posted
Help me out, here, please. I received this today and can only immediately refute three. ____________________________________
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
[ 19. June 2005, 09:01 PM: snopes ]
-------------------- Opinions aren't excuses to remain ignorant about subjects, nor are they excuses to never examine one's beliefs & prejudices...
Babies are like tattoos. You see other peoples' & they're cool, but yours is never as good & you can't get rid of it. Posts: 5622 | From: Jax, Florida | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Something to add (I heard this from someone, but have no verification) is that in both Florida and Ohio, Bush got the electoral votes, but Kerry led according to the exit polls. Those are the only two states where there was a discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results regarding who won, and there is no paper trail in either state.
posted
I can't vouch for other sections of Florida, but I know for a fact that in Jacksonville there were paper ballots that were scanned - which leaves a paper trail...
Also, my SIL in Cleveland voted the exact same way.
So, there goes that "fact".
-------------------- Opinions aren't excuses to remain ignorant about subjects, nor are they excuses to never examine one's beliefs & prejudices...
Babies are like tattoos. You see other peoples' & they're cool, but yours is never as good & you can't get rid of it. Posts: 5622 | From: Jax, Florida | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Spam & Cookies-mmm: What do you mean by "there is no paper trail in either state"?
Just that there's no way of verifying, even if we wanted to, that the results reflect the way people actually voted. Like if we had the punch cards, we could count the punch cards (like they did in Florida back in 2000). But with the touch-screen voting, supposedly if the computer accidentally (or even purposely) changed your vote from one candidate to the other, there would be no way to know that this happened.
posted
Yuppers - I filled in bubbles all over the place on mine... then put in in a scanner, after which it fell into a bin that was in the locked underside of the scanner. To verify the vote, all they would have to do is look at the numbers on the machine, then count all the little bubbles.
Sounds paper-trailish to me...
-------------------- Opinions aren't excuses to remain ignorant about subjects, nor are they excuses to never examine one's beliefs & prejudices...
Babies are like tattoos. You see other peoples' & they're cool, but yours is never as good & you can't get rid of it. Posts: 5622 | From: Jax, Florida | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Well, I, for one, voted on a paper ballot, as did millions of others in Florida. Making the blanket statement, "there's no paper trail" is misleading hyperbole.
posted
Man, who cares about the paper trail? I want to see the chimpanzee who hacks the audit logs! But when I clicked on the link, I got a bad gateway error.
-------------------- Eppis: Do you know why being a revolutionary doesn't work in this country? Being a revolutionary in America is like being a spoil sport at an orgy. All these goodies being passed around and you feel like a shit when you say no. Posts: 294 | From: Brisbane, Australia | Registered: Nov 2004
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Clayton
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: Yuppers - I filled in bubbles all over the place on mine... then put in in a scanner, after which it fell into a bin that was in the locked underside of the scanner. To verify the vote, all they would have to do is look at the numbers on the machine, then count all the little bubbles.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: Yuppers - I filled in bubbles all over the place on mine... then put in in a scanner, after which it fell into a bin that was in the locked underside of the scanner. To verify the vote, all they would have to do is look at the numbers on the machine, then count all the little bubbles.
Sounds paper-trailish to me...
Ooops, my first post.
Anyway, here in Lee County Florida, there was no paper-trail. All electronic, you could not request a paper backup if you wanted to.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
quote:In an invitation to a Republican fund-raiser at his suburban Columbus mansion, O'Dell said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for the president next year."
The letter closely followed a visit by O'Dell to a fund-raising powwow at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch for six-figure fund-raisers known as "Pioneers and Rangers."
He said he regrets the wording in the letter.
"I'm a pretty experienced business leader, but a real novice on the political side of this. This blind-sided me," O'Dell said. "I don't have a political adviser or a screener or a letter reviewer or any of that stuff."
This actually got quite a bit of coverage in the high tech news. For example, I remember reading it in C|Net news. Brian
-------------------- "Dear Big Foot Smellers: Please don't quote me on some of this information." John F. Winston Posts: 1707 | From: Camarillo, CA | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by KingDavid8: But with the touch-screen voting, supposedly if the computer accidentally (or even purposely) changed your vote from one candidate to the other, there would be no way to know that this happened.
Like in India, where the voting machines were stolen and returned full of votes.
That's why the IEEE is involved in voting now -- they're working on an electronic voting standard.
-------------------- All posts foretold by Nostradamus.
Turing test failures: 6 Posts: 5481 | From: Decatur, GA | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
True. Voting is regulated by the states and (usually) counties/parishes, althought the HAVA is supposed to change that (see "The Perils of Polling").
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
From "The Perils of Polling":
quote:ES&S, which claims to be the largest maker of electronic voting machines in the world, was formed in 1997 by a merger of two smaller companies, one of which was founded by two brothers, Todd and Bob Urosevitch. Todd is still with ES&S, but Bob was until recently president of Diebold.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
Interestingly, ES&S is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska (Buy Nebraskan, perhaps?).
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
quote:One underlying issue is whether Hagel properly disclosed his financial ties to Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a company that makes nearly half the voting machines used in the United States, including all those used in his native Nebraska.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
See #3. The 60% is plausible if Diebold and Sequoia share the remaining 20% and the other nine manufacturers share the other 20%.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
The IEEE is concerned about that ("Perils of Polling"):
quote:But for the first time in history, more than 25 percent of U.S. ballots will be cast using equipment that directly records votes only on electronic media, such as chips, cartridges, or disks, with no paper or other tangible form of backup.
Apparently all 12 voting machines companies make machines like that (the Diebold Accuvote is "typical") and all US-deployed electronic voting machines are paperless:
quote:Next month, Nevada will use electronic voting machines made by Sequoia that produce paper ballots. It will be the first U.S. state to do so, though only in some counties.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
quote:A manufacturer of electronic voting machines has employed at least five convicted felons as managers, according to critics demanding more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine software.
Although they may have left when Diebold bought them:
quote:Michael Jacobsen, a spokesman for North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold, emphasized that the company performs background checks on all managers and programmers. He said many GES managers - including Dean - left at the time of the acquisition.
"[C]entral compiler computer code"? A compiler is what converts source code to machine code. It doesn't count votes.
Can't verify "50% of the votes in 30 states" (although compare #1 and #8).
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
From "Critics: Convicted felons worked for electronic voting companies":
quote:The programmer, Jeffrey Dean, wrote and maintained proprietary code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of Global Election Systems Inc. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002.
quote:Dean made an Alford plea, saying he was not guilty of the 23 counts of theft but acknowledging he would likely be convicted if the case went to trial.
Dean did create optical scanning ballots for GES:
quote:When Global Election Systems saw the ballots Dean produced for its new optical-scan voting system, Bruce said, "They said this is the best quality ballot we had."
He was a consultant for Diebold:
quote:When Diebold completed its purchase of Global in January 2002, Diebold reviewed employees' backgrounds and learned of Dean's and Elder's convictions. Dean lost his job but stayed on as a consultant on the Voter View project.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
From "Critics: Convicted felons worked for electronic voting companies":
quote:According to a public court document released before GES hired him, Dean served time in a Washington correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree of sophistication and planning."
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
quote:Variations in local election laws not only make it difficult for election monitors to generalize on a national basis, but also prohibit the observers from entering polling stations in some states and counties. Such laws mean that no election observers from the organization are in Ohio, a swing state fraught with battles over voter intimidation and other polling issues.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)
Diebold's machines are bad but California decertified the use of all electronic voting machines ("The Perils of Polling"):
quote:In San Diego County, precincts opened as much as 4 hours late; in some areas nearly half failed to open on time. Here and there, voting machines, made by Diebold, rebooted themselves and voters saw generic Microsoft Windows screens instead of ballots. Those problems were traced back to the voter access card encoders. Faults in the power switches drained them of battery power. In northern Alameda County, one in five Diebold encoders had similar problems.
Hearings were held after the primary elections, and on 20 April, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley released a report charging that Diebold marketed, sold, and installed its AccuVote systems in Kern, San Diego, San Joaquin, and Solano counties prior to full testing, prior to federal qualification, and without complying with the state certification requirements. These and other discoveries were subsequently turned over to the California attorney general's office for possible criminal investigation against Diebold.
Ten days later, Shelley issued a controversial decertification notice, withdrawing approval for all direct-recording electronic voting systems in California, deeming them defective or unacceptable. Because of this, the state required nearly 16 000 AccuVote machines in the four counties involved to be recertified to comply with tighter security and auditability measures or replaced with optically scanned balloting in time for next month's election.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
Can't verify the exact number, but could be right ("The Perils of Polling"):
quote:But for the first time in history, more than 25 percent of U.S. ballots will be cast using equipment that directly records votes only on electronic media, such as chips, cartridges, or disks, with no paper or other tangible form of backup.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
Hrm, will have to return to this one.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
Ehh. Won't bother.
quote:Originally posted by Malruhn: 20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
Hrm, will have to return to this one.
-------------------- All posts foretold by Nostradamus.
Turing test failures: 6 Posts: 5481 | From: Decatur, GA | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
From a technological point of view, the whole paper trail issue was a big deal when Diebold began pushing for electronic voting. For one thing, it does not good to have a paper trail if the voter can't confirm that the paper actually matches what he voted - for instance, if he hits (R) and it votes (D) and prints out (D) for him, but he doesn't see it, both in the vote and recount he shows up as a (D). There also has to be a way for a person to say, "hey, I saw it voted wrong for me and need to re-vote", so it can't just spit that paper into a big bin right away.
Posts: 441 | From: Between Flint and Lansing, MI | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
That is a good point, Niner. We have touchscreen voting here, unless you wish to vote for a write-in, in which case you get a scantron-style ballot.
The touchscreens used here will verify that your vote was recorded, but it won't, so far as I have been able to discern, tell you for whom your vote was recorded.
-------------------- "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."--George Bernard Shaw Posts: 19266 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Jun 2002
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M. J. Wise
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
quote:Originally posted by KingDavid8: Something to add (I heard this from someone, but have no verification) is that in both Florida and Ohio, Bush got the electoral votes, but Kerry led according to the exit polls. Those are the only two states where there was a discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results regarding who won, and there is no paper trail in either state.
David
David,
There was most certainly a paper trail in Ohio. Most counties in Ohio still use punchcard ballots because the SoS blocked the usage of the new eeeeeeeeevil electronic voting machines for security purposes. In fact, you might remember that all of Ohio was frigging recounted. How short our memories are.
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posted
Indeed, since all of Ohio was not, in fact, recounted. Close to 15% of Ohio votes were on machines with no paper trail, so couldn't be recounted. More than 100,000 provisional and machine-rejected ballots were not counted at all.
-------------------- ~~Ai am in mai prrrrrraime!~~ Posts: 10111 | From: Oklahoma | Registered: Sep 2004
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Wiley
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
As usual, fingers can be pointed at both parties. It's amazing that the system works at all, it's so fragmented. The "dead vote" has been a stock Chicago joke for years, now we have a new boogey man.
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posted
I found the exit polls thing 'interesting'. These are fairly representative polls with high numbers of participants. It's statistically unlikely (extremely so) that if they were so far out if they were conducted properly. They just don't lie except in extremely close results.
Having said that I've always found it amazing that a country which prides itself in being the or one of the finest examples of democracy has a system where votes are significantly more weighted depending on where you live.
Posts: 824 | From: England | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by abigsmurf: Having said that I've always found it amazing that a country which prides itself in being the or one of the finest examples of democracy has a system where votes are significantly more weighted depending on where you live.
You're not alone in that.
-------------------- "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."--George Bernard Shaw Posts: 19266 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Jun 2002
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