VOTING MACHINES MUST DIE!!!!

So, here is a question....I cannot understand how Americans are sitting back allowing voting machines to change the outcomes of elections. We know it is happening. We know they are not accurate. We know that anyone who wants to cheat can do it with almost no effort whatsoever and there is no paper trail in many of them.

So my question is this...is there not a way, on a federal level, that we can outlaw them? Can someone in Oregon sue to not have to accept the results from a state without a papertrail? How can we stop this travesty?

On another note....here in Oregon we vote by mail. 87% of the population voted in the last election. BUT...if the US Postal Service is privatized it would mean a private company picks up our ballots and delivers them...and if they accidently were a day late they would not count. In a city like Portland that votes overwhelmingly Democratic it would be possible to skew a whole election just by delivering a truckload of mail a day late. :0(

I want cleaner elections!!! How do we get there?!

Don't be a Luddite. Do you have any idea how many more people would vote if we could do it online?

More people vote for American Idol every week than normally vote in elections. Something is screwed up about that.

...IF you've got a good auto-dialer. And no one's life is affected much if a Chris "Never-heard-of-'em" Allen wins instead of an Adam Lambert. Well, maybe the eyeliner manufacturers, but I digress...

Online voting, cell phone voting, wireless voting of any kind is unsafe given the current architecture of these systems. And don't let ANY big corporation that wants to come and "solve" our electoral problems with their slick, expensive systems make you believe otherwise. Even the systems we use for banking and at the Pentagon are not fully secure. The best that we can do right now is to have systems that require voter-marked paper ballots (no machine between the voter and his ballot) and hand-counted statistical audits-- which are basically just samplings of the count scaled to match the size of the election and number of voters voting-- consistently applied so as to detect problems with automated (electronic) ballot counting by scanners. In this way, the voter-marked ballots are the baseline and give us something solid to audit against. But the ballots themselves are, of course, only as good as the security measures that protect them and that's a whole other area of concern.

Any way you cut it, elections are complicated beasts that are fraught with holes, and technology, unfortunately, is not always the answer. So we must be careful-- the devil we wish for may be much worse than the devil we know.

Get rid of the machines, period. Other countries can hand count millions of votes in days. Why can't we?

only done so the tv shows can get better ratings. How do we start a revolution for paper ballots only with hand counting?

would be if we did it on line?

Seriously. There has to be a way!

is not a magic wand that will eradicate fraud.

been proven to be the most reliable if the count is done in a transparent, double entry, and non-partisan way.

Every time I vote here in Nashville, I complain about the lack of a paper receipt. Hell, I get a receipt for every purchase I make and at the ATM when I withdraw money.

HOWEVER, the real problem is money in politics. ALL areas of politics. Until we have publically financed elections we won't have a ghost of a chance of having truly free elections. Free as in without the taint of scandal. I'm just not sure we'll EVER get money out of politics under the current system.

The computer can print anything on it and say it printed something else.
It is the ballot that can be hand counted that is important.

Not as the internet exists now, at any rate.

The entire architecture would have to be changed from the ground up with an eye on safety and security first and foremost; since the nature of the internet is convenience and approachability to all, that is an impossibility. Safety and convenience are mutually exclusive online.

developing, implementing, and maintaining a completely transparent system that is as foolproof and verifiable as possible.

Some will say that such a system would be too expensive, slow, cumbersome, and impractical.

Others will say that ensuring completely fair and accurate elections is worth the cost.

Stalin said that "It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes".

Republicans are keenly aware of this fact also, and they clearly have an anti-democratic agenda.

I'd be glad to pay an extra $20, or even more, every year in "election tax", if it could guarantee genuinely accurate democratic elections.

was simply placed into the news from the point of view of the lobbyists alone. A lot of the scientific establishment seemed unconcerned about the cheating applications this tech was prone to because that would mean dissing their field of endeavor. To this day in region by region, when the machines come in the media lets the lobby pave the way with the most pollyanna of reporting. That makes critics and activists the disgruntled minority with the smallest concern in their assigned media role.

