On Tuesday night, you will be told who the winner of the Pennsylvania Primary is. You will accept it. You will have no choice. No matter who the winner really is. Or isn’t.
This Tuesday’s crucial contest will be primarily run on 100% faith-based, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen or push-button) e-voting machines across the state. There will be no way to determine after the election whether the computers have accurately recorded, or not, the intent of those voters who voted on them. As VerifiedVoting.org summarizes the crucial contest, it “will be essentially unrecountable, unverifiable, and unauditable.”
Most of the votes, more than 85%, will be cast on such DRE systems which do not provide so-called “Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails” (VVPATs), as their use has been found unconstitutional in the state, since its been determined, accurately, that ballot secrecy cannot be guaranteed when using such paper trail systems. Not that it matters.
With or without a so-called “paper trail” printer, all touch-screen/push-button/DRE voting machines are equally unverifiable and antithetical to American democracy. Period.
So, as with South Carolina’s primary, so so long ago, and other states since, whatever the officials tell you at the end of the election is what you, and we, will have to accept. Whether votes are counted accurately is completely out of anyone’s hands at this point. It’s strictly Democracy of the Gods…
But whether folks gets to cast their vote at all is a different matter, and certainly worth watching closely. Back in South Carolina, in the dark days of January 19, 2008, machines wouldn’t fire up at all for much of the day in at least one county during the Republican Primary. The meltdown led to voters scrambling for any scrap of paper they could find to vote on, including, reportedly, paper towels.
For the Democratic Primary the following week in South Carolina, voters were encouraged to print out their own ballots at home, and bring them to the polls…just in case.
Marybeth Kuznik, of the election integrity organization VotePA, has additional concerns. Even if the machines boot-up and “work” as expected, she worries there may not be enough of them to serve the voters. The result may be long lines and voters turned away, a la J. Kenneth Blackwell’s disgraceful 2004 Ohio general election. Kuznik sent us the following thoughts on that issue over the weekend, after doing some quick math…
If it becomes a madhouse, meltdown, or a marathon either people will leave, or we are going to have lines reminiscent of Ohio 2004. Our SOS is no Blackwell, but the whole state of Pennsylvania is in total Denial about how bad these machines can be.
In capital-D “Denial” indeed. Last week we ran a short video from Jake Soboroff of Why Tuesday?, which included some quick questions he was able to ask of Pennsylvania’s governor and Philadelphia’s mayor just after the Democratic Debate. He wondered if they (both Hillary Clinton supporters, for the record) had any concerns about the voting machines their state is about to use on Tuesday.
Despite many of the same systems having failed across the country previously — and even very recently in neighboring New Jersey on Super Tuesday — neither of the men had a concern in the world. If you missed it when it ran the first time, it’s worth a quick look to get an idea of just how clueless Pennsylvania’s top elected officials actually claim to be…
Aside from the Sequoia AVC Advantage touch-screen which failed recently in NJ, set for use by 750,000 voters in two Pennsylvania counties (including Montgomery, one of the state’s largest), 51 counties will use the same ES&S iVotronic touch-screens which failed so spectacularly in Florida’s 2006 13th Congressional district election in Sarasota County, resulting in the loss of some 18,000 votes, despite a margin of “victory” for the “winner” of just 369 votes. That notorious failure helped lead the state of Florida to ban that system, and all touch-screen voting machines, entirely.
Sixteen PA counties will use the same Diebold Accuvote TS touch-screen systems found easily susceptible to a viral hack by a team at Princeton University in the Summer of 2006. They found that an entire county election could be flipped, undetected, if inappropriate access is gained to just one single voting machine. That system, the ES&S system and touch-screens made by Sequoia were banned entirely for regular use in California after such vulnerabilities were confirmed by a team of computer scientists and security experts commissioned by the state.
So that’s what’s ahead for Tuesday’s primary: denial, self-deception and a strange form of illusory democracy which most Americans, aided and abetted by an irresponsible and disinterested corporate media, have collectively determined to play along with because they’ve been given no other choice.
