Election reform advocates had hoped Diebold touch-screen voting machines would be permanently decertified in the country’s largest “voting market” (as Diebold likes to refer to it) after a massive test of their AccuVote DRE machines earlier this year revealed a 20% failure rate. But a more recent test, secretly held at Diebold Election System’s McKinney Texas headquarters, apparently in violation of California state law, has resulted in what appears to be a last minute about-face from California’s Republican Sec. of State, Bruce McPhereson. The latest news has now thrown everything into doubt in the state concerning the future of electronic voting here.
Miriam Raftery of RAW STORY has the full skinny. Something smells very rotten in the state of California.
This is only the first step in stealing the vote in California in 2006. An additional step they have taken is they have removed the honest and trustworthy Editor of the Los Angeles Times and replaced him with a right-wing, Republican advocate. So they steal the election and the news media will slant the stories that everything was done in a democratic manner–BULLSHIT! This is a very well thought out attempt to deny Californians their contitutional rights. Any vote on a diebold machine is suspect. WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING NOW AND NOT WAIT UNTIL THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION IN 2006 WHEN THE SMELL WILL BE SO BAD YOU WONT BE ABLE TO EAT.
Republican Sec. of State, – KEY WORDS
Says it all.
Things are getting REAL interesting within the California SecState’s office. There are indications that some of the people involved such as their technical consultant Steve Freeman and at least some members of the technical advisory panel led by David Jefferson (including Jefferson?) are…"concerned" about what’s going on.
Freeman partially confirmed the Hursti report(!) and Jefferson’s panel appears to be astonished that the Diebold TSx version 4.6.3 ever made it out of the testing labs. That panel directly critiques the certification panels with language…well, lemme quote:
———–
Under one possible interpretation of the standards, the failure rate observed during these tests was more than 10 times higher than permitted by federal standards (which require a 163-hour MTBF). The failure to detect this fact during the ITA’s testing process appears to be due to serious defects in the testing methodology specified by federal standards. One lesson of this analysis is that the testing performed during the federal qualification process is apparently inadequate to ensure that voting machines will be reliable enough for use in elections.
———–
In other words, at least some of the *insiders* are getting disgusted.
More details at:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums...954/14296.html
Jim March
Well there you have it it looks like its time to take RICO action against Diebold, and straight to court for illegally never certifying these machines!!!!!
The secretary of state should be ousted from office, and obviously its going to take running Diebold down to get them out of the state!!!
ellen@votersunite.org
Doug E.
California will suddenly become a "RED" state, with Ohio-like discrepancies between exit polls and the "final count" on the DIEBOLD machines.
How can these machines keep being installed, in the face of so much data proving they are not secure??? Who is responsible for this?
Dan: It’s obviously spies and crooks responsible for it…..
These machines are illegal and were never certified…so they deserve to be ripped right out of the wall wherever they are, and taken to court along with Diebold.
Nail the justice department to investigate the facts around their "no certification" certification….
webmaster@usdoj.gov
By the way religious conservatives, maybe its time you join your HACK Michael "All christians are whackos" Scanlon in prison instead of be out on the street!????
"All of them are whackos and we love it" Michael Scanlon charged with conspiracy headed to prison
There’s nothing either religious, nor MORAL about any of you fakes!!!!!!!!!!! And now you’re FRONT AND CENTER before the whole world.
Doug E.
Question:
Was the Sec. of State of Ca. a Republican when they ran the test with 20% errors???
Or is this a new Sec. of State via Republican Schwartzenegger???
Jim #3
Was the victory against Diebold that Black Box Voting has won so far only on certain models of their machines?
Or are they violating the agreement.
Sounds like it is time for a class action lawsuit and an injunction.
The bastards have to cheat, otherwise they wouldn’t get more than three votes
So, they’re getting NASTY – backed into a corner and sharpening the claws.
Too much garbage-out lately to keep up with.
Here’s a topic of great importance that is O/T for this thread:
Re: HR 4241 18-Nov-2005 1:41 AM
BILL TITLE: Deficit Reduction Act
Find out how your Representatives voted.
If you don’t know exactly who your representatives are go HERE and enter your zip + 4
This bill passed at 2 a.m. this morning — what kind of chicanery is that? BY ONLY 2 VOTES.
This bill will be voted on again NEXT WEEK to finalize it. PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES to express your shock, dismay, anger, disbelief … etc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Budget Reduction Bill Heartless
[snip] “In the past few weeks, the American people have spoken out strongly against provisions in this bill that would take away nursing home staff, make students pay more for college and cut food stamps and home energy assistance for low income families and individuals…support that helps people survive and get ahead. Despite overwhelming public opposition, the Republican’s don’t get it. Our economy will grow more by investing in education, health care, and training, than by cutting taxes for the wealthy few who invest instead of work for a living,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin, who led an effort in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to restore cuts to the Medicaid program, said the bill is an insult to the millions of Americans struggling to pay for higher gas and heating costs, higher tuition bills, and higher medical bills. “It’s outrageous that these heartless slashes in vital services for families that need them will pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and nothing more – not body armor for our troops, not prescription drugs for seniors, not teachers in our classrooms, not housing for hurricane victims now being evicted from temporary quarters, and not homeland security. What’s next from this Administration and its cronies in Congress?,” she asked. [snip]
######
Remember what the Iraq war is costing us: $9 Billion per month.
Press release: Diebold Attempts to Evade Election Transparency Laws ncverifiable…
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Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
For Immediate Release: Friday, November 18, 2005
Contact:
Matt Zimmerman
Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
mattz@eff.org
+1 415 436-9333 x127
Diebold Attempts to Evade Election Transparency Laws
EFF Goes to Court to Force E-voting Company to Comply With
Strict New North Carolina Law
Raleigh, North Carolina – The Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) is going to court in North Carolina to
prevent Diebold Election Systems, Inc. from evading North
Carolina law.
In a last-minute filing, e-voting equipment maker Diebold
asked a North Carolina court to exempt it from tough new
election requirements designed to ensure transparency in
the state’s elections. Diebold obtained an extraordinarily
broad order, allowing it to avoid placing its source code
in escrow with the state and identifying programmers who
contributed to the code.
On behalf of North Carolina voter and election integrity
advocate Joyce McCloy, EFF asked the court to force Diebold
and every other North Carolina equipment vendor to comply
with the law’s requirements. A hearing on EFF’s motion is
set for Monday, November 28.
"The new law was passed for a reason: to ensure that the
voters of North Carolina have confidence in the integrity
and accuracy of their elections," said EFF Staff Attorney
Matt Zimmerman. "In stark contrast to every other equipment
vendor that placed a bid with the state, Diebold went to
court complaining that it simply couldn’t comply with the
law. Diebold should spend its efforts developing a system
that voters can trust, not asking a court to let it bypass
legal requirements aimed at ensuring voting integrity."
On November 4, the day that voting equipment bids to the
state were due, Diebold obtained a temporary restraining
order from a North Carolina superior court, exempting it
from criminal and civil liability that could have resulted
from its bid. EFF, with the assistance from the North
Carolina law firm of Twiggs, Beskind, Strickland & Rabenau,
P.A., intervened in the case on behalf of McCloy, the
founder of the North Carolina Coalition for Verified
Voting. In a brief filed Wednesday, EFF argued that
Diebold had failed to show why it was unable to meet
various new election law provisions requiring source code
escrow and identification of programmers. North Carolina
experienced one of the most serious malfunctions of
e-voting systems in the 2004 presidential election when
over 4,500 ballots were lost in a voting system provided by
Diebold competitor UniLect Corp. Local officials were
forced to re-run a portion of the election. The new
transparency and integrity provisions of the North Carolina
election code were passed in response to this and other
documented malfunctions that have occurred across the
country.
The North Carolina Board of Elections is scheduled to
announce winning voting equipment vendors on December 1,
2005.
For the brief filed in the case:
http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-v..._NC_Motion.pdf
For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archive..._11.php#004171
About EFF
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
-end-
Kira #10,
I’m confused – I went to bed last night with the understanding that this bill had been shot down. All the headlines were saying so.
I heard nothing contrary this morning. Did they have another one of those "stay until we get it our way" moments, or am I thinking of another similar bill?
Bluebear2: Richard Pombo apparently broke the law (and not just with Abramoff either) to arm-twist everybody to pass the budget bill from hell in the wee hours of the morning, a dirty underhanded act to try to weaken the democrats.
And you know the rest….they’d be voting on DIEBOLD MACHINES if people weren’t awake…
Doug E.
