How to Hack the Vote and Steal the Election 587
divisionbyzero writes "Many people have asked for it so that the government will have to deal with it. So here it is: a guide to stealing an election that uses electronic voting machines written by Jon Stokes over at Arstechnica.
From the article:
"In all this time, I've yet to find a good way to convey to the non-technical public how well and truly screwed up we presently are, six years after the Florida recount. So now it's time to hit the panic button: In this article, I'm going to show you how to steal an election.""
Lack of ethics (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
When people give a shit more about some gays marrying in NJ than they do about genocide in Darfur, military and civilian deaths in Iraq & Afghanistan, and people dying in this country due to being priced out of receiving their necessary meds, we have become a country that has lost focus on things that *actually matter*.
That being said, I'm not optimistic anyone that's in my camp has the guts to steal an election, we'd rather give it away. Liberal media my ass... I wish!
You skirted the main issue! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless we have a real free press, with real media outlets (read: TV, radio, internet, magazine, newspaper, etc.), then we don't have a democracy.
Personally, after watching 911mysteries and other films on related topics, and reviewing the scientific facts for myself, I'm convinced that we already live in 1984, and the only solution is the bloody ugly one that Thomas Jefferson and most of our other founding fathers completely supported.
You did mention the "liberal" media, so you touched on it, but really, when 3 channels are quoting each other with created facts by obvious pundits who are clearly party members.....
You don't have freedom of the press anymore, and it's game over for democracy.
It's been that way since Kennedy got whacked, and on a related issue, that was also our last real election.
rhY
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liberal media (Score:3, Insightful)
You did mention the "liberal" media, so you touched on it, but really, when 3 channels are quoting each other with created facts by obvious pundits who are clearly party members.....
When I hear or read of the liberal media I ask what liberal media. But nobody bothers to reply. ABC? Disney owns ABC. CBS? It used to be owned by Viacom but after the split it's owned by CBS Corporation. And National Amusements is the majority owner of CBS Corp. NBC? NBC is owned by GE. Fox is owned by Murdock's News
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True enough, the importance of an issue is largely subjective
Another way to look at issues is how time critical are the issues at hand, and one thing you'll notice is that the most time critical issues (genocide for example) are usually the ones that fall lowest on the national/international radar. Gay marriage will be heavily debated both inside and outside of the media where (regardless of the outcome) ten years from now the day to day lives of those involved in this iss
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, you still left off the words "to me". The genocide in the Sudan is unlikely to affect the majority of the voters - in any country - regardless of the eventual outcome, hence it continues, to the tune of millions dead even - but what's a few million dead people - over 60% (2.5 million or so) of the Montagard tribe of Vietnam was exterminated after the peace loving Americans forced the US military to cut and run from Vietnam - but hey, they ended the war, eh. The situation in Iraq, etc., due to the rise of terrorism, the importance and quantity of oil, the historical and stated intent of the ruling elite (as we watch Iran pontificate now), and even the historical influence of the Ottoman peninsula, affects many people, and hence the interest. It's "easy" to liberate a Grenada, except for the shitstorm of "unbiased" press reports afterwards, but not so easy in Haiti, for example, nor in Iraq - but Iraq has much more influence, whether for or against, because of location, etc., to the US, and so is important.
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The US has the biggest military and is willing to use it to pursue what it thinks is best for it. On top of that it is one of the largest economies in the world.
What happens in the US effects the rest of the world. Imagine if Gore had won the p
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Neither does same-sex marriage...
And if they say it does, because of an insanse fear of some violent God's retribution towards humanity, wouldn't that same violent God (from "Thou Shalt Not Kill" Fame) be more upset at genocide?
--jeffk++
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
Mass murder, loss of life due to partial failure of socio-economic systems in some classes, war and chaos are all private matters of concern now? Don't know why I should have to actually say this at risk of karma, but a if a few guys screwing each other in NJ with matrimonial ambitions - if they are more important to us than the above issues, then maybe we have lost a lot more than just "focus".
