Hackable Voting Machines: Does anyone know if anything

[Amy6627]

has changed enough with the voting machines that 2006 will not repeat 2004? If not, is there anything we can do to make 2006 a real election?

[Wilms]

1. Plenty has changed that 2006 will not repeat 2004.

It'll be worse.

[Amy6627]

2. I was so excited when I read your subject line, then I clicked

into your message and then my heart sank. My heart doesn't want to give up yet, but my brain says our county is already lost forever. If checks and balances are not restored in 2006, there is no point in speaking out or being active anymore. I am not strong enough to go to a concentration camp.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halliburton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84

http://www.empowermentproject.org/pages/coverup.html

[Wilms]

4. But I still have hope.

I'm one of those "glass half empty" people who are optimistic about filling it up. :D

And I really imagined that it would be worse than it is, now. Ohio took a beating with touch-screen deployment, but a lot of states are fighting really hard, including NY, CT, PA, NC, CA.

Hang in there.

[Wisconsin Larry]

3. It will be worse since there will be more of these *-*&^%$ Machines

in place unless we do something and the following thread has a great plan. Let's all get on board

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2471271#top

[Beth in VT]

5. Amy, if you go to the forums home page under "Topics Forums"

you'll find a forum called "Election Reform" where people are discussing machines and much, much more. : )

[politicat]

6. If Vista's out, they'll be running that instead of XP.

Look, if an XP machine can be zombied within 20 minutes of being online, so can a voting machine because all they are are PCs with touch screens and network cards running whatever flavor of Windows is current.

They're networked together in the precinct, and depending on county, will be networked (or not) as a county. But if they're online, they're hackable. Period. There is no such thing as a totally secure machine that is online. The only truly secure machines are the ones that have never been introduced to a phone line.

If they're not online, they're still hackable, but it will have to be in person or the hacker will have to have access to a keyboard or know the system.

The bigger concern for me is the inside hack - the companies that make the machines aren't to be trusted, and if they're using Excel as the tabulating engine, they're going to have massive issues - Excel has a rounding problem that causes all sorts of errors if not corrected for (and most people don't know it.)

France and Canada handle this with pencils and paper. I don't see why we need instant results.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Never give up on our right to vote! Never!

1. This is a long term fight for our democracy. It took them years to deprive us of our right to vote, with these hackable voting machines with their "trade secret," proprietary programming. It is not going to be remedied overnight. And it is not going to be easy.

2. But it CAN be done. Control over election sytems still resides with the states and counties, where ordinary people still have some influence. We have to win back our right to vote state by state, county by county. The issue is a no-brainer, and is non-partisan, at least among voters. Most people would agree that elections should be transparent and aboveboard.

Go to the DU Election Reform Forum for updates and how to help.

Some resources:

www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.verfiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.UScountvotes.org (monitoring of '06 and '08 elections)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)
Sign the petition (Russ Holt, HR 550, great bill-has 169 sponsors). http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html
www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)

Also of interest: (Bob Koehler--very bad machines in Ohio, recent)
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05)
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

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Never give up on our right to vote! Never!

It took humans ten thousand years to achieve democracy. Democracy and progress are the overwhelming trend of human history.

Think of Nelson Mandela, 30 years in prison, and emerging from jail to become the first black president of South Africa.

Think of the black citizens in our own country--one hundred years from slaver to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Think of what's happening in Latin America right now---hundreds of years of oppression and exploitation overturned through TRANSPARENT elections, which are the result of years of hard work by local civic groups, the OAS, EU election monitoring groups and the Carter Center. Virtually the entire map of South America has turned "blue" over the last several years, with leftist governments elected by big numbers in Brazil, Argentina, Chile (first woman president), Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia (first indigenous president). Peru will likely be next. This is a huge, profound, peaceful, democratic, socialist revolution, from the ground up, coming from the people. And this revolution is moving north. Mexico will likely elect the leftist mayor of Mexico City as president this year.

Patience, patience, patience! It has taken the fascist element in our country twenty years and billions and bilions of dollars to steal our government away from us. We must struggle steadily and methodically to get it back. This is the fight of our lives. This is OUR revolution--American Revolution II. State by state, county by county, political club by political club, citizen by citizen: We MUST restore our right to vote, which is the very mechanism of our sovereignty as a people.