Imagine a year with a close election for president of the United States. Imagine passions running high on both sides.
Imagine anger among political parties for personal attacks instead of issue-oriented debate.
Now, imagine enemies of America figuring out that they can’t destroy us; we can only destroy ourselves by internal rancor.
Now, further imagine that they send a seductive subversive to infiltrate our electoral systems in such a way as to hijack, not an airplane, but the election for president.
FINALLY…IMAGINE THAT THEY SUCCEED!
The anonymous author has scheduled interviews with Connecticut Public Radio and XZONE Satellite Radio. Watch this spot for details.
While you're at it, see Bree Barton's new blog at the Dallas Morning News. Click here.
Vote Suppression Hiding in Plain Sight
In Today’s (August 26, 2008) New York Times, Editorial writer Adam Cohen writes about vote suppression in 2004 and how those of us who should know better missed it: “…tens of thousands of votes were suppressed by something so mundane that no one thought to focus on it: long lines.”
We’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. The next vote suppression problem is hiding in plain site. That’s right…the very “Help America Vote Act [HAVA]” intended to solve electoral problems has a little noticed provision that will deny the right to vote to many, many Americans. Here is what “HAVA” says: “registrants who have not responded to a notice and who have not voted in 2 consecutive general elections for Federal office shall be removed from the official list of eligible voters,…”
Like the mythical Cassandra who chants to alert ancient Troy, Cassandra is chanting again. Are we going to wake up again in November and say “oh my gosh? How did I miss that?”
We’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. The next vote suppression problem is hiding in plain site. That’s right…the very “Help America Vote Act [HAVA]” intended to solve electoral problems has a little noticed provision that will deny the right to vote to many, many Americans. Here is what “HAVA” says: “registrants who have not responded to a notice and who have not voted in 2 consecutive general elections for Federal office shall be removed from the official list of eligible voters,…”
Like the mythical Cassandra who chants to alert ancient Troy, Cassandra is chanting again. Are we going to wake up again in November and say “oh my gosh? How did I miss that?”
McClatchey Papers Get it right
Here's our post to Greg Gordon's article in today's McClatchy Newspapers.
Cassandra has been chanting...we're beginning to listen. If "bugs" could not be detected and if they could result in thousands of votes being dropped, isn't it fair to assume that malicious code would also not be detected?
And don't be fooled that it's only touch screen systems that are vulnerable.
And if malicious code is not detected, couldn't our enemies try to undermine our very system of democracy...not by putting in a "dupe" but by making us lose faith in our democratic institutions?
Aren't these the Geeks bearing gifts that Cassandra has been chanting about?
Cassandra has been chanting...we're beginning to listen. If "bugs" could not be detected and if they could result in thousands of votes being dropped, isn't it fair to assume that malicious code would also not be detected?
And don't be fooled that it's only touch screen systems that are vulnerable.
And if malicious code is not detected, couldn't our enemies try to undermine our very system of democracy...not by putting in a "dupe" but by making us lose faith in our democratic institutions?
Aren't these the Geeks bearing gifts that Cassandra has been chanting about?
August 3 NY Times Gets it right
Once again the Times is trying to grab us and warn us about faulty election law and bills.
Any change to election law that does not include mandatory, statistically valid audits is worse than doing nothing. Or a new approach proposed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) would do the same: provide for multiple yet independent methods to count and recount the ballots. Do both and let's begin to protect our precious right to select our leaders by the will of the people. A new bill without audits or what NIST calls “Software Independence” would give false security and would be worse than doing nothing.
The Times previously reported that paper trails from touch screen machines were unusable as much as ten percent of the time. As the Times has pointed out in several articles, including a detailed report in the Magazine in January by Clive Thompson, hand-marked paper ballots have been proven to be “hackable” as well. This is not made up. This is real.
We try to alert Americans in an entertaining fictional account, Cassandra, Chanting. People who would do us ill have reason to subvert our electoral process. Cassandra has been chanting for quite some time. Thanks again to the Times for adding to this Greek chorus (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/opinion/03sun2.html).
