We didn’t much report on these incidents back in 2004 because they seemed anectodal at the time and couldn’t be independently confirmed. After two years now of thousands of such reports from ’04 — almost always showing votes hopping to Republican candidates only — and still the Voting Machine Companies and Elections Officials saying “it never happened,” it seems appropriate to report a few of these incidencts as we hear of them before Election Day, during Early Voting, so folks can look into them.
Here are three different reports over the last day or two of touch-screen votes flipping from Democrats or Libertarians over to Republicans.
— In Texas…
— In Arkansas…
— In Missouri… (via Email. See below.)
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:38 PM
Subject: Vote Miscount in MO
[snip]
A friend of our family’s went last Friday to early vote in Maplewood at Sunnen Park. He voted for Claire McCaskill, but each time he, the election worker, and the election supervisor pressed the screen for Claire, the screen said he had voted for Jim Talent.
I sent this info along to a friend that works in Claire’s campaign. I have the name and number of the guy this happened to if you are interested.
[snip]
PLEASE BRING A VIDEO CAMERA WHEN YOU GO TO VOTE THIS YEAR SO THESE INCIDENTS CAN BE DOCUMENTED! Spread the word…Thank you.
I have NEVER seen vote flipping/hopping go the Democrats’ way…not that it should go either way. But it ALWAYS goes the Republicans’ way, ALWAYS!
What I have not seen yet, is a technical explanation for why this happens.
WHY CAN’T THEY PULL ONE OF THE ELECTRONIC VOTE MACHINES THAT’S ACTUALLY DOING THIS, PULL IT OFF TO THE SIDE, AND TAKE IT APART, AND TELL ALL OF US VOTERS EXACTLY WHY IT IS DOING THAT?????????????
Maybe we’d figure out how our democracy has been stolen?
Can’t this be done??? Am I stupid for asking such a simple question???
Now THIS brings it close to home. I lived in Maplewood MO for a while (though I don’t know where Sunnen Park is) and am I right in thinking that you, Brad, are originally from St. Louis? I’d like to know more about this (I may even know the individuals involved!) Did the election supervisor call this to anyone’s attention? Did they take any legal action? What make of machine was this, Diebold?
In any case, I am going to send this to everyone I know in Missouri.
What I want to know is, what is so sacrosanct about Nov. 7th? How dare the true peoples voice in America be left to a mere deadline! Where is the common sense during this NATIONAL CRISIS! Every legislator and law-maker should join together in view of all the evidence throughout this country as to the irrefutable corruption of our election system and be forced back into emergency session to do the right thing. I don’t know about you but I’ll take patience over instant gradification any day. In 2-4 weeks the real solution for just this election, emergency paper ballots could be printed. Also a letter to each and every registered voter could be sent out letting them know if they are still registered, and where their precinct is. Hell, why not make Election Day a national holiday! Any law-maker who can’t admit to this CRISIS is a disgrace to AMERICAN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then when the balance of power shifts back to WE THE PEOPLE, true independent studies by qualified experts(that are not paid by the vending machine companies)should be done to allow us to get our money back from these ABOMINATIONS.
It just makes much more sense to stop these problems NOW instead of wasting more time and treasure in law suits after the fact or letting Congress or the Supreme Court step in to pick the winners.
Frankly I don’t understand why someone intent on stealing an election would need to actually flip the vote displayed on the screen. If one has sufficient access to the underlying code of the voting machine, surely he could cause the recorded vote to be “flipped” without affecting what is displayed on the screen? If these vote flips are really the result of deliberate attempts at vote-stealing, they are rather incompetent ones. Par for the Bush course, I guess.
I was watching “Electile Dysfunction” on Free Speech TV, and there is a known way to use electronic vote machines to prevent fraud, and they are not doing it. It involves 2 seperate systems (2 is harder to hack). One, you vote and it spits out a card or sheet of paper with who you voted for with a bar code on it, and then you take this card or sheet of paper, which is also your receipt or paper trail, and feed it into another machine, which is a seperate system, and it reads it for your votes, and you look at how that was registered, too. If this exists, and they showed a demonstration of it, why are we not using this???
