Show Me The Source Code Or Throw The Voting Machines Out!!!!!

[scottie55]

If the voting machine isn't open source, and verified 5 different ways, it can't be used.

Period.

We have plenty of time to print paper ballots, and hire people to accurately count them.

If India can do it, so can we with 1/5th the voters.

But with paper ballots, and a 20 year prison sentence for anyone tampering with them, we might just have something resembling fair elections.

I know, I'm just dreaming.

We're so screwed.

[silvershadow]

1. I say just throw them out, period. There are better ways. Ones in which people

control the votes instead of Corporations doing so. We are in Orwellian territory here.

[haikugal]

4. YES!

[stillwaiting]

15. We have to fight for this. We don't currently have a fair democracy. nt

[metroins]

52. What better methods would you suggest?

No snark, genuinely curious.

Only ideas I have are paper, hand counted ballots (workers can cheat) or jelly beans in a jar.

Machines seem the less biased.

[zeemike]

60. Yes workers can cheat.

But in order to make a difference you would need a lot of them to do it.

The solution is simple.
Hand counted paper ballots...with poling places in local communities and hire retired people to do it and the results posted publicly when done.
It would be much cheaper than lots of expensive computers that can and probably are hacked.
And the money would go to retired people that could use it.

[Thespian2]

87. Pair Republican counters with Democratic counters...

they will police each other during the counting...paper ballots and counting are used here in Canada...
so it can easily be done...if enough polling places are provided in each state...

[bvar22]

121. I would add:

*Transparent Ballot Boxes to avoid pre-loading,

*24 hr live video feed over the internet in addition to on site independent ballot counters

*No ballot boxes can leave the polling station until the election is certified. (Absolute chain of custody with live internet feed plus observers)

[zeemike]

128. Well if I were designing it myself.

I would have the ballots deposited in a slot that led into a secure room with a team of retired people that would count and tally the ballots as they were cast.
And that process could be monitored by all parties with regular changes in shifts. And when the polls closed the results posted at the polling place for public view.

But the point is that even you and I can come up with a system that is difficult to rig...but not our leaders...they only seem to be interested in making it more complex.

[druidity33]

129. Why just retired people?

Why not High School students? Let's bring back Civics class! If Election Day was a National Holiday, we wouldn't need to be restricted in who helps count the ballots...

[zeemike]

130. To add some importance to the job.

You don't hire inexperienced to do important jobs.

But I totally agree we need to bring back civics class

[bvar22]

131. I can't endorse "closed doors".

They are not near as secure as transparent ballot boxes in full view of everyone.
Would you have your retirees "strip down" and searched before entering the room to make sure they aren't carrying anything? What about the ventilation ducts?
They could be sealed off, but it would get fairly stale in that room.
Windows? False Ceilings? cushioned furniture?...All places where ballots could be hidden.

I want to SEE my vote counted with my OWN eyes, not hidden in some back room,
and also SEE that the transparent boxes are empty before the first vote is cast, with absolute chain of custody until the election is certified.

[zeemike]

134. Not sealed off or hidden from view

But the counters hidden from the voters so that they don't see who casts the vote.
But you could install cameras if you wanted and watch them do the counting...have observers watching them...anything you want. Just so the public did not see who cast the ballot.
That is the only thing that needs to be secret in voting.

But if they are counted as they are cast there is no chance for ballot stuffing.

[bvar22]

139. In most nations, our included, the ballots are counted AFTER the poll closes.

It is impossible to know which ballot belongs to which voter.

[zeemike]

143. Well that is a good point.

But it does not insure that the box is not stuffed or rigged in other ways.
And there are other ways to insure that the vote remains anomalous.

The whole rational for voting machines is to get quick results and that can be done without them.
And if the votes are processed as they are cast it would eliminate lots of trickery. And if there is any question they can be counted again.

But no matter what way it is done the point is it is possible to have a fair and honest voting system...and it don't have to be complicated.

[annabanana]

132. The more complex, the easier it is to make it close enough

to steal.

[zeemike]

135. Exactly.n/t

[kacekwl]

82. Depends on who controls

the machines.

[merrily]

2. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=280925

[LiberalArkie]

3. India Voting

Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are being increasingly used instead of ballot boxes to prevent election fraud via booth capturing, which is heavily prevalent in certain parts of India.

[Yallow]

6. I Bet They Are Open Source And Verifiable Right?

I have no idea, but it would make sense for folks actually wanting fair voting.

[LiberalArkie]

10. I read several years ago about a system they had developed at a university there.

It was really simple and built by the students. Do not know if it is the same. The simpler they are, the more honest the machines. Cheatable machines are more difficult.

[SusanCalvin]

24. A first-year high school computer science student

could write a better program for a voting machine. This proprietary code business is wrong on so many levels.

Oh, check out this lovely Diebold password from 2003:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20031203/0832223.shtml

[LiberalArkie]

29. Those machines were designed from the git go to be hacked. That is the only way they would have been

approved.

[SusanCalvin]

44. I completely agree. HAVA was a huge scam.

I said so at the time, but that's small consolation.

[Wilms]

5. And you need to see the ballot definition file for every election.

Source code is only one of the issues.

[Yallow]

7. It Needs To Do Multiple Backups During The Process So Tampering Can Be Spotted

And totals verified at all locations before being passed along.

