"All voters should join me in being furious, no matter the "results" reported on and after Tuesday." ~~~Brad Friedman

As I reported 10/30/08 here at Bradblog, I early voted in North Fulton County, GA - the "Vanilla Side of Town." I talked about the machines to people around me while we waited 3 1/2 hours [from 6:20p.m. for me] to cast our votes. I was amazed to find they were fairly savvy on the topic and 100% of them want to TRASH the MACHINES.

We will have to push it to the top of the agenda when the old guard gets booted out. If they manage to steal it again ... well ... it will be the end of democracy and the final melt-down of what's left of our country.

I'm jumping out of my skin 24/7.

Everyone concerned about this issue ought to follow the example set by New Mexico voting activists who got the state to adopt paper ballots. Yes, optical scanners used to read paper ballots can still pose threats, paper ballots are not fool proof, but I feel a heckuva lot better knowing I voted on a paper ballot and there is a paper trail.

As usual, a well-laid-out, crystal clear analysis by Brad.

As usual, the Dems do not want to use logic and reason and evidence to see what's going on.

“It’s never helpful if the environment is filled with hyperbole about false claims. Voters don’t want to hear it,”

---sez Bauer.

Sorry, no. It isn't the voters who don't want to hear it. It's people like Bauer.

OK --- I think I get it now. The Dems can't leave their abuser. They are afraid they will be destroyed if they try to leave --- i.e. if they speak out against Grand Theft Election they fear they will be eliminated from the political spectrum in a very humiliating, painful way. So, they deny the abuse is happening at all, because the stark reality would be too overwhelming to deal with, and dangerous if they were to go public with it.

Some Dems have been co-opted by the abusers, and spend their time attempting to ridicule and silence those who would fight and speak out against the abuse.

How do we fight the perpetrators and not blame the victim?

As long as elections can be rigged and the likes of Karl Rove might otherwise end up in prison for their crimes, a John McCain "win" is a real possibility.

So the obvious truth is out now. We're pretty much on our own as far as the machines are concerned. Unless a complete meltdown occurs, and some "maverick" SOS and Attorney General call for an investigation; a REAL investigation, there's just "We The People" and our cameras and post-election statistical deviations from what we know to be fairly accurate poll numbers.

Of course, should "We The People" actually expose something so heinous and incriminating that even the "mainstream" media must acknowledge it, Mr. Bauer will be right there to take credit and hog the spotlight. It's a pretend fight with thousands of pretend lawyers - great...

John Dean doesn't get Voting Machine Election Fraud either. In his most recent article he says:

If Obama is rejected on November 4th for another authoritarian conservative like McCain, I must ask if Americans are sufficiently intelligent to competently govern themselves. I can understand authoritarian conservatives voting for McCain, for they know no better. It is well-understood that most everyone votes with his or her heart, not his or her head. Polls show that 81 percent of Americans "feel" (in their hearts and their heads) that our country is going the wrong way. How could anyone with such thoughts and feelings vote for more authoritarian conservatism, which has done so much to take the nation in the wrong direction?

The truth is that Gore won, John Kerry won and Obama should win by a huge margin. Election theft is to blame.

The controlled corporate media is largely responsible here for putting a black-out on the news ... book publishers refused to publish books on the subject ... major TV channels refused to talk about it ... & so on.

Since 9/11, Congress has been living in a lock-down in DC ... all TVs tuned to FOX news [whitehouse propaganda] channel ONLY.

The brainwashing has certainly taken its toll.

Forgot to add the link to John Dean's EXCELLENT article:

The Evidence Establishes, without Question, that Republican Rule Is Dangerous: Why It Is High Time to Fix This Situation, For the Good of the Nation

I phoned into Thom Hartmann's show in 2006 just prior to the mid-term elections and asked Bernie Sanders why doesn't someone from Congress introduce a bill that makes it illegal for a private entity to own and operate voting machines or systems. Bernie replied, the caller makes a good point, we need paper ballots.

That is not what I was looking for and I agree with Brad that it is inexcusable for this situation to exist as it does now. Even if the Dems win big, we don't know how big and whether it would give us the 60 Senators we need for a filibuster proof majority. What's wrong with the Dem leadership on this. I just don't understand. We are looking more and more like a bananna republic.

To the Dems In Denial:

Losing elections is not your fault.

But it is your problem.

Is the word about 866-OUR-VOTE Reaching the Most Vulnerable Voters?

http://urteveblog.wordpress.com

We believe that “Election Protection” is best equipped to prevent a calamity by linking legal experts with voters who are having trouble voting before and on election day. However, after communicating with the publicity operations of “Election Protection” we sensed a missing link in their national campaign.

What we learned:

* The “Election Protection” was rightly directed to those who are most vulnerable to being discouraged from going to the polls, or prevented from voting at the polling stations: they are the elderly, minorities and the under-informed…
* The campaign launched later than optimal.
* The campaign was not reaching local television and radio broadcast markets, and there was no indication that it would.

What we did:

* Produced 8 video clips and audio clips with “real” people talking about what would they do if they had trouble voting on election day (with both English and Spanish content). We gave the videos the look and feel of content that local channels might produce themselves.
* In the last two days of October, we called every broadcast producer at the news desks of local TV and radio stations in the battleground states to ask if they had heard about the Election Protection or 866-OUR-VOTE initiative.

What we found:

* Almost no one knew about 866-OUR-VOTE or Election Protection. Only 1 in 10 producers had heard of Election Protection or 866-OUR-VOTE.
* But 8 out of 10 producers either looked at our video or audio clips on the spot and/or confirmed that they were in need of content that differentiated themselves from what is coming over the nationally syndicated feeds. They also reported that the content coming over nationally syndicated feeds was stale content by mid day. Some of them pointed out that their audience was not predominantly those who read NYT, WSJ or tuned into NPR and that ad campaigns targeted to those individuals would miss their markets.
* When shown how easy it was to download broadcast quality clips, we got comments like: great, cool, interesting, we’ll use this on election day, thanks, etc…

Our job is not quite done, but feel free to contact us if you would like to learn how you can help with this effort!

