Is Diebold's Voting Machines One of the Greatest Threats to Democracy?

[pattylou]

Or still... (You probably know I think Diebold "helped" bush's vote tally.)

Every month or so I google news: vote fraud diebold

... and I usually see a few articles, many several weeks old, etc.

Today when I did that search I retrieved a larger than normal number of recent documents. Here is an interesting one, although the source is very biased ("conspiracy planet;" I include the refernece anyway because the content is intriguing. Is it true? I don't know.):

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=46&contentid=2837

The threat that this company and its practices pose to democracy is now becoming clear to the Americans as well as Diebold shareholders.

In the last week, the company has begun imploding, their stock value has dropped some 20% in the last week, and top officials are jumping off the sinking ship, whistle-blowing all the way down.

Last week, VR co-founder, Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, announced
that a Diebold insider, `Dieb-Throat,' was spilling the beans on many of the company's shoddy practices.

In short, that high-level whistleblower compares Diebold to Enron, and says that the Diebold voting machines are "one of the greatest threats ever to our democracy."

Diebold counts a great percentage of our votes, like tens of percentage points across the nation.

Some columnists in more respectable sources have a report on this as well:

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2005/09/30/opinion_columnists/opinloguercio.txt

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2005/10/07/opinion_columnists/opinloguerico.txt

Forbes shows Diebolds' stock slumping, the president quitting, etc:

http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/feeds/ap/2005/09/22/ap2239441.html

 

[pattylou]

point of clarification: The president of the country is not quitting; the president of Diebold is.

 

[SOS2008]

point of clarification: The president of the country is not quitting; the president of Diebold is.

Don't toy with us like that.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hopefully the entire network of these anti-constitution, anti-democracy, bible-thumping hypocrites is imploding.

 

[pattylou]

The people interviewed in the documentary are not partisan operatives, nor unreliable alarmists. They are real people, experts, PhDs, and computer programmers, who have lived these problems for years now, trying desperately to get the word out. They weave a compelling story about vote fraud and the vulnerability of our current systems. Essentially there are two problems that can occur in any election. The first is error, as people are inherently human, and prone to mistakes. The second problem is fraud and as history has shown, it is a realistic concern. To not admit these two problems can and do exist in every election is simply inane.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_by_antho_051008_invisible_ballots__c.htm
http://invisibleballots.com/

-Patty

(LOL Sorry SOS.)

 

[deckart]

I have no doubt there is plenty of vote fraud taking place where it can. But I also have no doubt that it is not a "Republican" or "Democrat" thing, its a political system thing. It's the nature of the beast.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I have no doubt there is plenty of vote fraud taking place where it can. But I also have no doubt that it is not a "Republican" or "Democrat" thing, its a political system thing. It's the nature of the beast.

While in the long run that may be true, what matters now is this: Who threatens the constitution today? And keep in mind that Watergate was also about election related fraud and cover-ups, and it also involved, again, a bunch of Republicans, some of which are standing next to Bush right now.

 

[pattylou]

But I also have no doubt that it is not a "Republican" or "Democrat" thing.

I agree. And anyone that is guilty, should be removed from office, period.

 

[deckart]

I agree. And anyone that is guilty, should be removed from office, period.

Agreed, a criminal is a criminal.

 

[arildno]

I have no doubt there is plenty of vote fraud taking place where it can. But I also have no doubt that it is not a "Republican" or "Democrat" thing, its a political system thing. It's the nature of the beast.

Yeah, sure.
And Diebold is both a fervent Republican and fanatical Democrat.

 

[deckart]

Yeah, sure.
And Diebold is both a fervent Republican and fanatical Democrat.

And I've missed your point entirely.

 

[arildno]

And I've missed your point entirely.

Well, you might try to verify your spurious claim of "equal naughtiness" by comparing the number of criminal/fraudulent, yet leading, Republicans vs. Democrats from, say, the time of Richard Nixon.

 

[loseyourname]

Well, you might try to verify your spurious claim of "equal naughtiness" by comparing the number of criminal/fraudulent, yet leading, Republicans vs. Democrats from, say, the time of Richard Nixon.

