Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked
From: Michael Poole <mdpoole () troilus org>
Date: 10 Nov 2004 18:35:40 -0500
Jei writes:
On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Jay D. Dyson wrote:-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Atom 'Smasher' wrote:Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was HackedRead the whole thing and didn't see any evidence. Just wild speculation and baseless conjecture. Hell, there were countless counties across the nation in which more people were registered to vote than were eligible residents, but -- for some reason -- that ain't news.It would be _major_ news, were it not America where it happened. Even India managed to hold a secure digital election recently, without any such major exit poll or other discrepancies happening.
Can you then explain the results of India's election this year given exit poll numbers like those shown at http://www.indian-elections.com/opinionpoll/ ? While the range for NDA is only about 21% (230 * 1.208 = 278), the range for the Congress party (plus its allies) is about 123% (92-205), and Congress+ won 220 in the end (220 - 205 = 15, approximately 3% of the 542 seats being voted on -- and 205 is the absolute upper range of exit poll projections). I'll admit I am not familiar with any of those five media or with the Indian electoral system, but that looks like a rather more significant discrepancy than seen in the US's exit poll numbers. I suspect this news is being inflated _because_ it happened in the USA.
Also note that Americans aren't the only people in the world with capable intelligence agencies. Teenage kid hackers aren't the only people who might influence US elections' outcomes, given a viable chance. You need to consider all the factors.
One of Kerry's main campaign themes was "more respected abroad." It seems frivolous to invoke intelligence agencies as possible meddlers in Bush's favor when most of them would have apparently preferred a Kerry victory -- and when so many of the paperless precincts voted strongly in Kerry's favor.
Digital voting needs to be as secure and reliable as bank accounts are from an independent (democratic) nation's national security point of view. A digital vote discrepancy == national bank account discrepancy, in it's importance, in this regard. Arguing that vote discrepancies don't really matter, is like a system admin arguing that system binary checksum discrepancies do not matter.
Assuming vote discrepancies in the absense of good evidence is foolish. People with much stronger analytic backgrounds than Thom Hartmann have debunked the idea that the early exit poll numbers were representative of all voters[1] as well as the idea that there were relevant -- or even consistent -- discrepancies between exit polls and final returns[2]. Others have explained why so many Florida counties with high Democratic registration vote for Republican presidents[3]. Michael Poole [1]- They did not adequately represent those who voted on Nov 2 and entirely omitted absentee and early vote results; in some states, those totalled 20 or 30% of registered voters. [2]- http://vote.caltech.edu/Reports/VotingMachines3.pdf [3]- In a teacup: Historic Democratic affiliation; very few local Republican candidates, so many elections are settled in the (closed) Democratic primaries; and a historic trend to vote for Republican and southern presidential candidates. These counties largely voted as they did in 2000, and about half voted for Dole in 1996 in the mist of what was largely a Clinton landslide victory. _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Jei (Nov 09)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Tom Le (Nov 10)
- RE: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Gary Halleen (ghalleen) (Nov 10)
- Re: RE: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Adam Jacob Muller (Nov 11)
- RE: RE: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Larry Seltzer (Nov 11)
- Re: RE: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Adam Jacob Muller (Nov 11)
- Re: RE: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Adam Jacob Muller (Nov 11)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Kluge (Nov 10)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Jay D. Dyson (Nov 10)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Michael Poole (Nov 10)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Keith Oxenrider (Nov 10)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Jay D. Dyson (Nov 10)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Keith Oxenrider (Nov 10)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Jay D. Dyson (Nov 10)
- Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Matt . Carpenter (Nov 11)
- Re: Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Valdis . Kletnieks (Nov 11)
- Re: Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Matt . Carpenter (Nov 11)
- Re: Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Paul Schmehl (Nov 12)
- Re: Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Valdis . Kletnieks (Nov 12)
- Re: Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Valdis . Kletnieks (Nov 11)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Carlos Kramer (Nov 10)
- RE: Re: Evidence Mounts that the Vote Was Hacked Larry Seltzer (Nov 10)