electronic voting machines at Brave New Films

How Electronic Voting Machines Could Steal Our Democracy

2008-11-02T18:52:57Z

Did you know the hardware and software used in electronic voting machines (DREs) is considered proprietary and cannot be inspected by outside experts? That means that a small number of people could easily program DREs to flip votes, and the evidence of this crime would be safely locked inside the machines, with no way that anyone (except for the manufacturers) to know with 100% certainty that votes were accurately counted, or even if they were counted at all. And paper trails are only useful if they are actually counted. They often aren’t.

As Josef Stalin (allegedly) said, "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes."

This is potentially a democracy nightmare, where private companies are allowed to count the votes with absolutely zero transparency or accountability. We might as well have the vote count done at Guantanamo Bay by Blackwater.

But there are a few patriots out there who are ceaselessly fighting to expose this potential crisis. One is Clint Curtis, a software developer turned whistleblower who was asked in 2000 to write vote hacking software to be used in DREs. Another is Brad Friedman, a tireless investigative blogger and creator of Bradblog.com, an excellent clearinghouse for election fraud information. Both are featured in the excellent, terrifying documentary Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: the Clint Curtis Story. You can see my review of it here (you can buy the movie and find out more about it at Votinglies.com).

America’s corporate media has done a woeful, shameful job reporting this issue that goes to the very heart of our democracy and our identity and reputation as a free nation. A few nights ago, a major channel finally did a long, in-depth story about election fraud, featuring interviews with Curtis and Friedman. The channel? Al-Jazeera English. You can watch the entire story here (part 1 & part 2).

Electronic Voting Machines and the 2008 Election

2008-10-29T21:29:26Z

Complete video at: fora.tv

Former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission Trevor Potter discusses concerns and controversies over electronic voting machines in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential election.

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Norman Ornstein discusses The Election System in America with Trevor Potter, as a part of Restoring Legitimacy to Our Election System during the 2008 Chautauqua Institution morning lecture series.

Trevor Potter is a member in Caplin & Drysdale's Washington, D.C. office, where he leads the firm's Political Activity Law Practice. He is one of the country's best-known and most experienced campaign and election lawyers, and a former Commissioner (1991-1995) and Chairman (1994) of the Federal Election Commission.

He currently serves as General Counsel to the John McCain 2008 campaign and held that position with the McCain 2000 campaign. He was also Deputy General Counsel of the Bush 1988 campaign. Mr. Potter is the founding President and General Counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C. based nonprofit which assisted in the legal defense of the McCain-Feingold law on behalf of the Congressional sponsors. He is currently on leave from that position.

Mr. Potter is also a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has published several books and articles in the field, including: Political Activity, Lobbying Laws and Gift Rules Guide (West Publishing, Third Edition 2008, Second Edition 1999); The New Campaign Finance Sourcebook, Brookings Institution, 2005; Federal Election Law and the Internet, Brookings Institution, 2000; and The Campaign Finance Sourcebook, Brookings Institution, 1997 ; and He is a frequent guest speaker at a variety of professional meetings, has testified before Congress on federal election proposals and campaign finance regulation, and has taught campaign finance law at the University of Virginia School of Law and Oxford University. He is Chair of the Election Law Committee of the American Bar Association's Administrative Law Section, and liaison to the Standing Committee on Election Law of the ABA.

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Video Chat: Princeton's Ed Felten

2008-11-21T18:39:02Z

Via Skype, Jacob Soboroff of Why Tuesday? interviews Edward W. Felten, a Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, and the founding Director of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy. In 2004, Scientific American magazine named him to its list of fifty worldwide science and technology leaders.

Felten was the lead computer science expert witness for the Department of Justice in the Microsoft antitrust case, and he has testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on digital television technology and regulation, and, after uncovering that Diebold voting machines could be hacked, before the House Administration Committee on electronic voting.

Recently, after noting discrepancies in the results reported by Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machines in the February 5, 2008 New Jersey primary election, Sequoia wrote to Felten to note that if he investigated the malfunction, even at the request of county clerks, it may constitute an "infringement of our intellectual properties."

In their chat, Felten discuss what his ideal voting machine would look like, whether or not he thinks Internet voting is a good idea, and the latest in the recent Sequoia saga.

For more:
http://www.whytuesday.org

Capitol photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/absolutwade/

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Prof. Steve Freeman: Why Do We Have Voting Machines?

2008-10-15T21:31:13Z

I interviewed Professor Steve Freeman in Los Angeles on October 5, 2007. (Part 3 of 5)

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States give E-voting machines an "F"... I give them an "F'd up"

2008-01-12T20:47:34Z

Ever throw an election, but nobody shows up? Disenfranchisement the problem? Could be. Or is it that even if you are eligible, your vote won't be counted anyway?

CNN's Carol Costello says that despite the rash of voting irregularities that plagued previous presidential elections in 2004 and 2000, voting machines -- specifically electronic versions of the devices -- still have flaws.
"You would think after all the problems we had with hanging chads in 2000 and voting machine malfunctions in 2004 and 2006, voting machines across the country would work by now, " reported Costello. "But a few days before caucuses and primaries get underway, they're not.

Don't you love democracy? Ohio and Colorado have declared their brands of electronic voting machines unfit for use.

Groundhog Day.