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| (USA) 5/10 - QUESTIONABLE LEADERSHIP ... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11057
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 13 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 7, 2010 - 5:51 pm: | 
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Does the US want a back door into other nation's elections?
Someone had to say it. So I will.
The United States has been cheerleading the concept of concealed vote counting round the world in a most unhealthy way, unless it is sham democracy we are really after.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before congress in glowing terms regarding India's e-voting system,[1] yet these opaque electronic voting machines conceal key election processes from the public, putting control into the hands of government insiders -- hardly democratic, and in India's corruption-prone environment, downright dangerous.
Despite Clinton's earlier assurances, Indian e-voting machines have recently succumbed to manipulation by a team of researchers. Here's what one of them had to say about India's e-voting system:
quote:I've studied electronic voting machines for years, but I've never had such a strong sense that actual fraud might be taking place. There have been dozens of reports from around India that politicians have been approached by engineers offering to manipulate the machines to steal votes. My Indian coauthor, Hari Prasad, was himself approached by a prominent party and asked to help them with such manipulations! ... there are probably a million people in India with the necessary electronics skills. -- Alex Halderman, one of a team of researchers who proved the Indian machines can be used to illicitly control election outcomes.[2]
Is it that certain US leaders are woefully uninformed, or might it be that there are some in high positions who discreetly believe that elections must be controllable? ("If necessary.")
At least one US leader believed just that. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was so appalled at the prospect of a democratic Chilean election installing a president of whom he disapproved that he said,
quote:"I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
—Henry Kissinger, June 27, 1970
To paraphrase journalist William Blum, there's one thing the United States hates more than an international leader deemed politically undesirable, and that is a democratically ELECTED politically undesirable leader.
Depite successive US expenditures to control the Chilean election, Salvador Allende was democratically elected in 1970. Kissinger subsequently began lining up support for a military coup.
According to the CIA, the US had no vital national interests within Chile. The world military balance of power would not have been significantly altered by an Allende government. But according to Kissinger, Chile was a virus that would infect the world with its ideological platform.
WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE CURRENT US PRO E-VOTING STANCE?
With every e-voting system ever examined succumbing to multiple election-control attacks, and when no reputable computer scientist will claim that a concealed computerized system can be secured against insiders (like government custodians and the vendors they select), enthusiasm by US leaders for such systems is getting hard to explain without a bit of skepticism.
Tidier than involvement in a coup, and less expensive than investing in enough propaganda to thwart a democratic election, e-voting has now proven to provide the opportunity for a "Plan B." If desired. In case it's necessary.
Now, before you tell me that you believe no such ulterior motive need be involved, let me just say: It's not acceptable for national leaders to pretend that a counting process which is concealed from the public should be trusted. They should know better. What I am suggesting is that some of them DO know better.
E-VOTING IN ESTABLISHED AND DEVELOPING WORLD DEMOCRACIES
Germany has banned its e-voting system, deeming it unconstitutional because it conceals essential election processes from the public. E-voting systems have also been banned in Ireland and the Netherlands.
Nigeria, while struggling mightily with basic democratic concepts like freedom of information and the private ballot, decided this week to ban e-voting for 2011 elections in favor of privately voted paper ballots, hand counted in public.
The Philippines are currently experiencing a meltdown in their own Smartmatic e-voting system, with a last-minute recall of 76,000 memory cards. The Philippine election organization, called COMELEC, should perhaps change its name to COMEDIC, except that the impact on democracy in the Philippines is anything but a comedy.
After Philippine memory cards were found to be miscounting votes, unable to get enough more in time, the Philippines then decided to obtain some 40,000 potentially election-controlling memory cards from foreign countries (primarily Taiwan and Hong Kong). Then -- pretending all was well, nothing to worry about -- they had them couriered all over the country in helicopters provided by private businessmen.[3]
According to University of Michigan research Alex Halderman, "... Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Malaysia, Singapore, Namibia, South Africa and Sri Lanka are using or considering adopting systems like India's."
Rejected e-voting systems from Allen County Indiana were scheduled to be shipped to Africa for deployment.