There is no suppression. There is only people trying to ensure a fair election. I think every Republican would welcome a fair and honest election cycle. Somehow I don't believe the Democrats really want that. Identification is the first step to ensuring fair elections. One man, one vote. Without that, all other complaints are moot. Even my kids soccer league verifies the ages and identities of the kids. Until you recognize voter id requirements as a cornerstone of any election process, I will refuse to listen to any other complaints. These complaints are just disengenous and being made by dishonest people with political agendas.

The clouds of Mordor. The forces of light. Strange, bewildering, exciting times.

... TomT said...

"There is no suppression."

Fail.

There is NO WAY the Dems don't know e-vote machines aren't being hacked on a large scale. What does that tell you about the Dems?

Either they think they can hack them, too, which is bad for all voters...OR...they're in on some charade to make us think there's really two opposing parties; IE: elections are just a dog and pony show to make us think there's a real choice. That's all I can think of!

Republican operatives hacking elections isn't what's unbelievable to me, the Dems silence on it is what's unbelievable to me!

I happen to agree with the core strategy being used by the Dems right now, which is to overrun the problem with heavy new voter registrations, an awesome ground game to mobilize the vote, and a positive approach. They are on the offense, not the defense.

The Hursti Hack would have been defeated by overrunning it with more voters. Do the math.

Now, AFTER the election we'll learn two things:

1) Whether anyone tries to get away with an exceptionally dangerous strategy, to tamper against a landslide

and

2) Whether we can finally focus the public on the core issue, which is secrecy and removal of public right to know and public controls.

But that really is for after Tuesday.

Just my take.

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting

Hackers,

You guys really don't have a clue what you are talking about. It is so clear when you read these comments. You have these ideas and principals that are so far fetched and unrealistic.

We live in a digital world like it or not. You just can't change that. Atm's, Banking, satelites, GPS, Cell Phones, Telephones, cable tv. etc etc. Computers have made all these things possible but with voting its not exceptable? The way in which it is done can always be improved. Some of these comments are almost pure studity with concerns on computer Hacking. Sorry don't take it personal, but you really don't know what your talking about. College's don't know what they are talking about. They work inside a box.

Hacking is very traceable if you know what you are looking for. Digital footprints. A validation check of equipment and software prior to implimentation and a closed computer system is not vulnerable to attack. Encryption or whatever or however in its many forms isn't an easy thing to overcome. However one thing you do learn in life is anything is possible.

One thing I can tell you is Hacking is a time consuming process and doesn't happen as often as most think. As people we all seem to think the worst when something goes wrong.

THAT'S IT, THEN. THE DEMOCRATS ARE IN ON THE PLAN. THE WHOLE THING IS A BIG ACT. THE NORTH AMERICAN UNION--THE NEW WORLD ORDER--IT CANNOT BE STOPPED. WE HAVE BEEN HAD, AGAIN.

AND ALL I CAN SAY IS: PATRIOTS! TO THE STREETS!

Hacking is very traceable if you know what you are looking for.

"Sorry don't take it personal, but you really don't know what your talking about. College's don't know what they are talking about. They work inside a box."

"Hacking is very traceable if you know what you are looking for."

"Encryption or whatever or however in its many forms isn't an easy thing to overcome."

Fail.

Sorry, but stacking up any number of statements that have already been proved false will not advance you to the coveted tag of "Epic fail."

You must do more original work to in order to achieve your lofty goal.

security code DA73A... is that the K'tinga class with the optional sunroof?

Sorry... comment #19 should have been prefaced with:
... Joe said on 11/2/2008 @ 9:42 pm PT...

... as it was referencing Joe's handwaving in comment #16. In fact I got so bored listening to Joe's lack of cerebration that I had a brainfart and hit 'submit'...

Wow, speaking of "not having a clue what you're talking about" Joe @ 16 said:

Hacking is very traceable if you know what you are looking for.

But not if you're not allowed to trace it, as is the case with the proprietary systems used in our elections. First time you've ever dealt with this topic, Joe?

Digital footprints. A validation check of equipment and software prior to implimentation and a closed computer system is not vulnerable to attack.

Yup. First time to the topic, clearly. That's okay, Joe. Welcome. Plumber by any chance?

Encryption or whatever or however in its many forms isn't an easy thing to overcome.

Got about 6000 or so pages here at this site, in case you want to catch up with us, Joe. You might wanna consider that before showing up and looking foolish.

Nice!

Thanks as a programmer of sorts, and yes have done some plumming, I do believe in my statements. Make fun of me. Really don't care. If you don't have access than you can't get IN! Its a pretty dah topic. It sounds like you will never be happy until you look in the fish tank.

First time here and not only do i get beat up but insulted to. Been programming for 15 years and plumming for 20. Thank you but no thanks keep your insulant page.

Now excuse me my pipes need some work.

Very interesting information. Unfortunately I live in Kentucky, where it is illegal to videotape your vote. During this year's primary, I'm fairly sure the optical scan machine I ostensibly "voted" on did not record my vote. The counter didn't move.

Two questions: First, is there something about the Harsti hack that makes it an optimal client-side hack for one of these machines? I'm just thinking about Ms. Harris' remark that flooding a precinct with substantially more voters would defeat the Harsti Hack. Could one not come up with a hack that is more robust in dealing with a greater number of variables?

Second, it has been mentioned that recalibrating these machines after they've been "voted" on is especially dangerous, that then is when they are most vulnerable to being hacked.

Why are they more vulnerable to being hacked at that point than they are to being hacked coming out of the factory at Diebold or Sequoia or wherever?

Joe the Programmer/Plumber's point touched on something that occurred to me a while ago: if you're, say, the owner of one of these voting machines and also the head of George Bush's reelection campaign, and you want to rig the election using your machines, would it not be more fail-safe to pre-load the machine that gets wheeled into the precinct of a Democratic voter, like myself, with a script that would simply toss or flip my ballot when it gets put through, rather than having a local poll worker/elections official load a script after the machine has correctly tabulated my Democratic vote?

