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John Kesich
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: John_kesich
Post Number: 17
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 5:21 pm: | 
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Can you bring this to the attention of others?
I came across this powerpoint presentation,
"Paper Trails and Voting System Certification" http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/talks/Paper20060328.ppt,
which was presented by Dr. Michael I. Shamos to the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania on March 28, 2006. http://www.pacounties.org/commissioners/cwp/view.asp?Q=521272&A=2329
The bias and misinformation in it really angered me. While I intend to write them a brief note about the presentation, I was wondering if you might bring it to the attention of someone with the credentials to rebut Dr. Shamos in the CCAP's eyes. CCAP can be reached via this web form:
http://www.pacounties.org/commissioners/webforms/survey.asp?s=C6C6CA83CEC9C8&d=C ECBCFC783CDCFCA
Thank you. |
John Kesich
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: John_kesich
Post Number: 18
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 8:11 pm: |
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One of his most outrageous claims is:
"No one has ever done it [tampered with a DRE] in an election."
While I am familiar with lots of cases where tampering is highly likely, are there any I can cite which have actually been proven to involve tampering? |
Kathy Dopp
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Sunshinekathy
Post Number: 6
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 6, 2006 - 1:30 pm: |
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I have not reviewed that powerpoint, but there is a rebuttal to previous Shamos writing at
http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/keller and
click on Electronic Voting.
(Thanks to Arthur Keller) |
Jim March
Moderator
Username: Jimmarch
Post Number: 167
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 1:29 am: |
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You know, Shamos is an interesting character.
He seems to have a hard time confronting the idea that there may be bad guys in the process. And there really are some odd characteristics of PA elections laws that put great weight on voter secrecy. Shamos seems to be arguing that the low-grade VVPAT systems featuring the "toilet paper rolls" don't meet PA law on the secrecy of the vote and he's probably right. It's not his fault that such poor specimens of VVPAT have been approved at the Federal level and I hope he's been complaining about it.
At some point I want to see what Shamos makes of the ITA hearing transcripts in California. If we can just get him to look at the six-page "reader's digest condensed version" we may get an interesting reaction from him. Look at how he starts the Powerpoint slideshow by stating that Systest/Wyle/Ciber/ITA approval is necessary before PA can even look at a system, per PA law just like most other states.
If we can prove to him that the ITA system is incompetent at a minimum, he may change his tune on DREs and all current-model tabulators. As little as a month ago I would have thought this wasn't even worth bothering with but his reaction to early reports on the Emery County UT data suggests he might be approachable.
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
|
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 189
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 4:33 am: |
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Jim,
Dr. Shamos is WELL aware of the shoddy and inept ITA process. In fact, he's written and spoken on it extensively.
He knows that what Systest, Ciber and Wyle are doing is inadequate at best and shameful at worst.
I'm going to look around for some links to prove that for you, but no really, Jim, Shamos gets that.
Kurt |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 545
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 4:50 am: |
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Then how can he be comfortable with saying literally that no one has tampered with a DRE election? When he can't really know or be sure? |
Jim March
Moderator
Username: Jimmarch
Post Number: 168
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 7:54 am: |
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I'm not shocked that he knows how shoddy the ITAs are. It's been pretty obvious to anybody paying attention.
Maybe he's not comfortable with saying it in public without court-evidence-grade proof...like maybe he's hypersensitive to libel issues or has that ingrained academia-culture mindset of "no public squabbling".
If so, maybe the California hearing info will be enough to tip him over into going public.
edited by admin to remove speculation about motivation
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 4525
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 9:04 am: |
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My understanding is this:
- Michael Shamos understands the fairly horrific nature of the problems with the ITAs
- Michael Shamos has a proposed solution to make it more difficult to change votes, but that solution depends on DREs. Therefore, to support his solution he supports the use of DREs.
- Michael Shamos hasn't entirely given up on the idea of Internet voting.
You know, in the field of election reform there are individuals who have original ideas. We should not expect everyone to have a cookie-cutter platform for what needs to be done.
As we know from the attacks by DemocraticUnderground and DailyKos, the position of Black Box Voting for what constitutes our civil right to oversee elections and for what solutions can be deemed acceptable are at variance with some other groups' positions -- particularly political groups.
That doesn't mean that people are wrong or evil. It simply means that rigorous dialog MUST be facilitated to flesh out these issues.
Also, we have to be cognizant of the fact that intellectually honest individuals will inevitably shift their thinking as new information comes in. It is actually a mark of intellectual dishonesty to stick to a platform in the face of conflicting new information.
I think that Michael Shamos may be an individual who is looking at new information coming in, and who is willing to adjust his thinking accordingly even if it gives him a black eye in the minds of certain others. At the same time, given the maverick nature of his past actions, we can expect him to come up with original thinking that may not agree with our own original thinking.
I don't know when it was that this shift, this fear, of dissenting opinions and ideas came into play. I suspect it's part of the political turf wars that are played out, where adherence to a predefined platform is deemed critical to success.
With Michael Shamos, there seem to be changes in the works, and we should observe his CURRENT thinking, and then when we have evidence of what that is, we can parse it out to see where we agree and disagree, and we can discuss that respectfully and intelligently. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 547
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 9:41 am: |
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Does he still stand by his "show me you can hack it" bet? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 192
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 9:56 am: |
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Brant,
Did he have a "show me you can hack it" bet, or a "show me it has been hacked" bet?
I'm just asking.
If it is the former, he may owe Hursti quite a few thousand euros, no?
 |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 193
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 10:22 am: |
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Brant and Jim,
Here is a link to a PowerPoint presentation Shamos gave in November of 2005. You will especially like slides 3-7, I think.
I'm really sorry if you don't have PowerPoint. I didn't have it for a while and links to them really hacked me off.
www.ss.ca.gov/elections/vstsummit/presentations/shamos20051129.ppt
Now as to his motivations, I hope Bev will give me a liitle latitude to speculate, given that I admire Dr. Shamos so much and I am not flaming him.
I believe that Dr. Shamos is a brilliant man with a very disciplined mind. He does not make the jump from "vulnerability" to "the whole deal's been stolen".
Here is an admitedly weak analogy.
1) Shamos complains that no one is checking the lock on the barn door, and they should be. (Criticizing the ITA process.)
2) Shamos denies that the horses have been stolen, because no one even went to check, and he can still hear and smell horses. (DRE's haven't been hacked, because no one's proven it, and the "anomalies" have other explanations. Everything "smells" okay to him.)
You see, there's a long way from not checking the locks to assuming a theft has been committed.
The locks may be okay. The locks may be gone, but no one's taken anything yet. (That last one is where I personally stand.)
So let's see what the status of the locks is, and even whether all that's been stolen is the skeleton key that opens 'em all. And if that's the case, we're pretty much screwed already. It's just a matter of time, unless we get a whole new technology of locks.
Any of that make any sense?
I'll add one more thing to my stupid analogy. On the DRE system that I know and love, the horses can't walk, and are chained fast and the chains are welded solid to the structure of the barn, so if the barn's there, so are the horses.
Sorry, this is getting pretty dumb. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2332
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 10:24 am: |
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It only applied to a system of his own unique design, and he set up his bet with numerous preconditions that made it a non-runner.
There was a lengthy discussion on this site about it, and if you use the search tool you'll find it. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 548
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 10:39 am: |
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My point was that he had asserted this, without even checking himself. And it was a very broad statement. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 549
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 10:53 am: |
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If Shamos said exactly : "No one has ever done it [tampered with a DRE] in an election." Then he has stated that, whether they were caught or not, NO ONE has done it in an election.
This is something that he can neither know, nor prove. It's a stupid statement, I'm sorry, it just is. Using your analogy Kurt, he's assumed there are horses in every locked horse barn across the country, without checking in any of them, or at most very few. That isn't the behavior of a bright man who's paying attention.
That is someone irresponsibly shooting off his mouth without sufficient logical thought. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 194
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 11:00 am: |
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Brant,
But you've forgotten the two fundamental truths of at least a hundred years of electoral jurisprudence - the presumption of validity and that the burden of proof is ALWAYS on the skeptic.
To continue the analogy, as weird as it sounds, this is the state of the law. The courts will not even look into whether the horses are there, because they are presumed to be there. It is up to a skeptic to prove that they are not there, not for the barn keepers to prove that they are.
That is not to argue for the continuation of that state of affairs as much as it is to acknowledge that's the way it has always been.
Brant, the error you keep making is that you expect this all to be logical. It's not logical, it is law. It's weirder than Alice's Wonderland.
Kurt |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2333
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 1:37 pm: |
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Brant's right that it was a foolish assertion to make. Shamos wasn't referring to legalities, he was making a statement of fact.
I could understand if Shamos had said, "To the best of my knowledge, no electronic voting machine has ever been proven to have been hacked in an actual election," or, "I am not aware of any election outcomes having been proven to have been changed by hacking a voting machine."
But Shamos was claiming something had never happened. There's no way he can prove his assertion because you can't prove a negative of this kind. (Read up on Popper and logic.)
Furthermore, vendors, laws, judges and election officers create barriers that prevent citizens from proving wrongdoing has occurred, even when investigations would be able to determine this.
A Bed-Time Story for Concerned Citizens
Imagine a small town where money goes missing from the bank several times a year. On several occasions someone discovers money missing, and suggests how to investigate in a way that would prove or disprove whether or not it was burglars, greedy bank staff, or sloppy bookkeeping. This would be done by investigating.
For example, local residents suggest looking at the tapes on the security videocameras in the bank vault instead of throwing them away all the time; putting a lock and a security camera on the unlocked back door of the bank vault; fingerprinting the locks; using infrared cameras to film the alleyway where the back door to the bank vault meets the street; or finding out how some individuals in town got the cash to buy big new cars when everyone knew they were broke.
The sherriff, the police chief, the district attorney and the local judge all refuse to investigate. They don't care that people took some fuzzy photos showing a person coming out of the bank vault's back door into the alley carrying a heavy sack. "That could just be coincidence because the bank vault gets warm," the bank officials say. "And people carrying shopping bags are not unusual, they must have bought something large on their lunch break;" and if the person had a hood on they said it must have been due to the rainy weather even though there was no rain on the day the photo was taken.
Finally the Mayor declares, "There's never been any bank robbery or financial crime in this town. Maybe some of the employees made honest mistakes, after all we get pretty busy and nobody's perfect; and some of our customers probably made mistakes in their record-keeping because they're not professional accountants. And our bank vaults were approved by the Bank Vault Association so we know they're fine, even if they were made in one of those countries where there is no quality control. No one has ever proven that there was ever any intentional wrong-doing just because some money went missing. Accidents happen. There's nothing wrong with our security or with our bank vaults. This is a Christian town and we are God-fearing citizens, and no one here would ever think of doing such a thing."
Maybe you'd give the mayor the benefit of the doubt once or twice--but at some point the refusals to investigate would start to look a little suspicious, don't you think? Even though you might have no idea who's responsible, you could be forgiven for thinking the mayor an idiot when he claims that no disappearance of money had a malicious intent.
I don't think this is an overstatement. Look at the recent case in Maricopa County, Arizona, where Doug Jones was asked to carry out a preliminary investigation. He found serious irregularities with the optical scanning calibration, equipment, procedures and results. He concluded that the cause was either incompetence or deliberate tampering, and the only way to know which of those two it was, would be to physically examinine the paper ballots. He indicated the specific signs that would signify fraud. Unlike PA there is no AZ law preventing such an investigation from taking place--but for some reason no one who has the authority to authorize this next step will do so. There may still be a court case pending. Why won't they let Jones complete the investigation?
I recommend you to read Doug Jones' report here, if you haven't already done so. He doesn't claim fraud, but says it is one of two strong possibilities and it needs to be investigated further to rule fraud in or out. There is a brief description of the situation at VoteTrustUSA.
This case was about optical scanners not DREs, and there are even better examples, but I think you get my drift. Where an investigation could definitively prove fraud or rule it out, the officials, vendors and legislators say, "We won't allow you to look."
BBV has had a number of similar experiences. Bev Harris has provided evidence consistent with fraud to law enforcement authorities who then did not bother to investigate.
Forgive some of us, Kurt, for finding Shamos's broad-brushed dismissal of the possibility of past wrongdoing as impossible to swallow.
(Message edited by Catherine_a on May 08, 2006) |
Denise Zollman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Azadvocate
Post Number: 32
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 3:27 pm: |
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Catherine,
Regarding the Maricopa Co. (AZ) incident, I don't think there is a case pending because the FBI came in and confiscated the ballots that Dr. Jones needed to look at to determine incompetence and/or fraud.
Those ballots will never see the light of day again! |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2337
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 8, 2006 - 4:06 pm: |
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Thanks for filling in what I couldn't remember. I knew that something was up in the air but I couldn't recall what it was.
I am stupid enough to hope that maybe they'll resurface, but not stupid enough to believe that they will. Even if they did turn up you'd never know for sure if they were the same ballots in the same condition as when they left. Even the FBI sometimes has problems with chain of custody of evidence, doesn't it?! |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 554
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 4:42 am: |
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No, Kurt, I don't expect all of this to be logical, but I expect someone whose been touted to me to be brilliant (in any non-artistic sense) to be capable of good, sound reasoning. It sounds as though Shamos has a major blind spot, doesn't it?
