Vote Swapping Legal: Good News for Libertarians?

A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that vote swapping web sites like those that sprang up before the 2000 election are legal and protected under the First Amendment.

Ars Technica has a very good nutshell explanation of the vote swapping scheme:

The idea here was that the swing state voters could still cast their ballots for a third-party candidate (such as Ralph Nader) without endangering the Democratic candidate (Al Gore) in their states. Although Nader was in no danger of winning the presidency, votes were still crucial because his party hoped to exceed the five percent threshold for receiving federal election funds in the next campaign.

Prior to the decision, Eugene Volokh reasoned thusly:

Senator Smith to Senator Jones: "I'll pay you $10,000 if you vote my way." Criminal bribe. Senator Smith to Senator Jones: "I'll vote your way on the bill you like if you vote my way on the bill I like." Legislative business as usual, sometimes slimy but sometimes necessary for politics to function; clearly not illegal, and perhaps constitutionally protected (not that anyone has tested this). Yet "something of value is being given in exchange for a vote," no? (In fact, if the Senators fear losing reelection if they don't make deals like this, then the something of value translates into something of financial value for them — their salaries.)

OK, you say, legislative deals are special. But why should the sovereign voters have fewer rights to make deals than their servants in Congress?

Spot on.

I don't see this as having much of an impact on the 2008 election. That's mainly because I don't think Bloomberg will make much of a splash even if he does run as an independent (in fact, I don't think he'll even make it on the ballot in all 50 states). Nor do I see a third party Democrat/Green standing up and making noise.

However, this could be very good news for Libertarians, the only third party in the US that has a broad enough base in the number of states that will be able to benefit. Imagine every Libertarian that holds his nose to vote Republican in a "safe" state (or a lost state, like California) being able to vote Libertarian.

Prediction: three parties on the presidential ballot in 2012.

Who knows? This might even be the beginning of the end of the two party monopoly in the US. [OK, so maybe I shouldn't go that far.]

Surprise! Electronic Voting can be Hacked

A team of hackers hired by the California Secretary of State's Office was able to break into every electronic voting machine they tested.

Sometimes it wasn't even necessary to open it up. Just unplugging one or jostling it at an "inopportune time" caused errors.

This comes as no surprise to anyone in the computer industry as we've long known that these systems are vulnerable. And while it's true that any voting system can be compromised, at least with ballots there is a paper trail.

A voting machine virus can change the results of an election and then delete itself, leaving no trace of impropriety.

Says the California Secretary of State:

"It's a big deal for many people in this country," she said. "We're a democracy and our very existence as a democracy is dependent on our having voting systems that are secure, reliable and accurate."

Too true. Of course, "secure, reliable and accurate" includes keeping illegal aliens and convicted felons from voting, but don't expect California to do anything  about that.

Of Democrats and RINOs

Democrat Sells Political Influence: South Carolina state Sen. Darrell Jackson inked a $200,000 deal with Hillary just days before announcing that he was throwing his weight behind her bid for the presidency.

Jackson had also been in talks with Sen. Barack Obama's campaign about endorsing him and entering into a consulting contract for more than $5,000, sources said - raising questions about whether Jackson's endorsement was bought by a higher bidder.

Speaking of Democrats and those of similar ilk, it looks like Senator McCain is poised to begin raising millions of dollars in soft money in order to make a run at the presidency. So much for the unconstitutional abomination we call McCain-Feingold.

 

Further Perversion of the Process

TeamGOP thinks someone is laundering dirty money using their name (via electronic newsletter):

TeamGOP has learned that the group’s name may have been used by Memphis Democrats to launder illegal campaign money during the 2006 election. According to the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance website, Democrats Ophelia Ford and Reginald Tate each received $1000.00 from “TeamGOP.”  Neither TeamGOP nor any member of its board donated one dollar to any Democrat in 2006. The records that report those donations are bogus.

“Today I have written letters to Drew Rawlings, Executive Director of the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance, and Mark Gwyn, Director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, asking for an immediate investigation into this blatantly illegal activity,” said TeamGOP’s General Chairman Jeff Ward. “I can see no other reason to use a false name other than to hide the real source of the money.”

