BS: Electronic Voting Machines

Subject: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 07:06 PM

I'm startin' to sniff a major conspiracy here, my fellow Catboxers.... electronic voting machines!

Yep, no paper trail. No way to recount. Privatized democracy with big corporations running the counting of votes.

Okay, I might agree to being somewhat cynical and paranoid, but this on scares the heck out of this ol' hillbilly...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Gareth
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 07:09 PM

Bobert,

I agree with you - now ain't that surprising !


Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Peace
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 08:34 PM

Y'all gettin' upset for nothin'. Jaysus, one or two Enron thingies and ya'll lose perspective. Here, in Alberta, we just buy votes. Before the last election, the Premiere gave everyone utility bill rebate cheques. Damn sight cheaper than electronic voting machines and it gets the same results. Take a lesson, lads.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: TIA
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 08:41 PM

Bobert - I think this is the biggest threat on the horizon to democracy in the USA. I've been feeling guilty about worrying about it so much -- feelin' like I'm becoming a conspiracy theory nut. But go to BlackBoxVoting.com and do a little reading, and you'll crap yourself.

Hooray for the Swarthmore college kids who are keeping the Diebold memos on the web.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Amos
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 08:43 PM

There are a lot of studebnts who agree with you and are trying to keep the Diebold letters in the public view despite the company;s efforts to suppress. And none of that is a conspiracy theory -- it's just a conspiracy to hide bad software engineering.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: michaelr
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 08:45 PM

And the CEO of Diebold is on record as saying he considers it his personal duty to get Bush re-"elected".

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 08:47 PM

I cant understand what wrong with putting an x on a piece of paper.
the last federal election in Canada - thats what we used, at least in my riding. I guess the newsmedia need to know right away, whereas a
hundred years ago it might have taken a couple weeks - whats the big deal. I certainly dont trust punch card voting machines, but there is absolutely no way to trust an electronic voting machine.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: TIA
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 08:47 PM

Here's the conspiracy part - is it just stupid bad (forgetting to lock the door), or is it maliciously bad (leaving the back door open for the robbers)?

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Susan A-R
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 09:05 PM

This worries me a lot. This corporation is highly suspect. Republican to the core, claiming that independent investigation/varification is a threat to their patent (isn't democracy a little more important than that folks?) I am worried. Any efforts at parallel polling/ Is there anything we can do to hang onto a semblance of democracy, or are we just going to become one big corporate state? (I now, we are well on the way, but I'm gettin mighty tired of it. )

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 09:36 PM

"..the CEO of Diebold is on record as saying he considers it his personal duty to get Bush re-"elected".
wow...I sure would like to know where to verify that!
I see all sorts of evidence that the Republicans are slowly manipulating the procedures, laws, courts, voting districts...etc., to ensure that they will ALWAYS win, while leaving a superfical appearance of fairness and democracy......I just had not thought that voting machines were an obvious target..until now. I sincerely hope this is wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 09:41 PM

The link below has several extremely good articles on the problems with electronic voting machines. One article, by Thom Hartmann, is excellent.


http://www.commonwealinstitute.org/VotingMachineLinks.html

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: kendall
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 10:02 PM

The next thing you know, there will only be one candidate, and that will save a lot of thinking on our part.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Peace
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 10:08 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Peace
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 10:10 PM

Damn, don't know why that happens. Sorry. (I'm sayin' that lots today.) Kendall, that means you're in the 20% that thinks. "That's a good thing" as Martha would say!

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 05 Nov 03 - 10:37 PM

Can we vote against the voting machines? Surely somehow we can 'just say (K)no(w)'... I am unclear whether there is sufficient accountability and verification... How would we do a recount...

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: NicoleC
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 02:07 AM

Bill D,

I don't have a link to the actual August 14th letter, but here's one of numerous places that have the quote and the source (a fundraising letter from CEO Walden O'Dell, while his own company was bidding for the voting machine contract):

link
more
and more

Where;s The Smoking Gun when you need them?

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: AliUK
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 07:55 AM

Here in Brazil Eletronic Voting Urns have been used in the last three general elections ( nationwide) and in various state and municipal elections over the last eight years. There has never been a whiff of scandal, suprising in a country that has a high volume of political corruption, and denouncement of said corruption,the one sector that has been rigorously invigilated is the counting of votes ( here it´s law to vote, if you don´t vote or justify your non-voting ie. you have moved sate or neighbourhood and haven´t transferred your voting title, you lose certain rights, such as the right to take out a passport). The arguments that are being used here are the same that I heard when this system was first introduced in Brazil. Though here the system is not run by a private compány but is the responsibility of a federal department.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Peace
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 11:55 AM

Yeah, I'd wanna let the coyote tend the chickens.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 01:14 PM

We posted this on another thread but here we go again.

Out here in our rural county, we use optical scanning machines. When you vote, you mark your paper ballot and, when your done, you feed the ballot into an optical scanner which swallows it up and reads your vote. When the polls close at 8:00 PM, the scanner forwards the vote totals to the county seat over telephone lines and we know the results by 8:15. The paper ballots are then physically carried to the county seat to be kept as reference in case a recount is required.

It's pretty simple and relatively tamper proof.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 01:35 PM

I find this the scariest thing of all. Not long after he was elected, Hitler cancelled free elections. That (I would hope!) would cause a revolution in this country. But--if you could cancel free elections and maintain the illusion of them. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Gareth
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 07:49 PM

No audit trail = No trust !

BUT If you restrict the franchise, well, do you need to fiddle the count ?

Gareth
It;s not the votes that count, but who counts them !

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 08:34 PM

Don,

It's all in thre timing. Get enought nationalistic testeterone pumpin' and wave some flags and fly some jets overhead and Joe Sixpack will get up and cheer the cancellation of the elections!

May halftime of the Super Bowl. No, right after Stroker Gordon has wrecked A.J. Allison in the final lap of the Datona 500 and beat Kyle Pearson by half a car length.

Yeah, screw votin'! That's fir pinheads and sissies!!!!....

Hey, didja see the move by Stroker?

Man, oh, man........

Whew........

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: LadyJean
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 12:48 AM

As a former minority clerk for Ward 14 District 8 of the County of Allegheney, I can say that the old voting machines had their problems. They break easily. They're too big and heavy for most of the people who work at the polls to move.
But did they ever leave a paper trail. Copies and more copies. Those who work at the polls arrive at 6:30 am, spend the day supervising the elections, then, when they polls close, they tally the votes. It is the day from Hell, especially when it's a presedential election. ANYTHING that would make it shorter is good.
Having said all this, these new machines make it too damned easy to rig an election. Never mind the Republicans. What happens when a gang of anarchists hacks into the machines, and fixes it so the good people of Cleveland elect Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy to high municipal offices? Do they hold a new election? The right could find themselves skewered with their own spear.

Subject: RE: BS: Electronic Voting Machines
From: Peace
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 01:19 PM

And who says that wouldn't be an improvement? (Just kidding.)