Posted on 11/05/2004 8:33:18 AM PST by watchinginawe
Anyone following the sore losers know that they are claiming fraud by the GOP wherever Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) were employed. In fact, a vast right wing conspiracy is blamed.
Maybe they are on to something with their data that shows "strange results" where EVS were employed, but not as they imagine. Perhaps many of the precincts using EVS are accurate for the first time. Its possible that the results can't be tampered with as before. If so, the results of this election clearly demonstrates who benefits when an accurate vote is obtained.
Of course. Miami dade didnt produce the fraud Miami now has a pub mayor.
Surprised.
Bloomberg wants these machines in NYC b4 his election next year, because the margin of fraud is around 50 to 75K.
As long as we're the ones coding and building the machines then I don't see a problem with them. My favorite add-on pack was the one that selected Bush whenever you depressed the box next to Kerry's name -- that was classic.
I like the idea of the EVS with printed receipt like in Nevada. My point is that an accurate count of the vote favors republicans. I think the Dems know this and that is why they are attacking the accurate systems. They would rather have paper ballots only that can easily be tampered with. Just like the "good ole days".
Regardless of whether or not the e-voting was accurate, paperless voting systems are vulnerable to fraud and should be scrutinized. Don't misunderstand me here...I *LIKE* electronic balloting but I'd prefer a system that does have verifiable results. I don't know for sure here but I've heard some precincts do use totally paperless machines, which is troubling. Others use machines that print your voting selections onto a ballot of some sort which is then submitted. Having those backups/printouts are the sure-fire way of saying "look...we DIDN'T cheat, and here's the proof".
If I were a Democrat I'd probably be suspicious of the head of Diebold's past statements as well, or at least the statements that are atttributed to him. First order of business however is completely overhauling the voter registration and verification process.
a national mandate now exists for the nation (including Philly, Detriot) to follow the EVS lead of Florida.
Hear! Hear!
Purge all voter registration lists. Registrations are closed 60 days before the election. Challenges can be issued until 30 days before the election and resolved before election day. Finally, ONLY registered voter can vote on election day.
I agree. Let's see what happens in places like Pennsylvania or Wisconsin when there is electronic voting statewide.
But I also agree that I'd like to see paper trails. It's not that I think there are hidden cheats to help Republicans win. I just want to be able to show everyone that there isn't.
Goes without saying...
I agree completely.
I'm all for electronic machines, as long as the sourcecode is open for scrutiny, and the results are verifiable, and not subject to some "power loss" or other data-destroying phenomenon.
So true. The tampering works just as well with punch cards, as in Florida in 2000 when the DemonRats multiple punched ballots and thereby disqualified many Bush ballots by double voting them.
I think EVS systems could be very accurate as long as those who control the software for the EVS systems are honest...! The best way to insure this would be to allow specially embossed receipts to go to the voter with another copy kept for recount purposes. A voter could always have his his receipt checked and the copies could be tabulated against the machine in case of fraud. The paper could use the same type of threading and security bands as our US paper money. Yeah I know it would cost more but I would pay an extra tax just to see that our elections remain honest and verifiable.
EVS's are one leg of reform, but the other leg...the human controllers/programmers still needs attending to!
What's hysterical is that it was the DEMS who pushed for the electronic voting to begin with.
A watchdog group discovered the backdoor into the system back in 2001 in the prototype of the system, and that backdoor was closed.
The Dems finally had no way to fudge factor the system without someone having administrator privileges AND a keyboard hooked up to the system WHILE people were voting.
So they now have a problem with the system they pretty much came up with themselves.
Oh, there's still holes in it, and bugs won't be worked out for awhile yet.
But it is MUCH better than what they've used previously.
(Which is why the two Diebold systems in a certain place showed up with votes already on them, since they couldn't fudge factor it during or after the elections, they stuck the votes on the machines before the elections.)
Note also that it was the Dems who created the "insanely confusing" butterfly ballots in Florida.. which they now blame for 'voting irregularities' in Florida in 2000.
GREAT theory! It makes a lot of sense.
Any underling can ram a thin rod into a stack of punch cards punching out their candidate's slot. That creates overvotes for the opposition and invalidates only those who voted for the opponent. This takes seconds and is not easily caught. Messing with EVS requires a lot of background knowledge and smarts. The audit trails would point out most tampering, hopefully. Also, I would assume that EVS would not allow adding hundreds of votes in a few minutes.
The dims refused to use electronic voting in my county even though most of the rest of the state (CO) is using it. They picked an antiquated paper system over the punchcard system we had been using and the result is that today, 3 days after the election, only about 2/3 of the entire county has been counted!
They don't even want to show ID. In Philly there are stories of them voting on Provensional ballots and then being walked over to machines by poll workers to cast their vote a second time.
At least the paper system (we have optical paper scanning in MA) is not as easy to fool as the punch card system. A little work with a stack of punch cards and a thin rod will create overvotes very quickly.
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