Does Your Supermarket Select The Wrong Food?

When you check out of the grocery store, have you ever seen the touch screen select the wrong food? Have you ever seen a bank ATM select the wrong digit? Does your phone select the wrong digit? You might press the wrong button due to fat fingers, but the phone will select whatever digit you pressed.

It doesn’t happen. Touch screens are well established technology which we use many times every day. Election officials claiming that they have calibration issues with their voting machines defies belief.

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

76 Responses to Does Your Supermarket Select The Wrong Food?

  1. QV says:

    Don’t check-outs work off bar codes?
    They do in the UK.

  2. At least you can see that it’s doing it. With optical scanners, who knows what the machine is recording!

    I’m half kidding, of course. Touch screen machines are just as capable as optical scanners of recording votes differently from how they’re instructed, i.e. differently from what the screen says. The only really safe system of tabulating secret ballots is manual count of paper ballots with a camera running at all times, and all interested parties watching right over the counters’ shoulders. And that, of course, is the one thing that is never going to be allowed. No matter how many people want it.

    • nielszoo says:

      At least with the optical scanner systems that we use in my Florida county you have a physical paper ballot marked by the voter that can be counted at a later date. The fictional “audit trail” of the touchscreen machines works just like the global climate models… whatever the programmer wants to print out on the “permanent” record is all you get. You want it warmer… no problem. You want the audit trail to show the Democrat “legitimately” got 101% of the vote… done.

      • Granted, but as you probably know, the election law prohibits these from being examined unless there’s a court case or the machine-counted results were within a half a percent.

      • squid2112 says:

        Are you also aware of the company(s) that manufacture these machines, and who just so happens to own said companies? …. Give you a hint, he gives Dr. Evil a run for his money … yep, Soros … Ahhhh, the smell of irony in the afternoon.

      • Streetcred says:

        Where was it again in the last Election that the Demokratz received more votes than people eligible to vote in that town? … something in the order of 20% if I remember correctly.

        • I want to say Port Saint Lucie, Florida. I’ll have to look it up again.

        • Apologies, I remember now that the issue was some people were counting a two-card ballot as two ballots, which was incorrect. (Curiously, though, the proof of this seems to have disappeared from the Saint Lucie County elections office website.) If there was any other place where this happened, I’m unaware of it.

          RTF

  3. Don says:

    Buy a lemon, get a rotten tomato.

    Or:

    Vote Republican, get a Democrat.

  4. Bob Knows says:

    Touch screen is not the problem. Its the left wing crmial programming the screen.

  5. Justa Joe says:

    The left taints everything that it touches just like GISS, IRS, etc… ad infinitum

  6. Brandon C says:

    Is it really so hard to see the con going on here? Someone goes in and improperly calibrates the odd machine, simple and easy. Just press the wrong spot during calibration and you have a machine set up to improperly record votes. I used to do this with an old touch screen remote a friend had, used to drive him crazy because the touches didn’t lined up with the display and then I would change it back and it would work. Was rather amusing. And it is the perfect con, since when someone notices and complains, all they have to do is say “oops just needed calibration” and then properly calibrate it and it works right. Nobody on site should be allowed to calibrate touch screens on voting machines, and if one was found faulty, the machine should be set aside instead of putting calibration options that can be so easily abused. At the very least they should require whoever calibrates it to sign in so you can log if someone calibrated a faulty “alignment” before it went out of alignment. This of course assumes you are not purposely allowing in flaws to be exploited.

    • I’m confused. Why would a calibration routine even allow such a large error? As Tony points out, it never happens at the ATM. Are votes not as important as bank accounts?

    • I just tried that out on the device I am working on. It won’t permit calibration misclicks by more than a pixel or two.

    • nielszoo says:

      Older systems or those designed as “add ons” to existing displays had large calibration ranges. Newer integrated systems don’t allow a big range of “calibration” adjustment as the hardware and resolution are pretty fixed and matched to each other at manufacuture. If it’s off by a wide range it is a software issue and not a hardware fault (which is where calibration takes place.)

