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Vote
fraud research
By: Devvy The following statement can be found at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999529/ Nov 8, 2006 "WASHINGTON - At the end of the day, fears of chaos and predictions of widespread voting delays were unfounded: America’s overhauled voting system largely worked on Election Day." Associated Press. What planet do these people live on? * * * * * Full column: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/20/AR2006092001356.html Ehrlich Wants
Paper Ballots For Nov. Vote By Christian
Davenport and Ann E. Marimow A week after the primary election was plagued by human error and technical glitches, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) called yesterday for the state to scrap its $106 million electronic voting apparatus and revert to a paper ballot system for the November election. * * * * * Full column here: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/11/15/15wcelections.html Voting problems
in Williamson County By Melissa
Mixon When final voting results were counted last week, county officials discovered that the actual number of votes cast was lower than the initial totals compiled after the Nov. 7 elections. * * * * * http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/081106Fraud.htm Voter Fraud Across the Board Ivy J. Sellers Not surprisingly, there's been cases of voter fraud reported across the country today, with more pouring in by the hour. Here's a rundown of the reports gathered so far, with the states appearing in alphabetical. Of note are problems in tight races such as Corker vs. Ford in Tennessee, Stabenow vs. Bouchard in Michigan, and Talent vs. McCaskill in Missouri. Florida: Hundreds Of Voters In Volusia And Osceola Counties Were Given The Wrong Ballots. -- Local 6 Website, "Hundreds Get Wrong Ballots In Central Florida," Local6.com, 11/7/06, Accessed 11/7/06 Hawaii: Six Polling Places Failed To Open On Time Because Precinct Chairs Or Managers Were Late Or Did Not Show Up. -- "Six Hawaii Polling Places Fail To Open On Time," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Indiana: In Delaware County, Computer Errors Prevented Voting In 75 Precincts; Voting Extended To 8:40 P.M., Instead Of Scheduled 6 P.M. Close. -- Cliff Brunt, "Early Voting Problems In At Least 2 Indiana Counties," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Poll Workers Forgot How To Start Touch-Screen Machines In Marion County; Paper Ballots Used Instead. -- Cliff Brunt, "Early Voting Problems In At Least 2 Indiana Counties," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Kentucky: Jefferson County Poll Worker Was Arrested And Charged With Assault After Allegedly Choking And Pushing Voter Out The Door. -- "Ky. Poll Worker Charged With Assault," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Maryland: Some Polling Places Opened Half An Hour Late In Baltimore City. -- Stephen Manning, "Md. Officials Report Primary Voting Problems Appear Fixed," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Michigan: Senate Candidate Mike Bouchard's Website Was Hacked And Shut Down On Election Day. -- Bouchard For U.S. Senate, "Hackers Shut Down Bouchard Campaign Website On Election Day," Press Release, 11/7/06 Minnesota: Windows Of Rep. Gil Gutknecht's (R-MN) Office Were Smeared With Broken Eggs. -- "U.S. Rep. Gutknecht's Office Hit With Broken Eggs," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Missouri: Claire McCaskill And ACORN Plan Election Night Rally At Same Location; ACORN Workers Have Been Indicted For Fraud And Accused Of Illegally Campaigning For McCaskill. -- Missouri Republican Party, "McCaskill, Proposition B Supporters Share Venue: A Coincidence? We Think Not," Press Release, 11/7/06 Montana: Voters Have Been Receiving Calls From People Identifying Themselves As Being Associated With Montana Democrats; Callers Falsely Claimed That Voters Are On Record Requesting Absentee Ballots And Must Cast Provisional Ballots That Will Be Open To Challenge If They Attempt To Vote In Person. -- Montana Republican Party, "MT GOP Files Motion To Stop Democrat's Calls," Press Release, 11/6/06; Secretary Of State Brad Johnson, "Don't Believe The Calls -- Voting Is Easy And Your Right," Press Release, 11/6/06 New Jersey: About 25 Machines Failed To Work Properly In Irvington, East Orange, Montclair, Newark And West Orange In Essex County. -- Tom Hester Jr., "NJ Voting Machine Woes Reported, But No Major Problems," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Vandals Attacked Kean For Senate Headquarters, Chaining Closed The Entrance And Braking Off Keys In Door Entrances. -- Kean For U.S. Senate, "Vandals Strike Kean Campaign," Press Release, 11/7/06 Ohio: Columbus Polling Location Opened Late Because Of A Break-In At The School Where The Precinct Is Located. -- Connie Mabin, "Long Lines, Problems With Voting Machines Reported Across Ohio," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Pennsylvania: Philadelphia 19th Ward Democrat Leader Carlos Matos Said There Is No Need For GOP Poll Watchers In His Ward, Since Everyone Is A Democrat. -- Pennsylvania Republican Party, "In Case You Missed It ..." Press Release, 11/7/06 Democrat Campaign Literature Was Found In Philadelphia Polling Places. (Pennsylvania Republican Party, "In Case You Missed It ..." -- Press Release, 11/7/06 Programming Errors On Voting Machines In Lebanon County Forced County To Extend Voting By An Hour To 9 P.M. -- Genaro C. Armas, "Early 'Minor Glitches' Reported With New Voting Machines," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 Supporters Of Joe Sestak Defaced Store And Overpass With Anti-Curt Weldon Graffiti, Spray-Painting Weldon's Name With A Communist Hammer And Sickle. -- Rep. Curt Weldon For Congress, "Sestak Supporters Sink To New Low With Defacement Of Private, Public Property," Press Release, 11/7/06 Technical Glitches Prevented Voters From Casting Ballots In At Least 13 Voting Locations. -- KDKA Website, "Voters Experiencing Difficulty With New Machines," KDKA.com, 11/7/06, Accessed 11/7/06 Tennessee: Three Poll Workers Charged With Faking Votes From Dead People To Elect Ophelia Ford, Rep. Harold Ford's Aunt, To TN State Senate, Are Scheduled To Appear In Court On Election Day. -- Marc Perrusquia, "Dead-Voter Scandal Rears Its Ugly Head," The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal, 11/7/06 Shelby County Election Commissioners Claimed Voters Likely Walked Off With Smartcards Used To Activate Voting Machines. -- Brooke Sanders, "Election Commission Says Voters Walked Off With Smart Cards," WMCTV.com, 11/6/06 Voter Used Identity Of Person Who Died In 2003 To Cast A Ballot During Early Voting In Shelby County, TN. -My Fox Memphis Website, "Accusations Of Voter Fraud Surface," www.myfoxmemphis.com , 11/6/06, Accessed 11/7/06 Utah: Utah County Poll Workers Failed To Properly Encode Cards To Activate Touch-Screen Ballots. -- Anick Jesdanun, "Poll Workers Struggle With Vote Machines," The Associated Press, 11/7/06 * * * * * Full column: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/261106Ballot.htm Experts Concerned as Ballot Problems Persist Ian Urbina
and Christopher Drew After six years of technological research, more than $4 billion spent by Washington on new machinery and a widespread overhaul of the nation’s voting system, this month’s midterm election revealed that the country is still far from able to ensure that every vote counts. Tens of thousands of voters, scattered across more than 25 states, encountered serious problems at the polls, including failures in sophisticated new voting machines and confusion over new identification rules, according to interviews with election experts and officials. * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3731&print=1 November
5, 2006 7:02 pm Previously
Unreleased 200-Page Report Said to Document Some 180 Security Flaws and
Recommendations Made to Diebold and the State Tonight, The BRAD BLOG is releasing that report exclusively in full as given to us by Abrahams, who says she obtained it from a source described to us as "a patriotic high-level state official." She says the source is "someone very close to this situation" in the Maryland government. The original, never-before-released SAIC report was nearly 200 pages in all, and details a number of extraordinary security vulnerabilities found in Diebold's AccuVote-TS (touch-screen) voting systems as deployed by the state of Maryland initially in 2002. The version of the SAIC report that was eventually released to the public, after extreme redaction, was a mere 38 pages long. It was reported by Abrahams that neither the full MD State Board of Elections, nor even the Governor himself, was ever allowed to see the full report. * * * * * Full column here: http://wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=5642882 Election Fixing Charges Fly in Utah County Nov 27, 2006 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH (AP) -- Voting appears to be very popular in Daggett County, Utah. Daggett County has registered 947 voters for Tuesday's election. According to the most recent Census figures, that's four more than the county's population in 2005. A spokesman for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says complaints of vote-stuffing in the county are being investigated. Democrats suspect County Clerk Vickie McKee is letting outsiders swell the Daggett County registration rolls to give Republicans an advantage. * * * * * Full column here: http://www.newsnet5.com/news/10234918/detail.html Test Spits Out Wrong Results At Board Of Elections November 3, 2006 CLEVELAND -- A problem has been discovered with the optical scanner in connection with one race at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Friday afternoon. During a test using an optical scanner, officials discovered that the machine was providing incorrect election results for the race for the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. BOE officials said this is just one race out of hundreds in which a problem has been found. * * * * * Full column: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/071106votefraud.htm Voting Expert:
