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| (US) 11/06 - National: Hacking Democr... |
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Randal Fuller
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rfuller
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 12:21 am: | 
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While I certainly agree that the potential for corruption (such as the numerous discussions about faulty voting machines) can allow corruption to exist, is there any proof that such corruption actually occurred?
I've done a little bit of computer security work in my time. Independent of all other evidence about the vulnerabilites of Diebold systems, the fact remains, they left the core of their software product on a public FTP site. That is an unspeakable crime in and of itself.
However, some of the voting abnormalities presented in the Hacking Democracy film looked more like stupidity than corruption. If voting irregularities are caused exclusively by operator error, then statistically, both parties should be equally hurt/benefited.
In order to prove actual election rigging with electronic voting machines, I would think that you would need to show a significant discord between exit polls and reported totals. The discussions in the Hacking Democracy film highlighted the potential for election rigging to occur, but I didn't see a grand conspiracy here.
Additionally, towards the end of the Hacking Democracy video, there was a discussion about how the Smart Cards could be rigged by preloading information into the card. However, in order to utilize that as an election rigging mechanisim, you would have to be careful with the pre-shipping of cards.
For example, if you see a 95% Democratic vote in Oklahoma, or a 95% Republican vote in San Francisco, then one would know something is wrong automatically. Utilizing pre-altered cards as a vote rigging mechanisim necessitates sending out such cards in advance and to the right places. Is there any evidence that such a conspiracy exists?
Black Box Voting is making the accusations of election rigging. Therefore, the burdeon of proof falls to them. Although I am absolutely convinced that any Diebold contracts should be dropped at the first available opportunity, I am not convinced that there is sufficient evidence to prove that anyone has done anything malicious.
(A brief moment of technobabble)
Going back to the segment on the Smart Cards, I have several questions. When you look at the way computers store numbers, its all in binary. Integer values are either signed or unsigned. An unsigned integer is a number like 0, 1, 2, 32767... etc. A signed integer is a number like -1024, -5, 0, 512, or 2048. The difference in how the number is actually stored, is that the signed case allocated the left most bit for indicating rather the number is positive or negative. Why was this done? It doesn't make any sense to have a negative number of votes, so at design time (if I were designing such a piece of software), I would have designed the number of votes for a given candidate to be an unsigned integer. (at least they used an integer for the number of votes vice a float (decimal)... The Civil war is over... the South lost).
So, a SIGNED integer can go from -32768 to 32767, but an UNSIGNED can go from 0 to 65536. (all even powers of two, an artifact of the binary conversion). Using an UNSIGNED integer allows twice as many votes to be stored. Using a SIGNED integer looks deliberate (yet far from conclusive).
Now, if I take the binary signed number 01111111, this is equivalent to 32767. If I add one to this number, you would think I would get 32768... but if you add 1 in binary you get 10000000. If you look at 1000000 as an UNSIGNED integer, then you're right... its 32768. If you look at it from the perspective of an unsigned itneger, you get -32768... essentially, it rolls over. So... is there an alternative explanation to where the negative numbers came from? Ie cards used from a previous election?
(resuming non-technical discussion)
Do these cards have a zeroization/initialization function? Are these voting cards reused between elections? How are they wiped clean so they can be reused? Do the local election commissions have a proceedure for doing this prior to commencing elections? Is there any kind of chain of custody documenting the handling of these forms? Are there detectable anomolies with voting cards handled by certain people?
(For Example, Jane Smith handles voting cards. So does Jane Doe. 40% of the voting cards that Jane Smith distributed had voting irregularities such as negative votes, but 0% of Jane Doe's had any problems).
If such a chain of custody form for handling voting cards exists... then I would hope that an FOIA request ought to be able to get it.
Final thoughts:
Grand secret conspiracies involving thousands of people don't stay secret for long. People talk. If the conspiracy to control the elections were as widespread as is being suggested, then at least one election official would have come clean and attempted to reveal to the world the size of the conspiracy... if not out of a crisis of conscience, then a desire for notariety. I am not aware of any such event taking place.
