ACORN

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

That's not influence, that's law, and would be challenged immediately. Influence isn't on paper, pork helps buy influence, but the influence is used outside the public record.

It's a long road between the feds and the state-level Department of State. I'm not sure what influence they could use, other than making a strong recommendation and a press release. I'm not sure who would decide on that recommendation and what means they would use. I don't know that federal involvement in elections wouldn't lead to poor results.

And most importantly, I don't expect Cicero would be quelled by the idea that feds, who would then be lobbied by companies, would produce a recommendation that would satisfy her notion that the machines can be gamed. After all, there is no evidence of gaming the machines during an election - and still 44% of Americans believe that fraud is occurring with electronic machines.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Press release? Certainly not. You're talking about official channels of on the record communication, I'm talking about influence. Influence is not official, or even public, in most cases. It's a phone call, an introduction to a friend with a problem/proposal, it's a suggestion that a particular campaign donor has a service you should look into... it's an offer you can't refuse.

[Undertoad]

Yeah, but that's DC where there's a beltway culture of influence -- the 50 different Departments of State don't have much to be influenced by. They aren't elected. They're state-level bureaucrats... a shitty place to be. (I've been to their Harrisburg office, and it sucks.)

Furthermore, in PA it's the counties who decide which machine to have, so now you've got to influence 67 different county-level commissioners. It's a long road.

[xoxoxoBruce]

More like a string of dominos. A little pressure on one end can be felt all along the line. Especially when each domino is beholding, and trying to please, to the next one up the line.

When you're a state level bureaucrat, in a shitty place, contact from someone far up the line, can be flattering and spark hope of recognition/reward for favors. Very important in the un-elected world of political appointments.

The bottom line is, I don't trust the fuckers and want as much transparency as possible with a secret ballot.


btw, here's an article on how the votes were counted in 1936.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/...0000000-votes/

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Furthermore, in PA it's the counties who decide which machine to have, so now you've got to influence 67 different county-level commissioners.

There also is no requirement that anything electrical meet UL standards. But effective standards exist where no other alternative exists. Therefore every electrical appliance manufacturer goes the extra (and expensive) step to get that UL approval – which no one is required to have.

HAVA was supposed to do same for electronic voting machines. Just like UL, HAVA was supposed to be a useful standard to define a reliable voting machine. A question is how much did Diebold, et al pay to get HAVA killed.

The only reason to go to electronic voting machines is to make the election more secure and accurate. Instead we computerize something to make it less secure and less reliable? Yes, I too often see people computerize only because "computerizing must be good" rather than ask and define the strategic objective.

In asking about the strategic objective, let's say the fraudulent voters, identified by the election commission, appears to vote. Will the police be called to the poll station?

[Undertoad]

I'm wrong and so is tw. Hell, most of us are wrong.

I'm wrong because I thought the feds could not rule how the states run elections. They have done. That's what HAVA is. It's the Help America Vote Act of 2002. It passed Congress and was signed by Bush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_America_Vote_Act

Currently all electronic voting machines are HAVA-compliant, including those of Diebold/Premier Election Systems.

In fact, one of the criticisms of HAVA is that it causes election officials to switch to the electronic machines because their current punch card systems were not HAVA-compliant. By Election 2006, a third of the nation's precincts had switched to HAVA-compliant -- mostly electronic machines. Can't find numbers on how many more have switched since then.

Originally Posted by The Commission on Federal Election Reform's 2005 report

"The Help America Vote Act of 2002 authorized up to $650 million in federal funds to replace antiquated voting machines throughout the country. States are using these funds and their own resources to upgrade voting technology, generally to replace punch card and lever voting machines with new optical scan and electronic voting systems...

TW read an IEEE Spectrum article in 2004 that said not all HAVA money was spent by NIST -- and assumed wrongly, for four years apparently, that it was "killed" or that the administration strategically de-funded it. That is not the case. They were just late. The standards were finished in Dec. 2005. Here is the PDF of it.

[richlevy]

I was going to follow up with how you were probably right pre-HAVA. Even though HAVA did not require electronic machines with no paper trail, that is what many counties ended up buying.

Remember, in 2002 the Republicans were in complete control except for overturning a filibuster. After the 2000 election, the electorate pretty much demanded reform, but the Republicans demanded a 'registration fraud' component. Hence the use of Social Security verification, which can be a problem. I still have a Social Security card that states that the number is only to be used for Social Security.

Each state still can pretty much go their own way in deciding how the popular vote affects its electoral college votes. Ex-felons in Florida must have their voting rights reinstated but not in other states. Some states force the elector to adhere to the popular vote and others allow them to switch. Most states are winner-take-all, but two are not. Here is a nice overview.

Remember that presidential candidates must also register individually in each state.

It does seem odd that there are 50 different rules for voting for the same national office, and that a person could be eligible in one state and not in another.

BTW, this would be fun

What happens if no presidential candidate gets 270 electoral votes? If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each State delegation has one vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice Presidential candidates with the most electoral votes. Each Senator would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House.

Imagine an Obama-Palin adminstration.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Currently all electronic voting machines are HAVA-compliant, including those of Diebold/Premier Election Systems.

Voting machines where I vote don't use PC. They use a superior system where the paper ballot is read by a scanner, asks about any anomalies, provides the option of making corrections, then stores both the electronic count and paper ballot in a secure box.

Therefore I have never seen a Diebold system. But if you have one, well some facts from UT's well appreciated discovery of the HAVA standards.

