Vote-Count Problems in Georgia and in the U.S.A.
Democracy in Danger
Vote-Count
Problems in Georgia and in the
U.S.A.
Many of you have talked about voting in advance on paper ballots for [any] upcoming election. Aaron Ruscetta, a long time activist for evidence based voting, has put up a web site with some information that might be helpful. The link is: http://www.papercounts.org/ From: "Garland Favorito" <garlandf@msn.com> Voter Georgia http://voterga.org/ |
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http://www.truthout.org/122408J Rove's IT Guru Warned of Elections Sabotage Before Fatal Plane Crash; Was Set to Testify By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted December 22, 2008...A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Mike Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. He also set up the official Ohio state election website reporting the 2004 presidential election returns. Connell was reportedly an experienced pilot. He died instantly Friday night when his private plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Akron, Ohio. Michael
Connell was deposed one day before the election this year
by attorneys
Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during
the 2004 vote
count and his access to Karl Rove's e-mail files and how
they went
missing. more |
12-17-07
Report about the Ohio Vote Inconsistencies in
2004.
Documentation
grows (12-17-07) that the vote was flipped from Kerry to
Bush...
Rolling Stone
Magazine demands a complete investigation by federal
authorities
to determine the full extent of any bribery and vote rigging
that has
taken place. "The public must be assured that the power to count
the
votes -- and to recount them, if necessary -- will not be ceded
to
for-profit corporations with a vested interest in superseding
the will
of the people. America's elections are the most fundamental
element of
our democracy -- not a market to be privatized by companies like
Diebold." Read
it
all
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Sale on eBay exposes
vote security flaw
Encoders, access cards auctioned By CARLOS CAMPOS The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 01/30/07 Some key components of one of Georgia's most sacred institutions — that had been discovered in discarded office furniture — were recently auctioned on eBay. About 40 voter access cards and three electronic ballot encoders belonging to DeKalb County were purchased earlier this month on the auction Web site, according to Secretary of State Karen Handel. Another seven supervisor's cards, used to activate the encoders, also were up for bid. All of the cards and encoders have been recovered, Handel said. The cards apparently had been used only for training in mock elections, and the encoders are obsolete; Georgia now uses electronic poll books to load voter access cards with the proper ballots. But the discovery exposed a flaw in the security of electronic voting, which is already under fire over fears of hacking. "While this equipment was not used in elections, this nonetheless underscores how important inventory control is, and we're going to undertake extra measures to ensure security," Handel said Monday. According to Handel, DeKalb County renovated some of its offices and sold some of its old furniture. Apparently, officials failed to check the drawers. The buyer of the furniture found the cards and sold some of them on eBay. The buyer turned out to be Diebold Election Systems, the manufacturers of Georgia's electronic voting equipment. Handel eventually contacted the seller, who voluntarily turned over the rest of the cards. Handel said she doesn't plan to pursue criminal charges against the man, a metro Atlanta furniture dealer. Handel has ordered an independent audit of DeKalb County's voting equipment and its security and custody procedures. She also planned to send a notice to county election supervisors, reminding them of the importance of securing election equipment. Handel said the State Election Board, which she chairs, will decide whether to sanction DeKalb County elections officials. In the meantime, she said the board should adopt a policy on how to properly dispose of obsolete equipment. DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones sent a letter to Handel on Friday pledging his support for the audit. "Please be assured that the county places the highest priority to maintaining the integrity and transparency of our election processes," Jones wrote. |
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Washington
Post Staff
Writer
Friday, December 1, 2006; Page A01
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 U.S. 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. . . . . . Read more from the front-page article in the Washington Post here: |
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STATE ELECTION
BOARD PUBLIC
HEARINGS
The State Election
Board (online) held
public hearings for the
purpose of public
discussion
on voting
equipment currently used in the State of Georgia. Information
gathered
at these public hearings will be provided to the Georgia
General Assembly during the next legislative session.Representatives from the Office of the Secretary of State Elections Division, the Georgia State Election Board, County Election Officials, and other elections professionals attended. Public hearings: 1. Thursday, December 14, 2006 – 2:00 P.M. Woodbine City Hall Conference Room 310 Bedell Avenue, Woodbine, Georgia 2. Tuesday, December 19, 2006 6:00 P.M. Jessie Rice Elementary School Cafeteria 3750 Jessie Rice Street, Macon, Georgia 3. Thursday, December 21, 2006 – 10:00 A.M. McEachern United Methodist Church 4075 Macland Road, Powder Springs, Georgia For more information on these hearings, contact the Elections Division of the Secretary of State’s office at 404.656.2871 or visit the State Election Board online at www.gaseb.org |
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| Dec.