Also, why are there not major network camera crews filming the votes flipping, and showing it on TV??? If I was voting, and it was flipping my vote, I would not leave the machine until a camera crew got there and filmed it. I would refuse to leave the machine until it recorded my vote correctly as far as I could see.
This entire thing seems really fishy. Why did McCaskill or some of her reps rush down there and film it? Why is nothing ever done??? Why isn’t this on major network news? This isn’t important???
Both seperate systems must have the same independent totals at the end.
It’s absolutely mind blowing and shocking, that nothing is being done about the death of democracy in America at the hands of private corporations and Republicans. Has there ever been a study, linking the Republican control in the House, Senate, and executive, with the advent of electronic voting machines? Can someone please post a graph or something to prove this??? It is no coincidence that one-party rule by the Republicans happened with the advent of electronic voting machines made by corporations which donate to the GOP and have ties to the GOP.
Where is the outrage by voters and the Democrats???
Rob is right that votes can be flipped without the flipped vote being displayed on the screen. When it is displayed on the screen it means there has been sloppy work by those who rigged (from inside government or industry) or hacked (from outside) the machine to do the flipping. It is absolutely indication that fraudlent manipulation of the vote is going on, of a sort that is likely to be visible to sighted voters only a tiny percentage of the time. If you are voting and this happens, if you have a cell phone call 1-866-OUR-VOTE even if the pollworkers tell you you can’t use a cell phone in the polling place. I think staying by the machine until action is taken is a great idea; however, the action taken shouldn’t be to make your vote look right to you on the screen or even on the paper trail if there is one. That’s because what’s displayed on the screen and paper trail is not necessarily the same as the way the machine actually *counts* your vote. That’s why we can’t use these machines! So STAY AT THE MACHINE UNTIL IT IS TAKEN OUT OF SERVICE and you have on videotape some footage of what’s going on. Call someone who can contact http://www.videothevote.org and dispatch a videographer to the scene. And make lots of noise *now* about this situation.
This is proof that votes are being stolen again. And don’t think, “Oh, it’s only a few votes. It won’t matter.” The 2004 presidential election was decided by a small enough margin in Ohio that if 6 votes per precinct had gone the other way, Kerry would be president.
Right here, my friend. Millions of Americans have been outraged since 2000. Some of us suffer from outrage fatigue. It’s important to remember that the same Korporate Kontrolled Koolaid media that has force-fed us nothing but lies for the last 5 years or more would not HESITATE to lie to us about our relative level of ‘outrage’ toward their crimes and debauchery. I myself am moving into year 6 of round-the-clock apolexy. So please do not believe the deeply offensive lie that we do not hold a withering level of disdain and contempt for these criminals on a daily basis. We do.
Big Dan #6, you had me convinced on this paper you get from the machine UNTIL that paper got fed into another machine ! Thought it would get put into a steel-locked-box heavily chained to the floor with cameras from several news stations aimed at it ! To be counted in front of many registered voters, and cameras ! As for votes flipping in front of you—- I’de like to believe this is a GOD GLITCH ! Or poetic justice at least.
Every dirty trick in the book used during 2004 will be used during 2006,.. 10X,..
for too long the damage the Fascists did to our Democracy was kept a secret,.. the extent of the shenanigans used by these Nazi’s to steal the elections is just recently becoming available to the general public. Hopefully it is not yet too late to run a clean election in 2006.
Mark Crispin Miller discusses the election fraud that was kept a secret during 2000,.. 2002,.. and 2004. Will 2006 be stolen too ?
New Report on Election Fraud.
Gosh, do ya think this is why Karl has such a big grin when he insists that his party will win the election?
This is one sorry state of affairs indeed. The repiggycons have run out the clock. The use of a sports metaphor is entirely appropriate, it would seem – after all, the dimocrits talk about losing gracefully, fair play, good sportsmanship, as if we weren’t faced by a foe that wants to steal all our money, steal all our rights, and sentence us all to life at forced labor, and is willing to torture and kill anyone who tries to stand in the way. I mean, for Pete’s sake (whoever the heck Pete is), the time has come – as uncomfortable and inconvenient as it’s gonna be, we’re going to have to take to the streets, put our butts where our mouths are, so to speak!
If the allegations are that the vote thievery is occuring clear down in Texas, then it shows how far the Democratic sweep is going. That the Repubs would steal votes is no surprise at all. That the electronic voting machines companies would help them can’t be a surprise since they’re owned by Republicans. That they would have to steal them in Texas indicates a big Democratic win nationwide is likely to happen.
Oh, if only the Diebold ATM machines and other banking services would work as badly as their voting machines — then they’d be put out of business in a week.
Yes, videoing the voting machines which flip votes is excellent. Everybody who has a video-cell phone should have it with them.
Having worked on touchscreen systems I can tell you that this could easily be a “mistake” by those who programmed the machines. That is, the subroutine that DISPLAYS the voter choice wasn’t properly fixed to show what the voter CHOSE, rather than how the vote was being counted. They simply put the call to the routine in the wrong place in the sequence.
The Republican-supporting operative SHOULD have programmed it like this:
1. Voter votes for Democrat.
2. Call program to display vote for Democrat.
3. Call program to print “audit trail” indicating a vote for Democrat.
4. Switch vote to Republican.
Instead, in their eagerness to make sure that Republican won, they put step 4 too early, causing the display of the already switched vote. DUMB.
I’m sure they’ll get it fixed by 2008 so it works the way it is SUPPOSED to.
This might be “The Math” that Rove was so smug about during the NPR interview on Wednesday. If anyone thinks we’re not in a war to save our rights, WAKE THE FUCK UP!
Like a lot of us, I keep an eye and ear on MSNBC’s Countdown, with Keith Olbermann. Just last night he referenced this quote”
“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
My friends, this was a quote by Joseph Stalin. Scary thought, isn’t it?
M
Donna: I saw that on “Electile Dysfunction”, it seemed like a good idea. But, it hasn’t been scrutinized because it’s not in operation. I can’t comment on being an expert on it, but it seems logical to me, that we need 2 independent systems. I’ve said that for quite a while. And the 2 independent systems must match at the end.
I would like to see more detail myself on this, it was just a quick demonstration…if I find out more about it, I will post it. Not that they would install it if it proves to be secure!!!!!!!!!
In a nutshell, there are MANY MORE secure ways to cast votes than these electronic vote machines. Don’t think this is a complicated issue. They PURPOSELY have these insecure machines installed, it’s no accident! They are not stupid!
What we have now has been proven to be easily compromised, so I don’t understand why they weren’t pulled out of use and an emergency declared, after so many independent entities have proven to successfully hack into them. This isn’t an emergency???
And the key is, to just make sure the GOP has a majority in the House, a majority in the Senate, and also the president because he picks the cabinet (and he picked the PNAC for his cabinet).
They don’t hack all the elections, because 100-0 in the Senate would be obvious, etc…
But, it’s not as obvious, when you hack just enough to keep the majority in the House (you get to pick committees then), the majority in the Senate, and the presidency (you get to pick the cabinet).
Where is the outrage from the Democrats on all of this?
One great idea would be to make voting day a national holiday. Why isn’t the most important day of the year a national holiday? Then there can be more eyes out for fraud, you wouldn’t have to worry about work, etc…more volunteers. THAT IS ON PURPOSE, TOO, AND IT’S THE DEMS FAULT, TOO! THEY WERE IN POWER FOR DECADES AND NEVER MADE IT A HOLIDAY!!!
On “Electile Dysfunction”, they were proposing that election day should be a national holiday. I post that idea here for years, and it doesn’t seem to get much response.
Crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why don’t we take to the streets NOW!
FORCING EMERCEHCY LEGISLATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JUST DO IT while cameras may still record MISSING PERSONS!
Oh YEAH,
Check out the article in Smithsonian:
Chile’s Driving Force
The force be with us.
Hello Carl Rove!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just heard the NPR report on
Blow Your Face Off My Name Says It ALL Cheney
How bout we waterboard you FIRST?????????????
Excuse me, what number are we on??????????????
The TRUTH Carl.
REDEEM YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By the way I know who’s doin my brake job. Do you?????? Not a threat just a ligit question!
TO US ALL!
I’m just now listening to NPR’s radio program Science Friday with Ira Flato. His guest is Avi Ruben (sp) and they’re discussing electronic voting!!!
Ot the way I like to pronounce it,
To Us Saul!?!?!?!?!?!?!???????????????
Wishful thinking # 11!
And,
Ground Control
To Major Tom!
Hey WYEP Pittsburgh, plays kickass working toons, and streaming!
http://www.electiledysfunction.org/
20 amazing facts about voting in the USA…
http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html
You know, ever since Senator Ted Stevens,you know those tubes called the internet, Stevens tried to end public radio in Alaska in the early 90’s I’ve supported public radio! I’m usually not a club joiner like Thouro. Oh hell, how do you spell it? But today I do what ever I can to keep OUR VIOCE!
Why haven’t the democrats hired some computer experts to flip the vote democratic?
How about we just use popsicle sticks….red for Republican…blue for Democrat and…..oh probably require to many popsicle sticks.
Seriously I wouldn’t mind double voting…once on the optic scan…and giving a paper vote to my party. Thus the total count could be assured
ok i’m gonna try one more time. Don’t be afraid of what I’m saying-The evidence is right here, and exists as a pattern with past evidence that this already is a fraudulent election. Only our cowardice re arresting Rove right now and disqualifying all his ( RNC ) candidates stands between us and civilization.
If this is gonna be more sadistic buggering, let’s just admit it and cancel these damn elections.
I have designed touch screen software for use in nuclear power plants. One of the simplest ways to rig a vote is to change the file that defines the location of a touch area on the screen or to reassign the touch responses to a different candidate. For example if you redefine the touch area of candidate R such that it extends into the graphic touch area of an adjacent candidate D, some votes for D will be registered for R. Depending on the machine it mat require changing only one file. If changing the template file was what is happening, it explains the fact that the tampering can be seen. To actually reprogram the election code, you have to have original source code and be able to recompile it. Recompiling requires all the software support libraries and access to the compilers used. This is much more complicated than just changing a few numbers in the touch screen template, but changes to the vote programs would be completely hidden from the voter.
And you Americans still think you can make a difference by voting??? How naive can you be?
Revolution is the only way for you to restore your democracy. Let’s hope it will be a bloodless one.
Diana: GREAT QUESTION! One we’ve been asking her for a LONG time…there are those that think we’re “above that”…not me! Fight fire with fire! I actually believe it would be the end of electronic vote machines if other parties besides the GOP started hacking them. Actually, they are not hacking them “live”…they install code ahead of time. There’s not some “guy” hacking the machines. It can be done ahead of time by planting code that deletes itself without a trace…or afterwards, at points of transferring and accumulating all the machines votes, you can do something. There are holes everywhere, documented at http://www.blackboxvoting.org . That is what I do not understand, it’s PROVEN these machines are not secure, so it’s no accident they aren’t being pulled from “controlling” the vote and our population and our country. US govt is out of control. The Dems remain silent. We’re all screwed.
