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And
You listen to radio station WBA I New York the time is 7 o'clock and that means it's time once again for off the hook
But if they would
I
I
Okay, we all together here
Alright, we got a crowded room full of people trying to figure out how to give everybody headphones and microphones and things like that
Good evening. Another exciting action-packed edition of off the hook
This special pre-election day
Edition of the program and boy we have everybody under the Sun here today. It seems like let's let's see. Where do we begin?
Well Bernie s down there in Philadelphia
Great time we had at pump con by the way
No, fortunately it is big enough not to hold
I mean it isn't big enough not to hold everybody because if it did then it wouldn't be pump con
That's a good point, yeah, I think it is we have dot red over there on the other side of the studio. Hello
Hello, not Kevin on a different side of the studio. Hello. We have Mike. All right, we have red hacked
Hello, and we have Rob T Firefly. Good evening and coming in special from Washington DC is
Mark Tobias, good evening and
Welcome. Welcome. You you took the the train or something? I did this afternoon Wow
Okay, and mark for those of you who may not know is one of our speakers at the hope conference
Speaking on the issues of locks and medico and all kinds of cool neat stuff like that
Always working on some some project anything you want to reveal that you're up to now
No, we're we're exploring some technologies that will probably announce later this year. Uh-huh
Cool, we found something that's that's a lot of fun that we've been playing with last couple of days
It's a way to look up your your status in the election actually for New York State
It's a way to look up how you are registered and where you're supposed to vote. You need to know your name
You can your name you know your birth date and you need to know your zip code
All right. Now I'll give you the URL
It's it's a very crazy long URL and then I'll give you the tiny URL that I made up so that it would be a little
bit easier
It's the original URL
Https colon slash slash voter lookup dot elections dot state dot ny dot us slash voter search dot
ASPX
Boy, what a pain that is to type or you can type tiny URL comm that's tiny URL comm slash
4x q 7 2 u that's all 4x q 7 2 u on tiny URL
We all look each other up or look ourselves up. I look myself up. I'm there
I look myself up and I'm there but only at my old address
So, I don't know what will happen when I try and vote
Did you remember to register with your new address? I did
I even have I should have brought it in just to wave it around for the radio audience to see a piece of paper
Directed to me at my new address thanking me for updating the Board of Elections
I wouldn't wave that piece of paper around until Election Day when you're gonna need it because well
I wave it around very carefully
yeah, because you need to show it to the people there and
Make sure that they recognize an ally to vote and then get on the subway and go to your old address and vote a second
Time. Hmm. Well to see if you can do it. Anyway, well, I probably I what I imagine will happen is well
One possibility is that the website is just wrong and actually some other computer knows about the change and and I'll be fine
The other possibility is I'll have to file something called an affidavit ballot and yeah
Those ballots when you do that, they count them after everything else is counted, right? Yes
Sometimes I don't even count them at all if they don't think it's gonna sway the election this happened to me before
The last time I moved or actually a year after the last time I moved the last time I moved it was okay
But one year later somehow I got lost now and and
They then sent me a postcard saying that they had in fact counted my affidavit ballot. So what I'm wondering is all these
Advanced early voters that are out there. Are they going to count them the same way after everybody else is counted?
Are they going to count them at the same time?
Think they count them at the same time. You know, what you're talking about is a provisional ballot
Yeah, and they're the last to be counted because there may be an identification issue
You might be challenged. Yeah, I'd be or to prevent fraud
All right
I'm not a big fan of affidavit votes the last time I did that it wasn't even counted at all
How do you know because they are they told me they they contacted you?
Yes, by the way, your vote has not been counted. They called me
Amazing so the thing with this neat little site and again, this is just for New York
I don't know if there's one for New Jersey. I don't know if there's one for Pennsylvania
Do you know anything about that Bernie if there's something like that?
They had provisional ballots in Pennsylvania. I had to use one two years ago in the midterm election
I don't mean not provisional ballots. I mean a website that tells you where you registered and I have looked I could not find one
But just to be sure I a couple three weeks ago. I went to our
Voter registration, you know in Philadelphia just to make sure that I was still registered at the address
I've always been and
Because two years ago they screwed that up and indeed I am still registered where I should be
So I'll keep my fingers crossed now using the magic of Wikipedia
we're able to go through a couple of lists of people and we found that Hillary Rodham Clinton is
Registered to 15 old house Lane in Chappaqua, New York zip code 105 1 4 now, how do we get that information?
We got that from Wikipedia which tells us where she resides. It's a well also when she was born
Wait, does Wikipedia have the address Wikipedia did not have the address?
