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"WATCH LIST"
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| 9/09 - BREAKING - REPORT THAT ES&S AC... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10773
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 7:50 am: | 
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Diebold/Premier Election Systems is being purchased by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
There will reportedly be a conference call among key people at the companies within the next couple hours.
ES&S attempted to consolidate the electronic voting industry in 1997 with a purchase of Business Records Corporation (BRC), but the purchase was blocked by the US Security and Exchange Commission on antitrust grounds, and the acquisition of BRC was split between ES&S and Sequoia Voting Systems.
An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most U.S. voting systems under one privately held manufacturer.
Anti-Trust complaints are being prepared.
Press Release: ES&S Acquires Premier Election Solutions
Combined Company Will Provide Better Services to Customers and Voters
Omaha, NE — September 3, 2009 –Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), a provider of voting solutions, announced today that it has acquired Premier Election Solutions, Inc. (PES).
The acquisition combines the strengths of both organizations and will result in better products and services for all customers and voters alike.
“For more than 40 years, ES&S has recognized the incredible responsibility it has to voters and election administrators,” said Aldo Tesi, president and CEO of ES&S. “This acquisition is an opportunity to continue fulfilling our company’s core mission of maintaining voter confidence, and enhancing the voting experience. We are committed to meeting current and future needs for voting system solutions and services and providing better solutions to our customers.”
As the two experienced companies go forward, the combination will allow them to serve jurisdictions more effectively. By continuing to innovate and create new voting systems, software and services, the companies will be able to meet the evolving needs of our customers.
The acquisition will also create a more efficient and effective operating model that will also provide a sustainable delivery platform for the election industry in the future.
“Premier has a proud heritage of providing voting solutions,” said Tesi, President and CEO of ES&S. “The combination of our two companies will enhance our performance and allow us to meet our customers’ needs even more effectively.”
“While combining these two companies will mean many positive changes, one thing won’t change,” said Tesi. “In everything we do, we will continue our focus on delivering high quality services and products for all of our customers. Moving forward, all of our customers will get the same great level of service they have come to expect.”
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10774
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 8:45 am: |
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Canton Repository - Sept. 3, 2009
http://www.cantonrep.com/business/x2025177795/Diebold-sells-Premier-Election-Sol utions-for-5-million
Diebold sells Premier Election Solutions for $5 million
GREEN — . Diebold has sold its controversial U.S. election systems business to competitor Election Systems & Software, a leading company in the election systems industry.
The sale closed Wednesday and consists primarily of Diebold’s Allen, Texas-based subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions.
Diebold has agreed to sell the business for $5 million in cash, plus payments representing 70 percent of any cash collected on outstanding accounts that were receivable as of Aug. 31.
Diebold expects to recognize a pre-tax loss in the range of $45 million to $55 million as a result of the transaction. The pre-tax loss includes the assets and liabilities of the business, certain retained legal liabilities, and other transaction costs.
Excluding the impact of the sale, Diebold’s full-year earnings per share outlook for 2009 remains unchanged.
Diebold bought Global Election Systems for about $31 million in January 2002. The company has endured numerous lawsuits and problems with requirements that varied by state.
Diebold has been looking to sell the touch-screen and optical scan voting, and electronic voter registration business since early 2006
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Jean Braun
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Grandma
Post Number: 1
Registered: 9-2009
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 9:36 am: |
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There is good evidence of a real onslaught to take over this country: food - the Food Safety" bill which will give the FDA unprecedented power to intrude on/eliminate small farmers and consolidate the power of Monsanto and other Agribusiness; medical - the bioattack via swine flu, with its disposition for martial law; legal - the quiet signing away of national law to "harmonize" with global institutions related to the WTO; financial - the suspicious maneuvering of Federal Reserve banks via the Meltdown, with support of Goldman Sachs figures in U.S. Treasury Department ...
Control of elections is crucial. All Americans know, I think of the possibility of remote control of electronic machines. Enough of us are energized and it may be possible to mobilize the nation - rather than attempting violent revolution - to surge a Constitutional Amendment
to outlaw use of electronic machines in elections and to guarantee public witness to public vote counting.
If we have valid elections, we can debate everything else!
}}}}}} |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10775
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 9:43 am: |
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Hi Jean,
Thanks for posting and welcome to the Black Box Voting forums. We had corresponded by email earlier; I have received a response from Paul Lehto about that. I'll fill folks in on that as soon as I get a chance, and thanks, Jean, for your thoughts and support. |
Edward Pennington Craig
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Edward_craig
Post Number: 14
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 12:02 pm: |
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Suppose we push trust busting a bit more? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3045
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 12:48 pm: |
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Bully! Oh boy! The Rough Riders ride again.
Hey, you might think I'm joshing. Only slightly! I've always been a TR fan. My first or second favorite historic President.
This must never be allowed to stand. A united Premier and ES&S creates not only too much corporate power, but hegemony.
This is downright alarming.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 206
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 1:06 pm: |
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I am absolutely against such consolidation ("near-monopoly") of providers of elections systems under one strong corporation.
Once again, I bring notice to the system in Brazil, where this already happened - and in spades. That nation not only has a single-provider for the equipment, it has a Federal Agency which operates all the machines and a network which transmits election reports from the voting sites to the central -- AND acts as the Judge and Jury if there are complaints filed!
It is called the "TSE" - "Tribunal Superior Eleitoral" - which translates as the "Electoral Superior Court".
See: http://noleakybuckets.org/brasil-history.html , a brief summary of their situation, written by a citizen-activist in July 2005, and translated into English.
The major change I know of since then, has been the introduction of "voter-identification" at the voting machines, by fingerprints! Yup, they link the national identity fingerprint registry -- to the voting record.
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3046
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 1:54 pm: |
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Marian,
..to the ballot or the voter's list??? BIG no-no if it's the ballot!!! We could NEVER countenence that, could we???
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 207
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 3:06 pm: |
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The voter appears at the pollsite, where the DRE's are located. After some kind of preliminary checkin (details I don't know), they go to one of the voting booths where the DRE's are installed (the ordinary physical setup.)
As they logon to the DRE, one of the steps is to place the proper finger (I think it is the index) on a sensor-plate which is part of the machine. The machine senses the fingerprint, and compares that to the archived copy - somewhat like the signature verification now done by Elections staff for mailed-in ballot envelopes.
Presumably, if the fingerprint matches, you may vote. (I have not seen any stories of what happens if it does not match.) Also, I have not seen a full explanation of the source of the system fingerprint data, but that nation (different from the US) has a National Registry of Citizens, and a national ID-number and ID-card, so that is a logical presumption.
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
|
Lorraine Moller
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Drbombay
Post Number: 1
Registered: 9-2009
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 3:43 pm: |
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most of these companies have people like ex senator Chuck Hagel who was or is part owner...........shouldn't govt or politician ownership be "a CONFLICT OF INTEREST" We already know most elections are crooked nowadays...Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America.and now there Obama's people "ACORN" he threw millions there way after being elected.....Obama’s Record Breaking $64 Billion Earmark for ACORN Extremist Radicals Who Got Him Elected |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 397
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 3:48 pm: |
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Interesting:Diebold expects to recognize a pre-tax loss in the range of $45 million to $55 million as a result of the transaction. The pre-tax loss includes the assets and liabilities of the business, certain retained legal liabilities, and other transaction costs. Diebold made other acquisitions such as Data Information Management Systems, to beef up the election unit. So maybe that is counted as part of the loss. And of course they will count as a loss the 30% of accounts receivable that they gave up. But overall it makes me wonder how much of the loss is Premier's "certain retained legal liabilities".
I have to agree with Kurt, we need a Teddy Roosevelt badly. You know, someone with a spine. It took so long to break up AT&T, and since then they have practically merged back together completely, and other ridiculous mergers have taken place. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10776
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 4:08 pm: |
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Clarification on Hagel - He is no longer a public official (for the moment). He did not run for office in 2008.
What's also interesting about Republican Hagel is that he abstained from endorsing Republican John McCain and his wife endorsed Democrat Obama for the 2008 presidential election. Hagel has been openly friendly to the Obama Administration and is currently being groomed for or is angling for a position in foreign policy with the Obama Administration.
Now, I've been thinking about Chuck Hagel and his possible role with ES&S, then called AIS. If I'm not mistaken, co-founder of that company Bob Urosevich was fired from AIS/ES&S around November 2003. If so, that would be while Chuck Hagel was chairman of the board. And if that's so, it would mean Hagel fired Urosevich, basically.
Urosevich went on to drive Diebold into the ground until he was fired from Diebold Election Systems in 2004. We have to at least consider the possibility that Hagel was trying to implement controls in an industry that was as unregulated and filled with thugs as the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
As I look back on what I've written about Hagel, I can see that the story could be written two ways -- he was either involved in an industry that pretty much everyone admits has been sleazy, or he was brought in to help it grow, tried to get some kind of controls in place, realized that scene wasn't for him and so he left.
Hagel held positions in Washington D.C., went back to Nebraska where he grew up, then returned to D.C. as a Nebraska senator. After two terms, he decided not to run for either the senate or the presidency, but started flirting with the Obama folks, and has been specializing in foreign policy.
I've thought about the Hagel story, which I researched and was the first to write about back in 2002. It has three legs:
1) Positions with ES&S (was called AIS then)
2) Upset victory for the senate in 1996 (most votes counted on AIS machines)
3) Nondisclosure of positions with AIS on personal disclosure forms.
Evaluating the first one, we don't know if his positions were clean-up mode or perp mode.
Evaluating the second one, at first I thought that was bulletproof because I cited CNN and the Washington Post. I have a somewhat more jaded outlook on national news writers who don't do their field work now. If they didn't actually go to Nebraska, and instead just relied on polls, they may not have known their right foot from their rear end about who really should have won. I've come to look at polls like expert witnesses in a jury trial (whoever pays for it gets the favorable opinion) or like Rorschach inkblot tests (you see what you want to see). I subscribe to a polling listserve and see diametrically opposite polls all the time. So maybe it was an upset, or maybe it was reporters who reported on a poll instead of doing their field work.
That gets us to item three, nondisclosure. He didn't disclose the positions he held -- not on his federal personal disclosure forms. He did disclose on his congressional Web site at some later date, but that's not the point. So, wondering more about Hagel, I pulled all his campaign finance info.
It turns out that he had a sloppy campaign finance manager, Mike McCarthy who is also a major player in ES&S. McCarthy was not only sloppy in filling out Hagel's disclosure forms, if he's the one that filled them out. He was also sloppy in filling out the campaign finance forms. The FEC was constantly asking him to provide something he omitted or redo forms he did wrong. This had nothing to do with ES&S and usually, had nothing to do with any apparent hiding of information. It was just ... sloppy!
And he didn't file electronically, as almost all credible candidates do. McCarthy (whose name and signature is on the forms) filed manually, which leads you to an error message whenever you look up Hagel's forms on the FEC site.
So, was Hagel trying to get better controls in the elections industry, and in the process dumping the infamous Bob Urosevich who then drove Diebold Elections into the ditch? Or was Hagel a willing part of a sleazy little industry? Did he win in an upset or did he just win? Was he guilty of intentional nondisclosure or was he just using a campaign finance guy who kept submitting slipshod forms?
He does have quite a bit of foreign policy type experience, seems to have been a bona fide hero in Viet Nam, may have more intellectual honesty than many other pols. Or not.
I may even buy Hagel's book. I'm still curious.
But McCarthy? He connects up to the Peter Kiewit clan in some way. And Kiewit? Look 'em up.
One more thing: I hear that Diebold/Premier Election Systems was basically flat broke heading out of business and ES&S may claim that it was rescuing America from a debacle.
Regardless -- this acquisition cannot be allowed to stand. I believe it violates the Clayton Act. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10777
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 4:45 pm: |
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Update on filing the anti-trust complaint with the Dept. of Justice:
Hoped to have it done by end of today. It will be tomorrow. We'll be spending the evening crunching numbers to calculate the ES&S+Diebold market share.
With regard to calculating the market share for the anti-trust tests, it will be a calculation of the number of jurisdictions using ES&S and Diebold. But we are also figuring out what percentage of votes are tallied on each -- which will lead to a different figure, because Diebold + ES&S have most of the large metro areas in the U.S. -- But Sequoia has Cook County, Palm Beach, Broward, and several other hefty locations like Phoenix, Santa Clara County, and Denver. |
Ellen H. Brodsky
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ehbrod
Post Number: 35
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 7:28 am: |
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No. Broward is ES&S, Palm Beach has Seguoia.
Here is a list of FL counties and vendors used in the Nov. 08 election.
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/voting-systems/pdf/VS_Web_Display_05-08-09.pdf |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3047
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 7:37 am: |
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And don't forget Philadelphia, PA, and the bulk of it's 'burbs are Danaher. What is New York City now using? I know they WISH they were still using levers. Detroit? We all know about CodyLand, err, L.A.
I'm thinking the midwest is pretty close to a solid swath now, outside of "that toddlin' town".
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10778
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 7:42 am: |
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I'm doing the chart now. New York, Cook County, District of Columbia, Denver, are Sequoia.
But for purposes of the horizontal monopoly, it is number of markets not number of voters. The number of voters might be considered part of a vertical monopoly. I should have the chart for both ready in a short time, will post it here. |
Barbara Aguirre
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Baguirreaflcioorg
Post Number: 4
Registered: 3-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 7:46 am: |
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Bev -
Your invaluable to this movement.
Thank you so very much! |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 398
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 12:13 pm: |
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I used http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/index.php to see if any machines used in New England (VT, NH, ME, MA, CT) are NOT Premier or ES&S. They show none, except for the hand counted districts of course. In general they are listing way too many as OpTech Eagle districts; most have now moved over to AV-OS since LHS dropped OpTech support. But for this exercise that doesn't matter.
If ABMs count, all of MA has ES&S AutoMarks, even those that hand count. Otherwise, for New England the Premier+ES&S count should be a matter of simply subtracting the hand count voters from the total number of voters in the region. |
Allegra Dengler
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Greendobbs
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 12:29 pm: |
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RE New York. Most of NY, icluding NYC, will still vote on levers this year. The rest are scheduled to go to scanners in 2010. However, this year one million voters will vote on paper ballots counted on as yet uncertified (Sequoia/Dominion) scanners. Those voters are in counties that agreed to participate in a "pilot" program to use scanners early, certified or not. Sequoia has sold its NY contract to Dominion, possibly because given its shady practices in other states, it could be prohibited from doing business with NY under NY ethics laws.
From businesswire
July 16, 2009 10:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Sequoia Voting Systems Assigns New York State Voting System Contract to Its New York State Partner and ImageCast Equipment Developer, Dominion Voting Systems
Assumption of Sequoia’s Contract by Dominion Voting a Win-Win for Sequoia, Dominion and New York State’s ImageCast Customers
ALBANY, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sequoia Voting Systems and Dominion Voting Systems have signed an agreement this week that assigns Sequoia’s contract with the State of New York for the purchase of voting equipment and related services to Dominion Voting, with Dominion assuming all of Sequoia’s obligations under the contract.
Financial details of this transaction are not being disclosed by the parties; however both Sequoia and Dominion are pleased with the outcome of this agreement. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10779
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 1:18 pm: |
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I've got all but Wisconsin into a spreadsheet now.
Will do Wisconsin's jurisdictions after lunch
So far here is how the distribution breaks out by purchasing jurisdiction (without Wisconsin); I've broken out New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts town by town:
ES&S 33.91%
Diebold 31.07%
Sequoia 15.32%
Hart 6.98%
Microvote 2.01%
WinVote 0.75%
Unilect 0.44%
Danaher 0.26%
VTI 0.09%
Populex 0.04%
Hand Count 9.12%
VTI is out of business and I don't think WinVote (AVS) or Unilect are actively selling now either. So basically (without Wisconsin, yet) it comes down to
ES&S 33.91%
Diebold 31.07%
Sequoia 15.32%
Hart 6.98%
Microvote 2.01%
Only five real players, and this would (so far without Wisconsin, which is more cumbersome to figure) put an ES&S/Premiere merger up at about 2/3 of the national market.
Without New England or Wisconsin here are the breakouts by registered voters:
ES&S 66,330,960
Premier/Diebold 44,537,630
Sequoia 25,007,930
Hart 15,518,647
Microvote 3,206,858
Danaher 2,870,494
WinVote 1,680,180
Unilect 318,755
Populex 151,473
VTI 87,697
Adding 90% of New Hampshire (non hand count Diebold) and 100% of Connecticut (Diebold):
NH Diebold approx 720,000 -- New Hampshire failed to report the number of registered voters for the 2006 EAC charts, but did report 417,733 votes cast. If 50% of reg voters cast votes, that would be around 800k. Take 90% of 800k for the machine count portion: 720,000
CT Diebold - 2,041,286
MA reported 3,990,994 reg voters, guestimating 70% of these being Diebold, 20% ES&S, 10% hand count would give us:
Diebold: 2,793,696
ES&S: 798,078
Hand count: 39,909
Maine reported 1,047,623 registered voters,
guestimating 50% Diebold, 30% ES&S, 20% hand count
That gives us
Diebold 523,811
ES&S 314,287
Hand Count: 209,524
Vermont reported 433,129 registered voters; at 90% Diebold, 10% hand count that breaks out to:
Diebold: 389,816
hand count: 43, 312
So, without Wisconsin and guestimating New England using the above assumptions:
67443325 40.31% ES&S
51006239 30.49% Premier/Diebold
25007930 14.95% Sequoia
15518647 9.28% Hart
3206858 1.92% Microvote
2870494 1.72% Danaher
1680180 1.00% WinVote
318755 0.19% Unilect
151473 0.09% Populex
87697 0.05% VTI
Wisconsin probably does not change the overall percentages much - It has ES&S, Diebold and Sequoia. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 32
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 11:16 pm: |
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Unfortunately all the data is already in a spreadsheet from 2008, but the EAC and RTI are just sitting on it. They should have votes cast, vendors, precincts, maybe even total number of machines. It's hard to imagine it takes a year to publish the final 2008 Election Day Survey.
The website is here for the States administrators to send in their surveys. Does anyone have a draft copy or a comment-on-this-report version.
The above numbers are pretty close. |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 41
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 11:31 pm: |
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Nothing good will come from this.
The bottom line underlying problem has not been addressed.
BROKEN CHAIN OF CUSTODY
All electronic vote tabulation devices are a broken chain of custody. The corporations, our elected representatives, corporate media, and election officials simply spew slightly different variations and angles of the same corrupt fascist lies.
None of these people will willingly address or even talk this fact.
This is a physics problem, involving the physical characteristics of electricity in conjunction with the source of the semiconductor's used.
1. No public oversight of the doping process to prevent back door or kill switch logic.
2. Even if the doping process could be trusted, chips can fail randomly.
3. Humans (like poll watchers) can not see the digital logic's electronic signal with the naked eye.
Which I repeat, is a BROKEN CHAIN OF CUSTODY
Now some opinion...
Five Million Dollars is nothing compared to the $65 Trillion the bankers stole via having hand written hall passes to willingly commit fraud and ponzi schemes, from our corrupt representatives who know they no longer can be held accountable.
"tuck in the deaths" of people involved in all these recent wars because corrupt representatives abuse of power and the failure of these devices to accurately count votes.
Our country was doing fine (Constitutionally) until these devices came into use. Now the Constitution is reduced to a symbolic relic in our hearts. Followed when irrelevant and ignored when convenient. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 33
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 4, 2009 - 11:40 pm: |
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It might also be interesting to list how many states will become a virtual monopoly.
Ohio is currently split and will become 92% of all voters using ES&S/Diebold/Premier machines.
On the other hand, there are states like NC which are already 100% ES&S. |
Jean Braun
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Grandma
Post Number: 2
Registered: 9-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, September 5, 2009 - 1:53 pm: |
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I don't know what the legal requisites for "trust" are, but my dictionary definition is an entity having a "monopolistic or semimonopolistic" control ... It surely seems the proposed sale meets that criterion.
Three cheers for BBV!!!!! |
Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 337
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, September 6, 2009 - 7:00 am: |
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Historically, the legal requisites for "trust" are probably the squirmiest wiggliest movingest line conflicts of interest, fact, lobbying and political manipulation have controversibly scribbled in windblown sands, to less purpose than just about any other political "line". |
jonnee Kohler
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dosaybe
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 7, 2009 - 2:36 pm: |
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http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7392http://www.votersunite.org/info/ReclaimElections. pdf |
Colin McDermott
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Colmcd
Post Number: 3
Registered: 8-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 5:39 am: |
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"I have to agree with Kurt, we need a Teddy Roosevelt badly. You know, someone with a spine. It took so long to break up AT&T, and since then they have practically merged back together completely, and other ridiculous mergers have taken place."
Looking above really there is not much competition to start with. I cannot see Election officials being able to select a GOOD reliable system from a solid vendor. How can they select from all the brands, how would they know which machines are ok and which are not.
Choice is only good if you can choose a good option. Really we are advocating for a minimal usage of IT within elections (perhaps optical scanners to predict a result that would be conferred through hand counting). ES&S has not taken out a good producer of Voting machines, one big fish has simply eaten another and this happens in every industry at the moment.
I hope that you can stop ES&S from installing more machines, because their inappropriate. I hope that we can get better regulation because the monopoly and control of the product is more obvious. Please lets advocate this.
But the old "Lets break up Monopolies" because their inefficient and lack choice is rubbish (very bad economic theory). They are very efficient and are hence expanding exponentially. Yes we need a Strong politician. But a Strong politician that will implement oversight! |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3048
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 6:45 am: |
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Colin,
If you are suggesting that "strong" corporations in a near-monopoly situation overseen by equally "strong" politicians is a scenario better than weak of both, I must protest in the strongest possible terms.
The virtues of market economics REQUIRE weak providers in a scenario where the power is in the hands of the consumer as much as possible.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 340
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 7:33 am: |
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Colin makes good pts here:
ES&S has not taken out a good producer of Voting machines
Choice is only good if you can choose a good option.
I fully agree with Kurt that what Colin recommends is a disaster...
except for his final 2 words, "implement oversight".
Implementing oversight, in citizen hands, is The Goal, the most essential preventive medicine in govt, the everpresent purpose in all the best innovations built into US constitution, all of which were aimed at checking and double-checking routes to connivance by Strong Poiticians and Strong Monopolies.
As Ted Nace points out in
Gangs of America: The Rise of Corps’s(sic) Power & Disablng of Democracy, (SF:BerrettKoehler,2003)...
(1) The BostonTeaParty included local merchants becuz of Brit policy giving BritEastIndiaCo exclusive rights to tea sales.
(2) The original primary concern of folks framing state & US constitutions was to limit corporatns’ monopoly tendencies:
As a result, original corporate charters:
* required custom charter issued by a state legislature
* were incorporated w/ a limited life span (renewable by state legislatures)
* were not allowed to own stock in other companies
* were usualy restricted to home state
* were restricted to activities specified in charter
* their actions were constrained by shareholder liability & by thread to charter revocation
* were inhibited by legal status of minority shareholders & corp.agents
* had their size explicitly limited by each charter's restrictions
Efforts to circumvent these restrictions were largely enabled by various RR crimelords, w/ the most effective huge steps towards our present govt tidal crime wave initiated in CA & PA.
I've bit my tongue on this comment for some days, not wanting to invite digress in this important thread -- but since the name has come up again in Colin's intro...
I can fully agree w/ spirit of Kurt's and MikeLabonte's invite to some reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt, with the following extremely essential emendation:
I, and many across the political "spectrum", would really value a politician who would walk Teddy Roosevelt's talk ... but Teddy Roosevelt in fact so very thoroughly didn't. Teddy Roosevelt was the model for all the "reform" Democrats -- John Davis, Al Smith, FDR, Burton Wheeler, lots others -- who followed in his Corps'operated faux-reformist footsteps. Do one thing early that gets mega-hyped to establish one's reformist sincerity, follow it with a career of selling Monopolist hogwash in pig-in-a-poke bottles of snake oil (hoping I understand the phrase pig-in-a-poke tho' ignorant what a "poke" is). Walt Kelly did a great Pogo commentary on it w/ a snake-bite-cure takeoff on a snake oil salesman -- who even threw in a free snake bite. TR was a classic model for all of that, endlessly repeated since.
Roosevelt's mediahyped gloryful divorce of NYcity govt-crime marriage was as loud and empty as his Presidential trust-busting.
I'd enjoy debating the matter with you over an extralong brunch some time Kurt, if that were ever logistically an option, but prefer not to take this thread thru so long a tangent.
I couldn't possible agree more with Kurt's eloquent final sentence above. |
Dale McClain
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 77
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 4:14 pm: |
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All Jonnee Kohler did was point to the Brad Blog
But that is a good start. The seven post’s I have read from Collin McDermott, Jean Braun and Allegra Dengler all show a growing interest in an already bad situation.
………………………………..
We are going to need all the help we can get to win this giant game of Monopoly. (Yes Jean, Monopoly and I love Monopoly.)
……………………………….......
Old timers like Joel says Collin makes good points but goes on to say Curt’s words about consumers is eloquent. ( I need to know if he is comparing voters to consumers).. If he is he should know we voters have no say whatsoever in the selection of voting equipment. That is all in the Hands of our powerful NASED. (National Association of State Election Administrators. And they love voting machines!
…………………………..
===============================
Now if I may QUOTE Joel:
================================
I've bit my tongue on this comment for some days, not wanting to invite digress in this important thread -- but since the name has come up again in Colin's intro...
I can fully agree w/ spirit of Kurt's and MikeLabonte's invite to some reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt, with the following extremely essential emendation:
I, and many across the political "spectrum", would really value a politician who would walk Teddy Roosevelt's talk ... but Teddy Roosevelt in fact so very thoroughly didn't. Teddy Roosevelt was the model for all the "reform" Democrats -- John Davis, Al Smith, FDR, Burton Wheeler, lots others -- who followed in his Corps'operated faux-reformist footsteps. Do one thing early that gets mega-hyped to establish one's reformist sincerity, follow it with a career of selling Monopolist hogwash in pig-in-a-poke bottles of snake oil (hoping I understand the phrase pig-in-a-poke tho' ignorant what a "poke" is). Walt Kelly did a great Pogo commentary on it w/ a snake-bite-cure takeoff on a snake oil salesman -- who even threw in a free snake bite. TR was a classic model for all of that, endlessly repeated since.
=======================
POKE?
I would like to throw in a Substitute for Teddy Roosevelt.. Her name was Carrie A. Nation -- She knew how to get er done..
She never relied on Snake Oil or Pigs in Pokes --She knew the enemy and went straight for the red meat…(in this case whiskey in a barrel).
What we need is a handful of dedicated activists to
Go after the voting machines, Scanners. Computers, all hardware and software related to our voting methods with hatchets.!
Our first move should be against the HOLT BILL IN COMMITTEE.. This is the Bill that will force CONFIDENCE in the Voting machines (DIEBOLD-- ESSE --- SEQUOIA --- WHAT EVER)
If this sounds radical, Yes it is radical -- Carrie A Nation won her Point by waging war against whiskey but of course it was repealed years later. Maybe in ensuing years a compromise can be reached with the voters and machines but at this point we are helpless. We have turned our Nation over to Robots.
==============================
And so new comers WELCOME!
You have some good ideas ! Keep up.
Dale |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 484
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 5:13 pm: |
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Dale writes: "We are going to need all the help we can get to win this giant game of Monopoly. (Yes Jean, Monopoly and I love Monopoly.)"
In her 2007 book, Getting A Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad, Frances Moore Lappe gives this history of Monopoly:
"In the early 1900s, Lizzie Maggie tried to warn us. Lizzie was a concerned Quaker, worried that one-rule capitalism would do us in. So she came up with a board game she hoped would entertain us but also serve as an object lesson: It may take all night, but the rules of the game eventually drive property into the hands of one player, ending the fun for everybody."
Lappe defines one-rule capitalism as a "market economy, driven by one rule--that is, highest return to shareholder and corporate chiefs....By continually returning wealth to wealth, a one-rule economy leads to an ever-increasing concentration of power.
So the problem isn't that some people cheat, or that secret vote counts make it easier for some people to cheat, but that the game we're playing is designed in such a way that only one or a few at the very top can win and everyone else has to lose. It's a pyramid scheme. Total transparancy won't help if the game we're playing is a pyramid scheme. What we need is a different game, a different system, where it is possible for everyone to win.
I understand that people brought up in our competitive society don't believe it is possible to have a different model of society, or that such models are subversive and doomed to failure. But if you take national health care as an example of a system in which everyone wins instead of only a wealthy few benefiting from everyone else's misfortunes, you'll find that all developed countries except the United States have implemented it successfully. Their governments still function, their businesses are still profitable, yet everyone gets health care so everyone wins.
The Black Commentator's current top story includes a 60-year-old speech by Tommy Douglas who brought national health care to Canada:
http://www.blackcommentator.com/340/340_cover_sa_mouseland.html
It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.
They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me.
And every time on Election Day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.
Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you'll see that they weren't any stupider than we are.
Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows.
They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws—that is, laws that were good for cats.
But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds—so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.
All the laws were good laws. For cats.
But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.
Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: “All that Mouseland needs is more vision.†They said: “The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes.†And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in.
And life was tougher than ever. And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats.
And they called that coalition.
They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.
You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.
Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea.
And he said to the other mice, “Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?â€
“Oh,†they said, “he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!â€
So they put him in jail.
But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can't lock up an idea.
We mice can have total transparency and full public oversight without any electornic voting machines at all, but if we're only allowed to vote for cats, nothing will change. The Supreme Court is about to rule on whether to allow unlimited political campaign donations from corporations. In a democracy, nine unelected justices would not be able to dictate something that important, the people would have a say.
This is not a democracy and we don't have a say. Lizzie Maggie never imagined that people would play and enjoy Monopoly without ever beginning to understand what it is really about. It is a game designed so that the cats win and the mice lose, every time. We need a different game--a game where both mice and cats get no more than their fair share and everyone wins. An honest game that isn't a Ponzi or pyramid scheme.
Only then would honest elections enable us to bring about change. As long as we keep playing the old game, all we get are more cats. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3049
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - 5:37 am: |
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Shouldn't Delaware be purple instead of yellow? Danaher.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10781
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - 6:56 am: |
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You're right -- Actually, that's New Jersey that's yellow, I forgot to fill in Delaware and it's white. I'll fix that. In the mean time --
Kurt, is Danaher a "viable competitor" for ES&S? Can it meet HAVA and new standards? Is it actively selling new product, is it selling into any new markets? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3050
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - 10:48 am: |
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Bev,
Sad story, really. Danaher has decided they can only be a niche supplier, apparently. They've gone "regional" it seems.
Whether or not Danahers are HAVA compliant is a matter of state opinion. In the opinion of PA gov't, they are compliant WITH the recently introduced compliance module and audio capable cartridges.
So why have some states abandoned the 1242's? It seems some states lagged in keeping their 1242's up to date with the pre-HAVA "state of the art" upgrades in software (EMS mostly, not the actual machines) and the cost of the upgrades PLUS having to learn a new EMS anyway led some states to "punt" in favor of "newer technology". I call this the "Oooh, shiiiiny!" effect that afflicts politicians.
I'm sure Danaher will sell into new markets, but I'm not sure how support would get done very well outside the Delaware Bay / Chesapeake Bay region. It would take a quantum ramp-up in support services. But sure, it could be done.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10782
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 2:00 pm: |
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FINAL STATS:
Here is the detailed spreadsheet:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ESS-Premier-acquisition-antitrust-stats.xls
(2960 KB)
Links to maps:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/US-Map-pre-merger.png
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/US-Map-post-merger.png
ES&S 47.8%
Diebold/Premier 27.1%
.......AFTER ACQUISITION 74.8%
Sequoia 9.3%
Hart 10.5%
Danaher & Shoup: 0.4%
Microvote: 3.0%
Winvote: 1.1%
Unilect: 0.7%
Populex: 0.1%
VTI: 0.2%
BY VOTES COUNTED:
ES&S: 40.0%
Diebold: 27.9%
.......AFTER ACQUISITION 67.9%
Sequoia: 17.0%
Hart: 9.2%
Danaher/Shoup: 1.7%
Microvote: 1.9%
Winvote: 1.0%
Unilect: 0.2%
Populex: 0.1%
VTI: 0.1%
I believe the number of purchasing jurisdictions is a more relevant figure for antitrust than number of votes counted.
Methodology:
Purchasing jurisdictions are put into the common denominator of "counties". Wisconsin, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire have their municipalities with autonomous purchasing capability (to some extent; the states add restriction to competition by authorizing only certain voting systems). These municipalities are broken out in sheets within the spreadsheet, but for purposes of weighting market dominence, are given fractional value in counties.
If this wasn't done, the US would show about 3100 county jurisdictions, but Wisconsin alone would show 1900 municipality jurisdictions giving it an absurd weighting overall.
Example of how the purchasing jurisdictions are weighted in Wisconsin: If a county has 50 municipalities, half with Sequoia and half with ES&S, it would be counted as .5 Sequoia, .5 ES&S.
Hand Count and lever locations are a potential market for the computerized voting industry, but not an actualized market, and therefore are omitted. Rationale: When computing market share, for purposes of dominance, for Macs vs. PC computers, you would calculate, of all the computers purchased, how many are Macs and how many are PCs. You wouldn't include the households with no computer.
New York, with the exception of a very few counties, has not purchased voting systems and is still on lever machines. Only the voting machines already purchased are reflected in market share.
Note that the proportionality and common denominator for actual votes counted by vendor gets a little difficult; I do not have the figures for registered voters in each municipality, and used estimates.
