"FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS? NOT HERE!!

"You know, comrades," says Stalin, 

"...I consider it completely unimportant 

who in the party will vote, or how; 

but what is extraordinarily important is this — 

who will count the votes, and how!"

In a few months, we'll all go to the polls to select our next President, ALL of our House of Representatives, and 1/3 of the Senate.

I think few would dispute that this is one of the most important elections in the history of our Republic - and that its literal future will be decided by this election!

Many of us are intensely worried about the slate of candidates, but that should be the LEAST of our worries!

Electronic voting machines are used all over our country. Every single one of them is a black-hole for your vote. 

Sure - it SAYS it recorded what you voted, but HOW DO WE KNOW IT REALLY RECORDED THE VOTES WE CAST?

The fact is WE DON'T KNOW!

We CAN'T know!


Further, it has been demonstrated over and over that these electronic voting machines are easily manipulated!

Take this article for example (pops) - which shows that an eighth-grader, with no real special knowledge, could take over all the votes in a machine - with $26 worth of parts - and thereafter control it via remote-control from outside the building in the parking-lot!

But... You're probably thinking what I did -- that the odds of someone being able to open up the machines and insert hardware is not very likely -- surely they keep them in a secure area, right?

WRONG!

In many places, poll workers take the machines home for a "slumber party" for several days before an election!  (pops)

A single worker could potentially steal enough votes to turn a district, which with only a surprisingly small number of districts would be enough to turn the nation!

But it gets even worse!  Even in states where the machines are kept "under lock and key" the people who hold the keys -- the ones responsible for ensuring the machines aren't tampered with -- are members of the infamous "SEIU" ("State Employees) union! (pops)

You know -- the same SEIU Union who supported ACORN, and whose boss is one of the most frequent visitors to Obama's white-house?! (pops)

TALK ABOUT "LETTING THE FOX GUARD THE HEN-HOUSE!!!"

But let's even ignore all of THAT - because the sad reality is that even if every poll-worker, every technician, even every SEIU member were 100% honest, it is trivially simple for anyone to tamper with the machine right in the polling place, in the time it takes for an average person to cast their vote!

All it takes is to unlock the simple little lock on the side of the machine, insert a memory-card with a virus on it, then restore the original card back into the machine!

How do you unlock it? With keys that are readily available in every hardware store in the country!

You can actually unlock our voting machines - the basis of our REPUBLIC! - with the key from your hotel minibar or jewelry box!  (pops)

For a while, Diebold even had the picture of the key (pops) on their website -- so some smart guy could hand-file a key to match -- and some smart guy DID! (pops)

The picture is still available on the 'net for those who might have missed it on Diebold's site -- or then there's this guy (for one example) who makes sure it remains available... here's all you need ! (pops)

Or, just pick the lock in under 10 seconds - search you tube for "how to pick a lock" (pops) for thousands of tutorials! With even a little practice, ANYONE could pick those cheezy little locks in under 10 seconds with tools made themselves from the aforementioned YT videos!

Another "Gem" from the Princeton report: the "Secret pin" for these machines is "1111" -- can you believe it?!

Once the Virus is installed, it can easily throw ANY election and be undetectable! (pops)

But don't the workers test the machines before the election? Yes - but the virus can easily step around this! (pops)

What about after-testing? Don't they check the machines? Not usually - but even if they did, as noted in the video the virus will erase all its tracks!

How does machine get infected? Well, it could even be done by a voter!

Let's say you wanted to steal the election in your district. You just show up early to "vote", "fix" the machine while you're in the "booth" and you'll steal votes all day!

If you and (say) 10 friends all go in at the same time you can easily do every machine in the place - especially if you have a couple of "stupid" people (ie: accomplices pretending to need help) with you to distract the poll-workers by pretending to need help while the rest of you "voters" are "fixing" all the machines!

Or, simply sign up as a poll-worker and you get to have a slumber-party with the machines -- AT YOUR HOUSE!

Our Government KNOWS ALL OF THIS -- here's a professor testifying and demonstrating this for CONgress, OVER FIVE YEARS AGO!


IN SUM, THEY KNOW ALL OF THESE VULNERABILITIES EXIST, AND EVEN AFTER HALF A DECADE NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE!

Now here's my question:

Why - since each machine has a printer built in - can't it print out a copy of each vote so the voter can verify, then place the paper in a locked/sealed box so that it could be used for a random recount/verification later? This would only require a simple code-change which any competent programmer could write in less than one day!

In this scenario, when you finish voting, the printer prints a "receipt" which you look at to verify your vote(s). Assuming it's right, you then put the paper in a sealed, locked box attached to the side of the voting machine. Heck, steel ammo-boxes with a slit cut in the top would be perfect for this, and cost next to nothing if obtained from the military as surplus!

For a long-run solution, all that would be needed would be a receipt-printer (cost: less than $200 - no doubt less in quantity) (pops) attached to each machine.

These printers are used in most stores today, and use a 2-part tape. The "top copy" is torn off and given to the customer - in this case the voter - to verify his vote.

The second copy is rolled up inside the machine, thus providing a "paper backup" of every vote cast!

This could be used to enable a random audit or even a full recount should circumstances require!

By doing this, and a random audit of (perhaps) 10% of all machines (comparing the "saved" tape to the final count from said machine) we could ensure that our elections are actually real and fair, and not being manipulated.

This is how this would work: At the close of polling, one machine in ten is randomly selected for audit. The poll-watchers count the votes on the paper-tape and compare them to the total "spit out" by the machine. If the electronic count matches the paper-count, all is well and the election can be assumed "fair."

If it does NOT match, it is counted again to be sure, then (assuming it fails again) *ALL* machines would need to be assumed to be compromised and all votes tallied by using the paper tapes.

THIS WOULD MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO STEAL AN ELECTION!

So why hasn't it been done?

To me, the answer is simple:

Stalin said it over 70 years ago:

"You know, comrades," says Stalin, 

"...I consider it completely unimportant 

who in the party will vote, or how; 

but what is extraordinarily important is this — 

who will count the votes, and how!"

They've got us arguing over "Voter-IDs" - but very few are talking about THIS!

Oh - and it's not just Diebold, either!
(pops)

If you're paying attention, you might have noticed that when we run elections in other countries, we take simple steps to ensure there's no fraud...

Why do you suppose we don't do something similar HERE?

For those still hankering for more, see http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf (pops) for a report from PA, or the full Princeton report here: https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/ts-evt07-init.pdf (pops)

Those who read either will note that they were issued *FIVE YEARS AGO*.
FIVE.FULL.YEARS - and nothing has been done!

God help us -- and GOD SAVE OUR REPUBLIC!