The Center for Voting and Democracy
is dedicated to fair elections where every vote counts and all voters are represented
Citizens' Guide to Voting Equipment: Find out what equipment your community should have and make sure that any new equipment is compatible with all voting systems used in the U.S.
Become a Democracy Activist. Suggestions and encouragement for promoting full representation and instant runoff voting in your city and state.
Center for Voting and Democracy
31 March 2003
30 March 2003
List of Handy Dandy Federal Government Resources
Federal Government Resources List
Courtesy of Moose and Squirrel
Federal Government Resources List
Courtesy of Moose and Squirrel
Federal Election Commission
On this site you will find elections results, information about electoral college, voter registration, etc, plus the following section with links regarding voting systems:
The Administrative Structure of U.S. Elections
The Administrative Structure of State Election Offices
Voting Systems
Paper ballot
Mechanical lever machine
Punchcards
Marksense
Direct Recording Electronic
FAQ’s about Voting Systems Standards
A History of the Voting Systems Standards Program
Voting System Standards
Implementing the Voting systems Standards
Known Vendors of Computerized Vote Tabulation Systems
FEC
On this site you will find elections results, information about electoral college, voter registration, etc, plus the following section with links regarding voting systems:
The Administrative Structure of U.S. Elections
The Administrative Structure of State Election Offices
Voting Systems
Paper ballot
Mechanical lever machine
Punchcards
Marksense
Direct Recording Electronic
FAQ’s about Voting Systems Standards
A History of the Voting Systems Standards Program
Voting System Standards
Implementing the Voting systems Standards
Known Vendors of Computerized Vote Tabulation Systems
FEC
Electronic Voting
I (David Dill) am organizing opposition to paperless electronic voting machines by technologists, especially computer science researchers. I have written a resolution, for which I would like to recruit endorsements.
The Resolution on Electronic Voting
This statement is intended be a message from technologists to the rest of the public, the gist of which is: Do not be seduced by the apparent convenience of "touch-screen voting" machines, or the "gee whiz" factor that accompanies flashy new technology. Using these machines is tantamount to handing complete control of vote counting to a private company, with no independent checks or audits. These machines represent a serious threat to democracy. Much better alternatives are available for upgrading voting equipment.
Read Article
I (David Dill) am organizing opposition to paperless electronic voting machines by technologists, especially computer science researchers. I have written a resolution, for which I would like to recruit endorsements.
The Resolution on Electronic Voting
This statement is intended be a message from technologists to the rest of the public, the gist of which is: Do not be seduced by the apparent convenience of "touch-screen voting" machines, or the "gee whiz" factor that accompanies flashy new technology. Using these machines is tantamount to handing complete control of vote counting to a private company, with no independent checks or audits. These machines represent a serious threat to democracy. Much better alternatives are available for upgrading voting equipment.
Read Article
29 March 2003
How to Rig a Touch Screen Voting Machine
By Bill Sterner
I have been in the computer programming business for over 30 years. I have written code that runs in devices like the Touch Screen voting machines. When I decided to write this piece, I wanted to describe what it would take to rig a Touch Screen and get away with it and make it very, very, very hard to detect.
View this article, plus a political cartoon, "No Votes to Recount in Florida" at All Hat No Cattle
By Bill Sterner
I have been in the computer programming business for over 30 years. I have written code that runs in devices like the Touch Screen voting machines. When I decided to write this piece, I wanted to describe what it would take to rig a Touch Screen and get away with it and make it very, very, very hard to detect.
View this article, plus a political cartoon, "No Votes to Recount in Florida" at All Hat No Cattle
Welcome to the Machine
Glitch Wins by a Landslide
by BEN TRIPP
February 20, 2003
Computerized voting machines in the 2002 election did all kinds of weird things: if you pressed the Democrat's name in some counties in Texas, for example, the Republican's name was chosen. And in Cormal County, Texas, three Republican candidates won by exactly 18,181 votes apiece. There's the kind of coincidence the FBI loves. But it gets even more amazing: in two other races elsewhere in this great nation, Republicans won by--wait for it--18,181 votes. The odds of this are similar to the odds of waking up on the surface of Mars with your underwear on your head and a bowling trophy gripped between your knees. These results were eventually 'adjusted', proving it was all just a wacky coincidence. But how can we know? Because there is no physical evidence of how a vote was cast. No punch card, no paper ballot, no twig with notches in it. And they stopped doing exit polling in 2002 (apparently the results weren't coming out right-- I see what they mean) so we can't even get an objective comparison of the digital results with the voter's intentions by asking them how they voted as they leave the polling place, bilious and sickened. Kind of makes you feel all scared and crampy, doesn't it? But yes, gentle reader, it does get worse.
