Diebold's ok!! My candidate won!!

I am as concerned to see this here as I was to see freepers behave this way.

My daughter will be of voting age in TWELVE YEARS; the Diebold discussion now has to do with her and our futures. How can anyone trust this method regardless if Diebold messes with the results or not? What are we opening ourselves up to here.

For those of you defending the NH results, aren't you concerned about the potential? I cannot believe this is a 'non-issue' to some.

This is the incremental way that controls are installed; control of the masses by the few.

For some, 'fraud' has become a word meaning not real chicanery, but 'an outcome I dislike and did not expect'. Since this meaning is not as yet very widespread, and even when understood properly may mean different things to different people, it often leads to confusion when the word 'fraud' is employed. Many people think on encountering the word that the standard definition is being used by the speaker, when in fact, it is the new and limited usage only that the speaker had in mind. Translated into standard English, the rash of claims there was 'fraud' in the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire actually read "I was surprised by the outcome of the New Hampshire primary, and do not like the outcome of the New Hampshire primary, and wish the New Hampshire primary had had a different outcome, one I would have approved of myself." The temptation to compress all this down into one syllable is obvious....

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightening and a lightening bug."

Maybe "verifiable" isn't enough. Perhaps it's time for "verified" e.g. hand recount.

If they had contested the race it certainly could have been re-counted.

;)

that's a DUzy.

Bwahahahaah! I think I broke 2 or 3 ribs because of you! :rofl:

Do you think this is an insidious process that we would be better off without??

The exit polls match the result pretty well.

The only reason for this tempest in a teapot is that some people were so wedded to the belief Sen. Clinton could not possibly win that they must reject the fact of her victory in this contest.

:shrug:

That makes no sense whatsoever.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidential_election_controversy%2C_exit_polls

The reason the exit polls that have been reported around here "match" the vote count is because they were weighted to *match* the tabulated vote count.

MSNBC reported this morning that the "raw" (un-weighted) exit poll data matched the most recent phone-polls that had been taken:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5535

I'm being consistent. Auditing the vote in a primary race is the best possible opportunity for Democrats to walk the talk. We're serious about the integrity of elections. This is an opportunity to validate the reliability of opscan vote counters via a hand recount. Particularly given the "surprising" nature of the result compared to recent polls and the useless nature of current exit polls.

The problem is:
1) corporate USA likes this result
2) Republican USA likes this result
3) one-third of Democrats like this result

accept that as the reality come this November, No transparency, no paper trail. Some peeps would prefer a voting receipt after they cast their ballot, you know the kind Diebold has no problem dispensing at any of their ATM's.

These are machines that scan and tabulate marked paper ballots, that are stored intact afterwards. Not touch-screen devices. It would be eminently possible to do a recount; there is just no point to it, because there is no reason whatever to suspect the official count is a fraud.

If only the real world were more like the FANATASY WORLD that you are dreaming about.

While, statistically there can be no doubt that some are guilty of the very thing you speak of, to lump everyone with legitimate questions into the same easily dismissable pile is, well, to metaphorically cry, "Sore Loserman! You lost! Get over it!"

It is no better response to us as it was when the Bushies were doing it to YOU (and the rest of us, for that matter) in 2000.

My candidate did not win, and frankly, could not win NH. How then my concerns?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2640123

This person also seems to say what I am thinking, as well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2640000

Transparent and trustworthy voting systems are there not such much to validate that the winners won, but that the losers actually lost. I submit Kenya as example, for one.

Well, our voting system is not trustworthy nor transparent. It may or may not be that Sen. Clinton's "surprise upset victory", which coincidentally have flourished since the privatization and uninspectability of the voting system since the late 90s (a Dewey vs. Truman every election, multiple Dewey vs. Trumans every election), is a result of Diebold largesse.

But he problem is that we can't know, because a $5 poker slot machine in Elko, Nevada is more transparent and more often inspected. The problem is that overt Election Fraud has occurred in every even-year election since 2000, and no one cared.

Hell, in 2006 in FL-18 we had 'em dead to rights, and our own Democrats in Congress shut down the investigation one presumes, to avoid the cries from the Mighty Wurlitzer of "Sore Loserman!"

The only constant here is the cowardice of our Democratic Leadership in the face of the Mighty Wurlitzer, and the desire, the extreme "Oh Please God, don't let our peasants revolt like they did in Kenya, or the Philippines in the late 80s" desire to keep enough people in unquestioning belief that the voting system is sound, no matter the growing evidence that it isn't sound and the deliberate privatization of voting allowing such shenanigans to easily take place without fear of being busted.

You want to talk about deep psychological imperatives? How about that one, sir? How about the tendency of the Rulers of a dying democracy to keep the peasants from wrecking that which they rule, to "just hold it all together for another day", at any costs?