Two thousand dollars is a lot of money and if there is one thing for certain it is that Jeff Ward would not donate a penny to a Ford. Something underhanded is afoot.

BTW, Jeff, when are you going to update your website?

Stealing Elections

The indispensable John Harvey is continuing his quest to stop election fixing in Shelby County.

In a press release emailed yesterday morning (not available on the web), Harvey once again spanks the local election commission for issuing false statements.

Briefly, WMC news has discovered that there are videos on the internet that clearly demonstrates the vulnerability of Diebold voting machines to vote-stealing software. The video in question is one produced by a Princeton University professor that exposed the flaw.

Shelby County Election Commissioner Rich Holden responds to WMCTV by asserting:

"People are not going to have that unfettered access to these machines," says Shelby County Election Commissioner Rich Holden.  "It's not going to occur.  It's not going to occur in Shelby County because you're not going to have that kind of access."

The video claims that all a hacker needs is one minute in front of the machine.

It may be true - admits Holden - but it won't happen in Shelby County because - he says - there's too much oversight.

Yet John Harvey has posted pictures of unattended Diebold machines taken just three days before an election.

But even if the machines are kept locked down, even if security is heightened to Israeli airport levels, can we really trust every night guard, every cop that transports the machine, every precinct captain that takes the machine home the night before an election? I think not.

To see how vulnerable the Diebold machines are, you can watch the entire ten minute video produced by Princeton, a three-minute Fox News clip in which the Princeton professor demonstrates his findings, or view the Princeton report in PDF format. Or you can keep reading.

Basically, this is what the professor found:

1. Malicious software can easily be installed on a Diebold machine, a process that takes less than one minute.
2. During the election, a percentage of votes for one candidate are given to another. The exact amount is determined by the person who writes the virus.
3. Infected Diebold machines can infect other machines via the memory card that voters use to cast their ballot. The infected machine alters the card and when it is reused by another voter on another machine, that machine is compromised.
4. At the end of the election, the virus deletes itself, leaving no traces that it ever existed on the Diebold.

It has long been known that Diebold machines have more security holes than any random Microsoft patch Tuesday and frankly I am rather amazed that any election official would trust our votes to these machines.

In 2003, five years of Diebold company announcements, software bulletins and internal e-mails were released to the public by a hacker.

In one series of e-mails, a senior engineer dismissed concern from a lower-level programmer who questioned why Diebold lacked certification for the operating system in touch-screen voting machines. The Federal Election Commission requires such software to be certified by independent researchers.

In another e-mail, an executive scolded programmers for leaving software files on an Internet site without password protection.

In October 2005, the Diebold Accuvote 2000 Optical Scan was compromised with homemade devices, awarding 10,000 votes to a candidate without leaving any traces of the crime.

Last August, BlackBoxVoting.org demonstrated a way to compromise the Diebold ballot scanner and details how poll workers routinely store the machines and election materials at their homes the day before an election.

Also in August, the Open Voting Foundation showed how flipping a single switch can cause a Diebold machine to boot from an unverified external flash card rather than the EPROM.

Of course, even if they fix every security vulnerability on these electronic machines you could still hack the central tabulating computer or manipulate the GEM.

Can we please go back to paper ballots?

Cross posted at TennWatch.

Technorati tags: Diebold Vulnerabilities, Stealing Elections, Electronic Voting.

Dead Man Voting

Memphis' local paper, the Commercial Appeal, has done something unusual: real investigative journalism. And it's even relevant: voter fraud in the days before a primary.

Using information available to the public (including the Election Commission), the CA found:

• Voters who died decades ago remain eligible to vote.
• Felons are ineligible to vote, but are hired at taxpayer expense to work the polls and oversee the election process. We're talking everything from sexual assault to burglary, gun violence, prostitution and drugs.
• 20,000 residents who have moved out of Shelby County since 2002, yet remain on Shelby County's voter rolls.
• Nearly 1,700 of those have returned to vote, sometimes years later.
• A total of over 66,000 Shelby County residents have moved since 2002, which means that potentially tens of thousands are no longer residing in the district in which they're registered to vote. This was an issue in Democrat Ophilia Ford's 13 vote "win" over Terry Roland, an election that has since been nullified by the state senate because it was proven dirty.
• 18,000 of the moves were to locations outside of Tennessee, another 2,900 to other counties. Yet the paper identified at least 1,600 incidents in which these names were used to cast votes.