None of the government officials presented in Hacking Democracy struck me as being smart enough to pull of a conspiracy to rig an election for the office of the President of the United States. These people seem more like your local DMV employees, and less like the smoking man from the X-files. Although I don't pretend to think that we should stick our heads in the sand (given the potential to rig the election, somebody eventually will), but the emphasis should be placed on forging a road ahead towards a more secure voting system, vice digging up old elections. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 3435
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 4:59 am: |
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Hi Randal and welcome to BBV.
I'm not a technical expert so I won't attempt to address your specific questions about the signed/unsigned integers on the cards.
I'd like to address the main points you raise.
--I've never seen BBV or Bev Harris claim that election fraud using electronic voting machines has been proven. BBV has uncovered evidence that election fraud appears to have occurred and should be investigated, and has turned over hard evidence to the relevant law authorities. When they don't investigate there's nothing BBV can do to force them--but it lends weight to the fraud theory rather than dispels it.
--You ask about elections with strong surprising results. Yes, examples do exist for shocking election results using electronic voting machines, results that defied all previous poll results. You really should read Chapter 2 of Bev's book. Here are just a few examples off the top of my hand--when Hegel was first elected in Nebraska (1998), when Cleland failed to be re-elected in Georgia (2002), and when the Ohio propositions results came in (2005). Then there are other eyebrow-raisers, like the Texas county elections where 3 candidates won, each with exactly 18,181 votes (2002). There are cases in which candidates went to bed with more than enough votes to win, and when they woke up the next morning their vote count had gone down from the night before, with no explanation ever given.
That said, it is a mistake to assume that election fraud using voting machines would require blatant and surprising results. Many elections are decided by small margins. Tampering with the counting of an election using a software program makes it all too easy to redistribute a small number of votes that could throw an election yet remain with a poll's margin of error or fail to arouse suspicion by any other means.
It is a fact that attempts to investigate have been consistently obstructed by legal delaying tactics, deliberate destruction of evidence, and refusal to examine hard evidence that has been acquired (e.g. the 2004 AZ primary race where paper ballots exist but local judges are trying to prevent the final examination which could prove or disprove fraud). Given these circumstances and the consistent unwillingness to allow proper investigation to occur, the probability of election fraud looks mighty close to 1.
--Framing this as a "conspiracy" is a typical disinformation tactic. Let me take your question at face value in case it was brought up through genuine lack of awarenes.
BBV has consistently pointed out that election manipulation does not require any kind of large group of conspirators to rig an election. In fact, this is one reason why using electronic voting machines is so dangerous. It has already been shown that just one person can tamper with one memory card. They could implant code onto one machine that could also be spread to other machines (such as the counting computer that tallies all the votes). (Or, one person could just interfere with the counting computer. And there are audit logs in some cases that indicate such things have occurred.) No grand conspiracy involving thousands of cards or thousands of local players is necessary. BBV has always pointed to election manipulation being a /i{local phenomenon}, with tactics depending on the skills, opportunity and power structure of a local area. A perpetrator need not be an election official, candidate or someone in the documentary you didn't believe would be smart enough. You could pay off one person in a shipping company, or use social engineering to create a situation in which an outsider might gain temporary access to a single machine for a few minutes. No conspiracy is claimed or is required.
--You also asked about security of the memory cards, even asking about chain of custody. In most election offices the concept of chain of custody is something that is poorly understood, if at all. To say that procedures and controls are lax would be an understatement. There are many reports here on this website of weak security. For example, one person reported that memory cards were left lying around unsupervised during training sessions, and afterwards the supervisor couldn't even remember how many memory cards they had started out with.
--Computer security experts who have examined various election systems and/or their application software in any detail have been horrified. Some have commented that the security was so bad that it had to be deliberate. For example, some of the vulnerabilities were carefully preserved through numerous code revisions, which actually could only have happened by doing this deliberately. Furthermore, there is written record of vendors lying in order to keep key parts of code from being examined at all. It is impossible to examine the facts and come away thinking this was accidental or due primarily to incompetence.
--Furthermore it is a fact that key software developers involved in these companies were conviceted felons, one of whom had specifically used his computer programming skills for fraud by creating a double set of books. By "coincidence" a double set of books shows up in the vote-counting software right after they were hired.
So--this doesn't "prove" anything that could lead to the trial of specific people (the lack of investigation by legal authorities puts proof out of reach), but it means that the probability is that election fraud using electronic voting machines has occurred.
If you do more reading at this website (try out the Advanced Search facility on the top left hand side) you will discover ample factual verification, including scans of original documents unearthed by Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris in BBV investigations, sworn affidavits obtained by Jim March, and evidence accumulated via hundreds or thousands of Public Record Requests.
You're right that we need to look forward. But we can't make wise decisions about what safeguards or solutions are necessary unless we thoroughly understand the root causes of the problems. Otherwise we'd end up with worse-than-bandaids such as legislation that covered up the causes but made the general public think they were safe.
For example, think of the recent FL legislation making it illegal to recount or otherwise examine paper ballots that had been counted by machine! Or proposed federal legislation that would put the foxes in charge of the election henhouse, a "solution" strategy which has already been shown to be part of the problem. Or proposed federal legislation that would put in a requirement for paper, but with an inadequate audit mechanism. These "solutions" are like putting a thin paper muzzle on a hungry dog that's been trained to attack--it looks safe, but it isn't. The appearance of safety is more dangerous than revealing the presence of danger.
We won't have the groundswell needed to create deep, long-lasting improvements in our election systems until there is widespread public awareness of the problems and the horrifying implications for democracy. You can help by finding out more about what has already been discovered. (If you're not informed yourself, you're limited in how much you can help, or you may inadvertently misinform such as by repeating your "conspiracy theory" argument which does not hold water.) Tell your friends about BBV and the many other fine election reform organizations. Perhaps you'll download the Citizens Tool Kit and become a building block in creating a solution. |
Jerry Berkman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jerry
Post Number: 32
Registered: 05-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 9:16 am: |
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It is hard or impossible to get proof with paperless DREs or when elections officials refuse to allow examination of paper ballots.
In New Mexico, after Bush "won" in 2004, the Democratic Governor and Secretary of State constructed obstacles to a requested recount.
Why?
In Arizona, Doug Jones, University of Iowa, was hired to investigate inconsistencies in optical scan results in the Republican primary. He found problems with the machines, but was never allowed to examine real ballots. Why?
Then there are the races Catherine cited.
We do not need to prove fraud. These machines are being foisted on us by officials who keep repeating how well they were tested, but they are full of security vulnerabilities, are inaccurate, lead to undervotes, and are expensive. What is the point of using them? |
Ami Silberman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jol
Post Number: 175
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 10:53 am: |
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Just a comment about the use of signed vs. unsigned integers: They really should have used the Windows equivelent of long intigers (4-byte vs. 2-b byte), then there would be no overflow problem whatsoever. |
Bev Harris
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Site_admin
Post Number: 194
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 1:44 pm: |
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Moved to general discussion (the one on one consulting section is for specific advice for citizens working on the front lines.) |
Pat Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely
Post Number: 382
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 4:09 pm: |
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Hi Randal! Welcome to Black Box Voting.
First off, let me warn you that the 'Hacking Democracy' documentary was a short 80 or so minute film that tried to sum up years of painstaking research into less than an hour and a half! It was intended to wake people up to the issue of the non transparent nature of electronic voting, and as such, it seems to have done it's job.
I suggest that if you're new to this, you should read the Black Box Voting book available for free download on the front page of this site.
Let me address your post one statement at a time.
quote:While I certainly agree that the potential for corruption (such as the numerous discussions about faulty voting machines) can allow corruption to exist, is there any proof that such corruption actually occurred?
First define "proof" and then define "corruption". If you have the time I urge you to look through these Diebold memos and see if you can find anything that meets your definition of corruption.
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~ping/diebold/lists.html
Also browse this site for more info.
http://www.why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html
quote:I've done a little bit of computer security work in my time. Independent of all other evidence about the vulnerabilites of Diebold systems, the fact remains, they left the core of their software product on a public FTP site. That is an unspeakable crime in and of itself.
