Election Reform, Fraud, & News Thursday 12/21/06 - Notice of Contest Regarding FL-13

[freedomfries]

Election Reform, Fraud, & News Thursday 12/21/06 - Notice of Contest Regarding FL-13

Herald Tribune, Saratosa FL
December 21, 2006
http://www.heraldtribune.com/assets/pdf/SH83691220.PDF

Attn. Kendall Coffey's introduction:

Indeed, the failure to count the votes of the thousands of Saratosa County voters who went to the polls and cast votes in the Thirteenth District race is a miscarriage of the electoral process that can -- AND MUST -- be remedied.
...
It is critically important that the United States House of Representatives -- provide that relief promptly, by resolving that
(a) there has been no valid election for the Representative in the 110th Congress from FL's 13th Congressional District,
(b) Contestee Vern Buchanan is not entitled to a seat as a Representaive in the 110th Congress, and
(c) the Governor of the State of Florida should be notified that the office is vacant, so that he can issue a Writ of Election to fill the vacancy

http://www.heraldtribune.com/assets/pdf/SH83691220.PDF
:patriot:


All members welcome and encouraged to participate.
Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
:argh: :argh: :argh:

If you can:
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.
2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233
3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.
4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.

Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page.
:patriot:

[freedomfries]

1. Nat: CBS: Congress Asked To Probe Florida House Race

Congress Asked To Probe Fla. House Race
Democrat Christine Jennings Blames Faulty Electronic Voting Machines For 369-Vote Loss

Phil Hirschkorn & Allison Davis
CBS News
December 20, 2006

"This is not about Democrats and Republicans or Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan, it's about fixing a system that appears to be broken."
Christine Jennings
:patriot:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/20/politics/main2287218.shtml

Florida Democrat Christine Jennings is asking the House of Representatives to investigate — and potentially invalidate — her disputed Nov. 7 loss to Republican Vern Buchanan, which Jennings blames on faulty electronic voting machines.

Jennings filed papers with the House Administration Committee Wednesday, the same day a Florida judge concluded two days of hearings into whether the touch-screen machines made by ES&S and used in Florida’s 13th congressional district malfunctioned. Jennings is suing for a new election.

Six weeks after Election Day, this is the only one of 435 House races where the declared loser has not conceded. The outcome won’t change the balance of power, where Democrats gained 30 seats and will control 233 seats to the Republicans 202 in January.

Buchanan, who has 30 days to respond to Jennings' petition, will be sworn in Jan. 4 and serve as the district’s congressman while the legal process and House investigation move forward.

"This is not about Democrats and Republicans or Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan, it's about fixing a system that appears to be broken," Jennings said. "One-third of all Floridians use the iVotronic machines by ES&S. Voters need to have confidence that their vote will count and be counted accurately."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/20/politics/main2287218.shtml

[freedomfries]

2. Nat: NYT: Jennings Officially Contests Race in Florida’s 13th District

Jennings Officially Contests Race in Florida’s 13th District

Rachel Kapochunas
The New York Times
December 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/12/20/cq_2056.html

After weeks of focusing her challenge to the close election results in Florida’s 13th Congressional District on that state’s elections bureaucracy and court system, Democratic nominee Christine Jennings moved Wednesday to get Congress officially involved in her vote-counting dispute with the state-certified winner, Republican Vern Buchanan.

Jennings, a former banker, filed paperwork with the House clerk to officially contest the race in Florida’s 13th District, alleging widespread voting machine irregularities. < The Bradenton Herald> The filing came not long before a deadline of 6 p.m. Wednesday, the conclusion of the 30-day period since the results were certified by the office of Florida’s secretary of state.

The matter will be referred to the House Administration Committee, which will decide whether to proceed with an investigation of a complaint that includes requests by Jennings for the Nov. 7 results to be vacated and for the election to be held over again.

And because the Republican-controlled 109th Congress has already completed its work, the committee will have a new Democratic majority after the 110th Congress is installed Jan. 4. The Florida 13 contest is the only House race still in dispute in an election campaign that delivered the Democrats a 30-seat gain and a total of 233 seats, 15 more than they needed for a bare majority in the 435-seat House.

