How many of you feel this way about the Machines you will Vote On Next? HAVA ACT MANDATES ALL NEW MACHINES IN COMPLIANCE WITH THEIR ACT BY 2006...MID-TERMS.


How many of you pass by DU Posters when they get into Election Fraud and the DRE's and how they aren't reliable and that the code can be hacked, etc., etc., etc. Does it make you turn on your "snoooooze alarm..?"

HOW MANY OF YOU SAY:

I've Read Stuff on DU about Touch Screen Voting being a Bad Thing ..
and I know many DU'ers have been working to have us all fill out "Paper Ballots" where we mark our choices and the ballots can be recounted in case there is a recall. BUT....I'm not sure about this because I love Computers and know that my ATM Machine is reliable where I am...so I'm just not sure where I stand on this issue? :eyes:


HOW MANY OF YOU JUST FIGURE:

Well, if we have a high enough Dem turnout in 2006 it won't matter if Rove is "hacking the code" we WILL WIN...so why should I fuck up my beautiful mind worrying about Computer Voting Machines when I really don't have the time to bother with it all. I like my computer and think everyone should vote that way. After all...my ATM Machine is great it always gives me a receipt. :shrug:

Let the mayhem begin. :popcorn:

Is this a new trend here? If you find a fresh thread that is likely to be a flame-fest, just start handing out the popcorn?

:rofl:

It is funny though I find "..." for a subject to be deceptive and somewhat annoying.

to know that if the poster is serious (it varies), then people will crank up their flamethrowers to full-blast. What else is there but to hand out the popcorn and sit down and watch?

:D

How crass and low...to sit there with your "Popcorn and Coke" like you are watching some Grade -B Movie...so you can sit their in your glory...Above it all...watching and chowing down...:popcorn" while the REST OF US ARE FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY? :shrug:

Oh PULEEZE...just chow your "Corn." :puke:

All it takes is for one person--you--to say "I don't see what all the fuss is about touch-screen voting" and people come in, guns blazing.

It's not crass to see that ignoring the mounting pile of evidence concerning vote fraud is unwise.

EDIT: Softened this up a bit...didn't want to come off as an ass.

If I fill out a "paper ballot" shouldn't that ALONE be PROOF of my VOTE?

Why do I need this High Tech Shit...which can be manipulated because when I show up I want to vote for whomever/whoever? :shrug:

That smilie sure gets a work out on DU. So I will join you. :popcorn:

change things. As another DUer recently stated so succinctly, I'm on indignation burnout.

If someone can figure out a way to really change the situation, they have my backing 100%! Until then, I have to pick my battles to stay sane.

and can say to "Indignation BurnOut" (which I understand what you say) and go BEYOND...They can have the ENERGY to carry the TORCH FORWARD...in a Relay...to take it to the FINISH LINE?

front way before joining DU. Maybe I'm just getting old. My soul feels so tired.

with them. I wonder if Rumsfeld designed them. :shrug: Air=Rumsfeld...if you get what I'm saying.

But..given that...I still think that if we GIVE UP it's just what Karl Rove Wants. And Cheney, too.

So...I figure, I gotta "Keep on Truckin'" and figure that "RESISTANCE" is worth more in the end...than COMPLIANCE... (but, yeah...I get kinda tired of always being the "fall guy." :-(

dealing with the problem. You can count on me!

Actually, it's a pretty neat idea. I'd like to see it working, eventually.

And therein lies the real nastiness. It's not a hardware issue, it's the programming of that hardware, both on the voting machines and on the tabulators that add up the votes collected from those machines. That software MUST be open to public scrutiny. We are trusting it with the lifeblood of the commons, the very soul of our democracy. If that means we have to institute artificial market protections and even regulated monopolies for the companies developing the software, so be it.

This may be the work of private companies, but they are franchised to operate in the most public of public spaces, and their product deserves no less than the most open of public oversights.

Furthermore, every state's elections agency, from the secretary of state all the way down to the precinct level, must be held responsible for the software they install on the machines, whether they be frontline touchscreen machines or central tabulators. That means the direct image of the ballot and counting software installed on each and every voting machine must also be open to public audit. This is a non-negotiable point as far as I'm concerned, at least as important as the "paper trails" people clamor for regularly. What good is a paper trail for a recount if the vote margin is artificially held outside of that which would trigger the recount?

my participation in "who is most electable, etc." threads is becoming nil. What's the point?

went to the "Angels in the Sky" and none of our ELECTED DEMOCRATS took UP THE TORCH FOR US!!!