CITIZENS SPEAKING OUT
The anti e-voting activism movement is rapidly expanding internationally, with concerned citizens from India, buttressed by experienced democracy advocates from Germany and the USA now communicating daily on an excellent listserve called Election Transparency Worldwide. (GoogleGroups).
Yet while citizens easily grasp the idea that you don't have a democracy without public elections -- the key word being PUBLIC -- and that you don't have public elections when government insiders control essential processes in concealment, many national leaders pretend not to understand these fundamental concepts. They continue to claim that the machines are "tamperproof", "safe", and deserving of "confidence."
True democratic systems, of course, are not built on trusting government insiders, but on DISTRUST, with the delineating factor between a true democratic system and a false one being public controls.
As the German high court decision stated, every essential step of public elections must be something the public can see and authenticate, without need for special expertise.
It remains to be seen whether key US leaders wish to export real democracy, or a pseudo-democratic system which can be controlled "if needed."
Some may say they have a point. But WE have a right to trot that out in public for an open debate.
We ordinary mortals can stubbornly alter the conversational terrain to discuss what is a true democratic system and what is psuedo-democracy. We can expose the hidden agenda opportunity if our leaders try to sell us on systems that provide them with a Plan B. "If necessary."
* * * * *
PERMISSION TO EXCERPT OR REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org
* * * * *
[1]'It is so highly effective that nobody questions the results of the elections,' Clinton said.
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) suggested in testimony before the Senate Rules Committee July 25 that the election system used in India in 2004 produced the voter confidence in the election process the Congress is seeking to achieve by federal legislation. Clinton was the lead-off witness in the hearing on S. 1487, the Ballot Integrity Act of 2007, and is co-sponsor of S. 804, the Count Every Vote Act, an election reform package requiring a voter-verifiable paper ballot and a paper audit trail.
electionlawblog.org/archives/ear-clinton.doc
For Clinton’s Rules Committee testimony see: http:/rules.senate.gov/hearing. For additional information on the electoral system in India and on its electronic voting machine see the Indian Election Commission website: www.eci.gov.in.
[2] J. Alex Halderman on manipulating votes with the Indian e-voting machines
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/06/indias-e-voting-mach.html
also: Electronic voting machines in India, the world's largest democracy, are vulnerable to fraud...
Even brief access to the paperless machines could allow criminals to alter election results, the seven-month investigation reveals. Great Lakes Innovations and Technology Report: India's Black Box Voting Vulnerable To Attack
http://www.wwj.com/UM-Research--India-s-Black-Box-Voting-Vulnerable-T/6983830
[3] Frantic effort to ensure Philippine vote continues (Reuters) Khaleej Times Online - 5 May 2010 -
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data/international/2010/M ay/international_May229.xml§ion=international
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From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 283
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2010 - 10:27 am: |
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from the mailbag:
I doubt in this day of computers and electronic everything that the election officials are gong to go back to paper ballots. I might add though as someone working in elections with the e-slate at Travis County, I found dealing with the equipment hard to manage. The e-slate had to be put into a booth in a particular way. And the booth themselves are heavy and hard to assemble. Half of the training has to do with setting up the equipment. I am sure that is not the reason you want the thing changed. However, again I don't see Travis County going back to paper ballots. It was easier working with paper ballot but probably not as fast. I do think that in the last presidential election that the results were accurate. And so I think that this is just the way things are going to be.
Mary Mary Quite Contrary
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11058
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2010 - 10:29 am: |
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Mary,
Your point being that democracy is inconvenient, apparently.
You state that you don't think this or that will happen, and you assert that you "trust" the system, but you don't tell me your position on the key issue: Is it POSSIBLE to have a democracy when the counting of the votes is concealed from the public?
You see, you are dodging the real issue by focusing on mechanics. I urge you to think carefully about these issues from a higher level.
1. Can a democracy exist without public elections?
2. Can elections be public if key processes (ie, the counting) is concealed from the public?
I hope you will at least think about such issues.
You know, in the 1700s, during the very inception of freedom (which was taking place in England, before it happened in America), at that time an estimated 80% of the world was enslaved. The sugar industry, based in the Caribbean, was of economic power similar to the oil industry now. The sugar industry was based on slavery, and most powerful politicians in England were invested in the sugar plantations. It was said that the economy would collapse if slavery were abolished.
