# Does blackboxvoting.org have hard evidence fraud took place in Tuesday's election? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2004, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182 "2004-11-05T14:29:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Mal\_Adroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/81 "2004-11-12T13:54:00Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > Here’s an interesting piece by University of Pennsylvania researcher Steven Freenman, ( **WARNING, Pdf file** ) “[The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy](http://www.ilcaonline.org/freeman.pdf).” “The likelihood of any two of these statistical anomalies occurring together is on the order of one-in-a-million. The odds against all three occurring together are 250 million to one. As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error.” But of course, none of this is cause for additional investigation, right, Pubs? Adhering to statistical probability is for the tinfoil-hat crowd. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/82 "2004-11-12T14:00:01Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I also don’t think it would be as easy to hack an electronic voting machine as you are making it out to be…nor do I think it would be as easy for the original manufacture to insert easter eggs into the code to randomly shift votes to their guy and not have it detected. You don’t need to hack into the voting machine. You hack into the machine where the votes go. They went to a windows PC. You open up a database. You fudge the figures. The only check is whether the votes add up to more than the total number of voters. It can be done and I’m confident that it WAS done. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/83 "2004-11-12T15:01:29Z")
Okay, the Jeff Fischer guy looks like a bit of a nutter. His web site looks too conspiracy laden. _But_, I admire him because he’s doing what black box should be doing. **IF** you feel you have hard evidence of fraud, don’t just go yelling from the mountain tops. Show the evidence to the press, show the evidence to the FBI, show the evidence to the world,\* then \*go yelling from the mountain tops. Enough of the “pssssssst. I’ve got evidence of fraud…” bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/84 "2004-11-12T15:19:05Z")
Freenman’s analysis looks interesting, of course he also completely ignores the non-battleground states. I’d like to see if similar discrepencies pop up in those as well. You think it’s worth investigating? Lovely. Just remember what is being suggested. Ten different states, each with widely disparate voting and tallying techniques, even within state, were subject to an organized conspiracy to change the vote tally. A conspiracy so tight that the ONLY evidence that anything was amiss is from exit polling that doesn’t match up. The changes are large enough that you cannot effect them via individual voting districts, thus the changes have to happen at the top, or through a further organized effort to hack into multiple districts. All of this without a single person getting caught, telling their spouse or getting drunk and bragging, or just maybe feeling bad about committing massive election fraud. The alternative to this massive conspiracy is that the exit polls were incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Mal\_Adroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/85 "2004-11-12T16:06:24Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > You think it’s worth investigating? Lovely. Just remember what is being suggested. Ten different states, each with widely disparate voting and tallying techniques, even within state, were subject to an organized conspiracy to change the vote tally. A conspiracy so tight that the ONLY evidence that anything was amiss is from exit polling that doesn’t match up. How centrally organized would it have had to have been? I think they would have been fairly clear on the main objective (Us want Bush win). And what kind of evidence would you expect tampering to yield, espeically with electronic machines that leave no paper trail? As **BobLibDem** points out, we may be talking about something as simple as accessing a _Windows database,_ for Og’s sake. Anyone who thinks that’s beyond Karl Rove’s willingness or means just hasn’t been paying attention to the guy. I’m sorry, people who laugh it off with these “oooh, massive conspiracy” jibes aren’t doing the populace any favors. I know the culture is still in an Oliver Stone-induced hangover from the glut of conspiracy theory over the past few decades, but guess what. Sometimes men in power actually do try to get their way by other than above-board means. To categorically dismiss it as paranoid fantasy is as deluded as assuming that every coincidence equals a machination. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/86 "2004-11-12T16:09:24Z")
I’ve noticed [blackboxvoting.org](http://blackboxvoting.org) has not been updated in almost a week. Does anyone know why this is? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/87 "2004-11-12T16:37:09Z")
> [@Moody Bastard](#): > > And what kind of evidence would you expect tampering to yield, espeically with electronic machines that leave no paper trail? As **BobLibDem** points out, we may be talking about something as simple as accessing a _Windows database,_ for Og’s sake. No offense to **BobLibDem** , but he is not presenting factual information – only conjecture. He didn’t indicate that he knew first hand how the voting machines and the underlying databases worked. > [@Moody Bastard](#): > > Anyone who thinks that’s beyond Karl Rove’s willingness or means just hasn’t been paying attention to the guy. This doesn’t add to your argument at all. Rove’s nature, which is a matter of opinion anyway, does not constitute evidence. > [@Moody Bastard](#): > > I’m sorry, people who laugh it off with these “oooh, massive conspiracy” jibes aren’t doing the populace any favors. I know the culture is still in an Oliver Stone-induced hangover from the glut of conspiracy theory over the past few decades, but guess what. Sometimes men in power actually do try to get their way by other than above-board means. To categorically dismiss it as paranoid fantasy is as deluded as assuming that every coincidence equals a machination. I can’t speak for others, but I’ll say this: for an accusation this extraordinary, the evidence has to be extraordinary. Freeman connecting the dots as he does is far, far from sufficient. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/88 "2004-11-12T16:38:01Z")