It is a deep psychological imperative which would explain why our Democratic Leadership ignores us peasants time after time in what seems to be against their own best interests. Because their own best interests, as they see them, is to hold it all together for just one more year, not to go on some Quixotic quest that means taking the Bushies head on when they are clearly determined to have their way at all costs.

No beer swilling, vagrancy-arrest-deserving scumbags with Impeach Bush t-shirts are worth endangering THEIR jobs over!

Plus, the Bushies have this Mighty Wurlitzer cocked and pointed, and they aren't afraid to use it...

Anyway, sir, you speak of this psychological need to cry fraud now every time one's candidate loses. Even if it is true, the issue here is having a voting system transparent and trustworthy enough to forestall such thinking.

And we do not have that, sir, we do NOT have that.

I don't even CARE about NH (much), but I see right through this incremental control bullshit.


This is ridiculous.

It is Hegelian Dialectic: We had problems with FL2K (manufactured crisis); we said "oh noes, what do we do" (questing for solution); "Hello sir/ma'am, I am a representative from Diebold..." (solution that was desired a priori to the manufactured crisis)

posted this earlier today:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2641712

Of course, a few tried to fit me for...:tinfoilhat:

We better fix this shit before the GE!

I can't fathom why some chose to believe technology over human eyes????

by a single company?

My preference is for paper ballots marked with No. 2 pencil, that can easily be dis-allowed because the mark extended outside the box, or was an 'o' or a 'check mark' instead of an 'x', or be rendered 'spoiled' with a rip produced by artful employment of a pinkie ring with the stone removed....

"Enough of this goose-cackle about progress."

And please don't skimp on your customary reasonable, calm, logical refutations, which I have always respected, even when I disagreed with them.

I might just add one thing, reasonable, calm logic always fails in one place and pone place alone. When faced with ruthless sociopathy. I am only pointing this out because throught history, ruthless sociopaths have taken advantage of this, acting decisively and ruthlessly while the socipath slits the throat, methaphorically and sometimes literally.

But that is a side-point and of no relevance to my desire to hear what your response is to post #9.

First, that there is a general flaw does nothing to show that a particular instance is flawed, nor does the demonstration that on several occasions there have been flawed instances suffice to show that some different particular instance is flawed. The fact that electronic machines can produce, or potentially be made to produce, an incorrect or dishonest result is not enough to make a credible claim that the results of yesterday's Democratic Party primary owes to to manipulation of the vote count by proprietors of those machines, or other persons positioned to do so. Nor does the occurrance of a questionable result in '06 in Florida, which we are in complete agreement was questionable and should have been fought out in the Congressional venue, provide sufficient footing for a credible claim that the result of the Democratic Party primary yesterday owes to fraud of some sort.

The fact is that all claims Sen. Clinton's victory yesterday is the result of fraud are rooted in the ascription of infallibility to opinion polling. most of it conducted over several days before the ballots were cast, and producing numbers based on the proprietor's readings of tea-leaves to determine who was 'likely' to show up at the polls and who was not. The numbers produced were the result of guesses: guesses at what proportion of the turn out would be registered party members, guesses at what proportion of the turn out would be women, guesses at what proportion would be young people. The polling was unable to take account of late developments and their impact, and it is certain that the situation was very fluid regarding attachment to candidates. It is a fact that the overwhelming preponderance of Democratic voters hold all the major candidates of the Party in high regard, and while they may prefer one over another, would be happy with any of them, and dig in their heels against none of them. Virtually no one is voting against someone, just about everybody is voting for someone, and perceives only very small differences on which to base that choice. Nor does polling have any means to take into account factors of campaign organization, the skill and experience of the various get out the vote operations, and there is no doubt whatever Sen. Clinton benefited from the allegiance of local Party structures in this regard.

Only if all the flaws in the opinion polling are ignored does the result take on any startling cum sinister aspect. My own guess at about nine o'clock Tuesday morning, based on nothing but practiced hunch honed over many years observation, was that Sen. Obama would carry the day, but by less than five percent. Therefore to me the result was only a mild surprise, and certainly not a discomfiting one, because it simply took a little further my conclusion that the printed polls were greatly over-stating Sen. Obama's actual strength at the ballot box. So to me a great deal of this furor is quite incomprehensible, and seems rooted in various combinations of credulity, ignorance, and inexperience at assessing the madnesses and enthusiams of crowds.

But, you are saying you ARE for a SINGLE 'company' recording and counting our votes?

Namely a complete absence of historical perspective, and knowledge of political life much before the last decade or so.

Both my statements were in dead earnest, and did not touch in the slightest on the mechanisms at play in Florida at the turn of the century.

