Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org
As we reported on Sunday, Dan Rather’s investigation of the voting machine industry is causing a stir. Apparently the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) decided that something in the Rather report did not match up with what ES&S had reported to them.
The voting machine company failed to disclose that their equipment was being made in a sweatshop in the Philippines even though they are supposed to reveal all such information to the federal EAC. In a strange fit of responsible behavior, the EAC has sent them a letter of reprimand (letter is posted in full below). Though the notice amounts to little more than a friendly slap on the wrist.
Similarly, the EAC has sent a letter to voting machine company Advanced Voting Systems (AVS), for secretly replacing mother boards in their systems without certification or approval. That letter is also posted at the end of this article.
An interview with Rather, earlier this afternoon on CNN’s Situation Room, is now posted at right. Rather’s startling report will be airing beginning this evening at 8PM EDT and will air on HD Net over the next few days. It will also be on-line for those who cannot get HD Net. We’ll try to provide links as soon as one becomes available. Our report from Sunday included a disturbing 12 minute preview version.
UPDATE FROM BRAD : Kim Zetter at WIRED adds a few details to this issue moments ago, including this interesting revelation of some ES&S sleight-of-hand to hide their Filipino sweatshop…
FutureLogic; Phoenix, AZPivot International; Lenexa, KS Ricoh Electronics; Tustin, CA Technical Support , Inc; Omaha, NE Xten Industries; Kenosha, WI
Notice that ES&S’s list does include Pivot International, based in Kansas, but it does not mention that Pivot actually has the machines assembled at the Teletech factory in Manila.
The full letters from the EAC can be found here [PDF]. A text version of both are found below…
VOTING SYSTEM TESTING AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAM
1225 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC. 20005
August 14, 2007
Election Systems & Software, Inc
11208 John Galt Blvd
Omaha, NE 68137
Attn: Steven M. Pearson, Vice President of Certification
RE: Notice of Non-compliance
Dear Mr. Steven M. Pearson
It has come to our attention that Election Systems & Software, Inc (ES&S) may be using a facility in Manila, Philippines to assemble some of its voting systems. As you know, it is a requirement for participants in the Election Assistance Commission’s Voting System Testing and Certification Program to disclose the locations of all manufacturing and assembly facilities. Information about the Manila facility was not included in the list of facilities ES&S provided to EAC.
Even though EAC has not issued any voting system certifications to ES&S voting systems, it is imperative that the company follow all of EAC’s reporting requirements to continue participating in our certification program. These reporting requirements are the cornerstone of EAC’s certification program, and we request that you immediately address this issue and provide EAC with a complete list of all facilities if the previously submitted information is incomplete. For more information about the reporting requirements, I refer you to Section 2 of EAC’s Testing and Certification Manual.
Consistent with Section 2.3.1.7 of EAC’s Testing and Certification Program Manual, please provide the EAC with a complete list of all ES&S manufacturing and assembly facilities within 30 days. Failure to timely comply with this notice by either providing the information requested or otherwise demonstrating compliance with our program will result in the suspension of your organization’s registration as a voting system manufacturer pursuant to Section 2.6 of EAC Testing and Certification Manual.
In the interest of successfully complying with the requirements of EAC’s program, I am confident you will immediately take the appropriate steps regarding our request for more information. Please contact me if you have questions.
Sincerely,
Brian Hancock
Director of Voting Systems Certification
Also to hear from the EAC recently was Advanced Voting Solutions (AVS). It seems that AVS had certified that they had made no hardware changes to their voting machines since some testing had been done in 2006. According to the Voting System Test Lab, iBeta, AVS had made a major change to their hardware, they changed the motherboard. AVS has two weeks to explain what happened or be suspended from participation.
VOTING SYSTEM TESTING AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAM
1225 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC. 20005
August 14, 2007
Mr. Howard Van Pelt
President
Advanced Voting Solutions (AVS)
1600 Redbud Blvd., #301
McKinney, TX 75069
Dear Mr. van Pelt:
iBeta Quality Assurance has recently informed the EAC that they have halted testing on AVS WINware 2.0.4 due to a breach of contract by AVS. These issues are outlined in the attached correspondence from iBeta.