While Jennings’ complaint now officially rests in the hands of the House committee, the conflict over the election’s outcome creates an even more pressing situation for incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and other House Democratic leaders: whether to seat Buchanan as the certified winner in Florida 13.

http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/12/20/cq_2056.html

[philb]

4. 20 precincts had over 20% UVs on election day and 48 did in early voting: list

Election day precincts with over 25% undervotes
0031,0090,0105,0117,0118,0120,0153

Early voting precincts with over 25% undervotes
0028,0031,0038,0042,0045,0048,0063,0075,0090,0105,0117,0118,0119,0153

the early votes were distributed to the precincts from a fewer number of early voting sites.

Additional precincts with over 20% undervotes on election day were:
0028,0030,0033,0044,0045,0074,0085,0088,0104,0121,0130,0142,0143

Additional precincts with over 20% undervotes in early voting were:
0001,0007,0009,0024,0027,0030,0033,0034,0039,0040,0044,0054,0055,0064,0066,0067,0071,0074,
0081,0083,0086,0088,0092,0093,0097,0103,0107,0114,0120,0129,0125,0138,0140,0142,0150

No way were these people who just didn't want to vote in this race,
nor voters simply confused by the ballot design

the voters reported "disappearing votes" that in some cases they could not correct
only programming can do this

[freedomfries]

3. FL: Jennings Files Protest in House

Jennings files protest in House

Cory Reiss, NY Times
Herald Tribune, Sarasota FL
December 21, 2006

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061221/NEWS/612210563/1060

WASHINGTON -- Christine Jennings took her case for a new election to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, setting the stage for a congressional battle if she loses a court case in Florida.

The Sarasota Democrat filed a complaint, called a notice of contest, with the House that asks the chamber to void the result of the Nov. 7 election, in which Republican Vern Buchanan was declared the winner by fewer than 400 votes, and either give the seat to Jennings or pave the way for another election to replace Rep. Katherine Harris in the 13th District.

The House Administration Committee, which handles these disputes, is unlikely to act before a court case in Tallahassee is complete, but Jennings had to file the complaint by a deadline Wednesday or lose that option.

"I hope the court system in Florida will resolve this," Jennings said in a coffee shop two blocks from the White House before filing the notice, "but Congress is there for the purpose of solving important, difficult situations."

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061221/NEWS/612210563/1060

[freedomfries]

5. FL: Leon Ct Judge to Decide if Voting Code is Trade Secret

Judge to decide if voting code is trade secret

Lloyd Dunkelberger
Herald Tribune
December 21, 2006
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061221/NEWS/612210372

TALLAHASSEE -- The question of whether a private company should disclose the computer codes it uses to operate touch-screen voting machines in Florida will now be decided by a Leon County circuit judge.
...
They will file their final written arguments on Friday, with Judge William Gary making a decision sometime after that.

The outcome of the case -- which could impact electronic voting systems around the state -- remains in doubt.

But the issue of the disclosure of the computer codes is a critical underpinning in Jennings' effort to get the court to overturn the election results, in which Buchanan has been declared the winner by 369 votes.

Miguel DeGrandy, a lawyer for Election Systems & Software Inc., said the court will have to weigh Jennings' request for the computer codes against his client's argument that the codes are a trade secret.

He also said the state, which has a copy of the codes, needs to be able to protect the integrity of the voting system.
...
"The evidence presented overwhelmingly showed that the machines functioned correctly," DeGrandy said.
:shrug:

"The plaintiffs can't just come in here with no evidence and say, 'hey, until I look at the source code, I can't figure it out.'"

DeGrandy said ES&S supports a state review of the source code, while also agreeing that an "independent" expert selected by the court could oversee that work.
:shrug:

Kendall Coffey, a lawyer for Jennings, said academic experts who testified for the Democratic candidate presented "statistically significant evidence of machine failure" that would warrant allowing an outside review of the computer codes -- although it would be done in a confidential manner.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061221/NEWS/612210372

[philb]

7. Voting Expert- Florida Dist 13 biggest problem likely due to ES&S programming problems

Declaration of Charles Stewart III on Excess Undervotes Cast in Sarasota County, Florida for the 13th Congressional District Race

Charles Stewart III
Department of Political Science
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
November 20, 2006

Summary: The level of undervoting experienced using electronic voting machines in Sarasota County for the 13th congressional district greatly exceeds the undervote rates that were estimated to have occurred in other well-established cases of voter confusion.

