Diebold rebuts Princeton study

I'll feel better when machines that will be actually used are tested by a 3rd party. Only Bruce or Bill would believe a company that says nothing is wrong w/ their product.

Jethro, what would make me feel better is if this really was a trusted third party like UL or Consumer Reports. As it is it's two biased academics with an agenda.

As I said numerous times in the original post where Frank James one-sided the story, where is the proof that this machine is one of the ones used in ANY election in America? Where's the academic honesty in a study that can't even guarantee that the machine is in use ANYWHERE in America? Or even ever WAS used?

This thing is a complete mess and Princeton (and Frank James) has been left with egg on its face because they introduced a virus into a computer that's designed to never be networked. Security tape and screws that are used in every election were conveniently removed to allow the "researchers" to get the results they wanted. Whew, that's some scientific honesty, isn't it?

Just in general, how accurate can any research study based on a sample of ONE (1!) machine that doesn't make an attempt to mimic real world voting standards really be? This is such a joke. If the Princeton guys were serious they'd get the latest machines from around the country (including the ones used here in the last Stroger coronation) and test them all scientifically under real world conditions.

Those security precautions are great for outsiders and yeah it is unlikely that someone could come in and hack the machine on election day but does DIEBOLD even consider the possiblity of a malicous insider? I personally think that there should be some extra sort of verification with any electronic voting machine.

And yet...and yet...I don't believe Dave Byrd's rebuttal for a moment! Further, even assuming they can't be hacked from the OUTSIDE, that leaves one other potential origin of mischief, doesn't it? And with Diebold-style closed-source voting, I guess we'll just have to take Mr. Byrd's word (or that of his paid and unpaid trolls) that everything's just fine.

Shh,
Lets have another fun lefty conspiracy.

Keeps them occupied.

Before the machines are signed, sealed and delivered, they have to be programmed. Diebold's major shareholders have strong, profitable ties to the Republican Party. So what if there are dozens or even hundreds of seals and special screws? No one watches the count. There is no reservoir of paper ballots to compare the machine's printout to. The machines are not networked to be programmed, but have removable memory cards that are inserted in machine after machine. The criminal 'mole' would only have to have brief access to a machine near the start of the chain in order to spread a virus to many others. And of this 'mole' was planted into the operation by the top brass at Diebold, working in conjunction with the dirty tricks Repubs, that 'mole' might even have access to genuine security tags and seals.
You have to have a paper ballot, securely stored with the tabulating machine and available for a hand recount.
Or paper ballots, counted by hand.

There is a difference between discoverable tampering, and correctable tampering. If after the election the judges look at a machine and discover that it was tampered with (that is screws missing, or the tape is damaged), what will they do? How can they count that votes of the thousand honest people who voted on that machine without counting any fraudulant votes?

If the machines can be tampered with, we have to assume someone will at some time - there are millions of voters, and the stakes are high (for some). You have to assume that someone, somewhere will try to tamper with the election. Knowing that someone did (and better yet who) is great, but of far greater importance is getting the correct results anyway.

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QUESTION: 2 generations old, huh? So tell us, Diebold -- how long ago was "2 generations"? Was this version (and earlier less secure versions) used in 2000 & 2004, perchance?
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Henry, there are machines that give paper receipts for electronic votes to both the voter and the municipality voting. Seems to me that voters should simply insist their municipalities use that technology to avoid breakdowns. Incidentally the machines used in the Stroger-Claypool election were upgradeable to paper receipt versions but most of them did not have them. So, I don't really see how that's a problem with the machines.

Bill's initial point is well-taken: we would all feel better if a 3rd party we could all trust was able to conduct a comprehensive study. Unfortunately, Diebold won't permit it and so we're left with "trust us."

While Diebold argues that none of the conditions used in the Princeton test is ever supposed to exist, the fact is we are left to the vagaries of election boards throughout the country to make sure they don't. We know this is a huge problem: the recent California election to replace "Duke" Cunningham is being challenged because many of the touch-screens were sent home with poll workers well in advance of the actual opening of the polls. Under those circumstances, how can Diebold, or any of us, know that the same thing done at Princeton isn't being done to the machines once they're shipped by Diebold?

We have enough questions about elections these days because of suspicions of human corruption, we don't need more doubt creeping in because of possibilities -- no matter how remote -- that the machines themselves can be corrupted.

Well by golly, if Diebold says it's true, it must be true!

The problem is that the votes are not voter verifiable. Any time you have an electronic vote there is the potential for hacking, viruses, trojan horses, etc. How many times have we heard about "secure systems" that some clever hacker finds a way to subvert? Can we afford our voting to be hacked or even the suspicion?

There are other systems out there like the Populex system that create a paper ballot that voter can verifiy before putting in the ballot box.

JD I am poll watching in DuPage if I catch anyone touching the machines they will be in jail and on the news before the polls close

Bill, Diebold won't allow independent tests of their machines. Diebold response to the Utah County Clerk who permitted one of their systems to be inspected puts that to rest; tar whoever does the inspection as "part of black box voting" and ignore the result. The suggestion that fleets of Diebold machines are going to be made available for tests is ludicrous.

As far as "oh, but they're never networked," well, that's just not true. It's also what we call a "lie" out here in Alameda County, California, where a fleet of Diebold machines needed connections to routers to send in their results, and someone realized rather late in the game that the routers were insecure.

If you're talking to routers, you're networked. You may not be on the public internet, but you're networked.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/1,60713-0.html

This is in fact touted as a feature by Diebold, at times; they can remotely upgrade the software on their voting gear. That ability implies the systems are networked.

