corrente

We have been ranting, raving, turning red in the face and generally working ourselves into a lather over the subject of electronic voting machines. This particularly evil essay, created by a guy named Hause who has some connection to the University of Minnesota, serves to remind us that there are all sorts of tactics by which the will of the people can be thwarted in the electoral process.

What's funny is that Mr. Hause appears to be something of a computer geek himself--I ran across this page while trying to figure out totally unrelated computer question. But just read this list as a whole and think about how many of these items we have learned to accept already:

Barriers to registration:

1. inconvenience to register, make the procedure difficult.

2. scare people off, make registration intrusive, or in a scary place such as a police station.

3. onerous side effects of voter registration such as jury duty.

4. Tests such as property ownership, "literacy", "language"
- subjective tests especially aimed at specific classes of people.

5. legal status of classes of people barred from voting, past or current legal criminal status, high voting ages, age limits.

Manipulation of registration data in control of the state:

6. "lose registrations", computer "error", human "error"

7. removing classes of citizens from voting lists without verification.

8. target removal of registrations to special geographical or other data characteristics of voter data. (Names, ages, etc)

Inactive voter pool:
Leave plenty of dead and inactive voters on the lists to allow a large pool of possible manipulation later. A large pool of inactive voters leaves opportunity to scatter a few critical fraud votes over the inactive domain to avoid a detectable pattern.

"Helpful" registration for certain classes of voters but not others:

9. fixing registration forms after the fact.

10. lax authentication.

11. automatic registration of certain classes of voters.

Voting day mechanics:

12. Inconvenient or restricted voting hours, for example a work day that is not a holiday, opens late or closes soon after work hours (7 or 8 pm).

13. Excessive cold, heat or other stressful conditions in the voting place or weather.

14. Cause riots or disturbances during voting hours in targeted districts or targeting classes of citizens ( women, racial, clothing type, etc.) Could be perpetrated by military, paramilitary (police) or goon squads.

15. Declare "civil emergency" alerts (like Government terror warnings or third party bomb threats) to drop voter turnout. Can be targeted to specific districts or regions.
.
Shortages of:

16. Ballots

17. Polling workers

18. Voting machines

19. early closing hours

Target shortages to specific locations.

Inconvenient polling locations:

20. Difficult to get to (automobile access only, no public transport, not accessible to handicapped, under construction, "hidden" location)

21. change voting locations often.

22. power outages to add inconvenience.

23. construction and detours near polling places, can be done the day of the vote to block participation.

24. change locations just for special districts or votes.

Ballot manipulation:

25. complex ballot layout

26. confusing ballot layout

27. position of names or issues on the ballot

28. manipulate wording of propositions, referenda

29. Shortages of ballots in targeted locations.

Voting machines have another access point to manipulation, the technical staff, usually a private contractor that services and programs the voting machinery.

Vote counting:

30. change of counts at precinct

31. change of counts at districts

32. change of counts at county

33. Throwing out cast ballots to some manipulated standard.

Miscellaneous:

34. complex machine-human interface exploits

35. complex ballot layout as a byproduct of machine interface

36. secret software for machines

37. access to machines for mechanical or software manipulation

38. break machines in targeted districts

39. technical software manipulation (widespread, or targeted to specific polling places.)

40. power outages in districts with dependencies on electrical voting machinery.

Okay, depressed enough already? Time for a little mental judo: Pulling off any of the stunts listed above would require a level of not just collusion but competence that has not to this point been characteristic of the Bushco gang. And this time we're going to be watching.