blamanj writes "A lot of discussion has been focused on the lack of security in electronic voting systems. What hasn't been as widely discussed, is just how tiny the voting manipulations have to be to have an effect. In this months CACM (cite, pdf of original paper is here), some Yale students show that altering only a single vote per machine would have changed the electoral college outcome of the 2000 election. Changing only two votes/machine would have flipped the results for four states."

An anonymous submitter writes "Osama bin Laden delivered a new videotaped message in which he told Americans their security does not depend on the president they elect, but on U.S. policy. 'Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda.'"

scitex writes "Two economists, Rasa Karapandza and Milos Bozovic, from University Pompu Fabra, Barcelona wrote a very interesting paper "You Can Fool Some People Sometimes..." They say that on all US Presidential Elections from 1960, when presidential debates were held, won the candidate that used less future tense in the debate. First debate was televised in 1960. They predict that these elections will be won by George W. Bush. They used a similar approach to analyze performance of US companies and found that companies that use less future tense in their annual reports perform better. Will this change the way companies write they reports and presidential candidates speak?"

Moe Napoli writes "Using footage from the PC game True Crime: Streets of LA, a small collective of artists created a 'Vote or Don't Bitch' Machinima PSA with True Crime star Snoop Dogg as the center of the minute long spot. Premiering last evening at the start of New York Law School's State of Play II conference, the PSA is highly critical of the Bush Administration and even has Snoop run-over by a Bush-Cheney van at the end. While everyone may not agree with its message, I feel it's another clever use of machinima for creative expression."

Lowtekium writes "On November 2nd many young adult Americans will go to the polls to vote for their next President, but very few of them know of the Libertarian Presidential Candidate, Michael Badnarik. JIVE Magazine had the chance to interview Mr. Badnarik. He gives his thoughts on various topics that affect young adults such educational aid and funding for college students, video game violence, and even music and entertainment censorship."

Anonymous Voter writes "Applying some of the same brain-scan technology used to understand Alzheimer's and autism, scientists are trying to learn what makes a Republican's mind different from a Democrat's."

asldihf writes "New Scientist is reporting that 100,000 civilians in Iraq are now dead due to America's war in Iraq. Make sure you vote next week."

An anonymous reader writes "The Economist has picked John Kerry as its preferred presidential candidate, over George W. Bush. Though a British publication, the magazine points out that almost half of its readers are based in the U.S. The Economist leans right on trade issues and supported going to war in Iraq, but has been critical on Bush's policies on tax cuts and the deficit."

An anonymous reader writes "In a move that has upset some in the GOP, George Bush has suddenly declared his support for civil unions for gay ane lesbian couples. Will such a move help or hurt him this late in the game?"

cheese_wallet writes "7-eleven has a poll conducted by the choice of cup their customers pick for their coffee. They can pick a Kerry cup, a Bush cup, or a Third Party/No Opinion cup (interesting combo). Although it is considered completely unscientific, it polls millions of people and gets past the cell phone barrier. You can see the current stats." And reader Noryungi writes "This is very tongue-in-cheek... Harry's Bar, in Paris (France) has been conducting straw polls for the past 80 years, and has been wrong only once, in 1976. So... who is the winner, according to Harry's Bar poll, for the 2004 US election? Kerry. And not by small numbers either, Kerry wins 56% to 44% in the latest Straw Vote, which is a larger margin than all the other US-based pollsters."

Prong_Thunder writes "A livejournal post written on October 18th (google cache, scroll down to 'a prayer for dubya') resulted in a visit from the US Secret Service nine days later, as it 'constituted a possible threat to the president'."

Joe from the EFF writes "Verified Voting has just gone live with a number of tools for all you data-hungry election nerds out there. Amongst the goods: an election guide for geeks, a voter's guide to electronic voting, the Verifier database of county-by-county election information and the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) which will be used on E-day by attorneys and observers in the field to collect data about election incidents called into the Election Protection Coalition's hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE. The geek community is playing a particularly active role in this year's eleciton via VV's TechWatch program. However, we could still use the help of the slashdot community, and all you have to do is click: We need to test the resiliency of the Verifier database and the EIRS before the election.

AJ writes "We used some old and new data mining techniques to see what was happening in the US Senate in 2003. Among other things, we identified the 'social' network of similarities between senators, how influential is each senator and each state, and a 3D VRML view of the Senate. You will be able to check whether Senator Kerry was a centrist or a liberal, and who is acting more cohesively, the Democrats or the Republicans. We provide our data and the source of all our analysis software (Orange and MPCA, both under GPL)."

SilentChris writes "A New Jersey court has denied an e-voting ban request made by Rutgers University on behalf of a voter. The plantifs argued the machines 'are "inherently insecure" and do not offer a backup paper record of each vote, which means there is no way to verify ballots if there were a recount' (much the same as arguments made on Slashdot). The court responded by saying the 'alternative is worse. Every professional agrees that a paper ballot is a formula for disaster'. Despite the setback, the case hasn't been officially dismissed. However, the plantiffs will need to take action today to have an effect on next week's presidential election."

RonnyJ writes "The BBC is reporting that 58,000 ballot papers have gone missing in Broward County, Florida. A police investigation has 'not uncovered any sign of criminal wrongdoing', however, the US postal service has said it is highly unlikely for 58,000 pieces of mail to just disappear. In 2000, Broward County gave Al Gore his biggest margin among Florida counties, winning 67% of the votes there."

securitas writes "Metro International newspapers Toronto edition reports that more Indian companies are opening back doors into the United States by setting up shop in Canada. The issue of outsourcing, offshoring and nearshoring has become a hot issue, with the 2004 presidential election less than a week away. Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers."

Kookus writes "Which party has the best team of web deployers/developers? Neither main page passes w3c's html validator, but Kerry's has much fewer "errors". These pages do not seem to do well on Bobby either... Both seem to be using Akamai's HTTP Acceleration/Mirror service which appears to be running linux, Granted that it is hard to please everyone; which team is doing the best job?"

acey72 writes "The BBC News are reporting that George W Bush's re-election website (don't bother if you aren't in the USA) is blocked to people accessing it from outside the USA. Netcraft spotted the change on Monday, and have a report on the matter. Oh well, at least John Kerry's site still works for us outlanders." At least some Canadians can access the Bush campaign site, but Europeans cannot (without going through a U.S. proxy).

An anonymous reader writes "John Kerry lambastes John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, positioning himself as a crusader for civil liberties. The question is, how much substance is there to his rhetoric? This article was an eye-opener to me, in evaluating just that. Slashdotters tending to be passionate about the Patriot Act, encryption, and electronic monitoring - subjects this article tackles with respect to Kerry."

An anonymous reader writes "Greg Palast, the journalist who first reported on the initial Florida voter scandal (Warning large PDF), thinks he's found a new threat for this election, reported here at the BBC. He did uncover some interesting shenanigans last time, is this significant, or is he just fishing this time?"