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Introduction
About Vote-Counting
News Sources
Exit Poll Discrepancy
Paper Ballots
Groups
Who's Who
Clint Curtis Interview
Questions and Conclusions
Links
Black Box Voting.Org,
Bev Harris's Website
and Her Book online
Interview w/ Harris
Amazon Reviews of Harris's Book
Bev Harris on Voting Machines
"Bald Faced Lies," the Truth
about Rob-Georgia
Dave Leip's Election Results
Election Night Timeline (Liep's)
Working Assets' Election Results
Illustrated History of Voting Machines
Modern Voting Machines Overview
Discussion Forum
IEEE Analysis of Electronic Voting
ElectionDataSvcs Inc
Stolen Election 2004, 38 pgs
Stolen Election 2004, brief
Electoral-Vote.com Pollsters Analyses in Micro-Detail
History of the U.S. Electoral College
VotersUnite.Org
NASED Website
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The Groups
The Election Center, a private entity that, directly or indirectly, promotes the sales of computerized voting systems to state and county officials, says Bev Harris. Headed by R. Doug Lewis, who is the official spokesperson. Apparently, The Election Center also holds trainings and promotions about voting machines, for voting officials throughout the U.S. It represents, and answers for, all of the Independent Testing Authorities (ITA's) who certify voting-machine software.
(Black Box Voting, chapter 6)
NASED: National Association of State Election Directors, with the Secretariat of this group being in Texas; they are supposed to certify that your election voting system is "safe" and free from tamperability. NASED's "new" website gives only one named contact person, email address only (physical address appears to be there, but a close look reveals that it is only a street, no city, state or zip given); see Black Box Voting website for a list of NASED officials; the NASED Secretariat is in the person of R. Doug Lewis in Houston, TX, electioncent@pdq.net; Lewis is also head of "The Election Center," q.v.)
NASS,
National Association of Secretaries of State; works with The Election Center
(Black Box Voting, chapter 6)
VotersUnite.org, "A non-partisan national grassroots network for fair and accurate elections!
Active local communities increasing your voice by uniting with others across the nation." This group has a page listing and linking to groups from many States in the U.S.
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News
Breaking News from Bev Harris
Berkeley CA statistical analysis of Florida data, Nov. 18, 2004
Recount in Ohio,
Nov. 15, 2004
California collects $2.6 million in Diebold suit for faulty voting machines, Nov 11, 2004
Kerry Won in Ohio, by Greg Palast, TomPaine.com, Nov. 4, 2004
Myriad errors in OH & PA Voting Process, Nov. 3, 2004
Will the Election be Stolen? Sept 29, 2003
Seattle Times discusses Bev Harris's findings, Sept 25, 2003
Definitions
Australian Ballots: another name for paper ballots in the U.S., system developed in Australia in mid-1800's
Ballot: comes from the same word as "ball"; voting in ancient times was determined by secretly placing a tiny black or white ball into a container; today, ballots are of many types: optical scan, punch card, data punch, and paper; ballotless voting is done by electronic (touch-screen) machines and the older, lever machines that count like a car's odometer; by far the largest form of ballot in use in the US in 2004 is the optical scan ballot ("OS") ballot system
Central tabulating software: ballot-counting software installed on a computer at the vote-counting headquarters, usually at county level;it is possible that this vote-tabulating function can be accessed by any computer in the world, and that to do so is not at all complicated, however, an investigation is necessary to learn the extent to which this is possible
Central tabulating office: ballot-counting is done here, usually at the Registrar of Voters of any given county (US); a county will be divided into regions called "precincts," which have a voting place centrally located; votes made at the precinct polling place are counted either at the precinct, then sent to the central tabulating office, or sent directly to the central tabulating office where all votes/ballots are counted ("tabulated")
Chad: the pieces of paper left in the holes that are supposed to get punched completely out in votomatic and other punch-card voting machines; recent discussion has delineated several specific types of chads, such as "hanging chad," "pregnant chad," and the like, giving much cause for election-time mirth
Ciber Labs: the Huntsville, Alabama branch of an ITA that was supposed to, but didn't, test Diebold GEMS central tabulator software for penetration, according to Bev Harris
Computer voting system: a blurry, general category that, in the public eye, includes paperless touchscreen systems, as well as any system where voting results are tabulated by computer at a centralized location, which of course includes almost the entire U.S. voting process; much clarification needs to be done between computer knowledgeable people and their less-informed counterparts across the nation, to inform ourselves more clearly on what is being sent by what segments of the Internet; the primary necessity is to create a U.S. system where a recount can occur as accurately, precisely, and efficiently as it does in European and other democracies; only when a recount is feasible can the voting process be depended upon to be fair
Data Punch: "voters punch holes in the cards (with a supplied punch device) opposite their candidate or ballot issue choice. After voting, the voter may place the ballot in a ballot box, or the ballot may be fed into a computer vote-tabulating device at the precinct."
