A Recipe For Stolen/Erroneous Vote Counts

As you may already be able to tell, and I should also add that many/some consider me fairly expert in IS hardware and software which only increases my anxiety on this subject, I take our ability to vote, and have our ballots ACCURATELY COUNTED and REPORTED very seriously. Dirty tricks happened before the digital age, but on top of the "user errors" that are inherent in any data system, it's incredibly easy to cheat in the electronic realm. So few understand the process that you don't have to be a guru or a super-cracker to change results and yet make it look like everything is kosher. All of this is why you've seen me looking so hard at the New Hampshire primary results; that and that Vermont's system are similar.

THUS, when I read things like this at Bev Harris' forum, that memory cards and cartridges are NOT routinely kept and, in fact, are not even always included in any true "chain of custody" to make sure those data devices do not have their contents altered, I KNOW our voting is guaranteed to be invalidated by the process:

Bev,

I believe that MOST, if not all of the country, has decided that menory cards or cartridges do NOT fall under the 22-months retention laws.

Cards and cartridges are ROUNTINELY reused in just about jurisdiction I am aware of. I think this is made possible because the paper report from each machine was legally held to be the "official record", not the card. If you think about it, in a way that makes a lot of sense, since it is a copy of the paper record that is posted at the precinct. Any difference between a card and the printout would be held that the paper printout is the official word. A card is by its very nature changeable after the fact. The printout is static once done.