Germany's highest court declares election computers unconstitutional (source in german)

[DetlefK]

Source: tagesschau

Der Einsatz von Wahlcomputern bei der Bundestagswahl 2005 war verfassungswidrig. Das hat das Bundesverfassungsgericht in Karlsruhe entschieden. Da Programmierfehler oder gezielte Manipulation der Software schwer zu erkennen seien, müssten Bürgern bei ihrer Stimmabgabe "zuverlässig" prüfen können, ob die Stimme vom Computer "unverfälscht" erfasst wurde. Als Beispiel dafür hatte das Gericht in der mündlichen Verhandlung einen zusätzlichen Papierausdruck genannt.


Read more: http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/wahlcomputer128.html

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translation:
The use of election computers at the in 2005 was unconstitutional. This is what the federal constitutional court in Karlsruhe has decided. As a flawed code or purposeful manipulations are hard to recognize, citizens should be able to credibly check, whether their vote was taken unfalsified by the computer. As an example, the court had mentioned paper trails in the oral phase of the court hearing.



No election manipulations or irregularities have yet been found! They are just outlawing them preemptively.

[tom_paine]

1. You'd expect the Gemans to be very cautious about Electoral Fraud.

They HAD their Hitler, see?

And our Bushes learned from their Hitler's mistakes.

Thus, Germany realizes the inherent dangers of Bushification of their electoral system and are preemptively outlawing it. Smart.

But then, they had their Hitler, already Ours, if he is coming, has yet to emerge from the cauldron of insanity that is now the Rushpublic Party.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. Ye must be burned again...

No the Germans learned their lesson the hard way. They were bombed flatter than Baghdad the last time they had a powers that be appointed "LEADER" like Prince Dumbya or Herr Cheney.

[Redwraithvienna]

4. Hitler was elected ...

and put into power by a coalition of other parties with the NSDAP.

And after that he declared an "Emergency State" and ruled with Emergency Laws. All basically legal.

Election fraud was not commited by the NSDAP to come to power (and in the last election 1933 they even lost some votes).

[Hubert Flottz]

9. Hitler like Bush, was sElected...

Hitler Named Chancellor

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/named.htm

[Karenina]

23. Here's a gem from Der Spiegel 6/2007 from the techies

who sounded the clarion call (for those who can read German).

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/tech/0,1518,487958,00.html

Hi Hubert!!! :hi::loveya::hi:

[Hubert Flottz]

29. Hi Karenina!

Thanks for the link I just spent an hour there checking out Spiegel Online. Great website!

GTSY! :hi:

[tom_paine]

16. Eyewitness accounts say otherwise.

Read "Diary of a Man in Despair" by Freidrich Reck-Malleczewen, or "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner.

There's always someone who comes rushing in to state the obvious, or what they think is the obvious, and pronounce it like the gospel. Sorry to be so harsh but your half-correct recital of history has no bearing on my point, which ultimately rests not on specific electoral frauds but the larger philosophical mentalities and similarities of Bushies and Nazis, which the Germans, because they have directly experienced it, are much smarter in trying to repel it preemptively.

We Americans, most of us, can't even recognize the many similarities or otherwise resort to high dudgeon to do ANYTHING to turn away from the obvious and deepening similarities between Nazis and Bushies, in all areas other than violence and overt racism.

I am well aware of how the Nazis seized power, and you should become more aware of these and other "on the ground" accounts so that you might understand that what we are taught in school is rarely the full picture.

Nazis committed plenty of electoral fraud, along with their other crimes, but such mundanities are overshadowed or ignored in the history because they pale before the more monstrous crimes.

One last thing. Hitler was NEVER elected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_presidential_election,_1932

[Redwraithvienna]

20. no as a person he was not elected ...

but so was and is no politician in germany.

People vote for parties and not for people in germany. So you cannot "elect" someone like you do in the US.

You can just vote for a party, with the party that manages to form a coalition (in this case NSDAP & Deutsche Zentrumspartei) gets to form the adminstration and gets the chancellor and so on.

And i do stay at it : Direct voter fraud was not commited by the Nazis. They just didnt have to do it.

there was just one time when Hitler actually used direct fraud to win a vote and that was in 1938 with the annexation of austria to germany , in which the ballots where marked in a way which made it pretty clear which way you have to vote, and even then they needed a lot of help to get the 99,97 % that they got. (although one has to say that even without fraud he would have won that too... but with approximatly 60 % )

Oh and one thing. ... i am not american. i am austrian.

[tom_paine]

22. Then I would doubly suggest you read these three books:

"Diary of a man In Despair" and "Defying Hitler"

which I already mentioned in my first post

also "I Will bear Witness" by Victor Klemperer

It from accounts like these that we learn details that cannot be gleaned from histories reporting on grand events of the day.