In a follow-up story, the CA reports:

Using the same public records available to county officials, the newspaper identified at least 500 deceased residents still on the rolls -- many shown as active voters.

One of these registered voters died in 1954!.

Moreover, John Harvey has found 575 people on the rolls over 100 years of age — including three people that are 177 years old! (I'd love to know how many of these people voted recently.)

Much of the research done by the CA was accomplished by matching the names of the county's 603,000 registered voters against National Change of Address data maintained by the Postal Service, a practice that is growing among election commissions across the country. Shelby County, of course, does not.

Republican Representative Paul Stanley sponsored a bill that would require an annual statewide NCOA search, but pulled it "because of Democrat opposition to any tinkering with voter rolls." Imagine that.

Yet by law, Tennessee's 95 county election commissions must have an address verification program in place to help keep voting rolls clean. What has Shelby County done?

Last July, the commission passed an address verification program to be done once every two years, but it wouldn't contact all voters, just those who didn't vote or update registration. Those voters are then to be mailed a card that can't be forwarded. If a card returns as undeliverable, the voter is to be deemed inactive -- the first step toward purging.

That's right — Shelby County has initiated a program to purge the voting rolls of all names that haven't been fraudently used. Way to "clean up"!

Note that the CA didn't even begin to address the whole "are you a citizen" issue. I suspect there are hundreds more violations under that rock.

One final thought: Tennessee is increasingly voting Republican (and proudly gave 11 electoral votes to W instead of native son Gore in 2000). Yet because the Tennessee House has a Democrat majority, all 95 county election commissions across the state have a Democrat majority, no matter what the makeup of the county's electorate.

Here in Shelby County, Election Commission Chair Greg Duckett served as state counsel to Senator Gore and worked on the Clinton-Gore transition team. And member Maura Black Sullivan worked for US Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., was President of the Shelby County Democratic Women, and served as Vice Chair and Assistant Treasurer of the local Democratic Party.

Not exactly non-partisan supervisors of our democratic processes.

Ah, well. Life goes on and today is election day in Shelby County as the first primary of the year is being held. As the Commercial Appeal says:

It's Election Day. Get out and vote: If exercising your right isn't reason enough to vote, consider this:

You might just bump into a dearly departed friend or relative casting a ballot.

Cross posted to TennWatch, aka Volitics.

Technorati Tags: Voting Reform, Crooked Politics, Dead Man Voting, Elections, Memphis+Politics, Shelby County Tennessee, Tennessee Politics.

Voter ID Goes Smooth in Arizona

Arizona's Proposition 200 requires voters to prove they are who they say they are. They do this by providing a government-issued photo ID that has the same address as that on the voter list (American government, not one of those Mexican Matricula consular cards that can be obtained via some cash under the table). If the address doesn't match, just bring in something like a utilitiy bill or tribal enrollment card to prove you are who you say you are.

Surprisingly, this common sense legislation actually passed. No doubt because it was put to the people so that politicians didn't have to show a real backbone.

The new system got its first test yesterday in county recall vote and it went off with very few problems:

Although mandated to prevent voter fraud, the new rules stirred fears from some voter advocates that disenfranchisement and intimidation would result. Minor inconvenience and slight confusion appeared instead.

I find it hard to believe that no one reported racism as a result of being asked, "May I see your ID, please?"

The Arizona Advocacy Network and Metro Phoenix League of Women Voters surveyed roughly 500 voters leaving polling places in heavily Hispanic areas of Mesa. Advocacy Network Executive Director Linda Brown said most voters were having little problem.

Imagine a day when you are not disenfranchised because your vote isn't diluted by illegals, convicts and dead people. Arizona did. May the rest of the country follow.

Technorati Tags: Vote Reform, Arizona Politics, Proposition 200.

Election Glitches in Detroit

Detroit is still discovering sealed ballot boxes from the November 2^nd election and has found descrepancies in vote totals in 30 percent of the precincts.