Brilliant, effective, thorough people don't make unsupported important assumptions, they check out the facts first.
The people that keep talking about how you couldn't get a memory card are neglecting the fact that people took voting machines home with them, among other things. I don't know about you, but my house is guarded only by a dog of medium size who will bark her ass off if she's awake and sees you, but hell, I watch deer walk by 40 feet outside of her invisible fence, and she doesn't even see or hear them when she's awake!
Also, his argument is specious until he starts recommending that people test each voting machine very thoroughly both just before and just after they been used in an election! Can I find something that someone's done to an electronic voting machine if I spend 24 hours at it? Most likely. If I have gold standard image files for proms, files ancillary hardware programming (read as memory cards, if they're used) and a gold standard machine. Will I find everything you've done to the machine? Maybe and maybe not, and that's where the real burn comes in. In conjunction with the fact with post-election testing is actually cursory, this situation is now the devil's playground.
You say "I believe that Dr. Shamos is a brilliant man with a very disciplined mind. He does not make the jump from "vulnerability" to "the whole deal's been stolen". " But he has made the jump from "it hasn't been proven where I've seen it", to "it hasn't happened at all". Very shoddy for a "disciplined" mind. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 205
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 10:57 am: |
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Catherine,
Remember, Dr. Shamos is both a computer scientist AND an attorney. He needs to work where those worlds collide. Perhaps where almost no other person lives - where science and law intersect.
If he makes assumptions or ascribes motives, he is on dangerous legal turf. I don't think he ever can "turn that off." It's not one or the other for him - it's both.
Have you ever noticed that almost all lawyers live in a world of "it's not necessarily what's true, it's what can be proven to be true."?
I think for Shamos, unless it can be proven categorically, it isn't true.
As an election official, with the cloak of presumption of validity, as it pertained to plaintiffs, I was not only ALLOWED to think that way, I was ENCOURAGED to think that way, by the attorneys that represented the office.
If I ever need a criminal attorney, I hope mine thinks that way, too.
By the way, that "presumption of validity" is analogous to the criminal "presumption of innocence". It takes "beyond a reasonable doubt" to refute it, in many cases. |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 288
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 11:09 am: |
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Kurt,
Based on your analysis of how Dr. Shamos thinks, maybe he shouldn't be a state examiner who certifies voting machines?
Kathleen
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
|
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 207
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 11:29 am: |
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Kathleen,
If you're saying that an examiner should be a skeptic first and foremost, then perhaps not.
But no one on the planet that I know of has the scientific and legal background to do it. It is primarily a search for compliance with state law. That's what the examiner is PRIMARILY there for.
I know you and many others think his role is to be PRIMARILY a gatekeeper for security issues. The law does not anticipate that role. If anything, due to Dr. Shamos' knowledge of the inadequacy of the ITA process, he could be argued to be exceeding his authority when he goes beyond state law in doing an examination. Luckily, there is just enough general language in PA law that allows him some extended latitude to go into security issues, even if he thinks someone else should be doing it.
And that's where I think this is. Security right now is NOBODY'S main role, and it needs to be. It is not wise to skewer the one guy who's "pushing the envelope" to do more than the law tells him to. Who else in a position of authority has been talking to Bev Harris? Hursti doesn't count. Sancho and Funk are county-level folks. What state has a guy who has stepped up more?
Shamos is helping blow the lid off the Diebold issue in PA. Why is he a target? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2344
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 12:52 pm: |
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I don't see Shamos as a "target" at all. I'd be delighted to meet Michael Shamos someday. I'd probably really like him. I just disagree strongly with one of his opinions.
It makes no sense to that any official of even below-average intelligence could maintain that NO voting machine tampering had ever occurred in a real election.
1) Since every other known kind of election system has been tampered with at some point in time (paper, punch cards, lever machines), it seems like an inherently foolish point of view to think that electronic voting machines are an exception. To refuse to acknowledge that something MIGHT have happened, just because you never saw it with your own two eyes, defies common sense.
I'm not talking legalese here, I'm talking common sense and logic.
People have always tried and succeeded to manipulate elections. Why does Shamos think would-be manipulators would roll over and play dead when faced with an electronic voting machine, especially when the electronic voting machines had back doors that made manipulations much easier, that could provide guaranteed results, and that were virtually risk-free in terms of detection?
It would make more sense to assert that it is highly likely that elections have been manipulated with electronic voting machines, just as elections using other systems have been manipulated.
2) The difficulty of detection (including the necessity for technical specialists to carry out analysis to diagnose vulnerabilities or fraud) is an additional reason to assert that this is likely to have happened.
3) The many barriers to investigation, such as stone-walling and lying by vendors, ITAs, election officials, legislators, and law enforcement authorities, are additional reasons to assert that it is highly likely that some elections using electronic voting machines have been manipulated.
4) The fact that electronic voting machines have many more points of vulnerability at which manipulation could take place without notice (and I gather the upcoming report by Hursti & Security Innovations will add to previous knowledge about these points of vulnerability), including affecting elections in the distant future, is yet another reason for asserting that manipulation of elections using electronic voting machines is highly likely to have occurred.
5) There are numerous smoking guns such as election results that are not believable, and significant exit poll discrepancies. Just think of the major upsets of Hagel in Nebraska, and the governor's election in Georgia--both won elections that defied all previous electoral history, all local political knowledge, and all polls, and by margins that were not credible with any explanation.
In light of all these things, it flies in the face of common sense to assert with confidence that NO elections using electronic voting machines have EVER been manipulated. When the person in question is a rightly respected person with extensive expertise, it makes the lack of common sense even more astounding.
I wouldn't expect Shamos to state any such manipulation has been proven to have occurred, but that's not the question. He's stating he's certain that manipulation has not occurred, and that position is simply not credible for the reasons mentioned above. And just because he's a lawyer doesn't excuse his lack of common sense.
An Analogy
It's like a famous biologist from a previous century saying, "I assert that NO disease to humans or animals has ever been caused by little hypothetical creatures you call bacteria. I have never seen such a thing occur and it has never been proven to me, so I am quite sure it has never happened."
Every time a collegue suggests an experiment that would demonstrate that this can occur, or to show him something under a microscope, the famous biologist refuses to do look or to carry out the experiment. Or if someone else says they've done an experiment with results that all their lab animals died, the famous biologist says, "well, that could be because you had a weak strain of mice or the temperature or food wasn't right, and I will only consider these as potential explanations but not your idea of bacteria since you haven't proven to me that they exist."
It makes no sense to ignore all the evidence that points to possible or likely fraud, and continue to claim that successful election manipulation using electronic voting machines has never happened. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 209
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 6:13 pm: |
|
Catherine,
I think you'd like Shamos, too. He is a student of this field, as well as an expert. He never stops accumulating more knowledge.
One word of advice, though. If he suggests a friendly game of billiards, keep yo' money in yo' pocket. The late great Minnesota Fats has nothing on that guy. I saw him clear a table twice consecutively after several drinks. After a brewski, I'm lucky if I can sink a 6-footer. |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 290
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 8:01 pm: |
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Kurt,
I'm sure most of us here would like Dr. Shamos on a personal level, but this isn't about personalities. BTW, I can play a mean game of pool myself after a couple brews and I only have a BA degree -- in theatre no less!!
However, as Catherine so eloquently explained, it makes no sense for Dr. Shamos to make such a statement and I will repeat the crux of that statement again because I don't quite believe he said it myself -- NO voting machine tampering had ever occurred in a real election. You say it's the kind of statement a lawyer would make. Well, I've worked in law firms. Lawyers are notorious for NOT making such definitive statements they can't prove. The fact that you continue not to recognize the logic of both Catherine and Brant's arguments against such a statment is puzzling. It also brings to mind something I believe has been a growing phenomenon in this country. The inability of average citizens to believe they are capable of understanding and participating as effectively in issues related to governing this country as academics with titles.
Too much credibility is being given much too quickly to those with degrees and titles. It seems as if average Americans have developed an inferiority complex. This comes in large part because of our abdicating our rightful authority to manage our own elections over to the so-called experts for too long. We've actually conditioned ourselves to believe that we don't have the mental capacity to oversee our own governance.
I have always believed in the common sense and inherent wisdom of the average American citizen. It's been underestimated and scoffed at, in some instances, by academics enough already. I also believe it's the missing ingredient -- here it comes -- citizen oversight needed for the delicate balance that makes this country work.
Kathleen
(Message edited by admin_ii on May 09, 2006)
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
|
John Washburn
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johnwashburn
Post Number: 101
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:09 am: |
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Kathleene:
Perhaps, we should recomend the book, Petunia to people and ask if we have let academics with books under their arms convince us we are roosters with plactic combs on our heads?
There is a wide gulf between a brilliant man and a wise man.
(Message edited by johnwashburn on May 10, 2006) |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 291
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:12 am: |
|
And you are a wise man, John!
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2353
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:36 am: |
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"There is a wide gulf between a brilliant man and a wise man."
Wow! |
Mike Myhre
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_myhre
Post Number: 28
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:39 am: |
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One comment:
"No one has ever done it [tampered with a DRE] in an election."
can turn
"presumption of validity" into "presumption of ignorance".
While there may be a presumption of validity in elections, the job requires someone who is inherently a sceptic. It is their job to assume that elections are being manipulated all the time. Without that, they will never discover problems.
In the development of technology (hardware and software design), everything is assumed not to work until proven otherwise. You don't find bugs in software by presuming everything works correctly. This thought process has to carry through until the product is 99.9% complete (no product is ever really finished). It is only when the product is traded for money that the presumption of validity starts (usually because the saleperson told the customer such). |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 210
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 8:50 am: |
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Mike, Catherine, Kathleen and all,
I'll lay it on the line for you. I think Shamos is dead on correct. Based on my years in the election field, and my knowledge of political trends, I do NOT believe anyone has ever successfully tampered with a DRE in a real election. I used the things, had access to one every day of the year in my office for four years, have a DECENT background in computers (not as much as some here do) and I'd have no bloody clue how to mess with an election on my DRE's, as far as altering what the voter's votes were. Hell, if I had the knowledge and inclination to do those things, I'd could still be there, because the political majority of the BoE might not have flipped.
Now, could I do squirrelly things like play around with ballot layout to mess with a candidate's position? Yeah, if I thought about it long enough I could probably come up with something subtle (these are called "presentation errors"). Could I intentionally misspell a candidate's name? Sure. Could I "turn off" a candidate's button, even if his name were on the ballot sheet? No. I don't know how to do that.
Could I swap out a cartridge with a "fake" one? No, the carts I used were a proprietary form factor that only my system used. No off-the-shelf stupid memory cards.
Could I use the proprietary reader/writer to make a fake card outside of the election management system? Well, _I_ couldn't, because I had no way to know the communication protocol between the PC and the reader/writer. Also, the bigger problem was that the proper communication link would crap out using the CORRECT software a lot, and I had to reboot it, so I had no idea how to do what the developers must not have even done real well.
Could I program two memory carts? No, the system will only read back the LAST memory cart made for a machine, and always assigns a unique serial number that was checked in the machine at start of voting.
Could I intentionally incorrectly enter the tally from the paper absentee and provisional ballots for each precinct? Yes, that I could have done, but that has paper for inquiry.
Could I alter the programming in the individual DRE's? What? With hard soldered ROM's? I don't think so.
Could I have added additional votes onto a cartridge after it was returned to the courthouse? No, the closing routine on the machine blows a physical electrical fuse that prevents further voting.
Could I put in a new fuse? No, just before the fuse gets blown, the data on the cart gets written to six different locations, three on the machine, and three in the cart, and they must all match.
Could I get into the data files and monkey with them, outside the EMS? No, they're encrypted and locked from other applications.
Could I hack into the EMS software? Not with my knowledge.
Could someone else? No. It's on a PC that is on no network, No modem is in it. It's never been on the internet. It has no other applications other than the specific election software and Adobe Acrobat to create pdf's of reports. It's in a locked office. Oh yes, the maintenance director for the county has a key.
What about posting results to your website? Sneakernet with floppies, to another PC behind a firewall that opens for a few seconds to export html to the web server, and then closes.
Am I sure that no one has messed with the EMS? It was reinstalled from the CD's before every election.
Corrupted data files? Well, I don't know, but they were archived off site in case anything unexplained happened.
Here's the point I'm making. Before all the HAVA crap happened, this is what DRE's were. They were not Windows CE machines, or anything of the sort. They were "from the ground up" purpose-built electronic devices. Still the vast majority of DRE votes cast in our history are on these old-style machines.
That leaves the "new kids on the block". Diebold, ES&S, Hart, Advanced, Sequoia Edge, etc. They are ALL overdressed laptop PC's. They are ALL dangerous. They all, if I may be frank, SUCK. Can they be hacked? Yes. Have they been hacked? I don't know, and neither do you. Who should have to prove whether they have been hacked? Generally, it's easier to prove a positive than a negative, but both the skeptics and the protectors of these systems need to have some burden of proof. Just because a thing can be done doesn't mean it HAS BEEN done. Thre protectors of these systems should hav eth eburden of proving it CAN't be done, and the skeptics should have the burden of proving it HAS BEEN done. Only the agnostics have nothing to prove.
No one has even gotten to "preponderance of the evidence" that it has been done, much less "clear and convincing." You can point to all the GAO reports you want. It says nothing about "HAS BEEN DONE".