We’ll be watching, of course, no matter what happens, although there may be very little that we can do about whatever reportedly happens once we’re informed by the Election Gods of their reported results.
We urge Keystone Staters to bring a state-issued photo ID with them if they have one, vote on paper if/when they can, and record themselves voting with their cell phones or other cameras, if possible, to document any DRE e-voting flips.
If you have any trouble voting, for god’s sake, tell people about it. First alert poll workers, then call 1-866-MY-VOTE-1. Then alert 1-866-OUR-VOTE as well. Spot any election fraud? Call 1-888-VOTE-TIP and you could be eligible for a tidy reward. It also wouldn’t hurt to notify your local media about any of the above, on the outside chance they’ll pay attention.
Beyond that…our fingers are crossed for you. Good luck. We hear the Gods may be crazy…
UPDATE 4/22: As we feared, election probs reported across state. BRAD BLOG’s PA E-Voting Prob Wire…
April 21, 2008
This is the unedited and modified version of the letter toour local newspaper, the Intelligencer, Doylestown, Bucks County, Pa.,printed today. See the italicized remarkes for the unedited thoughts that especially reflect my experience as voting integrity activist. It’s a long letter; I’m appreciative to Intell for publishing most of it.
I present it to Brad Blog as an example, State and Nationwide of what we can do as voting activists to inform our local communities. ..something to keep in mind for November Presidential election.
——————————————-
Letter to Editor:
For this important Primary, all over the State,, ‘get out the vote’ by encouraging others to vote in large numbers. If there are unseen unknown problems with the computerized voting, your candidate will be more likely to win if there are large numbers of votes for him/her to overcome a possible error rate of the machine’s software.
As a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Judge of Elections and voting integrity advocate I offer some suggestions for Election Day, especially for newly registered voters who need to take ID, such as your signed voter registration card, or driver’s license or utility bill. Returning voters don’t need ID. Your signature, matching your signature on record, serves as proof of your identity.
Danaher voting machines are used in my county of Bucks as well as the following Pennsylvania Counties: Philadelphia, Dauphin, Berks,Monroe, Delaware and state of Delaware. In the voting booth for the Danaher machine, you will see red blinking lights for each candidate. Upon choosing your selection, the red blinking lights of your choices will turn solid red. When all your selections are made, then push the large green VOTE button. Most importantly, be sure the screen then goes blank. You are now finished voting. However, if you leave, without pressing that green vote button at the end, your selections are still on the screen and are to be erased by the workers!
To cast a write-in vote, follow written instructions inside booth and ask pollworkers for instructions. In this process, don’t push on the write-in door slot to get to the paper tape, since this could cause machine to malfunction or paper to jam. Don’t write in the name of a candidate already on the ballot.
If any problem is observed with machine malfunctions, or long lines or other problems, or for even simple questions, speak to your Judge of Elections and report any problem to both the national Election Protection line:1-866-OUR-VOTE and locally, call Mary Ann Gould Director of Coalition for Voting Integrity at 215-357-5206..
Polls are open 7 am to 8 pm.,Tuesday, April 22. We the people can shape our future, if we participate in civic activities, starting with the vote. As Ben Franklin admonishes us from our past- it’s our Republic if we can keep it.
Ruth Matheny
Co Director. Coalition for Voting Integrity
http://www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org
http://www.voiceofthevoters.org
Judge of Elections, Doylestown Boro 2-2
What’s the matter? says the elected official, just plug the machine in, the BPL Gods will take care of the rest 😛
Yes Floridiot. A comment some time ago by SevenString (C&L) said it all so well.
“An e-voting machine is like my bowels: they both generally appear to run smoothly, and their resultant outputs have about the same intrinsic value.”
Thanks SevenString, where ever you are, for the best quote ever regarding DRE’s.
I beg to differ! At least shit fertilizes crops!
GWN, With all of the talk about wireless networking to gain access to the machines, or even network cables plugged into ethernet ports hidden on the machines, Why not just use the power cord & plug that is plugged into a standard AC outlet on the wall to gain access?