The original figures for systems used is drawn from state documents, secretary of state Web sites, with a few states from VerifiedVoting.org.
The figures for voter registration are from the EAC survey, using the 2006 stats. A few locations (New Hampshire) did not provide stats, and I therefore estimated the voter registrations based on 80% of population. A couple other locations (New York, a handful of California counties) did not have voter reg stats in the EAC document but did have 2006 stats on their secretary of stat Web site.
Permission to distribute this spreadsheet is granted with credit to Black Box Voting. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10783
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 2:34 pm: |
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Updated maps (with Delaware and New York corrected)
BEFORE ACQUISITION
AFTER ACQUISITION |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 399
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 2:54 pm: |
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I'm not clear on why Massachusetts appears to be all Premier before the acquisition, when the spreadsheet indicates 35% ES&S. But that's OK, since the detail sheet for Massachusetts indicates WAY more ES&S jurisdictions than we actually have. It probably is now just about all Premier as far as I know. And then it will be all ES&S. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10784
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 3:47 pm: |
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Actually, Mike, a big blow-up of the colored map does show the (supposed) ES&S locations in MA. When you blow the spreadsheet up its dots expand to a combination of Diebold, ES&S, and hand count. But, compressed, it looks like mostly Diebold. And as you point out, it actually IS more Diebold than the records seem to indicate. And as you also point out, in the end it doesn't matter since it all becomes one. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10785
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 4:46 pm: |
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MARKET CONCENTRATION INDEX:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index
"The United States uses the Herfindahl index to determine whether mergers are equitable to society; increases of over 0.0100 points generally provoke scrutiny, although this varies from case to case. The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice considers Herfindahl indices between 0.1000 and 0.1800 to be moderately concentrated and indices above 0.1800 to be concentrated. As the market concentration increases, competition and efficiency decrease and the chances of collusion and monopoly increase."
The Herf Index was already showing unhealthy market concentration, BEFORE the merger. Here's what it was before the acquisition (I have quoted the formula for the Herfindahl Index at end of this post)
MARKET CONCENTRATION BY PURCHASING JURISDICTION, BEFORE ACQUISITION:
ES&S 47.80% squared = 22.848400%
Diebold/Premier 27.10% squared = 7.344100%
HERFINDAHL INDEX 32.269000%
Remember, over 18% is considered unhealthy. It was already 32%.
MARKET CONCENTRATION BY PURCHASING JURISDICTION, AFTER ACQUISITION:
HERFINDAHL INDEX: 58.026900%
A HHI index below 0.01 indicates a highly competitive index.
A HHI index below 0.1 indicates an unconcentrated index.
A HHI index between 0.1 to 0.18 indicates moderate concentration.
A HHI index above 0.18 indicates high concentration
This doesn't get any better when you look at it as % of votes -- still too high before the acquisition and off the charts after.
The Herfindahl Index is defined as the sum of the squares of the market shares of the 50 largest firms (or summed over all the firms if there are fewer than 50)[3] within the industry, where the market shares are expressed as percentages. The result is proportional to the average market share, weighted by market share.
Permission to reprint or post graphic granted, with attribution to BlackBoxVoting.org:
 |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10786
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 5:10 pm: |
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Another graphic you can use:
BAR STACK CHART - ES&S MARKET SHARE AFTER ACQUISITION
 |
Dale McClain
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 82
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 14, 2009 - 9:34 am: |
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To Whom it may concern:
=====================
The plaintiffs in Case# S09A1367 have sent this information In part:
====================
To All Georgia County Elections Directors:
We are writing to inform you of critical vulnerabilities regarding the current Diebold AccuVote TS R6 electronic voting machines, GEMS tabulations servers, and election procedures used throughout the State of Georgia.
Many of these vulnerabilities have been detailed by state witnesses in depositions under oath, depositions resulting from a lawsuit now pending before the Georgia Supreme Court, Case# S09A1367.
As plaintiffs in the lawsuit, we, the undersigned, recognize that you may find the information in this letter dramatically different from what state election officials have disseminated for the last eight years.
Therefore, we are including precise quotes with exact page and line number references of key admissions from the state’s own witnesses. These include admissions by Mr. Ray Cobb, who was deposed as the state’s expert witness, and Professor Britain Williams, who oversaw testing and certification of the equipment when it was piloted and implemented during 2001 and 2002.
These references will help you to evaluate the truthfulness of our letter in which we have assembled what we believe to be key undeniable facts pertaining to acquisition, accuracy, vulnerability, certification, and testing of the machines.
=======================
The complete detailed letter can be found at voterga.org.
Dale McClain |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 44
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 14, 2009 - 11:49 pm: |
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Certification (Machines, People), Depositions(People), "expert witness"(People), HAVA Compliance, bla bla bla bla bla Vulnerabilities, Human error, bla bla bla
Tick Tock Tick Tock Time as a weapon
All this confusion, clarification, challenging, wasting people's lives. Missing PDF's, broken links, bad this, failed that, acronym this, Authority and Tenure vs off the cuff hacker.
This whole thing stinks.
NONE OF US HAVE A VOICE
if we can't get this answered.
There's one test for electronic vote tabulation devices. Does it tabulate? y/N=?
If it does not tabulate, then we can *start* to discuss HAVA compliance. (That doesn't mean ROLL EM OUT BAY-BEE!)
If it does tabulate, it should be banned globally (not just nationally.) You can not as a human being provide a human chain of custody on an electronic signal, without destroying transparency. And you can't validate the device's logic without destroying the device.
This whole thing is a catch 22 sham which is way past time to end.
We need someone to word this up correctly, legally even, and ram it down their throat and end this nonsense. No more of this oh, "they'll never ban machines this year", nonsense. Such talk is already unacceptable when we have a corporate media so willing to run the other half of this show. YOu call it liberal media? Fine. We need accessible online public file's for every station on the spectrum floor. That way you can complain and get their frequency un-allocated, and their station ID's denied. That's how we stop that. Oh my god, we need real news sources.
Anyway..
Was the "election judge" sitting on the assembly line when the chip was doped and knows what logic, possibly malicious hidden logic or remote control is in the chip? No? Then the word of election judge means nothing. They are like Cave Man to an RF transmitter/receiver it's MAGIC to their intelligence level.
(Some people like to say if your not carrying some electronics technology engineering degree your not qualified to even comment on such problems. Might I remind you the person's who created these wonderful devices never had a degree either. I've also noticed people with degrees tend to overlook the simplest thing. Coincidence? And many non accredited hardware hackers out there could hell of teach such "book and simulation taught" degree holders some lessons from the ghetto.)
All devices which tabulate votes are a BROKEN CHAIN OF CUSTODY.
Keep your argument simple, legal and related to national security. What equal military Security Clearance Level (For Tech's) is an Election Judge? What Electronic Technology background do these people have?
I am frankly tired of this. Especially officials who abuse their position and blackout such discussion with the ultimate threat of calling police against someone asking questions.
The bottom line is we can't vote properly because there is NO CHAIN OF CUSTODY. These officials can't be trusted, they must be watched, and if you don't want to be watched you shouldn't be there. But their authority becomes apparent in the field.
All the flapping lips about Policies and Procedures mean NOTHING. When Hi = Lo on pin 33.
This is PHYSICS. And NATIONAL SECURITY.
(I am truly tired of repeating myself)
I don't care what your political affiliation is, this IS the problem. If your fighting legally against something with electronic vote tabulation devices you need to word this fight against them, and make them defend. They can't defend, so they have to stop until they can. If you fight against the small less relevant battles the "Electronic Vote Tabulation Device Manufacturers" pick you lose. When you start using "their language" you give up your rights every time.
It's time to take our rights back.
It's time to restore and update the US Constitution against it's recent attacks in the last decade.
It's time to see what's on the bank's books.
It's time to cleanse the security clearances of people who are being blackmailed, or commit treason
It's time to restore Geneva Conventions
It's time to end these wars.
You can not hold your representative accountable until you can validate the vote.
Maybe you don't care about voting? Maybe you think the electoral college is the answer. While I would have to say I don't like that idea at all, in fact I don't think there should be an electoral college, I just want this thing we call elections to be forced to be honest, transparent, and validatable. It would really be horrible to finally prove these machines a 100% disaster only to have the will of the people be subverted by the electoral college. (A whole other subject which I don't understand, but perhaps should be clarified)
MEANWHILE KILL THESE DEVICES. MAKE EM ILLEGAL.
I WILL SAY IT FIRST.
"ELECTRONIC VOTE TABULATION DEVICES ARE ILLEGAL!"
WHY CAN'T YOU SAY IT?
(it doesn't matter if there is one company or 10,000 companies who make these devices) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3051
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 8:10 am: |
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One question, and I'm serious about it!
Would you ban using something like MS Excel for tabulation of lower level results in favor of manual addition of huge lists of numbers?
If so, I think you're losing more than you're gaining. I guess I'm looking for your definition of "tabulating". I think what you're calling "tabulating", I'd call "counting".
Counting is the thing lacking all transparency. Tabulating is, to me, just aggregating lower-level counts, and there's really not much standing in the way of transparency there other than perhaps some level of inconvenience, owing to the existence of a plethora of data formats being used presently.
We need to define terms, I think.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10787
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 11:38 am: |
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Sourced US voting systems by jurisdiction
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/Sourced-US-Voting-Systems-by-jurisdiction-2009.xls |
Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 341
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 12:12 pm: |
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Two sincere thanks,
one for Phillip's rant, an apt emotion to the subject wherever one falls (I switch hit on this) re: aptness of emotive extremes in petitioning converts among citizens or redundantly deaf legislators...
one for Kurt's point,
to which my nitpick would be I trust from much experience reading Kurt that he refers implicitly to electronic aggregating processes whose every element of input and output are transparent to all citizens to view, and easily downloaded so anyone can repeat the operation independently. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3052
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 12:58 pm: |
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Joel,
Your surmise above is correct. When I see the word "tabulate", I think "aggregation". To the extent that aggregation is NOT transparent, it has to be made so. In my experience, it is far MORE trnasparent than most people realize.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 343
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 5:51 am: |
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And Spread Sheets are IMO a style of technology apt to transparently repeatable aggregating processes in easily shared, reviewable, repeatable confirmation reruns whose accountable steps would illuminate anomalies under subsequent investigative scrutiny. |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 45
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 3:58 pm: |
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For those who still don't get it.
I don't say aggregation
I say "electronic vote tabulation"
No electricity. No electronic signals. No computers. No electronic devices which tabulate. No electronic devices for maintaining registered voters. No electronic poll books, No memory chips, No modems, no ethernet, no fiber, no infra red devices, no RF!! no signals!!
All such signals are NOT in public view.
There's nothing confusing here.
Where does a spread sheet come from? Answer a computer, what does a computer use, Answer electronic signals. And what's the problem I already explained with electronic signals? Answer they are invisible and break chain of custody.
Spreadsheets run on software, software can be exploited.
Spreadsheets run on hardware, there is not chain of custody from the doping process through manufacturing to final device in the field. Thus making THE HARDWARE exploitable.
Spreadsheets are unacceptable because they game the system for more time (as a weapon) and failures (excuses for election fraud), meanwhile it completely ignores the root of the problem here, and doesn't set any plan to expedite the elimination of the broken chain of custody.
Such a position on continued use of electronics to tabulate votes is equally as insane as forced mail in voting. Both plans have a broken chain of custody. A broken chain of custody means the results can't be trusted.
If you can't maintain an unbroken public chain of custody, your votes shouldn't be counted. The only person who will fight this is someone who doesn't grasp or is willingly trying to exploit these simple concepts.
=====================================
THE REAL REASON PEOPLE WANT SPREADSHEETS IS TO KEEP USING ELECTRONICS TO TABULATE VOTES |
Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 344
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 7:57 pm: |
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A spreadsheet done in full public scrutiny which anyone can duplicate any part to verify by pasting the numbers into their own spread sheet. |
Dale McClain
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 83
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 9:36 pm: |
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Ah Phillip:
All I did was post a note about the Case in Georgia
and you went off like a rocket.
You are my kind of man and you can be my leader!
Nearly all your words seem to reflect my innermost feelings.
In days gone by Election day was one day set aside for voting. The bars closed and each precinct had a supply of number 2 pencils and paper ballots.
Absentee ballots , Proxy voting, mail in voting were unheard of.
Human beings supervised and counted the ballots.
Later the various precincts would get together and tally the votes. Each county would compile these
Counts and report the results to the State.
These were the days when hard work was a way of life.
A farmer with a pitchfork could load a wagon with hay in short order. He could lift 150 pounds or more each pitchfork full.
And so today we make voting easy by using miniature electronic gadgets and stretching out the voting time to a week or more and allow all manners of mail in, proxy and absentee ballots - all designed with multiple open doors and windows for hackers, stool pigeons, insiders, and voyeurs to get a peek.
In addition we have eliminated the ballot box and troublesome and heavy paper
Ballots and replaced them with the high speed internet method of predicting the results long before the polls close.
Elsewhere you have suggested that for the price of a pot of coffee and lunch an accurate vote count could be taken by a walk around the precinct. I wholeheartedly agree with that kind of reasoning!
I feel that is the very reason our governments founding fathers set up small precincts that way.
This was true transparency. No outsider could break this code because the precincts were kept small.
This might be a good place to give a QUOTE FROM YOU:
====================
No electricity. No electronic signals. No computers. No electronic devices which tabulate. No electronic devices for maintaining registered voters. No electronic poll books, No memory chips, No modems, no ethernet, no fiber, no infra red devices, no RF!! no signals!!
======================= |
Pat Duff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Arbortender
Post Number: 24
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 10:02 pm: |
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Two pitchforks up for the Dale & Phillip Show!
Paper ballots.
Permanent markers.
People count the vote.
=P
|
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 46
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 10:56 pm: |
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"A spreadsheet done in full public scrutiny which anyone can duplicate any part to verify by pasting the numbers into their own spread sheet."
There is no scientific basis for this. A spread sheet can not have "public oversight." It's made up of data, the data is represented by electronic signals, neither the data nor the electronic signals will ever be in full public view, because of the physics involved. At best this is a smoke and mirror game targeting non-tech savvy Americans.
The data could become corrupted and everyone will have corrupted data. The machine can fail and everyone will have no data. The data could be exploited with a hex editor. The data could be corrupted in memory. Hidden logic could corrupt the data. The chips with which the logic for all the semiconductors comprising the entire operation haven't and can't have "public oversight" as there is no public oversight of the doping and manufacturing process or a chain of custody of said components. The LOGIC inside each semiconductor can not by it's physical nature have public oversight.
Ultimately, I will be proven correct, and all these officials will be proven wrong.
Question is will we still have a Constitution and functional government and country when that time comes? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3053
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 5:11 am: |
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Phillip,
Sorry, old buddy, you've gone for a metaphorical "bridge too far" with that. Expecting no computers ANYWHERE, including aggregation, may be a pure philosophical stance, but one that is wholy unworkable and its likelihood of EVER happening is about 0.000000001%. It's just too , I dunno, "nutty"?
There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with using computers using OTS software to aggregate publicly observed individual counts at the precinct. If you think we'll ever eliminate them in the aggregation step, you clearly must be mad.
What on earth would we do to report results? Have some fifth-grader muanually add columns of numbers? Come on. Get real.
If you take computers out of aggregation, you will NEVER get an accurate tally, never.
The basic problem is NOT computers, per se. It just ISN'T! Even our founder has come around on that. The problem is a lack of transparency, observability, and repeatability. As long as the individual precinct counts are retained and available to anyone who wants them, aggregation can be done with ANYTHING.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 486
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 5:48 am: |
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Dale and Phillip have a good point, Kurt, and even a fifth-grader should be able to understand it.
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Small precincts so that there is no need for a spreadsheet.
Decentralize.
If the voting process is fully transparent and allows for full citizen oversight, the result can be agreed upon before it is announced or transmitted. Once the precinct result is agreed upon by all observers, it can then be posted, announced, and transmitted.
What is transmitted is the result, a final result.
These results should be publicly posted, publicly announced, and publicly transmitted so that there is no way to alter them en route or at the next intermediary aggregation center, and those centers should be small enough to ensure that the results can be openly checked and openly added together with full transparency and full public oversight. These aggregates should not be posted, announced, or transmitted until all observers are in full and total agreement that they are accurate. Then they can be publicly posted, publicly announced, and publicly transmitted to the next aggregation centers, where the process repeats until eventually we arrive at a national count.
At any point if there is disagreement, the count has to start over. There should never be a situation where somebody claims to have voted for an issue or a candidate and that precinct shows no votes for that issue or candidate. That's why we need a way to prove how we voted, so that if my precinct shows no votes for me and I know that I voted for myself, I can stop the count and demand that a new election be held. If one person's vote can be thrown away or disappeared in some manner, than nobody has the right to have their vote counted. In a real election, one vote actually can change the results of an election and many an election has been won by a single vote. If one vote doesn't matter, nobody's vote matters and it isn't a real election.
