18 Responses

1. 

   1)

   Phil said on 9/21/2007 @ 8:06pm PT: [Permalink]

   Not sure I got all the buzzwords, but it all makes sense.

   Take the existing DRE’s and either modify them to PRINT PAPER BALLOTS to be HAND COUNTED , with PUBLIC OVERSIGHT, and or,, use them to teach electronic students the wrong / cheap way of making electronics that suck.

   Is that the jist?

2. 

   2)

   Phil said on 9/21/2007 @ 8:10pm PT: [Permalink]

   I wonder if there’s enough memory in a DRE to make a digital delay?

   Can you hear me now? ow ow ow

   Electronic Voting Sucks. ucks ucks ucks

   Or double up the memory.. and pulse width modulate it..

   uck ucks ucks (faster and faster) uks uks uks uks (slower .5) ucs ucs ucs ucs ucs ucs ucs

   nevermind. I am just dreaming what you could change the parts into, I have a propane torch to remove the chips!!

3. 

   3)

   Floridiot said on 9/22/2007 @ 2:16am PT: [Permalink]

   See what the stink tank in #1 link came up with ? “Cost”
   Ya gotta push that too for the DREs already in use or forget it.

   John G gets it.

4. 

   4)

   Floridiot said on 9/22/2007 @ 2:23am PT: [Permalink]

   … the new buzzwords are “maintenance costs”

5. 

   5)

   mr.ed said on 9/22/2007 @ 8:08am PT: [Permalink]

   How about returning them for refund, based on a warrant of merchantabilty, i.e. They don’t work as advertised? That’s Business Law 101.

6. 

   6)

   Gtash said on 9/22/2007 @ 11:21am PT: [Permalink]

   What will happen:
   The voting companies will abandone recording counting ballots altogether and simply to Voter Verification—in other words, they will verify not your vote, but your eligibility to vote.

7. 

   7)

   the_zapkitty said on 9/22/2007 @ 12:24pm PT: [Permalink]

   … Gtash said…

   “What will happen:
   The voting companies will abandone recording counting ballots altogether and simply to Voter Verification—in other words, they will verify not your vote, but your eligibility to vote.”

   … and thus, through their products’ ever-so-convenient malfunctions, the EVM corps will carry on with the DOJ’s current minority disenfranchisement mission long after Bush and his DOJ cronies have been removed from office…

8. 

   8)

   Dredd said on 9/22/2007 @ 3:35pm PT: [Permalink]

   John,

   Yep. Sugar coating the DRE disease is pablum americanus fearulous it seems.

   Just get rid of the frickin DRE machines and the disease they cause will go away.

   But, you know, it generates jobs, EI activists, and … well … blogs.

   Nevermind 🙂 …

9. 

   9)

   Dredd said on 9/23/2007 @ 2:03am PT: [Permalink]

   Something for EI and voting rights officionados to think about.

   ECF (Electronic Case Filing). Ask a lawyer.

   It is becoming more and more prevalent for federal courts to use networked case filings. Totally electronic, networked, online, internet, the whole shebang.

   They may turn a deaf ear to the argument that electronic voting machines are ipso facto not safe.

   Think about it. You will be arguing to a judge who has all the paperwork filed online, and telling him how unsafe this is. Yet in his experience it has been a wonderful success.

   Where it might really ring hollow is filing the pleadings that condemn the electronic voting machine and that are filed on a system the argument is putting down.

   Anyone ever use ECF in an EVM case?

10. 

    10)

    Dredd said on 9/23/2007 @ 2:34am PT: [Permalink]

    Follow up to post #9:

    CM/ECF systems are now in use in 98% of the federal courts: 93 district courts, 93 bankruptcy courts, the Court of International Trade, the Court of Federal Claims, the Court of Appeals for the 6th, 8th, and 10th Circuits, and the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the 6th, 8th, and 10th Circuits. Most of these courts are accepting electronic filings. Almost 31 million cases are on CM/ECF systems, and more than 300,000 attorneys and others have filed documents over the Internet. Under current plans, most of the courts that are not yet using CM/ECF will begin usage by the end of 2007.

    (About ECF, emphasis added).

11. 

    11)

    Dredd said on 9/23/2007 @ 6:34am PT: [Permalink]

    BBV discusses a lawsuit filed in federal court against 10 states. The suit seeks to outlaw EVM usage in those states.

    The federal court may dismiss the case, as far as it is an action against a state, because the Eleventh Amendment to the US Constitution says states can’t be sued by private parties in the federal court … without the states consenting to be sued there.

    There are a few exceptions, but, even if they get thru the Rule 12(b) motion to dismiss phase, my post #9-#10 begs the question whether or not the federal courts are the place to make that case.

    What do you think?

12. 

    12)

    the_zapkitty said on 9/23/2007 @ 9:30am PT: [Permalink]

    Flail much, Dredd?

    I’m sorry to say there just doesn’t seem to be much for discussion here.

    The attempt to use the long-discredited “You’re all a bunch of Luddites!” shtick is so lame it hurts to hear it nowadays, as it’s so embarassing to the person who essays it… even when that person tries to proxy it by inference through the supposed reactions of third parties in the form of the courts.

    As for your “legal expertise”… so far, by the examples you’ve set to date, the less said about that the better. As it stands there has been little evidence shown that I should trust you to properly parse a traffic summons correctly… much less constitutional law.

    But, taking an overall view, this weak pairing does show just how wobbly your pro-e-voting stance is… as you apparently need to seize on arguments as weak as “We all use computers every day so e-voting must be Okay!” conjoined with “I think this court case will fail so therefore all anti-e-voting action is suspect!”