Yet a handful of guys meeting in the back of a print shop, and a religion thought to be a bunch of nuts (the Quakers), began openly discussing the abolishment of slavery.
Most people doubted it would ever happen. But as more and more citizens began thinking seriously about the issue, things changed. Slavery was banned by the British Empire long before that happened here, and in the face of seemingly impossible odds. Such a thing had never been done before.
So here is another thing to think about:
What are the odds that we will achieve (or restore) real democratic elections if we don't begin TALKING about the core issues, which are:
- Public elections as a key part of a real democracy
- Public elections can't be public when crucial processes are concealed from the public.
Thanks for writing.
Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5648
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 6 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 8, 2010 - 10:40 am: |
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The arguments used by H. Clinton in promoting e-voting seem to mirror those expressed in a recent BBC news article that enthuses about e-voting while downplaying the risks.
In both cases India is mentioned as an example of e-voting "success".
Does anyone else find the similarities striking? |
Michael T. Aupperle
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Auplvo11
Post Number: 49
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, May 9, 2010 - 1:18 pm: |
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What is FBI agent smoking ????
Elliott said electronic voting machines in Nevada have reduced greatly the likelihood of compromising an election through malfeasance at the voting booth.
"I use this state as an example of one of the hardest to beat electronic voting systems I have ever seen,"
said Elliott, who has advised elections officials around the world on how to ensure fraud-free voting. "It would be virtually impossible to rig.
It is multiple layers of encryption, multiple layers of parties that double check each other, and all the equipment is locked up."
http://www.lvrj.com/news/task-force-in-place-to-combat-election-fraud-92900259.h tml
I believe the Nevada sequoia system is still not certified for use in California except under very limited conditions ???? |
Josh Landess
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jlsoaz
Post Number: 49
Registered: 7-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 6:40 am: |
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Hi:
I think you've done well to pull together some international trends and relate them to US policy and BBV's own research as to identifying problematic voting approaches.
So far I have passed this along once, on facebook. I linked back to this discussion thread link rather than passing along the text of the email or post.
I may pass it along again. Generally I pass along links and not text.
So, the reason I'm posting now is to generally make BBV aware that when these sorts of hard-hitting analyses come out, some of us end up passing them along as links. I did see the constant contact link at the bottom. Maybe I should also try that (although it wouldn't work for something like facebook). I'm frankly not certain what is the best way. Does BBV have an official view on this? |
Dale McClain
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 204
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 9:25 am: |
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Josh, this thread opened with the question:
Does the US want a back door into other nation's elections?
After that you read enough to cause you to comment:
Quote:
“So, the reason I'm posting now is to generally make BBV aware that when these sorts of hard-hitting analyses come out, some of us end up passing them along as links.”
==================================
Josh, if we are living in an age of “Cyberwarfare”
( as I am sure we are) and hackers can hypothetically cripple the United States from behind computer screens, (as they often do) do you think it is wise to dilute discussion by merely sending links to the cloud?
The Cloud in my mind is a conglomeration of Internet, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, and a wide variety of web sites (all well intentioned I hope)
I have often wondered why more people do not stick to one forum and gain some clout.
Dale |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3533
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 12:55 pm: |
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On Josh and Dale above:
I'm seeing two distinct Internet cultures at conflict. Watching my son, I see it there, too. The "link flingers" are young, go-go, "bang bang" energy drink quaffers. My son has no patience for a post longer than two lines, tops. But he'll slap links all over everything. I don't get it. If I want to read something, 90% of the time I want to read what YOU think of what's on the link, not just have links slung at me. If it's long source, though, the link is appreciated. Oh well, it's better than just copy and paste, I suppose.
But then I'm 55 next week. Decrepit.
As for Bev's original post up top, "What you mean BACK door?" Whatever the method, that rhinoceros banging through the FRONT door is usually us, or our key geo-political adversaries. I have a buddy with a long military history who simply cannot stop calling the Russians by the shorthand "Soves". He can't deal with a world not so bifurcated as the old cold war paradigm.
