#1 2008-01-11 00:58:35
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
-- Joseph Stalin
Welcometo Diebold, Mr Stalin.
"Multiple indications of vote fraud are beginning to pop up regarding the New Hampshire primary elections. Roughly 80% of New Hampshire precincts use Diebold machines, while the remaining 20% are hand counted. A Black Box Voting contributor has compiled a chart of results from hand counted precincts vs. results from machine counted precincts. In machine counted precincts, Clinton beat Obama by almost 5%. In hand counted precincts, Obama beat Clinton by over 4%, which closely matches the scientific polls that were conducted leading up to the election.
Another issue is the Republican results from Sutton precinct. The final results showed Ron Paul with 0 votes in Sutton. The next day a Ron Paul supporter came forward claiming that both she and several of her family members had voted for Ron Paul in Sutton. Black Box Voting reports that after being asked about the discrepancy Sutton officials decided that Ron Paul actually received 31 votes in Sutton, but they were left off of the tally sheet due to 'human error.'"
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#2 2008-01-11 01:35:21
whosasailorthen wrote:
[i]"Multiple indications of vote fraud are beginning to pop up regarding the New Hampshire primary elections. Roughly 80% of New Hampshire precincts use Diebold machines, while the remaining 20% are hand counted.
I covered the last entirely hand counted NH primary in 1988, the one that gave us our current bush league dynasty. Every pol I interviewed on the subject told me then, 20 years ago, "Wait'll you see all the fraud in '92."
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#5 2008-01-11 16:02:57
I'm just curious... Wasn't the prior 'Diebold fiasco' in the Republican's favor? How does it come to be that these irregularities now decide for a Democrat? Is there some advantage to the company by this reversible loyalty? I also noticed that--despite the urge to trumpet margins of difference for precincts with and without the devices--few seemed to point out the obvious possibility that areas, which can either afford or choose to deploy voting-machine technology, might have a different sort of demographic, in general, than those who do not.
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#6 2008-01-11 16:33:48
pALEPHx wrote:
I'm just curious... Wasn't the prior 'Diebold fiasco' in the Republican's favor? How does it come to be that these irregularities now decide for a Democrat? Is there some advantage to the company by this reversible loyalty? I also noticed that--despite the urge to trumpet margins of difference for precincts with and without the devices--few seemed to point out the obvious possibility that areas, which can either afford or choose to deploy voting-machine technology, might have a different sort of demographic, in general, than those who do not.
It's already been shown that the machines can be manipulated. There's no reason to believe that Diebold has to be involved to sway the election.
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#7 2008-01-11 17:13:07
tojo2000 wrote:
It's already been shown that the machines can be manipulated. There's no reason to believe that Diebold has to be involved to sway the election.
True, but any machine or electronic device can be 'manipulated.' The belief that such a thing has occurred is posited on the expectations that someone will (A) Gain from the manipulation; (B) Not be discovered or held accountable for doing so; and (C) Always be the person who you first suspect, likely the one who benefitted. I'm sure you see how the latter can get murky, fast. A similar premise was explored more light-heartedly in that Robin Williams shtick-fest, Man of the Year.
Supposedly, Diebold has had at least four years to get their hardware and software up to snuff. If they're not knowingly using flawed machines, and no nefarious agent of a particular candidate is at work, then what do you think might explain results like these? (if, in fact, they are statistically significant errors, and I'm just too lazy for the math right now).
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#8 2008-01-11 17:18:06
pALEPHx wrote:
True, but any machine or electronic device can be 'manipulated.' ...
Supposedly, Diebold has had at least four years to get their hardware and software up to snuff. If they're not knowingly using flawed machines, and no nefarious agent of a particular candidate is at work, then what do you think might explain results like these? (if, in fact, they are statistically significant errors, and I'm just too lazy for the math right now).
I think you're misunderstanding me. The specific models of machines that Diebold is using for electronic voting can be manipulated and have been done so in proof of concepts. One of the big issues with the machines is that they will run scripts off of memory cards, for example. That kind of manipulation would leave no trace.
Now I have no reason yet to say that these machines definitely were monkeyed with. What perplexes me is the resistance to enacting policies that would provide some kind of guarantee that they're working properly.
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#9 2008-01-11 18:30:51
pALEPHx wrote:
I'm just curious... Wasn't the prior 'Diebold fiasco' in the Republican's favor? How does it come to be that these irregularities now decide for a Democrat?
If you think the way a sneaky, devious fucker (like, for example, Karl Rove) would think, and you wanted the Democrats to lose, you'd want the Democrat front-runner to be an unelectable candidate, wouldn't you? Like, for example, a female most people seem to mistrust, if not outright hate--or, failing that, a half-Black Muslim?
