BBV: NYT | Paul Krugman | Hack the Vote (Bev, rob-Georgia mentioned!)

Hack the Vote
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: December 2, 2003

Inviting Bush supporters to a fund-raiser, the host wrote, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." No surprise there. But Walden O'Dell — who says that he wasn't talking about his business operations — happens to be the chief executive of Diebold Inc., whose touch-screen voting machines are in increasingly widespread use across the United States.

For example, Georgia — where Republicans scored spectacular upset victories in the 2002 midterm elections — relies exclusively on Diebold machines. To be clear, though there were many anomalies in that 2002 vote, there is no evidence that the machines miscounted. But there is also no evidence that the machines counted correctly. You see, Diebold machines leave no paper trail.

Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, who has introduced a bill requiring that digital voting machines leave a paper trail and that their software be available for public inspection, is occasionally told that systems lacking these safeguards haven't caused problems. "How do you know?" he asks.

What we do know about Diebold does not inspire confidence. The details are technical, but they add up to a picture of a company that was, at the very least, extremely sloppy about security, and may have been trying to cover up product defects.

Early this year Bev Harris, who is writing a book on voting machines, found Diebold software — which the company refuses to make available for public inspection, on the grounds that it's proprietary — on an unprotected server, where anyone could download it. (The software was in a folder titled "rob-Georgia.zip.") The server was used by employees of Diebold Election Systems to update software on its machines. This in itself was an incredible breach of security, offering someone who wanted to hack into the machines both the information and the opportunity to do so.

more...http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/opinion/02KRUG.html

:bounce: :bounce: /me applauds
This is the New York Times Op-Ed page we're talking about here!

:yourock:

"But there's nothing paranoid about suggesting that political operatives, given the opportunity, might engage in dirty tricks. Indeed, given the intensity of partisanship these days, one suspects that small dirty tricks are common. For example, Orrin Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently announced that one of his aides had improperly accessed sensitive Democratic computer files that were leaked to the press."

This made my day, thanks for posting it.

I'm looking forward to hearing much more on this topic by our "mainstream" media. I think this story is starting to become too large to keep a lid on forever.

bravo Bev!

The point is that you don't have to believe in a central conspiracy to worry that partisans will take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results. Why expose them to temptation?

I'll discuss what to do in a future column. But let's be clear: the credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake.

Here's another winner. It tells how the Bushies are basically buying campaign contributions with public money.

Full OP ED: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27059-2003Dec1.html

The Politics of Payoff

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A27

"It's also forgotten that redistribution to the poor is not the only way to shift money around. The government's coffers can also be run down by redistribution to the wealthy and to favored interest groups. And when it comes to the politics of payoff, the president and his allies are nothing short of brilliant. Disgorging public money to your friends makes political sense. By recycling a small fraction of the cash back to Bush and his party in the form of campaign contributions, those friends are financing the construction of a mighty political machine. It's a weird form of public financing of campaigns -- confined to one party. "

republicans don't DONATE to campaigns, they INVEST.

and they always get a good return.

p.s. welcome to DU! :hi:

gin

...."I'll discuss what to do in a future column. But let's be clear: the credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake."

Let's hope and pray that paper audit trail capability will be forced upon the 2004 elections. It will be slightly expensive, but a lot less than what we spending per day on our military adventures. The question is whether our democracy/voting system is worth improving, or do we prefer our current plutocracy...bordering on fascism.

People have no idea how serious this issue is, and as someone who studies this stuff, I am very thankful to Paul Krugman. Hopefully this will grap the public's attention and create much political pressure...

GOREN4: MS/ITS in INFOSEC, CISSP, CHSP, GCFA (pending practical)

"...let's be clear: the credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake."

Oh yeah....right here on DU last January(?) when Bev arrived on the scene. She, et al, got us this far, it's up to us now to see it thru to the sweet summery end. Krugman's article will get distributed widely, eh?.

We'll be dancing in the streets, I tell ya, dancing in the streets!

Wow! Congrats to everybody involved, especially Bev Harris. I'm very excited to see where this goes. I've been telling friends to watch out for this for months now.
:toast:

This is the New York Times Op-Ed page we're talking about here!

The ball was dropped for years by the FEC and Congress.

So, when standards were suggested to be set, someone stepped up to the plate- but not a federal authority, per se.

Nope.

Call it: Incremental Opportunity

"This happened, no one paid attention; then this and we added some PR and nothing happened; we added some more PR and lobbyists and told every one what a good job we were doing....."

God, I love that man.

this is the mail I had my dad (mayor of Philly suburb for, like 20 years) send out to the NJ dem establishment:

I am writing to you because something very disturbing has been brought to my attention by my son Mark. Mark has recently registered as a democrat, is active in his local committee and actively supports Howard Dean to be the Democratic Presidential nominee. Apparently, a company called Diebold, a large ATM manufacturer, is producing and supplying electronic voting machines to a number of voting districts around the country. Normally, this would be a good thing. I mean, who wouldn’t rather use a fancy touch screen computer than the old lever machines or, worse, the ancient punch cards? The problem is this, the CEO of Diebold is a man named Walden W. O'Dell. Mr. O’Dell is a top fundraiser for George W. Bush. In fact, he is one of the president’s “Rangers and Pioneers”, people who have helped raise at least $100,000 for the 2004 election. More, he recently wrote to a group of fellow supporters that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year,". In fact, Governor Dean mentions in a chat on the Washington Post that “The chairman of Diebold has sent a letter saying that he will do everything he can to get Bush reelected”.

This is not conspiracy theory nonsense. It is, unfortunately, a sign of our increasingly politically polarized times. In fact HR2239, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, has been drafted specifically to address this issue. And while this resolution is great and should be supported, I feel this is nowhere near enough. As my son tells me, if the computer can be programmed to lie it can also be programmed to give you the piece of paper you expect to see…and then lie anyway. What really needs to happen regarding this issue is for it to be shouted loud and often from the highest rooftops. It needs to be taken to the media and taken to the people. For, as complacent as many Americans are regarding elections, learning that their right to vote is being stripped is another thing entirely.

_____________, I want you to know that I consider this travesty to be, in no uncertain terms, an affront to democracy. Every American, but especially democrats need to be worried about this issue and working toward it’s resolution. To be honest, I have doubts that our republic could survive another Florida. Democrats across the country feel, or know, they were robbed and will not stand for it again. To be clear, if George W. Bush wins reelection in 2004, fine. Let him do it fair and square…for once. I appreciate your help in bringing this important issue to the media and to the public so that we may be sure, come January 2005, that the right man (or woman) is sitting in the White House.

Powerful stuff.

Krugman is one of the most important journalists working in America and he knocked it out of the park, thanks to you all and Bev Harris!

Hee ha ha ha ha (maniacal Democratic Donkey laugh)!!!!

I believe, goes something like this:

HEE HAW!

Between this and Diebold dropping its lawsuits against postsers of its memos, the forces of freedom and honesty have won two major victories.

Folks, many of you here deserve the credit for your efforts in getting the word out, and of course, Bev Harrris deserves a mountain of credit for one year of tireless, dogged attention to this matter.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org

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