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In a comment earlier today Perris asked if I could post on this video:
Here are my feelings on the issue in general:
1. It is really important to document these cases and HAVA (Help America Vote Act) definetly needs to be changed.
2. I do not believe that the 2004 election was stolen by bad voting machines — I think for a variety of reasons we got our butts kicked.
3. I am far more concerned with minority voter intimidation and other suppression tactics – (including a shortage of machines at certain locations, challenges to voters etc.) then with voting machine hacking.
4. If there is a grand conspiracy to steal the 2008 election (which I DO NOT think there is), there is nothing we can do about with 5 days to go.
5. At least we now have a Dem SOS in Ohio.
6. Our biggest concern should be getting as many voters to the polls as possible and making sure Republican shenanigans do not prevent a single person from getting to vote.
7. Let’s all work as hard as we can to win Tuesday. We won in 2006 and we’ll do it again in 2008.
74 Comments
good Kos piece on the flipping be sure and check out the WIRED link
Re number 2; so you disagree with Robert Kennedy’s analysis regarding the machines?
“Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment — roughly one for every 100 cast.”
And you also -apparently- don’t want to given Steven Spoonamore any credibility. And more from Mr. Spoonamore.
As someone who has actually performed audits of Diebold Precinct -now Premier- and Central tabulator machines, I can honestly say you are mistaken.
And as towards HAVA, investigate the background of how and WHO pushed this legislation and how it has been ‘implemented’ and maybe then you will understand it needs to be entirely scrapped and new legislation introduced.
You beat me to the punch.
I will go to my reeward (Granny Clampett taught me that term) believing 2000 and 2004 were stolen. Too much evidence to conclude otherwise.
Sounds like you might have a story to share? The HAVA law seemed like a way to require counties to use the suspicious, vote changing machines.
Yeah, I could write a short novella but it would only depress others as it shows that even a so-called ‘great’ Dem SOS like Debra Bowen of CA is not really a ‘reformer’ for election integrity.
*Gasp* Debra Bowen? Say it ain’t so.
Assuming no sarcasm, see #41
No sarcasm intended. I’m surprised to read that Debra Bowen is not the advocate I thought she was.
Can you write a diary on this?
Ari, I honestly want to put my experience behind me as it truly ‘radicalized’ me about election officlals and election integrity in the U.S.(see #31); I can tell you that Brad of BradBlog knows about my efforts as does Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org.
This I do now know -and it extends to both Dem and Repub Party’s- ; the powers that be really don’t want citizens participating. Yes, ‘GOTV’ during elections but other than that, just let us run the country.
thank you very much for sharing. it’s hard to see how anyone paying the remotest attention could be denying that there’s deliberate republican tampering with these machines, starting with the head of Diebold saying he would deliver Ohio.
there are clearly other issues that are also egregious like voter caging and suppression and the distribution of the machines, but that stuff is all in addition to, not instead of, the machines deliberately being used for election fraud. if they weren’t we’d have open code. hell, if they weren’t, we’d have paper ballots and have a verifiable system.
Thanks for your measured take-down on the absurd statements the OP made! Blindness to the massive election fraud being perpetrated at the voting machine and tabulation levels, due to myopic focus on voter intimidation and vote suppression, are exactly why we were saddled with four more miserable years of GWB. The HAVA was specifically designed to facilitate the collaborative election fraud we have seen come from offices of secretaries of state and the voting machine companies.
I am hopeful that with the defection of some GOP heavies to the Obama camp, there might be some insurance against election theft, because the thieves know that they might piss off people like Frum, Buckley, Fukejama, Will, Adelman, et.al., who have the dirt on how 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 were manipulated.
I agree and thats bad, but it doesn’t point to a conspiracy it points to incompitence.
I agree with that 100%
Without the chance for independent examanations of the equipment and code, we’ll never know for sure. That is why rumors and fears of vote theft continue.
I don’t disagree with that. It absolutely needs to happen because more important that an of this is people need to feel confident their votes count.
“but it doesn’t point to a conspiracy it points to incompitence”; but the Spoonamore links do.
OT
who might have an idea where can i see the video of Obama’s infomercial from last night? i missed it live. thanks.
