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| (USA) 6/2012 - ACCENTURE HITS BBV WIT... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11647
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 8 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 7:03 am: | 
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Amazingly, Accenture, which sold its crap-on-a-stick high-school sophomoric completely insecure malfunctioning voter registration software to a bunch of states, so unsuccessfully that Colorado refused to pay and others, like Wisconsin and Shelby County, bought out the source code in order to try to bandaid it into a functional system, has decided to issue a DMCA protective order against Black Box Voting for exposing its flawed software.
Last time a voting system company did a DMCA takedown notice (Diebold, in 2004) it got socked with punitive charges for abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, trying to use it to block distribution of material clearly published in the public interest.
If you want a copy of the voter registration software I posted Thursday, might as well get it -- and mirror it, torrent it, dropbox it, or whatever -- today. I'll probably pull it down by June 27, not because their claim is valid, but because there are higher priorities for spending my time during this election season and thanks to Slashdot and some pals in Europe, this software has now been widely mirrored elsewhere.
Here is the DMCA issued to Black Box Voting:
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2012 17:17:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rackspace AUP Team
Subject: Please Review Immediately - DMCA
Hello,
We have received a notice pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") from Accenture Global Services Ltd regarding certain content appearing at the above-referenced website (the "Website"). A copy of this notice has been sent to you via email at [redacted]. This company alleges that material posted on your company's website infringes on their copyright. Please remove the content claimed to be infringing from the Website and confirm to me in writing that you have done so by 8:00 A.M. Central Time, 6/27/2012. If the allegedly infringing content is not removed and/or I have not received your written confirmation by that time, Rackspace will suspend network access to the server(s) hosting the Website.
Please note that you may provide a counter notification, stating that the posted material is not infringing the alleged copyright, in accordance with the provisions of 17 U.S.C. §512(g)(3) to Rackspace's designated agent:
Director of Compliance
Rackspace Hosting
(Note that Rackspace is only doing what it's required to do. They are a superb web hosting company, and have helped keep the Black Box Voting sites up and secure for many years now.)
After releasing it into the wild, we can all see that the system is hardly worth the $20 MILLION Accenture tried to charge the state of Colorado, with equally exhorbitant fees hitting taxpayers in other states and counties.
There are multiple possible explanations for how this system doubles and triples reported votes for some voters (oddly, in White Republican suburbs), and for why it likes to alter people's political party and erase their voter history.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ON ACCENTURE'S VOTER REGISTRATION SYSTEM
Accenture's "ESM" voter registration / voter history system is really just a bunch of Microsoft Access tables riddled with faulty joins, lacking referential integrity, and also open to malicious play using easily written hidden Visual Basic or Java scripts residing on any computer linked into it. It cannot be made secure without completely redesigning the architecture.
Watch "Hacking Democracy" (search it on YouTube) for a real-life example of how simple it is to bypass all passwords using a VBA script, to implement anything you want with hidden code commands in systems built on this platform, which is also used for the Diebold GEMS system.
Yah, so where is "Accenture Global Services" based out of anyway? Cayman Islands? Or is it now another tax-evading corporate secrecy haven, used not only to avoid paying taxes but to prevent the American public from knowing anything about the creepy white men who control corporate ownership.
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org
POSTSCRIPT: This software was originally election.com, a Cayman Islands-based company owned by unnamed Saudi businessmen. Accenture bought election.com, shifting ownership to Accenture Ltd, which was located in Bermuda (another tax haven); according to the Wall Street Journal, due to the current US crackdown on tax dodging corporations, Accenture has now relocated to Dublin, Ireland. |
taka
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Scar
Post Number: 6
Registered: 5-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 9:27 am: |
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already on TBP.
https://thepiratebay.se
[DMCA takedown of links by Accenture; apparently they don't want the public to see this]
seed and redistribute! |
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 322
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 4:21 pm: |
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Thanks, taka.
And thanks to Brad Friedman for posting the story!
And thanks to my personal email from "MC", a software pro who describes the recklessness of Accenture's software more precisely than my "crap on a stick" description:
quote:Hi Bev,
I've been a long-time supporter of BBV, and am fully aware of the futility of attempting to create a secure database system with Access. I put together the first Access Security FAQ that has been posted on Microsoft's web site for many years as well as other topics related to database security vulnerabilities.
