SwiftVets.com

[JK]

These two groups, National Committee for Voting Integrity and American Way Foundation (a visit to their web sites shows their members and supporters) are linked to Kerry and the Democratic National Committee and oppose electronic voting for unfounded fears and to create paranoia with the American public. Let's not forget that the DNC and Al Gore attempted to prevent the counting of votes from service personnel out of the country during the last election. A tactic now is to discredit the election results even before voting and to use every conspiracy approach possible including tampering with electronic voting.

JK

Missouri Plan to Let Military Cast Votes by E-Mail Draws Criticism

By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 27, 2004; Page A10

A plan to make the presidential battleground of Missouri the first state to allow military voters serving in combat zones such as Iraq to cast their absentee ballots via e-mail is renewing concerns about the security of online voting.

Missouri Secretary of State Matt Blunt, a Republican running for governor, announced the plan Wednesday, saying that "simplifying the voting process for these heroes is the least we can do." The move surprised some computer security experts and voting watchdog groups, who said yesterday that the new rules could lead to Election Day fraud.
_
Under a deal with the Defense Department, Blunt's office said, Missouri voters serving in designated combat areas will have the option of filling out absentee ballots, scanning them into a computer file and e-mailing the scanned document back to the Defense Department. The department will fax the ballot to local Missouri election officials.

Missouri is the first state to adopt such a system, according to the Defense Department, which sees it as a way to ensure that mail delays do not disenfranchise military voters. "This provides an alternative . . . for citizens who believe the regular absentee ballot cannot be received, voted and returned by mail in time to be counted," said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a department spokeswoman.

In February, the Defense Department dropped a $22 million pilot plan to test Internet voting for 100,000 U.S. military workers and civilians overseas after a panel of scientists identified security concerns. The agency said it could not ensure the legitimacy of votes cast online.

Missouri's system is different, Krenke said, because it is not entirely based on the Internet. The ballots are signed and then scanned before being e-mailed so local election officials will be able to compare voters' signatures to ones on file.

Service members who use the system will forfeit keeping their ballot secret; the Defense Department and county officials will know the candidates chosen. Krenke said the military will use fax numbers to create an audit trail, and all ballots returned to local election officials will contain an official cover sheet. The type of e-mail software will depend on what is available in the field, she said.

The state has not done an independent study of the new system's security, said Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson. "We trust the military," he said.

But Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert on the board of the National Committee for Voting Integrity, said that the public has a right to more details about how the system will work. How will independent observers ensure that the Defense Department does not "lose ballots?" he asked. "There's been no discussion, no audits, no information about how will it prevent phony votes or hacking. Missouri is setting itself up to be the next Florida."

Elliot M. Mincberg, legal director for the People for the American Way Foundation, said he is concerned service members will feel pressured by commanders and colleagues to give up their right to vote in secret. "We are going to look closely at this," he said.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

I don't believe it - they're putting the screws to military people AGAIN!!!

Is anyone in that campaign thinking? They have already ticked off a good many of the vets/active duty with their attacks on the Swifts. Now, resorting to Gore's underhanded tactics?

What next? They gonna start smearing the POW's at www.stolenhonor.com, too?
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[nickb]

you have got to be kidding. voting by e-mail? no thank you. I spent several hours last night removing a trojan horse from my computer, which is protected by anti virus software, a firewall, and 2 different spyware blockers.

somehow I would doubt the security of any e-mail voting system.

[SteamSnipe]

The Oregon election is all done by mail now, and look at what ACT has to say about that:

[Ohio Voter]

There will be no more free elections if we vote by email. I can send a dozen email from my computer and they would all appear to come from different people. No thank you.

The governor probably meant well, but he is just one of many in office that has no working knowledge about computers and the Internet.

[quote="SteamSnipe"]The Oregon election is all done by mail now, and look at what ACT has to say about that:

[Steve Z]

In all fairness, E-mail voting might not be such a great idea, because it opens the door wide open to fraud. It would be pitifully easy for someone to log in under several different E-mail addresses and vote several times, using pseudonyms. Since "dirty tricks" are not the exclusive property of Richard Nixon, but are also used on the left, E-mail voting fraud could throw the election either way unfairly.

In the event of a close election, who would bother going to check whether the names and addresses corresponding to E-mail voters actually correspond to real people, and not somebody's dead uncle or dog or cat, or somebody already registered in another state? After all the mess with the Florida recount in 2000, could you imagine trying to check all this by December 12, or whatever the deadline is this year?
_________________
The traitor will crater!

[bjornejack]

In actuality, this type of voting is probably going to be less likely to allow fraud than the electronic voting that we have here in San Antonio -- with the Missouri e-mail voting, the ballot is scanned in and that is what constitutes the vote, not the e-mail address it's sent from. If the scanned document can be encrypted (which it can), it can't be tampered along the way, and would presumably contain the voter's registration number or some other identifier, thus insuring that only one vote per person is counted. In San Antonio, by contrast, the electronic voting has no paper trail. Thus, any good programmer who can gain access to the program can alter the results. Also, a Florida-type "recount" here in San Antonio appears to be impossible.

[MassInd]

[FredRum]

[Me#1You#10]

Moving to geedunk shortly.

Thanks

[nickb]

[nickb]

I saw this and it had to do with e-mail voting and it rasied my hackles a bit. not just e-mail, but voting by fax...

I know it's in the NYT, but still..


Denying the Troops a Secret Ballot

Published: September 3, 2004

Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing or e-mailing their ballots - after waiving their right to a secret ballot. Beyond this fundamentally undemocratic requirement, the Electronic Transmission Service, as it's known, has far too many problems to make it reliable, starting with the political partisanship of the contractor running it. The Defense Department is making matters worse by withholding basic information about the service, and should suspend it immediately.

The Defense Department is encouraging soldiers to use absentee ballots or fax votes directly to local officials, when possible. But it also provides an alternative: Omega Technologies, a private contractor, will accept soldiers' faxed and e-mailed ballots on a toll-free line, and then send them to the appropriate local elections office. Handling ballots is always sensitive, but especially so when, as in this program, they are not secret. An obvious concern is that votes for a particular candidate could be reported lost in transit, or altered.

snip

Nor is it clear that voting by nonsecret ballots is legal. In Missouri, one of two states that will allow votes to be e-mailed through the Pentagon this year, the Missouri Supreme Court held as early as 1895 that its State Constitution requires that voting be by secret ballot. North Dakota has also approved the use of the e-mail voting system for military personnel; about 20 states will allow them to vote by fax.


I didn't like the part about waiving the right to a secret ballot. Just my opinion.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/opinion/03fri2.html

[Mooncusser]

I am not one to make it "easy" to vote.

My guess is that if the American people new how many non-citizens vote and how many double voters there are, they would faint.
_________________
MACV '64...65
Thu Thua, Long An

I actually won the election before I lost it.

"It is a good day to fight! It is a good day to die! Strong hearts, brave hearts to the front! Weak hearts and cowards to the rear!" (Crazy Horse)

[Steve Z]

If Bjornejack from San Antonio believes that electronic voting is open to fraud, here's a good test: If Kerry wins Texas, there has been fraud!
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The traitor will crater!