What we can do to prevent election-rigging in Nov. 2012. There is a post

[Cal33]

under "Latest Breaking News" by Bradblog that says any Diebold voting machine can
be hacked by remote control from up to half a mile away by simply buying and
installing $26 worth of computer parts.

I am practically a computer illiterate. I can only think of one way of stopping the
right-wingers from rigging the elections of Nov. 2012: Start a movement to ban all
electronic voting machines before Nov. 2012. That's only 13 months away.

Can anyone with good computer knowledge come up with other solutions?

And time is critical!

[msongs]

1. hand marked paper ballots counted by hand at the precinct level, with results posted in public befor

they are sent to any central tabulator. All done under the watchful eyes of authorized observers. so what if it takes a day? tell the voracious media to go cover termite wars or something else.

[Cal33]

10. Can we be sure of being able to do this in each and every one of the 50 states?

We'll also have to make sure that the votes are never out of the sight
of both Dem. and Repub. eyes -- day and night.

[annabanana]

17. +1

I think most Americans would support accuracy of count over speed. In fact, anyone who DOESN'T is pretty sure to have some self benefiting agenda.

[Cal33]

18. There are more Rep states than Dem ones. The leaders of the Rep states

will do their best to rig the votes, as they always have done since 2000 and earlier.
Just look at what they are trying to do right now: redistricting, making it
mandatory for all voters to have government approved IDs with pictures, etc...
Reps certainly do have "some self-benefiting agenda, all right!!" You can
bet on it.

How do we counteract each and every one of their dirty tricks each time? If the
Rebs. "win" in 2012, it will be a catastrophic disaster for our nation. And they
are going all out to grab all three branches of the government.

[teddy51]

2. As someone pointed out to me here a couple of weeks ago, voting

methods and machines fall under States Rights. So banning them would not be an easy task.

Here is a video of what we are faced with though, and it's not good;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pisBdNLmo-A

[Cal33]

4. You can bet that the right-wingers will be rigging the elections. They always have. They're not

going to change.

[0rganism]

3. hacktivists, DO NOT expose the risk by altering the GOP primary results

REPEAT: DO NOT crack the GOP primaries

If Patricia Arquette were to win one or more of the early GOP primaries, it would definitely NOT send a message to America about the craptastic voting machines. NOTHING would be gained by allocating 90% of the Romney and Perry votes to Rick Santorum.

[catabryna]

5. Not possible...

But, vote by mail is the best way to go if you want to feel fairly confident your vote is being counted. Yeah, there is still a chance that the Optiscan might mess up, but at least we have a paper trail here in Oregon. We don't seem to have any challenges and, when we do, it is because the race is close... not because we don't trust the integrity of our system.

I feel bad for the people in other states.

[Cal33]

6. About one-third of the states are still using electronic voting machines without any

paper trails. This includes some Dem. states. They are sure
taking their time.

[catabryna]

7. It is very sad.

An individual's confidence in their vote being counted is, well, so American! What is happening these days is a mockery of everything this country stands for. It's embarrassing.

Nothing digital is safe these days.

K&R in memory of Andy Stephenson.

[Electric Monk]

8. You forgot to link. Here are the links.

LBN thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=5008468&mesg_id=5008468

Brad Blog http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8785

Salon http://www.salon.com/news/politics/elections/2011/09/27/votinghack/index.html

[Cal33]

9. I did try by linking the title of bradblog's post, but the next screen showed

a kind of warning. So I didn't continue. By the way, how do you
do these linkings?

[Electric Monk]

11. Right click on the link, select copy link, then paste the link into your post.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

[Cal33]

13. Many thanks.

[Overseas]

12. Sadly, I heard that Democrats backed off of this issue so as not to discourage voters

from going to the polls.

They were apparently concerned that if too many voters thought the system was rigged, more would be discouraged from voting, so they just let the issue go.

We were shouting about the need to correct the electronic voting systems after the surprising flip in vote totals late at night when Bush "beat" Kerry. The exit polls showed Kerry leading and we judge other countries' elections via exit polls, but somehow, after the odd flip in tallies in the wee hours, we were supposed to believe the exit polling was at fault.

We also had televised evidence of the weakness of electronic voting systems at that time. Even that was not enough.

We wanted to move to at least requiring that all voting have paper back up trails so the results could be audited, but that was allowed to drop off the Democratic legislative agenda.

Very sad state of affairs. Too afraid to improve a system that is so easily hacked because you don't want people to be discouraged by the fact that their voting can be so easily hacked.

[Cal33]

14. Most people would react with approval when their political leaders would

fight back to correct dishonesty on the part of their rivals.
Perhaps a positive attitude was lacking in the Dem. leadership
even way back then.

What could this negativity be based on, fear? If so, of what?
The Dems were in the right, and the Reps were in the wrong. The
Reps were doing the cheating. When Dems don't fight back, it
enables the Reps. to continue in their crooked ways.

[Overseas]

15. Election integrity. Wish it could be implemented.

No voting systems without auditable paper trails.

[Cal33]

16. Yes, I'm with you.