Bluebear2 – there was a separate budget proposal voted on last night that we could claim as a victory since it was the first budget vote the Republicans have lost in the House in over 10 years.
Please read the links provided & call your Representative(s) on this one.
Thanks, Kira
Thanks Kira – that other bill is the one I was thinking of.
Doug E – Pombo is the one of biggest slime buckets this state has produced. What a weasel. He’s also the one who introduced legislation to turn back the clock on years of protective measures for our national parks.
Pombo has his own problems now it looks like with Scanlon flipping on everybody in the Jack Abramoff trial……
Doug E.
When I went to vote last week it was certainly a strange experience. I have been voting absentee for the last few years in the hopes that my vote would actualy be counted and done so correctly. The last time I went to a polling place they had the cards with the punch out chads.
This year I screwed up my ballot – marked yes where I meant to mark no.
So I took the bad ballot to my local polling place to see what I could do. The personnel had to get out the manual and do some research to find the proceedure. I guess that’s ok since I would be assured proper proceedures had been followed.
They had me seal the ballot in its return envelope, sign it and place it in a bag marked "Spoiled".
They then had me sign in and gave me a new ballot to mark there. It was one where you color in the oval next to your reponse.
In the room, next to the check in counter, was a machine with an LCD display which hadd ESS company logo. This was not used during the process. I don’t know if it was a tabulator they ran the ballots through later when they were counting.
When I finished my ballot I was instructed to place it in another box. It was about 2 foot square and one foot deep. It had a slot on top. The ballot went in – didn’t matter what direction – and disappeared. An LCD readout on the top indicated I was voter #347 and I was given a reciept.
The damn think look like a PAPER SHREDDER!
Boy is my confidence ever high with this one!
This is exactly what we were afraid of all along. The CA Sec State who was very anti-Diebold ousted, replaced with a Republican. This is very, very scary.
And the MSM continues to deliberately distract and ignore.
WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO GROW A SET AND DO THEIR JOBS?!? WHEN IS ONE BRAVE NETWORK NEWS ANCHOR GOING TO GO OFF-PROMPTER AND TELL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE TRUTH??? JUST ONE!!!!
This is so upsetting I am beside myself.
If the Nazis seize California… God help us all.
Boxer. We need Senator Boxer on this.
I wonder if any of you fine folks at Black Box Voting have any direct connection to her? Or the 6 or 7 squad who live in CA (like me) could fax her office alerting her staff to keep an eye on this.
Of course we know that Boxer was the only senator to stand up to find the crooked election of ’04. And in this circumstance, she is also directly threatened. John Kerry said he cannot take point on this because of perception of sour grapes. Fine (dick.) But Senator Boxer, if she was to speak out about this on the Senate floor, could open the floodgates.
You might want to call up Boxer’s office and start a chain reaction….
Barbara Boxer’s website
Also you might try Senator Dorgan….
Senator Dorgan
Doug E.
Big Dan #7-
The last ELECTED Secretary of State in CA was Democrat Kevin Shelley. He resigned on March 1 of this year in the face of multiple investigations of his political and professional conduct.. Shelley was an activist against the e-voting industry. Arnold, the Gubernator, and the only Republican in California Government outside of our State legislature then selected the present Secretary of State, Republican Bruce McPhereson. Up to this point, McPhereson has been kept in check by the victories won in court in this state against Diebold, the strong Democratic majority in the populace and the State government here and the overwhelming failure of the Diebold touch screen voting machines in a massive test of their AccuVote DRE machines earlier this year, which revealed a 20% failure rate. No doubt he is now trying to answer to his Repug and corporate masters and will do everything he can to get these machines approved. It seems hard to believe that an unelected Republican hack can shove this down the throats of this very Democratic state. Guess we’ll find out.
Dredd:
You can read the final court decision in the case Bev and I won here:
CAElectionLaw.com pdf
KEY POINTS:
Diebold was "restrained" from doing a number of things, and was required to do others. One key thing they couldn’t do: hook up the central tabulator to the internet or aid in it’s happening (page 29 paragraph "s".
Whoops. The did exactly that in San Diego.
They’re also supposed to strip out Windows networking components that aren’t needed for Diebold’s functionality per the court order…we’re still examining the listings of running applications we’ve got but it looks like they blew that off too.
It gets better: the court maintains long-term control over these restrictions. See also page 34 paragraph 6.6 and page 37 item 13.
