BREAKING: San Diego Diebold machines "slept over" in poll workers homes

[redacted]

http://www.canofun.com/cof/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=16338

[spuddonna]

1. I'll bet they played "Spin The Chad"...

:sarcasm: Wonder how often it landed on "Republican"?

[hootinholler]

21. Spit take. n/t

:rofl:

[LSK]

2. more at Bradblog

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002924.htm#More

Was just mentioned on Randi's show too.

[KansDem]

3. But did they respect them in the morning?

"Was is good for you?" asked the Repub of the Machine...

[peace frog]

4. Heh, bet they won't call again

Know it for what it was: a one night stand.

[Clark2008]

5. Nawwww... they'll call 'em back in November.

They're just fuck buddies and the machines just don't know it, yet.

[LiberalEsto]

6. Dems were the ones that got

f*cked.

[peace frog]

11. They're always coming and going

and going and coming... and always too soon. Right girls?

[peace frog]

8. Yeh OK, they can call in November

but it will take flowers and one hell of a nice dinner to get 'em back in the sack.

[peace frog]

9. dupe

[fed-up]

7. I think it is typical for voting equipment to "spend the night" at the

various poll worker's homes on the evening before the election.

When my son worked the election last fall? the workers would pick up all the voting equipment and supplies the night before from the county and then they could drive straight to their polling precinct early in the morning to set up.

What got me last election was when the workers forgot to include the "tally sheet" in the box of completed voting ballots and just unsealed the "security tape", stuck in the tally sheet and resealed the box, with no visible evidence that it had been tampered with. So much for security....

[scarletlib]

10. i was a precinct clerk here in palm beach county

we use sequoia machines. i picked up and kept overnight a number of items needed at the polls for the election the next day. that including the card activator machines. however, neither I or any other poll workers were allowed to carry home the actual machines that you voted on. those were taken by the election's office to the precincts the weekend before the election and kept under lock and key until the morning of the of the election. (now to my way of thinking there was no way to guarantee that the machines were 100% safe but at least the precinct worker's did not have the machines in their homes!)

[Gregorian]

12. It happened before. Back in 2004.

It was on a show that Bev Harris was a part of. It had her walking around in private homes, looking at machines that were not even secured with anything more than a strip of removable tape.




I hate to be cruel, but just how many elections need to be stolen before people demand something better.

[LeftyMom]

13. How it works here

The machines (we have ES&S optical scan here in Sacramento county) are delivered a day or two below to the polling place itself. They keys and memory card are given to the precinct chair the night before. The two do not meet until the polling location is unlocked the morning of the election and the locking tab is removed from the bag that holds the memory card and other vital stuff in front of the other poll workers, who sign to verify that it was not tampered with.

[slackmaster]

14. Is it possible that similar security procedures are used in San Diego?

It would be nice to know the full story before people start throwing knee-jerk accusations of hacked voting machines.

[LeftyMom]

15. Seems likely to me

Nobody's going to send any useful part of the machinery home without precautions. Even if one intends to cheat, not all of the election workers will be of the party one wishes to promote (and as a matter of fact, they're mostly older people with a strong sense of civic duty who really do want to see a fair election, at least in my experience.)

[slackmaster]

16. Thanks, that is what I thought

The poll workers in my 'hood are a mix of retired people who have lived in the area forever and youngish soccer mom types. None of them look like election stealers or machine hackers.

[LeftyMom]

17. We aren't supposed to talk politics but my observation has been that

the poll workers I have worked with were mostly very liberal. A mix of dutiful older folks (and the 16 hour day must be very hard on them, but they are very dedicated) middle-aged county workers who like the job because they get paid by the county for both thier regular day and the poll worker pay and idealistic young people. Every poll worker I've ever known to hint at thier politics here (we're allowed to talk politics after the polls close and we certainly did in '04) was a liberal.

[noamnety]

24. What do election stealers or machine hackers "look like?" n/t

[slackmaster]

25. Overweight, bad teeth, white, male, over 60

Wearing 3-piece suits, usually.

;-)

[truedelphi]

23. Wish i could agree with you BUT

When I was a polling workerway back in Nov 1980, the other Dem and the
one indy polling worker seemed relly buddy-buddy with the Republican workers and the Chief Precinct Officer.

Anytime the Repukes said that a ballot should not be considered, they would agree.

I felt the whole thing was a set up - that the supposed Dem and the supposed indy were really Repukes. Because of my objections, at least a handful of ballots were recorded the way the voter wished rather than trashed as the Repukes suggested.

And Andy Stephenson talked about how absolutely lame some of the poll workers and poll watchers that he experienced were -reading novels, working crossword puzzles, sleeping etc. And this is related to his work during the entire year of 2004, so it doesn't sound like things have changed.

The Republicans have spent thirty years figuring it out. The Chief Precinct Officer is usually a Republican, except maybe in the occasional strong Democratic areas.

here in Marin County California, Michael J Smith pretends to be "independent" but now that he has chosen Ginnold as his successor (She is absolutely smitten with Diebold and all thing elcectronic) the other activists here are starting to see the light. The wolf is sheep's clothing parable was and is powerful because it occurs often in real life, and the ploy works REAL well.

[BradBlog]

18. Here's how it's hacked anyway...

With the Diebold machines, the memory cards now by fiat of McPherson must be "sealed" into the machines before they go anywhere.

Either way, please read my story at BRAD BLOG:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002924.htm

The memory cards aren't necessary to tamper with the entire system, it's software and even it's bios. They can all be replaced in less than two minutes, with no password necessary, if physical contact is made with the machines.

On a side note, I posted the item originally here in LBN, but it's been moved to "Editorial" here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x215935

This story is not editorial and should not be posted over there where it is not being seen. Please feel free to kick it and/or recommend it as necesssary or ask the Admins to move it back to where it belongs!

Thanks!

Brad

[LeftyMom]

19. I only know the system here but

it takes a key and the removal of one of those plastic anti-tampering locks to get to the memory card. There's really no way to do it in a polling place with so many eyes without leaving evidence. The machine prints out a tape with 0 votes in all races at the start of the morning. Unless somebody fudged the memory card or scanner software beforehand to print out 0 votes and then change the count, there isn't really much chance the cards are screwed with. If that did happen, since we have optical scan here the sample hand-count that's done to check the totals would likely turn up something unless an insider knew where that count was to occur and could avoid it (I don't work for county elections so I don't know how they secure the procedure on thier end.)

[Kostafarian]

20. Um

No offence but I think it got moved because it links to your website. Not an lbn source perhaps?

You start the story with...

"To be clear, at this hour, we have no evidence to show that Democrat Francine Busby -- running in yesterday's special run-off election in San Diego against Republican Brian Bilbray to replace the disgraced Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham for the U.S. House (CA-50) race -- actually won it.

Neither do we have evidence to believe that Bilbray actually won it.

We do, however, have copious and documented evidence to suggest there is no reason in the world to have any faith that Bilbray won the race."

How do you think it fits into lbn?

[Matariki]

22. what a surprise

we've lost our democracy, haven't we? and nobody cares.