And the outright lying like this is typical of Diebold, but it's actually not the worst problem with their gear. The award for worst part of their design has to go to the central tabulation systems they run.

So, next election: you vote for who you like, Diebold counts for who they like.

Truly, we have the government we deserve.

Tim, read my above post about the already available machines that print a paper receipt for the polling workers and for the voter. Seems to solve the problem to me.

But you're right, Diebold and all the other manufacturers should let their machines be used in real tests and studies from organizations like Underwriters' Laboratories.

I just don't like the simplistic argument that this is the reason we should use paper punch cards and other low-tech solutions to voting. The world has moved on from that. The pregnant chad and other problems plague that system as much as user error does this one. The answer, to me, is not to look at this as a Luddite.

Bill
I've worked elections so I know how easy it is to tamper with security tape. I haven't worked with these machines in particular but if its like the security tape on the machines I've worked with then its a joke.

What about the flimsy locks? You don't need to remove 18 screws (still not a problem) if you can pick the lock.

These machines are basically networked if flash cards are being being swapped between them.

Your ignoring the fact that an irate worker or worse still a partasen criminal could infect the machines before they leave the factory. Corrupt poll works also have ample time to access the machines both before and after polling hours.

Do you have an agenda?

Dave Byrd of Diebold said : "Numbered security tape, 18 enclosure screws and numbered security tags were destroyed or missing so that the researchers could get inside the unit."

This sounds like a very clever bit of misdirection. It occurs to me that the Princeton folk might indeed have busted past all those tapes, tags, etc in order to get to the software ONLY TO ANALYZE IT so they could then create their virus. ONCE CREATED, the virus could be installed WITHOUT having to damage any security seals.

I don't know enough about these machines to know whether or not I'm right, but I'll flatly state that I don't trust Diebold.

When did having a paper trail for voting, along with policies like balancing the budget, reducing government spending, and low bid contracts become “liberal" ideas. I believe that my fellow conservatives have become more Lemmings than thinkers.

Little Johnny D. or JD, or whichever personality of yours I'm speaking to today:

If there were voting irregularities in Florida in the 2000 election,and in Ohio in the 2004 election,and the vote went against the Republican canidates,would you still beleive that the voting machines are ok???

Remember,as much as you aren't capable of understanding it,the GOP WILL NOT always rule out country.

How was your school field trip???
Did you learn anything that you want to share with us Little Johnny???

Bill Said, "As it is it's two biased academics with an agenda."

I don't get this trope. Academics are generally biased towards producing results that are duplicable by independent scientists. That boosts their academic standing.

Corporations are biased towards making money. Why do you put more faith in the later?

-John

Diebold attempts to obfuscate issues by stating that "a virus was introduced to a machine that is never attached to a network" as though this falsifies the Princeton study.

Don't be confused, people: the statement is true -- a virus was introduced into a machine that is never attached to the network.

Think about that.

Read the report. View the video.

Horay BB!!! I'm not a conservative but even I understand what conservative values are how this administration and a lot of it's supporters aren't anywhere close.

Sorry Diebold, your 'rebuttal' doesn't pass the smell test. You'd better rig as many votes as you can, because once American citizens are back in power, you are going on an all expense paid trip to Gitmo.

Paper receipts don't really cut it. Let's say someone hacks a voting result in some way that is undetectable. You won't know there was a problem and won't bother to reconcile between the electronic an paper trail.

Also, you have two records of the vote. Which one is right?

The only system that I know of that addresses those issues are the ones that create a voter verifiable paper ballot. The voter can hold it in his/her hands, see that it is right, and put it in the box. If there is a recount, you only have ONE record of the vote. Not a paper trail, not a receipt, but the ballots themselves.

As to Diebold's response, they say it was an older version of the software, etc. Well, they won't make a version of the new software and hardware available for testing. They should do that immediately.

All of this talk about encryption, security, etc. is moot unless they allow for independent testing.

There countless stories of supposedly secure system that get breached. Just look at Windows - with all their efforts, Microsoft still can't make it secure. Every week there are new patches to plug critical security holes.

The idea that it takes a computer to be networked to spread a virus is outright nonsense. Did anyone ever get a boot virus from a floppy disk? My machine sure was not networked when that happened.

It is amazing to me to see some of the arguments set forth in this thread. Either these individuals that advance such nonsense (ie the non-networked computer) did not watch the video, or they are incapable of understanding it once they did. I certainly hope that is the former and not the latter. My fear is that it is the latter.

John I.

This isn't a trope, look at the methodology. These two scientists used ONE machine and claimed it proved the machines were flawed. Please, tell me if there's one thing scientific about using one machine to try and prove this? Using one machine - that may never have been used in ANY elections - and then trying to introduce a virus into it by any means and then declaring the machine to be flawed when they succeed? Any real scientist would laugh at the assertion.

Michael, you still use floppy discs? Really? man, you're behind. Apple stopped putting the drives in its computers 5 years ago and most PC manufacturers have followed suit. You and the other Luddites don't have to worry, though, the voting machines don't take 3.5" discs.

Diebold's claim about the tremendous physical security on these machines is bogus. There were documented cases in both San Diego and this week in Maryland were touch screen machines were deployed _without_ the security tape having been placed over the ports. Not to mention volunteer election workers being left alone with the machines -- even being allowed to take them home for days in the San Diego case.

