Including essays by EDA's Jonathan Simon, Bruce O'Dell, Dave Griscom, Nancy Tobi and Paul Lehto, as well as Robert Kennedy, Jr., Bob Fitrakis, Brad Friedman, and others. With a preface by editor Mark Crispin Miller.
'Sharon Rowe was not able to check the ballot images
because she was forbidden from doing so
by the office of the Texas Secretary of State.'
By Tom Manaugh
EDA Investigations Working Group
In Texas, a so-called audit step involves randomly selecting some computer-generated ballot images and manually determining whether the vote totals are accurate. They always are, according to elections administrators.
But are the ballot images themselves a valid reflection of the voting selections of voters?
Apparently not. In November of 2006 in Collin County, Texas, Marilyn Blankenship noticed that her vote selections were not being accurately shown on a Diebold touchscreen. In several instances, she would touch one name, but another selection was indicated on the screen. In each case, she corrected the selection and proceeded with voting.
After making all her selections, she was presented with the summary screen. It was wrong. Several of the selections shown on the summary screen were different from what she had originally chosen.
Ms. Blankenship made corrections to the summary screen and submitted her ballot. She complained to the precinct election judge about what had happened and then left the polling pace with no confidence that her votes had been accurately recorded.
Ms. Blankenship then contacted Sharon Rowe, the elections administrator for Collin County to report that the election equipment was faulty. She also complained to the office of the Texas Secretary of State.
While monitoring a handcount of ballots from the September 3rd Arizona primary, in his capacity as an official election observer for the Democratic and Libertarian parties, EDA Investigations Co-Coordinator John Brakey was arrested and ejected from the Pima County election headquarters on orders of Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson.
Brakey had noticed that several of the incoming bags containing ballots from the precincts had unsecured or missing seals. The seal failures appeared to be the result of pollworkers not knowing how to properly lock them.
Brakey then wondered whether the serial numbers on the bag seals matched the serial numbers recorded by the precinct pollworkers when they sealed the ballots. One question led to another, and Brakey ended up in handcuffs.
With less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology
By Larry Greenemeier
ELECTRONIC VOTING: Most states have invested in some type of E-voting technology. Are they confident enough to use it on election day?
In their rush to avoid a repeat of the controversy that plagued the 2000 presidential election, and to meet the requirements of Congress's hastily mandated2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), states and counties flocked to electronic voting systems they hoped would eliminate hanging chads and other flaws inherent in paper-based systems. Six years later, with another presidential election less than three months away, many e-voting systems are fraught with security glitches, and the technology has yet to prove itself as the solution voters were looking for.
Such systems could allow voters and poll workers to place multiple votes, crash the systems by loading viruses, and fake vote tallies, according to studies commissioned by the states of California and Ohio within the past year. Makers of these systems have countered that the test settings were unrealistic. But that is not helping election officials sleep better at night.
"The suit also requests a formal finding that a failure to account for all ballots issued at any polling place constitutes evidence of potential fraud."
Group Seeks Tighter Ballot Security in San Diego
By ALLISON HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer
(08-08) 14:33 PDT San Diego, CA (AP) --
A voting-rights group has asked a judge to order tougher enforcement of anti-fraud measures in San Diego County for November's presidential elections, saying officials failed to investigate lapses in ballot security during February's primary.
"We goofed!" was the explanation a poll worker offered for why the total number of ballots cast at one precinct did not match the number of signatures in the voter log book, according to documents in the lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court.
Election workers at county headquarters accepted unsealed and unsigned boxes of ballots for processing, according to statements from volunteers who observed the February tally. A troubleshooting log indicated dispatchers told poll workers not to worry about missing seals after the county ran out of the red locking tabs.
"We don't know how the anomalies in the process affected the results," said lawyer Ken Karan, who filed the lawsuit July 31 on behalf of a member of the San Diego-based group Psephos. "But we do have an important election coming up and we want to insure that the results are as accurate as possible."
Karan said his group had presented its concerns in meetings with Deborah Seiler, San Diego's top election official, after the election but said he was not aware of any investigation or review by the registrar's office of potential tampering.
Show Me, Missouri: Voter Arrested for Upholding the Law
"Look, you are breaking their rules. If you don't get out of here, we are going to arrest you!"
The question I had in response was, "Their rules? What rules? Those are employees of the Election Board, they are under the mandate of the Election Board, and then the SoS. Aren't you more concerned about the breaking of state laws?" As it turns out, apparently they were not.
I will try to be as brief as possible with the description of my day as I can manage. But, since there are some sticky points, I will also try to be clear and complete. If anyone finds questions still hanging after reading this entry, and the comments already made above in response to Proud2Blib's post, I will gladly answer.
I, Galloglas, went to vote today and encountered difficuly. And, it is important to point out that this was not the first time I've run onto problems this year.
When I voted in Missouri's Presidential primary in February, 2008, I took the proper identification to my precinct and attempted to cast my ballot. The identification requirements are spelled out graphically on our Secretary of State's Web Site which can be found at http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/voterid /.
The Office of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner
July 23, 2008
For Immediate Release
SECRETARY BRUNNER ISSUES HISTORIC STATEWIDE VOTING SECURITY BEST PRACTICES
COLUMBUS, OH – Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has implemented the first in a series of voting security directives that have been crafted in partnership with a bipartisan workgroup of local elections officials.