> [@Moody Bastard](#): > > How centrally organized would it have had to have been? I think they would have been fairly clear on the main objective (Us want Bush win). Sure, the objective is clear, but how do you get it done? You need people with intimate knowledge of how each election process works. You need people to do the deed. You need to be absolutely sure that you’re not going to get one of your people caught, what kind of investigation would THAT generate? I see fixing elections in 10 states as being a fairly complex task. You have electronic voting machines, mechanical machines, punch cards, optical scan cards all being used. Added up by district, then sent out and added up in total. Any district should be able to tell if their figures were fudged at the top, so you’re going to have to be pretty damn clever to get away with it. You want anyone other than angry liberals to believe it, show us how it can be done. “Hack the Windows PC” is not a sufficient action plan. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Wake\_up\_call](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dec6dc/32.png) [@Wake\_up\_call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wake_up_call)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/89 "2004-11-12T17:44:36Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Diebold should publicly release the source code for their machines. He…he. If hanky-panky indeed existed in the machines on November 2nd, release of Diebold software would not prove anything. Diebold can release a kosher version of the software source code. But that does not equate with the object code version that ran on November 2nd. To prove what actually ran on November 2nd, we need the Checksum of the object code that ran on the machines that day. Then we should compile the released Diebold software and get its Checksum. If both Checksums are identical, then we can conclude there was no hanky-panky. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/90 "2004-11-12T17:51:54Z")
> [@Wake up call](#): > > He…he. If hanky-panky indeed existed in the machines on November 2nd, release of Diebold software would not prove anything. > > Diebold can release a kosher version of the software source code. But that does not equate with the object code version that ran on November 2nd. > > To prove what actually ran on November 2nd, we need the Checksum of the object code that ran on the machines that day. Then we should compile the released Diebold software and get its Checksum. If both Checksums are identical, then we can conclude there was no hanky-panky. True. However, the fraud may not have been in the Diebold machines but in the Windows PCs to which the Diebolds dumped data to. The election for the most powerful office in the world goes into unsecure PC databases and once changes are made in those databases, it is untraceable. ---
**Author:** ![Mal\_Adroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Mal\_Adroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mal_Adroit)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/91 "2004-11-12T18:17:46Z")
As I tried to make clear, I’m not deriding people who think there isn’t enough evidence to point to fraud (they’re right- so far), but rather, those who scrunch up their faces like little old ladies at the first whiff of suggested collusion among parties with a common goal. > [@bordelond](#): > > Rove’s nature, which is a matter of opinion anyway, does not constitute evidence. Rove’s nature is not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of public record. I direct you to _Bush’s Brain_ by James Moore and Wayne Slater if you remain unconvinced. That being said, no, of course it isn’t evidence. But once you become familiar with some of the outrageous shit he’s managed, tampering with a vote count comes off as something he could swing _in his spare time._ Let’s just say it most certainly walks and talks like a duck. > [@bordelond](#): > > I can’t speak for others, but I’ll say this: for an accusation this extraordinary, the evidence has to be extraordinary. Freeman connecting the dots as he does is far, far from sufficient. The evidence absolutely has to be extrordinary. And while of course I’d agree with you that Freeman’s paper doesn’t prove anything (as he states, this was never his goal), the statistical odds he cites are -to use your word- _quite_ extraordinary. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/92 "2004-11-12T18:25:44Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > The election for the most powerful office in the world goes into unsecure PC databases and once changes are made in those databases, it is untraceable. I can’t accept that without proof. _Unsecure_ databases? No way. ---
**Author:** ![TWOTfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@TWOTfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWOTfan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/93 "2004-11-12T18:43:39Z")
I don’t quite see how a paper-trail would prevent fraud. Also, there was fraud before electronic voting machines. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/94 "2004-11-12T18:53:27Z")
