Please: Stop thinking paper ballots SOLVE EVERYTHING!

[Carolab]

(I'm reposting this from another thread because I am really worried about this--and am working with MY STATE LEGISLATURE on it, which EVERYONE NEEDS TO DO!!!!)

People seem to think that a voter-verified paper ballot solves everything.

IT DOES NOT. The biggest problem is the SECURITY issues surrounding how those ballots are read, the votes are counted and recorded. The precinct tabulators (the machines that read the ballots and count them) and the storage devices they use are quite easily tampered with. In addition, if the tabulators are networked they can be hacked, and can even be hacked using wireless devices. The storage media can be swapped out for false results. The vote counts can be tampered with if they are electronically sent to the central tabulator at the state office. THEN, the central tabulator can be hacked into and the database altered. Finally, if there is "real time" reporting of the "results", THAT can be changed.

AND THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL EVER KNOW IS IF YOU HAND COUNT ALL THOSE WONDERFUL PAPER BALLOTS. AND THAT WILL ONLY HAPPEN IN A CLOSE ELECTION WHEN A CANDIDATE REQUESTS IT, AND PER STATE GUIDELINES.

The state legislation needs to be WRITTEN to provide SECURITY. On CASTING, COUNTING and RECORDING the votes. YES, we need a paper ballot that is recountable. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, we need SECURITY. And that is the PROBLEM here. People don't "GET" the technical side of this issue!!!

[Maple]

1. Well in Canada

we hand-count them.

And a member of each party must be present to watch, and must agree to any decision made about any unclear ballot.

And everything must be signed...who was there, who counted them and who agreed. All traceable.

We have results within half an hour.

[althecat]

2. Quite so... people do need to understand this... even recounts are useless

... if the rules work like they do in Ohio and there are in fact no recounts.

[Melodybe]

3. kick

[Bushfire]

4. Kick, great thread...

:kick:

[snot]

5. So is H.R. 550 pointless, or better than nothing, or . . . ?

[LightningFlash]

6. Open auditable machines and programs.

All of it must be allowed to be audited, during all elections and recounts. It must not be proprietary code. It must be auditable by non-partisans always.

If this is not done, the neocons will keep electing themselves over and over again and soon extremists on the far right and left will be turning this state totaltarian. The threat is REAL.

The machine counts must be auditable, PERIOD. Or no more fair elections.

[Blue Shark]

7. Three words...

...www.chuckherrin.com

[Meeker Morgan]

8. There were plenty of electoral shenanigans ...

... back when it was all paper ballots.

[preciousdove]

9. Studies proved that kind of vote fraud balances out by decentralizing

In 2004 shifted millions of votes very easily electronically. They only had to pay off some people. It would not be feasible to pay off every precinct. Paper ballots should be used even here in Minnesota until they come up with open source code, non hackable machines AND other security. Changing out machines won't happen in time for 2006.

The Diebold memos (which I have) say that Anoka County allowed beta testing without oversight on the scan machines. They also say that Diebold hired non-nationals in 2000 to represent Diebold and told them not to tell immigration they were going to be working at all the polls. Then they went back home so they could not be questioned. I wrote about these shadow people in an editorial in a local paper as well as my precinct using blue pens instead of black to fill in ovals that the scanner would not pick up. There was war between the head person (blue pens) and the other judges (black pens) while I was there. Black Pens won but that was at 3pm. Over 70% of the "errors" in 2004 favored Bush. That is not randomly possible. Mayor Kelly got more votes than there were voters in his St Paul home precinct.

Canada does paper ballots and it still works. That is what the solution is in countries that have abandoned what the Republican companies are selling and it is what we should do. Minnesotans are generally ignorant about this but catering to this ignorance will be as fatal to democracy in Minnesota as anywhere else. We must educate.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Meeker Morgan, those shenanigans didn't occur at the speed of light,

beyond the reach of human senses, via secret, proprietary programming code that can flip millions of votes at the push of a key.

Magnitude of the fraud; massive untraceable fraud; the entry into the picture of private company operatives who must be used to "service" the machines (because no public official is privy to their innards!)--these are the issues, and the order of magnitude is beyond the beyond.

It's one thing to dump a box of ballots into the river--or even two or three of them. It's quite another to be able to make 4 million votes disappear in seconds, and to have the false "results" then trumpeted by collusive news monopolies.

TIME. Time is the thing. Time to see, time to watch, time to think, time to question, time to count and recount. Time and touchability. SOMETHING to recount. A touchable thing that might be missed if it were dumped into a river. Not just electrons disappeared into the cosmos.