Any change to election law that does not include mandatory, statistically valid audits is worse than doing nothing. Or a new approach proposed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) would do the same: provide for multiple yet independent methods to count and recount the ballots. Do both and let's begin to protect our precious right to select our leaders by the will of the people. A new bill without audits or what NIST calls “Software Independence” would give false security and would be worse than doing nothing.
The Times previously reported that paper trails from touch screen machines were unusable as much as ten percent of the time. As the Times has pointed out in several articles, including a detailed report in the Magazine in January by Clive Thompson, hand-marked paper ballots have been proven to be “hackable” as well. This is not made up. This is real.
We try to alert Americans in an entertaining fictional account, Cassandra, Chanting. People who would do us ill have reason to subvert our electoral process. Cassandra has been chanting for quite some time. Thanks again to the Times for adding to this Greek chorus (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/opinion/03sun2.html).
YIKES! And who is Dido Dupré?
"Is it possible that someone could hack voting machines and rig an election? Election officials insist that they ... train poll workers to recognize signs of machines that had been tampered with. ...[A]lso claim ... machines are carefully watched. Neither is entirely true." Clive Thompson in New York Times Magazine, January 6, 2008.
"Lost." Well, maybe.
"Destroyed." Hmmmm.
"Miscounted." Uh oh.
"Wrongly Attributed." Really?
"Hacked." Enough! Stop, already!
----
OPTICAL SCAN TO THE RESCUE [Ohio] Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has made clear she does not trust touch-screen machines and wants all 88 Ohio counties to switch to optical-scan systems by the November election. From http://www.ohio.com/.
----
WHAT?!? ...Optical scanning is hardly a flawless system....
The machines also need to be carefully calibrated so they don't miscount ballots.... And the machines do, in fact, run software that can be hacked." Clive Thompson. Same NY Times Magazine January 2008 article.
The Times article reports error rates of .75% "at its highest." Other studies at MIT and Harvard suggest the same.
GOOD ENOUGH?
Some recent results: Taiwan 2004 President Chen Shui-bian beats challenger, Lien Chan, by 0.2%. 1952 Tennessee Dwight Eisenhower: 50.0% Adlai Stevenson: 49.7% (0.3%) 1968 Nationwide Richard Nixon: 43.4% Hubert Humphrey: 42.7% (0.7%) 2000 Nationwide George W. Bush: 47.9% Al Gore: 48.4% (0.5%)
---
WHAT?!?
"In November 2006, about 18,000 undervotes were reported in Sarasota County in the race for Florida’s 13th Congressional District."
"A test to determine whether a system can handle the expected volume of activity is commonly referred to as load testing. We found that ballots used for load testing during the certification testing were machine-generated using a testing program ..., i.e., users do not touch the screen to make a selection and cast a ballot."
"...[T]he generalization of the results ... for parallel testing cannot be supported because the sample drawn was not random and the sample size was too small."
From GAO [United States Government Accountability Office] Statement Before the Task Force on Florida-13, Committee on House Administration, House of Representatives. August 3, 2007.
---
Who is Dido Dupré?
---
WHAT?!? "A marginal mark is a mark within a voting target that does not conform to vendor specifications for a reliably detectable vote. The word "marginal" refers to the limit of what is detectable by an optical scanner, not the margin of the page. Marks that are outside of voting targets are called extraneous marks. A marginal mark is neither clearly countable as a vote nor clearly countable as a non-vote. It is an ambiguous vote, analogous to dimpled chad on a punchcard [emphasis added]."
"Although the criteria are not necessarily simple, vendors are required to specify what constitutes a reliably detectable mark versus a marginal mark .... If this cannot be accomplished, then the voting system is counting votes using a mystery algorithm. Such a system is not certifiable."