Separate from the issues that have currently suspended testing, the correspondence from iBeta also noted that initial testing of your product found a hardware discrepancy to your voting system. While AVS claimed that the hardware was unchanged since environmental testing done in 2006, Wyle Labs, as a subcontractor for iBeta, determined via drawings submitted by AVS that a major hardware component (the motherboard) had been changed. Additional research by iBeta could not find any evidence to contradict the initial assessment of this anomaly.
To address this situation, please provide the EAC with a written clarification no later than August 21, 2007. Whether intentional or unintentional, the EAC considers discrepancies between a product submitted for certification and its documentation to be a serious matter which may subject AVS to the provisions of Section 2.6 of the EAC Testing and Certification Program Manual. Failure to respond to this request in a timely matter may initiate suspension procedures outlined in the above noted Section of the Manual.
Sincerely,
Brian Hancock
Director, Testing and Certification
Cc: Carolyn Coggins, iBeta
The EAC was shamed into this by the news of Rather putting this report out.
It would have never happened without that.
…and it’s cc’d to that other Republican criminal Caroline Coggins
Link
How can we find out where Diebold and Sequoia actually manufacture their machines?
Does the state of CA have any no sweatshop clauses for the state to buy things or the counties have it in their laws? Or is it only no slave labor?
This is the EVM neoCon form over substance once again special EAC Form:
(Form BS 101, Elitist, Inc., EAC Division).
I wonder how many of the other companies listed along with Pivot International also outsource manufacturing of their machines overseas, as Pivot Int’l did. I suspect most of the others do, too.
It is pretty commonplace these days for many companies to do the same. The corporate management may so take it for granted that it need not be mentioned. Of course, they deliberately want to avoid arousing the ire of American workers and consumers, too, by avoiding disclosing those facts.
I dunno what the EAC means by LOR (Letter Of Reprimand) But when I was in the military, you could get an LOR for a missed dentist appointment. An Article 15 for continuously missed dentist appointments. Putting two and two together, it seems the seriousness of the EAC’s LOR to the EVM’s are equal to that of a missed dentist appointment.
It also seems that Section 2.3.1.7 of their manual has already been broken, if they have misled the EAC for over thirty days anyway. I ain’t got time to play Mr. Tech manuals guy today, but seems that none of these stupid tech manuals would be be necessary if there were not electronic voting machines in the first place. It just adds an extra layer of confusion to everything, while the EVM’s don’t bother to follow the tech manual anyway. (In the military working on an aircraft we used to have to carry that tech manual with us!) SO both the EAC and the EVM’s don’t take anything seriously like they claim. At least that’s what I got out of all this.
Then my third observation, why are our voting equipment being made in a foreign country? Forget about the sweat shop for a moment–even though that’s bad too–and don’t tell me that the United States can’t dope/make chips, and assemble parts. If someone can swap a whole motherboard out without anyone knowing, and parts being made in a foreign country, who is to say there isn’t something logically destructive at the doping level as well. Has anyone bothered to look? I’d argue that would that simply mean that all machines need to be destroyed, in order to be checked for security, all by itself. Which means they shouldn’t be used because it’s a giant waste of money and a catch 22 with respect to looking at the logic at the doping level.
I won’t leave without a possible answer.
Folks that are so disabled that they can not hold a pencil and draw with it on a paper, should be allowed to use ANY existing technology to interface with a printer, and PRINT a ballot that is counted manually (e.g. NOT COUNTED BY A MACHINE) and if if necessary the voter can have someone else help fill out a Paper Ballot for them. The simple fact that folks are disabled should not be a reason to destroy the entire voting process.
While that could be rolled out very quickly the rest of these machines need to be reverse engineered for corrupt logic.
Why common sense does not prevail can only be attributed to corruption within those that control the physical voting systems, policies and procedures.
When will there be a policy or procedure that actually removes someone from office if the votes were not added properly?
In a big problem like this with lots of unknown dilemmas, I like sit back and visualize the earth from space. As long as the earth still orbits the sun. And we have people going into space has anyone bothered to come up with a way for an astronaut to vote from space?