In my possession, and at times on my nightstand, is a book dating to the 1920s, detailing the development of balloting in the United States over the preceding century or so. Among other things, it goes exhaustively into the various frauds and sharp practices associated with paper ballots, part of the argument for the use of the then modern 'lever' machines its authors seemed to favor (which, once wide-spread, spawned the development of whole new means of stealing and ignoring votes). It contains amusing illustrations of ballots ruled by courts to be valid or invalid when challenged on exactly the sort of grounds mentioned, and accounts of various other means employed by the political 'machines' and 'rings' of the day in their never-ending quest for a 'sure thing' at election time. Much of this craft knowledge has grown obscure, but you may depend upon its being reinvented should the current panacea for the age-old practice of fraudulent counting, the hand counted paper ballot, once more come into predominant vogue.

Nonetheless, it seems self-evident to me that the counting of votes should be in public, rather than private, hands, public corruption, at the pinch, being a shade more preferable, and in some ways easier to deal with than private corruption. My trust of electronic mechanisms in general is somewhat less than my trust in the claims of health food merchants and promoters of self-improvement seminars....

with Diebold.

If you want allegations of electronic fraud to be treated as nonsense by the general public, continue to press the line Sen. Clinton's victory in New Hampshire owes to fraud.

I am just surprised at how those who DO contest the vote as tampered by Diebold can be rejected out of hand.

I am sorry; you misunderstand me. I am not claiming fraud in the clinton NH win.

You must be arguing that if you, alone, by yourself, were able to rig the outcome of an election to provide any results you wanted, without getting caught, that you would not tamper with the results.

And since that is true for you, you just assume that no one else would tamper with them either, given the same opportunity.

Or else you just are completely ignorant about computer voting.

You have the possibility of election watchers/observers (from both sides) noticing it happen, or being able to argue whether it should be counted or not. At least you don't have the possibility of malicious code invisibly changing votes on a large scale, with nobody able to examine the code, or it being extremely difficult to detect what really happened or prove it.

Every time someone comes up with some kind of computer security, someone else finds a way around it. At least with paper you have something tangible, something which cannot be changed on a massive scale in a short period of time with nobody being the wiser. Yes there will always be problems with any system you care to devise. The question is whether those problems are going to be enough, as a whole, to swing not just the occasional extremely tight election, but whether a small number of people in positions of power will be able to swing ANY election they choose to swing, given a close enough margin (say, 5-15%) to make it believable to the masses.

I have not yet agreed that something of this nature occurred in NH. Neither have most of us. But many of us are deeply suspicious of the current process, the way things have been moving; and we have the right to be suspicious and demand some proof that the process has not in fact been corrupted.

In fact, I believe that anyone who so wishes - not just the candidates themselves - should be allowed to file a request for recount or a lawsuit or whatever it takes to satisfy our concerns because it is our democracy that is at stake here - not just "which candidate really took first in NH". The fact that so many of us (including NON-OBAMA supporters) are suspicious is reason enough. That suspicion shouldn't be happening in this country and it IS.

I thought that they were all Diebold primaries (rather Thai causcases) and that Diebold et. al. would have control of the process and so I wasn't even bothering to get involved because I knew the primaries were fixes for HRC, the one most likely to never fix the election fraud machines anyway' I extrapolated and realized that she was the coronated one. I just didn't realize that diebold isn't as involved in the process as I had thought. But then here in NH, I mean really, get a grip, of course the fix was in that;s what diebold does. No diebold machine should ever be trusted without 100% recount by hand of paper ballots. The dogcatcher contests shouldn't be run on a Diebold, everybody should know that!

Hillary's numbers counted on Tiebold machines being believed correct!? That's hilarious.

I think the general idea from the "defenders" of the NH result is "yes Diebold et al are still a big problem and we'd be much happier with 100% voter-reviewed paper trails, but this was not a factor in the NH election - which instead hinged on a greater turnout of women and older voters, plus the predictable volatility of a short term IA bounce for Obamea". It's the difference between the general and the specific.

Because it seems like a dream now.

And yes, how a little victory defocuses the mind and starts people shrieking the Democratic equivalent of "Sore Loserman!"

The sad part is, if Edwards had been the recipient of Diebold largesse, my brain would probably be clogged, too and I'd be screaming "Sore Losreman!" too.

At least I hope it would slowly dawn on me the rightness of what you say over time as I got to think about it.

But luckily (or unluckily, some might say shortsightedly) because Edwards is the only candidate who is even talking like he is going to go after the Bushie bastards, I think it is pretty safe to assume "No Diebold 'amazing upset victories' for him!"

It's like a goddamned self fulfilling prophecy...

my bad; I didn't see this coming. I had thought it was always like this.

when it ends up benefiting them.

I'm with you though. The fact that Diebold is STILL being used is a HUGE problem. There's no good reason they are making this opaque.

Happy to be your 5th rec.

I am so distrustful of Diebold, however, that I am in favor of having the NH primary investigated to everyone's satisfaction. It's hard to fault anyone who distrusts the current system, not to mention anything with Diebold's name on it.

Problem is, in 2004 another "glitch" in Bushie Election Fraud was discovered, and they remedied it by tweaking the Exit Polls to match the result in Ohio and about a dozen other swing states. In every case, the "glitch" benefitted the Bushies, and the Exit Polls were appropriately tweaked.

Sadly, this now means that these "self-correcting" exit polls can no longer be trusted either, as that "glitch" has now been fixed with the new self-correcting Edison-Mitofsky polls.

The problem, ultimately, is this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2640000

And NO, my candidate did not win.

I am for paper ballots that can be hand counted if necessary.

Christ, it's like we must be Diebold employees if we don't agree with you. And you wonder why you've gotten so much disagreement here.

Try actually reading and responding to the arguments, instead of just tacitly accusing all who disagree with you of not giving a shit about electronic voting and the concerns with validating it.

In rural districts!

I believe yesterday's results AND I'm bitching about the machines. You can do both.

don't match the outcome, yes I am very concerned and appalled, and it should be looked into to see if there was indeed fraud.

On the other hand if the exit polls matched the outcome, then I, who sees Hillary as nothing but a republican in democrat clothes, will simply just have to accept that the people of NH are not too bright to see through Hillary's cloak masking who her corporate sponsors are and how she talks out both sides of her mouth with respect to the top issues, and that they voted for her.

You're preaching to the quire on that subject. There should be nothing else but paper punch card ballots and strict guidelines protecting the integrity of those casted ballots.

My point above is simply that if the exit polls accurately reflect what the actual outcome of the election was. Then what can you say? That the people polled lied as to how they voted?

I think we're on the same page here. All I am saying is if there's no evidence of fraud, how can we complain that there was? And that's coming from I who just as much as anybody who doesn't want to see Hillary win, doesn't want to see her win either.

on MSNBC that exit polls were correct for everyone but Clinton, specifically that Obama's were correct. No link and I don't know much about this stuff anyway.

will always match the results
"Corrected" Exit Poll Tabulations


In other countries we encourage exit polls be used as a guard against fraud but evidently here we just want to follow the trends

Matthews blabbing (they weren't suppose to reveal raw data info) that the raw data they were getting that evening showed Obama with a big victory that was growing larger doesn't help with the concern.

These machines/software are the same ones that failed all the tests in CA and CO. It's not just easy to hack, it's very error prone. There was a big fight about them being re-authorized in New Hampshire after 2006 and them not allowing independent testing or be checked by academic experts.
This is not a good start for showing the new software's dependability.

If it wasn't so suspicious I would like the outcome. A race strengthens a candidate, we'll be stronger for it.(and I don't think Hillary cheated)

But we have to deal with this issue. November is coming.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

:sarcasm:

He just has to pay for it.

Diebold better not fuck with her vote!

Says her protective dad....

is the way M$NBC was tripping all over itself trying to come up with reasoning for the previous polls to be so way off. Not once did anyone consider the possibility that all the various polls might have been correct and that it was the Diebold vote tabulations that were modified. So now we're being told that the exit polls match the vote results, but who conducted these exit polls? The M$M?

Voters lie to pollsters. Voters are racist. Voters are sexist. Voters are ant-sexist. Voters are (your explanation here).

When will be CONSIDER that the un-verified, un-transparent vote COUNT may be the problem?

Who are those people? The republicans? Who exactly? Are you accusing Clinton and some undercover assistants to be in colusion with....the guy behind the curtain who flips the counts on every diebold machine in NH? Or is there a central location somewhere in the basement in Crawford Texas where they are all flipped at once?

You are accusing Clinton of cheating. What the hell?

It's easily done, just read about the "Hursti Hack".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hursti_Hack

All speculation is academic unless & until a manual hand recount of the ballots is done, of course.

some have held the theory for a long time that Republicans want to run against Clinton because she will be the easiest one to beat. Just wait until the right-wing smear machine gears up after the primaries. Also, M$NBC is becoming all to transparent in their motives, with people like Chris Mathews and Pat Buchanan pulling for Hillary, at least yesterday!

On edit: remember, its mostly Republicans who control the voting machine companies and their service.

a charge of "FRAUD" to have the vote counted accurately? Is it really that big of a deal to require a percentage of ballots to be hand-counted in 'every' election. Is it that big of a deal to demand that voting machine companies use open source code, so that the voting machines are not totally reliant on the manufacturer for any and all mal-functions, or anomalies? It's done that way in other countries why not ours? I guess instead of wishing for an accurate vote count, I'll wish to win the lottery...what are the odds?