Besides, going for "Well you can't prove it hasn't" is a cheap argument. If you want to assume it has been done, no one will or CAN EVER persuade you otherwise. That refutation can't be done, because your assumption requires no evidence, does it?
Should someone be testing these beasts for ultimate security before anyone trusts them? Absloutely, and that's why I'm here. Right now, security is no one's main job. That needs to change.
Do I think these things have been hacked to flip elections? No.
Do I think they can be? Yes, and that's why I'm here, and why I care. |
Mike Myhre
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_myhre
Post Number: 29
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 9:46 am: |
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Kurt, your statements have put you in the same category as Shamos (presumption of ignorance). I don't say this as an insult but an abandonment of logic.
The issue isn't what links in the chain you believe you CAN verify, but that there are many links in the chain that could be manipulated that are taken for granted.
When you make a statement that something did NOT happen (when it is possible it has, and you didn't know it), you have taken the possition of belief over logic and your credibility goes down.
If you give me ANY electronic device with its source code. I can give you that same electronic device back and I will have control of how the device operates (at least that link in the chain). You will not have a clue that anything suspicious occured. There are many ways to implement a "backdoor" that will enable different portions of the code. I once used a "cadence" algorithm for a password that didn't care what password you used, the rhythm was the password. This type of backdoor would allow you to do all your tests and verify the machine does what you expect every time. When I go to vote, I trip the back door and the votes are automatically adjusted. If anyone is watching, they would not notice anything unusual.
Now whether you BELIEVE no elections have been flipped or not doesn't really mater (until you can prove your suspicions). To allow these vulnerabilities to remain in our system is a failure of responsibilites as an election official (or law maker). In fact, given a choice of who I want running my elections, it would be the person who believes there are hoards of people out there just waiting to flip one more election, over the one that says: "it has NOT happened".
This |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 211
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 10:04 am: |
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Mike,
What is more irresponsible? To state that elections can't be flipped, without evidence they they can't?
Or is it to state that they have been flipped, without evidence they have?
I'd submit it's a real REAL close horserace, but the latter one is worse. |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 113
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 10:33 am: |
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There is evidence all over the place that elections have been flipped. In fact a newspaper consortium, including THE NEW YORK TIMES, proved that the evidence was flipped (in Florida) for the Bush-Gore election in 2000. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 212
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 10:58 am: |
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Jo Anne,
That is NOT the media I read. I have yet to read ANY media that suggested by ANY method that can be considered fair that Florida went for Gore.
No standard of counting the ballots results in a Gore Florida win. None.
What DID happen in Florida is that enough wrongly purged voters were kept out of the booth that WOULD HAVE likely voted for Gore, to have created a Bush win.
Bush won because of disenfranchisement in Florida, not because of any vote count problems.
The only article I EVER read from a responsible source that says anything close to what you've alleged is that if every questionable ballot were interpreted in its most favorable light for Gore, without giving any opportunity for Bush's people to object, then Gore would have won. Otherwise, no.
Yes, Gore should have won Florida. But not because the ballots were counted incorrectly. It's because his voters were not all allowed to vote, and some who did vote, didn't vote as they intended, for one reason or another. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 213
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 10:59 am: |
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Besides, Jo Anne,
None of the Florida 2000 recount counties even used DRE's.
They do now, but not then. |
Mike Myhre
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_myhre
Post Number: 30
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 11:08 am: |
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Kurt Said:
"What is more irresponsible? To state that elections can't be flipped, without evidence they they can't?
Or is it to state that they have been flipped, without evidence they have?"
Neither statement is correct (without evidence).
The words "Can't" and "Has" are a long way apart. I am pretty sure most of us agree that any electronic voting machine manufacturer COULD flip an election without election officials knowing. This is the real issue, not the Has/Hasn't arguement.
These manufacturers could also do so without leaving any evidence.
That is why Shamos can't possibly make his statement that it hasn't happened. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 214
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 11:19 am: |
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For Joanne, (from the New York Times)
NATIONAL DESK | November 12, 2001, Monday
EXAMINING THE VOTE: THE OVERVIEW; Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote
By FORD FESSENDEN AND JOHN M. BRODER (NYT) 2527 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 1
ABSTRACT - Comprehensive review of uncounted Florida ballots from 2000 presidential election, conducted by consortium of eight news organizations and professional statisticians, indicates George W Bush would have won election even if US Supreme Court allowed statewide manual recount of votes ordered by state Supreme Court; finds, contrary to allegations by partisans of Vice Pres Al Gore, that Supreme Court did not award election to Bush; says that Bush would have retained slender margin if Florida court order to recount more than 43,000 ballots was not reversed by Supreme Court, and that even under strategy Gore pursued at beginning of standoff, of filing suit to force recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties, Bush would have retained lead; says close examination of broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in court decisions shows Gore might have won if courts ordered full statewide recount of all rejected ballots, and if he pursued in court action he publicly advocated of calling on state to count all votes; finds statistical support for complaints of many voters, particularly elderly Democrats in Palm Beach County, who said in interviews after election that confusing ballot designs may have led them to spoil their ballots by voting for more than one candidate; charts; photos (M) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 215
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 11:29 am: |
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Mike,
"The words "Can't" and "Has" are a long way apart. I am pretty sure most of us agree that any electronic voting machine manufacturer COULD flip an election without election officials knowing. This is the real issue, not the Has/Hasn't arguement."
Yup, I absolutely sign my name to all of that, but the very last bit. The has/hasn't argument lives a rich and full life all its own. Maybe not SO MUCH on BBV (thankfully), but pretty much everywhere else that "election reform" is discussed.
"Can" is by far enough to get my attention and get me alarmed.
"Has" gets me a little hot under the collar. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 216
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 11:36 am: |
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Mike,
"The words "Can't" and "Has" are a long way apart. I am pretty sure most of us agree that any electronic voting machine manufacturer COULD flip an election without election officials knowing. This is the real issue, not the Has/Hasn't arguement."
Yup, I absolutely sign my name to all of that, but the very last bit. The has/hasn't argument lives a rich and full life all its own. Maybe not SO MUCH on BBV (thankfully), but pretty much everywhere else that "election reform" is discussed.
"Can" is by far enough to get my attention and get me alarmed.
"Has" gets me a little hot under the collar. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 556
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 12:58 pm: |
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You know, Kurt, you seem to be certain that DREs aren't miscounting votes. Answer me this: in the absence of paper, or any trail but what the machine records for itself, how in the hell could there be any practically presentable evidence to prove that it happened, if it happened? Would you get all voters on the polling books to sign affadavits? Can't get to see them, in your state.
You worked with one, count it one type of DRE (and you haven't examined the programming either in source or in the machine, seemingly, from what you've written here at Black Box) and from this you extrapolate that none of them has been hacked? I personally think it qualifies as a 'hack' to have a default choice.
There's plenty of newspaper-recorded evidence of people having to press 'Kerry' five or six times in order to get it to come off of 'Bush' when they'd never pressed 'Bush'. Now, that may be a vendor's hack (ES & S produces their ballot formats for their machines) or it may be an elections official's or poll worker's hack. But, unless you choose to define hack as having to be an outside job, these have already been shown to be hacked.
As you said a while back (but i paraphrase it here, that's a hell of a lot of independant smoke to be a fake fire, and too many sources to be one person faking a fire.
If Shamos is using the arguments that you're propounding as a reason to say that no one has hacked a DRE in a logic class, he would get a 'D', at best. Stubborness in defense of a weak argument may count for something. |
John Washburn
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johnwashburn
Post Number: 102
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 2:27 pm: |
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No. I am, at times, smart.
But, certainly neither brilliant nor wise.
There are days I truly wonder why MENSA let me join. My wife KNOWS it was a mistake. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 217
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 2:28 pm: |
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Brant,
I don't know what kind of issue you're talking about with:
"having to press 'Kerry' five or six times in order to get it to come off of 'Bush' when they'd never pressed 'Bush'."
Where did that come from? Has anyone ever verified it?
There is a reason I ask.
In my county immediately to my southeast, several voters reported strange happenings similar to what you mention. Similar, but different in details. Dr. Rebecca Mercuri came to town, had activists all over the place, TV media was there, the whole schmeer.
People's votes were strangely disappearing, they said. Straight party REPUBLICAN was coming up when they voted on a referendum question, they said. (It's a Sequoia Advantage county.) Well, the machines were tested and it was all voter misunderstanding.
Here is the link to the story:
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=1703
The point is - people are often wrong.
I myself was once sued because three people swore in signed affidavits that I had left the name of an Independent candidate, who was a Hispanic gentleman, as were the plaintiffs, off the ballot for District Justice. I, and my machines, which were still bearing the post-election seals, were hauled into court. We opened the machines in open court, and WHAMO, there was the gentleman's name, right where it was supposed to be (paper ballot face, not software). One plaintiff said, in open court, "Oh, over there. I was looking for it over here." Again, faulty eyewitness testimony.
Now, do people sometimes do weird stuff? Sure. Philadelphia, PA 2004 General Election. Voters were complaining that when they entered the booth, the whole ballot was already voted for them. Philly's election office investigated, and sure enough, the machine inspector, who was also the Democratic Committeeman, was preselecting a straight party Democratic ticket on the machine for all Democratic voters, and a straight party Republican ticket for all Republican voters. It was an 80% Democratic precinct. Now voters could turn off what was preselected and start over, but that's not the point. What he did was blatantly illegal, but he did it out of ignorance. He had gotten ahold of the "Primary Election" instructions for a machine inspector that told him to select the correct party for each voter. He got two details wrong. 1) That's for a primary, and 2) those party selection buttons are on the BACK of the machine, not the ballot face side. (He was not prosecuted. He also had not attended a traing session since the Primary.)
The point is this: first, beware of eyewitness testimony. Everyone who has ever practiced law will tell you that eyewitness testimony is the worst kind of evidence. Do I have to remind you of all the "felons" who have been later cleared by DNA tests? Second, be careful of imputing motivations. Even the most aggregious behaviors sometimes have a benign explanation. Most pollworkers in PA are over 75 years of age. Most don't even own a computer, especially in the poorer areas. These people are going to screw up with these DRE's. Problems next Tuesday here will be enough to choke a horse. It doesn't mean anyone's screwing with the results. It means they don't have enough repititions of training yet to get this stuff right.
May 16 will be a Pennsylvania disaster that will make Illinois and Texas and Ohio look like a walk in the park. It doesn't mean there's any crimes being committed, just stupidity or ignorance, or both. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 24
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 3:24 pm: |
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This will probably make me even more unpopular here than I already am, but I've got to side with Kurt on this one.
Why is everyone so up in arms over Shamos' statement of "No one has ever done it [tampered with a DRE] in an election." while at the same time accepting without criticism equally unproven staments of "DRE's were tampered with intentionally in order to steal the 2004 presidential election"
Quite frankly both are unproven statements of opinion.
If you want to blast Shamos for his statement using the argument that is is "possible" that DRE's were tamered with and therefore he absolute statement should have been qualified instead, then that's your choice.
But if you do, I'd expect some fairness and integrity in pointing out to those who make absolute statements that elections "were stolen" or "were tamered with" that they should also qualify their statements to indicate that it is simply a possibility. (Unless they can produce incontrovertible hard evidence to prove their claims....something I have yet to see. They may have some evidence supportive of their theory, but no one seems to have absolute proof yet)
So how about it?
Either it's OK for those who believe that elections were tampered with and stolen to state their opinions as if they were proven fact...in which case Shamos should be allowed the same latitude; or there should be just as much outcry here when people make unproven statements of fact that elections WERE stolen via DRE tampering. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2357
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 4:31 pm: |
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Anybody who makes a claim either way that something definitively did or did not happen should be able to back it up, especially if they are making that claim as a professional with responsibilities in the area in question. There is an added burden of proof when making statements such as this in a professional capacity.
How much proof is "enough" is something that people disagree about. How many "fingerprints" of fraud are necessary to confirm that a crime occurred rather than accidental error? Peoples' opinions vary depending how much background they have in an area.
An experienced computer programmer may recognize that an incorrect date in a certain position on an audit log is a possible (or definite) symptom that someone altered data or software. Someone with no expertise may say, "So the date was wrong--big deal."
Forensic analysis is specialized, whether it's in medicine or computers. Imagine if everytime a dead body turned up in suspicious circumstances, the coroner or police refused to do an autopsy or investigation and just buried the body along with any evidence. Then the coroner said no one had ever proven there was a murder in their jurisdiction, therefore none had ever occurred. Wouldn't that seem a little odd? Would you find such a statement credible? |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 293
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 4:49 pm: |
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Chuck,
Perhaps we should ask Dr. Shamos if he has the same opinion that no voting machine tampering occurred during a real election, once he's had a chance to read the entire, unredacted TSx report coming out within the next 24 hours.
Should he change his mind, would you and Kurt then change your's?
Kathleen
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
|
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 220
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 6:02 pm: |
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Kathleen,
Speaking only for me, if what is in there changes Dr. Shamos' mind, I'd have to defer to him.
Don't hold your breath, though. Even if this vulnerability is big enough to fly a C5A through, as it seems it might be, that doesn't mean anyone has yet flown through it, unless some evidence is uncovered that they have.
If that is true and there IS such evidence, that confirms what Shamos has said, not refutes it.