  7. wyoskeptic says:

    Well, I am concerned about this issue, but I did some looking to find this site:

    http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10897

    From the site: >>> Historically, over the past decade since we’ve been covering it (and related issues), this issue has occurred far more often for Democratic voters seeing their votes flip to Republicans. Nonetheless, the opposite phenomenon (as well the scenario involving third party or independent candidates) is not entirely uncommon. And, in all cases, voters should be concerned, election officials should be embarrassed and elected officials who continue to allow the use of these unverifiable secret vote-counting systems — antithetical to American democracy and public elections as they are — should beg forgiveness from their constituents, rather than begging for more money and more unverifiable votes.<<>>Whether the problem was simply a calibration issue is hard to know for certain. (Here’s video of an election official in West Virginia explaining how touch-screens need to be recalibrated from time to time, only to see votes flip again on the same machine even after he’s recalibrated it.) <<>>The 100% unverifiable touch-screens used in Cook County are made by Sequoia Voting Systems which, like Diebold, was also sold off to another e-voting company. In fact, both Diebold (once run by a rightwinger who promised to help “Ohio deliver its electoral votes to” George W. Bush in 2004) and Sequoia (spun off from parent company Smartmatic, a Venezuelan firm once tied to Hugo Chavez) have now both been sold off to a Canadian-based firm named Dominion Voting.

    Before the sale, Sequoia’s then CEO Jack Blaine had lied to Cook County officials about the fact that, as The BRAD BLOG revealed exclusively in 2008, the Venezuelan parent company actually owned the intellectual property rights to those systems. As we revealed after Sequoia was sold to Dominion, the Venezuelan firm still controls those IP rights.<<>>Why worry?

    In both of these cases, whether they involved possible “voter error”, as described in Republican Collin County, TX or a calibration problem, as claimed in Democratic Cook County, IL, it is most likely not the result of nefariousness. Here’s why that is. These systems are incredibly easy, particularly for insiders, to hack and/or flip results with very little possibility of detection. California’s Top-to-Bottom Review of both of these exact same touch-screen systems some years ago found that each — along with every other computer voting or paper-ballot computer tabulation system they tested — could be manipulated down to the tabulator level in a matter of seconds.

    But touch-screen vote-flipping is usually not a sign of manipulated elections. Any inside manipulator or outside hacker would be foolish to display a flipped vote on the screen. Instead, they’d simply allow the voter to think they voted one way, but record the vote differently inside the system for a much smaller chance of being detected. Signaling to the voter that you are flipping their vote is as dumb as hacking Pac-Man onto the screen, which, yes, one computer scientist did on a Sequoia touch-screen system back in 2010.<<<

    So you see, the concern should not be over the machines obviously flipping votes, the concern should be over what you do not see going on. The question remains, are the votes being tabulated, or are they being — shall we say — discarded for the results that are desired by others than those who are voting? This we do not know.

    Your grocery store prints you out a receipt so you know what you bought. These voting machines should do the same so you know how you voted. However, there is nothing no where to show that your vote was indeed counted. Nothing at all.

    • The traditional method of ensuring that your vote is counted was for the people that you voted for to assign agents to stand there and observe while votes were counted. But that all went out the window when punch card voting started. Unfortunately, it appears that today, the average citizen is not smart enough to comprehend the difference between human beings watching ballots get counted (and having the power to challenge any action of the vote counters) … and pressing a button on a machine and just reading a number off a display.

    • LeeHarvey says:

      If you’re going to go all conspiracy theory and posit that the voting machine is tallying the wrong votes despite the GUI, then it wouldn’t be any more difficult to have it tally the wrong votes despite the printed receipt.

      • wyoskeptic says:

        Which is precisely why I said there is nothing no where to show you voted.

        The difference between a store purchase and a vote is obvious. But to use point of sale registers as a way of demonstrating the technology is there to make it work, is overlooking the obvious part of what goes on behind the touch screen. Look at how long customer credit card info were being stolen at Target with no clue to those running the registers.

        Stalin would be ever so proud of this system we have today.

        • PeterK says:

          Actually, as stated above, voting should result in a printed receipt, just like you get at a grocery store. However, at a grocery store, two receipts are printed, one for you and one for the merchant (the difference being yours is detail and the merchants is a summary).

          Same should apply to voting. I’m all in favour of electronic voting – print two receipts, one for the voter and one to be dropped into a box. Voter is asked to verify the printed version of his vote on both receipts before depositing one into a box.

          At the end of voting, electronic votes print off a summary and the deposited votes are then manually counted and verified to the electrical version.

        • I think you’re missing the point. The only secure way to confirm that everyone’s vote is counted properly is manual count of paper ballots, as I stated way up the thread. In the comment I linked to.

          If you’re going to have paper ballots, what’s the point of having electronic voting? Just give people a pen.