Joe the programmer:

Hacking is not required. These machines feature a manual entry screen. It's a menu item. And as for the hacking, we taught a chimp to hack the Diebold system, so you overestimate the quality of the system. As in "unprotected MS Access database that can be opened and edited without a password." Oh, and if you DO use a password? We tried one of the systems in Florida and discovered the password was "diebold"

For other comments yes, there are all kinds of hacks that can't be overrun with numbers, though preloading with negative and positive votes can be. But when you have a very pronounced landslide going on, a point is reached where the tampering becomes implausible unless you can find some way to explain it that the public will buy.

sorry, Joe, but you do seem very uninformed. i couldn't believe this stuff either when i started looking into it after the 2006 elections. after a year of researching the bradblog topics for myself & finding the info here to be spot on, i was moved to take action. feeling as though i have only discovered the tip of the iceberg, i still feel strongly about fighting for the integrity of our nations elections. i help work the polls on voting days (& i'm still the youngest election judge i know of in my county!).

my question to you would be didn't you feel the least bit suspicious about the last 2 presidential elections?

my surprise at being the "youngest" is that i'm 46- not that young...

Bev Harris #15 - I agree with your comment.

I just donated to the Obama campaign and had an opportunity to comment ... I suggested strongly that after he wins he should sit down with Voting Integrity/Protection Activists who would be able to show him some overwhelming evidence about the blackbox voting machines.

Well in that case I wouldn't say a dismissal of voting systems is not what your after. But better programming and security. There are many ways to protect your systems just as you would any system. Just because they are electronic doesn't make them any less secure. Actually creates more possible solutions for security.

NSA and NASA use computers for everything and have developed means to stop intrusion. But first they learned from prior intrusions and worked on eleviating access points. The staff is your first line of defense. If they don't know whats going on then? What can I say?

If we are having these issues shouldn't we be going after secret groups that have been placing people in key positions of office. Of course the means in which this happens is important also. But the underlining problem still will exist and when there is a will there is a way, no matter the system put in place. Kind of an endless cause.

I would like to see the end of political parties and vote on people to lead people not political groups.

I see it like this: The most powerfull groups in the world.
1). Catholic Church
2). Republican Party
3). Democratic Party

Thank You
and Good Night

John Kerry broke the spirit of Americans who worked so hard and donated so much money and time. In a couple of days we're going to know if the Democratic party stands for anything at all.

Please don't let us down this time. I'm begging you!

What can I say but THIS JUST SUCKS.

... Joe said on 11/3/2008 @ 1:05 am PT...

"Well in that case I wouldn't say a dismissal of voting systems is not what your after. But better programming and security."

Then it would seem you've not taken the chance afforded by the intervals between your posts to do any actual research here... haven't you?

If this is not so... then please state what the fatal flaw in e-voting is, and how you would plan to get around it.

From their we can discuss the blind paradox in voting.

Then we can move on and explore why "the staff" actually happens to be the greatest source of threats in e-voting.

Then, much later on, we can discuss encryption and the zapkitty corollary to the Felten hypothesis.

I've been wondering aloud here for months, why the Dem's haven't said ONE WORD about these devious evil diebold deniers of democracy. Even Howard the howler Dean TOTALLY silent, after being given a personal showing! NOTHING from ANYONE!!! NOTHING!!! Now Bev Harris agrees with them!!! Sorry Bev, you've gotten my last donation.

They are in on it, they helped write the legislation, they will save their own sorry lying asses in primaries and such, and meanwhile enable the republocrats to destroy the world in the name of evil.

Thanks again Brad, love ya, yer the best.

Joe the plummer newcomers should read more from Brad before making such presumptuous comments. These things were designed to be hacked and leave no trace, joey.

Election Protection reports 80,000 reports of voter problems ALREADY called into 1-866-OUR-VOTE!

Not to do a dogpile on Joe #16, but I have to add my obligatory notes on electronic hardware.

At the doping level, backdoor logic can be built into chips. Even the USAF is worried about that in their PARTS SUPPLY. It's been done, the back-doors' work. but as far as electronic tabulation devices is will never be checked.

Not to forget, the public is not going to be allowed to probe an electronic vote tabulation device with a logic probe, logic analyzer, Oscope, Meter, etc., in the middle of an election, and even still what's read on such probes and devices might not be what the actual count is.

Furthermore, if there is a backdoor at the doping level, the only way your going to find it is, by pure chance, (say someone's transmitter signal enables hidden logic inside of a chip being monitored 24/7) when or with a destructive reverse engineering of each part. Meaning, the device would be destroyed in the process.

Sadly, When I go vote, I won't see technicians monitoring the whole spectrum for anomalous signals at some unknown frequency, they won't be monitoring the power supply (Hell we just had three brown outs yesterday and the day before out here in South Sacramento) for changes in frequency or interruptions in power, they won't have logic analyzers connected, they won't have meters spread out.

Finally, lets not forget about the missing eeproms awhile back while being shipped via UPS.

Electronics do have a place in this world, but electronic tabulation devices isn't such a place unless your trying to steal elections.

Every election judge that say's, "we can't handle counting by hand on paper ballots" or, "we must have new machines" , or "this will never happen" , should not only be fired, but should never work, contract, or touch anything to do with elections ever again. Can you tell I've had a bad time ™ with election judges in the internet?

And all you linux programmers (down at openvotingconsortium.org), you might be smarter than me, you might mean well, and you might actually be able to make a box that actually counts, but you can not guarantee the hardware wasn't tampered with, which is the whole point you miss in the first place.

Furthermore, you still can't provide a way for the public to provide oversight of an invisible electronic signal. Perhaps you've spent too much time programming and forgot your common sense physics? --- I'll leave that as a rhetorical question, not to accuse anyone of anything.

I only wish there were more people that would spread this message about hardware, and electronic signals. The death of these electronic vote tabulation machines could be final, without having to get the fascist media involved (Which is a whole other problem in it's own right.)

Really the only electronic vote tabulation devices would work is by giving up either the voter's transparency, or by blind faith. And that transparency was there for a reason. Sure NASA might be able to let astronauts vote, but they either gave up transparency or they voted on blind faith.