So...we are left out here..twisting in the winds...trying to convince our States to do GOOD by US...

And...do our State Legislatures not join in on the "PIG TROUGH" where all feed with the "LOBBYISTS?" I don't know...but "Peasants with Pitchforks" is the Meme Cartoon in my mind that makes me say: PUSH BACK!...PUSH BACK!

From the DAWN OF HISTORY...PUSH BACK SUCCEEDS.....!! HUGE !!!!!1111101

Over Time...the Robin Hoods succeed "for a time" when the "Robber Barons" exceed their legacy.

So...now is our ROBIN HOOD TIME!!!! :shrug: (Hey, WTF, I'm an Idealist..so I gotta go with my gut, here.)

Voting, lol,? Seriously.

:shrug: Can you "plain speak" for me?

sarcastic humor, about the reliability of computers. Not even taking into account the ability to hack them.

:(

:eyes: We are "fair game" for those of you who have bucks to keep bying/Upgrading/buying/Upgrading.

What about those who can't do this constant upgrading. And why should we be "Credit Carding to the Max" just to "stay ahead with the Bushies?"

:shrug:

and I'm not so sure *² even knows how to use much more than a Nintendo

the pages...

Love Ya...Mr. Gorilla...(pressed between the pages of my mind...sweet memories) (Go to "Elvis") You know what I mean. :D

:P

:evilgrin: (Ironically, this BSOD seems to be pretty close to that joke.)

to not wonder what kind of Fuck Up's could appear when they go to VOTE in 2006? We could have "Printer Error/Blue Screen Death/Vote Marked in Wrong Column/Server Error #404/..or innumerable Error Messages with "Kiss of Death" turning off the "oldie voters" who are the "Backbone" of the Voting Process according to statistics from both Dem and Repug Pollsters.

So...what better way to "Hack the Vote" than to disenfrachise our "Oldie Voters who take American Governance SERIOUSLY. :shrug;

don't feel like there is a widespread voting fraud campaign.

That doesn't mean the system can't be made better and fraud-proof though.

As for touchscreens, as an engineer that has worked extensively on writing software that integrates with touchscreen technology, I'm still not impressed with the reliability of the hardware or some of the programmers that use it.

you do understand why folks who don't agree with you are feeling like "papers tossed to the winds."

I still say, though. What I mark down on a "paper ballot" will always have an ability to be recounted. What goes off into the "Ethernet" is subject to the "Whims of Technology."

Niether my "hand to mark and "X", nor your RIGHt to be a Math Genius (Computer Expert) foisting Computers on folks who can't understand them but want to vote considering that not all Americans Own or are Familiar with Computers should have the "Go Ahead" here.

Shouldn't all Americans have a right to "fill in a ballot..marking their choice" and not be faced with some "flickering computer screen" which goes dead when the power is cut?

A PAPER MARKED BALLOT should always be what the "Regular American" should have as "FIRST CHOICE!!" ALWAYS!

My hand..my pencil/pen or blood...NOW THAT'S A REAL VOTE!

:shrug:

In the original post, you say you "don't get" why DUers, or at least many DUers, are upset about touchscreen voting.

Then, in this post later in the thread, you point out that a paper ballot has the ability to be recounted as opposed to electronic voting without any concrete "hard" backup. It seems you are "making the argument" against the statement in your original thread title post.

So, which is it?

If we are going to have e-voting, why not have your vote generate a paper ballot at the time of the vote, that you inspect for accuracy, and then drop it into a locked box? I think in an ideal system it would have this, and there would be random auditing of a certain percentage of all voting precincts (let's say 5-10 percent for the sake of argument, random audits by an outside party agreed to by the political parties).

To NOT have paper ballot backup, and auditing, is to start from the presumption that the system is not crooked and cannot be crooked. I don't share that assumption.

over Computer Screens that my Mom and Dad really can't deal with given that they are in their late 80's and that many folks in their 70's, 60's and 50's cant deal with either.

We here on DU like to thing ALL THE WORLD IS A COMPUTER (My egotistical self included) BUT THE WHOLE AMERICA DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, HERE! :shrug: They are given the screen and they figure their vote will "count." They are too clueless to understand the difference.

:cry:

wrong thread

there so many posts in the election reform section that would cover your points. But here goes--

1 The banking Industry wont allow proprietary Operating system source code to be used in ATMs. ALL DREs (except the Accupoll) use proprietary Operating system source code.

2 Paper ballots counted by optical scanners-- we get a mature technology

3 DREs (touchscreen voting machine)have higher ballot spoilage rates than any other voting equipment used in the USA. Is it OK with you to have 4% or 8% or more votes lost to the ether?