There is a complex connection between the companies that make voting software and machines and the GOP, as mentioned above. But it's not some remote connection that only folks with tinfoil beanies and radios in their fillings could understand. These are partnerships, blind trusts, corporate ownership kind of connections. Who's pals with whom. Connections that make sense of some of the most astonishing outcomes of 2002, where vast majorities of black voters voted for anti-black candidates, for example, or where Republican votes skyrocked and Democratic numbers plummeted, reversing historic trends, or machines tallied more votes than were actually cast (according to a Florida official a 10% margin of error is acceptable--that would be over ten million votes nationwide). In Alabama, Democrat Don Siegelman won the election for governor and went home. The next morning, 6,300 of his votes were gone, and Republican Bob Riley took the job instead. Don't worry: ES&S is looking into the problem. Not the government, not an independent commission. Golly.
Read Article
Glitch Wins by a Landslide
by BEN TRIPP
February 20, 2003
Computerized voting machines in the 2002 election did all kinds of weird things: if you pressed the Democrat's name in some counties in Texas, for example, the Republican's name was chosen. And in Cormal County, Texas, three Republican candidates won by exactly 18,181 votes apiece. There's the kind of coincidence the FBI loves. But it gets even more amazing: in two other races elsewhere in this great nation, Republicans won by--wait for it--18,181 votes. The odds of this are similar to the odds of waking up on the surface of Mars with your underwear on your head and a bowling trophy gripped between your knees. These results were eventually 'adjusted', proving it was all just a wacky coincidence. But how can we know? Because there is no physical evidence of how a vote was cast. No punch card, no paper ballot, no twig with notches in it. And they stopped doing exit polling in 2002 (apparently the results weren't coming out right-- I see what they mean) so we can't even get an objective comparison of the digital results with the voter's intentions by asking them how they voted as they leave the polling place, bilious and sickened. Kind of makes you feel all scared and crampy, doesn't it? But yes, gentle reader, it does get worse.
There is a complex connection between the companies that make voting software and machines and the GOP, as mentioned above. But it's not some remote connection that only folks with tinfoil beanies and radios in their fillings could understand. These are partnerships, blind trusts, corporate ownership kind of connections. Who's pals with whom. Connections that make sense of some of the most astonishing outcomes of 2002, where vast majorities of black voters voted for anti-black candidates, for example, or where Republican votes skyrocked and Democratic numbers plummeted, reversing historic trends, or machines tallied more votes than were actually cast (according to a Florida official a 10% margin of error is acceptable--that would be over ten million votes nationwide). In Alabama, Democrat Don Siegelman won the election for governor and went home. The next morning, 6,300 of his votes were gone, and Republican Bob Riley took the job instead. Don't worry: ES&S is looking into the problem. Not the government, not an independent commission. Golly.
Read Article
Voting into the void
New touch-screen voting machines may look spiffy, but some experts say they can't be trusted.
By Farhad Manjoo
Salon.com
Nov. 5, 2002
In mid-September, a few days after yet another problem-ridden election in Florida, Rebecca Mercuri got a phone call from Janet Reno. Mercuri, a computer science professor at Bryn Mawr, wasn't very surprised to hear from the former attorney general; Reno had already been declared the unofficial loser in Florida's Democratic gubernatorial primary, and Mercuri, who during the past two years has become the country's fiercest critic of electronic voting machines, has recently found herself indispensable to losers.
A fast-talking, fact-toting woman who can recount dozens of stories of voting machines going disastrously haywire, Mercuri goes into a region whose election has been held up and proceeds to hold forth. Mercuri tells everyone she can, from election judges to county supervisors to the local media, that the supposedly "state-of-the-art" machines they've all been sold are nothing but a "a bill of goods."
Read Article
New touch-screen voting machines may look spiffy, but some experts say they can't be trusted.
By Farhad Manjoo
Salon.com
Nov. 5, 2002
In mid-September, a few days after yet another problem-ridden election in Florida, Rebecca Mercuri got a phone call from Janet Reno. Mercuri, a computer science professor at Bryn Mawr, wasn't very surprised to hear from the former attorney general; Reno had already been declared the unofficial loser in Florida's Democratic gubernatorial primary, and Mercuri, who during the past two years has become the country's fiercest critic of electronic voting machines, has recently found herself indispensable to losers.