[Wilms]

11. Not sure.

But the paper ballots have to be subjected to a statistical audit. THAT rarely happens. Even where there are audits, they are generally unreliable except for verifying a correct outcome in an election with a wide margin.

[LiberalArkie]

8. At any time the congress could have mandated secure voting machines (it would be easy to do)

but they do not want them. The present system keeps them in power. The present voting machines are difficult because most of the code has to be where cheats can be done easily.

It is a lot easier to create an honest voting system. ATMs are pretty honest and reliable and trustworthy so should voting machines. Any programmer could write the code for an honest verifiable system. Creating dishonest systems that look honest are a lot harder.

The dishonest systems show up like one did a few years ago in a small community where a guy running for justice of the peace got 0 votes. He said he voted for himself and and wife and kids did, but no votes were tallied.

Anyone who has worked in the financial software business could easily write software for an honest system.

Our government does not want it.

[truedelphi]

19. The ghost of Andy Stephenson agrees.

When empowered with a physical body, Andy attempted to make the top brass at the Democratic Party aware of the black box voting situation, and they rebuffed him, as though what he suggested was not worthy of looking into.

But what it really was about was the top brass holding onto their power.

[LiberalArkie]

25. If the revolution can continue long enough to get some people in congress. If the old Occupy

Wall Street can get motivated around the elections theft. Because to me that is more important than anything else. The people will elect the right people if their vote is tallied correctly. It would need to be mandated that every voting machine would have to be a certain type for federal elections. A person would slide in their ID card and the ballot is presented.
When the voter is complete they would press the button. The voting machine would encrypt the selections and send it to a central tabulator. When the tabulator has verified that the information is valid and not corrupted, it sends it back to the voting machine for the voter to verify the selections they made. If they select "yes", then the confirmation is send to the tabulator to post the information.

The Voting machine then prints out a paper receipt with the transaction number and their selections. It also prints one for the voting machines own storage.

Pretty simple.

[truedelphi]

33. Right You Are! Each month, there are 360,000,000 transactions processed by ATM

Machines here in the USA. And anyone who wants a receipt with their transaction can have one.

So how is this NOT possible on election day?

[LiberalArkie]

42. People have never demanded it. There are federal laws about accuracy with financial transactions

but really none about elections.

[JohnnyRingo]

47. Taking a receipt home does no good to ensure accuracy

It's no more than a souvenir

Here in Ohio there's a print-out screen on the right side. After casting a ballot the voter can watch his selections being printed in real time out and rolled up into the machine.

At the end of the day that roll is removed and signed by all four poll workers (2 dems 2 Repubs), then locked into a steel box and sealed with a numbered security tag. That serial number is recorded in the book and sent along to the Board Of Elections by one dem worker and one repub worker.

Then that record is stored there under lock & key for two years in case of a dispute or hand recount. This discourages cheating because if someone were to somehow corrupt the count there's that paper trail waiting to bust them. Since everyone involved has to sign off on each step, it's easy to find where things went wrong and who to blame.

Computer voting can work if it's done correctly.

[SusanCalvin]

77. If people insist on machines, that sounds good. nt

[annabanana]

136. I miss him

[certainot]

84. bullshit - this is one party doing this crap - republicans

republicans can't win without suppression and cheating and that's why they do it

dems cant get anything passed because of obstruction - not because they don't want to and prefer to be beaten by voter suppression, fraud, and election theft

that's one very unproductive way to take a shot at clinton

[Yallow]

9. Someone Might Vote The Corrupt Assholes Out

And that would not be allowed.

[valerief]

12. Voting in the U.S. is one big joke. nt

[truedelphi]

34. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ n/t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. do you think these voting machines are also the reason Obama won twice?

or do you only think they are corrupt, when Sanders loses?

[phazed0]

14. Lol, I bet you think Bush won fairly. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. the second time around he did.

the first time he did not.

[SusanCalvin]

22. Second time not so much either.

http://harpers.org/archive/2005/08/none-dare-call-it-stolen/

[SusanCalvin]

23. No, I think Obama had such a huge majority

that they couldn't safely rig it.

[truedelphi]

35. Exactly. In 2008, he had huge crossover voter appeal.

Sixty two percent of the American electorate felt there was someone to vote for, who would shake things up and make a difference. Largest turnout on an election day in recent history.

Even my RW tea bagging neighbor voted for Barack.

[aggiesal]

62. As I understand it ...

Carl Rove and friends were going to flip Ohio in 2012, exactly the same way
they flipped Ohio in 2004.

Anonymous came out with a statement that they had figured out what Carl Rove
was doing, and they hacked into the server they used to flip the votes, on the night
of the election, and wouldn't allow other system through their firewall.

Rove was on FOX Network the night of the election, and when Fox called Ohio for
Obama, his deer-in-headlights look was priceless. He argued, that couldn't
possibly be.

[SusanCalvin]

75. Yeah, that too.

Rove's little performance was priceless, and telling.