Widespread Election Fraud Again Paul Joseph
Watson Vote fraud crusader and rights activist Bev Harris has told the nationally syndicated Alex Jones Show that she is in possession of voting software used by the big three voting systems companies and is now in a position to completely expose the true scale of electronic vote fraud, as a cascade of stories about voter intimidation, arrests and machine meltdowns arrived on election day. "They aren't even being sneaky about it now," said Harris in summarizing the widespread voting machine failures and election fraud that unfolded throughout the day, referring to policies whereby voting precincts have imposed complete blackouts on any indication of their results until the official confirmation from headquarters is given. * * * * * Full column:
http://www.madcowprod.com/11152006.html The most recent rocked voters in North Carolina in 1999, and resulted in the supervisor of elections in North Carolina's Mecklenburg County being sent to federal prison for taking over $130,000 in payoffs from MicroVote, the election company where Greenhalgh was national sales director. * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3742#more-3742 November
7, 2006 11:40 am Missourians for Honest Elections reports more incoming reports of votes-flipping on touch-screen systems in the Show-Me State. All polls in MO should have paper ballots (we are told), so voters can choose to vote that way instead. Their news release, with specific details of where the reports are coming from, follows in full... Press Release from Missourians for Honest Elections November 7 As of 8:00 a.m. the non-partisan group Missourians for Honest Elections has already received news of two incidents in today's election in which touch screen machines incorrectly recorded voters' intentions. These occurred at the Brentwood Community Center in St. Louis County. There have
also been several verified reports from voters in St. Louis County who
had this happen to them when trying vote absentee at the St. Louis County
Board of Elections in Maplewood. We have had an unsatisfactory, mixed
response from the County Board of Elections concerning this matter. Full transcript: http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ Security
Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine Abstract
This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS
voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine
from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election
procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks.
For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its
removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious
code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying
all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote
count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads
automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election
activities — a voting-machine virus. We have constructed working
demonstrations of these attacks in our lab. Mitigating these threats will
require changes to the voting machine's hardware and software and the
adoption of more rigorous election procedures. * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3744 November
7, 2006 12:01 pm Right-Wing Talk Show Host Encourages Listeners to Jam Voter Complaint Hotline... These are the top ten states, currently, regarding incident/problem reports coming in to the non-partisan 866-OUR-VOTE hotline. Pennsylvania leads the problem calls so far this morning. They are using paperless touch-screen systems in many counties for the first time this year... By Total Calls State Calls PA 841, NY 399, NC 239, CA 228, OH 225, AZ 164, MA 142, GA 131, IL 129 - Total 2,811 * * * * * Full column: http://www.rense.com/general74/expert.htm What The
Experts Say About Electronic Voting Here is a
sobering collection of quotes about electronic voting by experts around
the country prepared by Kathy Dopps,National Election Data Archive. All
of our elected officials should read it, and then take the appropriate
actions needed to protect our democracy. Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3735 November
6, 2006 2:27 pm This just in from poll worker Patti Newton from San Diego, where Registrar Mikel Haas has been sending all of their pre-programmed, election-ready, hackable Diebold touch-screen systems home with poll workers on "sleepovers" since Oct. 16th. Newton reports the machines have been going to high-school kids who have also been recruited to be in charge of those machines tomorrow! Have we mentioned that San Diego's Mikel Haas is amongst the worst most irresponsible Election Administrator's in the country?! From Newton... I just got off the phone with one of the (San Diego) North County Poll Worker Recruitment Specialists (PWRS) --- I vented my frustration at being teamed with three (3) teenagers with no election experience. To add insult to injury, I am relegated to the job of ASSISTANT Precinct Inspector (this is my third election this year)! The PWRS told me that Mikel Haas directed recruiters to place every single teenager who applied. I believe they were actively recruited because they are receiving extra credit (in high school classes) in addition to being paid. She did not confirm or deny the answer to my question, "Did Haas put the teenagers first in line as Touchscreen Inspectors?" Her evasion was answer enough. I asked her if teens having voting machines in their custody for three weeks made her nervous. "Yes, a little." She stated she was "just a peon" and following directions from ROV Haas. It is obvious my PI has not cracked the cover of her election guide and made no attempt to contact me or the others to arrange to set up the poll tonight. She has not contacted the other workers. The two phone numbers I've (not my PI) actively sought for one worker are both wrong numbers. These kids have no sense of urgency nor do they seem to take any responsibility. Perhaps Mikel Haas is smarter than we think. But wait, she followed up with more! * * * * * Full transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0608/21/ldt.01.html Lou Dobbs Tonight August 21, 2006 "Still ahead, one of the nation's leading authorities on e-voting warns the potential for disaster ahead. He says election debacles are inevitable unless we act. Author Avi Rubin will be my guest. And presidential hopefuls map out their strategies for 2008 and we'll discuss the state of U.S. politics with our political round table. That's next." * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3855#more-3855 November 28, 2006 Alaska Is
At Again: Refuses to Release 2006 Election Database Despite Court Order The state of Alaska which, as avid BRAD BLOG readers will recall, had been fighting tooth and nail to keep from releasing their database of how voters voted back in 2004, is at it again. Now, despite a court order, the state is refusing to release the new 2006 database, according to a press release just issued by the state Democratic Party. (Press release posted in full at the bottom of this item.) Previously, the outgoing Governor Murkowski went so far as to have his top security man issue a memo saying release of the 2004 database would be a "security risk." The state had argued prior to that that they could not release the database because it was a "company secret" of Diebold's, according to their contract with the Anti-American Voting Company. All of that after Democrats had discovered a 200% voter turnout in some jurisdications across the state. Murkowski's daughter Lisa, whom Frank had appointed to fill his seat in the Senate when he ascended to Governor, was in a very close race for that seat in 2004. In fact, most polls showed her trailing against her opponent prior to Election Day. A court eventually forced the state to release the 2004 database but it was found to contain hundreds of edits since the 2004 election, including as late as July of 2006, prior to the release of the data. See all of the stories in our Alaska category for the bizarre roller-coaster ride on this issue in the state. * * * * * Full column: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120106Z.shtml Security
of Electronic Voting Is Condemned 01 December 2006 Paper systems should be included, agency says. Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country "cannot be made secure," according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the US Election Assistance Commission. The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency. In a report hailed by critics of electronic voting, NIST said that voting systems should allow election officials to recount ballots independently from a voting machine's software. The recommendations endorse "optical-scan" systems in which voters mark paper ballots that are read by a computer and electronic systems that print a paper summary of each ballot, which voters review and elections officials save for recounts. Voters in Maryland cast ballots on electronic machines that produce no paper record of each vote; in the District and Loudoun County, voters can choose between using such machines and optical-scan systems. Other Northern Virginia jurisdictions, and many counties across the state, use electronic voting systems exclusively. * * * * * November