In the courts, the older, non computer generation(that also seems to typify the politician experience) generation doesn't get the simplest concerns and is, as usual, hampered by laws written by pols to protect themselves from accusations and the "expense" of accountability. Once again, people armed with the simplest of facts and highest alarms are put in a minority critic role that cannot overcome the status quo of a fait accompli.

The pattern of such reform scams is repeated endlessly in education, wars, social benefit reforms, etc. Reason, law, the citizen and democracy are on the outside looking in. Money talks, criminals walk.

Mailed in paper ballots should then be counted BY HAND at the County Clerk's office TWICE by representatives from both major parties with the counting open to the public for whoever wants to observe the procedure. I know for large elections, they may have to get a hall, but in my county we have a library with a large auditorium right next door to the public buildings that contain the County Clerk's Office. I'm sure every community could find proper venues for this.

You rely on the post office to to deliver your ballot both ways. Thousands of ballots have been known to be lost and "never delivered." Also, how do you know if your ballot ever arrives to it's destination? In some jurisdictions you can call and verify it's arrival, but that takes a whole extra step that most people won't be bothered with. Serious experts do not advocate vote-by-mail except as a voting method of last resort. It's is much safer to scan your own ballot into the ballot box.

be organized to deliver the votes. I would suggest a window or box specifically for ballots that can be delivered to the proper authorities. Actually, in my county, I have to vote by mail because my neighbors and I have no precinct to go to. However, we can trace our vote online through the County Clerk's office. They put up when it was received and when it was counted. Also, if you don't trust the Post Office, you can deliver your vote in person to the Clerk's office.

And as a commie, it pains me to say this but if there is one thing that's privatized, it probably should be the counting of ballots. Seems like a conflict of interests to let the party you may or may not be re-electing tabulate the results.

parties and if there is a conflict, then you need to bring in outside auditors to settle the issue.

I think we could wait 24 hours for an accurate count. Other countries do it. It seems if America can't, then we shouldn't brag about how we are better than anyone else.

...vote, thereby heping to establish that they are at least receiving mail at a particular address, then if their receipt does not reflect the vote they made, they can change it within a reasonable time period.
Their national ID card (yeah I know we don't have those) would be linked to their address and that would make sure there isn't more than one vote per person.

Private corporations should have no place in our elections... especially in the vote counting.

First of all, what IS the situation?

Right now, one, private, far rightwing-connected corporation--ES&S, which bought out Diebold--controls 80% of the voting machines in the U.S., using 'TRADE SECRET' programming code--code that you and I are forbidden to review--with virtually no audit/recount controls.

So, basically we are dependent on ONE corporation--a corporation with rightwing connections that would make your hair stand on end--to tell us who 'won' our elections. These results are either not verifiable, or they are not being verified.

Half the states in the U.S. do no audit at all--that is, comparison of paper ballot to machine totals--because there is NO paper trail to audit. In the other half of the states, they have a paper ballot but they do only a miserably inadequate 1% audit, meaning that 99% of the ballots are not counted in public view. (And rare, difficult-to-get recounts most often involved a check of only 3%).

For those, in Oregon, for instance, who think the only peril to their ballot is the Postal Service, think again. What do election officials DO with your mail-in ballot once they get it? They run it through a scanner into a system run on 'TRADE SECRET' code that produces the results! States with optiscans, mail in systems, etc.--the half of the states that have a paper trail--DON'T USE IT (no audit even with a ballot, or they use it only minimally at levels (1%) that cannot detect machine fraud).

This is an OUTRAGEOUS situation.

There is no other word for it. The BOTTOM LINE of our democracy--transparent vote counting--has been removed!

How this happened is that Big Money (or "organized money," as FDR put it) bought themselves a foolproof election fraud system--capable of massive, undetectable flipping of votes at lightning speed, out of public view, with virtually no recourse for the defrauded voters and citizens of this country.