Counting ballots and coming up with totals should not take two weeks. Accounting for all ballot boxes should not take two hours. It's not that hard for anyone with a modicum of organizational skills.

I'm stunned.

Electoral College

Journalist Gregory Kane makes a case for returning the Electoral College to what the Founding Fathers intended because:

Some people are too stupid to be trusted with the ballot.

Funny, and he definitely has a point.

Court Upholds Flawed Election

Because, after all, every election is flawed:

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges denied Republican claims that election errors, illegal voters and fraud stole the election from GOP candidate Dino Rossi.

"Unless an election is clearly invalid, when the people have spoken their verdict should not be disturbed by the courts," Bridges said as he announced the decision from his courtroom.

The judge agreed that the state's election system is flawed, but he said he was not the proper person to remedy those flaws.

"This court is not in the position to fix the deficiencies in the election process," Bridges said. "However, the voters are in a position to demand of their legislative and executive bodies that remedial measures be taken immediately."

I can't argue with this outcome. Without being able to prove systematic voter fraud they do not really have a case.

Perhaps, however, the case has thrown enough light on the problems with our system of voting that someone will do something about it. A country that can put a man on the moon, two robots on Mars and a cruise missle down a chimney should be able to tell who is eligible to vote and what they voted for.

Voter Fraud in Milwaukee

The same old story is repeated yet again: hundreds of felons voted in the 2004 election as did a multitude of imaginary and dead people — some voting more than once.

In addition, someone has been 'cooking the books', with 4,609 more votes recorded than there were voters. And that's only in Milwaukee!

A voter turnout of 60% is considered to be high (in a recent municipal election in El Paso only 13% of the voters made it to the polls). Even assuming a sky-high turnout of 70%, there would be over 83,000 bogus votes!

Out of the 277,000 people that voted in Milwaukee, 70,000 of them were allowed to register on the day of the election:

Among other findings, some 1,300 same-day registration cards were processed by poll workers who allowed people to vote even though the cards were incomplete. Some 548 had no address listed and 48 gave no name - yet the person was allowed to vote. Another 141 listed addresses outside the city.

The newspaper was denied access to those cards, on the recommendation of the city attorney's office, citing the inquiry.

This, of course, is lending support to Republican initiatives requiring proof of identity when voting. The Republican-controlled legislature passed voter ID bills earlier this year but Democrat governor Jim Doyle vetoed the measures. Republicans now swear that they will voter identification into law even if it means they must change the state constitution (which would require only the approval of the people of Wisconsin, not the governor).

Democrat mayor Tom Barrett pooh-poohs the idea:

Asked if a photo ID requirement would have made a difference, he said it would not have prevented felons from voting and would have had little impact on other problems.

Silly me, I would think that it would stop me from going to five polls claiming to be five imaginary people. Unless the state of Wisconsin issues photo IDs to anyone who claims to be someone, or can get a friend to say they are someone:

State law allows utility bills and leases to be used or for one voter to vouch for another.

Wisconsin went to Kerry by a mere 11,000 votes. The fraud in Milwaukee alone accounts this "victory" (Kerry took 71% of the Milwaukee votes) although there are rumors of fraud in Madison as well (the other Democrat stronghold in the state which had an astounding 80% voter turnout).

One more thing — prosecution of felons voting illegally is unlikely to take place because the state has to prove that the felon had knowledge of the fact that he/she was forbidden to vote. How ridiculous is that? Whatever happened to "ignorance of the law is no excuse"? (Sorry officer, I didn't know that bashing this guy's head in with a bat was against the law. Can you prove that I knew?)

Fed Court Upholds Con Voting Ban

Not happy with turning out in droves and voting for Al Gore illegally in 2000, Florida cons sued to get their voting rights restored. They lost:

A federal appeals court in Atlanta on Tuesday upheld Florida's 160-year-old law enforcing a lifetime ban on voting rights for convicted felons.

Ex-felons sued in 2000 to get their voting rights restored when their sentences are finished, instead of having to apply through a complex system for civil rights restoration. Many never apply or don't complete the process. ...

Gov. Jeb Bush's spokesman, Jacob DiPietre, applauded the ruling.

"This was a decisive ruling. The court ruled that Florida's process is a fair and good one and felons have the ability to get their rights restored through a deliberative and fair review," DiPietre said.

