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| 2005/11/15-17 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:40596 Activity:nil |
11/15 http://csua.org/u/e0n (huffingtonpost.com) http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1559 Previously accurate Ohio predictions wildly inaccurate for this year's Ohio referendum issues. \_ And you didn't go to the talk last week on electronic voting security? For shame. \_ Why don't we just forego elections altogether and just determine the winner by polls. \_ These articles are really weak. |
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| csua.org/u/e0n -> www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/the-staggeringly-impossib_b_10589.html A MUST READ for anybody who still gives the slightest da mn about whatever democracy might be left in America. Issue 1 was a controversial proposition for $2 billion i n new state spending. The Christian Right was opposed (because some of t he new funds might go to stem cell research), but otherwise, the Republi can Governor Taft's Administration (he recently plead guilty to several counts of corruption) was pushing it hard alongside progressives in the state. The Columbus Dispatch's pre-election polling, which Fritrakis and Wasserm an describe as "uncannily accurate for decades", called the race correct ly within 1% of the final result. The margin of error for the poll was + /- 25% with a 95% confidence interval. They predicted 53% in favor, the final result was 54% in favor. org -- a bi-partisan coalition pushing these four initiatives for Electoral R eform in the Buckeye State largely in response to their shameful '04 Ele ction performance led by the extremely partisan Secretary of State (and Bush/Cheney '04 Co-Chair) J Kenneth Blackwell. On those four issues, which Blackwell and the Christian Right were agains t, the final results were impossibly different -- and we mean impossibly ! Take a look: ISSUE 1 ($2 Billion State Bond initiative) PRE-POLLING: 53% Yes, 27% No, 20% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 54% Yes, 45% No ISSUE 2 (Allow easier absentee balloting) PRE-POLLING: 59% Yes, 33% No, 9% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 36% Yes, 63% No ISSUE 3 (Revise campaign contribution limits) PRE-POLLING: 61% Yes, 25% No, 14% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 33% Yes, 66% No ISSUE 4 (Ind. to draw Congressional Districts) PRE-POLLING: 31% Yes, 45% No, 25% Undecided FINAL RESULT: 30% Yes, 69% No ISSUE 5 (Ind. What could possibly explain such unheard of difference s between the Dispatch's poll and the final results? of State decertified in this state when 20% of them failed this summer in the lar gest test of its kind ever held. somebody hack ed that vote count: If the latter is true, it can and will be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of ever y Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln. And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future o f American democracy. Anybody in the Mainstream Media ready to give a damn yet? The presidential election was rigged in Ohio, and I don't see anyone look ing into how to prevent it from happening again. Posted by: Deborah on November 13, 2005 at 09:17pm Is this comment abusive? As a programmer, I know how INCRE DIBLY simple it is to put in stealth code that secretly "flips" a vote e very so often. Further, the code could be designed to enact this special " routine only on, say, an early Tuesday in November? Without a paper trail, there is virtually NO WAY to trace such crimes aga inst democracy. Demand from your legislators a paper printout of EVERY vote. Posted by: hjalmer on November 13, 2005 at 09:19pm Is this comment abusive? flag it Well THE LORD hes spokun in Florda, Tesas, Lousana, elabama and Taxas. He's a punishin' them-all fer thair a votin fer that peckerwood W luk ow t uhia end them SUpremes. Posted by: ZENAGNOSTICYNIC on November 13, 2005 at 09:36pm Is this comment abusive? flag it The past two Presidential elections were stolen without a massive roll-ou t of these machines, but with their assistance. Posted by: WetBearSF on November 13, 2005 at 09:49pm Is this comment abusive? flag it Thanks, Brad, for a great post calling attention to one of the most disgr aceful chapters of this whole episode. And it ought to not be too hard to find a trail - if anyone were to ever bother to take a good damn look. Posted by: Raven on November 13, 2005 at 09:49pm Is this comment abusive? flag it PNAC and the Neocons (sounds like a rock group but in their case a wreck group) control the White House, Congress, the media, soon the Supreme Co urt. Why is anybody surprised they would take over the ballot box, the l ast bastion of freedom. They got away with it in 2004 and maybe 2000, so why not a trial run in Ohio for 2006? Believe it people or wait until y ou wake up some morning with martial law declared to prevent widespread panic over the "bird flu". Posted by: keyman12 on November 13, 2005 at 09:51pm Is this comment abusive? You hold yourself up as the pinnacle of democracy and yet you have debase d the process to the point that only 30% of the population bother to vot e And now you bring in a 'system' of electronic voting THAT HAS NO PAPER TR AIL which any 13 year old will tell you can be hacked. If you stick with this voting system the Republica ns will "win" by a landslide in 08, and any argument over the result wil l be dismissed. Posted by: redbox on November 13, 2005 at 09:52pm Is this comment abusive? and if you do want democracy back, you'll have to fight for it just like this. Ronald Posted by: RonaldReagan on November 13, 2005 at 10:00pm Is this comment abusive? flag it The tech commenters have