    • Justa Joe says:

      That bradblog is chock full of GOP bashing, left wing tripe, half truthes, & conspiracy theories. Are you actually suggesting that the GOP is as involved with voter fraud as the Donks?

      The position of BradBlog is anti-Voter ID laws. This doesn’t seem like the position of people “concerned” about voter fraud.

    • Justa Joe says:

      BradBlog Green Report 10-14-14: “Wind power cheapest source of energy” -LOL

      “Research suggests that the expansion of Antarctic sea ice heralds ocean changes that will hasten ice sheet melting,” – LOL

      There’s loads more of this crap.

  8. Don says:

    OT…….. Who knew there was a Tropical Storm ‘Hanna’? It came, it went, probably another storm that did not deserve to be named.

    • nielszoo says:

      It only has to make it to 39 mph sustained winds (greater than 1 min. I believe) and be in the tropics to get named. The leftovers are making it rain in Nicaragua and Honduras.

  9. Kevin says:

    I work in IT and we have some cheap, terrible touch screens we use to log in with for scanning/faxing purposes at our printers. We have this issue on occasion. Basically, if you buy cheap equipment, you can get this effect.

  10. Latitude says:

    …this could only be done on purpose…..it’s impossible for it to be a mistake

  11. ossqss says:

    Next they will blame malware that was mysteriously installed on the devices through unprotected USB ports. You can bet there is more to the story here and someone should be jailed over it.

    Nothing to do with calibration could possibly be involved and cause something like this. Nothing!

  12. Ima Skepticidal says:

    Imagine how long McDonalds would put up with a supplier of its’ touch screen order entry/cashier station screens which had this kind of systematic problems.

  13. Robertv says:

    Get over it. We The People have been calibrated out of power since December 23, 1913.

    http://youtu.be/5A_6y0Wz0r4

    The crisis is just starting and will take all your freedom away. Get used to it or fight it. Those in power never let a good crisis go to waste.

  14. squid2112 says:

    Election officials claiming that they have calibration issues with their voting machines defies belief.

    No, doesn’t simply defy believe, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!

    I have worked with such devices since the mid 80’s. I have programmed device drivers and interfaces for just about every manufactured touch screen ever made (at one time or another). This simply is NOT POSSIBLE without specific intent. There is NO SUCH THING as a “calibration issue”.

    • Robertv says:

      You still think it makes a difference if you vote left or right ? It would make a difference if nobody showed up on election day. The last thing these ‘people’ represent is We The People.

  15. Truthseeker says:

    I have an idea. Why don’t just go back to paper and pencils? Physical evidence of a vote is a much better audit trail.

    • policycritic says:

      One security expert I saw on youtube eight years ago claimed that voting in England was paper ballot, then counted in banks at night with public watching. Security guards get paid overtime. Bank tellers have the hand skills to count quickly and get paid overtime. Public sees the chain of command. The security expert said that this was the only secure way to do it.

  16. policycritic says:

    I put this on the other thread, but it applies here. Bev Harris is the go-to person for voter fraud in election machines. blackboxvoting.org. She’s been doing it for 10 years. She found out how the software was doing it in the Diebold machines–she found the code online on an obscure Diebold page; took her 40 hours to download everything–and made the software available online for everyone to download and see for themselves. Two or three election software experts verified her work, and appeared in court with her info. She’s 100% non-partisan. Here’s a short 2010 interview with Alex Jones:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmpATwyqMag

    • policycritic says:

      Here’s Harris explaining how it’s done. No touch screens involved.

      So what was the flaw?

      Specifically the flaw was that you can get at the central vote-counting database through Microsoft Access. They have the security disabled. And when you get in that way, you are able to overwrite the audit log, which is supposed to log the transactions, and this [audit log] is one of the key things they cite as a security measure when they sell the system.

      So you can break in and then hide your tracks.

      You don’t even need to break in. It will open right up and in you go. You can change the votes and you can overwrite the audit trail. It doesn’t keep any record of anything in the audit trail when you’re in this back door, but let’s say you went in the front door and you didn’t want to have anything you did there appear anywhere — you can then go in the backdoor and erase what you did.

      An open invitation to election fraud

    • policycritic says:

      The Salon article (link above) was from 2003. About Maryland . . . .

      The problems Harris uncovered are not all that surprising; technologists have been warning of the potential for serious flaws in electronic voting systems — especially touch-screen systems — for years. In July, scientists at Johns Hopkins and Rice found that security in Diebold’s voting software fell “far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts.” The report prompted Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich to order a review of the Diebold systems used in his state. Many of the world’s most highly regarded computer scientists have called on voting companies to build touch-screen systems that print a paper ballot — a “paper trail” — in order to reduce the risk of electronic tampering.