The use of Access, with its well-known vulnerabilities and lack of auditing capabilities, can only have been deliberate and intentional. There has been code floating around the Internet for years that enables anyone capable of using a search engine to crack Access security. And when they break in, there is no way to detect the intrusion. All of these things are well-known to developers around the world, and have been since the mid-1990's.
If someone knowingly certifies shoddy steel when building a bridge, and that bridge later collapses, then they are criminally liable. If someone attempts to certify election software built on top of Microsoft Access as secure or robust, then they should also be held liable. No responsible public official would buy such software if they knew of its inherent and unfixable vulnerabilities unless they were participating in the fraud and hoped to benefit.
I don't even need to download Accenture's code to know that it's a piece of crap -- that's a given when its built on Access. I'm not slamming Access per se, it has its place in the business world as a very useful tool for small database applications that sit behind a firewall, but it is definitely criminal to assert that it will be secure or safe outside of a secured environment where you cannot prevent unauthorized access, audit intrusions, or guarantee the chain of custody of the .mdb file.
I'd be happy to testify to this, and can help you round up other Access experts, one of whom still works for Microsoft, if you need additional expert testimony. Best regards,
MC
Former Access Security expert, MVP, & former Microsoft employee
|
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 324
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 - 8:44 am: |
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Sent to me by email, from another person (who did provide real name in my email) in a position to know:
Granted, it's been a few years since I had a user account on this system, (time flies), but I recall that getting into and changing someone's voter history was a trivially difficult thing. "Creating" an election day, regular or special, was a relentlessly difficult process. But once that was done, getting in and changing a voter's history was a snap. The system had a major snafu that would make it necessary to frequently reverse a voter's having voted.
[The version we used] would increment a voter's history upon APPLICATION for an absentee ballot. If that ballot was never returned, it was necessary to go back in and "de-vote" a voter's history for that year. It was not a single voter edit, it was a batch process. If one had nefarious motives, that batch process could be abused ... we intuitively knew how dangerous it potentially was.
"B"
A batch process to delete a set of voter histories. Wow. That is dangerous.
But it also doesn't explain how a set of voter histories from ALL elections, going back 10 years, could go missing.
Thanks, great information. |
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 325
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 - 8:56 am: |
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Also received by email:
Bev, I have 12 years work experience with MS Access. It is a widely / commonly used data manipulation program that handles data for any coded program written specifically to work with it. The beauty of such a combination is that it allows one to switch out the data files like a piece of cake. The data file would be created by the voters but could easily be switched out by another data file created specifically for a certain purpose at the IT Admin's discretion.
Whomever has access to the directories (through a network this can be done without the necessary network -access codes if not setup propery). The fact that the counties are widely using MS Access to read and write the incoming data is a crying shame.
There are many programming proprietors out there who could CUSTOMIZE a code in another language not utilizing such a commonly known and held data manipulation program as MS Access.
WOW. For that matter, the government could propose build of a custom data manipulation program for such an important purpose. A program written to handle MS Access as the data handler is just too easily tapped broken into with the right passwords to grant initial access.
Amazing.
There are even programming languages out there that take a "gold key" to be installed on the running machine before the program can even be aunched. This could be something as simple as a securely-held activation code or diskette (coded with security-access codes) inserted at the right time to enable the program to RUN. Without
this you cannot even run the program.
There is a company called Gerber Scientific Pro that has software you can't run unless you have an old (printer) parallel port installed on the back of the computer and their $15000 "terminator" plugged into that port. Without this, the software does not even run.
Such software is usually so uncommon that it would not be so commonly used and known due to the prohibitive nature of it all.
The bottom line is this is a SHAME!
-- S.S.S. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11652
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 - 9:17 am: |
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Thank you for your insightful comments, everyone. And in view of these, it is interesting that in their deposition testimony, they admit that everyone has access to the software in the elections office, even the temps, and that it is also accessible remotely by staff members when they are at home. |
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 327
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 - 9:52 am: |
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Love the private emails from those who have been in contact with the Accenture voter registration / voter history program: This just in...
[Voter histories are updated] a la carte, election by election, but keep in mind, many poor voters tend to vote solely in national elections, or even solely in Presidential ones. Screwing with only one or two elections can turn a casual frequency voter into an NVRA inactive one quicker than crap through a goose. -- "B" |
rainbowsally
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rainbowsally
Post Number: 3
Registered: 6-2012
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 - 5:30 pm: |
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Dear Accenture:
My vote. Your software.
What IS your prob? |
Tom Courbat
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 126
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 - 10:16 pm: |
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Bev,
Way to go. Those bastards have a lot of balls charging $20 million (taxpayer bucks) for such crap. And then to discover it is consistently leaning Republican by duplicating votes of that persuasion makes it all the more sickening. I'm sure glad the Election Integrity movement has you to look up to. Keep up the great work!! |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11656
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - 2:27 pm: |
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As pointed out in my emails, there is a lot of confusion about the Accenture software. It is voter registration - not vote tabulation software.
It contains voter history, but not vote results per se.
By the way, it was my error that I did not catch a typo or some sort of an artifact that caused a broken link in my emails about this.  |
Kurt Bellman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 95
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - 12:47 pm: |
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"due to the current US crackdown on tax dodging corporations, Accenture has now relocated to Dublin, Ireland."
Well, at least the after work watering holes are better. Mmmm, Irish Whiskey.
I used to use an Accenture registration variant. All output files, including the "best one", IMHO, the so-called "Full Voter Export", the one that has TWO columns for each election's voter history (one a binary yes/no, the other a code for ballot type used - in-precinct, absentee, counted provisional, accessibilty alternative, etc.) are all clear text Access files without any pretense of security. The actual database itself? Dunno, but I've heard it's not much different. The system I used was strictly thin-client, so I had no access to .exe files, or ANY core system files, whatsoever. The system sent keystrokes to the Capitol, and screen draws back to the counties, period. All processing, and the SAN, were centralized statewide.
I have many copies of Full Voter Exports over the years. They only cost 20 bucks. But they "prove" nothing. I can edit the bejesus out of any record in a second or two. No "export file" is reliable for ANY PURPOSE whatever. Too easy to screw with. Only the primary database must EVER EVER be used to process a purge list, and EVEN THEN only if it is "locked down" and all database accesses are identified by user account with a date and time stamp. Even then, spoofing is a danger.
If all that has been examined is a data export, no one should expect it to match the database. In a busy election office, any export is obsolete about 3 seconds after it goes to the CD burner. Pro politicos know this and scale their expectations accordingly. I've seen guys edit exports to "prove" to some poor schmuck something that wasn't true, but usually, one can ask, "What's the point?"
No one should ever let ANY data export to get within a 1000 miles of a purge process, or ANY "mission critical" process of ANY KIND. It's inherently unreliable, even with GOOD intentions. Purging must NEVER NEVER NEVER be part of a "challenge" or political adversarial process of any kind. It is a strictly legalistic process under the Sections 900, et al, (mostly 903) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Partisans should never be allowed near purging.
IOW, if a purge is being done in accordance with the NVRA, there is no discretion or argument or advocacy that can be brought to bear on it. THere is no way to "rescue" a record that the law says should be purged, and there is no way to purge a record that is not ripe for purging. That's why I've never understood the value of "caging lists". In my state, a partisan can challenge voters based on residence until his buns fall off. It won't affect a purge process in the least! They simply are not connected things. You can't "challenge" a voter into Inactive status. It's a 100% ministerial process.
At least until Mike Turzai (House Majority Leader) gets done with it. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11662
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - 1:55 pm: |
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Great post, Kurt. So let me mention this now: The last and most deadly part of the purge process is when they mail out those nonforwardable notices, which result in automatic purge when returned to the election office as "nixies" from the Post Office.
So guess how those things are mailed out? By a private mailing company. What address list is used? Well, it comes from an exported list, of course.
Who gets the mailer? Well, anyone on the exported list.
What needs to be done is this: A public notice, printed in the newspaper, containing all names of everyone purged, needs to be required. Then, voting rights advocates can grab those lists and get to work to restore voting rights for anyone who is actually still eligible to vote.
