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Today's
Stories
March 4, 2004
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
March 3, 2004
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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March
4, 2004
The
Perfect World of Electronic Voting
A
Deafening Silence as Democracy Expires
By BRIAN BARRY
"This is a brilliant strategy
by Sequoia Voting Systems. All elections are now perfect by design.
If you eliminate the ability to detect or prove fraud in an election,
then you can claim that all elections are free of fraud."
I've always wondered what sound Democracy would
make if it died.
On Tuesday night, I found out in Santa
Clara, California. The sound it makes is a deafening silence,
and it sent chills up and down my spine. This sound scared me
more than anything I've ever heard in my life.
That night I experienced the illusion
of casting my vote on a state of the art touch screen "DRE"
(direct recording electronic) computer voting system. The poll
workers were helpful and showed me how to vote. However, when
I asked them a detailed question such as, who is the vendor that
makes these voting machines, all I got was a blank stare. Do
you have any information on these machines? No answer. I had
to examine the machines myself to find out who made them. I didn't
know that my most basic question was going to be a rhetorical
one.
The particular model I went through the
motions of voting on was an "AVC Edge" with a software
(firmware) version of 4.2.4 (according to the label on the back),
manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, California.
However, the software version number displayed on the touch screen
was 4.2, not 4.2.4. (Should I be concerned that the software
running didn't match the label on the back?) You can even view
a demonstration of how the AVC Edge works on their company
web site.
The poll worker politely programmed a
smart card for me with my political party affiliation. I inserted
the card into the voting machine which started the voting process.
The voting machine displayed my choices to me based on my political
party and I made all my choices very easily by touching the screen.
I didn't make a single mistake.
After I completed making all my selections,
the screen displayed this message: "Touch Here To Cast Your
Ballot". So I did.
Then the machine displayed this message:
"Recording Vote. Please Wait."
A couple of moments went by, then the
machine displayed this final message:
"Vote Recorded, Thank You"
I waited for the output. Nothing happened.
Ok, I guess I was done voting.
It would have been a wonderful experience
except for one thing. There was something missing. Something
very important.
There was no human-readable, physical
evidence that my vote had been captured and stored the way that
I had intended. Sequoia claims that my vote was stored inside
that machine, but there was no way to verify this. Since there
was no physical voting document produced, there was also no way
to recount my vote if the election was ever disputed.
Why wasn't the machine creating a punched
card showing my vote selections? Why wasn't the machine printing
a sheet of paper that could be optically scanned showing how
I voted that I could read myself to verify that it recorded my
choices correctly? Where was that physical output that would
be used to actually count my vote and that would also be used
during a recount if one was necessary. Without the physical output,
how could anyone ever do an audit?
Human monitoring of the step between
capturing of the votes and counting of the votes has been eliminated
and instead has been placed under corporate control.
This is a brilliant strategy by Sequoia
Voting Systems. All elections are now perfect by design. If you
eliminate the ability to detect or prove fraud in an election,
then you can claim that all elections are free of fraud. Sequoia
says on their web site that "No other company can match
Sequoia's pedigree and reputation for accurate, trouble free
elections." How could anyone ever prove them wrong?
Fraud-free elections. That's one less
thing to worry about.
The last step in my voting exercise came
after the polls closed. The poll worker opened up the voting
machine from the back and removed what looked like a flash card
(like what you put into your digital camera). The flash card
said "128 MB" on it, which is a large storage capacity.
This is like an electronic floppy disk and anyone in possession
of it can modify its contents. Why did they choose a medium for
storing the votes that can be modified?
When I was done voting, nothing came
out of this "Direct Recording Electronic (DRE)" voting
machine. But I had completely misunderstood the purpose of this
exercise.
The purpose of this voting exercise wasn't
to capture my vote.
The purpose of this voting exercise was
to demonstrate to me the power that corporations now have to
control the entire voting process from the capture of my vote,
to recording it, all the way through the counting process. If
the voting machine modified or deleted my vote, would anyone
notice?
One company now can do it all. They have
the Holy Grail. I was impressed but also horrified by this display
of power, because unfortunately, that also means we no longer
live in a democracy.
If the voting machine had generated a
human-readable physical document showing my vote selections that
I could visually verify, then hand carry over to the poll worker
and hand to them and say, "here is my vote", I could
then watch them place this vote document into a sealed and locked
box, just like they did last fall when they were still using
punched cards.
I'm not interested in a printed receipt
to take home with me showing how I voted. This isn't a grocery
store. I don't need to be convinced that the voting machine has
captured my vote. I already saw my vote selections on screen.
What I want to know is that my vote gets counted unmodified.
If the voting machine had captured my
voting selections into a physical form that I could then verify
and that I also knew, and this is the important part, that I
also knew would be used to count my vote and would also be used
in a recount if that were required. It's important that the physical
output be used in the normal process of counting all the votes,
not just used only if there's an audit. If the voting machine
had been designed to do that, well then I would say, what a great
improvement on voting this was. How much easier it is now to
vote.
But that's not what happened. Nothing
came out of the machine.
The voting machine sat there silently,
without even the soft hum of a fan to remind me that it was a
computer.
I was supposed to trust that this voting
machine, which is a physical expression of the intent of the
Sequoia Voting Systems Corporation to make a profit, was going
to take good care of my vote.
Democracy isn't about trust. Democracy
is about distrust.
It's ironic that Sequoia's web site quotes Winston
Churchill's remark he made in 1947 that "democracy is
the worst form of government except all those other forms that
have been tried from time to time."
Democracy didn't just die last night
in Santa Clara, California. It was silently strangled. The noise
was deafening. Was I the only one that heard it?
Brian D. Barry
is an activist and computer scientist interested in democracy
living in Silicon Valley, California. He can be reached at: bdbarry@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
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