Both of these beliefs are VERY VERY close to having the same basic problem - being unprovable.
But I'll go you one better, though. It would not surprise me if 1) Shamos recommends decertifying all Diebolds, and 2) there is rock solid evidence that Diebold has already used this vulnerability or "feature" to load uncertified software patches in the past. In fact, I'll be AMAZED if it does NOT come out that they've done exactly that, especially in Georgia, but other places as well.
That is a criminal matter, IMHO. But that STILL does not prove that election results have been compromised. It proves that a company knew they had a sh*tty product that had a need for patches, and they didn't want to inform anyone of when and how they were doing it. |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 294
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:12 pm: |
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Kurt,
quote:Speaking only for me, if what is in there changes Dr. Shamos' mind, I'd have to defer to him.
With all due respect, Kurt, I don't need Dr. Shamos to do my thinking for me.
One important factor the report will discuss is that the architecture of the software was programmed intentionally to have many back doors at every level of the system. Any rational person in a sane world would have to conclude this was done for the purpose of manipulation, not protection of the system's security. Why else would the software be programmed in such a way? Also, the programming is intricate enough that the system doesn't even know when it's being manipulated nor are there any pesky tell-tale signs of manipulation left behind for any expert to find to alert anyone of tampering. That would appear to me to give a convenient plausible deniability escape route for any expert overseeing the certification and use of these machines. However, that doesn't give them a license to exploit it. IMO, that's shameful behavior. Not something I would admire nor respect.
Without a doubt, the aftermath of this report will reverberate throughout the election industry. Let the finger pointing begin!
Kathleen
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 221
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:26 pm: |
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Kathleen,
I assume from your comment that Shamos is getting the unredacted version of Hursti II.
Are you absolutely sure that you want to do that?
I'm being maybe a little sarcastic myself here, but geez, if he's so evil and all, are you sure he can be trusted to have all the information?
I've had the experience of spending two days straight with Shamos, at a League of Women Voters conference in Chantiily, VA in March of 2005. He is one of the most appropriately "skeptical of technology solutions" persons you'd ever want to meet. He knows that 2/3 of the statewide registration systems stink. He especially knew, even then, that Accenture's work in that area stinks. He knew then that the ITA's were a cruel joke. He knew that the new DRE's are far more susceptible to security problems than the old ones are. (Mercuri and Dill also know that.)
In fact, I'd describe him as one of HAVA's biggest critics.
Shamos has done every state certification in Pennsylvania. Only two systems (2) were just plain certified. (Danaher and Hart eSlate) Every other system was certified with significant restrictions. Even the two that were plain certified had strict security measures recommendations reported in the report.
He knows how bad these systems are. He is not ignorant of ANY of the data out there. Trust me, he's not.
Even after all that, he still does not believe a system has been hacked to change an election, and I can guess why. It's because those who want to "fix" elections have far more effective means to that end than screwing around with voting machines. Campaign finance, legal maneuvering, ballot access, street money, firing E.D.'s that won't be quiet about election law violations (oops, too personal), and even shamefully cynical appeals to emotions of last-minute deciding voters.
With all thise arrows in their quiver, who needs voting software hacks? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 222
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 7:50 pm: |
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Kathleen,
"Any rational person in a sane world would have to conclude this was done for the purpose of manipulation, not protection of the system's security."
Tweet! Yellow flag. 10 yard penalty for jumping to an unsupported conclusion.
Yes, that's not there for protection of the system's security. That's a given.
But manipulation? Strong word. Unsupported word. Manipulation of what? The votes? Hardly the only explanation.
"Why else would the software be programmed in such a way?"
Are you speaking rhetorically, or do you want an answer? There are dozens of potential reasons - NONE OF THEM JUSTIFIABLE - incidentally.
ALL OF THEM POTENTIALLY CRIMINAL - incidentally.
The most likely and plausible is that the software was "not ready for primetime" and they knew it. They could have wanted the ability to fix errors without going back to the ITA's for a new cert number (again, not justifiable).
When I was the chairman of the Pennsylvania HAVA State Plan Advisory Board, one of the smaller vendors came to me and said, "We're not going to send our system to the ITA for the 2002 standards. We're going to wait and go straight for the 2005 ones."
"Why?", I asked.
"It's too expensive and time-consuming to do both", she said.
Well if that vendor wanted to avoid a whole NASED standard set, I can see why a Diebold would want to avoid going back for every software patch. (AGAIN - NOT JUSTIFIABLE)
All these companies are losing money hand over fist in their elections divisions. (Maybe ES&S isn't.) Unisys/Accupoll went belly up. Diebold is bleeding red ink in the elections unit. Advanced and Danaher don't have enough cash flow to even build machines on a timely basis. They have zero finished goods inventory. Hart is struggling. I can see why a company would want to do things on the cheap.
Everyone thinks these companies are just waiting to jack around with elections. Pffft! They're just trying to avoid bankruptcy court at this point. They had six years of expenses with almost no revenue. Finally, now they're all getting their dirty HAVA money.
You want to know "why else"? We're awash in "why else". |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2360
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 12:21 am: |
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Kurt: "But manipulation? Strong word. Unsupported word. Manipulation of what? The votes? Hardly the only explanation."
I don't know what's in the report.
But if what Kathleen says is true--
It's like designing a bank with no door locks, not even for the bank vault, putting lots of very ornate pretend locks on the outside of the doors, and then saying, "Well the no-locks construction is just for the convenience of the employees, so they can get in and out of work faster. . . We don't have any security cameras on, but still we are SURE that no one has ever used these open doors to steal money--even though lots of money has gone missing. We're SURE the missing money was all just due to carelessness and NONE of it was due to theft. We're sure even though no one has ever investigated the missing money. Our permanently open doors have ONLY been used by employees for their working convenience and for no other purpose."
And you would find this credible, Kurt? |
Jody Holder
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Holder
Post Number: 15
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 2:46 am: |
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Kurt:
I will make a brief point after reading hundreds of articles from around the country on voting probelsm, watching a video showing an actual machine illuminating a different candidate than was selected (repeatedly).
After seeing every effort to try to obtain "hard evidence" be fought by the election officials. If these DREs have nothing to hide then election officials should welcome a forensic examination of an actual election. Many people have tried, but it has never been allowed.
There is ample evidence that elections have been rigged. Not from a physical forensic trail because that is never allowed. But statistical evidence, exit poll contradictions, etc.
In Riverside County a so-called "losing candidate" wanted a recount. She wanted to have the so-called "redundant" flash memory vote records off the machines, the audit logs, and other documents and data so the election could be forensically examined. She had to go to both the Superior Court and the Appellate Court, eventually losing.
This in the same county that had made the arguments in federal court, and in the Ninth Court of Appeals that the very back up data depositories and logs would be available to prove an election was accurate. Yet when the time came to use those same "proofs" they refused to allow it.
That is why there is not "hard evidence". The criminals have hidden the evidence in their house and the police won't enter to find it.
Are you familiar with the Alabama governor's race of 2002. I would recommend reading up on it. Another case of over six thousand votes changing overnight from one county. Yet when the governor asked for a recount the State Attorney General refused to allow any of the ballots to be taken out of storage. That AG is now a federal appeals court judge.
I have a friend in San Deigo who has been trying to obtain evidence down there and has been fought every step of the way. He finally obtained some logs, but they had no date or time stamp. That is only possible if someone deliberately turns off that function on the Diebold units. Even in that case there are widespread problems of unknown memory cards being uploaded, memery card uploads being deleted, etc.
What is the rational reason that election officials fight so hard to keep the audit logs from the public, the computer tabulating screens hidden from public view, and have fought so hard against a paper trail. The only rational reason is they are afraid of what the public will discover. If they have nothing to hide they should quit hiding so many aspects of the elections.
There is a reason the term "black box voting" was coined. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 223
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 4:46 am: |
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Catherine,
"And you would find this credible, Kurt?"
Knowing quite a bit about the competence of these companies, the poor design of the products, their "passion for the cashin'" and their cutthroat competition with each other, unfortunately, the answer is, "Yes".
Do I think there is a coverup? Hell, yes. What are they covering up? I don't actually know, but the more obvious answer to me is they are covering up just how shoddy the product initially was and likely still is.
But I have a technical question that I'd really like the answer to. If Shamos is aware of this (as it now seems he is) will he be able to effectively "find it" in other brands of DRE's if it is also there, assuming (as I believe he does) he has access to the source codes? And if you are a betting man or woman, what would be your bet? Have the other vendors done similar things?
Jody,
"What is the rational reason that election officials fight so hard to keep the audit logs from the public, the computer tabulating screens hidden from public view, and have fought so hard against a paper trail. The only rational reason is they are afraid of what the public will discover."
No, that's not true. The most strident anti-paper trail E.D. I know is Philadelphia's, and he is the most strident partisan Democrat E.D. I know, as well. I consider him a friend. Philadelphia doesn't even post its returns on a website on a contemporaneous basis. Why? The feature doesn't work well in the EMS software.
He hates the paper trail idea. Why? Because he knows his poll workers won't handle them right. He knows the printers will have the kinds of breakdowns documented in Ohio. He knows that there is no infrastructure in his operation to handle, store, or deal with them. He knows they can be counterfeited. Does he show audit logs? Never, that I know of, unless a court orders it. From what I know of Bob, he's probably never even read his own audit logs. Does he let the public see his tabulation screens? Probably not, because there's nothing there to see. The screen that is used to read memory cartridges doesn't even display results on it, it only displays a list of precincts not yet read. And it displays that in a font so tiny you'd have to be up his backside to even read it. The so-called tabulation screen with results on it is on another PC, frequently in error, and doesn't have all the the information on it even the news media wants to see.
There're lots of reasons other than "hiding the truth." Sometimes (especially with Danaher, which Philly uses) the more you show while returns are coming in on Election Night, the more disinformation you're putting out there. |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 296
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 5:12 am: |
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Kurt,
quote:I'm being maybe a little sarcastic myself here, but geez, if he's so evil and all, are you sure he can be trusted to have all the information?
Your sarcasm smacks of defensiveness for both yourself for believing his statement without ever questioning it and Dr. Shamos for making it. No one here has so much as implied he was evil, just not very wise in making such a statement. In fact, he rightfully should get the unredacted version of this report. For one reason, as you admiringly said of him, he's always looking for ways to increase his knowledge. This would be an important opportunity for him to do so. More importantly, because of the great responsibility he holds as a state examiner of these voting machines plus his willingness to make such statements that people, like yourself, will believe simply because they came from him -- I'd say he should be one of the first ones to get it!
Bottom line, the machine software was designed so that it would be next to impossible for certifiers, examainers and pesky citizens to prove that tampering of votes had occurred on these machines during a real election -- (of course, what would be the point of tampering with them in a mock election? a little sarcasm). But we are getting closer to being able to prove whether tampering of votes has occurred than we've ever been before. Because of this fact, I honestly believe the mere prospect of us being able to do so is scaring a whole lot of people who were expecting the election reform movement to still be pushing VVPAT's as the solution to the problem.
Thanks to 2 courageous election officials who were willing put their jobs and their reputations on the line and act in the best interest of the citizens they served and BBV's ability to underwrite, find independent security experts qualified to do the testing and our willingness to put our organization's financial future on the line, we finally went where no certifier or computer scientist has ever been before! Touchdown for the citizens!
Without these events, Dr. Shamos would never have had the opportunity to learn that he was wrong to have made such a statement. Not because he doesn't have a right to say such things, but simply because citizens have been put in the position to have to trust the judgment and knowledge of those overseeing the security of these machines. Therefore, any one given such authority has a moral, if not intellectual, obligation to be careful what they say, in order not to mislead unsuspecting citizens in such a way that is a betrayal of that trust.
Kathleen
(Message edited by admin_ii on May 11, 2006)
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
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Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 558
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 5:34 am: |
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If your last statement is true (that showing the intermediate steps is likely to disinform people, how can you make good reliable results out of bad intermediately-refined or totalled data? This is absurd!
Exit polling is still the biggest key that outsiders (voters are outsiders!) have to know that the calculations of the ballots didn't go as the voters intended. 4%, 5% and 6% sweeps don't happen in modern exit polling. Exit polling is good to .5% typically, with reasonable access to people to poll. The people that say that it did have been reasonably disproven, the discreditors of exit polling are blowing smoke up your ass. Why did we believe exit polling in the Ukraine? You can't have it both ways.
You're telling me it doesn't even display a voter total for a smell test of too many voters? If that doesn't smell fishy to you, it damn well should.
There is still good evidence that the election was wrong. We can't prove it was stolen, no. Only by the common sense smell test. All of the statistical anamolies broke for Bush. And the odds are so astronomically against all these 'errors' breaking for Bush as to be like a man being hit by lightning several times. After the first couple you have to at least wonder who's stuffing the lightning rod into his shirt. Or have him medically checked for freakishly high metal content and ionic balance. The point is, if you don't suspect something out of the ordinary, you're excessively gullible.
Regardless of all of that, even if it's only incompetence, incompetence on any of the players parts is no more acceptable than criminality, is it? |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 114
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 6:03 am: |
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Kurt, the Consortium did find that if all the votes had been counted (according to legal standards), then Gore won. If all such votes would not be counted, then the election was rigged.
"But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to ''count all the votes.''
