Reply #282: Diebold makes Optical Scanners.

[mirrera]

Read up on them. The memory card has an executable program on it that makes the scanner work. It can not work at all with out this little program on the card. The GEMs program on a regular PC is used to put in all the particulars that are on the ballot. Who goes in column "A" and who goes in column"B", etc. When the election official—or in some cases a person from the company that sold the scanner— is finished the scanner is plugged into the PC and that info is written to the memory card. Multiple cards can be copied, using the scanner like a "card reader". Once all the cards are written, the scanners are ready to be used to count the ballots.

If you read about the Harry Hursti hack he shows one way the election can be manipulated, but there are many ways this can be done. The election officials do not even have to be involved.

We should not have to prove it wasn't done as long as they can't prove it CAN'T be done. We would not put up with such a poor level of security at our bank —nor would the banks who have whole departments devoted to computer security while the average election official has to depend and trust Diebold and ES&S.

Diebold Accuvote Optical Scanner.

There was concern about this in NH before the primary. (Remember "live free or Diebold") Crying foul about the "sudden concern" is something we expect from the GOP. As Democrats we should be above that. Anyone who wants to count the paper ballots by hand (which is why we are so glad to have those ballots and are fighting state by state to get them) has my support. If they rig the re-count that has to be caught as well. I could care less who benefits as far as the candidates go. I believe in Democracy and the right of the people to have their votes counted as cast. The truth is the truth and no one should be afraid of it.

Accusing someone of being part of the "rake and pitchfork crowd" is really quite demeaning. There are true heroes working to save our vote and like we say about certain officials, if you can't help it is sometimes best to get out of the way.

Edited to add link to Hursti Hack video on Brad Blog (scroll down the page):
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5537