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
So we shouldn't build roads, fund museums, build schools, create wildlife sanctuaries, and so on. All of our cash should go to immediate life-saving projects.
OH, and for the record, while I'm not in either "camp" and don't give a squat about the sexual practices of NJ males, it was never really about that. It's all about the money (government benefits to spouses), and it always is. Both sides put a bunch of nonsense up on the airways and refuse to talk about what matters in grownup land - how much does it cost.
Personally, I think government should get out of the marriage promotion business altogether and just concern itself with guardianship laws and contract law. But hey, now both sides can target me for not caring.
-Jeff
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It's not just benefits.
It's thinks like counting as 'family' for hospital visits, and medical decisions, and adopting children, and dividing property in case of a split, and all sorts of shit like that.
Personally, I think human beings have the right to add (and, if they wish, remove) anyone they want to their family. They shouldn't even have to come up with a reason or it be any sort of 'named' relationship. If you and some random guy are stranded on a desert island for five years, and you get off, and tr
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Look - nobody is saying his (or your) way to reform the medical system is right. But it *is* broken, and we need to talk about fixing it. It's not bums who don't get coverage - it's blue collar people who need to take several jobs and *still* can't get decent coverage. Who's poking whom where is not exactly an overriding concern, compared to that.
Iraq is undebatably a clusterfuck - even el
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
But the whole point of what the Christians want is to be able to reward people they like (i.e. themselves) and punish people they do not like (i.e. fags). So, taking away their special privledges to put them on a level field does not accomplish this. Giving gays the right to marry does not accomplish this. What they want is the government to send checks to Christians and put the fags in jail. Because, you see, Christians are so "loving".
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
"It is also a fact that owning a Hummer is a big financial burden on people that those without Hummers don't have, and they can use some help."
See how ridiculous that sounds? People have choice on whether or not to breed, as do they have a choice to own a Hummer. I don't feel pity for the financially strapped family in either camp.
(posting from Utah, where 5+ kids is too damn common for my comfort)
Re:children, retirement, and population (Score:5, Interesting)
" China and India, the two most populus countries in the world, had high population growth, but now that their economy has dramatically improved their birth rates are dropping."
Do you actually have a reference to support this or did you pluck it out of your....
Amoung others Foreign Policy magazine [foreignpolicy.com] had an article on this. Unfortunately as their online archives is subscription based and I don't have a subscription I can't provide a link. I have to admit though you pointed out something I left out about China, that China has a one child one couple policy. And while rural areas don't directly feel the economic boom in China more and more people are moving from the countryside to cities. Wish I could find one article from "Foreign Policy" but they had an article on one of the fastest growing cities in central China that said thousands of Chinese are moving to every day. This releases some of the economic pressure on rural areas. As for India, farmers are experiencing hardships with many committing suicide. They don't have open access to the industrial nations such as the US and EU, and the US and EU can import into India agricultural products relatively cheaply. That's a big reason the WTO meetings failed in Europe this summer. Because the EU wouldn't talk about opening their markets to imports and the massive subsidies the EU gives to farmers the Indian representative walked out.
If China and India weren't benefitting from an economic boom then neither would be able to finance the US national debt, and China and India are the biggest buyers of US Treasury bonds and notes respectively.
FalconRe: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, I, personally, don't believe that to be a logical viewpoint, but there are others out there who do.
If people really wanted to defend marriage, they'd outlaw divorce.
Also, when people pull out the "damage the institution of marriage" I usually ask them
how exactly the damage occurs, because honestly I don't see how gay people getting
married affects the marriages of straight people.
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It's not the details of the issue itself that gives it such a high priority in the public eye, it's the fact that one or more sides feels that it is of vital importance.
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What if you don't "see how" because the statement is a lie? What if people aren't against gay marriage because it would "damage marriage"? What if people are against gay marriage for the same reason that people are against mixing of the races, women having the vo
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Well hell, if you leave personal philosophies out, there's no such thing as "wrong" at all. And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle! You can argue from the lack of an absolute morality, but you certainly can't deny that personal moralities exist, and are in large part shared by societies. Most moralities are squishy enough to support inconsistencies, but any morality that
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Re:Lack of ethics (Score:5, Funny)
And if they get away with it, honestly, is that really so bad?