Agreed!
quote:However, some of the voting abnormalities presented in the Hacking Democracy film looked more like stupidity than corruption. If voting irregularities are caused exclusively by operator error, then statistically, both parties should be equally hurt/benefited.
Again, 'Hacking Democracy' is a very short synopsis of literally years of investigation by numerous voting rights groups and should serve only as an introduction to the problems we face and not as the definitive work you seem to see it as. While I fully agree that leaving their software and source code unprotected is nothing short of criminal, the way that the code is structured for use in such a 'mission critical' application is far worse, IMHO.
If you know anything about software, perhaps you might take some time to download the Diebold software yourself and have a go at it. Let us know what you think after examining it for yourself.
http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html
quote:In order to prove actual election rigging with electronic voting machines, I would think that you would need to show a significant discord between exit polls and reported totals. The discussions in the Hacking Democracy film highlighted the potential for election rigging to occur, but I didn't see a grand conspiracy here.
I must ask why you chose the phrase "grand conspiracy". Neither the documentary, nor anyone at Black Box Voting.org, has ever alleged that there is, or was, a "grand conspiracy" involved in rigging votes. Hmmmm.
quote:Additionally, towards the end of the Hacking Democracy video, there was a discussion about how the Smart Cards could be rigged by preloading information into the card. However, in order to utilize that as an election rigging mechanisim, you would have to be careful with the pre-shipping of cards.
Do you really believe that statement? These machines are routinely sent home with poll workers prior to an election, sometimes for weeks on end! There have also been many reported instances of machines being left unattended in public places such as schools and churches used as polling places. The 'smart cards' and card readers / programmers are available off the shelf to anyone who has the cash to buy them. A simple phillips screw driver is all that's needed to bypass the locks and security tape used to prevent machine tampering. So much for being careful with pre shipping the cards.
quote:Black Box Voting is making the accusations of election rigging. Therefore, the burdeon of proof falls to them. Although I am absolutely convinced that any Diebold contracts should be dropped at the first available opportunity, I am not convinced that there is sufficient evidence to prove that anyone has done anything malicious.
(Emphasis added)
Please post the exact verbiage and name of the individual at BBV.org who has made such an accusation. Also please read through the Diebold internal memos and examine their software. Then get back to us about "conspiracies". If several Diebold employees send e-mails back and forth discussing how to get away with placing uncertified software on the machines in a given state without letting the state elections officials know about it, would you consider that a "conspiracy"?
quote:Technobabble
While what you say about "signed" vs. "unsigned" integers is technically correct, the fact is that in many cases the software running on the machines during elections has been found to be different from that submitted to the ITAs for certification. Here in California for example we had seventeen counties using Diebold equipment and NONE of them were running certified software! Think for a moment what that means. Hundreds of precincts in those counties all somehow missed that little detail. Who cares what you put into the software if NO ONE is checking to see if that's the software actually being used?
quote:Do these cards have a zeroization/initialization function? Are these voting cards reused between elections? How are they wiped clean so they can be reused? Do the local election commissions have a proceedure for doing this prior to commencing elections? Is there any kind of chain of custody documenting the handling of these forms? Are there detectable anomolies with voting cards handled by certain people?
(For Example, Jane Smith handles voting cards. So does Jane Doe. 40% of the voting cards that Jane Smith distributed had voting irregularities such as negative votes, but 0% of Jane Doe's had any problems).
If such a chain of custody form for handling voting cards exists... then I would hope that an FOIA request ought to be able to get it.
If frogs had wings..... 
Keep in mind who the people are manning the polls. For the most part they are average, ordinary, citizens, trying to do their part to help. Most don't have the requisite skills to understand the technology that they're working with, much less spot attempts at fraud. Most will have to rely on trusting others to help them when things go wrong. How are they supposed to know if the friendly technician who was sent to help fix a problem isn't in actuality planting a virus in their system? How would an unsuspecting technician hired as a temp worker to help on election day know if the 'patch' given to them by the machine manufacturer was legitimate? (Google "Rob Behler", Georgia} or read chapters 9 and 11 of the BBV book)
As far as how the zero tape is done, it would seem that Diebold chose to add together all of the totals for each candidate in each race rather than display the actual numbers for each candidate in each race.