This suggests a substantial possibility that the exaggerated undervote rates in this case were not solely due to voter confusion, but also caused by factors related to machine malfunction.
Based on the analysis in this report, I conclude that it was very likely that the excessively high undervote rates in the 13th congressional district among votes cast in Sarasota County were caused by the use of iVotronic electronic voting machines.

Possible Explanations:
In the particular case of the vote in Sarasota County, there are two major potential
explanations for why there were so many excess undervotes.

1. One possible explanation is voter confusion. In particular, it has been argued that the ballot layout in Sarasota County naturally drew the eye away from the 13th congressional district race, through the use of colors and banners that were intended to draw the eye toward the beginning of the state contests.

2. A second potential explanation is machine malfunction. Numerous voters reported difficulties casting a vote in the 13th congressional district race or with using the “review screen,” which should have allowed them to correct an undervote that happened by accident.18
These difficulties include pressing the name of one candidate and seeing the other candidate highlighted, or pressing the screen repeatedly with no effect.
(switching was occurring or impossible to vote for Jennings)

Conclusion:
Voters can be misled by ballots that are challenging --- or by subtle design features that
draw their attention away from the task at hand --- but the excess in undervotes cast in Sarasota County in the 13th congressional district race is vastly greater than what has been documented in carefully studied instances where ballot design has been shown to influence voter behavior. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that this excess in undervotes in Sarasota County was not purely the consequence of a poorly designed ballot.
Dated: November 20, 2006 ___________________________________________

[philb]

8. Computer voting expert from Rice Univ. says Florida authorities have prevented serious audit so far

Another technical expert says that not enough information has been allowed to experts to resolve the cause of the undervotes

Dan S Wallach states that to resolve the question as to why voters were reporting "disappearing votes" and undervotes were extremely high in some precincts,

experts need to look at the "event logs" and "ballot image logs". This has not been allowed to date apparently. he says the logs need to be provided in digital form.

He also says that an effective audit would require digital copies of the ballot style style files for all nine ballot styles used in Sarasota County; and
every flat file that is loaded onto the iVotronic as part of the "ballot programming process", both in early voting and on election day(if different).

He said that at a minimum for an effective audit, you would need at least the machines which experienced the highest undervote rates during the election, along with their carrying cases, power adapters, and other related apparatus.

He also said that two supervisor PEBs, along with nince regular PEBs(configured like the 9 ballot styles), plaus a standard ES&S Communicatons Pack with related equipment would be needed.

And also access to the ES&S source code.
He said that he's worked with proprietary source code in audits before and any issue regarding that issue can be dealt with by signing non-disclosure agreements.

[freedomfries]

6. FL: Computer Code at Heart of Congressional Election Dispute

Computer code at heart of congressional election dispute

Lloyd Dunkelberger
The Gainesville Sun, FL
December 21, 2006

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061221/LOCAL/612210369/-1/news

TALLAHASSEE — The question of whether a private company should disclose the computer codes it uses to operate touch-screen voting machines in Florida will now be decided by a Leon County circuit judge.

Lawyers in the case, which involves the disputed congressional election between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan in Sarasota County, wrapped up their oral arguments Wednesday. They will file their final written arguments on Friday, with Judge William Gary making a decision sometime after that.

The issue of the disclosure of the computer codes — which could impact electronic voting systems around the state — is a critical underpinning in Jennings' effort to get the court to overturn the election results, which has declared Buchanan the winner by a 369-vote margin.
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061221/LOCAL/612210369/-1/news

[philb]

10. But experts like the one from Rice point out that the generic code is not likely the main problem

They indicate that the machines with extremely high undervotes, that were all in Jennings majority precincts, appear to have been performing differently from the rest and that it is likely from programming or glitches that could have been likely found if those machines were audited.
They indicate that the ballot definition files and programming of those machines with extremely high undervotes need to be looked at, and this has not been allowed to date.
Likewise the ballot screen layouts for those machines.
See the comments of the Rice Univ. voting expert posted previously.

[freedomfries]

9. FL: Disputed Sarasota Race Appealed to Congress

Disputed Sarasota race is appealed to Congress

Mark K. Matthews
Orlando Sentinel
December 21, 2006
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-jennings2106dec21,0,2788360.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state

WASHINGTON -- Democrat Christine Jennings filed a formal appeal with Congress on Wednesday, asking lawmakers to investigate voting problems in Florida's 13th Congressional District, an election she lost by fewer than 400 votes.

Jennings said she hoped the complaint will compel Congress to force a revote in the disputed Sarasota-area race, which was won by Republican Vern Buchanan.

The idea has gained little traction on Capitol Hill, but a congressional aide said incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is open-minded.

"She has taken nothing off the table," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said.

Two recounts have certified Buchanan as the winner of the Gulf Coast seat, but Jennings has challenged the results because about 18,000 voters in Sarasota County did not register a vote in the close race.

Problems with touch-screen voting machines are suspected, and Jennings has filed suit in Florida to gain access to the computer-programming code.

"The public deserves to know what is going on with these machines," Jennings said.
:patriot:

Florida officials have found no evidence of malfunctions, and the devices' maker, Electronic Systems & Software Inc., has called Jennings' claims speculation. Testimony in the lawsuit concluded Wednesday, and the judge gave lawyers until Friday to file their final arguments.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-jennings2106dec21,0,2788360.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state

[freedomfries]

12. FL: Daytona Beach Editorial: Question for Florida

Question for Florida
Are 18,000 votes missing in Sarasota?
What's more important to you: Knowing that your vote is counted, or knowing that the company that sold the county voting machines is able to keep its trade secrets private?

Editorial
Daytona Beach News
December 21, 2006
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN60122106.htm

For most voters, the answer is easy. Vote sanctity is a cornerstone of democracy. Sacrificing that ideal to protect a corporation's bottom line -- when votes might have been lost due to flaws in that corporation's equipment -- strains both credulity and justice.

In a Tallahassee courtroom, experts testified this week that it's highly likely votes were lost in Florida's 13th Congressional District race.

In Sarasota County, nearly 18,000 voters bypassed the District 13 race on their ballots -- suggesting about 15 percent of voters skipped a race that was one of the most hotly contested and highly publicized in the state. Possible? Yes. Likely? No. In the other four counties included in District 13, the "undervote" was less than 5 percent.

The undervotes made the difference in the race. Democrat Christine Jennings lost by 369 votes to Republican Vern Buchanan, but the undervotes were recorded in Democratic-leaning sections of the district, and experts predict that Jennings would have won handily had Sarasota County voters followed the same pattern they exhibited in other races.

And maybe they did follow the same pattern. No rationale has been offered to explain why they didn't. With a discrepancy this large, it makes the most sense to look at the machines that tallied the ballots.

That's where the machines come in. Sarasota County votes on paperless touch-screen machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software, a Nebraska firm that is one of the nation's Big Three voting-technology vendors. Since there are no paper ballots to review, the only way to diagnose problems is to inspect the physical machines on which votes were cast -- a task that's already been completed -- and examine the complex software that runs them.

But there's a catch. ES&S -- like most elections vendors -- insists that its software be cloaked in utter secrecy. It makes the counties who buy the company's machines sign agreements that they won't demand to see "source code" or try to reverse-engineer the programs to determine their inner workings.

Those agreements haven't stopped independent elections-integrity advocates from prodding various versions of elections software for holes. They've found some doozies -- glitches that could, in some cases, allow undetectable tampering with elections results.

Tuesday, a computer expert from Rice University testified that some sort of glitch was "likely" in the case of the Sarasota County machines. Another expert, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testified that undervotes were far more likely on machines that election workers prepared on busy days.

It will be up to a judge to determine whether Jennings' experts and attorneys get into the machines' source code -- and whether Florida elections officials had the right to sign away important safeguards on behalf of voters and candidates.

But at the least, the case should sound as a clarion call for elections officials in Florida: No more secret software, and paper ballots as a safeguard when machines go wrong.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN60122106.htm

[freedomfries]

14. FL: ACLU Sees Clear Case for Revote in FL-13

ACLU sees clear case for a revote in disputed District 13 election


Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida
Peter Tannen is chairman of ACLU's Sarasota-Manatee-DeSoto Chapter.
Herald Tribune
December 20, 2006
Thank you bradblog!

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061220/COLUMNIST13/612200305_____

Some voters have protested the 13th Congressional District election because they are unhappy with the (tentative) results; others have remained silent, perhaps pleased with the results. We hope more are concerned not with the results but the disfranchisement of thousands of voters that made this failed election an affront to democracy.