> [@Moody Bastard](#): > > The evidence absolutely has to be extrordinary. And while of course I’d agree with you that Freeman’s paper doesn’t prove anything (as he states, this was never his goal), the statistical odds he cites are -to use your word- _quite_ extraordinary. He bases his analysis on somewhat iffy unofficial exit poll numbers (mid pg 2). Freeman concedes himself that he doesn’t have access to raw exit poll numbers (top of pg 3). I think his whole premise – that the exit poll numbers he used should have accurately predicted the election – is flawed. Freeman also doesn’t appear to give a margin of error for the Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania exit polls – I’m looking over pgs 6-7 as I write this. The exit poll numbers differed from the actual results by about 3.0 - 3.5%. Freeman needs to show that this is outside the margin of error. He shows a graph on pg 6 of his report, but does not show his work. Those 95% and 99% confidence interval lines … where did those come from? His numbers may well be good, but I’d like to have seen them. Still in all, even Freeman himself seems to wave away accusations of fraud on pg 11. So Freeman is not saying what some people seem to think he is saying. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/95 "2004-11-12T18:53:55Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > I can’t accept that without proof. _Unsecure_ databases? No way. This may not be an authoritative source but [check this out](http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200411/0115.html) ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/96 "2004-11-12T19:06:14Z")
And as much as I loathe quoting [FOX News](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133214,00.html), even in an article to discredit the possiblity of hacking you see these nuggets: > [@](#): > > Because Access functions are already built in to the Windows operating system, the totals could be altered even if a computer did not have Access installed on it, said Herbert Thompson, a computer security expert who teaches at the Florida Institute of Technology. He demonstrated how to change vote totals with a six-line program in Microsoft notepad, “a simple text editor” that comes with all copies of Windows. > [@](#): > > The entire voting record can be deleted by choosing “reset the election” on a drop-down menu, he said, or a hacker can destroy a tabulator’s ability to recognize ballots by un-selecting three checkboxes on a program control panel. > > Once those changes are made, a hacker could cover his tracks by deleting the audit log, as Baxter did. Of course, there was this defense: > [@](#): > > “Quite honestly it’s somewhat insulting to elections officials and volunteers,” he said to the idea that elections officers would tamper with vote results. Yeah, right. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/97 "2004-11-12T19:22:24Z")
And if you simply Google “Diebold GEMS hack” you’ll get a ton of results. [This site](http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html#appendixA) is quite informative and very damning of Diebold. Not sure if all the downloads works, the site shows a lot of zip files of demos and sample databases. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/98 "2004-11-12T19:22:15Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > This may not be an authoritative source but check this out Well, I read through your cite and I have to say it smells fishy to me. First off, she talks about ‘hacking’ the computer because its using Windows (I agree btw that this isn’t the optimal OS to use for this kind of thing). However, there is no mention of physical security…i.e. how accessable were these workstations to someone physically sitting down at the terminal and ‘hacking’ them? You can’t just hack a computer via magic, so unless it was hooked up to a public network (like the internet), or a local network (in which case you’d need access to the local network) you’d need to physically sit at the machine to ‘hack’ the database. My understanding is that all these kinds of machines were watched by representatives of BOTH parties pretty much at all times…no? As to ‘hacking’ the database with Access, Excell or a simple text editor, this assumes that the databases are the exact same as whats deployed on the actual machines. This could very well be true (I note your Fox article seems to say this as well), but I’ve seen no PROOF that its true. What I’m driving at here is that the databases on the ACTUAL machines may have been encrypted (a simple precaution to take)…in which case using any of those tools wouldn’t have worked for you. There are a lot of things missing from Bev Harris’s analysis that are key to whether this is just a bunch of BS or if its a serious problem. And I find it incredible that something as simple as physical security was totally overlooked as far as these machines goes. -XT ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/99 "2004-11-12T19:34:01Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > However, there is no mention of physical security…i.e. how accessable were these workstations to someone physically sitting down at the terminal and ‘hacking’ them? You can’t just hack a computer via magic, so unless it was hooked up to a public network (like the internet), or a local network (in which case you’d need access to the local network) you’d need to physically sit at the machine to ‘hack’ the database. My understanding is that all these kinds of machines were watched by representatives of BOTH parties pretty much at all times…no? > > As to ‘hacking’ the database with Access, Excell or a simple text editor, this assumes that the databases are the exact same as whats deployed on the actual machines. This could very well be true (I note your Fox article seems to say this as well), but I’ve seen no PROOF that its true. What I’m driving at here is that the databases on the ACTUAL machines may have been encrypted (a simple precaution to take)…in which case using any of those tools wouldn’t have worked for you. All good points. What I can’t assume is integrity on the part of the election officials- somehow Katherine Harris’ performance in 2000 did not fill me with confidence that Florida officials are unbiased arbiters of fairness. You and I can’t break into the PCs from here, but I for one would be surprised if all the PCs were babysat all during the election. Better technical solutions exist. A competent Oracle database staff could have made the database infinitely more secure and enforce logging of any changes to the data. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blackboxvoting-org-have-hard-evidence-fraud-took-place-in-tuesdays-election/273182/100 "2004-11-12T19:40:06Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > This may not be an authoritative source but [check this out](http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200411/0115.html) I will pull select quotes from your link and address them individually: > [@](#): > > This taken from [commondreams.org](http://commondreams.org) “evidence mounts of election fraud.” > > According to these charts, about 60% of registered democrats in Florida counties that use the type of voting system criticized below voted for Bush: > > [http://www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm](http://www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm) > > (_[Bradford, Baker, Calhoun, Columbia, DeSoto, Franklin and Holmes counties](http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/florida_map.html) are, despite registrations, [hardly Democratic hotbeds](http://www.esri.com/mapmuseum/mapbook_gallery/volume16/business1.html). Click on second link, then on the county-by-county map in the upper left. Zoom into Florida. Bush won all those counties in 2000 - b_) > > No such anomaly in counties that use other systems. I need to add that in much of the South, a lot of conservatives are registered Democrats. I, myself, am one. The reason is that until maybe a decade ago, registered Republicans could not vote in local primary elections when all candidates were Democrats – which was very common before about 1990 or so. Ok, so now onto the rest of the link: > [@](#): > > Here’s Bev Harris (_executive director of [BlackBoxVoting.org](http://BlackBoxVoting.org) - b_) in a television interview with Howard Dean a few months back: > > Dean nodded in rhetorical agreement, and Harris continued. “What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It’s just a regular computer.” > > “So,” Dean said, “anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?” I find that using “hacking” and “hackers” as bogeymen to be intellectually questionable. Security measures are in place, and Harris should acknowledge that. > [@](#): > > Harris nodded affirmation, and pointed out how Diebold uses a program called GEMS, which fills the screen of the PC and effectively turns it into the central tabulator system. “This is the official program that the County Supervisor sees,” she said, pointing to a PC that was sitting between them loaded with Diebold’s software. > > Bev then had Dean open the GEMS program to see the results of a test election. They went to the screen titled “Election Summary Report” and waited a moment while the PC “adds up all the votes from all the various precincts,” and then saw that in this faux election Howard Dean had 1000 votes, Lex Luthor had 500, and Tiger Woods had none. Dean was winning. > > “Of course, you can’t tamper with this software,” Harris noted. Diebold wrote a pretty good program. > > But, it’s running on a Windows PC. A Windows PC with quite limited access. > [@](#): > > So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the “My Computer” icon, choose “Local Disk C:,” open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder “LocalDB” which, Harris noted, “stands for local database, that’s where they keep the votes.” Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled “Central Tabulator Votes,” which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel. Hang on: is GEMS saving these files as Excel files? Sounds like not. This will be important later. > [@](#): > > In the “Sum of the Candidates” row of numbers, she found that in one precinct Dean had received 800 votes and Lex Luthor had gotten 400. > > “Let’s just flip those,” Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. “And,” she added magnanimously, “let’s give 100 votes to Tiger.” > > They closed the database, went back into the official GEMS software “the legitimate way, you’re the county supervisor and you’re checking on the progress of your election.” Wait a minute – you didn’t just close the database, you closed the Excel program (which isn’t a database program anyway, but never mind). And you’d have been prompted to Save. Now then, can Excel save into GEMS’s file format? If it were saved as an Excel file, that would be a giant red flag if Excel were not GEMS’s file format (which I doubt seriously – why writte proprietary software when Excel would do?). > [@](#): > > As the screen displayed the official voter tabulation, Harris said, “And you can see now that Howard Dean has only 500 votes, Lex Luthor has 900, and Tiger Woods has 100.” Dean, the winner, was now the loser. > > Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, “We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds.” No, you edited a mock election – one without network security and one with free access to the tabulating computer. I don’t think Harris accurately rendered the conditions of an actual election. > [@](#): > > On live national television. (You can see the clip on [www.votergate.tv](http://www.votergate.tv).) And they had left no tracks whatsoever, Harris said, noting that it would be nearly impossible for the election software – or a County election official - to know that the vote database had been altered. An Excel file in place of a GEMS file would be a pretty sizable track. Also, Windows timestamps when a file is modified. … I don’t know, **BobLibDem** … I found the information in that cite full of holes. The PC they used had no operating-system-level user authentication. Neither did the GEMS program have any kind of authentificatioon. I can’t buy that Harris’ demonstration was in any way meaningful. BTW, out of curiosity, did anyone actually see Harris and Dean on “national TV”? What network? When? 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