It just had it just had the it just had Chappaqua. I believe right now the address was furnished to us by the
New York State Board of Elections. Yes, they were nice enough to give us that that information is there
All you have to do is enter somebody's name enters their zip code enter their date of birth
Which was found on Wikipedia and we also know that her voter status is active and she's registered with get ready for this the
Democratic political party. What's that? She will be voting at 650 King Street King Street in Chappaqua and at the Graflin school
Now Bill O'Reilly on the other hand
Lives at 33 Shore Drive in Manhasset, New York on Long Island. I didn't know that he's registered with the Independence Party
He's also active voter status. He will be voting at the Plandome Village Hall 65 South Drive in Plandome, New York
That's on Long Island
So you can you can arrange to greet people as they stroll through the voter registration process courtesy of all this public information
That's out there
I mean, that's that's kind of shocking but of course, this is nothing new the the the list of voters has always been public information
It's just maybe not been this easy to get our hands on. No, usually you have to either go to the board or call the board
or
Call a company that got the complete list from the board, but now they're entering the 21st century
Amazing. I've also been informed from Jun's that New Jersey has a similar website
Did Jensen form us what the website is? No, he did not
well
why doesn't Jones give us full information rather than just hints of
information because that would be really cool for our New Jersey listeners be able to look themselves up and see if they're registered and
Look up other people to
Celebrities and politicians and things like that to see where they're registered to and what parties sometimes you find some interesting
Interesting revelations. I mean some of my friends are registered Republicans and they claim to do that so that they could sway the primaries
But I don't know really a useful tactic in New York. Yeah
No, definitely not in New York
Okay, so since we're standing on the precipice of an historic election here in this country one question. Go ahead
Will it be over soon? I think so. Although, you know, you never know when
We could be still debating this next week and the week after that it's entirely possible
But it's also entirely possible that come Tuesday night
Something something will change very dramatically in this country at least the feeling
the expectation and I just realized something to that a lot of people are putting all kinds of faith in Barack Obama and and
Hoping for some kind of change
None of this would be possible without George W Bush
I don't think if we serious if we didn't have George W Bush in power for eight years doing the things that he did
I don't think someone like Barack Obama could ever have stood a chance of being elected
I really don't think so. And I think we probably would have a McCain in the White House now, I know
Mark Tobias you had some some feelings that you were voicing out in the hallway about about John McCain
I like to give everybody just a couple of minutes
I know it's not a political show
but we are standing on the like I said the precipice of history here and I'd like to hear people's opinions so that I can
Listen back to this someday and and and laugh
Well as a first of all, I worked for a Republican governor for 16 years
Which one Janclo in South Dakota and who was fairly close to George Bush and his father
My as a lawyer I've been very concerned about the Bush administration and the Justice Department this is really
One of the first times that the Justice Department has been politicized usually it's been hands-off and in this administration it hasn't
They really in my view have had contempt for the Constitution and contempt for the Congress
They and for six years. They had a rubber stamp. And so
Hopefully the administration will change for the good. I cannot imagine if John McCain gets elected that anything would change
McCain has announced that of course, he's in favor of more surveillance more Patriot Act restrictions
you know to fight the terrorists and
From from my perspective as a lawyer. It's been a disaster. It's been very disturbing. What's happened in the United States
I've never been political. I'm actually a Democrat, but I've also always worked for Republican administrations and
I just I hope there's a change in this country. Otherwise, I think we're gonna be in a lot of trouble. I
For McCain as we were talking in the hall to have picked Sarah Palin. I
It's even even as a sense of humor. It's not a sense of humor
It shows that it's McCain first and not America first
Because of the likelihood that he could become sick incapacitated or die in office
If we woke up with Sarah Palin as president, we'd be in a lot of trouble
But we would know when Putin was flying over Alaska. That's true. Yeah, she'd see him taking off
Yeah, right
Okay, who next wants to spout some some rhetoric or opinions? Oh, come on. Don't be don't be don't be shy here
Well, I don't go out for a rhetoric much, but I think my position on the coming election basically boils down to Obama sucks less
Okay
That's that's pretty much where I stand. Isn't that good enough? No, that's not good. Okay dot red. Tell us tell us
Your opinion on that just to his last statement, you know, I don't like the idea of choosing lesser of two evils
I should be able to choose a good. Okay, if you could choose a perfect who is perfect
I don't like to know there has never been somebody who's perfect. That's why I am not very hopeful
Most presidents I've ever seen they all do the same thing either way. Mm-hmm
but don't you think that if if Tuesday night comes round and as all these Obama gets elected as all these celebrations in the street nationwide and and
People feel like things are changing even the things aren't really changing won't that feeling maybe inspire some true change
Possibly or the hopes could be crushed and there's only one way to find out. Well, then we have something more to complain about
Look nobody knows what Obama will do if he's president
Everybody's got a pretty good good idea what McCain will do but at least Obama has the intellectual capacity
No, seriously to pick people around him that can make change
yeah, he can string a sentence together things and
Understands the environmental problems and I think the economic problems the real question is whether anybody can fix America now
Yeah, and I have to say about McCain even if I even if I agreed with everything
He said and thought he was wonderful and stuff
I do not think this is a good point in our history to elect the oldest first-term president that we've ever had
That's amazing. He's older than Reagan was when he was elected
That's something because I remember back when Reagan was elected way before you know the time of a lot of people in this room
It was he was so old. He was really considered ancient and wow
I guess it's something to be said about our lifespan must be increasing or something
Yeah, there's this there's this great website that I've been following
called things younger than McCain
It's just it's just a blog where the the
The admin posts every day something different that's younger than John McCain any any examples spring to mind
Oh at the top of my head. I'm not well the state like the statehood of Alaska is one of the state of Alaska
Almost everything. Yeah
Amazing yeah, I mean well like Tristan electricity was discovered
You know telephones or a car and I don't know the thing there are definitely what year was he born
He's what is he 72? So it was we have octogenarians listen to our radio program
So, I mean, I think they would appreciate what anybody the you know, the way things have changed over the years
And and the incredible differences that have taken place, but I think they'd also appreciate that
You know somebody
Starting out at that at that age to be to be leading the country might not be the best move
Yeah, I'm gonna be them that the
Might be the energy level you need, you know
Yeah
and it's not just pointing and laughing and going oh he's old but if you if you punch up some pictures of past presidents when
They started their terms and then when they came to the end of their terms the job ages you they all aged far past the
Years, they were sitting in. Oh, maybe it'll it'll
Maybe he'll go in the opposite. I don't I don't know what it'll do to him and I'm kind of afraid to find out
I don't think it's the age so much because in Europe, there's a lot of elderly leaders
It's the erratic nature of his campaign and his decision-making and I think that's what everybody ought to be concerned about
he really did seem to pull out all stops improving that with
Spending his campaign to go to Washington to fix the economy nice job. They're picking Sarah Palin
Going to states where he doesn't have much of a chance of winning at all and ignoring the swing states
it doesn't it's really kind of bizarre the way this campaign has been run and the most recent thing are the
The the back-and-forth between the Palin people and the McCain people they're swiping insults at each other
You don't do that in a campaign. It's not just a campaign
I think McCain's been out there long enough the public is beginning to look at this as
His ability to lead and how would he get along with Palin? Yeah, if he can't even ration they're in fighting now
Hey, which is just one person. It's incredible and
So how would this work in the White House? I think Sarah Palin has got a taste of national office
and
It's it's incredible how the unnamed high-level sources in the Republican Party now are saying that that you know
She's a whack job and that she's out for herself. Did you see the headline? She's gone rogue. Yeah. No, no, it's
Brilliant headline because she got a taste of what it would be like and she and it's incredible to me
She thinks she's gonna be head of the Republican Party and that she's gonna run for president 2012. All right, Bernie anything from you
well
Besides a lot of other reasons
Obama has taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for several years and I thought that
Based on the last eight years where our president seemed to disregard the Constitution at almost every turn
including separation of powers
and have just an almost a maniacal penchant for secrecy of
Public what should be public information? It would be refreshing to have an intelligent person who is
well versed in
Constitutional law in our highest office. It'd be refreshing
Yeah, I don't know if we can handle it. It's it's gonna be definitely unusual that does happen
Redhat not Kevin any any any thoughts on the political process not Kevin. Is this your first election voting?