There are few of these accounts, these three and a handful of others as authenitic and written from "worm's eye view" of the on-the-ground events of the day. They are worth reading.

From these three books, I learned that the Nazis did indeed commit voter fraud in some of the other elections, such as the 1934 plebisicite. One line from one of those books, paraphrased, not verbatim, "We know that the official results showed no votes against the nazis in our small town, but know ourselves that at the very least our group voted in opposition."

Also, a belated welcome to DU. :toast:

One last question, to which I genuinely don't know the answer, but may look up now that I have thought of it.

Was the Weimer Constitution set up on the Parliamentary Model exactly as you say? Or are you describing modern European politics of today? Or are you, like me, suddenly realizing that you aren't 100% sure and need to look it up?

[defendandprotect]

26. And. . . don't forget the Reichstag Fire .... the burning down of Parliament . . .

Supposedly accomplished by a just arrived Dutch "commie" . . .!!!

Feb. 27, 1933) Burning of the German parliament building (Reichstag) in Berlin. Allegedly set by a Dutch communist, the fire was used by Adolf Hitler to turn public opinion against his opponents, especially the communists. He enacted a decree suspending constitutional protection of personal rights, which effectively began the Nazi Party dictatorship. The fire was widely believed to have been set by the Nazis themselves, while others have argued there was no proof of Nazi complicity; it remains the subject of debate and research.

http://www.answers.com/topic/reichstag-fire

[defendandprotect]

25. Since the days of Reagan/Ollie North the fascists have been looking to overturn . ..

our Constitution/Bill of Rights and "war" and "terrorism" has been a successful

pathway for them re morphing FEMA into "Homeland Security/Heil Hitler!" -- and

the "Patriot Act" distortions.

We have to ensure that our Constitutional rights are intact no matter how many

wars or no matter how much terrorism!

[spag68]

31. FEMA-Homeland Security

It would be my guess that when the layers of that rotten onion are peeled back, we will find much money has gone into that rat hole.

[Land Shark]

34. Being FREE means being able to make mistakes... (speaking of your response title only)

the balance of the text declares "emergency state" declarations are all "basically legal" -- a highly dubious legal proposition. "Law" is the tool of every tyrant because mere law is nothing less than force itself. Compliance with Justice, Inalienable rights and proper interpretations of duly people-enacted constitutional provisions as well as their underlying principles are all necessary to rescue law and make it Justice. In the meantime, law may and always does parade around as Justice itself, though it is not.

The portions of the post that deal with historical German coalition facts are unobjectionable, though I can't verify them as facts, I assume they are. The legal conclusions implying that a ruler in a free society can declare an "emergency State" as Hitler did and make themselves Dictator are pure baloney -- unless a very narrow defition of "legal" is used in which case it misleads the reader into thinking Hitler's totalitarian powers were Just in any meaningful sense.

Again, dictators and tyrants ALWAYS cloak their abuses in law, so one has to be careful with using the term "legal" in this and related contexts.

[pleah]

2. K&R Good.

[Turborama]

5. What pleah said

[reorg]

6. thumbs up for the Bundesverfassungsgericht n/t

[Alcibiades]

7. A supreme court that acts to preserve democracy

instead of undermining it? Must be nice.

[Stevepol]

8. This is great news and needs to be trumpeted loud and clear. K&R!!!

At least the Germans get it.

You would think having an election system where the counting of the votes is totally secret and open to rigging and fraud of all kinds and which at the same time us almost completely un-audited or even un-auditable would never be tolerated in any nation that prides itself on its democracy.

Apparently not.

But the Germans at least are smart enough to understand that 2 + 2 = 4.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. It's not that 2+2=4

It's that they can see that with the right programming 2+2 can = 5.

If it CAN be done, eventually it WILL be done. It's human nature.

[Land Shark]

35. It already HAS BEEN DONE (making 2+2 =5)

There's solid proof of that in some local and state elections. Highly probable that 2004's presidential election was invalid/incorrect.

Every person who votes, even if a ticket splitter, and most especially election insiders who are part of the incumbent government have a motivation/bias to cheat that ranges from weak but still definite to very strong.

Even nonvoters are affected by government tax and numerous other policies, so even they are not immune.

Given this universal bias, and given the studies and facts out there, couching the conclusion of your otherwise excellent response in the future tense is unnecessarily careful.

[RaleighNCDUer]

42. I agree - it HAS been done here.

The Germans have learned from our mistakes.

[GreenTea]

10. When will the Dems in congress get around to finally addressing these slimy voting machines 90% of

the country votes on...Paper Ballots YES! - Not easily manipulated electronic voting machines or Internet voting...Two ways the slimy republicans can & will exploit in coming elections if allowed and if congress doesn't change the republican written bullshit HAVA of 2002!

