Voting Machines

The End is at Hand (to Leftist Conspiracy Theories)

dlindorff — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:36:32 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

With the polls continuing to show Barack Obama holding a steady or
even growing lead heading into Election Day, especially in the key
swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire
and Virginia, and with Democratic challengers looking strong in at
least 10 Senate races and dozens of open-seat or Republican-held House
races, it’s looking like this will be a big win for Democrats, both in
the presidential and the Congressional races.

Hopefully one thing such an across-the-boards win will lead to
would be a withering away of the self-destructive conspiracy-theory
paranoia that has gripped much of the Left over the last eight years.

Once largely emblematic of the far Right, which saw black
helicopters of the dreaded United Nations behind every mountain, Jews
running everything, Communists working nefariously under every bed,
fluoridation plots, an immigrant assault on the Anglo-Saxon gene pool,
and a liberal cabal out to steal their assault hunting rifles, now the
Left is awash in the same kind of fevered thinking.

Chief among the leftist conspiracy theories are that the
Bush/Cheney administration was behind the 9-11 attacks, that the
current administration has plans to cancel or annul the November 4
election and institute martial law, that there are plans for a “false
flag” attack on American forces which will be used to justify an
all-out war against Iran, that there is a false-flag terror attack
planned inside the US set for before the election, designed to throw
the vote towards John McCain, that the Wall Street meltdown and
subsequent bail-out are a deliberate scheme to steal the nation’s
assets and funnel them into Republican pockets, and that Republican
operatives have the technological capability, and plan to steal the
current election by manipulating the results on the electronic voting
machines used by many election districts. In a variant of the Right’s
anti-Semitic ravings, the Left attributes god-like powers to the Israel
lobby and its formal lobbying organization, the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

Never mind that some of these conspiracies are mutually exclusive
(if Bush and Cheney are going to declare martial law, they should have
no need to steal the election), or that it’s getting pretty late in the
game for others to actually happen. The common thread running through
these conspiracies is that “they” (the Republicans, AIPAC or the ruling
corporate elite, as the case may be), have superhuman powers beyond our
wildest imaginations, as well as flawless execution, and are going to
achieve their evil ends no matter what we do.

Following this line of thinking (if it can be called that), there’s
no point in voting, because “they” are going to steal the election
anyhow (and that, of course, is if the election is even held next
week!). There’s no point in going to rallies or marches in Washington
DC, because “they” are going to attack Iran and start World War III
anyhow. Public protest is also dangerous, because “they” are going to
declare martial law, and then all of us who go out and publicly oppose
the government will end up locked away in detention camps in the Mojavi
desert.

I confess, as a journalist, to having unwittingly aided and abetted
some of this conspiracy thinking, for example with my reporting on the
evidence that all four of the so-called “black boxes” from the two
planes that hit the World Trade Center on 9/11 were recovered, and that
the FBI actually has them, despite its testimony to the contrary before
the 9-11 Commission. I make no apology for, and still stand by that
report, which was based upon reliable sources at the National
Transportation Safety Administration and in the New York Police
Department, but I want to stress that such a report does not justify
going beyond asking the logical question, “What is the government
hiding here?” to making the wild speculation that it means the
government planned and carried out those attacks.

I also reported on solid evidence in 2006 that the Bush/Cheney
administration was moving several aircraft carrier battle groups into
position in the Persian Gulf in advance of Congressional off-year
elections in what appeared to be possible plans for an attack on Iran.
I still believe that may have been the administration’s game plan, but
that it was derailed by senior Republican leaders who prevailed on
James Baker, chair of the Iraq War Study Group, to release his team’s
bi-partisan study three months early, which called for negotiations
with Iran and Syria in order to bring peace and stability to the Iraq
region. I would add that this is a far cry from imagining that the
administration was planning to fake an Iranian attack on American
forces.

I am not saying that governments don’t engage in treacherous
conspiracies. Certainly the faked tale of a Gulf of Tonkin incident was
a conspiracy designed to allow the Johnson administration to begin an
all-out war against the Vietnamese. And certainly there was a
conspiracy in the Bush/Cheney administration during 2002 and early 2003
to mislead and lie to the Congress and the American people about Saddam
Hussein’s alleged links to 9-11 and to global terrorists. But those
relatively simple conspiracies actually prove my point—both have been
clearly exposed thanks to leaks, turncoats, and good investigative
reporting.

