[EM] Black Box Voting vs Diebold

[Dave Ketchum]

I scattered this on the wind on Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:05:31 -0400 - seems to
have lit everywhere except EM, so one more try:

Bev Harris keeps throwing rocks; this time with enough detail to
be convincing as to Diebold guilt.  Significantlyguilty
as charged:

        Innocent?  Then they should be able to demonstrate this, and
get her out of their hair permanently.
        Guilty?  Then NOTHING they have anything to do with should be
allowed near any election; especially this year's critical
Presidential election - which will have plenty of questions at best.

The referenced report has to do with central tabulating of votes rather
than voting machines - still, if these tabulators have problems, why
should we trust Diebold voting machines to be better?

Supposedly voting machines get tested.  Why should we trust the testers?

Diebold choice in hiring, and some election officials LACK OF willingness
to learn if the equipment they are planning to use may have serious
problems, make me wonder if blackmail may be involved.

On the other side, some question whether computers can be put together as
dependable voting machines.  If computers cannot be depended on to do what
they are told:
        How dare banks trust ATMs (never mind us as bank customers)?
        How dare we trust hospitals which, more and more, depend on
computers to evaluate our sicknesses and keep records?
        Why all the excitement about paper trails?  What stops an evil
computer from printing one story on the trail and using a different
story in counting votes?  Or in printing and counting one or more trails
to match each pattern voted, and mixing in extra patterns to get desired
results?
        Anyway, why not more interest in demanding that those of us who are
up to understanding such, know EXACTLY WHAT the computers get told?

DWK
================================================================

  > Consumer Report Part 1: Look at this -- the Diebold GEMS central

tabulator contains a stunning security hole
  > Submitted by Bev Harris on Thu, 08/26/2004 - 11:43. Investigations
  > Issue: Manipulation technique found in the Diebold central

tabulator that accumulates votes from all the polling places
  >
  > Public officials: If you are in a county that uses GEMS 1.18.18,

GEMS 1.18.19, or GEMS 1.18.23, your secretary or state may not have

told you about this. You're the one who'll be blamed if your

election is tampered with. Find out for yourself if you have this

problem: Black Box Voting will be happy to walk you through a

diagnostic procedure over the phone. E-mail Bev Harris or Andy

Stephenson to set up a time to do this.
  >
  > For the media: Harris and Stephenson will be in New York City on

Aug. 30, 31, Sep.1, to demonstrate this built-in election tampering

technique.
  >
  > Members of congress and Washington correspondents: Harris and

Stephenson will be in Washington D.C. on Sept. 21 to demonstrate

this problem for you.
  >
Get complete report at  www.blackboxvoting.org

-- 
    davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
    Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
              Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                    If you want peace, work for justice.