John Conyers Asks: Please Give Me Your thoughts and Ideas

Help Me Achieve Election Reform
We Will Never Give Up

Please Give Me Your thoughts and Ideas

Blogged by JC on 03.25.05 @ 04:38 PM

One of the main reasons I have set up this interactive blog, was to receive ideas, input, and suggestions from you. So far I have received scores of comments, and I have reviewed each and every one of them. Today, I ask for your ideas and thoughts about election reform. I hope to use this as an opportunity to solicit your ideas and suggestions on other issues of public concern in the future.

-snip-

I would like to use this blog as an opportunity for you to provide me with your suggestions and ideas for raising the visibility of this issue and advancing the cause of election reform. Let me know your thoughts.

-snip/more-

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000037.htm

Actually, the most important task we here at DU and all Americans as citizens of the USA is to insure our election system is completely transparent. Our country is currently ran by American Terrorists. They have complete control of our country.

What would happen if foreign operatives took over the USA and, basically, destroy it. How do we as citizens address it. There are only two alternatives: 1) a revolution, 2) vote the bums out.

These are our only two ways to regain our democracy.

kick for Conyers. Hopefully when his blog becomes popular the other congress people will get the clue.

and nominated. This is our chance for input. We almost have a direct line to God.

And provide links.

I was not the first one to come up with this idea - I believe it was mentioned in one our 'DU think out loud posts".

Fundamentally, I believe all Americans want their vote counted and counted accurately.

So, the idea: Upon completion of voting you are assigned a unique and random 'reference number'. A receipt is also printed and given to you. Then, this reference number along with who you voted for, is published. The best idea is to put it on a web site. You personally can look up your ref nbr and verify that it is who you voted for.

This will also facilitate the ability for groups of people to conduct audits.

The right to a fair and honest election is an Inalienable Right.

No governmental official has the right to mandate anything less.

Then the Ballot is no longer secret. A big no-no.

Let's hope we get some comments on that.

With this method, I vote and I have a piece of paper that shows my ref nbr and who I voted for. Then I go to a web site and look up my ref nbr and insure that they tabulated my vote properly.

As a check and balance, citizens and groups, such as Democrats and repuks, can request the raw vote data and do there own summations.

This might be absolutely fool proof.

Transparent.

The reciept could be used to "sell" ones vote. The "purchaser" would be able to verify that they got what they paid for.

Not good. :(

The benefits trump the negatives.

The idea is that if a bad guy in the election committee changes a vote, then the receipt can be proof to set it right.

I am aware of this problem, but with 100 million people voting, is it something to really worry about?

Do you have an idea?

I just want a transparent election system and all ideas are welcomed!

Vote Buying is probably a lot easier to detect than Vote Stealing via machine, but I still think it an arguable security risk that won't fly.

but, how else can we insure our elections?

Right now, bad guys just change the vote and we are screwed.

I don't think 'bad' guys are going to go to a significant number of people and swindle/con/mandate a person to vote the way they want.

I just think there are too many people voting to worry about that.

What are your ideas?

You might tip a localelection, but maybe not much more.

Other ideas include Paper Ballots, Open Software, Hand Counting, Mandatory Recounts...

There are ways...

I wish I had read this before responding on Rep. Conyers blog... I didn't know what to say to because it seems like electronic voting is being shoved down our collective throats with no options. I mean, we really don't have a choice in that, right? And with the voting equipment companies in the hands of the Radical Regressives what chance do we have? I thanked him for his service but felt stupid offering no ideas.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I take your ideas as: "Open Software" refers to the vote tabulators which would mean they couldn't "hack" the machines, right? - and "Hand Counting" means only for recounts?

Thank you Wilms! :-)

HAVA does NOT require DRE's.

But, to a degree, electronic voting is being shoved down our collective throats, despite the alternatives.

An advantages of the DRE's (Direct Recording Electronics) is that it makes life easier for BoE's. I'm not advocating, just being candid.

A current and major advantage to DRE's is that it makes voting with privacy possible for SOME mobility-limited voters who otherwise wouldn't be able to do so (despite what some anti-DRE activists reveal).

But I've been doing research on that and have a concept that would utilize paper ballots for these mobility-limited voters. I haven't seen such a device on the market but it would not take NASA or JPL to fashion it. Another nice thing about the idea is that a leading advocate for the disabled (and admitted fan of DRE's) agreed that, in theory, the concept would work. So I have to line a few more ducks and let the Gentleman from Michigan know what I've been thinking.

The open software should apply to any computer in the chain. DRE's, OpScans, and other devices used at central locations to tabulate.

Hand counting could, in theory, be used for vote counting, partial audits, or mandatory recounts. That's what we'd like. But settling for the latter two alone might give us a fighting chance against fraud.

-on edit-

If there was a hand count of the original vote, I think auditing would not be neccessary.

to have won the last election.

11 votes X How many precincts?

