[ale] Georgia electronic voting challenge!

[aaron]

It is wonderful that the numerous software vulnerabilities of these closed 
source voting machines are getting some attention, but I fear that all the 
media noise about security is only serving as a smoke screen for the more 
blatant manipulations and exploits involved. The real election fraud being 
perpetrated through electronic voting resides far less with the computer 
systems than with who is counting the votes that the hidden, secret software 
of these systems is supposed to collect.

Across the nation, and in the vast majority of electronic voting 
implementations that our tax dollars are being squandered on, the actual job 
of counting our votes is being carted off by a tiny handful of privately 
contracted corporape entities who, by the very nature of their employ, have a 
vested interest in every election outcome. Abhorrently, their state awarded 
contracts for electronic voting systems frequently preclude or severely limit 
external public monitoring, review or audit of the counts these contractors 
perform or of the voting machinery they provide. The closed systems they are 
foisting on the public are almost never required to produce the simple, 
auditable, voter verified paper trail that would ensure an honest accounting 
of our votes while almost entirely eliminating the potentials for software 
related vulnerabilities, criminal manipulations or security failures.

It is my understanding that Georgia's electronic voting implementation is a 
worst case example of all the problems outlined above, a fact which calls 
into question every election in which these systems have been used. If 
Georgians want their future votes in this state to have even a remote chance 
of a fair and honest counting,  the three essential words to remember are:
   Use Absentee Ballots** 

As the brutal dictator Stalin observed, it is not the votes that count, it is 
who counts the vote. In 2000, Florida's Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of 
State Kathleen Harris used the easy manipulation of computer data bases 
collected from Texas to fraudulently (and criminally) remove more than 60,000 
legitimate Florida voters from state voter registration lists by falsely 
labeling and libeling them as convicts. All it took was a 2 million dollar 
State contract payoff to Georgia's Choice Point corporation to suppress the 
verification process that the data was legally required to undergo; data so 
flawed that it even reported conviction dates for many of these innocent, 
mostly black victims as happening in the FUTURE years of 2001 and beyond. 
Implementing closed, secretive, corporape controlled electronic voting 
systems without complete public access and auditing guarantees that this kind 
of massive criminal election fraud will become the pathetic standard rather 
than the innexcusable exception of 2000, and American democracy will become a 
relic of the 20th century.

peace
(in justice)
aaron


**[ Though "Impeach The Criminals" will work too. ;^) ] 


On Saturday 23 August 2003 09:15, Geoffrey wrote:
> Caught this in the newspaper this morning:
> 
> "Roxanne Jekot, a 51 year old computer program developer from Cumming, 
> said she and a few expert friends could crack Georgia's $54 million 
> touchscreen voting system in a matter of minutes."
> 
> And they're going to give her the chance.
> 
> It's on the page E1 of the AJC this morning.
> 
> Go get them Roxanne!
> 
> Anyone know Roxanne?
> 

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale