Description:


"Votergate, an action documentary, follows a young team on their nationwide investigation of the current problems with our voting systems and elections procedures. Fast-paced and engaging, Votergate reveals the shocking story of how touchscreen voting systems are highly susceptible to hacking and how these systems are being implemented across the country without the proper checks and balances to insure accuracy and accountability."

this is some scary stuff.

What is worse than these machines is this joke of a VVPB (Voter Verified Paper records).
People will *feel* safe about their vote, but it really is not that way.

The ES&S printout is not one whole ballot that you can verify. It is a printout that follows your vote as you vote on different candidates. So if you change your vote, it will show up. Or if you voted for Candidate A then Issue 1 then changed your vote to Candidate B.. YOu'll get A.. Y on 1.. B

The point is that you can NEVER do a recount by hand, using those VVPB. What ES&S and Diebold does.. is provides a convenient barcode at the end of each voter. They also sell are barcode reader that is used.. which goes through the SAME tabulator as the electronic DREs.

By law (in most states) during a recount, you can only view the Issue or Office up for recount, and not the whole ballot. So, recount for VVPB is no longer possible.

You have to count on the software that hacked the DRE reading, does not also hack the barcodes.

Hey, I love technology as much as the next person... but on this issue, give me the paper cards. They should be available to be counted by more than just one firm too. It's the only way to keep the integrity of the vote secured, in my opinion.

here's something else to consider. diebold doesn't just make voting machines. they also happen to make ATM machines. if diebold is very possibly a 'corrupt' company, i'm not so sure anymore how comfortable i feel with using the ATM.

I'm pretty sure the financial institutions don't buy machines they have no way to audit. The problem here is that the government doesn't know how to properly research, purchase and verify these sorts of technology. It'll be a long time before you have that sort of knowledge at a local level, which is why a meaningful national standard is needed.

Ok, first of all Diebold just bought the voting machine business in 2002, so don't compare the ATM bulls^#@$. Global Election Systems changed its name to Diebold Election Systems, Inc.

"Jeff Dean, Senior Vice-President and Senior Programmer at Global Election Systems (GES), the company purchased by Diebold in 2002 which became Diebold Election Systems, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft for planting back doors in software he created for ATMs using, according to court documents, a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years"

So yes, worry about using your ATM.

"Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a subsidiary of Diebold Inc., one of the country's largest voting equipment vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted fraudulent stock transactions, and a programmer jailed for falsifying computer records. "

The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

suggestion to all: contact your Supervisor of Elections office tomorrow and tell them you want to be designated for permanent absentee ballot status. Anyone can legally do this. You will receive your actual paper ballot in the mail well before election day...you can submit it early or deliver it yourself on election day.

We must not allow our voting rights to be controlled by private coprorate for-profit entities.

Pickleking, good idea. If enough did this, it would send a message.

pickle, depends on your state.

Some states require valid reasons for absentee. I think HAVA might have tried to make this more standard. Anyways, absentee at least in Ohio is done with mail in punchcard ballots. They have to verify your name and address before they open the inner envelope, so sometimes they will purge your vote before it goes into the pile. While I think this might be generally more probable that you vote is indeed counted, it's not a sure thing.

For one, you have the hanging chad problem, where the more times they recount, the less valid votes you get. For another, they probably are using candidate rotation on the ballots, and often times they can play games with the tabulator header card. (ie. one ballot has A,B,C and the other goes C,A,B) (the tabulator has to be pre-primed to know what order to tally votes, and this card can be wrongly applied so votes for A in this case go to B)

Another problem with this is cost will go up, and they will make this process more restrictive. Plus there are mailing errors, and Republicans are challenging addresses to purge you based on letters not being returned confirming correct address. The issue with electronic machines also won't go away. And most people vote on machines.

One idea is to write in a candidate for a pre-decided office. If enough people voted for "Paper Ballot" as a write-in.. It would be hard for them to hide this result, and you'd have some idea how many votes are being lost. I personally think "Fuck Diebold" would be the best candidate.

Excellent documentary. Is it just me, or are a lot of peoples' paranoid fantasies coming true these last few years?

If the guy who likes to have cocaine and prostitutes together is getting worried about it, everyone else should be. http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=6078

I disagree with the message at the end though: "Even though we've just shown you that your vote counts for diddly-squat, don't forget to use it!" Here's what to do:

1) Click on the 'Go to Google Video' button at the bottom right of the video.

2) Download the Google Video Player, and download this video (a .gvp file). Open the .gvp file.

3) Let the Google Video Player download the entire film to your hard disc. You will then have a local copy. It will be in 'My Documents > My Videos > Google Videos'.

4) Change the file extension of the video from .gvi to .avi.

5) Burn a CD with the avi file, a player that can play it (e.g. VLC - http://www.videolan.org/) and the software and instructions needed to make further copies (DeepBurner is a good free CD burner - http://www.deepburner.com/).

5a) (optional) Make a pretty label saying what the CD is, and explaining how to use it.

6) Repeat step 5 a few times.

7) Give copies to everyone you know with a computer. Leave copies around your office, or school. Send copies to the press (local and national).


Whatever you do, don't let this shit happen again in 2008, or it'll become the norm, just like everything else. Where America leads, Britain all too often follows, and I don't want this country to get any more fucked up than it already is. Please?

I could have done without the freedom rock in all the travelling scenes..
"A broken promise... in the promised laaand"

My issue of Forbes that arrived today had this article by Aviel Rubin, Professor of Computer Science at John Hopkins University.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0904/040.html?partner=alerts&_requestid=2972

Dead video replaced.

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It's much easier to change a few bits on a memory card than to dispose of 100,000 paper ballots.