A fast-talking, fact-toting woman who can recount dozens of stories of voting machines going disastrously haywire, Mercuri goes into a region whose election has been held up and proceeds to hold forth. Mercuri tells everyone she can, from election judges to county supervisors to the local media, that the supposedly "state-of-the-art" machines they've all been sold are nothing but a "a bill of goods."
Read Article
Hacking democracy?
Computerized vote-counting machines are sweeping the country. But they can be hacked -- and right now there's no way to be sure they haven't been.
By Farhad Manjoo
Salon.com
Feb. 20, 2003
During the past five months, Bev Harris has e-mailed to news organizations a series of reports that detail alarming problems in the high-tech voting machinery currently sweeping its way through American democracy. But almost no one is paying attention.
Harris is a literary publicist and writer whose investigations into the secret world of voting equipment firms have led some to call her the Erin Brockovich of elections. Harris has discovered, for example, that Diebold, the company that supplied touch-screen voting machines to Georgia during the 2002 election, made its system's sensitive software files available on a public Internet site. She has reported on the certification process for machines coming onto the market -- revealing that the software code running the equipment is seldom thoroughly reviewed and can often be changed with mysteriously installed "patches" just prior to an election. And in perhaps her most eyebrow-raising coup, she found that Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used to run the company that built most of the machines that count votes in his state -- and that he still owns a stake in the firm.
Harris hasn't been alone in making such discoveries. A small group of writers, technologists and activists is working hard to convince elections officials all over the country that their rush to upgrade aging punch-card machines with seemingly more reliable touch-screen systems is dangerous. But so far neither the general public nor elections officials appear too worried.
Read Article
Computerized vote-counting machines are sweeping the country. But they can be hacked -- and right now there's no way to be sure they haven't been.
By Farhad Manjoo
Salon.com
Feb. 20, 2003
During the past five months, Bev Harris has e-mailed to news organizations a series of reports that detail alarming problems in the high-tech voting machinery currently sweeping its way through American democracy. But almost no one is paying attention.
Harris is a literary publicist and writer whose investigations into the secret world of voting equipment firms have led some to call her the Erin Brockovich of elections. Harris has discovered, for example, that Diebold, the company that supplied touch-screen voting machines to Georgia during the 2002 election, made its system's sensitive software files available on a public Internet site. She has reported on the certification process for machines coming onto the market -- revealing that the software code running the equipment is seldom thoroughly reviewed and can often be changed with mysteriously installed "patches" just prior to an election. And in perhaps her most eyebrow-raising coup, she found that Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used to run the company that built most of the machines that count votes in his state -- and that he still owns a stake in the firm.
Harris hasn't been alone in making such discoveries. A small group of writers, technologists and activists is working hard to convince elections officials all over the country that their rush to upgrade aging punch-card machines with seemingly more reliable touch-screen systems is dangerous. But so far neither the general public nor elections officials appear too worried.
Read Article
Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering
by Faun Otter
You can't vote them out if....
You never voted them in.
The lack of any exit polling on November 5 has been oddly ignored by the media. Those pesky tracking polls leading up to the elections have been explained away by a ‘late surge to the Republicans’ caused by.... hmmmm, how about sun spot activity? With no exit polls, there was no other feedback to conflict with the "official" results, this allowed the Diebold touch screen machines to change the way election fraud is carried out.
Bartcop - Diebold
by Faun Otter
You can't vote them out if....
You never voted them in.
The lack of any exit polling on November 5 has been oddly ignored by the media. Those pesky tracking polls leading up to the elections have been explained away by a ‘late surge to the Republicans’ caused by.... hmmmm, how about sun spot activity? With no exit polls, there was no other feedback to conflict with the "official" results, this allowed the Diebold touch screen machines to change the way election fraud is carried out.
Bartcop - Diebold
28 March 2003
Suddenly a Paper Trail is Possible
In a major turn of events, all three voting machine makers competing for Santa Clara County's contract have told election officials that they're prepared to offer paper copies of touch-screen ballots for voters to inspect. Better yet, they'll include this feature at no cost to the county.
The vendors' concession is a big victory for computer scientists who've been clamoring for a voter-verifiable paper audit. It's also an offer supervisors have no reason to refuse.
