Electronic voting

by **NewKid** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:28 am

You have to wonder why the country's leading opinion makers care so little about the U.S. looking like a banana republic. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Trust us Take this box and stuff it By ROBERT C. KOEHLER Tribune Media Services March 16, 2006 Something fundamental about who we are as a nation is dribbling away, it seems, without alarm or even debate. We torture prisoners - it's out in the open, a done deal. We're fighting an unnecessary war that, well, yes, was launched on a lie, but too late now; we're in, we can't get out. And our neighbor's phone is being tapped. But the worry that trumps all others is the state of this proud, imperfect democracy. We may be surrendering our power to change the national direction or demand that government be responsive to us. My fellow Americans, our voting machines don't work, at least not all the time. The mechanism of our democracy is in chaos, and almost everyone is going along with it. Thanks to the allegedly well-intentioned, but disastrous, Help America Vote Act, the country is shifting, county by county, to electronic voting machines, which are not only glitch-prone on a spectacular scale (e.g., 100,000 phantom votes were recorded in Tarrant County, Texas, during the state's primary last week), but work, like God, in mysterious ways, which we're not supposed to question. The results they give us are all too often unverifiable. And here's the clincher: The process isn't even public anymore. "The question is, how can a state essentially outsource the most public act? They've outsourced voting to private companies and (the states) have no role to play." Meet Ion Sancho, election supervisor of Leon County, Fla., outspoken public servant and small-d democrat. He oversees the voting process in his bailiwick and is part of the national infrastructure of democracy. Those of us not in the know assume that impartial professionals like Sancho are the norm, but if they were, there'd be no reason to call him a hero — and his job wouldn't be in jeopardy. The forces of big money and big government don't like Sancho and have ganged up against him because he speaks his mind and because he decertified the Diebold optical-scan voting machines his county had purchased after they failed a security test — a "hostile hack," as bulldog blogger Brad Friedman called it — in December. In that test, Finnish security expert Harri Hursti, whom Sancho called in to give the machines a true challenge, was able to flip the results of a small demo election using a generic memory card, leaving no trace of tampering. He had no password, merely the sort of machine access most poll workers have. The test proved that Diebold's optical-scan machines, contrary to what the company had claimed to election officials across the country, were vulnerable to insider fraud. Sancho voided Diebold's contract and publicized the results, which, as Friedman, who has covered national election-fraud issues relentlessly, put it, "had earthquake-like repercussions across the entire electoral system in the United States." For instance, the state of California, reacting to Sancho's warning, conducted its own test of Diebold machines and corroborated his findings. Other experts also support Sancho. Yet Sancho is persona non grata in his own state. Not only has Diebold itself refused to do further business with Leon County as long as Sancho is election supervisor (refused, that is, either to correct the security flaws Sancho found or sell him different machines, or even return his phone calls), but the other two voting machine companies certified in Florida, ES&S and Sequoia, have also refused to do business with him. And the state of Florida is blaming Sancho! Secretary of State Sue Cobb, a Jeb Bush appointee, has demanded the county return $564,421 in HAVA money because Sancho missed a deadline "for — you guessed it — obtaining new machines," in the words of Miami Herald columnist Fred Grimm. Sancho "may be a hero in California," writes Grimm, "but messing with monied interests makes him a pariah in Florida." Sancho told me: "The Diebold company has embarked on a program of vilification abetted by Florida officials. There's no reason why I'm blacklisted except that I won't keep my mouth shut. . . . We are being illegally blackballed by a private company and that blackballing has the potential to disenfranchise the voters in my jurisdiction." Sancho is in the way. Too bad for him. He went with the optical-scan technology in the first place because, he said, unlike touch-screen voting, it has a paper ballot. "There's a tremendous overdependence in our industry on vendors. This technology allowed me to be independent from vendors." The problem is, there's an anti-democratic force rampaging across the country that wants just the opposite: privately conducted, secrecy-shrouded elections. The state of Florida even has a bizarre law outlawing manual recounts of election results. This removes all chance of public scrutiny from the process. I humbly submit that this is nuts, and that if we don't scream out at the top of our lungs we're going to lose our democracy. What we're witnessing, I fear — and what isolated watchdogs like Sancho are warning us about, but cannot prevent all by themselves — is democracy's transition to expensive charade. As the power of the vote leaks away, the hissing sound I hear are the words "Trust us, trust us."<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htm" target="top">commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htm</a> See also here in the Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.html" target="top">www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.html</a> (Note the remark about "we'll wait to read his book before making a judgment about that." WTF? You mean you don't care. It's just another book to review in the Sunday edition? Also note that it's "Americans" who "protect their vices more than they guard their rights." When people complain, it's conspiracy theory because nobody official's talking about it or doing anything. When it's obvious that something's crooked, it's the dumb Americans fault. They just want their free buffets and slot machines . . .) Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=newkid@rigorousintuition>NewKid</A> at: 3/19/06 11:35 pm

