Wisconsin

hue

(4,949 posts) Thu Jun 7, 2012, 10:01 AM Jun 2012

Emergency — please read — serious Wisconsin vote hack issue

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2012/06/emergency-%E2%80%94-please-read-%E2%80%94-serious-wisconsin-vote-hack-issue

Meet Command Central, the People in Charge of Wisconsin Voting Machines

Massive tide of red flags issuing from this two-person storefront company that controls 100% of Wisconsin voting machines, whose office is down the hall from Michelle Bachman's office!

The article's author wrote:

Command Central Makes Its Move—A Shady Deal With WI County Clerks

Last September, Election Integrity investigators discovered that unbeknownst to average citizens of Wisconsin, Command Central sent those 46 districts an offer: trade out your old Optech Insight Scanner for two DRE Touch Screen models, at no charge. The Optech machine is the one that paper ballots are fed through to read and register the votes.

While these machines are also susceptible to hacking (see Rep. Pridemore explain how to game the machine) in the case of a recount, it is possible to physically monitor the paper ballots as they are fed through the machine to see if they match the machine totals.

With DRE Touch Screens, however, one’s vote could be flipped and one would never know because there is no receipt or paper trail voters receive to confirm their vote was counted as voted. All that is left is a paper tape that shows votes and vote totals. If the machine is hacked, those totals have no other verifiable trail to confirm the results.

9 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Emergency — please read — serious Wisconsin vote hack issue (Original Post) hue Jun 2012 OP

I posted this in Good Reads also... hue Jun 2012 #1

I've kicked your post. I vote with the optical scanner machines--why fix what ain't broke? MADem Jun 2012 #2

Recounts snacker Jun 2012 #3

At this time, the scanners are still used for recounts. sybylla Jun 2012 #5

DRE tapes are hardly verifiable paper trails... eowyn_of_rohan Jun 2012 #6

Kennedy said those machines have no way of proving the real voting numbers in case of a malfunction. midnight Jun 2012 #8

we go back and forth on our theories day by day... nt eowyn_of_rohan Jun 2012 #9

I always wanted to ..... bongbong Jun 2012 #4

Thank you for posting this... I believe it was your link that I referenced a day or two ago... midnight Jun 2012 #7

hue

(4,949 posts)

1. I posted this in Good Reads also...

Reply to hue (Original post)

Thu Jun 7, 2012, 10:02 AM

Jun 2012

MADem

(135,425 posts)

2. I've kicked your post. I vote with the optical scanner machines--why fix what ain't broke?

Reply to hue (Original post)

Thu Jun 7, 2012, 10:07 AM

Jun 2012

There's a paper ballot in there that can be counted if the counting machinery goes haywire. It's a win-win.

snacker

(3,619 posts)

3. Recounts

Reply to hue (Original post)

Thu Jun 7, 2012, 11:21 AM

Jun 2012

I think they are done by hand count in Wisconsin, thankfully.

I do not trust voting machines. Our small county here in Wisconsin got "free" voting machines this year.

According to this article:

Forty-six Wisconsin counties and 3,000 voting machines are being controlled by a two-person company operating out of a strip mall in Minnesota

http://wcmcoop.com/members/meet-command-central-the-people-in-charge-of-wisconsin-voting-machines/

Tonight, I was just randomly looking at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel voting results map. I thought it was a bit of a coincidence that three adjoining lakeshore counties--Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee---all had the exact same percentage (64%-34% Walker) while on the western side of the state, three adjoining counties--Burnett, Polk, and St. Croix--all the very similar percentages (60-61% Walker to 39% Barrett). Maybe I'm reaching...

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/152346265.html

sybylla

(8,514 posts)

5. At this time, the scanners are still used for recounts.

Reply to snacker (Reply #3)

Thu Jun 7, 2012, 03:39 PM

Jun 2012

As has been said, the ballots are observable as they are put through the machines.

But the DRE's with the ballot tapes have to be hand counted as there is no machine in which the tape can be fed and the vote counted. I'd like to see some link that shows any DRE's used in WI that don't produce a visible paper tape ballot that a voter can confirm visually before accepting their vote. Wisconsin law requires paper ballots on all voting equipment and AFAIK that is one law that Gov. Wanker hasn't gotten a hold of yet.

eowyn_of_rohan

(5,858 posts)

6. DRE tapes are hardly verifiable paper trails...

Reply to sybylla (Reply #5)

Thu Jun 14, 2012, 06:18 PM

Jun 2012

and you can only observe the opscan ballots when pollworkers dont body block you from seeing them, or shove them through so fast that we can't keep up - little tricks like that.

Kevin Kennedy, Director of the Wisconsin GAB expressed concern over the municipalities in Wisconsin that will use electronic technology without a paper trail of votes:

“Kevin Kennedy, Director of the Wisconsin GAB expressed concern over the municipalities in Wisconsin that will use electronic technology without a paper trail of votes. Kennedy said those machines have no way of proving the real voting numbers in case of a malfunction. Despite the convenience AVC machines present to older people, Kennedy said the electronic technology’s inability to recover ballots is a potential problem.” Badger Herald; State to use scanners to tally votes by Yana Paskova; Wednesday, October 27, 2004 http://badgerherald.com/news/2004/10/27/state_to_use_scanner.php

In a 2001 interview with wispolitics.com, Kennedy said, “Sometimes you can’t measure the errors with touch screen because there’s no way of knowing what the voter thought they did and what the machine said they did.” www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=25630

“Kevin Kennedy, State Elections Board executive director, said that although other states are championing touch-screen voting, he doesn’t expect the trend to spread to Wisconsin until manufacturers can provide more verification of the machines’ results… ‘The popular myth is that you can’t trust something unless it’s paperless, but we do it every day,’ he said. ‘The question is: Can we set a verifiable procedure? There are legitimate concerns about security.’” By Matt Conn For the Wausau Daily Herald [circa 2001-2002]