Blackbox Voting contesting ES&S acquisition of Diebold voting systems

[erik_blank]

Very interesting letter to the US Attorny General by the group Black Box Voting.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBV-AntiTrust-Letter.pdf

It is an attempt to prevent the ES&S company from purchasing the Dibold 'Premier ElectionSolution' subsidary. Their complaint is that by doing so, ES&S will then hold a near monopoly on electronic voting systems across more than 74% of all electronic voting machines, thus effectivly concentrating a LOT of power to manipulate our voting results under a single corporation.
Black Box voting.org are the same people that found just how easy it is to manipulate electronic voting results witht e ES&S systems, using nothing more than flash card readers and laptop computers.

All in all, the idea that we would allow a single company, no matter how up front and honest they may or may not be, to essentially control our voting causes much concern to me.

[chase]

Still bitter from 2000? Cry me a river.

[noodle]

the current state of electronic voting machines is insecure and unstable.

[erik_blank]

Still bitter from 2000? Cry me a river.

No, more likely from 2004, where it was proved repeatedly that the electronic systems were vunerable to tampering before during and after the election took place.
In 2000 the system that was most abused were the older punch card systems that confused many voters (due to intentionally confusing placement of the arrows used to denote candidates) and left the infamous "hanging chads" created when older punch card units either prevented a clean vote or the voter was unable to force the punch through the card properly.

The biggest problem here is not that one party is angry about loosing to the other, but that there are severe and obvious security issues where tampering is made easier to do and nearly impossible to detect by EITHER side of the issue, allowing for 3rd party tampering to occur.

To put it into your terms Chase, What if the same system existed during the 1950's and the Soviets found out about it? All that it would take is the bribing of a few individuals to change the programming code and suddenly the Communist candidate is in power....

Surley even YOU can see the danger posed by a single company in control of our electoral system?

[Gav]

Given the current state of these boxes (this tech generally) I don't understand why there's been a rush away from paper...

[telkanuru]

[Hauptman]

Still bitter from 2000? Cry me a river.

Wow... nice job turning a legitimate issue into a thoughtless, inappropriate partisan attack, Chase.

I really can't imagine why people here don't take you seriously.

[Hauptman]

Very interesting letter to the US Attorny General by the group Black Box Voting.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBV-AntiTrust-Letter.pdf

It is an attempt to prevent the ES&S company from purchasing the Dibold 'Premier ElectionSolution' subsidary. Their complaint is that by doing so, ES&S will then hold a near monopoly on electronic voting systems across more than 74% of all electronic voting machines, thus effectivly concentrating a LOT of power to manipulate our voting results under a single corporation.
Black Box voting.org are the same people that found just how easy it is to manipulate electronic voting results witht e ES&S systems, using nothing more than flash card readers and laptop computers.

All in all, the idea that we would allow a single company, no matter how up front and honest they may or may not be, to essentially control our voting causes much concern to me.

It would all be so simple if we could just mandate open source software for voting machines. Odds are small that you let a security bug slip through when there may be hundreds or thousands of people pouring over the code.

[Bayou Bum]

the current state of electronic voting machines is insecure and unstable.

We don't have anything to worry about as long as we have Jimmy Carter to certify the elections as valid. Why is it people here only care if it is their election that is stolen and don't care if it is some dictator stealing the election in another country?

[noodle]

We don't have anything to worry about as long as we have Jimmy Carter to certify the elections as valid. Why is it people here only care if it is their election that is stolen and don't care if it is some dictator stealing the election in another country?

could you please elaborate on where i stated that i think any election was stolen or that i don't care about the stealing of other elections?

[jessicasimpson]

We don't have anything to worry about as long as we have Jimmy Carter to certify the elections as valid. Why is it people here only care if it is their election that is stolen and don't care if it is some dictator stealing the election in another country?

Maybe we should listen to Pat Buchanan, and not let poor people vote. Then we won't have any election problems:sarcasm:

[migopod]

Maybe we should listen to Pat Buchanan, and not let poor people vote. Then we won't have any election problems:sarcasm:

Or old people. Didn't Buchanan himself get an unprecedented share of the elderly Jewish vote in Florida because of those lovely butterfly ballots?

[Bayou Bum]

could you please elaborate on where i stated that i think any election was stolen or that i don't care about the stealing of other elections?

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that it was you in my post. I just responded to your message and meant it toward several people on this board in general. My apologies.

[Bayou Bum]

Maybe we should listen to Pat Buchanan, and not let poor people vote. Then we won't have any election problems:sarcasm:

I could argue at great length why poor people should not be allowed to vote, but that is not the issue here. I think there should be several checks and balances implemented in voting systems. Voter ID's for one. You have to have an ID and proof of citizenship to get into town hall meetings but not to vote. I also think you should get a printed receipt of your ballot that you can use to check after the election to ensure that votes aren't changed.

But why is it only an issue when liberals thought that Bush stole the election? I didn't here any concerns over voting fraud when Al Franken won, or Chavez.

[fencerchica]

But why is it only an issue when liberals thought that Bush stole the election? I didn't here any concerns over voting fraud when Al Franken won, or Chavez.

Funny... the current concern over the Diebold acquisition is coming less than a year after a US Presidential election that liberals are for the most part quite pleased about. Care to try again?

[Hauptman]

We don't have anything to worry about as long as we have Jimmy Carter to certify the elections as valid. Why is it people here only care if it is their election that is stolen and don't care if it is some dictator stealing the election in another country?

Care to clarify that, BB?

On the one hand you seem to be stating that we should be more involved in policing elections in other countries, but at the same time you seem to be ridiculing Jimmy Carter who is virtually the only person from the U.S. who is actually involved in policing elections in other countries.

[jessicasimpson]

I could argue at great length why poor people should not be allowed to vote,.

And I am sure it would be as factual and free of insults as your normal arguments

I didn't here any concerns over voting fraud when Al Franken won, or Chavez.

I have heard concerns about voter fraud from you.......about ACORN.....are you saying Acorn committed voter fraud to help elect bush?

[jeff]

I'm (only slightly) interested in learning why BB thinks that poor citizens should be denied the right to vote. The idea strikes me as deeply un-American.


BTW, security experts in computer science have expressed deep concerns about the Diebold voting systems. This is, or should be, a non-partisan issue for anyone who cares about democracy in this country.

[Fechter1]

BTW, security experts in computer science have expressed deep concerns about the Diebold voting systems. This is, or should be, a non-partisan issue for anyone who cares about democracy in this country.

Never mind that someone proved manipulation is possible by DEMONSTRATING IT ON CAMERA at a Diebold corporate facility with a randomly selected machine...

[jeff]

Thanks for the reminder. That was Dr. Ed Felten from Princeton.

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/