==========================================
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
"Public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed". --Abraham Lincoln
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Dale McClain
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 205
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 1:14 pm: |
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Hi Kurt,
In spite of your advancing years -- you
are well qualified to be Cloutmaster.
Dale |
Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 214
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 1:25 pm: |
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Kurt said: ".... If I want to read something, 90% of the time I want to read what YOU think of what's on the link, not just have links slung at me. If it's long source, though, the link is appreciated. ...."
Exactly my preference too, Kurt. Gimme a link, and (sorta' like your son) at least two lines with your viewpoint/judgment of the item - are you pro or con, etc.
Back to the original topic - e-voting in the UK, I also read the original article. I wrote this reply to the reporter:....
_______________________
No Internet Voting!
Re: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10102126.stm .
Casting ballots by the internet, or by any computers-only system, is not secure. And I firmly believe it can never be made secure. There must be V.V.P.B.'s, and they must be retained and used for at least random verifications, if computers are used for counting. (VVPB = voter-verifiable paper ballot)
My professional and civic activism experience related to this is extensive and relevant. First, the internet is not secure, as the numerous cases of hacking even of major organizations show. Second, the programs which would be used are not verifiable; reviews before the voting day may not be of the actual versions used on voting day, and outsiders must not be given access to the programs during their actual use, due to the risk of corruption, accidental or purposeful. And, if only insiders run the system, then insiders will have the technical access to change the system, and thus the vote totals.
There must be audits of the results - at least suitable random sampling, but if the data is a single cyber-message, there is no second dataset for comparison. Thus, there can be no sure way to achieve and demonstrate to the public, that they can have confidence in the system.
There are many more pieces to the story. Review my website: http://noleakybuckets.org/ and another by Bev Harris: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ .
Marian Beddill
Bellingham WA, USA
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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Dale McClain
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 206
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 3:40 pm: |
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Hi Marian.
Quote;
“There are many more pieces to the story. Review my website:”
I took your advice and looked up your “LINK”.
May I be critical about one of the first items that caught my eye?
“WFEV may not be a neat acronym, but it is the key to an equitable and sustainable humanity.”
Why not VWFE?
For me it would make more sense to attract 13 year old viewers to the site. News media is reported to be using 13 year olds as the Target audience.
====================
Voting trumps water .. A good example would be the
Political control of the Colorado River.
As for food ---remember Donner Pass. And energy-- “Oil and Gas from the ground” was likely the least important thing on the victims mind.
===========================
One more forgotten Link might be Books.
Just like millions of people including recent presidents -- I am not an avid reader -- however :
Richard A. Clarke writes and interesting insider view
Of Cyber war that may well be worth reading.
============================
Take that as an opinion I have about a book I have never read.
Dale |
Dale McClain
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 207
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 11:15 am: |
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The Times News is Widely read here in Sullivan County and no one ever seems to question the editorials so I feel you may be a little reluctant to read an opposing view.
The Times News has great influence and rightly so.
It seems to follow the mainstream politically speaking.
But there can be no excuse for not knowing there is great confusion in the election world today.
You surely must be aware that Diebold voting equipment that has been used in National elections has gone belly up after having been used
for several years in election voting and counting around the nation and states that have service contracts with it are holding the bag so to speak.
When an editorial says :
“The public would obviously gain by having a greater voice
in how the state is governed”
I perk up my ears because I feel the public has no
Voice in how the states is governed.
The election officials and the voting machine vendors do have a good voice in how the states is governed.
Questions which continue to divide state lawmakers along largely partisan lines are all smudged and seem to merge into a one party mind set that satisfies both traditional parties.
While retaining “Brand Names” the NASED has
concentrated power in the election boards that now
has locked out the public and its right to know
how the votes are counted and stored.
The transparency so badly need to conduct fair elections is open only to the insiders and vendors.
I do not need to explain this to your editor . He is very computer savvy and must surely know that I am not the only person that questions the safety of the secret ballot.
My ongoing battle against electronic voting has been ignored at every level. (Bar codes on ballots for one)
Articles similar to the one in question (enclosed)
are rendered mute because of the distrust in our election system.
