Philly leaders object to voting monitors

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - City officials and Hispanic community leaders objected Thursday to the federal government's plans to put monitors at city polling places on Election Day, saying those efforts could discourage people from voting.

The Department of Justice this month asked a federal judge to authorize appointment of monitors beginning with the upcoming Nov. 7 election and ending in 2009. The government accused the city of failing to provide sufficient election materials in Spanish and not recruiting enough bilingual poll workers.

But City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said at a news conference Thursday that the federal government could not guarantee him that federal monitors wouldn't follow voters into polling booths. It would be better to appoint local monitors, he said.

The Justice Department said Thursday that monitors would not enter the booths without voter permission.

"No federal observers would ever enter a voting booth unless specifically requested by and with the expressed permission of a voter, and to suggest otherwise is just untrue," spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Still, local attorney Luis P. Diaz, who also attended Thursday's news conference with other community leaders, said that "we're very, very concerned about having Big Brother taking care of us."

The federal lawsuit contends the city violated the federal Voting Rights Act by allowing only poll workers — some of whom did not speak Spanish — to help Hispanic voters cast ballots. The law permits voters who require assistance to request help from someone they know.

Diaz, the city solicitor, said Philadelphia has been helping to accommodate non-English speakers at the polls for more than three decades. The city plans to recruit about 200 translators to help at the more than 150 polling places expected to need translation services this year, he said.

About 10 percent of Philadelphia's 1.4 million residents are Hispanic, according to 2004 Census figures cited in the suit. But the government estimates that about 36 percent of voting-age Hispanics in the city have limited English skills.

[ballz2wallz]

Why does it always seem like the Democrats are always the ones against some sort of way to make sure the voting places aren't tampered or messed with? They are against ID cards, they are against monitors; they are against basically anything that will keep voters honest.

There's only one reason I can think of why this would be...

[avsp]

Having edited several of Rons posts about various worries about the balloting process I just am baffled by it all

Why have voting machines at all, let alone electronic ones?
What wrong with pen & paper?

Also isnt this a sign of a civilisation collapsing, not being able to do today what you could do yesterday?

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by avsp

Having edited several of Rons posts about various worries about the balloting process I just am baffled by it all

Why have voting machines at all, let alone electronic ones?
What wrong with pen & paper?

Also isnt this a sign of a civilisation collapsing, not being able to do today what you could do yesterday?

I think security on electronic voting machines would be a lot better; there is too much room for error with pen and paper when one person can submit multiple ballots.

We all use electronice every day of our lives. To assume that suddenly electronic voting machines 'won't work' or 'are susceptible to failure' etc is stupid. Our very lives are in the hands of electronics every day when you drive newer cars. To assume electronics won't be able to handle voting is ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a bipartisan effort to create voting systems that are secure and consistent.

At this point though, it seems Democrats don't want us to be able to check IDs, don't want people monitoring the polling stations, or practically anything to ensure voting is done properly. Why?

Obviously I'm making an assumption that these leaders are Democrats, even though the article doesn't say so, mainly because they are Philly officials and minority officials. Based on that alone, there is a 99% chance they are Democrats.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Why does it always seem like the Democrats are always the ones against some sort of way to make sure the voting places aren't tampered or messed with? They are against ID cards, they are against monitors; they are against basically anything that will keep voters honest.

There's only one reason I can think of why this would be...

No one asked the federal government to step in and place regulators at the polls. Voting is a state issue.

[6SpeedTA95]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Why does it always seem like the Democrats are always the ones against some sort of way to make sure the voting places aren't tampered or messed with? They are against ID cards, they are against monitors; they are against basically anything that will keep voters honest.

There's only one reason I can think of why this would be...

I think both parties probably have a history of trying to illegally swing elections but there's definately a rather large number of elections that support the fact that democrats did indeed cheat, the biggest among these was the election of Kennedy in 1960.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Why does it always seem like the Democrats are always the ones against some sort of way to make sure the voting places aren't tampered or messed with? They are against ID cards, they are against monitors; they are against basically anything that will keep voters honest.

There's only one reason I can think of why this would be...

Why does Diebold get to keep the workings of their machines secret?

It's happening on both sides fyi.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

Why does Diebold get to keep the workings of their machines secret?

Same reason the military keeps their operations secret

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

It's happening on both sides fyi.

I have no doubt, but its certainly lop-sided towards one party.

[Diesel66]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

Why does Diebold get to keep the workings of their machines secret?

because if you publish the code, it makes it easier to break in




Would you publish your security system for your house ?

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Diesel66

because if you publish the code, it makes it easier to break in




Would you publish your security system for your house ?

I was trying to make him think about it a little bit, but thanks for answering it for him!

I can't figure out what people are thinking sometimes

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Same reason the military keeps their operations secret

I have no doubt, but its certainly lop-sided towards one party.

That's silly. They are stand alone machines. It's not like they are connected to a network where some hacker can dial in and change the code. even if the code was made public, no one could do anything about it because each machine has it's own code and each machine is locked. If they are smart the code is burned onto the chips so it can't be changed without changing hardware.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

That's silly.

Is it though? With today's techies, nothing seems impossible, nor silly.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Is it though? With today's techies, nothing seems impossible, nor silly.

If someone got access to the code it would be broken regardless. You can reverse engineer anything.
The real trick is preventing access to the machine itself.

[Diesel66]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

That's silly. They are stand alone machines. It's not like they are connected to a network where some hacker can dial in and change the code.

Except when they dial in the results or when they are programed before the election

[Nonphixion]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

I think security on electronic voting machines would be a lot better; there is too much room for error with pen and paper when one person can submit multiple ballots.

We all use electronice every day of our lives. To assume that suddenly electronic voting machines 'won't work' or 'are susceptible to failure' etc is stupid. Our very lives are in the hands of electronics every day when you drive newer cars. To assume electronics won't be able to handle voting is ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a bipartisan effort to create voting systems that are secure and consistent.

At this point though, it seems Democrats don't want us to be able to check IDs, don't want people monitoring the polling stations, or practically anything to ensure voting is done properly. Why?

Obviously I'm making an assumption that these leaders are Democrats, even though the article doesn't say so, mainly because they are Philly officials and minority officials. Based on that alone, there is a 99% chance they are Democrats.

Diebold Machines were designed to steal elections, you can't possibly beleive what you're saying with any moral conviction.

The "security keys" on the side that protect the access ports are one size fits all furniture/computer desk keys. The software isn't encrypted (with any real security), and when the Diebold machines are all brought back to the central tallying station -- these machines share their sofware with each other having no regard for integrity of code. So viruses (aka election-hijacking software) are spread nearly instantly.

[willis]

holy shit, this whole thread is beyond wrong in both fact and theory.



http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars


is a decent summary of the weaknesses of these voting machines. keeping them closed source is not making them any safer, and yes it is theoretically possible to infect a whole room of machines from one infected machine, networked or not.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Same reason the military keeps their operations secret

So the terrorists don't win?


Please, they buy machines from a totally partisian company and you have no problem with that? But you do have problems with this?

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

I have no doubt, but its certainly lop-sided towards one party.

Hardly

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by Diesel66

because if you publish the code, it makes it easier to break in




Would you publish your security system for your house ?

Bullshit.

And it's nothing like a security code for a house. Nice try though.

[Kytro]

Originally Posted by Diesel66

because if you publish the code, it makes it easier to break in

Only if you don't fix the flaws.