Paper Ballots hand counted with public oversight do not have the same kind of problems that electronic signals have. An electronic signal doesn't care if there's a lock on a sheet metal enclosure. So while you might be able to pick that lock anywhere from 2 seconds to 20 minutes, the electronic signal can be in and out at 3e8.

Where 3e8 = The Speed of light.

#34
"but as far as electronic tabulation devices is will never be checked. "

should be

"but as far as electronic tabulation devices it will never be checked."

#35
"Really the only electronic vote tabulation devices would work is by giving up either the voter's transparency, or by blind faith."

should be

"Really the only way electronic vote tabulation devices would work is by giving up either the voter's transparency, or by blind faith."

Looks like I'll most likely not be returning Stateside in the foreseeable future. Too bad. But you're all welcome to join me in the heart of Europe, even Joe the Bummer...

In comment #11, TomT says: There is no suppression. There is only people trying to ensure a fair election. I think every Republican would welcome a fair and honest election cycle. Somehow I don't believe the Democrats really want that. Identification is the first step to ensuring fair elections. One man, one vote. Without that, all other complaints are moot. Even my kids soccer league verifies the ages and identities of the kids. Until you recognize voter id requirements as a cornerstone of any election process, I will refuse to listen to any other complaints. These complaints are just disengenous and being made by dishonest people with political agendas.

Well Tom, you seem to associate vote suppression with only the requiring of an ID to be shown on election day. You must not have done much reading on this site, since most of the talk about vote suppression is concerned with far more serious methods, like intentional misallocation of voting machines and elections personnel, among many others.

Would somebody explain what "recalibration" refers to in the context of the touch-screen machines?

I can't recall the last time that an ATM touch-screen was shut down for "recalibration". I've never personally had the experience of the machine depositing a check when I was trying to withdraw money. The mouse on my computer keeps going to the right spot on the screen. The touchpad on my laptop acts the same way every day.

I've written enough GUI apps and image processing code in C that I might be able to understand a technical answer, and by thi time, hearing one would be a relief.

Because the alternative that occurs to me is that people are just plain covering up for malfeasance.

I attended a panel at the LA Times Book Festival last May featuring John Powers, John Dean, Michael Gerson, and Nancy Snow. During the question period I stepped up to the microphone and expressed the frustration I feel every time I hear talking heads in the media and so called liberals/progressives refer to the elections we have “lost” since 2000 instead of saying “allegedly lost” and pointing out the overwhelming evidence the elections were stolen. I said the Republicans will create some false reason to doubt the outcome and steal the next election if the Democrats continue to refuse to educate the public and expose the Republican crimes. Even though my remarks were supported by the applause in the room, John Dean did not take my allegations seriously at all…He was quite dismissive as I recall..

It’s sad to say… but I think Obama may be allowed to win in exchange for maintaining the status quo. The same dark forces will remain in the background pulling the strings and the religious right will be put back in their box. No impeachment, no accountability, no new election laws, and no independent, science based 9/11 investigation.

BTW: I highly recommend seeing THE CHANGLING. I found the parallels to current events chilling. Corrupt authorities, abuse of power, truth tellers and victims labeled crazy and arrested, torture, manipulation of the media, black is white, white is black….It’s all there.

Behindthefall ~ Ditto Ditto Ditto

Thanks for the responses, but it seems that none of us know for sure what it means to "recalibrate a touchscreen".

War story. I used to make various devices which I used to take tens of thousands of measurements off photographs. They'd be interfaced to (does this ever date me!) Apple //e computers through various cards I'd buy from non-Apple companies. Sometimes you'd press a little switch. Sometimes you'd type a number on a keypad. You'd glance at the monitor and make sure that the input made sense.

Nothing got lost. Every datum was written to floppy after the user pressed the switch. I mean, for pity's sake, I'm not an engineer, and this stuff wasn't rocket science. It never froze. It never broke down. We never lost data, not after I learned my lesson about flushing buffers after every input thanks to a lightning strike.

If I could do this, then anybody with a pure heart can. Failure is evidence of something worse than incompetence --- it is evidence of bad intent.

Brad, Bev & Joe,
B & B..God knows, I'm a Sarah Palin compared to you guys knowledge-wise...and Brad, I love & respect you more than I can say, BUT!

I'm gonna apologize to you, Joe, for what you took as insulting from Brad in his comment #21 (since your intentions may be good).
Can ya please forgive him? Consider: if YOU'D been tramping all over the country for years & years showing folks a truckload of evidence-of-a-crime and the response you got time after time after time was: "WHAT truck?"...maybe YOUR sheen of patient politeness might show a smudge, too.

Brad's been one of the many Davids to this Goliath of blind denial from Congress & the media since he began this blog in--what was it? 2001?--and has shown himself to be a scrupulously fair, honest & dedicated researcher & journalist. His main focus has been our electoral system. Honestly, he knows a bit about it.

I hope you take the time to peruse the content here. It's copious, but once you've done so, maybe you'll join us in the much-needed fight for fair, transparent, accurate elections. You sound like a guy who could contribute a lot to it.
~Joan

*MODS* Waaah. It ate my comment.

behindthefall #39,

The best I could explain RECALIBRATION is that it's similar to "Image Slicing" e.g. you pick your screen coordinates x,y and give them values. If the values are not correct, then the image the user looks at is not centered for activation.

I too have written some GUI apps. But I know nothing about electronic voting machines, or specifically DRE's.

While my programming may be weak, I do know electronics.

Bitching about Recalibration is simply an excuse to access the hardware / software of the machine.

Once that happens, to use a pun, "it's game over."

QUICKIE MESSAGE TO CORPORATE MEDIA.

If you wasted your time reading this thread, why not quit laughing about it and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!?

okay.. call me crazy, call me drunk, but don't call me wrong.

Brad, After reading all the information about vote flipping and the theft of the 2008 election, I have decided not to vote. Why should I, at the age of 67, stand in line for hours and hours, only to have my vote NOT COUNT? For most of my life, I was a political activist, but there is no way to fight the Republican Party and their sneaky ways. I give up!

If you don't have access than you can't get IN! Its a pretty dah topic. It sounds like you will never be happy until you look in the fish tank.

