did you see this email from MoveOn? ...disturbing...

[garybeck]

copied from a post on Randi Rhodes discussion board, dated 8/26
please note the sentence I bolded, which is VERY DISTURBING TO ME.


Dear MoveOn member,

The need to repair our voting system isn't on the front pages, but MoveOn members like you have been working tirelessly to safeguard our elections, and together we've made some real progress.

In Colorado, Hawaii, Connecticut, and North Carolina, MoveOn members helped pass legislation requiring all touch-screen voting machines to print a Voter-Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB). Voters can verify their vote is recorded correctly, and the paper ballots are the vote of record in a recount. Voting remains accessible for people who are visually impaired. Alternately, election boards can use optical scan ballots, which are less expensive and just as reliable.

More than half of all states now require VVPBs for touch-screen machines. This is an incredible accomplishment, and it wouldn't have happened without your efforts. Diebold, the notorious maker of touch-screen voting machines, is getting nervous—they just hired a former DNC chair to lobby Democrats to allow unverifiable paperless systems.1 But we'll counter this new pressure: If your state hasn't passed VVPB legislation yet, we'll let you know when there's a good opportunity to weigh in with your state legislator.

Meanwhile, you are keeping the pressure on Congress to pass federal legislation requiring VVPBs. In June, dozens of MoveOn members traveled long distances from key Congressional districts to Washington, D.C. to meet with members of Congress and their staff in person. Last week, with members of Congress at home, hundreds of you attended meetings at your representative's local office. The meetings were arranged by Working Assets, Common Cause, VerifiedVoting.org, and others.

As a result of this citizen lobbying, 11 more House members have agreed to co-sponsor the best federal VVPB legislation out there—Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)'s "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" (H.R. 550). The momentum is building for nationwide rules to round out the state-by-state victories.

------------

How can they say that voters are verifying their vote is recorded properly? Don't they get it? What is preventing the machine from showing them they voted for candidate A, and casting a vote for candidate B? They must not get it. This is bad....

[Extend a Hand]

1. not a f*cking thing.

signed -a software engineer

[kster]

6. This is real bad

give them tIme, they to will see VVPB, iS ONLY a false sense of security created by the crooks for us voters, The crooks can kiss my *ss, their time is done. Move-on don't understand it just YET.

Move-On, If you have a VVPB,you hold it up to the light and verify who you voted for, you are 100% sure that you voted for X, you check it again and double check it, then you scan it in to the voting machine CAN YOU VERIFY IF THE MACHINE COUNTED YOUR VOTE AS YOU INTENDED? BE HONEST.

[garybeck]

15. VVPAT / VVPB

it is important to understand the difference between a ballot and an audit trail

http://www.solarbus.org/election/articles/0313-ballots.shtml

[kster]

21. VVPAT / VVPB

May be possible if they gave us THIS but only after a few PBHC election cycles. If they think they can fool us again they have another thing coming. Your website is great,but VVPB/VVPAT are not A possible consideration until they are willing to release this, Short of this I will be demanding PBHC. ( FROM MADEINOHIO)

http://www.countthevote.org

They can let you see the inside of the machine, but they won't let you see the programs running ON the machine. That's the biggest conflict of interest there is and red-flag ELECTION FRAUD time!

http://www.answers.com/topic/2004-u-s-presidential-elec...

I ask the people of Ohio and across the land, why would ANYONE TRUST A MAN TO TAKE THE VOTES INTO A SECRET ROOM AWAY FROM THE PUBLIC AND COUNT THEM WITH NO ONE WATCHING?

That's what the vendors are allowing to happen, and not turning over their data.

[emlev]

2. MoveOn still doesn't get it

Doesn't seem that they want to. Very aggravating. I have personally tried to open their eyes to this issue. They say they've chosen their issues and this isn't one of them.

[garybeck]

3. and they claim they are responsible for pushing the VVPAT bills

they are not helping

[PatriotMom]

It's diversion

They are masters at diversion. I remember the election and the Kerry diversion. To my knowledge they did not try to be honest in that election, they did not demand that the others running be up there in the debates. I know they are promoting the Democrat but where does truth and honesty come in to play? It doesn't seem to on either side!
I do not support either side any more. I don't like being lied to and manipulated.

[raysr]

8. "They are masters at diversion"? "The Kerry Diversion"?

You better get back to freeptown!

[PatriotMom]

16. You tell me what Kerry did after the stolen election??

Not a god damned thing!!

[garybeck]

17. you are correct. Kerry did nothing. n/t

[PatriotMom]

18. Thank You,

He is a sold out whore like the rest of them that say they are Representing U.S.
It's time WE take our country back.

[DLnyc]

4. Seems to say paper ballot is official one

(edit) First of all, I agree electronic voting screens are insane. Best solution, IMHO, is to pour gasoline on them and light it. But MoveOn stuff still seems like it COULD be an improvement:)
(end edit)
says:
", and the paper ballots are the vote of record in a recount."

Seems like this could be okay, if there is some way to verify that the paper ballot the voter sees is the one (and the only one) that is held for a recount.

I agree optical scan is better, but you would still need to watch who collects and stores the ballots. Is there a way to give each ballot a unique mark, so that it can later be verified that all, and only, original ballots are present?

Alternatively, I wouldn't mind casting an "affidavit ballot" where my ballot is notarized and kept under lock and key by a trusted person. This sacrifices secrecy, but I personally would be happy to make the trade. If large numbers did this (or threatened to) perhaps that would shame our lame-ass congress into real reforms.

Best alternative: give all participants in past, current and future voter scams lengthy jail sentences. Not holding my breath on this one, though.

[garybeck]

13. it is not a "ballot"

if a DRE machine prints a record, it is not used in the election. it is only used if there is a recount. in other words it is useless. recounts are very rare, so the fact that there is a voter verified piece of paper is inconsequential.

the optical scan system is not much better. if a manufacturer such as diebold wanted to put vote rigging software on the machine, whether it's a DRE or an optical scanner system, there is nothing preventing them from doing so. there is nothing to detect such fraud. the only remedy is random manual audits, to check the paper against the vote that was cast, and open software code. without these two things, neither DRE/VVPAT (electronic voting machine with paper printout) or optical scans are trustworthy.

to say that when a DRE prints out a piece of paper and the voter verifies their vote is cast properly, is 100% wrong and very misleading. it shows that they have no idea what they are talking about. it is a shame that they have so many people on their mailing list reading that false information.

[Amaryllis]

35. Yes, yes, and yes. Gary knows of which he speaks.

[petgoat]

5. I don't understand the problem, gary

The VVPB is the system endorsed by Dr. Rebecca Mercuri and Dr. David
Dill. To my understanding the voting terminal prints a paper ballot
which is collected in a box, and these are then run through an optical
scanner for tabulating. It's not perfect, because the tabulator can be
hacked. But tabulators are relatively cheap, and running a confirmation
check from a second tabulator is certainly practical. And the paper
ballots can be hand-counted, weighed, and sampled. I don't understand
the problem.

[garybeck]

9. not correct

DRE machines do not print a ballot. They print an audit trail.

Different states have different laws. Some of the new legislation only makes the DREs print a paper audit trail. this is not used in the election. it is only used in a recount.

what they say is incorrect. the voter is NOT verifying anything when the final "confirmation screen" comes up.

Here is the scenario-

the voter votes for candidate A
the confirmation screen says they voted for A
the machine casts a vote for B

no one ever knows.

it doesn't take "hacking" to do this. No one would have to "hack" into the system. The machines are programmed with secret code by Diebold. They could have code on the machines programming them to switch the votes. No one would know. Dill has said:

"If you go to one of these voting machines and vote for candidate A and the vote gets changed to a candidate B, you will never know."

a paper audit trail, especially without manual audits, DOES NOT change this statement.

in regards to your comments about optical scanners. some legislation does not allow DREs at all and only the systems you describe, with printed ballots and scanners, are allowed. However, the scanners are also programmed in secret by diebold. there is nothing preventing them from writing fraudulent code and no one would know if they did, unless there are random audits.

there is not really any difference between a DRE with a paper trail and an opscan system. Neither of them prevent vote rigging software from being put on the machines by the manufacturer. Neither allow the voter to actually verify their vote is being recorded properly.

I hope that helps. :)

[Extend a Hand]

19. exactly!!

I spend 10 hrs a day looking a logs and trying to figure out what some user did. It's almost always impossible unless you can re-create the problem or have hours to spend reading the code. And even then it's still not always possible to figure out what happened...especially if you aren't absolutely positive that the binary you are executing is the same code you are looking at.

[kster]

12. So many states outside

the MOE that used electronic voting in the last election, with no legitimate explanation. Thats a problem.