The taxpayers have been bled dry by the insistence of the HAVA to implement electronic voting equipment much of which is so flawed and so unreliable that no one will certify it .
Cyber warfare as it now stands must illustrate that
Credit cards can be created in volume that look , feel,
work and smell just like the real thing.
Cyber warfare as it now stands must illustrate that
any where there is a computer -- it can be hacked
and all the data stolen down to the last secret bit of information. (Manufacturing companies know this.)
Cyber warfare as it now stands must illustrate that
on a global scale Nations are hacking and stealing
Secret information from each other on a scale that
no voter in Sullivan County will ever fathom.
My original idea to punch holes in the editorial
seem futile because they will go unnoticed and the
swing to bring Tennessee into line like sheep with other states will proceed.
The new wave of electronic voting methods in the United States will be fully implemented in 2010.
2010 census reports will dictate congressional redistricting needs .
And as the editorial mentions possible future
“referendums on changing the state’s constitution .”
Will be needed and possibly executed.
Cyber warfare as it now stands must illustrate that
any such change will be engineered by insiders not
the public voters.
The words: “public would obviously gain” is debatable.
The public would like a piece of the action.
Thanks for permission to use the editorial.
Dale McClain
==============================
===========================
Should Tennessee’s attorney general be chosen by popular election?
That’s a question which continues to divide state lawmakers along largely partisan lines.
Most Tennessee Democrats want to preserve the current practice of having the attorney general chosen by the state Supreme Court.
Republicans argue that making the post an elective one would assure voters that the attorney general’s office is not influenced by the state’s highest court.
Tennessee is unique among the 50 states in having the attorney general selected by the state Supreme Court.
There is nothing unethical about that process, nor is there any indication that Tennesseans have suffered or the court benefited from it.
At the same time, there is no particular evidence to show that the dozens of other states have suffered by making the post of attorney general an elective one.
Indeed, there are several good reasons to make Tennessee’s attorney general an elective office.
It is politically and logically inconsistent for local district attorneys to be subject to public election while the state’s chief law enforcement officer is appointed.
Such a change would also bring Tennessee into the national mainstream since 43 states elect their attorneys general.
Earlier this spring, the state Senate voted 19-14 to add Tennessee to the majority of states that elect their attorney general.
The House would have to pass a similar bill, and that resolution would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate during the next General Assembly.
If that succeeded, a referendum on changing the state’s constitution could be offered to voters as soon as 2014.
But why stop at electing the attorney general?
In a provision existing in the constitutions of only a handful of states, Tennessee’s lieutenant governor is chosen by a vote of the state Senate and serves as speaker of that body.
Tennessee is the only state other than Hawaii in which the governor is the sole officeholder elected statewide.
That the lieutenant governor is not similarly subject to popular vote denies Tennesseans a direct choice in the state’s second-highest executive office.
Expanding voters’ ability to choose the attorney general and lieutenant governor deserves serious consideration.
The public would obviously gain by having a greater voice in how the state is governed
KINGSPORT TIMES NEWS May 11, 2010
========================================= |
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 58
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 11:25 pm: |
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Beware of powerful people repeating things that make no sense when one actually consciously listens and thinks on them.
What the heck could Hill possibly care about the form of voting India is using. Sure, as SoS she should promote democracy but I though India already had that going on for a few decades, who are we to tell them how to vote.
Its way off topic, but this auto-bio by Catherine Fitts provides an excellent case history from a Wall Street/govt insider about how powerful folks set an agenda and then use politicians (from both parties) and business people to promote it with seeming sincere reasons:
http://dunwalke.com/
Remember all the hype about crack and the war on drugs and the vast expansion of prison population, and remember how much money Wall Streeters made on that with privatizing prisons etc...By the way, Hill is featured as one of the corrupt ones (there are many) in this bio. Its a good case history of how they set the whole political debate so they can have guaranteed business via new laws, government corruption.
Very similar to the big push for e-voting in my mind. It goes like this: we have this huge problem, but only way to solve it is with tons of taxpayer money, but not so democratically controlled govt agencies can fix things but rather so seedy, unregulated, private companies can make superprofits while further messing everything up.