DATELINE: January 27, 2009 - President Stallman and GNUHSEC announces arrest of Redmond, WA voting-machine hackers.
President Stallman today announced the disruption of a terrorist plot, allegedly involving electoral fraud originating from a the terrorist organizations known as the Red Mond Alliance and the Darlings of McBride, both of which owe allegiance to a shadowy figure known only as the Monkey of the Thrown Chair.
"Let the elections of 2008 stand as a warning to all who would attempt to defraud the American public", warned Vice President Eric Raymond. "The GNUTIA (Gnu's Not Total Information Awareness) surveillance programme is fully operational, and GNUHSEC (Gnu's Not Homeland Security) agents will not tolerate any future incidents of voter fraud."
He's crafty, that Stallman. (Score:5, Funny)
Stallman wouldn't want to execute Raymond too early; it would just precipitate a civil war. You know, BSDers blowing themselves up in LUG meetings, contamination of the Cheetos supply, and caffeinated-beverage shortages. You know, basically all the worst parts of the Bible.
Ethics? We don't need no stinking ETHICS! (Score:5, Interesting)
It will be a virtual repeat of the 2002 and 2004 elections. You see, all this nail-biting, down to the wire, razor-thin margin bullshit gives the idiots who watch TV the feeling that, well "it MUST be legit because it was so darn close" and "if there was anything crooked going on, they'd win decisively".
Wednesday, the 8th of November, we will hear how the "values voters" pulled together at the last minute and despite the fact that all the exit polls showed the Dems winning by a huge margin, the Republicans yet again pulled a miracle out of the hat and retained power. Rush Limbaugh will explain that all the prayers of the good Christian Conservatives is what turned the tide.
Because of the clear crookedness of our electoral system (and did you notice that the regions that the Republicans pulled their upsets in during the last elections were the ones that had Diebold machines?), it is probably too late to expect elections, op-ed columns or clever blogs to make a damn bit of difference.
No, I'm afraid it's going to take people, lots of people, in the streets, being decidedly ill-behaved if we're going to keep this nation anything like the beautiful experiment that the Founding Fathers produced. If the principles of the Enlightenment are going to survive, we're going to have to act the way the heroes who created this country acted: badly. Civil disobedience and mass demonstrations, general strikes and boycotts. There's going to be some fighting before this power-grab by the Authoritarian Right who have masked themselves as "Conservatives" will end.
Despite my general laziness and particular enjoyment of online games like Eve-Online, I am prepared to fight, and if necessary, die, for my country. Even if it means that it will be other Americans that I will have to fight to protect the United States of America.
It's going to take a tamper-proof margin of victory in 11 days if this sleazy little tin-pot dictator in the White House and the crooked pricks who are pulling his strings are going to be stopped. It's the only chance we have to put a little oversight on these bad actors.
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With respect, your paranoid delusions and violent fantasies won't do much to change the political climate. Just vote, please.
Re:Ethics? We don't need no stinking ETHICS! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ethics? We don't need no stinking ETHICS! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's actually really striking: there was a pattern of "surprising" results that correlates with the use of electronic voting machines; with the presence of Republican governors, and so on. Where-ever Bush really needed it, he got an upset.
(Note: Ohio appears to have been stolen also, but with more conventional tactics engineered by a Republican Secretary of State with a lot of balls and no shame.)
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
You're joking? The people with the motivation to rig the election are the main parties. They're also best placed to get away with it. Who are these "terrorists" that would want to rig the results? As far as a group like Al Quaeda (who I presume you're thinking of here), both the main parties are pretty much identical. They are, after all, funded by the same players and neither has shown much compassion to the people of Saudi Arabia in living memory.
Terrorists want attention and to make a statement. Rigging an election is something that has limited benefit once it is publically known. If an election is or has been rigged, you'll find the culprits much closer to home.
