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read Bruce Schneier recent postings. while bruce leans dem, he cares about computer security more then partasanship. Debloid machines suck...but they ate both parties votes FL-13 may be shananagins, or it may just be crapy machines (and we trust these guys to build atm's)
they lost and fliped plenty of republican votes as well....this wasn't some masterminded vote steal thsi is just crapy softwear
if you are realy interested I can go into atm security issues, but in the end it all points to teh same issue, debloid dosn't pay its programmers jack, so they end up with bearly compitant sloppy programsers who produce bad code.
here is his artical
http://www.forbes.com/home/
secur...13security.html
http://www.schneier.com/essay-068.html
but hay for all of you debloid haters there is a plus, looks like in PA it cost Sanatorium and swan a bunch of votes (looks like some of both sanatorium and swan votes got fliped)
Just put in $20.02, with a $2 tip for ActBlue.
I contributed.
Karl Olson
PS. Steve, it might help to explain whether the maximum $2100 contribution limit applies, or whether maxed-out contributors to this campaign (not me) can still donate.
If you have already maxed out to the Jennings campaign, than you cannot donate more to her recount fund. However, you can also donate to the Florida Democratic Party to help:
https://secure.fladems.com/page/c...ute/
cd13recount
If you haven't already donated the max to state parties ($10,000)
I found your attack on Greg Palast unfathomable. If those voter suppression numbers are true, that's still theft of massive proportion that probably could have added 10 house seats. And for the record, even if you were suspicious of the voting machines many of us--most notably Mark Crispin Miller--still worked our asses for candidates and parties throughout the country. WE never told anybody not to vote and I challenge you to find a place where we did. And who cares what Kos thinks now. He and his co editor Chris Bowers never thought the stolen votes of primarily black voters were important enough (Unlike Greg Palast who you condemn...who else do you hate? White members of the NAACP, ANC and the black panther party? One of only a handful of white journalists to give a fuck about the black vote and you put him down? Mother of God..) to point out in that worthless book of theirs. If Kos really wanted to help, then he should have shot for independent exit for the house races. Hell, we probably won 60 seats who knows...
Philip Shropshire
www.threeriversonline.com
Anyone here watch "hacking democracy" on HBO?
Interesting and somewhat scary show. In the show Bev made the argument that the real security problem is with the compilation software not with the individual machines. Which makes a lot of sense. Think about it. Even if you do away with electronic voting machines, you still have the possible problem with hacking and changing results.
If you you want to hack an election and have access to all levels of a state or county's election system, do you want to mess with 6000 individual voting machines in a way that might well be detectable to the voters themselves (like the vote switching on the screen a has been reported here). Or do you go into the compilation software that receives data from all the different voting machines and change the vote totals there?
In any event, I've always thought that these touch-screen machines were an absolute idiotic idea from the very beginning. It really makes no sense for counties to invest in thousands of these expensive and complicated pressure-sensitive LCD display screen machines when they will only be used once or twice a year at best. It's one thing if you are building an ATM or supermarket checkout machine that will have 100 users everyday. But voting machines? This technology will go obsolete in a few years. How many elections will the average voting machine even see before it is obsolete in terms of software or hardware? Maybe 5?
Optical scan ballots have always made so much more sense and they pretty much eliminate the problem of long waits at polling places because you don't need a machine or even a booth to vote. When I used to vote optical scan ballots in Alaska I used to just sit there on the floor and fill out my ballot when there were no booths available. Better than waiting in line.
What polling places with optical scan ballots could do is set up a couple regular desktop computers in voting booths with touchscreen screens or regular keyboards, braile keyboards, with an online ballot in as many languages as necessary. So that people who are unable to deal with the paper ballots and pen have an alternative. Then when the voter using the computer goes to vote, just hit print and their paper ballot prints out on a regular laser printer which they then walk over to the optical scan machine and enter it like all the people who filled out theirs by hand.
In my mind, the whole idea of demanding electronic voting machines that have paper trails is still the wrong approach. Unless the paper trail is the primary ballot for counting purposes, I don't see how that will really catch fraud. I want to see all elections occur with paper ballots that can be secured under lock and key and hand counted if necessary.
Debloid machines suck...but they ate both parties votes FL-13 may be shananagins, or it may just be crapy machines (and we trust these guys to build atm's)
they lost and fliped plenty of republican votes as well
I haven't heard about *any* Buchanan voters being unable to cast a vote for him, and I live in this district. I've been paying attention, and I know plenty of people here who did have trouble voting - all Dems, curiously enough.
