Bill Gates and Diebold have allready secured Bush's victory

[Mobius]

Bill Gates and Diebold have allready secured Bush's victory
http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/
Software
Beyond hardware, our Global Election Management System (GEMS®) software provides a powerful, easy-to-use graphical interface that supports all of your election systems; Touch-screen or optical scan. From ballot creation to tabulation and post election reporting, GEMS provides an integrated Windows® (Bill Gates designed the software, how comfortingsolution that works.
Hardware
Diebold’s AccuVote-TS touch-screen terminal is in a class by itself. It offers the proven capability for more than seven different languages on a single terminal in an election, networking capability of election results, electronic provisional balloting, as well as advanced audio voice-guidance capabilities. And our AccuVote-OS Optical Scan technology has provided reliable, accurate election results for hundreds of counties throughout the United States, including during the 2000 United States Presidential Election.


This is the problem:
http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html
Targeting Diebold with Electronic Civil Disobedience
Why are these memos controversal?
Read the excerpts and see for yourself, then read the campaign update or the most recent press release. You may also want to see where Diebold machines are used (pdf) and find out why they’re getting sued

Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law Clinic Sue Electronic Voting Company
Diebold has delivered dozens of cease-and-desist notices to website publishers and ISPs demanding that they take down corporate documents revealing flaws in the company's electronic voting systems as well as difficulties with certifying the systems for actual elections.
Security Researchers Discover Huge Flaws in E-Voting System
Among the security flaws discovered were several ways in which individual voters could vote multiple times in a given election. The researchers also uncovered methods permitting voters to "trick" the e-voting machines into allowing them system administrator privileges or even terminating an election before tallying all legitimate votes.

Does this scare you? It should. I urge, nay! I beg all of you to do your own investigations into this matter. Further I find the fact that Diebold proudly displays "United States, including during the 2000 United States Presidential Election" disturbing to to the fact that the 2000 election was so severely contested as to its accuracy.

[TomSeaverr]

1. If this is true

Why don't the Dems say something?

[AngryYoungMan]

2. Do you mean the candidates?

Kerry spoke of "not letting Florida be stolen again," which points not directly at Diebold but at the illegal actions taken in Florida in 2000 to expunge votes.

The BBV ("Black Box Voting") issue has been tirelessly pursued by many, leading to CNN's Lou Dobbs doing repeated stories on the subject, and to a Vanity Fair expose this month.

Like many Republican "dirty tricks" (like those Nixon's White House went to jail for), the Diebold maneuvers depend on their own outrageousness to succeed. In other words, the claim is so incendiary and the alleged crime so dark that it is only by taking a great risk that a candidate can make such accusations.

On edit: Of course you know that Nixon himself would have served time in jail for his crimes against the Constitution and his violation of Federal and State laws, had he not been pardoned by Ford. Not my opinion; fact.

[tridim]

3. Bill Gates doesn't design software

and hasn't since the very early DOS days. Diebold is the bad guy in this case, not Microsoft.

[AngryYoungMan]

4. 3 points

1) Diebold's system is Windows-based

2) Gates may not PERSONALLY design software but it's fair to say he's responsible for his company's products.

3) Even overlooking the above arguments, what exactly is your point? Are you exonerating Microsoft (a company completely in bed with this Administration's Justice Department), Gates personally, or both? And if so, why?

[flpoljunkie]

5. Senators Graham and Clinton Introduce Bill to Insure Every Vote Counts

http://graham.senate.gov/pr031004.html

March 10, 2004

Senator Bob Graham, D-Florida, and Senator Hillary Clinton, D-New York, today introduced legislation to require that computerized voting systems provide a paper record, ensuring that voters can verify their votes and that a paper record be available in case of a manual recount.]

“Even with the new voter systems, in yesterday’s primary there were reports of technical glitches and human errors even in Palm Beach County,” said Graham. “A paper trail is a verification system guaranteeing that, even if there are technical glitches or human error in an election, every vote counts.”

“The election this November is going to be one of the most important of our lifetime and every pundit in America says it will be close because we are still so divided,” said Clinton. “If we have huge problems again, people will fundamentally lose confidence in our democracy and in their vote. We cannot let that happen. This legislation is good insurance against that risk.”

The Restore Elector Confidence in Our Representative Democracy (RECORD) Act requires a voter-verifiable paper record so that each and every voter will be able to confirm that his or her vote was accurately cast and recorded. The paper ballot would also be used in the event of a recount.