The first time I'll actually get out and vote. Yes, wait
You mean that you could have voted before but you didn't yes, and why didn't you vote before?
Laziness laziness to just walk down to a polling station and pull some levers. Well, it's very hard. What's what's so hard about that?
I'm not putting in spot here
But I think you might reflect a lot of people a lot of people have the same feeling and especially people think it's a foregone
Conclusion how the election is going to go a lot of people might not show up. So
Don't be like not Kevin because maybe that'll make a difference red-hacked
I hope that this election will go the way that I want it to go. What does that mean?
Well, I didn't last time. Uh-huh
Last time being 2004, right? Okay
Well, I think that's all my input a lot of us
I just and I can't wait for it to be over because it's
Been dragging on long. It has been dragging on forever. I mean the Canadians know how to do it
They did it in a month and we take two years
Well, that brings up the issue of how it's not really up to us because we do know how New York is going to go
It's these swing states. We have to worry about and how they're gonna vote. Absolutely
Yeah, and if you're in states like Ohio and Florida
And Nevada and other places like that
You have a lot of power because our crazy system all the electoral votes go to one party
But New York almost went Republican last time for the president. Yeah
I don't have the records in front of me, but
You're thinking of something else. Yeah, I don't I don't think that's all right. I think oh, sorry
I think what's crazy about the whole electoral process that we've gone through so far
Is that how you have these candidates who are so different and I know now there's a fairly large gap in the polls
But it's just like how is it that half of the country thinks this one?
Crazy ideology and then the other half thinks this other crate. They're both. I mean, they're both very different and very
I'm not radical, but it's just it's interesting to see how in this country you have just this one division
I like how in other countries, you know, you have multiple parties
You have right you have and you have this kind of rainbow of different ideologies, right?
Here, you know, we're sitting here saying well, if it doesn't go our way, what are we gonna do?
Exactly. No, there's no there's no I feel almost sorry the Republicans because they'll have no no power at all next year
If things continue to go in that I mean, they'll lose the house. They'll lose the Senate. They won't be able to filibuster
They won't be in the White House. What are they gonna do?
And so they'll just have to do talk radio
The thing is that it hurts everybody because I mean, okay for a while
We'll be you know, our party will be in control and we
We're in a party our party our party. It's a hacker party out there. Actually, there will be a hacker party. I'm sure
That right you had something. Um, yeah, you know some people
Because of the issue of voting with the swing states and
Are registering in other states if they can out of their home states to maybe have more of a swing elsewhere almost legally
Yeah, they're moving. You mean well not moving but say if you go to school in a neighboring state, uh-huh, but live
Elsewhere. Well, like that could make a difference
what the point I was trying to make was that you know, if the Democrats win and they take everything for example, so
I happen to be Democrats. So I'll feel represented. I'll feel like you know, my what I want is getting done
You know, we look you up to see if you're a Democrat
But then there's this other half of the country who feels that they're not being represented and and that's why it really stinks than in
This country we have such this
Partisan. Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely true
Yeah, that's that's definitely something that's always irritated me about the two-party system is you have people who are either Republican or Democrat?
Not that they went out and chose that party but because their dad was or their favorite TV guy is or something and so they'll
Just blindly vote for whoever their party tells them to without actually putting any thought into it without actually seeing
Is this the guy closest to my beliefs? It's like religion almost. Yeah, or street. It's blindly. Yeah blindly following Bernie
Did you have something? Yeah
Being it looks like ground zero for this election both McCain and Obama has made
Numerous numerous stops in Pennsylvania the past few weeks. Yeah, that's your state. That's your state
I understand you've been you've been working on various
Election type things. Yes, I won't show my hand
But I've been volunteering at the campaign headquarters of one of the campaigns here in Philadelphia
One of the one of the candidates will have to just speculate as to which one it is
Could be one of many that's true. That's true. Interesting. I've been calling undecided voters the list of undecided voters and
It's really interesting hearing
Talking with people who haven't yet made up their mind
Bernie I have a question. How do you get a list of undecided voters?
