(US) 1/06 - Totals for every machine,...

Author Message   Lora Cove Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Lora Post Number: 54 Registered: 01-2005 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Monday, January 23, 2006 - 7:25 am:        I don't recall seeing this discussed before, though maybe it has. It just seems like good coomon sense accounting procedure to require totals from avery voting machine, regardless of type, and every voting precinct in a county, and every county in a state. As far as I'm aware, this isn't generally done. Am I wrong on this as to A) whether or not it's done, and B) whether or not it should be done? Thanks for your input. (In keeping with the "Forums" heading, I'll sign my real name, though I don't think it's any big deal) Lorna Chin, a.k.a. Lora   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 3340 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Monday, January 23, 2006 - 8:24 am:        The precinct votes do produce a "poll tape" -- a results tape from every precinct. Getting a copy of the precinct poll tapes before they get to headquarters is indeed a good accounting procedure. However, there is no real procedure to get those precinct totals available to citizens. It can cost thousands of dollars to get the copies in public records requests, and you generally won't get them until AFTER the election is certified and the contest period has expired. The importance of the Hursti Hack (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf) is that he showed how to create false results on the poll tape -- both the zero report and the end of day results report. In the second demonstration, on Dec. 13, he also developed a way to feed the false results into the central tabulator, so that all reports would be incorrect, with no telltale signs. This is something that a disgruntled elections employee could easily do, and he could control results in an entire county this way without even having his boss, the supervisor of elections, elections registrar or county auditor, ever be able to find out. Of course, many elections officials are elected on their own machines, and could guarantee their own succession this way. This kind of design violates FEC guidelines, yet it was approved anyway for Diebold.   Lora Cove Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Lora Post Number: 55 Registered: 01-2005 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - 2:48 pm:        I understand that the machines can be readily hacked and false results generated without leaving a trace, but insisting on viewing machine and precinct totals could still be important even if some of the totals are corrupted. Close examination of those totals could point to the possibility of fraud, when compared with other precinct results, exit polls and the like. (Polling, while not hard evidence, is still well accepted as valid, sometimes pointing to fraud in foreign elections. Interesting that the only recent polls which are considered invalid are the 2004 national exit poll and the 2005 pre-election poll in Ohio.) I can't think of a logical reason to withhold machine and precinct totals from the public, unless there's something fishy going on. Lorna Chin

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