Really does anyone believe those easily hackable machines that leave no traces of rigging and are run by currupt politicians are NOT being rigged?

It's like putting an injured mouse in front of a cat and telling it to leave the mouse alone.

Just because every now and then the guy you liked gets voted in does Not mean the machines are Not rigged.

Last edited Tue Nov 17, 2015, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

so be careful about articulating the difference between fair elections and suspicious elections. A broad brush is couter-productive and feeds into the voter suppression plans.

Don't become a part of the plan to suppress voting by denigrating voting.

Analysis Of Kentucky Election Results Indicates Fraud

What are they waiting for? The results make no sense when compared to what we know about voting trends.

They don't care about any stinking elections-------------just poll numbers for money/commercials.
Local journalists looking into this------------really------------------- who runs the local news papers and TV programming --------------- Gannet, Fix Noise, Comcast, Disney, Time Warner


Honk----------------for a political revolution Bernie 2016

Bernie scares the hell out of them. He doesn't need them.

on this as so many other things are ignored...TPP, Net Neutrality just an example.
That is Corporate Owned Media for you. Total control over what we need and want to know-imo

democracy is nothing but a laughingstock here.

and incoming AG is a Dem, and so is the SoS. If Grimes sees any problem, she will speak up.

Unverifiable results - not democracy.

Oh right, the networks said it was too expensive to do exit polling so they stopped!

Convenient, sure is! The problem most people either don't realize or underestimate the true extent of is, WE ALREADY LIVE IN A FACISTS STATE WITH THE OLIGARCHY IN CONTROL!!!

We need to prepare to do our own exit polling for the Primaries and the General.

talking head #1: this just in! Candidate X has won the election!

talking head #2: Um, the polls haven't opened yet.

...between pre-election opinion polls and votes officially counted in an election for the highest state office.

What's next? A 20 point discrepancy in a presidential election?

Conway is a policy wonk, he is not a glad-hand politician. He didn't inspire people, he didn't have a good GOTV team. He didn't have endless corporate cash like Bevin. But most of all he is Catholic in a protestant state.

that a newspaper fired their pollster. I guess that is easier than investigating machines that have no accountability.

You're saying KY counts its paper ballots by hand??? And you can observe the counting? If it's true that the vote in KY is on paper ballots and that these ballots are counted by hand, this is the most amazing and wonderful thing I've heard in a long time, but I doubt it. Is it just your county or precinct?

Chain of custody has nothing to do w/ whether or not the machine counted vote is maliciously programmed. The malicious programming is the result of INSIDERS, either the manufacturers of the machines (or their employees) or local officials (as happened in the Clay County KY case where a whole bunch of local officials fixed the vote for over a decade and later spent a good deal of time in the slammer for so doing) or a combination of things. For example, the machine can be pre-programmed to easily accept a program from the memory card (used to transfer the results from the individual machines to the central tabulators). This is what happened in the experiment at the end of "Hacking America" where the Finnish computer expert used the memory card to transfer an executable file to the machine, an opti-scan BTW (and in another part of the documentary a Diebold official swears that a memory card cannot transfer an executable file).

Chain of custody is very important if there is to be an audit or recount to avoid insiders adding or taking away paper ballots already (supposedly) cast before the recount takes place.

I trust them, and out county clerk is ethical. I questioned them extensively abut securing the machines. They test their machines for accuracy, inventory everything. They explained their security measures, though I don't remember the particulars, I remember my impression of their procedures, and I was impressed. I'm an old Army spook, so I think information security.

Clay county is a far cry from Fayette county. Eastern Ky is very conservative, very poor, poorly educated, highly religious, and corrupt. i can't vouch for any county other than the one I live in. I trust the high election officials in my city/county government. They have proved themselves over the decade and a half.

the dirty VW diesel cars were all ethical. That doesn't mean the eSlate machines are counting the votes correctly on election day.

Dems win, Reps lose.

he said they used eslate....which is dre

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/hart-intercivic/eslate/

Your eSlate machines can have them if a printer is purchased separately, but somehow I doubt that they do.

Even then, you would need to actually do an audit to make sure the paper results match the electronically tabulated results.

Their security measures are pretty impressive.

The machines they chose were the best of what was offered.

I voiced my concerns at the time of purchase and found the shared my concerns, and have shown diligence when it comes to protecting the machines and the cards. In all the years working as a precinct judge I haven't seen any anomalies, everything has gone as expected. I even watch selected precincts to see if their vote is in line with how they have always voted.