The fact that Hill kept having miracle primary vote victories on e machines but had a hard time with hand counted ballots and caucuses (where people actually have to show up) furthers my suspicions about her connections.
And Bev, on another topic, maybe you have seen it before, but I thought you'd like this quote from Einstein:
"The state is made for man, not man for the state...That is to say the state should be our servant and not we its slaves."
Albert Einstein |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11060
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 - 5:34 am: |
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Hi Karen and all,
Good comments. I spoke in Florida last night and suggested this matrix for looking at concealed election processes:
"No essential process should be concealed from the public"
Essential processes:
Who is on the voter list
Who actually votes
Whether the votes that were cast are the same ones as the votes that are counted
The counting of the vote
Looking at voting processes, public counting at the polling place, with real paper pen and ink signatures on registration cards and a list that is committed and unchangeable before the election, conceals none of the essential processes.
Polling place voting (without e-pollbooks, using paper poll books), counted on optical scan, conceals the counting from the public.
Polling place voting (with e-pollbooks), counted on optical scan, conceals who actually voted and the counting from the public.
Polling place voting (with e-pollbooks), counted by DRE, conceals who actually voted, whether the votes counted were the votes cast, and the counting from the public. Combined with Internet registration, it conceals all four essential steps from the public.
Absentee voting conceals who actualy voted, whether the votes counted were the votes cast, and the counting from the public. Combined with Internet registration, it conceals all four essential steps from the public.
Internet voting, with Internet registration, conceals all four essential steps from the public and also has the most consolidated control, in the hands of the fewest people.
I'm on my way back to Kentucky now, and may have little access to the Internet at times. Carry on! |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11061
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 - 5:36 am: |
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Quick note: the 60 days given to ES&S to divest itself of Diebold expired Monday, with no announcement as to what happened. |
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 59
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 - 2:00 pm: |
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Bev:
I like the emphasis on public being able to verify essential processes...seems great way to frame it, as it avoids getting bogged down in technologic discussions...want ordinary people at any place in process be able to easily check things...like number of voters to votes counted, locked-down registration sheets...also addresses the problems with mailed in votes and why that should be minimized...this tact also probably has lots of legal precedents around it...in the form of sunshine laws, FOIA, open meetings etc..
Thanks for keeping at so persistently and effectively |
Dale McClain
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 212
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 9:03 am: |
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I support HB 1176
OK Lets be fair about this .
This is a warfare between Capital and labor .
I prefer that it should be waged on a level playing field.
If the same rules that apply to National public elections apply to unions then the secret ballot is an OLD FASHIONED POLICY.
QUOTE:
“Unions were needed at the outset. After an equilibrium was reached between union and management, the unions started overreaching to justify their existence. This overreach is what has closed companies' doors and turned hard working people against the unions.”
=======================
Lets talk about over reaching and where was equilibrium between unions and management ever reached?
Early Railroad unions were formed because of horrible injustice being rampant in the industry.
For example faithful workers with years of service
could be replaced at the whim of the owners --with members of the owners family.
======================
This was long before the teamsters union even existed.
A long and bitter struggle has existed between unions and management :
Railroad 1873
Teamsters 1903
United Mine workers 1890
Steel workers 1889
Auto Workers 1935
The list goes on but to be fair the original pure intent to protect the weak has been upgraded to involvement in controversial areas of insurance, road building, schools and health care ---to name a few.
The original Railroad Retirement program was the pattern for Social Security.
Unionization has been a thorn in the side of management in the war between unions and management since day one.
We mere mortals are caught in the middle of this
War between unions and management .
Both sides have evolved into using cyber warfare
that includes promoting technology used for conducting fair elections at all levels.
Union smashing has been on the top burner for years
In the war between unions and management .
We have watched as our trusted government officials
make deals on an international scale with the banking industry, foreign trade, oil reserves , human rights , export democracy , and now promote electronic voting around the world.
My point is : PLEASE GIVE US THE SECRET BALLOT AT EVERY LEVEL!
