Doolittle for Democracy

On Capitol Hill Thursday, about 60 citizens wearing "Got Paper?" t-shirts attended a packed hearing on H.R. 550, a bill introduced by Representative Rush Holt with 218 bipartisan co-sponsors that would require all electronic voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper record. This paper trail would be utilized for mandated manual audits that would increase the reliability of our democratic process.

"The last six years have brought us example after example of the problems caused by unverifiable voting machines," Holt said in a released statement. "There is legitimate cause for the current crisis in voter confidence, yet Congress has done nothing to make election results auditable."

Dr. Edward Felten, Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, demonstrated the ease by which a Diebold machine could be hacked in order to change the outcome of an election.

But opponents to the bill – such as Republican Representative John "My name says it all" Doolittle – pointed to a recent recount in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which showed problems with 10 percent of the paper receipts.

Barbara Simmons of the Association for Computing Machinery countered that the Cuyahoga problem occurred because "the voting machine companies came out with… the cheapest way to do it. It's bad technology. We need to hold vendors to high standards."

Holt was dismayed that the bill didn't receive a hearing until the day before Congress was scheduled to adjourn. He called on Speaker Dennis Hastert to bring it to the House floor for an up-or-down vote immediately.

"We still have time to protect the integrity of this year's vote," Holt said. "But only if the House acts before the October recess."

In this Doolittle Congress, don't count on it.

Comments (6)

1. Hey, know what would win?

   How about paper ballots....AND producing IDs to vote?

   Posted by Mask at 09/30/2006 @ 2:22pm

2. Rush Holt is one of my favorite congresspeople. Not only is he an advocate of real voting reform, but he has the best campaign slogan I've ever heard:

   "Yes, my congressman IS a rocket scientist."

   I used to work in his district and saw that on bumper stickers all the time. He is, in fact, a physicist who ran Princeton's Plasma Physics Laboratory and a five-time Jeopardy champion to boot (from the days when they didn't let you win more than five times.)

   Posted by Stwriley at 09/30/2006 @ 7:49pm

3. .

   I R A N

   W A R

   P L A N

   R E V E A L E D

   S I N K I N G

   O F

   U S S

   E N T E R P R I S E

   I M M I N E N T

   Updated Saturday, September 30, 2006 3:04 PM EDT

   IRAN WAR PLAN EXPOSED!

   PREPARE FOR THE SINKING OF A U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIER – The USS Enterprise - CVN-65!

   The existence of a hideous plan to sacrifice a U.S. Aircraft Carrier as a pretext for war with Iran is presently being uncovered!

   The Hal Turner Show has been told that within the next five (5) weeks, the United States will "suffer" a missile attack upon the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, presently on patrol near the Persian Gulf. This attack will appear to be from numerous "Silkworm" and/or "Sunburn" missiles which will sink the vessel and kill most of the 5,000 crew onboard.

   The "attack" will be blamed on Iran and thus provide the Bush Administration with an excuse to go to war with that nation.

   The Hal Turner Show has learned that the missiles used to attack the USS Enterprise will not be fired from or by Iran, but rather will be a "false flag operation" made to LOOK as though Iran carried out the attack!

   The USS Enterprise is the worlds first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. It was Commissioned in 1961 and is due to be decommissioned in 2014 or 2015. The ship was selected to be the "victim" of this "attack" due to its age.

   THOSE PLANNING THE ATTACK ARE INSIDE THE U.S. AND ISRAELI GOVERNMENTS and view the loss of the Enterprise crew as a necessary sacrifice to induce Americans to support war against Iran. Put bluntly, the ship and crew are to be cannon fodder.

   I am being fed more information and expect to be able to name names as to who is behind this plan. Check back often. LIBERTY REDUX | Homepage | 10.01.06 - 10:09 am

   Found on Rawstory message board

   Here is the DRESS REHEARSAL for the sinking of the USS Enterprise:

   http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-05-17-ship-reef_x.htm

   Aircraft carrier sunk in Gulf of Mexico to create artificial reef Updated 5/17/2006 4:38 PM ET

   N THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) -- As hundreds of veterans looked on solemnly, Navy divers blew holes in a retired aircraft carrier and sent the 888-foot USS Oriskany to the bottom of the sea Wednesday, forming the world's largest deliberately created artificial reef.