[AtLiberty]

10. Chuck Herrin says that no matter what method we use, risk...

...cannot be wiped out completely. It can only be minimized. That's why he's a believer in paper.

[Carolab]

27. He's a believer in paper, YES, BUT ALSO HAND COUNTS

http://www.chuckherrin.com/ComputersVoteTabulation.pdf

Please watch the presentation above.

[PATRICK]

11. Problem is also political

paper ballot argument are too deferential to the scam HAVA is shoving down our throats. A lot of energy has been focused on the fallback line of possible paper accountability without any indication those ballots will ever be counted(or be free from tampering themselves).
However, activists sense the "other side" fears a paper record mightily and won't compromise. A lot of security are gamed, fobbed off or even agreed to only to have the software issues moved around like the old shell game. The confrontation over paper ballots, unbelievably has become the cause celebre when the extremely suspicious, incompetent, and even criminal use of the frontrunner machines has not stopped them from being the voting mechanisms of choice.

The paper trail you are referring to is inert and useless in most cases and i get your point. It is even worse than tackling security issues one by one when the mammoth absurdity is even dealing with private code software monstrosities and their strange liaisons with the party trying to hide and bury all accountability( the real one tent of the GOP is a ballot concentration camp).

Ever follow around your spouse(who you thought knew a LOT about cars) as eyes aglitter at the salesman's pitch you try to get loose from both the charm and the lemon? So you focus on one detail the salesman can't cover up instead of fighting the whole process. It is hundred times more frustrating trying to get our gullible professional politicians onto the first base of common sense and minimal computer literacy.

It is amazing too how liars like cynical pols and lobbyists TRUST one another rather than real world facts.

[Peace Patriot]

13. A good point, Patrick--about your spouse and buying a car. How to...

...fight people falling for the glitz. Focus on one item, paper ballots, paper trail, accountability, recountability, to get people OFF the glitz and into reality. It's not the whole answer but it's a beginning. Don't trust!

And excellent points, Carolab! Truly! The difficulty of getting a recount is very severe.

But paper ballot backups is a beginning--and also I think it would (and maybe did) make fraudsters hesitate and pick their fraud points carefully (those with the least possibility of detection). (What if a candidate DOES get a recount?)

Your points are well taken, though. Paper ballot backups is just a patch--a bandaid on an extremely insecure, hackable, fraud-prone election system. It's the whole system--especially the tabulators--that must be ripped open and exposed to public view. TRANSPARENCY!

And if electronics is going to be transparent and feasible (doubtful, but if...), it must include mandated, auditing hand counts of a significant % of votes (a minimum of 5%, some say).

As well as the other things you mention.

And NOT having private, Bush-partisan voting machine companies counting all our votes (with secret code!) would seem to be a no-brainer. But then, Democrats seem to have left their brains back somewhere in the Vatican basement in the 10th Century.

(Or is it that they have a financial interest in Ptolemaic whirligigs?)

[On the Road]

14. *If* Paper Ballots are Used

there has to full observation by both parties of the entire voting process, the counting, and the reporting. Unless that happens, partisan locations can stuff the ballot box with impunity.

Theoretically, electronic systems can be more secure, but it requires (among other things) keeping records of individual ballots which can be tied back to an individual if necessary during a recount or audit. For some reason, that does not seem to be a popular option.

[Dee625]

15. There needs to be observation by more than both parties

The current system in Ohio required a Rep. and a Dem. to be present for everything. We saw how that worked. We need independents, 3rd parties, people proven to be able to be non-partisan, media, I don't know who - maybe 6th graders...but someone else to observe.

I was an observer for the Green party, even though I'm not a Green. Still, I went into it with the idea that I'd fight tooth and nail for a vote for * if I thought it was wrongly not counted, just as much as a vote for any candidate. I came away with a lack of respect for both parties running the show. I'm glad that for that particular activity I wasn't representing either of them.

Good OP too. Paper ballots certainly have the advantage of the "paper trail", but there is lots of room for cheating still as you said.

[On the Road]

17. I Would Buy into That

Whatever method ensures compliance best, especially in one-sided areas where the level of mutual distrust is not high enough. Your experience is worth a lot more than proposals made in a vacuum.

I'd like to ask you about your experience as an observer:

Does "present for everything" mean that you saw the original ballot boxes empty, was there during voting and counting, and was able to confirm that the officially reported vote matched the count? Was there a particular part of that process you felt was poorly monitored?

A lot of theories on how fraud might be or might have been committed depend on vulnerabilities in certain parts of the process. For example, in your experience, is it possible that the central tabulators were hacked to change the official vote without it being noticed at the local level?