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FA071FFA385C0C718DDDA809 94D9404482
In short, the consortium reached a conclusion that Gore won if all the votes had been counted in the manner the Consortium did.
Of course, they can only say "might have won" because they aren't about to guarantee how Florida officials would count.
The MIAMI HERALD said straight out Gore won, but THE NEW YORK TIMES couched its words, but gave the fgures that show Gore won. |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 115
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 6:07 am: |
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THE NEW YORK TIMES gave the figures that Gore won:
EXAMINING THE VOTE: THE OVERVIEW
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FA071FFA385C0C718DDDA809 94D9404482
Ballot standards under which all disqualified ballots statewide would have been reexamined; Gore would have received the most votes
. . . allowing only fully-punched ballot cards and correctly marked optical-scan ballots.
BUSH: 2,915,130
GORE: 2,915,245
+115
. . . using each county's own standard.
BUSH: 2,917,676
GORE: 2,917,847
+171
. . . also allowing dimples on punch cards and any marks on optical-scan ballots that indicate a candidate choice.
BUSH: 2,924,588
GORE: 2,924,695
+107
(pg. A1)
Chart
The total number of times a candidate's name was marked on ballots determined to be overvotes.
Gore: 80,775
Buchanan: 35,631
Bush: 35,176
Browne: 33,363
Harris: 27,705
Moorehead: 27,648
Hagelin: 27,372
Nader: 26,922
Phillips: 24,511
McReynolds: 22,968
(Source: New York Times analysis of N.O.R.C. Florida Ballot Project aligned database)(pg. A16) |
John Washburn
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johnwashburn
Post Number: 103
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 7:28 am: |
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I agree with Kurt. The evidence (especially if you use the evidentiary bar of a court room) is largely non-existent for any of these claims (shamos's included).
For example I believe Wisconsin electors were assigned to Kerry based on the various election and registration frauds committed in Milwaukee, Racine, Madison and Kenosha. But, the hard evidence to support my belief is scant.
What is ironic to me is the evidence in WI is more than found in other localities and has lead to both criminal prosecutions and convictions. Not enough prosecutions and convictions nor prosecution or convictions for the correct frauds, IMO. But, the FBI investigations continue here.
We have to be careful to know what our evidence is, where the evidence ends, which logical inferences are supported by the evidence, where speculation begins and recognize that for many important questions regarding election integrity there simply is no evidence either way.
Often there is neither evidence of fraud nor evidence state statues and good election procedures were well followed. When that is the case sittin' round the cracker barrel jawin' ain't helpful. Fun, passionate and time consuming, yes, but not very helpful.
The solution is evidence or more tangible forms of evidence. Statistical anomolies are a form of evidence, but a weak one subject to much honest differences of opinion regarding importance and interpretation. Evidence of good procedures well followed as well as evidence of mistake, malfeasence or malice. The jawin' is only useful if it leads to an identification of what evidence would settle the current speculative debate. One identified such evidence sought after and can be gathered. |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 116
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 7:40 am: |
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There's many DREs machines that switched votes for Kerry to Bush. There's very few that switched votes for Bush to Kerry. See, for example, Mahoning County (Youngstown, Ohio):
http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/investigate/MahoningOH.pdf |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 224
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 7:57 am: |
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Brant,
"If your last statement is true (that showing the intermediate steps is likely to disinform people, how can you make good reliable results out of bad intermediately-refined or totalled data? This is absurd!"
No it is not, Brant. Follow carefully. The election night module is a low priority reporting and display module. The developers know it is defective and frankly don't care. It is only for unofficial results. It is very close usually, but not correct. In some rare cases, it can be WAY WAY off.
The official results come from a different module that has extensive crosschecks and audits, and is correct. But it works SLOWLY. I wrote on here before that I ran 8 elections. In 5 of them, the Election Night module was wrong. The numbers on the reports didn't audit correctly. Danaher knew it and didn't think it was important enough to fix. Their response was, "Use the official report module. That one is always right." And lo and behold, it always was. The official returns don't use ANYTHING that happened on Election Night. Everything is done over from scratch. And everything is manually audited from the paper tapes that each machine makes.
Here's the flowchart:
Election night cartridges + manually inputted absentee ballots = Preliminary Election Night Report of Totals (wrong in some way 62.5% of elections I ran)
Election night cartridges + manually recounted and RE-inputted absentee ballots + provisional ballots allowed to be counted (all while observers watch all paper ballot tallies) + manually matched and crosschecked paper tape vote tallies to see if they match the cartridges' totals = Official returns.
That last process can take 2-1/2 weeks or so.
Never once has a cartridge failed to match its paper tape. (8 elections x 410 machines = 3280 samples. Not one error)
But what did happen 5 times is that if you manually added up all the results on the paper tapes, they did not match all the totals on the unofficial election night report. They always matched the totals on the official report.
This isn't some conspiracy. It's stupidity, and bad coding, and bad decision-making by the software developers. In the end, the official results are correct. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 225
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:07 am: |
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Brant,
BTW, the ENTIRE software development staff at Danaher was three guys. Three, for products all over the country, with different laws and procedures. I'm told 90% of it was done by one guy.
Kurt |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 297
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:09 am: |
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Hey John,
This 'jawin is very helpful. Many people don't spend the amount of time as you or I do following all the issues that obstruct such good ideas as ones you often present. Such discussions as this help all who visit this site get a better understanding of the different positions and potential solutions. Since citizens are not allowed to sit at the table with the experts to discuss our concerns, sites like BBV is a place where citizens are given a chance to be heard. Citizen oversight is best served by an informed citizenry.
quote:The solution is evidence or more tangible forms of evidence. Statistical anomolies are a form of evidence, but a weak one subject to much honest differences of opinion regarding importance and interpretation. Evidence of good procedures well followed as well as evidence of mistake, malfeasence or malice. The jawin' is only useful if it leads to an identification of what evidence would settle the current speculative debate. One identified such evidence sought after and can be gathered.
Excellent points. However, we are still trying to collect tangible evidence from the 2004 election but have met walls of obstuction and resistence that border on being criminal. If there is no enforcment of these laws, what makes you think they are going to enforce better laws pertaining to evidence? The system is broken and we still haven't figured out the best way to get around it and implement good laws and procedures yet. One thing is for certain, it will take time and time is not on our side in being able to stop the leaks in the dam before it breaks.
On top of that reality, now we are facing the 2006 elections with horribly flawed DRE's placed throughout the country that will be counting millions of votes. Emergency measures will be put into place, based on the upcoming TSx Report, but they won't be enough to absolutely secure these machines from potential tampering. Chances are we won't know for sure in this election whether any tampering occurred any more than we did in past elections on these machines.
Trying to properly prepare for the upcoming elections is like herding cats because of all the various problems we have to deal with at the same time. Your ideas are great and I agree we should have evidence that is more tangible.
Any suggestions in how we accomplish all this in a timely fashion along with all the other things that need to be implemented in order to secure our election process using this broken system?
Kathleen
(Message edited by admin_ii on May 11, 2006)
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
|
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 226
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:24 am: |
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Kathleen,
I'll take a shot at that. I honestly believe we need to do all of the following.
1) At least for now, decertify Diebold's DRE's. They do get to reapply if they get rid of the junk.
2) Assemble a blue-ribbon panel, consisting of, just for starters, Shamos, Rebecca Mercuri, David Dill, someone of BBV's choosing, and maybe 5 or so others, including some from the "industry" and examine all DRE's for similar "features".
3) Get a Congressional hearing on this to stop, for now, implementation of HAVA's machine mandates.
4) Institute a "citizen's call to arms" to encourage participation in poll work almost at a level of a wartime call to arms. A plan must be started now for as much paper ballot use in November as possible.
5) We must come up with some way to deal with jurisdictions with proven chronic shortages of such volunteers. Cities are prime examples. Suburbs and rural areas are less prone to these difficulties.
6) We need to, in some cases, temporarily suspend the alternative language requirements in some areas and use translators instead. Los Angeles, CA would have to make 8 different paper ballots currently. That is not very practical. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 227
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 8:33 am: |
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Kathleen,
One more "change of thinking" must be done.
It cannot be true that BOTH electronic voting AND delayed results are reasons for believing fraud has been committed.
Electronic voting, when all is done correctly, can yield tremendously early returns, at a cost of security and accuracy.
Using paper will inevitably lead to lengthy waits for returns. That needs to be understood, expected, and allowed to happen without some yahoo yelling, "Why won't they realease the returns? What are they hiding?" |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 117
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 9:24 am: |
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Kurt wrote,
"Electronic voting, when all is done correctly, can yield tremendously early returns, at a cost of security and accuracy.
Using paper will inevitably lead to lengthy waits for returns. That needs to be understood, expected, and allowed to happen without some yahoo yelling, "Why won't they realease the returns? What are they hiding?" "
We have yet to see machine voting in Ohio that has been done in 4 hours. Canada gets their hand counted paper ballot national elections counted in 4 hours. Ergo, paper ballots are faster than machines.
Some say our ballots are too complicated. In that case what it takes is more counters, when they are complicated, to get hand counted paper ballots done in 4 hours. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 229
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 9:38 am: |
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Jo Anne,
In 2002's Primary Election, my last staffer went home at 10:35PM. The polls had closed at 8PM, and all of our returns were in by 10:20PM. (Old fashioned DRE's, not the new style.) Our pollworkers had been using them since 1989.
2 hours 20 minutes.
In 2003, many precincts' ballots had 20-25 different offices, ballot questions, and retention elections. The "winner" for longest ballot was 32 votes to cast. I don't care how many counters you have, there's still only one ballot per voter. Each ballot must be processed that many times. Paper will absolutely take MUCH longer. And some precincts have over 3000 voters each.
Canada is a poor example. Their national elections have one choice to make. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2362
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 9:44 am: |
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Kurt, there have been extensive discussions about handling the logistics well for hand counting, including estimates of space, time and staffing to count all the races.
Several people have mentioned various ways that ballot design could facilitate this process. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 230
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 9:58 am: |
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Catherine,
That's great Catherine, but paper ballot layout is very specifically described in our election code, precisely because there was such a long history of counties "playing games" with ballot design. There is not much "wiggle room". Yes, my state is pretty unique in our long ballots. We even elect our precinct election officials every four years, plus a plethora of local auditor and assessor offices most people have never heard of. That's how far down into tiny offices we need to go here in PA.
It's also why we were one of the first states to abandon paper ballots for lever machines back in the 1920's and 30's. They were taking too long to count, and paper ballot fraud was rampant. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2363
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 10:09 am: |
|
Kurt, I realize that PA is "special." However other places could consider different kinds of ballots.
Some suggestions have been to use more than one ballot, for example, and to color code the paper. (E.g., put all the federal races on white paper, state on yellow, county/township on pink, etc.)
Swiss ballots use a wonderful kind of notch so that different ballots can be easily stacked without error.
Also, regardless of how convoluted the PA code is, humans made it and humans can change it. Never forget that. No one claims it would be easy or could be done overnight. But there's nothing to be gained--and everything to lose--by falling back on the complexity of existing legislation as if it is a permanent obstacle.
Change is inevitable. We can each hoose to be a part of the change, or we can choose to opt out. It's up to us. |
John Washburn
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johnwashburn
Post Number: 104
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 10:19 am: |
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I agree gathering tangible evidence from the 2004 election has met with resistance, stonewalling, and in the case of the City of Milwaukee, shreding records. This is why the feds have all the 11/2004 material. That does not alter the fact there is still no evidence. Suspicious and possibly illegal hiding of evidence has occurred. And the 22 month retention peroid for 11/2004 ends on 9/2/2006. More evidence down the memory hole come September. But, this has all worked to elimiante evidence and by and large there is no evidence to examine.
Thus, no evidence to suport either the proposition the results from election X are fraudlent, nor the statement all official election results past and present (from any kind of election talying software) are correct and accurate.
Kathleene, you are correct on the jawing. I underestimated and had forgotten the utility to new people later coming to read these discussions "frozen in text". It was quite useful to me last year in January, 2005.
Most people looking for fraud in DRE's are looking for fraud in the direction Kerry ---> Bush not the direction Bush --> Kerry. You find what you seek. In the 4 WI cities mentioned, all the frauds used are classic; primarily ghost voting, ballot box stuffing, and election bribery. All involved optical scanning equipment from ES&S not DRE's.
Why this suggestion?
1) At least for now, decertify Diebold's DRE's. They do get to reapply if they get rid of the junk.
ES&S, Sequoia and Hart all have junk which is equally problematic. I say rigourously test machines from every vendor. And to Ken of LHS, testing at a vendor-funded lab (ala the Tobacco Institute of the 1970's) does not qualify as rigorous testing. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 231
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 10:42 am: |
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John,
Two comments:
"Why this suggestion?
1) At least for now, decertify Diebold's DRE's. They do get to reapply if they get rid of the junk."
Because I firmly believe that within minutes of my typing this, there will be compelling evidence made public that Diebold specifically has done things in their DRE's that might make even the other firms blush.
Second, add Pennsylvania to the Bush ---> Kerry list as well as Wisconsin. The 2004 election had rampant registration fraud, provisional ballot fraud, ghost voting, pollworker intimidation, absentee ballot fraud, and all around skulduggery, all of it perpetrated by interests friendly to the Kerry campaign. It happened specifically in Berks, Lehigh, Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties.