Anything that a person of average intelligence and no special skills or abilities cannot observe and fully understand, doesn't belong in any election process.
But we'll never have honest elections as long as people are willing to continue to vote in rigged elections.
Democracy is a "Give me liberty, or give me death," kind of thing. Either we have honest elections, or we are voting for corruption.
When we go to the store for food, if the store only has poisonous substances for sale, do we say, "Well, I can't buy any food here, so I guess I'll buy the poison because that's the best I'm going to get"? Or do we walk away and not buy anything until we can buy something wholesome, nourishing, and edible? Why should a grocer sell you food if you're willing to pay for poison instead?
What about if the only thing the grocer will sell you is an unmarked, unlabeled can or box with no guarantee as to what is in it? Would you buy it and hope that it contains food instead of poison? If you're an American voter, you would. And because poison is cheaper and therefore more profitable to sell than food, you'll get poison every time. When there's no label and you have no idea what's in the can or box, how can you keep buying it and hoping that maybe next time it will be food instead of poison?
I just started reading, Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back by Douglas Rushkoff. He understands the problem. And he has most of the solution. But he seems to be missing an important step. If we want to be free from corporate rule, we have to stop voting to authorize corporate rule and stop delegating our power and authority to the corporate bureaucracy we call government. If we keep voting to allow it to rule us, it will.
If we want honest elections, we have to simply refuse to vote in faith-based elections and continue to stay away from the polls until we have open, honest, fully transparent elections with total citizen oversight. If we settle for less, we'll never get more. Because every time that a corporate lackey can claim to have been legitimately elected, they will oppose transparency and support legislation to make elections LESS transparent so that they can help the corporations that put them in power, consolidate their power over us.
Dale is absolutely correct--the more labor-saving devices we use, the longer it takes us to get results and the less verifiable those results are. We're not saving ourselves any work, we're contracting the work out to people we can't supervise or fire. That may seem easier than doing the work ourselves the old-fashioned way, but the result is that we have no voice in government and then we wonder what is happening to our economy. Yes, if you authorize somebody to steal from you, they will steal from you.
You don't let banks and stores count your change secretly and hand it to you in a sealed envelope that you are forbidden to open until after you leave the premises. You expect them to count your money right in front of you and to allow you to recount it right there also, so that if there is any dispute it can be settled right then and there. With the sealed envelope method, you don't know if your change is correct or not until you've left the bank or store, and they won't accept your claim to have been cheated because you could have pocketed some of the money after leaving the store and you can't prove that it really wasn't in the envelope. Break that chain of custody and make even a single element of the process secret and unobservable and you're giving away your money, your freedom, your country, your power, your life, and your children and grandchildren.
Is that really what we want to continue to do? |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 487
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 6:22 am: |
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Kurt, in our system, computers ARE the problem.
We aren't allowed to have any proof of how we voted.
In Venezuela, they use voting machines, but if a precinct shows no votes for a candidate, and one person has a receipt proving that they voted for that candidate, the results cannot be accepted because it is obvious that the voting machine was inaccurate.
Here, we can't prove how we voted, so even if a thousand people claim to have voted for a particular issue or candidate, and that precinct shows no votes for that issue or candidate, the voters cannot prove how they voted and the elections officials will always say that no matter how those people voted, it wouldn't have changed the results of the election.
In a system where voters have equal power and authority with elections officials, computers can be used. In a system like ours where the authorities have the authority to discount individual citizens, their voices are more powerful and our voices don't count any more than our votes do.
In Venezuela, if citizens contest the results of a precinct, they have their receipts proving how they voted and not only can they prove that the machine count was wrong, but they can't be dismissed as conspiracy theorists, nuisances, or busybodies, they can't be arrested, and the word of a voter has even more power than the word of an official, as the official really is nothing more than a public servant.
Unfortunately, in our corrupt system, paper and pencil voting won't fix the problem if we allow the votes to be counted or aggregated in a process that isn't fully transparent, by officials who cannot be held accountable, and voters have no power.
I've been trying to explain, over and over and over again, for years now, that when we delegate our power, we are delegating our power. If we want to have a democracy where the supreme power over government is vested in the hands of the people, we have to stop delegating our power and return to the direct participatory type of democracy that many of our founders had, and of which a few corrupted remnants still remain in the old New England Town Hall Meeting system.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't delegate your power and still retain your power. A republic is only a representative form of democracy if the representatives can be held fully accountable to the people at all times. In Venezuela, the same voters who elected an official, can directly vote to remove that official at any time. The people have the power to hire and fire, so the people are in charge.
That is not the case here. We can't directly vote to remove somebody from office at the federal level, and we have a top down system, so the federal level decides what money and power the states may have--what was decided in the Constitution was to leave decisions about states' rights up to an unelected and unaccountable body called the Supreme Court whose decisions cannot be appealed. All we can do is allow federal elected officials to steal from us and give everything we have to their corporate cronies until their term of office is up, and then we can vote in the next rigged election and hope the next unlabeled box or can might contain something better than the poison in the last one. And despite all our wishful thinking, that never seems to happen because power corrupts.
From the moment this country began, and even earlier, the power of corporations has grown steadily. There have been times when that power didn't increase as quickly as other times, but it was never diminished. The few regulatory reforms that were enacted, were just temporary measures that were always deregulated later on. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3054
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 6:44 am: |
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Mark,
You missed the whole point. Aggregation needs to be transparent, and for the most part (everywhere I've looked) it IS transparent to the extent that there is a place for the original precinct results to be found and re-aggregated yourself, if desired.
What DOES need changing is that the existence of those individual precinct counts needs to be far less of a secret and more easily obtained by anyone who wants to access them.
I don't have ANY problem getting them in my state because I know the system. That shouldn't be the admission price, though. I GET THAT. I shouldn't need to "know somebody" or know a metaphorical secret handshake to get precinct level results.
But let me assure you, Mark. I don't care where you live. Those precinct level counts do exist SOMEWHERE, and they are audited and cross-checked all the way up to the state level for the official count, which has NOTHING WHATSOVER to do with anything you've ever seen on any Election Night.
By the way, the mere idea of a "national count" is nonsensical, because voter eligibility is NOT interchangeable state to state. It's trying to add apples and oranges to get applanges. Only state totals are meaningful until voter eligibility is made uniform nationally.
When I did election admim as a profession, for EVERY election, I had to do two separate but equally important certifications to Harrsiburg. One was merely my county-wide totals, reported on a form in both digits and in words like on a check, and it bore the official seal of our county Board of Elections. The second was the precinct by precinct totals for every candidate who ran in more than one county. (For intra-county, we kept the certifications at the county level.) This was reported in a computerized format for an IBM System 34/36 running RPG-III software. If those numbers from the two reports were off by even one vote in a race with a 500,000 final margin, we had to find the error, no matter what. And the ORIGINAL PAPER TAPE from every machine was retained to be further cross-checked manually. Just because the manual nature is not typically publicly watched, IT WAS ALWAYS AVAILABLE for watching by anyone, ANYONE, who wanted to.
Only when we had a statewide judicial race decided by 28 votes did anyone come to watch. And so they did, day after day, for about 15 work days. Most likely in 67 counties.
NONE OF THAT excuses a non-tansparent original precinct count on a DRE, but that's another subject. The aggregation process is observable, repeatable, documented out the wazoo, and fully cross-checked down to the single vote level. Just because you don't PERSONALLY know it's happening doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
As for "FINAL" counts at the precinct. Nice. But there are ALWAYS errors, even when 5-7 people agree on a count, and access to courts is always a guarantee and courts ALWAYS have the right to overturn a precinct's tally.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 488
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 7:51 am: |
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Kurt, the problem is that there has to be a way that anyone can verify precinct level results BEFORE they are posted, announced, and transmitted.
Suppose there's a bug in the scanner program, and due to that bug it omits some votes, fabricates some votes, or miscounts some votes. Proving it after the results of the election have been announced only get you a shrug and the cliche that even so, it doesn't change the results of the election.
Now imagine that it is a bowl of soup and you find a bug in it. Do you have to keep eating the soup until you've finished the bowl, or can you stop eating it the moment you discover the bug?
If you have to eat the soup blindfolded, you may not know that it has a bug in it. If you aren't allowed to check it until after you've finished eating it, how do you know if there was a bug in it? And if you're only allowed to check it after you've finished eating it, what good is it to check for bugs in your soup?
Kurt writes, "But let me assure you, Mark. I don't care where you live. Those precinct level counts do exist SOMEWHERE, and they are audited and cross-checked all the way up to the state level for the official count, which has NOTHING WHATSOVER to do with anything you've ever seen on any Election Night."
That's the problem, Kurt. No matter how much I trust your word, I have no other way to know that count exists, as you yourself admit. Now it happens that in reality I do trust your word, but I don't belong to the "Church of Kurt," and I don't trust faith-based elections even if I trust that a count exists somewhere I can't find, no less verify.
The popular vote at the national level is merely symbolic. But the popular vote at the state level is no better, because it cannot be verified by the public BEFORE the results are posted, announced, and transmitted. So a Member of Congress is "elected" at the state level, but if the election is proven later to be fraudulent, the Constitution says that the only way to remove the candidate from office is by means of impeachment by Congress. If the public can't fire them, the public has no power over them, and they are not public servants.
The courts do NOT always have the right to overturn a precinct's tally. Once a candidate is sworn into a Congressional office, it wouldn't matter if they did, since the courts have no jurisdiction to remove that candidate from office. Only Congress itself can do that, so in the CA-50 case, Congress had their attorney notify the appeals court that it had no jurisdiction, and the court, not wanting to violate the Constitution, dropped the case. But by the time a case gets to that level, it is likely that the fraudulently elected candidate has finished serving their term in Congress and the case is moot anyway. For the popular vote to influence a Congressional election at all, it has to be verified and successfully contested BEFORE the candidate has been sworn into office. Since voters cannot file an election contest until the election has been certified, but Congress doesn't have to wait until the election is certified in order to swear in a new member, the popular vote for federal officials at the state level is a bad joke.
As for registration and who is or isn't eligible to vote, anyone who knows that they have absolutely no way to prove whether or not their vote was counted, and votes anyway, is, in my opinion, mentally incompetent and shouldn't be eligible to vote, hold office, drive a car, or even stand trial.
Would you deposit money in a bank and walk out if you had no way to prove that the bank actually counted the money, to verify that they had counted it accurately, and to document that it had been deposited into your account? So why would you be more negligent with our national treasury than with your own money, since our national treasury consists of your money along with everyone else's?
Suppose the bank told you that there was no need for you to see the money being counted or to get a receipt, because somebody somewhere was counting it accurately? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3055
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 10:13 am: |
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No Mark,
I disagree wholeheartedly. "posted, announced, and transmitted" mean absolutely NOTHING, becuase the Election Night returns THEMSELVES have no official weight WHATSOEVER. It's ALL "Fantasyland", it's all UNOFFICIAL, for media convenience ONLY.
If people put extra weight on what they see on Election Night, that's THEIR problem, not "the system's".
The "posted, announced, and transmitted" that TRULY matters as it is part of the OFFICIAL tally goes by unnoticed except in a tiny ad in a classified section of a newspaper. I twice TRIED to get the media to report on an official tally's "posted, announced, and transmitted" status, because it was different than what they had published in the papers weeks before (The one they published had NO absentee or provisional ballot results included.), but they declined because it was "no longer newsworthy".
That tally resides easily seen now on my county's website only, where it remains archived and the one printed copy that is the ultimate official tally is kept in my former office where ANYONE may view it just by asking, even today. One for each election I ran.
And not one of those 8 master tallies agrees with what the media reported, ever.
Even the Busby vs. Bilbray race has an official final tally, cross-checked right down to the precinct, and probably to the individual voting machine level, not that anyone ever publicized its existence, but it IS there in San Diego County and in Sacramento, and it confirmed the win of the man seated prematurely. I stipulate to the fact it was a premature seating, but NOT an inaccurate one.
If you would care to see what such a report looks like, here is one from my county, not one of mine. Our most recent primary, with a special election for a vacancy in a State House race.
http://www.co.berks.pa.us/elections/lib/elections/election_results/2009/certifiedprecinct2009prim.pdf
Every result can be matched to the indivdual precinct report by tallying up the three components - machine (plus emergency paper ballots), absentee, and provisional.
Is it easy? Is it convenient? No, not particularly. But its no "state secret" either.
If you don't have access to this level of detail in San Diego County on a website, you SHOULD and THAT'S your valid gripe.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3056
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 12:22 pm: |
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By the way, Mark, the only count I EVER represented as anything anyone should ever rely on for ANYTHING was the official one finished up about 20 days after the actual voting ended. That was the ONLY one I ever posted, announced, and transmitted for any purpose.
The one on Election Night was a news media product, not mine. Everything they ever got from me on any Election Night came with a "Don't put any faith in this, it's completely unofficial and unaudited and I have NO confidence in its ultimate accuracy" disclaimer. They all only cared about fast, not accurate.
It was the news media's choice to use words like "Candidate X has won" rather than my suggested "When the official tally is done starting on Friday, Candidate X will probably be shown to have won."
Their choice was used, not mine.
I took NO repsonsibility for the media's inaccurate language, nor the mistaken impression it would leave with the public. I used the proper language when I was asked anything. I never used any past tense verbs until the official tally was completed, and audited, and in close cases, I never used the past tense until the challenge period had ended.
If the Speaker of the House's office had asked ME about an election like that CA-50 Special, they would have gotten NOTHING without the disclaimer language until the tally and challenge period were finished. But then, I had no Congressional seats within the boundaries of my county, so it would have been state officials making that judgment call, not I, and I would give the state only what we KNEW OFFICIALLY.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 489
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 1:01 pm: |
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Unfortunately for us here in San Diego, Kurt, somebody in the Secretary of State's office liked those unofficial, fantasyland, for media convenience only CA-50 results enough to pass them along to Congress, which liked them enough to swear in the "winning" candidate while more than 50,000 votes remained uncounted and the election had not yet been certified. And once the candidate has been sworn into Congress, the real, true, accurate results, if they exist (and I'm not sure how they could with more than 50,000 votes still to be counted) are totally irrelevant.
In other words, whether the seating was premature or due to an inaccurate count, doesn't matter at all because the candidate was sworn into office (just as the President was in 2000, 2004, and 2008) BEFORE all the votes were counted, and once sworn in, can ONLY be Constitutionally removed through the impeachment process no matter what the final accurate tally may be.
While a small number of people with privileged access may be able to see that accurate tally in your state, Kurt, how many can do so BEFORE the candidates are sworn into office and it is no longer newsworthy?
As for matching the tally to the precinct reports, neither the tally nor the precinct reports are verifiable by the public BEFORE the candidates are sworn into office. There is no public oversight of the chain of custody, and in the same way that the Cuyahoga County elections officials manipulated the ballots so that the recount would match the machine count, it is possible for elections officials to manipulate the tally to match the precinct reports, which are themselves unverifiable.
For example, the precinct report may say that there were X number of votes for A, and Y number of votes for B, but the scanners may have misread the ballots due to poor programming and attributed A's votes to B and vice versa. The precinct report would show only that the same number of votes were counted as were cast.
But when Clint Curtis got sworn statements from voters proving that he'd won his election, Congress wouldn't look at them. His opponent had already been sworn in and couldn't be removed except through impeachment, so whether the results were accurate or not was irrelevant.
In the Clint Curtis case, the seating wasn't just premature, it was fraudulent. But only Congress can Constitutionally do anything about it and they refused to look at the evidence. Whether Bilbray was seated prematurely or fraudulently was impossible to verify. You're certain, based on a report you've never seen but which you believe that must exist, and that some privileged officials must have access to, that he was seated prematurely rather than fraudulently. But voters had no way to verify that before he was sworn in, in fact no way to verify that during his partial term of office, and essentially, our votes were irrelevant to the results. The swearing in, which was irrevocable, took place based on the fantasyland, media-only, unofficial results, so whether those results were accurate or fraudulent is irrelevant--it could have equally well been either way.
Suppose I owe you fifty bucks and I give you a sealed envelope and say, "Here's your fifty bucks, Kurt, please sign this receipt to acknowledge that you got it." You trust me, so you sign the receipt without opening the envelope or counting the money. It happens that I'm trustworthy and the envelope really does contain fifty dollars. But if it hadn't, there would be nothing you could do about it legally, since you'd signed that receipt. You could punch me out, but you couldn't take me to court. That's how our elections work. The receipt is signed (the candidate sworn into office) BEFORE the money (the votes) are counted BY THE VOTERS. They are secretly counted by machines, tabulators, elections officials, etc., but voters have no way to verify anything, not even to prove how they voted. The woman who voted for Cobb in '04, whose precinct showed no votes for Cobb, was irrelevant, since she couldn't prove it, it was her worthless citizen's voice against the powerful voices of the elections officials, and they said that having no votes for Cobb in a district that had at least one vote for Cobb, "didn't change the results of the election."