7, 2006 12:17 pm Smartcard
Encoders Reportedly Not Working...Paper Ballots Not Available Everywhere... Utah County voters planning to cast their ballots on the way to work were stymied by technical problems with the state's new voting machines, while some in Salt Lake City also saw delays at the polls. Robert Nelson was among those in Provo and other locations in Utah County who were unable to cast their votes using the new voting machines when the polls opened. After arriving at his polling location at 7 a.m., Nelson said he spent an hour and a half hoping the machines would be fixed. "The workers were earnestly trying to get the machines to work, but not a one in our precint worked," Nelson said. "I work in Salt Lake City, so I couldn't wait for the machines to work." * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3746 November
7, 2006 1:08 pm Voting Machine Companies (as expected) Blame 'Human Error'... (True enough, since the idiots who created these machines, and agreed to use them are most likely 'human') First, they're not "glitches"...They are failures! This from AP... Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts early Tuesday, delaying voters in Indiana, Ohio and Florida and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead. In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn't get to start properly until about 10 minutes after polls opened. "We got five machines --- one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a troubleshooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board. In Indiana's Marion County, about 175 of 914 precincts turned to paper ballots because poll workers didn't know how to run the machines, said Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler. She said it could take most of the day to fix all of the machine-related issues. Election officials in Delaware County, Indiana, extended voting hours because voters initially couldn't cast ballots in 75 precincts. County Clerk Karen Wenger said the cards that activate the push-button machines were programmed incorrectly but the problems were fixed by late morning. Pennsylvania's Lebanon County also extended polling hours because a programming error forced some voters to cast paper ballots. * * * * * Full column: http://kdka.com/local/local_story_311074032.html Nov 7, 2006 10:17 am Voters Experiencing Difficulty With New Machines (KDKA/AP) PITTSBURGH The polls are open, but voting machine problems have been reported at several polling places in Allegheny County. County elections officials are not saying what's wrong or how long it will take to fix the problems. Technical issues are preventing voters from casting ballots at the following locations: (UPDATE: 4 of 5 machines repaired) St. Thomas Church, Gibsonia (Richland District 4) Whitehall
Methodist Church, Weyman Road, Whitehall Borough * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3747 November
7, 2006 1:19 pm Dems Seek
Extension of Voting Times after Hundreds of Voters Turned Away from Polls
as Machines Fail... Democratic
party leaders are planning to seek a two-hour extension for voting in
Denver, due to massive computer problems which have created long lines,
and kept many from casting their vote. "We will not get to vote today," said a frustrated Lauren Brockman as he left the Botanic Gardens. * * * * * Cheating
possible on vote machine Ian Hoffman Days before
the election, state officials have learned that California's most widely
used electronic voting machines feature a button in back that can allow
someone to vote multiple times. Several computer scientists said Wednesday
that the vulnerability found in all touch-screen machines sold by Oakland-based
Sequoia Voting Systems was not especially great because using the yellow
button for vote fraud would require reaching far behind the voting machine
twice and triggering two beeps. Full column: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/archives/cat_vote_fraud.html January 04, 2007 U.S. Bars Lab From Testing Electronic Voting A laboratory
that has tested most of the nation’s electronic voting systems has
been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials
found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could
not document that it was conducting all the required tests. Translation: it will be the testing companies, like CIBER, who will be come the sacraficial lambs for the electronic voting industry. - M. R. January 03, 2007 Missing votes in Ohio call races into question While Democratic Party supporters celebrate their success in Ohio, where their statewide candidates won four out of five executive offices and they now control both the U.S. House and Senate, they are ignoring massive and verifiable irregularities in the 2006 election. Similar irregularities – including missing votes, undervotes and overvotes – may come back to haunt the Democrats in the 2008 general election. * * * * * E-voting
glitch turns up in Texas As elections officials continue their post-mortems on last Tuesday's race, another irregularity in electronic voting machine tallies has surfaced. In Williamson County, Texas, located just north of Austin, elections officials are blaming a software glitch in the region's touch-screen machines for counting each electronically-cast vote not just once, but three times, the Austin American-Statesman (registration required) reported in its Wednesday edition. County officials uncovered the hiccups on the day after the election, when they found that the number of reported votes was higher than the number of people who signed at their polling places. As a result
of the glitch, the total count for votes cast was about 91,000, when it
should have been closer to 84,500. (Most of the county's votes were actually
cast on paper ballots, according to the report.) Elections officials said
the discrepancy wouldn't affect the outcome of any races because the triple-counting
did not skew the percentages of votes cast for each candidate. Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3748 November
7, 2006 2:24 pm Voters in Predominently Dem Areas Unable to Vote, Some Voting on Paper Ballots in Chinese and Vietnamese as English Ballots Not Available... I just got off the phone with Steve Young, the Democratic candidate in CA-48 (Orange County). He reports that his office is receiving calls from at least 8 precincts of voting machines down with no paper ballots available for voters. All, he says, in strongly Democratic areas of the otherwise conservative Orange County. I believe they use ES&S voting machines down there. Several Emailers have contacted us to let us know it's Hart Intercivic machines in use down there, not ES&S. He says voters were either being turned away without being able to vote at all, or voting on Chinese and Vietnamese paper ballots --- since English ones are not available --- just so they are able to vote! By the time we were done with the call, a staffer came in with a report from machines down in a Republican area, but said the machines were fixed quickly, whereas one of the reports you'll see below (transcribed during our quick phone conversation) shows poll workers repeatedly trying to get help from the Registrar to no avail. * * * * * Full column: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/November2006/011106_b_Diebold.htm Florida Diebold machines help you pick the right candidate Engadget Apparently Diebold's problems aren't limited to Maryland, Georgia or Alaska -- what a shocker. Down in the Sunshine State, during a week of early voting before next week's nationwide midterm election, certain Diebold machines have been registering some votes for Democrats as selections for the Republican candidate. For instance, Gary Rudolf, a voter at a polling site near Ft. Lauderdale, tried to vote for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis (D); however, when the Diebold machine gave him the final review screen, it showed his vote was about to be cast for Charlie Crist (R). The problem took three tries to get resolved with the help of a local poll worker. Mary Cooney, a Broward County Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman, informed The Miami Herald that it's "not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot -- essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual." Huh? How exactly does a computer -- one that is being used heavily for one day a year, and not a $100 PDA -- "slip out of sync" ? Further, no one in Broward County is even sure how large of a problem this is "because there's no process for poll workers to quickly report minor issues, and no central database of machine problems." Is it any wonder that major candidates are urging voters to vote the analog old-fashioned way? * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3815 November
19, 2006 Election Supervisor Kathy Dent --- Directly Responsible for the Mess --- Has Yet to Resign... The BRAD BLOG has learned that several lawsuits are likely to be launched this week in the Sarasota, Florida, election meltdown where some 18,000 votes failed to register on the county's paperless ES&S touch-screen voting systems on November 7th. Fewer than 400 votes currently divide candidates Vern Buchanan (R) and Christine Jennings (D), who are vying to fill disgraced former Sec. of State Katherine Harris's U.S. House seat in Florida's 13th congressional district. A number of sources have confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that Jennings's legal team --- who previously filed court papers to impound voting machines and data for a possible investigation --- are preparing to file legal action to challenge the legitimacy of the race, perhaps as soon as this week. * * * * * Full column: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112906F.shtml Vote Disparity