NONE of it was done BY Kerry's campaign or the Democratic Party per se (they were all absolute ladies and gentlemen), but was done by the so-called 527 groups, who were no more than imported from out of state thugs. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 233
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 11:09 am: |
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Catherine,
I actually like the color coding idea, and I think it just may have a shot at passing the PA legislature. Good catch. There is only one potential drawback. We use colors to identify provisional and alernative ballots right now, so we'd have to fix that. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 28
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 12:21 pm: |
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"There's many DREs machines that switched votes for Kerry to Bush. There's very few that switched votes for Bush to Kerry."
Sorry Jo Anne, but it's time for you to be called on the carpet the same as Shomos.
Do you have conclusive PROOF to back this statement? If not then perhaps it should be qualified as "...DRE's that *MAY HAVE* switched votes..."
And no, the PDF you linked to is not conclusive proof. It appears to be a list repeating allegations by individuals second hand. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 29
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 12:28 pm: |
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"Should he change his mind, would you and Kurt then change your's?"
Kathleen,
That would depnd of what the report says. Based on your comments later about ti I woudl have to say that no, it would not change my mind that people saying that "DRE's have been tampered with in actual elections in order to steal the election" need to qualify their staments as opinion, not proven fact.
You say things like "One important factor the report will discuss is that the architecture of the software was programmed intentionally to have many back doors at every level of the system." I would love to see the report and see what evidence there is to back that conclusion (since it speaks to intentional motive, the evidence would pretty much have to be direct statements by the architect, designer, or programmer). Otherwise it woudl still fall into a case where conslusions are reached that might be possible, might even be likely, but are *NOT* the only conclusion supported by the evidence. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 30
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 12:32 pm: |
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"And you would find this credible, Kurt?"
I'll tackle this one too Catherine.
No, I would not find a claim that no money was stolen to be credible.
But I also would not find a claim that this PROVES that money was stolen to be credible either.
I'd still ask either side, the ones saying definitely no money was stolen, and the ones saying money was definitely stolen, to both qualify their statements as unproven theories. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 32
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 1:26 pm: |
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"Perhaps we should ask Dr. Shamos if he has the same opinion that no voting machine tampering occurred during a real election, once he's had a chance to read the entire, unredacted TSx report coming out within the next 24 hours."
OK, Kathleen, I have read the redacted report...and the disclaimer that the redacted portions provide technical details regarding the vulnerabilities.
My answer is that:
1. It shows *NO* evidence whatsover that these exploits have actually been used in real elections ever. (which was the original topic here - so in fairness it also shows *NO* evidence proving that they have not been used either - it shows no evidence of any nature regarding actual use)
2. It shows no evidence to support your conclusion that "this was done for the purpose of manipulation". (and I would sharply dispute your claim that "Any rational person in a sane world would have to" reach such a conclusion)
*ALL* of these vulnerabilities exist on pretty much every PC on every desk and most every server in every server room (this includes Windows, MacOS, Linux, and other Unix platforms as well).
So, while these vulnerabilities are unacceptable in an electronic voting device, the conclusiont hat they are there "for the purpose of manipulation" is no more warranted then it would be to allege a huge conspiracy for these "backdoors" to be on pretty much every computer in the world. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 236
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 2:02 pm: |
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Chuck,
For me, this exposes the fundamental weakness of the entire idea of building voting machines on the basic platform of a PC. It then inherits all the weaknesses that such a legacy brings to the table. Does no one design from the feet up anymore? Do we have to cobble everything on the PC design basics now?
The one part that intrigues me is one that was almost a throw-away paragraph in the report, the SD slot. As I type this, I have a 1.0 GB SD card on my desk. That's a lot of storage to play with. That's a lot of potential mischief. Has there ever been any explanation of what it's there for?
So, what do we do? Well, in Pennsylvania at least, all Diebolds are at least supposedly "virgins". They should not have been used in any election before. They should all have that "new system smell". Yes, that may not be the case. I've read the reports about seemingly used systems and weird memory configurations. But it SOUNDS as if there is a remediation possible through "reflashing", at least on TSx.
I pity my poor former colleagues. They're going to have to treat these monsters as if they're Fort Knoz gold, and that's something I'll bet none of them signed up for. This is sounding expensive, in time and treasure. Nothing government does or buys can be cheap. The bidding processes can often cost more than the contracts do. Enhanced security procedures are going to cost local taxpayers a bundle, and all to fix the wrong problem from Florida 2000. Typical bipartisan bicameral Congressional incompetence. The worst disease that ever befell Congress is the "Well, we've got to pass something" illness. You'd think they'd learn. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 33
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 2:20 pm: |
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Kurt,
It's all about cost.
There's no reason these should be using this "standard design" from the PC world, nor should they have extra hardware (like the SD card slot)
It all comes down to that it was cheaper and faster for the engineering design to use "standard architecture" and "off the shelf components" than to design and build something completely from scratch.
Inexcusable from a security standpoint, but I suspect that no one is willing to pay what it would cost to have a REALLY secure design. |
Jody Holder
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Holder
Post Number: 18
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 3:21 pm: |
|
What the report shows is the perfect crime could have happened, could be happening, and will happen unless emergency measures are taken.
None of this talk of past evidence is relevant to the task we have before us. That is to prevent the perfect crime from happening in the future.
The courts have shown a complete unwillingness to open up elections which have been certified.
The bottom line is no citizen of this country should be voting in a way that can be compromised without leaving a forensic trail. Every election's forensic trail should be scrutinized to determine if there has been any compromise. Currently that is not the case; both because in most states there is no mechanism or requirement for doing a forensic examination, and as is revealed in the TSx report, it is possible to manipulate an election and leave no forensic trail.
Every election should be open, transparent, and all the "dirty laundry" visible. Instead we have claims by election officials that there were no problems, or minimizing problems by using catch-phrases.
Finally, and I think most importantly, we have to be making suggestions for fixing the problem. The problem we have had is even convincing the people who have the authority to fix the problem that there is a problem. I hope this report will help in that effort. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2364
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 3:50 pm: |
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Jody: "None of this talk of past evidence is relevant to the task we have before us. That is to prevent the perfect crime from happening in the future. . . Finally, and I think most importantly, we have to be making suggestions for fixing the problem."
Agreed. We should be focusing on the present and the future as a matter of urgency. |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 299
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 6:11 pm: |
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Chuck,
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is there no sound?
Kathleen
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
|
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 118
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 11, 2006 - 7:17 pm: |
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Jo Anne wrote, "There's many DREs machines that switched votes for Kerry to Bush. There's very few that switched votes for Bush to Kerry.
http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/investigate/MahoningOH.pdf"
Chuck Gladu writes, "Sorry Jo Anne, but it's time for you to be called on the carpet the same as Shomos.
Do you have conclusive PROOF to back this statement? If not then perhaps it should be qualified as "...DRE's that *MAY HAVE* switched votes..."
Jo Anne writes,
Do you have conclusive PROOF that the Jewish were killed in concentration camps?
No, I wasn't in Mahoning County in 2004 when the votes were switched mostly from Kerry to Bush, and I wasn't in the German Reich when the Jewish were killed in concentration camps, but I am realistic enough to believe in both.
By the way ES&S's defense was that the voting machines were jostled in delivery and so they just happened to be miscalibrated to switch the votes mostly from Kerry to Bush.
http://wwww.votersunite.org/ES&Sinthenews.pdf (p30)
Do tell, do you imagine those witesses in Mahoning County were a conspiracy against the Republican operatives! |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 34
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 1:00 pm: |
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Well, first of all Jo Anne, the URL for your documentation is actually: (your link doesn't work)
http://www.votersunite.org/info/ES&Sinthenews.pdf
Oddly, not only does that document *NOT* contain any evidence of "switch the votes mostly from Kerry to Bush" it never even mentions any such thing. It talks about machines needing to be recalibrated, but says nothing about "vote flipping" nor anything about who the errors were in favor of. Your first document (the eff one) does, but still only has heresay allegations with nothing to corroborate them. (one voter complaining of an issue and then saying "it also happened to lots of other people who didn't report it" isn't proof....it's one person's opinion)
I'm sorry, but just as it's irresponsible for Shamos to give people a false sense of confidence by stating that DRE's have not been tamered with in real elections, I feel that its irrespoonsible and severly hurts the cause of election and voting reform for you to throw out these unsubstatiated allegations as fact right alongside the proven evidence that needs to be addressed.
If you tell someone that voting machines CAN be compromised and give then the Hursti and Hursti II reports, they may read them and see the problem for themselves.
If you tell them that voting machines can be compromised, and then follow up with a string of unproven allegations - all stated as equal fact - like "the 2004 presidential election was stolen", "votes were flipped from Kerry to Bush to steal the election", etc. they're more likely to write you off as a kook and never even look at the actual evidence (Hursti, Hursti II)
You are free to believe whatever you want to believe, but misinformnation FROM EITHER SIDE is just as bad.
Sticking to the actual proven facts will convince people a LOT more quickly that something needs to be done. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 244
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 1:20 pm: |
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Chuck, may I call you "sir"? You nailed it. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 35
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 1:21 pm: |
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Of course Jo Anne, there's one key difference between your examples "Do you have conclusive PROOF Jewish were killed in concentration camps" and "There's many DREs machines that switched votes for Kerry to Bush. There's very few that switched votes for Bush to Kerry."
One of them (the first one) has concluvise and overwhelming proof. Physical evidence, thousands of eyewitnesses, confessions from some of those involved, detailed logs, etc. Contact me offline and I'll be happy to provide you with plenty of links to the evidence as well as addresses of several locations you can go where they will be happy to show you the evidence firsthand (Visiting and seeing the evidence firsthand was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. Personally I strongly recommend the digital archives of the Simon Wiesenthal center as a great starting point http://library.wiesenthal.com ) |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 119
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006 - 6:45 pm: |
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Chuck, it's unfortunate that you can't bring up pdf documents, but this document I already linked verifies repeated problems in Mahoning County (Youngstown Ohio). It verifies that in 6 precincts voters specifically spoke about the DRE voting machines in Mahoning County switching votes from Kerry to Bush, and not one spoke about switching votes from Bush to Kerry.
http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/investigate/MahoningOH.pdf
I have a lot more information than that, but I will be using it a better time than writing to "non-believers".
I suspect you fight it so much because you know the evidence is damning to Republian operatives. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 36
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, May 14, 2006 - 12:58 pm: |
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Jo Anne, I have no trouble at all brining up PDF documents. I was simply pointing out, as a courtesy to you, that the link you provided to the document on the votersunite site was incorrect and no one couuld use it to see the document. I even provided the correct link to the document so that others could see if if they wished.
As for the EFF document, all I can say is that I hope you never have to go through any kind of court battle. If this is what you consider "evidence" then your court case would be short lived.
It presents nothing be heresay allegations, contains almost no specifics in any of the cases, and relies in pretty much all of the cases on uncorroborated testimony from single witnesses (please read Kurt's post about just how inaccurate those individual accounts can be)
As for your other information, I think we've already covered the credibility of information that falls into the category of "I have evidence but I refuse to show it to anyone other than the people who already agree with me".
I won't say that there aren't "Republican Operatives" and I won't say that there are. All I will say is that you have yet to present any evidence to back your claims and that they, therefore, fall into the same misinformartion category that everyone is complaining about Shamos for.
I also welcome Bev (when she has time) to edit this thread as your allegations both introduce unnecessary partisanship into this issue and most certainly go way beyond the line of "speculation about motivation" that she removed from the thread already earlier.
Bottom line Jo Anne, provide some credible evidence of these "Republican Operatives who flipped votes from Kerry to Bush and stole the election as a result", back off and admit that your allegations are nothing but theory and opinion, or relegate yourself to the lunatic fringe of kooks who get no respect and who no one listens to even if some of what they say have actual facts behind it (like the Hursti reports). I personally encourage you however, if you continue to choose the third option, to distance youself from Black Box Voting before you damage the credibility of the site and the valuable work being performed by others here. |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 80
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, May 14, 2006 - 11:20 pm: |
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After observing this discourse,
This verified to me, after reading another person threatening that BBV credibility could be damaged by one poster, that this thread is not communication at all. It is an effort to intimidate others from expressing their views and what they understand to have happen in different cases.
A person can disagree with someone and even give evidence to why they disagree, but to suggest that one person should stop posting their opinions because of bias, and to suggest continueing to post their opinion would take from the credibility of this sight.
Well as I started this post I end it with my opinion, "This person is just oppressing the opinions of others! It is as simple as that."
We all have opinions. Just like we all have other parts to our bodies. (If you get my "Gest")
Most Sincerely,
Michelle
BTW, Whether it matters or not I am a Communication Major. I received a BA in Organizational and Interpersonal Communication. |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 120
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, May 14, 2006 - 11:45 pm: |
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For your information, I won virtually all jury cases I tried, and the information I have would win a jury case.
I guess consistent voters' statements don't mean anything to you.
Hang it up--your eternal disbelief is cooked. |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 81
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, May 14, 2006 - 11:56 pm: |
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What I saw as hard evidence that Warren County, Ohio (you know, the county that claimed there was a level 10 homeland security threat, this barred the media from watching the vote counting on election night) ballot tampering and can be found here; http://www.freepress.org/images/columns/Ballots.pdf
The article that gives this evidence is here;
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2006/1355
This is one example why I believe that something was wrong with the 2004 Ohio presidential vote.