2006 - The Florida voting machines appear to have flat-out lost 18,000 votes for Congress !!! See: http://pol.moveon.org/floridaelection/ |
Princeton University
shows how to
steal votes with Diebold Touch-Screen
computers
"Princeton
computer
scientists
have
figured
out how to hack into a Diebold AccuVote [sic]
TouchScreen voting machine. The subversion of democracy
takes a coupla
minutes, a screwdriver or paperclip, plus a floppy with
the malware
they've written.
This is no comedy video; it's a bone-chilling,
blood-pressure-raising,
citizen-outraging rebuttal to all the calming unctuous
bromides you've
heard about the safety of our voting technology."
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The Here's the text
of the 2006 LWV resolution: The
position on the Citizens' Right to Vote be interpreted
to
affirm that LWVUS supports only voting systems that
are designed so
that:
they employ a voter-verifiable paper ballot or other paper record, said paper being the official record of the voter¹s intent; and the voter can verify, either by eye or with the aid of suitable devices for those who have impaired vision, that the paper ballot/record accurately reflects his or her intent; and such verification takes place while the voter is still in the process of voting; and the paper ballot/record is used for audits and recounts; and the vote totals can be verified by an independent hand count of the paper ballot/record; and routine audits of the paper ballot/record in randomly selected precincts can be conducted in every election, and the results published by the jurisdiction. |
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What
does
Georgia
need? Click
here for Solutions
Geogia
needs a voter-verified, permanent paper record
(pictured below) with a
manual audit capacity as a safeguard against
computer malfunction or
deliberate software fraud. |
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Georgia's DRE voting machines are probably illegal ... ... according to U.S. Sen. John Ensign (NV) who helped write the most recent federal law that governs elections. Senator Ensign amended the Equal Protection of Voting Rights Act of 2001, which was approved by the Senate. It was renamed the Help America Vote Act. Then it was adopted by the full Congress and signed into law by President Bush. Senator Ensign's amendment requires a voter verified "permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system. " If there is any judicial doubt about the meaning of the words in this federal law, the intent of Ensign's provision is in his own words "to provide a voter-verifiable paper trail." and, this voter-verified paper record shall be the "official record for any vote recount. " Many diverse groups are concerned about states like Georgia [voting] without a verified paper record. The 200,000 strong Unitarian Universalist Association is urging its members to take action because " the new Direct Recording Electronic voting machines (DREs) ... remove ballot recording and vote counting from public oversight, contrary to democratic principles" It should cost Georgia nothing to slightly modify the software in our current machines to create the paper record as required by Senator Ensign's amendment to the federal law. A quick and easy solution for Georgia is pictured below. Let's move swiftly to correct the deficiencies in the Georgia machines before they create an election crisis. Please ask your US Representative and Senators to help further clarify the guidelines for these new and imperfect voting machines by passing - The 'Voter Confidence Acts"
Someone
will
eventually press the issues above in federal court.
