Dep. of Defense Project SERVE and the current election

[The Flaming Red Head]

Professor given millions in Department of Defense grant money on CNN defending current technology and says no voting glitches as far as he could see. (not past his deep deep pockets)


U.S. Department of Defense, “Evaluation of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting (SERVE) Project.” ($2,130,237). November 2002 – December
2005, Principal Consultant (with R. Michael Alvarez). Thad Edward Hall

U.S. Department of Defense. “Evaluation of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) Project,” DASW01-02-C-0027, ($236,140), May 2002 - December 2002. Principal Consultant (with R. Michael Alvarez).


http://www.poli-sci.utah.edu/hall_cv.htm

http://www.hss.caltech.edu/vitae/alvarez.pdf

[Cerridwen]

1. "To SERVE Man" - It's a cook book. - n/t

[The Flaming Red Head]

2. said overall the machines seemed to perform beyond expectations

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/evoting.evaluation/index.html


Critics say it's too early in process to evaluate how machines did

By Daniel Sieberg
CNN
Friday, November 5, 2004 Posted: 4:58 PM EST (2158 GMT)


The short, albeit unsatisfying answer is that it's still too early to know for certain.

But at least one member of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, which has been studying e-voting since 2000, said overall the machines seemed to perform beyond expectations.

"We are not receiving any reports of any huge systematic meltdowns regarding electronic voting, and certainly e-voting seems to have had the same sort of glitches we've seen in other paper-based voting systems," said R. Michael Alvarez, professor of political science at the California Institute of Technology.

"I'd give it a good passing grade, maybe a B, and I'd give the paper-based analogs about the same grade."

[crickets]

3. Why the DOD?

Doesn't that strike anyone as odd to begin with?

[The Flaming Red Head]

6. If I was getting a paycheck from the DOD I'd want it to continue

It's slush money. Who knows how much is spread around at this point. They're having a big old party at all our expense right now.

[mountainvue]

4. More cover story.

We must have their spidey senses tingling if they feel the need to put this out.

[glitch]

5. Good Lord - CalTech/MIT and he says this? Yikes,

What does that say about his credibility?

I think I'll go with this professional opinion. I don't imagine he's got a $2 million personal interest:

"“What has most concerned scientists are problems that are not observable, so the fact that no major problems were observed says nothing about the system,” David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, told the Associated Press. “The fact that we had a relatively smooth election yesterday does not change at all the vulnerability these systems have to fraud or bugs."

from http://www.opednews.com/thoreau_110404_diebold.htm