This is relevant to future elections because we must be willing to look at all ways someone could impair the oversight of citizens and their elections. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2427
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 12:09 am: |
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I'll add as well that patterns of observations are a credible way to establish facts. This is how much knowledge in astronomy has developed--by observations (rather than controlled experimentation as in other branches of science). And it was never a requirement that the observations have been carried out by people with certain credentials. For exampe, if a "regular" person had written a letter to a relative describing a certain fireball-like event 350 years ago, that would be seen as a useful indication that something did occur, even if there were no other witnesses or a sworn statement.
Certainly one or two unsubstantiated observations would not be sufficient to establish a pattern but in the case of--to give just one example--vote-flipping in the 2004 presidential election on DREs, the pattern was so well documented at the time, and the imbalance in direction so extreme, that even after removing potential for any reporting bias it was impossible to explain away.
I remember reading of the candidate (I believe in Georgia) who lost her election, even though after the election she was able to go into a warehouse, and demonstrate the vote-flipping: when she tried to vote for herself another candidate's name lit up. This happened repeatedly and she was able to capture it on film.) But she was not allowed to challenge the election; IIRC it was because there was no way to do a recount since the machines produced no paper other than the meaningless printout of results at the end of the election.
At the very minimum statistical anomalies should be sufficient to encourage or ensure investigation as a follow-up. Is that happening? No!
For some of the other posters above to imply that the observations of certain vote-flipping phenomena (and other phenomena in other places, such as undervotes on NM Indian reservations) being almost exclusively one-way shows their lack of familiarity with the facts and an extraordinary willingness to accept the unacceptable.
Sure we can agree on innocence unless proven guilty, or to not jump to conclusions as to the cause of the particular problem, but it is reprehensible to suggest that we should pretend that the anomalies do not exist.
To be even more explicit, ALL anomalies should be investigated, regardless of their direction. (E.g., if a local area showed places where Republicans were kept waiting in 4 hour lines and the Democrats weren't, that anomaly should be investigated as well as the places where it was the opposite.)
Is any one seriously suggesting that citizens' observations of problems that occur in the privacy of a voting booth are irrelevant and should not be discussed? |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 121
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 12:13 am: |
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Not only did Warren County, Ohio, block reporters in the Kerry-Bush electionn in November 2004, but Clermont County, Ohio blocked reporters in the Hackett-Schmidt election in August 2005 and Lucas County, Ohio, blocked reporters in the November 2005 election. Each one of those counties was the last to count the vote in its respective election. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2431
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 12:43 am: |
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And if I remember correctly, wasn't there a surprising result in each of those last-to-count areas, that differed from the predicted and reasonable? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 268
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 4:18 am: |
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Catherine,
"(E.g., if a local area showed places where Republicans were kept waiting in 4 hour lines and the Democrats weren't, that anomaly should be investigated as well as the places where it was the opposite.)"
Well, Catherine, that is EXACTLY what happened in my county in 2004, and no one has ever needed to investigate it. No one even cares. The situation that created it still exists, because when I was relieved of my duties, my bosses stopped the process of addressing it. My assistant and I were addressing the lengthy process of creting new precincts, and now all progress has stopped dead.
If we had a Presidential race now, Republican areas all around my county would again have 5-6 hour waits, while Democratic ones would sail right through. Of course there are always Republicans in Democratic areas and vice versa. We're talking majorities here.
Kurt |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2433
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 5:24 am: |
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Kurt, ALL irregularities should be investigated.
Unfortunately, none of the parties seem to want to investigate any of them, really. They'll call foul in relation to limited things that affect themselves, but not justified concerns by whatever the other side experiences. Anything they're willing to look at is narrowly defined and tightly controlled, preventing any fundamental change. It's the same story in both major parties as far I can tell. |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 82
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 6:21 am: |
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I agree that no voter should stand for any type of tampering with their votes, but there is one thing that has been lost in this discussion, that being, what the out come was in 2000 election and 2004 election.
In both election years the tampering mostly effect two states that were pivitol in the result of the presidential seat and I wouldn't be supprised that other pivital congressional seats voting districts didn't see vote tampering. I will submit that this I do not have documentation to back my statement. It is only a speculation/opinion. It would be interested in information disputing/verifing it. |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 83
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 7:16 am: |
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FYI
I show no bias. I will tell both parties that they are doing a crappy job.
Look at this over at opednew.com. I signed the petition to the Dems in Congress.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_060514_poll_3a_91_25_of_democra .htm |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2436
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 7:59 am: |
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Hi Michelle,
I think there were so many problems in the elections (2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006) that we don't know the half of it.
As to what local, state and federal elections were effected, there is evidence of irregularities in many locations and because of the lack of evidence we will probably never know the full extent of the problems. We'll probably never know which ones were caused by incompetence of election officials or vendors, and which were the result of deliberate manipulation by vendors, election officers, party operatives, or other individuals who were able to obtain access. In some cases there may have been several causes. It's quite likely both parties were trying different techniques in different areas. In most cases it would be impossible to get evidence now because it's been destroyed.
It would be a mistake to think the errors were mainly in the swing states in the presidential race. Corruption starts at the local level and most people don't pay much attention to local elections, unfortunately.
I think we need to acknowledge all the problems and see what can be done to prevent them in the future. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 270
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 8:34 am: |
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Catherine,
You are absolutely correct. If anyone thinks that there were only irregularities in the pivotal states, they are falling prey to a fatal flaw in their thinking. These sorts of mistakes, problems, fraud, misdeeds, etc., happen in all 50 states in EVERY election. The higher the stakes, the more happens.
What Michelle and others are observing is what happens when bright light and microscopes are placed on nearly ANY jurisdiction. The culture of, "Ahh, it's close enough to accurate. Don't worry about it." prevails in many many places.
Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 look the way they do because massive numbers of highly motivated people descended on those areas and metaphorically "turned over rocks to see what slimy creatures live there". Well, let me tell you, there are thousands of slimy creatures, and if you think they're all Republicans, quite frankly, you are a fool.
Power corrupts. And in elections almost all power is local. Anywhere an entrenched majority of either party exists, you will find unbelievable electoral corruption. I've seen it first hand. When the microphones and cameras are off, they often brag about it.
If you believe that election reform is all about Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. You're dreaming. |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 84
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 8:39 am: |
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I do agree with what you are saying Catherine, and I in no way mean to distract from the real issue, "Everyone's Vote" being counted.
However, earlier post suggest that there is a bias to only democrats votes being purdged, or not counted. What I was trying to bring forward that it is not that other's who are not Democrats weren't possibly victims too, but that these situations are what brought many us to the "Light" of election fraud.
In fact for me it was Bev who enlightened me to the problems with Diebold. You know that famous video of her an Gov. Dean and hacking of Diebold.
2000 presidential election and 2004 really brought it to the people.
BTW, as I have seen before, your approach to this issue is equal in it's evaluation. This is greatly appreciated! Especially in an environment which many choose to take one side or the other. I, myself, find it difficult not to fall into the divisiveness, but am trying to keep up the fight for truth/fair vote for all.
 |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 85
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 11:11 am: |
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Kurt,
You make this suggestion, "If you believe that election reform is all about Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. You're dreaming."
These are the kind of statements I do not understand purpose of posting. In reading this I find that it suggest that if poster mention 2000 or 2004 suggest that they are wearing blinders.
I would suggest that we can not fault people for not being aware of all frauduant voting practices, but to give them credit for finally waking up to the fact that it happens (I was awaken finally in 2003). Then move on to the subject of local action they need to take to verify whether their election official are working to protect their vote.
That is the question that keeps coming to my mind. What can I do to get involved, educated, and take action to protect OUR right to vote and that OUR vote is counted.
Whether it is a Repub, a Dem, a Lib, a Indep, or a Green. As a citizen of this country and /a state your right to cast a vote that is counted. Per the Bill of Rights and it's amendments; Amendment XIV [Privileges and Immunities, Due Process, Equal Protection, Apportionment of Representatives, Civil War Disqualification and Debt (1868)], Amendment XV [Rights Not to Be Denied on Account of Race (1870)], Amendment XIX [Women's Right to Vote (1920).
Can't we all, I include myself, find a way to Disemminate this information without drawing a party line? As I posted earlier, I will sign any petition, write letters, makes calls to tells those holding public office that they must represent the people based on the laws which direct them to do so.
Most Sincerely,
Michelle |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 37
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 11:17 am: |
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"For your information, I won virtually all jury cases I tried, and the information I have would win a jury case. I guess consistent voters' statements don't mean anything to you. Hang it up--your eternal disbelief is cooked."
So where's your lawsuit challenging this? You claim you have proof that would win at a jury trial, so what possible reason could you have for sitting on it and not taking action? |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 38
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 11:29 am: |
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"This person is just oppressing the opinions of others! It is as simple as that. We all have opinions."
Thank you Michelle you have now made my point PERFECTLY.
If you look back to the beginning of this thread and see what stared the whole thing, it was all about every blasting Shamos for "disinformation" when the OPINION he stated didn't agree with theirs. The majority outcry was that he should either not be allowed to state his opinion or that he should have to qualify his statements in order to make it 100% clear that they were opinions rather than statements of fact.
But when those same standards are imposed on those on the other side of the fence suddenly it's no longer "we must fight this disinformation", but instead becomes "oppressing the opinions of others".
How about everyone take a good hard look in the mirror after re-reading this thread and decide to throw out the ridculous double-standard and pick one set expected behavior.
Etiher Shamos is out of line with his "disinformation"....and then so is Jo Anne, or Jo Anne is allowed to express her opinion even though it can't be proven and was expressed not as opinion but as if it were fact...and so is Shamos.
Yes, I took my opposition of Jo Anne to an extreme...but did so to make this very point.
Shamos says DRE's were not tampered with in actual elections, Jo Anne says they were. Neither side can prove their case, but both sides can present evidence to support their position.
So why is it "disinformation" when Shamos presents his position and not when Jo Anne does? |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 86
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 11:45 am: |
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So Chuck,
Why don't you put down the rant on Jo Ann and give some info besides slamming a fellow poster?
We all see things differently, but what can we do to make sure that it is not just the "Few" in control that's opinions/positions count when we go to vote.
What are the clear cut steps a citizen might take to make sure that all votes are counted correctly?
Do I call my Registrar of voters directly about legislation in my state that could mandate that all machine codes are "Open Source"? What do you think about me suggesting this could cost us a lot of money if such legislation is passed? Does the contract with "Hart" address "Open Source"/"Propriatory" code? How do I get this information from my Election officials?
Isn't this more important than one poster debunking anothers opinions/position?
Sincerely,
Michelle |
Michelle Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Galfromcal
Post Number: 87
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 12:00 pm: |
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Chuck,
My above post was before I read your last post. I can not dispute your position, but I guess what I just kept reading in both your's and Jo Ann's posts is that your positions differ. Not to suggest that either is of no information, but what end does this get us to? Neither can be varified?
What can we do in the future that we don't have to search out and dig out information, or hope someone comes forward with such information? How can we get ride of all these blind spots?
I did appreciate your overview of the situation in this thread and look forward to Jo Ann's over view. Also, I look forward to reading what you thoughts on getting rid of, what is a layman's name, "Blind Spots".
Michelle |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2439
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 12:34 pm: |
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What I've been looking for on all sides is not an assertion that something did or didn't happen, but that something MIGHT have happened.
Then, along the spectrum of likelihood of fraud having occurred via voting machines, we may each place ourselves at different places along that continuum. Some may think it highly probable that fraud occurred; some may think it highly unlikely that fraud occurred; others may be somewhere in the middle.
But can't agree that fraud MIGHT have occurred, even if some of us think it's not likely?
(Message edited by Catherine_a on May 15, 2006) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 276
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 1:18 pm: |
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Catherine,
Agreed! But I'll stipulate further. I believe that we STILL live in a world where more fraud has occurred in nonelectronic voting than in electronic voting. But I expect that state of affairs to change any day now. I'm really frightened that too many people know how to screw around with elections way too easily now. For me, I'm MORE worried about the "outside job" than the "inside job" but only slightly so.
Kurt |
Robert Sawdey
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rsawdey
Post Number: 131
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 7:02 pm: |
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Kurt, I'll agree with you on the percentages... since 'nonelectronic' voting has been going on for a couple of thousand years! And "with modern computers it's possible to make mistakes very, very rapidly"...
In very broad overview, the issues are 'transparancy' and 'centralization'... and they go hand in hand. Without local transparency, the central authorities have so little oversight of their process it's results become "trust us, we're the government". Distributed counting at the precinct under public view gives hundreds of skeptical eyes oversight.
In considering Catherine's comments, that there is disagreement in the amount of fraud that has occured, step back a level and realize that this disagreement is caused by lack of transparancy and auditability... an even bigger issue is that we can't DETERMINE if there was fraud! With a better electoral system, the process could be studied and analyzed upside-down and sideways! But both Hurst I and Hursti II demonstrate fraud can be perpetrated without leaving fingerprints. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 280
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 15, 2006 - 7:14 pm: |
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Robert,
I agree with you about transparency. The one place I quibble is that I don't see large numbers of people willing to step up to the plate to participate in anything.
