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Edited on Mon Dec-20-04 09:06 AM by luaptifer
Freepers very worried about vote-rigging but that was in 1999! even more fascinating!? They found a 1996 article detailing many of the arguments we have here and now!! ...from the nearly 13,000 word piece in Relevance Magazine: -- 1996 remember! --"Could a national election be fixed? As an illustration, Shamos laid out the following scenario for he and his hypothetical henchman:
<snip>
"I'm going to change ten per cent of the votes, or five per cent-some small number-and that software is going out to pivotal jurisdictions in the country. And that is going to shift the national election."
Eva Waskell told Relevance that the most likely election-rigging scenario would entail picking key states, counties and precincts rather than going after the entire vote. This would ensure that the vote switching isn't too far out of line with public expectations. "What you would do to prevent that is to know how these precincts have voted in the past and just modify them a little bit."
yup, 1996!
You pick the swing precinct in a heavily populated county and that's the one you fiddle with. Three to five per cent is enough to have the election outcome changed.
<snip>
Dugger's article also quoted Peter Vogel, a consultant for the Texas Secretary of State, who agreed with Shamos that the Presidency could be stolen by computer "because of the electoral college...If you have a majority in the right states, it doesn't matter who has the majority of the votes in the country. If you program the right states for the right elections, I think you could control the Presidential results."--- jedediah smith was the concerned programmer sending a wakeup call to his fellow freeple, presented a concise summary following Part III. It was a Twilight Zone moment when I felt the angst-vibes of a freeper rippling their way through time and space deep into my own bones: === 1. Breakdown of U.S. vote-counting methods: computer-counted punch cards (36%); computer-counted optically-scanned ballots (21.5%); direct-recording computer counters (4.3%) and mixed (some electronic, some mechanical) (8.3%); lever machines (approximately 27%); and hand-counted paper ballots (2.7%).
A day or two before an election, some precincts run a few dozen cards to test vote machines, but possible hidden "subroutines" of code for vote fraud are never considered..
Computer voting expert Howard Strauss, director of Advanced Computer Applications at Princeton University, scoffs at these so-called "logic and accuracy tests," saying: "That doesn't prove a thing. Any system that was designed with...any kind of fraudulent thing in it could pass that test easily...There are a hundred ways you could do this and probably any freshman in any school that teaches computer programming could figure out a half dozen ways... doesn't tell you what's inside the box."
Dan Rather asked Strauss if a national election could be fixed. He responded: "Get me a job with the company that writes the software for this program. Then I'd have access to one third of the votes. Is that enough to fix a general election?" .
Peter G. Neumann, of Stanford Research Institute, International in Menlo Park, California, says computer vote theft could be concealed and regards such theft of the Presidency as a distinct possibility.
Only one examination of computer source-code for vote fraud has been conducted. In a court case, a computer scientist was allowed to examine the questionable computer system and source-code without proper equipment, and still discovered "trap doors," "wait loops," and Christmas trees" for undetectable vote fraud. In the presence of the company president, system programmer and others, and he "added ten thousand votes to the total of one of the candidates in a mock race for President." The judge excluded his testimony of an internal program 'debugger' which was also a Trojan Horse and barred the jury from seeing his fraud demonstration.
Computer scientist and election consultant Dr. Michael Shamos told how he could fix a national election given the opportunity:
" Working in a company headquarters, I'm writing some election software, which will be sent by Federal Express to jurisdictions in executable object code. I'm going to program this thing so that if there are more than eight hundred people voting in a precinct I'm simply going to trade some votes, take them from other parties and dump them into the party that I want to win. So all the totals are going to be exactly right. I'm going to change ten per cent of the votes, or five per cent- some small number-and that software is going out to pivotal jurisdictions in the country. And that is going to shift the national election."
Vote fraud expert Eva Waskell said the most likely fraud would entail picking key states, counties and precincts rather than going after the entire vote, to ensure the results aren't too far out of line with public expectations. "What you would do to prevent that is to know how these precincts have voted in the past and just modify them a little bit. You pick the swing precinct in a heavily populated county and that's the one you fiddle with. Three to five per cent is enough to have the election outcome changed."
In the last presidential election Dole won more counties than Clinton (1580 to 1534), but Clinton won the more important "swing jurisdictions" in vote-rich states. Peter Vogel, a consultant for the Texas Secretary of State, agreed that the Presidency could be stolen by computer "because of the electoral college...If you have a majority in the right states, it doesn't matter who has the majority of the votes in the country. If you program the right states for the right elections, I think you could control the Presidential results."
Leonard Gates, a 23-year employee of the Cincinnati Bell telco, swore under oath that in the late 1970s and early 1980s his company wiretapped election phone lines to alter vote results. The election headquarters' phone lines were tapped to provide a link-up between the county's vote-counting computers and parties unknown to him on another phone line in California. He was told they could actually alter the votes, and that "This was just small compared to what was going on." Some computerized voting machines have modems which could allow outside manipulation during voting. Some may also have hidden cellular modems for such control with complete secrecy.
Only a handful of companies control computerized voting. Sequoia Pacific competes in several regions of the country and won a mammoth New York City contract. They are owned by the transational Jefferson Smurfit Group, an Irish firm. Its board includes the former Prime Minister of Ireland, a former member of the European Commission, a member of the board of Ireland's Central Bank a number of top Irish or European banking and air line officials, and a member of the board of Gannett News Services, one of the largest newspaper chains in America. So basically foreigners count a substantial percentage of our votes.
A Washington election official responded to questions about foreign control of vote-counting, rampant industrial espionage against America and possible foreign vote fraud, with, "I suppose that anything is theoretically possible but the likelihood of that happening is virtually impossible. The structure of our electoral process in this country does not lend itself to this." She was equally unconcerned about another foreign-owned company which is eyeing the U.S. vote-counting market-Computer Devices Canada. This type of glib, yet unreassuring, response to serious questions seems to be typical.--- hit my diary at dKos for the whole story with links and to "Recommend" it as my Xmas present :-) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/20/7396/2275#6but damn, realize what's not changed in almost a decade!! |
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