Will an
entire Georgia statewide election result be thrown
out? Please read
about the
group Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results
in Georgia (
click here for http://www.voterga.org) |
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We need a quick and effective remedy... Immediate Solution is available: (See pictures below) - Diebold's electronic vote machines can be reprogramed to print out a voter-verifiable summary of the voter's choices. Use the existing printer in uncovered mode. The voter will return this paper to the pollworker . This voter-verified paper ballot will be placed in a lock-box for later use for recounts or routine callibrations. |
Please call your Representative and Senators. Ask for them to support Federal Legislation to fix the problem.
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Please notice the paper printer that is located in each Diebold machine . The printer is usually hidden under a Locked Panel that is visible here sitting behind the computer case. The printer cover panel is uncovered during testing procedures and after voting is over. If the plastic panel had a small slit opening, it could easily spit-out a paper receipt for each and every vote. Below is an example of verified-paper-ballot the machine can produce if using modified software: Place your verified paper ballot in the Ballot Box. This becomes the official record of your vote regardless of what the computer may output. Any manual recount of the paper ballots takes precedence over the machine counts. The paper trail is the legal and official vote. |
www.DefendersofDemocracy.com
http://blackboxvoting.org
http://www.uscountvotes.org
http://www.countpaperballots.com
http://www.icountcoalition.org
Common
Cause
-
Georgia
Vote
411.
Org
The Right To
Count.com
Vote-Count Reliability Problems in Macon , Ga. documented on March 2nd, 2004.
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"This must be a bad data card" Where did the data go? |
Diebold Technicians: "This machine is not right" all images captured from the 8mm digital video |
Visit Diebold - defenders and creators of flawed and illegal [HAVA] voting systems
Video documentation and letter below sent to Georgia Secretary of State on May 31st, 2004
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Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 To: sosweb@sos.state.ga.us From: Lindsay 'Doc' Holliday <teeth@mindspring.com> Subject: Voting scenes in Macon on March 2nd, 2004.
Cathy Cox, Georgia Secretary of State, 214 State Capitol, Atlanta, Ga 30334, www.sos.state.ga.us, 404-656-2881, sosweb@sos.state.ga.us
Re: DVD: "Macon Voting Scenes 3-2-04"
Dear Secretary Cox, Thank you for visiting and speaking to my Macon Kiwanis Club on Tuesday, May 25th. Since Georgia installed electronic voting under your leadership, I believe that we now have a better system than ever before. But I have seen some areas for concern. Last Thursday (May 27th), I mailed you a DVD compiled from video I recorded in Bibb County, Georgia on March 2nd, 2004. It documents voting system problems related to human error, hardware failures, software instability and possible data loss. At Kiwanis, it sounded as though "conspiracy-theorists" may have polarized your opinion concerning the current Diebold technology. It would be unfortunate if you were backed-up into a corner position where you may not be able to see some other broader issues. In my dental office we back up data daily and we print a hard copy paper trail too. Every day this printout is reconciled between the paper ledger. Why? Because my computers have failed in many ways for many reasons. Most of the time it is due to operator error. Over the past 12 years, our verified paper trail has proved to be worth the extra effort.
It is my hope that you will keep an open mind to continuing the improvements to voting technology in Georgia. US Rep. Rush Holt says this on his website, "The screen says your vote has been counted. As you exit the voting booth, however, you begin to wonder. How do I know if the machine actually recorded my vote? The fact is, you don’t." Please see http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996 and For specific technological suggestions to improve voter confidence in Georgia, please visit: Touch Screen Machines With a Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail Thank you, Lindsay D Holliday
Note: Cathy Cox responded 10 months later to the concerns listed above. See scan of her response dated March 30, 2005
Not pictured yet is the "Data-card Shuffle" - a "shell game" that is better observed with the video. |
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Sunday, November 28, 2004 - www.AJC.com from the Editors of the Atlanta Contitution "Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox has been so giddy about the electronic voting machines used by millions on Election Day that the Ohio-based manufacturer features her in its online sales pitch. "Just say the word, and Diebold will provide a solution," Cox gushes on the company's Web site, which includes an image of the Georgia state seal beside her testimonial. "Hundreds of jurisdictions have used Diebold Election Systems solutions to provide accurate, secure elections. But don't take our word for it. Our customers that have put Diebold solutions to work say it best!"
