Posted on 09/29/2004 4:48:12 AM PDT by G.Mason
What should a reasonable person conclude about touch screen voting machines? Sure, there are some safeguards it would be nice to add. But most of the worry out there is loony tunes stuff.
The big picture:
(1) No touch screen machine has been shown to have been rigged or to have delivered an inaccurate vote total. They work fine.
(2) Claims of "flaws" or "errors" in various incidents around the country almost always involve human elements, such as poll workers not getting the things turned on.
(3) A conspiracy to rig the machines in a national election is ridiculously unlikely if not impossible. A plot to rig the machines in a state or local election is even less plausible. Critics cry out: "There ought to be a paper trail, so voters can check their ballot!"
Remember, the voter already must confirm a summary of his/her ballot on the screen. But let's say we did create a running print out, displayed under glass, and kept it for posterity. This has been a paper-jam disaster in the few places that have tried it.
On top of that, an election has to be close to trigger a recount. We think that hackers are smart enough to rig the machines, but too dumb to rig them enough?
Skeptics insist: "There ought to be a physical copy of my individual vote somewhere." Yet millions of Americans have done without it for decades, satisfied to pull a little mechanical lever in a voting booth.
Next comes the claim that touch screens are unreliable in a Star Trek, amok-computer fashion - "The computer ate my vote!" The routine "undervote," when voters cast an empty ballot, is being recast in a sinister light.
The most-cited example of a suspicious undervote comes from a Florida House special election earlier this year, in which more than 100 blank votes were recorded. It was the only race on the ballot.
Entirely ignored was that it was an unusual "open" primary, in which everyone could vote, even though only Republicans were on the ballot. Some Democrats no doubt saw only Republicans listed and just punched "finished."
Touch screen machines eliminate a much bigger problem than undervotes - "overvotes," in which ballots are thrown out because the voter marked two different candidates in the same race. Now it can't happen. Democrats should be delighted - without overvotes in 2000, President Al Gore would be seeking re-election today.
Now, for the machine-rigging stuff.
To have a national conspiracy, here is what you have to believe:
That not one, but several, multimillion-dollar corporations whose existence depends entirely on customer trust have decided to risk criminal indictment, prison sentences, civil lawsuits, bankruptcy and disgrace - and have somehow gotten their key hired help to agree.
Either that, or a single, evildoing programmer has sneaked past everybody. The companies have left it all in this one guy's hands, you see: "Excuse me, Mr. Luthor, would you please write this code that nobody will ever double-check, okay?"
How about local evildoers? Maybe our hacker is an evil local elections worker, with inside knowledge. He has even less ability to rig the machine than the manufacturer. And the scheme would have to elude an army of official observers.
Listen: The machines start out at zero on Election Day. They are locked at the end of voting. The total is matched against the number of physical signatures in that precinct's register. Each machine has a unique electronic code used to report its total. You can't leave any machines out of the total. You can't add new ones. You can't jiggle the totals. It's all printed and auditable.
There's plenty of real stuff to worry about. There's this clumsy felon list by the Bush administration. There are important new rules concerning absentee ballots this year that may prove huge in November. I agree with the critics that source code and audit methods about touch screens should be public record.
But the crazy tone of most of this stuff represents everything wrong with our know-nothing, Internet society. Worse, it represents a deliberate attempt to delegitimize our democracy for partisan gain.
To those churning so hard to undermine faith in the election: Don't you care that you're hurting your own guy in case he wins?
There has developed a near hysteria over Florida voting recently.
This post is merely an attempt to provide information.
That stinking Peanut brain from Georgia isn't helping matters. They are already gearing up for their big WHINE. They know Kerry is a loser and the excuses are being readied.
they didn't mention the elephant in the living room: The programmer decides the election. you can't see the data structures keepping the count, and the programmer can have the machine act however you want it, but the tallies can be very easily rigged.
there is a cheaper, more reliable way. Paper & pen.
This is the only one of his counter-objections that's reasonable. Everything else CAN be hacked - and will be.
So the Dems don't like old punch type ballots. The paper, so called "butterfly" ballot designed by Dems is unacceptable and now they don't like touch screen voting. Maybe Kerry should just be president by proclamation? They'd better watch their voter fraud this election cycle. The US Attorney General VElection Task Force ETF is investigating over 700 known and suspected cases in all 50 states. Three hots and a cot for you felonious vote riggers.
Consider the source. God didn't make little green apples...
We need for there to be numerous well-publicized vote/registration fraud indictments around the end of October.
No, the Dems DO like touch screen voting - in fact, they love it a lot and are trying to force it on every jurisdiction as quickly as possible. A paranoid (which of course, I'm not) would see that as evidence that they've already figured out how to rig it.
That they either 1)have a printed paper backup, or 2)are an open invitation to massive voter fraud.
Next question?
It "is" possible to have the best of both worlds---machine-readable paper ballots, as used in Washington (and I assume other places). The voter fills out a paper ballot by "completing" an arrow with a No. 2 pencil. The ballot is then fed into a reader at the polling place, which reads the ballot, records the vote(s), and STORES THE PAPER BALLOTS INTERNALLY. It will also spit the ballot back out if it has been filled out improperly, so the voter can correct it or get assistance.
If a recount is needed, the paper ballots are there to be counted.
i've used those systems. all it takes is a pal working the table to sneak you extra ballots. I could stand there, talk with the watcher, and feed multiple ballots into the machine without detection.
sometimes the simplest method is the best. There are SOME things that technology cannot solve.
Since it is absurd to believe that such a thing could ever happen in the real world, the Justice Department obviously owes Ken Lay et al an apology for suggesting that Enron and Arthur Andersen engaged in such activities.
The ballot needs to be printed out, the printout needs to be fed into a secure box, the box needs to beep or ring a bell each time it accepts a single ballot. The polling places and ballot boxes need to be monitored by all political parties to make sure there is one ballot saved per voter. The paper ballots need to be regularly machine scanned to see if they match the touch screen results (not just in close elections).
The only problem I see is the officials at the sign in table use PENCILS not ink pens!
That's what we, here in Citrus County, have.
No fuss, no muss.
The Dimocrats will be hard pressed to screw with our election here.
Of course there are those in Citrus County, as there are on Free Republic and elsewhere, that cannot, or will not, read and comprehend. So there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth I presume. ;)
And you are volunteer poll watcher where ... ?
A fair question. I have not volunteered yet.
Obviously, as the two subjects are certainly related.
Yes ... like getting the citizenry involved in volunteering for polling duty, and the paranoia that affects the populace whenever they use them new fangled credt/debit card things.
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