    • Jason Calley says:

      Hey policycritic! THANK YOU for linking to Bev Harris. The woman has done Herculean labors in attempting to bring the orchestrated voter fraud to light. Anyone who looks in to her history will find clear and convincing evidence of massive vote fraud on a national scale.

      And Tony… “Election officials claiming that they have calibration issues with their voting machines defies belief.” You bet! No computer is 100% reliable, but it is certainly possible to make systems that will not fail in such a way that votes are miscast. These errors are NOT accidental.

      Here is a YouTube from 10 or 12 years ago of a programmer testifying before a Congressional investigation how he was ordered by the then Florida State Speaker of the House to program electronic voting machines to facilitate fraud.
      www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=ky-YXvxYbck

      One must assume that BOTH parties use electronic fraud, since neither party is pushing for verifiable paper ballots and public counting. (By the way, just a small historical bit… Back in the ancient days when Pat Buchanan was trying to get the Republican nomination for President, electronic voting was not yet fully implemented. Some states had paper, some had computers. In every area that still used paper, Buchanan won strongly. In every area that used computers, he lost. Just makes you wonder…)

  17. BillyNZ says:

    O/T,looks like a few dollars down the drain from a failed rocket launch for NASA.

  18. Robertv says:

    It looks for some it will be NO food.

    http://youtu.be/vM5A6xQLLtU

    The spacecraft was carrying 5,000 lbs supplies, food and science experiments to the ISS.

  19. terrence says:

    Yet another example of the old adage that “The Democrat Party is EVIL; and the Republican Party is STUPID”.

  20. Jim Jensen says:

    Maybe there is a lot of similarity between the 2 Parties. Maybe they both preach to a different choir with the intent of putting $ $ $ $ $ $ s in their pockets ?

  21. B says:

    Remember when we kooks warned people of what these machines would be programmed to do? We were just paranoid luddites and worse. The name calling, the ridicule, and it comes to pass and not one apology. Not even one mention.

    Here… http://blackboxvoting.org/ started only 10 years ago. Cue Tim the Enchanter.

  22. gregole says:

    Wow. This is huge. And unfortunately there are a load of dishonest people in the government basically gaming it for their personal benefit.

    We’re on the way to becoming a banana republic.

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124044123114545339?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB124044123114545339.html

  23. tom0mason says:

    Well who runs what company that makes and service this things anyway?
    Well it was Diebold but then –

    Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold Election Systems, was a subsidiary of Diebold, and was their smallest business segment,[8] accounting for 2.4% of their gross revenue[citation needed]. It had entered the business of creating electronic voting terminals and solutions for government entities. Diebold entered this industry in 2001 by purchasing the assets of Global Election Systems which had been selling election equipment since 1991. This subsidiary was the subject of controversy amid allegations surrounding the security and reliability of some of its products.

    In August 2007, DES rebranded itself[9] as Premier Election Solutions. In 2009 it was sold to a competitor, Election Systems & Software.[10]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
    So now it’s Premier Electronic Solutions right?
    Er NO read on…
    From Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions)-

    In 2006, Diebold removed its name from the voting machines[4] and in August 2007 changed its name to “Premier Election Solutions” (“PES”).

    Election Systems & Software (ES&S) acquired Premier Election Solutions on September 3, 2009. ES&S President and CEO Aldo Tesi said combining the two companies will result in better products and services for customers and voters. The sale did not affect the Brazilian division.[38]

    The United States Department of Justice objected to the acquisition on anti-trust grounds.

    Acquisition by Dominion
    Dominion Voting Systems acquired Premier on May 19, 2010. “We are extremely pleased to conclude this transaction, which will restore much-needed competition to the American voting systems market and will allow Dominion to expand its capabilities and operational footprint to every corner of the United States,” said John Poulos, CEO of Dominion. The transaction has been approved by the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and nine state attorneys general.