    Of course you’ll respond by saying you didn’t say “all that”… but if someone actually tries to pin you down on what you did say by pointing out the fallacies and inconsistencies in your endless arguments then, by your posting history to date, you’ll still wind up saying exactly “all that”… the same arguments again… and again… ad infinitum.

    I must say that this all seems to be a rather childish strategy at best…

13. 

    13)

    Dredd said on 9/24/2007 @ 5:26am PT: [Permalink]

    the_zapkitty #12

    I will quote your post back to you verbatum or post an expose and link to it when the case is dismissed. I like to see you squirm. And by the way, coming from you this is a compliment. So thanks.

    Be patient. It will not take long.

14. 

    14)

    AllAboutVoting said on 9/24/2007 @ 9:24am PT: [Permalink]

    In addition to my summary review of the ITIF report linked to above is this detailed point-by-point analysis. Also the post Buzz about ITIF’s eVoting report has most of my reader’s comments on the topic.

15. 

    15)

    AllAboutVoting said on 9/24/2007 @ 9:32am PT: [Permalink]

    (I was out of town this weekend; I wish I had a chance to reply to this earlier when more people would be likely to read it.)

    John Gideon: I think it is incredibly childish and bullying to call ITIF an “enemy of democracy”. The ITIF report makes a number of very important points about the need for the debate about electronic voting machines to be broader and include better verification technologies than voter verified paper trails.

    >[JG]This new think-tank, ITIF, wants more software
    >and gimmicks to be added to the present DREs. They
    >say it will make the machines verifiable. In fact,
    >it’s nothing more than software and gimmicks.
    >It’s more expense for the counties who must pay more
    >for licensing, updates, bug repairs, certification
    >costs, etc.
    Incredibly shallow. If you have criticism for the proposals be specific and don’t just dismiss them with bogus blanket statements. You also completely fail to acknowledge that many end-to-end verifiable systems that are proposed do not involve voting machines at all. Examples: punchscan, tri-ballot, scratch and vote.

    >I have an innovation. Let’s recycle the DREs, use
    >paper-ballots
    Sure. Then we can continue to have election fraud but be using an all paper system. Arguably 6 out of 11 post-WWII US presidents had careers heavily influenced by election fraud.

16. 

    16)

    the_zapkitty said on 9/24/2007 @ 10:27am PT: [Permalink]

    Uhhh… Earth to Dredd?… sorry to be so obtuse but you have yet to explain exactly why you’ve suddenly linked me to the outcome of a court case that was simply reported on by a single article in the “Election Litigation / Lawsuits” section of blackboxvoting.org. A case wherein I’ve offered no opinion… anywhere.

    Note: My assertion that I don’t trust your “legal expertise” worth a damn is actually not relevant to the case you are so strangely harping on.

17. 

    17)

    John Gideon said on 9/24/2007 @ 11:07am PT: [Permalink]

    AAV #15

    Thank you for your comments.

    You say, “The ITIF report makes a number of very important points about the need for the debate about electronic voting machines to be broader and include better verification technologies than voter verified paper trails.”

    What the ITIF report does is make a number of points that are very important to those who want to pile technology on top of technology. Technology that is not transparent and it is being sold with the same caveat we hear over and over again from Diebold, Sequoia and the rest; “Trust Us”.

    There is no doubt in my mind that a vvpat is not a good means of verification. The CA TTBR and the ESI report from Cuyahoga Co. Ohio both show that a vvpat does not always reflect the votes of the voter.

    The answer is not more technology piled on top of technology. The answer is DREs as boat anchors or door stops or ???? The answer is paper ballots and administrative procedures that protect those paper ballots.

18. 

    18)

    AllAboutVoting said on 9/24/2007 @ 1:57pm PT: [Permalink]

    John Gideon #17:

    >[JG]What the ITIF report does is make a number of
    >points that are very important to those who want
    >to pile technology on top of technology.
    Again, not all proposed E2E verifiable systems use voting machines. So it is inaccurate to say ‘pile technology on top of other technology’.
    Also, the technology being discussed is ways to prove that a voter’s vote was counted. Consider that one of the election integrity groups is called ‘block box voting’. As far as I am concerned it is robust and healthy to consider any voting system to be a black box. When I submit a vote, via any means including paper, I do not trust that the vote is counted. I am putting my vote into a ‘black box’. A system that allows me to prove that my vote is counted is a robust way of coping with this black box – by focusing on the inputs and outputs of the black box rather than trying to open the box and watch everything that happens inside the box.

    >[JG]Technology that is not transparent and it is
    >being sold with the same caveat we hear over
    >and over again from Diebold, Sequoia and
    >the rest; “Trust Us”
    End-to-end verifiability techniques are designed to be radically transparent and operate under a model of mutual distrust. They operate under the assumption that tampering of the votes can occur. The goal is to make the fact that tampering occurred transparent.

    Remember the allegations that Sequoia intentionally sabotage the 2000 presidential elections? That was using a paper system! That was one of the same companies whose voting machines are considered suspicious! Paper ballot != fraud proof!

    >[JG]The answer is paper ballots and administrative
    >procedures that protect those paper ballots.
    But these often fail. As I linked to before, the US has a long history of election fraud. Paper ballots do not necessarily cure fraud. A return to paper (be it punch-card, optical scan, or hand counted) is just not enough.

    Many of the proposed end-to-end verifiable systems are very simple and do not involve any voting machines. It is my opinion that they are not yet sufficiently developed for widespread deployment. But I do think:

    that they should be discussed and seriously considered
    that additional funding for basic research of E2E verifiable technologies should be supported
    that limited deployment of E2E verifiable systems should be allowed and encouraged
    laws that frustrate any of the above are misguided