Sure, post 146 is chock-full of them.
So you firmly support a full-scale investigation of Soros’ bribery of public officials?
After all, we have no evidence of that, thus we need an investigation to find some.
Plus all those people Clinton had murdered, Nancy Pelosi’s links to organized crime, etc., etc.
Regards,
Shodan
You mean these:
Blog entry from unnamed source. Credibility substanially lacking.
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-new...with~California
Not Ohio. Also from something that happened before the 11/04 general election. Note the suit was filed in 09/04.
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/artic...040930201813382
Again, not in Ohio. Also an unsourced blog entry not related to vote fraud at all; it is about a separate internal issue at Diebold and their attempts to quash internet criticism of itself.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133214,00.html
Yeah, this is a news story, but it ain’t the results of an independent investigation or audit. That story alleges two methods of altering the tabulated voting results. If there’s evidence that either of these methods were employed, you might have something. But there ain’t. So, again as the contention has been oft made in this thread, you need something more than just a possibilty of fraud to make a credible accusation. Some evidence that somebody actually did something would help.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
Associate Press story; okay as far as it goes. But, the convicted felon guy at the GES was terminated when Diebold acquired GES in Jan 2002. There’s no way this guy could have had anything to do with any potential fraud in the 2004 voting in Ohio. He was gone long before Ohio even released theer RFP for the voting system.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?.…&tid=126&tid=17
Source no longer available for verification of statements made in blog entry. But again, judging by the text of the blog entry, this issue seems to be limited to California. And during a primary election, no less. Doesn’t have anything to do with the 11/04 general election at all.
This is a link also contained in the body of the slashdot url above. Same things apply; it is concerned with a primary election in California.
We’re still looking for a credible allegation of vote fraud in Ohio in the November 2004 general election perpetrated on or through the Diebold supplied equipment/software. That’s the assertion made by the OP (if that scanty piece of shit post can be charitably labeled as such). There’s nothing in this thread yet which indicates any fraud actually took place. Mere possibilities aren’t sufficient to indicate actualities.
We’ve already been over that ground, Shodan. You want to raise a hue and cry over Soros and vote fraud, start a thread and present the evidence that makes you think he participated in vote fraud. Just having lots of money and being polltically active isn’t enough in my book, but maybe you’ve got some red-hot stuff.
for the record, I think the Republicans in Washington State have ample grounds to complain. Some of the allegations about Dems in Ohio could use looking into it. But don’t try to dismiss all the stuff that’s come up in this thread as hand-waving of the sort you are doing about Soros. It won’t wash with any reasonable person.
So, you think Diebold redoes its software from scratch every time it makes a sale, instead of just putting the right interface on the old engine? Is that what you think happens? It’s not what I think happens. I think they have core software with an interface that can readily accommodate different requirements for different states, and they just rejigger the interface for each state that signs up fo their machines. I doubt if the programming dealing with tabulating the votes changes at all from state to state. Therefore, vote tabulating problems in one state are likely problems in all states. Therefore, these cites are relevant.
I am describing the quality of Diebold’s machinery, not any possible chicanery that was intentionally inflicted in Ohio.
As I understand it, the machines in the links are substantially similar, and their corporate behavior has not changed over the years. I apologize for the links to blogs and suchlike, but those were roughly where the stories broke… I drilled to the source as much as possible.
What the links were meant to show was a cavalier pattern of behavior, as well as an incident where substantially similar machines wound up being the cause of lawsuits for similar behavior, in another state.
In short, these are crap boxes, made by a jive-ass company, who left unforgivable holes in their work.
Intentional fraud was not needed, in order for persons to be disenfranchised… which might be actionable, I’m not sure… or for votes to be munged.
As per the Cali stories, the voting booths did it on their own.
I remember, but could not find a cite, of a case where they… added one to Bush’s vote count, no matter who else was voted for. This may have been in a primary or in a test. It was not, as I recall, in the actual election.
Nope, “the kind of evidence you are calling for would result in calls for JAIL TERMS, not investigation” of vote fraud.
You ever sprain anything, flip-flopping like that?
We don’t need “evidence”, we need “reasonable cause”, which, by your definition, means someone has to make an accusation. Fine, I can make an accusation as well as you and lissener. Presto! Reasonable cause, and we can start looking for evidence.
No, certainly not. They have to have lots of money, be politically active, and be Republican.
Well, it seems to be washing with several reasonable people. It doesn’t wash with you and ElvisL1ves, but that’s a different matter, isn’t it?