Diebold: second largest vendor of voting machines for the 2004 Election; owner, Mr. O'Dell, said publicly that he will help to get Ohio's votes to go for Bush; the company has given nearly $200,000 to the Republican party
DRE: a ballotless system known as "Direct Recording Electronic" voting system, also called "Touch Screen"
Electronic Voting System: Ballotless voting system, also known as Direct Recording Electronic (DRE); used statewide or nearly so in Georgia (Diebold), Kentucky, Tennessee, Nevada, New Mexico, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey; used extensively in several other states (see map, above)
E S & S: "Election Systems and Software," one of the biggest manufacturers of computerized voting and vote-counting systems
Exit Poll: a survey taken after voters have voted and exited the polling place, by asking voters who they voted for; this gives a very close approximation of how the real vote is going; historically, exit polls in the U.S. have been very accurate, differing from final tabulations, at the most, by 1/10th of 1 percent.
FEC: Federal Election Commission; in 1984 they produced Voting System Standards: A Report on the Feasibility of Developing Voluntary Standards for Voting Equipment
GEMS: Global Election Management System, the Windows-based software at the heart of the Diebold voting machines
IEEE: "The IEEE and its predecessors, the AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers) and the IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers), date to 1884."
ITA: Independent Testing Authority, the categorical name for companies hired by NASED to test the computer-driven voting systems now in use in the U.S.
Lever Machines: Ballotless voting system operated by pulling a lever to add one's vote to a tally; a series of levers and resulting tallies operate like odometers, moving up 1/10th of a rotation with each vote; now used in New York, Virginia and Louisiana primarily; these machines are no longer made
Mark-sense or Marksense: Voting system where dark marks are made on a paper ballot, then scanned by various types of machinery; also known as "Optical Scan" or OS, as opposed to the earlier (pre-1960's) electronic sensing systems that read the conductivity of pencil marks; optical systems read the shade (lightness/darkness) of the mark, not its electrical properties
NASED: National Association of State Election Directors, with the Secretariat of this group being in Texas; they are supposed to certify that your election voting system is "safe" and free from tamperability (Note: their new website has only one contact person, whose city and state are not given; see Bev Harris's website , p. 5, for a list of NASED officials; the Secretariat is/was R. Doug Lewis in Houston, TX electioncent@pdq.net)
Optical Scan:, a voting system where ballots are marked by the voter, then put through a scanning machine that reads the marks; the most widely-used type of US voting system; also known as "Marksense" (see above)
OS: Optical Scan (see above)
Paper Ballots: forms printed on paper or cardstock listing candidates names, and election choices, and including places to mark one's choice; known as Australian ballots, because the system was perfected there first; are filled out in privacy and put into a sealed ballot box; counted by hand; undoubtedly the best, some say the only, system for insuring accurate counting of ballots
Paper Trail: = ballots! If voters cast paper ballots, these can always be recounted, thus keeping the election honest. When voters use computerized voting machines, there's no proof that what the voter chose is what got counted (even if the voter gets a paper record, that will not help, since it would be impossible to collect all these papers from voters and recount them)
Polling place: or "polls," the place where people go to vote; the voting place; in the US, these are often in schools and other official, easily-accessible locations;not to be confused with the other meaning, i.e., surveys taken, asking a series of people the same questions
Polls: (1) surveys taken by asking people certain choices, for the purpose of finding out the generally-held views of a group of people; (2) the place where people go to vote; the voting place; in the US, these are often in schools and other official, easily-accessible locations
Public Commons: the rightful gathering places of the public; the entire vote-counting process is supposed to take place here, in full view of members of the public, and never be hidden from public view, as it is today with computerized counting machines of all kinds, which system is causing increasing secrecy of the vote-counting process away from public accessibility
RAS: Remote Access Server, a type of phone-number-accessed server, run on Windows, which is very easy for computer folks to enter; the centralized vote counting programs used in the November 2 Presidential Election were linked through RAS systems, meaning that anyone, anywhere in the world, could get in, change vote counts, and leave without much of a trace, according to Bev Harris
Secretary of State: An office at both the Federal and State levels; at State level, this is an elected position, but quizzically, this official's responsibility is to oversee all major elections
Server: a computer that "serves" to link many computers together, forming the "Internet"; a server is just another computer, like yours or mine, that has server software on it; the huge net of servers forms the Internet; you can "see" the Internet connecting you to a distant website --- go to Start, Run, type in cmd, hit OK, then in the black window, type tracert, then a space, then the domain name of the website you want to see the path to (e.g., www.craigslist.org); hit "Enter"
Tabulation: the county-level activity of counting all the votes in the county; this counting is done, in most cases in the US, by a normal-looking computer that has special tabulation software installed; each county has one, or sometimes two, such computers functioning on Election Day and for some time thereafter; each computer can process up to 2,000,000 votes at a time; often, today's voting machines are connected via the Internet, directly to the tabulation computer
TS: Touch Screen, a ballotless voting system where the voter touches the computer screen to select his/her choice; a type of DRE system
Votomatic: punch card voting system that has nothing except numbers printed on the ballot cards; one punches the card at the numbers that correspond to the choices on a separate display
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