More likely... (Score:3, Insightful)
terrorists rigging elections for libertarian wins (Score:3, Funny)
Well, what do you think it would do to American politics and the respectability of the American president if the terrorists could cause the election to go to a Libertarian? First off, it would show the election to be a sham, secondly, if we honored the results, the Libertarian would probably leave them the hell alone, stop supporting the despots we love to hate, etc
Hey any terrorists who rig an election so libertarians win need to be supported.
FalconRepublicans vs. Iranian intelligence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
If done for the right purpose (i.e., making the winner something so absurd that it is obvious it was faked, in order to draw attention to the issue), I'd say that someone who hacked the election should be lauded as a hero, rather than persecuted as a felon.
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
But what about (Score:2)
Re:But what about (Score:4, Insightful)
If Hannibal can do this then someone who wanted to steal an election, and could spend a trivial amount of money on doing it could absolutely do the same. It is utterly absurd to think that the analysis he did in the course of researching and writing a single article couldn't be done (and probably was done a long time ago) by any one of hundreds of other organizations if they had a small team working on it for months or years.
The result? The only people for who this is news are the people who don't have a vested interest in stealing an election - and those are the people who need to know about it. Bravo to my favourite tech site for doing this.
Re:But what about (Score:5, Informative)
There are many Slashdot readers who could get up to speed on how to really steal an election in about half a day (or less) using publicly available documentation. The hardware isn't that complex at all, and the vulnerabilities in Windows (for the GEMS server) and WinCE (for the machine) are very well-known.
What I've described here is very, very low-hanging fruit for anyone with real security expertise.
Well (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like a tamper seal. You want it to break. (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, the more bad guys that have it, the more likely the problem will get fixed, thus it's actually better that the most 'bad guys' possible get it. If only one person knows how to rig the election, chances are higher they'll be able to get away with it. If 100 people know and all try to rig the election, chances are none of them will get away with it, because the tampering will be too obvious.
Frankly I
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You're correct in saying that Security through obscurity never works but the question is what is the correct way to approach a security problem?
Personall
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
People have given sworn testimony in court about the security issues and how their concerns fell on deaf ears in upper management, or sometimes even met with legal threats and unemployment.
Quite simply, proper channels HAVE been exhausted. Either nobody gets it or they are deliberately trying not to hear it.
=Smidge=
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Well, if you look at it from a pure ethical standpoint, no; but then if you look at the "ethics" of some in Congress, perhaps this information could be put to good use, a.k.a. rousting out the bums.
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Explain the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Explaining how easy it is might help people understand this is a serious problem.
Can you think of a better way to explain how easy it is? and how much of a problem it is?
Re:Lack of ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
Correct. As a firearm owner, I know what harm firearms can cause - killings, accidental shootings, property damage, etc. And so, I demand an immediate crackdown on publically accessible repair manuals, to ensure a brighter tomorrow.
Correct. As a driver, I know what harm poor driving can cause - vehicular homicide, property damage, etc. And so, I demand an immediate crackdown on access to automobiles, driving instruction literature, etc., to ensure a brighter tomorrow.
Congressmen should maintain an exemption to all of the above, to ensure they can oversee said systems, and protect the workings of our great society. Public oversight should not be necessary, as I have full trust in the state.
Security Through Obscurity (Score:5, Interesting)
(c/o Matt Blaze [crypto.com])
In two easy steps ... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. There is no step two
Re:In two easy steps ... (Score:5, Informative)
If you're not convinced the election has been stolen, check out this excerpt from an article by McNeills:
Re:In two easy steps ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in Ohio in 2004, Ken Blackwell was the Secretary of State, who is in charge of running the elections. He was also the head of Bush/Cheney re-election campaign in Ohio. This is was a conflict of interest. He should have stepped down from one position or the other.
Similarly, if an executive of a company that makes voting machines is giving speeches in support of a candidate, or writing in a fund-raising letter stating that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year," [commondreams.org], that is a conflict of interest. Either work for the company, or work for a candidate/party. Go ahead and vote. But don't campaign or participate in fund-raising events. To do make voting machines and actively campaign for a candidate or party is a conflict of interest.
The problem is that when a private company is making voting machines, there is no built-in parity of the system. With the old paper ballot system, representatives from *both* parties were physically present during the voting and the counting, to provide oversight. In the case of black-box machines controlled by a private corporation, they do not have to have representatives from both parties witness the development and implementation of the machines. This will lead to fraud and corruption.
German Petition against voting machines (Score:5, Interesting)
http://itc.napier.ac.uk/e-Petition/bundestag/view
It currently has 13748 votes.
Thanks!
Re: (Score:2)
And now we watch the
Re:German Petition against voting machines (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Now there are -1 votes for this petition.
Are you the RIAA? (Score:5, Funny)
-- The Diebold P2P Network Team
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If you steal the election, the people no longer have their result! Mpff...
If you steal the election, the people will have a different result than they originally had!
Rats...
Re:Are you the RIAA? (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of slashdotters who would argue both those ways without seeing a conflict.
It's like the iraqi they had on NPR last night.
A) He wants americans killed and he wants the shiite militia to do it.
B) He wants the americans to stay and protect him from the suni's.
he sees *NO* conflict in these two positions.
Vote from orbit (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
CowboyNeal for President (Score:5, Funny)
Litigation (Score:2, Funny)
Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since you cannot validate the correctness of the election either way, I'd opt for the path which fixes the situation.
Motivation (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really want election reform you have to make it in the best interest of the the Dem/Rep party. The best way to do that would be to have a third party victory. As long as someone in the Professional Politicians Club get's elected, the powers that be don't care about voting accuracy. They have no reason to.
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Been done already (Score:4, Informative)
From the referenced url: '"Electronic voting machines also caused widespread problems in Florida, where Bush bested Kerry by 381,000 votes. When statistical experts from the University of California examined the state's official tally, they discovered a disturbing pattern: "The data show with 99.0 percent certainty that a county's use of electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004."'
'Charles Stewart III, an MIT professor who specializes in voter behavior and methodology, was initially skeptical of the study - but was unable to find any flaw in the results. "You can't break it - I've tried," he told The Washington Post. "There's something funky in the results from the electronic-machine Democratic counties."'
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Trying to pretend one side or the other is lily-white is stupid, we should use a system that is immune to anything that either side might try.
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Actually, if you read the accounts of the Ohio election, republicans placed the majority of the e-voting machines, led by the republican secretary Blackwell who pushed hard to get Diebold machines put in voting places. That in combination to the fact republicans where the ones making the decisions to place e-voting machinge in Ohio make the 'purchased by democrats to strengthen riggin
Moo (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Put the word Linux on your website.
2) Add copious amounts of Microsoft bashing.
3) Add Socialist blurbs to the website.
4) Call the current astate of affairs evil.
5) Advocating lowering the voting age to 10.
6) Ask KDawson to post a link to your website.
7) Have everyone on slashdot believe you are the |37357 |]()()|] @®0|\||}
Well, it may not work, but most kids here think it will.
Know Where To Look (Score:3, Informative)
Expect it to take place in places where Candidate X carries 70-75% of the vote.
That is, expect it to take place in places where Candidate X carries 75-80% of the vote.
If you don't want anyone to notice you're doing it, do it where nobody will notice; if the election is close enough (which so many of them are,) your candidate will carry the day.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Here's the way to know if the election is hacked:
Republicans do well - wholesale voter fraud, machines were manipulated, etc.
Democrats do well - most open and transparent election in years; the people have spoken.
I look forward to reading the post-election commentary, no matter who does well.
Re:Know Where To Look (Score:4, Informative)
Why? To win a state and the state's electoral votes (in a presidential race).
In the US, the president is elected by the Electoral College. Each state sends a certain number of "Electors" to the Electoral College to cast their vote's for that state's winning candidate. So on a state-by-state basis, it's a winner-take-all system. So you want to change outcomes in counties in order to win a whole state. Here's a way to cheat with the above system (minimizing chances of getting caught):
1. Pick a populous state with a close election like Ohio or Florida or several others.
2. Adjust the vote for your candidate up by 5 or 10% in counties where you expect him to win. This increases the overall statewide vote for your candidate. Enough, you hope, to push your candidate over the top.