a Mystery in Florida Election For Congress 29 November 2006 Sarasota, Florida - Almost since the time the votes were tallied here on election night, the race for Florida's 13th Congressional District has been surrounded by a contentious mystery: Why were there no votes for Congress recorded from more than 18,000 people who chose candidates in other races? * * * * * http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/091106electionthrown.htm Voting complaints
in 18 states -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com At least 18 states are handling complaints about irregularities in voting, including delays caused by problems with electronic voting machines. The campaign of Sen. Rick Santorum, who has conceded to Democrat Bob Casey Jr., said it had reports of hundreds of votes cast for the Pennsylvania Republican that mistakenly went to his opponent due to faulty electronic machines. * * * * * Full column here: http://www.rense.com/general74/ssys.htm Bush's Election
Assistance Chair - 'System Ripe For Stealing Elections' Bush Appointed
Chair of U.S. Election Assistance Commission Says 'No Standards' for E-Voting
Devices, System Ripe For Stealing Elections. * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3683 October 28, 2006 Election
Meltdowns Brewing in Maryland, Ohio, Colorado, Everywhere Else... In Ohio, Cuyahoga County's attempts to change the way poll workers are trained in light of their Primary Election Day disaster seem clear, from the startling USA Today coverage, to be a disaster in the making in and of themselves. Read it, and be amazed at the unbelievably complex gyrations now required to address the 300+ recommendations made to the county after their Primary Day meltdown. It's amazing. "Election Cliffhanger: Will it all Work?" In Maryland, the Republican governor warns of a "crisis in the wake of Diebold revelations." In Colorado, Sequoia has fucked up the Absentee Ballots so that 30,000 of them must be re-copied by hand by pollworkers. UPDATE: By John Gideon 4:15PM: Today the county announced that they had awoken from their day dream of duplicating 30,000 ballots. They have decided to do the smart thing and just set up another machine to count the incorrect ballots. I'm on the road, and haven't been able to follow closely for the last 12 or 24, so there is much more out there that is not covered here (keep an eye on John Gideon's 'Daily Voting News' each day for all the frightening stuff and the utter mess that we simply can't cover in detail), but clearly the links above are just the tippy-top of the tip of the iceberg. Buckle up. Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3687 October 29, 2006 Diebold Continues to Lie About 'Grave National Security Risk' of E-Voting as Democratic Party Keeps Head in Sand Sadly, it's
a REPUBLICAN Who Is Speaking Out About the Clear and Present Threat to
Our Democracy Sadly, the only ones there to counter Radke's knowing and misleading disinformation was a computer scientist from Princeton, and a Republican governor. Not a Democrat in sight. The National Democratic Party, to their eternal shame, has remained virtually silent about the grave national security threat --- as it has been described by almost every computer scientist and security expert with whom the The BRAD BLOG has discussed the matter --- which our country now faces vis a vis the nationwide use of inaccurate, uncountable, unaccountable, hackable and, yes, untested electronic voting systems. To be crystal clear, Radke was simply lying in his statement to Sawyer. He knows damned well that not a single independent body --- nobody, none, zero...no computer scientist, security expert or federal, state or local election official or organization --- is allowed to test Diebold's voting systems in full and release their findings publicly. The same is true for the systems of every other voting machine company in America. The only federal testing of these systems is done by the so-called "Independent Testing Authority" (ITA), a consortium of three private corporations chosen and paid for by the voting machine companies themselves. The ITAs test only what their client Voting Machine Companies tell them to test. They do so in secret and without releasing the results of their limited testing publicly. Lou Dobbs Tonight filed a very good report on the ITA scam the other day. The video and transcript are here. ABC's online coverage of the interview goes on to report that "Approximately 40 percent of Americans will use these machines to vote in November." That is wrong. Well over 80% of American voters will use such machines this November. ABC should know better by now. * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3697 October 30, 2006 MESS WITH TEXAS: State Rep Reports ES&S Touch-Screens Dropping Candidate Names, Flipping Straight Ticket Ballots from Democratic to Republican in San Antonio! Audio Interview
with Texas State Rep. Jose Menendez on KTSA with Chris Duel (and Brad)
Says Paperless Voting Machines Failing in Bexar County... So far, the reports have all involved Democratic (or Green) votes flipping to, or otherwise benefitting, Republican candidates. In South Florida, St. Louis County, Missouri, Virginia, Arkansas, Dallas, and now San Antonio, Texas. While I was guesting this evening on the Chris Duel show on KTSA News-Talk 550 AM, we received a call from Democratic State Rep. Jose Menendez, who reported several incidents that have come to the attenion of his office during Early Voting, which is already under way in San Antonio. The reports concern votes flipping and candidates not showing up on the summary screens of Bexar County's paperless ES&S touch-screen systems. During the short interview (audio posted in full at end of this article) Menendez reported an incident involving a teacher in his district who noticed that one of the candidates wasn't showing up on the confirmation summary screen. I later learned off air that the missing candidate was Menendez. Another incident involved a voter who voted for a straight party ticket only to have it flip to a straight party ticket vote for the other party. * * * * * Full column: http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=20436&hed=Voting+Machines+Company+To+U.S.%3A+We%E2%80%99re+Outta+Here Voting Company To U.S.: We’re Outta Here Smartmatic
will sell its U.S. subsidiary to stop investigations into whether it’s
funded by Venezuela’s government By Eydie Cubarrubia A Venezuelan company that makes electronic machines said Friday that in response to questions about ownership, it will sell its U.S. subsidiary and withdraw from a U.S. investment review process. Smartmatic—which has offices in Florida, California, Barbados, Mexico, and Venezula—will sell Sequoia Voting Systems, a subsidiary based in Oakland, California that Smartmatic purchased in March 2005. The company has also withdrawn itself from review by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The news comes after heavy scrutiny into Smartmatic’s funding. Critics worried about the possibility of Venezuelan government investment in the company. Since Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has been highly critical of the Bush administration, the thinking goes, the government might use its influence to tamper with e-voting machines that are used in U.S. elections. * * * * * Full column: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3679 October 27, 2006 Orange Co.
California Indicts 11 GOP Operatives For Voter Registration Fraud County Dem
Chair Announces Indictments and Steals Thunder From Republican Sec. of
State... Today the Associated Press reported that 11 people who worked for a firm hired by the Republican Party were indicted for voter fraud. The workers were paid as much as $10 per Republican registration so they signed-up anyone they could and changed their party affiliation to Republican. "Fraudulent voter registration charges were filed this week by prosecutors who said Democrats were unwittingly signed up as Republicans. Central Orange County includes the district represented by Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez. "There were at least 37 instances in which Democratic, Green Party voters and a noncitizen were registered as Republicans. Each defendant was charged with felony counts of fraudulent completion of registration affidavits." ...and they report: "The recruiters worked for the Newport Beach petition circulating firm Bader & Associates as well as a subcontractor. Company owner Tom Bader said Thursday that his firm cooperated in the investigation. "Subcontractor John Burkett of Lake Elsinore said he discovered problems with his recruiters' work during random checks of submitted forms and he notified his clients. "The 11 defendants charged Tuesday weren't identified and details of the charges weren't disclosed by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas." In a truly
brilliant move the chairman of the Orange County Democrat Committee leaked
the news of the indictments stealing the thunder from Secretary of State
McPherson who wanted to wait until Monday to have a press conference.