What I am saying is that the grander conspiracies being concocted
in the more fevered brains of some people on the Left do not hold up
under careful and critical inspection. The biggest failings they share
are two: first of all, conspiracies as grand as multi-state election
thefts via electronic fraud, and the carrying out of a two-front,
high-casualty mass terrorist act on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, require the cooperation of such large numbers of people that
leaks, turncoats, informants and simple screw-ups are inevitable; and
secondly, this administration in particular has shown itself to be
phenomenally inept, intellectually stunted, and tactically clueless.
The War in Iraq, which was supposed to be a “cakewalk,” has been an
unmitigated disaster for Republicans. The War in Afghanistan is a
fiasco. The War on Terror, while a success in terms of helping
Republicans win seats in Congress in 2002, and Bush to win re-election
in 2004, has been a bust longer term. Management of the US economy has
been a model of incompetence. So has the grand plan to crush Democrats
and create a dominant Republican Party for the next century. The Rovian
campaign strategy of lies, smears and dirty tricks, while initially
successful, appears to have worn out its effectiveness in just three
two-year national election cycles.

None of this would matter except that I think the Left’s embrace of
conspiracy-theories has become profoundly damaging to the whole
progressive movement. Conspiracy thinking produces a deep cynicism
towards positive action and towards the kind of long-term organizing
upon which real social and political change depends. When people think
that the fix is in, they are not inclined to put time and energy into
the hard work of organizing unions, working to get local candidates
elected to office, running for positions on party committees, etc.
Conspiracy thinking also leads people on the left to completely write
off the Democratic Party as a vehicle for progressive change, as the
notion that “they” run everything is broadened to include in the term
“they” the elected Democrats in the White House and Congress. Democrats
may be weenies, but such a conflation of Republicans and Democrats is
also self-defeating nonsense, as is the notion that Obama is “just
another tool” of the corporate/imperialist power structure. Democrats
are not just Republicans by another name, and Obama is not just McCain
or Bush with a better tan.

The reality is that if Obama is elected president, and if Democrats
end up gaining solid control of Congress, it will be critically
important for progressives to organize powerfully to press this new
government to do the right things—promptly ending the two wars in the
Middle East, taking strong and far-reaching action to tackle global
warming, restoring some basic equity to the economic and tax system,
making health care affordable and available to all, restoring the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, demanding punishment for those in
the current administration who have committed crimes, and so on.

We cannot expect Obama, or the Democrats in Congress who have
proven themselves to be such gutless compromisers, to take significant
progressive actions on their own. They must be driven by force of
public action to do the right thing.

Maybe when this election goes right and isn’t stolen, making Obama
the president, and debunking the vote-theft fear-mongers, and when
Obama goes on to be inaugurated in January, without being blocked by a
military coup, these paranoid conspiracy theories will fade away and
people on the Left will start working to make change happen instead of
imagining reasons why it can’t or just moaning that “they” are going to
destroy us all.
___________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Let's Create Our Own Paper Trail ~ Right Now

chrisinca — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 21:36:00 -0400

Since every state won't replace their paperless voting machines before November ~ why not start a campaign to encourage voters to create our own paper trail….by using an absentee ballot? Don't trust mail handling? Complete the ballot at home and deliver personally. My family changed to be permanent absentee (or "vote from home") voters as soon as GWB was illegally installed as President by the Supreme Court. Now our votes can be recounted anytime.

I'm a little surprised that progressive organizations have yet to mount a campaign to encourage voters to bypass politicians and just create their own paper trail with the tools we have right now.

This is one way for people to know that their vote will not only be counted ~ but RE-counted, if necessary. Imagine not having to worry about Diebold machines.

We can create our ballot paper trail ourselves right now, this year, this moment ~ all across America.

Microsoft Authoring Our "Election Reform" Legislation? Were We Short on Viruses or Something?

davidswanson — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 21:09:08 -0400

From Clare Maher via Mark Crispin Miller:

'MICROSOFT 811'

Holt: "It's no longer my bill."

In a town meeting in his New Jersey home district in July, Congressman Rush Holt made some disturbing statements which leave no doubt that H.R. 811 has become a bill that protects the interests of software corporations over the rights of citizens. In fact the Holt bill is NOT the Holt bill anymore! It has become 'Microsoft 811'!

Mr. Holt: "The bill has been changed since I introduced it. It's no longer my bill -- well, it's still my bill but it's been marked up in committee."