I'm pretty sure he's right to say that confirmed instances of voting fraud have been about equally distributed between the two parties. I don't know that there has ever been a confirmed instance of fraud in a national election by either party, however.* Overt fraud is usually limited to citywide and countywide elections.

*Well, maybe the old political machine in Chicago back in the day. I don't remember if that was republican or democrat.

 

[arildno]

Hmm..I was unaware of that there exists a similar massive "Democratic" vote manipulation as that which Diebold&et al. has gotten away with. Several staunchly Democratical counties in Ohio became mysteriously won by Bush, with a number of registered votes above that of registered voters.

Please provide a reference to that Democratic fraud.

 

[pattylou]

Blackbox Voting.org posits that Diebold is happy to fix elections for whomever is willing to cough up the money, and that people from both parties have used this corruption to their advantage.

It would seem to be the case, that Diebold favored Bush to win the National elections (CEO memo "...deliver Ohio's votes to Bush"), and given their ability to manipulate numbers it seems likely to me that electronic tampering took place that favored Bush. But I don't think they'd be above 'helping' democratic candidates, in races that they thought were of lesser consequence.

I'll add a reference in an edit.

Edit: Kerry, for example, may have gotten some help in the New Hampshire Primary. Check the percentages that he got compared to Dean - and see how those percentages depend on the type of vote counting used.

http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2004/02/279929.jpg

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/02/279893.shtml

THis is hardly strong evidence, but it raises my eyebrows.

Googling with appropriate key words can find you additional hits.

 

[deckart]

Corruption is bipartisan.

 

[russ_watters]

Hmm..I was unaware of that there exists a similar massive "Democratic" vote manipulation as that which Diebold&et al. has gotten away with.

loseyourname's post said "confirmed instances of voting fraud". This Diebold speculation about what could happen does not qualify.

pattylou, I thought you were not arguing that the election was directly stolen? Didn't we have a long argument a few months ago, at the end of which you said it wasn't your intent to claim/show that the election was stolen, only that it could be stolen? By that last post, it seems you believe that the Diebold CEO was, in fact, saying that he intended to commit votor fraud. Is that (both parts: that he was saying it and that he did it) what you actually believe? Do you also believe that Bush directly bought the election result from Diebold?

 

[pattylou]

We seemed to get hung up on words last time.

I don't have any particular desire to bang my head on the nuances of "fraud" and "rigged" and "fixed" that you seem to think exonerate politicians. Your main paragraoph *above* gives me a headache: "directly stolen" --- ? As if this is grounds for dismissal of the discussion?

I don't think Bush belongs in the White house, period. I don't think discussing his level of personal involvement is as important as discussing whether Kerry won the vote.

I also don't think Kerry earned the democratic nomination.

I also think Arnold would love to get Diebold more strongly into California.


I also recall that you never answered my following question directly: Did you read the May 2005 Hursti report from Black box voting? Not how can you diss it, but did you read it? Did you read it for comprehension?

There was also a claim you had made about a related search result that you had gotten - and three times I asked you for the string so I could look at the specific hits - and three times you didn't give me the string. Perhaps this was an oversight on your part, but it certainly felt more like you simply couldn't back up your claims. At this point I don't remember the claim specifically.

I plan to continue google-newsing for vote fraud and ES&S, Diebold, etc - and I'll be sure to continue to keep you informed.

 

[Loren Booda]

Vote fraud? It's got my vote!

 

[loseyourname]

I also recall that you never answered my following question directly: Did you read the May 2005 Hursti report from Black box voting? Not how can you diss it, but did you read it? Did you read it for comprehension?

Did you ever read the CalTech/MIT voting project report I posted for you or the Verified Voting links? Both are enough to convince me that it would not have been possible for either candidate to steal the election using e-voting machines even if they wanted to.

 

[SOS2008]

I don't have any particular desire to bang my head on the nuances of "fraud" and "rigged" and "fixed" that you seem to think exonerate politicians. Your main paragraoph *above* gives me a headache: "directly stolen" --- ? As if this is grounds for dismissal of the discussion?

Ain't that the truth.

Vote fraud? It's got my vote!

Mine too.

Did you ever read the CalTech/MIT voting project report I posted for you or the Verified Voting links? Both are enough to convince me that it would not have been possible for either candidate to steal the election using e-voting machines even if they wanted to.

That report is not the only source on the topic. Members in that thread provided various sources to the contrary.

Aside from voting machines, there have been charges of forging vote totals, miscounting votes for one candidate as votes for the other, widespread voter intimidation and irregularities:

1) Strategic redistricting, ignoring normal timelines for re-evaluation.
2) Orchestrated vote suppression: Hiring "challengers" to confront voters in targeted areas; moving polling places at the last minute, "losing" the voter registration records for a percentage of targeted voters, booting up equipment late, or not having enough equipment in minority districts.
3) Casting and counting the vote on manipulatable and insecure systems.

There are suggestions that websites and newgroups related to fair voting groups or other interested parties may have been visibly hacked and disrupted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy_and_irregularities

Not to mention enough percentage increase in fundamentalist votes where there were props to ban gay marriage, as well as an increase in Hispanic votes (for a multitude of reasons, including Bush's liberal stance toward illegal entry into the U.S.) to push a close election in one’s favor.

Was Bush reelected because of his good performance as a president, particularly in regard to the economy (deficits, job rate, poverty, etc.), energy, health care, etc., etc.? No. Hmmm...I wonder why.

 

[loseyourname]

Aside from voting machines, there have been charges of forging vote totals, miscounting votes for one candidate as votes for the other, widespread voter intimidation and irregularities:

Hearsay, SOS. The CalTech/MIT report and the blog analysis of it and others that I've linked to carries out statistical analysis showing that state-by-state differences between exit polls and actual tallies are either within margin or error or margin of victory, meaning that even if fraud took place, it was not enough to change the results. Thus, my claim:

Neither candidate used e-machines to win an election he would not otherwise have won. That is the allegation being made here.

1) Strategic redistricting, ignoring normal timelines for re-evaluation.

This doesn't effect national elections unless someone redrew the state borders. That said, I hate gerrymandering. It has ruined California in virtually guaranteeing that the democracts in control have no chance of losing their seats.

2) Orchestrated vote suppression: Hiring "challengers" to confront voters in targeted areas; moving polling places at the last minute, "losing" the voter registration records for a percentage of targeted voters, booting up equipment late, or not having enough equipment in minority districts.

And where are you finding these reports? I've waded through hundreds of the official complaints logged that are kept track of on Verified Voting, and over 95% that I can see are either complaints about long lines or inadequate staffing. Given that staff are volunteers and we had record voter turnout, neither seems to be much of an aberration.

3) Casting and counting the vote on manipulatable and insecure systems.
There are suggestions that websites and newgroups related to fair voting groups or other interested parties may have been visibly hacked.

I don't know if you are trying to suggest that because there is hearsay of websites that monitor election results being hacked into that it is possible that actual vote machines were also hacked into, but the lack of adequate statistical aberration should prove that your inference from hearsay is not backed up by any real evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy_and_irregularities

You'll note at the top of the page: 40,000 alleged instances. Again, wading through these, complaints are mostly of long lines, but let us assume that all 40,000 of these mean that 40,000 votes went in a direction they should not have. You'll then want to note that the margin of victory in the most hotly contested state - Ohio - was near 120,000 votes. So even if all 40,000 complaints came from Ohio (they did not) and all meant that these votes went somewhere other than where they should have (they did not), it would not have mattered.

Not to mention enough percentage increase in fundamentalist votes where there were props to ban gay marriage, as well as an increase in Hispanic votes (for a multitude of reasons, including Bush's liberal stance toward illegal entry into the U.S.) to push a close election in one’s favor.

Hmmm . . . so Bush both pushed a higher turnout of conservatives and liberals and this helped him how? And since when is campaigning illegal? You'll note that Kerry also encouraged his core base to come out and vote. Lo and behold - democrats also turned out in record numbers. Should we ban this practice of candidates doing everything they can to increase voter turnout?