Reporters attempted to contact the Secretary but calls were not returned. Full column: http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rob_kall_061117_clear_evidence_2006_.htm November 17, 2006 OpEdNews
Exclusive by Rob Kall Results Skewed Nationwide In Favor of Republicans by 4 percent, 3 million votes A major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in U.S. House and Senate races across the country is indicated by an analysis of national exit polling data, by the Election Defense Alliance (EDA), a national election integrity organization. These findings have led EDA to issue an urgent call for further investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic election equipment. "We see evidence of pervasive fraud, but apparently calibrated to political conditions existing before recent developments shifted the political landscape," said attorney Jonathan Simon, co-founder of Election Defense Alliance, "so 'the fix' turned out not to be sufficient for the actual circumstances." Explained Simon, "When you set out to rig an election, you want to do just enough to win. The greater the shift from expectations, (from exit polling, pre-election polling, demographics) the greater the risk of exposure--of provoking investigation. What was plenty to win on October 1 fell short on November 7. "The findings raise urgent questions about the electoral machinery and vote counting systems used in the United States," according to Sally Castleman, National Chair of EDA. "This is a nothing less than a national indictment of the vote counting process in the United States!" * * * * * Full column: http://www.rense.com/general74/eel.htm Denver Election
Official Quits After E-Voting Meltdown In what ought to be the first of a wave of resignations by Elections Officials across the country who have utterly failed the very voters they are supposed to be serving, one of three commissioners of the Denver Board of Elections has resigned today in the wake of the city's e-voting meltdown last Tuesday. He has apparently shown a measure of grace and responsibility far too rare from most Elections Officials * * * * * Full column: http://www.nbc4.tv/print/10190012/detail.html nbc4.tv October 30, 2006 SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Orange County's top prosecutor Monday defended his delay until a week before the election in outlining charges filed against a dozen people accused of switching registered Democrats to Republicans without their knowledge. The registration fraud cases were filed last Tuesday, and at least three of the defendants were arrested on Wednesday and Thursday. The arrests were revealed last week by Orange County's Democratic leadership. At a Santa Ana news conference, District Attorney Anthony Rackauckas, who was joined by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, denied that politics played a role in relation to revealing details about the case. "We were making arrests during the week and I think it's appropriate to have a press conference," Rackauckas said. "We're at a time here when, I think, voter awareness is very important. People are thinking about elections, they're thinking about the Democratic process, and I think this is a very good time to get that awareness up that voter fraud is not going to be tolerated, not in this county and not in this state." * * * * * Full column: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/13/8393084/?postversion=2006110111 Rage against
the machine (Fortune Magazine) -- Here's a five-step plan guaranteed to make an obscure company absolutely notorious. First get
into a business you don't understand, selling to customers who barely
understand it either. Then roll out your product without adequate testing.
Don't hire enough skilled people. When people notice problems, deny, obfuscate
and ignore. Finally, blame your critics when it all blows up in your face. * * * * * Full column: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110406Y.shtml As Vote Nears,
Parties Prepare for Legal Fights November 2006 As a result, a record number of voters have filed absentee ballots. Experts say those are more susceptible to fraud and demands for recounts. * * * * * Full column: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061029/NEWS01/610290381/1006/NEWS October 29, 2006 Deceased
residents on statewide voter list By John Ferro Steven T. Vermilye was a home inspector and general contractor who grew up in Westchester County, went to college in Texas and settled in New Paltz in 1971. David S. Stairs was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and came to the mid-Hudson Valley in 1927, where as a 16-year-old he pounded hot rivets into the New York Central Railroad at Croton-Harmon and then spent 45 years working his way up through Texaco's research center in Glenham. Betty L. Johnson came from a small town in Virginia and moved to Beacon when she was 17, raised eight children while boxing duct tape at Tuck Tape and working in the kitchen at the Castle Point veterans hospital. The three mid-Hudson Valley residents had little in common during their lives, but share one thing now: They all have records of casting a vote after they had died. Names still remain on rolls The new statewide database of registered voters contains as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls, and as many as 2,600 of them have cast votes from the grave, according to a Poughkeepsie Journal computer-assisted analysis. * * * * * Full column: http://security.itworld.com/4341/061023diebold/pfindex.html Diebold source
code leaked again Source code to Diebold Election Systems Inc. voting machines has been leaked once again. On Wednesday, former Maryland state legislator Cheryl C. Kagan was anonymously given disks containing source code to Diebold's BallotStation and GEMS (Global Election Management System) tabulation software used in the 2004 elections. Kagan, a well-known critic of electronic voting, is Executive Director of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Olney, Maryland. The disks were created and distributed by two federal voting machine testing labs run by Ciber Inc. and Wyle Laboratories Inc. They had been testing systems on behalf of the state of Maryland, Diebold said in a statement. This is not the first time that Diebold source code has been leaked. In early 2003, Diebold critic Bev Harris uncovered similar source code while conducting research using Google Inc.'s search engine. Soon after, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Rice University published a damning critique of Diebold's products, based on an analysis of the software. They found, for example, that it would be easy to program a counterfeit voting card to work with the machines and then use it to cast multiple votes inside the voting booth. * * * * * Full information here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3801 11/16/2006 Election Integrity Groups Call for Re-Vote in FL-13 U.S. House Race! The BRAD BLOG Joins the Call and Demands Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent and Other Florida Officials Resign Immediately in Wake of Anti-Democracy Debacle... Enough is Enough. [UPDATE: Three More Groups Join Call for Revote, Investigation] More and more Election Integrity advocates and groups are now joining the drumbeat calling for a complete re-vote on paper ballots in the mess that has become U.S. House race in Florida's 13th congressional district in Sarasota. The BRAD BLOG also calls for a complete paper-based revote as the only way to ensure the voter's voice will be heard. There are fewer than 400 votes separating Vern Buchanan (R) and Christine Jennings (D) in the race to fill (ironically enough) former SoS Katherine Harris's seat. And yet, a full 18,000 votes have gone missing, recorded as undervotes on the paperless ES&S touch-screen systems that failed during the election. The People for the American Way Florida have issued a press release (posted in full at the end of this article) calling for a complete re-vote, as well as expressing their criticism of the Jeb Bush Administration appointment of a rabid Bush-partisan and paper "trail" opponent to head an audit to figure out what went wrong. The National Voting Rights Institute yesterday called for a full re-vote as well, saying in their press release, "Public confidence in the vote-counting process is a bedrock principle of any democracy. In Florida's 13th Congressional District, it is clear that only a revote with the option of hand-recorded paper ballots will ensure that voters in that district can trust that their votes will be properly counted." Common Cause has similarly called for an investigation into what happened in FL-13 and said the vote should not be certified as is. As well, their announcement calls for the immediate passage of Rep. Rush Holt's (D-NJ) HR550 election reform legislation, which is currently supported by some 220 bi-partisan House members. Unfortunately, HR550 would not have guaranteed the problems in FL-13 would have been avoided, as it only calls for paper records as opposed to the much needed paper ballot required for every vote cast. So-called paper "trails" on the touch-screen systems down in Florida would not have avoided the problem we're now facing and, in fact, would likely have exacerbated them by giving voters and elections officials a false sense of security. Paper "trails" on touch-screen DRE machines are not reliable or accurate, they fail consistently, can be gamed quite easily, and frequently cannot be actually verified by the voters. Finally, Election Integrity organization VelvetRevolution.us (of which The BRAD BLOG is co-founder) goes further still in both calling for a full paper-based re-vote as well as demanding the resignation of failed Sarasota Supervisor of Elections, Kathy Dent. Dent failed the voters in Flordia's 13th district and across the entire county, by fighting to ensure they would not have any means of avoiding such problems when she insisted on untested, inaccurate electronic touch-screen systems without paper ballots --- or even paper trails that could have been used to mitigate a disaster such as the one now facing her. She should resign immediately, along with Secretary of State Sue M. Cobb and the other officials directly responsible for this debacle. The full press release from People For the American Way Florida follows below... UPDATE 5:00pm Three more groups, Voter Action, ACLU, and Electronic Frontier Foundation, also now announce their call for a re-vote and investigation. Their press release follows in full below now as well... * * * *