Would finding ten bucks missing when you opened the envelope, not change the fact that it contained fifty bucks because I said so? What happened to that super secret report that would have accurately verified every vote and shown that she had voted for Cobb? Why couldn't she access it? Why wasn't it taken into account? Why was Cobb told that nobody in that precinct had voted for him?
This is bullshit, Kurt. I don't want to see fudged numbers on a website AFTER a candidate has been fraudulently seated, I want an honest, open, free, and fair election, with full citizen oversight, no broken chain of custody, where every vote is counted accurately and nobody can be sworn into office before EVERY vote is counted.
It is just too easy for elections officials to count precincts they know will be favorable to a particular party or candidate first, and then announce the unofficial winner, who cannot be removed from office even if the secret official tally later proves that candidate did NOT win. Or, as in another election here, NOT announce the unofficial results which showed a popular candidate leading by more than two to one at the precincts, and secretly count some (fabricated?) absentee ballots and THEN announce that the absentees voted differently from all other San Diegans, and the less popular candidate "won."
One of the reasons you and Bev have been up in arms about voter registration and mail-in ballots is that it is so easy to fabricate ballots when there is no public oversight.
The results of these elections has been devastating to our national (and local) economy, and every day that people who may or may not have been elected, and who, in any case, were selected for fund-raising ability rather than ability to govern, remain in office, we as a nation become more embroiled in wars we don't want and can't win, and lose billions more in bailouts to wealthy incompetents at a time when we can't fund education or health care.
Phillip is right. I don't want a spreadsheet or a report, I want an intact chain of custody. No pigeon drops, no sealed envelopes, and no opening the envelope only after the money has been switched for worthless paper.
You can believe with all your heart that an unpopular candidate won an election against an extremely popular candidate, but as long as there is even one break in the chain of custody, what you have is a belief, nothing more, and like I said, I don't belong to the "Church of Kurt," and I won't vote in or accept the "results" of faith-based elections.
In other words, I disagree totally with your sig line, Kurt. I don't think that every once in a while people vote for candidates they don't like instead of for candidates they do like. I think the corporations manipulate the polls and the elections and put candidates in office without regard to the popular vote--often without even bothering to finish counting the votes because they are totally irrelevant to the "results" anyway.
The "results" are what the elections officials say they are, just as the "law" is what the judge says it is. That's how things work here. Believing that all votes are always counted accurately on some irrelevant report somewhere, doesn't change the fact that in the United States, candidates are often sworn into office BEFORE all the votes are counted. In other words, it is not the VOTES that decide an election, but at what point the elections officials decide to announce their unofficial fantasy-based results so that the candidate can fraudulently take office, after which, since there is no public oversight, they have plenty of time to fix the reports to match their fantasy results. |
Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 345
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 7:37 am: |
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Much was said above as if in debate with statement made 3 different places, best stated as...
Aggregation needs to be transparent, and for the most part (everywhere I've looked) it IS transparent to the extent that there is a place for the original precinct results to be found and re-aggregated yourself, if desired.
What DOES need changing is that the existence of those individual precinct counts needs to be far less of a secret and more easily obtained by anyone who wants to access them.
I don't have ANY problem getting them in my state because I know the system. That shouldn't be the admission price, though. ... . I shouldn't need to "know somebody" or know a metaphorical secret handshake to get precinct level results.
The statement is re:
(1) sufficient criteria for aggregating trustworthy local counts into regional sums,
(2) sufficiently transparent method for replication by anyone or everyone to verify summed aggregates' accuracy.
Visible accurate starting data and visible sums of said data, whose additions any citizen can easily replicate themselves, with or without whatever tech tools, will be an essential element of any transparent system.
This narrow statement, was denied and then ignored. What was said spoke almost entirely of wider subjects.
Standard spread sheet packages -- where all can easily access trustworthy input #s and output sums -- are a trustworthy way to combine local numbers into regional sums...trustworthy to the degree we can all test their trustworthiness in any operation by any or all of us independently repeating and verifying the result.
The more different tools used to repeat the same narrow task of sums, whether by 5th graders or rocket scientists, the merrier.
The mysticity of electricity can translate invisibly whatever it will so long as we can verify same input numbers redundantly add up to same output numbers...and anyone can game whomever's spread sheet, game one or game all we will one or all notice if we can all view the input--output trail at each step. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2365
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 8:08 am: |
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This argument boils down to two different arguments.
One is about what you vote on, and how that original tally is made. The other is about how you tot up a number of counts.
Using a spreadsheet of OTS software, (Excel, Access ) to sum individual counts is not a risk, if all of the data is available to anybody who wants to sum it, and the data was gathered under cross-checked observation. I'm a hardware guy, if you can dream up some vector that makes this a greater risk than using a calculator, I'd love to have you show it to me. It would be a hard sell, frankly, and, so far, I'm not buying it.
Now, using a hardware arrangement with unique build Opsys/applications software/media/I/O devices for the original vote caching? That has definite risks, and many attack vectors.
I think Kurt and Joel are reluctant to say it, but you guys are edging into tin-foil land here. But I mean that in the nicest possible way.  |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2366
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 8:12 am: |
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"These were the days when hard work was a way of life.
A farmer with a pitchfork could load a wagon with hay in short order. He could lift 150 pounds or more each pitchfork full. " Knowing what I know about physics, I really want to see that not upend a fellow onto his nose that weighs much less than 250 pounds. And also not break the pitchfork in the handle. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3057
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 10:44 am: |
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Brant,
Thank you, sir. Well put. Nothing in anything I said above excuses the non-transparency of the original precinct count. But that is, to me, an argument COMPLETELY separate and distinct from the aggregation stuff.
And yes, there is PLENTY of work to be done on a common reporting data format for reporting precinct results up the chain. It's a hodge-podge of garbage right now. No uniformity at all. And access to what DOES presently exist needs to be GREATLY expanded (like order of magnitude expanded).
That said, as long as we can get those data fields that are used to make up higher level numbers, aggregation is a benign issue.
Don't let this issue be dependent on what's widely known by the general public. People don't know the half of what's actually out there being done. The public isn't aware PARTIALLY because the news media doesn't want to compete with the "regular" public for access to the raw data. The traditional media likes its little near-monopoly of access, while they decline to report (fully) on what they have.
As for Mark's implied assertion that the CA-50 special election was never fully counted and over 50,000 votes were NEVER counted, I doubt that HIGHLY. Yes, they were not counted as of the time Bilbray was seated, but they WERE eventually counted. They HAD TO BE if for no ther reason than to ready the machines for their next election. Just because no one reported on the "non-story" of Bilbray's final count margin, doesn't mean the count was never completed. It WAS! No election code ever written said, "Results must be posted thoroughly enough so that Mark Smith of San Diego is certain to know the count was completed." Sad perhaps, but true.
ON THE OTHER HAND, it's not too long ago that California never even OPENED absentee ballots unless they could alter an outcome, so they don't have much of a history of "every vote must count", do they?
In 2005, I sat in a courtroom where during an argument about lost votes, and a litigant's attorney said, "Every vote must be counted!" The Judge shot back, "Where the hell did you get THAT idea? Al Gore? Give me the legal citation, if you have it, not some slogan! It's never been required by law that every vote be counted, only that the one who reasonably certainly got the most votes gets elected."
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 490
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 11:54 am: |
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Kurt writes, "Nothing in anything I said above excuses the non-transparency of the original precinct count. But that is, to me, an argument COMPLETELY separate and distinct from the aggregation stuff."
The arguments may be distinct, but when what is being aggregated ARE the non-transparent precinct counts, the issue is inclusive. No matter how accurately fraudulent counts are aggregated, the result will still be fraudulent.
But Phillip's point is that wherever an opaque electronic system causes a break in the chain of custody where there cannot be continuous public oversight, there is a window for wholesale fraud.
If the accurate spreadsheet aggregation process takes twenty days, a fraudulently elected candidate may already have been sworn into office, so proof of fraud cannot alter the results of the election or undo the fait accompli. So if the advantage of the computer spreadsheet is speed, it fails.
If I'm mistaking a rapid process on election night for a slower process afterwards, I apologize, but the key is oversight and the ability to verify the results BEFORE any damage is done. If the aggregation process is faster than any possible verification process, the verification becomes an irrelevant afterthought that cannot change the results.
The final result of an election is that a candidate is sworn into office and takes power, that power supposedly having been delegated to them by the voters. But not only do we not have any way to hold candidates accountable once they take office, but we can't even verify that they were actually elected before they're sworn in.
The idea is to count the votes BEFORE the candidate is sworn into office. Later on, when they are capable of causing all sorts of damage and cannot be removed until their term is up no matter what they do, is much too late. There has to be an accurate and verifiable vote count BEFORE a candidate is sworn into office, for it to be a real election rather than just a sham to make people think they have a voice.
The results of an election are NOT what some secret report says two weeks after a candidate has been sworn into office. The result of an election is that a candidate gains the power to tax, to fund wars, to make budget cuts, to reward corporations for outsourcing American jobs, or whatever else they want, and if it is a real election rather than a sick joke, the votes have to be counted accurately and verified with full public oversight BEFORE that power is handed over, not afterward.
Not that it matters when the big money decides who will be on the ballot, how much and what type of media coverage they'll get, and all the voters get to do is choose between which corporate puppet they would prefer to have imposing the same corporate agenda on them.
But if we had publicly funded elections, a media fairness doctrine, and a Constitution that didn't allow the Electoral College, a candidate's concession, Congress, or the Supreme Court to supersede the will of the people, it would be important to have election processes where the votes were counted openly and accurately BEFORE power was handed over. Right now, candidates are sworn into office based on fantasy results, long before Kurt's secret reports can "verify" those fantasies. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3058
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 12:04 pm: |
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Another example: In 2004, we had a Congressional race that wasn't decided until after 2AM. And after the Democrat has led all night, the Republican won when the last 3 or 4 precincts came in. I called it that way as soon as I saw what precincts were outstanding. They were all of them HUGEA$$ precincts and HEAVILY Republican, all of them. (Remember, this was OUR election where the Republican precincts had to wait in line 4-5 hours, but the Democratic precincts had all KINDS of machines and mostly no waiting. Not Franklin Co., Ohio).
So this race, which had been in the D column all night, flipped to R at 2AM. The local media was flummoxed because they had reported and RUN in the morning paper that the Democrat had won. The NATIONAL media had it correct - TOO CLOSE TO CALL, because they knew what precincts were still out and what that meant. I had a VERY strong sense the R flip was nearly certain, but they (the local print media) didn't want to listen to me. I told them which precincts were still out. Their reaction was, "So what? It's 99% in." And that would have been sound thinking if the remaining 1% weren't some of the most Republican precincts anywhere in the district. But they were. Only three precincts but there were over 6,500 votes there. And sure enough, the R took them by better than 2-1. Game over. You have to let local experts on the political scene be your guide in this stuff.
The moral of the story? Yuo can't rely on the media to ever get the story right because they're frequently too full of their own importance to even KNOW what's actually important information, much less decide to report on it.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Dale McClain
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 84
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 12:10 pm: |
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A QUOTE:
=============================
" Knowing what I know about physics, I really want to see that not upend a fellow onto his nose that weighs much less than 250 pounds. And also not break the pitchfork in the handle.”
==============================
Oscar Houcht from Fulton county Pennsylvania got an infection in his foot. The hospital removed the foot. Gangrene set in and they had to remove his leg at the knee. This still did not stop the gangrene and they planned to remove his leg at the hip.
This is when Bertha McClain went to the hospital and saw the poor treatment he was receiving -- unchanged bandages and so forth. She took him home (he was her cousin) soaked his leg repeatedly in Epsom salts and regularly changed his bandages.
He slowly recovered and was fitted with a wooden leg.
Oscar was a very strong man and a very ambitious worker. He took pride in the fact he could outwork
any non disabled worker. (This was before HAVA).
One time at hay harvest time a hay wagon over tipped on the rugged Pennsylvania farm and Oscar repositioned the wagon just below the accidentally off loaded hay .
He sank his pitchfork into the hay and in one mighty surge of power reloaded the hay in time to get it to the barn before the threatening rain storm spoiled the hay.
You can not put wet hay in the barn. It will mildew and spontaneously combust.
Under the right conditions man can sometimes do seemingly impossible tasks.
Dale. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3059
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 12:19 pm: |
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Mark,
Listen carefully, now. I'll type S-L-O-W-L-Y for you. Special Elections are a special case, hence the choice of words. They're, cripes man, "special", okay?
Yes, things like you have obsessed over ad nauseum in CA-50 (AND CA-13 incidentally) have happened in Special Elections, to our national shame. There's no excuse for it. It would never happen in my state. We wait for final certifications to seat Special Election winners here. We've just had two of them.
BUT, (and this is key), in the NORMAL course of elections it NEVER happens that anyone is EVER sworn into office until NOT ONLY the official count is COMPLETED IN ITS ENTIRETY, but until all challenges have been litigated and all opportunities to do so have lapsed. So you are putting up both a straw man and a red herring, sir.
You are ranting on about a circumstance that under the normal course of business NEVER HAPPENS!
Only in Special Elections, where people are completely WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATION AT ALL until someone is seated, does the situation you continue to rail on about ever happen.
You are being intentionally intellectually dishonest here, Mark. You are taking the exceptional case, indefensible and damnable as it surely is, and unfairly extrapolating it, WITHOUT ANY VALID REASON TO DO SO, to the general case.
We are here to INFORM people, sir, not to INFLAME them, yet you persist in your constant inflammatory disinformation campaign.
Shame on you for your intellectual dishonesty, Mr. Mark Smith of San Diego County, California, shame on you!
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 491
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 3:55 pm: |
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Well, I knew the media lied, Kurt, but I don't think they lied about the Supreme Court rulings in Bush v. Gore 2000.
Contrary to your assertion that, "...in the NORMAL course of elections it NEVER happens that anyone is EVER sworn into office until NOT ONLY the official count is COMPLETED IN ITS ENTIRETY, but until all challenges have been litigated and all opportunities to do so have lapsed," the President of the United States, after a non-special election in 2000, WAS sworn into office before all the votes were counted.
But I'm sure you believe that was a SPECIAL circumstance that could never happen again.
In 2004, the Democratic candidate for President, John Kerry, raised millions of dollars by promising to ensure that every vote was counted. Instead he conceded early, so once again, in the regular election of 2004, the President was sworn in BEFORE all the votes had been counted.
Again in 2008, millions of votes appear to have simply vanished, but the President was sworn in despite the fact that the missing votes could not be counted.
When there was discussion of Bilbray's hasty swearing it, people mentioned that Nancy Pelosi had once been sworn in three days after the voting occurred, long before the election could have been certified. I don't know if that was a "special" election or not, but I do know that the presidential "elections" held every four years are routine and normal rather than special.
Now it may be that in your state, in certain types of elections, it can never happen that the candidate is sworn in before all the votes are counted, anything in dispute has been litigated, and the election has been certified, but other than your particular state in those special types of elections, your statement is false.
Of course the popular vote isn't actually for President, just for the slate of Electors of candidates' political parties, and only the Electoral College can vote for President and Vice-President in this country, so technically you could say that the Presidents weren't sworn in before all the votes were counted, if you are referring to the REAL (electoral college) votes, rather than the sham citizen vote.
It wouldn't be intellectually dishonest of you assert that all the votes were counted in normal elections if you made the clarification that you weren't referring to citizen votes but to Electoral College votes.
As for Congressional elections, I guess you could say that the votes were counted in the Clint Curtis race, it is just that they were assigned to a different candidate. And in Saratoga, where votes just mysteriously disappeared, you could say that what votes didn't happen to disappear were counted (but obviously that wasn't ALL the votes).
If, in normal (non-special) elections in this country, ALL the votes are counted, disputes litigated, and elections certified BEFORE a candidate can be sworn into office, we already have honest elections, so why are we wasting our time here?
I guess it is a matter of definition. If a machine registers a vote for a candidate other than the one the voter selected, that could still be called "counting" that vote. It would be counted wrongly, but it would be counted. And since the voter can't see how the vote was recorded internally, and has no way to prove how they voted, there's no basis for litigation.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that Congress has to wait until an election is certified before swearing in a candidate, all it says is that Congress, not the courts and not the citizens, is the final judge of the elections of Members of Congress. At one point, somebody speculated that Congress might not even have to wait for an election to be held in order to swear somebody in--they could just "judge" that there had been an election.
When the facts contradict your beliefs, you resort to personal attacks. I have never tried to mislead people into thinking their votes were secure when they weren't and I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Even before electronic voting machines, it wasn't unknown for elections officials to hold certain precincts out for last so that they'd know how many votes to add to change the outcome. Lyndon Johnson's "election" by means of Ballot Box 13 is a classic example of that technique. So just because a candidate got the most votes, does NOT mean that more people really did vote for them.