4 SO with hi turnout we can win-- I hope so- in 2004 about 80% of the vote was counted by computer. And about 90% of those computers are from vendors that use proprietary Operating system source code, vendors owned by the religious right or Neo cons. After this year 100% of the vote will be counted by computer.

5 YOu love your computer-- OK cool-- ever have a screen freeze? DO you run MS Windows? Some vendors still use Windows 98-- MS doesnt even support '98-- right?

5 DREs from Diebold, ES&S & Sequoia are designed to cheat from the corporate ownership side. Think inside hack.

I worry most about #s 1,2,3,5&6 If We The People owned the software, and it was open sourced, and backed up by a paper ballot that I could verify.. I wouldn't worry.

What we have to do is convince the evil empire that we can mess with it as easily as they can. If people who have promised to deliver the votes to a particular party hold the "keys to the kingdom" ... there is no country. It's as sure as if there were no borders...

Comforting isn't it?

that the people who seem to know the most about the technology were the ones who were the most strongly against it.

Sets you back a bit, thinking about it that way.

"TrustMe" voting, in this climate? No thanks. :)

for the "Touch Screens" and why are they "kicking sand in our eyes" time after time...if they aren't covering up something.

The Mighty "BUSH PR MACHINE" somehow manages to CONVINCE VOTERS...that our NEW MACHINES will be as SAVE AS "AUTOMATIC TELLER MACHINES" that we ALL USE EVERY DAY. :eyes: What else can one say to this but that "emoticom." :eyes: Rolling in my head...of "disbelief."

to look at "Computer Code" for these machines unless we do a HUGE RUMPUS...:shrug: How many of us have time to do this given that they cancel meetings...and delay...delay...delay...meantime hiring LOBBYISTS who've worked for Dems to come in and "rake in big BUCKS" to DEFEND THEM?

Look at Steve Metcalf from NC who comes on board as a Diebold Lobbyist after "resigning from NC Senate." Which side of the bread is "buttered" for him? Is he real or a HACK?

I don't know...I don't live his kind of life where "morals and integrity" can be so compromised that one can work for the "Highest Bidder" and have no qualms.

Maybe his kids want to go to Harvard or Yale...and Bushies can give him the "GO!"...Or mabey his "credit card" is to the MAX and he needs some help outside NC so he had to WHORE FOR DIEBOLD....

Still..should I give this guy a pass? :shrug:

the shenanigans these companies have been involved in.

Maybe he needs to be reeducated. :evilgrin:

But really, most State BOEs don't have the time or the skill to do the work to scrutinize these machines, let alone give them a pass.

If they do, we know they've flunked their job descriptions because the process is long and complicated and nearly impossible, when you get down into the dirt.

If they sign off on these machines, with ALL the security problems they have, we know someone isn't doing their job. It really is that simple.

that are

TOP SECRET

Corporate owned also, just like the operating system--

ARRGGGGGG

that "We THE PEOPLE" don't count for SHIT! They don't want to see us, hear us, or listen to us.

BUT! You know what? I say "FU" back at them...WE ARE THE PEOPLE and sooner or later the "Peasants with Pitchforks" are gonna come for you and make you F'king SOB's HELD ACCOUNTABLE...that's if you aren't all in JAIL...and If you AREN'T" then I'm gonna' be "dogging your ass" until you are! It's MY LIFE and MY CHOSEN COUNTRY...and you "Fuck Ups" have USURPED AND TRASHED ALL OF US WORKING DAY TO DAY...TRYING TO RAISE OUR KIDS...so they don't end up on CNN or MTV or MSNC's "Special on Trailor Park America!" (Not trashing Mobile Home America...but we all know they are out there scouring you guys for stories)...and it's all MIDDLE AND LOWER AMERICA SUCKS!...so that the BUSINESS MOGELS GET A "PASS."

They will trash us all so that their "Top Down/Reagan Supply Siders" can give us the final "cup of poison," where we kill ourselves for "Globilization."

We are "Sacrifices on the Altar of Capitialism/Christian Fundamentalist Values/Dumbing Down of Education for our Kids over Church Services/and Pragmatism in a Global Economy where ALL have to Sacrifice for "Democratization" of the rest of the World. :shrug:
s

Particularly people who were only going to vote if tough screen was available. It is the first opportunity for many people to vote privately. People started giving into conspiracy theories instead of pushing for audio confirmation, etc. They were a voting block dems might have had access to. Screw them. Keep counting the 50 50 vote breakdowns by hand.
Anyway, they were optimistic until our SOS demanded a papertrail in our state. Now they just went back to forgetting about voting. It's shameful.

that don't actually count their votes, what have you gained?