weighed in on the subject in length here. If we were intentionally trying to create a really bad system (design, ha rdware, software, testing, implementation, poll site setup, security, su mmary reporting), we would do it exactly the way it is being done. Posted by: CharlesMac on November 13, 2005 at 10:10pm Is this comment abusive? flag it It seems so simple to provide a way of tracking votes, and to provide to voters evidence of their participation in democracy. In fact, the very makers of voting machines have provided this technology here, and in world markets. Diebold, the manufacturers of the voting touch screen machines have made devices that allow a very accurate record for users. The record is a rec eipt, which has in the past, also made a paper receipt that remains in t he machine. Accessibility to these machines is available in virtually ev ery neighborhood in every town, hamlet, village and city. Touch screen, receipt, communi cation with a server, transmission of information around the city or tow n, or even around the world. And when users finish their transaction, th ey get a receipt. However, when these very technologies are applied to democracy, suddenly it is prohibitively expensive to issue a receipt. The machines just can' t be designed to perform the receipt function. The cost of programming f or a receipt is too difficult for programmers to figure out. A paper could be issued with a receipt while a paper roll (think cash register paper o r even adding machine rolls) records the transaction. Every voter could be issued a receipt that gives a tally of who received their vote, a tra nsaction number that is not tied to voter rolls, and precinct, district, ward or other information, along with a date and time stamp. If it is good enough for the First National Bank of Wherever, it should b e mandatory for the most powerful, first string democracy in the world. In the Ukraine, the very polling techniques employed by polling entities in the US determined there was vote fraud and a stolen election. When the same techniques indicate something is rotten in Ohio (2004 and 2005) the polling techniques are wrong. They are stealing our vote, silencing our only voi ce in the system. If it is good enough for the Ukraine, it should be good enough for us. Or, are we to meekly accept that Bush w ould never, ever, ever lie? Posted by: GuarneriGal on November 13, 2005 at 10:11pm Is this comment abusive? flag it I sure hope that no one comes forward in total disservice to truth and de mocracy and generates some INFERENCE or scenario under which there's a P OSSIBILITY that this data was ok, then citing that possibility that it's OK to END ANY POSSIBLE INVESTIGATION. But, that's what we've come to expect in any elections: any possible reas on to support even a mere inference that things are ok, is enough to PRE VENT an investigation. Then we talk about "defending democracy at home and abroad". One need not agree to any conclusion to realize that this is cause this for a TOTAL investigation. Posted by: LandShark on November 13, 2005 at 10:22pm Is this comment abusive? flag it Thank you, Mr Friedman for bringing up this critical issue once again. M aybe... |
| www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1559 Election Issues Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats? by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman November 11, 2005 While debate still rages over Ohio's stolen presidential election of 2004 , the impossible outcomes of key 2005 referendum issues may have put an electronic nail through American democracy. Once again, the Buckeye state has hosted an astonishing display of electr onic manipulation that calls into question the sanctity of America's rig ht to vote, and to have those votes counted in this crucial swing state. The controversy has been vastly enhanced due to the simultaneous installa tion of new electronic voting machines in nearly half the state's 88 cou nties, machines the General Accountability Office has now confirmed coul d be easily hacked by a very small number of people. This year, a bond issue an d four hard-fought election reform propositions are in question. Issue One on Ohio's 2005 ballot was a controversial $2 billion "Third Fro ntier" proposition for state programs ostensibly meant to create jobs an d promote high tech industry. Because some of the money may seem destine d for stem cell research, Issue One was bitterly opposed by the Christia n Right, which distributed leaflets against it. The Issue was pushed by a Taft Administration wallowing in corruption. Go vernor Bob Taft recently pleaded guilty to misdemeanors stemming from go lf outings he took with Tom Noe, the infamous Toledo coin dealer who has taken $4 million or more from the state. Taft entrusted Noe with some $ 50 million in investments for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, from which some $12 million is now missing. Noe has been charged with fe deral money laundering violations on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Taft's public approval ratings in Ohio are currently around 15%. Despite public fears the bond issue could become a glorified GOP slush fu nd, Issue One was supported by organized labor. A poll run on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch on Sunday, November 6, showed Issue One pa ssing with 53% of the vote. Official tallies showed Issue One passing wi th 54% of the vote. The polling used by the Dispatch had wrapped up the Thursday before the T uesday election. Its precision on Issue One was consistent with the Disp atch's historic polling abilities, which have been uncannily accurate fo r decades. This poll was based on 1872 registered Ohio voters, with