Only problem with that is they have COMPLETE ACCESS, eveon on election day. Beyonfd that, they are doing the tabulating and transmmitting of the data. It's like saying I don't have access to my own computer.

A waste of time responding to some phony trying to cloud this issue.

I've been thinkin that this "recalibration" is really a reset / supervisory override ... like in the auto check out line in the supermarket when something screws up the attendant comes over swipes a card and deletes or corrects the price of an item...

"Joe The Hack Plumber"? (not to be personally disparaging, but...)

There's a joke in there somewhere-

Joe, I think you mean well but listen very carefully to Brad and Bev, as they know more about election/ e-voting issues than any other person on this planet.

As for your apparent faith in technology, well, take the challenge and offer up some proof that ONE electronic vote has EVER been recorded accurately, in ANY election.

Give up? That's the the problem in a nutshell, and that's enough for me to know that in this case, the old-fashioned way is vastly more practical, more reliable, and the only way to ensure a fair election.

Remember how the "Segway" was supposed to change the planet or whatever? Well, people still walk, because technology is NOT always the answer.

It's startling how someone who seems to be quite bright has such a huge logical vulnerability. I've thought about this a lot lately and I think their reluctance/inability to grasp what's really happening is due to their fear to be labelled as " a consipiracy theorist". Or maybe it's even worse than that. Maybe they are so naive that they just don't see how easy it is to subvert the vote. It's not hard to do. And there's plenty of evidence that 2000 and 2004 were stolen.

Chandidevi ~ from what I hear folks are waiting in line that leave are coaxed to stay by the support of others ... This is the most important election in our lifetime.

Brad's work is being recognized in many place these days ...
I.E
TUE 11/4, 3:00pm - Midnight PT (6:00pm-3:00am ET): Anchoring "Special Election Night Coverage" on the NovaM Radio Network, with Mike Malloy, Randi Rhodes, Peter B. Collins, the rest of the NovaM family & experts in studio and around the country. Covering both the Horse Race and the Track Conditions like no one else!
etc.

I think that more and more people are saavy about the problems with voting machines. Unfortunately, it seems that everybody who swings any weight in the Democratic Party is totally unsaavy, and worse, has drunk gallons of the Koolaide that says that it's better for the Democratic Party to bury its head in the sand than it is to actually begin to address the real problems. Already it seems obious that, should McCain somehow pull off a miracle victory tomorrow, the Dems will simply surrender. As they've shown again and again over the past decade, they have no stomach for a tough fight. None at all.

Instead of dealing with anything, they fetishize false solutions, such as the supposed armies of lawyers. Where the hell were these lawyers in Ohio in 2004? Or early voting - that's supposed to be the panacea. Daily Kos refers to early votes as 'votes in the bank'. The sheer, seemingly willful ignorance, is simply astounding. Did you know, Brad, that you are apparently considered an unacceptable source at Daily Kos, a "conspiracy theorist" , not good enough for the "reality based" Surrendercrats?

I mention Daily Kos because to visit Daily Kos is to realize, in my opinion, that the Dems really are literally willfully ignorant. At Dk, one of the key Dem online sites, discussion of Stolen Elections or election problems other than suppression is pretty much forbidden. There is simply an active unwillingness to take these issues seriously, and also a determination to validate only those who dismiss them. It's an article of faith, for example, that exit polls don't matter.

And that's the really scary part. The Democrats, be they establishment types like Obama, or supposed activists, like the Daily Kos folks, are absolutely, totally, determinedly willing and eager to have no, zero, nada, zip check on the validity of elections. It doesn't matter how big a lead Obama has in the polls going into the elections (polls that themselves are controlled by a small number of companies); the Dems will accept whatever the election day 'results' are, angrily refusing to even consider any possibility that any elections are ever stolen.

So we can never know. There are no checks and balances in elections. Election cycle after election cycle, we just take it on faith.

There has to be a strong third party movement. No matter how the election turns out Tuesday, the Dems simply cannot be trusted any more than the GOP can be trusted. A third party that is willing to stand and fight for progressive principles (such as real, verifiable elections) is the only way to go. To me, this is the final straw. When neither 'major' party is willing to address an issue as basic as election fairness and credibility, they no longer should be considered viable parties.

Should I stop trying to post comments? They seem to go down a black hole. I've read the rules and think I'm adhering to them.

[ed note: Go back and look to make sure they didn't show up. It could be the server having a hard time with so much traffic. A few other people got their comments dropped too, sorry. --99]

Recalibrating a machine is really quite a simple thing and has nothing to altering the precious source code. Let's say a touchscreen goes down, you need to bring in a new one to replace it. That new one must match up to the ballots in that particular district/precinct and also must jive with the HATT at the end of the night. Each polling place has it's own codes to match up...you cannot just "borrow" one.
You can use the the memory stick in the old one, toss the baby in and use some coding for the touchscreen to display the correct ballots. Which actually is the best way, since that stick will still be holding all the previous votes on the other touchscreen. Or some may already be set-up for that polling place, inwhich the Judge would offically shut down that touchscreen (once you close the poll you cannot restart it) and remove that memory stick, label it and use it also at the end of the night.
This type of procedure is not a function of any pollworker. They are not privy to any under coding that the technicians use. And through recalibrating, one NEVER actually opens any given machine. It is not necessary.
This also works visa versa...let's say you go to open your polls and find the HATT is malfunctioning and will not work. (Yes, they been known to be sent out without being reprogrammed from a training session) You can take the memory stick from the touch screen, insert it into the USB port and then with some fancier coding recalibrate the HATT to match that district/precinct ballots and also accept the memory sticks and memory box and the end of the night.
So, from my point of view (which is a darn good one), when you hear "recalibrating" it is only a procedure used for having the correct ballots to display and the correct coding for that polling place so all hell doesn't break lose at the end of the night when you go to consolidate the votes.
Just my thoughts...take it or leave it.

... Faye Warren said...

"Recalibrating a machine is really quite a simple thing and has nothing to altering the precious source code."

Except for allowing the possibility of the binary generated from the "precious source code" to be seamlessly overriden and then having the override tracelessly removing itself after the fact, you mean?

So, using your explanation, why are machines becoming "uncalibrated" in the middle of a vote and having to be "recalibrated" again and again when it's the same machine using the same ballot definition software all day long?

And how would your explanation change the fact that plugging into the ports of an active machine during an election opens a serious security vulnerability in that machine... and in every other machine that machine is connected to either directly or indirectly?

Just curious...

Faye Warren - are you on the Board of Elections somewhere?

Brad.. Can you get Clint Curtis to contact Bob Baur to let him know that this is no joke. I'm beginning to think he is a Rove plant. Why else would McCain think he is winning the election. Not through votes that's for sure. There are many people out there that know the republicans have been stealing elections for years using any and all the dirty tricks they can think of. We will not stand for another stolen election. I can't believe Obama, being a constitutional lawyer, would accept it either. God be with us tomorrow.

from the huffingtonpost:
"UPDATE - 5:30 PM ET on November 3
New national polls this afternoon:

*WashPost/ABC News: Obama 53, McCain 44
* Fox News: Obama 50, McCain 43
* CBS News: Obama 51, McCain 42"

So, to paraphrase David Sedaris...
50+% of us will take the filet mignon, 40+% prefer the shit with shards of glass.

May fleets of angels surround you, Barack!

Did you ever think that maybe they aren't running around yelling about this stuff for a reason??? It's part of their strategy. They can't make a big fuss aloud before tomorroww because then the GOP would know what they were up to. Honestly you people are so quick to turn your backs on people like Bev Harris. Do you honestly think Bev Harris is suddenly not caring about this issue? If it bothers you go to Obamas site and sign up to help with voter protection. They need more poll watchers and I'm guessing a lot of you commenters aren't poll watchers.

COMMENT #47 Chandidevi wrote:

"Brad, After reading all the information about vote flipping and the theft of the 2008 election, I have decided not to vote. Why should I, at the age of 67, stand in line for hours and hours, only to have my vote NOT COUNT? For most of my life, I was a political activist, but there is no way to fight the Republican Party and their sneaky ways. I give up!"

I don't blame you in the least, but it is NOT just the Repugs. I have a relative (she's 91) who told me that she and her son are not voting either. As she said, "why bother?...nothing is going to change regardless."

The Dems are accomplices to this charade/sham which is why they continue to live in Denial. Anyone who thinks that their lord and saviour Obama is going to deal with this issue should he be selected by these corrupt and fraudulent voting machines (which belong in the trash) tomorrow (or thereafter) is simply deluding themselves and living in Denial as well with their false hope and wishful-thinking. If Obama had any legitimate passing interest in this topic, his attorney would not be dismissing it as 'Hyperbole'

The gullible sheep deserve the government they get.

Bev (#15) wrote:

The Hursti Hack would have been defeated by overrunning it with more voters. Do the math.

Bev, wouldn't computer programmers have grown much more sophisticated since the Hursti Hack? Also, if you "re-calibrate" voting equipment in the middle of the election, couldn't you introduce some serious vote-flipping code at that point? And with all the different points of entry for adjusting the vote there will be lots of opportunities, and few who will bother to look at discrepancies. How's it going in Pima, AZ? Has anyone gotten a look at those ballots yet?

Now, AFTER the election we'll learn two things:

1) Whether anyone tries to get away with an exceptionally dangerous strategy, to tamper against a landslide...

I don't think it's that dangerous. Already even the dems are saying stuff like, "If McCain wins the election, then all the pollsters will have egg on their face," and "exit polls are suspect anyway --- you can't trust them."

The public is being primed for another stolen election and it won't be that hard to convince people that, once again, the polls were wrong.

Also, I have little doubt that all the myriad tricks from 2004 and then some are being rolled out again in an updated version. We already have a democratic election chair in Philadelphia poo-pooing the idea that long lines might affect the vote.

I think it's great to register as many people as possible and get out the vote. But the utter denial of election fraud insults my intelligence and makes me question why I'm supporting them. In fact I tell any Democrat who calls me that unless they stand up for the rights of voters I will have nothing to do with them. I'm angry, like Brad, and I think they are making a mistake to pretend it doesn't exist. I hope like hell their strategy works. But Rove et. al. have their strategy in place, you can be sure. Whether the numbers are enough to counter them, I don't know. I will hope and pray it is the case.

2) Whether we can finally focus the public on the core issue, which is secrecy and removal of public right to know and public controls.

But that really is for after Tuesday.

Yes, that is the core issue. I see no reason to have kept it in the background before Tuesday. But now, yeah. Let's hope that some candidates are in a position to do something after Tuesday and not grow complacent because, hopefully, they will have won.

"Did you ever think that maybe they aren't running around yelling about this stuff for a reason???"

What reason?

"It's part of their strategy."

What strategy?

"They can't make a big fuss aloud before tomorroww because then the GOP would know what they were up to."

What are they up to?

I mean, besides already allowing for thousands of voters to be overtly disenfranchised and apparently paving the way for hundreds of thousands more to be overtly and covertly disenfranchised tomorrow?

And what does Bev Harris know that we don't?

And lastly...
"They need more poll watchers and I'm guessing a lot of you commenters aren't poll watchers."

Wow... a combination backhand slam, cheap evasion, and public service announcement
Still doesn't answer Brad's questions though...

COMMENT #60 Lauren wrote:

"Did you ever think that maybe they aren't running around yelling about this stuff for a reason??? It's part of their strategy. They can't make a big fuss aloud before tomorroww because then the GOP would know what they were up to."

Yeah right!

The Bush-enabling Dems have a strategy? When since 2000 have they demonstrated ANY strategy?

You comment reminds me of what Dem kool-aid drinkers were saying before the 2006 "election" when Bush-accomplice Pelosi had said "impeachment is off the table."

The Dem kool-aid drinkers said:

Pelosi is not serious. She's just saying that to fool the Repugs and play the game. She can't let the Repugs on to what she plans to do after the Dems take the majority in congress.