[garybeck]

14. I think there is an explanation

the election was stolen

[Stevepol]

26. THERE HAS TO BE A REQUIRED AUDIT!!!!!

The paper is meaningless if an audit isn't required.

Here's one scenario: Let's say the state says that a recount is required if the margin of victory is less than 2%. The pre-election polls say the Dem will win by 9%. The exit polls say the Dem won by 7%. But the results tabulated in cyberspace (where the machines are calibrated with the knowledge of the 2% requirement) say the Repub won by 3%.

What good is the paper?

It's useless. Unless there are REQUIRED AUDITS FOR ALL ELECTIONS, the paper trial is absolutely meaningless.

[garybeck]

28. precisely. that's why I call it MMRA

Mandatory
Manual
Random
Audit

if it's not mandatory, it's useless.

same with the other 3.

I hope someday the term MMRA will be used as much as VVPB.

the formula is

VVPB + MMRA = Democracy

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

7. I don't want to trash...

...MoveOn, I happen to think they've done some really good things and deserve credit, but they make a huge mistake in not constantly polling their base for direction and guidance. If they did, they wouldn't be foolishly giving tacit support to the war, or this silly illusion of meaningful election reform, Voter Verified Paper Ballot. It would make MoveOn a much more democratic grass roots organization--something they should aspire to. I wonder if we could constructively help MoveOn's decision makers understand this.

[garybeck]

10. yes, I think they got top heavy very quickly

they say they want our feedback but they are unapproachable.

[Amaryllis]

36. There is no way to contact them; they do not respond when you use their

feedback form, and they have their own agenda. Totally top down. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of us sent them comment after comment begging them to get on board after the election, and finally at the 11th hour (day or two before Jan. 6) they asked people to write their congresspeople and ask them not to vote to certify Ohio's electors.

Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of us sent them comment after comment informing them of the facts on the issues with electronic elections, and they remain top down in thier leadership, ignoring us.

[autorank]

22. Welcome to DU Mr_Jefferson_24!!! And Welcome to 2004 ERD !!!

Stick around!

Well, I'm sure they've had plenty of input and that Gary will get on their case but we have people running the party and the party adjuncts who think that they are positively "Jeffersonian" in the breadth of their intellectual grasp of any question. I gave to these folks, a fair amount, and they made a bunch of ads that I never say (I'm in VA, near DC). They were very efficient about asking from money.

I'm in favor of our party and our major adjunctive fund raisers requiring a new form of affirmative action: 1/3 Ivy League; 1/3rd State University or really smart drop-outs; 1/3rd union management. Otherwise, we'll have a bunch of phlegmatic pseudo intellectuals that are skilled at running perpetually losing campaigns.

*MoveOn got the big word like others that it's a "no no" to talk about stolen elections or election fraud. This letter is, I guess, "election fraud lite."

[GuvWurld]

11. MoveOn epitomizes the False Alternative

False Alternative

[autorank]

20. They are the same smarties that we have at the DNC...sorry

to be so blunt but it's late. Of course it's disturbing but these people know it all, just like Brazile knows it all, just like Dean knows it all, just like the arrogant lawyers or advisers to K-E know it all, just like all the smart-ass Democrats know it all..

...just like the deniers here know it all...just like the KOS deniers know it all...

Don't you get it Gary, they're right and we're wrong.

[freedomfries]

23. the glass is half full

garybeck, not half empty.
The moveon 2M+ e-mail list includes many mainstream Democrats who don't think that e-voting could be a problem. Moveon is warning its constituents about the scandalous alliance of a former DNC chair with Diebold paperless e-voting, and basically saying that auditable paper ballots are better than vapor ballots.
Of couse, we know much more. Of course, we know that an audit trail won't ensure that the votes are recorded and tabulated properly, but those who've never thought about the issue have to start somewhere.
For those moveon members curious enough to check, the e-mail also included links to verifiedvoting.org and the article about John Andrew saying that "paperless electronic voting is good for Democrats!":
http://www.insidebayarea.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=2958901

[GuvWurld]

24. Paperless Electronic Voting Is...

Paperless electronic voting is worse than willingly walking into a mine field. This is being "brave" enough to play Russian Roulette with a bullet in every chamber.

[autorank]

25. Totally agree...back ups are only good for recounts which require

the election to meet certain criteria or which can be priced out of reach.