I was just watching Bill Maher, and he said the US is 50th in this, 92nd in that, 43rd in this…we’re not #1 anymore, not even close, under this leadership and government. Let’s stop pretending this country isn’t going downhill. You can’t dispute facts. The corporate MSM can cover them up, but facts are facts, whether you’re told about them or not. And WE are spreading democracy to IRAQ??? And we don’t even have it here??? Who I feel sorry for the most, are the families of American soldiers killed in the war of lies, and the families of Iraqi civilians, millions and million affected. For every dead soldier, I figure it hurt the lives of at least 20-100 people, depending on how many lives the person touched. We think we are so moral in this country, but we don’t stop and think of 655,000 Iraqi civilians killes x 20-100 people their lives touched. We have become desensitized about the loss of human life. The people crying about stem cell research? Do you see these hypocrites picketting the Iraq War? Do you see reporters who give them a forum on TV, ask, “Well, you care about stem cells, what do you think of us killing 655,000 civilians in Iraq?” Have you ever seen someone on CNN ask someone that?
It may not be possible to just hang around the machine after it switches your vote. The Diebold TSx is programmed to go ahead without you if you take too long, or try to fix your vote too many times.
In 2004, I heard friends from New Mexico saying that when the chose KERRY, the screen showed they voted for BUSH. These mistakes do not record votes in favor of Democrats. That is because they are deliberately hacked by Diebold. The next thing Diebold will do is refuse to give you a paper receipt for its ATM machines. Then when your account is empty, it will tell you to manage your money better. It is hacked and that is why Bush said “I believe I am going to be working with at Republican Congress and a Republican Senate.” He and Rove are very confident they will hold control and they will. They are only going to allow a few contest to go Democratic to give the appearance that we still have democracy and fair voting. That way they can claim “sour grapes” if anyone questions. They also have to have a few powerless Dems in Congress and the Senate in order to have the appearance of a democracy. I still think they killed Paul Wellstone because he could not be intimidated or bought.
I am Independent and I would rather die than vote Republican. I know this whole thing is stolen and I was told I was a conspiracy theorist when I said this about the 04 election.
If Rove even thinks Democrats have found a way to “get” to the machines….the paranoia will set in… the idea needs to be disseminated.
Heil Bush! Heil Rove! They know what’s best for us.
It makes me sick when I see what is being done again to steal this election. Why has nothing been done before now to resolve this after the 2000 and 2004 debacle?? And what can be done about it now? If Republicans keep hold of the House and Senate, I dread to think what our country will come to in two more years. As if it isn’t bad enough now. My God, what are people thinking!! Anyone who even consider voting for a Republican is a traitor after what they’ve done to our country.
Jerry who wrote software for nuclear installations is right on target (above). Redefining the sizes and locations of touch fields would produce exactly the behavior that has been observed.
This would not be done in the most-obvious manner, by simply expanding the Republican’s touch field size into that of the Democrat. Doing that would produce results that were too obviously deterministic and too easily replicable. Instead, random-appearing sections of the D candidate’s touch field would be associated with the R candidate. The sizes and locations of the buggered touch fields would determine the probability of a voter’s finger landing in a dirty zone vs. a clean zone, and thus would determine the frequency with which D votes were switched to Rs.
This would also provide a greater degree of plausible deniability, because most voters are not keeping track of exactly where they place their fingers on the screen when they vote. Thus a poll worker is much less likely to place his/her finger on the same spot when called in to test the system.
It is also possible that the buggered locations on the screens could be made to change from one voter to the next, to minimize risk of finding replicable areas in touchfields that reliably produce the “desired” outcome.
Folks, this is where we need to start looking, in depth and detail.
What’s needed is to have teams of lawyers ready with court orders and injunctions and whatever-else lawyers have to have in order to go into those polling places and SIEZE the buggered machines and then subject them to rigorous analysis. Though, beware the possibility that the code for the hack would self-delete if a machine is unplugged from the network or otherwise taken out of service.
What’s also needed is teams of ubergeeks, perhaps dissident NSAers or highlevel coders in private sector security-related applications, to be ready to go anywhere in order to go over these machines with fine-toothed combs.