[questionseverything]

56. obama knew from the beginning

that is why he hit the caucus states so hard

he said, over and over, we have to beat them so bad there can be no doubt

richard charnin has done analysis that says obama was probably cheated out of 5 million votes in the general

[SusanCalvin]

76. Yep. I remember that. nt

[PatrynXX]

16. I think ACT and SAT fill in the circles

is still better than me hitting the frapping button. oh you know how accurate them things are. heck I ran a Raspberry Pi 2 with a screen that could also run on the original Raspberry GPIO. had to use a special OS for it. But it worked. problem was my finger was a full fingertip to the NW of where it was pointing. X_X yeah so the screen was like a $10 screen or less. http://www.banggood.com/2_4-Inch-TFT-LCD-Display-Module-Touch-Screen-For-Raspberry-Pi-B-B-p-1023310.html but come on. who wants to guess the voting machines tend to be overpriced?? with banggood pretty much get it "at cost" as Miracle on 34th street would say. Crap the way things are today Gimbles would be the winners

[JohnnyRingo]

43. You know how they count those?

They pass them through a scanner and tabulate the votes on a computer.

Here in Ohio we have people come in and ask to vote on paper because they don't trust computers. I find that amusing.

[pnwmom]

18. You realize that NY used verifiable paper ballots, right? n/t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. this does not fit the narrative, so the reality is rejected.

if he does not win there was cheating. if he wins, it was clearly a victory for democracy

[scottie55]

30. ?

Even paper ballots counted by hacks are not to be trusted.

[questionseverything]

58. the optical scans can be rigged too

[SusanCalvin]

26. The OP may be in response to NY (I have no idea)

But the problem being discussed has been around for a long time. I'm just happy it's getting some attention.

[think]

31. In New York 126,000 voters 14% of all Democrats in Brooklyn were purged. That's no accident.

Someone should be going to jail for that purge or it will happen again. There is a reason there is an investigation and the mayor is allotting $20 million to correct the situations. There are problems!

In Chicago we have votes being witnessed to not matching the machine and being erased. No one is refuting that.

In Arizona the DOJ is investigating the mass closure of voting spots in a strong Democratic county that left people waiting in line for up to five hours! Voters had their registration changed. These are not acceptable and affect the voting.

Let's not bury our heads in the sand just because it may or may not effect one candidate or another. Open and fair elections are the back bone of a true democracy. No malfeasance should be considered acceptable...

[truedelphi]

39. Thank you for pointing out some most important information

That somehow our beloved Corporate Owned Media can not bring themselves to report!

[pnwmom]

40. A Republican elections office person has been suspended and an investigation is ongoing.

We do need to do everything we can to promote a fair and full vote.

I only object to the idea that Hillary is behind any of these problems. For example, Maricopa county is heavily Hispanic -- it didn't benefit Hillary to have 2/3 of the polling places closed by the Republicans in charge of the elections.

[truedelphi]

36. You realize that unlike more progressive Calif, where a person can still

Change their party of preference until May 11th or so, New York state's cutoff date for switching parties was way back in October of 2015.

And due to the high number of progressive voters, many of whom had decided to affiliate with the Working Party there in New York, there were some two to three million indies on Primary Day who could not vote for their heart's desire of Bernie, but had to vote for the Third Party they were earlier affiliated with.

[pnwmom]

41. They could have voted for their hearts desire if they had registered last October, since he

announced the previous spring.

No one forced them to register third party, or to remain registered with that party past the long established deadline.

[earthmanneil]

67. Supposedly, the Democratic Party wants to reach out...

...register new voters & also bring in many of those independents it will so desperately need in the general election. Why defend what is essentially a very restrictive barrier? 6 months ago when the current New York change deadline for registration in the Democratic Party passed, nothing was clear about this race, certainly not that there would be a very successful insurgent candidate like Sanders offering a profoundly different vision AND with a legitimate shot at winning. But hey, why stop at a 6 month prior cut-off? How about needing to be "in the Democratic Party" (a box checked on a piece of paper) 1 year or even 6 years earlier?! Way to go to grow the Democratic Party!

[roody]

53. I didn't, but that's why suppression is important.

[Bodych]

54. Do they use optical scanners to count votes, or do they hand count? n/t

[SusanCalvin]

21. Yes. Should have been done years ago.

Better yet, those privatized electronic monstrosities should never have been allowed.

[silvershadow]

27. The legacy of SCOTUS and the GWB selection rolls on, doesn't it? nt.

[scottie55]

28. I Guess I Am Not The Only One That Knows/Thinks Elections Are Fixed

Paper ballots or bust.

[Fast Walker 52]

32. what WILL it take to get people to act on this???

FUCK

[HillareeeHillaraah]

37. How do we even know Sanders supporters didn't hack Michigan

I mean the polling didn't come close to the results....smells fishy to me ~

Your side does have the reputation of being more tech savvy than Clinton's side...who's to say then?

Or is it only questionable when he loses?

[Amimnoch]

38. How about going higher Tech instead?

I was considering this the other day.

Instead of going paper, how about sticking with high tech.. BUT

Make votes published and verifiable. When I vote, I get a receipt showing how I voted (proof that I voted the way I said I did), and online the final vote count is placed and I can verify how my vote was tallied towards the total.

[scottie55]

57. Internet Voting

And screwing with the voting is 20 years on the slammer 1st offense.

Everyone is registered at birth, and when they are of age, they can vote online, or on their phone.

Tampering in any way is prison.

[certainot]

85. no that's no good - that means if there's a problem every one

who votes has to come back with the receipt, right?

or else voters have to be named - also no good

[paparush]

122. Am I recalling correctly that Diebold said they couldn't generate a receipt?

They make freaking cash registers but couldn't build a voting machine that would create a receipt? REALLY?? C'mon!

[JohnnyRingo]

45. I believe the voting machines in Ohio are accurate.

If other states used our system there'd be no problems. I would want to wait three days for people trying to decide how each ballot was marked, and I don't trust many people to resist the temptation to cheat. Too many people make false claims when they don't understand the technology.

For every way you think our machines can be cheated, I can tell you why it wouldn't work. Gov Bob Strickland overhauled our system when he took office in 2007 and I have every confidence it works.

[Pharaoh]

49. Well they stole Ohio in 2004

Which cost Kerry the Presidency.

I hope your right. I'm not as confident about that, not without a verifiable paper trail.

[JohnnyRingo]

55. Those were different machines

That was when Bob Taft (R) was governor.

He only contracted one company (Diebold) to supply the machines and they had no paper trail. He even claimed at one point that the technology wasn't available to print one.

Ted Strickland took over in 2007 and overhauled the entire system. Now three companies supply machines and they all have a real time print-out of each ballot. That paper is rolled up into the machine after each vote.

At the end of the day, those paper rolls are removed and signed by all four poll workers (2 dems 2 repubs) then locked into a steel box with a security tag. That security serial number is recorded into the poll book, signed off by all four workers, and returned to the Board Of Elections by one dem and one repub. The paper rolls are stored there under lock & key for two years in case of a dispute or recount.

The machines themselves are also sealed with security tape over the access ports and numbers are again recorded in the book and verified by all four of us.

No one has to trust anyone in Ohio anymore. Failsafe abounds.

[scottie55]

59. Strickland Was Beyond Evil

Tossing out tens of thousands of registrations because they weren't on business card paper.

I hope he burns in hell.

[JohnnyRingo]

91. He's running for senator in Ohio to replace Rob Portman

...and I hope he wins it.

I thought he was a good governor, certainly heads above Bob Taft he succeeded and John Kasich after him. I never heard of the incident you speak of. As a Democratic governor I can't see why he'd estrange our voters.

Do you have the right governor?

[questionseverything]

61. foolish to trust any system we the people cannot personally oversee

the illinois ballot integrity project just witnesses a 5% audit where they identified 3 different ways the boe encouraged the workers to falsify the audit so it matched the original "output"

and chances are nothing will be done

and your state is no better

[JohnnyRingo]

93. Our system has oversight

Each precinct is manned by four workers, two from each party. We take the responsibility seriously and keep a close tab on vote count. The tally has to match in three different ways or workers stay until they find out why not.

After the machines are returned to the BOE by one worker from each party they are uploaded to the main database. The paper trail arrives separately in locked steel boxes with security tags and stored under lock & key for two years. If there's reason to suspect foul play, those printed tallies can be compared to the count on the corresponding machine. At that point any discrepancy can be tracked to the source because people sign off on every single thing they do. No one touches a machine without signing for it.

I don't know how anything can be more secure, certainly not the old punchcards or the older mechanical booths from the '50s & '60s.

[questionseverything]

108. while making sure the "output" the machine spits out is possible, not reporting more votes than

voters is important, no worker can oversee the actual count in any machine

let me repeat, no human being can oversee the counting inside any machine, so it is a trust me system

hand counted paper ballots, counted publicly at the precinct in front of multiple witnesses, live streamed if possible, results publicly announced with a tight chain of custody for the spreadsheet that reports is the answer

[JohnnyRingo]

111. We have a sign in book

...and a "reconciliation sheet" where each voters name is written as they sign in.

The number of voters inked into the reconciliation sheet has to match the total votes registered on the machines exactly. That number also has to match the total on the printed paper trail. In Ohio we now trust nothing.

As for hand counting paper ballots, people are corrupt, sloppy, and sometimes dumb. Some would mark all the boxes, others would put a mark halfway between candidates requiring a judgement. Someone would try to print counterfeit ballots and stuff the box.

In Ohio we have a hard time finding people to work the election, and that pays $130. I don't know where we could find workers to sit at a table for 12 hours accurately recording each national and local candidate, issue, and initiative until their eyes bleed. Of course there'd have to be a witness to each counter from the opposite party to avoid "mistakes". The end result is is a long process that is less reliable due to fatigue, partisan judgement, and accidents.

Did you ever consider working for your local elections? I'm sure they need the help. You could get a first hand account of how your state's votes are counted, and if there's a weak link in the voting chain, you'd be the first to know and report it. Besides, it's civic duty that's easier than tediously counting the marks on little pieces of paper.

[questionseverything]

114. you keep referring to making the count match how many voted, which is ONE step

there is nothing in your post that shows the "output" from the machine is accurate

nothing

no human being can oversee the count inside a machine

i am old enough to remember hand counted paper ballots

at the end of election day half the precinct would show up to sort, stack and count

it was a party, festive atmosphere and everyone could trust that their vote count was correct

you crack me up, like someone "reporting a weak link" would matter today

election boards seem to be all about protecting the idea that the machine "output" is correct as we have seen from the illinois ballot integrity project

one early voting machine with 49 ghost votes reported and 21 bernie votes earased

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511800403

<shrugs>

[JohnnyRingo]

115. The paper trail is the verification of machine count

That paper tally is printed right in front of the voters as they cast a ballot. The paper roll is removed from the machine at the end of the day, checked against the electronic tally, and sealed for return to the elections board. Security tape is applied over access ports to bar tampering and the number on the tape recorded in a book.

As a further safeguard, Ohio contracts with three non-associated companies to supply voting machines, not just Diebold. These multi million dollar contacts are treasured and you can bet if one company contacted another to arrange election theft they'd blow the whistle to steal their contract. If one company's machines consistently leaned to one party, there'd be a huge red flag.

I don't know how an election can be more secure than that, but I wonder how small your community is that the townfolk can show up and accurately count their neighbor's votes. Even as a preschooler in the '50s I would go with my mother into the mechanical voting booth where she taught me how to vote a straight Democratic ticket. I trust our computer voting more than those antiques that provided no second count to verify the tally.

[questionseverything]

116. please provide a link to the state board of elections that shows

that the paper roll is counted by human beings better yet provide video of it happening because the video i posted was election integrity activist testifying about how the paper roll votes were manipulated...activists using their real names, going on record not nameless faceless net "people"

electronic vote counting was introduced by ibm in the mid 60s

for an election to be legitimate , the average person must be able to oversee every step without any special expertise, not having to depend on insiders

or any "trust me" system

[JohnnyRingo]

125. I do it myself

I've been a poll worker and precinct captain in Ohio for years. We don't go through the roll and count each vote, no one has time for that, but the paper roll has a final count printed on it that has to match the electronic count. I could get the manual we use, scan it, upload it to a cloud, then post it for you, but you'll just find another loophole for why you distrust the system. You trust no one, but you can take my word for it.

That paper roll is then stored under lock & key at the county Board of Elections for two years in case of a dispute or if a hand count is warranted. That paper trail sits like a ticking time bomb to bust anyone who dares to flip votes on upload. Those workers who upload the votes sign off on the machine they worked on so tampering is easily tracked to the individual.

Again, installing software to alter the count would be evident when one company's machines consistently leaned to the opposite candidate in a partisan county. The penalty for fraud would be criminal charges and loss of a multi million dollar contract, and for what, just so the company can curry government favor? They already make millions counting our votes.

You'd never find enough "average people" to hand count paper ballots that have several candidates and issues. We can't get enough people to work the polls and have to work a 16 hour day without relief. I would trust a cold hearted machine before I would a Freeper zealot hand counting my ballot. You would do well to volunteer to work your local election instead of following cynical conspiracy theories.

You can go to this link to see how our machines work, what companies operate in each county, and even take an online course in overseeing an election:
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/electionsofficials/CountyVotingEquipment.aspx


I can't vouch for other states, but in Ohio I believe we finally got it right, thanks to a Democratic governor.

[questionseverything]

140. i knew no human actually counted the vote...just wanted you to admit it ,thanks

the idea that the "output" at the end of the roll matches the "output" the machine spits out is 2ff

the idea that anyone is ever punished more laughable

http://fatallyflawedelections.blogspot.com/

http://www.sweetremedy.tv/fatallyflawed/media/RTA_Fraud_Flyer_3_7_12.pdf


those links lead to one the best documented frauds in US history

the activists have been in court for years trying to get relief but election insiders protect themselves at all cost

http://bradblog.com/?p=7875

votes spin backwards

germany and Ireland have banned electronic voting, maybe someday the US will catch up

conspiracy=when more than one person work together to accomplish a common goal

[JohnnyRingo]

141. Any system can be defrauded to an extent...

...and that includes people looking at and recording hand written ballots, perhaps more so for that. The goal is to minimize the error/fraud factor in any system.

I'll not convince you that electronic voting can be accurate but you're complaints will never turn back the hands of time. Your iPhone is compromised, your car tracks your every turn, and your vote will be tabulated electronically. No one wants to go back to the 1800s so we protect ourselves by adapting to our own technology.

In the case of voting we have to take measures to assure an accurate count and I believe Ohio has done a credible job. I'll not repeat the reasons why the output matches the paper trail and that creates an archive because you want nothing to do with the system anyway. You should get involved in your local elections and work to ensure accuracy. Work the polls twice a year, it's an honor and they pay you.

Meanwhile, good luck voting without diodes and processors this fall and for the rest of your life.

[questionseverything]

142.

if an election is to be considered legitimate, the average citizen must be able to oversee every step of the process

that is the bottom line

germany used to have electronic vote counting then activists went to court and it was found unconstitutional...so pardon me if i remain hopefully that democracy in America will also be restored

[Hacking_Democracy]

145. All the main touchscreen machine types and the Diebold Optical Scans have been hacked in tests.

Plus the Diebold GEMS central tabulator too. Votes can be switched undetectably and the totals can be
made to falsely match the poll books. It's all down to access.

The HBO documentary 'Hacking Democracy' climaxes with the 'Hursti Hack' of the Diebold system in Leon County, Florida. The Diebold Optical Scan machine was hacked using only a memory card. Mr Hursti controlled the entire election from outside the computer room. The hack was verified by computer scientists at UC Berkeley in a report commissioned by California's Secretary of State.

Crucially the number of votes at the end of this hacked mini-election match the number of voters. But the results are hacked to be false.

Hacking Democracy: The Hack.

[JohnnyRingo]

146. Ohio uses three different companies to record our votes.

Allowing just Diebold does indeed leave open a chance that the company could install their own software. With three companies supplying the machines there's little to no chance that they would dare conspire for fear of losing a multimillion dollar contract to another company. Imagining that all three companies meet behind closed doors is too much to believe, even in a movie plot. If only one company's machines record an extraordinary number of votes for one candidate there's a red flag.