Though I'd preferred a vv'd aperture trail, but our election officials are ethical and very intelligent. They are dedicated to heir job.

Btw all 290+ machines are tested for accuracy.

Conway won or precinct 2 to 1, and that was expected due to the younger voters moving in.

I sure hope they are.

But if your voting machine algorithms were designed to move, say, 5% of the votes from one column to the other in certain races only during the real election, how could anyone ever know?

If VW can turn on emission suppression only when the car is getting tested for emissions, what is to stop voting machine software maintainers for doing the same kind of cheating only during the real election?

We have real tech savvy professionals there. Access to the machines are well controlled, and everything is under lock and key, and monitored. Numbered seals is just one layer of security we have. The tabulators are not connected to a network, and neither are the voting machines.

They will be buying new machines in the near future and they told me they want vv'd machines

If I were hired to maintain those machines, I would have no problem whatsoever making them seem as if they worked perfectly and fairly during testing but rigging them for my favored candidate during the election. All I would need is to deliver a software or a firmware upgrade. All voting machines have to accept them. Since there is no audit, nobody could ever catch me. I could even make the rigging routine erase all traces of itself from the machine once the final results were transmitted.

Easier still would be to do the same thing with just the tabulating machine.

i know the people and I know they are passionate about running a clean election. So far the machines have returned clean numbers.

The clerk's office wants VV'd paper trails, but at the time we had few options. They selected the best of the other. The next machines will have a paper trail.

I know the election officials, and over the years they have gained my trust. At the end of the day you have to trust their expertise.

could be providing software updates that skew the results.

Without auditing voter verified paper ballots, there is no possible way to know that the count is 100% accurate.

My guess is that your county is on the up and up. If they were cheating, they would do so elsewhere. But this is only a guess.

Until we get the new machines, we have to make do with what we have.

Don Blevins, Jr. is a native Lexingtonian raised on the west end in Gardenside. He attended James Lane Allen, Beaumont, and graduated from Lafayette High School in 1980.

Don holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kentucky, and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

His early career was in integrated circuit research and development for AT&T Bell Laboratories and the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. After returning to Kentucky, Don's career continued in software development with various small firms and later with IBM. Don continued in software and systems development with a management position at Perot Systems.

In 2007, Don's political career began when he was elected the 10th District Council Member for the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. In 2009, he was appointed to fill out the term of the retiring Fayette County Clerk, his father, Don Blevins, Sr.

He's not some teabagging yokel.

cause if you are able to see software work that is quite a feat

I have not been surprised at the results, nothing has raised suspicion of the results.

votes tallied in the dark,yes inside a computer is the dark, can not be verified because no one can see what the software is doing

Then I compare them with the totals out of the clerk's office. The vote totals are checked against the voter rolls periodically, and at the end of the day. The four of us check the numbers and sign off on them.

They have always matched. We also have media representatives that come in at the closing of the polls to check each precinct numbers, then match them with the county clerk numbers.

I don't blindly trust, I do check. There is layer upon layer of verification in our county.

If A actually wins by 60-40, the machine will not likely be maliciously programmed to give a read-out of B winning by 62 to 45. The programmer would be smart enough to know that people will be checking the totals. They are not dumb bunnies these programmers. Computers are extremely sophisticated pieces of technology. They only think for themselves after they've been programmed (a little like humans I suppose).

Whoever maliciously programmed the result might have done it this way:

The first line of programming tells the computer, if he wants a 4% flip, "After 9:00am, add every 50th vote for column A to column B instead." (a single vote switched from one column to another amounts to a 2% pt flip)

The second line of programming tells the computer, "At 7:00pm, delete this line of programming and the previous line of programming."

Election over, and the vote effectively flipped by 2% points from candidate A to candidate B and nobody is the wiser. In fact, it's impossible to trace out anything in the programming on the computer to prove anything. Of course, the clerks are well satisfied because the total number of votes remains the same regardless of what percentages voted for one candidate or the other.

And really who cares? It's just democracy.

On the other hand, IF THERE IS PAPER. Somebody can actually check by HAND-COUNTING to see what the ACTUAL VOTE was and is. Wouldn't that be wonderful, don't you think? It's called democracy. This is why the German constitutional court ruled in 2009 after a long trial that using computers to count the vote was un-democratic and would be illegal from that time forward.

And that number is pretty consistent with the party makeup in my precinct. So far my county has acted as predicted. There has not been any suspicious outcomes in this county. My job is to run the machines, and deal with security of the vote.