Banks don't just leave piles of money sitting around assuming that minimum wage tellers would never ever steal. Diebold ATMs don't rely on "security tape" to keep people to hacking their way to a pile of $20 bills. Let's see voting machines built with a similar concern for security.

I, personally, think it would be great if Diebold, Sequoia AND the optical scan machine companies (the type of machines used in Stroger-Claypoool) were federally-mandated to have their machines tested by independent, non-government agencies like UL before one of them ever was used in an election.

But until that happens all we're going to have is accusations from partisans. You say Ohio and Florida were "stolen" because the exit polls were different, ignoring the fact that the exit polls are usually much different from the totals.
I say the Stroger-Claypool race was "stolen" because Stroger got an inordinately high number of votes in the suburbs where Claypool polled higher before the election. Folks, it's all just speculation without a shred of credibility. Everyone's saying hooray for their side. Just like this study which isn't scientific in any way.

Until we have mandated testing we'll never know for sure and paper ballots have their own set of errors (hanging chad, anyone?). Let's push our lawmakers to introduce a new Help America Vote act. One with accountability.

The sad fact is that, in this country, electronic gambling machines (video poker, slots, etc) and their manufacturers are tightly regulated by local governments, required to disclosed source-code and are randomly inspected for tampering, whereas the very method that we, the people use to make our choice of government representation faces no such scrutiny.

"Security tape and screws that are used in every election were conveniently removed to allow the "researchers" to get the results they wanted. Whew, that's some scientific honesty, isn't it?"

Yeah, Bill, but not even in the same category as NIST when they stretched the parameters of an experiment modeling the WTC collapses until they were able to acheive a scenario in which they induced a collapse, using data stretched to parameters that are beyond the realm of possible reality. It's in the 9/11 commission report, you can look it up. They stretched the data to the point where they could say, yeah, fires could cause a collapse. But what they don't tell you is what the details of their data were at that point when that data, put into a computer model, caused a collapse. Don't you think the scientists working on the WTC collapse ought to be held to maybe just a tad higher standard, or do you just want to be told what you want to hear?

If you're such a watchdog for "scientific honesty," maybe you should get your head out of the sand and question the NIST study since it only deals with the most important event in American history. But you won't, because all of your logic is based on the faulty premise that George W Bush is good for America.

If you're someone who hasn't thought much about 9/11, I urge you to look into it. The commission's report is so full of lies and distortions that it makes a Bush-Rumsfeld-Snow press conference look like a truth-out (well, let's not go that far).

And everyone, if we just from this point on ignore everything John D says, he will disappear, because he's a troll, it's attention he craves. He will say anything just to get a response out of someone. He will never change his mind, he cannot partake in a rational argument, and he's not worth the time it takes to write a response to anything he says.

I swear you right-wing neo-con supporting posters in these forums are flacks in a basement of some ultra-conservative PR firm that Rove has a controlling stake of. Nothing you say makes sense except in the context of ignoring reality. So, you can sound like you make sense to yourselves, but only if you don't consider those pesky details like "facts" and "reality."

I think what keeps the lefties more busy than "conspiracies" as John D sees them, in this forum at least, is laughing at the parrothead conservatives and the irrational, emotional and uber-patritotic saber-rattling arguments they come up with. Keep it coming!

"You say Ohio and Florida were "stolen" because the exit polls were different, ignoring the fact that the exit polls are usually much different from the totals."

Umm, until 2000 and 2004, exit polls were usually very accurate in determining the winner of an election. Reams of statistics demonstrate this. Why are you lying?

I have read the technical report from the academics at Princeton and it's a thorough, hard to refute document. The Diebold rebuttal doesn't address many of their points at all, and they throw up some straw men arguments (like lack of networking) to attempt to explain away issues that aren't there. For those who aren't computer scientists reading these comments there's only one thing you need to know.

Diebold refuses to open their system to tough, independent investigation that would validate or disprove their security.

Period.

I read this article on Znet today. The country and government of Venezuela has an electronic voting machine system in place that leaves a auditable paper trail. The system also can tally votes in real time. Almost as important the government body that counts and validates the votes is an independent body with legal powers equal to the legislators. These folks are not beholden to any political power or monied intrest. Sound exactly what is needed here in the Good Old U.S.A.

By the way... also found on the internet was there not a report of somebody from Diebold coming in and switching the hard drives on voting machines... and let us not forget the switch inside the Diebold machine that can alter the actual vote count. So Much For Honesty

Slippytoad, exit poll data is always accurate you say? How about the AP exit poll that created the headline "Dewey Beats Truman," you like them exit polls? I swear, sometimes it's too easy. I sure hope you liked President Dewey's reign. Ahh, exit polls. Is the key word here "usually?" Was Dewey Beats Truman unusual? Maybe Kerry defeats Bush was, too.

Etheryang, I have to tell you I haven't looked into it that carefully. I don't usually question the idea of 747s heavily-laden with jet fuel for a cross-country being able create fires intense enough to collapse buildings, but I'll look into it if you insist.

I can tell you I've written several stories about NIST standards on continuous air barriers and other building issues and I'll say that I've found their scholarship to be unimpeachable. I'll get right on that, though, if you insist.

I am a social scientist at prominent UK University, and I teach research methods and advanced statistics (ANOVA, Multiple Regression, etc.) to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. One commenter argues "These two scientists used ONE machine and claimed it proved the machines were flawed. Please, tell me if there's one thing scientific about using one machine to try and prove this? ... Any real scientist would laugh at the assertion." That is really an erroneous argument.