* October 17, 2006 Exclusive: First bush-Appointed Chair of U.S. Election Assistance Commission Says 'No Standards' for E-Coting Devices, System 'Ripe for Stealing Elections' Former Chair
Says He 'Was Deceived', EAC and Federal Efforts for Election Reform 'A
Charade', 'Travesty'! Soaries was appointed by George W. Bush as the first chair of the commission created by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in the wake of the 2000 Presidential Election Debacle. In the interview, available here for the first time, Soaries excoriates both Congress and the White House, referring to their dedication to reforming American election issues as "a charade" and "a travesty," and says the system now in place is "ripe for stealing elections and for fraud." Having resigned from the commission in April of 2005, Soaries goes on to explain that he believes he was "deceived" by both the White House and Congress, and that neither were ever "really serious about election reform." * * * * * http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-4.htm Introduction
to voting problems The waste of $4 billion dollars by the U.S. federal government is hardly noteworthy today. Probably that much was wasted within a month after Hurricane Katrina last year, or on Halliburton in Iraq. But it is virtually certain that the $4+ billion federal and state governments have spent under the Help America Vote (for Bush) Act mandating electronic voting and statewide voter registration databases is among the most damaging waste our government has ever financed. A small fraction of the problems generated by electronic voting and statewide voter registration databases is documented on the Equal Justice Foundation (EJF) site Vote Fraud and Election Issues. Elections have always been gamed and rigged, of which the Chicago Rules of Election Fraud are but one example. However, the forced introduction of electronic voting machines and statewide voter registration databases has made that possible on a scale and with ease previously unimaginable. For those unfamiliar with elections, Prof. Doug Jones Brief Illustrated History of Voting might serve as a starting point. For more details on Stealing Elections there is John Fund's book. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of election fraud and stealing elections then Bev Harris' Black Box Voting is probably your first choice, though the EJF tabulates many other web sites of interest. Since its inception the EJF and I, as an individual, and working with other groups have been attempting to insure fair and honest elections utilizing a secret ballot with one, and only one vote for each eligible citizen that is openly and accurately counted. * * * * * Full column here: http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1tn.htm 12 Smartcards go missing in Tennessee; Control electronic voting machines Nov 03 2006 10:09:31 ET Political insiders have expressed alarm after 12 voter smartcards have gone missing from one Shelby County, TN early vote location! The cards are used to activate electronic voting machines. The location at the center of the controversy is Bishop Byrne High School on E. Shelby Drive in Memphis. The polling place started out with 25 cards. By Wednesday, 11 were missing, says an eyewitness. The location was given 5 more smartcards on Thursday. And another card went missing! Someone possessing a smartcard could use 'off the shelf equipment' [equipment that reprograms the card] and alter it to be used multiple times, and cast multiple votes. One concerned insider explains: "Shelby County Board of Elections has been notified. They said is was 'not a big deal' because, they said, the cards are deactivated. But the reality is, you can buy the equipment at computer stores to reactivate them. It's on the Internet how to reactivate the cards!" Meanwhile, The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is reviewing reports by the Shelby County Election Commission that two people voted twice during early voting in Memphis. Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons said he's referred the cases to the TBI for investigation along with other matters he declined to discuss. Poll watchers are expected to turn out Tuesday to observe voting in Tennessee's heated U.S. Senate race between Chattanooga Republican Bob Corker and Memphis Democrat Harold Ford Jr. * * * * * Full column here: http://www.betanews.com/article/Governor_Warns_of_Crisis_in_Wake_of_Diebold_Repair_Revelations/1161969961 Governor Warns of Crisis in Wake of Diebold 'Repair' Revelations By Scott
M. Fulton, III, BetaNews A so-called "technical refresher" which purportedly involved everyday maintenance procedures conducted on Diebold Election Systems electronic voting equipment in Maryland during the summer of 2005, included the replacement of motherboards on account of their ability to cause systems to freeze without warning, the Baltimore Sun reported yesterday. But state voting officials were never apprised of the equipment replacement, said Giles W. Burger, chairman of the State Board of Elections, in an interview with the Sun, nor were they told that the cause of such freezes had been discovered by Diebold three years earlier. * * * * * Full column: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_4994042,00.html Suit: Ban
computer voting By Ann Imse,
Rocky Mountain News Voting on computer screens is so vulnerable to massive fraud that Colorado's November election is "headed for a train wreck," says an attorney who is seeking to have the equipment barred at trial next week. An expert would need just 2 minutes to reprogram and distort votes on a Diebold, one of four brands of computerized voting systems attacked in the suit, says attorney Paul Hultin. His firm, Wheeler Trigg Kennedy, has taken on the case pro bono for a group of 13 citizens of various political stripes. And he's not the only one alarmed as details of the case spread this week. * * * * * Election
Could Have Been Thrown, Says Fraud Expert Paul Joseph
Watson Voting rights activist Bev Harris fears the mid-term elections may have been thrown in order to quell suspicions about vote fraud in anticipation of a major 2008 coup. Liberal blog sites are already naively telling whistleblowers and "conspiracy theorists" to keep quiet now that the left arm of the establishment, the Democrats, have re-emerged. "I think it's gonna be interesting to see which election reform groups decide that it's not such a bad problem after all now that they have Democrats in there because I think that some of them are actually closet partisans," Harris told the Alex Jones Show. "The issue here is not change in the last 24 hours - voting machines can't be authenticated, they're not necessarily accurate, they're tamper friendly - nothing has changed about that in 24 hours." "We shouldn't really try to say well some Democrats are in there so now it's OK - it's not." However, that's exactly what a lot of left-leaning establishment types are parroting, claiming a Democrat victory proves "American democracy still works," and that questions about electronic voting machines should be tossed aside. * * * * * Full column: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122106S.shtml Congress
Asked to Intervene in Florida Race 21 December 2006 Tallahassee, Florida - The Democrat who narrowly lost to a Republican in the race to replace Rep. Katherine Harris asked Congress on Wednesday for an investigation. The state has declared that Democrat Christine Jennings lost to Republican Vern Buchanan by 369 votes. But 18,000 Sarasota County electronic ballots did not record a choice in the race, and Jennings contends that the number is abnormally high and that the machines lost the votes. She filed with the House clerk an official contest of the election results in Florida's 13th Congressional District. She said she will ask Congress to consider ordering a revote if her legal challenge in Florida fails. She is seeking to obtain the programming code for the touch-screen voting machines to determine whether a bug or malicious programming could have lost votes. The state has found no evidence of malfunction. The company that makes the machines, Electronic Systems & Software Inc., is fighting the effort, saying its programming is a trade secret. * * * * * Show transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/31/ldt.01.html In Pinellas County in the primaries we found over 150 calibration errors from precinct workers' logs. PILGRIM: Another problem, in some places representatives of the voting machines company are in charge of running the software that tabulates the votes. And that's because not enough election officials could be trained in time -- Lou. DOBBS: This is one troubling, concerning report on top of another. This country -- we are beginning to behave like a Banana Republic, this great superpower of ours. PILGRIM: It's unbelievably shocking this close to the election we're dealing with this. DOBBS: Idiotic. Idiotic. Unbelievable. It's just -- it's incredible. * * * * * Full column: http://www.9news.com/news/politics_govt/article.aspx?storyid=28721 Second mistake