Polls have been taken
Questionnaires have been filled out
What people have just checked off they haven't made up their mind yet and that was done recently
So these are people that have already been
contacted and asked a bunch of questions on the telephone and now they're being harangued even further because they made a mistake of saying they
Don't they'll make up they didn't make up their mind yet. They are some of the most
Called and coddled people in the country right now. They're like a super member the superdelegates. Everybody was sort of
Catering to their every wish that's right
Yeah, they're both so basically almost every voter in Pennsylvania is like a superdelegate in from the standpoint of their value to
Whoever I hope to be the next president. Well, okay now clear this up for us
How much money can you offer them legally to to vote the way you want to vote?
Nothing I do tell them that
We very much appreciate their vote. Hmm, and that's you know, that's as much as I can offer
I did want to point out that there's an interesting piece of technology that the Obama campaign has been using the past couple of days
You may remember we discussed this a few weeks ago when the Obama campaign announced they would they would announce their choice of
vice president
Yeah
At 3 o'clock in the morning 3 in the morning, why did they do that?
I can't call with anybody here sign up for the SMS service. You did a red hack
Yeah, and you got the SMS at 3 in the morning. I did and I was awake, too
I mean, I just can't imagine that being a good PR move, you know
I'm not the only that's not the point I was gonna mention they use that data about two and a half million people
supposedly
Signed up for that and now the Obama campaign is
sending SMS messages to every one of those two and a half million people urging them to get out and vote and to
Contact their friends relatives neighbors get them to get out and vote now red
How could you get such a I get text messages all the time and I get so excited to us who's sending me a text
Message. Oh, it's Obama again. Uh-huh
But but no, what happens if you reply? I don't think it's probably just a short code
it goes nowhere, but
but what's interesting is he'll send you know that he's speaking in West Virginia tonight and you can watch it here or
Go to the website and look actually, I don't know if I've gotten any solicitations for donations by email
I have but I don't think I've got anything my interestingly enough
He's speaking in 35 minutes to the entire nation on I think five different TV networks
Yeah at this I mean this is unprecedented and I'll have to download it
This is one of those unusual nights because we've got we've got the Barack Obama thing happening at 8 and then we have what might
Be the shortest final game of the World Series ever which could last two innings
They suspended it because of the rain in Philadelphia and they're gonna finish it tonight and if Philadelphia wins, it's over in two innings
It's a very strange night ahead of us. I read I was wondering what would happen if he does become president. Will he?
Will the president send text messages out to all his faithful supporters, you know that or maybe just a regular basis
Maybe he'll be SMSing us
Saying hey guys gather around, you know
We're gonna declare war in a certain country want to know about it or maybe just a poll or something
Who should we declare war on like the White House would release a statement and it'd be SMSed across the name
Wow, we're really moving into the 20th century here
Yeah, the carriers would love it for those that pay for their SMS messages now Jun's has come through
He has given us a URL for New Jersey. You know, what has not come through in New Jersey in a URL
That's actually readable over the air. I you know, this is crazy eight again
HTTPS colon slash slash
voter dot NJ
SVRS.com was SVRS stand for just read the whole thing. I'll never get through
New Jersey State voter registration system out of slash public access to this case matter things like this
Maybe capital P capital a public access
slash
Why don't you have him make a tiny you are you know what?
Tiny URL because I'm just too many letters
It's ridiculous. Well, we'll announce a tiny URL in just a couple of a couple of minutes
If you're in New Jersey, you can look yourself up or anybody else
Mike we haven't heard from you as far as
Political thoughts of the day. Yeah, I just want to be over. Well, that's what I think
I think everybody wants that including the people running
we're still waiting for a candidate to emerge who whose views are in line with mine and
Until then I just really think that's gonna happen. No, I don't
But I mean, but here's the thing. My views are not really that far out of whack in a lot of
Countries. No, but in this one they are. Yeah. Well, I don't know how that happened. What news might these be?
Well, yes, go ahead Bernie
Pennsylvania does indeed have a
Online system for seeing if you are registered and and where and do you have a URL for us?
I do but it's it's it's no less complicated than the others. You've read you think that these states would would
Register an easy-to-remember domain name. Well, that's what we're doing here tonight Bernie live on the air
We're gonna make tiny URLs of all these things so that people can I can go there easily?
Well, that's all well and good
But the state should have done this with something intuitive like the name of the state and check your voter registration something like that
Anyway, I'm gonna read Pennsylvania's
Don't read it yet because we need to write it down as you read it so that we can make a tiny URL of it
And right now red hack is busy
Typing the New Jersey URL in and we'll have a tiny URL of that
I guess I could mention one more time the tiny URL for for New York, which is tiny URL comm slash 4x
Q 7 2 u and you can use that to look up anybody in New York State if you know the
Birth date and zip code and of course name find out where they're voting if they're registered what party they're registered with
Etc. Actually, I just looked on Google if you just type in state places to vote. It'll come up with everybody
What I mean, just go to Google and type in I did on my blackberry while you're talking
It'll state place to vote state place and it'll just start list and just keep going down
It'll start listing states not all of them where you can enter information about individual voters, you know
Well, it tells you where to vote. So I'm sure it'll take you to their local website
Okay, New Jersey, I reduced to tiny URL comm slash njs
VRS
How did you do that? You can pick your I didn't know you could do that. Oh, okay
Well, I would have picked something better. How about no, how about nj vote?
I was I thought about that a second too late because once you make one you can't change it
You could always make a new one. Yeah, I can make a different one
But that's the same it recognized the URL say it one more time for the injury. It's a
tiny URL comm slash n
J s VRS
Okay, now don't close that that website yet because we have a new one that Bernie ass is gonna read to us over the air
for voters in
Pennsylvania so that they can look up fellow Pennsylvanians and of course themselves to find out they're registered and who they're registered with
Are you ready?
