It still bothers me that the very integrity of the electoral process is endangered by EVMs. I

[BridgeTheGap]

I really don't think the repubs can take back Congress without cheating. Is there ANYONE here at DU that believes republicans don't cheat? Anyone who thinks that rigging the system via EVMs isn't a fundamental part of their strategy? Just say'n, you know?

[HereSince1628]

1. They don't need EVM's, just remember Florida in 2000

The republicans stormed the vote countings and terrorized the judges. Americans ACCEPTED the outcome without blood in the streets.

This is NOT a nation that will fight for democracy. We'd rather fight for FREEDOM fries.

[Stevepol]

2. The example you give of 2000 goes to prove that Repubs will do anything they can to win,

legal or illegal -- which just underlines the importance of having a way to verify the results of every election in every precinct. The EVMs as presently used offer the easiest, safest, most undetectable means of cheating yet devised. Many if not most of the active Repubs are cheaters and criminals already, the hard core of them. Finding a way to cheat w/o the slightest fear of being caught is a veritable gold mine for them. Witness SC, where the Repubs, some group therein anyway, just did whatever they damn well pleased no matter how ridiculously obvious the scam and as you point out nobody gave a damn about fairness or about preserving democracy.

[HereSince1628]

3. Yes, and it seems to by and large work for them.

sad. But really, except for phone interference what GOP nastiness from 2000 has been punished?

[Bill Bored]

4. It bothers me more that the Dems do nothing about it.

Consider that vote switching without detection is possible with DREs, optical scanners and punch cards. That's all 3 classes of electronic voting systems. But Dems and Repubs are both responsible for doing away with the one type of voting system, other than hand-counting, that makes vote switching between candidates physically impossible -- the lever voting machine.

To rule out enough of the vote switching that is possible with the other 3 systems so as to be reasonably certain of who won and who lost elections, esp. non-statewide elections, is so complex and onerous that no one in power wants to do it -- neither Dem nor Repub state legislators or county election boards. (There are of course a few exceptions, but they are not enough to protect the franchise.)

So I'd have to argue that the Dems are complicit -- and I don't see much help coming from the third parties either.

I can only think of 3 possible reasons Democrats would tolerate voting systems that permit votes to be switched between candidates:

1. they want to preserve their own ability to cheat; or

2. they trust the Republicans, or their own Democratic election lawyers (who by and large know little about e-vote counting and how to verify computerized results); or

3. they are just plain stupid.

Which of these do you think is most likely, or could it be all 3?

[BridgeTheGap]

5. We had a forum several years ago that our Dem County Clerk (now retired) spoke at and

fielded questions. The forum was on the integrity of elections. Our county had just switched from lever machines to an evm style machine. I asked our county clerk if had concerns about the ease with which these particular machines could be tampered with. He assured us that they couldn't be, as access would be a problem for anyone wanting to do this. I (and most there) didn't buy this explanation. People more knowlegable than me pressed him harder and he essentially displayed what amounted to blind trust. Of the categories you mentioned, I'd have to say this guy was "stupid" when it came to evm tampering.
btw, he is know running for State Senate.

[Bill Bored]

6. Thanks for the post and the thread. So what state are you in?

I think much of the problem is that officials want to treat these systems as if they were lever machines with no software or the inherent risks of software. They are not prepared to audit elections effectively. They don't know how. And when some try to explain how, they think it's too much work, or too complicated.

So we end up with some spot checks sometime after the election, which is a much lower "standard of care" than we have with lever voting machines.

Audits could be improved to be more likely to detect things like vote switching, but it's a lot of work and no one wants to write audit laws with teeth. Without them, or some lawsuits, it won't get done.