In human populations a high sample size is important to generalize conclusions because humans are all very different. Within a population of computers only a sample of one is needed because computers, unlike humans, can be identical to each other. And I believe the researchers' point was not that all machines will be hacked but that it is *possible* for these machines to be hacked - something they acheived quite well.

Given that the security of elections is at stake here - a national security issue if ever there was one - why would ordinary Americans oppose independent testing of these machines' security?

SG,

Good question about "2 generations." I'm unaware of touch screens in elections prior to about 10 years ago. The very use of such weasel words as 2 generations among the first lines of the Diebold defense makes me skeptical. They must have felt they didn't have much else to go on.

anthonytyee,

You're kidding!! An electronic system already exists that will create a paper trail!! In Venezuela!! We should buy that system for Chicago!!

Oh, wait, we already have an electronic system made in Venezuela that creates a paper trail ...

Casinos network ALL their gaming machines, (by law??) and there is a MUCH greater payoff involved in any type of Fraud. And what about Banking systems... same thing there. I (as a programmer no less)used to work with banking systems... records up the whizz bang... at all levels and multiple locations and they ALL BETTER AGREE!!!.... and they're ALL NETWORKED TOGETHER .. ALL THE TIME...

The only fallacy between voting systems and bank systems is the anonymity of the input vote.

There are several problems with this rebuttal:
http://www.martinicity.net/articles/2006/09/14/security-flaws-in-diebold-accuvote-ts-voting-machine

Byrd is either ignorant, or lying, but probably both...

Byrd states that the virus is a non-issue because the voting machines are not on the internet. This couldn't be farther from the truth. As recently as the late 90's the primary mode of virus infection was floppy disk.

The simple fact is, we will never know if the machine has been hacked or not, regardless of how viable the Princeton technique is. The only way an electronic voting machine may be trusted is if there is a traditional paper ballot produced by the machine, verified by the voter, and locked away for a potential recount...

Diebold's point about being unable to get inside the machine is irrelvant. The video released by Priceton (available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwWP-N1HqT0 ) shows that the lock protecting the memory card port can be picked easily (in 10 seconds), or a copy of a key can be made. From there, anyone with sufficient technical skill can upload anything they want to a compatible memory card and insert it into the machine.

Bill, it's fine to use one machine if the machine is representative of all others. The machines are mass produced. All of the security is the same, all of the software is the same. Anything that will work on one machine will work on the others.

Bill-

If you don't usually question jet-fuel fires burning hot enough for long enough to weaken structural steel to the point of building collapse, then you are confirming by this that you are ignoring reality. NO steel skyscraper in history, except WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7, have collapsed "due to fire (and structural damage in the cases of WTC1 and 2)." What reason could you possibly have for holding it "unquestionable" that a jet-fuel fire (that does not burn hotter than 1200 F or so when the smoke is a thick, dense black) could burn hot enough to weaken steel to the point of failure in less than an hour?

Even if it were possible, in order for the collapse to be symmetric and into its own footprint, as it was, ALL of the steel would have to have been weakened equally and failed AT THE SAME EXACT TIME. If that didn't happen, the building would have gave way where the fires were hottest first and that would not create a symmetric collapse. Can you rationalize that to yourself too?

When we consider that the two towers were designed to withstand a fully loaded boeing 707 hitting it head on, we can discard the idea that the damage from the planes was enough, in combination with the fires to bring about a perfect collapse.

I could easily see maybe the top part of the buildings, above the crash zone, giving way partially and over time, but that did not happen. Wouldn't you expect a building with that kind of damage to maybe topple a bit, crumbling from the top slowly?

It's impossible to justify the idea that the mass of the falling upper part of each tower was enough to cause the buildings to accordian like they did unless you decide to attribute NO resistance to the rest of the undamaged, non burning lower part of the building.

The buildings, especially building 7 which never was hit by a plane, could have collapsed as we saw only if the lower structure were already damaged, like with pre-positioned explosives and cutter charges. If those lower floors were still intact, as they were, the building would have taken longer to fall than it did. Can you rationalize your way around that one too? Maybe you can, anything to remain comfortable to keep waving their flag.

And I say "their" flag because they've stolen it, this administration has. They've stolen it and they're exploiting its sanctity, using what it represents to make you feel guilty if you don't support them, because they've defined themselves as "freedom-lovers" and patriots of the higest order. They cast themselves in that mold and then go make unjust war not only on Iraq, but on a faceless enemy that can never be defeated, because it is an IDEA. The war on terror can never be won with guns, democracy can't be forced on a populace that is still largely in the 10th century AD, and there were NO TERRORISTS in Iraq until we went there and picked a fight. They're doing it for the oil, they're setting the US up for world hegemony, and they're selling the country right out from under us. Open your eyes.

I love what that flag used to represent and I want it back. Not that the democrats could necesarrily do any better, but at least they're starting to call BushCo on their lies.

But back to towers: The military can do marvelous things with thermite. And NIST does a good job when they don't have a secretive and scandalous, not to mention felonious, administration standing on its throat.

Oh, and Google "Operation Northwoods" if you've never heard of it. It is quite an eye opener, and its existence actuallly proves BushCo are either the most inept idiots ever, or that they wilfully lied to us when they told us "no one ever thought they'd use planes as missles."

These are the kinds of people that are making the decisions.

If Venezuela's doing it, it must be 100% true and honest and correct.

Final election results should never be in question in a modern democratic society. The methods used to tally votes must be such that there is no doubt to their validity. They must be fully auditable.