Therefore,
Candidate A(D) = 0
Candidate B(R) = 0
Candidate C(L) = 0
Candidate D(I) = 0
Candidate E(G) = 0
0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 0
OR
Candidate A(D) = -3
Candidate B(R) = +9
Candidate C(L) = -2
Candidate D(I) = -2
Candidate E(G) = -2
-3 + +9 + -2 + -2 + -2 = 0!!!
Can you give me one plausible reason for doing a zero check that way? I can only think of one. (Hint: It's NOT incompetence.)
quote:Final thoughts:
Grand secret conspiracies involving thousands of people don't stay secret for long. People talk. If the conspiracy to control the elections were as widespread as is being suggested, then at least one election official would have come clean and attempted to reveal to the world the size of the conspiracy... if not out of a crisis of conscience, then a desire for notariety. I am not aware of any such event taking place.
None of the government officials presented in Hacking Democracy struck me as being smart enough to pull of a conspiracy to rig an election for the office of the President of the United States. These people seem more like your local DMV employees, and less like the smoking man from the X-files. Although I don't pretend to think that we should stick our heads in the sand (given the potential to rig the election, somebody eventually will), but the emphasis should be placed on forging a road ahead towards a more secure voting system, vice digging up old elections.
Again you talk about "Grand secret conspiracies involving thousands of people" when nothing of the sort has been suggested by either BBV.org or the film makers. Again I must ask why you keep claiming that. Had you paid attention to the facts presented in the documentary you would have understood that just a very few people in the right places could rig and throw an election with little chance of detection.
The only way to really know how to fix the problems with our elections is to fully understand the failures that occurred in past elections. We will continue to keep digging into those problems and holding people accountable for their actions as the evidence becomes available.
Pat A. Vesely ;-)
Paper ballots are the 'Currency of Democracy'. They've been helping to curb election fraud since 139 BCE!
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Randal Fuller
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rfuller
Post Number: 2
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, March 5, 2007 - 9:59 pm: |
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From our friends at dictionary.com, one definition of a conspiracy is: "an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot." Although BBV may have been careful to avoid the term "conspiracy", every element of the textbook definition for a conspiracy is either explicitly stated or reasonably implied:
"Evil"--> easily met.
"Unlawful" --> obviously
"treacherous or surreptitious" --> Vote rigging falls nicely into this category, particularly "surreptitious".
"In secret" --> It obviously isn't advertised.
"two or more persons" --> It takes more than one person to rig an election.
From a read of the postings above, I would say that you're justifiably angry about haphazard security practices surrounding our beloved democracy. At this point, I'm still with you.
Where I have a problem is with the implications of what this means. My personal oppinion is that a lack of security surrounding voting machines added an element of (unacceptable) statistical noise to the election. Although it has been awhile since I saw the video, and I admit, I haven't (and probably won't) read any of your books on the subject, an implication that voting irregularities lead to election rigging is a dangerous road to go down. So far, the logical interpretation of the evidence presented is that people are stupid, but not necessarily working towards a surreptious goal.
Given the logistical requirements to go tamper with enough voting machines in enough places across the country, some measure of infrastructure would be required... ergo a conspiracy. Particularly, such a conspirator would have to recruit operatives who won't talk, train them on how to tamper with voting results, and find ways to get them into enough vote count centers to make enough of a difference to tip the election results. I'm glad that this is not what you're saying. As an element of film critique, I thought that point could have been made more clearly in the video.
I think it's interesting that an earlier poster highlighted an election result wher eall the candidates had the exact same number of votes. If you were committing election fraud, would you do that? Would you allow anything so obvious as the number of votes to drop?
You stated that from the facts presented in the a few individuals could pull off the entire thing. I do not get that impression at all. If I were one of the few people in one of the right places working together to surreptitiously alter the elections (dare I say it again... a conspiracy?), I would have had much tighter controls on the voting machines such that organizations like this never have any reason to form in the first place.
----
As a point of clarification, in reference to a zeroization function, I mean a button that when pressed would set all the votes on the card to zero. Not just report the sum of the votes on the card, but to actually force all the numbers to zero. There must be a function like that somewhere... afterall... these cards get reused don't they? Why would somebody do that? To ensure there is no election rigging.