And it is not a partisan issue. There is too much money and power at stake for either political party to want to leave the results up to the voters. If voters were considered competent, they'd be able to vote directly on issues rather than just voting for more competent people to make their decisions for them. |
Dale McClain
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 85
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 4:19 pm: |
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Brant: You have deflated one of my fondest memories.
Over the years as we retell the story of Oscar and his pitchfork we add a few pounds until it has now reached 150 pounds.
How can I explain the evolution of mathematics to my grandchildren with out some concrete examples?
I know the ancient Indians had three numbers :
One, two or many.
When their scouts looked over the hill and reported the enemy count back to the Chief is was always one, two or many.…
I think the same method of counting is still used in congress .. You know : one, two or many trillions of dollars.
=============================
But sticking to this thread of vote counting compared
To hard work - pitch forks and electronics - I must admit that Oscar would be up against stiff competition today complying with Rules for the Twenty Pound Sheaf Toss for Height. The object is to toss a bundle of hay (approximately 20 pounds) over a horizontal bar with a pitchfork. The bar is raised by one-foot increments, gradually eliminating contestants. The contestant making the highest toss wins.
==========================
20 lb. Sheaf Toss competition was held in May of this year by the Scottish Games Association of Delaware Inc. At the Annual Colonial Highland Gathering
at Fair Hill Race Track, Fair Hill Maryland
=========================
Dale
………………………… |
Pat Duff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Arbortender
Post Number: 25
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 4:41 pm: |
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I think I get that your impression of this Sir Mark E. Smith of San Diego County is slow, cripe-worthy, nauseating, obsessed, ranting, dishonest, inflammatory, disinforming, and doubly shameful. I didn't catch that angle reading his comments. Impassioned, organized, thoughtful and articulate came to mind. And I don't see where he started his SHOUTING either.
Et tu, Brute? ;~p
=P
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Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 209
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 5:35 pm: |
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Regarding the use of digital systems to tally votes.
That's the issue which first got me involved in this. I was writing computer programs back in the '60's, using Assembler and even machine-language sometimes, in support of the research work that I was doing. One of our functions was developing system models (that was for ag production, but rules and numbers are universal.)
Such models use coefficients, and those models used coefficients derived from field work - essentially calibrating the model, progressively, as the data is collected. The program started with hard-coded beginning coefficients, then changed itself, as more data came in, to make it fit the desired output result.
In an election-tally program, it could start the totalling of the votes with coefficients of 1.000 for the multiplier value of each vote. Then, as the evening (and days) rolled on, and the partial field data was entered, there could be a rule inserted like:
IF (the totals in this race between the top two are real close);
THEN adjust the multipliers so that candidate "A" (my party) was shifted to {something like 1.003}, and candidate "B" (their party) was shifted to {0.097};
ELSE leave the multipliers at 1.000.
(Thus, the total count of votes cast would still match up with the totals for all candidates.)
AND
IF the tally is finished,
THEN SAVE the results and switch all coefficients back to 1.000;
THEN erase these special instructions.
An insider (easiest) or hacker (harder, but maybe) could make and insert that tweak of the program.
And one of the best ways to watch for and catch that is an audit, done before the results are certified. Sure, that takes some time and costs some bucks. How much is our democracy worth?
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3060
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 6:51 pm: |
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Marian,
Can your scenario happen undetected?
NOT if (and remember, this is the operative presumption for purposes of this discussion) the individual precinct counts are retained, AS IS ALWAYS THE TRUE ACTUAL CASE IN THE REAL WORLD, and if those individual machine totals are verified individually on paper, AS THE SYSTEMS ARE DESIGNED TO DO, and if those precinct and machine level tallies remain publicly available, AS THEY SHOULD BE, ARE MOST PLACES, AND NEED TO BE WHERE THEY STILL ARE NOT, then no, Marian, your scenario cannot happen. Why not? Because under those conditions ANYONE can re-run the totalization and check it for themselves!
What we have here are people who are assuming because they have never personally seen such detailed results, that therefore they do not exist. They DO EXIST. I've SEEN THEM. Hell, I've PRODUCED THEM PROFESSIONALLY. And you know what? Virtually no one ever looked at them.
Yes, still two problems exist. 1) The individual machine tallies themselves mostly can't be "trusted" or even independently verified, due to their very nature, and 2) the information, while it all DOES exist in the dusty repositories of each state's chief election official's office, its public availability needs to be enhanced. I readily stipulate to those two shortcomings.
Those being the conditions however, then anyone who suggests we can't use even off-the-shelf spreadsheet software or the like for aggregation of those results, because we can't "trust it", THAT PORTION OF THIS WHOLE MESS, then yes, as Brant surmised above, I'm saying they need to be fitted for tin-foil hats.
Yes indeed, that's EXACTLY and PRECISELY what I'm saying. They need to be fitted for rubber rooms, as well. And also, they have so violated that key part of American jurisprudence, the famous "reasonable person" standard, that they have forfeited their right to be taken seriously.
We can't build a system that permits every "nut", no matter how extreme, to be placated or have his paranoid ramblings answered seriously. Sorry, some people are simply too crazy to worry about.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Pat Duff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Arbortender
Post Number: 26
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 7:23 pm: |
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Now the KISS corner (which sure seems to have made a pretty good case so far) consists of nutty, paranoid, conspiracists who should be institutionalized? Howz that intellectually honest? What sort of democracy is that about?
=P
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Pat Duff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Arbortender
Post Number: 27
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 7:33 pm: |
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...and some peoples' votes are just too inconvenient to bother counting at all. You're right, of course, by gosh, 'cause if I don't agree, probably I shouldn't be trusted with the right to vote at all, right?
=P
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 492
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 8:14 pm: |
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Kurt writes that Marian's scenario can't happen:
"NOT if (and remember, this is the operative presumption for purposes of this discussion) the individual precinct counts are retained, AS IS ALWAYS THE TRUE ACTUAL CASE IN THE REAL WORLD..."
Oh, they're retained alright, Kurt, but even if the precinct counts are retained publicly, the paper ballots on which they are supposedly based, and which are the only means by which they could be verified, are retained by elections officials and the public does not have access to them and therefore cannot compare the counts with the ballots to verify that they are the same.
Kurt: "...and if those individual machine totals are verified individually on paper, AS THE SYSTEMS ARE DESIGNED TO DO..."
Well for heavens sakes, Kurt! Why didn't the manufacturers of the systems tell the elections officials that the systems were designed so that the machine totals could be verified individually on paper by the public? Or do you mean that the counts are designed to be verified secretly by elections officials?
Kurt: "...and if those precinct and machine level tallies remain publicly available, AS THEY SHOULD BE, ARE MOST PLACES, AND NEED TO BE WHERE THEY STILL ARE NOT..."
Some places the machine level tallies are publicly available, but the paper ballots, the only means by which they could be verified, are under the sole custody of elections officials.
Kurt: "...then no, Marian, your scenario cannot happen. Why not? Because under those conditions ANYONE can re-run the totalization and check it for themselves!"
So the idea is to re-run the machine count and have it check itself? Given corrupted figures, the total will be corrupted no matter who runs the program. And the precinct totals, even when publicly posted (and in Kurt's fantasyland, they always are, or should be, or need to be), cannot be publicly verified because the ballots themselves are sequestered.
Kurt: "What we have here are people who are assuming because they have never personally seen such detailed results, that therefore they do not exist. They DO EXIST. I've SEEN THEM. Hell, I've PRODUCED THEM PROFESSIONALLY. And you know what? Virtually no one ever looked at them."
Kurt, nobody has claimed that your secret reports that few people have ever seen, don't actually exist. My only claim was that if the data used to compile them was corrupted, it doesn't matter how accurately and with what precision your reports have aggregated the corrupted data, the results would be a corrupted report.
Kurt: "Yes, still two problems exist. 1) The individual machine tallies themselves mostly can't be "trusted" or even independently verified, due to their very nature, and 2) the information, while it all DOES exist in the dusty repositories of each state's chief election official's office, its public availability needs to be enhanced. I readily stipulate to those two shortcomings."
Unfortunately the first "shortcoming," all by itself, is sufficient basis for not trusting any results based upon a count that cannot be independently verified.
Kurt: "Those being the conditions however, then anyone who suggests we can't use even off-the-shelf spreadsheet software or the like for aggregation of those results, because we can't "trust it", THAT PORTION OF THIS WHOLE MESS, then yes, as Brant surmised above, I'm saying they need to be fitted for tin-foil hats."
Kurt, you yourself have just admitted that those conditions DO NOT EXIST. If they existed, yes, you and Brant would be justified in name-calling and making smears and personal attacks on anyone who didn't trust the system, and calling us paranoid nuts, etc. But since you admit that those conditions DO NOT EXIST, your attacks (as Pat Duff points out) are not warranted.
"Trust but verify," only works when it is possible to verify. When it is not possible to verify, there is no basis for trust.
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3061
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 9:03 pm: |
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The ENTIRE conversation above, if you'll bother to go back and LOOK, involves Phil Caine's use if the word "tabulation". That is the ENTIRE context of this discussion, NOT what YOU choose to generalize in into, sir.
The point is if by "tabulation" he means ANYTHING to do with the individual machine counts, then he is correct, and I stand WITH him. However, I merely tried to make clear that I feel that if that's what he calls "tabulation", I believe it is a misuse of the term.
To me, "tabulation" means, quite literally, the process of presenting the data in a table format, with totals and subtotals, and I will continue to insist that THAT PART is a completely and UTTERLY BENIGN part of the process.
I have offered only CONSENT with you that the data in those fields is itself suspect. I submit to you that casts NO aspersion on the tabulation part of the process. Simple really.
I have FURTHER opined and I restate here, that if anyone REALLY thinks there's a problem with presenting the data in tabular format PER SE, then they are a dangerous lunatic not worthy of being taken seriously.
You keep wanting to say, "Yes, but the data itself is bad!" And in that I agree, but I state again that it is IRRELEVANT to the present discussion.
Not EVERY discussion needs to be about the HOLISTIC problem, does it?!?!?!?!
Have we LOST the ability to drill down into the component parts of this problem and find some parts that are fine, or do we have to ALWAYS metaphorically flail our arms about and proclaim democracy's death rattle because some OTHER part of the problem REEKS???
Really, that gets REALLY REALLY tiresome, Mark, and I suggest it's why many people tire of dealing with you. Everything has to generate a lengthy quasi-Constitutional rant. Why? Don't you ever think about anything else?
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 493
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 9:36 pm: |
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Okay, so if I steal fifty bucks from you, Kurt, and I give ten dollars of that to charity, the part where I give ten dollars to charity is, as you put it, "...a completely and UTTERLY BENIGN part of the process."
There may be a benign component (giving ten bucks of the stolen money to charity) in the process of stealing elections, but that doesn't mean that elections aren't stolen, just like that hypothetical fifty bucks.
How does that justify vilifying people who do not trust the process itself, in toto (generalized so as to be inclusive of the entire process), despite the fact that it may have a benign part?
Kurt: "I have FURTHER opined and I restate here, that if anyone REALLY thinks there's a problem with presenting the data in tabular format PER SE, then they are a dangerous lunatic not worthy of being taken seriously."
Well, I think there is a problem with presenting unverifiable data which may have been corrupted, in a tabular or any other format PER SE, because it is presenting (at least to the secret few who know it exists and can access it) unverified and unverifiable data in a format that makes it appear to be authoritative.
Any discussion about elections and voting that draws attention away from the HOLISTIC problem of honest elections and focuses solely on a part of the process that might be legitimate (if it were not part of an unverifiable process), is dishonest, Kurt.
To agree that the data is bad, and then dismiss the fact that the data is bad as irrelevant, is dishonest, Kurt.
The most evil person in the world may have some good in them and the most corrupt process in the world may have some benign components, but it is immoral and unethical to smear a judge because they sentenced somebody for the evil they were convicted of doing despite the fact that the convicted person was kind to their dog, or smear an election integrity activist for condemning a corrupt elections process despite the fact that the process may have a benign component.
The confidence game called the pigeon drop that I've mentioned before and compared to our election processes, is an example of a corrupt process that has a benign component. At one point the victim actually does hold an unsealed envelope containing real money. That's why, later on, when they are holding a sealed envelope that contains only worthless paper, they are still confident that they are not being conned. The benign part of the process is used as a tool to gain the sucker's confidence so that they can be victimized. That's why it serves only a nefarious purpose to focus only on a benign part of a corrupt process rather than to discuss the entire process holistically so as to ascertain whether or not, despite that benign component, the process as a whole is corrupt.
While the benign component in isolation might not be corrupt, if it is part of a corrupt process, or if it is used to justify, instill confidence in, or draw attention away from that corrupt process, it is no longer benign.
And the more personal attacks you make, "flailing," "REEKS," "tiresome," "rant," etc., the more obvious it becomes that you have no logical arguments and that your only possible response consists of ad hominem attacks.
The spreadsheets that banks and financial institutions use are the same when they are presenting data about sound investments and when they are presenting data about risky loans and worthless derivatives. They are benign when they are used for benign purposes, and they are not benign when they are not. A gun, per se, is benign, and it remains benign when it is used for target practice, but if it is used to shoot an innocent person, it is no longer benign. There's nothing wrong with discussing a component in isolation if it is used in isolation. Only when it is used as part of a process, is it necessary to discuss the entire process.
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Pat Duff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Arbortender
Post Number: 28
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 10:01 pm: |
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Well, sure it's relevant. And illuminating, and a deeply thought-provoking holistic conversation overall. You yourself opened the discussion wider in many directions not specific to tabling of data. Thank you for it.
I have no objections to People counting the small precincts' totals and using permanent markers to convey those totals forward to similar aggregation in "tabular format". I don't have a problem with using an adding machine or even a simple calculator at any stage of that process, say, with tapes run thrice showing same totals and with all the addends visible. That oughta be adequate. And I also don't see why kids couldn't do the counting and adding across the board. It's the simplest of math, and if it isn't...show me where it isn't, please, and why that approach is superior.
=P
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3062
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 10:18 pm: |
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PAt,
If you think that using technology like markers, adding machines, or calculators gets you anywhere, you are DEAD WRONG. We've BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, and have the t-shirt already. There were too many errors. It's been tried. It's WHY voting machines got a foothold in the first instance.
Every manual intensive system ever tried through history has FAILED in this country. Sorry, but it has. If you have a way to get the ADVANTAGES of a manual system while wringing out decades of human failure due to mistakes, I'm all ears.
Our citizens today are no more arithmetically adept than our grandfathers were. Arguably we're FAR worse off. You have to find a way to wring out of the process more than a century of PROVEN manual error.
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 210
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 10:35 pm: |
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I may report (once again for most of you) that my own county has done a pretty good job (we, the multi-partisan watcher-teams) on the validity of the counts.
Speaking narrowly on the counting question (not the prior steps) the Elections office runs the ballots thru high-speed OpScanners, with us citizens standing just feet from them and watching the flow from the vault thru the system and back into the vault.
Our significant element of this is - we have gained the ability to holler, at whatever random moment we wish, and that "batch" of about 140 ballots gets run, then set aside and sent out for a hand-count. Even that hand-count is done with citizen observers present and watching (and able to speak to the supervisor for questions or challenges.)
I wish we did more batches, to gain a better statistical case. But I am overjoyed that we got this far - (along with the CEAC we recommended, and that was created and continues meeting monthly, now 5 years down the pike.)
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3063
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 11:48 pm: |
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Mark,
When you drop the need to always use specious analogies, maybe we can talk. I'm talking about the 50 bucks thing. Stick to the topic. It's simple enough to talk about directly. We don't need analogies or euphemisms or metaphors to discuss voting. It's simple.
The core question is and always has been, "Once you solve the core problems with the original count problem, which we all agree is a BIG problem, and you ensure public access to the component counts that are to be aggregated to district, county or even state totals, is there THEN, after you have dealt with THOSE problems, any place where you can use computers?"
If your answer is "Yes, but you haven't solved the core problem, you merely wished it away" then that's fine.
But if your answer is "No, no computers of any kind may touch this process at all, ever" then I submit you will ALWAYS be on the outside looking in and have damned yourself to perpetual irrelevance.
If you want to deal with the tough stuff first and see what technology exists after that, I respect that too.
But anyone who thinks computers are going away from elections totally is deluding himself.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3064
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 - 11:53 pm: |
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Also, if you think the answer is "take-along receipts" for voters to prove how they voted, forget it, that's never going to happen.
It's an attractive idea to almost everyone who first looks at this. But its "dark side" makes it not worth the price of admission, upon further review.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 494
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, September 19, 2009 - 12:32 am: |
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Kurt, as I've noted previously, analogies, metaphors, and parables are useful rhetorical tools and can be used to convey or illustrate logical arguments. Personal attacks are not. When you drop the personal attacks, I'll stop thinking that you can't understand logical arguments and that simplifications are necessary.
I don't think that computers are going away from elections, but I agree with Phillip that they constitute a break in the chain of custody. Therefore I oppose their use in elections until and unless all the other problems are solved.