From HuffPo
thanks dakine. i’m going to watch it now.
I’m sure it is on his site too but here is the link to it on huffpo
Thanks for this post.
We still haven’t voted. Gonna go for the gold and do it on Tues., for personal reasons, but it makes for butterflies in the stomach just waiting.
If anyone else hasn’t voted yet, and has video capability, you might be interested in something Tom Lehrer said last night. He was urging people to take their phone/camera with them to vote and, if you encounter trouble, try to film and document the problem as fully as you can and contact the PBS Lehrer website.
Not sure where you are voting but here in CO we are not supposed to use any electronic stuff in the poling place. Those of us that have been trained as poll watchers will have either on site attorneys or ready access to one roving between a few polls.
There are a number of other states that also ban the use of cell phones/cameras/etc in the polling area. This info came out when YouTube teamed with someone (forget who) about folks filming themselves voting.
The Kentucky SoS saw that and put out a press release that anyone doing so in Kentucky would be showing themselves breaking the law. A misdemeanor but still…
how convenient!
“if you try to prove we are breaking the law then you are breaking the law”
they have their bases covered, don’t they
Although the KY SoS is an R, he is actually relatively reasonable on these things. Folks are going to be allowed to vote even if wearing campaign pins or T-shirts and there was not going to be a lot of cr*p on trivial errors in name matching (which in small towns, most everyone knows everyone anyway – even the ‘new folks.’)
And one of the reasons to ban filming and picture taking at the vote site is due to the potential abuse and intimidation of the voter. It’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t aspect of it.
Hmmmmm I have a delicious candy covered bridge you can buy.
I worked for the Kerry Campaign War Room and on the road, I saw the election from the inside. We got beat. 2000 – that’s a different story.
Now I know why you are blind to the facts. Kerry, unfortunately left his balls in Vietnam.
PS I am still really pissed at his capitulation despite the overwhelming evidence of chicanery.
in response to Ari@22
Now I know why you are blind to the facts. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
You meant to say THIS, surely.
no charge
No, sorry I wrote just what I wanted to. I spent many a year protesting the bloody war well before Kerry jumped on the band wagon and claimed it for his own. If he was really opposed to the Vietnam debacle he would not have gone there but would have protested before going off on his grand adventure. Nope, don’t think much of him.
I have no business telling you what to write. please forgive.
Thank you for your service protesting the bloody war. (NO snark)
My titanium knees said don’t you dare risk getting banged around by some hotshot seecure-itty gard, so instead, we had an upside-down flag and a yellow ribbon on a signpost out front through the whole march-up thru a significant portion of dubya-eney’s horrific folly. I also wore a small pin with same, pretty much everywhere I went in public.
I got some shocked or scolding looks occasionally, but that opened the opportunity for discourse. I would ask if they knew what the positioning of the flag symbolized and, of course, had to explain. (just call me a trap-door spider, waiting for my hapless prey *g*)
I was stunned as well as heartened by the reactions. There turned out to be a rather large, but intimidated, section of the populace who got the point and sympathized. Delivery truck drivers, local farmers pulling their plowing rigs, waitresses, yes, the plumber (NOT Joe) etc. etc. began tooting the horn and waving, smiling slightly, and nodding in agreement. Maybe it was the gray hair that saved my hide, but no one ever glared at me, after I explained the plain and simple, national signal for extreme distress and danger.
So at least I was with you in spirit, in a way. This has been an awful chapter in our history. I hope for better in the future.
We’ll work for it, even over some bumpy roads here and there. eh?
Hi Adie. I was writing about the Vietnam War!!!!
Well, one’s like the other, you be spry lil’ spring chicken like us eh?!
NO MORE WAR!!! WAR, WHAT’s IT GOOD FOR?!! MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR!
We were in grad school, no time to protest – finishing up on starvation wage. Cornell. My honey waded thru the current sit-in (which could have been against the war OR for racial equality), which filled the largest fieldhouse/gymnasium wall-to-wall. Gently threaded his way thru the peaceful protest to the absolute center of the room, where sat the last prof. whose golden signature was required to prove the family PhD was well & duly earned.