Read Article
In a major turn of events, all three voting machine makers competing for Santa Clara County's contract have told election officials that they're prepared to offer paper copies of touch-screen ballots for voters to inspect. Better yet, they'll include this feature at no cost to the county.
The vendors' concession is a big victory for computer scientists who've been clamoring for a voter-verifiable paper audit. It's also an offer supervisors have no reason to refuse.
Read Article
If you want to win an election, just control the voting machines
by Thom Hartmann
Maybe Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel honestly won two US Senate elections. Maybe it's true that the citizens of Georgia simply decided that incumbent Democratic Senator Max Cleland, a wildly popular war veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was, as his successful Republican challenger suggested in his campaign ads, too unpatriotic to remain in the Senate. Maybe George W. Bush, Alabama's new Republican governor Bob Riley, and a small but congressionally decisive handful of other long-shot Republican candidates really did win those states where conventional wisdom and straw polls showed them losing in the last few election cycles.
Perhaps, after a half-century of fine-tuning exit polling to such a science that it's now sometimes used to verify how clean elections are in Third World countries, it really did suddenly become inaccurate in the United States in the past six years and just won't work here anymore. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that the sudden rise of inaccurate exit polls happened around the same time corporate-programmed, computer-controlled, modem-capable voting machines began recording and tabulating ballots.
But if any of this is true, there's not much of a paper trail from the voters' hand to prove it.
Read Article
by Thom Hartmann
Maybe Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel honestly won two US Senate elections. Maybe it's true that the citizens of Georgia simply decided that incumbent Democratic Senator Max Cleland, a wildly popular war veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was, as his successful Republican challenger suggested in his campaign ads, too unpatriotic to remain in the Senate. Maybe George W. Bush, Alabama's new Republican governor Bob Riley, and a small but congressionally decisive handful of other long-shot Republican candidates really did win those states where conventional wisdom and straw polls showed them losing in the last few election cycles.
Perhaps, after a half-century of fine-tuning exit polling to such a science that it's now sometimes used to verify how clean elections are in Third World countries, it really did suddenly become inaccurate in the United States in the past six years and just won't work here anymore. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that the sudden rise of inaccurate exit polls happened around the same time corporate-programmed, computer-controlled, modem-capable voting machines began recording and tabulating ballots.
But if any of this is true, there's not much of a paper trail from the voters' hand to prove it.
Read Article
Now your vote is the property of a private corporation
by Thom Hartmann
--snip
Fast-forward a few days to the first week of March, 2003.
Dan Spillane, a former software engineer for a voting machine company that includes a former CIA Director and Dick Cheney's former assistant on its board of directors, has sued his employer for firing him when he pointed out holes in their system that he claims could lead to vote-rigging. Although there is a certification process for ensuring the honesty of votes tabulated by computerized, touch-screen voting machines, according to Spillane the system works "very much like Arthur Andersen in the Enron case."
Read Article
by Thom Hartmann
--snip
Fast-forward a few days to the first week of March, 2003.
Dan Spillane, a former software engineer for a voting machine company that includes a former CIA Director and Dick Cheney's former assistant on its board of directors, has sued his employer for firing him when he pointed out holes in their system that he claims could lead to vote-rigging. Although there is a certification process for ensuring the honesty of votes tabulated by computerized, touch-screen voting machines, according to Spillane the system works "very much like Arthur Andersen in the Enron case."
Read Article
Touch-screens on hold until fall
By Jaime Castillo
San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted : 03/07/2003 12:00 AM
The county's new touch-screen voting system will not be used during early voting for the May 3 municipal election as previously planned, county elections officials said Thursday.
Several necessary software upgrades that emerged during the recent San Antonio River Authority election need state approval and have not been implemented, county Elections Administrator Cliff Borofsky said.
The delay is not expected to affect long-range plans to roll out the system for both early and Election Day voting in November, Borofsky and county officials told members of the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board.
In the meantime, city voters will return to the familiar paper-ballot system that was slated to be replaced by the touch-screen machines. Last year, the county purchased 2,233 of the computerized balloting machines and other equipment for $8.1 million from Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb. (The company controlled by Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, and Michael R. McCarthy, his campaign Treasurer.)
Officials already had planned to use the paper ballots May 3.
County Judge Nelson Wolff said the issue will be discussed at Tuesday's Commissioners Court meeting. He said he supports the delay until after May to avoid a repeat of last year's general election, which took more than 30 hours to become official.
