[ale] [OT] Diebold voting machines

aaron aaron at pd.org
Tue Aug 26 03:42:12 EDT 2008


On Friday 22 August 2008 16:47, Thompson Freeman wrote:
> Since I think my precinct uses those same machines, and I  
> seriously doubt that the local media will properly cover  
> this travesty, Maybe I should consider voting absentee??

Voting absentee is an excellent choice.  Recent Georgia
election law changes, legislation that accompanied the
increase of constraints on voter ID,  allow any registered
voter to vote absentee without any explanation or excuse,
AND without any ID at all if they've voted in Georgia before.
(First time voters need to provide ID documentation with
their absentee ballot request, but I understand that it can
be one of the previously acceptable non-photo forms like
a utility bill with the registered voter;s name and address).

If you want to make your absentee vote a protest of the
Diebold zero-evidence electronic election fraud systems,
then you can walk your ABSENTEE ballot into your county
registrars office ON ELECTION DAY and tell them that
legitimate elections require physical ballots that are manually
audited while you hand them the paper evidence of your
votes.  This action also removes the postal system from
the chain of custody and helps ensure that your vote is
delivered directly to the counting location.

Another way to vote on paper evidence is to enter your
precinct polling place on election day WITHOUT PHOTO
ID on your person. The election workers are REQUIRED
BY LAW to provide you with a provisional Paper Ballot to
cast your votes, the same kind used for absentee voting.
You will then need to deliver or fax photo ID documentation
to your county registrars office within 48 hours in order
to have your ballot counted. The real upside with this
method is that your county election officials are REQUIRED
BY LAW to inform you if they fail to count your ballot
for any reason and you have recourse to challenge their
decision.  I voted provisionally in all three elections this
so far this year.  It can be a little disruptive to the
work flow at the precinct, so it is only a recommended
choice during the slower polling hours.

ALL absentee and (authenticated) provisional ballots DO
GET COUNTED after the close of polls on election day,
though they are counted using Diebold scanners which
have been proved to be every bit as hackable as the
zero-evidence DRE machines.  The difference is the
existence of physical documents that can be used to
challenge and correct computer errors and outright
electronic vote fraud. It's worth also noting here that
Torn or Crumpled ballots that cannot be fed into the
scanners, as well as any ballots that the scanners
reject as unreadable, are MANUALLY evaluated
and counted by a multi-person, multi-party table
of judges.  Every reasonable effort is made to
count every paper ballot. (hint, hint)

I know all these details about how the ballots are
handled and counted because I served as an
election monitor for the Green Party in 2004 and
observed the tabulation processes at the Gwinnett
County registrar's office. All the paper ballot
handling and scanning was open to view, but
I also observed that every invisible scanner and
DRE memory card bit count that entered the
tabulation computer (an off the shelf PC running
a viral Mafia$oft OS) was pumped in from
specialized DRE boxes being run by Diebold
employees who refused to identify themselves
through repeated requests. Their DRE screens
were also turned to the wall so their activities on
the computers could not be observed.

I still need to find out if the Secretary of State
is allowing absentee ballots to be collected at your
precinct polling stations. All the Diebold black box
voodoo replacements for counting (scanning,
electro-chad transfers of memory cards and
tabulation entries into Mafia$oft exhell & abscess
software) are done at each county's registrar's
office anyway, so that would still be the
recommended absentee ballot delivery point.

Hope that helped!  I have a one page flier
available in PDF that encourages absentee
voting by explaining the process and advantages.
For now, I can send it to anyone who asks and
wants to help publicize this new campaign for
legitmate elections.  I should also have my
"PAPERCOUNTS" absentee campaign web
site up by next week and all the details will
be available there as well.

peace
aaron


 




> 
> On 08/22/2008 02:50:53 PM, Sean wrote:
> > Turns out it wasn't "anti-virus" software at all!
> > <sarcasm> Who woulda guessed? <end sarcasm>
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Those Ohio voting machines that lost votes apparently did
> > so
> > because of a software bug. Here's the Slashdot story:
> > 
> > http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/22/136215
> > 
> > 
> > Sean
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > 
> > 
> 
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> 
> 





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