[No Elephants]

12. Paging the U.S. Congress. Paging the U.S. Congress.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. First the U.S. Congress has to acknowledge election fraud.

:shrug: I won't hold my breath.

[Land Shark]

36. The public/the people can blow right past Congress.

Public opinion exerts an independent force even in a dictatorship, which can not sustain unpopular policies for long against a super-majority of the public, of a suitable size depending on the circumstances.

In the medium to long run, every government rules only with the consent or acquiescence of the governed. In a free society, for a normal law, fifty percent plus one vote rules. The abuses of democracy and freedom just raise that normal much higher, and improperly so, but we do not need to (necessarily) convince those in power (Congress) to give up their own power -- like the power Congress presently deems itself to have to legislate the procedures for ITS OWN elections and stack the deck against challengers. How else does an institution with approval ratings now barely over 10% regularly achieve re-election rates of 98% or more? Yeah, yeah, gerrymandering is one way to stack the deck but that illustrates my point and is not by any means the only factor tipping the scales in favor of incumbents.

[RoccoR5955]

14. K & R! Maybe our Supremes Court will eventually get it. n/t

[alemoine85]

21. RE: K & R! Maybe our Supremes Court will eventually get it. n/t

What does that mean? i need to look it up...it interests me lol

Anyway... Germany declaring computers unconstitutional in 2005? Why is this even news? lol

Yeast Infection Treatment

[defendandprotect]

27. Is that sarcasm . . . ??

Because they "get it" and they put Bush in the Oval Office--!!

[tblue37]

40. Our SC has been Bushstacked. With Fat Tony, Scalito, and Roberts running the show,

we are well and truly screwed for the next generation. The bad guys have a 5-4 majority.

[JohnWxy]

15. Will we be smart enough to do this? I doubt it.

At least not without an outcry from the voters who really would like to have a democracy.

Recommended.

[defendandprotect]

28. "Smart enough" . .. . ???

or honest enough?

[Land Shark]

38. If "We" means the People of the USA, 92% of us are already "smart enough"!! (WHO's not satisfied??)

See the reply down thread for Zogby poll link and more
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3764880&mesg_id=3766070

[lovuian]

17. Thank you Germany

they are smart and we are under tyranny while we have computer voting

[leftstreet]

18. K&R

[truedelphi]

19. Great that the Germans get it, and sad that we Americans still do not. n/t

[AlbertCat]

24. Hey, they looked at America and said "What could go wrong?... A LOT!"

[salguine]

30. They can do this stuff in Europe because corporations don't own the national legislatures.

[conspirator]

41. They don't own but they still lobby a lot nt

[2 Much Tribulation]

32. Unbelievably GREAT decision!!! K&R with gusto! nt

[santamargarita]

33. When are we going to figure this out?

:think:

[Land Shark]

37. Here's the poll that "WE" figured this out long ago, record-high poll results

An August 2006 Zogby poll that I commissioned with help from two other folks found 92% for the proposition that all Americans have "the RIGHT (emphasis mine) to observe vote counting and obtain any and all information from vote counting". See Zogby's press release at http://www.zogby.com/news/readnews.cfm?ID=1163

This is quite consistent with the remarkable German court ruling. The ruling is both astounding and miraculous and quite obvious and self-evident at the same time!

See also http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_paul_leh_060823_zogby_poll_3a__strong_.htm

[ToolTex]

39. The People do not require the Congress for an amendment.

Popular Amendment

"One other way of amendment is also not mentioned in the Constitution, and, because it has never been used, is lost on many students of the Constitution. Framer James Wilson, however, endorsed popular amendment, and the topic is examined at some length in Akhil Reed Amar's book, The Constitution: A Biography.

The notion of popular amendment comes from the conceptual framework of the Constitution. Its power derives from the people; it was adopted by the people; it functions at the behest of and for the benefit of the people. Given all this, if the people, as a whole, somehow demanded a change to the Constitution, should not the people be allowed to make such a change? As Wilson noted in 1787, "... the people may change the constitutions whenever and however they please. This is a right of which no positive institution can ever deprive them."

It makes sense - if the people demand a change, it should be made. The change may not be the will of the Congress, nor of the states, so the two enumerated methods of amendment might not be practical, for they rely on these institutions. The real issue is not in the conceptual. It is a reality that if the people do not support the Constitution in its present form, it cannot survive. The real issue is in the practical. Since there is no process specified, what would the process be? There are no national elections today - even elections for the presidency are local. There is no precedent for a national referendum. It is easy to say that the Constitution can be changed by the people in any way the people wish. Actually making the change is another story altogether.

Suffice it to say, for now, that the notion of popular amendment makes perfect sense in the constitutional framework, even though the details of affecting popular amendment could be impossible to resolve."

However, maybe the SCOTUS is the quickest route right after Scalia passes on from terminal evil and is replaced by our President Obama.