The only benefit of automated vote tallying is a reduction of expenses somewhere along the chain (ie quicker results, less staff required, etc). If the results are questioned then the associated cost must skyrocket - negating all of the advertised benefits. To me, the use of Diebold machines seems like an overselling of technology. In theory it could work, but in its current state it is a failure.

The fact that Diebold admits they are in anything but v1.0 of their security software means they are plugging holes as they find them - security holes that have existed in 'real world' usage. Whether or not anyone has ever actually exploited these holes is another debate.

The Diebold system fails if any around the machine are corrupt. An investigation can occur, but a recount or an audit will prove nothing. The Diebold system has failed because it's lost the trust of a growing portion of the voting population.

How expensive are those machines anyway? I might want one to play videogames on.

I am surprised by the utter stupidity of those supporting Diebold as if this is a partisan issue. This is the not first time that reliability of the electronic machine manufactured by Diebold has been called into question. The electoral system in the U.S. ranks even lower than many third world countries. No electronic voting system should be accepted unless there is paper trail to verify the results of the election.

Etheryang, structural steel is all done at about 800 degrees F. At 1200, it's about as stiff as a rubber band. Perhaps you remember the McCormick Place fire, and how the roof girders sagged in the wreckage? No jet fuel there, just the building contents. Or perhaps you don't.

And I thought the reason that Liberals are always losing elections was because of their push for socialist programs and fight for terrorist rights.

Now, Priceton, there is an unbiased organization!

With regard to the comment on the "exit poll" and the Chicago Tribune headline - DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN: There was no exit poll - there were pre-election polls and the Republican theory that Truman would be soundly defeated. Therefore, the hard right wing Chicago Tribune relied on the pre-election public opinion polls, the hype of the Republican party and the prognostications of most political commentators of that era, to the effect that Dewey would defeat Truman. They did not even consider exit polls for their headline. They were WRONG!!!
With regard to independent testing of the electronic voting machines BEFORE they are employed in elections: I wonder if the Republicans would be so against such a requirement if Democratic candidates had won overwhelmingly in precincts that previously had been heavily Republican and where exit polls had indicated that the Republican candidate had won overwhelmingly! I guess it depends on whose ox is being Gore[d] (sorry for the pun).

The private sector should not be involved in counting our votes, because the potential for partisan abuse of the system is present.

Case in point: Diebold Election Systems is operated by the Urosevich brothers, who have demonstrated ties to Dominionist groups. Also, former CEO Wallace O'Dell publicly stated that he was committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to President Bush.

That's a massive conflict of interest, and should have removed Diebold from any serious consideration, anywhere in this country. It's like a state implementing an election system from a company run by people with ties to the Communist Party of America, and its CEO publicly stating that s/he was committed to delivering that state's electoral votes to the Communist candidate. Oh, and they won't be releasing the software to any independent body for review -- it's "proprietary."

Commenters apparently believe that the Princeton researchers either (Republican side of coin) were motivated by political bias or (Democrat side of coin) have proven that one election or another was stolen.

Who bothered to go to their site and read their FAQ, which shows clearly that they are biased against shoddy voting machines?

Here are two items from that FAQ:

"[Q.] Have the vote-stealing methods you discuss ever been used in real elections?
"[A.] Probably not, but we don't know for sure. We haven't seen evidence that these attacks have been used, but one lesson of our report is that the design of these voting technologies makes attacks relatively easy to cover up.
"[Q.] Do you think any recent major U.S. elections were stolen?
"[A.] No. We know some people are claiming this happened, but we don't find their evidence convincing."

If it can be done, it will...by someone.

I am astonished that the ones that claim it's all fine don't realize that there is always the possibility that someone not on their side or that leans their way might do something someday.

What if Mickey Mouse wins the presidency? Would THAT prove it to them???

You would think that EVERYONE would want it to be fair and honest. Those that don't, show how they really think about honesty and democracy.

I was a certified inspector/precinct board member for Alamenda County, CA in November of 2002. The Diebold machines were used in that election, and the software shown in the Princeton video looks like the software I was trained to use.

Byrd states "Every local jurisdiction secures its voting machines." -- The precinct polling places in Alameda County are often residences' garages. Several Diebold machines were delivered to my precint's polling location (a garage) a few days before the election. They sat there until the morning of the election when they were unpacked and plugged in.

It all boils down to this:

If there is not a way to be absolutely sure that your vote counts, then the system is broken and should not be used.

Diebold is not being upfront about this, of this there can be no doubt. Many easily available and verifiable resources point this out. Most of these machines runs Windows for God's sake - we know how that's doing in the struggle with security.

Somehow Diebold can accurately, safely, and verifiably count money every day with their millions of ATMs, but can't do the same with votes, of which there are vastly less, and only counted a few times a year.

If you are not interested in ensuring that voting is fair, secure, and tamper-proof, then you are a traitor, pure and simple.

Think about that before you post, Bill. If you are willing to ignore the obvious problems just because your 'team' is winning, you are a cheat, a fraud, and absolutely un-American.

etheryang,

I'm not even going to touch the WTC thing.

But to address 2 asides in your latest screed:

"...[No.1] a populace that is still largely in the 10th century AD, and [No. 2] there were NO TERRORISTS in Iraq until we went there and picked a fight."

No.1 Not true. Iraq has been a cosmopolitan, Modernist society for many decades.

No. 2 The fact that the terrorists were not present before we picked a fight does not negate the terrorist danger that exists now.