As a compassionate conservative let me say that restoring full citizenship to felons (including the right to carry guns) is one of my hot issues. I believe in rehabilitation, I believe that people change.

But just because you completed your sentence does not mean that you are ready to be a citizen. Make the effort and complete the process. You did wrong. Fix it. Take some responsibility.

25% Military Disenfranchisement

The National Defense Committee is "a grass roots, pro-military organization supporting a larger and stronger military and the election of more veterans to the United States Congress," so one would expect them to be a little upset about the results of their latest survey.

1 in 4 ballots from overseas voters (many of them military) were never counted last fall.

They admit that their methodology leaves a little to be desired, but as they state in the report (PDF format):

The disenfranchisement rate we show is bad enough, but we think that our report probably understates the problem, because we are relying on voluntary responses from election officials. Those officials who receive our fax communications certainly understand that the NDC is not a government entity, and that they are under no legal obligation to complete and return our questionnaire. Those officials with good news to report (ballots available early and all ballots came back on time and were counted) are more likely to return the questionnaire than those officials who have bad news to report. It should also be noted that 1.2 million of the 1.5 million active duty service members were serving within the United States on Election Day. The disenfranchisement rate for overseas military personnel would be much higher.

The underlying problem is that we, as a nation, are still conducting absentee voting essentially as we did during World War II, by shipping pieces of paper around the world by snail mail. A system that depends upon finding the individual service member, delivering a piece of paper, and then delivering that same piece of paper back to the member’s hometown is doomed to failure a substantial percentage of the time, especially during the Global War on Terrorism.

The individual military voter is a moving target.

Moreover, this is an improvement over the 2000 election. So the next time you hear a moonbat parroting "selected, not elected" you might ask them about that whole "count every vote" myth.

Democrats Indicted in Vote Buying Scheme

Five Democrats in East St. Louis have been charged in a scheme to buy votes in November's election in a federal indictment unsealed today.

Federal prosecutors in southern Illinois charged four Democratic committeemen and one precinct worker in the indictment.

Yesterday, four others pleaded guilty to related vote-buying charges in federal court.

Court records indicate voters were paid five or ten dollars to cast a Democratic ballot in the November second election.

They allege that the money to buy votes came from the St. Clair County Democratic Committee.

U-S Attorney Ronald Tenpas says the allegations do not address how many voters may have been paid for their votes or whether it affected the outcome of any election.

Ohio went to Bush with a margin of just over 118K votes out of over 5.6 million cast.

Just wondering if anyone knows of any Republicans that have been indicted on charges of voter fraud?

Privacy Overrules Criminal Investigation?

In Washington, the final tally amounts to a mere 129 vote difference. In a race marred by allegations of more voters casting ballots in King County than actually are registered, mishandled provisional ballots, and known felons being allowed to cast votes, Republicans are understandably upset and want to compare lists of felons to lists of voters.

According to one liberal newspaper:

"Exercising the right to vote should never be an activity that triggers a criminal investigation," said Jenny Durkan, a lawyer for Washington State Democrats.

What other crimes should go without investigation and without punishment because the criminal has a right to privacy? What person who votes and isn't a criminal would object to their name being compared to lists of criminals? If my name mistakenly appears on a felon roll somewhere I want to know about it so I can get it cleared up!

Diebold Settles with California

Diebold is forking over a measly $2.6 million to settle a suit from California and Alameda County because of fraudulent claims about the security of its electronic voting machines.

Diebold has also agreed to certain technology and reporting obligations that will provide election officials with a better understanding of how to use its voting machines.

The settlement is the fruit of a suit filed in September by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who argued that Diebold was not truthful about the security and reliability of its electronic voting machines.

Lockyer, who earlier dropped a criminal probe into Diebold, claimed that Diebold provided Alameda County with software that was not certified by the government. Researchers earlier determined the machines contained dangerous flaws.

Researchers said the voting system could easily allow someone to cast multiple votes in the same election. Last April, California set stringent standards for electronic voting by ordering new security measures for e-voting machines.

We can send a missle down a chimney a thousand miles away but we can't keep voter fraud from happening? Rediculous!