And before you come back with "well, the gay marriage bans were deceitful," ask yourself several questions:

• How many of these actually passed? (which might indicate that the super-conservatives you so desperately don't want voting actually came out like never before)
• In what groups was the increased turnout highest?
• Were any of these measures proposed in a state that wasn't already heavily republican?
• Is it illegal to do this?

Was Bush reelected because of his good performance as a president, particularly in regard to the economy (deficits, job rate, poverty, etc.), energy, health care, etc., etc.? No. Hmmm...I wonder why.

This isn't an argument, this is cognitive dissonance.

I didn't think Bush did a good enough job to get re-elected.
I also believe that America isn't stupid enough to re-elect him.
Nonetheless, he won.
Therefore, he must have stolen the election.

Are you seriously asking me to consider this as evidence?By the way, I'm happy to see that you posted a link to a wikipedia article that wasn't red-flagged for having incorrect content this time.

 

[pattylou]

Did you ever read the CalTech/MIT voting project report I posted for you or the Verified Voting links? Both are enough to convince me that it would not have been possible for either candidate to steal the election using e-voting machines even if they wanted to.

No - I read the summary/abstract/take home message.

LYN: Did *you* read the Hursti report? The thrust of it has to do with how votes *could* be stolen - and Diebold was so pissed off that they filed a lawsuit over it. It is not mutually exclusive to the MIT paper.

Do you think they would have filed a lawsuit if the methods described by Hursti weren't a probelm for voting integrity?

 

[edward]

I plan to continue google-newsing for vote fraud and ES&S, Diebold, etc - and I'll be sure to continue to keep you informed.

pattylou

Google Diebold memos or Diebold internal memos, for some interesting results. A number of institutions published a lot of diebold internal memos on their web sites and online news. Diebold is forcing them to remove the memos. Swarthmore and Stanford are still fighting Diebold's actions.

sample:

"I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here 'looking dumb'."

http://scdc.sccs.swarthmore.edu/diebold/

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3341683/

 

[Informal Logic]

<snip>

Some questions for you... California is a 'blue' state with a large percent of Democrats, which is the norm for all areas of the country that are highly urban. Do you really think gerrymandering in California has mattered? And if the Democrats are gerrymandering more than Republicans, can you explain why the Republicans have a significant majority of seats in congress? Do you really believe Bush was reelected because of his performance in his first term, or because of other reasons, such as fear mongering about terrorism, gay marriage or what have you? Whether there was or was not voter fraud, he was elected because of dirty politics so as far as I am concerned he stole the election.

 

[SOS2008]

By the way, I'm happy to see that you posted a link to a wikipedia article that wasn't red-flagged for having incorrect content this time.

I stated that members posted other sources, and I'm not going to play the google-hoop game researching it all again only to have it disregarded again. With regard to the wikipedia link in my post above, that was only for purposes of giving credit for information posted in that post. As for members providing credible sources versus op-eds, I tend to do the former, while you tend to do the later. And in general, it seems a lot of debate strategy on this forum lately is to post quantity in place of quality. I know exactly what pattylou means about the headache--trying to win an argument with sheer fatigue doesn't cut it.

 

[edward]

Whether or not there was any voter fraud in diebolds case, there is still the fact that studies have indicated that the diebold system was not secure enough to prevent fraud.
If a person went on vacation for two weeks and returned home to find that he had left his house unlocked, that person would immediately look for evidence of an unauthorized entry into his home. In the Diebold case, no one looked, claiming that it is not proof that someone was inside the system, just because it was used in an insecure manner.
Some here are claiming that it doesn't matter if there was fraud because apparently the outcome of the elections would have been the same. That is a moot point as far as proving whether or not there was fraud is concerned.
Presuming that their was voter fraud in an insecure system does not mean that there was voter fraud. On the other hand presuming that there was no voter fraud does not mean that there was no voter fraud.

The crux of this issue to me is that we must never allow such a situation to exist again in the future.

As we have described in the full paper, and will summarize below, every use of cryptography in the Diebold code is flawed.

The link below is from a Johns Hopkins sponsored study:

http://avirubin.com/vote/response.html

 

[loseyourname]

No - I read the summary/abstract/take home message.
LYN: Did *you* read the Hursti report? The thrust of it has to do with how votes *could* be stolen - and Diebold was so pissed off that they filed a lawsuit over it. It is not mutually exclusive to the MIT paper.
Do you think they would have filed a lawsuit if the methods described by Hursti weren't a probelm for voting integrity?

Yes, and I'm pretty sure I've told you that I agree with you that the fact that our systems are vulnerable means they should be changed. I've also continually parroted the Verified Voting effort to pass legislation that requires paper trails (legislation which has been enacted in about 50% of states at this point and has more pending).

None of this, however, does anything to indicate that Bush did not in actuality win the electoral vote in 2004.

 

[loseyourname]

Some questions for you... California is a 'blue' state with a large percent of Democrats, which is the norm for all areas of the country that are highly urban. Do you really think gerrymandering in California has mattered? And if the Democrats are gerrymandering more than Republicans, can you explain why the Republicans have a significant majority of seats in congress?

I didn't say democrats gerrymandered more than republicans. They have in California because they happen to have the power to do so. Believe me, it has mattered.

Do you really believe Bush was reelected because of his performance in his first term, or because of other reasons, such as fear mongering about terrorism, gay marriage or what have you? Whether there was or was not voter fraud, he was elected because of dirty politics so as far as I am concerned he stole the election.

If you want to change the definition of "stole the election" to include campaign strategies that are legal, sure, he stole the election.

 

[loseyourname]

I As for members providing credible sources versus op-eds, I tend to do the former, while you tend to do the later.

When have I ever posted a link to an op-ed of any kind? About the only links I ever post are to the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics. Every now and then I'll use the CIA factbook.

 

[Skyhunter]

The system is broke. We need to fix it period.

For every complaint of a long line, how many likely voters went home?

It is called the Southern Strategy. A concerted effort to suppress minority votes. In Ohio, in highly concentrated democratic districts, with registration at an all time high the Secretary of State had fewer machines and booths for the general election than he had for the primary. He tried to resuscitate and old law that required voter registration to be on 50 mil paper. There were reports of democratic voter registrations being thrown away.

There was a concerted effort by the partisan officials in Ohio and Florida actively suppressing democratic votes. Before, during, and after the election. Ken Blackwell in 2004, like Kathleen Harris in 2000, was also the co-chair of Bushes election/reelection campaigns. Read about the corruption rampant in those states. How anyone could doubt that the election was stolen is beyond me.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quakes like a duck, it is a duck. This is not a criminal trial where it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. They stole the election and their is enough evidence that I have no doubt. Of course I watched the whole thing unfold very closely, before, during, and after the election.

And I am not at all convinced the CalTech/MIT voting project is an unbiased study.

 

[Art]

Hearsay, SOS. The CalTech/MIT report and the blog analysis of it and others that I've linked to carries out statistical analysis showing that state-by-state differences between exit polls and actual tallies are either within margin or error or margin of victory, meaning that even if fraud took place, it was not enough to change the results. Thus, my claim:

How do you conclude this?? If the margin of error is + or - 3% then a candidate could potentially steal a 6% swing whilst still being within the margin of error. Were there no results within a 6% margin?

 

[loseyourname]

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quakes like a duck, it is a duck. This is not a criminal trial where it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. They stole the election and their is enough evidence that I have no doubt. Of course I watched the whole thing unfold very closely, before, during, and after the election.
And I am not at all convinced the CalTech/MIT voting project is an unbiased study.

If suspicion and hearsay equals guilt to you people, then I guess I have nothing to say to you. It's obvious by now that every last one of you is probably just going to believe what you want to believe regardless of what evidence is presented to you - evidence that you likely aren't even bothering to look at.

 

[loseyourname]

How do you conclude this?? If the margin of error is + or - 3% then a candidate could potentially steal a 6% swing whilst still being within the margin of error. Were there no results within a 6% margin?

Edit: Actually Art, I apologize for the brisk response. It gets a little frustrating debating with people who insist they don't need to prove that their claims are reasonable (maybe that's an unfair paraphrase of what Sky said, but whatever). So here is my original post on this subject:

Well, I found us some more stuff about voting machines and Diebold, though I guess this deviates from the main topic. (Nonetheless, I'm sure anyone who is interested will find it to be useful information, and none of it comes from a partisan source.)

First off, the CalTech/MIT report I was looking for earlier:

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/media/documents/VotingMachines3.pdf

You'll notice, in particular, that the two most hotly contested states, Pennsylvania and Ohio, only had electronic voting machines in 26% and 15% of precints, respectively. Florida had 53%, and they also had no punch card machines this time, which were all the rage in 2000.

Also:

If we look at the 51 separate exit state polls, we see that 30 predicted more votes for Kerry than he actually got, while 21 predicted more votes for Bush than he actually got. Therefore, at the state level, the polls favored Kerry less than the sum of all the polls aggregated up to the national level. Furthermore, if we do a statistical test to see whether the differences between the exit polls and the official returns are significant, only three out of 51 are.

In the footnotes you will see that three states that showed a statistically significant difference between predicted results and actual results were Rhode Island, New York, and Oklahoma. None of these were 'battleground' states. Rhode Island and New York were won easily by Kerry; Oklahoma was won easily by Bush.

The addendum to this report:

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/media/documents/Addendum_Voting_Machines_Bush_Vote.pdf

Here is an article from the http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20050214-1340-electionchanges.html discussing another report by the CalTech/MIT project (I cannot find the original report) regarding residual, or 'lost' votes:

It was one of the fundamental problems of the 2000 voting stalemate and a focus of subsequent reforms.
. . .
In 2000, the national residual vote was 1.9 percent of ballots cast for president. The report found a significant improvement this year, with the residual vote falling to 1.1 percent. The analysis examined 37 states and the District of Columbia; figures were unavailable elsewhere.
. . .
Florida, the scene of the 2000 postelection stalemate, and Georgia had the biggest drop in residual votes. Florida went from 2.9 percent to 0.4 percent; Georgia went from 3.5 percent to 0.4 percent. Both underwent comprehensive reform, with Georgia putting in electronic voting machines statewide, Florida scrapping punch cards and both launching ambitious voter education campaigns.

Remember what they were saying in 2000 about wanting every vote counted? Well, they certainly got a lot more of them counted this time.

Regarding the evil diebold, that company that is so blatantly part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, look here:

http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/map.php?topic_string=5estd&state=Ohio&county=Cuyahoga

If you remember, Cuyahoga County in Ohio was the site of most of the accusation this time around about election-stealing. The voting machines that were used in Cuyahoga County were not made by Diebold.

And about the paper trails:

http://verifiedvoting.org/article.php?list=type&type=13
You'll note that on 05/07/2004, six months before the election, the state of Ohio passed H.B.262, mandating a paper trail for all voting machines.

I guess we can't blame either of those boogeymen.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=704988&postcount=82

 

[Skyhunter]

If suspicion and hearsay equals guilt to you people, then I guess I have nothing to say to you. It's obvious by now that every last one of you is probably just going to believe what you want to believe regardless of what evidence is presented to you - evidence that you likely aren't even bothering to look at.

A friend of mine recently within the last couple of years got his doctorate in computer science. He has a friend who was involved in the CALTech/MIT study. He told me that his friend told him that the results of the 2004 study were predetermined.

And you are correct, I didn't look into it in depth, I started to and I asked my friend for help in interpreting it. He told me not to bother because it was a bogus study. There was just to much that happened in 2000 and 2004 for me to believe otherwise, at this point my mind is made up and I am moving on, it is water under the bridge, I am more interested in assuring fair elections and defeating The governators proposals in this expensive and ridiculous debacle of a special election.