I am not saying all electronics should not be used.
What I am saying is that if your so far disabled that you can not use existing technology to vote then perhaps sadly you should not be voting because the technology does not exist.
Obviously some electronics are needed to print paper ballots. NOT COUNT THEM.
Some electronics are needed for an astronaut to print a paper ballot. NOT COUNT THEM.
Why hasn’t someone came up with a separate date for the disabled to cast ballots if being disabled causes such a bottleneck on the day of the election.
Why does there need to be ONE DAY to vote?
Why is there not more security built into paper ballots, we spend all the time and money on protecting the American Dollar from being counterfeit. Why can’t the same technology be used on paper ballots.
Really this whole thing comes down to printing technology. And then the security and public oversight of the printed output.
The other half of this is in my opinion the public financing of elections.
No more big money, special interest crap.
That would go a long way to getting the rotten CMSM (corporate main stream media) to actually present debates that actually have meaning instead of the same old questions over and over that have nothing to do with the actual needs of the people and the real state of the United States in 2007…08..09 etc..
If the CMSM can not control these debates then the debates will be more meaningful.
And what’s with the electoral votes? Are we basically saying that voting has no meaning itself because electoral votes are all that matter. And when they don’t the courts are the only thing that matter.
Courts that I might add have politically questionable people running them now. A judge might be able to say they are non-partisan, but you know damn well that’s pure lies.
Phil #7, #8
I wonder if it would be instructive to consider what past empires have done or not done, and the effects voting had or did not have on those empires?
I know that the Inspector General of the GAO has indicated in a very recent report that we are going the way of the Roman Empire, and that the United States may fall and cease to exist as Rome did.
And Stalin was a voting afficionado as we know, and yet his empire fell as well.
Both Rome and Stalinist Russia used paper ballot voting systems, because EVM systems did not yet exist.
Thus, as you seem to allude to, I too think we must consider more than just the inanimate objects in our election system.
We must consider election officials and their honesty as well … if we want truly democratic elections.
Okay, why is it that ‘ol Dan seem like he is talking in measured tones these days (like he’s afraid of something)?
Is it because he is afraid of saying something that might be misCONstrued by the Right Wing Noise Machine?
Or is he trying to tell us something else?
If you haven’t noticed, watch the clip again.
This isn’t the only time either, it’s like right out of the Soviets
Is the spy-crazy government spying on the EVM makers by giving the EAC spy satellite info about them … such as factories in the Phillipines … or instead are they spying on everyday Americans?
Check this:
(WSJ, emphasis added). There must be some strange things going on behind the scenes, because think of what they are not telling us about the spy work they are doing.
Floridiot #10
I did not see your post because I had not refreshed yet. Had I noticed your post I would have included you, not just Phil, in my post #11.
The subject of my post may have something to do with what Rather does not say and why … and it may also apply to what congress and judges do or do not say and why.
Rove may have left because political strategy is no longer needed in a Stalinist country. The_zapkitty pointed out that Stalin did some really, really good paper ballot elections, so cheer up all, better elections may be on the way! 🙂
Big Brother is a republican and he is watching you!
Another angle on e-vote machines, besides stealing elections: they are made in sweatshops with the standards of 3rd-world countries, much like Chinese toys and toothpaste. Thousands of people die in China from rabies, here it’s a huge story if one person dies. Our standards are now becoming 3rd world standards, due to globalization and having American corporations making products for more $$$ in 3rd world countries.
This should be a rallying cry for “conservatives” against e-vote machines. But, showing their true colors, it isn’t.
Wow.
How dare ES&S not fully discplose their unethical and possibly illegal activities to a group that has refused for years to properly regulate ES&S and hold them accountable.
While I’m outraged, how dare criminals not confess their crimes to their defense lawyers. And how dare gays in the military not tell when they are not asked. And how dare Bush and Gonzales lie to a congress that repeatedly refuses to hold nobody accountable for lying.
This also means that Tony Sabo was factually innocent of the criminal charges he was convicted of in Virginia – destruction of an AVS “voting machine”.
We just couldn’t get the proof together before trial – and God knows I tried.
Very goddamn interesting.