Democrats warn that 2004 vote may be rigged

[ringmastery]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pvoting30dec30,0,5115608.story?coll=sfla-news-palm

Critics warned Monday that computer error or outright fraud easily could alter the outcome of elections conducted on Palm Beach County's electronic voting machines.

Vincent J. Lipsio, a software design engineer from Gainesville, said he was not a "conspiracy theorist," but expressed concern about the voting equipment put in use in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election

For example, he said, it would be easy for a beginning computer-science student to rig the devices so that 57 percent of all votes next fall go to President Bush -- regardless of whom the voters actually select.

"There's a lot of history in American politics of ballot box stuffing," he said. "A few deft keystrokes, and all the ballot boxes in a county get stuffed at once."

Lipsio, who volunteers to work on voting issues for the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers, said there are so many potential problems with the computer voting equipment that "we will have no way of knowing how the election really went."

[FDRrocks]

1. lip service is a start

now start doing something?

edit: "LePore said it would be impossible to rig the machines." AHAHAHA that is a blatant lie

[KeepItReal]

2. The Supervisor of Elections must be in someone's back pocket

"County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore said their analysis was deeply flawed.

"It's just a bunch of lies," she said.

LePore said it would be impossible to rig the machines.

What's more, she added, there is so much testing of the machines and software, starting before the state certifies them through public tests before each election, that any problems would be detected.

LePore said that's not a simple fix. "It's not as easy as they think where you go to Office Depot and buy a printer off the shelf."

Equipment and software compatible with the voting machines has to be developed, go through testing and get state certification.

If that ultimately happens, she said, it might cost $600 to $1,000 for each of Palm Beach County's 5,000 voting machines. That's $3 million to $5 million.""

This lady would rather save millions of dollars (that are coming from *outside* of FL thanks to the Help America (not) Vote Act) than ensure an accurate election.

She claims $600 per machine to add a paper trail?? You get one $50/hour programmer (and that's overpriced) to write the code to print the ballot results ONE time...test it...and copy it onto all the PC Voting Machines you bought from that vendor(same process as you would use for a new round of elections). So where's the expense in that again? Must be the printers, right? I got a Color Printer/Scanner/Fax/Copier for $149...

Every time I hear that excuse that it is too expensive to add printers I wanna throw up. That is a line of pure B.S.

[stickdog]

4. LePore is a whore. (nt)

[seemslikeadream]

17. yea but

she's Ahman Khashoggi's whore.

[Dr.Phool]

13. Paper trail

I saw a voting machine on display at the Florida Democratic Convention a few weeks ago that was perfect.

It had a touch screen, and you inserted your paper ballot and smart card into the machine. You then picked your selections, Then the machine walked you through your vote so you could verify your choices. After you verified your vote, you pushed a button and the machine then sucked your ballot in and printed a barcode on the ballot, and a numerical code at the bottom.

You could then go to a chart and verify you vote by the numerical code, or put it under a scanner and then see your votes. You then placed the ballot in it's privacy envelope and dropped it in the box.

When the votes were counted each ballot could oly be counted once, because of the bar code. The machines had no modems or external connections, and no hackable software.

They cost about $ 3000 each.

[Rene]

14. "Unhackable" voting machine demonstration

Who was the manufacturer of those machines?

Were they wired into the Internet....or stand-a-lone.

[RainDog]

19. LaPore=Octopussy

...as in The Trail of the Octopus machinations going back to and before Iran-Contra...

The Wall Street Journal of December 1st, 2000 page one states:

"`Madame Butterfly' Theresa Le Pore wasn't always an embattled Palm Beach ballots chief. In the 1980s she moonlighted as a flightattendant on private planes owned by Saudi weapons dealer Adnan Khashoggi, a middleman in Reagan administration arms sales to Iran."

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. BBV has reached critical mass

FINALLY

[wildwww2]

5. It saved Jeb`s slime covered ass in 2002. I believe it too be true.

It`s us against them. And they are going to cheat their asses off because the media is GOP biased and will help them do it. Just like last time. Although I still think the usurper boy will lose the popular vote by more votes than he did last time. Even though they may have it rigged well enough to steal the electoral votes as before. And the Supreme Court will not faulter to appoint this brain dead murderer again. So we need more attention brought to this issue from our prostitute press. A fat chance of that I know.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

[Loonman]

6. Rep. LaPore

The only elected Dem talking about this issue.


I remember when elected office holders actually represented the people who elected them.

Now the only one in a sea of spineless Dems is talking.

Figures.

[uhhuh]

7. I love this

"You're injecting humans in the process again, just like they did with the punch cards," she said.

Yeah! What's with all these humans? They want to be part ot the voting process? Who do they think they are? Machines are perfect! In fact, we should just remove people from the voting process altogether. Let the machines decide for them, and they can just stay home. Nice and orderly-like.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. You are correct. The rigging of the vote is an overriding issue. I just

don't want Dems to use this issue as an excuse not to try their damndest to get as many seats in Congress and the Senate, and of course, the White House. They must persist and not let anyone or anything silence their voices. One stolen election was one too many.

[Rene]

15. Re: Stolen elections

Try 2 or more stolen elections.
I'm convinced Georgia, Nov 2002 was electronically tampered with.
20 Diebold techs altered code(installed a patch named Rob-Georgia) the week before the election in 22,000 machines. election officials were unaware of the patch, never tested, and now all traces are gone. Coincidentally the Voter News Service 'broke down' the same day...cause the exit poll numbers would not have jived with the "voting results". Polls the day before had the Dems in lead, but actual voting day had many races flipped by same percentages to repugs. All they had to do to subvert the voting was switch exact same numbers....i.e. 500 out of one candidate....500 into another.

[MoonRiver]

20. How can we persist in getting more seats if our votes aren't counted?

We either pursue the electronic voting scam with stone cold determination or our democracy is screwed. We will have an official right wing take-over of the government after 2004 if we're not allowed to vote!

[FlaGranny]

11. LePore is NOT a Democrat now.

She used to be a Republican, became a Democrat, and now she is "Independent." ??? It seems like she has a much easier time making up her mind about voting machines than what political party she belongs to.

[Loonman]

8. Oh, yeah

"please, Bush, don't hurt us!"

[Dr. Wu]

10. Making excuses already for a strong Pat Buchanan showing?

[cthrumatrix]

12. audit trail must be assured for 2004 ....this should be brought up

every week next year...the people need to know

[maggrwaggr]

16. giving a kick

:kick:

[camero]

18. Vote absentee

That way we can get something close to an honest count. Forget the computers.

[Myra]

21. Importance kick

eom