Personally, I'd like to see somebody ask for a recount of the "verified paper ballots" -- they would have a hell of a time counting whatever spits out of the machines.

Paper ballots, marked with an ink stamp, folded and put in a box by the user: no levers, no touch screens. Allow observed counts, announce the count, when agreed to by all, at the precinct level and post the total for each precinct on the internet which again would be agreed to as valid by all present. That's it. Aggregation can be done by the world. The totals by the appropriate entity are an afterthought at that point becuse they're so easy.

What is the major problem with this?

I'm beginning to see BoE's and "registrars" (as you call them in CA) as the true enemy, doesn't matter why they oppose this, they do and they are in the way of real democracy and legitimate government.

[kster]

27. Ya! What Autorank said.............nt

[Bill Bored]

29. Actually you can tell if they're recorded correctly on the paper.

The votes just may not be counted correctly.

So look, we'll just have to get auditing and recount laws on the books and challenge any election that's not statistically proven to have the correct outcome.

Let's not attack those who've tried to make improvements.

What we need to do is to "move on" to the next improvement.

Lots of nice threads here about auditing and recount laws (mostly mine). :)
So read them and never give up!

[garybeck]

32. my opinion is

saying that the voter is verifying that their vote is recorded properly is completely false and I see no value in creating a false sense of security by saying that a VVPAT has anything to do with verifying that the vote is recorded properly. it simply doesn't. I'm not trying to attack them. I'm trying to point out that they are putting out false and misleading information and I don't think that's a good thing.

[Bill Bored]

37. but the rest of the sentence says

"and the paper ballots are the vote of record in a recount."

They aren't saying the vote is counted correctly the first time, nor that the paper is counted the first time. What they are saying is factual -- the vote is recorded correctly (on the paper) and the paper can be used for recounts.

Let's face it, MoveOn were never the leaders on this issue, so it's as if let's say, the REPUBLICANS came out in favor of VVPATs! I'd take any help we can get on this.

The next step is to find ways of counting the VVPATs whenever there is a doubt about the outcome of any race and educate the CANDIDATES to do so.

See this thread about NY law which includes a random audit discussion:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=386269&mesg_id=386269>

We are getting close.

One more point I'd like to make: Ultimately it's up to the candidates to fight for these hand counts. If they all take the path chosen by John Kerry in '04, all the reforms in the world won't matter, will they?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

30. 2 things - Moveon is lame, and sit down b4 reading this about VVPB

#1. Moveon is lame, they have or did have around 3 Million members, but did so little about the paperless voting issue that they are negligent in my book. In fact, I quit responding to their stupid email actions over 1 1/2 years ago. Why bother?

#2. Sit down - it isn't a cure-all, but does make a difference:

How Effective is an Occasionally-Used Paper Ballot?
Justin Moore
Duke University Department of Computer Science

Several critics of voter-verified paper ballots have claimed that a paper ballot is useless if only a small portion of voters bother to verify its correctness. If the accuracy of a large tally -- the end-of-day totals, in our case -- cannot be verified by a spot check of a small sample -- a portion of the paper ballots -- then the entire public polling industry is in for quite a shock! A sample of a few thousand people is often used to gauge the opinion of several million, so why not use a portion of the paper ballots to verify the correctness of the count?

So just how effective is a voter-verified paper ballot? Well, in addition to serving as the ballot of record, even when the electronic record is lost (see: Carteret County, North Carolina), we can calculate the odds that a malfunctioning machine will be discovered by a small percentage of the voters who are verifying their ballot correctly. We say "verifying their ballot correctly" since it has come to our attention that it is possible for an error on a printed ballot to escape the notice of the voter. See more here --
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/paper_effectiveness.html

[Bill Bored]

38. Correct me if I'm wrong but this analysis assumes

that the VVPAT does NOT match the summary screen on the machine, and that a certain percentage of voters will discover this. It says nothing about how the votes are then recorded in the DRE's database, which is Gary's point.

Neither the paper ballot, the e-ballot, or the summary screen have anything to do with the vote database in a DRE, unless the DRE is actually programmed so that the ballot definition file mirrors the database, and all votes are actually counted as cast. Since it is possible for either or both of the above to be false, merely inducing the voters to verify their VVPATs (and summary screens for that matter) would do little to detect fraud, unless the VVPATs do not match the summaries.

Counting the VVPATs by hand however, would discover any mismatch between the ballots cast and the database.