Once the other problems have been solved, if you want to propose safe uses of technology, they can be tested to see if the process remains uncorrupted when they are used, or if their use corrupts the process. In most cases, I believe that the introduction of a nontransparent process is inherently dangerous and must be approached with the utmost caution. I know it can be done and has been done (Venezuela), but only when there is complete citizen oversight of elections and a way for citizens to prove how they voted and to verify that their individual votes were counted accurately.
If you think that computers can be used safely before the other problems are solved, then you are the one deluding yourself.
The question to be asked at every stage of an election process, is does this component enhance transparency and citizen oversight and thereby contribute to the solution of the tough problems, or is it part of the problem and therefore cannot contribute to the solution.
If you want to wish away the tough problems because of your bias towards technology, I cannot and will not support that.
The U.S. has a tradition of election fraud dating back to George Washington's time. Approximately half of our electorate participates in elections either because they don't realize that these are sham, faith-based, unverifiable elections, or because they don't care. For there to be any real change, the election integrity community has to do educational outreach, such as Bev's charts and Phillip's impassioned declarations, to counter the "trust us" spiel of the political confidence hucksters.
Bev started Black Box Voting to educate people about the fact that computers constitute a secret vote count. Bev's magnificent charts illustrate nicely that most U.S. votes are counted secretly. Phillip emphasized the same point. And I agreed.
There are two sides in this fight, Kurt, the educators (if you can't verify it, don't trust it), and the con men (don't worry, I've personally verified it and can vouch for its accuracy, so don't worry about verifying it for yourself, just trust me). Which side are you on? |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 495
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, September 19, 2009 - 12:49 am: |
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Kurt writes, "Also, if you think the answer is 'take-along receipts' for voters to prove how they voted, forget it, that's never going to happen.
It's an attractive idea to almost everyone who first looks at this. But its 'dark side' makes it not worth the price of admission, upon further review."
It has already happened in other countries. It may never happen here, just as we are the only developed country without a national health care plan, but dismissing something out of hand as an impossibility when it has already been proven possible, is an illogical argument.
If what you're trying to say is that the United States government is too corrupt to ever allow honest elections or to promote the general welfare with health care for all, then I would agree with you. My purpose in educating people with regard to these facts is so that they'll understand that the problem is not any individual component(s) of the system (which, if used in isolation from our corrupt system, might be benign), but the system itself which corrupts anything it touches. |
Mark Michaels
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mark_michaels
Post Number: 100
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, September 19, 2009 - 6:48 pm: |
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May I suggest that the discussions of what constitutes "tabulation" and whether manual adding machines belong in the vote counting process be moved to another string? I'd like to read more about the ES&S acquisition of Premier. |
Jean Braun
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Grandma
Post Number: 3
Registered: 9-2009
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 9:37 am: |
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Isn't it a Shakespeare line that "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"? If you re-name tabulating to be "aggregating," it is still tabulating.
Kurt has stated that the election aggregation process can't be corrupted.
Mark has pointed out that the data it aggregates can be corrupted - the original computer axiom of "Garbage in - Garbage out."
Marian has shown that aggregation process can, in fact, be corrupted.
Kurt's response is that such corruption can be discovered. The two-keystroke enry into the massive Diebold system was discovered, but Diebold is still providing electronic voting machines.
Commercial electronic machines deliver a receipt for the user - an instant audit. Election electronic machines do not do that.
The call to prohibit electronic machines from the election process has to be the way to go. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3065
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 10:02 am: |
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Jean,
Voting is fundamentally different from financial transactions in a core way.
In financial transactions, matching the currency amounts to the individual person (or other legal entity) is THE KEY function. It is what it is all about.
In voting, not only is that match-up not central or key, it is downright PROHIBITED to be known. It is a forbidden "connection".
Therefore, all analogies to financial transactions are false analogies.
You can't use one to analogize the other. It is false logic. Taking away a receipt that allows anyone (Person A) to prove to someone else (Person B) how they voted is not only not allowed, merely being able to do so is ITSELF a criminal act, at least at present.
Think about that for a moment. In every state I have looked at, merely POSSESSING an instrument that allows someone to verify his vote to another person is criminal, and in many states, its not merely criminal, it is a FELONY.
Now think about why that might be. It ISN'T because some corporation wants it that way. This change was made WAY before the rise of corporate power to the extent we now have it in this country. It became forbidden precisely BECAUSE of the evils of vote buying and coercion which were demonstrated facts.
What strikes me is that we in this era are the first in over a century to not see this (the importance of not being able to PROVE a vote) as a problem. I suggest that we are the first so loaded with hubris that we disdain historical facts in favor of some "new thinking".
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 498
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 11:24 am: |
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Kurt writes that the ability to verify one's vote "...became forbidden precisely BECAUSE of the evils of vote buying and coercion which were demonstrated facts."
That's your interpretation, Kurt. Mine is that those who wanted to rig elections frightened people into thinking that a few proven cases of vote buying and coercion warranted forfeiting the right to verify that everyone's vote was counted accurately.
The oligarchy manipulates public opinion quite readily through scare tactics. When heinous and/or enormous crimes are committed by corporations, intelligence agencies, or Members of Congress, we are told that it is just a few bad apples, that the system still works, and not to blow it out of proportion.
When lesser crimes are committed by minorities or the poor and the powerless (people who can be coerced into selling their vote are usually poor and powerless), we are told that it indicates a pattern of corruption, that anyone associated with the poor and the powerless should come under suspicion, and that in order to feel secure we must forfeit our freedoms and our Constitutional rights.
A recent example of this with regard to elections is the way that a small number of cases of retail election fraud were used to frighten people into forfeiting the means of preventing wholesale election fraud.
Prohibiting us from being able to verify our votes does prevent some cases of retail election fraud, but at the same time it enables wholesale election fraud for which we have no remedy.
The reality is exactly the reverse of what we've been told. Emphasizing retail election fraud at the expense of wholesale election fraud is an example of blowing things out of proportion.
A more specific example is your obsession with fraudulent voter registrations even though, at least to my knowledge, there is no evidence of anyone ever casting a vote based on a fraudulent voter registration form. Blowing this problem out of proportion by frightening people into thinking that because a small number of fraudulent voter registration forms have been submitted, somebody, somewhere, someday, might actually cast an illegal vote based upon such a form, allows election riggers to enact laws and adopt systems that make it more difficult for large numbers of the poor and the powerless to register and vote.
That in turn makes them more eager to participate in unverifiable, faith-based elections for candidates they cannot hold accountable, and distracts them from realizing that a vote in an unverifiable election is not a real vote and that, in any case, if you cannot hold candidates accountable once in office, they are not your representatives and you are acting against your own best interests by voting for them.
Jean Braun has it right. As long as we cannot verify that our votes are counted accurately, We the People have no voice in government. All we have are what Brad Friedman of BradBlog so accurately described as 'faith-based elections where the election fairy comes down and tells us what the results are,' and having no way to prove otherwise, we have no choice but to accept it.
This was not the first time that we were frightened into forfeiting our rights, and it probably won't be the last time, but just as we don't abandon elections because a few elections officials have been proven to be crooks, we must not abandon democracy because a few voters have been proven to be crooks. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3066
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 12:12 pm: |
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"All we have are what Brad Friedman of BradBlog so accurately described as 'faith-based elections where the election fairy comes down and tells us what the results are,' and having no way to prove otherwise, we have no choice but to accept it."
True, but it has ALWAYS been such, regardless of the technology used (even with hand counts, because we have never had universal access to observation - you must be a partisan), since the Austrailian secret ballot was adopted in ABOUT the 1880's.
Yes, that presents a verifiabilty problem, even today, maybe even ESPECIALLY SO today, due to the existence of so many effectively "single party" localities. Political parties are having to "ration" the available observers because there aren't enough people to do it, chiefly in areas dominated by the "other" party. (Read: the Dems already can't get volunteers for the outer rural areas, and the Reps ditto for the inner cities.) So you end up with th erather perverse situation that you end up with Republican observers "verifying" that no cheating went on in Republican-dominated areas and Democrats declaring everything okay in Democratic areas. While few places get bipartisan, much less multi-partisan observation. If you have a solution for that, let's hear it.
What has been used as a de facto "policeman" IS technology like voting machines. What you have here is a case where a group of people are saying the technological "policeman" is itself corrupt. Many people just will never accept that, because the only alternative is for them to show up to do the work of keeping elections honest. I don't believe people are interested in that much responsibility. The motto seems to be, "Use whatever technology you want, just so I don't have to do anything."
In my county, with 201 polling sites, the two major parties themselves can only gather about 80-90 observers each, and they BOTH cover maybe only 20-25 of them. Many polling sites never have a single observer all day, even in an election like 2008, much less off year. As recently as the 1960's (yes, fewer precincts) there was NEVER a problem. Parties had more "foot-soldiers" then because parties mattered more to the rank and file because there was MUCH MORE patronage and "goodies" to hand out. Not any more.
Where you still have "machines" you get the foot-soldiers because the patronage system is still in place. And that's true whether it's San Diego Republican patronage or Philly Democratic patronage.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3067
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 12:25 pm: |
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Re this: "A more specific example is your obsession with fraudulent voter registrations even though, at least to my knowledge, there is no evidence of anyone ever casting a vote based on a fraudulent voter registration form."
We had a state appellate case here where that VERY argument was put forward. The Judge blew it out of the water. He said, "What you mean is we haven't seen it proven because it can't BE proven because you can't ask for identification beyond that voter card, right?"
We don't KNOW if there is fraudulent voter registration voting going on because there's no way to discover it. And where we get VERY close to knowing its going on statistically (turnouts approaching and even reaching 100%), you have no tools to know which ones were fraudulent.
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 499
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 12:52 pm: |
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Kurt, do you really believe that in cases where there were turnouts approaching, reaching, or even going several orders of magnitude above 100% (3,000 votes in a district with 400 registered voters), it was due to fraudulent registrations rather than corrupt elections officials and/or rigged voting machines and tabulators?
Which do you suppose is more likely, that a few thousand imaginary people fraudulently registered with nonexistent registration forms, or that a programmer or elections official stuffed the electronic ballot box?
When you vote in an unverifiable election, you are saying, "Here's my ballot, I selected my choices, you may count them for whichever candidates you wish as I have no way to prove how I voted, but I'm too apathetic to care."
At best, we can verify that the number of votes counted equal the number of votes cast, but if there is a single break in the chain of custody, such as the paper ballots being recorded electronically (invisibly), we cannot verify that the votes were counted the same way they were cast.
Audits and recounts are worthless once there is a break in the chain of custody of the paper ballots, and there are very few places like Marian's where there is citizen oversight of the paper ballots. In most places the paper ballots are in the sole custody of the (honest or corrupt) elections officials between the "election" and the audit or recount, so nobody knows if they are counting the ballots cast, or ballots which were substituted during the time that citizens were shut out of the process.
By the time that Richard Hayes Phillips was able to gain access to some paper ballots from the 2004 election and prove that they had been tampered with, the election was long over and many paper ballots had been illegally destroyed. So he was only able to prove that IF the patterns of tampering he uncovered held true throughout the districts where the evidence was destroyed, the election had been stolen, but not that the election actually had been stolen.
My guess is that in the districts where the evidence was illegally destroyed, there had been much MORE tampering than in the districts where a judge eventually allowed him access to the ballots. Elections officials in districts where there had been less tampering would be less likely to feel a need to illegally destroy the evidence than elections officials in districts where there had been more tampering, so I think that what Phillips documented was only the tip of the iceberg.
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3068
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 1:31 pm: |
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Mark,
1) I am unaware of any cases where the official count of votes went over the registation figures, I know of QUITE A FEW cases where that was true in a preliminary unofficial count. I'll go so far as to say I know how to RECREATE a situation like that in a prelim Election Night count with the Danaher system. But not on the final count - because the system won't ALLOW such an error if the system is used correctly as it is designed. The final count is just a fundamentally different process than Election Night is - it's not even the same software module.
2) Yes, in Philadelphia, PA, (at LEAST there) I believe the reason that many precincts approach 100% turnout IS registration fraud because I work with an ex-Committeeman who participated in it and told me how it is done right down to the last detail. He still lives in the Philly 'burbs and named names to me of the politicians who run the scam today. Phiily routinely gets close to 100% turnout in elections where every other inner city in the state is lucky to crack 45%.
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 500
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, September 21, 2009 - 2:49 pm: |
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So do how do the politicians who run the scam get the elections officials to accept all those fraudulent voter registrations, Kurt, given that, by your estimate, more than half the voter registration forms filed are fraudulent?
Are all the higher level elections officials in on the scheme and they force lower level elections officials like you were, to go along to get along or lose their jobs?
Do the the politicians running the scam pay people who are ineligible to vote, to file those registrations? Usually, in the United States, only approximately half the electorate is apathetic enough to vote in faith-based elections, so they'd have to recruit from the other half, and they would have to pay them to make it worth their while. I doubt if you can reach anywhere close to 100% paying only people in that district who are ineligible to vote to file. Are approximately half the people in that district ineligible to vote? In any event, even most ineligible voters would be aware that casting a fraudulent vote is a crime, so they'd have to be paid to take that risk. That's a huge investment. But without the fraudulent registrations having been accepted by the elections officials, the people the politicians pay to file them still wouldn't be able to vote, so the politicians would have to pay the elections officials off first.
I do understand that you were frustrated because you were the only one in your office interested in rejecting fraudulent voter registrations....or was it that you were the only one who could recognize them? Or were you the only one who wanted to pursue the people who filed them, and your boss, knowing that it would lead back to the high level politicians running the scheme, wouldn't allow it?
Are the committeemen and politicians running the scam members of ACORN? Did they coerce or bribe ACORN workers to file fraudulent registration forms?
Are ineligible voters involved in this scam at any level, or just politicians?
Who falsifies the voter registration forms?
How do they ensure that elections officials will accept them as legitimate?
Are you saying that the names of actual residents are used on those forms, but that somebody else casts the votes for them? If so, who tells the ineligible voters what name and address to register with and vote under, helps them memorize that name and address, and teaches them how to forge that signature? How do the elections officials prevent the voter cards from being sent to the address of the actual residents whose names are being used? Or is this all done by elections officials with mail-in ballots so that no actual human beings have to appear at the polls?
And, once more, why haven't you gone to the FBI with this information? That's what I would do if I had information about serious crimes.
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3069
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 5:14 am: |
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Mark,
The way the Philadelphia scam works is really very simple. ACORN has been FULLY active in Philadelphia for MANY election cycles. They spread into some outlying cities, such as Reading and Allentown, in 2004 and pretty much every city in the east, plus Pittsburgh (which is west) in 2008.
Registration fraud has two lines of parentage - the internal party scam and the ACORN done type. The internal party type usually starts with registering NUMEROUS voters at addresses that would only house 2 or 3 adults at most. These addresses are usually owned by partisans (slumlords involved in Dem. politics), where all the registration cards are received in the mailbox by the owner. On Election Day, vans crisscross the city delivering the same "voters" at polling site after polling site where the "voters" vote repeatedly under multiple identities.
ACORN resigtrations are leveraged by the scam as well, but they present SLIGHTLY more risk because the addresses used are not necessarily owned by insiders of the scam. But the false registrations are on the voter lists, so the "van voters" are told what name to use when they go in to vote at each location. The state's and federal ID laws are openly ignored. Anyone with $20 can get the whole voter list, complete right up to the moment, with all previous voter history included so they can avoid van-voting for "real people" to a large extent, on a CD or DVD.
If a name given to a "van voter" turns out to be a real person who has already voted, the "van voter" apologizes, leaves, goes outside and gets ANOTHER NAME, and goes BACK INSIDE to give it another shot. No one objects because there IS NO ONE TO OBJECT. There are NEVER any Republicans ever ALLOWED to observe in the majority of Philadelphia precincts. In 2008, the Republicans had to go to court to get a court order to be allowed to observe in numerous Philadelphia polling sites because the Democratic Judges of Election refused to let them in. The Repubicans eventually got an injunction (they had to go to FEDERAL court because the Election Day city court refused them), but that took over 5 hours to get done.
In Philadelphia, all the precinct Election Judges are put into place BY THE DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE, so they are incentivized to do EXACTLY what the party operatchiks desire.
Anyway, the "van voter scam" goes on cycle after cycle until the polls close and near 100% turnout is achieved. In some precincts, more than twice as many people vote than the census says people exist there, and the census includes kids. If you knew Philadelphia, you would know that the city has 1681 precincts and they are geographically minuscule. There is NO REASON for able-bodied young men and women to arrive at polling sites by the van loads, and mini jitney loads, but they do all day, every election. This, even though being able to walk to the polls is a precinct design criterion.
Signature mismatches are ignored by the politically corrupt local precinct election officials and they are then SEALED unless there is a court order. In ALL of Pennsylvania, the pollbooks are sealed records not subject to public review, even in a recount. The ONLY place a challenge can be done is at the precinct, and they routinely exclude anyone not in on the scam in Philly.