Elections in a democracy are not simply a matter of who wins or loses; winners must win legitimately.

That is why no one should walk away from this failed election hoping that the next one goes better, and why Jennings and Buchanan supporters (and supporters of "none of the above") should join the fight for a revote. Only a revote (with a paper trail) will ensure a legitimate election.

The lawsuit seeking a revote, filed on behalf of voters by the American Civil Liberties Union and other voting-rights organizations, addresses the disfranchisement of what could be as many as 18,000 voters, not the outcome. The suit would have been filed if the tentative results were different: These paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines were not ready for prime time.

If we are to have a democracy in reality, and not in name only, voting systems must be:

Easy to use and accurately count, tabulate and report votes;

Subject to independent testing, certification and verification of their operational soundness;

Designed to prevent negligent programming, operational errors or malicious tampering;

Immune from unintended undervotes;

Fully accessible to every eligible voter and not compromise the right to vote with anonymity;

Capable of meaningfully recounting votes to verify their accuracy.
:patriot:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061220/COLUMNIST13/612200305

[freedomfries]

15. FL: Sore Loser? South Florida Sun Sentinel Does it Again?

"Candidate who lost by 363 votes wants probe of congressional race"

Associated Press
South Florida Sun Sentinel
December 21 2006
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-fcongress21dec21,0,4586726.story?coll=sfla-news-florida

TALLAHASSEE· Democrat Christine Jennings asked Congress on Wednesday for an investigation and possibly a revote in the southwest Florida congressional election that state officials say she lost to Republican Vern Buchanan.

Jennings filed an official contest of the election results of Florida's 13th Congressional District with the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives in mid-afternoon.

While the state has declared Buchanan the winner by 369 votes, 18,000 Sarasota County electronic ballots registered no choice in the race. Jennings contends the ATM-like voting machines lost the votes and cost her the election. She is asking for a revote.

Congress is unlikely to immediately intervene in the contest, said Salley Collins, a spokeswoman for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration. The precedent is to swear in the state-certified winner, then investigate the contest.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-fcongress21dec21,0,4586726.story?coll=sfla-news-florida

[freedomfries]

11. Nat: CNN: Florida Candidate Disputes Election Results

Florida candidate disputes election results

CNN.com
December 20, 2006, 9:05 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/20/vote.contest/

SARASOTA, Florida (CNN) -- A Democratic House candidate in Florida who alleges that malfunctioning electronic voting equipment played a role in her narrow defeat in November formally contested the results Wednesday.

Christine Jennings is asking for a congressional investigation and a new election in the state's 13th District.

Jennings filed her contest with the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington and has sued in state court to try to overturn her 369-vote loss to Republican Vern Buchanan.

"The voting system in place in Sarasota clearly failed the voters of that district and has triggered a national crisis in voter confidence," Jennings' attorney, Kendall Coffey, said in a statement.

"Ultimately, the U.S. House is responsible for the type of legislative investigations and safeguards that will ensure a situation like we saw in Sarasota never happens again."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/20/vote.contest/

[philb]

13. Larger Audits Would be Required to Confirm the Many Close 2006 US House Races

(and there appear to have likely been many races swung by manipulation and voter suppression in 2006)

Larger Audits Required to Confirm Close 2006 US House Races
By Howard Stanislevic, VoteTrustUSA E-Voter Education Project

December 20, 2006

The verdict is in. This year's 401 contested US House seats resulted in closer electoral outcomes than the 400 seats that were up for grabs in the 2004 election. This means larger audits would have been necessary this year than in 2004 to actually confirm the results independently of electronic vote counting software.

For the following calculations, we assumed a 99% probability of miscount detection (confidence level), 400 precincts per Congressional District on average and the possibility of up to a 20% undetected vote shift per precinct.

Based on these assumptions, in 2004, 57 outcomes (14.3%) of the 400 contests required more than a 2% random audit of precinct totals to be confirmed. This year, using the same assumptions, 99 races (24.7% of the 401 contests) would require more than a 2% audit to confirm their outcomes.

While the above assumptions are not necessarily etched in stone (and do not take precinct size variations into account), it's clear that a small fixed percentage audit is even a worse idea now than it was two years ago.