See this paper by Kathy Dopp, which I consider to be her most important work, that shows how to calculate the odds of finding corrupted machines using the hypergeometric distribution:
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Paper_Audits.pdf

What we need are laws that allow this to be used as evidence to obtain a recount if the election is close enough that the outcome is still in question after an initial random audit that comes out clean.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

31. How Moveon helped North Carolina - not really

I have to admit that Moveon once (I mean once) sent out an alert asking it's NC members (I hope) to call their state lawmakers.

Unfortunately, they hadn't updated their information, so the wrong contact information was sent out for some folks.

They have really been useless.

However, this was long overdue, considering that True Majority, Common Cause and VerifiedVoting were there from the beginning.

I remember how hard some of us worked to lobby MoveON to pick up this issue.

I do know that Moveon wasted alot of time making folks think they were doing something by sending the Congress emails to ask them to censure Rumsfeld or something lame like that.

TIME WASTERS - that is what they do - there are people who expect Moveon to keep them informed on key issues.

[Kip Humphrey]

33. HEADLINE: MOveOn Steals Credit for VVPBs from the Real Election Activism

Movement. MoveOn has done NOTHING to support the movement. MoveOn turned their backs on the 2004 election and never looked back. Now, they associate themselves with the hard work of many selfless activists who spent their own resources to battle our stolen elections. Shame on MoveOn! Where's their money to support the likes of Joyce McCloy, Kathy Dopp, Ellen Theisen, etc., etc., etc.??? Where's their voice to inform people their elections have been stolen?

[garybeck]

34. I agree for the most part...

they got top heavy... too much of a blind follower of the DLC who doesn't seem to care about election reform (or an unjust war).

plus their name doesn't really fit to our cause... I say DON'T GET OVER IT. if we get over it and "move on" we'll be facing the same thing next time.

the bothersome thing is how they claim to be involved.

[Bill Bored]

40. I always thought their name was supposed to be sarcastic.

Like we weren't supposed to move on.
Al Gore made a great speech for them just before the election though.
He was a much better campaigner in 2004 than Kerry!
I wonder if Al gets it now?

[Bill Bored]

39. I agree. Once I saw some poll in which they asked what the most important

issues are. VVPB/VVPAT was number 2 or 3. Some guy had written a very clear argument for it. I posted it here so DU MoveOn members could chime in and bump the issue up to number 1 on the hit parade. A few did, but I imagine that there were so many of us fed up with MoveOn by then, that there weren't many responses. Anyway, the topic moved up to number 1 or 2. I'm not sure what they did about it after that.

[Einsteinia]

41. MoveOn helping?

This is news to me. They're helping how? They've been hopelessly deaf and mute on this issue. They better just MoveOn!

[Peace Patriot]

42. Here is the sentence that I would have highliighted (in addition to the

one about voters being able to verify their votes on touchscreens):
"The momentum is building for nationwide rules to round out the state-by-state victories."

Once they take away state/local power over election systems, our democracy is over. "Nationwide rules" is only one step from federalization of our elections, with the counting of our votes done in secret by the likes of Wally O'Dell and the Ahmansons.

And by "they," I do mean both the Bush Cartel and the many corrupt and/or collusive Democrats who have sold out our right to vote for lavish lobbying perks from Bushite electronic voting companies or future job offers (our election officials), or because they are War Democrats and believe that the vast antiwar majority in this country needs to be "controlled" (Senators, Congresspeople and others).

I believe that our only hope for restoring majority rule is the state/local power over election systems, where ordinary people still have potential influence. If they impose "natonal rules," this will likely mean--or quickly lead to--imposition of electronic voting by federal fiat, denial of our right to go back to a paper ballot system, and no hope of an auditing and security system with open source code that is transparent and verifiable.

I think that possibly the worst thing that we have discovered is the corruption among Democrat election officials and other leaders on this electronic voting system boondoggle. It is the thing that has shocked me the most. I was absolutely blown away by what Calif DEMOCRATS did to Calif Sec of State Kevin Shelley (after he sued Diebold).

To imagine that the SOLUTION to our loss of our right to vote is going to come from a bill that Bush's "pod people" in Congress have their hands, or from the major Bush donors who own and control these electronic systems, is insanity. And, yes, I believe that MoveOn and most of our Democratic leadership is as insane (disconnected from reality) as Bush is, in their own way. This is INSANITY.