"A spokesman for Cox said retrofitting touch-screen machines with printers in all 159 Georgia counties would cost between $15 million and $37 million".- from same editorial.
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Seat belts are to Air bags - as - Paper ballots are to DREs Seat belts vs Air bags ? - One should use both if possible. ! One does not quit wearing the seat belt and shoulder harness just because one has a new air bag for collision protection. Air bags offer superior protection in a head-on collision, but they offer no help in rollovers when occupants are thrown from the vehicle that then can crush them. Now carry this analogy back to voting with DREs: Use both the DRE and the paper for synergistic verification and security The DRE is convenient and it creates an unambiguous paper ballot with no overvotes, no misspellings, dimples nor half marked answers. And the paper ballot trail serves to keep programmers or partisans from attempting any "Trojan horse" type of computer programming fraud. It also allows for ballot recording and vote counting to be accessible to direct public oversight, which is as fundamental to our democratic principles as seat belts are to driver safety. |
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Dear Fellow Americans, I am one among many who have no confidence in the way that DRE Diebold electronic voting machines are used in Georgia. Did your vote count in the last election? The fact is that you don't know. The actual count will remain forever unknown because a meaningful audit is not possible without a voter-verified paper trail. Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State have decided to inactivate the paper printers during your vote. And the printout port is covered with a locked plastic panel until all voting is over. The Diebold "faith based voting" system asks that we trust secret software and corporate impartiality. No way! Please call your Representative and Senators. Ask for them to support Federal Legislation to fix the problem. Sincerely, - Lindsay D Holliday Macon, Ga December 2004 |
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Q: [Congressman Nadler] And did he ever express why he wanted a code to rig an election?
CURTIS: No. I immediately assumed that they were trying to keep you guys from cheating with it... so... [laughter] so... I wrote up the documentation of what you would look for in the source code. How you would make sure the you - CUT - Mrs. Yang, and said, here's your report. Here's your program. And she said, you don't understand, we need to hide the fraud in the source. In the source code.
Q: Hide the fraud, not reveal the fraud?
CURTIS: Not reveal the fraud because they needed to control the vote in South Florida, is what she said.
Q: That's what she said?
CURTIS: That's what she said.
Q: To your knowledge, to your knowledge, was this used?
CURTIS: I have no idea. I was ready to leave, so... (laughter) and and I was tired and left the company.
Q: In your testimony a minute ago I think you said just before you left in answer to Congresswoman Tubbs Jones question, that... would you just repeat what you said in terms of uh the the uh exit polls?
CURTIS: The exit polls should not be significantly different from the vote.
Q: And if they were you would conclude what?
CURTIS: I would conclude someone's playing with the vote?
Q: Not with the exit polls?
CURTIS: That's possible too.
Q: OK and that's why...
CURTIS: Something is definitely skewed.
Q: Something is skewed with one of the other above.
CURTIS: To select which one you'd have to see where the problem is.
Q: Let me ask you one further question. Assuming for the moment that such software, [UNINTELLIGABLE] such software to rig a vote was used, in one or more machines in Ohio or in Florida, couldn't you today detect that if you looked at the source code?
CURTIS: If you could get the machines and they had not been patched yet. I mean, once they get in and touch em', anything could happen. You could also set timers to do that, but then you could see the timer. Then you'd have to take those machines, decompile them, which I couldn't do, but possibly a Microsoft, an MIT something could do, you might... you might be able to.
Q: You might?
CURTIS: Depends on how good they are at destroying what they had.
Q: Destroying what they had by tampering the machine afterwards, or by programming them to destroy instructions in the first place?
CURTIS: Right. Because then since you...
Q: Either or both?
CURTIS: Either or both. You didn't actually seen what's in there, so you don't know if the code is running as a single executable or running in various modules. If it's running in modules you could make the code actually eat itself.
