Kaptur Defeats Kucinich 94% to 4% on 100% Unverifiable E-Vote Systems in Toledo, OH?

[BradBlog]

55. An unsatisfying answer for ya...

"If there is a question about the result of an election is it possible to check the machines, taking into account everything you just said, to make certain that the votes match what is recorded by the machines?"

Yes, and no.

+ Presuming you have standing to do so (such as a candidate), you can ask for a recount. On these machines, you'll get the same count no matter how many times you recount. However, you may be able to get a count of the so-called paper trails. I'm not sure where OH law is on that currently. That said, see above. The machines can be hacked (or merely malfunction) and the paper trail can match the internal numbers, even though that was not the intent of the voters. For example, here's the Computer Security Group of UC Santa Barbara showing just one way that a hack can be done so that the paper trails match the internal numbers. It's from the state of CA's 207 "Top-to-Bottom" review of e-voting systems: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6369

+ None of the above would allow a proper forensic audit of the machine itself, it's audit logs and a check of the internal software and firmware and an examination of the memory cards. For that, which *might* show you either malfeasance or malfunction, you'd have to get permission from the vendor (which used to be Diebold, which then became Premier, which was then purchased by ES&S, which was then sold to Dominion). They don't give permission for that, usually, without a court order forcing them to do so. So even the county and state election officials would have a hard time doing that.

+ Even with the two possibilities mentioned above, there is still no way to know that the results reported by the machine actually reflect the intent of the voters. And thus, they are 100% unverifiable voting systems, as I originally described them.

Hope that helps! Even though it's really shitty news. Though, in fairness, it's been the same shitty news I've been trying to warn everyone about for years...to varying degrees of success