   Clouds of brown and gray smoke rose in the sky after more than 500 pounds of plastic explosives went off. The rusted hulk took about 45 minutes to slip beneath the waves, about four hours faster than predicted.

   VIDEO: Navy ship sunk to create reef

   Korean and Vietnam War veterans aboard charter boats watched from beyond a one-mile safety perimeter as the "Mighty O" went down in 212 feet of water, about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach.

   Lloyd Quiter of North Collins, N.Y., who served four tours on the ship in Vietnam, wept.

   "I'm a little stunned. It's a little hard to take," he said.

   AND WHY DID THEY FEEL THE NEED FOR THE DRESS REHEARSAL?

   BECAUSE WHEN THEY TRIED IT A YEAR EARLIER, IT TOOK 25 DAYS TO SINK THE USS AMERICA WITH HIGH EXPLOSIVES!

   http://www.cdnn.info/news/industry/i050522a.html

   USS America 1048-ft aircraft carrier sunk off North Carolina Powered by CYBER DIVER News Network

   NORTH CAROLINA (22 May 2005) -- The retired aircraft carrier USS America is on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, sunk by the Navy in a series of explosive tests that upset some veterans.

   The 84,000-ton, 1,048-foot warship that served the Navy for 32 years rests about 60 miles off the coast and more than 6,000 feet down, according to Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.

   She did not give a location, but the Navy previously said the explosions would take place off North Carolina.

   Dolan said the America went down May 14, finally flooded after the series of explosions over 25 days. No announcement was made at the time.

   .

   Posted by plunger at 10/01/2006 @ 11:19am

4. I remain comvinced the people are so stupid that we may have to hand hold their dumb ass into the booth...I am not sure I want idiots voting on anything....but if they must, then after checking the PHOTO ID, give the voter a large kindergarden pencil and a sheet of paper with the 2 candidates name on it and next to the name is a 4" by 4" large box in which to put an "X" in the one of their choice. One pair of names or issue per page...then finger print the thumb and place it on the ballot....

   Dump the electronics and make sure you don't have the dems running the polling places as they always fuck it up.... empanel a group of people who DIDN'T VOTE AND DON'T CARES WHO WINS...ALSO, NO LAWYERS ALLOWED WITH 100 YARDS OF THE PLACE....let these people count and announce the winnners. If challenged, and the challenger loses in court then challenger pays all costs of recounts and lawyers...and can't ever run again.

   Think it will work? If the voter still can't figure out the process..through him out. He is a threat to democracy anyway.

   Posted by john maasch at 10/01/2006 @ 12:26pm

5. Once again the Wanker squad lead by the clueless massch is present.

   For someone who repeatedly advocates personal rights and freedoms he snubs our Constitutional right to vote with a make those who run the polls are idiots rationalization, massch the folks at the polls are both dems and repubs get a clue. Isn't it strange that the ballots in the repub voting districts have only one name on them and their voters don't even bother to make their mark because the machines do it for them.

   The fact that the current shisters in charge of our government haven't bothered to even investigate our voting process speaks volumes to the amount of corruption they are cabable of and the comments from those kiss ass whinny wankers who mock any attempt to bring validation to our election process are proof positive that stupidity is present in America.

   Posted by dycel8r at 10/01/2006 @ 1:05pm

6. I just wanted to point out an interesting method of creating a secure paper trail that came out recently (September 28th 2006) by Ronald L. Rivest of M.I.T's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It's called the ThreeBallot Voting System, and is available here: http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/Rivest-TheThreeBallotVotingSystem.pdf (the link url was too long to use with "a href" so just cut and paste).

   The interesting thing about it is that it handles both voter privacy and verifiability without requiring encryption of the ballot. Rather than give a poor explanation because of lack of space (the paper itself is 13 pages long), I encourage interested people to read it.

   Posted by Snarfangel at 10/01/2006 @ 6:51pm