Schneier on Security

http://www.riggedelection.com also resolves to that site.

Perhaps a hoax, but given your recent comment that election fraud is seen as a partisan issue in the US Congress (wish that was a hoax), who knows?

Funny.
Has anybody tried ringing "Toll Free (800) 807-9147" yet?

From Toronto -- "We're sorry, the number dialed is not in service."

From US:
Recording: "Please hold for next available representative"

Male voice: "Consulting."

Me (sheepishly) "Wrong number, sorry".

Maybe, maybe not:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3491&print=1

"'Soaries was appointed by George W. Bush as the first chair of the commission created by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in the wake of the 2000 Presidential Election Debacle. In the interview, available here for the first time, Soaries excoriates both Congress and the White House, referring to their dedication to reforming American election issues as 'a charade' and 'a travesty,' and says the system now in place is 'ripe for stealing elections and for fraud.'"

Ripe? Maybe fixavote is what an electronic voting system fermentation and distillation company looks like.

Or maybe it is just a clever form of protest/awareness.

I called the 800 # and spoke with some guy. He said I need to be working with a campaign before he would discuss his services. Sounds sketchy to me!

I rang the number up (i'm in Texas) -- and it was answered by a nice gentleman who seemd familiar w/ the race for Gov'r here (they aren't working this election). I was a bit stunned that the number work, so stumbled over my teeth and didn't question him on specific claims made on the web site. But he repeated he was not connected w/ Diebold in any way, and preferred I call them Election Consultants and not Fix-a-Vote.

Under the "Services" side tab:

"Diebold Election Systems [...] are in no way affiliated with Election Consultants."

Haha... that was funny, in an ironic they-didn't-mean-it-that-way-but-it-was-funny-anyway sort of way.

WHOIS reveals it's been registered to domainsbyproxy.com

Unsurprising, someone who's gone to that much effort is hardly going to screw up the registration.

Those of you who have worked for HP will no doubt be able to persuade domainsbyproxy.com that their client is violating Federal or State laws and that their identity should therefore be disclosed to you.

It's amazing that the same liberals who claim George Bush is "dumb" are the same ones who think he spearheaded some amazing conspiracy to rig the election.

That 1-800 number used to be registered to "Tahoe Candle Works". Here's the cached Google page:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:BHh-j_6dHNAJ:www.tahoecandleworks.com/Contact_Us.html+1-800-807-9147&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Check The BradBlog --
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3604

They ran this up a week ago.

Cutesy javascript that follows the mouse? Gotta be legit. No one could fake that level of professionalism. ;)

On the phone now w/ HostGator, the folks hosting FixaVote. The tech has no prior knowledge of this site, and suggests I let their abuse department know about it.

If it didn't sound so convincing, it would be funny. Right now it's disturbing.

My vote is "hoax", probably some performance-art virtual troupe trying to flash-mob the blogosphere. The subtle allusions to electronic vote fixing ("Supported technology: Sequoia/Diebold/ESS") look like obvious humorless conspiracy-theorist bait to me.

I'm very disappointed that they don't support the NedAp technology. You know, the Dutch machines that were made into chess computers a while back.

"I called the 800 # and spoke with some guy. He said I need to be working with a campaign before he would discuss his services. Sounds sketchy to me!"

A Libertarian candidate would probably love to call up. Not sure if they'll talk to one, though.

Anyone fill out the contact form?

The technology page is the best, with SmartVote persistent selection aids and VoteCorrect enhanced retrospective tallying. Cute corporate jargon.

This account has been suspended.

Well, they're gone. "This Account Has Been Suspended".

Why suspend the account? Can't they handle satire?

Whatever the intent, the presentation and wording clearly violated the law. At least, that was a legal opinion given to me an hour ago.

Hanging on the web, with no supporting context, this "joke" wasn't very funny.

If this had instead been presented as a "word from our sponsor" by John Stewart on "The Daily Show", would it then have been amusing? Probably.

Or was this site owned by the GOP?

"Hanging on the web, with no supporting context, this "joke" wasn't very funny."

Not very funny, true. In point of fact, completely hilarious.

And who's to say it's a joke? Hacking these systems is easy, and us blackhats have to eat!

Worked for me. Not sure what the big deal is.

It's back online. The hosting service apparently had some contact with the owners and they are satisfied that it's a joke.

Or it REALLY IS owned by the GOP!!

How dare they try to shut down my site! Heads will roll!