E-Line/BPL networking
The Montgomery County machines are not the same touchscreens as you think.
While they are Sequoia machines, they are the older chiclet-lighted button style.
No voting machine is reliable! I live in Nebraska, and a few years ago we had republicans winning 5,000 votes in towns with only 2,000 people!LOL!Not only that but districts that had NEVER gone for a republican suddenly did so in overwhelming numbers! And what do we have? An unjustified war started by an inside job terrorist attack,laws that favor billionaires and designed to totally destroy the middle class!And a supreme court that makes certain that Bush gets everything he wants! Democracy? Hardly! Several thousand people leave the US every month! Now I know why!And martial law is staring us in the face!
{Ed Note: jacksmith wants you to read this, and jacksmith please read this. Thank you. –99}
Hopefully Robert Mugabe’s reading this and, with the help of DRE, democracy can finally truly take off in Zimbabwe.
Then, with the likes of the US and the UK closely following his example a true golden age, the likes of which’s never been known to humanity, can finally come to realisation.
In fact, things’ll become so wonderful our glorious leaders’ll eventually decide to spare us the tedium involved in choosing candidates by devising algorithms that’ll do this for us.
Then, finally, they’ll simply dispense with all forms of voting at all.
By the way, lest it isn’t perfectly obvious, I am, of course, being utterly sarcastic.
If you think Hillary has ‘experience’ by virtue of being married to that fraud from Arkansas then you really are an idiot, and no ‘you might be’ about it. The fact that this mega-rich, dishonest, power hungry, utterly venal sow is being treated as though she were a serious candidate has destroyed what little faith I still had in my fellow citizens. God help us! Critical thinking is dead.The Clinton’s have accrued 109 MILLION DOLLARS in the past 8 years, and yet you honestly think she’s going to represent the interests of the working class!?
PS You are an idiot.
If you think Republicans are voting for Obama in places like Ohio were Hillary’s vote counts often exceeded the total number of registered Democrats by large margins then you absolutely have to be an idiot. 😉
With it being a felony for Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary in Ohio there clearly were very many Republicans committing felonies to vote for Hillary or there were a lot of votes manufactured for Hillary in Ohio. Those NeoCons, who are into manufacturing votes big time, are I believe also from the Republican party as well.
Now I know there’s something fishy about BPL.
If Kevin Martin likes it, I don’t
Link @ #5
think: “DEMOCRACY..WITHOUT BORDERS”
Israel: “a democracy”..”without borders”
My condolences to those that actually think that your vote means anything. This is their game and they make the rules. We need to wake up and quit playing their game. All we do is wear ourselves out because we are really only fighting each other.
I agree with Chi0ne. The best thing you can do to peacefully protest is don’t show up to vote. Don’t play the game. Start a movement. Hand out flyers that say “Don’t vote! It’s rigged.” It’s just like the war game: wise up and don’t show up. I’ll betcha the rich people won’t show up to fight.
the worst thing u can do to protest the blackboxes is to stop voting….when voters show up in huge numbers and the programs have to “change” results is when they get “impossible” numbers
the ovr 100 percent districts r the best chance we have of proving that we need paper ballots
Goddammit! THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT! They want us not voting! Some protest that is!
Get out and vote!
MAKE THOSE MISERABLE CRIMINALS STEAL YOUR VOTE. MAKE THEM STEAL THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, MILLIONS, OF VOTES TO GET THEIR WAY!
If you are an American, act like one! Vote.
http://www.geocities.com/electi...oricalVote.htm
Pennsylvania: “Trust us to count your vote, even though you can’t verify it”
TruthIsAll
The GOP wants to run against Clinton because they believe she’s a weaker candidate than Obama. Just look at the polls: Obama does much better than HRC against McCain. But the GOP vote counters will make sure that Hillary gets enough votes in PA to keep her super delegate hopes alive. And since they control the unverifiable machine count, who will question the result?
Even if the pre-election and exit polls indicate a close race, those who control the machines and count the votes will sit back and watch the show- just like they have since 2000. They know there will be no recount; there’s nothing to recount. Only electronic voting machines will be used in this election.
