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Mike Myhre
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_myhre
Post Number: 9
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 10:06 am: | 
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The government is not giving us the tools to make a fair election. I believe that 2006 election fraud has already started. We are comming up on almost 10 years of 'hoping' that the government will fix the election security leaks. When you look at the map on VerifiedVoting.org you can see which states are not green and how they match up with other corruption scandals. These senators and representatives are the ones that are prohibiting investigations, and reports that would expose the corruption even further.
Since these corrupt polititions will not fix the voting security problem, we need to come up with a way to verify the voting ourselves. Currently, we are forced to use the county's method of certifying our ballots (use their voting machines and cross your fingers). There are other ways to certify legal documents such as notary publics. Getting your image recorded on a public camera may be another option. This needs to be a method that will stand up in a court of law. If we can come up with a way of certifying our votes (even if the voter needs to decide to make their ballot public), then we can do our own counts with multiple groups. This would not solve all problems, but would close many channels for fraud.
Any ideas? |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 429
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 10:37 am: |
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Check out tech central, I believe that you've read my idea. To protect privacy it evolved that you need to use a seed to protect the hash from prying eyes, but this is easily doable. To really avoid hacking of legitimate ballots, the voter must be capable of correcting the recording of his vote. |
Mike Myhre
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_myhre
Post Number: 10
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 10:48 am: |
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Brant,
Yes, I did read your proposal and agree with many of the points. The problem is that we need an auditing method that is independant of the elections system, but still recognized by the courts. As it is now, we have now way to prove there was an error.
I think that the elections department (today) would probably toss out any ballot that had an inked a finger print on it. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 431
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - 12:52 pm: |
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Put the inked fingerprint only on your copy, not theirs. Get both signed by an elections official. |
Mark Bennett
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthiness
Post Number: 2
Registered: 03-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 5:48 am: |
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Mike -- Can you deliver an audit system for a computer voting system? I'm sure somebody can. Hand counting is costly and quite old fashioned. Saving precincts money might be enough to be considered. I do like the idea of the voter performing the audit and having the ability to do so before and after the vote is applied to the database. This would assure that third party watchdogs (perhaps partisan, senate and house appointed, civil rights orgs, and even international) could monitor the database at key times assuring no changes. All the while we the people audit our one vote. Yes on E-voting machines fraud existed in 2000 and 2004 and yes, Washington is beyond Orwellian. It wont be 1984 forever though. I believe the best audit system maximizes data transparacy while protecting indivdual secrecy. This would bring accountability soley on the shoulders of the manufacturers and programmers of E-voting machines. Let them have their intellectual property.
Brant -- Can we perhaps take some of the better points of my idea and apply parts of your idea. Biometrics is a great verification tool and fingerprint optical scanners can be mass manufactured for abour $7 a piece in out "world (••••••• joke} economy". Thats the cost of paying a pollster for 1 hour. Since we no longer have a 4th, 6th, 7th or 8th amendment, big brother will find out who you voted for if they want to any way. But the unique ID on a vote record is an outstanding idea if secrecy can be assured and the public feels good about it. Trying to explain it to the typical braindead joe american would be a challange especially with the rapid increase in fear of our government taking place today. I do think that I would have no problem giving a thumbprint at checkin, before entering the voting room.
If we can start a thread where we combine ideas heavily agreed upon in a listed form as the one I posted, discuss strong and weak points, edit and repost it to a new thread, I am POSITIVE we the people of the Black Box Voting forum can write a law that goes to congress. Only 90% of those bastards are traiterous profiteers! |
Robert Sawdey
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rsawdey
Post Number: 114
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, March 9, 2006 - 2:14 pm: |
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Any audit system needs to depend on physical ballots... otherwise it's invisible functioning is susceptible to insider manipulation like the Diebold 'Zero Reports'.
Hand counting doesn't have to be long or expensive... many countries use it exclusively. When ballots are tallied at the polling places there is lots of parallelism & only a few hundred are counted in each place. This also lets lots of public eyes oversee the process & avoids having to trust the whole chain of custody when ballots are transported to a central counting place.
I think using standardized ballots which have a serial number that is traceable to the published range & number of ballots at your precinct would be as good as having a pollworker sign it - the signing would endanger it's secrecy as well.
As for a verifiable copy to help tabulation fraud, why not just have a multipart form like commercial contracts at car rentals & repair shops. It would make two sided ballots impossible, but it's straight forward & cheap & hard to manipulate.
The election law has really been a joke... we now have HAVA which purports to aid the handicapped & improve accuracy, while it's actually being used to force adoption of systems practicing Computer Aided Election Fraud (CAEF). There are some good bills in both the House & Senate, but they are gathering dust as those in power are in control of the process of having them heard.
Bad election systems are only part of the problem... so is voter disenfranchisement & gerrymandering... the overall problem is that there is an inherant conflict of interest when the controllers of the whole election process stand to benefit so much from it's outcome. I don't know where we can find truly objective unbiased administrators, but that's what's needed... and I think literal public oversight is part of the answer. Most people will behave honestly when in the public spotlight, so the entire process must be made transparent, while the public should be roused to defend the integrity of their votes by observing. (A good HS Civics class project, a MUST for PoliSci college students).