Today: As we see, the Dem kool-aid drinkers were full of shit. They were once again living in their wishful-thinking and Denial. Pelosi was absolutely serious when she said repeatedly that "impeachment is off the table." She wasn't trying to fool the Repugs or deceive the Repugs. There was NO strategy. Because she is a Repug charading as a Dem.

That example came to mind after reading your comment.

And now we have the ability to get rid of that Bush-enabling piece of work Pelosi but I don't think that's going to happen due to D party-line programming in most voters who can vote in district 8.

But just in case, those who live in district 8 (which is most of San Francisco), please vote for Cindy Sheehan to replace the Bush-enabling Traitor of the House Pelosi.

vote counting troubles r getting more and more time in the msm

in last few days i have seen howard dean say diebold machines should be outlawed,
moyer say,votes r being flipped,if u vote on a evm u vote at ur own risk!
rachel maddow made good point,u can worry ovr if votes r being counted or if justice department is illegally enfluencing elections (all things to be concerned with)
BUT we know they r making peops wait 10 hours in georgia? unrealllllllll
we see it on tv and no one is in power to fix it?rachel was right ,it is a modern day pole tax

for those that say voting doesnt matter if they can steal it with the machines,the more votes they have to flip ,the better chance of a huge mathmatical tag that cant be ignored

obama needs ur vote

i saw clarence page on pbs,when asked how the election will end,he said,in court and scalia will win...so dont think the dems dont know what they r up against

bev is right,the dems ovr running them with votes is the right thing to do at this stage
(do u suppose they ever dreamed they would have to worry ovr montana?)lol

COMMENT #65 karen from illinois wrote:

"for those that say voting doesnt matter if they can steal it with the machines,the more votes they have to flip ,the better chance of a huge mathmatical tag that cant be ignored"

Really? I hate to tell you this but it is as easy to change votes as it is to change numbers on a calculator. Nobody sees it. Nobody knows it's being done. These are non-verifiable voting machines. Most often they flip FOR the Repugs. We sure don't hear the Repugs screaming about votes flipping over to the Dems now do we? And you notice that the Dems are silent on this, as usual?

It doesn't matter who votes, or how many people vote or how they vote. The results will be what we are told they are by the corporate media and the results will most likely have no basis in reality whatsoever. But we will never know, will we? And who helped bring the damnable machines to begin with? The Bush-accomplice Dems.

You wrote:

"obama needs ur vote"

No, Nader/Gonzalez NEEDS your vote.
Nader/Gonzalez needs your vote because Nader is for single payer health care, getting us out of all these wars/occupations (Iraq, Afghanistan). He won't give bailouts to Wall Street like the Dems/Repugs did. He won't give us another Alito and Roberts like your Bush-enabling Dems did. He will probably get rid of FISA and the USAPATRIOT Act and Guantanamo and torture, whereas your lord and savior Obama will get rid of NONE of this. This is why Nader/Gonzalez need your vote.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Ralph_Nader.htm

Erma, Nader hasn't got any chance to win this year. None.

Too bad Nader isn't running a campaign that inspires hope and action. Obama is.

Yes, people, do go out and cast your vote this year because the landslide of unexpected votes in '06 is why we just barely got a Democratic majority in congress. Yes it should have been a lot larger, but Karl's "The Math" made an oops.

I'm looking forward to a new kind of leadership in DC. We'll be Dancin’ in the Street!!!

Kira,

I never said that Nader had any chance to "win" (or be selected by the voting machines rather) because I know that most people don't have the intelligence to vote for him.

You wrote:

"Too bad Nader isn't running a campaign that inspires hope and action. Obama is."

I don't base my vote for a candidate on something as flimsy as "hope." And I've already seen Obama's "action" by seeing his Bush-accomplice VOTING RECORD (most recently FISA and Bush's $850 BILLION Wall Street bailout give away to the rich). I see you didn't mention anything about Obama's Bush-enabling VOTING RECORD. Interesting.

An intelligent person bases their vote on a candidate's VOTING RECORD and/or the positions that a candidate takes. Not wishful-thinking "hope."

When you see runners on a track, do you urge the people in the back to slow down so that the so-called "front runner" can take the lead? That's basically what you're saying.

No, I'm campaigning for Nader/Gonzalez until tomorrow. And if Obama/Biden is so weak that they can't stand on their VOTING RECORD or be examined on their Bush-enabling VOTING RECORD, one cannot blame the Nader voters for it.

Also, Cindy Sheehan in the 8th district (San Francisco) to replace "impeachment is off the table" Bush-accomplice Pelosi.

Zapkitty...
A memory stick cannot change the binary codes.
If your computer freezes up, which is the better solution? Restart or reboot? My personal choice it rebooting.
No machine is connected to another throughout the voting day.
Where did I suggest connecting into the ports of an ACTIVE machine? I did not, reread my post, thank you.

Kira,
Board of Elections? No, I am not. Though I have worked as an offical investigator on quite a few elections on behalf of the Board of Elections of Cook County.
I was subcontracted for research and analysis by Mike Gibbons, Kwaidan Consulting Services, for about 1 1/2 years prior to his untimely death, ex-subcontractor for Sequoia Voting Systems. Part of that research had to do with investigative work into every offical tied into Sequoia.
IMO, electronic voting machines should be scrap metal.

... "Faye Warren" lied thusly on 11/3/2008 in comments #69 and #70...

"A memory stick cannot change the binary codes."

FAIL.

The PEB (personalized electronic ballot)
interface can be used to load viral software that not only overrides the binaries but can both spread to other machines and erase itself when its task is completed.
https://bradblog.com/?p=4396

And for someone attempting to pass themselves off as a supposed "expert" you're surprisingly ignorant of data that was first reported to the public in February of 2007.

http://avi-rubin.blogspo...s-ivotronic-used-in.html

"If your computer freezes up, which is the better solution? Restart or reboot? My personal choice it rebooting."

FAIL.

Irrelevant non-answer attempting to masquerade as "expert knowledge"

"No machine is connected to another throughout the voting day."

FAIL.

You yourself spoke of sharing PEBs between machines... and just like bio viruses any machine that has a PEB inserted is effectively hooked up to every machine that same PEB has been inserted into.