reported with absentee ballots DENVER (AP) - For the second time this week, voters are being cautioned about problems with absentee ballots -- this time for a miscalculation of the postage required on return envelopes. As of Wednesday, the Denver Election Commission had mailed out about 44,000 absentee ballots, each with instructions to include postage for 63 cents on the return envelope. But the package costs 87 cents to mail, election officials said Thursday. The announcement came a day after election officials said the 44,000 ballots mailed as of Wednesday had reversed the "yes" and "no" boxes on Referendum F, a proposal to change the way recall elections are handled. Newer ballots were printed correctly, officials said. The city's vendor for election equipment and ballot printing, Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems, said it was responsible for both mistakes and would cover all costs the city incurs in correcting them. * * * * * A Computer
Expert's Explanation of Electronic Voting Machines and Why We Can't Rely
on Them Let me see
if I understand the current situation with regard to using Diebold electronic
voting machines and central tabulators in the November 7, 2006, election: Diebold voting machines are all based on one variant or another of the Microsoft Windows operating system. No other computer operating system in the world is subject to so many viruses, trojan horses, hack tools, worms, rootkits, or other attacks as Windows. The voting machine does not have to be connected to the Internet to become infected with these agents. For one example see Tom Clancy's novel The Bear and the Dragon. Diebold programming is primarily done in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, by individuals of unknown allegiance who are certainly not citizens of the United States or loyal to it. Diebold has established a reputation for selling election "vaporware." Diebold treats
all software and hardware as proprietary so that it is impossible to determine
what is actually used in an election to tabulate votes. Central tabulation software, GEMS, is widely available on the Internet and step-by-step instructions on hacking the vote are posted. Whether this is the actual software used in a given election is impossible to determine as Diebold requires a non-disclosure contract and regards their software and hardware as proprietary. Diebold uses Microsoft Access database to store election results with basically no security on the database. There are no meaningful standards in place and the so-called "Independent Testing Authority" that "certifies" the voting machines is paid by Diebold and only tests what Diebold wants tested. And, if problems are found, they may or not be corrected. What standards do exist permit wireless communication with the voting machines and Diebold is known to have implemented such methods in their voting machines in the past. A wireless link would be easy to include in the motherboard when Made in China. Diebold has repeatedly used uncertified and untested software and hardware in elections, making a mockery of even the weak certification and testing procedures in place. Diebold voting machines do not meet HAVA requirements for handicap access. The only handicapped they even try to assist are the visually impaired. Diebold paid one association of the blind $1 million to promote their voting machines. But when blind voters have used them in elections they haven't been real happy and to hell with any other handicapped voters. Diebold voting
machines have failed every independent security test ever undertaken by
a number of nationally-recognized authorities. Attacks by a variety of experts have shown Diebold voting machines are easily hacked. Standards for security of these machines has been demonstrated to be completely inadequate and unaffordable even if required by court order. So the argument that election processes and procedures "protect" them is fallacious. For example, every vote counting machine used in a precinct is sent home with an election judge from one day to a week before the election (known as "sleepovers"). Diebold hires technicians to support local elections off the street, does no background check, provides minimal training, and gives them unlimited access to the voting machines in most jurisdictions. In many election jurisdictions Diebold personnel actually run the election. Diebold TSx DREs with paper ballots must have the paper roll changed by a technician, not an election judge, every time 60-75 ballots are cast. The ballots are on a continuous roll and make a potential hand recount very tedious and time consuming. "Programming" and machine errors have been exposed in every election cycle Diebold voting machines have been used in for the past ten years. Note that it is virtually impossible to distinguish "programming" errors from deliberate fraud or sabotage. It has become easy to determine that a Diebold representative is dissembling. His, or her lips are moving. With the
exception of the motherboard, the other issues listed above are documented
in the EJF book on Vote Fraud and Election Issues. Pictures of the Diebold
motherboard and details on the Hursti hack can be found at http://www.openvoting.us/tsx/all-files.php. Who's Who
in the World, 16th through 24th Editions, 1999-2007. I began working
with electronics in 1957 and with computers in 1960 on flight control
and guidance systems for Atlas and Centaur missiles. In 1976 I earned
a Ph.D. in geophysics that was largely supported by the aerospace engineering
department at Texas A&M. Much of my career was spent in such institutions
as Scripps and Woods Hole. I also served on the IEEE Voting Equipment
Standards committee for virtually its entire duration from 2001 to 2006. * * * * * http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-4.htm Introduction to voting problems The waste of $4 billion dollars by the U.S. federal government is hardly noteworthy today. Probably that much was wasted within a month after Hurricane Katrina last year, or on Halliburton in Iraq. But it is virtually certain that the $4+ billion federal and state governments have spent under the Help America Vote (for Bush) Act mandating electronic voting and statewide voter registration databases is among the most damaging waste our government has ever financed. A small fraction of the problems generated by electronic voting and statewide voter registration databases is documented on the Equal Justice Foundation (EJF) site Vote Fraud and Election Issues. Elections have always been gamed and rigged, of which the Chicago Rules of Election Fraud are but one example. However, the forced introduction of electronic voting machines and statewide voter registration databases has made that possible on a scale and with ease previously unimaginable. For those unfamiliar with elections, Prof. Doug Jones Brief Illustrated History of Voting might serve as a starting point. For more details on Stealing Elections there is John Fund's book. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of election fraud and stealing elections then Bev Harris' Black Box Voting is probably your first choice, though the EJF tabulates many other web sites of interest. Since its inception the EJF and I, as an individual, and working with other groups have been attempting to insure fair and honest elections utilizing a secret ballot with one, and only one vote for each eligible citizen that is openly and accurately counted. * * * * * Videos worth watching free on the Internet: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/071106Machines.htm http://justanotherblowback.blogspot.com/2006/10/rigged-usa-elections-exposed.html I have not
seen this DVD; they want big bucks: http://www.directcinemalimited.com/dcl/title.php?id=473&list=221,381,141,401,96,473,166,248&cat_id=226 Charts: Use to compare results http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/VA/S/01/index.html http://election.cbsnews.com/campaign2006/index.shtml http://sbe.virginiainteractive.org/index.htm * * * * * Study Finds Fatal Flaws in Popular HR 550 Election Audit Proposal Press Release Contacts:
Jonathan Simon, Election Defense Alliance, 617.538.6012 Study Proves
Flaws in 550 Audit Leave Congressional Elections Fully Exposed to Outcome
