Papering over OptiScam Problems

[kster]

January 6, 2008

By Rady Ananda

In a 7,800-word article in today’s New York Times Sunday Magazine, writer Clive Thompson details the myriad of problems associated with touch screen voting systems and devotes only 3% of his essay to similar problems with optical scan systems. If readers actually make it to the last two paragraphs, they’ll read that optical scans – despite Thompson’s prior promotion of them – are also fraught with vulnerabilities.

In Can You Count on These Machines? Thompson correctly describes how “costs ballooned and chaos reigned when Cuyahoga County, Ohio first used Diebold’s AccuVote touch screen system, but inaccurately low-balls the number of memory cards and cartridges that went “missing” during that May 2006 primary. Thompson fails to mention that twenty-eight $4,500 voting machines also went “missing.”

Because the hired watchdog group (Election Science Institute) randomly selected 10% of the precincts to study, we can extrapolate to determine, with a fair degree of confidence, the total number of missing machines to be 280, and the total number of missing memory cards and cartridges to be 890, for the entire county, for that one election. Thompson reports that 200 cards went missing.

He also failed to report that Deputy Director Michael Vu, who oversaw all these “lost” mission critical assets, later resigned and was hired to run San Diego’s elections. In an unfortunate coincidence, at best, a shipment of memory chips to San Diego went missing last month. After Michael Vu’s dismal and shockingly inept handling of Cuyahoga’s May 2006 primary, that he is allowed to serve in any democratic election further defeats confidence in US electoral management bodies.

http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/5296

[autorank]

1. k*r But Rady...

:sarcasm:
...don't you know that arch Republican vendors Diebold and ES&S become totally reliable when
voters use their optical scan machines, whereas they're not reliable at all when voters use
their touch screens. You see, Rady, the machines have a mind and those touch screens are
real right wingers.

[eridani]

2. Opscans can be audited

Now all we have to do is MAKE elections officials audit them.

[JEQuidam]

3. BlackBoxVoting.org

Everyone here probably already knows about:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

They are a non-partisan and non-profit 501(c)(3) organization which focuses on the problems of electronic voting systems.

[Wilms]

4. Yes. Everyone here knows about bbv.

And soon, you'll know too!

The Bev Harris story for newbies and those who have forgotten
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=340188


And the classic:

This is the Bev Harris exorcism thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=478549

[kster]

5. Thanks for the link, and welcome to the DU..nt

[Votergater]

6. Just one rogue memory card can be used to rig an election

...as proven in our HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy" (currently re-screening on HBO).

Harri Hursti is the renown computer expert who we (as the film producers/directors) together with BlackBoxVoting.org worked with to prove this crucial attack vector. Interestingly Harri Hursti testified in New Hampshire before the primary there, warning the Secretary Of State's office that they must make urgent security improvements.

But the New Hampshire Secretary of State's office ignored Mr. Hursti's warnings and did nothing.