There are three disabled people in my family. They agree with me. It's no use casting you vote into the ether, even though it might feel good at the time.

Conspiracy theories? If this is a conspiracy theory, you'd better alert Mr. Conyers, the GAO, the Free Press and several authors of serious books on this topic immediately! So they can stop wasting their considerable time, energy and talent.

This doesn't have to be an "either / or" situation, does it? There's always more than one solution. We can all get the transparancy we need.

peace,
Beth

I work on this issue with a person who has held a national post in elections. Knows it backwards and forwards, and I come here and read the stuff people put out here and just shake my head.
Some of us who are active in the disability community were calling for solutions long ago. If there had been some flexibility the momentum for the development of different kinds of electronic voting machines would have been there.
Paper trail now!!! supressed that development.
Now, noone wants to spend time on development unless they think they're close to something that's got a paper trail, can be manufactured for less and works with twice as efficiently.
Your family members are lucky they have you if they need someone to help them.
I have a friend who once told me how he used to want to vote for tax increases he knew the sate needed, but it was just too hard to go in there and do it. It was humiliating, because he felt like it might sound like he was telling a pollster he wanted to raise his taxes to benefit himself.
But, since he couldn't use his hands, he would have had to do it that way.

from any responsible activist.

If you are needing to assign blame, by all means, do that.

If you are needing to find solutions, please join us in the election forum. We could use your help.

Finally, it won't be polarized, reactive people who secure our elections. It will be people who are truly progressive, who are inclusive and who are willing to lend their resources to our common challenge.

peace,
Beth

First, I don't trust the ATM myself, hence why I double check my statements for the month, and keep all the reciepts that are printed up. At least I have that option, we don't get that with some models of these voting machines, and that is a huge problem. Discrepencies arise not just from malice, but also from bugs in the code and errors in hardware as well. Without a human readable hard copy of the data, when the data from the vote become hopelessly corrupt, then you can forget about recounts. Same for small discrepancies that matter in close elections, there is no double checking of the vote to see if the results are accurate.

Not only that but the voting system needs to be transparent itself. This includes exactly what hardware is involved and public access to the source code. Without these, these machines become mysteries, and, in Cases like Diebold, who has a bad habit of hiring ex-felons, I would like to see what code they actually put in the damned machines. Now do you understand some of the concerns?

ON EDIT: To give an example for the NEED of printed paper ballots, let's say the machines in a specific area suffer a power surge or outage and causes data corruption. Its been several hours since the polling stations have been open, and if they don't have the paper ballots, they have to start from square one, if they can get the machines back at all. Thousands of votes irreparably lost, all from a power failure. Yet in a system with printed paper ballots, those votes at that particular station will have to be counted by hand, but at least they would be counted.

A single entry system of counting anything, rocks, money or votes invites fraud. This is why you need a double entry system or debit and credits. This is how you catch that two cent discrepancy in your ledger that turns out to be $20 or even $200 that wasn't booked properly.

Banks and retail stores that use the same system (McDonald's anyone?)as the touch screen voting wouldn't dream of not having double entry to balance their daily cash registers. This means that they have journal tapes, receipts to the customers (usually inconsequential) and HAND COUNTS of the money, checks and credit cards received to verify the tapes.

It is simple, isn't it?

:)

But I'm equally worried about people who use Diebold machines as an excuse for what was truly a disastrously run campaign on the part of John Kerry last year.

That's a copout.

Yes, the machines need to be fixed, and yes, Kerry lost via his own poor performance.

all about the Campaigns. Were Gore/Lieberman Weak? Yes...but coming off Clinton's HUGE popularity even with MonicaGate...do you really think Bush won? Given his brother was Governor of FLA...isn't there some doubt in your mind that even if most of America though Gore ran a weak campaign that folks really liked Dubya? :shrug:

THEN!

Add that Election 2004 had two candidates who were the best of Dems. A war Veteran with credentials of years in Government and an "Upstart" from NC who wanted the Networks to take the "Drug Advertising" off the Cables? A War Veteran who had once even spoken up against that Corrupt Vietnam Fiasco and a guy working for the Poor and Disenfranchised in NC/Edwards.

It was a Dem Dream Team. (Campaign hired old Hacks and they flubbed up many times) but does ANYONE TRULY BELIEVE THE CHIMP WON FAIR AND SQUARE ...TWICE?

