While this is good news, its funny how it took the revelation of Venezuela and Chavez's ownership interest in Sequoia Voting Systems.
Voting machines certainly don't seem to be a problem when controlled by GOP cronies, but then when someone else and in particular the GOP's #3 Boogey man. All of a sudden voting machines are vulnerable.
They've always known how easily the machines are manipulated.
Posted by Simp at June 28, 2006 08:58 AMOh please, Republicans will just see to it the voting apparatus in Red districts are secure for their margins (i.e. remain corrupt) while leaving reform in Blue districts to languish (i.e. to enable further corruption). They're magicians, don't look at the hand that is moving, try to observe the hand they're obscuring.
Posted by steve duncan at June 28, 2006 09:38 AM"It's not a question of 'if,' it's a question of 'when,' " Davis said of an attempt to manipulate election results.
When? Umm, can anybody say Ohio 2004 (at least)? There's no question of if or when.
Posted by CG at June 28, 2006 10:12 AMSo the right wing has more faith in an invisible God than invisible votes?
Posted by TIKI AL at June 28, 2006 12:45 PMHaving electronic voting machines work effectively in this country will forever be a concern. As the American Prospect pointed out a few issues ago, states in this country should emulate the example of Oregon, which mandates that all elections in that state, either on the local, state, or federal level, be voted on via a mail-in ballot. Oregon has adopted this system for the past ten years, without any hint of scandal involved in this process. It has also been shown that neither party
has an advantage over the other when the electorate votes by mail. It eliminates waiting in line and the voter is not subjected to the whims of the weather gods if he or she were to vote in person. Voting by mail would appear to be a much more advantageous system than the one that is currently in place.
Don't believe a fucking words the GOP says. Interesting now that the 2006 election is near, they have developed some great concern for the voting machine issue. They weren't concerned in 2000 or in 2004, but hey, pResident Bush was sure to win, right? So they now voice some big concern, pass a few laws, and when they steal it again in the next two elections, it will never be contested because they have addressed the issues, right? As far as I am concerned, the GOP has taken away my right to vote. Once a criminal, always a criminal, period.
Posted by Judith at June 28, 2006 06:56 PMI do believe that the Republithugs have finally grasped that computer geniuses sympathetic to the Democratic Party might turn the tables on them, somehow hack the election voting machines and change election results in favor of the Democrats. And who would know? There'd be no paper trail to verify, by hand, the actual election totals. The Republithugs would essentially be hoisted on their own petard. BWAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!
Posted by The Oracle at June 28, 2006 11:26 PMBefore joining, and after leaving the Canadian Air Force, I designed embedded systems, similar to the ones used in voting machines. Hacking them, or simply placing five lines of code in them to throw a count, is child's play. Without paper transcripts of how one voted, they are as reliable as Faux News. Nothing to see here folks, move on.
Posted by tempus at June 29, 2006 01:35 AMPerhaps I should be more specific:
count++;
if( selection == DEMOCRAT && count = 5 ) {
This little bit of code changes the vote by 20%, for the Repugs. Simple, but effective.
Posted by tempus at June 29, 2006 02:05 AMWhoops, don't write code at 3:00 AM. Should be:
count++;
if( selection == DEMOCRAT && count == 5 ) {
selection = REPUG;
count = 0;
}
Posted by tempus at June 29, 2006 02:15 AMNow that I have had three hours of sleep, I would like to refine the code from the early hours.
if( selection == DEMOCRAT ) {
I covered it at the American Street, where I made the same point. blogtopia's royalty has starved this story for oxygen from the jump and has failed miserably to inform readers of what's happening and why.
So if the GOP is ready to disregard the “nothing to see here; move on” blather from Diebold and others, then Democrats will need to fast-track this through each house this year so that any changes can be implemented in 2007 in time for the 2008 election.
I get your point. We want to make a big deal of this and force the GOP's hand. But fast-tracking bills combined with the GOP's natural corruptitude is what got us the disastrous HAVA and all this eVoting nonsense in the first place. And the Dems aren't necessarily trustworthy on this issue either.
HR 550 is not without serious flaws - the most glaring of which is the failure to mandate proper audits. We need to put big pressure on Congress to pass a good bill that will solve the problem of eVoting, not one that will sound good to most people and only end up legitimizing the electronic machines without fixing the real problems.
The fix is easy: mandated voter-verified paper ballots and proper audits. The bill could be three pages long and do everything it would need to do.
We also need to get rid of partisan election officials but that's another bill.
Posted by eRobin at June 29, 2006 08:02 AMNow that I have had three hours of sleep, I would like to refine the code from the early hours.
Works on my voting machine.
Posted by phidipides at June 29, 2006 09:05 AM