Short of banning the use of manually-marked paper ballots, which would create a crisis for absentee voting, the best we can do for this central count case is prohibit bias in the detection of marginal marks ... and advise that the detection of marginal marks be made as repeatable as possible." From Discussion Paper on Marginal Marks posted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (http://www.nist.gov/). Discussion Draft. Context Description: Posted Dec. 1, 2006.
"Lost." Well, maybe.
"Destroyed." Hmmmm.
"Miscounted." Uh oh.
"Wrongly Attributed." Really?
"Hacked." Enough! Stop, already!
----
OPTICAL SCAN TO THE RESCUE [Ohio] Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has made clear she does not trust touch-screen machines and wants all 88 Ohio counties to switch to optical-scan systems by the November election. From http://www.ohio.com/.
----
WHAT?!? ...Optical scanning is hardly a flawless system....
The machines also need to be carefully calibrated so they don't miscount ballots.... And the machines do, in fact, run software that can be hacked." Clive Thompson. Same NY Times Magazine January 2008 article.
The Times article reports error rates of .75% "at its highest." Other studies at MIT and Harvard suggest the same.
GOOD ENOUGH?
Some recent results: Taiwan 2004 President Chen Shui-bian beats challenger, Lien Chan, by 0.2%. 1952 Tennessee Dwight Eisenhower: 50.0% Adlai Stevenson: 49.7% (0.3%) 1968 Nationwide Richard Nixon: 43.4% Hubert Humphrey: 42.7% (0.7%) 2000 Nationwide George W. Bush: 47.9% Al Gore: 48.4% (0.5%)
---
WHAT?!?
"In November 2006, about 18,000 undervotes were reported in Sarasota County in the race for Florida’s 13th Congressional District."
"A test to determine whether a system can handle the expected volume of activity is commonly referred to as load testing. We found that ballots used for load testing during the certification testing were machine-generated using a testing program ..., i.e., users do not touch the screen to make a selection and cast a ballot."
"...[T]he generalization of the results ... for parallel testing cannot be supported because the sample drawn was not random and the sample size was too small."
From GAO [United States Government Accountability Office] Statement Before the Task Force on Florida-13, Committee on House Administration, House of Representatives. August 3, 2007.
---
Who is Dido Dupré?
---
WHAT?!? "A marginal mark is a mark within a voting target that does not conform to vendor specifications for a reliably detectable vote. The word "marginal" refers to the limit of what is detectable by an optical scanner, not the margin of the page. Marks that are outside of voting targets are called extraneous marks. A marginal mark is neither clearly countable as a vote nor clearly countable as a non-vote. It is an ambiguous vote, analogous to dimpled chad on a punchcard [emphasis added]."
"Although the criteria are not necessarily simple, vendors are required to specify what constitutes a reliably detectable mark versus a marginal mark .... If this cannot be accomplished, then the voting system is counting votes using a mystery algorithm. Such a system is not certifiable."
Short of banning the use of manually-marked paper ballots, which would create a crisis for absentee voting, the best we can do for this central count case is prohibit bias in the detection of marginal marks ... and advise that the detection of marginal marks be made as repeatable as possible." From Discussion Paper on Marginal Marks posted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (http://www.nist.gov/). Discussion Draft. Context Description: Posted Dec. 1, 2006.
Cassandra Chants Op-Ed in USA Today
Why doesn't Generation Y vote?
Maybe because we're deeply distrustful of the system. Check out Bree Barton's op-ed entitled "Will My Vote Be Counted?" in the March 27, 2008 edition of USA Today. Or access the article online at http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/03/will-my-vote-be.html.
Of course for those who choose the e-way, the question remains: do you really trust your screen?
Maybe because we're deeply distrustful of the system. Check out Bree Barton's op-ed entitled "Will My Vote Be Counted?" in the March 27, 2008 edition of USA Today. Or access the article online at http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/03/will-my-vote-be.html.
Of course for those who choose the e-way, the question remains: do you really trust your screen?
LIFE IMITATES ART
In this plot to steal the next presidential election, Dido Dupre plays a major role. Will Ashley Dupre play her in the movie version?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