Follow the money. Go to www.opensecrets.org, donor lookup, who gives and type in Diebold under employer. Diebold has an investment in Republican candidates and causes. Anyone who trusts their voting machines is a fool, or lives in Utah.

Diebold's response doesn't mean anything. Sure, they can prove that it will be apparent if some outside party altered with their machines. But how can they prove that they haven't altered with the machines themselves, and then shipped them off for use without looking like anything has happened?

Let's not forget that there is a very obvious conflict of interest between Diebold and their support for the GOP.

Keep talking, etheryang. You're making a great counter-argument to everything you've just written with your generalizations.

Dems: Terror threat, just fear mongering. The real enemy are those from Diebold!

Glad to see your fighting the evil doers Dale.

wow John E. Not only are your politics and arguments lame, your insults are too.

Yeah, I learned on my field trip that Florida in 2000 used the same voting "butterfly ballots" that Chicago used in 2000. No problems here, but I guess it was all those blacks that were prevented from voting even though a minority voting rights group couldn't find any evidence of it.
Hey, but it made for a good scene in F 9/11.

...how come PA isn't looked at for 2004? The margin was a lot closer than Ohio. Had Bush won PA....it would have been a total blowout.

I think its great that you guys are so fixated on your voting conspiracy theories. It means you won't look in the mirror and figure out what you did wrong. You'll continue to chase your own tail. Fine by me.

It's like the salesman who's selling technique is: " Buy my product or your stupid." Then when the customer doesn't. They figure it has to be fraud or that the customer WAS stupid. It can't possibly be the salesman.

This is why I LOVE your conspiracy theories. Keep it up. There fun too!

Just to respond to Bill:
"Michael, you still use floppy discs? Really? man, you're behind. Apple stopped putting the drives in its computers 5 years ago and most PC manufacturers have followed suit. You and the other Luddites don't have to worry, though, the voting machines don't take 3.5" discs."

This is true, however I think you could still load a virus onto a USB flash drive; as floppy drives fall out of vogue USB ports are becoming ever more prevalent in computer systems.

Juanito...If you agree that there were no terrorists in Iraq before the war...and we went to war anyway and now created this...why would you continue to support the same people who made this mistake? What makes you think that their flawed thoughts before the war are now the right ones?

to further respond to Bill:
"Michael, you still use floppy discs? Really? man, you're behind. Apple stopped putting the drives in its computers 5 years ago and most PC manufacturers have followed suit. You and the other Luddites don't have to worry, though, the voting machines don't take 3.5" discs

Nice "seeming" logic applied Bill. I wasnt making the point that these machines used floppies...I was making the point that removable media is like a floppy in that viruses can be transmitted in that fashion. Also, I asked if anyone had ever gotten a boot virus from a floppy. I did't ask if it occurred last week. The point here is that I was making the argument that in the past people transmitted viruses by removable media without a network in sight. Your dismissiveness and redirection to the straw man argument is annoying at best, dishonest at worst. If I were to be equally dishonest I would bring up the fact that the elections dont run on Apple machines. That would prove nothing however. Just like your argument.

Many people in this blog are missing the point. If we cannot be absolutely confidant that our votes cannot be tampered with, then we are living a lie to be patriots of the American democracy we all claim to be a part of. If voting machines are used that can at anytime be tampered with, it undermines the principles of democracy. Anyone arguing for the use of these machines is un-American and certainly not worthy of an argument.

So Michael, how then is your diversion to the use of floppy drives to transport viruses not also a misdirection?

Yes, some of them use flash drives, removable hard drives and other types of media. What of it? Yes, if they're secured improperly they can get a virus. But you see, that should never happen. The Sequoia hard drives used in Stroger-Claypool didn't work and that caused the counting problem in that election but I'm not going to jump to the conclusion (not even on the mat) that a virus must have been introduced in those machines to make Stroger win.

If your argument is that the use of these media devices, simply by their nature, can't be made secure then you're just wrong. Personal computing wouldn't be where it is today without the security companies demand of it. Flash drives, hard drives, networks all of them can be made secure. There's a billion dollar industry devoted to it! The argument that we should use obselete technology to avoid viruses is simply Luddite and wasteful. Do we print more paper and use typewriters at our offices because someone might get a virus in our network? No. We simply secure our networks.

Like I've said a million times, proving this ONE Diebold machine (that was probably never even used) can be infected after months of study of how to do just that proves nothing.

See my earlier post about legislation to demand third-party verification for Sequoia, Diebold and everyone else. Sound reasonable?

Truth, who is the one poster on this thread that has called for a third-party oversight law of ALL voting machines?

Just because I don't think this one VERY unscientific study proves anything doesn't mean I'm against digging for the truth just because "my side is winning."

Many people here have posted that 9/11 was actually a controlled demolition, you try to tell me that politics aren't infecting their thought processes?

Yes, we need verification. Yes we need more transparency. But the answer to this problem isn't go back to obselete technology or "get" Diebold. The answer is fair, third-party oversight of Diebold, Sequoia and everyone manufacturing these machines. As that great American Teddy Roosevelt once said to J.P. Morgan, "be reasonable."

bill r.,

I don't support them. (EFF them!) I'm only saying that it would be a huge mistake to withdraw from Iraq until that situation is stable.

Just because I don't cheer for the Democrats, don't assume that I love the Republicans.

Whichever way power shifts in our government in the next few years (and the Democrats are obviously going to gain in congress, but the presidency remains to be seen) I want it to deal with this bloody mess the right way.