In nearly every conspiracy theory about voting machines in Ohio they cite the questionable hardware used before Gov Strickland took office in 2005. He overhauled the entire system to include multiple vendors and a printed paper trail that is stored at individual BOE locations for years after the election in case of a dispute or compromised count.

That paper verification (which is witnessed by the voter) is a ticking time bomb for anyone who tampers with the electronic tally. Anyone who touches a machine has to sign off on their actions, so the risk is great and the reward small.

[Hacking_Democracy]

147. All insiders with access can change the electronic votes, not just the voting machine companies.

Last edited Fri Aug 19, 2016, 03:09 PM - Edit history (1)

I take your point that if there are untampered paper ballots then a hand recount can be done accurately to
show the will of the voters.

But all the voting systems used in Ohio - Diebold/Premier + ES&S + Hart Intercivic - have been proven to have appalling security holes and exploits which can easily change vote totals for huge numbers of votes.

ES&S ballot scanners and central tabulators are used in three of the most populous counties - Cuyahoga, Franklin and
Summit counties. That's over 2 Million of Ohio's 8 million registered voters. And in addition ES&S (Election Systems & Software Inc.) controls the votes of 38 more Ohio counties.

So in Ohio the transparency of the entire ES&S computer system is one of the biggest questions.

The 'paper trail' or 'poll tapes' printed out by the machines can be easily rigged without anyone detecting that the tabulations software was ever illegally accessed. But at least there are paper ballots. IF they are ever actually counted by hand.

[Pharaoh]

64. Paper ballots

hand counted.

Dip your finger in purple ink if it makes the fascists feel better. But I don't trust electronic voting machines.

[SusanCalvin]

78. Me either. nt

[JohnnyRingo]

94. I'm guessing you just patented purple ink remover

... and are trying to get rich from people who want to vote 10 times.

I can imagine the chaos of hand marked paper ballots. People are not known for being neat and there would be a lot of judgment calls. Remember the hanging and pregnant chad debacle in Florida 2000? Some would put the mark right between the candidates or mark both. Others would try counterfeiting ballots and stuffing the box. It's low tech so any idiot with a printer can try to hack it.

Then there's the counting of that many ballots in a reasonable time. You may think the state could hire an army or poor people to sit and tediously count each ballot with a member of the opposite party to witness each worker, but it's hard enough to even get poll workers... and that pays $130. No one would want to sit at a table for 12 hours and count ballots until their eyes bleed. It's not just the president that has to be counted, but other races and issues as well. I wouldn't trust that kind of count anyway.

[dflprincess]

65. They tried to steal it in 2012 as well

but Anonymous hacked the original hack and made sure the actual votes were counted.

Watch video of Karl Rove that night insisting Ohio would go to Romney and how he got increasingly strident as began to dawn on him that something had gone wrong (from his viewpoint).

[JohnnyRingo]

92. Ohio voting machines are not connected to the internet

Why would they be? We don't log on the machines when we set them up, and there are reasons wi-fi wouldn't work. We have hundreds of precincts and thousands of machines in 88 counties. "Hacking" those machines would take an army of roving operatives, and once again, we don't hook up the machines to a cable connection, only 110 volts.

The count is taken directly from the machine and verified by the paper tally, then sealed with security tape and locks. If the numbers don't exactly match in three different ways, including the sign in book, we have to stay until we find out why not.

No one "hacked" the Ohio machines in 2012 or "reversed the hack". I'm afraid that's a conspiracy theory without merit.

[questionseverything]

109. it was the reporting website that they tried to cover with a "mirror" website with a different

result,not the individual machines

we know the "mirror" web site was how they stole it in 2004

[dflprincess]

144. Thank you

I didn't get back on line until just now - and I would not have been able to explain as clearly or succinctly.

[veronique25]

46. just have elections by a DMV thumb-print app on your phone

i know this could get pretty orwellian, but just have
every registered voter give a thumb-print -- like at the dmv when you get a driver's license, or ID card for your state

then, you just touch a thumb-print app on any phone or touch-screen device and it's one person-one vote

but obviously, as stalin said: "who votes is less important than who COUNTS the votes"

there still could be electronic electorate fraud -- so then you just have re-counts by people re-voting with their thumb-prints and see if all the re-votes match the original votes

also, there could be coercion, where people are literally arm-twisted into voting whomever the strong-arms want them to...

but then maybe have a website or tv-media-outlet with the current counts on screen, like on american idol...

still, as a rancher once told me: locks only keep honest men honest...

[Pharaoh]

48. We are not screwed

As long as we have dreamers like you Scottie!

[The Wizard]

50. proprietary code serves a rigged system

Counting votes should be done with a bright light shining on them where everyone can watch. We're not talking about defense secrets. We're talking about the foundation upon which government is standing. Free and fair elections are the lifeblood of a functioning democracy. Did I just say functioning democracy? Who's kidding whom?

[northernsouthern]

51. 100% NT

[Bodych]

63. It's the optical scanners and central tabulators doing the dirty work...

These machines have interpretive code written into them, which has only one purpose: To cheat.

Let's say there are 100 paper ballots fed into an optical scanner that is designed to cheat. We know there are:

50 votes for Bush, and

50 votes for Gore.

So that's 100 votes in total. When the rigged machine counts them, the "interpretive code" can be adjusted to weigh each of those votes with a different value. In this example, the machine gives each of the Gore votes a value of 0.5, and each Bush vote gets a value of 1.5.