Do not assume that the addresses the private mailing firm sends the purge notices to is valid. I have reports that these addresses are sometimes truncated and undeliverable not because the voter doesn't have a valid address, but because it was misaddressed by the mailing firm or truncated by whoever exported the file.
I know that Shelby County purged 36,000 people in April, but I can't get my hands on that list. Obtaining the "cancel" lists is perhaps the single most effective thing a voting rights organization can do at this point in time, because wrongfully cancelled voters can still be restored. |
Ron Rules
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ronrules
Post Number: 2
Registered: 3-2012
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - 11:18 pm: |
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Kurt, can you please expand on this:
" You can't "challenge" a voter into Inactive status. It's a 100% ministerial process.
At least until Mike Turzai (House Majority Leader) gets done with it."
I'm not sure what you mean by "until Mike Turzai gets done with it."
I may have relevant information, but I just would like to understand what you meant. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11663
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 7:09 am: |
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Hey Ron,
Welcome to Black Box Voting. We require real first and last names here at Black Box Voting. Please take a moment to edit your profile (link in left column lets you do that) before posting again.
Best,
Bev Harris |
Kurt Bellman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 96
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 10:25 am: |
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Bev,
While I want to respond to Ron's query, and will, I wanted to point out a small disagreement with your post. What you described is, to me, the SECOND last step. The actual purge itself, after not voting in two federal elections while on Inactive status throughout that time, is done WITHOUT ANY NOTICE WHATSOEVER, forwardable or otherwise!
I am unaware of any legal process other than a death notice that results in an immediate purge. The "non-death" process ALWAYS results in at least a two years plus a few months "interim" Inactive status, if federal law is being obeyed, as far as I am aware. Non-forwardable mailings can legally result in two outcomes - being made Inactive, or having the voter's address changed to one that the driver's license bureau reported. I know of no fast track to purging other than death, keeping in mind my state doesn't purge felons. |
Francois Choquette
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ronrules
Post Number: 3
Registered: 3-2012
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 10:46 am: |
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Name updated.
Kurt my specific question is if Mike Turzai is at all involved with the voting equipment in PA. I am specifically concerned with his wife Lidia Turzai success in winning the 12th district delegate slot. I'd like to know anything surrounding the voting machine subject in relation to these two. Thanks. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11664
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 12:05 pm: |
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Francois, I'm so glad you signed in with real name. You have done some very diligent work on election integrity issues, and we welcome your input here.
Kurt, if you just change the database to read inactive and erase the voter history, it doesn't take two years, it takes two minutes.  |
Francois Choquette
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ronrules
Post Number: 4
Registered: 3-2012
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 12:29 pm: |
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Bev, I have HUGE stuff for you. We spoke on the phone once several months ago. I now have better evidence and a much larger database. Some 500+ counties were analyzed.
You mentioned the list of states that that use Accenture's software. Do you happen to have a specific list of counties? I may have already analyzed several of them and would like to correlate my cumulative vote tally charts to that list of counties.
To the people currently looking at Accenture's source code: Please see if you find evidence that voter registrations were removed as a function of precinct size. In other words, was the percentage of registration removal greater, the larger the precinct size? If you can prove that, you have found something HUGE.
Thanks. |
Kurt Bellman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 97
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 1:29 pm: |
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Bev,
Of course what you say is True IF you take the purge process outside its intended internal process in the system itself and make it into an external process that is as corruptable as a sleep-over at Jerry Sandusky's house. (Too soon?)
The correct criteria for a purge in Accenture's INTERNAL process is as follows:
1) Is voter in status INACTIVE? If no, stop. If yes, continue.
2) Is the DATE_OF_LAST_CHANGE field a date earlier than the date of the second most recent November election for federal office? If no, stop. If yes, purge.
Notice what's NOT in there? No reference to voting history. Why? Because a lack of voting history is only supposed to START the path to becoming inactive and eventually purged, not end it. Any change to a voter's record, even an address change or adding a previously blank field, is supposed to CANCEL the purging path. Any confirmation that the voter is out there at any address is supposed to cancel Inactive status and trigger merely a change of address at most.
We once had this same conversation re: Kentucky and Shouptronic 1242's. Same applies to Shelby Co. and Accenture's registration software. Any time a jurisdiction won't use a software package as it was designed and decides to use it a la carte, with its own exceptions, it’s time to call a prosecutor. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11665
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 5:01 pm: |
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Kurt, thanks. Obviously, if the change is death or move, the voter is cancelled. An article today in the Memphis Flyer indicated that it is a gray area whether voting in a non-federal election but not a federal election can still get you purged. This is not a gray area: Any time you vote in ANY election, your record is updated, or changed, and you are reactivated.
Kurt, according to the Memphis Flyer article, Tennessee has a law now that any voter deemed inactive is not included in the list of registered voters. So, whereas before Shelby County had 600,000 registered voters, now they have only some 400,000. They are no longer including inactives as being on the registered voter list.
I am wondering how many problems this is going to cause. Previously, and certainly this HAS to continue, both inactives and actives are listed on the "who can vote" list because both can vote! |
Joseph Kiniry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kiniry
Post Number: 10
Registered: 3-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 4:50 am: |
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Francois,
With regards to your suggestion v-v analysis of Accenture's system, we'll keep your query in mind when I get some folks on it.
Best,
Joe Kiniry
http://www.itu.dk/~josr/ |
Kurt Bellman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 98
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 7:16 am: |
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"Zackly", Bev! All "inactive" voters retain ALL rights of voters. They may vote. They may sign nominating petitions. The only difference is that if they show up to vote in person, they must sign an affirmation of their address before they may vote. It is even possible to vote in every election and be "inactive". All "inactive" means is there is a postal delivery problem at the voter's address. In that sense, I always advise candidates doing mailings to not mail to inactives because there's a 95%+ likelihood of a bounce back. But those voters remain fully legal voters. |
Kurt Bellman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 99
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 9:49 am: |
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Now, for Francois ---
Full disclosure: I used to be an "Arlen Specter Republican". I'm now proud to be an Arlen Specter Democrat. I left the GOP for the same reason the former Senator did - secular civil libertarian Keynesian economists need not apply. One is only welcome if one proclaims the King James Bible one's "constitution", one desires a "papers please" police state, and one believes the Federal Reserve is the locus of all evil, and one proclaims fielty to wacko Austrian school economics. I won't do it.
But I'm also nobody's "progressive". I am a "radical moderate" with a smartass streak.
No, Francois, no Turzai has anything to do with elections per se, but Mike Turzai did ramrod through our legislature the Photo ID bill, and then bragged on camera at a state committee meeting that its purpose was to allow Romney to win Pennsylvania.
Now I'm not a safe vote for either presidential candidate. Fact is, I don’t care much for either of them. But reversing the burden of proof to vote from a challenger to the voter just offends every thing I've ever stood for. I've been (falsely) accused of voter suppression in 2004 for insisting the letter of the election code be obeyed.
Now Mike Turzai has the b*lls to make REAL voter suppression the law!?! I never expected to live to see this. No level of evil is beyond Mike Turzai, IMHO. He's repugnant. |
Francois Choquette
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ronrules
Post Number: 5
Registered: 3-2012
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 10:15 am: |
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Hi Kurt, thank you for your explanation and for full disclosure, I consider myself a moderate Libertarian.
Here's why I perked up when you mentioned the name Turzai. See post #586 here:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?369316-The-case-for-the-occurence-of-algorithmic-vote-flipping/page59
Note Lidia Turzai's votes in column 8 of the table and the corresponding cumulative vote chart. Look at what seems like "ballot stuffing" in some specific precincts like Allepo, Bradford Woods and several others.
Also note how the trace of Ms. Turzai's Cumulative Vote Tally on the chart(pink line, which should be roughly horizontal) clearly outpaces Dave Majernic. She should have had around 13% of the vote but ended up with about 17%.
Lidia Turzai is a Romney delegate and Romney has made great use of this technique to outpace his competitors in the 2012 primaries.
I was hoping that the Accenture software had something to do with this. If you have downloaded the software and have the technical skill, please check to see if precinct size is used as an input variable to select and or purge voter registrations. It should not. |
Kurt Bellman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 100
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, June 30, 2012 - 3:58 am: |
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Francois,
I don't know the intimate details of Turzai's legislative district, but I do know that the Congressional districts in his area are ridiculous, and that's what delegate candidates run in. It would not surprise me if the Turzai name were a net advantage in parts of that CD and a complete turnoff in others. His LD is custom made for him. His CD not so much.
