Ohio sues e-voting company, can't ditch faulty machines

[tannybogus]

The name may have changed, but the artist formerly known as Diebold—now Premier Election Solutions—is still catching heat over problems with its electronic voting machines. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brenner is suing the firm, seeking unspecified damages for breach of contract and fraud. The suit blames faulty software for losing votes in 11 of the 44 counties that use Premier machines.

The company was already embroiled in a legal battle with Ohio's Cuyahoga county, one it filed preemptively in May after election officials there decided to mothball $22 million worth of Premier touch-screen machines. Premier had hoped to forestall any claims against it by seeking a declaratory judgment that it had met its obligations.

Premier's own analysis, taking a page from HAL-9000, points the finger at "human error," although it also blames a conflict with antivirus software for a glitch that caused several hundred votes to be dropped when they were first uploaded from memory cards to the county's servers. But the state says the company had certified the servers after the antivirus program was installed.

This isn't the first time Ohioans have experienced buyer's remorse over the company's electronic voting systems. As Ars reported back in 2006, an exhaustive study of that year's primaries found a host of serious problems related to the voting machines, ranging from inadequate poll-worker training to equipment malfunction.

Brunner has advocated reverting to a system of optically-scanned paper ballots, the solution endorsed in the 2006 study, though it would not be feasible to make the switch before November's elections at this point. Still, she says, Ohioans "should not be alarmed" as they head to the polls in the fall, pledging that officials will work to catch and correct any problems that arise. Forgive us if we remain skeptical

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080812-ohio-sues-e-voting-company-cant-ditch-faulty-machines.html

At this point, I believe a show of hands in stadiums might be as reliable?:crazy:

[alstephenson]

1. You're right, a show of hands in stadiums would be more reliable.

I feel so helpless - what do we do??? I plan on training and becoming a poll worker, but that's just not enough.

[tannybogus]

2. It's almost like we need a poll worker at every voting venue.

Or at least at key ones, but who knows where the shenanigans will be.
The crap should be in swing states, but??? They would have to know all the rules for that
area, and have the balls to insist on checking everything that is legally allowed.
People will be intimidating.:yoiks:

[alstephenson]

7. Yep. My boyfriend and I are going to try to work different polling places...

for that very reason.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. If by some miracle Obama gets elected because they weren't able to

steal this one, I say we really get on the the case of (the hopefully Blue) Congress to overhaul the whole voting system.

[Sunnyshine]

3. Glad to have paper ballot scanners in my district, but the entire system should be consistent.

As my vote may not even be counted if the Ohio Republican Party gets their private hands on these matters. :eyes:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=168637&mesg_id=168637

Show of hands is probably more reliable, but glad to have an honest S.O.S. in Brunner for 2008.

[Peace Patriot]

5. I agree that the problem is "human error"--quite deliberate error.

In a system that makes it EASY for electronic voting corporations, with close ties to the Republican Party and far rightwing causes, to program machines to produce 'wins' for Republicans and/or for "Blue Dog" Democrats (pro-war, pro-corporate), it is not random error, human or otherwise, that is the problem. The real problem is the privatization of our vote counting system, now run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by these corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls--and that includes optiscan systems that have a paper ballot. The trouble with the optiscan systems is that no one counts the actual ballots. Many states have NO audit at all--even when they have optiscans with a paper ballot to count. Some states still have no paper at all--there is nothing to count, recount or audit. And even the best of states count only 1% of the votes--miserably inadequate in a 'TRADE SECRET' code system.

By comparison, in Venezuela, they not only have OPEN SOURCE programming code--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--they also hand-count a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud. That's why Venezuelans are getting schools and medical care and land reform and many other benefits from their major resource--oil--and we are getting gas-gouged and looted, and over 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died for Exxon Mobil & brethren. Transparent vote counting is the difference between good government and bad government.

Our 'TRADE SECRET' code system should have had a 100% hand-count--at least in the first couple of election cycles of widespread use ('02, '04, '06), and a substantial hand-count thereafter. (Some experts say 10% is the minimum needed for detecting fraudulent code.) And it is very important to know that our system did not have a 100% hand-count required, and, indeed, had NO handcount--no paper ballot--at all required, and this was approved by our own Democratic Party leadership. It was treason. There is no other word for it--a grave and unforgivable betrayal of the grass roots of the party and of the American people as a whole.

So now, under great grass roots pressure, they're going to the corporate fallback position--optiscans. Rightwing Bushite corporations get billions more of our tax dollars to provide a paper ballot/new machinery, and still have control of election results because nobody counts the goddamned ballots, and, even where there is a paper ballot, recounts are extremely difficult to get (expensive, surrounded with corporate-written rules), and are often only partial (3% or so) 'recounts.'