(Impossible with evoting)
Signed: “caught in the middle.” |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 66
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 3:06 am: |
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They're called "malicious, criminal, thieving, oath breaking, constitution shredding, termites."
and their gig is up.
outlaw electronic vote tabulation devices, and outlaw electronic poll book registration devices, or like our monetary system suffer the consequences of math and physics. |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 67
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 3:20 am: |
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"who are we to tell them how to vote?"
We're the ones who figured out electronic vote tabulation devices and electronic poll book registration devices are in fact being maliciously exploited by officials and there's no way to stop them from destroying the Constitution and Bill of Rights and bypassing accountability.
We'll tell the world no matter what country uses this crap.
However when our own country's sovereignty is concerned we might deviate to protect our own country above others.
Without the right to vote, nothing will stop the ponzi, corruption, and treason. |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 68
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 4:00 am: |
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Officials have screwed the pooch.
Take a snapshot of 1970's Constitution and compare it today's.
Today "We The People" have
The right to be killed in a bus station.
The right to be witch-hunted by DARPA
The right to have your banking and finances snooped on.
The right to get locked up forever with no trial.
The right to get snooped on with no warrant.
The right to be tortured.
To have your savings raided with no cops.
The right to get your websites shut down.
The right to have your door broken down and grenades thrown in and your daughter shot.
The right to be arrested and jailed for battery for simply touching the zip-strip fabric on a militarized cop's uniform to see the badge number hidden underneath.
The right to be locked up by (untrained in elections) local law enforcement being exploited by a local sheriff, when your a poll worker.
The right to have 99% of the "public spectrum"
"corporate owned"
The right to get your property taken.
The right to get jailed for years for pot.
The right to be forced to give blood.
The right to not be able to refuse to show ID.
The right to receive a template stamped propaganda based reply when contacting your representative who doesn't care about you or your communication, even goes out of the way to not quote or address anything you say.
What do elected officials rights consist of?
The right to use state secrets to hide a crime on anything.
The right to "insider trade"
The right to break your oath without consequences.
The right to start a war without consequences.
The right to purchase sharepoint and acrobat so to have plausible deniability when 404 errors and the website crashes, and the database goes bye bye and the documents can't be found in a search and the text inside the documents can't be searched and the filenames have no rhyme or reason or index.
The right to start false flag attacks and call them and everyone terrorist, extreme, when in fact they are the extreme terrorist.
The right to use time as a legal weapon.
The right to lie.
The right to purchase more voting machines.
The right to change laws to protect proven crimes bypassing accountability
The right to never be accountable.
The right to fill more positions and agencies with more termites and oath breakers.
The right to shut down the internet.
The right to ignore the monetary system.
The right to hide banking and finances.
The right to hide your ID and private info.
The right to use the CIA and others to drug run and control heroin.
The right to use the corporate media to enhance their position.
The right to lock anyone up for any made up reason.
The right to declare martial law.
Are you awake yet?
OUTLAW ALL ELECTRONICS IN OUR ELECTIONS! |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 501
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 7:08 am: |
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I disagree with the idea of outlawing ALL electronics in elections. An ideal system would be to hand count paper ballots, but still have ballot scanners in the precincts. The scanners reject problems like overvotes, while voters in hand count jurisdictions must simply accept that they have only one chance to get it right. And having a machine count to double check the official hand count is not a bad idea.
On the other hand, my experience is that electronic machines to assist vision impaired voters just haven't worked out so far. Only a very small fraction of the people who could benefit use them. Also I have seen the machines fail in use a surprising percentage of the time, leaving voters to require assistance anyway. |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 69
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 3:52 pm: |
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Mike, Do You seriously want me to agree with you?
If you ever manage to actually see the actual electronic signal representing a vote, using your eyes, do let me know.
Maybe, you were at each factory (there's more than one to watch in more than one foreign country) when each silicone chip was doped and can provide evidence no back doors were doped in? Let me know.