"Yes, we need verification. Yes we need more transparency. But the answer to this problem isn't go back to obselete technology or "get" Diebold. The answer is fair, third-party oversight of Diebold, Sequoia and everyone manufacturing these machines. "
Posted by: Bill | Sep 15, 2006 11:12:42 AM
================================
I'm with you Bill. The question I and others have to keep asking is why not verify? Why not have a paper trail that the voter can see? Why does Diebold fight this concept so hard? As it stands now Republicans will distrust the results of the midterms if the Democrats win. Untrustworthy election results lead to instability. Ask the Ukrainians.

I really do not care about Diebold and these tests one way or another (it reminds me of a "report" that was printed in the 70's as a satire and then grew into an urban myth - government scientists supposedly mixed THC with brain matter, ran it all through a centrifuge at staggering rates of revolutions, then claimed damage to the brain cells proved pot was dangerous - anyone else remember that one).

Regardless of the technology, it will always be possible to conduct voter fraud if you control the polling place and equipment at the LOCAL level. People have been doing it for years. C'mon this is a Chicago based blog - when did this city ever need Diebold to help them swing an election? In fact, that is one of the most significant flaws in the arguments of the stolen election crowd - most of the alleged fraud happened under the control of local Democrats.

Depending on the location, Dem control ranged from selecting the equipment (computer or other), picking the polling sites, determining who and how many worked at the key polls, providing the materials, etc, etc. Here's another flaw (especially for you Slippytoad) - exit polls have a long track record of error. this is from Pollster.com (run by a professional Democratic pollster)http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/12/have_the_exit_p.html :

"Here is the documentation on previous errors. First, from the Washington Post's Richard Morin:
The networks' 1992 national exit poll overstated Democrat Bill Clinton's advantage by 2.5 percentage points, about the same as the Kerry skew

Warren Mitofsky, who ran the 2004 exit poll operation along with partner Joe Lenski, wrote the following in the Spring 2003 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly (p. 51):
An inspection of within-precinct error in the exit poll for senate and governor races in 1990, 1994 and 1998 shows an understatement of the Democratic candidate for 20 percent of the 180 polls in that time period and an overstatement 38 percent of the time...the most likely source of this error is differential non-response rates for Democrats and Republicans:
From the internal CNN report on the network's performance on Election Night 2000 (p. 48 of pdf):
Warren Mitofsky and Joe Lenski, heads of the CNN/CBS Decision Team, told us in our January 26 interview with them that in VNS's use of exit polls on Election Day 2000, the exit polls overstated the Gore vote in 22 states and overstated the Bush vote in 9 states. In the other 19 states, the polls matched actual results. There was a similar Democratic candidate overstatement in 1996 and a larger one in 1992.

In short, Mitofsky and Lenski have reported Democratic overstatements to some degree in every election since 1990. Moreover, all of Lenski and Mitofsky's statements were on the record long before Election Day 2004"

There was a rather famous (in England) miscall by their exit poll in 1992 as well and according to Joe Lenski, co-founder of Edison Media (an exit polling firm), "Because of the sampling error, exit poll data is only useful as a sole source of predicting elections if there is a landslide,"

For that matter, it is in some ways inaccurate to say the exit polls were wrong - actually of the most questioned state results "The exit polls had Kerry ahead by 4 percentage points in Ohio, by 3 in New Mexico, by 2 in Iowa and by 1 point in Nevada," he wrote. But the margin of error for the polls in those states was at least 5 to 7 points -- Kerry's 4-point lead in Ohio, for example, is simply not statistically significant." (http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2005/01/07/exit_polls/index.html?pn=2)

In short, the elections were not rigged and this is all a tempest in a teapot. Please go away with your election conspiracy theories (and as for the 9/11 conspiracy - just get a copy of Popular mechanics, they explained it all in a manner even you guys should be able to handle)

RRD

As a network technician who couldn't give a crap about Dems or Repubs, I'll say this: If it can be networked, it is inherently insecure. The voting machines ARE networked (as even a cursory look-see shows) and are therefore insecure.

Additionally, equiping voting machines with paper trails is useless unless it's the paper votes that are counted.

It's interesting that someone here calls people who don't want electronic voting "luddites." In fact, there isn't a reputable computer scientist or network tech in the world who would support electronic vote counting without -- at the very least -- strong human double checking.

This isn't a political issue, by the way. When the Dems take the House in November (as even Repubs are predicting), watch for a mess of right wingers from traditionally-but-no-longer red districts crying about how it must have been the voting machines' fault.

Let me try this one more time and see if I can put it in the proper context.

Diebold used the false argument that these machines were not networked ergo there was no threat from a virus spreading. I made the argument that the fact that they are not networked is irrelevant...the virus can be spread from machine to machine without the use of a network if removable media is used and shared on another computer. This is in fact how the Princeton conducted their test.

The real point which you bring up is the lack of transparency in the process. Whether or not this particular machine was ever used in an election is not of any import. What this test has done is to show that there can be vulnerabilites in the system. Vulnerabilites that Diebold has steadfastly maintained do not exist.

The fact that you can make removable media secure is not the issue either. Certainly it can be made to be secure. How will we know if it is? That is the issue.

I am not against using electronic voting machines per se. I am against trying to ram through the use of these machines without proper scrutiny and transparency.