The voting security directives are part of the secretary of state's focus on preparing "best practices," in partnership with local elections officials, for a successful Nov. 4, 2008 general election.
The secretary of state's office provided draft recommendations to county boards of elections and solicited their ideas and concerns before issuing these directives.
"Preparing for a successful election for our state depends on consistent standards no matter where someone votes. Every county will be developing security plans based on "best practices" developed in cooperation with local elections officials. This is designed to guarantee a uniformity of rights for all of Ohio's voters," Secretary Brunner said.
"Many of these security recommendations have been characterized as common-sense and are already in use across Ohio. Others will require training and new procedures by boards of elections. We believe these security procedures will help us meet our goal is to ensure voter confidence and to be prepared for any scenario, including a record turnout," she said.
The directives issued this week are:
* Directive 2008-57 provides security and risk-mitigation guidelines for ballots and election data media such as voting machine memory cards.
Senate Democrats and Republicans alike are now poised to pass H.R. 6304, known as the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a bill touted by both House and Senate leaders to be a compromise proposal to prior Senate Bill 2248. Unfortunately, H.R. 6304 may give the Bush administration, in its last months, the ammunition it needs to hijack the 2008 presidential election.
It has been known for some time that, since 2001, the Bush administration has conducted mass surveillance of the email and telephone calls made by American citizens. All electronic messages passing through switches in the US, regardless of whether they were international or domestic communications, have been systematically intercepted and screened by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Technologies, which were installed at major hubs of telecommunication companies throughout the nation copy and deposit all electronic messages into a giant NSA computer network. The NSA then uses complex algorithms to parse through these messages using matching criteria such as key words, phone numbers, and dates, and linking these data to further data--anything from credit card and bank records to movie rentals.
H.R. 6304 does not, on the face of it, require that these complex algorithms that are used to parse through our electronic messages be examined and approved by a FISA Court. The role of the FISA Court seems to be limited to approving the general design of the software used in conducting acquisitions of information.
National Experts to Give Evidence of Hacking Electronic Voting Machines
at Austin, TX Capitol Hearing, Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
VoteRescue and its Coalition Bring in Compelling Witnesses And Host Two Related Events
Who: VoteRescue and its Coalition, Texans for REAL Elections, bringing in experts to testify
What: National experts and former election officials debunk the myth of electronic voting security and accessibility for the disabled, and will present documented testimony before the House Committee on Elections’ Interim Hearing
When: Wednesday, June 25th, 9 a.m. PLUS two other events that day – media invited
Bruce Funk: Emery County Utah election official who in 2006 invited in the Black Box Voting “hacking team” to examine his Diebold touch screen machines with printers added. They discovered “the worst security holes ever found” in electronic voting systems.
Clint Curtis: Programmer from Florida who designed “vote-flipping” software while employed at Yang Enterprises in 2000; became a whistleblower who gave a deposition about this in court. (Clint was invited by the State to testify)
Jim March: Technology expert, Black Box Voting Board member, co-plaintiff in the 2004 California lawsuit against Diebold for running uncertified software in their machines, which Diebold lost. Jim will discuss the ineffectiveness of the federal certification process of electronic voting systems.
Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) Announces Pension Divestment Plan from United Technologies Corporation (UTX)
Members of pension funds in ten states and in Canada, including five teacher pension plans, urged to immediately contact plan to divest from military-industrial conglomerate UTX and all derivative holdings in UTX (mutual funds and hedge funds) due to likely takeover of Diebold (DBD), maker of voting machines. Columbus, Ohio (PRWEB)
March 19, 2008 -- The Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) announces its pension divestment plan from United Technologies
Corporation (UTX), a military-industrial conglomerate.
In a report published Monday, March 17, Financial Trader forecast that the proposed UTX takeover of Diebold (DBD), one of the largest makers of voting machines, is likely to be successful, especially as "UTX derives roughly 15% of its revenue from Civilian Security Systems." http://www.financialtrader.com/DBD_UTX_Merge_US_Votes_For_Profit.html UTX also includes engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, which has 11,000 military engines in service with 27 armed forces worldwide, and Sikorsky, manufacturer of the Black Hawk Helicopter.
There has long been good reason to worry about Diebold voting machines. Many are “black box” electronic machines that do not produce paper records, so voters have to accept the results they report on faith.
Diebold, however, has not inspired much faith. It has been accused of illegally using uncertified software on its voting machines,
exposing elections to possible tampering, and of making glitchy machines that misrecord votes.
Then there’s the little matter of the company’s CEO signing a letter before the 2004 election — in which his machines would be counting many
of the votes — saying that he was committed to helping deliver Ohio to President Bush.
(The Onion has a hilarious video up on Youtube, a mock news report about Diebold accidently releasing the results of the 2008 presidential
election before the voting occurs. View it here.)
UBS Verification Protocol Could End "Faith-Based" Voting 10,000 Election Simulation proves effectiveness of UBS ballot count validation system. See the Press Release Read the Report
Now on sale in the EDA Store
Witness To A Crime
"Irrefutable Evidence' that Bush/Cheney stole Ohio in '04 " -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
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Was 2004 Stolen?
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10,000 Election Simulation proves effectiveness of UBS ballot count validation system. 