NOTE: these machines are not Tempest qualified, so they almost certainly leak RF fields like crazy. Thus, you could passively monitor a voting machine with appropriate equipment from a short to moderate distance (e.g across the street), and determine what was going on inside as its programs ran. This could be the most viable route to catching the hack in operation.
Here’s a hypothetical scenario: voting machines would be kicked from here to Texas at every voting location in the country. Kick therapy could work if done on a grand scale, especially if pro- bono lawyers, and others would represent the kickers. With all of the documentation on the hackability of the machines, and the emerging reports that they are indeed being hacked, what judge, short of a Bush crony, would condemn citizens for doing their duty to the constitution? This revolution would be bloodless. It’s the people’s election, the people’s government, and the people’s job to protect their democracy by eliminating the tools of tyranny: voting machines. We know these machines have been designed to steal our elections and void our constitution, so why do we allow them to continue to exist? Better to kill the voting machines than to engage in a bloody revolution. Kicking all the machines over, would simply stop the election. We would vote when enough paper ballots were printed up, they would be counted by bi-partisan vote counters with video taping onlookers watching every move they made. Would any lawyers be interested in commenting on this hypothetical? What kind of penalties would be involved ? And how will that compare to the penalties of living in a dictatorship?
Great questions, Bluebird!
# 49
aw shucks —thanks!
Brad, I just forwarded this story to videothevote.org asking if they can get footage up online so we can desseminate it. Maybe a phone call from you would bear more weight?
Yup. Happened to me too in Oregon. I voted for the Demcorats and they all flipped to Mickey Mouse. This is unbelelivable. I would not have believed it had I not seen it. Now we will have a MOUSE for a congressman in Oregon.
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
… Rob said on 10/27/2006 @ 7:09 am PT…
Frankly I don’t understand why someone intent on stealing an election would need to actually flip the vote displayed on the screen. If one has sufficient access to the underlying code of the voting machine, surely he could cause the recorded vote to be “flipped” without affecting what is displayed on the screen?
Quark #53
I’m letting your comment about nobody thinking here stay up, even though it is against policy to let people bash other commenters, because you are sarcastically agreeing with Rob, and not singling anyone out. You are welcome to rip Brad, or any public person, or me, since I have the power to evaporate your input, but WATCH IT. You’re too close to the line.
I live in CA. and we have the choice of voting on a paper ballot or the touchscreen. If I lived in an area that only had touchscreen systems and the vote flipped I would start screaming at the top of my lungs and make such a scene about it. I think that is what people need to do and if there are any cameras around get in front of everyone you can and tell your story.
How would anyone here know whether or not republican votes get “flipped” too? No one here has ever voted for a republican.
After Gov. Chris “won” Washington State, I don’t trust any party anymore. The dems are as dirty as the pubs. It is ridiculous to be sanctamoneous about some selective voting irregularity and pretend the dems are pure as the driven snow.
At this late date, I can only see one way to escape more stolen elections, especially in places like Texas, Missouri, Arkansas and San Diego. Get the word out: Have all voters demand provisional ballots!
If you’re a Democrat and you run into trouble at your precinct, call 1-888-DEM-VOTE. Organize demonstrations at suspect precincts. We have to get the major TV networks to cover this.
Brad,
I live in St. Louis also, I called the League Of Women Voters regarding the possiblility of “Early Voting”, the representative told me that there is NO early voting in Missouri. That there is no provision for it, we can vote absentee, or at the polls. So this persons claim about the early voting strikes me as contradictory. Can anyone find out what is going on?
According to the St Louis County Election Board there is NO early voting, only abseentee if you meet requirements. Was this person voting absentee??? I know these machines can’t be trusted, and neither can the Republicans, I have an email into them to find out if the errors have been fixed. I want to go back to paper ballots.
Check out HBO Special: ” Hacking Democracy” It’s an eye opener. Main Characters, Diebold Inc. maker of electronic voter machines- big support of Republican Party, and apparently promised Ohio, in Bush vs Kerry election. It has alot of disturbing information of corruption. Mid-Missouri