2.2.9 Ballot Counter
For all voting systems, each device that tabulates ballots shall provide a counter that:
a. Can be set to zero before any ballots are submitted for tally;
b. Records the number of ballots cast during a particular test cycle or election;
c. Increases the count only by the input of a ballot;
d. Prevents or disables the resetting of the counter by any person other than authorized persons at authorized points; and
e. Is visible to designated election officials.

Previously defined is the only counter that achieves these requirements with reliability. Any memory card, that involves writing rather than incrementing an internal counter, would violate those standards. However the lawyer can argue that the memory card cannot be changed without the PC. Therefore the memory card is secure. That is bogus; but acceptable where spin can replace honest technical facts.

Of course, that memory card (actually cards per next quote) must be located so as to be in constant view by poll officials.

3.2.6.2.3 Memory Stability
Error-free retention may be achieved by the use of redundant memory elements, provided that the capability for conflict resolution or correction among elements is included.

HAVA also demands redundant memory. Whereas a lawyer could claim redundancy by two memory chips on the same memory card, again, honest technical facts demand two separate memory cards. Therefore both must always be visually obvious to election officials.

Moving on:

3.2.2.4 Electrical Supply
c. All systems shall also be capable of operating for a period of at least 2 hours on backup power, such that no voting data is lost or corrupted, nor normal operations interrupted. When backup power is exhausted the system shall retain the contents of all memories intact.

That means no plug-in UPS such as from APC. If electricity goes out, voting must continue uninterrupted for two hours. That means a serious generator system. Club houses and churches (were voting is often conducted) do not have sufficiently reliable power that PCs would require. Therefore power hungry PC based voting systems require external power provided by a serious backup power system - something that would typically be as large as the entire voting booth. It's not just a simple PC. The electrical requirements make a PC based voting system significantly more expensive. Just another requirement that can be 'forgotten' since most would not know this.

Is your PC based voting station HAVA compliant? Two obvious requirements that any informed voter could quickly determine.

The most serious argument against PC based voting systems is the auditing function. Whereas the above defined voting system can audit in cases of hardware failure, a PC based system cannot. PC voting machines says that auditing is by printing the final results on a printer. It assumes voting occurs perfectly through the day. Any anomaly or exception - there is no record to identify a problem or confirm the vote count. If the voting machine works fine all day, then the only paper confirmation is a total printout at the end of the day. Hardly reliable. Considered sufficient by these HAVA standards and yet the most common criticism I have read from multiple sources.

The HAVA standard also says that any anomaly need only be recorded visually. IOW that Blue Screen of Death seen when defective hardware crashes Windows. Even that failure need not be recorded; only viewed on a video screen. Useful auditing of suspect security breaches would not be possible with acceptable PC based voting machines. Proper security demands all those 'problem' messages be recorded. As best I can tell, HAVA does not require it.

Little respect for any PC based voting system because - first and foremost - the memory card all but begs to be hacked - has no hardware security. Where I vote, the system can be completely audited from scratch due to its simplicity and alternative audit trail (called paper).

[classicman]

ACORN Protests at Eagles Owner's Home

Members of the activist group, Acorn, gathered at the Main Line mansion of Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, to demand he pay eight million dollars in fees to the city of Philadelphia. The eight-year-old payment dispute has received new attention because of the city budget crisis.

The issue has complexities but Acorn went for the easy target. Jeffrey Lurie is building an indoor tennis court and bowling alley on his Lower Merion estate, while the city where the Eagles make their money is cutting services.

Lurie did not make an appearance but an Eagles spokeswoman says the amount the team owes is in dispute and they're waiting for a judge to rule on exactly how much the Eagles should pay the city. Acorn members denounced what they called "delaying tactics".

[TGRR]

Who gives a crap about ACORN?

[classicman]

Lotta people here are from Philly

[classicman]

ACORN engages in destructive activity against tea parties!

As Caterino reports, ACORN sprang into action once they found out about the gathering:

A.C.O.R.N. sent members over to Chiefs, to ask them to cancel the Pre-Tea party. Chiefs manager and owner told them he would not because as far as he knows this is still a free country. The ACORN members then went into the bathrooms at Chief’s and started to tear down flyers about the tea party that were hanging on the walls. Some members went as far as to smear ‘human feces” on the walls before they left that establishment.

ACORN is on a mission to infiltrate the tea parties all across the land to start fights and make the others who attend all look disorganized and troublesome. To go at great lengths to see to it,

[TGRR]

I love your source there, Classicman.

Originally Posted by classicman

ACORN engages in destructive activity against tea parties!

LOL.....the ACORN bogeymen are everywhere.

They are responsible for massive voter fraud, the housing finance crisis, illegal immigration...and now acts of terror against patriot, God-fearing teabaggers expressing their first amendment right of assembly....and of course, we all know that ACORN is getting $millions in ARRA funds to carry out their nefarious plans!

The wing nuts tell us so every chance they get.

added:

Classic...where is the evidence that the alleged acts reported by a conservative rag were perpetrated by ACORN....were the perps wearing their ACORN hats and shirts or singing the ACORN theme song or perhaps using the secret ACORN signals during the acts?

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by Redux

LOL.....the ACORN bogeymen are everywhere.

They are responsible for massive voter fraud, the housing finance crisis, illegal immigration...and now acts of terror against patriot, God-fearing teabaggers expressing their first amendment right of assembly....and of course, we all know that ACORN is getting $millions in ARRA funds to carry out their nefarious plans!

The wing nuts tell us so every chance they get.

added:

Classic...where is the evidence that the alleged acts reported by a conservative rag were perpetrated by ACORN....were the perps wearing their ACORN hats and shirts or singing the ACORN theme song or perhaps using the secret ACORN signals during the acts?

ACORN WAS THE MAN ON THE GRASSY KNOLL!