Regards,
Shodan
Aren’t the facts that he is politically active and rich two of the major complaints you have against the president of Diebold?
Fine, you feel you have grounds for suspicion. Feel free to start an investigation, so far I haven’t seen anyone in this thread say they were against an investigation. However, this thread is titled "GAO report upholds Ohio vote fraud claims "(underline mine), and THAT is a claim that requires proof to make. So far, well… you don’t have any.
As I said, you having established your level of respect for the facts already, there was and is simply no need.
Now, reconsider your own words:
in light of your own flat statements about my motivations.
As already said, please quit lying.
UncleBeer, perhaps you can tell us your understanding of the meaning of “independent”.
Nope. You haven’t been paying attention, have you?
This sounds like opinion. Again, you got any actual facts, or concrete evidence on which you’re basing your opinion? Me, I dunno what Diebold does. But you can be damned sure if I’m gonna claim as fact something they do, I’d look into it first.
And the cites you used previously to support your opinion have now been invalidated by the guy who posted 'em. He says they’re not intended to document any vote fraud - just deficiencies in the system. You’re not only back to square one, but since you made new allegations, you’re behind the starting line.
And once again, this statement, which you are presenting as fact and backed up only by some rather flimsy sources, is refuted by a report from the Secretary of State of Ohio in which an independent evaluation says there are no significant flaws in the system. So, lessee. We got blogs (and how a story can break in a blog which is nothing but the author’s diary of crap found on the internet instead of original investigative journalism is beyond my capacity to understand) against the report of independent examination ordered by the Secretary of State of Ohio. There’s no way these two can be judged equal.
Jesus goddamned christ. You’re fucking kidding me, right? This might just be the dumbest, most irrelevant argument you’ve brought forth yet - and I don’t mean in this thread alone - which is rife with stupid and irrelevant arguments.
The tests qualifying the Diebold system used in Ohio in 2004 were undertaken by a third-party company called Compuware at the behest of the Secretary of State of Ohio. Diebold turned over two wholly operational systems confirmed to be identical to those deployed for the 11/04 elections to Compuware for testing purposes. Once those systems were submitted, Diebold had nothing further to do with the testing. Once the test plan was submitted to, and approved by, the Ohio Sec State, they had nothing to do with it either. Things don’t get more independent than that. If you’ve got a different interpretation of “independent” let’s have the fucking thing so we can beat you over the head with it.
Sure I have been. I haven’t seen much other than that offered as reasoning as to why the president of Diebold would bollix the vote count. He’s politically active (“I’m gonna deliver this state for Bush”) and rich (president of Diebold). The only other strike against him is that he might have had the opportunity to mess with the voting machines (But then again, he might not. Who know how much he actually knows about programming?). It’s so thin it’s anorexic. Like I said before, go ahead and have an investigation if you like, but as of right now, all you have is a bunch of people yelling “conspiracy!”, and not one single thing more.
I’m not sure what you are talking about here. The quote was your own. You stated that you had not made any accusations; I showed that this was other than truthful.
I don’t know what you mean here either. You don’t have any evidence, and your claims are worthless as a result.
As to your motivations, your willingness to ignore where you have been shown to be untruthful does little to establish you as a poster to be believed. Just the opposite, in fact. If one of your statements has been shown to be false, then that means the rest of your statements are equally untrustworthy.
I can’t believe this is coming as a surprise to you.
You are repeating yourself. If you don’t have anything to say, then don’t say it.
Regards,
Shodan
Good grief.
Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. I have no idea and have yet to see any proof that this is or isn’t the case. You are speculating and trying to extrapolate from one situation to another…just like you are starting from the assumption that the vote WAS screwed up in Ohio directly because of the machines without demonstrating even that. Your problem I think is you don’t know the difference between the terms ‘proof’ and ‘guess’. You don’t even seem to have a grasp on the difference between ‘reasonable speculation’ and ‘wild assed guess’
Look, lets cut to the chase here. Your first step is to show in fact that there WAS a vote tabulation problem in Ohio…or ANY problem related to the voting machines. You are ASSUMING there was…but you haven’t demonstrated anything of the kind yet. Since you haven’t done that yet it would probably be a good place to start.
After that, it would probably be a good idea to actually read the RFP, the report unclebeer’s linked too (he has done an outstanding job of trying to explain this stuff in detail in this thread), as well as the other link detailing the independant tests and the acceptance by the government of the product. You might want to brush up on the implications of all that too and try and understand how government procurement actually works, instead of guessing and assuming you know. For instance you might want to look up ‘conflict of interest’ before speculating whether or not Diebold helped write the RFP and list the requirements.