Maybe, you've confiscated all the machines in a live election and destructively reverse engineered every piece of silicon in them? Let me know
Maybe you can show us how 100% paper ballots (hand counted with an unbroken chain of custody under public oversight) have ever been compared to 100% machine ballots in a live election? Let me know
I'm TELLING you My experience is from repairing, and designing electronics, and programming. Malvino, Grobb, Floyd, a plethora of data books and test equipment too much to list, math and physics, along with actual experience working in the field on electronics, as well as design using off the shelf semiconductors. And I don't even hold a degree! I'm not even a guru, I am not even an asm wizard!
Don't cloud the issue with the disabled. We've managed to assist the disabled for our elections before electronic voting machines even existed, and we hypothetically ought to be able to assist them hundreds of thousands of years into the future.
Needing assistance to vote doesn't give you the right to have your assistance use electronic devices which compromise the election for everyone.
All the failures with Paper ballots are similiar to the one failure of ALL ELECTRONIC VOTE TABULATION DEVICES. That is specifically a "Broken Chain of Custody"
In electronics, the moment a voter's intention to select a choice is digitized into the appropriate signal. At that point the signal can be manipulated and nothing you say can change it. Not Bush, Not Obama, not GOD can do anything about it.
In paper ballots, our elections become compromised the moment the human/public chain of custody is broken. Reasons include: Corrupt officials exploiting local law enforcement (beat the rap, not the ride), False Flag DHS / FBI forcing everyone out of the vaults and buildings, and on and on and on. When your watching a Barrel of ballots and officials use law enforcement with guns to clear you out, and they stay IN the building we have a problem. A BIG PROBLEM
The answer is the public needs to be in control, not the officials, not the untrained cops. You put the human bodies in there and give them authority over the (newly trained in elections cops), you won't have a broken chain of custody. This is a failure of Operating Procedures and the officials running the election.
Whereas the using electronics is just like an ostrich sticking your head in the sand and hoping everything will be okay.
You keep the scanners, they will be abused. That's fact.
You pump up the human chain of custody, empower the public to have authority, and maintain an unbroken chain, your not going to have this problem. |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 70
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 4:01 pm: |
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While some shiny politician or corporate owned media might be able to discredit me personally, they will never discredit what I said.
History will show it to be fact.
The only question is how many more years before you learn the same thing and finally we collectively put a stop to this disastrous game? |
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 60
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 7:26 pm: |
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Liked the attitude of this local water quality official. At one point explaining why he chose to send baseline samples to a testing lab he had long expereince with, rather sending them, as he was told to, to a lab with strong ties to oil industry he essentialy says "who knows, this Texas lab might be the best lab in the country, but as scientist we don't even want to have answer concerns about possible bias so we went with lab we know and trust". This is how govt is supposed to work, to provide a check and balance, provide oversight, so no one person, no one business, no organization can run amok and "own" all the information...
I wish more election officials had this guy's attitude...instead, they just say: we send the votes to be counted in Texas (black box) like we are told...
its clip #4 at about 3:30 with local official starts talking...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/ns/msnbc_tv#37285180 |
Dale McClain
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 221
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 10:02 pm: |
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Hi Karen,
We are lucky to have a place like BBV, a place where we can compile and access valuable information .
I have no secretary, staff nor any coherent filing systems other than my computer files and BBV.
I even lose track of where I have saved favorite items. So when you post a message that mentions testing labs, strong ties, possible bias, and votes to be counted in Texas-- and in the same breath -- the oil spill in the Gulf, Water Samples in Texas -- My thoughts go straight to the Fall of the Roman Empire and of course our own war with uncertified voting equipment.
==========================
Let me explain how I think all this ties in with a common complaint I have about testing:
==============================
“Voters have a right to know how voting machine testing is done”……RIGHT?
So here goes : This litany of players goes round and round and come out here NASED.
It started with HAVA and the FEC with an informal bond between FEC and NASED. Enter ITAs the EAC and NIST (with 350000 funding) VSS and Three Testing Companies (WYLE, CIBER and SYSTEST) Diebold bites the dust and few states even test the equipment they buy and when they do test it is with the vendors own testing choice.
Now the most powerful player (NASED) seems to be back at the top with the blessing of the EAC.
I hope this is enlightening to you because “It sure ain’t enlightening to me.”
Dale |
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