I've already addressed the whitewash that is the popular mechanics debunking. In case you couldn't understand what I said, here it is, all laid out for you, proof that the PM report is the worst kind of yellow journalism. (see link below)

Juanito, Bill, and anyone else "not touching the 9/11 thing" is an uninformed coward. If you want to talk strong, like you know what you're talking about when you so easily dismiss my questions and points as being crazy, you should actually have some information.

I challenge you personally, Juanito, if you're such a level-headed guy, to look into the information. Maybe start with the peer-reviewed paper "Why Indeed did the World Trade Towers Collapse."

Here's the link, so you can't weasel out of reading it by claiming that you can't find it.

http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf

I challenge every American, any HUMAN who reads these forums, to read this report and then come back here and justify your belief, if you still hold it, that 9/11 happened as we've been told by our joke of a government.

Until you are fully informed you can't possibly talk reasonably about 9/11. You should at least try. If you don't try to become informed, and just hide behind your pathetic veil of patriotism while dismissing serious questions as "crazy" because it makes you feel comfortable, well, then that makes YOU the conspiracy theorist.

etheryang

The source of the nonsense you direct us to is the product of a Dr Jones - whose PhD is Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering - which does not qualify him to question the multitude of NIST experts whose credentials are appropriate for the questions at hand. Despite this, they address each and every point he raises in their FAQ. (as does the PM rebuttal).

What’s more, the website you direct us to is not just unconvincing, it contradicts itself (for example, there is a snippet of video where you can hear the worker who is on camera state the temperature of some hot metal they are moving - its 1500 degrees. Dr Jones claims what we are looking at is molten steel - which melts at 2800 degrees). It links to websites that are full of articles claiming Einstein was a fraud and that it was actually nuclear weapons that brought down the WTC. Although (apparently) even Dr Jones is not enough of a nut to go that far, please note that that these people are among the peers who reviewed his article.

In fact, Dr Jones’ article notes that the peer review was organized by Journal of 9/11 Studies Editor Kevin Ryan. Ryan, a former employee of Underwriters Laboratory who claims UL “certified” the steel used in the WTC (no such certification has ever been offered by UL) and claimed to have inside information about the NIST investigation. The department he worked for tested drinking water and had nothing to do with the WTC investigation. He is indeed Dr Jones’ peer as neither is qualified to make these ridiculous allegations,

To sum it all up, my favorite part of Dr Jones' argument is "the official theory lacks repeatability in that no actual models or buildings (before or since 9-11-01) have been observed to completely collapse due to the proposed fire-based mechanisms.” I guess that means the only way we could prove to him that the WTC was destroyed by two jets crashing onto them, would be to rebuild the towers and “repeat the experiment.”

I should probably have taken Juanito’s lead and left this whole topic alone – having gone through etheryang’s suggested reading list, I feel like I need a shower.

RRD

I never heard the outcome of this election fraud investigation:

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/

This testimony is very disturbing.

Like theres no finicial relationship between the GOP and Diobold.....Give me a break

You would think the pathological right-wingers would want to insure integrity to prevent the machines from being used against them.

But then, they are the GOP.

I recently knew someone that developed software for Election Systems, and it is the worst organization I have ever heard of in 15 years of IT experience. I don't know if its the same place - and I don't want to know.

Backstabbing, managers changing developers code without discussion, co-workers introducing bugs in others code, blame game - point the finger, untested code pushed into production releases, etc. The process within the process is corrupt.

There is no way a company like this develops secure software, in my opinion (and others).

All of this doesn't address fradulent and illegal voting which is a bigger problem. Why do we still have dead people, felons, and illegal immigrants voting. We need a security check and validation that the person casting the vote is allowed to and that they vote ONLY once in the election.

If you bother to read or watch the Princeton study you will know that this rebuttle doesn't hold water and is laughable. In the exploit the study never implies that the machine is networked. They present the possibility of the memory cards being used in multiple machines over the course of time. This is how their worm would spread. It is not necessary to spread the worm in any event as one compromised machine would be enough to fix a polling station's results.

They remove screws in the exploit to access the internals of the machine. This was just one proposed method. The easier method was one researcher picking the lock. No need to remove screws.

Tape. Hmmm. The only thing standing between me and fixing an election is some tape and a few screws. I feel real confident.

Anyone who is not outraged at the study's results and the tepid and inaccurate response from Diebold is willing to put partisanship before the safety of this country. Wake up fools. Do you think that fixed elections will always swing in your favor?

By their own admission, Diebold confirms their machines "are saecured" with (among other things) SSL (secure Scokets Layer). This protocol was developed by Netscape for transmissions over-- anyone? -- the Internet.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SSL.html

The machines are designed to be networked.

Not all rogue programs are designed to replicate themselves and send themselves to others. Maybe one-- just one-- could be written to misreport votes that took palce on it for a given tiem period.

Test the machines. Scrutinize the local political machines. Give the people their voice.

I don't know exactly what Diebold uses SSL for, but it can be used for interprocess communication between programs on a single system. This would be a reasonable method for authenticating processes and securing interprocess communications against interception by rogue processes, at least in somce cases.

So support for SSL is not proof that a system is networked.

Sally

Your post made me very curious. After digging around, I found the following:

"Clint Curtis, a political newcomer, will take on incumbent Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, in the race for the congressional seat from Florida's 24th District

Curtis has for years accused Feeney of asking him to write a computer program to steal elections in Florida, as well as other transgressions. No independent investigation has ever backed Curtis' claims."

Floridatoday.com 9/6/06

I offer no comment on the facts of the case except that if the Democrats are not jumping on this, there probably is a flaw somewhere in the testimony or evidence that would work against them.