- Altering Fraud and Error Today a group of computer security and statistical analysts released a study proving that the election audit procedure set forth in HR 550, popularly known as the Holt Bill, would in practice leave elections for the US House of Representatives completely exposed to undetected programming errors and deliberate fraud. (Download the full report at http://electiondefensealliance.org/hr550auditflaws) The study demonstrates that the HR 550 audit is so ineffective that in 40% of races examined, the audit would completely fail to detect fraud or error affecting 10% of precincts in an average US House race. Fraud or error on this scale could easily alter the election outcome if left undetected. Statistical experts and mathematicians associated with Election Defense Alliance (EDA) (www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org) propose an effective alternative approach in their report issued today. Their audit approach detects fraud or error affecting one percent (1%) of the electronic tally with a ninety-nine percent (99%) level of confidence. EDA urgently recommends replacing the audit proposed in HR 550 with this alternative approach. The EDA study first tested the HR 550 audit by applying its protocol in 10,000 simulated congressional elections. The simulation revealed serious flaws in the HR 550 audit design that cannot be remedied by typical means, such as by selecting larger samples. To avoid this intrinsic flaw, the report then presents and tests an alternate audit protocol that can immediately achieve 99% confidence of detection of manipulation of even 1% of the total vote. The alternative audit calls for a hand count of 10% of the paper ballot records in a U.S. Congressional District race in 100% of the precincts. EDA will present this Universal Precinct-based Sampling (UPS) in a full report soon to be released. Besides its extraordinary accuracy, UPS has the additional advantage of simplicity. It may be conducted "in-precinct" on election night, by public volunteers representing all concerned political parties. If conducted in-precinct, the UPS also avoids the difficult task of protecting the chain of custody of paper ballot records in 180,000 U.S. precincts. The HR 550 audit protocol demands this monumental task as currently written. Since a 10% hand-count sample could be drawn in 100% of precincts on election night, the UPS also eases the transition to decentralized, citizen-monitored hand-count verifications of elections, placing responsibility for the integrity of the vote count in the hands of the American people, where it rightfully belongs. The EDA study also exposes the compromising position in which the HR 550 audit leaves candidates and concerned citizens. Even if fraud or error is detected by an HR 550 audit, candidates and citizens would still lack any means by which to determine how many votes were affected by the problem. Candidates and citizens would therefore lack a preliminary basis for challenging a potentially corrupted election in a timely manner. Regrettably, HR 550 is silent on when and how candidates or election officials should act when discrepancies are caught by the HR 550 procedure. The UPS, to be more fully described in EDA's next report, provides a simple, effective, and vastly more powerful alternative for election validation than does the proposed HR 550 audit. The UPS provides a decentralized hand count, reduces chain of custody concerns, and provides citizens a clear and timely alarm for fraud or error. Therefore Election Defense Alliance urgently recommends UPS as an alternative to the HR 550 audit. Background Despite credible
reports of widespread error-prone programming and severe, inherent security
vulnerabilities, electronic voting systems now tally more than 95% of
votes in America. The majority of elections conducted on these systems are unverified. Therefore there is no independent procedure to prove the machine vote tally is accurate. Even where such procedures do exist on the books, officials frequently do not conduct them properly, or at all. A well-known but by no means isolated example is the Ohio 2004 "recount." In that case, officials cherry-picked precincts to recount rather than choosing them at random, as required by law. Election system vendors provided ìcheat sheetsî to help officials avoid triggering full hand recounts of the selected precincts. As a result, only one of Ohioís 88 counties faced a full recount. In response
to this unacceptable risk, Rep. Rush Holt(D-NJ) recently re-introduced
HR 550, "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of
2005." HR 550 is a bill currently pending in Congress that mandates
a paper record for each vote and also calls for an audit of a fraction
of the paper records of all electronic votes cast in federal elections.
According to Representative Holt, HR 550 has received ìbipartisan
endorsement from one-third of the members of the House of Representatives,
and has been endorsed by good-government groups as the "gold standard
in [election] verifiability legislation." The authors of this new study of HR550 and of the UPS alternative believe otherwise. About the Authors, Bruce O'Dell,
Coordinator of Data Analysis, Election Defense Alliance. O'Dell is an
information technology consultant with 25 years' experience who applies
his expertise to analysis of the technical security and integrity of voting
systems. His current consulting practice centers on e-Commerce security
and the performance and design of very large-scale computer systems for
Fortune 100 clients, most recently as the chief technical architect in
a company-wide security project at one of the top t20 public companies
in America. Jonathan
Simon, JD, Co-founder of Election Defense Alliance. Simon is a graduate
of Harvard College and New York University School of Law and is a member
of the Bar of Massachusetts. He applies his prior experience as a political
survey research analyst for Peter D. Hart Research Associates to studies
of the accuracy of exit polls and other election integrity mechanisms.
He collaborated on several studies assessing the accuracy of the 2004
presidential exit polls. Josh Mitteldorf,
PhD, is affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,
University of Arizona, and is currently specializing in computer simulations
that demonstrate how natural selection can act on groups and communities.
He has taught physics, mathematics, astronomy, and evolution at Harvard,
Berkeley, Temple, the University of Pennsylvania, LaSalle and Bryn Mawr.
Since the 2004 presidential election, he has been part of a coalition
of statisticians who analyze voting patterns for evidence of errors or
fraud. Steven Freeman
holds a Ph.D. from MIT's Sloan School of Management and an M.S. in Social
System Science from the University of Pennsylvaniaís Wharton School.
Since 2000, he has held several academic positions at the University of
Pennsylvania, where he currently serves as Visiting Scholar and a member
of the teaching faculty of the Graduate Program of Organizational Dynamics
in the School of Arts and Sciences. His election research has won an award
from Project Censored as one of the three most important ìcensoredî
stories of 2005. He is the author, with Joel Bleifuss, of Was the 2004
Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official
Count (New York: Seven Stories Press 2006). About Election Defense Alliance Election Defense Alliance http://www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org, founded July 4, 2006, is a coalition of election integrity activists working at the state and local levels across the nation to detect and counter covert, antidemocratic manipulation of voter registration databases and all electronic voting systems, and to promote honest, secure and transparent elections in which every vote is counted as cast so that our official election outcomes are truly worthy of the public trust. * * * * * Paul Degener 518 NW 56th St. Topeka, KS 66617 (785) 246-0215
SUBJECT: Voter Registration by Illegal Aliens
The primary purpose of this post is to inform you of a situation we have uncovered in the state of Kansas. Your group is probably aware of the following, but if not we thought you might contact your state chapters and have them check it out in their respective states. We have found that many of the citizens of Kansas were unaware of this situation.
As a result of attending the May Day rally of illegal aliens here in Topeka, Kansas, we were shocked when the master of ceremonies instructed the attendees to get out and register to vote and to vote. As a result of this comment we did some basic investigative research and found the following to be true.
First, it is against the law for illegal aliens to register to vote and to vote in the state of Kansas.
However, we feel that it is possible for illegal aliens to register to vote in our state.
There is a block on the registration form for a driver's license number, however, the instructions state that if you do not have a driver's license number, use the last four numbers of your social security number, and goes on to say that if you do NOT have either one of these numbers, write "NONE" in the box. Therefore a voter registrant can only be tracked by name and address, not by driver's license number or social security number. Our secretary of state alleges that every registration from is bounced against the records of the driver's license department and the IRS. We question that statement.
There is no requirement to provide documentation of citizenship.
When they sign the registration form, they swear or affirm they are a U.S. Citizen, and are warned that there is a penalty. If these people are willing to break our national laws by crossing our border illegally, we are sure they will not have a problem falsifying an official document.
Politicians are able to acquire registration forms and register constituents as they go from door to door campaigning. These same politicians return the completed forms to the county election office.
The foregoing meets the minimum requirements of the "Help America Vote Act", (HAVA).
The "We Are America Alliance", is conducting a nation-wide campaign to promote voter registration and citizenship of alien residents in the United States. They allegedly have a new report identifying a potential 14 million new immigrant voters in the U.S http://www.cccaction.org/cccaction/waa_index.html Check out their web page. From what I am seeing, this group is backed by big money. They are very well organized and well funded.
Here in Topeka, we have started a grass roots group to support legislation to close the foregoing loopholes. Our group has adopted the name, "Citizens for Immigration Reform" (CFIR). Currently we are conducting a petition drive to support our position on this issue.
We have a web page at: www.neighborhoodwatchwatch.org. Our web page can also be reached at: www.cfir.org then clicking on www.neighborhoodwatchwatch.org.
Again, this information is being provided to you so that you may inform your state chapters if you feel this issue and information warrants attention.
Sincerely,
W. Paul Degener |