Clearly a joke, and a brilliant one at that. In the grand tradition of "A Modest Proposal." Five stars! Two thumbs up!

theprez98: It is Bush's intelligence people question -- not Rove's. Rove is a genius. An evil, evil, mad genius.

It would not be owned by the Democrats because they steal elections the old-fashioned way. See the Washington gubernatorial election of 2004!

For those who can't see flash (it crashes firefox here), could someone summarize what that site is all about? (Is there a way to convert it to some other format that the rest of us can see?)

To "No Flash":

I'm running Firefox -- no worries. Suspect you should update your flash. Click Tools --> Extensions --> More Extensions (lower right corner). Once there, click the "PlugIns" tab.

However, the site is shown on BradsBlog -- see links in comment #13.

Oh, come on:

"VoteCorrect TM: Real time voter correction"

It's obviously a joke !

The scary thing isn't whether this is real or not...

The scary thing is that it could even be credible. In the wake of the Help America Vote (Right) Act, the "PATRIOT" Act, and the Military Commissions Act, what once was the Constitution of an entity formerly known as the "United States of America" clearly no longer exists except as a convenient fiction for certain politicians wobbly on the use of absolute force and power that they have arrogated to what is turning out ot be an insatiable beast.

Apologies - the entity is still known as the "United States of America"; my earlier confusion stemmed from the fact that it no longer bears any resemblance whatever to that Republic.

May God save the U S of A - because it's damned obvious nobody else will...

Sorry again....by "credible" I didn't mean "really believable as possibly being factual", but "something that doesn't have you rolling on the floor laughing your eyes out after two seconds of looking at it". The rest of the earlier comment stands as written, unfortunately.

I think "satire" rather than "hoax". (I didn't fill out the contact form, but did click the button - a popup just says "Your message has been sent".)

@ G.V.

> Worked for me. Not sure what the big deal is.

You can't fool us, you're initials are really G.B., right?

[[ sorry, just couldn't resist ]]

"It's amazing that the same liberals who claim George Bush is 'dumb' are the same ones who think he spearheaded some amazing conspiracy to rig the election."

George W. Bush is dumb, but he didn't spearhead a conspiracy to rig his election.

I believe his dad did.

@Voter

Via a google search, that 1-800 number was in May listed on valuebee.com, but that site is Not working now. Here's the google cache:

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:gr_bNNKV9QQJ:valuebee.com/Contact_Us.html+(800)+807-9147&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

The scary thing is that it could even be credible. In the wake of the Help America Vote (Right) Act, the "PATRIOT" Act, and the Military Commissions Act, what once was the Constitution of an entity formerly known as the "United States of America" clearly no longer exists except as a convenient fiction for certain politicians wobbly on the use of absolute force and power that they have arrogated to what is turning out ot be an insatiable beast.

I don't see how the site itself could be illegal. Political speech is protected - that's why candidates promise the moon and sling lots of smelly, false accusations at each other - no fear of libel, slander, or other legal repercussions.

What might be interesting is if the site were to declare that one or more candidates, having won elections, used their services to assure victory. Even better would be "testimonials" from those campaigns.

Nice to see that Diebold has some competition :)

@miles b:
"the presentation and wording clearly violated the law. at least, that was a legal opinion given to me an hour ago."
here in america, satire is protected by the first amendment of our bill of rights.

In the Washington election referred to by anonymous in 2004, there were some electronic voting machine precincts that had unexpectedly high Republican vs Democrat ratios as compared to the polls. For some reason the state Republican leadership was very unenthusiastic about holding another election with better auditing. Some of the lower level Republican groups were indignant.

RE: "here in america, satire is protected by the first amendment "

You are assuming that it is indeed satire. And you are basing that assumption on...? Isn't just as easy to assume it's a GOP plot?

The hosting service did not think it was funny when they took it down. They felt it was illegal. Apparently they were convinced later that the site was only being "funny".

If they took it down, it's back up because if worked just fine for me. This one of the best satires I've seen in a long time; it took talent.

And if it isn't satire it just confirms what I and some friends have concluded about the current state of the Union, er Fourth Reich, er ...

@Foxyshadis

"Cutesy javascript that follows the mouse?"

Amen. Although I believe it's flash...

Could it be an FBI "sting" operation with the intent of catching a few politicians who really are in La-La land?

Satire, not hoax, sez I. "Automated voting assistance".

This is the best thing since the customer reviews of "Tuscan Whole Milk" on amazon.com