Further he added:

"Unfortunately, the committee that made this change heard from Microsoft. They heard that Voice. The point is Microsoft did lobby strongly. It wasn't just Microsoft. It was everybody who..."

Audience question: "Diebold?"

Holt: "No, it was software -- the software industry."

There is something seriously wrong when a U.S. Congressman can say that an election reform bill he introduced was significantly changed through the lobbying effort of Microsoft and the software industry....that their voices were heard!

Since when was the rule passed in Congress that whoever lobbies hardest gets to determine the content of U.S. legislation?

When a U.S. Congressman can agree that "the software industry won!" - as Mr. Holt admitted at the July meeting, we have a critical problem that threatens the foundation of our Democracy.

This bill is no longer the Holt bill...he said so himself. Clearly, the bill is now 'Microsoft 811!'

When Congressman Holt - the election reform leader in Congress - puts his trust in an audit that many experts say is inadequate, when he advocates for questionable paper trails linked to secretly programmed machines and then adds " I don't care what Microsoft does with their electronics in there" (as he did), it begins to look like our elections are a game of Russian roulette.

Where once the bill called for complete openness, full public disclosure of all software used to count OUR votes, now we have the opposite. 'Microsoft 811' enshrines in LAW the right of corporations to privatize our election through control of programming secrecy, prohibiting public disclosure of what's inside OUR voting machines! Only under strict conditions, people selected for very specific purposes can review the software, but only after signing non-disclosure agreements. Thus, what should be a contractual agreement is enshrined in federal law.

When you vote on Election Day you will not know what is happening inside that electronic machine. Under 'Microsoft 811', on Election Night the results reported will be generated from those secretly programmed electronic bytesŠ.from the very machines that top security experts have labeled "fatally flawed." Can we trust the results? How will we know?

A few months ago in New York State, during the hectic closing days of the legislative session, Microsoft along with other software vendors/lobbyists tried to sneak through provisions to destroy some of the strictest, hardest won, voting security legislation in the country by attaching those provisions to another bill which was simply about a minor change in the primary. Fortunately activists were vigilant and raised an alarm. Thousands of New Yorkers called their legislators in the next two days and the vendors' effort was defeated. Citizens can win if they speak out.

Now we have a far bigger challenge. Microsoft and other software companies are trying to get another bill passed that would protect their rights over the rights of the public. It is up to We the People to say "No" Š say it loud and clear till OUR VOICES - not the corporations' - are heard and heeded.

There are more problems with 'Microsoft 811' than just the assault on the public's right to know. See http://www.votersunite.org/info/hr811Report.pdf . Right now it must be stopped, and then we must demand that Congress pass a "stripped down" bill focused on the most vital steps to better secure election 2008. We MUST BAN DREs and provide states funding to replace them with systems that use paper ballots, marked by hand or by accessible ballot-marking devices, and counted by hand or by automatic tabulator. And any time we use computers to tabulate votes, we must have statistically significant hand-count audits to check the accuracy of the machines then continually improve the entire system.with citizen involvement.

People "say" Congress will never ban DREs. But where's the proof? Congress' reason for being is to serve "We the People." It is up to all of us to act. So, call your Representative and engage at least ten other people to call or fax. Call until you are have been heard. Tell Representatives to vote NO on H.R. 811 and to insist on a real election reform bill that bans DREs and restores to our elections the requirement of true separate and independent checks and balances which can be open to the American people. Only our vote should be secret.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Elections belong to the people. It is their decision."

Would that Congress heard these words rather than the words of 'Microsoft & Co.'

So now it's time to have our voices heard, and make it OUR decision.

Microsoft 811 will be on the floor for a vote this week. It is vital that you act now. We are up against some powerful interests but New York citizens won, so can all of usŠif each of us takes action. Stop Microsoft 811! Then Ban DREs!

To get telephone number of your representative or get info: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt?action=myreps_f...

BradBlog Reports: Diebold Goes the Way of Turdblossom

davidswanson — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:18:21 -0400

'DIEBOLD ELECTION SYSTEMS, INC.' IS NO MORE!
Election Unit Spins off from Corporate Parent, Becomes 'Premier Election Solutions' After Failure to Find Buyer for Failing Unit!

-- By Brad Friedman from St. Louis, MO
Diebold Elections Systems, Inc. is no more. At least in name.