I can't remember it verbatim, but there's something Deep Throat says in All The President's Men about the Watergate conspiracy: "They didn't want to run against Muskie--Muskie dropped out of the race! They wanted to run against McGovern--look who they're running against!"
I'm just putting that out as a theory--I'm not that paranoid, myself. Yet.
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#10 2008-01-11 18:40:03
pALEPHx wrote:
I'm just curious... Wasn't the prior 'Diebold fiasco' in the Republican's favor? How does it come to be that these irregularities now decide for a Democrat? Is there some advantage to the company by this reversible loyalty?
1) You can't decide for a Republican in a DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
2) Hillary winning the Dem. nomination is probably the only chance the GOP has of putting someone in the White House. Rove has been touting Hillary very consistently in the last few months. I'd cite but you can look it up yourself.
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#11 2008-01-11 18:40:36
Far as I can tell, mainstream media have entirely ignored this story. Here's what the lunatic fringe has to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWVl51hsWkI
http://harrythomas.info/SpecialReports/SR011008.htm
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#12 2008-01-11 18:45:47
I have to say that's one of my objections to voting for Hillary Clinton. She may be able to get enough support to win the Democratic nomination, but she also has the highest hate index, for lack of a better word. There are people out there who absolutely hate her.
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#13 2008-01-11 18:51:08
tojo2000 wrote:
There are people out there who absolutely hate her.
I just don't want to see:
Bush
Clinton
Bush
Clinton
That's not exactly good for democracy.
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#14 2008-01-11 18:59:47
jesusluvspegging wrote:
tojo2000 wrote:
There are people out there who absolutely hate her.
I just don't want to see:
Bush
Clinton
Bush
Clinton
That's not exactly good for democracy.
I just hope anyone voting for Mrs. Clinton (boy, doesn't that sound weird) doesn't actually think that her husband is going to have a significant influence on her presidency.
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#15 2008-01-11 19:03:47
tojo2000 wrote:
I just hope anyone voting for Mrs. Clinton (boy, doesn't that sound weird) doesn't actually think that her husband is going to have a significant influence on her presidency.
They didn't the last two times they put her in office.
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#16 2008-01-11 19:09:15
jesusluvspegging wrote:
tojo2000 wrote:
I just hope anyone voting for Mrs. Clinton (boy, doesn't that sound weird) doesn't actually think that her husband is going to have a significant influence on her presidency.
They didn't the last two times they put her in office.
I'm already hearing things to that effect from some of the more vacuous people I've met. I think it's easier for people to think it when she's not been your senator for the past eight years.
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#17 2008-01-11 19:12:43
tojo2000 wrote:
I'm already hearing things to that effect from some of the more vacuous people I've met. I think it's easier for people to think it when she's not been your senator for the past eight years.
I was referring to her years in the White House.
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#18 2008-01-11 20:29:39
Pale,
I think you are confusing partisian noise with the very real security problems of the electronic voting machines.
Diebold and its ilk has fostered upon us a new system with very real holes. It has not been shown that these have been exploited enmass, but part of the issue is that if there were fraud there is little way to prove it happened.
One of the biggest objections to these machines is that they do not produce a secure audit trail. Unlike the existing electronic ballot counters. Many of the machines have no paper backup and the Diebold machines in particular have been shown to have log files that can be easily changed in minutes by non-technicians while leaving no trace.
Diebold and others took advantage of a mandate to update the voting tabulation systems after the 2000 election and rushed shoddy products to market to garner as much from the public trough as they could get.
You seem to be under the impression that Diebold would have spent the last 4 years getting their machines up to snuff. But that is not how they responded to demonstrated criticism. They spent the last 4 years dodging and pooh-poohing the security problems rather than fixing them. This was clearly a business decision and they should be raked over the coals for it. Each succesive generation of machine design has had what amounts to the same types of flaws in the audit trail and ability to alter the vote tally.
They went so far as to initially threaten legal action against the people who reverse engineered their systems and published results in order to silence valid criticism. They sought to use political influence to sway CA from conducting a review of the machines they had already bought. Which resulted in those machines being decertified and costing the taxpayers 10s of millions.
I worked on the rollout of a new electronic system for a very different, but just as important system for public interestst and safety. The companies developing products had to meet explicit standards transparently designed by a standards body of industry and government proffesionals. The manufacturers had to demonstrate reliability, security and effiicay. While each company had propietary engineering in its design everything was peer reviewed and if you didn't meet the cut you didn't get to sell your product. I doubt even Cisco could get away with the obfuscation Diebold did in a line of routers.