Yes there is a potential, but our clerk office is doing a good job of protecting our vote. So far our county has been clean, and has been for as long as I remember. I can't vouch for the other 119 other counties.

"So far the final vote from my precinct is the same after counting at the Cnty clerk." ???

It was counted again at the County Clerk's office and the result was the same?
What was counted? How was it counted? Did they check the paper print-outs from the eslate?
Does eslate have a paper print-out?
Is the eslate an optiscan machine? In that case were the paper ballots fed through the machine again?
You mean the machine did a check on itself? Or the machine was checked to see if it was working?

I can't really understand anything of what you're saying. I get it that the people there are upright, diligent, conscientious people,
but what difference does that make if the paper is never counted? I doubt that very many machines are "hacked" remotely nowadays and it's unlikely with the care that you say is taken in your precinct that this would happen. Also the results would only be put through a man in the middle affair if somebody was in charge with power to do so like Karl Rove, who used this method in OH in 04. The method of choice by now I feel sure is just pre-packaging at the factory with the program being altered at some point of maintenance or preparation for the service of the computers. Who knows really?

The vote counting should be totally transparent and open to observation as it happens with real people hand-counting paper ballots and agreeing on each vote and recording the vote. Case closed. I can't see how anything you've described has anything to do with the actual counting of the votes, which I presume takes place entirely inside the DRE.

All of them have to be the same.

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Shamos_Security_Report.pdf Read about the eSlate starting at page 13.

Our County Clerk is an experience software developer that has worked for IBM and Perot systems among others. When we get new machines it will be VV'd.

The Ohio machines were a mess, and our CC learned from that. Diebold was not an option, and would not have been selected as our machines.

We have Dems up the line from our CC to SoS. If they smell a rat, they will act.

I have stated over and over again that our county is doing their best to secure and verify the vote, and so far they have. They know the limitations of the machine and have taken steps to make sure the vote is secure. If you can't accept that sorry.

If there is no way to confirm results with a paper audit, then there is simply no way to confirm results.

and comparing the output by the machines to see how many is a good step but it is only one step

checking that your precinct's output matches the county's report is another good step,you do need to add making sure the sos reports same but these steps are only part of a legitimate vote

if 100 people vote and the machine output says 80-r/20-d , you have absolutely no way to confirm that output is correct

none zero zip nada

with hand counted paper ballots counted in public view with a tight chain of custody, every citizen would have confidence in the "output"

I know my county, and I know my precinct, and so far I have not seen anything out of sorts.

The counties that went Conway are counties where the Dems are still strong.

Conway sucks at campaigning. Bevin is independently wealthy and had the support of the big party money and corporate America. They had a much better ground game than Conway.

Why can't we trust public paper counts instead?

Before that four precinct officers, two Rep, two Dems, sign off on the results.

All the counting at the clerk's office is in the open and can be witnessed by all. If any dispute, the cards can be audited.

I trust our local CC because they have proven themselves to be worthy of my trust.

None of the voting machines have bluetooth or wifi, so the risk of remote hacking and man in the middle attacks are nil. Nothing goes online until they are submitted to the state. Even then the counties can verify that what the SoS posts is what they sent.

Our SoS is a Democrat and so non partisan in her official duties, she lost her bid for Senator because she refused to divulge her 2012 and 2008 presidential vote.

Last edited Sun Nov 8, 2015, 04:26 PM - Edit history (2)

only when a real election is taking place.

I know I can't convince you because your mind is made up that our elections are rigged, but all you have is doubt, I haven't seen any evidence.

I'm tired of this. I've made my case, but all I get in return is what ifs. Dems won handily in this county as expected. I live here, I assume you don't.

it is built on a system of checks and balances that WE THE PEOPLE get to oversee

if our votes are counted in secret, by a corporate secret software,reported by another corporations secret software as they are in ky, the election is just for show

The trust comes from transparency of the process and the results. If they do anything to betray that trust I will pull my support.

You can watch them cut the seals then pull the cards from the machines. They are read, the numbers are checked with the result tapes.

The only way to mess with the cards is to break the numbered seal. The voting machines are protected by a seal, before and after the vote.

Soon we will be getting new machines, and I know they want to purchase machines that provide a voter verified paper trail.

I've gone over this time and time again, but I can see that no matter what I say I see distrust. You don't know the people I work with, you know nothing of their intelligence and ethics. I have worked with them for over a decade, and not once have they done anything to diminish my trust.

the vw software should of clued in the nation as to the possibilities of software manipulation but i guess science is not our thing

or critical thinking is not

it is my right as an American citizen to not trust public officials,secret software or nameless faceless people on the net

show me the count,that is my American demand

Trust comes from consistency of actions. If over a decade a person shows they are dependable, you do develop trust.