by **sunny** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 5:28 am

Koehler was the first msm reporter to tackle this subject- and he did it bravely and succinctly, as opposed to the cowardly crap we usually get from them. Here is an early thread on him: <a href="http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm27.showMessage?topicID=12.topic">p216.ezboard.com/frigorou...D=12.topic</a>

by **NewKid** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:28 am

Sunny or anyone else, do you know if the media or anyone else has tried to debunk this (or whatever the latest version of this report is)? <a href="http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf" target="top">electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf</a> How about the Conyers Report? This is the kind of stuff I've seen. And it's stunningly lame. The argument seems to be that it would take a huge conspiracy to do this, so it must not be true. Given the article they just ran, why is it that they believe this again? <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401545.html" target="top">www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401545.html</a> Update: It looks like the greatest critic of the study is one of its own authors. <a href="http://www.digitalagility.com/data/ODell_Response_to_USCV_Working_Paper.pdf" target="top">www.digitalagility.com/data/ODell_Response_to_USCV_Working_Paper.pdf</a> There was a huge back and forth on this, with a response to the US Count Votes report, and then a reply to that response and a sur-reply to that. It turns out there is still considerable debate among the scholars on the methodology of Edison-Mitovsky and US Vote Counts. But the only questions seems to be whether the study can prove that it was statistically impossible for Bush to have won or not. Note also that Appendix 1 in the link (which is the best argument against the US Vote Count original study -- made by one of its authors) debunks the notion that there would need to be any kind of massive conspiracy. Update II: Some overall history and analysis of the debate and some rebuttals to the above link. <a href="http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Presidential-Election-2004.pdf" target="top">electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Presidential-Election-2004.pdf</a> see also here <a href="http://uscountvotes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=4&Itemid=43" target="top">uscountvotes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=4&Itemid=43</a> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=newkid@rigorousintuition>NewKid</A> at: 3/20/06 8:45 am

by **sunny** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:01 pm

Thanks for the links, NewKid. The only debunking of Conyers report I remember at the time was Dana Milbanks personal attacks on the man himself. Disgusting.

by **NewKid** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:30 pm

Note here how this has devolved into technical arguments that only experts who are thoroughly up to date on all the details of the exit polling debate are really in a position to assess the merits of. Now compare this with 9-11 technical arguments which are much more complicated and require much physical forensic analysis. I think this shows that it wouldn't be "obvious" at all what happened to the towers or at the Pentagon, especially when you consider that investigators are much more reliant on evidence they don't have access to in 9-11 than they are in the purely statistical analysis of the exit polls and election results. This also demonstrates that with highly fact specific technical arguments it would actually be very easy to hide evidence of fraud. You can easily and always find an expert who will advance the official story in a highly technical area. Indeed, you can find experts to advance what are clearly demonstrably false arguments in much less technical and much more obvious areas.

by **Sepka** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:01 pm

As an alternate PoV, does it really matter? The American electoral system was redesigned after 1968 to produce landslide victories in the electoral college, even if one party held only a marginal edge in the popular vote. As a result, no-one really worries about winning a popular mandate anymore. It isn't necessary, when 50.1% in the "big" states will be reported (and understood by most vitizens) as an overwhelming victory. Political parties have become adept enough at identifying "wedge" issues and manipulating public opinion that the electorate is pretty evenly divided 50/50, and that's unlikely to change soon. Under such a system the elections are for all practical purposes ties. The losing side almost won, the winning side almost lost. The electorate has expressed no real preference. Under a system like this, what's really hurt if one side or the other steals the election? We're simply moving from a system which manipulates the electoral vote to produce an apparent large majority, to one which manipulates the popular vote to the same effect. -Sepka the Space Weasel