When did they do it? October 2002. That's when the Anthrax Congress voted for the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" (aka, the "Help America Vote Act"--HAVA), in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution (and not unrelated to it, in my opinion), by appropriating $3.9 billion (of OUR money) to spread these election theft machines all over the country, while NOT requiring ANY--let alone adequate--audit/recount requirements.

They also--interestingly--did NOT mandate that the states must use these election theft systems. The whole thing was accomplished with filthy lobbying and corruption.

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"How do we change this?" Part I

And that gives us our one hope for getting rid of these machines peacefully. The decisions over voting systems remain at the state/local level--county supervisors, county election officials, state legislators, etc.--over whom ordinary citizens have more potential influence.

In this respect, I want to address one specific item in your post, your question, "is there not a way, on a federal level, that we can outlaw them?"

We need to understand that Congress did this to us--and a Democratic Congress at that. Granted that Washington DC was an armed fortress at that point, wreaking of fear--and not just of Osama bin Laden. Paul Wellstone's plane had fallen out of the sky that month, Congress critters were getting "anthrax letters" and the Bush Junta was in full bore. Fear may well have been a factor in some Democrats votes on this and other matters, but I think, more commonly, most of our Democratic representatives thought it was a good idea to let corporations (multiple at that point, now basically down to one, with a big monopoly) 'count' all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code. That explains what happened in the rest of the decade--the most outrageous thing of all--that our DLC-controlled, pro-corporate, pro-war Democratic leaders DID NOTHING to repair the lethal damage to our voting system. Wherever there were sufficient activists and public pressure, they supported optiscans--an illusion of transparency in vote counting (1%!)--while letting half the states remain totally non-transparent. Optiscans--providing a ballot but not counting 99% of them--was COVER for this corporate takeover of the very counting of our votes.

This pro-corporate, pro-war mentality among our most bought-and-paid-for Democratic leaders bleeds down into the county/state level, for sure. But county/state officials are, well, more local. Your county registrar may live right down the street from you. And that's where the decision is STILL made on how to count the votes in that place. He or she may be as corrupt as hell--or as obdurate, secretive, or dimwitted as hell--but local people, if aroused and organized, DO have a much better chance of influencing or removing local/state election officials than we have in Washington DC. You can write Washington DC off, in my opinion. They will NEVER change this.

And, looking at this ES&S-created Congress of scumbags and fascists, they will not only NEVER change this, they could well make it worse, for instance, by amending HAVA to mandate corporate-controlled, 'TRADE SECRET' voting counting, i.e., making it a federal crime to actually count our ballots.

To those who look at this issue, and say, "Forget it! Filthy campaign money is the problem," I say, filthy campaign money is the SECOND problem. And we can't even begin to solve the second problem--or any other problem--without the BOTTOM LINE of democracy: transparent vote counting. Vote counting that everyone can see and understand. This has been taken away from us. And we MUST get it back.

Yes, there can be all kinds of election fraud with paper ballots. But if you can't SEE it, you have no chance of catching and stopping it. And with electronic tabulation, the fraud can be very, very FAST, and very, very BIG, as well as virtually undetectable. It is guaranteed election fraud, as opposed to possible election fraud that ordinary citizens have a chance against.

Guaranteed election fraud. There is no other reason to lard $3.9 billion on a handful of private corporations, to render our vote counting non-transparent, than election fraud.

I repeat, it is OUTRAGEOUS.

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The futility of trying to solve other problems while a corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' code election system reverses all progress

Before I go on to "How do we change this?" Part II, I just want to emphasize that no other problem is solvable without transparent vote counting. Yes, we have a corporate/war profiteer lock on the TV/radio (and most of the print) media, which is now free to pound rightwing propaganda into our peoples' heads, 24/7, all channels. That is a problem.

Yes, we have filthy, out-of-control corporate billions buying up politicians as in a Fire Sale. That is a problem.