Rather than creating new laws, I think this whole issue rises to the level of an amendment to the Constitution. This is as serious as it gets, but I think the people will be sufficiently aroused when the details of the frauds in Florida & Ohio fully come out. The whole electorate needs to make this a 'litmus test' for ALL politicians, if they won't support the 'Election integrity amendment' they're outta here!
My own wishlist... elimination of the electoral college, 1 citizen 1 vote & ALL citizens vote. Audited serial numbered paper ballots required, precinct counted in public view. Public presentation of all ballot faces upon emptying the randomized ballot box would also be a good idea. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 450
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 - 5:54 am: |
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I believe that the only thing that will even start to hinder the flipping legitimate votes is if the voter can check and correct the recording of his specific ballot. This must happen as the vote is cast or it is possible to render the voter an altered piece of evidence, with the voter then having no recourse.
You need publicly funded elections.
You need judges to be non-partisan.
Election districts should be decided by non-partisan, retired judges.
You need strong, free, comprehensive and checked voter ID.
You need federal law to mandate voter equipment allocation. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 451
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 - 5:55 am: |
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You also need federal law to mandate what's necessary and allowable for voter ID. |
mike sinder
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Sinder
Post Number: 1
Registered: 03-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 9:51 am: |
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An electronic voting machine which printed a hard copy to be verified by a voter who then deposited it in a ballot box would seem to offer the best of both worlds in terms of integrity of the results. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1901
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 9:58 am: |
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Hi Mike, and welcome.
That's what I thought, too.
More and more I've begun to be concerned because there are so many impediments to actually counting the paper ballots even where they exist. In the best of circumstances, only a small percentage is counted. In the worst of circumstances, it's illegal to count the paper ballots.
The temptation would be to make it harder & harder to count the paper ballots, or to rig the recounts so they match the electronic count, and then to convince the voters to do away with the paper altogether.
Also, the electronic tally has already been abused to try to get a candidate to concede prematurely (Gore 2000), and this is a dangerous tactic in itself.
So why bother with the electronic component at all, since it doesn't make anything faster or more reliable?
That's my current thinking, anyways. I could be persuaded to consider a ballot marking device that doesn't count, though. This could be helpful in IRV or PR-STV voting methods where different people form their arabic numerals differently. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 455
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 11:23 am: |
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Unfortunately, all the proof is being put in the hands of someone other than the voter. This is a classic vulnerability. |
Jim Eldon
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Vegsledman
Post Number: 15
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 11:53 am: |
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Well, if the unit of political will were individual voices rather than corporate dollars, we probably could have a national standard for the use of paper ballots, counted publicly at the precinct level, and do away with the machines entirely.
I must reiterate, though, that even if every ballot cast were valid and counted correctly, the electoral system would still be rigged. With electoral districts gerrymandered by colluding Democrats and Republicans behind closed doors, ”over 90% of Americans live in congressional districts that are essentially one-party monopolies”. (From FairVote’s “Dubious Democracy” http://www.fairvote.org/dubdem/overview.htm)
So even a Help America Vote With Publicly Counted Paper Ballots Act wouldn't give us the democracy we want. We need a more comprehensive vision of the institutions we need to provide true democracy. I urge everyone to think more broadly on the issues. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 458
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 12:29 pm: |
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I have no doubt at all that what you say is true. You need to have districts' boundaries decided by non-partisans. They should have to be reasonably representative (in ratio) of the percentage of people who live there. I think that election districts should be decided by non-partisan judges, and I don't think judges should run inside a party, ever. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1905
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 1:52 pm: |
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Brant & Jim, I really agree.
* District boundaries
* Campaign finance reform
* Revisiting the number of voters per representative
* Media reform
These are just a few of the other essentials in addition to fair elections that will have to be addressed before we can start to achieve a representative democracy. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 460
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 6:31 am: |
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Maybe the only boundary that should count is the state; if 12% of your voters statewide repesents a population that should have 1 federal House of Reps congressman/woman, shouldn't they get one? If their votes are counted separately in every district, they don't get any. Districts themselves represent a winner take all approach at a certain level. What level do we want to work to?
Certainly the 'regionalisation' of the representation engenders a lot of pork at the federal level, I wonder if it does that at the state level, too? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1908
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 6:39 am: |
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Also, I'd add to my list of essentials:
* Preferendum/Modified DeBorda/PR-STV/IRV/Condorcet voting method which allow for ranking of multiple choices (for candidates as well as for issues)
* Reform of 2-party system |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 461
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 6:47 am: |
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Maybe the only boundary that should count is the state; if 12% of your voters statewide repesents a population that should have 1 federal House of Reps congressman/woman, shouldn't they get one? If their votes are counted separately in every district, they don't get any. Districts themselves represent a winner take all approach at a certain level. What level do we want to work to?
Certainly the 'regionalisation' of the representation engenders a lot of pork at the federal level, I wonder if it does that at the state level, too? |