The tabulator tells us: Yes, I got 100 votes, and Bush is the winner. He got 75 votes to Gore's 25.

That's how it works. When you have millions of votes, it's very easy to make "interpretive code" changes that are so slight-but-effective, nobody notices. Only a hand-count of the millions of paper ballots will prove the fraud.

[paparush]

123. At least there are marked ballots that could be reviewed.

Yes, there are arguments over, "..this oval is not completely filled in and this vote should not count..."

[Scuba]

66. Paper ballots, hand counted, in public, cameras rolling, nothing less.

[Bodych]

68. You got it :-) n/t

[SusanCalvin]

74. Yep. nt

[99th_Monkey]

81. That's a real election, a fair had honest election. Bingo!! nt

[SCVDem]

69. Print the ballots

on Hemp paper!

Make it a fair AND green election.

[Pharaoh]

70. Yeah!

[veronique25]

95. excellent cannabinoid idea, but...

...what if the paper ballots get smoked during the recount by the hempster-voters

that would smoke the count, unfairly

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

71. K&R. Please don't forget to...

...weigh in with your input here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017358555

Thank you.

[bkkyosemite]

72. Did not know this group existed. This primary is so rigged. It is very obvious for who.

We need paper ballots and counting for all to see and verify. To hell with vote machines software owned by billionaires who want their candidate to win.

[SusanCalvin]

79. Oh my!

I just realized this was posted in the right group!

Anybody want to revive ER Daily News, I'm in for a day and will share my search terms.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x508270

[Overseas]

73. K&R. Yes please!

[Enthusiast]

80. Kicked and recommended to the Max!

[eridani]

83. In India and other countries with parliamentary systems, voters don't choose candidates

They vote for political parties, which makes tabulation far simpler.

In King County, WA, there are 17 state legislative districts, parts of 4 different congressional districts, 30+ cities and counties, water, sewer and fire districts. Those ballots are impossible to count accurately by hand. I recommend scanners with open source software and mandatory random audits of specific rqaces by hand count.

[midnight]

86. It makes me wonder why our elections costs so much money.

[MrMickeysMom]

88. I think paper ballot with counting at each precinct is THE only way to go.

The crazy thing about this is that I have no hard proof election fraud goes unchallenged, because I have no expertise.

But I know a thing or two about the lax way elections are conducted. If it's this bad at the local level that people aren't careful who is present and few election staff appear to be on the ball, I have a good prediction line that we have to take it back.

[ish of the hammer]

89. "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."
- Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

[CaptainTruth]

90. Yes, we could be screwed. And our media ignores it.

That's what gets me the most, there's plenty of evidence, multiple occurrences of PhD statisticians saying "this result is impossible" (or 1 in 40-some million, or even a trillion+, aka impossible for all practical purposes) & yet our media steadfastly ignores it.

I've collected info for decades & sent dozens of emails to major news organizations & all I got was ... well once after I sent info to Rachael Maddow about precincts reporting votes that equaled twice the number of registered voters ... she mentioned it on-air & basically made fun of it, saying it was a two-page ballot so people who said "twice the number of votes" were actually counting pages & not votes, which was complete bullshit (excuse my language) because it actually was REPORTED VOTES, regardless of how many pages the ballot had.

I swear, I want one of the Democratic candidates to come out in favor of a "verified voting" law, something that allows every transaction (vote) to be verified. We do this millions of times every day with credit card transactions, we can do it with votes.

Until then, we're at the mercy of GOP hackers (like Karl Rove) who can change vote totals & steal elections.

[red dog 1]

96. Recall Election Fraud in Wisconsin? You Betcha!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/125144291

[ToxMarz]

97. The mere fact that the source code is proprietary is suspicious

Counting votes is addition. It shouldn't be doing anything fancy that would require special code.

[King_Klonopin]

98. But... WHAT'S INSIDE THAT iPHONE ?! TELL ME; WHAT'S INSIDE THAT iPHONE

OR I'LL ACCUSE YOU OF OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE !!!!!!

Hypocrites.

If only the voting machines were called iVotes, then we could get some action.

[silvershadow]

99. Bern it Down! nt

[stlsaxman]

100. But, here in America- "I want the results NOW!!!"

We no longer have the patience to count ballots. We have been sold a bill of goods that is not what it seems. Fast, good and cheap- you get to pick only two.

[stillwaiting]

101. I believe if we polled Americans and asked them if they could wait until the next day

for election results if we went to paper ballots that a large majority would say yes.

I know very few people that trust the computerized machines we vote on. Which is good since they have been proven to be easily hacked and are outlawed in many countries. Maybe there's hope at getting a democracy. We'll have to stand together with Republicans in order to demand this, but I truly think they would be willing to stand with us on this matter. They really don't trust these machines either. Again, for very good reason.

[paparush]

124. The NETWORKS want the results NOW.

They've got ads to sell and Q4 revenue needs to be 7% higher than Q3.

[LiberalLovinLug]

126. There is no reason there would be delays

As another Canadian upthread commented. We use paper, hand-counted ballots. There is a volunteer from each party at each polling station to watch the counts. I worked as a volunteer watcher one election. Results are almost all in by 8 pm Pacific, enough to decide the election. There is no waiting for the next day.

