Well, who didn't see this one coming...?

[Alannia_Raindancer]

Oh...I'm still kinda a half a page up from you guys, btw, and again I apolgize.

BUT: Eid:

Why doesn't the real Mabel have her bar coded SS card? In my suggestion, I mentioned those as a potential way of handling this. How can John Smith vote on behalf of Mabel without her card at the polling place?

Now: If Mabel is incapacitated, or inelligable to vote, because she has Alzheimer's or what have you, that brings up a totally valid point. If her grandson John Smith takes her card and votes under her name, that doesn't solve the voter fraud issue, but that's kinda where I was heading when I mentioned that there were pieces of my idea that required smarter brains than mine.

Regardless, I believe that there ARE ways to nail out my flaws. And I don't really see how it would cost us, as a country, a whole lot of dollars to do it.

[Burz]

It's become a standard action of the conservatives, and particularly the neocons, of late, to pooh pooh anything about election fraud, by pointing at issues where it's a Democrat involved and go "SEE SEE? THEY DO IT THEY DO IT!" And then... propose to do nothing to repair the system.

That's the key. They seek to do nothing because the system, broken though it is, elects their candidates. They don't want an electoral system that works, they just want to win.

System seemed to work all peachy from th at side until 2000 (Bob Dole needs a 1996 recount imo -- was a close one). It's horrible that this 'sue for recount' type bullshit is becoming a more standard tactic (thanks Sore/Loserman). Funny how the ones seeking the recounts always can magically pull disproportionate votes outta their ass (hi Washington State recount x3. Funny how they stopped recounting the second the Democrat won). They know they can't win. All this is about is trying to paint a similar picture from the 2000 election. That President Bush and the Republicans stole the election. Can't they understand this is the same stuff that Hitler did to get his party enough seats to elect him Chancellor of Germany? Just challenge it so many times maybe people will give up and throw the dog a bone.


The terms for 'reform' and 'repair' are just thrown around yet never fully explained by the poster. What Dd suggested would cut down on the fakies and double duties. But for now, reform = a liberal winning.

[Riggen]

Ddrak,

There are forms of encryption that could be suitable. Nobody needs to hold a decryption key because the validation number need never be decrypted. Indeed the ideal algorithm will make deducing the original number impossible. The only point of it is to eliminate duplication, not to verifty the original ID.

[Ddrak]

There are forms of encryption that could be suitable.

Nope.

Any form of encrypting the SSN to a *unique* value simply becomes a cipher with a 1:1 mapping. Given the very limited source range (SSNs are only 9 digits) you could trivially brute force any mapping presented. In pseudo-code:

Code: Select all

Function Get_SSN_From_Code ([input] CodedSSN, [output] SSN)
Loop TestSSN from 0 to 999999999
  If encrypt(TestSSN) = CodedSSN then set SSN = TestSSN and exit

You can't even salt the numbers because that would lead to multiple coded SSNs for a single uncoded SSN, which in turn eliminates any advantage of not voting. Essentially, tagging votes with SSNs, "encrypted" or not, results in the ability to trace particular votes back to particular people with only a modest amount of computing power. Any algorithm you devise is going to have at most 34 bits of security (10 / log 2) - ridiculously low given 40 bit security can be cracked in seconds on most desktops.

Dd

[Relbeek Einre]

Burz,

The 2000 election WAS stolen. You can blame Gore for it, but the truth is that illegal disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal voters in Florida turned the tide of the election. The only thing that can't be proven is whether Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, also the chair of Bush's election committee in Florida, did so with the intent to suppress legal votes for Gore. (Though it certainly doesn't pass the smell test.)

Again, you can talk about "sue happy sore losers" all you want, but the truth is that Republcian dirty tricks stole that election. (Democrat dirty tricks likely stole the election in 1960, by the way, as Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daly probably delivered Illinois to Kennedy, so this is not the first time this has happened.)

In Washington there were two recounts. One by machine, one by hand. The machine recount showed there were undercounted votes in King County. A manual recount rectified that. The true "sore losers" -- the Republcians -- come up with cock-and-bull stories to obfuscate that trying to count every vote is a GOOD thing.

In Montana this past election, control of the legislature hinged on an election between a Democrat and a Constitution Party candidate. The vote was exactly tied, why? Because the (Republican controlled) election committee awarded nine ballots, doublemarked for the Constitution Party candidate and the also-ran Republican, to the CP candidate. The court struck down the award of those nine votes and the Democrat officially won. The Republicans, having lost control of that House, blamed the 'activist judge' and raised a stink - never mind how fucked up what they tried to pull was.

Get the big picture yet?

[Rsak]

So you can throw around the word "illegal disenfranchisment", but you cannot give cases where this has been proven to occured?

Stop living in your delusions and actually look at what is proven fact!

[Riggen]

Dd. It doesn't have to be a unique result.

[Ddrak]

Riggen,

To prevent people voting many times, you need to have 1 unique "encrypted" SSN for each real SSN. If you have multiple "encrypted" versions for each real SSN then people can vote once for each unique encrypted version without detection. If you have multiple real SSNs for each "encrypted" SSN then the system can't stop multiple voting because it can't even detect it.

So, the only cryptographically viable method is to tag each vote with a unique hash for each SSN, which is then reversible because of the limited source space for the SSNs themselves.

Any other system requires a secret to be held by an third party, which gives that party the unique ability to decrypt the SSNs, or generate surplus encrypted SSNs and therefore giving them the ability to conduct voter fraud if compromised.

Dd

[davidking]

You know, I wouldn't mind all the recounts in the world as long as the party that wants them pays for it and that if. Also, the recount would have to follow the state law reguarding recounts and not 10 thousand outside forces trying to force the state into doing something it does not want/should no do.