Q: Let me ask you one further question. We've.... I've heard that people who assume that lots of the election results, that a large fraction of the election result within the state may have been effected by deliberate fraud in a computer, are paranoid, because in order to do that you would have to have access to thousands of machines and that would be readily detectable. To what extent is that true?
CURTIS: In depends on the technology that used. If you use a central tabulation machine that fed in, all you'd have to do is set a flag. You set a flag; the central tabulation machine would flip your vote.
Q: So if you. So one person putting in bad code in a central tabulation machine could affect thousands and thousands or tens of thousands of votes?
CURTIS: Right.
Q: And...
CURTIS: And you could activate either automatically, or you could make is so that there's code existing on like an otonic (?) machine which feeds it, where you would punch it in, it would see the flag, the server would see the flag and then...
Q: And if you had a recount and no paper trail, would that be, as soon as that had happened, would that be reversible by seeing the discrepancy between the tabulator, the central tabulator code, and what the individual machines which had not been tampered with code?
CURTIS: Not if I wrote it.
Q: Why not? In other words...
CURTIS: In other words I could make it match.
Q: You could work back from the tabulator to the individual machines, so that the tabulator could tell the machines to switch their results?
CURTIS: Yes. It talks both ways. You could flip it to whatever you need.
Q: And they actually do talk to each other. this the machines and the tabulator?
CURTIS: As long as it's hooked up. As long as they are networked together, they can talk to each other.
Q: So in other words, there is absolutely no assurance whatsoever on anything with regards to these machines.
CURTIS: Absolutely none, unless you look at the source code and make sure it's safe before it goes in.
Q: Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]
Chair: Thank you Congressman Nadler. I know that Congresswoman Waters has questions, then Senator Miller, and then Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.
Q: [Congresswoman Waters] This will only take a moment, if you would come back to the ...
CURTIS: I'm new at this.
Q: As you know, there has been a lot of discussion about that, I think it is Diebold Company. Their relationship to the President and a group within the administration and supposedly comments about helping to insure that the President is reelected. In your world in your environment, have you heard any of these kind of discussion? Do you know people from Diebold... do you have any sense of any actions that may have been taken?
CURTIS: I don't know anything about that at all.
Q: Thank You
CURTIS: Sorry.
Chair: Senator Miller
Q: [Senator Miller] Thank you Madam Chair.
Chair: Sir.
Q: I suspect that people will attack you in terms of your credibility. Could you restate once again for the record your credentials?
CURTIS: I'm a programmer. I worked for NASA. I've worked for Exxon/Mobile. Worked for the Department of Transportation. And, other elements of my story, because this company... well let's get into it, why not? [LAUGHTER] This company also, they have a NASA contract. and they were basically downloading tons of information, I mean gigabytes worth, and handing it off to this little Chinese guy named Henry Ng [Lee or Nee?] and it didn't seem right and he was packing things and I wrote a program for DOT that allowed contractors to send their information into DOT and he was kind of the quality assurance guy for software. He put a wiretapping module in the program that went to the contractors so that it actually sent everything they sent back to Yang. So I reported all this and just last March, I think, he was arrested for attempting to send anti-tank missile chips to the capitol of Communist China. If that's correct, this is such a small thing. [LAUGHTER] Although I think that he only got a hundred dollar fine and no time.
Chair: Thank You.
01:27 PM http://www.ledgeofliberty.com/2004/12/video_clinton_c.html
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| Lindsay 'Doc' Holliday | ||
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Holliday Dental Associates 360 Spring Street Macon, GA 31201 |
office 478-746-5695 home 478-742-8699
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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
* The Daily Show featured a hilarious spoof of e-voting that featured a clip from an old interview that John Hopkins' computer researcher - Avi Rubin did with the CBS Evening News as the "moment of zen". To view the streaming video of the segment (about 5 minutes) click here. This will bring a smile to your face and maybe a belly-laugh too.
