Posted on 12/03/2006 4:46:39 AM PST by lifelong_republican
"...the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency..."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
somehow i have doubted the security of any voting system of any sort since i saw the Palm Beach episode of the 2000 presidential election. as long as the pols control the machinery, whatever it is, things can be manipulated.
PA, DE, and NJ also have unverifiable voting equipment.
No one should be deluded into thinking a "paper" voting system actually has an "audit trail". As the Democrats have demonstrated for more than a century, ALL paper ballots are subject to massive vote fraud at will.
I believe this! Perhaps this is why the alleged "polls" giving Casey the Senatorial race here in Pennsylvania for weeks prior to the election, were so emboldened. We can be told that anything is going to happen when the "pollsters" know what is going to happen by virtue of the fact that the electronic voting machines are able to be tampered with.
This is precisely how we're going to "elect" the next President; i.e., Hillary.
Nancee
I say devise a system that allows us to use our ATMS. There are no overvotes on my bank statement and the banks are highly regulated. They don't keep thousands of dead people on the rolls. Finally, they run efficiently everyday and are not staffed by volunteers.
By the way, the Dems replaced the supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County as soon as they could with an affirmative action pick who can not pronounce calculate. I'll bet he does what the machine bosses tell him to do, though. We lost 2 R seats here this time. Gotta keep PBC safe for the trial lawyers and their racketeering.
Only if they have the collusion of the local clerks of court. And "massive fraud" with paper ballots is a LOT easier to detect than with any "all-electronic" system. Electronically scanned paper ballots (NOT punch cards) is the way to go.
Let's kick the naievete aside for a moment ~ suppose you know there's been vote fraud in an area ~ now, how do you figure out which paper ballots are the fraudulent ones and which are real?
See, gotcha' every time. Same guy who stuffs the box controls that decision too.
We don't, BTW, rerun elections!
Look at the audit records of total ballots sent out vs number received back. For the "electronically scanned paper ballots", it's simpler, as the ballots are sealed into the machines as they are voted--so the only way to "stuff" the ballots is to have a stack of "off the record" issued ballots to "vote" into the machine.
NO system is perfect--and any can be "gamed". But the "all electronic" systems are grossly less secure than current systems. Precisely HOW do you "recount" a bunch of 1's and 0's on a chip???
Btw, we now have electronic voting, and I have seen those devices mess up, break down, can't read the card, etc.
Well, that's progress! /s
Yup, since I'm "in" Washington State. And you're right---it WAS obvious to everyone. That's the point. Now substitute an "all electronic" system, and it will NOT be "obvious to everyone".
The only way an "audit trail" can be built into a voting system is to eliminate SECRECY.
Disagree. The electronically scanned paper ballots come as close as it's possible to get. If the local officials in charge of overseeing voting are corrupt, then the game is over, no matter WHAT system of voting is used.
The great thing about the scanned paper ballots is that when it comes time to do the re-count, you can sit three people down together---one clerk from the voting office, one official from the local Republican committee, and one from the local Democrat committe, and count the ballots. Now you tell me how you do that with an "all-electronic" system.
November 7 revote!
I think we would win back a lot of seats we lost now that people have had time to vent and realize what their vote did.
ok then what is a valid AUDIT trail?
(short of ending the privacy of the voting booth)
I don't know.
On the other hand, I do know that no one running a modern business would tolerate secret ballots when selecting board members at a stockholders meeting.
Perhaps what needst to happen is to video survel 100% of the ballots.
Put the entire voting process in a fish bowl.
I bet if we were to check on the sercurity of voting machines today we would find we can get unfettered access to most of them.
"I say devise a system that allows us to use our ATMS"
The problem with that is that ATM's are not designed with "secrecy" in mind. What I mean is that both the bank and you can tie specific transactions to your account. The "secret ballot" is supposed to allow you to vote in a way that no one can tie your vote back to you. It is this disconnect that creates the problem, in my opinion. As Chris Matthews (of all people) pointed out recently, if you got a receipt for your vote, then a political boss (or your spouse) could demand proof of how you voted. Under the secret ballot system, you can tell someone you voted one way and really vote another, and no one can prove you are lying.
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