I'm just gonna Google it
Well, I think you need to verify that
It's the same URL read it. Okay, go ahead Bernie
I'm gonna read this URL
but I should forewarn our listeners that this doesn't take you right to the form where you can put your name and and zip code and
Birthday in and it comes up with your voter registration information. You have to once you're at this page
I'm going to give you a well for you have to register at the PA power port
which asks you like 20 different questions and once you've what you've signed up for that and and
Defined what your username and password will be for the PA power port
Then you can check your voter registration information, but here's how you what if we just register a generic WB AI account
Can we give out that out to everybody?
Probably yeah, or would be in violation of some kind of federal election. Well, I don't think that you're not registering to vote here
Uh-huh, just registering with something called PA power port, which lets you check and gives you an account to look at stuff
Uh-huh. I will give us the URL and we'll let listeners sort this out
My point is it's making making voters jump through a lot of hoops. Yes unnecessary
Here it is. H T T P s
colon slash slash
www.pa
voter services
dot state dot PA dot u.s
slash pages
Slash login dot ASP X. Okay, you get all that
Yeah, I found it with Google. Oh, okay. Great. Well, then give us a tiny URL for that then
So we can move on and and again, we encourage our listeners. What did you type to find it in Google?
Yeah, what would you type to find it in Google so our listeners can find their states actually there's if they just go to
votes PA
Com. Uh-huh vote as votes PA VLT. Yes a link on there to the same thing
Yeah, you know what? Why don't we just leave it at that?
All right. Well, that one doesn't even need a zip code. You don't need a zip code
County first name last name and date of birth
Wow, wait, but I don't have a particularly common name and I know in my previous county of residence
There was more than one person. I guess you need birth date. Yeah birthday
That might set you apart the other person probably born on a different day. Interesting
I'd like to know if any states out there make it even easier
Fine, what's your name? Well, North Dakota doesn't have voter registration. That's easier. Has anyone checked Alaska?
That would be fun
See if see if anyone's registered with that separatist party. That would be kind of repellents registered. Yeah wave high
Our email address OTH at 2600 comm we ask people to write in with ideas and thoughts about election
Systems polling places things like that and we got a couple of interesting replies this from Steve. I live in northwest, Florida
I'd like to go on record as stating that the way they do things in southern Florida is
Different from the rest of us here in my county aka Lusa in the real part of Florida
We don't count anything south of Gainesville as really being in Florida. I don't know where you think it is that
The election process revolves around the accu vote optical scanners first
You mark a clear a fairly clearly printed paper ballot by darkening the circles
Indicating your vote choices
Then you take your ballot to the scanner machine a poll worker is standing by to help if you have a problem
But it's pretty straightforward the scanner machines in my precinct a kind of old and look like an HP laserjet 3 printer except the ballot goes
In backwards once the ballot is scanned through the machine
It drops into the ballot box below
The scanner machine counts the various marks on the ballot and stores them on a memory card that plugs into the back of the scanner
Machine the display on the top panel of the scanner keeps a running total of how many ballot cards have been scanned so far
after the poll closes the poll worker guarding this the scanner machine removes the memory cartridge from the scanner and takes it back to the
election supervisor's office
The election supervisor then uses a computer system to read the memory cartridges and assemble the vote totals at no time
Do the cartridges leave the control of an employee of the election supervisor's office?
The problem I have with the process is that for all the care taken at the polls to guarantee your vote gets recorded properly
In the end it only gets counted at the supervisor's office by some proprietary software called election management
Software that assembles the vote counts from each precinct and by the way, this software is sold by Diebold
So even if you remove those vote-stealing electronic voting machines, the process is essentially compromised by a closed-source
non-auditable proprietary software program provided by a company of dubious veracity
Thank you Steve for that enlightening letter. Anybody disagree or have any feelings on the on that particular system? Yes, go ahead Bernie
Along those lines, there's there's a there's an important lawsuit and it was decided today in Pennsylvania
the ACLU sued the state of Pennsylvania or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because
the
The person that's in charge of
Let's see
Who is it the person who's in charge of the all the election machines in the state has said that?
Paper ballots will not be provided to voters unless every single machine in the voting place has failed
The ACLU is saying we want it to be at least half the machines if half the machines fail
Then people should be allowed to get paper ballots
and the reason that that would be important was that a lot of voters could be disenfranchised if
If you know all but one machine, you know
All the two machines fail there could be long lines and people just wouldn't be able to vote in time
But today in federal court, it was ruled that
Indeed all Pennsylvania polling places must have paper ballots there
So if half the machines or more fail you get to fill out a paper ballot
Seems fair enough and
The concept of voting machines failing is kind of alien to me. I've always just used these
Mechanical machines and they always seem to work. They fail all the time. You just don't hear about it
maybe one fails in a room, but I've never seen more than
Every time I've gone to vote I've they've all been in use
Because you don't know they've failed sometimes till the end of the day when you open it up and there's no votes recorded
Well, that's kind of serious if that in fact happens
But I have not heard of a case like that ever being uncovered either with the mechanical
I mean, it's not like happening like one out of every ten machines, but it has happened with the New York voting machines
All right, we have another letter here dear off the hook regarding the roundtable question of what is the best method for voting?
I propose the following number one use optical scan ballots and require the retention of the physical ballots for at least five years
Number two make the scans of ballots available as image scans similar to fax images online
Allowing anyone with the desire to manually or electronically conduct their own recount and give them the opportunity to do so
Three and this is the good one
establish a mandatory penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole for intentional tampering with the process of counting votes or
for intentionally destroying or misplacing physical or electronic scans of ballots with the intention of preventing votes from being counted
Okay, everybody sit down. We'll get to this in a second number four
Require the source code of the vote counting systems to be open source and published well in advance of the election
Number five require a period of time between the posting of ballot scans and the official certification of the election allowing sufficient time for whoever desires
To perform a recount the opportunity to do so
I cannot emphasize enough that the document format from which the physical ballots are printed the image format used for the ballot scans the full
Specifications including parts list and schematics of the scanners used for scanning the ballots the drivers and software used for scanning the physical ballots and the
software for counting the votes
All be open source and published far enough in advance of an election to allow for technical scrutiny and integrity
Checking of the technologies in question. That's my plan. I look forward to any feedback you have on this idea
I think an idea of this type should become a ballot initiative and that the people of many jurisdictions should make such a scheme the
Law for their elections. Thank you Mike in Kansas City for these thoughts. Okay thoughts on on that particular
Idea, I do like the idea of the software being open source because it's just it's nice to be able to look for bugs
yourself and find them but
One other thing that has to be taken to an account. I feel is the physical security of the
Machines, especially if the software is open source, because then if I can go and swap the memory card with no problem
Then I and I have the source then I just change the one part that increments the ballot to always increment my
Candidates ballot. So I agree that it definitely should be available for scrutiny
But I think also the physical security of the ballot box is important
Okay, let's let's talk about the mandatory penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole for intentional tampering
you know, I think I think you sort of have to test the system at some point and I fear that a lot of
People who are actually trying to see if there are security issues could get caught up in this and again confusing the message
Messenger with the message. I think a lot of hackers might be victimized by
Uncovering some security shortfalls just by just by trying it
Sorry Bernie
Yeah, absolutely you guys agree disagree
That's a
Expressionless faces here. I don't know what to make of it
That's a fear that's a fear and you know you that that goes back to the the tradition in among hacker culture to like someone
Someone if someone finds a vulnerability, you know, are they going to go to the company or the organization?
That's responsible for it and say, you know
hey heads up this thing is wrong with your system or are they going to use it for their own gain and
If if going to them with the vulnerability and trying to be open about it and get it fixed is the wrong thing
Which it unfortunately has been in some cases
Where it gets it gets the whistleblower in trouble then
Where does that where does that leave the integrity of the system?
Yeah, I mean if you know of a way to crash an electronic voting machine, we want to know about it
We want to know how it works. We want to know what the vulnerabilities are. It's important to have this information spread around
I don't think a threat of life in prison will help get that information spread the way it should be definitely not
But otherwise, I think some good ideas there. It's just really unclear to me why voting needs software at all
It seems to me that if you get a pile of ballots, you can just count them
Well, yeah, except that it's not like in Canada was just basically one or two things being voted on
It's a lot of things for elections. I mean we should have more like six things. It's like whatever
No, it's like 20 things for me all kinds. I got a vote for judges and propositions and things like that. Yes, Bernie
I just thought of a really good
Idea for a suspense novel related to elections and that would be
If another country or some terrorist organization were set off one of these types of bombs
It doesn't kill people, but it sets off an electromagnetic pulse
That would you know knock out anything that's electronic over a very wide area if someone if some entity did that on Election Day
Several ones then it would really have a
Well, I guess it rescheduled the election, but it would have an effect. Yeah, I say it would
But if you had a system that only had paper ballots
Then you could say dispose of a certain container and there would no one be able to tell what those votes originally were
Well, they'd know that something was missing though
Try counting millions of votes and telling me if you can if you get the same number every time you count them
Well, I know in Florida they didn't that's something else. Oh, yeah
We also had a bit of a correction from last week Bernie want to go into what that was
About Florida recounts. Yeah, I think you would ask me last week whether the
If the Florida counted and ever been recounted by a
An independent agency and I said yes, and you said well, what would the results have been?
I said well, it looks like Bush would have won
Anyway, I thought you were referring to the only the contested only the votes in contested areas at the Gore campaign said
Oh, we only want to have these
These very small areas where we think there's a problem
Yeah
I'd like to know I like to know the whole state because the whole state use the same system and I don't know why they
Just picked that those small areas
Well originally Gore himself according to a book he wrote
Wanted to have a complete state recount, but his advisor said no no, no, no that could go the other way for you
Just do these through certain areas where we know it's really bad and it turns out they were wrong
And that one decision cost him the election and he regrets it
Yeah, I think a lot of us might regret that not Kevin
Well to jump back to the Bernie's EMP theory, you know, you can
Use this device and it would cause just as much damage on any other day even if it was election or not. Mm-hmm
So I don't think that's very very plausible. Yeah, but it'd be a real pain in the ass if it happened on Election Day
What do you think?
Well, I don't think we care that much if the election was going on, you know, all of our everything just went down. Mm-hmm
Okay, we have another letter. I'm an ex-con and I know of quite a few others that would love to vote
I've heard rumors that there was recently a court case that ruled that we could vote
I don't know if this is the case for me. I'm still on my state's equivalent of parole. That's Washington State
I have a few friends who aren't I would hope so. My parole is due up in February
Do you guys have any info on this? Is it too late to do anything signed Wes?
