Reply #75: my response... I think we might be concerned about similar things... [View All]

I didn't say she was forced to say anything did I? Now you are putting words into my mouth. I was repeating what she said that she was *told* by other experts, etc. that things were OK and no problems existed. How is that slander? I said the DCCC or other Democratic organizations that she trusted were telling her this info. I would expect her to consult the Democratic Party before conceding or before believing fully that she had lost. She's not a voting machine expert, nor do I expect her to be. I expect her to have people advise her well what she should do in these areas. I feel they let her (AND us) down.



This is the wrong question to ask. If these rules weren't enforceable or practical then they SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN CERTIFIED!!! Understand that? That's what we are saying. I'm not saying we shouldn't ever use voting machines. I'm just saying that we should be using older processes that are less prone to error than these if we can't ensure these machines' validity. We don't OWE these companies ANYTHING! They OWE us a working solution to get our business, if they should even get our business at all!



It's a fair question when anyone owns a "rights" to have secret code and machines count our votes when they've been shown to be hacked on multiple occasions by different people. I thought you were asking if we were being fair to ask if should also be questioning on whether Dems might also hack these machines as well as those wanting Republicans to win. I mentioned that both a Right wing Talk show host was concerned, as well as mentioned that we had foreign interests owning one of the voting machine companies' machines here (the largest group of machines here in California) where these owners come from Venezuela. They were also concerned about Abu Dubhai owning our ports too. Don't you think some Republicans are concerned about this as well? Votes were counted incorrectly almost costing two Republicans their seats incorrectly in Iowa primary last week too. This isn't a "partisan" issue. But it IS a potential criminal one.



Am I sure about what? That he said he didn't know if Busby won? YES that is true! It is also true that he's said HE DOESN'T KNOW WHO WON! That is the problem he's noting. With us not having reliable machinery in place, you can't know. I challenge you to find a quote where he said that Busby WAS "robbed" of this election. Getting a recount so that she could win is NOT his issue! Questioning the process we are falsely believing without ways to ensure it is what he's concerned about.



So are you saying that Chris Matthews is saying that Dems have double digit leads everyplace now? Why do you believe that? Both parties in congress have pretty low approval ratings now. The exit polls were showed Kerry having significantly more support than Bush (especially early on before they were "corrected"), and to the point that legal experts have said the difference was statistically EXTREMELY unlikely. That's why I'm saying that you can't count on polls to tell you if you're going to win the election.



The wireless port is illegal in California (but perhaps not in other states), that were found on a number of Diebold machines. The seals that were supposed to seal the removable cards on the machines in this election were:

a) Seals that could be reapplied without determining if they'd been broken as they were just pieces of paper with stickiness on one side.
b) Seals being in place were NOT being enforced at precincts.

It really depends on what you mean by "remotely hackable". As I noted before it WAS documented that the remote central tabulator machine counting votes for the mayoral special election WAS connected to the internet, opening it up to be accessed and hacked. The question is WHY was it on the internet, contrary to laws that said it wasn't supposed to be. If you have TSX machines sitting over in people's houses and their cards get hacked, then when they contact the central tabulator, they are able to transmit any "virus" then to the central tabulator, and for that matter other machines in contact with that central tabulator. By not following rules of chain of custody, there's no way they can guarantee that the cards on these machines weren't hacked.



Do you really think he just came down here to collect donations and make money that way? That's just plain silly! We weren't asked for any money donations until we were already sitting down, and even then it was just asking for donations. They do so on PBS, Link TV, and Free Speech TV. That's how folks like that survive and provide us a service. If you don't like that, stay away and don't give them money.



Look, I worked on election day and was one of those poll workers that gathered stats from a polling station. You have no way of knowing with any fine grained margin of error what the results really were. There wasn't any significant exit polling done at these elections. There certainly could have been a 6000 vote swing to her, and that would probably have also been consistent with their guesses too. Of course if you have a hacker that's monitoring results at a central tabulator, or has access to it somehow, they might see those 6000 votes as a way to make sure that Busby doesn't eek out a close win. The point is, with our machines compromised the way they were we have no way of knowing.



Your opinion. Others, and there are many published reports now, feel that a machine getting hacked at a precinct by a less than honest poll worker, or a less than honest visitor to a sloppy poll worker's house, could infect the central tabulator it communicates to. Do you have a link showing that that's not possible?



Don't be surprised to see RFK joing Brad shortly on this effort. And I think both Brad and I personally want to see Democrats getting elected too. In this case though, it's about having fair and valid processes counting our votes. It is not a partisan issue. We're not trying to complain about an election because we didn't like who won. If they'd followed the rules and there were no questions about the processes and equipment used to run the election, then we'd be accepting this and moving on to helping Francine in November (at least I would be and also am doing).

It is not working against the Democratic Party to ask them to protect our vote. That is a fundamental right we have as American citizens and is essential to our system of Democracy.



It really depends on what you are talking about in saying it was a "HUGE SUCCESS". I do appreciate that it was a great success that she pulled off getting as many votes that she did, but ultimately success is winning. As the saying goes, being close only counts in horse shoes.

But we really talking about two separate issues here. One is how did Busby do in the election and how will she do in November (which she did well considering the circumstances) and could still do well in November. The other is making sure that the process for us voting for her and in November is a fair one and that the right person wins. The second one is what Brad is concerned about, and I'm concerned about BOTH of these issues. And from her responses, it appears that either she (or she as echoed by many she's talking to as consultants) are more concerned about the first issue and not as concerned about the second.

I would argue that the second issue is essential to ensure if she wants to have a chance at winning in November, not only from the perspective of preventing the possibility of election fraud that might happen then, but also to energize those who might not vote for her if she doesn't show that she cares about this issue. Brad is arguing that she is giving the impression to others that she doesn't. I know her enough to know that isn't the case, but I do feel that she feels she can't afford to confront it with her election situation she's in. I think that's a mistake, and I blame the party for not helping her with that. And I'm concerned they might be hurting other Democrats in the same situation around the country in the same way too.



One shouldn't run on vote integrity as one's SOLE issue. Unlike folks like Bilbray who successfully ran on the single issue of immigration, I agree that Busby doesn't have that luxury. But I think she and the Democratic Party do need to be concerned that the laws are followed both in the previous election and in the coming elections that are there to prevent abuse.

The concern of driving away voters because of their fears of their vote not being counted was actually talked about last night by the Votergate filmmaker who spoke to us, and he's very conscious of that in his new feature length film that should be out in September on this, but I think he still feels it is an essential issue to be dealt with to ensure that we have time to put in proper protections for our votes before November. If we wait until then, and then the alarm goes off (perhaps even by the likes of Roger Hedgecock looking to persuade some voters that it's hopeless nefariously), waiting until then will be too late to deal with this issue to make sure that we have proper protection in place at that time.