Brad --- can you spell out for us exactly how a voter-verified paper ballot printed out by the electronic voting machine does not provide protection? You mention in various places here and in other articles that computer scientists e.g. at UCSB have shown there are hacks which can flip votes and *not be detected by auditing the paper trail*, but I can't find where it is explained how that is possible. Just trying to understand this better...

The paradox, is that as we all get REAL careful about double checking, etc., that is in fact no assurance anything is recorded correctly, and simultaneously makes lines LONGER and thereby increases voter suppression.

THAT's the sheer brilliance of making part of the hack VISIBLE --- increasing lines and de facto suppression the more people try to be careful and fight it.

I can "spell out" why a voter-verified paper "ballot" offers no assurance. It has to do with the fact that all the studies agree there's a huge difference between voter-marking your own ballot and reviewing a printout of any kind (especially the fine print typically seen with voting systems). In one study of voters, there were 108 errors in the paper trails.

108 errors in the paper trail "ballots". They were told to be careful.

How many did they catch?

ZERO, nada. none. Zip.

We are very poor proofreaders of our own stuff. If we think we pressed the buttons correctly, we're extremely poor proofreaders of our own stuff. To be efficient, it's well known that the brain/eye see WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE and skip over parts to be efficient. See my article on this subject for links to caltech studies, DC testimony, etc. http://www.opednews.com/...ultimate_nightmare_f.htm

Even if through massive education we get people to really get anal about those printouts, it just makes the lines amazingly longer. Massive education might, maybe, increase catching of error from 0% to say 66% (thinking VERY optimistically). But this means, then, that 1 of 3 errors slips through and is APPROVED and VERIFIED by the voter, making the error or fraud bullet-proof fraud because the fraud was specifically approved by the voter! But, we all pat ourselves on the back for a good election, even though it's just perfect fraud, in fact.

It all boils down to huge differences in how humans perform with secondary printouts versus primary voter-marked documents, but it's a difference that makes a huge difference!

Matt

No matter what the receipt says, the machine can count whatever someone has programmed it to count. It is feasible you could get everyone together with their receipts and figure out what the count should have been... in a small town... or a small precinct... where everyone saved their receipts... and then see if it matches the machine count, but not likely, and not useful on a massive scale.

Get it? In a race between Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, the machine can be programmed to print receipts that match exactly how each voter voted, but count, say, half Mickey's votes for Donald and all Donald's votes for Donald. So Mickey actually won 60 to 40, but the machine made Donald the winner 70 to 30. The machine was also programmed to erase the programming for the theft AFTER it executed. Unless you can get all hundred voters back together with their receipts, how are you going to show the theft?

If it is a paper ballot, it can be counted and recounted by people and machines until everyone agrees who really won.

Paper trail and paper ballot are two different things.

Paper trail is a receipt, but the machine counts and there is no way to check it in 99.99% of the cases.

Paper ballot is the permanent record that can be counted by humans, even if a machine counts it to begin with.

You can't rely on computers for the count because computers can be programmed to erase evidence of rigging, and they can be hacked very, very easily, by anyone with just a little knowledge, again with no trace.

THIS MEANS THERE CAN NEVER BE EVIDENCE THAT YOUR VOTE WAS COUNTED AT ALL, OR IF IT WAS COUNTED THAT IT WAS COUNTED CORRECTLY, IF YOU VOTED ON A COMPUTER.

Matt asked:

Brad - can you spell out for us exactly how a voter-verified paper ballot printed out by the electronic voting machine does not provide protection?

Agent 99's response seems to have missed what you were asking. The videos from UCSB, included in the article above, show precisely how a machine can be hacked in such a way that even the paper trails --- if anybody bothered to count them --- would not reveal the hack. So give that video a look.

There are a number of ways to do it. But ultimately (as Paul Lehto alluded) even if voters check their "paper trails " (and MIT/Caltech tells us 80% don't) as we learn via the Rice University study, two-thirds don't notice when the votes have actually been flipped on that final summary.

But the biggest prob is even if they check the paper trail, and even if they notice any vote flips on it, there is no way for you or I to know that they did afterwards in the event we need to count those "paper trails" to determine whether the election was counted accurately or not. We've simply got to trust in that fact, and as all the studies show, there is no reason for that trust. Further, our system out government and elections is not built on trust. Both are built on citizen oversight and checks and balances.

With electronic touch-screen voting, the ability to perform both oversight and have any checks and balances is entirely gone, entrusted to private companies with secret software that can never been overseen by anybody.

The big O made that up just for ratings

Yes, Matt, Brad is completely correct. I missed what you were asking. My brain has this stubborn habit of kicking out items it deems frivolous, and so I plum forgot about the having-a-computer-print-you-up-a-voted-ballot gambit. Since I decided long ago that computers have absolutely no business in our polling places my brain, evidently, has taken up spitting out that sort of stuff. I might have remembered if I'd read Paul's responses to you, but I was busy being flummoxed by chief among my redneck friends just emailing me this YouTube link. Sorry.