"Where did I suggest connecting into the ports of an ACTIVE machine? I did not,"

FAIL.

If the machine was in use before the PEB insertion... the supposed "recalibration"... and is put back into use after the "recalibration" then the machine is in active service. This was a very futile attempt at weasel-wording your way out of what was an unconscionable error for a pupported "expert".

and in comment #70 the hilarious tag"

"I was subcontracted for research and analysis by Mike Gibbons, Kwaidan Consulting Services"

LOL FAIL.

You mean the ghost "consulting firm" hired by Sequoia to whitewash their malfeasance?

https://bradblog.com/?p=5849

You're a gutsy evm shill, wading into here of all places with that story... but not a very bright one.

comment #47 about being a political activist but not voting because he just heard about the rigged machines is preposterous, an obvious fake. DailyKos is also preposterous. I'm sure like the church, there are a few good priests there, but it's rotten at the top. Kos worked for the CIA for 6 months. Plants are everywhere. To take back democracy we have to be aware of the large number of moles without getting paranoid or destroying our ability to work together.
Look up Operation Mockingbird, uncovered by congressional investigators in the '70's. Do some research into CIA control of the media and more. If you managed the Yankees, and could plant a fake onto the Red Sox, even plant their best player, who played great up until October every year, but then fell silent, WOULDN'T YOU DO IT? Fascism never died, it went underground and served up moles, rigged EVM's, double agents and plants and....fascism, best hastened by rigged elections at all levels. What Obama should do is dismantle the CIA. Then the whole world might have a chance at democracy.

Zapkitty,
Think whatever you believe you read, doesn't bother me in the least when you FAIL.
And yes, the machines suck.

Follow-up to Zapkitty:

I do respect your position on the subject, though do not reference me as a liar. It's rather a turn-off comment when my intentions are not meant to defend Sequoia in any way, shape or form. Just the opposite, my dear.

"You mean the ghost "consulting firm" hired by Sequoia to whitewash their malfeasance?"

I don't need to backtrack the link, I have all the originals right here in my files. Didn't anyone think it an odd move for Sequoia to "publically" hire, thus exposing, a man who had had been writing their programs across the country for years?

NJ has a big trial coming up with Sequoia, interesting again they have dead scape-ghost in place.

And just for the record, MGs mother was Japanese. As a child, she would tell him the stories of her country, passed down through the generations. He named his company in honor of her.

Jungs theory of synchronicity is an interesting read.

"Seeing is easy, understanding takes a bit longer"

Why isn't

Joe the plumber

actually

Joe the Soldier

??????????

Faye Warren - here are a couple of articles that refute your position regarding calibration:

Report: ES&S Voting Machines Can Be Maliciously Calibrated to Favor Specific Candidates

Touchscreen voting machines at the center of recent vote-flipping reports can be easily and maliciously recalibrated in the field to favor one candidate in a race, according to a report prepared by computer scientists for the state of Ohio.

..."If one candidate has a check box in one place and a different candidate has it in a different place, you can set it up so that if you press on one candidate it gets recorded for another candidate," said Matt Blaze, a computer scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who led one of three teams that co-wrote the report (.pdf) last year. "But if you press on the other candidate, it gets recorded correctly for that candidate. You can make it work perfectly normally in most of the screen, but have it behave the way you want in small parts of it."

...Blaze said the calibration function on the ES&S machine isn't password-protected, making it easy for a poll worker --- or even a voter --- to access the calibration menu in the middle of an election using a PEB device (Personalized Electronic Ballot), which election officials insert in a port on the face of the machine. A PEB might be stolen or purchased online, or an intruder can simulate a PEB by using a Palm Pilot or other handheld device with an infrared port.
With no more than a minute's access to a voting machine, someone could recalibrate the screen, and to observers the action would be indistinguishable from the normal behavior of a voter in front of a machine or of a poll worker starting up a machine in the morning, said Blaze, who discusses the issue on his blog. [more at link]

Vote Flipping and Touchscreens – Matt Blaze

Since Elections are such High Stakes events and gaming the machines or central tabulators can result in millions of stolen [flipped] votes opposed to the few that could be stolen via paper ballots - we are absolute morons if we accept this method for vote casting.

Kira,
Thanks for your input.
My knowledge is only of Sequoias machines. Which is password protected...on several levels.
I agree, ES&S is the bottom of the barrel with Premier (Diebold) running close beside.
IMO, it's easier to have the machines working properly, use a couple of sleezy poll workers and get votes entered that will come off looking legit.

I watched this happened in the hot run-off elections in Cook County last year.

So, here I am in Illinois, just outside of Cook County...I have 4 legitmate registration cards for voting sent to my home....I am the only resident. Do we have a problem here? How many times should I vote today?
Well, multiple that out, incredible.

It's not just screwed up machines, this whole system needs to be overhauled.

I heartily agree with you, Faye.

This year I received 4 Voter Information Guides even though I'm the only registered voter. I guess that's not exactly the same as registration cards, but still ... I was wondering the same thing. Why did I get 4 sent on the same day???

I'm thinking this year the mess is being reported throughout the media - unlike the years before where there was a nearly complete blackout on voting machine issues - so we need to start carrying petitions around our neighborhoods to get rid of the machines.

It's not just screwed up machines, this whole system needs to be overhauled. - I totally agree.

Kira,

Excellent...we're finally on the same page

This election should and will be the breaking ground of election reform.
I personally have no doubt that "O" will win this election. Yet as Brad reported earlier, we need to get the Democratic party on board with this issue. The article he posted is too damn accurate, they've let this issue slide as to not intimate their voting base.
Should be obvious that I am Liberal Republican. Yes, I know people believe there is no such thing. I did vote for "O" to be our state senator and a few others (like our gov that I got blinded by).
Election reform should be a priority issue no matter what party one may lean towards.

And this upcoming case with NJ vs Sequoia would be an excellent start. We, the people, cannot allow this case to go wayside with the media either like years before. After this election which will showing and finally reporting the insantiy of using these machines the next breaking ground is breaking the companies.

And then we need to address voter registration, NOW.

Will it happened? It's going to be quite interesting to find out....