by **NewKid** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:27 pm

This is basically the "it won't matter who wins" argument, and I think on major matters which are largely off the table, that's true. But I'm somewhat doubtful 9-11 would have occurred as planned (although perhaps it would have just been deferred). Moreover, I think it's hard to argue Gore and Kerry would have so depravedly and enthusiastically driven the country into something just short of dejure totalitarianism so quickly. Their bases just wouldn't support anything like what Bush has done or what his base does. And even if it would, the rightwingers expressed profound upset at whatever Clinton did, even when it was something a republican counterpart would have done as well. Recall the "libertarian" uproar in righwing circles over Waco, gun control, black helicopter paranoia. Can you imagine what they would have done with Gore setting up concentration camps, torturing people, gutting the bill of rights, blatantly violating federal surveillance law, and starting illegal wars (remember how lukewarm mainstream conservatives were publicly about the Serbian war; remember how conservatives like Bush didn't do "nation building"; remember how Somalia was such a disaster even though it was much shorter and far fewer casulaties than Iraq). In short, I think there is a difference, even if the democrats are crooks as well. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=newkid@rigorousintuition>NewKid</A> at: 3/20/06 11:30 am

by **Sepka** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:45 am

I honestly don't see much difference between the two parties. The "moral outrage" that we hear so much of seems by and large to correlate to whether it's one's own or the other party doing the outraging. As you note, Republicans spent the entire Clinton administration bitching about how Big Bill was planning to suspend civil rights, put dissidents into camps, institute fascism, etc. Now that the Democrats are the opposition, we hear the exact same charges levelled against Bush, with only the surface details varying. The charge of "closet fascist" is used because it resonates so well with that section of the electorate for whom democracy is a religion. On some preconscious level, they've connected the dots, and they know that the leaders are prisoners of the system every bit as much as the led are. They can't admit this, though, not even in their most secret of hearts. Their world would lose meaning if they did. And so we have people casting about, desperate to identify a villain, sure that if they can just expose him and his nefarious deeds, politics will return to a 'golden age' modelled after high school civics books. Wait and see. The Democrats will win in '08, and once more Republicans will openly fret about Hillary's plans to trash the Constitution, while Democrats will grow strangely silent. I find myself in the curious position of considering both Clinton and (at least until the recent Dubai ports deal) Bush to be competent, above-average presidents. While I voted twice for Clinton, I was bitterly opposed to the wars in Somalia and Yugoslavia. I was equally opposed to the first Gulf War - had we minded our own business then, the current war in Iraq would not have been necessary. I don't see where we were really left with any choice regarding the current Iraq war, nor can I see much choice vis a vis the upcoming war with Iran. Both regimes intend harm to us, and neither is willing to allow any sort of verifiable inspection program. We'd be fools to wait until they struck first. I've read, and read, and read, and still I can't see any real evidence for the idea that 9/11 was anything other than what it appears to be - an attack by Islamist terrorists. I can't really see where Gore could have done anything in response much differently than Bush did. I voted for Kerry in '04 under the theory that he's going to have to do much the same as Bush, but the Europeans would be more inclined to cooperate with him. A president appears to have much more control over events than he really does. -Sepka the Space Weasel