3. Your candidate wins the state, gets those electors, and wins the Electoral College vote.
4. Profit.
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Here's hoping (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
You can buy them from Diebold (Score:5, Informative)
Unbelieveably, Diebold actually has an ecommerce site where you can buy all their electronic voting machine products online, including memory cards, security tape, and access keys. I'm really hoping they verify that you're an elections official before they actually ship the stuff to you:
http://www.diebold.com/nasadmk/cgi-bin/desi_cata log.pl?section=9
Here you go - buy a dozen keys, for you and your friends:
http://www.diebold.com/nasadmk/cgi-bin/desi_cata log.pl?section=9&id=163
On a funny/sad note, the front page of their election products site as a glaring coding error (%=rs("newsdate")%):
http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/
Access? (Score:3, Informative)
I've never told anyone before, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
It was the first year of electronic voting, done on a room full of Apple IIe's.
Some kind of voting program was running. I simply made a break in the program, figured it which variables belong to which candidate and bumped the variable count up for my favorite. After that, i simply continued the program and then logged my official vote.
My favorite was Todd Turner. I hear he won by a landslide. No one contested the results. Lucky Todd.
And Todd, if you happen to read this, don't get mad at me, ok? I mean, you probably would have won anyway, right?
too complicated (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally, for the layperson you would simply explain that each pricinct's votes are stored in a small database, and that it can simply be edited with a piece of software commonly included in Microsoft's popular Office suite. Then, show a screenshot of access with the GEMS database opened, highlight the vote tally for some candidate, and explain that you simply click in the box and change the number. Then explain how it would be impossible to know what the vote count could be due to the lack of paper...relate it back to punched ballots (just save the ballots and recount em if necessary), optical scanners (again you have the ballots and usually there is a paper log that prints each vote as it is scanned), etc.
All of that is understandable to even the layperson. Most people understand what Microsoft Office is. Most people have heard of a database and understand thats how businesses store all their information. Most people have seen a spreadsheet and a screenshot of someone editing an access database looks almost the same.
Someone else will dumb it down (Score:3, Insightful)
It needs to have enough supporting evidence that someone can blog it as fact. When blogged, it will inevitably get taken out of context and dumbed down to the level that the average Joe will understand, with the substance behind TFA's link.
Give this a few days to make it around the Internet. I can see this becoming a big stink.
Email this story to your representative (Score:5, Informative)
Repeat this process for http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information
After about a thousand folks do this, a staffer might actually go print out the story and hand it to their congresscritter in a brief.
I'd also like to ask the Ars Technica people to make an exception for this story and make the PDF available to non-subscribers, as it would really help to disseminate this story to the right people. I'm not really sure how to go about contacting them.
Here's my letter (slightly munged of course by slashdot):
What should be done. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've nominated a few suggestions like the Cthulhu [cafepress.com] Party or the National Fisherman's Party, but either would do the job very well.
To be honest, if you wanted to avoid spending too much time in jail, I would suggest the student
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think you are going to need to cause actual harm for real change to be implemented. If the real results are backed up, then they will be restored, "proving the reliability of Diebold equipment". You need to leave someone with Wierd Al as governor and no recourse to repair the damage.
Re:What should be done. (Score:4, Insightful)
Statistical analysis has already demonstrated fraud in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. There is no doubt whatsoever that significant voting irregularities took place, and that they had the effect of giving the election to Bush rather than his opponent in both cases. There were also, it is worth noting, some anomalies that favoured Democrats, although not by so wide a margin (perhaps they were just playing their cards more closely, or didn't need as big shifts to win in those races.)