Ultimately in the end the paper trail would definetly identify that the vote has been changed. Just because a group of people say it wouldn't doesn't make it so. Get the spool from UCSB and run thee entire spool through an imaging device and place the results on your page. So we can all see that infact it would deffinetly show that there was something going on that shouldn't of been.

Then take Paper Ballots and place them in a lab of Paper experts to see if they can find a way to Hack them. Manipulate of course. what we need is an unbiast study of all materials not just one material. We need a study that has a constant involved, Wait that would mean that it would be a scientific study. No one here wants that, they want their ideas of truth to prevail not actual truth.

Corruption in government or positions of power will always be there. The fact that we all have to be on our toes is one that SUCKS. The simple fact is most people want to live there lives and not worry about this Bull Shit.

Also the next person who tries to attack one of my computers from this site will reap the consiquences. I will not warn you again!!

For the life of me, I can not understand why a paper ballot with optical reading capability for tabulation is not used. Simple, easily tabulated and with verifiable audit trail. The technology has been around for decades. Oops, I forgot that there is money to be made and elections to be stolen.

I would like to use this space to beg for understanding for all poll workers tomorrow. I'm a presiding judge, and I have at least one poll worker joining us who has never worked the polls. Our job is to help people vote, and we'll do everything that is legally possible to do that. I know that poll workers are sometimes seen as obstructionist, but I do everything I can to ensure fairness, accessibility, and correctness. Please try to view the election workers as being on your side. We get paid $95 for a non-stop 13-hour day - which doesn't count coming in an hour early to set up and staying as late as necessary if there are lines.

... Charles said on 11/3/2008 @ 12:33 am PT...

"Ultimately in the end the paper trail would definetly identify that the vote has been changed. Just because a group of people say it wouldn't doesn't make it so."

The scientists at UCSB offered a study with mathematical evidence and examples and a video demonstration... and you offer...?

"Get the spool from UCSB and run thee entire spool through an imaging device and place the results on your page. So we can all see that infact it would deffinetly show that there was something going on that shouldn't of been."

... you offer nothing?

"Then take Paper Ballots and place them in a lab of Paper experts to see if they can find a way to Hack them. Manipulate of course."

Yes, and compare them vs e-voting in that regard!

"what we need is an unbiast study of all materials not just one material. We need a study that has a constant involved, Wait that would mean that it would be a scientific study."

Yes, it was.

"No one here wants that,"

Fail.

Apparently you didn't bother to read the various parts of the e-voting studies where the evm's,"paper trails" etc were rigorously compared with their paper ballot counterparts.

"Also the next person who tries to attack one of my computers from this site will reap the consiquences. I will not warn you again!!"

Strange... after your extensive attempt to appear knowledgable about computers you then engage in a massive display of ignorance...? Or perhaps this was actually a clever and subtle strategy of some kind?

Or do you really believe that the techs at Brad's web hosting provider are out to "attack one of your computers"...?

Maybe this will get the problem enough publicity that we will FINALLY get FEC regulations requiring that all electronic voting machines have their hardware designs and software source code publicly diclosed and that they generate a recountable, auditable paper trail.

I am an IT professional and I'm here to tell you that computers are not to be trusted with something as important as the conduct of our elections unless every single aspect of their operation is subject to public scrutiny. The government has plenty of ways to guarantee the exclusivity of the manufacturer's rights in their intellectual property without resorting to "trade secrets."

Check out Verified Voting for more information.

Trust in e-voting is simple. Would you trust an ATM machine enough to say $1000 cash. Yes you type into the machine that you are putting into it $1000 in cash and therefore the receipt will say you deposited $1000, but it will not let you withdraw that money. You must place trust that whoever opens your deposited envelope to verify the transaction is honest otherwise without that envelope you have no proof of your depsoit. only you'r eword against the banker.

The same goes for E-voting. You put you're vote in and a given a reciept but their is no ay to validate that what is taken out (vote count) is what was put in the machine. In the e-vote case we have no envelope to be examined that holds the voter's true intentions.

Oprah is a fat lying O-bot kunt
this nation is in big trouble no matter who gets elected but ESPECIALLY the practiced LIAR and MARXIST gun grabbing baby killer Obama

and fuck all of the usa that supports him or any of his bullshit....I dont think ive ever been more ashamed of our country not even by the Nazi Bush...

Stalin was way worse than Hitler

one more t hing - Are Oprah and her viewers just now figuring out that there has been rampan vote fraud for decades?

fucking stupid bitch, I dont think theres anyone I hate more in the world than this fake WITCH

PS - your comment form sucks donkey dick

Unfortunately not hard enough to discourage you from using it....

I'm not going to bother asking you to read the rules since there seems to be almost no chance you'll keep it up.