Anyone not have any information? It varies by state. Mm-hmm
Information sorry, Bernie. I
Replied to West's question and he is
He lives in the state of Washington and it turns out the state of Washington has an extremely screwed up way of
handling
felons who want to vote you have to you have to jump through a
Bunch of hoops and basically get the governor to sign
Some piece of paper allowing you to vote and unlike like Pennsylvania ten years ago
Which it was very similar. In fact, it is out outright illegal for felons to vote
In Pennsylvania even it had been
Actually illegal for them to register to vote until the ACLU sued and then I was actually in on those hearings and testified and now
Now you can vote in Pennsylvania if you're a convicted felon doesn't matter what you were convicted and you served your sentence
Finished yesterday or you know 50 years ago, but in Washington, it's really screwed up. It's very difficult to vote if you're a felon
Okay
Yes, Rob T Firefly, um for that for that system in Washington, is there any like preset set of parameters where you know
If you fulfill X Y & Z, then the governor will sign it or is it just an arbitrary?
He gets to decide your your fate sort of thing
No, there's a distinct set of rules you have to follow and I did look them up and I sent that sent West that
Some information about that. I don't have it in front of you right now
But if any of our listeners are interested they can email OTH at 2600 comm and I'll send them the same information now
Bernie I have in front of me this 800 number that you wanted us to call from belonging to sprint
Are we still going to do that tonight?
Sure, why not at this time? I mean, you know, Halloween is approaching
This is a very scary thing. If you listen to the menu options on this
Well, what I'm what I'm going to do is I'm going to follow your instructions here
you wrote these out to call a particular number and hit certain options and
Basically, I guess I'm going to I'm going to hit the options at option 4
I believe is all I have to hit right but listen to the first menu in its entirety and after the last choice then hit
Then select 4. Okay, and then after that just listen to the choices. Yes. Okay. Let's see if this works
It's an 800 number
Do you mind if the number goes out over the air should we mute it?
No, it doesn't matter. I go out. Okay, of course people need to know these times
Thank you for calling sprint next L corporate security, please note our menu options have changed
Listen to all of the options before making your selection for life or death situations including 9-1-1 assistance
Press 1 if you are a sprint next L customer press 2 or subpoena compliance
Press 3 or electronic surveillance press 4 or a trial appearance press 5
for identity fraud
Stolen phone press 6 to report internal security issues
Press 7 to report a sprint building alarm. Press 8 to repeat this menu. Press the pound key
We want option 4 let's go for that for GPS ping request
Press 1 to check the status of your request. Press 2
For FBI personnel requiring a cleared representative in regards to a classified request
Press 3 for all other inquiries. Press 4 to repeat this menu
Press star GPS the main menu press pound. Okay GPS ping request. I heard that, right?
Yes, that means that you can look at your a law enforcement officer. Sorry the digits you entered are invalid
You will be prompted to try again. Oh, it sounds like a threat request
Press 1 to check the status of your request
Press 2 for FBI personnel requiring a cleared representative in regards to a classified request
Press 3. I like that one. For all other inquiries press 4. Now Bernie my question
Will connect you to a human or I'll just give up. To return to the main menu press pound. I guess we can find out
I didn't wait that long. Yeah
I'm very patient
We're sorry, the digits you entered are invalid. You will be prompted to try again. Since we're getting yet another chance
And Mark you wanted us to press 1? Yeah, press 1. To check the status of your request
Press 2. No, we're past the life-or-death situations. For FBI personnel requiring a cleared representative in regards to a classified request.
Well, we're all arguing over what to hit. For all other inquiries press 4. Bernie is it dangerous for us to select something?
Press star to return to the main menu. I doubt it. The toll-free number.
Toll-free number. I'm gonna press 1 for a GPS ping request
Please hold while we connect your call. Now, you know, I don't want to talk to somebody about this and plus
We're not supposed to put people on the air without them knowing it. So I'm gonna gracefully disconnect
Thank you for calling Sprint for quality and training purposes. Your call may be monitored and or recorded.
Okay, I've heard this guy before and I'm not gonna listen to live people, but but we know how to do it
We know how to do it. All right. So Bernie tell us something about what this number is used for. Well
it's for law enforcement officials or anyone that can convince Sprint that they're a law enforcement official to call and
Get information about Sprint subscribers including their exact location at any moment in time
The GPS ping request for instance allows a law enforcement officer to have Sprint
Send a signal to that customer cell phone
and get their
Almost exact location within a few yards and provide that in real time to law enforcement and I just think it's a scary thing
It is a scary thing. And how exactly did you come across it?
I
Was calling right a customer service matter with Sprint and
they said my account hadn't had been flagged for fraud and I need to call this number and I called this number and
Noticed that one of the choices was for
Law enforcement and I figured well to me before I missed out that honest and I did but I missed out with a mistake
And that's what I got. Wow. Actually, this has been going on for quite some time and next I'll started this
I've worked investigations
Years ago where next I'll actually has a very sophisticated location system
That's not based on the e911 system. And so this this actually has been available to law enforcement for at least five years
It's nothing new and most of the carriers have it
You know
You can for example Verizon you can buy location service if you want your kid to have a cell phone
You just buy the service for like $10 a month. You can see on your cell phone where they're at
I've seen ads for that. Yeah, no, no, it's everybody's got it now
It's sort of like caller ID
The point I was trying to make is that this is the first time people our listeners have been able to hear how easy it
Is for law enforcement to get this information yet?
We've had this ability for several years, but it just was interesting hearing the actual interface that is used
I like listening to all the menu options because they certainly did change and it was something that I've never heard before
So one of the more interesting one more interesting bit now, okay speaking of scary things
I've got this document here that
Has been passed around this now. Am I supposed to have this says for official use only what does that mean?