So you might say we had a bit of catching up to do, on the protest scene.
OMG. People will never learn.
Blind to the facts? Which ones?
Still respectfully disagree.
Did you ever read Bobby jr’s. article?
That’s just two examples. There are many more.
This is the big problem:
Bigger than machines
I’m gonna quote you again.
Sure, Kerry could’ve run a better campaign, that’s always easy to say in hindsight. But that lets these crooks off the hook.
Now I’ll repeat some of what I offered above @54:
We’ll just have to agree to disagree, as happens around here sometimes.
I’m with ya. in OH. Just call me nervous nelly.
2004 Election
All across the state of OH in strategic places (i.e., leaning Democratic)
-faulty machines,
-too few machines in areas everyone KNEW would be crowded,
-people standing many hours in line way into dark of night & cold (many having to leave without voting, otherwise risk losing their jobs or not being able to care for their kids),
-encountering physical barriers like construction rubble and roped-off areas, changed entrances, dark empty buildings where they expected to find their usual polling place (which had been changed without proper public notice),
-too few ballots available at some locations (only heavily Dem. by some “strange coincidence”),
-inaccurate purging of voting lists in some areas,
-poorly or completely untrained poll workers in others,
-OH Secy of State Ken Blackwell extremely active in dubya’s campaign in OH
-highly placed executive at Diebold, located in OH & provider of the eminently hackable & unreliable voting machines, publicly promising dubya he’d deliver the state for dubya (later left the company under pressure, long after the disaster of a botched election process became even too embarrassingly public for him).
thanks ari for posting this youtube, as many people need to see it as possible so they make sure their vote is not flipped
Yes I agree. I think the video is informative, but I also hope we spend as much time as possible focusing on the hard core suppression tactics employed by Republicans including attacks on ACORN.
There are all manner of ways to use voting machines to tamper with the election results. The most dangerous way to use them is program them to steal votes, but there is credible evidence that this has been done in at least a few cases.
The more insidious way to use them to tamper with the election is by manipulating the allocation of machine resources. In most states, the Secretary of State is the Chief Election Officer and allocates the money for buying the machines and their maintenance to the counties. The Sect’y of State also maintains the list of approved machines in most states. The County Clerk or County Registrar is the Chief Election Officer for the county, and allocates the machines to the various precincts. Suppose that a highly partisan election officer wants to manipulate the election results. You figure out which precincts are likely to vote counter to your wishes, and starve them for resources. The net result is long lines in places where the vote is ‘wrong’ and short/no lines where the vote is ‘right.’ You have tampered with the election in a way that is at least quasi-legal, and you can make some sh** up about turnout forecasts that drove your allocation of resources.
That’s how Ohio was stolen in 2008.
If you’re a highly partisan
We are going to win Ohio in 2008:)
here’s a youtube of a voter who had her vote flipped;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5F-sXW6tCM
#5 helps me sleep at night
And if you believe your #2, then it’s not entirely consistent to state your #5.
Take it from me, Blackwell did everything he could to hand Ohio to Bush, and I doubt most of it was legal.
Look do I think Republicans pull all sorts of crap. Yes 100%, BUT that involves things well beyond voting machines.
I think here in Jaw-ga,
Katherine HarrisKaren Handel has engaged in a full on assault on the election. She’s been thwarted only by a string of court decisions, most recently one allowing Democratic Public Service Commission candidate Jim Powell to remain on the ballot.On point #3, I don’t think these intimidation tactics are going to get under the radar this year- my understanding is that the Obama campaign is being very proactive in tracking & challenging this, e.g. the BS “Republicans vote Nov 4th, Democrats vote Nov 5th” flier making national news.
Yes the Obama campaign has been great at this. It doesn’t mean Republicans aren’t trying.
RE Obama campaign being proactive–
From Adam B on DailyKos:
It’s very exciting to see this work underway.