If the Demos really cared about every vote counting, they should make an appeal to recount every state and every county and pay for it out of thier pockets, and not just Ohio.

Sore Pussies

[jookkor]

yeah if the political parties want a fair election they should oversee it themselves and shoulder %100 of the financial burden.... thats a super idea....is it even possible for you to not troll? Just wondering.

[davidking]

Well Jooker, I am sure the country (or most of it wanted) the elections, I doubt the whole country wants these recounts every freaken election when the recount percentages don't even qualify for state recount issues.

[jookkor]

The "whole country" doesnt want anything together, thats why people vote.
And this business with the recounts is something that really should not be viewed with blind partisenship. Try to look at things objectively, we have had two Extremely close elections back to back, with some pretty questionable incidents and circumstances. Add to the mix the fact that its getting easier and easier for the public, or even for the parties or the system itself to learn about "misshaps" with any part of the voting process, I really dont see how it is some huge unreasonable demand to have all the cards laid out on the table, and if the shoe was on the other foot you can bet the republicans would be doing the exact same thing.
Unless somebody got smart and decided to publically ignore the issue until the next election and instead focus their attention on discrediting the current administration in much more specific ways.

[davidking]

I would agree if the vote was "CLOSE" it was not. What was it 182,000 votes?


Give me a break, other states were just as close that the demo's won and recounts are not being asked for there. It's just a case of sore pussies..

[Relbeek Einre]

Rsak - I cited over a dozen reports of said disenfranchisement, more than once. Shut up. It's a matter of -fact-, not speculation, not interpretation. You can deny it, but you're the one who's deluded. But take heart. A lot of Republicans are in your company.

So anyway, I got to listen to some of the debate on this issue. Made my blood boil.

Sen. Boxer and Rep. Tubbs Jones opened their remarks emphasizing the fact that Bush won, nothing in their actions was intended to nullify or cast doubt on that, and that what they were doing was a parliamentary move, a first step to cast light on serious problems with the strong appearance of malfeasance by persons responsible for our electoral process, and work towards altering the structure of how we run elections to minimize such things.

The Republicans came out guns blazing, and essentially spoke as if Boxer and Tubbs Jones hadn't made such remarks, accusing the move of being based on nothing more than Dems being unable to accept they lost. Smear smear smear.

Typical Republican antics - and again I ask, what have they to lose from a reanalysis of the electoral process and finding ways to prevent the problems from the past two elections, whether false registrations, hanging chads, legal voters being disenfranchised, insufficient polling machines being placed at polling booths, or state Secretaries of State creating the appearance of impropriety by working on campaigns for elections that they themselves oversee? If the goal is a true democratic process where every legal vote is counted and no illegal votes are, which preserves the trust of the citizenry, and which increases participation in elections, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Which makes me wonder why these Republicans are so rabidly, virulently resistant to opening a dialogue about the issue.

[davidking]

If that was your true feelings beeker.. why not choose a state other then ohio to run this kind of test? Since we all know the votes are not gonna change anything in the long run. Are you saying Ohio of all the states in the union was the only state that people are saying was dishonest? Why not rerun the votes in florida? Nevada, Oregon... Why Ohio?

[Relbeek Einre]

There's nothing about rerunning the votes, Valoria. Nothing at all.

And why Ohio? Well, for starters, the secretary of state was also co-chair of Bush's reelection, causing an appearance of malfeasance when other issues pop up, such as predominantly black urban districts got so few polling machines that they had to wait in the longest polling lines in the history of America to exercise their right to vote, or the host of other issues that came up. Ohio was the most scrutinized state and it had the most stinky anomalies in the polling process. It seems an excellent place to start.

[davidking]

Rerunning-recounting.... Who's this valoria??


Now it seems to me, please correct me if I am wrong. Can you look at prior years of elections and prove to me that this was the year they purposely put less polling devices in the predominately Black areas... Can you also prove that in looking at previous years that according to counts these areas did not warrent more polling devices.

As been the case this year, more people came out to vote then in most years (most ever actually) and I am sure there were shortages everywhere.

Can you proive with any kind of real evidence the secretary of state did anything wrong without calling in the black helicopters?

Barbara Boxer is a bitch. I live in California and I can see her grandstanding on this issue so her Pubic (not public) hairs could get a rise from the beating she's been getting watching Arnold.

You liberals need to stop crying about losing the house, senate, supreme court, govenors, and the preisdency so much.. Well, I guess I can see why you all are crying.

[Relbeek Einre]

Can you look at prior years of elections and prove to me that this was the year they purposely put less polling devices in the predominately Black areas... Can you also prove that in looking at previous years that according to counts these areas did not warrent more polling devices.

Everything but the word "purposely" has been proven.

[davidking]

so nothings been proven... hmm..

[Kulaf]

"In Washington there were two recounts. One by machine, one by hand. The machine recount showed there were undercounted votes in King County. A manual recount rectified that. The true "sore losers" -- the Republcians -- come up with cock-and-bull stories to obfuscate that trying to count every vote is a GOOD thing."

Ya sure. Since I now live in WA let me give you a quote from King county:

"Dean Logan, King County's top elections official, added fuel to Republican efforts to overturn the 129-vote victory of Democrat Christine Gregoire. He said "somewhere in the range of 300" provisional ballots of unknown validity were wrongly fed into the county's vote-counting machines on Election Day."

Umm.......oops?

"Two citizens acting on their own, Arthur Coday Jr. of Shoreline and Daniel Stevens of Fall City, filed papers with the state Supreme Court to contest the election. Stevens' filing said the victory margin is within the margin of error "to the point that error must be assumed as a certainty.""

IMO the WA Supreme Court is going to order a revote.