It's also very interesting to me that the only county in FL-13 to have these machines is the one with a reasonable concentration of Democratic voters (Manatee, Hardee, and Desoto counties are all much more Republican).
None of that constitutes proof of anything, of course. The number of people I know constitutes a very small sample size, and as we all know, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." Still, it does nothing to instill confidence.
Yeah, Steve, I've read your arguments against the existence of Diebold-based fraud, and some of what you write makes sense - particularly the bit about how it has to be a close race in order for vote fraud to work. Now, I don't remember if you were the one who was holding up this election's results as proof positive that there's no such thing as voting machine fraud (I know it was *some* liberal blogger I read every day) - but I'd say it was more likely a case of the race being too one-sided to convincingly steal. The fact that Democrats won this time out neither proves nor disproves anything, just like the glitches (even the ones I mentioned above) don't conclusively prove anything.
I mean, yeah, you said it'd be impossible for Rove to steal the election, and in the end, you were right. But did that have more to do with the machines, or with the nature of this particular election?
The fact is that we don't know anything either way until we see the computer code. Which will never happen.
Anyway, I'm going to kick in some money as soon as I get to a more reliable Internet connection (this one keeps dropping me). Whether they're crooked or just crappy is secondary at this point - these machines are a serious threat to American democracy and need to go.
I just contributed. This is another fight we have to win.
Diebold machines simply suck.
And in a process involving a Republican company, with Republican officials, the sucking aspect is suspect.
It's also time to make sure New York goes to optical scan and not touch-screen machines now that our mechanical voting machines are being retired. There's a public meeting at the NYC Board of Elections on November 21. Details on where machines will be demonstrated and on the public meeting here.
I’m in for $50. (I think. I’m awaitng a response from ActBlue after an error message.)
Give me tangible, preservable, reviewable ballots.
I’d prefer voting on clay tablets to Diebold.
The machines are ES&S, not Diebold.
"Diebold machines simply suck."
Why'd the Germans lose WWII?
They simply suck!
So, you can tell me about the Eastern Front, or the lack of natural resources. Piffle! Those are mere details. The suckage in and of itself was the reason.
Anyway, I'm thankful for the opportunity to contribute.
spencer: 18,000 ballots did not have the house race recorded, that was around 13% of the vote (well past the normal 3%) it crossed party lines.
there is very strong evidence that debloid machins hammered republicans in other areas of the country. PA with swann and sanitorium come to mind...debloid isn't stealign the elcetion, they are jsut incompitant.
Some examples from there ATM's(I worked bank it for a year or so for JP Morgan Chase)
the data stream is unencrypted, its a front panel code to enter administrative mode (the code is the same on every machine) pasword rest is not forced...basicly hte machines are open books for anyone who wants to read them.
Philip Shropshire,
Palast was full of shit, completely and totally. Miller doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Basically, Palast said the election would be stolen and he was completely and totally full of shit, writing from London.
Why? Because neither man has any real knowledge of elections or computers. Neither man has looked for voting anomalies. I have never seen a study from someone who actually studies elections backing up these claims.
What the fuck do you think you're doing when you say Rove has rigged the election but telling people to stay at home?
Wow, Greg Palast cares about black voters. Do you understand how patronizing that is?
What I find to be offensive is that he can cook up bullshit about a stolen election and remain in London. If you think that's going to happen, why aren't you in the US screaming about it.
And in any event, it turned out to be little better than him speaking out of his ass.
spencer,
The idea that wholesale voter fraud exists is untrue on both sides, illegals don't vote, and Diebold/ESS haven't been proven to be hacked.
What the problem is that our election system is extremely fragile and needs to be rethought. We cannot have an election run by parties and monitored by 72 year old poll workers.
Steve, and a hearty fuck you as well (we have to hook up if you're ever in Pittsburgh or if I can ever afford a weekend in NY. I'm sure we'd be fast friends...until then though...)!