Now, as for the man that has the same job I had in my county, he just MIGHT BE the cleanest guy around down there. He tries to catch all the fraudulent forms he can, he runs the best voter file maintenance operation in the state, but he can't hold back the flood by himself. He's just one guy and he has a family to feed and protect, too. He is the biggest critic of ACORN there is, and he's a lifelong Democrat, blue collar style working man variety.
It is an electorally corrupt place from top to bottom. And when I say that, I am NOT suggesting that if it were clean Republicans would win elections there locally; far from it. The real stuff is Democrats are honestly a big majority there and it's fully normal that state Reps be D's from those districts. I'm suggesting they corrupt statewide elections with impunity by inflating margins.
Anyway, that's the story as told to me by a former van driver himself, who will not go to the authorities because he's convinced his family would be harmed if he did, AND he pretty much got his nice highly paid cushy job he has now through Democratic patronage.
Me? I work for a very powerful "blue dog" Democratic committee chairman even though I spent most of my life as a Republican. I do fiscal impact of proposed legislation analysis for him. My degree is in Economics, the "Dismal Science". I don't do advocacy for or to him. We know how much we'd disagree. I'm his "bean counter".
He hired me because he knew how scrupulously honest (to a fault) I was while I was my county's election director and how badly I got screwed by his fellow Democrats of a more ideological and vicious stripe.
I don't discount your experiences in San Diego, Mark. I can believe all you have to say about there. This (northeastern cities) ain't no San Diego. Electoral crimes are MOSTLY (yes, pockets of REALLY nasty and stupid GOP shenanigans) a Democratic thing here.
ONE of the alleged kingpins of the operation just went to federal prison on unrelated federal corruption charges. That prosecution was started under the Bush Justice Department and finished up under the Obama one. There is a LONG HISTORICAL LINE of Philadlephia politicians who have done federal time, and if what I'm hearing is true, there's more to come soon. Political corruption is an art form in Philadelphia.
Maybe you read about the huge electoral fraud investigation and indictments in New Jersey, that knocked out several county Democratic chairmen. Trust me, the Delaware River makes no effective barrier to this stuff.
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 501
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 9:31 am: |
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Kurt, if you have the names and you care about election integrity, why haven't you given the names and the details of the scheme to the FBI?
Unlike you, I am not a partisan. I know that both political parties are corrupt and the third parties are seeking power only so that they can be corrupted also. I know that our elections are rigged, but not at the polls. They are rigged when Rockefeller's policy-making bodies tell the political parties which candidates they may nominate in order to ensure the continuing corporate support the parties are dependent upon. So the sham elections are a joke where people get to vote for one of two Rockefeller-selected corporate shills who will put Rockefeller's business interests ahead of the interests of the American people and any other people.
What percentage of Philadelphia voters does ACORN register? What percentage of Philadephia voters are registered Democrats? When you get close to 100% turnout due to fraudulent votes, do they all vote Democrat? Do the elections officials then falsify one or two Republican votes to try to make it look as if it was an honest election?
Please read this slowly and carefully, Kurt.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
I'll repeat that, as sometimes you have difficulty understanding even simple things.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
If you have evidence of even a single building where a slumlord opened mail that was addressed to residents, please give it to the FBI so that slumlord can be indicted, tried, and sentenced to federal prison. It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
I don't care if that slumlord is Democratic, Republican, Green, or anything else. If a person commits a federal crime and you have knowledge of it, you should not aid and abet them by withholding that information from the proper authorities.
You don't even need the name--just an address where more people voted than lived, and the FBI can do the rest by going in and investigating to find out who registered people who didn't live there.
If you tell the FBI that false registrations were already on the voter lists, they can investigate the corrupt elections officials who approved fraudulent registrations.
The signature mismatches and pollbooks may be sealed to the public, but the FBI can subpoena them. And will be happy to, as they have been investigating ACORN and the Democratic Party enthusiastically for many years.
As for anyone being harmed or their family being harmed, the FBI can offer them protection and put them into the witness protection program if necessary. But rigging elections is a crime and it must be investigated and prosecuted, so you should not continue to withhold information from the proper authorities.
Even if somebody is in prison, they can still be charged with more crimes and in most cases people like that will be happy to cooperate with the authorities.
Although you claim that both you and your friend are clean as a whistle, I cannot imagine any honest person who cares about honest elections withholding information from the authorities.
Political corruption is an art form in Chicago also and also has a long historical line. But every once in a while there is an honest person who goes to the authorities and investigations and convictions ensue.
Please stop abetting election fraud, no matter how widespread it may be, by withholding specific information such as addresses, names, or methods from the proper authorities.
At the very least, they could post agents outside the polls and check those vans. You don't need Republicans to do it--FBI agents can do it just as well if not better, and I'm quite sure that many of them are registered Republicans anyway because the FBI has always been a very conservative organization.
If Republicans in Philadelphia are not allowed to observe, that is also a crime. Why haven't they gone to the FBI? I've never seen Republicans with any qualms about reporting crimes by ACORN, by Democrats, or by poor people and minorities, to the proper authorities. Has ACORN or the Democrats threatened bodily harm to any Republican who goes to the FBI? That is also a crime and the FBI would like to know about it.
I don't vote because I will not vote in faith-based elections and because I find that both major parties are corrupt. I would like to see anyone of any political persuasion, who is in any way connected with election fraud, either authorizing it, committing it, or helping to cover it up by withholding information from the proper authorities, in prison where they belong.
In your previous comment you claimed to have information about, "how it is done right down to the last detail, inclusing the, "names...of the politicians who run the scam today."
That information needs to be given to the FBI, Kurt. Even if it is just hearsay, they can investigate and verify it, and I assure you that if it is in any way connected to ACORN or to the Democrats, they will.
Do you really have that information, Kurt? If so, and if you are withholding it from the FBI, you are helping to cover up federal crimes. If not, you are just making unfounded allegations.
Which is it? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3070
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 10:16 am: |
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It's not my job to do it yet again, because they already HAVE the information, given them by numerous sources, including former participants for whom it is NOT hearsay. It's so rampant its public knowledge. Yet prosecutions are rare. Why? Probably becuase there are bigger fish to fry and informants to the more serious crimes are valuable resources.
The federal authorities have in several cases declined to act on election allegations because they are state matters. No federally "protected class" is involved in Philly, unless it negatively impacts minorities, which it does not.
Absent a "protected class" impact, which does NOT include political parties, the feds defer to local and state authorities. I got that from the U.S. Justice Department themselves, in 2002.
"We're not in the 'election police' business, unless a federally 'protected class' is involved, such as a racial or language minority."
Your FBI lacks jurisdiction. In Noxubee County, MS, the feds got involved because it was a black Democratic power structure systematically dienfranchising a white Democratic minority in primaries.
Oh, and Philadelphia's registration numbers? Okay.
830,957 Democrats
134,422 Republicans
2,558 Libertarians
74,376 No Party Affiliation
15,747 All Others combined
1,058,060 Total
Only registered R's and D's may participate in ANY primary, and only in their own. No "declarations" of party are allowed.
Question for you: Is it really a federal crime to open the mail addressed to a non-existant person who was made up in the first place?
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 502
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 11:29 am: |
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Kurt, you wrote, "Registration fraud has two lines of parentage - the internal party scam and the ACORN done type. The internal party type usually starts with registering NUMEROUS voters at addresses that would only house 2 or 3 adults at most. These addresses are usually owned by partisans (slumlords involved in Dem. politics), where all the registration cards are received in the mailbox by the owner."
Let me repeat again:
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
Not a local crime, a federal crime.
The FBI has jurisdiction over federal crimes.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
It is a federal crime to take any mail from a mailbox that is not addressed to you.
Interference with anything mailed by the post office is a federal crime.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
The FBI has jurisdiction over federal crimes.
This is not an election issue. If slumlords collect mail that is not addressed to them personally, at buildings which they own, they are guilty of federal crimes and the FBI has jurisdiction.
Even if you don't know the details, as you claimed, if you know the names of the politicians who are directing slumlords to collect mail addressed to actual or nonexistent people that has been delivered to the addresses of buildings those slumlords own, you should take those names to the FBI and they WILL act, as the politicians are guilty of conspiracy to commit a federal crime, which is racketeering, which is within FBI jurisdiction, particularly if it goes on at a level that can shade the margin of an election.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
If you have knowledge of a federal crime and you do not go to the authorities, you are helping to cover up that crime. It doesn't have to involve elections or protected classes--any interference with the mail is a federal crime.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
Your scheme cannot work unless voter registrations are taken from the mail by slumlords.
If Republicans are not allowed to observe in Philadelphia, and they have not filed a lawsuit in that regard, then they are complicit in the corruption. If you think that the two parties maintain an iron lock on U.S. politics without both parties cooperating, you are mistaken.
While the FBI may not be the "election police," they ARE the police with authority over federal crimes.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
http://definitions.uslegal.com/m/mail-theft/
The following is a federal statute governing mail theft:
Section 1702.
Obstruction of correspondence
Whoever takes any letter, postal card, or package out of any post office or any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Your friend who will not go to the authorities because he fears harm to himself or his family is a traitor to his country. Election fraud that goes on in sufficient quantity to shade the margin of an election, can change the outcome of a national election. Sacrificing your country to your personal welfare is unethical and in some cases borders on treason.
But given that your friend is an un-American coward who will protect himself and his family at the expense of his country, what's your excuse?
Local authorities have no jurisdiction over mail theft because it is a federal crime. If it is occurring at the enormous rates you claim in Philadelphia, it is your duty to report it to the FBI because they have sole jurisdiction over federal crimes.
When you were preparing those secret reports that contain the only official results of elections, Kurt, did you have access to the mismatched signatures and the pollbooks, or were you preparing the reports based solely on the unverifiable "unofficial" results? If you base a report solely on unofficial results, with no way to verify them, the "official" report has no more validity than the unofficial report, as Jean noted. Garbage in, garbage out, not just with computers, but also with bean counters. If you are counting rotten beans as if they were good beans, they are still rotten beans.
Your negativity and your attitude that the authorities won't act so there is nothing that you can do, is very inappropriate to BBV. We are based on citizen activism. Election integrity activists document election fraud and keep pressing to eliminate it, using every possible approach. When the authorities don't act, you go to the media, if the media won't cover it, you file a lawsuit, if the judge is corrupt, you organize citizen brigades, and you don't just give up and say, "Well, everybody is corrupt, there's nothing we can do," and do nothing.
If you actually believed that, then the first thing you'd do, as I have, is stop voting, so as not to delegate your power to or authorize and legitimize a corrupt system. And you'd educate other people, as I do, and advocate election boycotts, as I do, so that people wouldn't continue to vote in fraudulent elections that are unverifiable and where nothing can be done to change it.
Kurt writes, "Your FBI lacks jurisdiction."
You are wrong. The FBI does NOT lack jurisdiction.
It is a federal crime to open mail that is addressed to somebody else.
If you have any evidence, or even a suspicion that can be investigated, that mail theft is taking place in Philadelphia on a large enough scale to shade the margins of elections, you should report that federal crime to the FBI.
If you give them the names and they refuse to investigate, post it here. There are people all over the country, including attorneys and the heads of civil rights organizations, who would be very interested in learning that the FBI refused to investigate a federal crime over which they have sole jurisdiction.
Yes, I understand the facist, "I was just doing my job," defense used at Nuremberg. It is not your job to report it if you see somebody breaking into your neighbor's house. You are not your brother's keeper and you don't have to do anything you're not paid to do, and you may feel that you have to do anything that you are paid to do, no matter how illegal or immoral.
Kurt asks, "Question for you: Is it really a federal crime to open the mail addressed to a non-existant person who was made up in the first place?"
Yes. If somebody, even somebody working in the post office, steals a letter addressed to Santa Claus (which post office people are authorized to open and respond to), it is a federal crime.
If there is a report of mail theft and the FBI learns that the people the voter registrations were addressed to do not exist, then they will make an official report of that fact, which election integrity activists can use to file lawsuits against the corrupt elections officials who entered voters on the rolls without first checking to see if anyone by those names actually lived at those addresses.
I don't believe that the FBI was given evidence of large-scale mail fraud, a federal crime, and refused to investigate. Particularly not when the allegation comes from somebody who does not appear to be particularly ethical, moral, or civic-minded.
If the names are fictitious, the federal crime is no longer mail theft, but a different federal crime called mail fraud:
U.S. CODE, TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 63 > § 1342
Fictitious name or address
Whoever, for the purpose of conducting, promoting, or carrying on by means of the Postal Service, any scheme or device mentioned in section 1341 of this title or any other unlawful business, uses or assumes, or requests to be addressed by, any fictitious, false, or assumed title, name, or address or name other than his own proper name, or takes or receives from any post office or authorized depository of mail matter, any letter, postal card, package, or other mail matter addressed to any such fictitious, false, or assumed title, name, or address, or name other than his own proper name, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Not that you'd care about the law--it's not your job. Maybe the "numerous sources" you think went to the FBI are themselves complicit in the fraud and told you that the FBI already has the information just to keep you from reporting it. Or maybe you're making it all up. You work in Philadephia where you claim that corruption is so rampant that it is difficult for me to believe that an honest person could be part of the system.
In any event, if this is not your country and you don't care about honest elections, then you're right, it is not your job to report large scale federal crimes to the proper authorities. Let somebody else do it and take their word for it. What do you care?
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Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2367
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 11:44 am: |
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Mark, you really need to quit trying to one-up the other guy with some clever allegory. Stick to the logic, stick to facts, and you'll change as many minds as you possibly can, by the strength of your argument, failing that, you wouldn't have changed them anyway.
And you really need to stop the condescending stuff. I don't always agree with Kurt, but I don't treat him like a 5-year-old, either.
And if you think the fact that it's a federal crime to open someone else's mail stops it to any degree, your credulousness needs tweaking.
These allegories are bilge. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3071
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 12:04 pm: |
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"before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys the same"
Not if no such person ever existed. One cannot "pry into the business" or obstruct correspondence with a ghost person who never existed. The central modus operandi of both ACORN's and the party scam are to register people who don't exist. Most places those false registrations never are acted upon, as you say. But not in Philly, sir. Their office does catch numerous ones because they have detailed if somewhat dated lists of abandoned properties, but they don't catch all of them.\
And Markie? I have never in my life worked in Philadelphia, nor would I.
The leadership of the State Senate is completely aware of this scam in Philly, and they have said so publicly in public meetings of the Senate. It changes NOTHING!
Your disinformation you constantly spew is legion. This, for example, "which election integrity activists can use to file lawsuits against the corrupt elections officials who entered voters on the rolls without first checking to see if anyone by those names actually lived at those addresses." There is no such duty beyond responding to mail refused or returned as undeliverable. There is no obligation to check anything.
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Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
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Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 503
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 12:12 pm: |
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So, Brant, are you saying that I shouldn't repeat hearsay and make unfounded allegations the way that Kurt does? Because I haven't. That's his technique, not mine.
I never said that making something a federal crime stops it from happening. What it does is give federal agencies like the FBI the authority and jurisdiction to investigate and enforce it, IF they have a report of a federal crime.
Kurt has alleged that the FBI received reports of widespread mail fraud in Philadelphia and was derelict in its duties and refused to investigate those reports.
Kurt's evidence for this is that "numerous sources" told him that it has already been taken care of, and it isn't his job to interfere. So he decided not to report a widespread federal crime, either because he wrongly believed that it wasn't a federal crime, because he believed the criminals who told him to mind his own business and that it has already been taken care of, or because he just doesn't care about fraudulent elections.
When I give a URL to the relevant United States Codes, and copy their text, it is not "a clever allegory."
When you make personal attacks on me or my writing style, you are contributing nothing of substance to the discussion. |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 504
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 12:21 pm: |
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Kurt, go back and read the second U.S. Code about mail fraud.
If there is a fictitious name or address, it is not mail theft, it is mail fraud, and a different federal law applies, but it is still a federal crime and the FBI still has jurisdiction.
If you never worked in any area where these crimes occur, then you have no first-hand knowledge of them.
If the Pennsylvania State Senate is aware of wide-spread mail fraud within the State, has reported it to the FBI, and the FBI refused to investigate, they should file a federal lawsuit to force the FBI to do the job it is required and paid to do.
More likely they were just repeating hearsay to get it into the record and have no actual evidence of anyone reporting widespread mail fraud to the FBI and the FBI refusing to investigate, any more than you do.
I have no love for the FBI as they have consistently been agents of repression in this country, but I don't think they would refuse to investigate a charge of mail fraud brought to their attention by a member of the State Senate, or even by somebody with no credibility at all. That would be a good way for them to lose their jobs, and they tend to be rather protective of their jobs. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3072
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 12:33 pm: |
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No Mark, the Postal Inspector's department of the United States Postal Service has exclusive jurisdiction. I have experience with them (not more recent than about 10 years) and they are useless.
Their primary focus is to avoid work.
Pol | | |