Read Article
By Jaime Castillo
San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted : 03/07/2003 12:00 AM
The county's new touch-screen voting system will not be used during early voting for the May 3 municipal election as previously planned, county elections officials said Thursday.
Several necessary software upgrades that emerged during the recent San Antonio River Authority election need state approval and have not been implemented, county Elections Administrator Cliff Borofsky said.
The delay is not expected to affect long-range plans to roll out the system for both early and Election Day voting in November, Borofsky and county officials told members of the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board.
In the meantime, city voters will return to the familiar paper-ballot system that was slated to be replaced by the touch-screen machines. Last year, the county purchased 2,233 of the computerized balloting machines and other equipment for $8.1 million from Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb. (The company controlled by Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, and Michael R. McCarthy, his campaign Treasurer.)
Officials already had planned to use the paper ballots May 3.
County Judge Nelson Wolff said the issue will be discussed at Tuesday's Commissioners Court meeting. He said he supports the delay until after May to avoid a repeat of last year's general election, which took more than 30 hours to become official.
Read Article
Saudi Link to LI Start-Up
Unnamed investors take over voting Web site
By Mark Harrington
Staff Writer
February 27, 2003
Election.com, a struggling Garden City start-up scheduled to provide online absentee ballots for U.S. military personnel in the 2004 federal election, has quietly sold controlling power to an investment group with ties to unnamed Saudi nationals, according to company correspondence.
Read Article
(Note: This article appeared on a different page address at Newsday, then disappeared. Found later on the Newsday page link above, but if you find that the article is missing again, below is an alternative link to a copy of the article.)
Article Here
Unnamed investors take over voting Web site
By Mark Harrington
Staff Writer
February 27, 2003
Election.com, a struggling Garden City start-up scheduled to provide online absentee ballots for U.S. military personnel in the 2004 federal election, has quietly sold controlling power to an investment group with ties to unnamed Saudi nationals, according to company correspondence.
Read Article
(Note: This article appeared on a different page address at Newsday, then disappeared. Found later on the Newsday page link above, but if you find that the article is missing again, below is an alternative link to a copy of the article.)
Article Here
Absentee ballot surge spurs fraud alert
Unusual "spikes" in absentee ballot requests in Cicero and Chicago Heights have prompted the Cook County clerk's office to cancel more than 250 requests and put those suburbs on watch for possible fraud.
--snip
Many voters told investigators they were coerced by campaign workers into applying for absentee ballots, which is a felony. In some cases, workers told voters they would help them fill out ballots, also a felony.
--snip
All of that signals that "the rules for absentee voting have clearly gone by the wayside," Orr said. "Dishonest political workers are taking advantage of voters' ignorance of the system and making up their own rules."
Read Article
Unusual "spikes" in absentee ballot requests in Cicero and Chicago Heights have prompted the Cook County clerk's office to cancel more than 250 requests and put those suburbs on watch for possible fraud.
--snip
Many voters told investigators they were coerced by campaign workers into applying for absentee ballots, which is a felony. In some cases, workers told voters they would help them fill out ballots, also a felony.
--snip
All of that signals that "the rules for absentee voting have clearly gone by the wayside," Orr said. "Dishonest political workers are taking advantage of voters' ignorance of the system and making up their own rules."
Read Article
Everyone into the Battle! It's 1776 all over again, but this time, YOU are there.
It is now effectively illegal for citizens in 49 states to count their own votes on election day. This is an exact reversal of the way we counted votes from the days of the Founding Fathers until computers were introduced in the 1970's. By at least as early as 1988, vote tabulating had been systematically taken out of the hands of the American people in every state but New Hampshire, which still counts votes by hand in 70% of the neighborhood polling places. Americans are now no better off than Russians under Communism or third worlders under tin-horn dictators with regard to determining our future through the precious right to vote.
NOTHING — no issue you care about — can be fixed without restoring honest elections — short of armed rebellion. Rush Limbaugh and Gordon Liddy (among others) claim that we can change things by voting. The implication of that position is that we can verify that what is voted by the people in the precincts is what will be announced that night on TV. This is false as things stand (see quote from Popular Science magazine below Main Menu). We have lost our right to honest elections. It's now up to those running the software programs and the Big Media whether or not an election is honest. The Secretaries of State (New Hampshire excluded) and those officials running the Boards of Election in 3000+ counties have totally abdicated their responsibilities in the matter of honest and verifiable elections with citizen checks and balances.
The whole purpose of an election is to have a real chance to throw the current power behind the government OUT. When you have to let the government count the vote in the back room, and they make it illegal for you to witness what they are doing, YOU are a SERF. The bi-partisan duopoly behind the National Democratic and National Republican Parties, in collusion with the Big TV Networks, have made us serfs in this matter over the last 25 years. (The same collusion of the two big Parties with the 4 Big TV Networks is afoot in the disgraceful Presidential Debate Commission which is making absurd rules to try limit the debates to the Democratic and Republican nominees only.)
Read Article
It is now effectively illegal for citizens in 49 states to count their own votes on election day. This is an exact reversal of the way we counted votes from the days of the Founding Fathers until computers were introduced in the 1970's. By at least as early as 1988, vote tabulating had been systematically taken out of the hands of the American people in every state but New Hampshire, which still counts votes by hand in 70% of the neighborhood polling places. Americans are now no better off than Russians under Communism or third worlders under tin-horn dictators with regard to determining our future through the precious right to vote.
NOTHING — no issue you care about — can be fixed without restoring honest elections — short of armed rebellion. Rush Limbaugh and Gordon Liddy (among others) claim that we can change things by voting. The implication of that position is that we can verify that what is voted by the people in the precincts is what will be announced that night on TV. This is false as things stand (see quote from Popular Science magazine below Main Menu). We have lost our right to honest elections. It's now up to those running the software programs and the Big Media whether or not an election is honest. The Secretaries of State (New Hampshire excluded) and those officials running the Boards of Election in 3000+ counties have totally abdicated their responsibilities in the matter of honest and verifiable elections with citizen checks and balances.
The whole purpose of an election is to have a real chance to throw the current power behind the government OUT. When you have to let the government count the vote in the back room, and they make it illegal for you to witness what they are doing, YOU are a SERF. The bi-partisan duopoly behind the National Democratic and National Republican Parties, in collusion with the Big TV Networks, have made us serfs in this matter over the last 25 years. (The same collusion of the two big Parties with the 4 Big TV Networks is afoot in the disgraceful Presidential Debate Commission which is making absurd rules to try limit the debates to the Democratic and Republican nominees only.)
Read Article
Computerized Balloting is Taking Over Elections In Maryland -
But Can We Trust the Results?
By Van Smith
On Nov. 21, a computer programmer for Autotote, an electronic-wagering company, admitted in court that he was the "inside man" in a computer-based scheme that manipulated horse-racing stakes, culminating in an Oct. 23 Breeders' Cup wager that would have yielded $3 million in winnings for a Baltimore man had the bet not raised suspicions.
The scandal prompted the National Thoroughbred Racing Association to convene a panel headed by former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani to review the industry's computer-betting system. It also spawned a lawsuit: Gambler Jimmy "the Hat" Allard accuses Autotote of negligence, claiming in a statement made through his law firm that the "betting public may have been cheated out of countless millions of dollars for possibly the past eight years" due to lapses in the company's computer security.
This fall, voters in four Maryland counties for the first time cast ballots on computerized voting machines using a technology called "direct recording electronic" (DRE), a system that Baltimoreans have been using since 1998. The whole state is scheduled to switch over to a unified computer voting system by 2006, but DRE system skeptics question the system's security because, just like the Breeders' Cup betting scandal, it could be rigged using computer code.
Imagine a computer programmer at Diebold Election Systems or Sequoia Pacific Systems, the two companies that manufacture computer voting machines used in Maryland, manipulating the software code used to run the machines to tweak the results in favor of some candidate, some party, some agenda. Imagine that he or she gets caught overreaching. Losers and voters in computerized elections nationwide would mull lawsuits and question the integrity of their races' results, just as Allard questions whether bettors have been cheated all along by the Autotote system.
Read Article
But Can We Trust the Results?
By Van Smith
On Nov. 21, a computer programmer for Autotote, an electronic-wagering company, admitted in court that he was the "inside man" in a computer-based scheme that manipulated horse-racing stakes, culminating in an Oct. 23 Breeders' Cup wager that would have yielded $3 million in winnings for a Baltimore man had the bet not raised suspicions.
The scandal prompted the National Thoroughbred Racing Association to convene a panel headed by former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani to review the industry's computer-betting system. It also spawned a lawsuit: Gambler Jimmy "the Hat" Allard accuses Autotote of negligence, claiming in a statement made through his law firm that the "betting public may have been cheated out of countless millions of dollars for possibly the past eight years" due to lapses in the company's computer security.
This fall, voters in four Maryland counties for the first time cast ballots on computerized voting machines using a technology called "direct recording electronic" (DRE), a system that Baltimoreans have been using since 1998. The whole state is scheduled to switch over to a unified computer voting system by 2006, but DRE system skeptics question the system's security because, just like the Breeders' Cup betting scandal, it could be rigged using computer code.
Imagine a computer programmer at Diebold Election Systems or Sequoia Pacific Systems, the two companies that manufacture computer voting machines used in Maryland, manipulating the software code used to run the machines to tweak the results in favor of some candidate, some party, some agenda. Imagine that he or she gets caught overreaching. Losers and voters in computerized elections nationwide would mull lawsuits and question the integrity of their races' results, just as Allard questions whether bettors have been cheated all along by the Autotote system.
Read Article
New Voting Systems Assailed
Computer Experts Cite Fraud Potential
By Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 28, 2003; Page A12
As election officials rush to spend billions to update the country's voting machines with electronic systems, computer scientists are mounting a challenge to the new devices, saying they are less reliable and less secure from fraud than the equipment they are replacing.
Read Article
Computer Experts Cite Fraud Potential
By Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 28, 2003; Page A12
As election officials rush to spend billions to update the country's voting machines with electronic systems, computer scientists are mounting a challenge to the new devices, saying they are less reliable and less secure from fraud than the equipment they are replacing.
Read Article
Paperless Voting Machines Under Fire
By Rachel Konrad
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 25, 2003; 7:55 PM
At least one in 10 voters nationwide cast ballots in the last presidential election on electronic voting machines, whose popularity is growing as counties replace the antiquated systems blamed for Florida's hanging chad debacle.
But in Silicon Valley, computer scientists want to halt the trend - at least until voting machines are redesigned to produce a paper record of every vote. They say paper backups offer more protection against hackers - or political hacks - who might tamper with electronic results.
Read Article
By Rachel Konrad
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 25, 2003; 7:55 PM
At least one in 10 voters nationwide cast ballots in the last presidential election on electronic voting machines, whose popularity is growing as counties replace the antiquated systems blamed for Florida's hanging chad debacle.
But in Silicon Valley, computer scientists want to halt the trend - at least until voting machines are redesigned to produce a paper record of every vote. They say paper backups offer more protection against hackers - or political hacks - who might tamper with electronic results.
Read Article
Computerized voting lacks paper trail, scholar warns
Stanford Report, February 4, 2003
Warning of programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious tampering, computer scientists from around the country, led by Stanford Professor David Dill, say computerized voting machines should provide a voter-verifiable audit trail.
"The problem is not really with computerized voting systems per se," Dill says. "The problem is really that there is no way to double-check the results. It's really a problem of accountability."
More than 110 computer scientists and technologists from universities and laboratories across the nation have signed Dill's "Resolution on Electronic Voting," which states that it is "crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked."
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Stanford Report, February 4, 2003
Warning of programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious tampering, computer scientists from around the country, led by Stanford Professor David Dill, say computerized voting machines should provide a voter-verifiable audit trail.
"The problem is not really with computerized voting systems per se," Dill says. "The problem is really that there is no way to double-check the results. It's really a problem of accountability."
More than 110 computer scientists and technologists from universities and laboratories across the nation have signed Dill's "Resolution on Electronic Voting," which states that it is "crucial that voting equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit trail, by which we mean a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked."
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Nebraska DNC Call For Audits of Voting Machines
Saturday, 22 March 2003, 6:53 pm
Press Release: US Democratic Party
Nebraska DNC Call For Audits of Voting Machines
To Democratic Partners in Leadership,
This an urgent message to alert you to a major crisis facing our Democratic system. Vigilance has always been required to protect our voting rights and the ballot box from corruption. However, the use of computers to record and count the votes has created a major new problem. Today votes can be stolen electronically with software planted in the voting machines. It only takes one person to change the election results for a whole state.
We are enclosing a draft resolution we are submitting in Nebraska as the first step in dealing with this problem. The resolution suggests four essential features for an audit of voting machines. In addition we have included documentation and Internet sources so you can do your own research into the problem and possible solutions.
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Saturday, 22 March 2003, 6:53 pm
Press Release: US Democratic Party
Nebraska DNC Call For Audits of Voting Machines
To Democratic Partners in Leadership,
This an urgent message to alert you to a major crisis facing our Democratic system. Vigilance has always been required to protect our voting rights and the ballot box from corruption. However, the use of computers to record and count the votes has created a major new problem. Today votes can be stolen electronically with software planted in the voting machines. It only takes one person to change the election results for a whole state.
We are enclosing a draft resolution we are submitting in Nebraska as the first step in dealing with this problem. The resolution suggests four essential features for an audit of voting machines. In addition we have included documentation and Internet sources so you can do your own research into the problem and possible solutions.
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Republicans, Corporate Players Make the Voting Machines
Appearance of Impropriety - New Questions About the Integrity and Security of USA Elections
From... Talion.com
The story is not about allegations of fraud — it's about an appearance of impropriety that is stunning in its magnitude.
Unfettered by any disclosure regulations about ownership or political affiliations, just a few companies create and control almost all the voting machines in the U.S.
Election Systems & Software, the firm whose machines were involved in the 2002 flubbed Florida primary election — and the company that now makes the voting machines for most of America — is a private company that does not like to tell the public who owns it. But at least one major shareholder is Michael R. McCarthy, who runs the McCarthy Group. The McCarthy Group has been a primary owner of Election Systems & Software, including its predecessor, American Information Systems for more than a decade. Michael R. McCarthy is the current campaign Treasurer for Republican senator Chuck Hagel. [See Hagel and McCarthy Documents] Prior to his election, Republican Senator Hagel was president of McCarthy & Company. In fact, he was first elected while his own company was making the vote-counting machines!
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Appearance of Impropriety - New Questions About the Integrity and Security of USA Elections
From... Talion.com
The story is not about allegations of fraud — it's about an appearance of impropriety that is stunning in its magnitude.
Unfettered by any disclosure regulations about ownership or political affiliations, just a few companies create and control almost all the voting machines in the U.S.
Election Systems & Software, the firm whose machines were involved in the 2002 flubbed Florida primary election — and the company that now makes the voting machines for most of America — is a private company that does not like to tell the public who owns it. But at least one major shareholder is Michael R. McCarthy, who runs the McCarthy Group. The McCarthy Group has been a primary owner of Election Systems & Software, including its predecessor, American Information Systems for more than a decade. Michael R. McCarthy is the current campaign Treasurer for Republican senator Chuck Hagel. [See Hagel and McCarthy Documents] Prior to his election, Republican Senator Hagel was president of McCarthy & Company. In fact, he was first elected while his own company was making the vote-counting machines!
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Voting Machine Company Demands Removal Of Articles
Monday, 4 November 2002, 9:29 am
Press Release: Talion.com
ES&S, who makes 56% of the voting machines in the United States, has threatened to sue the owner of Talion.com unless she removes articles about voting machines from her web site.
Bev Harris wrote an article revealing conflict of interest for some owners of voting machine companies, and received a “Demand for Retraction” on October 25, 2002.
ES&S wants Talion.com to remove an article at Talion.com. The retraction demand has been photocopied, and is now posted at
Talion.com/elections-systems. This page contains links to both the latest article on the election companies and the article as it appeared when the letter was sent
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Monday, 4 November 2002, 9:29 am
Press Release: Talion.com
ES&S, who makes 56% of the voting machines in the United States, has threatened to sue the owner of Talion.com unless she removes articles about voting machines from her web site.
Bev Harris wrote an article revealing conflict of interest for some owners of voting machine companies, and received a “Demand for Retraction” on October 25, 2002.
ES&S wants Talion.com to remove an article at Talion.com. The retraction demand has been photocopied, and is now posted at
Talion.com/elections-systems. This page contains links to both the latest article on the election companies and the article as it appeared when the letter was sent
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AMERICAN COUP
November 5th 2002 - The U.S. mid-term elections see the Republican Party take control of all three branches of the U.S. Government. Not everybody believes the remarkable last minute swing in vote in key seats was purely down to George W. Bush's good luck. This page contains links to coverage of the issue of vote rigging, vote fraud, election machine tampering and associated issues.
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November 5th 2002 - The U.S. mid-term elections see the Republican Party take control of all three branches of the U.S. Government. Not everybody believes the remarkable last minute swing in vote in key seats was purely down to George W. Bush's good luck. This page contains links to coverage of the issue of vote rigging, vote fraud, election machine tampering and associated issues.
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