucked up when you chose not to vote for the better candidate.
#2 Greg –
As somebody who wrote barcode printing software, it is very easy to make the barcode say something different from the human readable text. Most of these systems probably are using thermal print, which won’t last very long in the event of a recount like Florida had in 2000.
I like the solution used here in Phoenix today. It’s an optical scan system where you have to complete the arrow to indicate your vote. Before you leave, the ballot is passed through a scanner to verify it can be read and that you have filled it out completely.
#27
I’m but a rusty old second rate programmer. Still there’s no way to lock down any machine entirely. There are other ways to compromise a computer such as pre-load the exploit and some trigger for later use. Or just have the officials execute the hack. How about just destroying the storage device on machines that receive votes for the wrong candidate. Magnetic, EM or some such. The possibilities are endless.
30,
I understand about destroying the machine…
But you can make it hard enough that it would take ALOT more then 5 minutes…
You could make a simple KB, that has no selections except, UP DOWN, YES and NO…
You can tell the Bios NOT to use the USB, serial, par, or the floppy, or CD/DVD. ALL votes are stored int he machine, until AFTEr its over.
Then a programmer comes in, Plugs a real KB in changes the bios, and sends the data. With network or modem interface.