Author Topic: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes  (Read 8309 times)

zahc

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Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« on: October 03, 2008, 11:53:27 AM »
The most alarming thing to me is the bit at the end about throwing people out that have candidate T-shirts on. Did I read that right?

http://www.news8.net/news/stories/1008/558138.html

Quote
New measures are being taken to make sure irregularities in September's D.C. Primary vote don't happen in November. Officials at the D.C. Board of Elections say they now know what caused 1,500 extra votes to appear in the count.

326 people voted at the Reeves Center precinct on primary election day in September. Their votes were captured on a computer cartridge, but the Board of Elections says when it put the cartridge into the citywide computer to be counted, 1,500 write in votes appeared from nowhere. The board completed its investigation of what might have happened and blames static electricity.

"One of the many possible causes could be an electric charge or static discharge," said Errol Arthur, D.C. Board of Elections. Some city residents, like Beatrice Fink, laughed at the explanation. Resident Eddie Jewett said, "Could have used a more elaborate one than that."

Council member Jack Evans, infuriated by phantom votes, is calling out the board. "You mean if I'm rubbing my shoes on the way to vote, I'm going to upset the entire voting process in the District of Columbia and then the nation? I hope not so. I hope we can get this thing straightened out."

While the September election had one of D.C.'s smallest turnouts, the Presidential election is expected to set a record. Board members said they realize it and are going to take their time, as their report recommends. "We're not going to sacrifice accuracy for speed. We are going to do anything we can to make sure what we report on election night will be accurate," said Arthur.

Evans said that's not good enough. "There's no excuse for slow results." The board promises more workers and better equipment to get the situation fixed.

Also, voters wearing paraphernalia, caps, t-shirts and stickers, for candidates to the voting precinct, the board of elections said if poll workers see it, they will throw people out.
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AZRedhawk44

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2008, 11:55:44 AM »
No campaigning within "x" feet of a polling place.  Yep.  I think it's 300 feet, but not sure.
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Manedwolf

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2008, 11:55:51 AM »
Static causes database entries?

Good system there.

BrokenPaw

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2008, 12:02:40 PM »
Thank goodness the thing wasn't struck by lightning; the extra static might have generated enough votes for Richard M. Daley to win.

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Hutch

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2008, 04:43:25 PM »
Static????  My bullpoop meter has pegged...

No way in HELL does static cause this.
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RaspberrySurprise

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #5 on: October 05, 2008, 08:21:27 PM »
Swamp gas then?
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RocketMan

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #6 on: October 05, 2008, 08:32:29 PM »
Them dang aliens did it.

(A much better explanation than static electricity.  1500 votes is just a little too precise.  More likely, the card would have been wiped or made otherwise unreadable.)
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longeyes

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #7 on: October 05, 2008, 10:23:19 PM »
Aw geez, we told you to wear rubber-soled shoes when you vote, didn't we?  And don't forget to touch that steel bracket outside the booth before you go in.
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RocketMan

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #8 on: October 05, 2008, 10:26:40 PM »
Aw geez, we told you to wear rubber-soled shoes when you vote, didn't we?  And don't forget to touch that steel bracket outside the booth before you go in.

I don't have to do that here.  In Oregon we use the voter fraud friendly vote-by-mail system.  Our mail-in ballots are not affected by static electricity.
If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

ArfinGreebly

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Speaking As A Bit Jockey
« Reply #9 on: October 05, 2008, 10:40:09 PM »
Read my lips:  there is absolutely NO WAY that static anything accounts for "1500 phantom votes" -- at all.

Let me say that again:  NO WAY.

I'm not saying that from the viewpoint of someone with "a passing familiarity with" digital systems.

I'm saying this as an expert in the field of digital systems.  I write software applications, I write firmware (embedded systems) for ROMs, and I have more than a little experience with hardening systems and the effects of failing to harden.

It.

Just.

Doesn't.

Happen.

They're lying.

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Boomhauer

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #10 on: October 05, 2008, 10:45:47 PM »
Read my lips:  there is absolutely NO WAY that static anything accounts for "1500 phantom votes" -- at all.

Let me say that again:  NO WAY.

I'm not saying that from the viewpoint of someone with "a passing familiarity with" digital systems.

I'm saying this as an expert in the field of digital systems.  I write software applications, I write firmware (embedded systems) for ROMs, and I have more than a little experience with hardening systems and the effects of failing to harden.

It.

Just.

Doesn't.

Happen.

They're lying.



Of course they are lying. But as long as it is Democrat static, then it is A-OK...

Must have gotten tired of the honored old practice of resurrecting dead people to vote. That gets wearisome, don't you know, and today's lazy generations think they can use these new-fangled shortcuts...


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TommyGunn

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Re: Speaking As A Bit Jockey
« Reply #11 on: October 05, 2008, 10:46:17 PM »
Read my lips:  there is absolutely NO WAY that static anything accounts for "1500 phantom votes" -- at all.

Let me say that again:  NO WAY.

I'm not saying that from the viewpoint of someone with "a passing familiarity with" digital systems.

I'm saying this as an expert in the field of digital systems.  I write software applications, I write firmware (embedded systems) for ROMs, and I have more than a little experience with hardening systems and the effects of failing to harden.

It.

Just.

Doesn't.

Happen.

They're lying.




I absolutly refuse to believe this unless it is fully researched and supported by Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and Carl Kolchak!!!!!!!!! :police: :O =D :rolleyes: :angel:
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Manedwolf

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #12 on: October 05, 2008, 10:48:10 PM »
I would assume that these machines are recording votes as unique database table entries with identifiers.

Do people think this is still the 1960's, that such things are recorded as random electrical impulses that punch a 1 or 0 hole on a card?
« Last Edit: October 06, 2008, 12:06:48 AM by Manedwolf »

longeyes

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2008, 10:58:44 PM »
Static electricity--isn't that one of them alternative energy things?  Expect we'll be seeing a lot more of that in the future.
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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #14 on: October 05, 2008, 11:40:12 PM »
Agreed, no way it could have happened. Memory cards are equipped with ECC (Error Checking and Correcting.) to detect errors like this. So that "Static charge" would have to flip exactly the right bits to add 1500 votes and not generate a checksum error.

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #15 on: October 06, 2008, 12:32:11 AM »
Agreed, no way it could have happened. Memory cards are equipped with ECC (Error Checking and Correcting.) to detect errors like this. So that "Static charge" would have to flip exactly the right bits to add 1500 votes and not generate a checksum error.

While you're right, it's even MORE BS than even this.

The votes are not just stored as 1's and 0's.  The card has a filesystem on it, much like disks do.  Flipping one bit wouldn't equal one vote.  If a bit DID get flipped, and say it DID get through ECC, the filesystem checkers would freak out; much like in the olden days when you'd power off your windows box without shutting it down (or still does, if your windows box uses FAT filesystem)

I would assume the cards use the FAT filesystem, or something like it, so there is no journaling like on NTFS that keeps it from freaking out.

The vote was hacked.
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HankB

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #16 on: October 06, 2008, 09:41:56 AM »
Must have gotten tired of the honored old practice of resurrecting dead people to vote.
Hmmm . . . Viktor Frankestein used electricity to ressurect a dead person, so why can't the same electricity be used to cast the ballots of dead people?

Seems reasonable to me.

 ;/
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2swap

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #17 on: October 06, 2008, 09:45:43 AM »

While you're right, it's even MORE BS than even this.

The votes are not just stored as 1's and 0's.  The card has a filesystem on it, much like disks do.  Flipping one bit wouldn't equal one vote.  If a bit DID get flipped, and say it DID get through ECC, the filesystem checkers would freak out; much like in the olden days when you'd power off your windows box without shutting it down (or still does, if your windows box uses FAT filesystem)

I would assume the cards use the FAT filesystem, or something like it, so there is no journaling like on NTFS that keeps it from freaking out.

The vote was hacked.

It depends on where the bit is flipped for filesystem-level integrity checks to notice. If a bit is flipped in the filename and the program uses the original filename it would not find any votes. Also, if the pointers in the FAT are corrupted a file might still show plausible data after the first cluster. So it isn't immediately found. checkdsk would find it but it the data seems plausible no one might bother to run it.
: spin
  92 47 124 45 45 58 emit dup emit emit
  begin 8 emit dup emit swap 2swap key? until ;

Firethorn

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #18 on: October 06, 2008, 04:02:27 PM »
(A much better explanation than static electricity.  1500 votes is just a little too precise.  More likely, the card would have been wiped or made otherwise unreadable.)

I'd hope it was an estimate, and the card unreadable.  Otherwise I'd expect the error to be a power of 2 - not some even decimal number.

Balog

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #19 on: October 06, 2008, 04:08:27 PM »
I really hope every Diebold system gets hacked on election day to register %100 of the vote went to someone absurd like Optimus Prime or Ron Paul. Let the public understand how foolish and unsafe the electric systems are.
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ArfinGreebly

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Jim March
« Reply #20 on: October 06, 2008, 04:36:01 PM »
Has Jim March been notified of this topic?

This is very much right up his alley.

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buzz_knox

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #21 on: October 06, 2008, 04:42:12 PM »
To paraphrase Senator Amidala:  So this is how liberty dies. With a convenient spark of static electricty.

RoadKingLarry

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #22 on: October 06, 2008, 04:43:42 PM »
I really hope every Diebold system gets hacked on election day to register %100 of the vote went to someone absurd like Optimus Prime or Ron Paul. Let the public understand how foolish and unsafe the electric systems are.

Remeber it is only voter fraud when the democrats loose. :D
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2swap

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #23 on: October 07, 2008, 10:18:01 AM »
I really hope every Diebold system gets hacked on election day to register %100 of the vote went to someone absurd like Optimus Prime or Ron Paul. Let the public understand how foolish and unsafe the electric systems are.
Or Michael Moore!  =)  :angel:
: spin
  92 47 124 45 45 58 emit dup emit emit
  begin 8 emit dup emit swap 2swap key? until ;

MicroBalrog

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Re: Static electricity blamed for phantom votes
« Reply #24 on: October 07, 2008, 10:22:34 AM »
Optimus Prime would be a better President.
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