When come back, bring some facts (from sources other than blogs…and someone ELSES cites at that) and you will do better here.
-XT
You know, as a voter in Ohio, I have to say that this “debate” is rather amusing.
Speaking anecdotely, I voted, punch ballot. I visted 2 friends in 2 different precints while they voted, again, punch ballots. This was in Akron, not the smallest little hamlet in the state.
All this carping about supposedly rigged voting machines and I never even saw a voting machine.
Does anyone have any information just how many of the bloody things were used in the first place? and where?
And a Deibold headquarters is right down the street from where I voted too!
In the 2004 general election, 68 of Ohio’s 88 counties opted to use paper punch cards. Of the twenty counties which used electronic voting machines, they could choose what they wanted to use from among the three qualified vendors. Sixteen opted for Diebold equipment representing 800,000 registered voters.
http://www.diebold.com/news/newsdisp.asp?id=3036
I note that one of the Ohio counties where electronic vote fraud was supposed to have occured according to the “evidence” posted here earlier (Mahoning) did not use Diebold equipment in the 11/04 general election. Guess we can rule that one out conclusively.
Of the sixteen Diebold counties, 13 went for Bush: Brown, Carrol, Darke, Defiance, Guernsey, Harrison, Henry, Logan, Medina, Mercer, Morgan, Perry and Richland. The other three went to Kerry: Jefferson, Lorain & Trumbull.
The circle is closing. You guys now need to show evidence of electronic vote fraud in one or more of those 13 counties in Ohio in the general election of 11/2004. Time to put up or shut up boys.
And another bit of info for y’all: Since the AccuVote system has been proven such an unreliable piece of shit prone to fraud, ninteen additional Ohio counties will be using it tomorrow. Map of the 35 Ohio counties using Diebold equipment tomorrow is here:
http://www.yourvotecountsohio.org/
In fairness, should point out that the machines in Lucas County will be creating a paper trail this time. Sounds cumbersome (frankly, I’d prefer to get a printout of what I did, rather than look at it through a window), but at least there will be something to recreate a result from if the machine blows a gasket.
I’ll let y’all know how easy it is to use after I’m done tomorrow.
Good. I brought up a “paper trail” a few times before. If nothing else, it will put some accusations to rest, or prove them (maybe). But, in Florida, there was once a big stink about hanging chads, and that was a paper system. I don’t think we’ll ever have a system that can’t be gamed somehow, or a system that nobody will ever accuse of being rigged.
In short, there will never be a system that everyone likes or one that nobody ever questions.
Yep. I said a while back that any system which didn’t provide for a full paper trail, was substandard.
Yep again. All electronic voting machines used in Ohio how have to provide a full paper trail for audits. It’s part of HAVA - 42 USC 15481 Section 301.
(2) Audit capacity.--
(A) In general.--The voting system shall produce a
record with an audit capacity for such system.
(B) Manual audit capacity.--
(i) The voting system shall produce a
permanent paper record with a manual audit
capacity for such system.
(ii) The voting system shall provide the voter
with an opportunity to change the ballot or
correct any error before the permanent paper
record is produced.
(iii) The paper record produced under
subparagraph (A) shall be available as an official
record for any recount conducted with respect to
any election in which the system is used.
That’s a very generous definition of “active”. Most of us, I think, would limit it to campaigning and fundraising, even if it were ethical for someone in his specific position to do so. No, “I’m gonna deliver this state for Bush”, when said in a state where the votes are counted by his own machines, without effective control by the state (and that gets into Black’s role) or traceability, has some different connotations to it, doesn’t it? Ones that have never been dispelled, even though Mr. O’Dell has had years now to “clarify” it.
Yes, now you’re getting there. That is the reason for the concern, one which you excluded before (hence my comment) and are acknowledging now. And, no matter how much he knows about programming personally, he does have a number of people who do and whose paychecks depend on keeping him happy, no?
It’s a relief, of sorts, to see Ohio adding the traceability that was lacking before, which as I said effectively ceded control by the state to the manufacturer. At least that’s the appearance of traceability - surely a bit of suspicion is healthy?
True, but the necessary standard ISTM is that the best effort to get as close to accurate as humanly possible, using good faith by all concerned. Those conditions were lacking in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 and many other places at other times.
Shodan, take a moment to think, hard, about *who * you’re trying to convince of *what * here, and how well you’re doing it, m’kay? Just a moment. All I’m gonna say to you.