[Election-Methods] ITBusiness.ca - Rogue code could seriously skew US presidential election results

[Kathy Dopp]

Dear Election Methods Experts,

A news article published online today in Canadian ITBusiness.ca
reports on the ongoing work of the U.S. National Science Foundation's
U.S. Voting System Project ACCURATE:

Rogue code could seriously skew US presidential election results
ITBusiness.ca - Scarborough,Ontario,Canada, June 25, 2008

 1) "One programmer could make a change that would affect 100,000
votes." – Page 1
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/news.asp?id=48929

2) "If these machines were rigged, we'd never know it." – Page 2
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=48929&PageMem=2

3) "Viruses could be put in the Diebold Accuvote to change votes." – Page 3
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=48929&PageMem=3

Notice that the Diebold/Premier voting system is specifically
mentioned in the article.

The U.S. League of Women Voters in 2006 adopted a resolution
supporting routine manual audits of voter verified paper ballots. An
exact copy of the LWV of US position on "US Voting Systems Under HAVA"
is posted online here:
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/LWVUS-Resolution2006.pdf

Here is the most scientifically correct and most do-able election
auditing proposal (written to be general to any State) which has been
reviewed and contributed to by several county election officials, by a
Ph.D. statistician, a Ph.D. mathematician, a member of the US EAC
Technical Guidelines Development Committee,  and several League of
Women Voter Members.
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/legislative/VoteCountAuditBillRequest.pdf


Winners of federal elections control budgets in the trillions of
dollars.  There is both motive and opportunity to undetectably tamper
with, or inadvertently miscount, elections by persons of any political
persuasion, in primary or general elections.

As Utahn and retired Army Sergeant Mark Jarman said:

"We can all agree that any real threat to polling integrity would
likely come from someone with "inside" or privileged access; it
therefore makes little sense to allow the "insiders" to have exclusive
oversight responsibility. Since polling integrity is really in the
best interest of the voters *not* the politicians, it follows that the
voters *not* the politicians should be the ones fulfilling primary
oversight functions."

CORRECTION:

In endnote #v. of my June 20, 2008 report entitled "Realities Mar
Instant Runoff Voting - 17 Flaws and 3 Benefits" I erred in stating
that the Nation magazine article "Boxed In" by Peter C. Baker
"espouses the pro-IRV position".

I would like to thank "Boxed In" author, Peter C. Baker, for pointing
out my mistake.

Baker's article in The Nation magazine concludes that "IRV has many
flaws" and says that "As an institution, Fair Vote is obviously
terrified of admitting possible holes in IRV's armor."  Baker provides
an interesting example of another vagary of the IRV method by
illustrating how a winning candidate could lose by *gaining more
votes* from a losing candidate, thus causing a different candidate to
be eliminated in the first round.

See https://thenation.com/ or http://rangevoting.org/Baker2BookRev.html

(Please notice that any corrections made to my report on Instant
Runoff Voting have made the case against IRV stronger. In other words,
the first version of my report under-estimated the flaws of Instant
Runoff Voting.  Let's solve fundamental election integrity and
accuracy problems before cautiously considering alternative voting
methods!  The revised report on the 17 flaws and 3 benefits of Instant
Runoff Voting is posted on-line here:
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf
)



-- 

Kathy Dopp

The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author
Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a
Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in
exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

P.O. Box 680192
Park City, UT 84068
phone 435-658-4657

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://electionarchive.org

History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of
Election Auditing Fundamentals
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf

Vote Yes on HR5036
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/legislation/SummaryFlyer5036.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote
Thomas Jefferson in 1816