Yes, we have many gravely serious, democracy-killing problems.

But so does Latin America. They have wretched corporate media--even worse than ours. They also have billions of dollars--much of it our own tax money through entities like the USAID-NED and CIA--poured into their rightwing candidates and causes. But guess what? Latin Americans have been able to elect kickass, leftist, "New Deal"-type governments in numerous countries--including Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay (!), and Nicaragua (and less kickass but still leftist, in El Salvador and Guatemala).

What is the difference between them and us? They have created honest, transparent vote counting systems. It took them about a decade. They had help from international election monitoring groups like the Carter Center (which don't just monitor elections but help set up the system). Many people at all levels of society worked on this--professionals as well as grass roots groups. And the payoff has been REAL elections and truly representative government.

Transparent vote counting is the BOTTOM LINE of democracy. We really must start there.

Note: Venezuela uses electronic voting, but they do a whopping 55% audit--more than five times the minimum necessary to detect fraud in an electronic voting system--and they use OPEN SOURCE code--code that belongs to the public and that anyone may review.

So electronics CAN be used--but there needs to be a solid paper trail (a real paper ballot), a substantial audit (minimum 10%) and the best system would be OPEN SOURCE.

My preference: Return to old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots, with lots of citizen participation in the process, until the corporations are entirely cleaned out of our election system. THEN we can talk about OPEN SOURCE electronics. A LOT OF corruption has occurred, with corporate secrecy--like a lethal disease--infecting our election officials and the entire election process. Our system very much needs a Big Broom.

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"How do we change this?" Part II

I think our best chance is local. It will take a widespread citizen movement at the local level--harassing county election officials and other local/state decision-makers, with all manner of grass roots activities--noisy attendance at any relevant public meetings, picketing their offices and their homes, on the street protests--marches, flyer distribution, mocking signs and street theater--and internet education and organizing.

This issue crosses all ideological lines--except for the dishonest (those who prefer stolen elections). All people can understand it. It is the BOTTOM LINE of democracy.

This is THE issue on which to begin to dismantle the corporate state. ANYONE can understand that a private corporation should not be counting all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code. That they DO is the perfect symbol of the corporate state.

So anyone who is uselessly protesting any of the OTHER crimes of the corporate rulers--union busting, war, looting of our public coffers, credit card usury, bankster bailouts, pollution, deforestation, killing the planet, Frankenfoods, poverty, insurance-run health care, the rich paying no taxes, corporate outsourcing of jobs, etc., etc.--needs to pay attention to this: What use is your protest--other than public education (important, yes)--if, no matter how hard you work, you CAN'T get a decent representative of the public elected to public office. WHO is going to enact the laws and regulations that a decent society requires?

The bad guys have control of the VOTING SYSTEM. The very mechanism by which we, as a people, temporarily grant portions of OUR sovereignty to OUR public SERVANTS, to do OUR public business, is now beyond our control. It is a SECRET. A PRIVATE secret. A private CORPORATE secret!

I want to see corporations entirely removed from our election system--whether it is their "TRADE SECRET" code vote tabulation, or the printing of ballots, or any other way they have wormed themselves into the very mechanics of democracy. Compromises with this system--for instance, the optiscans--have so far sucked, as to any real reform. However, this is a big country with a huge variety in local political establishments and processes--and people. So here are some things that local groups could go for--as to immediate relief--if that's what they want to do:

In opstican counties and states (paper ballot but only 1% counted): Demand a MINIMUM 10% audit.

In touchscreen counties and states (no paper trail): Demand a paper trail (real ballot) AND a MINIMUM 10% audit.

Some citizen groups may want to say "VOTING MACHINES MUST DIE!!!!"--end of story. That's the best stance--although I would say "CORPORATE-run voting machines must die," because it IS possible to create an honest electronic system.