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2135&Itemid=26

************
Widespread touch screen switching, disappearing votes, malfunctions, long lines, insufficient backup systems for the unreliable DREs, large numbers of voters unable to vote

www.flcv.com/eirstss6.html

Widespread machine malfunctions, voter purges, minority voter suppression, official & poll worker misfeasance or malfeasance causing minorities to vote in wrong precinct and lose their vote, millions of legal voters unable to vote

www.flcv.com/eirsppp6.html

Systematic illegal dirty tricks and Robo-calls in most close Congressional races throughout the country

www.flcv.com/eirsdt6.html

[freedomfries]

18. thank you philb!

Thanks for your great help with the thread philb!
:yourock:

[freedomfries]

16. Ars Technica: EFF Taps E-voting Security Guru Ed Felten for Board

EFF taps e-voting security guru Ed Felten for board

Jon Stokes
ArsTechnica.com
December 20, 2006
Thank you bradblog!
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061220-8469.html

Princeton's Ed Felten will be joining Lawrence Lessig, John Gilmore, Brewster Kahle, and other prominent technology activists, researchers, and scholars on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Felten was previously on the EFF's advisory board, and he was involved in the EFF's anti-DMCA suit against the RIAA in 2001.

Since the RIAA suit at the height of the P2P and DMCA wars, the focus of Felten's research has shifted to other areas of information security, and he has been at the forefront of the information security community's investigations of vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems. So Felten's addition to the EFF's board shows the organization's commitment to countering the threat to democracy posed by e-voting insecurities.

For those Ars readers who've been following my coverage of the electronic voting issue, you may remember Felten from the infamous Princeton video, in which a Diebold Accuvote TS is compromised by vote-stealing software in a matter of minutes. (It was actually this video, and the depths to which it alarmed me, that motivated me to write an article describing how to steal an election by hacking the vote. I watched that video about two weeks before the November mid-terms, I flipped out, and I immediately set to work on the article.)

Felten produced the aforementioned video and led the team that exposed a huge number of vulnerabilities in the Diebold machines as Director of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy. His weblog, Freedom to Tinker, is one of the bookmarks that I visit regularly.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061220-8469.html

[freedomfries]

17. NAT: CBS: Paper Jams a Problem for Electronic Voting

Paper Jams a Problem for Electronic Voting
Paper problems beset bid for verifiable electronic voting

Stephen Manning AP
CBS News
December 21, 2006
N.B.: This AP story has been picked up by the major news outlets.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/21/ap/politics/mainD8M54H7G0.shtml

(AP) The paper ballots and hanging chads that marred the 2000 presidential election have almost vanished from polling places, replaced by electronic-voting machines that are supposed to eliminate recount chaos.

But now election directors have a new worry: printer jams.

The new machines spool out a small paper receipt of each vote cast to verify the machine correctly recorded the vote and to provides a hard copy during a re-count.

Some states like Maryland have been using paperless system using touch-screen ATM-like computers that record and tabulate votes. But that has produces its own problems and legislation is likely to be filed in Maryland next year to switch from touch-screen to optical-scannning devices, leaving a paper trail.

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, a manual count of the paper record during the May primary didn't match the voting results tallied by touch-screen machines during the primary.

Machines in some California, Missouri and Mississippi precincts jammed. In Guilford County, N.C., where the paper record would be used in a recount, an audit of a sample of machines showed 9 percent of printers that were supposed to record touch-screen votes either didn't work properly or had paper problems.

"How many votes were lost as a result of that, with the printer chewing it up?" asked George Gilbert, elections director for the county that includes Greensboro, N.C. "If you don't have a complete paper record, you can't use it for a recount."

Paper trails have other shortcomings. Blind voters can't read the paper to verify their votes were correctly recorded. And a paper printout from a touch-screen machine could be used to tell how a person voted, compromising privacy.

Even electronic voting critics who have long sought a paper record or other way to independently verify voting machines say the current paper trail systems are inadequate.

"This isn't what we had in mind when we called for paper," said Johns Hopkins University computer scientist Avi Rubin, who has studied the security of voting machines. "I have yet to see a paper trail system I like."
:patriot:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/21/ap/politics/mainD8M54H7G0.shtml

[Kurovski]

19. Kick to the top.

Thank you freedomfries and philb! :thumbsup:

[autorank]

20. KR Fries ; Excellent n/t