Can I ask what you're "Smoking/Totin'/Sniffing?"

It's kind of like "9/11" ...What do you believe about it? What your "Lying Eyes Say" or what you are told by what's now known to be "Propagandists" like nothing seen here in America before.

:shrug: What's one to think? That they couldn't STEAL Elections? Too far fetched. If so then why are so many of us crazed to keep the "Touch Screens" OUT! What "Agenda" do "WE" Have...as opposed to those who have made sure that they can stay in POWER..FOREVER!!!! AND will do ANYTHING..to make it so??????

Several newspapers did a study that said that if Gore had asked for a statewide recount, rather than just the 3 dem-leaning counties, he would have won, even if all the dimpled/hanging chads had been discarded.

In 2004, Bush won the popular vote by over 3 million votes, and his advantage in Ohio was significant. I agree that many people were wrongly disenfranchised, but it was not enough to swing the election.

As for K/E being a dream team, they were nothing of the sort. Kerry posed as a military man and a a supporter of a war that had much less rationale than even the Vietnam War he protested years ago. The two facets created an almost insurmountable hurdle - hawkish voters were offended by his anti-war activities in Vietnam, and anti-war voters were disillusioned by his IWR vote and insistence that if he had it to do over again, he'd vote the same way again. He was handicapped by a weak staff including Mary Beth Cahill and perennial loser Bob Shrum. He ignored the swift boat lies, when he should have answered them immediately and forcefully. He made his votes on the two different $87 bil spending packages sound like a flip-flop, and finally conceded well before his supporters were ready to throw in the towel.

Edwards was a much more appealing candidate in many ways, but was seen as too young, inexperienced, and a lightweight by many people. I personally hope to see more of him.

I honestly don't think they were a dream team by any stretch.

So do I believe the Chimp won fair and square twice? No. The 200 election was clear case of fraud, and the SCOTUS decision putting Bush in office was one of the worst examples of jurisprudence ever.

But 2004 was a dismal failure on the part of Kerry. A loss by 3 million votes is catastrophic.

Without proof of fraud, we are stuck. And disparities with exit polls, while disturbing, do not constitute proof.

I hope our next candidate is not a Northeastern Ivy-League type prone to stentorian dissertations. We need someone who speaks AMERICAN (but not moron, like Bush.)


BTW, I think the fact that Kerry got as many votes as he did was largely due to Bush's unpopularity and incompetence. Few democrats I knew were enthusiastic about him at all. Had he been up against a popular GOP president like Reagan, or even Bush sr., the defeat would have been much more resounding.

What we need is a "source document", not a paper trail, which is the phrase Bev Harris mistakenly picked up for a source document. A paper trail is a group of source documents that are all interconnected. A " source document" would be the original vote. In this case either a paper ballot that is scanned or counted by hand. If you do it on a touch screen it would act like your ATM.

You don't have to have a receipt right away, you can but you don't have to, but you will get your monthly statement that lists all your transactions. This is what the bank verifies was on their machine. If something is wrong you complain and they have to fix it. In the meantime, they have to verify the money taken out and recieved and it should all balance out in the end.

Here we are back at double entry accounting. If huge corporations and banks can do this daily, surely we can do it for elections.

many worked on it was "Verifiable Paper Ballot." Because the "Touch Screen Machines" are touted as having a receipt but it's a "toilet paper" receipt. Something like what an old fashioned "Adding Machine" would have printed out back in the 20th Century. So...the Computer Voting Machine Companies say..."We can Print a Receipt and Voters can look at it." But it's a small script and there's no way to know that the machine code can't change it. PLUS who has time to be pouring over recipts when you go to vote and there are people moving you along.

At least when I mark my long Paper Ballot with a Pen...I figure its somewhere and can be counted...I don't trust just a "printed tally."

...complaining about trying to vote using touch-screen voting and the machines were trying to register votes for the GOP candidates?

And just for grins, maybe you can tell us who is currently COUNTING the votes, and who currently has CUSTODY of the votes.

You folks that believe we can just show up with massive numbers at the polls and everything will be okay are more than a little delusional. You have to have a process that everyone agrees is fair and is immune to tampering. We don't have that yet, and until we do, it won't matter how many people vote against the candidates of the NeoCon Junta.

This is why I think ballots should be hand counted, just like money is in the ATM. It should be hand counted by both parties and I think again by a disinterested observer like a UN observer from a neutral nation to certify the counts. The way things are done now are a joke. I think this is why people get discouraged from voting.

worked good for 200 years....

All the computerized stuff is to have something to compare your figures to. It doesn't create the figures.