Paper ballots? How quaint to want to see that the votes are fairly counted in full view. The politicians and the media have revised the old saying. It’s now “Trust, but don’t expect to verify”. No one will talk about 2008 primary election fraud, except for a handful of activists, like Michael Collins (autorank) and Brad Blog.
And as usual, the media and the politicians will just go along with the myth that late undecided voters broke for Hillary; that young Obama supporters didn’t vote; that Obama’s clock was cleaned in that ABC farce of a debate. The bought and paid for moderators asked Obama about his lapel and Reverend Wright, but they didn’t ask Clinton about husband Bill’s lucrative free-trade work for Columbia and his full-court NAFTA press.
Historically, Democratic presidential candidates have always fared better in the exit polls than the recorded vote. That’s because the Republicans cheat in every election”“ and they will in this one. In 2004, the exit polls had Kerry winning PA by 55-44; the recorded vote was 50.9-48.4, far exceeding the 2% margin of error. His 11 point margin shrank to 3%.
Kerry won 58.6% of the final 127,000 votes (absentees, etc.). Only about 2000 PA voters were exit polled. The MoE is exceedingly low. So how could Kerry exceed his 51.1% share of the first 5643k votes by 7.5% in the final 127k? Here’s why: The final 127k votes came in days after the election ended. The fraud spigot was turned off by then.
But PA was not alone; the MoE was also exceeded in 28 other states. Move along, nothing to see. In 2000, Gore won PA by 51-46. Remember that Nader took votes away from Gore, so Al would have won by more than 5% if Nader had not run. But those returning Nader voters broke for Kerry by better than 3-1, so how did Kerry do worse than Gore in PA?
If fast eddy says he doesn’t know of the dre voting problems he is flat out lying. I have him on video, where I explain them to him, and he states that at this point (before 06 election) its really a money crunch problem! I moved this year and the video is somewhere in one of my basement boxes, as well as the entire Harrisburg FCC hearing about media consolidation. I’ve been looking but haven’t found them yet, but believe me, I’ve got him on tape!
Hell yes vote!
But remember that those who count the votes decide … until we decide to take them out. And enventually we will if they continue to screw us in glee.
Government should fear the people, the people should not fear the government.
The Amurkan movie they parade before us is such a lame piece of shit.
just saw this on CNet, from a CS ‘professor’ at Carnegie-Mellon (outside Pittsburg). Either he’s quaffing the Kool-aid, or the paranoiac in me thinks he’s a Republican out to suppress the Vote…
I am so sorry, Pennsylvania. You have got to get rid of those machines as a way that most/all voters vote. I am a poll worker in California, and we have to have one of those machines per precinct for those voters who would be unable to vote seretly without them. At neither of the two precincts at the polling place where I work are any votes cast on these machines, ever. They are there because election law says they have to be. I set my machine up, and then I take it down, for every single election, even though nobody uses it. I have to attend a special training for every single election on how to work with these machines.
You need to get your wonderful state to this point, where voters simply do not use them. There is no point working through the national/state legislative systems. Your legislators do not care about how you view these machines, or how they are a threat to our democracy. They only care that the lobbyists who work for the companies who manufacture and market these machines contribute to their legislative campaigns. I am sorry it is like this, but this is the reality we are up against.
Do whatever you have to do to get voters in your state to reject these machines. That is the only way to go.
Oh, and contribute to Brad Friedman’s blog, because he is one of only a few people in America who are on to this electronic voting machine scam.
Sorry, but I just watched the Why Tuesday videoclip after I wrote my last post.
Here’s what I got out of that videoclip: As long as they are getting elected by voters who use these machines, THEY DON’T CARE. They will not challenge the integrity of these machines. Can you see how insidious these machines are?!!!
BTW, Why Tuesday is a great site. I link to it at my site, and Jacob does a great job with it.
Well imagine my complete lack of surprise. Could I have stood in the same spot last year and predicted we would be right here, just like this? God damn it. I don’t mean to sound like an ass but this country deserves what it gets. That is the price for eternal apathy.