Greg Palast has been working on the vote theft issue for about, I don't know, six years now. He's published about two books, participated in three documentaries, he's even done a few house music videos with the words of his latest book etched upon them. I might also note, that even though he was wrong about the outcome, he probably wasn't wrong about voter suppression throughout the country and it being targeted at primarily black voters. The story of the election is n't how dem voters voted its how traditionally latino, young, evanglical voters voted. Actually, if you had read his full argument, which I doubt because you proudly display your ignorance about never having read either Miller or Palast (great debate tactic. "Nawp. Never done read that crazy bullshit that I don't read that 's why I know its crazy bullshit...sworn affadavits and court testimony to the contrary..")he makes the argument that voter suppression is a bigger issue than vote machine fraud, but of course you don't read his bullshit.
On him not being in the United States shows incredible ignorance on just several levels.
One: He's in the states all the time. You would know this if you saw his documentaries about katrina or ohio 2004, which you obviously haven't or you would know shit like that. Hell, he was even at the Harlem book fair. You could have driven or taken the subway down there and watched. Do a search on Youtube for Greg Palast why doncha. He outdebates the whiny bitch ass sellout black republican on the panel (boy do we agree on the Confederacy black republicans...hate those guys..)
Two: The reason he writes these things from London is that London has a progressive press! Where else would he write those stories about black people being disenfranchised? The New York Times? Shouldn't you know this as a former reporter allegedly? Don't you remember what happened to Frankel at the Atlanta Constitution?
Spencer: Steve Gilliard is wrong about there being no proof. There's the Hursti Hack, there's the Princeton Diebold hack, and then there's the Brennan Report, out of New York from what I understand but Steve doesn't read shit like that...all on Youtube by the way. Princeton even did the Diebold hack for fox news and not just Lou Dobbs...of course, why does Steve Gilliard need a high level of proof for these guys who have killed a half million Iraqis for oil...of course they're evil enough to do that. Perhaps Conyers will hold some hearings and issue some subpeonas and we'll get to the bottom of this....
Philip please read Schneier, yes the machines can be hacked....but they can just as easily have been incompitance. after working with atms, i vote for incompitance.
One more point: saying that you think the election might be stolen is not the same thing as saying don't fuckin vote. In fact, I strongly suspect that's why the progressive blogosphere has taken on this issue fully. I mean, its great that Kos has finally caught a clue. Good for him. Now we need independent exit polling and we could use a hand in the busby billbray race. I mean, you're like the guy who says Marijuana is just as bad as crack because you want to protect the kids or the turnout. Adults and even kids can handle two concepts at once: Yes the gop is very capable of stealing the vote and slowing down the legal process to nothing but you still knock on doors and make phone calls because that makes it harder to steal as we've seen....
Philip Shropshire
www.threeriverosnline.com
PS: One more point about experts: Ed Felton, the guy behind the Princeton hack and Freedom to tinker is computer science whiz and their have been a number of high level stat guys who hav e pointed out the problems with exit polling (which turned out to be pretty much accurate this time which shouldn't happen if they're horribly flawed...) including both Avi Rubin and Steve Freeman...
Philip Shropshire : the "hacks" you listed where prof of concept types...no prof that it has been done in production...that it can be done is an issue...far more improtantly for this argument. none of the errors that allowed the hacks where caused by malicious progrmming they aer all things that fall into the lazy programming catagory.
SO yes debloid machines are very bad, but its due to incompitant programming not some neferious plan by the repubicans.
If you fell strongly about saveing the vote, start pushing your state of an origon style system of all absantee balots, its realy the best way to do it. worrying about which machines we use to cast our votes is counter productive.
hell if you are looking for a neferious plot look at the machines that count the tallies....single point of failure and all that, why hak individual voteing machines when you can hit the central machine?
Moonglum: I do read Bruce although he's not as up on this issue as Ed Felton. It's not the discrepencies per se that we question, its the discrepancies that only benefit republicans every fucking time over and over again. Let's catch a clue here....
Philip Shropshire | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 4:30 pm | #
I've got no dog in this fight because Steve's not really open to reason on this issue because MCM's a media critic or something, but I'd just like to comment (being an AE Houseman fan) that you have the coolest name I've seen in awhile.
Talking about pro war poem shropshire lad? I'm honored.
so they end up with barely competent sloppy programmers who produce bad code
Moonglum is right. From experience, if you have a massive error like this it usually means that something very simple is miscoded in a routine that is used by most of the program. Using ++i for i++ or a = x for a == x. Using a for loop instead of a while ... do. Overrunning the bounds of a character string array. And so on.
This kind of crap should be caught in testing because the error's results would be so blatantly obvious. But instead it's blatantly obvious that the election machines people don't believe in testing; they see it as an added expense detracting from profits, and besides the programmers should be good enough to get it right the first time. That's what they're paying the $1/hr salaries to Indians for.
There is no way we should be trusting our democratic system to people this incompetent.
Talking about pro war poem shropshire lad? I'm honored.
Well sort of pro war:
FAR I hear the bugle blow
To call me where I would not go,
And the guns begin the song,
“Soldier, fly or stay for long.”
‘Comrade, if to turn and fly
Made a soldier never die,
Fly I would, for who would not?
’Tis sure no pleasure to be shot.
‘But since the man that runs away
Lives to die another day,
And cowards’ funerals, when they come,
Are not wept so well at home,
‘Therefore, though the best is bad,
Stand and do the best, my lad;
Stand and fight and see your slain,
And take the bullet in your brain.’
Kos has a lot of nerve. He is late to the party. Maybe people are giving directly to recounts in their area. Maybe are active in one of the state chapters of Verified Voting.
I am going to a strategy session next week for Virginia voting activists. Maybe Kos could be gracious enough to acknowledge all the hard work done by thousands of activists while he was doing everything he could to shut down debate in netroots.
Philip Shropshire:
I've got to step to the defense of Moonglum's and Cassius Chaerea's position here. For an odd reason: Diebold used a Microsoft OS as the basis for their voting machines.
There's something I learned over the course of the last two months that absolutely shocked hell out of me, and it relates to this.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to cover your tracks, forensically, on an MS machine? You commit hanky-panky on one of those and you are GOING to leave traces. Unless you simple sterilize the hard disk by overwriting the whole thing, sector by sector, from /dev/random three or four times.
And if you're going to go to those extremes, you may as well just melt it down with thermite. It'll be that obvious when the thing is examined forensically.
The MS way is to make 87 jillion registry entries and temp files and scratch files and all sorts of "temporary" shite when you so much as edit a file. Just waiting for a proper inspection to comb all the damning evidence out of the latent data.
Sometimes, as with MS Word, a forensic analyst doesn't even need latent data. There's enough evidence to metaphorically hang you, sitting right there in the document file itself.
My point?
A OS like MS Windows 2K/XP/2003 makes a damn poor choice as the foundation slab for a purpose-built fraud machine. Because the OS ground rules were laid out by incompetents in the first place.
Philip Shropshire: look at the actual complaints coming in around the country, a lot of republican votes where lost / fliped as well. I watch florida 13 (18000 votes lost, no connecton between the voters, both republican and dem votes lost) and PA (votes for sanatorium being registerd to his opponent). the voteing machines are a mess, badly programed adn badly architected...the is no neferious polt, just incompitance involved herer.
Alice: You're right. Kos and his posse which includes Steve, have dropped the ball on the issue. Bradblog, Free Press, and Greg Palast have been at the forefront for fighting for black voters.
Stormcrow: You know there's a suit going on in Ohio right? You know there was an incredible victory just to keep the 2004 ballots alive in that state? They were going to be thrown out. Kos didn't do jack in that fight either. I think that decision preserved the machines as well. I hope that a good forensics person take s a look at them or even conyers could take a look at them....
Moonglum: First, Rick and Lynn got their clocks cleaned in this election. It was a blowout. You might notice that voting activists take interest in cases where the exit polling and the pre race polling are at odds with the final result. Even if there was vote switching it wouldn't have affected the outcome of the race. Florida is different. That was a close race where 18000 votes went away and as luck would have luck and only luck apparently that benefits the republican. It should be stated that local voting activists in pittsburgh are thrilled that someone wants to look at those machines. I wish rick all the luck in the world...
Philip: those 1800 votes where on both sides, it wasn't 1800 democratic votes lost, but votes from both parties...the dificulty of programming a michine to randomly lose votes from both parties, and favor the republicans slightly, all while doing it at such numbers as they woudl be not noticed as fraud would be stagering....loseing votes to incompitance is a bad thing, useing the electronic machines is a bad idea...but teh republicans hatching some neferious plot to use machines in a few races to steal the election, didn't happen, has never happend...its a hell of a lot easier and more cost effective to steal elections in mroe mundain manners, debloid may make or a good movie polt, but it makes for very bad reality. Your as bad as the chicken littls screaming about cyber terrorism...
Moonglum, how about this conspiracy theory: The machines in Dem areas are the buggy ones that never work right.
When people complain about machines, the serials are noted, and come election days, they are all in Dem precincts.
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