John,

I have a copy of Crispin's book and I read his article that you linked-to above. I am impressed by much of his work.

He comes to the conclusion that the voting machine companies caused HR 811 to be amended to not allow the public to view the software. That is obvious.

We should try to stop them from doing it to Nelson's S 559, so the concept is kept alive. But based on Nelson's blind support of the Iraq war until recently, I think he may capitulate to the Diebolds of the world too.

But what is not so obvious to supporters of HR 811 is why DRE technology is per se corrupt in the eyes of several of the anti-HR 811 EI leaders.

And I really do not think anti-HR 811 EI movement leaders have made their case against per se DRE usage. They will continue to be unimpressive before scientific types like Holt until they do.

I say this because DRE technology is used by banks in ATM settings and they work just like the older keyboard driven machines ... in terms of reliability. The paper trail they leave and the numbers and counts they do are sound as audit after audit shows.

Less shrill accusations but more sound reasoning is the only path to take, if we really want HR 811 improved, IMO.

And above all, please, remember that mixing impeachment rhetoric with elections stolen is going to be DOA every time, since the dems picked up many seats last election.

One good thing about all the controversy, such as in California, is that the voting machine companies are unsure of what the landscape will look like at the next election.

This gives them less time to prepare. Which means less time to figure out how to hide nefarious planning.

Even their voter fraud canard has been exposed and they ran off into the bush to hide, and to await the warm glow of a pardon. They are becoming less certain, as are we, of what the precincts will actually look like in '08.

In that sense they are more disadvantaged than they were last election ... when they lost bigtime.

"banks in ATM settings"

Utter bullshit.

ATM's make errors, or are hacked, but the customer is able to prove their loss and get restitution because the ATM infrastructure is designed to allow the transactions to be traced back to and associated with a specific customer.

Try that with election results and you'll have every Cheney wannabe with access to the system and their Gestapo NSA lackeys prying into voting records to see who voted for whom... and pondering what to do to straighten out those people who didn't... vote right.

ATMs are not DREs.

ATM problems rarely kill people.

Elections gone wrong can kill... let's say... 600,000+ Iraqi citizens for a start.

The term DRE does not mean Dorky Response Everytime. It means:

DRE stands for "Direct Recording Electronic" ...

(DRE Definition, emphasis added). An ATM takes selections from a user Directly and Records them Electronically and then prints a paper trail for the user. No big mystery here folks, so don't get your knickers all awhirl.

The only difference between a voting machine DRE and a bank ATM DRE is that one is monitered extremely closely by the federal banking regulations, and the other is monitored loosely by the state election officials and the EAC.

There is no difference whatsoever in the taking of info Directly from the user, Recording of it, and Electronically storing it. That is DRE in a nutshell ... which the nuts don't want to understand.

When a puss does not back up assertions and claims instead to have the purrfect solution, I reject it as lame holier than thou religiousity:

The future of ATM kiosks

The latest movement for the ATM kiosk is a hybrid model that allows customers to do more than just get cash withdrawals or account balances. Newer machines now take loan applications, offer bonds and certificates of deposit (CDs), and allow you to trade stocks – all from the same kiosk. This provides you will additional revenue opportunities, particularly from potential customers that don’t want to pay ATM fees.

(About ATM Touchscreens). And when a puss does not answer a challenge regarding DRE technology, to put their puss where their mouth is, I become amused. Here is a challenge:

The DRE Tampering Challenge

I do not believe it is feasible in practice to tamper undetectably with a well-designed direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machine. To demonstrate my conviction, I am willing to bet $10,000 at 2:1 odds with anyone under the following conditions ...

(Let The Puss War Begin, emphasis added). Hell, these DRE ATM's are even connected to intranets and the internet. And their results are guaranteed. Go figure, count, and total because its only arithmetic, not even algebra.

And now to the nitty gritty.

We have Stalin as an example of the neutrality of technology.

Stalin used only paper ballots. His time was before voting machines.

Yet he always won handsomely.

He explained it with this paraphrase:

"The people who cast their paper ballots decide nothing, it is the people who count the paper ballots who decide everything".

We need to realize that without honesty we can not have the american dream democracy.

So you, I, John, Brad, Bev Harris, and the rest of us can only struggle to make it as tamper proof as possible. We think that means, in this day and age of massive government corruption, a paper ballot system.

But as the Stalin factor shows us, it does not end with that technique, instead, it ends with honesty and integrity in election officials.

There is no heaven sent paper ballot or other technology for a voting system because any such system also inevitably involves election officials.