No I don't trust politicians as a rule, but I know the county clerk's office and the history of clean elections has allowed me to trust them. They don't trust the machines so they have layers of verification.

BTW, I was an early follower of the BBV movement. I sicced Kucinich on Homeland security when they were threatening Bev and others.

I've worked for our current CC and his dad. Both are class acts.

"Don Blevins, Jr. is a native Lexingtonian raised on the west end in Gardenside. He attended James Lane Allen, Beaumont, and graduated from Lafayette High School in 1980.

Don holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kentucky, and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

His early career was in integrated circuit research and development for AT&T Bell Laboratories and the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. After returning to Kentucky, Don's career continued in software development with various small firms and later with IBM. Don continued in software and systems development with a management position at Perot Systems.

In 2007, Don's political career began when he was elected the 10th District Council Member for the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. In 2009, he was appointed to fill out the term of the retiring Fayette County Clerk, his father, Don Blevins, Sr."

Here's a report on the Hart eSlate. Starts at pg 13. This is a 2006 article from Mass.
https://www.verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Shamos_Security_Report.pdf

Security is address starting at pg 18.

Access is needed for the Pac Man hack.

The cards can be corrupted, but I know the CC checks them for integrity.

You can always come up with what ifs, but so far our systems have returned correct numbers.

I will never convince you that our county practices due diligence, so I'm signing off. This thread.

is correct or accurate...it might be but no one can ever know for sure

trusting your county clerk is bunk...free and fair elections are not about trusting anyone

counting the votes must be done in an open,transparent manner, overseen by regular citizens or it is not democratic

you said,so far our systems have returned correct numbers.

there is no way you can prove that...there is nothing to count

http://fatallyflawedelections.blogspot.com/

most rigging is done by an election insider

the 2nd largest city in Kentucky and a college town. These places tend to be more liberal than the surrounding population. Similarly for Jefferson County/Louisville. Outside of those places, and possibly the northern portions of Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties (metro Cincy) the state is solid Red, and that is generally not enough for a progressive to win statewide.

spent much time in Louisville and Lexington as a trucker.

"that is generally not enough for a progressive to win statewide."

Other than the 2nd term outgoing Dem Governor and the re-elected incumbent Dem Sec of State and the newly elected Dem AG replacing the current Dem AG Jack Conway who was announced the loser in his gubernatorial bid against the unpopular GOP candidate Matt Bevin.

(Not that ANY of those Dems are necessarily progressives. It is Kentucky after all.)

Ernie was a crook and pushy Christian. Bevin has surrounded himself with Fletcher cronies. Bad sign.

BTW, Bevin is not going to release his tax returns as promised.

fascist toilet.

We. Are. Fucked.

Hopefully you are not spreading this dis-ease.

I'm not sure what your point is.

computers is a waste of time, in my opinion.

In my county the elections have been scandal free because of our no nonsense County Clerk office.

Here's the County Clerk's bio

"Don Blevins, Jr. is a native Lexingtonian raised on the west end in Gardenside. He attended James Lane Allen, Beaumont, and graduated from Lafayette High School in 1980.

Don holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kentucky, and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

His early career was in integrated circuit research and development for AT&T Bell Laboratories and the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. After returning to Kentucky, Don's career continued in software development with various small firms and later with IBM. Don continued in software and systems development with a management position at Perot Systems.

In 2007, Don's political career began when he was elected the 10th District Council Member for the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. In 2009, he was appointed to fill out the term of the retiring Fayette County Clerk, his father, Don Blevins, Sr."

His dad was one of the good guys too. He made the best choice of machines out of what was offered.

some would be interested in a few of the people who have questions about the recent governor's election.

http://bradblog.com/?p=11430

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=174856

I'm sure, if Beth Clarkson, who is trying to get Kris Kobach to allow her to check the paper in Sedgwick County (Wichita) in the last KS election cycle, is one of those who wonders how those results happened.

If somehow the vote in KY is checked, I'm sure the honest and hard-working poll place workers will assist in the discovery and will be deserving of much praise.

Allison Grimes, our SoS is a good Democrat. If she detects any hanky panky, she will speak out. The AG is also a Democrat, he won't be silent either. She has, in the past, caught some vote buying in eastern Ky and other normal behavior for that Republican swamp.