After a year and a half of conversely trying to dump their failed voting unit and/or lying to customers about the reliability and security of their voting systems, corporate parent Diebold is giving up the ghost of their election business which, according to an analyst in a Reuters report, was "responsible for less than 10 percent of Diebold's revenue, and 100 percent of its bad publicity.

According to a company statement just released, Diebold Elections Systems, Inc. will become Premier Election Solutions as of today. The company president, David Byrd, who has overseen the disastrous election unit for some time, will stay on as President to go down with the ship, apparently.

After a string of disastrous reports on the quality and security of their voting systems, along with plummeting stock prices since last week, it seems clear that Diebold, the once-great, more-than-100-year old company, is doing whatever they can at this point to save the corporate parent. While their stock price (DBD) plummeted at today's opening bell, and is currently down some 5.6% from yesterday, the price has begun to rise again in the last hour or so on news of the sale.

More than anything, however, the move may well be a harbinger of a coming declaration of bankruptcy for Diebold/Premier as we see it. With the unit now spun off from the blue chip Diebold parent, declaring bankruptcy or dissolving the company all together would be less trouble for investors and the main company as a whole...

DEVELOPING HARD...MORE:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4962

California Reports: "Are Our Voting Systems Secure, Accurate, Reliable and Accessible?"

Chip — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:53:03 -0400

Yesterday, as a result of voting system reviews, Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified for state use the voting systems of Diebold Election Systems, Inc., and Sequoia Voting Systems. A third vendor, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), declined to participate in the review process mandated by law, and so Secretary Bowen withdrew approval of their Inkavote Plus Precinct Ballot Counting System for use in California. A fourth firm, Hart InterCivic, Inc. chose not to submit the voting system previously used by California voters for examination and certification, and voluntarily withdrew from the certification process. Instead, the company plans to upgrade their county customers to a newer version and submit that version for review and certification by the Secretary of State.

Diebold was in the center of 2004 election controversies pitting its tabulation results against exit polls. Sequoia Voting Systems offers a product called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail" (VVPAT) that was reported by the review team to have a series of serious and often undetectable flaws. Their voting software was also found publicly available online in 2003, raising questions about future vote tampering. In 2006, during a Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review, the company, owned then by 3 Venezuelans, was allowed to withdraw from that review on news of its pending sale.

When California's Secretary of State Bowen was inaugurated January 7, 2007, she announced her intention to conduct a "Top to Bottom" review of voting systems used in California. "The review was designed to restore the public's confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and to ensure that California voters are being asked to cast their ballots on machines that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible." The review began two months later, in March, 2007.

In early May, Secretary Bowen outlined the possible outcomes. “This kind of a comprehensive review is essential...One of three things will happen to each voting system that’s being reviewed. The first possibility is that a system will be found to be secure, accurate, reliable and accessible as it stands, so voters can have confidence when they use it on Election Day. Second, a system may be required to use additional safeguards, such as an expanded post-election audit process. The third possibility is that a voting system can’t be made secure, accurate, reliable and accessible even with additional safeguards, so that system may be decertified, which means it could not be used for any election in 2008.”

The need for review of the new voting systems which were mandated by Help America Vote Act and signed by Bush in 2002 became apparent in a series of reported problems at the polls. Two examples cited in a California summary are:

In December 2005, California discovered voting system programming code that escaped the review of federal testers.
On May 2, 2007, a congressional task force voted to investigate anomalies in 2006 election results in Florida’s 13th Congressional District. These are just two examples that have fueled the debate about whether the systems voters are asked to cast their ballots on are trustworthy and whether the testing processes used to certify voting systems are adequate.

The review's urgency is intensified by the fact that California faces 3 statewide elections in 2008. According to the Secretary of State's summary:

Approximately $450 million has been spent or allocated to buy new voting equipment in California over the past few years. The top-to-bottom review will cost approximately $1.8 million and will be paid for by the voting system vendors and federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) money allocated by the Legislature and the Governor in the 2006-07 budget.

Despite the review's good intentions, there remain reasons to question whether, even after this intensive review, the voting systems meet the standards of security, accuracy, reliability and accessibility.

As Matt Bishop, a principal investigator on one of the review teams noted:

The short time allocated to this study has several implications. The key one is that the results presented in this study should be seen as a “lower bound”; all team members felt that they lacked sufficient time to conduct a thorough examination, and consequently may have missed other serious vulnerabilities. In particular, Abbott’s team reported that it believed it was close to finding several other problems, but stopped in order to prepare and deliver the required reports on time.

And there was ample regard and concern given to the possibility of adding to the numerous and multiple security breaches uncovered, as noted by David Wagner, another principal investigator.

A common, widely accepted practice in the security literature is to describe attacks in sufficient detail to allow others to independently reproduce and evaluate the threat and, ultimately, build systems that better resist attack. Because of the severity of the attacks we found, and because we wanted to avoid making it easy for would-be attackers to subvert elections, we did not follow that practice here.
Instead, in preparing our public reports, we deliberately chose to err on the side of caution. We carefully screened all of the information that we included in our public reports. Our objective was to avoid reducing the amount of access an attacker would require to attack elections. We attempted to accomplish this by omitting details that would have the effect of converting an attack that would require reverse engineering or access to the source code into one that would not. These details were relegated to a confidential appendix provided to the Secretary of State.

The California Secretary of State's site has related documents.

Congress Members to Ask Pelosi for Better Election Reform Bill

davidswanson — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:48:59 -0400

Ask your Congress Member to contact Congressman Kucinich to sign onto this letter.

Speaker Pelosi:

We have been made aware of a growing concern with H.R. 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007.

Many constituencies important to the Democratic Caucus, including but not limited to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of Counties, VotersUnite.Org, and Election Defense Alliance, have expressed frustration with our offices about the process and current legislative text of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.

These constituencies represent a broad range of interests that reflect many of the core values of our party. H.R. 811 now finds opposition from organizations focused on upholding the integrity of our elections and local and states governments. For these constituencies, H.R. 811 falls short of its intended goals to ensure votes are cast and counted as intended by the voters.

Below are representative examples of the negative feedback we are receiving.

VotersUnite.Org statement by founder Ellen Theisen

After more than three years of supporting election reform bills introduced by Representative Rush Holt, I am saddened to see the many severe flaws in the version of HR 811 as it was passed out of committee last month." June 11, 2007

National Association of Counties letter to Congress

County officials welcome federal lawmakers' interest in strengthening the integrity and accessibility of our most basic democratic institution. We look forward to working with you to address the myriad challenges facing county officials in this environment of unprecedented change in election technology rather than exacerbating these challenges by enacting legislation such as H.R. 811. March 14, 2007

Before this bill is scheduled for a vote before the House of Representatives we urge you to ensure the legislative process addresses these very valid concerns and a substitute is developed that has broad, vocal support.

Sincerely,

Member of Congress

1988-2004: The Submerging Democratic Majority

Gore4US — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:24:26 -0400

1988-2004 Election Analysis: The Submerging Democratic Majority http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#HistoricalElections

The Democrats actually won all FIVE elections by an average 8.9 MILLION vote margin. That’s the True Emerging Democratic Majority. Don't believe it? Run the numbers yourself.

This analysis is based on the 1988-2004 Election Calculator model. The model first estimates the number of returning voters by adjusting prior election recorded vote totals for uncounted votes and mortality. An estimated turnout percentage is applied to this value. As preliminary NEP vote shares were not available for 1988-2000, Final National Exit Poll shares (which were matched to the recorded vote) were assumed for the base case. In 2004, however, preliminary 12:22am "pristine" vote shares were available, so these were used instead.

The model used Census-reported total votes cast as the base case assumption. The pool of potential returning voters was assumed to include all who cast votes, rather than just those whose votes were recorded. Uncounted vote rates based on the Census are much higher than the assumed 3.0% rate in prior models. Another assumption change is the mortality rate. Annual voter mortality, estimated as 1.22-1.30%, is more accurate than prior models which assumed the total US 0.87% mortality rate.

The new base case assumptions had the effect of increasing Democratic vote shares compared to prior models. For example, the Election Calculator indicates that Kerry won by 53.0- 45.9%, a 9 million vote margin. The prior True Vote Model had Kerry winning by 52.6-46.4%.

Following are the key results based on AVERAGE CALCULATED 1988-2004 Vote shares:

- The Dem share was 3.8% HIGHER than the RECORDED share.

- The GOP share was 3.2% LOWER than the RECORDED share.

- The Dem share was 1.4% HIGHER than the PRELIMINARY Exit Poll.

- The GOP share was 0.1% HIGHER than the PRELIMINARY Exit Poll.