I mean, I'm it's it's not supposed to be in my hands. So is that classified? I'm not supposed to have I never know
I have a pile of all different class categories. Well, you're an official radio host. So it's official
All right. So as long as we use this up for official purposes
fine, this is
The name of this paper is something like al-qaeda like mobile discussions and potential creative uses and
I
Found I can't I don't know what you just said
I found it on I don't know what I just said either but I found it on the net
I and a lot of people are discussing it and we were talking about it on the list
Let me just read a quote terrorist and persons sympathetic to terrorism recommend a variety of different mobile to web technologies
That's right. Hey terrorist recommend certain certain technologies this English. It's a terrorist certification English
They recommend
Different mobile to web technology software and voice over internet protocol for their mobile phone use
Some of the tactics are old
Some of the tactics are still emerging and some tactics may emerge from hacker activist and criminal non-terrorist use
this paper briefly covers a few examples of terrorist use and potential use of mobile to web and web to mobile technologies and tactics from
an open source perspective
The paper includes the following five topics pro-terrorist propaganda mobile interfaces
Mobile phone GPS for movements ops targeting and exploitation the mobile phone as a surveillance tool
voice changers for terrorist phone calls and my personal favorite a
red teaming perspective on the potential terrorist use of Twitter and
I'm sorry. That's just it's just too good
They they have a little feature here on the pro-terrorist propaganda
Cellphone interfaces the mobile phone provides an active outlet for terrorist propaganda
Currently, there are thousands of multimedia clips audio video video photo PowerPoint text PDF that may be uploaded to mobile phones from multiple
Websites and multimedia bunkers. That's right in addition
Mobile phone texting appears to be consistently and possibly increasingly popular
That's right, possibly increasingly popular among pro-terrorist audiences just as it is with non-terrorist audiences
some terrorist organizations are further branded by a specific cell phone interface, which makes the actual phone a piece of propaganda and
Two examples are given one from the army of the mujahideen cell phone interface and one from the Islamic State of Iraq cell phone
Interface, you know, I'm starting to wonder if this is just one big elaborate joke because it's just so funny
It really is Bernie. I think I think you were looking at this, right?
I didn't actually provide that to you, but I did read it later
It's it's you know, the thing about Twitter is the funniest because first of all, why would Twitter?
Be a more useful interface than SMS or any other, you know, I am or anything like that
well, what makes Twitter unique according to this paper is that
The member can send tweets or messages
Near real-time to Twitter cell phone groups and to their online Twitter social networking page. They can also
Mash up their tweets with a variety of other tools including geo coordinates and Google Maps or other electronic files slash artifacts
Members can direct and redirect audience members to other websites and locations from tweets and can engage in rapid-fire group social interaction
so
Basically, here's here's some examples a sample tweets were collected and posted in a computer world article
Twitter helps Republican convention protesters organize and elude police September 8th 2008
Arrest teams are approaching seated protesters on Marion Bridge resistors are told they'll be met with force
Another example protesters are now fighting back first reports of violence now
Number three Western Avenue Bridge west of Capitol can be safely crossed and the final example city is on lockdown
Go to 14th and Jackson if you need help from tear gas pepper spray
So obviously these are pretty dramatic
Examples of how Twitter can be used by terrorists to communicate words back and forth to each other and it's just like anything else
But they just follow twitter.com slasher Osama bin Laden to get all the updates. Is that I don't know how it works
I mean
Do you think any terrorist group would be stupid enough to put their plans and and and commands on a publicly accessible website that anybody?
Can get to I mean the thing is yeah
The thing is it's no different than them having just some private forum
The only difference is that Twitter provides the infrastructure already for this kind of communication, right?
So you have a bunch of people follow say a group leader
With their cell phones and then that person sends messages and that updates to everybody
So Twitter is essentially providing the infrastructure for this kind of communication, which might be more difficult for somebody to implement
you can probably find your own copy of this document simply by
By putting any of the words that I've spoken into Google and I'm sure a copy will pop up
I want to just share one scenario in the
In the brief time that we have left
Scenario number three cyber terrorist operative a finds US Army Smith's Twitter account
Operative a joins Smith's tweets and begins to elicit information from Smith
This information is then used for a targeting package targeting in the sense could be for identity theft hacking and or physical
This scenario is not new and has already been discussed for other social networking sites such as myspace and or Facebook
Well, then Smith is a moron
And it's gotten too good and what happens if there's a terrorist denial-of-service attack and they put out a lot of plots
So everybody's running in 50 different directions to deal with them. Yeah disinformation all kinds of things like that
I want to close out the show with one more little bit of news. A woman has been arrested for killing her virtual reality husband
That's right up
43 year old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in the virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital
Persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking. Well, at least she wasn't arrested for murder, but that's next. I'm sure
Just get stranger and stranger not Kevin
They're their clarification of murder is her guessing the password to her husband's account. It's just one step away, isn't it?
I'd just like to clarify that I just like to clarify that this wasn't her real husband
This was her fake husband in the virtual world. Oh, it wasn't her real husband. No. Oh
Well, I got the story all they were only they were only married quote-unquote online. Oh boy
Well, the virtual world is just gonna get us more and more confused as the years go on our email address
Oh th at 2600 comm next week at this time
Who knows what kind of state we'll be in but it ought to be fun and interesting. Don't forget to vote
don't forget to tell us to vote and let us know what happens and
We'll see you next week. All right. Here's another song about phones
I
Sit down and begin to call
I
Arrange a definite time to telephone
To at the appointed time sit down and begin to call
Three keep score on the number of calls you make
For each week improve that score
I
Telephone
You never know these days
I
Oh
Wasting all my time
Back in the booth at my telephone
May I help you?
Telephone
Who is it please?
Always ringing in my head
Telephone
Hello there
Always get me out of bed
We're on the same line, please move on
Back in the booth at my telephone
Yeah, wow man, they have some great music there
On the Off The Hook
I tell these guys, they are off the hook