Diebold Simulated Voting

[maha]

http://www.ospolitics.org/usa/archives/2003/12/08/simulating.php

Author: John Williams

It'd be really easy to write a program that made you think you were voting for someone when you were actually voting for someone else. How easy?

It took me about four hours.

That's to write the whole thing. To write the bit that skews the results only took about ten minutes.

Computers don't lie. They don't tell the truth, either. They do what they are told to do. In fact, it's actually much easier to game an electronic voting device than it is a mechanical one. For one thing, mechanical machines that cheat have to cheat through mechanical processes. Gears have to have missing teeth, or there have to be extra gears and doohickies and other bits and pieces to tamper with voting results as they come in. That alone makes mechanical tampering difficult, because those modifications are very obvious to inspectors.

[dusty64]

1. I'm almost certain

that is EXACTLY what these machines do. Why NO paper trail, why the secrecy and refusal to allow ANYONE to look at the software? After reading all the research about these "voting" machine companies and the extremists who run them, I am VERY concerned about the future of our democracy. How come very FEW election officials seem to care?

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Diebold had better prepared to be challenged.

This is an issue of public interest. Their trade secrets be damned.

[papau]

3. We now have program to change ballot counts - and cards - so why

do we want to fix the system?

Is there a DU need to be honest and follow the rules and law?

Or do we compete with the GOP the way they compete with us?