Last edited by Johnny Rotten (2008-01-11 20:39:13)
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#19 2008-01-11 20:37:04
Johnny Rotten wrote:
I worked on the rollout of a new electronic system for a very different, but just as important system for public interestst and safety. The companies developing products had to meet explicit standards transparently designed by a standards body of industry and government proffesionals. The manufacturers had to demonstrate reliability, security and effiicay. While each company had propietary engineering in its design everything was peer reviewed and if you didn't meet the cut you didn't get to sell your product. I doubt even Cisco system could get away with the obfuscation Diebold did in a line of routers.
The really amazing thing to me is that this is a company that makes ATM machines which are connected to a computer network, and yet somehow Diebold suddenly is able to create secure, reliable systems with unambiguous menus when it comes time to make those, but when they are tasked with making a voting machine it's suddenly just too hard.
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#20 2008-01-11 20:44:41
I have a friend who worked on Visa's transaction network security. Even before he got involved I remember all the work and handwringing that went into designing the security protocols of electronic interbank networks. There is no way that industry would ever tolerate any of the engineering in the electronic voting systems.
There is no way the taxpayer should tolerate it either. It is not like we have to reinvent the wheel to get electronic voting security standards.
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#21 2008-01-12 00:55:58
jesusluvspegging wrote:
1) You can't decide for a Republican in a DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY
No kidding, really? I had no idea. I just figured, if the same machines were used for multiple polling instances, then an issue like that--whether endemic to the system, or controlled from afar--might just persist.
jesusluvspegging wrote:
2) Hillary winning the Dem. nomination is probably the only chance the GOP has of putting someone in the White House. Rove has been touting Hillary very consistently in the last few months. I'd cite but you can look it up yourself.
No need. I've heard the same rumblings. I'm sure Wonkette's good for it, if nowhere else. That man can now even trade on the fact that everyone thinks he's pure evil, just to meddle with campaigns that aren't his own. Which he's been doing for decades.
Johnny Rotten wrote:
I think you are confusing partisian noise with the very real security problems of the electronic voting machines.
The possibility exists, and is why I began this with "I'm just curious..." Sure got myself into trouble with that, didn't I. In actuality, I understand that you're describing the actual problems with the machines, apart from 'partisan noise.' Indeed, it is even more curious that they can fashion and operate ATMs to securely manage millions of transactions per day, but can't seem to get "Choice A or Choice B" down properly. It might have something to do with the banks' networks being immense by comparison, but then I'd just think that would make them more vulnerable, not less.
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#22 2008-01-12 08:22:58
tojo2000 wrote:
The really amazing thing to me is that this is a company that makes ATM machines which are connected to a computer network, and yet somehow Diebold suddenly is able to create secure, reliable systems with unambiguous menus when it comes time to make those, but when they are tasked with making a voting machine it's suddenly just too hard.
As Bruce Schneier points out, securing voting transactions is a far different task than securing financial ones (not that Diebold understands this). Plenty more where that came from.
If you've never heard of Bruce Schneier, he is the reason 57 isn't prime (hardcore geek alert).
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#23 2008-01-12 13:55:08
square wrote:
tojo2000 wrote:
The really amazing thing to me is that this is a company that makes ATM machines which are connected to a computer network, and yet somehow Diebold suddenly is able to create secure, reliable systems with unambiguous menus when it comes time to make those, but when they are tasked with making a voting machine it's suddenly just too hard.
As Bruce Schneier points out, securing voting transactions is a far different task than securing financial ones (not that Diebold understands this). Plenty more where that came from.
If you've never heard of Bruce Schneier, he is the reason 57 isn't prime (hardcore geek alert).
I think "far different" is a bit of a stretch. He's right about the difference in the individual transactions when you're talking about auditing to find out where something whent wrong, but the exact same principles apply when it comes down to finding out if something went wrong. This also only applies to voter-to-machine transactions. The rest of the way votes can be secured according to the identity of the machine and can be rolled back on the same basis. Transmission of transactions is only half the battle, though.
Focusing on the voter-to-machine interaction, there are two places to secure: make sure that information is sent accurately from the finger to the storage medium, and that the storage medium hasn't been compromised. Each transaction when inserted into the DB has a particular transaction ID that can be used to establish identity for the finger-to-storage part of the process, but this is the part where people keep screaming for a paper trail, but we don't really need it to be paper. We can take the same concept and just have redundant offsite storage of the information with a CRC and that would be a hell of a lot better than what we have now, when combined with a machine that you can't change the function of by merely adding a CF card.
Sure, it's a challenging problem, but it's not that Diebold has really tried that hard to fix it. Every step of the way they've continued to change just enough to conform to the very lax standards of US voting districts. So I guess I'd say yeah, I agree it's difficult, but there's no reason to cut Diebold any slack yet.