Counterpoint
But also good news
from the kos diary;
I am convinced if you are going to pull a flip you have to demonstrate ahead of time there was nothing insideous’
they MUST show mccain to obama flips to pull this off
I’ve have to respectfully disagree with #2
I’ve been to several California Secretary of State hearings on voting machines, (mainly Diebold, now Premier Election Systems) and have stacks and stacks of testimony and evidence that the SoS’s office has handed out on the untrustworthiness of the ability of the voting machine companies to fairly tabulate the votes. That said: I fully trust that the rules put into place by Secretary Bowen will assure that all votes in California will be counted.
The problem with voting machines in other states is proprietary software – it needs to be open source. I could go on about Harry Hursti’s testimony, the Red and Blue Team Study at UC Berkeley and Davis and the several other documented instances of vote switching … wish I had time. I respectfully disagree with # 2
And I don’t disagree with #’s 1 and 3 and think they are extremely important
John, you needed to take out the word ‘other’ from this sentence “The problem with voting machines in other states is proprietary software” as it is proprietary in CA as well. Not only that, but Bowen’s office did NOT fight the manufacturer’s over the usage of ‘proprietary and confidential’ on the ‘Usage and Procedures’ manuals that HAD been available to election integrity activists for monitoring election officials and machines when she could have since the law allows for such overruling where there is evidence that such is more in the public’s interest than in such ‘confidentiality’.
ESPECIALLY since such was used for actions against election officials AND HAD BEEN available to the public before Bowen’s ‘conditional re-certification’ of the machines she KNEW were flawed.
I’ll defer to you. I haven’t been up on the issue as much for the last year or so as I was before.
More work needs to be done
From your second link at 37 – do you think that that software will accurately analyze GEMS?
Did you see the video from a few years ago of – forgetting his name and position – the Diebold chief engineer (?) admitted GEMS was flawed?
Yes, I do because I know the people who created it (my background includes 30 years in the IT industry).
Yeah, but what good did his admission do?
I hope your friends can get the SoS’s to use the software, will it work on other machines tabulators?
Here’s the video I was talking about with Pat Green, Diebold’s Director of Research and Development admitting to the defects in GEMS
And no, I agree, his admitting it didn’t mean anything to the people it should’ve meant something to
I don’t hold any hope for Bowen to certify such software, especially in view of what The SOS office did regarding ‘VotePad‘
A lawsuit
Oh, and here’s a tidbit for everyone; yup, the SAME Robert Gates
I am tired about the denial of electronic voter fraud. Americans do not trust machines reading the speed of our cars, post office machines, etc. What makes electronic voting machines made by private companies with clear and documented connections to one political party and and internal paper receipt undeserving of the serious skepticism?
Yes, it is too late for 2008 and, once again, our national future depends not on honor among thieves but a landslide so the theft of the votes would have to be so massive that it could not be swept under the rug again.
Perhaps in a new age of science acceptance something will be done to plug the holes with non-partisan electoral reform.
Meanwhile, honest elections depend on people of good will…and voter suppression will always be with us as well…WE STILL NEED lawyers and citizens to train as poll watchers in Ohio. Come join us or in you home county!
Well said.
Well trained poll watchers would help considerably, until the system can be cleaned up.
You don’t know what you don’t know. The blackbox voting is a major issue and how are you sure there wasn’t a veto proof majority in elected in 2006 ? Turns out the voting results go to local officials ,according to someone who lost by 20 votes in a local election, and they are able to check progress throughout the day.
Trust but VERIFY sounds good to me. Are you opposed to a voting system that an eight grader could do a recount and come up with the same answer time after time? Why don’t we have that system?
With the US Attorney scandal, it seems pretty clear that there was an organized effort at voter suppression. If there is not currently a conspiracy to steal the election, it would seem that there at least was one.
The touch-screen/no paper voting (like GA) is very worrisome. Subjectively it seems that much more attention is being paid to the problems this year as opposed to what I recall in 04.
I’m sure the web, like BradBlog etc have been instrumental in getting this before the media.
Getting as many Democrat voters to the polls as possible FAILS MISERABLY when the voting machines are rigged, as shown in this video. It implies genuine public support when soooo many people vote, and McCain wins by cheating.
I use a touch-screen laptop tablet. I calibrated it once when I bought it, and haven’t needed to for three years now. This “calibration” ruse is a joke, a fraud, a crime. This bozo in the video has the balls to say, “see, it switched from Obama to a third party candidate, not McCain” as if THAT’S OK!