I sincerely hope that some American hero stands up and hacks the upcoming elections in a big way. They will get jailed for some kind of crime, but someone has to stand up and fight, and not say, "Oh, but my career would suffer if I was willing to sacrifice myself for the good of my country." But I have no illusions that such a successful hack would have any immediate effect. It will take many hacks over many elections to convince the idiots who think that election fraud is simply a stick to beat Republicans with, or who dismiss all evidence of fraud as impossible because "they" would never allow such a thing.
We know Diebold machines can be hacked very easily. We know that they have been hacked in past elections, based on analysis of exit poll anomalies. We know that there is a great deal at stake in the American elections in the next two years.
If America deserves to survive, there will be at least one person somewhere who is even now implementing a plan that will result in 100% of the votes cast in their county going to third-party candidates. In practical terms it must be third-party, because otherwise the vast majority of voters who cast their ballot for the favoured candidate would simply shrug, spit, and say, "I don't see no problem with that." Nothing short of a third-party landslide victory will put a dent in the partisan complacency of mainstream voters, and even then the lying bastards in power will claim that this was a special-case problem that they know for sure didn't affect any other races. And the complacent sheeple will believe them.
If no one is willing to take the risk of throwing egregiously throwing the vote in their county then America does not deserve to survive as a functioning democratic republic, and it will not.
Self-Verified Voting (Score:4, Insightful)
To begin with, the regular voter verification process happens at the door. You go into the polling booth, select all your options, and a confirmation screen comes up for you to check and make sure you selected everything properly. When you confirm, a small piece of paper is printed out that has a serial number and a dynamically generated decryption key on it. Your vote is then sent along to a tabulation server. Your unencrypted vote is added up with the other votes, and the pair of your serial number and your encrypted vote is stored at the same time.
Later in the day, you can go home, and log onto a special government website. You enter your serial number, along with your decryption key, and the verification server shows your vote back to you. The only identifier attached to each vote is a serial number, and it requires the proper decryption key to view the vote. Nevertheless, it allows individual voters to check to make sure that their vote was counted. As long as source-code can be publicly inspected, we can verify that counting is not being "faked" by saving an individual user's vote for verification purposes but not actually adding it to the overall tabulation, thus preventing fraud by under-voting.
To prevent fraud by over-voting, the tabulation server will keep track of the total number of votes it receives from each machine. Local election officials will keep a hand-tally of the number of voters who visit each poll. At the end of the day, the hand tally is checked against the server's tally to make sure there is no discrepancy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are crypto schemes that would allow you to verify that your vote was counted correctly without being able to show how you voted, but they are far too complex for an average voter to understand.
Easier Way (Score:3, Funny)
Hi, I am running for president. If I win, I promise to do one single thing. I will create and sign an executive order to split the gold in fort knox equally among the workers, friends and families of those those work at the companies that make the voting machines. Included in the order will be a clause that gives them complete immunity from ALL prosecution for any crimes they ever commit, and also they get first in line for heart/liver transplants, etc.
Re:Premium access ? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Liberal Vote Counting Procedure (Score:5, Insightful)
The influence of the provably biased media on elections as they are occurring should be a shameful thing to us and disallowed. I know people who were standing in (a long) line in Florida and heard it'd been called for Gore and so didn't bother to vote (for either candidate) after that - talk about sanctioned disenfranchising.
Re:How quaint. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The presumption is that voting matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Would we be at war in Iraq? No.
Would we be running up record deficits? Probably not.
Would we have slashed public services to provide tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans? Hardly.
Would we be torturing people in secret prisons?
Would September 11th have been pumped up into justification for a global war against 'Islamofascism?'
Yes, both sides are pretty deep in the pockets of corporations. Both sides are often self-serving at the expense of both their stated ideals and the good of the country. Neither side is offering up solutions that really satisfy me. But to say there is "no difference" is just whiny, and promotes the sort of apathy that corrupt systems thrive on.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually that is what Los Angeles county uses for Absentee Ballots. The problem is I have no way of verifying if my marks counted for the candidates I wanted. A better system would be just to submit Absentee Ballots via a SSL secured website (Damn if we can trust it to do banking on we can use it to vote) and then I could print off two copies of my vote confirmation. One copy goes in the mail to the election board in case