I'm not saying it's not progress to achieve a paper ballot backup, or reliable, 'certified' machines. It is. We are forced to recover our right to vote inch by inch, and we need to applaud the efforts of people and groups who are doing this ESSENTIAL work. As our Founders knew, once a right is taken away, it is extremely hard to get it back. That's why they tried to make certain rights "inalienable"--the fundamental law of the land. In the case of our right to vote, and its closely associated right, the right to have our votes counted IN THE PUBLIC VENUE--it's kind of like torture and detention without trial. These fascist positions are asserted, so we will feel relieved just to have a president who doesn't torture prisoners. It may make us forget about the other shit that the president is doing to serve the global corporate predators who rule over us. They assert 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY vote counting, controlled by private, rightwing corporations, with NO auditing capability AT ALL (the touchscreens), but have planned for us to fight this outrageous development, and have a fallback position all ready--the optiscans, with central tabulators still run on 'TRADE SECRET' code, with zero or 1% auditing. Totally EASY for insider hackers.

To restore our full right to vote is going to be very difficult. The global corporations got their boots in the door, and will not be easily dislodged. They can still easily--EASILY!--fiddle our elections. They may permit Obama to win, either because they don't consider him to be much of a threat, or because they have to let some of the steam out of our system, to prevent an out-of-control angry revolt. They will give him one term, and then crash the stock market, or repeat 9/11, or something--and all the fascist hairdos on TV will blame it on Obama (thus paving the way for Hitler II?).

They are NOT done with us, you can be sure of that, even if Obama wins. There are still things to loot and progressive values to destroy. And they STILL have EASY control of election outcomes.

The only good thing that can be said about the electronic voting coup d'etat is that it indirectly tells us how much these global corporate predators FEAR the great progressive American majority. They have gone to incredible lengths to control the American people. That's a 'left-handed' compliment. It has also awakened a lot of people--new citizen activists, the most important component of any and all reform.

So, while we should applaud secretaries of state like Brunner, and Debra Bowen in California, we need to recognize that, a) 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting should never have happened in the first place--at least not without a huge outcry from our Democratic Party leaders; and b) these are extremely cautious reformers, who are still playing the corporate game--possibly out of fear (they know they can't seriously offend the powers that be, or they will be driven from office, like Kevin Shelley in CA), or possibly having been anointed to give an appearance of reform. I think Brunner and Bowen are the former--they would push for real vote counting if they thought they could do it without getting destroyed.

Vigilance over the vote counting is vital. Let election officials know that we are watching--even if what we are watching is a 'black box' that we are forbidden to see the insides of. Citizen monitoring is a deterrent. Every kind of citizen activism is helpful--whether it's get-out-the-vote, or vigilance over other vote suppression tactics, or volunteering for Obama, or donating money, or working on some particular issue (such as the war, or torture, or "free trade"). All of this helps deter more election fraud. And continued election reform activism--especially at the state/local level (the most hopeful venues for reform)--is also vital, because optiscans are "half a loaf." They are NOT secure, no matter what they tell you. A 1% audit is a token audit. It is not acceptable.

Hand-counted paper ballots, with the totals posted at the precinct level, is the gold standard of election transparency. Don't settle for less.

Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and all these corporate-controlled election theft machines should be thrown into 'Boston Harbor.' They are why we have a president with a 20% approval rating and a Democratic Congress with an 8% approval rating--both of them a disgrace to our democracy.

[Peace Patriot]

6. I took a swipe at Obama, above--that he might not be considered a threat by the

global corporate predators who rule over us--and I want to take it back, sort of. I think that Barack Obama will make an infinitely better president than John McCain or George Bush (Dick Cheney). And I think that Obama's supporters are the best thing that has happened to this country is a long, long time. I also think that some of Obama's luke-warmism is attempted self-defense against our HORRIBLE fascist 'news' monopolies. I think he is very intelligent and his heart is in the right place. But I strongly disagree with some of his positions--for instance, his repetition of the absolute rightwing lie that Hugo Chavez is an "autocrat," his arrogant assumption that South America needs "U.S. leadership," and his intention to shift the Forever War from Iraq to Afghanistan. I also see, in his "win/win" talk, haunting resemblance to corporatespeak, in which "win/win" means they get everything and the people get nothing but more bullshit. That's why I said what I said. The global corporate predators who rule over us have little to worry about, from Obama, as to war profiteering and the U.S. government whoring for Exxon Mobil and co. But he will be--and is--fairer, cleaner, more just, more honest, far more intelligent, and more people-oriented than McPuke, to say the least--and has the potential to be a great president if he acts with boldness and courage to clean the fuckwad Bushites out of our government and restore the Constitution.

I repeat: Obama would be an infinitely better president than McCain or the war criminals and traitors in the White House. I support him enthusiastically. But I don't think he intends the kind of reform that is desperately needed--throwing off the corporate rulers. So they have little to fear from him, and may permit him to win.

That's my assessment, currently. I'm worried by the polls, though, because I think they are being fiddled (toward McCain), and that could mean preparation for another stolen election. If Obama loses, to me it will mean that he was/is more of a threat than I realized.

And I want to repeat that we can make it real hard for them to steal another election by giving Obama our all-out support. The more votes, the more donations, the more volunteers, the harder it is for them to steal it.