Hacking Democracy - a question.

[QuestionAll...]

edit: had the wrong title of the show. ;(

Just saw this last night for the first time and have a question. btw, a wonderful show - I was up very late with youtube.

At the end of the program, where Hursti, the elections person from Tallahassee and voter advocates do that controlled test on optical scanning where they find out that there is malicious code right in the memory card...

There still is a paper trail tho... the scanned sheets that can be used for a recount?

But then again, the Cuyouga country 3% (stacked deck) recount of paper ballots didn't really work the way it was meant, for the public, anyway.

That is the point, right? Even if it appears there is transparency and recountable paper, 'they' have many other ways to fudge with the final results.

oh, and I loved that part about Odell promising Bush Ohio... where the spokeman from Diebold said: (paraphrasing)
""He is sorry that he said that and it got out publicly, in the future he won't say stupid things like that, publicly anway... but the same game will carry on."""

[kster]

1. From Alaska

"We couldn't make this stuff up if we tried.

So just to recap: First the voters of Alaska were not allowed to see their own voting data from the 2004 Election because it was the proprietary "company secret" property of Diebold. Then they would be allowed to see it as long as the state and Diebold could "manipulate the data" before releasing it. And now finally it's determined that allowing the voters to see how they actually voted in the 2004 Election would be a "security risk" to the state of Alaska".

http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=101

Yes, the same game will carry on! :-)

[tiptoe]

2. Leon Cty, FL Elections Sup. Ion Sancho explains the FL law w Brad Friedman

See: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2843362&mesg_id=2843389

Under Florida law, it's not enough -- for recount purposes -- that paper ballots exist and were used in an election that utilized e-vote optical scanners. From excerpts of an audio interview between Brad Friedman and Ion Sancho (April 3, 2006, available in the Audio section of Election Fraud '04 Guide) Ion Sancho explains that the law in Florida distinguishes which ballots MAY be lawfully, manually hand-counted...leaving implicit NOT ALL ballots may be likewise (re)counted (emphasis mine):

The only votes in a recount that you may manually examine are overvotes, undervotes and provisional ballots. All of those are ballots which cannot be read by the machine. So, while it doesn't state that it is illegal to read machine-read ballots, by stating that you are only lawfully allowed to check the ballots which are not machine-readable, the opposite of that is you can't check the machine-readable ballots.
...
Florida even only allows the recount if it's within 1/4 of 1%...What you've done here [Harri Hursti Hack] you've taken a landslide in one direction [2-Yes 6-No] and make it a landslide the other direction [7-Yes 1-No]...You would not have any legal right to examine those ballots even to look at the undervotes and overvotes under Florida law...

...which has led Roy Saltman -- who is the only scientist ever employed by the government to study elections in the 20th century -- to write to the Miami Herald and tell them directly: "Florida's laws are a threat to Democracy."

[Votergater]

3. Thank you, I'm glad you liked our film...

Yes, after Harri re-programmed the memory card Ion Sancho was left with a rigged election and paper ballots that could be re-counted. But, as an extreme example, the result was 7 votes for YES and 1 vote for NO... which of course not being a closely won election meant that it would not trigger a recount.

And in Cuyahoga the officials admit that they used practices which could have easily covered up fraud in precincts which were not specifically selected to be recounted.

I think the strongest point is that everything can appear to be honest and correct but in reality the opposite can be true.

[QuestionAll...]

4. and I am thrilled to

personally Thank You for being a part in making this production.

Fabulous work - it was like reading a great true detective nonfiction page turner. I've been reading about election fraud for a few years now but get a bit lost in all the many details, but this show has put so many things in perspective for me. I plan to rewatch it again and work on expanding my knowledge about the many other details, now that I have a solid base to work with.