Folks, this is basically a restraining order against Diebold. Which, God help them, they’ve violated.
Yeah. We’re going to have plenty of fun with THIS.
Jim March
Black Box Voting Inc.
Jim #23
I noticed that part of the injunction is permanent ("Final Judgment and Permanent
Injunction") and other parts would be in effect up to and including the 2006 election.
Have your lawyers brought a motion, in the court who entered judgment for you, for an Order To Show Cause Why DESI Should Not Be Held In Contempt of Court or otherwise in violation of the injunction?
That would certainly seem to be in order.
Also I wonder if the EFF is aware of your victory, and if some of the findings of fact in your victory could be used in North Carolina and elsewhere.
Question:
Was the Sec. of State of Ca. a Republican when they ran the test with 20% errors???
Or is this a new Sec. of State via Republican Schwartzenegger???
Same guy Dan. I refuse to believe that the good people of California will stand for this.
Does anyone have contact information for the unions that defeated all of gubernator’s propositions? They were so effective in smacking him down, someone has to tell them they’re gonna try to steal the vote.
This is definitely a monumental problem. It must be stopped. Everyone should be prepared to get transcripts and be ready to go to Court. Put together a list of violations and arguments against certification. Some one has got to step forward and be a screener for these comments. We need to have sufficient facts to support challenges of anything we do.
I have written both of my CA senators asking them to fight Diebold/mcphereson on this. I am asking all reading this to do the same, and for sugestions as to who else could be contacted for help on this.
(my repug Bush/Delay sycophant congressman is of no help.) People of CA really need to unite against this .
😥
This is SO typical of the big-business connection to the Repug party. But this is even more dangerous than ENRON and IRAQ (read, Halliburton). Once we lose our right to Verified Voting, we lose any opportunity to influence and defeat the forces of evil that have taken us to the brink of financial and moral bankruptcy in just 5 short years.
I will be making as many contacts as possible to have this travesty stopped in its tracks!
It should be mentioned that there will be a rally tomorrow – Monday – at 10:00AM at the Secretary of State’s Office in Sacramento. 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 (Downtown Sacramento – 11th and "O" Streets) This is the day the generous Secretary of State has offered a "stenographer and tape recorder" (replacing the Voting Systems Panel) to receive public comment.
Numbers and publicity will be important, so on the chance some people reading BB can make it on such short notice, I’m just passing this along.
Also: CALL OR FAX:
Bruce McPherson, Secretary of State
916-653-6814 (main menu, press 6, then 3 – starting at 8:00 am Monday)
916-653-3214 (the FAX is on this weekend)
In Florida, attorneys are challenging the results of DUI cases, and getting them dismissed left and right by challenging that this electronic breathalyzer unit cannot be adequately checked by outside sources to see if it is functioning properly because of a protected source code.
This may be a good direction to take regarding the electronic voting issues, as clear precedent’s are being set regarding source code.
California voting is a job. I cannot believe the mismangement of our botes. In the last Nov 8th special elections, which included councilperson election for District 14th was a circus. The boxes are open at the polling place in the neighborhood, by untrained individuals, and by individuals working in certain campaign? what is this all about?
Many citizens of District 14th have express their concerns of this election, but yet, no one is responding. I have called three times with complaints, and yet no one is investingating, and soon they will have ingauration of our so call council person for 14th, an unknown, a failure in his previous job, as president of LAUSD, a person that has never been involved even in the community he has lived or lives. He has no knowledge of the issues we need to address, he has no knowledge of the communities he is to represent, but yet he got tenthousand votes over the 2nd candidate, 54%, there is no way people would have voted for this ideot, and I don’t believe 43% came out to vote, when the majority are latinos who do not vote…..
WHY ARE OUR BALLOTS SORTED AND COUNTED IN OUR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD BY PEOPLE THAT DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHEN I CALL NORWALK, THEY CONFIRM THAT THIS WAS AN APPROVED PROCESS, WHO KNOWS ABOUT THIS. THE BOXES ARE OPEN HERE AT THE POLLING PLACE, AND THEY ACTUALLY GO THROUGH THEM, SEPARATE THOSE THAT ARE NOT MARKET? WHY ARE THERE BALLOTS WITHOUT MARKINGS, i CAN TELL YOU WHY, THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN AT THE VOTING PLACE.