Also, non-Pennsylvanians reading this need to know that all Republican delegate candidates run only under their own name, with no indication at all which presidential candidate they prefer, and the president race at the top of the ballot is utterly meaningless. There are no proportional delegate allocation rules whatsoever. A high name ID candidate will nearly always win a delegate race in the PA GOP primary. |
Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 101
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, July 2, 2012 - 12:09 pm: |
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I have to be brutally honest with you, Francois. As unimpressed as I am with Obama and Romney, for me, Ron Paul never gets out of gate as worthy of even a second thought. I think even less of those who regularly post on his forums (fora?) The ability to imagine sinister things from normal data astounds me. Tell me, given that all delegates in PA (GOP side only) run both officially and unofficially uncommitted, what on earth even IS a "Romney delegate" or a "Paul delegate"? Unlike on the Dem side, no Presidential candidate's name is EVER associated with ANY delegate candidate in any way whatsoever.
So how on earth does Ron Paul's forum even discuss concepts like "Romney delegate" with a straight face?!?!? There ain't no such animal! Then they somehow wax poetic over it for over several dozen pages?!?!?! Come on! Any PA GOP delegate is free to vote for anyone they want, no matter what. Even voting for a delegate that Ron Paul personally kissed on both cheeks is no guarantee of that delegate's vote, even on the first ballot. They can all vote Romney, even if they promised Ron personally, and Ron got 99.99% of the popular vote in PA. That's how screwed the PA GOP system is. I ran in 1988 in the PA GOP primary as a delegate candidate in the 6th C.D. What can I say? I liked 1988 vintage Chateau Bob Dole. By 1996, it had turned to vinegar. |
Francois Choquette
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ronrules
Post Number: 8
Registered: 3-2012
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, July 2, 2012 - 12:37 pm: |
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"Any PA GOP delegate is free to vote for anyone they want, no matter what."
Maybe in PA but have a look at the huge battle about forced delegate loyalty to Romney in most states.
MA is the most extreme example: "Massachusetts delegates to the RNC in Tampa have received a letter and affidavit that they are being asked to sign and return, affirming that, under the pain and penalty of perjury, they will vote for Mitt Romney in the first round of voting."
Mass. Corruption as GOP Strip Delegates of Their Credentials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rzyGtc61Ph8
BTW, there's a lawsuit filed in Federal courts that addresses the specific subject of delegate disenfranchisement, nationwide:
http://www.examiner.com/article/lawyers-for-ron-paul-files-civil-rights-lawsuit
BTW, "Lawyers for Ron Paul" are not associated with the Ron Paul campaign. This will also help Santorum and Gingrich delegates that have been forced to sign affidavits.
I think we're derailing the thread a bit too much. I just wanted to see if the Accenture software included any code that would affect voter registration as a function of precinct size and benefiting specific candidates like Romney. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11671
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, July 2, 2012 - 5:31 pm: |
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 FYI - and this is completely off topic, like some of the above comments -- but anyway, I have been reviewing videotapes of the various county and state conventions and committee meetings. Whether one agrees with Ron Paul's positions or not, I think we probably all agree that votes for Ron Paul should be credited to Ron Paul, that rules should be followed, etc.
The amount of rule-breaking, and basic paranoia over even having an even playing field at all by the established party elites is pretty shocking.
And the response of many of the Ron Paul delegates is superb. They are reliably capturing violations of the rules on videotape, and in one location, where rules were violated repeatedly people were told they would be arrested if they videotaped it, you could see cell phones being whipped out all over the place to video. I mean, woo-hoo, and finally!
The conventions are really very interesting, and I will be archiving some of that video on this site.
But tell you what ... let's save the discussions of Ron Paul and Romney and so forth for those threads. They are coming soon. |
Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 102
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, July 2, 2012 - 5:42 pm: |
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Amen Bev, but before we get all fired up about the rules, sometimes it IS the rules where it gets weird in the first place. I guess 1988 served me to not expect much fairness in presidential nomination rules. It is a completely "wired" system wherein the "establishment" is always guaranteed their way. I don't expect "democracy" to prevail. |
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