First, congratulations to Barack Obama. His organization and victory were impressive. Competing with a former President and First Lady who was the shoo-in candidate is an impressive feat. I’d like to talk about the Obama strategies and a long chaotic campaign in two ways. First in fund-raising and second, on the effects of a long…
Read More The Emergent Chaos of the ElectionsDiebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
Read More Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election EarlyOhio Secretary or State Jennifer Brunner announced yesterday that paper ballots must be provided on request. Poll workers won’t be told to offer the option to voters but must provide a ballot if requested to help “avoid any loss of confidence by voters that their ballot has been accurately cast or recorded,” a directive from…
Read More Ohio Voters May Demand Paper BallotsAdam Frucci at Gizmodo is calling for action, “Putting Our Money Where Our Mouths Are: Boycott the RIAA in March.” I don’t disagree with him on the basics. I believe that consumer revolt is a misunderstood power. If you don’t believe me, I can prove it with one TLA: DAT. If your response to that…
Read More Vote Positively With Your PocketbookIn the “inconvenient coincidences” category, it seems that Al Sharpton’s great-grandfather was a slave owned by relatives of the late segregationist US senator Strom Thurmond. Thurmond’s niece, Ellen Senter (via an AP report) provides an interesting perspective: I doubt you can find many native South Carolinians today whose family, if you traced them back far…
Read More A telling remarkEd Felten points out that “NIST Recommends Decertifying Paperless Voting Machines:” In an important development in e-voting policy, NIST has issued a report recommending that the next-generation federal voting-machine standards be written to prevent (re-)certification of today’s paperless e-voting systems. … The new report is notable for its direct tone and unequivocal recommendation against unverifiable…
Read More NIST and Voting MachinesApparently, in Ohio, you’ll be able to vote if you know the last 4 digits of an SSN. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: Voters who don’t have identification will be able to vote at next week’s election by presenting the last four digits of their Social Security number and casting a provisional ballot. Will…
Read More More things to Do With the "Last 4"At first I thought that the stories around Sequoia Voting Systems and Smartmatic having connections to Hugo Chavez were silly. I still do think that, but I also think that they’re coming out for an important reason: we have lost trust in the machinery of voting, and that is a criminal shame. The right to…
Read More The Hugo Chavez Test for Voting MachinesWell, not intentionally. Seems that multiple versions of source code (including the one used to run the 2004 primaries in Maryland) were delivered anonymously to a former legislator who has been critical of Diebold. Note that this is not the same source examined by Avi Rubin, et. al., and found wanting from a security perspective.…
Read More Diebold goes open sourceThanks to my lovely spouse, I came across a series of fascinating papers by Walter R. Mebane, Jr. a professor of Government at Cornell. These papers use statistics, specifically Benford’s Law, to detect election fraud. Now I know statisticians, and I am no statistician (and boy howdy is my higher level math rusty), but the…
Read More Detecting Election Fraud