Voter turnout of prior election Dem, GOP and Other voters is calculated as:

Turnout = prior election (recorded vote + uncounted votes - voter deaths)* voter turnout percentage

The True vote for the Dem, GOP and Other candidate is calculated as:

True Vote = shares of returning (Dem + GOP + Other + New voters)

Summary Statistics (1988-2004)


	Calculated
	TRUE Vote			Exit Poll		Recorded			Calculated Dem
	Dem	Rep		Dem	Rep	Dem	Rep		Margin (mil)
Average	50.9%	43.0%		49.5%	42.9%	47.1%	46.2%		8.86

2004	53.0%	45.9%		50.8%	48.2%	48.3%	50.7%		8.96
2000	51.1%	46.0%		48.5%	46.2%	48.4%	47.9%		5.66
1996	52.0%	39.3%		52.2%	37.5%	49.9%	41.4%		13.36
1992	47.9%	35.0%		46.0%	33.1%	43.3%	37.7%		14.71
1988	50.2%	48.7%		49.8%	49.3%	45.6%	53.4%		1.61


1988-2004 Avg	Total	Dem	Rep	Other	Margin	Dem	Rep	Other	Margin
Calculated	111.5	56.76	47.90	6.86	8.86	50.9%	43.0%	6.2%	7.9%
Recorded	102.9	48.47	47.66	6.74	0.81	47.1%	46.2%	6.7%	0.9%
Prelim Exit poll	102.9	50.84	44.28	7.93	6.56	49.5%	42.9%	7.9%	6.6%
Discrepancies
Calc - Recorded	8.7	8.29	0.24	0.12	8.05	3.8%	-3.2%	-0.5%	7.0%
Calc - Exit poll		5.92	3.62	-1.07	2.30	1.4%	0.1%	-1.7%	1.3%
Exit - Recorded		2.38	-3.38	1.19	5.76	2.4%	-3.4%	1.2%	5.7%

Kucinich Insists on Paper Ballots, Drops Support for Holt Bill

davidswanson — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:48:13 -0400

BradBlog has the story here:

PETER B. COLLINS: You have recently removed yourself as a co-sponsor of 811, am I correct?

KUCINICH: I have. Rush Holt's a fine person and I really enjoy serving with him. But I have to say, the bill does not address the concerns that Americans have, to do something about electronic voting, and to make sure that we protect ourselves from the kind of manipulation of an election that can occur with the insufficient controls on software and hardware in this era of electronic voting.

That's why I've advocated paper ballots in all federal elections. That's the paper trail. That's that old time religion in politics where at least you had a chance for a fair count. Every American deserves to know that his or her vote counts and is going to be counted.

And you may remember that in the last election, when it came to the Electoral College, I was one of the few members who challenged the election in the Electoral College and voted against certification of the election based on what happened in Ohio. As did, by the way, Senator [Barbara] Boxer [D-CA], she was one of the leaders on that.

PBC: Indeed, yes...

KUCINICH: And so, we have to stand up and be counted. I'm hopeful that Congressman Holt will modify his bill before he pushes for passage of it.

Tell Congress to Require Paper Ballots

Bob Fertik — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:09:04 -0500

Democrats.com has fought against electronic voting machines since Stolen Election 2000. Now that Democrats are in charge of Congress, requiring paper ballots for all elections should be at the top of their agenda. Click here to send our letter to your Representatives .

A paper ballot, whether counted by optical-scan system or hand, is the minimum requirement for any Election Reform legislation in which voters may have confidence.

Recent elections proved electronic voting machines - both those without paper ballots, such as Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen systems, and even those with so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails" - caused massive disruptions, undermined the results of crucial elections, and forced thousands of voters to leave the polls without being able to exercise their franchise.

Paper ballots are needed to ensure every vote is recorded precisely as the voter intends, that every vote is counted and, if necessary, re-counted accurately.

Click here to send our letter to your Representatives . For more information visit VelvetRevolution.us .

Update 1: BradBlog has a shocker:

NY TIMES FRONT PAGE STUNNER: FEDS SHUT DOWN E-VOTE 'TESTING' LAB LAST SUMMER FOR FAILURE TO FOLLOW PROCEDURES, LACK OF EVIDENCE THAT ALL REQUIRED TESTS WERE PERFORMED!

Ciber Inc., the largest tester of voting machines, was secretly barred from testing by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) last summer, but the machines they "certified" were used on election day - and remain in use!

Rep. Holt Says His Bill Will Require Paper Ballots - Probably?

davidswanson — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:42:30 -0500

Brad has the story here.