by **NewKid** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:50 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>I don't see where we were really left with any choice regarding the current Iraq war, nor can I see much choice vis a vis the upcoming war with Iran. Both regimes intend harm to us, and neither is willing to allow any sort of verifiable inspection program. We'd be fools to wait until they struck first. I've read, and read, and read, and still I can't see any real evidence for the idea that 9/11 was anything other than what it appears to be - an attack by Islamist terrorists. I can't really see where Gore could have done anything in response much differently than Bush did. I voted for Kerry in '04 under the theory that he's going to have to do much the same as Bush, but the Europeans would be more inclined to cooperate with him. A president appears to have much more control over events than he really does. <hr></blockquote> Hmm. Must not be reading the right stuff then. I'd be happy to hear your take on the problems we've just been discussing in another thread like this one. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Now let’s take a look at American Airlines Flight 77. Passenger/hijacker Hani Hanjour presumably rises from his seat midway through the flight, viciously fights his way into the cockpit with his cohorts, overpowers Captain Charles F. Burlingame and First Officer David Charlebois, and somehow manages to toss them out of the cockpit (for starters, very difficult to achieve in a cramped environment without inadvertently impacting the yoke and thereby disengaging the autopilot). One would correctly presume that this would present considerable difficulties to a little chap with a box cutter—Burlingame was a tough, burly, ex-Vietnam F4 fighter jock who had flown over 100 combat missions. Every pilot who knows him says that rather than politely hand over the controls, Burlingame would have instantly rolled the plane on its back so that Hanjour would have broken his neck when he hit the floor. But let’s ignore this almost natural reaction expected of a fighter pilot and proceed with this charade. Imagine that Hanjour overpowers the flight deck crew, removes them from the cockpit and takes his position in the captain’s seat. The weather reports say it was fairly clear, so let’s say Hanjour experienced a perfect CAVU day (Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited). If Hanjour looked straight ahead through the windshield, or off to his left at the ground, at best he would see, 35,000 feet -- 7 miles -- below him, a murky brownish-grey-green landscape, virtually devoid of any significant surface detail, while the aircraft he was now piloting was moving along, almost imperceptibly and in eerie silence, at around 500 MPH (about 750 feet every second). In a real-world scenario, with this kind of “situational NON-awareness”, Hanjour might as well have been flying over Argentina, Russia, or Japan—he wouldn’t have had a clue as to where, precisely, he was. After a few seconds (at 750 ft/sec), Hanjour would figure out there’s little point in looking outside—there’s nothing there to give him any real visual cues. For a man who had previously wrestled with little Cessnas, following freeways and railroad tracks (and always in the comforting presence of an instructor), this would have been a strange, eerily unsettling environment indeed. Seeing nothing outside, Mr. Hanjour would be forced to divert his attention to his instrument panel, where he’d be faced with a bewildering array of instruments—nothing like he had seen in a Cessna 172. He would then have to very quickly interpret his heading, ground track, altitude, and airspeed information on the displays before he could even figure out where in the world he was, much less where the Pentagon was located in relation to his position. After all, before he can crash into a target, he has to first find the target. It is very difficult to explain this scenario, of an utter lack of ground reference, to non-pilots; but let it suffice to say that for these incompetent hijacker non-pilots to even consider grappling with such a daunting task would have been utterly overwhelming. They wouldn’t have known where to begin. But, for the sake of discussion let’s stretch things beyond all plausibility and say that Hanjour—whose flight instructor claimed “couldn’t fly at all”—somehow managed to figure out their exact position on the American landscape in relation to their intended target as they traversed the earth at a speed five times faster than they had ever flown by themselves before. Once he had determined exactly where he was, he would need to figure out where the Pentagon was located in relation to his rapidly-changing position. He would then need to plot a course to his target (one he cannot see with his eyes—remember, our ace is flying solely on instruments). In order to perform this bit of electronic navigation, he would have to be very familiar with IFR procedures. None of these fellows even knew what a navigational chart looked like, much less how to how to plug information into flight management computers (FMC) and engage LNAV (lateral navigation automated mode). If one is to believe the official story, all of this was supposedly accomplished by raw student pilots while flying blind at 500 MPH over unfamiliar (and practically invisible) terrain, using complex methodologies and employing sophisticated instruments. To get around this little problem, the official storyline suggests these men manually flew their aircraft to their respective targets (NB: This still wouldn’t relieve them of the burden of navigation). But let’s assume Hanjour disengaged the autopilot and auto-throttle and hand-flew the aircraft to its intended—and invisible—target on instruments alone until such time as he could get a visual fix. This would have necessitated him to fly back across West Virginia and Virginia to Washington DC. (This portion of Flight 77’s flight path cannot be corroborated by any radar evidence that exists, because the aircraft is said to have suddenly disappeared from radar screens over Ohio.) <hr></blockquote> A reconcilation of the problems here would be a good start too. <a href="http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense" target="top">www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense</a> On Iran, what's your opinion about these arguments? <a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929&sectionID=67" target="top">www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929&sectionID=67</a> On Iraq, I have to think you're kidding. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=newkid@rigorousintuition>NewKid</A> at: 3/22/06 3:53 am

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