A total BUSHIT SYSTEM that will produce BUSHIT RESULTS.
… justadood said in #21…
“just saw this on CNet, from a CS ‘professor’ at Carnegie-Mellon (outside Pittsburg). Either he’s quaffing the Kool-aid…”
Unfortunately Shamos is one of a limited class of CS academics who cannot be reasoned with in regards to any form of e-voting… and Shamos is the guy who accidentally hacked a DRE at a public hearing, generating thousands of untraceable false votes without even trying.
And yet, still, for him and similiar ivory tower types it’s e-voting or no voting…
I didn’t read all of [that long one], Isn’t that one of those “if you send me money I can afford to get my fortune released and split it with you” scams?
I read that too Zapper (good to see you)
Professor Sham-os or Shame-os is all I get out of him, what a naive piece of work he is.
As soon as voting went electronic, Democracy was dead IMO
The thing about people who don’t vote, is that they either don’t care that people don’t vote, or they are in a situation where their vote doesn’t matter.
I am in Massachusetts. I voted for Nader one year because it was obvious the Democratic would take the state. But I did realise that I would never have voted for Nader if I was in Florida.
Is Hertzberg of ESI AnonymousArmy of DailyCIAKos?
AnonymousArmy admitted to being involved with scamdy.com. That website was hosted by Abacus America Inc.. If one investigates Hertzberg’s domains, they lead one again to Abacus America Inc..
If one goes to the whois for Hertzberg’s heartmountaingroup.com, they will no longer see an ip address or any reference to Abacus America Inc..
But I screensaved the whois from way back. I screensaved a lot, because as soon as Hertzberg was exposed at BreakForDisinfoNews, he started scrubbing and pruning his internet activities, such as with Hertzberg.org where he admitted to having worked for the DoD.
AA at Kos blogged about Brad and the Curtis/dog story. I could find only one other person who did that. It was “Fintan Dunne,” a known disinformation noise maker.
Kudos to John Dean for busting up the disingenuous pack of trolls who made a mockery out of the election integrity movement.
As for Hertzberg, it appears that his websites were on government property. If so, I am curious why his ronpaulonline and other websites were there too. Finally, if the Election Science Institute was a true non-profit dedicated to helping with election integrity issues, why is the domain no longer available?
Almost all our institutions meant to ensure election integrity are asleep at the switch. Thanks Brad Blog!
Medical people use DRE with a different meaning: Digital Rectal Exam. Actually, the meaning may not be that different; we’re taking it in the ass in either case.
Some of the people on the thread to the main post at HuffPo are saying that there are ballots in NE Pennsylvania without Obama’s name on them. Perhaps, one of you can do a direct link, and how do we protest this if the story is true?
http://www.runhardmedia.com/hrc/jpg
Since they aren’t counting Fl and MI, To balance that disenfranchisement out, why don’t we not count 2 other states of equal delegate votes that Obama won. That way the current states that are being punished won’t feel so bad and the 2 new states who will be disenfranchised won’t really care or won’t care enough to bother in the general election. Do you think they would mind? Instead of Hillary taking the hit, we will make the hit even. Of coarse did Obama even win two states as big as FL and MI???
I gotta better idea, let’s take Clinton off of the ballot in Pennsylvania, in it’s place she’ll have an uncommitted checkbox.
That’ll be fair.
Karma!Gotta’ love it! Kossaks love Obama like newly weds…no prob. in our election machines…they’re saying Philly(big Obama stronghold) is having massive machine break downs. Glitch. Hard to look over a glitch when you are a newly wed.
so then pa election doesn’t count. clinton could steal it as she stole new hampshire. exit polls do not lie. and now we are not permitted to ever SEE the exit polls. what a sham . what a disgrace
How many malfuctions, irregularities and stupid systems problems are we going to have to endure before we throw those machines into the trash?
How come the HAVA act is so concerned with the 3 minutes it takes to stand there and vote and not require voting facilties to provide chairs for long lines?? Why doesn’t anyone ever bring a chair to vote?
Where’s the angry mob?