a ma rgin of error at plus/minus 25 percentage points and a 95% confidence i nterval. The Issue One outcome would appear to confirm the Dispatch poll ing operation as the state's gold standard. The Dispatch's Sunday headline showed "3 issues on way to passage." As mentioned, the poll wa s dead-on accurate for Issue One. Issues Two-Five were meant to reform Ohio's electoral process, which has been under intense fire since 2004. They were backed by Reform Ohio Now, a well-funded bi-partisan state wide effort meant to bring some semblance of reliability back to the sta te's vote count. Many of the state's best-known moderate public figures from both sides of the aisle were prominent in the effort. Their effort came largely in response to the stolen 2004 presidential vote count that gave George W Bush a second term and led to US history's first Congr essional challenge to the seating of a state's delegation to the Elector al College. Issue Two was designed to make it easier for Ohioans to vote early, by ma il or in person. By election day, much of what it proposed was already p ut into law by the state legislature. But it had broad support from a wide range of Ohio citizen groups. In a conversation the day before the vote, Bill Todd, a primary official spokesperson for the opposition to Issues Two through F ive, told attorney Cliff Arnebeck that he believed Issues Two and Three would pass. The November 6 Dispatch poll showed Issue Two passing by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided, an even broader margin than that predicte d for Issue One. To say the outcome is a virtual statistical impossibility is to un derstate the case. For the official vote count to square with the pre-vo te Dispatch poll, support for the Issue had to drop more than 22 points, with virtually all the undecideds apparently going into the "no" column . In a lame duck session at t he end of 2004, Ohio's Republican legislature raised the limits for indi vidual donations to $10,000 per candidate per person for anyone over the age of six. Thus a family of four could donate $40,000 to a single cand idate. The law also opened the door for direct campaign donations from c orporations, something banned by federal law since the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Though again opposed by the Christian Right, Issue Three drew an extremely broad range of suppor t from moderate bi-partisan citizen groups and newspapers throughout the state. The Sunday Dispatch poll showed it winning in a landslide, with 61% in favor and just 25% opposed. Tuesday's official results showed Issue Three going down to defeat in per haps the most astonishing reversal in Ohio history, claiming just 33% of the vote, with 67% opposed. For this to have happened, Issue Three's po lled support had to drop 28 points, again with an apparent 100% oppositi on from the previously undecideds. The reversals on both Issues Two and Three were statistically staggering, to say the least. The outcomes on Issue Four and Five were slightly less dramatic. Issue Fo ur meant to end gerrymandering by establishing a non-partisan commission to set Congressional and legislative districts. The Dispatch poll showe d it with 31% support, 45% opposition, and 25% undecided. Issue Four's f inal margin of defeat was 30% in favor to 70% against, placing virtually all undecideds in the "no" column. Issue Five meant to take administration of Ohio's elections away from the Secretary of State, giving control to a nine-member non-partisan commis sion. Issue Five was prompted by Secretary of State J Kenneth Blackwell 's administration of the 2004 presidential vote, particularly in light o f his role as co-chair of Ohio's Bush-Cheney campaign. The Dispatch poll showed a virtual toss-up, at 41% yes, 43% no and 16% undecided. The off icial result gave Issue Five just 30% of the vote, with allegedly 70% op posed. But the Sunday Dispatch also carried another headline: "44 counties will break in new voting machines." Forty-one of those counties "will be usin g new electronic touch screens from Diebold Election System," the Dispat ch added. Diebold's controversial CEO Walden O'Dell, a major GOP donor, made nation al headlines in 2003 with a fundraising letter pledging to deliver Ohio' s 2004 electoral votes to Bush. Every vote in Ohio 2004 was cast or counted on an electronic device. Abou t 15%---some 800,000 votes---were cast on electronic touchscreen machine s with no paper trail. The number was about seven times higher than Bush 's official 118,775-vote margin of victory. Nearly all the rest of the v otes were cast on punch cards or scantron ballots counted by opti-scan d evices---some of them made by Diebold---then tallied at central computer stations in each of Ohio's 88 counties. According to a recent General Accountability Office report, all such tech nologies are easily hacked. Vote skimming and tipping are readily availa ble to those who would manipulate the vote. Vote switching could be espe cially easy for those with access to networks by which many of the compu ters are linked. Such machines and networks, said the GAO, had widesprea d problems with "security and reliability." Among them were "weak securi ty controls, system design flaws, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management and vague or incomplete voting system standards, among other issues." With the 2005 expansion of paperless touch-screen machines into 41 more O hio counties, this year's election was more vulnerable than ever to cent ralized manipulation. The outcomes on Issues 2-5 would indicate just tha t The new touchscreen machines were brought in by Blackwell, who had vowed to take the state to an entirely e-based voting regi... |