And the argument that the USA is too big a country, too many people, to carry this out...I say...WTF are you talking about? More people, just means you have more people available to volunteer or work in polling stations. Its all exponentially expandable.

But one roadblock is that you'all down there allow States to each have their own system. If it is an election for a national government, why on earth wouldn't you have verifiable national standards, and consistent systems across the whole country?

[retrowire]

102. i have an indian friend that brags to me about being apart of a democracy

I'm jealous of his patriotism and pride in his polls.

[ViseGrip]

103. Exactly! We have more protections in Las Vegas!!

[elljay]

104. Some interesting pro and con opinions

from the site ProCon. I lack the background to determine the merit of these, but found them interesting and would welcome your comments.

http://votingmachines.procon.org/view.additional-resource.php?resourceID=000266

[closeupready]

105. Didn't happen the first time; won't happen this time either.

[KPN]

106. USA is looking pretty damned silly right about now

as in laughing stock when it comes to "greatest democracy in the world".

[Plucketeer]

107. Paper ballots

and INK pens. There's NO shortage of paper nor ink. The machines - ALL OF THEM - are suspect at best. End of story.

[Madmiddle]

110. And people think that by just talking about it,

the elitist voting machine in this country, the Oligarchy, will just change. Without a true forced revolution nothing will change.

[Kurovski]

112. Yep.

Yep, yep, yep.

K&R

[benld74]

113. Slot Machines vs Voting Machines

Says it ALL

http://imgur.com/gallery/v6m70

[Uncle Joe]

117. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, scottie.

[Leith]

118. I Used to Be a Government Programmer

Specifically a contractor with the states of Indiana and North Carolina.

There was never a thought or a question about source code or who it belonged to - the governments of the states of Indiana and North Carolina!

After those jobs ended, I worked for a company that made slot machines. Every machine in every jurisdiction HAS to submit the source code for every machine to the private testing lab (GLI is the largest one) or to jurisdictions that do their own testing (like New Jersey and Michigan). This rule applies even to the chairs that vibrate or have speakers in them, bill changers, ticket dispensers, overhead signs, and so on. Without source code, the item is not tested and not approved. Period, end of story.

When I first heard that the voting machine manufacturer refused to disclose the source code because of "proprietary reasons," it was dumbfounding! Haven't they ever heard of nondisclosure agreements? They work pretty well for every other branch of government (and private industry) that purchases or uses software.

For Diebold to whine about protecting the rights to their software is an empty complaint - and it doesn't just smack of corruption, underhandedness, and dishonesty, it screams it from the rooftops.

[d_legendary1]

120. Your response should be its own OP

I didn't know slot machines were required to turn in source code for approval. Makes me wonder who at Diebold has the congressional connections to make them legal without registering their code.

[november3rd]

119. If we can't throw out the computers ...

If we can't throw out the computers ... then let's at least throw out the people who won't let us throw out the computers.

[Else You Are Mad]

138. Bingo. This would solve a lot of problems. nt.

[Angry Dragon]

127. YES

[colsohlibgal]

133. [phone]

What we do now is insane and an invitation for malfeasance. It is all hodge Podge with no standardization. Computers are easily hackable and not verifiable.

That not many citizens at all and liberal politicians are not raising Hell about this.

Oh and on top of recorded counting of paper ballots we would have insure the strict custody of those ballots pre counting.

If not all, 99% of strange results are in favor of the right. Again, two recent examples are the Kentucky governor race and the Ohip pot vote. And two not so recent examples are both elections where GWB wound up in the WH and for two terms...with costly consequences in money and human life.

[Marthe48]

137. If my grocery store can give me

a complete item by item paper printout of what I just bought, then the voting machines can give me a printout of who I just voted for. Who do the manufacturers think they are kidding?

[clarkkentvotes]

148. agree

this shouldnt be a fringe issue - and it shouldnt be just a dream - this is common sense

[Luvapottamus]

149. DARPA funded Opensource voting software and hardware

DARPA Is Building a $10 Million, Open Source, Secure Voting System

The first-of-its-kind system will be designed by an Oregon-based firm called Galois, a longtime government contractor with experience in designing secure and verifiable systems. The system will use fully open source voting software, instead of the closed, proprietary software currently used in the vast majority of voting machines, which no one outside of voting machine testing labs can examine. More importantly, it will be built on secure open source hardware, made from secure designs and techniques developed over the last year as part of a special program at DARPA. The voting system will also be designed to create fully verifiable and transparent results so that voters don’t have to blindly trust that the machines and election officials delivered correct results.

But DARPA and Galois won’t be asking people to blindly trust that their voting systems are secure—as voting machine vendors currently do. Instead they’ll be publishing source code for the software online and bring prototypes of the systems to the Def Con Voting Village this summer and next, so that hackers and researchers will be able to freely examine the systems themselves and conduct penetration tests to gauge their security. They’ll also be working with a number of university teams over the next year to have them examine the systems in formal test environments.

“Def Con is great, but [hackers there] will not give us as much technical details as we want [about problems they find in the systems],” Linton Salmon, program manager in DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office who is overseeing the project, said in a phone call. “Universities will give us more information. But we won’t have as many people or as high visibility when we do it with universities.”...

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yw84q7/darpa-is-building-a-dollar10-million-open-source-secure-voting-system

Unless the hardware is opensource as well, particularly networking features.....

Only as secure and accurate as the weakest link in the chain.