How disappointing…why was it rescheduled…funeral?

Yup. While Ford can be credited with giving me a day off of work, he also can be faulted with messing up my first ball of ’07. Alas….

Tonight, instead of playing video games, I watched the HBO special “Hacking Democracy” that Tivo has been holding on to for me for some time now.

It is one thing to accept on faith that Diebold machines are insecure and could be used to provide fraudulent voting results. It is another thing to see precisely how easy this is to do.

One simple hack should be detectable if the election officials followed the rules, but they were shown to not be doing so. When asked for copies of the signed printed tallies, they printed new ones instead. The originals were found at a warehouse where instead of keeping them for the legally required 22 months, they were found in the trash. The new print outs did not match the originals at all. They were off by hundreds of votes.

Another hack done on the memory cards before voting took place was completely undetectable by the paper trail.

Eight people cast ballots with one question: Can Diebold machines be hacked using only a memory card. Two voted YES and six voted NO. They turned on the optical scanner and it printed out it’s zero totals, showing zero votes for both Yes and No. They scanned the eight votes, and concluded the voting, and printed out the results:

YES 7
NO 1

Wondering if this hack had truly swayed the vote, or just skewed the print out, they plugged into one of the central tabulators and read in the votes:

YES 7
NO 1

No evidence would be left that anything had been tampered with. The folks who certify would have no reason to suspect that the votes were anything other than accurate.

And for me, that’s not even the worst thing they showed. Much worse, was hearing the lies come from the Diebold executives. These are truly sleazy people, and it boggles the mind to contemplate how such morally vacuous people have had any hand in what is supposed to be our democratic process. Honestly, letting them touch the election is like asking Sylvester the cat to watch Tweety bird while you go out.

Even if I don’t go, maybe I’ll just wear a fancy dress out to the grocery store, complete with my new velvet, beaded wrap.

You so totally should do that!

Just caught up on your posts. I especially enjoyed the movie and concert lists. Will you do a booklist too?

Hope you are able to find a date for the ball, but if not, totally wear your shawl and dress to the grocery store. You will look Very Important and beautiful!!!

Debby, yes. I should publish a booklist tomorrow.

No need for a date… Those of us from the Hill side of town are heading over en masse, I think. The usual couples will be coupled, but those of us who are perpetually single will be going stag — please join us!

I think John and I are going to head over together to catch up with you Cap Hill folks. I’m looking forward to it!