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#24 2008-01-12 19:24:31
tojo2000 wrote:
So I guess I'd say yeah, I agree it's difficult, but there's no reason to cut Diebold any slack yet.
Oh, I wasn't defending them. They've made just about every stupid design decision possible. Their GEMS tabulation software is built on Microsoft Access, for crying out loud.
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#26 2008-01-13 21:45:43
Without access to the system's source code, the team "uncovered evidence that Diebold technicians created a remotely-accessible Windows account that, by default configuration (according to the Diebold documentation), can be accessed without the need to supply a password." They remarked that "Devices, as delivered to customers, should only have accounts that are well-documented and remote access that is necessary for the needs of the particular county. Undocumented remotely-accessible logins are contrary to generally-accepted security practices."
Everyone remotely involved with this should be sacked, but not before they are stripped naked, dipped in tar, coated in feathers and had all of their fingers and toes broken so that they can never touch a computer again.
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#27 2008-01-13 22:20:36
choad wrote:
I'm still trying to figure out what this guy's about. So far, it's the convergent evolution of bizarre news items.
I'm always intrigued when some neocon/liberalista makes 'appearances' and promotes them on his or her blog. They never say, right up front, "I'm for this or that." They just criticize other people, then leave you to scrutinize their sidebars, and try to use a digital dowsing rod (a/k/a teh GoogL) to figure out what their other leanings are.
I think I just worry more about those who see this sort of thing and don't question it, even--and perhaps, especially--if they automatically agree.
It's hard to absorb the factual evidence Tojo and JR produce. I have no reason to disbelieve them, but despite my own desire to agree, I think there's a difference between a 'conspiracy' and a 'confederacy of dunces' (referring to Diebold, et al.).
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#28 2008-01-13 22:28:06
pALEPHx wrote:
It's hard to absorb the factual evidence Tojo and JR produce. I have no reason to disbelieve them, but despite my own desire to agree, I think there's a difference between a 'conspiracy' and a 'confederacy of dunces' (referring to Diebold, et al.).
It's not an accident that I've never claimed that the conspiracy definitely does exist. The fact remeins, however, that the American people are so afraid of looking like tinfoil hats that they'd rather just let a system stand where the only question is not if someone will exploit it, but when? As long as we keep using machines that are easily manipulated rather than demanding that Diebold either fix it or get the fuck out of the business and leave it to someone else, there will be a question about every result from now to the end of next year, when the Red hordes that have infiltrated the Democrat party finally take over the country and turn it into a Socialist pseudo-communist empire with Nancy Pelosi running the nation in a femdom latex outfit with a red-white-and-blue whip.
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#29 2008-01-13 23:03:56
pALEPHx wrote:
It's hard to absorb the factual evidence Tojo and JR produce. I have no reason to disbelieve them, but despite my own desire to agree, I think there's a difference between a 'conspiracy' and a 'confederacy of dunces' (referring to Diebold, et al.).
The voting machine debate tends to attract a lot of people who are, well, passionate. If you want your information with less "spice," look up Avi Rubin or Rebecca Mercuri.
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#30 2008-01-13 23:11:19
tojo2000 wrote:
The fact remeins, however, that the American people are so afraid of looking like tinfoil hats that they'd rather just let a system stand where the only question is not if someone will exploit it, but when?
I'm especially troubled by those who question the sanity of anyone who dares question the legitimacy and conclusions of the various official WTC inquiries, dismissing Bush Administration complicity as cracked delusions.
"When you get into bear baiting at that level, paranoia is just another word for ignorance. They really are out to get you." HST, RS, 1977-12-15
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#31 2008-01-14 03:00:54
tojo2000 wrote:
It's not an accident that I've never claimed that the conspiracy definitely does exist. The fact remains, however, that the American people are so afraid of looking like tinfoil hats than they'd rather just let a system stand where the only question is not if someone will exploit it, but when?
And I've never claimed that the Tooth Fairy definitely didn't exist. Lots of things can be exploited...so we both have to ask why certain things are.
square wrote:
The voting machine debate tends to attract a lot of people who are, well, passionate.
I don't want it less spiced. I want it exactly as people like Tojo and JR can offer. If they know facts, then I'm still not automatically obligated to believe them, nor do I think they expect that. It's what makes the whole mess more interesting.
Who gains from voter fraud? What kind of manipulation serves a conspiracy? Why are Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich saying they love Hillary? If you're too young to remember what 'COINTELPRO' means (I'm not saying 'you,' specifically), then ask yer dadz. It's the damn-near epitome of paranoia.
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