Handcuffs. Frog walk. Now.
If proprietary system are the issue, then we can build a voting system on top of Linux and make it open source.
All we need is a specification and a focal point. The hardware is commodity PC parts.
Already done (so what’s the problem you ask? can you spell ‘money to entrenched interests and an unwillingness to address the atrocity that HAVA is?)
I think that there was illegal vote tampering in Ohio 2004.
Had to be.
A lot of people tried very hard to bring it to light. Lots of legal suppression of any real investigation. Remember, this was still the era of Bush/Cheney created perceptions and not the perceptions of reality. If you dared to question The Deciderer you might find yourself in deep, deep trouble. Lots of brown shirts to enforce his will. Ohio was stolen.
Interesting tidbit. Schumer and Clinton were the only senators voting against HAVA. what’s up with that?
The answer has to do with the machines that were in use in NY and the State Elections Board.
If you google what has occurred in NY since HAVA was passed it should prove very interesting to you. Especially the part of the DOJ settlement regarding the voter database requirement of HAVA and the disabilities sections of HAVA.
“3. I am far more concerned with minority voter intimidation and other suppression tactics – (including a shortage of machines at certain locations, challenges to voters etc.) then with voting machine hacking.”
While I agree that suppression is more prevalent than hacking, that doesn’t mean that hacking is not important. Tell that to former AL governor Don Siegelman. He “lost” an already won election because Republican officials hacked the vote after all the poll watchers went home. Siegelman spoke out about it publicly, and later found himself in Federal Prison at the whim of Karl Rove.
I agree, the Siegleman case is one of the WORST examples of crimes by the Bush White House. But that also goes beyond voting machines.
I respectfully disagree with those who don’t believe the election in 2004 was hacked. There is too much evidence that proves not only that the election COULD be flipped, but that it WAS flipped. We have been working for almost four years to help drag the evidence into court and get the criminals prosecuted, with varying success.
If you want to read about what’s been going on for the past four years, or to join our cause, go to http://www.bradblog.com.
On the front page is a link to a movie called “Murder, Spies, and Voting Lies – the Clint Curtis Story” It’s a good place to start.
Hey nomolos! Cornell considered itself state of the art computer-wise, back then. hee hee. Still have a picture of their pride and joy, a solid wall full of computer that dwarfed the people, and probably held less than any of today’s i-pods.
old as dirt. tough. keep going…
i recommend tuning into tucradio.org.
maria gillardin’s bit of air that originates from kpfa. a pacifica station.
i think she still offers an address by mark crispin miller concerning vote fraud.
i think it to be very informative. miller tells you how kerry seemed to be surprised by the enormity of vote fraud in ohio. still, miller relates how kerry was unapologetic about his virtually instantaneous capitulation.
some weeks later, miller relates how he went public with his meeting with kerry. then, the kerry staff publicly denied that miller had ever met with kerry.
miller made the interest in denying vote fraud a bipartisan one. he relates that there were hearings conducted in the congress concerning this issue. hearings where he testified.
charlie rangel either conducted those hearings or attended those hearings. according to miller, these hearings were virtually secret. the public did not know that they were being conducted. the findings were secreted.
months after those hearings, miller relates how he encountered the crooked charlie rangel at a conference. and he asked him about what the hearings were going to recommend. he was quite surprised to have rangel respond, “what hearings?”. and miller relates that when he confronted rangel with the fact that he was a witness, gave testimony, rangel turned around and walked away.
no one will ever convince me that john kerry wasn’t a palooka. a bum of the month. selected so that the establishment, the skull & boners, would retain control.
you know, don’t you think it odd how no one cared to investigate the vast fortune of the forbes family. this is not the forbes magazine fortune[in comparison to kerry’s family, a piddling fortune].
kerry’s family is the forbes of cabot, cabot & forbes. real wealth. the kind of wealth that commands politicians of all spectrums.
and now, the issue is, who is obombya’s puppeteer. the same folks, i think.
you can go and vote for him. but it is my prophecy that 4 years from now you will be wondering why you did.