    So who is Dominion Voting System?
    According to Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Voting_Systems)

    Dominion Voting Systems is a privately owned Denver-based company that sells electronic voting machines.
    Dominion was founded in 2002 in Toronto, Canada, by John Poulos and James Hoover. [1]
    In August 2010, Dominion reported that it has contracts to provide electronic voting systems to 600 jurisdictions in some 22 states of the United States, and has deployed 80,000 Dominion ImageCast Precinct Optical Scan Tabulators around the world.[2]
    Acquisitions[edit]
    In May 2010, Dominion acquired Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) from Election Systems & Software (ES&S). ES&S had just acquired PES from Diebold and was required to sell off PES by the United States Department of Justice for anti-trust concerns.
    In June 2010, Dominion acquired Sequoia Voting Systems. The two acquisitions expanded Dominion significantly. With the acquisitions the company moved its headquarters to Denver.

    Makes you wonder with all this transfer of ownership who is driving it, and who is putting up the money.

    • tom0mason says:

      Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) from Election Systems & Software (ES&S). ES&S had just acquired PES from Diebold and was required to sell off PES by the United States Department of Justice for anti-trust concerns.
      Not withstanding all the past problem with Diebold that Dominion has bought into, see
      http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10897#more-10897 and the other links there,

      they then Dominion acquired Sequoia Voting Systems (on June 2010).
      And Sequoia Voting Systems are the company of the Florida ‘hanging chads’ fame, and the company that has had problems in New Jersey and California voting systems, and just to add the cherry it also had its computer systems hacked and embarassing email revealed, …umm good security by a trustworthy outfit?

      http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1838830

      Also of note is that up they moved the head office out of Canada, Dominion Voting Systems reported revenue was about $3million (Canadian or US?), and number of employees were less than 100. http://www.insideview.com/directory/dominion-voting-systems-corporation/

  24. John F. Hultquist says:

    Touch screen voting – how last century!
    As early as 1915, Washington allowed voters to cast ballots by mail if they were unable to be
    present at their proper precincts on Election Day. The system was expanded and by 2006 about 88% of ballots were cast by mail. In 2008 the final 2 counties were brought into the system. A few folks still go to an office and fill out a ballot and put it in an envelope, then into a box. Those get counted like all the rest. There are no polling places, no lines, and few issues. We live in one of the 2 late-to-the-system counties. This will be the 7th mail ballot for us.
    And the grocery store still pays people to check us out. The folks are nice, know us by name, and they talk to us! How strange is that?

  25. wyoskeptic says:

    17 trillion in debt. Agencies of the government that does what-ever-they-want with no fear of any form of prosecution. A man, who as President, makes a good bobble-head. EPA taken over by eco-terrorists and turning off all the lights. HHS run by HMOs and Insurance companies. 46 million Americans on food stamps. Unemployment running 10%, 15% or more, who knows the REAL number?

    The US is already a banana republic. It is just that no one has noticed yet.

    • Brian G Valentine says:

      People out of work have noticed, and people want “gay” and “Women’s” rights to be the same as anybody else who thinks everyone has the right to work to support themselves.

      Dumbocrats have reached the end of throwing other people in front of them to defend themselves and their inanity

  26. I. Lou Minotti says:

    Thanks again, Tony, for an excellent post. While it has nothing to do with voter fraud in Maryland or Illinois, I think the pattern is being replicated here in New Jersey. And again, your post was referenced here:

    http://www.nj.com/forums/glassboro/

  27. Tel says:

    Why use touch screens anyway?

    I mean, it’s not as if you have a whole lot of options. Ordinary push buttons would do the job just fine, and no question about calibration. When reliability matters, go for the absolute simplest technology that can get the jobs done.

    • Again. Paper ballots counted by hand are the only way to ensure the votes are counted properly. Push button machine-counts are as easily manipulated as touch screen ones. There’s nothing special about a touch screen. This whole problem started, not with touch screens and not with Scantrons. It started with punch card readers and, in many states, with the old lever-operated mechanical systems. These systems cannot be verified by human eyes as they tally votes. Only manually counted paper ballots are subject to verification by outside observers.

      • Jason Calley says:

        Paper ballots filled out by the voter and then placed by the voter into a clear box visible to all. Purple finger for each voter. Before voting begins, the box is confirmed to be empty by volunteers from each party. At the close of voting, the ballots are counted in full view before they leave the voting place. An overhead projector and/or internet streaming allows representatives from all parties — or any interested person — to verify the count as it takes place. Votes from each polling place are collected and summed with similar procedures that allow public verification and documentation at every step.

        IF THE PUBLIC CANNOT VERIFY THE COUNT, THE ELECTION IS NOT VALID, AND ANY DEBTS INCURRED OR LEGISLATION PASSED IS NOT VALID. LOOK UP “ODIOUS DEBT.”

        VOTE FRAUD IS TREASON.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *