"Testing the Testers"

Amherst Times ^ | 8 January 2007 | Christopher Drew

[lifelong_republican]

You don't seem to realize that the reportage of the facts about the unreliability and lack of security in the electronic votefraud systems isn't limited to a single source, and that a reference to a source rather than to the issue is merely a form of fallacy.

Here's another (out of many) confirming sources:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1101_041101_election_voting.html

[CharlesWayneCT]

The code they use is protected, precisely to keep it from people who might want to hack it. So it's unknown to me.

On the other hand, vote counting isn't exactly a complicated task. A competent monkey could write a program that counted how many of each selection was made.

While I don't like electronic voting, it's no more or less prone to manipulation than any other method. A smart person with access to the balloting process can rig any election.

We used to vote with huge machines with levers. Inside, it punched paper, and there was no way to really know that the paper was punched correctly, or that the reader wasn't "programmed" to miscount the results. Of course there was the ripped paper, the mispunched holes, etc.

I think it was easier though to VOTE CORRECTLY. I see the biggest problem with electronic voting being people who can't use the system correctly.

When they tested the machines in the FL-13 race, they found a 5% error rate on a scripted election run with 200 volunteers. They were shocked at first, thinking they had found a real problem.

Turned out after looking at the videotape, the 5% was simply people who couldn't follow the script and vote for the designated people.

If 5% of peopel who are pre-selected to do voting machines, and who are told exactly who to vote for and know it's important for the test, can get one or more of their votes wrong, imagine how many people are mis-voting by their own error in a real election.

The presentation of things one at a time also could make it easy to skip a vote, or to not vote straight-party line like you "wanted", because they aren't all in a line.

I know that it slows down voting when people have to page through the vote process. Our lines were long because it took most people over 2 minutes to get through the 11 or so pages. I did it in 30 seconds, but I'm technically savvy.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

You are accusing me of fallacy?

Look in the mirror! This is YOUR post, YOUR article, and you are defending it badly by sputtering on about fallacy. Calm down so you can collect your thoughts.

You only mentioned the Amherst Times... no mention of the NYTimes. And it goes without saying that about eighty percent of what the NYTimes writes is suspect. (I've done a bit of posting and reading and find their attempt at accuracy way off.)

I invite you to spend a month reading the NYTimes and to come up with your own conclusions. But maybe that's too much to ask.

In the end... I'll never reading anything by the Amherst Times. Do you know why? Who gives a darn what is being said in Amherst of all places! The fact that you vigilantly want to defend it makes one wonder...

[OldFriend]

You couldn't be more hopelessly wrong. Do you still drive a Model T?

[lifelong_republican]

You are absolutely right to dislike electronic voting.

The 'code' isn't protected, it's vulnerable. If you really want a protected system you use open source and you deal effectively with whatever could be thrown at it.

The votefraud systems are already proven defective. Their use is far more complicated and time-consuming for the voters, especially when the lack of reliability causes outright failures and waits.

Electronic voting is less reliable and less secure than hand-counted paper ballots.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1101_041101_election_voting.html

If you had any evidence to the contrary you could provide it to those who've done the studies.

[lifelong_republican]

If you had any actual facts that'd contradict the findings of the GAO and NIST, shouldn't you present them?

You asked about an antique car, but you seem to want to pretend a Yugo would be the space shuttle, if you have any confidence in faulty electronic systems.

[lifelong_republican]

You offer fallacy when you attempt to pretend that this would be about me or about any other source.

If you need help looking up the name for your fallacy I can provide you with a link which explains it.

If you disagree with the confirmed assessment that electronic voting systems are unreliable and vulnerable, you really should take it up with the GAO and NIST.

[Richard from IL]

ping

[Pan_Yans Wife]

All systems can be compromised.

Here in GA Cynthia McKinney was screaming about voting irregularities from the get-go, even before the polls closed. That doesn't mean she was right or could prove what she believed. She was thrown out of office for the second time, and yet... she never proved how the vote was stolen from her. I wonder why that was? Could it be that there were no irregularities during her election? You're not saying she would lie, cheat or steal to get into office! Now, that's never been heard of! She screamed the loudest because she knew that her back-door attempts no longer worked.

Having the electronic system ensures FOR ME that the process is kept as pristine as possible. There have been no difficulties in my district.

As for any irregularities that exist where you live, I cannot say.

And why would I want to fret endlessly about what COULD happen, when it HASN'T happened?

Life is too short for that. I refuse the scaremongering tactics.

[lifelong_republican]

No system is perfect, but, if you will examine such links as the one to the "National Geographic" article, you will learn that some are worse than others.

The electronics are already known to lose, switch, and fake votes. That you are unaware of this doesn't make the problem go away.

That you don't care when Americans have their votes lost, switched, or faked must mean that you're not on the same side as those Americans.

[Nick Danger]

Paper ballots are not only permanent tangible independent audit records, they're created and confirmed by the voters themselves and their handling can be observed openly.

I don't get it. Are you imagining that we all just fell off individual turnip trucks? With you, it's just one bromide after another about "tangible records" and "supervised audits," as though we didn't live through the Chad Wars of 2000 and we're too stupid to know that there exist human error, human depravity, Democrats, and Al Gore.

That punched-card ballot in the picture could just as easily be a piece of paper with X's on it. Was this X entirely inside the box? Was that X really an X, or just a smudge mark? You know and we know that those calls can go either way depending on which way the crooked election officials want them to go. Stop pretending as though only electronic systems are subject to fraud and abuse. We know better. No system is any better than the people who are running it.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I take offense when you claim that as an American I don't care about our election process.

Your assessment is incorrect and you are lacking in common decency.

You are not showing respect, and thus your arguments fall on deaf ears.

[lifelong_republican]

No one said only electronics were vulnerable.

They're more vulnerable, though, and the tampering is easier to do on a mass scale and much easier to hide.

[lifelong_republican]

You shouldn't take offense.

You shouldn't refuse to support valid elections.

It's your vote, too.

[Nick Danger]

Says you. But we have no evidence that you are even writing your own notes. For all we know, everything posted to your account is coming out of some computer at a PR agency. As you know, we just can't trust these electronics. By your own arguments, everything you say is bunk.

[dighton]

For all we know, everything posted to your account is coming out of some computer at a PR agency. For all we know, everything posted to your account is coming out of some computer at a PR agency. As you know, we just can't trust these electronics. By your own arguments, everything you say is bunk.

O ye of little faith, he’s a lifelong republican.

[Nick Danger]

O ye of little faith, he’s a lifelong republican.

Him and the last ten callers on C-SPAN.

[lifelong_republican]

If you could do some research you'd find that everything I've written is confirmable.

It's also what the GAO, NIST, the Brennan Center, and numerous computer science experts are saying.

It's merely fallacious to claim it'd merely be me or that it'd matter who the messenger is. The message remains that if you support valid elections in America you have to reject electronics which can't produce valid elections.

[lifelong_republican]

My father was a Republican, our town was predominantly Republican, the rest of my family is mostly Republican, the state where I grew up was Republican, and I'm a registered Republican.

I'm also not willing to just accept it when the corrupt Democrats of the Rendell mob in Pennsylvania take away the real ballots and as a result Republicans had to watch the electronics switch their votes from Rick Santorum to his opponent in the last election.

At the very least I'm going to point out that it's wrong.

[Nick Danger]

It's also what the GAO, NIST, the Brennan Center, and numerous computer science experts are saying.

All the computer scientists I know warn me constantly that machines can't be trusted. Computers will turn 6's into 7's, draw moustaches on the graphics of Nancy Pelosi, and flip the salaries of the stock clerks and Vice Presidents constantly and at random. That's why no bank or Fortune 500 company will use a computer for anything. It's paper and pencil all the way.

You do of course realize that you sound like a loon, right?