[Dee625]

23. Response to your questions

>>I'd like to ask you about your experience as an observer:

>>Does "present for everything" mean that you saw the original ballot boxes empty,...<<

No, I never saw a ballot box at all. All of the ballots were loose on a wire cart in piles by precinct. This wire cart was wheeled out of a locked room that had to be opened with 2 keys. One key belonged to the Director (R) and the other the Assistant Director (D). Though while there I saw them give the keys to others to use.

>>was there during voting and counting,...<<

Since it was a recount, no not there for voting, just for recounting. I did observe all of that.

>>and was able to confirm that the officially reported vote matched the count?<<

Nope, not able to do that. After they ran all the ballots through the optical scan machine, I asked for a printout of the results from each of 2 machines. They had erased the data already. All that I was able to get was the last thing they counted on one machine which was the absentee vote total. But, the results reported do not seperate absentee results.

>>Was there a particular part of that process you felt was poorly monitored?<< Um...all of it? There were registrations lost (as told to me by the Dem who delivered them in person and those people were later not registered), they had some ballots they found in the office later, ballots printed wrong that were used, none of the poll books added up, they altered ballots like crazy (I have to say the ones I saw appeared to maintain the intent of the voter with one exception),
the number of provisional ballots rejected that we viewed did not match the number the SoS reports as cast minus the number counted, the votes were in a program in the Director's PC where votes could be added at the PC and I assume it has a modem since that's how they transmit it. I couldn't say there was fraud. I assume there was not. I can say that in my opinion there was incompetence, lack of knowledge of the law and even assuming it never happened, there was certainly opportunity for fraud.


>>A lot of theories on how fraud might be or might have been committed depend on vulnerabilities in certain parts of the process. For example, in your experience, is it possible that the central tabulators were hacked to change the official vote without it being noticed at the local level?<<

Possible to hack? I'm no expert, but I would assume it is possible. Possible to not be noticed at the local level? No, in my opinion it would be noticed BUT there is a total of one person there capable of noticing. Even the assistant director did not have access to the voting data on that PC. I have to say that I was impressed with the ES&S optical scan counters. It's what happens before and after them.

[On the Road]

26. Thank You, That's Valuable

to me in trying to form an opinion.

A lot of processes break down either at the very beginning of the very end. Unless there's full custody and observation from beginning to end, the type of voting machine may be secondary.

[LightningFlash]

16. No.

Non-partisans only and activist groups. NO partisans from both parties doing it as that leads to cheating.

[On the Road]

18. Whatever Works Best

One of the things I had in mind was the Taiwanese system dArKeR has been championing. Small polling places, all paper ballots, representatives of both major parties present throughout the entire process.

My concern is that once vote-counting power devolves to nonpartisan groups, those groups can eventually be controlled by one or both of the major parties. I don't know if it's better to try to get a sufficient number of supposedly unaffiliated people or assume that a certain number will be partisan anyway and adjust by having both sides represented.

[Melissa G]

19. To Quote Bill Bored" "They're not just tabulators, ..

they're ELECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS!"

Good Thread! Thanks for Posting, Carolab!
:hi:

[FogerRox]

20. Tabulators:

ES&S, Sequoia both have modems in them

The Diebold DRE has a wireless port in it.

[Bill Bored]

21. Security isn't the whole answer either.

There will always be insiders who have access to the system, regardless of how much security there is. While it's true that security could thwart outsiders, the insiders are still right there, and sometimes, they are just vendors.

So you need to train election workers, ensure that they are bi-partisan, and that they watch each other like hawks. This is easier said than done!

The problem is with the technology itself. It concentrates too much power in the hands of too few.

Read Appendix 1 in Bruce O'Dell's USCV paper:

http://www.geocities.com/lizzielid/8mtfe.pdf

I think some hand counting, if we can agree on the percentage to randomly count, is better than all the security you can dream of, because there will always be those who have unrestricted access and can't really be effectively policed. Legislators need to take control of their BOEs and demand an open auditable process, by law.

What do you think Carolab?

[Carolab]

28. Yes, we need aggressive random audits.

As long as they are going to shove these machines down our throats, we must make them accountable--at EVERY step along the way.

From the way the ballots are cast, to the way they are recorded, the way they are counted, the way they are transported and the way they are REPORTED.

There must be STRICT procedures all along the way. We need our state legislatures to see that there are.

HAVA has given the SOS too much leniency and ZERO oversight. The legislatures are our only hope.

[Andy_Stephenson]

22. You are right carol

But we must have something to count...paper ballots...first. Without them legislation mneans nothing.

[Mister Ed]

24. Carolab- How can I learn more about your efforts w/our MN legislature?

[Carolab]

25. Mister Ed, I'll PM you! n/t