----}
The real interesting question that isn't being asked here, is "What possible benefit could one derive from electronic voting machines?" I think the answer stems from this idea: As American's, we're tech-happy gadget-happy people. Our inclination is to try to automate everything that we possibly can. Counting ballots is hard work. Computers are generally better at counting things then humans, so therefore computers must be better at counting ballots. However, what do we really gain from knowing the election results earlier? Why not take a week to count all the ballots? What's the real impact of that? We American's are instant-gratification junkies and we want our results immediately? |
Ron Crane
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ron_crane
Post Number: 179
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, March 5, 2007 - 10:35 pm: |
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Mr. Fuller, the Brennan Center's report at http://brennancenter.org/dynamic/subpages/download_file_39288.pdf extensively examines the number of conspirators required successfully to attack various kind of computer-based voting systems. See, e.g., p.8-9 (discusses report's adoption of the "number of informed participants" metric) and p.59 (concludes that 1-4 well-placed people (depending on countermeasures) would be needed to wage a successful statewide attack on a DRE-based system). The report also describes some attacks in relative detail. |
Bev Harris
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Site_admin
Post Number: 693
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - 5:25 am: |
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Ron is correct, Randal. It takes one person to rig an election.
While we have the dictionary out, take a look at a law dictionary and review what a RICO case is. RICO suits are brought all the time. When people are prosecuted under RICO, you will read that they have been brought up on conspiracy charges. That doesn't mean prosecutors are kooks. It means that it isn't all that uncommon for a few people to get together to engage in corrupt practices.
History (and a brief perusal of current news search engines) shows that both election rigging and corruption of elected officials is relatively commonplace.
To assume that insecure voting machines will NOT be used for a relatively commonplace kind of corruption seems implausible, especially when you see how easy it is to do, and how little technical ability is needed.
When you add the unfettered access that some of the IT guys and company technicians are given, along with the current practice of blocking public access to the logs and records, and mix in the fact that oversight is provided by election officials who are not technically proficient, and then add the fact that there are well over 5,000 election jurisdictions, most of which have 2-5 people with inside access -- what you are really saying is that in a field that has a history of corruption, not one person has figured out that there are 10,000 to 15,000 easy marks.
By the way, the average amount of a bribe is shockingly low. Usually $3000 to $5000. You can learn that simply by reviewing news clippings that report indictments and convictions of public officials.
quote:Given the logistical requirements to go tamper with enough voting machines in enough places across the country, some measure of infrastructure would be required
You've just fallen into the trap that election manipulation primarily affects a presidential race. View it from another angle:
- A vast history of corrupt elections with county commissioner and sheriff races, which are the breadbasket positions that control land development, construction projects, and contraband
- The likelihood that somewhere among the 10,000 or more people with inside access, somebody has figured out how to edit a Microsoft Access table.
Are you really saying that you can't imagine that across thousands of jurisdictions and tens of thousands of races that are traditional corruption targets, that it has not occurred to a single person to tip the odds?
Over time, political operatives -- and actually citizens, and the press -- come to identify many of the jurisdictions that have a reputation for being "open for business." Is it impossible to believe that an unscrupulous professional operative who's been in the campaign biz for a couple decades would have a pretty good idea of a selection of individuals who are "open for business"? Because you see, if you've been in the business and you are unscrupulous, you have probably done business with some of those people before.
Randal, one of the problems we have in coming up with real solutions is that we have computer people stepping outside their sphere of knowledge to pronounce judgement on the likelihood of political corruption, and/or the tactics used for political corruption.
At the very least, before deciding whether it is likely or not that there are enough pockets of corrupt local officials for a skilled political operative to tip the odds, do a search of the newspaper articles using terms like "alderman, indicted" and "commissioner, alleged" and "supervisor, sentenced" to get a feel for how truly common this is.
And remember: The commissioners and supervisors often appoint the elections officials who will then be in charge of their reelection.
One more thing that bothers me in your message. You imply that it's dangerous to go down the road of talking about corrupting elections.
I think it's dangerous not to. |
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