Verified Voting.org calls for independent checks on machines.

[crispini]

EFF, VerifiedVoting.org Push for Post-Election Tests on E-Voting Machines

Independent Tests by Counties May Answer Lingering Questions About Accuracy, Machine Failures



San Francisco - On November 2, voting machines in many states -- both "red" and "blue" -- had problems that led thousands of citizens to call a national voter protection hotline. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the VerifiedVoting.org (VVO) were at the other end of the line, and the two organizations are very concerned about they heard. In several states, voters who chose one presidential candidate were presented with confirmation screens that listed another candidate's name. In others, machines crashed and were rebooted repeatedly, but nobody knows whether votes were lost.

EFF and VVO have responded by sending letters to voting officials in the eight counties that experienced the worst technical problems, urging the officials to allow independent testing of the machines. Such tests could reveal what went wrong and whether anyone tampered with the devices. Prominent technical experts including Rice University computer science professor Dan Wallach and security guru Bruce Schneier have agreed to help conduct these tests.

In addition to petitioning the county officials directly, EFF and VVO are calling on the public to let voting officials know that they would like to see truly independent testing of the machines used in this election.

The counties in question are Broward and Palm Beach in Florida, Mahoning and Franklin in Ohio, Mercer and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Harris in Texas, and Bernalillo in New Mexico. (Funny, all of our old friends) Concerned citizens who live in these counties can contact their local voting officials or add their signatures to the EFF/VVO electronic petition. When 10,000 people have signed the petition, the groups will deliver a copy to the officials in the target
counties.

...more...

http://verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5344

Petition: http://www.eff.org/e-vote/petition/

[Straight Shooter]

1. Thanks, I just sent this info to my friend in Harris County

She'll pass it along from there.

:thumbsup:

[Debbie13]

3. kick

[pointsoflight]

2. Most excellent.

[dlaliberte]

4. How do we prove vote swapping occurred?

There are, I think, three main kinds of fraud that were used in this election: (1) prevent people from voting, (2) fool them into making the wrong selection, and (3) change the tally of the vote.

Aside from widespread suppression (which probably had the most effect), once people got to the polls, the voting machines were the next problem. We have heard that many people complained their vote for Kerry appeared to be switched to Bush, but this message from EFF and VVO suggests that the opposite also happened. I haven't heard of any instances where Bush votes were switched to Kerry. Do you know of any such reports?

Now I wonder whether these vote swapping problems were already in the machines before the election or perhaps they were introduced at the last minute by the technical workers that Wayne Madsen has reported on. Maybe the code was able to clean up after the election so there will be no evidence. If the changes are still present, it should be fairly straightforward to reproduce the same problems. But even if we cannot reproduce the problems, the sworn statements by voters and poll workers that they did see them should be evidence that they existed.
It would be even better if there was at least evidence that the program in the machine (or the data it used) was modified.

Could changes like these be the whole cause of the 3% difference between Kerry and Bush? I think it is possible, but the fact that there appears to be destruction of other evidence, specifically poll tapes on the evote machines, would indicate that vote swapping was not enough and they had to resort to falsifying the tally as well, the third area of fraud.

Recounts might turn up cases of falsifying the tally, but they will not be able to identify any vote swapping problems. As evidence of vote swapping, we have nothing to go on but statistical evidence (i.e. exit polls, prior elections, comparisons with other races in the same election) and examination of the machines themselves, if in fact the evidence is still available.

[thephaseshift]

10. DID some machines default to Kerry?

Count me in on wanting to know if these instances of switched candidates on the e-machines ever favored Kerry...I've seen two kinds of reports *only*: mentions of the machines swapping votes (but not specifying which way) and mentions of Kerry -> Bush. When a journalist doesn't specify which way the swapping is happening, it might simply mean they've heard about the Kerry->Bush phenomomen but don't know the whole story, and so they're being careful how they report it. But I'm really curious if the reverse was really seen, and how often.

[floridadem30]

5. Just signed

[Cowboy Joe2k]

6. Even if they seem to work Correctly Do Not Believe what you see.

It is the Class in control of the Central Tabulators that we should go after, they are the ones Behind the Curtain. Never let this issue Die, We must gain control of the Machines that have taken our rights from us!

[Blue in the face]

7. I wish I could pass it on

Wasn't someone from verifiedvoter.org going on TV after the election saying that there was nothing wrong with the voting on November 2nd?

Could I have them confused with someone else?

[Cowboy Joe2k]

8. This matters not, all that matters is that they locked us out wile

They were Manipulating the central tabulation machines. Those are what we must get control over. We must be sure that they are secure and accurate in the hands of our people. The American People.

Your vote is all that matters, it has been stolen from you for over 4 or more years. last time they used the 14th amendment to steal it.

If we do not close the gap they will steal it again. they will steal freedom from Humanity And Condemn us to slavery.

P.S. www.blackboxvoting.org

[NVMojo]

9. maybe this would work with what I have put together here on

Nevada and the Sequoias

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x91982