The legislation also includes funding for implementation. States would receive $150 million to implement the legislation, as well as $5 million to help with the transition to the paper trail system.

In order to assist with implementation of verification systems and improved security measures, the bill provides $5 million to the Election Assistance Commission. Additionally, $2 million would be given to the National Institute of Standards and Technology to help state and local governments with voter verification and the security of electronic voting machines. The Commission must report to Congress within three months of enactment on operational and management systems that should be used in Federal elections and within six months of enactment on a proposed security review and certification process for all voting systems.

The bill would require random recounts of at least 2 percent of all ballots in all jurisdictions in each state and 2 percent of the ballots of military and overseas voters to verify system accuracy.

Mandatory security standards for the development, maintenance, and transfer of software used in electronic voting systems are also included in the legislation.

A similar bill, H. R. 2239, has been filed in the House of Representatives by Representative Rush Holt, D-New Jersey.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. Problems in Florida documented in this NYTimes letter:

"On March 9, I voted in a relatively affluent area of Florida using a touch-screen machine. It failed to record my vote properly, but being a reasonably intelligent person, I made efforts to correct the problem. I failed.

I then called over an election official, who didn't begin to know the answer. He got his supervisor, who finally figured it out several minutes later.

The experience caused me to shudder, thinking of the election this November and the possibility of this happening to others less persistent or argumentative than I.

Why no paper trail? Is Glenda Hood, the Florida secretary of state, trying to out-Katherine-Harris Katherine Harris?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/opinion/L17VOTE.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[Mobius]

8. Thats all well and good,

but I will believe it when I see it. You think this legislation will actually pass?

[snoochie]

14. Okay now I'm confused

Are H.R. 2239 and Graham's original bill in the Senate, S.1980 (both to amend HAVA to require paper ballots), now being scrapped for a new bill?

Is a bill identical to this one being submitted in the House?

We need to get our act together and decide on a course of action and pursue it.

Graham's bill had 2 co-sponsors - it was filed in early December. At least Holt's bill had 128.

[WilliamPitt]

7. So I guess I should just quit

[Mobius]

9. Not exactly Will

I just think this problem is percieved as nonexistant by too many people. Too much is at stake for people to asume that the voting system is not flawed.

[corporatewhore]

10. Global Exchange is Sending international observers

[shance]

11. A good show of support, however you could send the Pope and

as long as private electronic voting machines are in force, we can all just watch as the invisible ballots are manipulated and the tallies miraculously change without a shed of proof or difficulty for that matter.

You cannot monitor what you cannot see, (even if you are Houdini*).

Paper ballots folks.

PAPER BALLOTS. TANGIBLE, RECORDABLE EVIDENCE.

Its that simple, but those with perhaps a vested interest in the outcome are trying to imply that guarding the gates with citizens will make a difference. It might help on a physical and visual inspection realm, but when the data enters the machines, all bets are beyond off.

The only reliable source is a paper ballot.

These companies know it, and yet they are doing what they can to divert the attention and distract from the most viable method of protection under the sun, which is providing a ballot and a pen or pencil and a separate ballot box.

[Bombtrack]

12. This defeatism only discourages participation in and for the party

and therefor the mods should really think about doing warnings about this kind of scatalogical fear-mongering

[Mobius]

13. its not fear mongering, its the turth

you call for the mods to end a thread that warns of vote tampering? Its not defeatist. I am deathly afraid of people sitting on this issue as if it doesnt exist. If that happens, we might as well not even have an election. Hiding from the truth and fear are Republican tactics. If I scared you, good. Now write your congressman, email news agencies and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

[trayfoot]

15. This is a critical issue for our democracy!

We do need to make loud noises about this potentially devastating scenario! Paper and pencil works fine! We can get the results a tad more slowly, but with paper ballots, one could have more confidence in a valid outcome. I just hope people continue to become active on this issue!

[Tarheel_Dem]

16. i couldn't agree more...trayfoot

& welcome. :hi:

[MoonRiver]

17. Hi trayfoot!!

I'm in hybernation right now, but it's always fun to welcome somebody new to DU!! :hi:

[Mobius]

19. WELCOME TO DU! TRAYFOOT!

:hug:

[tameszu]

18. Bill Gates is a Dem

At least, his dad is--he's a lefty, Berkeley-style attorney who faught the estate tax repeal very hard and helps steer the Bill and Melinda Gates fund in progressive directions.

Even wrote an article in The Nation about why wealthy folks should want to keep the estate tax.