I see the "counting at the precinct under public view" as "one pollworker and a few crickets" far too often. If you live in a place where there are people willing to do this, then 1) congratulations, and 2) send some of 'em here.
I am 100% convinced that if we had paper ballots hand counted here, we'd have to "draft" the counters, 'cuz no one would volunteer.
They're too used to elections being something someone else does, and tell me about it on the 11 o'clock news.
This is Pennsylvania, home of We the "sheeple". |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2448
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 2:11 am: |
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"I don't see large numbers of people willing to step up to the plate to participate in anything."
That is NOT an adequate excuse for not having a transparent system. There are ways of solving the participation issue (e.g., where poll workers are called in like jury duty which is obligatory; split shifts; public education; better pay for poll workers).
What is lacking is the DESIRE to create a transparent election system and to ENCOURAGE citizen participation at all parts of the process.
Solutions are possible and many. But first you have to see that there's a problem, and you have to want to solve it.
From the perspective of ensconced powers that be (either major party, or vested interests that control them, or election officials who like to be in control), non-transparent or hackable election systems and an apathetic citizenry may not be seen as a "problem" at all but as a great convenience! |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 564
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 4:50 am: |
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I have a problem with Chuck's argument. Shamos, as an insider and a person involved in the checking of voting machines in Pennsylvania, has an inside track. He has access to a great deal of information that is more difficult and slower for the rest of us to get.
Shamos has said that no DRE was cheated anywhere, which, since he's not the Scarlet Pimpernel, he can't know. I'm sorry, it does all boil down to that. His half-assed bet is unrealistic; if he's so damn sure that you can't hack any make of DRE, you should get to hack any make of DRE, and he shouldn't get to see it first, as there is the chance that it may come hacked from the factory, and he should have to find all the hacks as that's what's important and he should have to show how he's going to make to vote come out as it was intended as that is the necessity we come down to, in reality.
And the other end of this that's crap is that Shamos treats this as a one shot deal. I am hopeful that people could ferret out the problems with a deliberately hacked machine in fairly short order, but who is doing this kind of examination now? Shamos claims that his examinations of voting machines to certify them is less extensive than the ITAs and they didn't find any of these last batch of vulnerabilites.
So, frankly, given all of this, if Shamos isn't deliberately misleading people, he's disengenuous as all hell. |
Patrick J. Kobly
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pkobly
Post Number: 14
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 12:54 pm: |
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Look, the problem with Shamos' statements are that they are unsupported. From the PPT:
"Reality:
- It’s very hard
- No one has ever done it in an election
- No one can give a credible way to do it
- Electronic machines are more secure than any other voting method
"
I'll concede the first bullet.
The third bullet has been contradicted by the Hursti reports, Bev's research into GEMS and other areas.
The second and fourth are statements, given as though fact, that he does not even attempt to support with even the scantest of evidence.
"Myth 3: “Paperless” DREs are unauditable and don’t allow recounts. Reality: Every DRE must “provide for a permanent physical record of each vote cast” 25 P.S. §3031.1 The record is made; not visible to voter"
Why do we have to keep shooting this down? Yes, there may be a permanent record of each vote. That does not make it auditable. An audit of a process requires the reconciliation of independant sources of data, one of which is unaffected by the process being audited. If the process being audited is the recording and counting of votes, then we need a source of information independant of the recording and counting of votes.
Shamos sets up a straw man collection of VVPAT's, which excludes a reasonable implementation of the Mercuri method.
By contrast, those who claim that malfeasance occurred (or may have occurred) in 2004 support their allegations with some level of evidence. Is it rock-solid smoking gun evidence? No. Is it more convincing than a bare statement of fact without support? Yes.
For elections occurring outside of the United States, statistically significant exit polling divergences are generally considered presumptive evidence of malfeasance. Yet, when such divergences occur for an election inside the United States, partisans call for the burden of proof to be set higher.
A pattern of complaints from electors must not be dismissed individually as anecdotes or hearsay. The collection of complaints that forms a coherent pattern means far more than the sum of each individual report.
We have strong evidence that something went severely wrong in 2004. We have a model that fits the evidence fairly well. We have been presented with no convincing argument or evidence that contradicts our model or that posits a credible alternative model to explain the evidence. Furthermore, evidence that could be used to corroborate or refute our model has been withheld or destroyed by the posited bad actors in our model.
I have not seen anyone state here that "election fraud exploiting DREs has occurred." I have heard "I believe it is _likely_ that election fraud using DREs has occurred (given that motive and opportunity are present)," and "I believe that election fraud (unspecified mechanism) has caused results in certain elections to change,(c.f. exit poll data, statistical analysis, etc.)" and "a mechanism exists to perpetrate election fraud through DREs."
The fact of the matter is this: circumstantial evidence has its place. When a strong pattern of circumstantial evidence exists, it is not acceptable to merely ignore it and demand direct evidence (if such a beast even truly exists). It is not responsible to equate a partially supported argument with a fully unsupported argument.
As for Kurt's analogy:
"You see, there's a long way from not checking the locks to assuming a theft has been committed.
The locks may be okay. The locks may be gone, but no one's taken anything yet. (That last one is where I personally stand.)"
Well we know now there weren't locks on all of the doors. We can see some guy riding a horse that looks an awful lot like our horse. The farmhand that we hired to get locks for all of the doors won't let us go into _our_ barn to see if our horse is there. The farmhand is claiming that we need to burn down the barn (thus eliminating any evidence of the theft). Remember - this is _our_ barn and _our_ horses. |
Chuck Gladu
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wendor
Post Number: 39
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 1:13 pm: |
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Brant, this is all old ground now (the dead horse is just a grease spot)
Yes, he made statements about things "he can't know". And he is entitled to do so just like people here are. What he states is his professional and personal opinion and he's entitled to it. Just as the people here are entitled to express their opinions about things they beielve to be true but can't "know" or prove.
I do question your misrepresentation of what he actually said though. (It makes me think you didn't bother to actually read his presentation at all before commenting) You say "...if he's so damn sure that you can't hack any make of DRE..." despite the fact that he covers in his presentation that DRE's can be hacked. (His opinion, at that point at least, seemed to focus on how easy or hard such hacks would be in a real election)
Sorry, but it's not very cool to misquote someone and use that misquote as evidence that they are "deliberately misleading people"
Shamos, to the best of my knowledge, has never claimed that "you can't hack any make of DRE". But he does appear to believe that it is possible to build a DRE in such a way that it can not be hacked.
In that respect his position doesn't seem far off from yours, Brant, where you expressed confidence that the electronic portions of your proposed solution (thumb print scanners, etc.) could be made "hack proof" while others felt that you were overly optimistic and that these were still a valid attack vector. |
Patrick J. Kobly
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pkobly
Post Number: 15
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 1:59 pm: |
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Add also Cleland-Chambliss to the pile of interesting indirect evidence (11-point swing not reflected in any polling, uncertified patches) |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 567
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 6:28 am: |
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No, Chuck, You can't make that fly. He said no DRE has been hacked anywhere. He didn't say it hadn't been proven, he said it hadn't been done. Sorry, an expert of any kind is not entitled to a mis-statement of what he knows can only be his own unproven opinion as fact.
Also, I was not presenting a DRE, and most especially wasn't presenting anything paperless. As a matter of fact you objected to the amount of paper it would produce as too much. (A copy that the voter got to keep for later vote verification/correction.)
And in my opinion, as personally stated in the other posts that you're referring to, the voter got a legally-binding voter verifiable (after precinct count) copy to bring back to the elections workers for correction of the tabulated vote, if necessary. Leaving out the verification and corrections mechanism in this post is disengenous of you, Chuck. I expected better. His position is a great deal different than mine, Chuck. He believes in leaving all the proof with the elections workers and the BOE, I don't by any stretch. |
John Kesich
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: John_kesich
Post Number: 22
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 2:40 pm: |
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What people lost sight of very quickly in this discussion is that Dr Shamos was not testifying under oath or engaging in an academic discussion. He was addressing County Commissioners who, at least in my county, are also the BOE. As such he should have been presenting them with the facts so that they could make up their own minds.
Instead, he made false or unsubstantiated claims:
* no election has ever been hacked using DREs
* DREs are the most secure voting system available
* no paper trail system exists that complies with PA law
Attacked straw men:
* take home receipts
* "toilet paper" VVPAT
* claim that voter must be able to verify all marks on ballot (eg bar codes)
and ignored inconvienient facts:
* ballot marking device alternative to DREs
* Mercuri model for DRE with VVPB
* possibility of weak or illusory privacy of randomized ballot images in DREs whether through predictable "random" numbers or through recording the order in which memory is written to
Need I go on?
I have dealt first hand with the results of his disinformation - two of my county commissioners and my supervisor of elections have cited the "fact" that VVPAT is illegal in PA. Of course, one went on to say she favored paper ballots and she was sure that if PA required them the vendors would find a way to add VVPAT.
Dr Shamos may be brilliant, and he is certainly entitled to his opinions and to presenting his case. But, he has abused a position of trust by presenting a biased view which I'm sure most attendees accepted as objective. --- Sentence removed upon admin request - JTK
It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or computer scientist, to understand that blind trust in privatized black boxes counting our votes is a bad idea. All you need to consider is NASA's OS upgrade of the rover on Mars, the CIA planting a bug in Saddam's French-made main command-and-control computer prior to the Gulf War and the fact that all these DREs are made in China. Now explain to me again why I shouldn't be able to see the federally mandated record of my vote. And why I should trust anyone who claims I don't need to.
(Message edited by John_Kesich on May 17, 2006) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2473
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 2:52 pm: |
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Hi John, I agree with most of what you say. It is invaluable that you have provided examples of the practical results of misleading information presented to your County Commissioners.
Could you please delete the last line in your second-to-last paragraph? This is conjecture and an inappropriate personal attack. It is possible that Shamos was genuinely mistaken; he recently expressed a different opinion since seeing the Hursti II report. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 296
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 4:26 pm: |
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Catherine,
There is more in John's post that is objectionable to me.
Dr. Shamos examines voting systems brought to him for certification by Pennsylvania. He is constained by two critical elements. Any voting system brought before him must 1) be brought before him (he can't certify what doesn't apply for certification) and 2) he must see that it complies with the Pennsylvania Election Code.
I'll provide an answer to Mr. Kesich's misleading statements one by one.
Dr. Shamos's statement that no election has ever been hacked using DRE's is unsubstantiated. It is hardly untrue. We don't know, but Dr. Shamos knows what I also know. There has never been an election that the ONLY explanation of which is hacked DRE's. Dr. Shamos is correct that no hacked DRE election has been proven. Not only hasn't it been proven, it's not even been shown likely.
DRE's ARE the most secure voting system available FOR NOW (ONLY for now) because there have been thousands of compromised elections using every other voting means, PROVEN IN A COURT OF LAW, but not DRE's that we know of, yet.
It is a absolutely correct statement of fact that no paper trail system exists that complies with PA law. That detremination has been made by the Secretary and his legal counsel, and they have known it for quite some time.
Take home receipts are not a straw man. Many people WANT a take home receipt and it cannot be allowed under PA law, even if such a system were presented.
"Toilet paper" VVPAT is not only illegal under PA law, they are UNCONSTITUTIONAL under the PA Constitution. They are too compromising of voter secrecy.
It is true that a voter MUST be able to verify all marks on the ballot. Identifying marks on a ballot are illegal in PA, that includes bar codes, or anything else that can associate a ballot with a voter, such as a serial number.
While there are marking device alternatives to DRE's, only AutoMark has been certified in PA, and that only VERY late in the process.
The Mercuri model for DRE with VVPB is a concept, not a product. It must be a product to be approved. Pennsylvania does not certify ideas.
Mr. Kesich's commissioners and his lection director are correct. As we sit here on May 17, 2006 VVBPAT is illegal in Pennsylvania, and that is a fact, whether Mr. Kesich likes it or not. |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 122
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 11:02 pm: |
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V. Kurt, to say
1) when a Diebold DRE voting machines are easily corruptible although it could be made much difficult,
2) when election results defy reason in comparison to respected exit polls, and
3) there are numerous reports across the country of DREs switching votes from one candidate to another (and the very large majority of votes are switched to one candidate; and
4) etc., etc., etc.,
then it is a HEAD IN THE SAND attitude to say that each one of these problems could be caused by something else, so you will assume that they were not caused by corruption.
It is a HEAD IN THE SAND attitude to say that hand counted paper ballots have been corrupted in a presidential election in one major city so that we can't trust them, but we must trust DREs which lack transparency and are built for corruption.
It is a HEAD IN THE SAND attitude to say that there would be no difference between corruption of DREs and hand counted paper ballots, when corruption of hand countd paper ballots are done one by one and corruption of DREs are done in the hundreds/thousands per voting machine by a single act.
It is a HEAD IN THE SAND attitude to say that we haven't proved in a reliable court of law that DREs have been corrupted, so that we cannot believe, in spite of all the evidence, that they have been.
It is a HEAD IN THE SAND attitude to say that an easily corruptible voting machine would not be likely to corrupted when so much power and money passes as a result of an election.
It is most of all a HEAD IN THE SAND attitude to say that when extreme danger is here in real time, to assume that it has not and will not cause harm.
In fact, such a continuous HEAD IN THE SAND attitude, no matter what, is severely irresponsible. |
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