I'm not advocating, just detailing. :)

If the voter is required to go to their local BOE or to the SOS office to access the record of their vote, and must produce photo ID to do so, the "vote selling" problem is much less likely to occur. Of course, the possibility remains that the database is still visible to government officials who have the right to view the database and can see how you voted, and I suppose corruption/vote selling could still occur in this manner.

I don't know how many people might amble down to the BoE, though.

As far as government officials using the database to steal, seems less likely than a basic discomfort with revealing to the Gov't exactly how you voted.

I could easily imagine, the way things are going, that that would be kinda :scared:

Along SnoopDog's line, wouldn't we still have to sign a pollbook, and logically wouldn't that pollbook also have the unique ID on it?

So, wouldn't that be more of an assurance that vote buying would be a minimum problem?

Frankly, I like the idea, and if I have to switch from our Oregon mail-in by standing in line at a polling place again, I'd be willing to do it in a hot minute.

I will repeat this... If we, as citizens, do not have transparent voting, then any terrorist - foreign or domestic (like the current administration) - can take over and destroy our country.

We need the most accurate election system possible. Hey, this is our country. For everyones information, we own our country - not elected or selected or rigged politicians. They are our servants (respectfully stated of course - especially for Mr. Conyers, Ms.Boxer, Mr. Kennedy, and a few more - there are others please no flame).

To have any Senator or Representative vote against transparent elections is actually a traitor to America.

I was speaking to "Vote Buying".

Let's just say...I got a lot of money. I want Mussolinni to win the election. I offer money to people in exchange for their vote. They bring the 'reciept' back to me, and I hand them the cash.

That's the stated problem. Am I missing a stated solution? :shrug:

A receipt to the bad guy is just added proof.

I don't have the answer, specifically, right now Wilms...

Could it? - does it happen today? Don't know... How much money would it take to 'buy' an election?

As it is today - our elections have been stolen two presidential elections in a row.

And where has this placed us?

As citizens - we are totally fucked.

No jobs. Federal deficit sky high. An illegal war. Our tax payer dollars going right into 'their' pockets. No education dollars. POLLUTION all over the fucking place. NO HEALTH CARE. MEDICARE in deep peril. An administration that has the entire fucking world hating us. We piss and shit into everything and ever one. Wars.

What else.... We need to step up and be AMERICANS - and not the pricks we call our current government.

prevent this, aren't they mail in, I could have you vote,sign and drop it in the mail box in front of me,and then pay you for your vote. Just curious.

Somebody trying to tamper with voters (say a Blackwell thug) could demand to see your receipt, then beat you up (or withold your bribe) if you "don't vote the right way."*


* Dick Cheney, 2004

What's to stop Blackwell from handing out the same "I voted for Kerry" number to 2 or 3 extra people in a precinct, while logging their votes as Bush votes? Remember, 1 vote per precinct is enough to tip it.

I appreciate the analysis..

In response to your first post - I would say that 'vote buying' would be rare (?).

And to this post, that is where you would check on the internet - match your unique number to how you voted.

There has to be a fool proof means to vote....

Your ideas?

I think the best way is constant video surveillance, available at all times to the public. Handwritten paper ballots, dropped in plexiglas boxes. They could be optically scanned, and a manual recount of _truly_ randomly selected precincts would be mandatory every time, no exceptions. Every step in the process _must_ be on TV (or at least available to anybody), including the voting lines, the poll workers, provisional procedures, scanning, random selection (say with lottery-style ping pong balls), manual recount, reporting of precinct numbers to the county, county numbers to the state, and anything else. Both parties must be required to agree on a 3rd-party mandatory automatic audit, preferably from a foreign country. Camcorders are cheap, and should be used at every single polling place. No part of the process should be allowed to be off limits, "terrorist threat" or not. Every ballot counted must be simultaneously visible to observers from each party, who may provide their own (additional) scanners for simultaneous use.

I believe the internet will ultimately provide the answer, the problem is the security or validity of the database storing the votes. If some systematic method were developed to fabricate demographic statistics, and then the resulting tabulated database altered to match the fake statistics, it would be difficult to even suspect that something was wrong. All you would then need to do is falsify, or somehow discredit the exit polls.

Will some of you posts your ideas as what is best to ask the he focus on. Paper ballots and paper trails, but what else! :shrug:

Video cameras record every step of the process except the actual vote-casting, which must be secret. So the clear box is on camera, the preliminary counting is done at the polling place with witnesses from both major parties (and any other parties that wish to send witnesses) present. Yes, it would take longer. But wouldn't we all rather wait a few hours, or even a few days, for results that are accurate and as close to tamper-proof as possible?

No outsourcing of vote-counting or transporting of ballots to outside companies. No voting machines. If tallies from each precinct are entered onto computer later, the records must match original precinct tallies. If there's a discrepancy, original precinct tallies rule.

Number of votes cast per precinct should be matched up to poll books, of course, to avoid ballot-stuffing. Everyone putting ballots into the box would be on camera, though their actual votes would be secret. This should discourage dead people voting, double voting, etc.

What's wrong with that, other than the time involved?

The only thing I would add is some sort of ballot verification by the voter to insure over and under votes do not happen.

Picture this..

A voter fills in their ballot. Maybe a scantron paper ballot. The voter then places it in a 'validator' so that any scanning problems are detected. (I would also have a 'none of the above' to prevent under-ballots). This would prevent over-ballots or spoilage. Then the ballot is deposited into the box. If the validator machine detects a problem, a new ballot is marked.

Back in the old days before xerox machines, forms came with extra blank copies attached behind and sheets of carbon paper in between. When you'd write or type on the first page, the impression would transfer onto the back pages so you'd have a "carbon copy" to keep.

Remember the 'meme-ograph' (<-sp) blue ink copies?

No, I am way old enough....

And for the time factor, give me a break. If you hire enough people, it's done in a jiffy. Most other nations do this and it's very fast. We have been condiitoned to think vote counting takes a long time, because of @ssh0les like Blackwell who intentionally drag it out for months, to circumvent laws by running out the clock. It's just not true in real life.

Or is this the pre-Conyers blog where we flesh out the ideas before we submit them to JC?

He's performing a great service. That's for sure!

into tiny url's first. DU links are notorious for breaking up since they're so long. tinyurl.com

I hope TinyURL doesn't go belly up though. There will be a lot of broken links on the net if that ever happens!

The one thing I didn't do is make them clickable. Not sure if JC's blog supports HTML. Let's hope he finds DU OK. I know TeddyK23 works with him and he's been here.

Dear Congressman Conyers,

Thank you so much for all you've done and continue to do regarding this most important issue.

While there are a number of things needing urgent attention, I was wondering why no one has been able to manually recount the "Big 3" counties in Ohio (Butler, Clermont and Warren) in which G. W. Bush received enough votes to account for his entire victory margin in the state and John Kerry received fewer votes than C. Ellen Connally, the Democratic candidate for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.

While there were 9 other counties with this pattern, and 4 in which Conally's opponent Moyer actually received more votes than Bush, in the aggregate, Bush received over 150,000 more votes than Kerry in these 16 counties, most of these in the "Big 3."

I know Mr. Blackwell has been evasive and obstructive and that the recounts thus far have violated Ohio statute by not hand counting 3% of the precincts in each county at random, but if we could arrange to recount the Big 3 counties entirely by hand, it might provide some insight and help determine the true winner of Ohio's 20 Electoral Votes. And isn't that what Jan. 6 was all about?

There were half that many when I started writing my comments. Let's keep this kicked and spread the word. It would be great to see hundreds if not thousands of posts on Conyers Blog even if we all are pretty much saying the same thing.

I need to think about what I want to write.

I agree - it would be nice to see thousands of entries on Mr. Conyers site.

Don't worry about Repugs and Demos, they're both out to use us. True reform won't come without MAJOR changes to the system.

The biggest single thing to do is to get approval voting to be used in a major election IMO. It is the only way to get third parties into the system without an overt threat to the powers that be. Here are some good pages abut this:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/10/12/13248/089
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/idol.html?pg=3

We have to get the word out, to get people using this in their everyday lives and asking for it to be used for bigger and bigger events. This is a grassroots issue if there ever was one, because there's NO WAY the establishment is going to advocate for this. It's literally their ticket out of power. But if ground support for it becomes strong enough, they will have no legitimate authority to stand in its way.

Why don't we have legislation that says when it is proven that the person who was declared the winner of an election was not in fact the rightful winner, that person does not serve out the remainder of the term but is instead replaced immediately by the rightful winner?

It seems to me that anyone who spoke out against that bill would be saying, "I think that someone who steals an election should be able to serve out their term even when the theft has been proven." I would really enjoy helping them say that loudly, so all of their constituents could hear it.

To me this seems so obvious, I don't know why it hasn't been tried. I can see little problems with it. Can anyone see big problems?

"... you to provide me with your suggestions and ideas for raising the visibility of this issue and advancing the cause of election reform

Brainstorming

We have to get media attention to gather momentum.

Hollywood stars and some other kinds of high profile people could do it.

How do we educate and enlist them?

How do we contact them?

Do they read on the internet?

Where? Can we post there?

Or get to them through their friends and contacts.

Demonstrate at movie premeres?

Bradblog is in Hollywood, isn't he?

A website to appeal to them for help (because the facts can't break through the media wall) -- surely some must be aware how bad the media wall is. The website is totally focussed toward these high profile stars, appeals to them, tells them who to contact (has to be someone they can trust, but this person need not be publicly high profile, just someone they can trust that they are not being screwed.)

Then when contact is made they work toward raising the visibility of this issue and advancing the cause of election reform -- in whatever way they feel comfortable with. And try to bring more high profile people aboard.

These people have fan sites on the internet, don't they? The election was stolen -- two, actually -- -- the nation is being hijacked and destroyed -- we need your help!

Bob Dylan, write a goddamn song! What the hell are you _doing_ these days?

{I decided posting this was stupid. I closed it up. I had already set off a search to see if Dylan was active these days, and just scanning it, saw he was touring right now with Merle Haggard. After closing this stupid draft of a post, I saw a link to an interview with Mr Haggard and the below in it: }

------

Q: I've heard that most people who tour with Dylan don't get a chance to talk to him, but I imagine he'll talk to you at some point.

A: I don't know. I've rubbed shoulders with him before and he just sorta grunts.

Q: What would you say is the most important lesson you've learned in the music business?

A: Keep your opinions to yourself. I think it's important that I stay neutral on politics and remain hard to understand. I don't want to be pigeonholed as conservative, liberal, independent or anything. I back the man for the things the man believes in, not whether it says "R" or "D" down there beside his name.

There's some things that have got to happen. We've got to regain control -- the people. "For the people, of the people," all that -- that's not the current situation. We are under control, and if people don't realize that, they haven't looked around. And if they're not paranoid, they haven't thought about it.

Merle Haggard Billboard March 24, 2005
http://www.billboard.com/bb/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1091538

-----

{ Then I couldn't help myself and dug up this stuff below (search a string of text if you want, I'm not going to provide links. }

~~~~~~~

It could be argued that Merle Haggard was doing political benefits well before it was cool, that, in fact, the Hag was at the El Rey in 2001 stumping for Kerry before Kerry was stumping for Kerry. The message was and has been: It is not so much that any other candidate for president succeeds, it's that the "'nuther Bush" fails....
10-28-04

~~~~~~~

RE: UPTON SINCLAIR AWARDS >>> At its annual Upton Sinclair fundraising dinner, Liberty Hill Foundation will honor four local heroes: veteran Hollywood producer and director Robert Greenwald; philanthropist William J. Resnick, and the leaders of Families to Amend California's Three Strikes, Geri Silva and Gail Blackwell. The dinner will be held Thursday, May 5, 2005 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. A pre-dinner reception will begin at 6 pm. Dinner begins at 7:30. Tickets are $500 and $300.

Robert Greenwald will receive Liberty Hill's Upton Sinclair Award. Greenwald has been an award-winning Hollywood producer and director for three decades. Since 2000, he has helped re-energize progressive politics with timely, controversial documentaries including Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (about electoral irregularities in Florida), Uncovered: The Iraq War, Unconstitutional (about the post-9-11 loss of civil liberties), and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. The "Un"-Trilogy and Outfoxed have created a new paradigm for political documentaries. They are produced quickly and distributed online, circumventing the traditional film distribution system. They have been used as rapid-response organizing tools for progressive activists around the country.

more there
http://www.morningbrief.net/mb_v8_12.htm

~~~~~~

He recently toured and performed "Okie" with good friend Kris Kristofferson, a liberal activist, and over the years it has become apparent that at the heart of his conservatism lies an idealization of the American past and a sincere, though occasionally paranoid, concern about the loss of privacy and individual freedom.

"Look at the past 25 years -- we went downhill, and if people don't realize it, they don't have their fucking eyes on," says Haggard. "In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available to an average citizen in America right now. I mean, there was nobody going to throw you down on the side of the road spread-eagled, and look up your butt for a fucking marijuana cigarette. God almighty, what have we done to each other?"

Though Haggard campaigned for Ronald Reagan, who pardoned him while serving as California's governor, he bristles at both candidates in the 2000 presidential election. "Let me say this," he remarks. "I'm friends with George Bush Sr. He calls to wish me happy birthday. But I've got lots of friends that call to wish me happy birthday who I wouldn't want to see become president."

~~~~~

What that means for the question at hand, I don't know. I am not proposing contacting Haggard . . . but it was enough for me to open this back up and post it.

Hey, at least I'm not posting it on Congressman Conyers, blog. :)

the Voting reform movement could certainly use a celebrity spokesperson. Consider some of the people who toured with Kerry last year, Springsteen, Bono, and I don't know who else played at his rallies. Maybe they would be up for it.

Noooooooooooooo!

They attract as much opposition, if not more, than votes they garner for the left.

They're certainly not all bad, but I think you have to be really careful.

Thanks for your insight. Hollywood may be well a dangerous idea to be approached only with extreme caution. I have almost no political experience for some 30 years, even as much of an observer.

(Did Springsteen draw opposition?)

Perhaps I was desperate but enthusiastic after reading so many excellent comments at Conyers' blog.

I also respect your earlier comment about choosing one's words thoughtfully for Conyers' blog.

Glad you mentioned.

While walking the dog I thought that I should have specifically exempted him from my comments about celebrity.

Springsteen has a constituency. It might even be somewhat bi-partisan. He could run for President himself. Whoopi and Barbara, however...:eyes:

My vote is for a Bruce Springsteen tour. Whoopi and Barbara can help fund it and get their names on the program for their support.

I'm visualising the after-dark arial photo of hundreds of Ohio voters in a hundreds-of-yards long line as a backdrop on the stage.

( The photo is here: http://www.democracyreborn.org/ )

That IS a good idea!

...'Hollywood' played a very prominent role in that win?

But perhaps they were effective in neutralizing Britney Spears's endorsement of bush. :eyes:

with a whole lot of rich entertainment figures who contribute big to the Democratic Party and its candidates; second, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were early whistleblowers on the Iraq war lies (a critically important get out the vote issue), and really took crap for it (but were very effective, in the long run, re calling the invasion into question, AND getting baseball writers to question the fairness of the Bush administration on free speech issues, since the issue was Robbins/Sarandon being banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame event around their baseball movie "Bull Durham"); third, the Dixie Chicks and their remarks about Bush triggered a mean, lowdown boycott that backfired, and got people to thinking, "what kind of country is this, anyway?"; fourth, Bruce Springsteen and the Rock the Vote tour; fifth, the Academy giving Michael Moore an Academy award and a platform.

Karl Rove would like us to think that 'Hollywood' is a liability to the Democrats--but the facts say otherwise, especially the fact that Kerry won and had boffo 'Hollywood' support.

I think it would be fantastic to have some of these same people, who supported Kerry, and who despise Bush and his war--as do most Americans, in a continuum of opinion polls from before the election to now--to speak out on election fraud. And I think it's badly, badly needed!

John Conyers is fighting an uphill battle (almost straight up!) with the news monopolies. Ideas for legislation are all well and good, but the fact is that the BushCon Congress IS NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT ELECTION REFORM. They LIKE having a fraudulent system. They set it up that way. So forget that. Conyers needs POLITICAL ideas on how to get reform done in the states. And making this into a glamour issue, giving it a bit of glitz, would be no bad deal at all.

We cannot allow ourselves to ridicule 'Hollywood'--or anyone--who opposes Bush & Co. We're buying into their lies and delusions when we do that.

And, yes, I'm saying you're buying into their lies and delusions on this matter. Please tell why you have dissed 'Hollywood.' What is the basis for your reaction? What evidence do you have that 'Hollywood''s participation in the election reform movement would harm that movement?

I gotcha, huh? Because you were about to say that Republicans would ridicule them.

grabbing her crouch and referrencing male and female genatilia in an attempt to convince the convinced that B/C is a bad deal for America.

How come nobody thought of that before?

Is that what you thought I was about to say?

Rep. Conyers,
Your blog and the citizen entries are amazing. It’s hard to know where to begin. First, thank you for seeking input and for what you are trying to do to fix our country’s election process. Heaven knows, it does need fixing.
Second, I was going to keep this short and list the entries I most agree with (I will do so below*), but I found I agree with most…and these wonderful American citizens, who care so much for our country, express my thoughts better than I could. There are many here who are more knowledgeable than I about what needs to be done to fix the system, and I have great confidence that, since the 2004 Presidential Election, you have learned what needs to be done. I especially agree with # 14 (James H. Cirile) and # 16 (Dr. Alan H. Levinson). Their passionate entries will stay with me for a long time.
My point, then, is to underscore the fact that time is running out on this. After the 2000 Election (which I believe Al Gore won) many of us were willing to put our country first, and “go along” for the sake of our country, which we love. We vowed to get involved and make sure this never happened again, and many of us worked hard (some for the first time) to elect a Democrat in 2004. Because we were now more involved, we knew the 2004 Presidential Election was not handled well (I’m trying to be generous here). This eroded our confidence in both our country’s democratic process and our leaders, many of whom still are afraid to come forward and lead on this issue. I almost left the Democratic Party, and I know many others did leave. But the Democratic Party (in my opinion) is our best hope to make things right. I AM frightened, however, that if we don’t fix our federal election process before 2008 (and preferably before 2006), it could threaten our country’s stability. Some great ideas have been presented in this blog, both to fix the system and to educate the public on this issue.
So, my final point is that we need you to do whatever it takes…NOW…to bring publicity to this issue. I realize, considering the current state of the media, that this is a tall order. But time is running out on this. To make a difference in 2008, the American public need to become educated about what happened in 2004, and right now, most of them do not even know there was a problem. They also need to be educated about methods to fix the election process. One way to begin this education of the public, that I have recently heard about, is an event on the mall in Washington D. C. on July 4th. (It would have to be huge and FILL the mall, which is where publicity comes in). This time, (unlike January 6th) we would need ALL our Democratic leaders to stand (and speak) in support. It is their doing so that would be required to “fill the mall”. This would only be the first of many steps needed.
As a teacher, parent of two grown daughters, grandparent of one beautiful grandson, and daughter of a wonderful WWII veteran who is the person responsible for teaching me to love my country and fight to make it better, I am not a conspiracy theorist. My involvement in this issue has grown from my patriotism for my country. After reading your words, Rep. Conyers, and the words of so many other caring patriots posted here, my optimism has been renewed. Thank you again for what you continue to do.



*My favorite entries (see what I mean?) 4,6,11,13,14,16,18,19,25,27,29,33,36,39,48,51,53

:D

for all Americans, as well as the other reps and individuals who are assisting him in this great American goal. Keep carring the torch for us John, we are behind you.

:kick:

The votes can be "machine counted"; however, they must ALSO be hand counted to reconcile the two. Since the U.S. voting system is precinct-based, it is and always has been ideally suited to hand counting. This is the only way we can be assured that the votes sent to the central tabulator are correct and that the central tabulation is also correct.

Never let a machine count the world's votes unless it has previously been proven secure and the source code actually seen!

experts, you cannot make them truly secure; there is no way.
chuckherrin.com

And what everyone should have done all along, ban voting machines forever and use paper ballots! www.banvotingmachines.org

Oh make voter registration done by a legal affidavit. (no more companies like Accenture!)

To Aussies, voting day is a fun day off. It is mandatory to vote one way or the other, finger prints and a signature followed by ID check validates the ballot. The PAPER ballot (those pesky ones you can trail and check). A lot of block parties and pub parties happen and everyone knows without a doubt that the system is foolproof.

The following are ideas I have been mulling over for how I would do voting:

November 19, 2004

Ok, here's what you do. Everyone is given a tiny computer program which is called a hash routine. This little program will turn anyone's social-security number into another UNIQUE number or maybe a UNIQUE alpha-numeric code. I am not a computer scientist, but I believe it is possible to do this such that there is no way to go back to the original social security number given that you have this unique code word/number that was output by this algorithm. So lets call this unique number the user's voter-identification-number (VIN). Now when it is time to vote (and incidentally, I don't think everyone should have to vote on a certain day as we stupidly do it now. I think they could vote anytime they wish up until a pre specified date/time, such as November 2nd at midnight), the user goes onto the internet and goes to this special website set up to accept these VINs and then present the user with a series of choices to make for that particular election, very much like an electronic voting machine (although now of course you don't get to have cool features like the ability to touch the screen in order to select your candidates). The user makes her selections and that is it. Her choices get stored in some community database. Now here is the part that keeps this from being manipulated unfairly. The user who just voted can go back onto the internet anytime and look to see if the way she voted is still recorded under her VIN. Now what I want to have is that this database file that stores all the votes should be accessible (readable but not writable) by ANYONE. There will be a program on this website that will count up the votes and show the results. This program will have been written by someone in the government, not a private company. But the thing is, the database will be accessible to ANYONE (I am not really sure how or if there is technically a way to make a database available to anyone on the internet in its raw form, but that's another matter. Well, certainly you could make this central database file ftp-able I guess). So if, for example, the democrats think that there is something fishy about the election, then they can have someone on 'their side' write a program to access that database file and read it and show the results (there would need to be a standard format agreed to by everyone for how the votes are stored in this database). And if the republicans thought there was something not right, they could do the same thing.
Now as with every scheme, there are certainly details that need to be worked out. For example, with this idea, well, there are some people (lots in fact) who just don't have access to the internet. Well, these people could either go to a library or we could continue to set up polling places with computers connected to the internet just for these people. Also, this idea relies on everyone having a social security number, which isn't true. But there are lots of social security type numbers that aren't being used that they could be assigned for the purposes of the elections. Or they could just be given their VIN directly, or a VIN which was derived from an 11 digit number, for example.

So now what is wrong with this idea?


January 7, 2005

More on this idea:

The above has the problem that anyone can come along with some SSN (either one they have 'stolen' from somebody else or they could just type in a random 9 digit number). So we have to come up with a fix for this problem. So here is my fix for my new system of voting I am trying to conceptualize:
When the voter goes to register for the election, the person registering them will go to their computer (connected to the internet) and they will bring up a form. ON the form will be a place to input the voter's Social Security Number (or maybe we could use their Driver's License identification number) and their birth date. If people are concerned about giving out their SSN during the voter registration process, we could have the voter actually enter her/his SSN into the registrant's computer his/herself with nobody looking. Using these 2 numbers as input, there will be a hashing routine that will spit out a Voter Identification number. This will then be given to the voter to take back with them. When this registration procedure is completed, a place will be created in a huge database (capable of holding up to --what is the current US population?-- 300 million entries) which will be keyed to this voter's VIN (Voter Identification Number). Now, I was just gonna have them use this VIN to enter into a website they would use to mark their election choices. But to make it even more secure, maybe this VIN could be like an account name, to which they would either be given a password, or after the first time they used it they would be forced to choose a password which would be required from then on to log on to this system to either view their election choices or make them (or change them).
Now in order to start out simple, I am just thinking of the federal presidential elections initially. The database would be 300million entries, with each one being keyed to this VIN that was given to the voter. For the presidential choice, in one separate part of the database would be keys to each of the presidential candidates. So for the last election, it would be something like this: George Bush = 1, John Kerry = 2, Ralph Nader = 3, David Cobb = 4, Michael Badnarik = 5, etc. If there is a 0 in this place, that means no choice was made. Now, the fact that different states have different selections of candidates available (which is totally ridiculous but lets work with it) brings up a problem. Even when just voting for the president, there needs to be a way to distinguish what state the voter is from. And later when we have to start dealing with local elections, the county of the voter will have to be taken into account (now I know there are also things called 'precincts' within counties, but as far as the people whom you are voting for, I believe there are only 3 levels, federal, state, and county. IS THAT CORRECT?). So what I propose to do is add information to the VIN that would indicate the state of the voter and the county. A simple way to do this would be the following. Let's say that the VIN as output by our hashing algorithm was a 10 digit number. Then we could do this. Add 2 digits to the beginning of that number that would be a number to distinguish between each state. And then add 2 numbers after that to distinguish between the counties within each state (or 3 numbers if there is actually a state with more than 100 counties). So now the VIN, which started as a 10 digit number, is now a 14 digit number. And since the state and county distinguishing numbers are at the front (on the left, most-significant part of the number), in order to find out how each candidate did in any particular state, you would sort the entire database (well, it would most likely be stored as a sorted-list) and then if you wanted to see how each candidate did in state number 01 for example, you would just ignore all entries with VINs that did not start with the digits 01. So, for example, the database might look like this:

01013249429024 1 Someone in state 01, county 01 voted for George Bush
01018435934959 3 Someone in state 01, county 01 voted for Ralph Nader
01018495837498 1 Someone in state 01, county 01 voted for George Bush
01018998894398 2 Someone in state 01, county 01 voted for John Kerry
01024509340984 2 Someone in state 01, county 02 voted for John Kerry
01024805083089 1 Someone in state 01, county 02 voted for George Bush
01023495987593 2
01024534543654 0 Someone in state 01, county 02 has not voted for president
01039874579493 4 Someone in state 01, county 03 has voted for David Cobb


The fact that this ultimate 14-digit Voter Identification Number (VIN) would include the state and county numbers as the first 4 digits would also make the idea of using Drivers ID numbers (rather that SSNs) much more feasible since this way, people in 2 different states who just happened to have the same Drivers ID number and birthday would still have totally unique VINs.

Now this is just a very rudimentary look at how this database would be set up. Unfortunately, as you added more and more things you wanted this all to handle, it will get more and more complicated. And I do wish there was a way to avoid, or at least minimize, the complications. For example, it would be neat if you could have stored in this database for every voter not only their current selections, but also all their past election choices. It would also be nice to store the date and time of whenever they made changes.

But the beauty of this is, that all of these problems that people have been having with the current ridiculous voting system would be eliminated. There would be no need for people to wait in long lines in the rain, because you could do this from the convenience of your own home (or a library or a friends place or something like that). There could be no people being excluded from voting because of the color of their skin or their political persuasion. All this silliness would end.

So now what is wrong with this idea?

Of course, here is one problem. Since you wouldn't have results coming in bit by bit on election night like it is now, there wouldn't be this horse-race like show on the TV networks, so they would be out of LOTS of money from advertising they usually get during elections. In fact, since people could vote anytime they wanted to up until the deadline, the results would probably basically be known for days, even weeks before November 2.


April 4, 2005

Ok here is my latest version of this idea.
Let's call the voter Joe and the voter registration official Jane.
All voters will be registered at their local DMV facility (maybe they could rename it DMV&VR). There will be a small room with an official and a computer connected to the internet (or more if necessary). The voter will come in and give the voter registrar his driver license. The registrar will enter his driver's license number (checking that the voter matches the photo on the drivers license) and the state and county where the voter lives in a form at this special webpage on the internet. The voter will then be asked to enter a password in this form (the registrar will position herself such that she cannot see what the voter types for his password). Now the voter has his account set up and until he moves to another county or state he will not need to reregister to vote. Also this way he won't be given a certain HASH number derived from his SSN or driver's license number and birthday like I originally thought of doing it. However, the registration system will still run a hashing routine on his driver's ID, state number and county number to get the key under which the voters records are stored (in other words, this will all happen behind the scenes) When he wants to go vote, he will only need to access the voters page on the internet and enter his 1)driver's license number and 2)state of residence 3) county of residence and then his personally chosen password. I continue to believe that the voter should be able to vote any time up to the election deadline (we'll say November 2). And if the candidates are all set up to run by the time the voter registers, I think they should be allowed to vote their choices right then. But obviously a sufficiently long time before the election, the candidates will not have decided to run or been chosen by their primary. So I think there should be a date before which no one will be permitted to vote. So instead of one day to vote like we have it now, we would have a period of time, say a month or two, during which you could vote. Now remember the last presidential race. I don't even remember how long before the Nov 2 vote the candidates were all decided, you know when Kerry came out the winner of the Democratic party. But once that happened, in my system the voters would then be able to start casting ballots (assuming all the local candidates had also been decided, and this interaction between the federal and local elections is where all these complications I think are going to come up). And it would be interesting because this voting system would become like a polling system too. As the candidates revealed different parts of their platform, the voters (at least the ones who had registered at that point) could respond immediately as to how much they are in favor of them. And then the candidates could actually respond and shape their proclaimed stances on issues based on this (I suppose this might already take place using the polling mechanisms we now have). Oh by the way, the pollsters who didn't manage to get it right (:)) this last election, they would be totally against this system because it would effectively put them out of business. So we got the pollsters against it, the networks against it, the voting machine manufacturers against it. So I'm sure there will be little problem getting it implemented, :).
Now another thing about this internet voting idea. When the voter goes to vote on this internet web page, the voter could be given a hyperlink to each candidates webpage. So right before you vote, you could actually go and see how the candidate stood on various issues. Now is that a good idea or what? You are under no pressure because you are not using some machine which they only have so many of which you will be holding up other people if you take too long. You can (assuming you didn't wait till the last minute) go and spend as long as you want to exploring the candidates positions. Hey maybe you could click a link to a forum on each candidate and argue the pros and cons of why said candidate should receive your vote with other voters, hehe! Is this perhaps TOO democratic?

PROBLEMS

I was just thinking about how I am currently thinking of creating the keys to the records of all the voters. I just stated that they would give their Driver ID, state and county and that would be hashed into a key under which their records would be stored. What I didn't think of is that, anyone who found out voter Joe's driver ID and knew the state and county where they lived could use the hash routine (which SHOULD be public domain) to derive the key and then look up their voting record. So that's no good. Perhaps the voters PASSWORD could be added into the mix of stuff that is fed into the hashing algorithm to derive the key to their voting records. I don't know enough about this area, to know if a routine could be created that would guarantee that a unique resulting key would always be output, and that there was no way to reverse the process. But that is a technical question that I am sure a CS expert should know the answer to. The part of this system that has the biggest chance of being compromised is the fact that the voter registration people would have to be the only ones who can access a webpage where the voters are registered. How do you insure that only they can access it and that they only used it for registering voters. I wanted this system to be completely open but here is can't be. I wonder if there is someway we could eliminate the registration at someplace by government officials part of the system. What if we set it up so that you go to a web page to register. It asks for your name (as shown on your driver ID), driver ID, your date of birth, your SSN. Now, I know that state governments keep a record of your driver ID and birth date. Do they also have the associated SSN. If so, the voter by entering all this could confirm that they are the person they claim to be (although of course anyone else who had all that info could register, but then when the real person went to register, he would see that there was a problem and then go to a government official). So they enter all that user info, and they enter a password. Now they are registered. Now, have I just come up with a full-proof way to register from home? If THIS worked, then it would greatly reduce, but by no means eliminate, the number of people who would need to be given write access to the database. No, I don't think you can have home registration because then couldn't someone register dead people? But here's the thing. Every person who would be voting would have write access to the database. They would just be limited to accessing their particular record via the voter webpage. In the same way, the registrars would only have access through a certain webpage. They would not have general access to the database. They would be on somewhat the same level of access as the voter. But the registrar would have the power to create people who didn't exist. How could there be some sort of check on this? Would we need to have at every registration station a representative of every party being voted on or something? Sigh! When the registrar enters the voters Driver's ID, it could be checked for existence against the states driver ID database. Wouldn't that eliminate that problem? Could that eliminate the home-registration problem? When someone dies, does their Driver ID get deleted from the state database? But even if you had home-registration, ultimately certain people or certain programs on certain machine which were accessible to certain people would have access to the database in a non-regulated way. Or they would have access to the ability to give access to. How do you insure that things don't get compromised? That the people who want to fix elections can't somehow rig the system. One possibility is, could have machines all over the country continually accessing (read access) the database and checking its integrity. These machines could be owned by the different parties in the elections. Every time a new person was registered into the database, they could do a check to see that that drivers ID... no, the driver ID is lost in the key, sigh... Anybody got anything for a headache?

Take some Aspirin for your headache, sit back, relax, and breath deeply.

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x352157

Instead of shoehorning your system into one giant federal database, remember that states run elections, have apparatus, people, and budgets in place, and for most, already run statewide vote tabulating databases. The heart of your suggestion and mine lies in open read-only access to voter data records with the ability to confirm and challenge inaccuracies, and with access to tabulate the vote master data independently and publicly.

Also, given the state of voting systems across the country, Internet voting presents a myriad of problems with respect to security and verifiability such that it resides somewhere in the future. Evolving mature systems based on open, transparent data records and databases is a good prerequisite that will likely lead to Internet voting some day (unless politicians suddenly have epiphanies and vote in hand counted paper ballots).


PS> With respect to online registration, keep in mind companies like Choicepoint have all your id data, are hackable, and (in my view) not to be trusted, especially where elections and voting are concerned!

and have made to your office, is to stop calling my ballot a paper trail paper record or what have you. Call it what it is...a paper ballot!>

Voting is the most important activity we do.

I also see nothing wrong with requiring some form of ID, alien card, or bill statement to prove residency when voting.

It is so important to document your work with the Ohio investigation outcomes. Putting it into book form is the most important act of getting your findings out to the public. Any connection that ties all of us together and end this isolation of thought and spirit that has crept into the American People's psyche is of the utmost need. The printed word of the book not only draws us to your thrust but also adds visual confirmation from others that we are all in this together. A book that is carried visibly is a movable billboard to us all.
Thank you again for your work.