We need a widespread movement--in every state and county in the nation. It needs to be electronically savvy. It needs to be patient and persistent--as the Latin Americans have been. They had and have kickass grass roots organization. We don't have that yet. It's starting but it's not yet strong enough enough to protect union jobs in government and the public school system. And it needs to be refocused on the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. That IS the problem. And it needs to look to itself--to the citizens of this country, in their local areas--for the solution, NOT to Washington, NOT to the Democratic Party leaders who have betrayed us, NOT to the corporate media. It needs to get personal with local/state election officials.

And, by God, if we can do this--get this 'TRADE SECRET' code out of our election system--we can do ANYTHING--as Latin American countries with leftist governments are proving every day.


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(Edited for formatting)

a commercial I made encouraging paper ballots

http://youtu.be/MxF4y9tSG08

"We" are a group of politically engaged activists. The average voter, from what I've seen, doesn't think their votes are being miscounted. Their complaints, if they exist at all, are that they have to stand on a long line on election day.

--current "postmarked by." Given that signature validation is the process roadblock, "recieved by" is senseless.

http://horsesass.org/?p=22275 (from 2009)

As can be seen, 452,522 ballots were received by election day, roughly 76% of the total number cast. Yet only 254,261 were counted by the end of the day… barely more than the total number of ballots in hand the Friday prior to the election.

The bulk of the remainder of the ballots cast arrived the next day, with 572,611 in hand at KCE, or over 96% of the total number cast. Yet only 308,650 of these were counted by the end of Wednesday.

There are several obvious lessons to learn from the data. The first is that KCE can’t keep pace with the ballots it is already receiving, thus any delay in reporting returns is due not to a lack of ballots, but rather a lack of capacity to process them. This is true in Oregon as well, which typically reports only 50% of total votes by the first ballot drop election night, not much better than King County, and generally somewhat worse than Washington state as a whole.

That said, even the 43% of total votes reported by KCE on election night was a large enough sample to accurately project the winner in all but a handful of the hundreds of contests countywide. Candidates and voters do know the winners on election night, at least in the vast majority of races.

<snip>

Yes, it would be nice to get near complete results on election night the way most other states do, and they way we used to get here in Washington state before mail-in ballots started to dominate our voting, but this is the nature of mail-in elections. It takes time and resources to sort, process and verify signatures just in preparation for counting, and so we’ll never approach the sort of election night returns the likes of Reed, Gov. Gregoire and the Seattle Times editorial board apparently want. They sure don’t do it Oregon, even with their received by deadline.

Personally, I’d rather we get the count right, than fast. And I’m not sure I’m willing spend the extra money necessary to do both, let alone disenfranchise tens of thousands of late voters in the process.



http://horsesass.org/?p=31043

With a peak processing capacity of little more than 75,000 ballots a day, the 373,941 ballots King County tallied on Tuesday night barely exceeded the 349,670 ballots it had received as of the Friday before the election. Indeed, by the time the elections center opened its doors Monday morning, its staff had already fallen hopelessly behind. (And FYI, the same was true in 2009.)

So how would following the Oregon model speed things up? Well, on its own, it wouldn’t, and to understand why, we need merely look at the ballot return statistics for Oregon’s largest county, Multnomah, where even with its more restrictive deadline, only 45 percent of ballots were returned by the Friday before the election… nearly the exact same percentage as King County. Both counties received more than half of their ballots over the final few days of the election, the only difference being that Multnomah’s election was one day shorter. (Far from being the long, drawn out process Reed implies, over 98% of valid Washington ballots are received by the day after the election.)

Well then, how does Multnomah County manage to report results so much faster? Simple: they put more resources into it. Multnomah County processes ballots over the weekend before the election, while King County does not. And while King County reports a single election night return a little after 8 PM, before heading home for the night, Multnomah County continues to process ballots overnight, issuing subsequent reports at 8 AM and throughout the next day. Of course, King could duplicate Multnomah’s efforts, but that would cost money.

Nothing will happen for the good as long as we have our current SCOTUS! Elections are well and truly fucked as long as the majority on the court are asshats like thomas and roberts:smoke: