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No Doctored DRE
opinionjournal.com (WSJ) ^ | July 27, 2004 | JOHN FUND

Posted on 07/27/2004 2:40:21 PM PDT by neverdem

JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL

Democrats use computer hysteria to get out the vote.

BOSTON--You don't have to go far here to find a Democrat who says the 2000 election was stolen. John Kerry is one of them. He claims a million African-Americans nationwide had their votes stolen and he won't let it happen again.

On Sunday, he followed that up by saying that his legal SWAT team is looking at "each and every district" with possible voting problems: "We may or may not be bringing challenges publicly in the course of the next few weeks," he said in Ohio. He mentioned that in Florida some voters are being removed from the rolls if they didn't respond to a letter from election officials. Since many states routinely send such mailings to those who haven't voted in years, we are in for an avalanche of litigation if that's the level of scrutiny Mr. Kerry is applying. He might even have to ask former trial lawyer John Edwards to lend a hand.

Many delegates here buy into a more bizarre conspiracy theory: that unscrupulous "Manchurian Programmers" could manipulate the new electronic voting machines that 35 million Americans will use in November. They note that Walden O'Dell, the CEO of Diebold Election Systems, sent a personal fund-raising letter last year to Republicans stating his goal was "helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." This month, Moveon.org held rallies in 19 states to demand that new electronic machines print paper receipts to ensure an accurate count, something only Nevada will be able to implement by November. Democratic State Rep. Chris Smith of Florida says he is using concerns that votes will be lost or manipulated as a get-out-the-vote tool for John Kerry: "I tell them to bring an extra person to the polls."

It's true some states have moved too quickly using new federal money to buy Direct Recording Electronic voting machines (DREs), which work like an ATM. Several states have reported software failures, and California officials have accused Diebold of using uncertified software and misleading them. But exaggerating the problems with DREs will only fuel a litigation mindset that could make Florida 2000 look like a moot court.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: dncconvention; dre; electronicvoting; johnfund; voting

1 posted on 07/27/2004 2:40:22 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

2 posted on 07/27/2004 2:45:18 PM PDT by Vision Thing (Nuance is for girlie men.)
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To: neverdem

I don't understand.
How were the million AA's votes stolen? What is he talking about?
And how does a paper receipt prevent fraud?


3 posted on 07/27/2004 2:49:29 PM PDT by Ludicrous
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To: Ludicrous
I don't understand. How were the million AA's votes stolen? What is he talking about?

My guess is that they're referring to rosters of registered voters that were purged of felons, deceased and inactive voters.

And how does a paper receipt prevent fraud?

It doesn't, hence the comment about hysteria.

4 posted on 07/27/2004 3:30:48 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: Ludicrous
Don't you remember all the disenfranchised floriduh voters coming forward?...You don't?!.....niether do I.

FMCDH(BITS)

5 posted on 07/27/2004 3:32:22 PM PDT by nothingnew (KERRY: "If at first you don't deceive, lie, lie again!")
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To: nothingnew
Not just the absence of the "disenfranchised" but the timing of these complaints and actions. They wait until we are in the shadow of the looming election as if they didn't have 3.5 years to agitate for some changes. The recent protests about the felon scrub lists in FL were carefully timed so that the alternative to using the lists was nothing - enhancing the chances that felons will vote in FL and dilute the vote of legitimate voters.

I want to see a concerted action by GOP lawyers there to assert that one-man = one-vote does not mean one-man = .99987 vote courtesy of felons and non citizens voting.

6 posted on 07/27/2004 3:40:52 PM PDT by Wally_Kalbacken
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To: Wally_Kalbacken

i sent a letter to diebold and this was the response i received


Thank you for the note. We share your concern about some of the things that have been circulated about Diebold Election Systems. Frankly, there's a lot of misinformation and fear-mongering that's being disseminated in the media. Many computer scientists with an agenda, and conspiracy theorists trying to sell books, are drawing some far-flung conclusions based on what little they know. I don't know of many successful companies who have been in business for 145 years that would risk failure, public criticism, not to mention legal prosecution, by purchasing a small voting systems company (that makes up less than 5% of its global revenue) in order to sabotage elections.
 
In regards to his personal fundraising activity for the GOP, our chairman, Wally O'Dell publicly, and thoroughly, apologized in the Sept. 16 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. 
 
http://www.diebold.com/whatsnews/inthenews/executive.htm
 
Electronic elections auditing and security is a complex, extensive, and multi-layered process which is often not well understood by individuals with little real-world experience in developing or implementing such a process.  Procedures to safeguard against voting inaccuracy at the state and county levels have been in existence much longer than electronic voting, and today are even tougher and more stringent due to the availability of modern electronics -- as well as the scrutiny of the 2000 election.  Unfortunately, there are some who would prefer that our nation's voting processes not move to a more progressive level, and have chosen to engage in a campaign of allegations of negligence or malfeasance against Diebold and other election system companies providing the new technology.  Diebold entered the election systems business knowing that its technology and 144 years of broad experience in security would help ensure the integrity of the vote and accuracy of the election process.
 
The elections business is very different from our traditional business, and any election official will tell you that no voting process is perfect. But, basically, Diebold Election Systems is working hard to go about doing things the right way. Below is a link to our web site that refers to other articles and our responses to some of the criticism. I hope this helps explain where we're coming from. Thanks again for the message.
 
http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/top_stories.htm
 
 

Mike Jacobsen
Diebold, Incorporated
Director, Corporate and Marketing Communications
Ofc.: +1 (330) 490-3796
Mobile: +1 (330) 806-7593

www.diebold.com

 
-----Original Message-----
From:

Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 3:34 PM
To: 'pressinfo@diebold.com'
Subject:




Dear Sir or Madam, a co-worker of mine is insisting that Diebold is in cahoots with President Bush to guarantee his re-election in 04.  Nothing I say seems to change his mind.  If you have received any similar questions, I would be grateful to know what your response was, I'd really like to silence his argument.  Thanks in advance for your time.


7 posted on 07/27/2004 3:53:08 PM PDT by BronzePencil (if we outlaw nuclear energy only outlaws will have nuclear energy)
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To: neverdem

I may be way off base, but I'm willing to bet that convicted felons (are there any other kind?) might be the segment of the population least likely to cast a vote in an election. Can you imagine a bunch of gang-bangers losing sleep hoping they don't miss their chance to vote? Neither can I.


8 posted on 07/27/2004 4:26:47 PM PDT by driftless ( For life-long happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: neverdem

I prefer optically scanned ballots. They are easy and fast to count by machine, and they are easy to manually count. Unlike punch card ballots, a wire can't be punched through a stack of them to cause undervotes to be changed to a vote for the desired candidate or votes for an opposition candidate to be converted to an overvote that must be discarded.


9 posted on 07/27/2004 4:30:27 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative (Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
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To: Paleo Conservative
I prefer optically scanned ballots.

IIRC, they had the lowest error rate, a little over 2.0 percent. This article or a comment on the thread mentioned 1.6 percent for DRE, IIRC. That's the lowest I've seen now.

10 posted on 07/27/2004 5:09:15 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: neverdem

What's the error rate for properly marked ballots? I'm sure there are quite a number of barely literate people who can't even mark optically scanned forms correctly.


11 posted on 07/27/2004 5:13:09 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative (Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
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To: Paleo Conservative

"For optical scan systems, the under-vote rate was 2.7% and for DREs it was only 1.5%."

That's just the under-vote. Fox News had a segment about the various error rates. Mewsmax did one also, IIRC.


12 posted on 07/27/2004 5:18:00 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: Paleo Conservative
"How to cheat with a lever machine: Like the new touch-screen DRE voting machines, lever machines left no audit trail. And like the touch-screens, they also have the highest error rates (M.I.T./CalTech study rates error rates for hand-counting at 3.3%, optical scan 3.5%, punch card 4.7%, touch screen machines around 6% and lever machines around 7%. Uh, we're spending $3.9 billion to switch from an error-prone punch card system to the only modern system with a HIGHER error rate?)"

I found that here. Fox News and Newsmax had lower numbers. What's interesting is that for these voting systems to be verifiable, it's virtually impossible to have the anonymity of the Australian ballot system.

13 posted on 07/27/2004 5:42:14 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
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To: BronzePencil
Electronic elections auditing and security is a complex, extensive, and multi-layered process which is often not well understood by individuals with little real-world experience in developing or implementing such a process

The foxes in charge of the henhouse are there because foxes are experts on chickens?

Comes to mind the French proverb "s'excuse, s'accuse" (whoever excuses himself accuses himself) funny that you never asked Diebold about voting software accuracy per se but only about stumping for Bush, and yet Diebold felt compelled to raise the issue.

I'm sorry, but America's voting systems do not need to be so arcane that you need a PhD in computer science (or mechanical engineering) to know whether or not they are right. People need something physical to work with. We need better chads (I'd want them to be big enough to punch out with the finger), but not to move chads into the virtual realm.

14 posted on 07/27/2004 8:52:36 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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