The results of new, unprecedented testing of e-voting machines in the state of Ohio are in, and the findings mirror the landmark results of a similar test carried out earlier this year in California.
“Ohio’s electronic voting systems have ‘critical security failures’ which could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State,” says Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in a statement which accompanied the release of the report today on the SoS’ website. Brunner, a Democrat, was joined in her press conference (video now here), called today to discuss the results of the testing, by Ohio’s Republican House Speaker, Jon Husted.
Brunner is calling for a ban on all Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems in the state, along with a ban on precinct-based optical-scan paper based systems, charging that the central counting of ballots at the county would eliminate “points of entry creating unnecessary voting system risk.”
The State’s bi-partisan “Evaluation & Validation of Election-Related Equipment, Standards & Testing” (EVEREST) report finds, as did California’s study, as did virtually every other independent test of such systems, that violating the security and manipulating the “federal approved” electronic voting systems, is a breeze.
“To put it in every-day terms,” Brunner said, “the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant.”
“The results underscore the need for a fundamental change in the structure of Ohio’s election system to ensure ballot and voting system security while still making voting convenient and accessible to all Ohio voters,” said Brunner, who has come under fire from Election Integrity advocates for failing to act quickly enough concerning the voting systems to be used in next year’s crucial election, as well as for failing to seek accountability for the exceedingly well-documented and now-infamous charges of election fraud and voter suppression in the 2004 Presidential election under her predecessor J. Kenneth Blackwell.
While the effort is long overdue in Ohio, actions being taken by Brunner, in light of the test results, are less stringent than those taken by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen after tests in her state. Brunner’s recommendations, some of them quite puzzling, are likely to come under some fire in the bargain, from Election Integrity advocates in Ohio and elsewhere…
Results of the Ohio tests were submitted to Brunner’s office last week. The testing was carried out by several teams of testers from both the commercial and academic computer science and security communities, and included systems used in the state of Ohio, as made by Diebold (now known as Premier), Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Hart Intercivic,
All of the systems were found vulnerable to easy tampering.
“In an era of computer-based voting systems, voters have a right to expect that their voting system is at least as secure as the systems they use for banking and communication,” Brunner said today. However, while making a number of recommendations for changes to the voting system, as based on the testing, she has notably not decertified any of the vulnerable systems, as she would be allowed, according to Buckeye State statute.
After testing In California, Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified all of the states voting systems, and re-certified them under stringent new security requirements. Among them, the allowance for only a single DRE voting system made by either Diebold or Sequoia Voting Systems can be used in a polling place in order to marginally meet federal voting requirements for voters with disabilities. She mandated that the so-called “paper trails” produced by those systems be 100% hand-counted after each election.
Criticism from the Election Integrity Community
Columbus Free Press investigative journalist’s Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, contend that Brunner’s admissions in the wake of EVEREST testing means that “Ohio’s top election official has finally confirmed that the 2004 election could have been easily stolen.”
Pointing to the similar findings from the California study, the Free Press — which has been perhaps the most assiduous of media investigators into what happened during Ohio’s 2004 Presidential election — alleges in their report today on EVEREST, that the findings suggest vulnerabilities in America’s — and specifically Ohio’s — voting system are far worse than has been generally acknowledged by the public and the media:
Coming in the state that decided the 2004 election for George W. Bush, Brunner’s confirmation of the electoral system’s vulnerabilities adds huge new weight to the charge that the Buckeye State’s vote count was stolen.
Fitrakis and Wasserman go on to point out that while the official margin of victory for Bush in Ohio, the state that determined the result of the election was “less than 119,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast,” those results “varied by 6.7% from exit poll results, which showed a Kerry victory.” The Exit Polls in 2004, they go on to report, had an official “margin of error of about 1%.”
They also point out that though all 88 counties in Ohio were ordered by a federal judge to retain their ballots from the ’04 election, 56 of them either “destroyed” or “lost” some “1.6 million ballots, cast and uncast, needed for definitive auditing procedures.”
Both Brunner and State Attorney General Marc Dann, another recently elected Democrat, have come under fire from Election Integrity advocates for failing to hold anyone accountable for the destruction of those ballots, as well as for several well-known acts of improprieties by county officials across the state in 2004 which allegedly results in millions of uncounted and uncast votes, predominately in Democratic-leaning minority areas of the state.
Though central tabulators made by the same companies were in use during the 2004 election, most of the states newer DRE electronic voting systems where not implemented until the 2005 election when still-unexplained results managed to turn down a number of election reform measure that were on the ballot under Blackwell’s reign. Some 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties had implemented touch-screen systems made by Diebold for that election.
Each subsequent election has led to embarrassment for residents of Ohio, most notably in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) where Brunner removed the entire Board of Elections shortly after taking office in early 2007.
Could New Recommendations Lead to Still More Trouble?
Brunner’s recommendation, and failure to decertify the most dangerous of the voting systems, could lead to even more trouble ahead for Ohio.
Voting system and security experts have previously argued that decentralized precinct-based counting was more secure than central, county-based counting since results could be both counted, and posted at the polling place on election night, prior to transport of ballots, and vulnerable recording media to county offices.
During the 2004 election, investigators have maintained, chicanery occurred at the county level on election night. One such now-infamous incident occurred in Warren County, one of the last to announce results for the November 2004 election, when a supposed terrorist threat led county officials to shut the public and media out of the counting room. The unprecedented action still remains unexplained to this day. Nobody at either the FBI or Dept. of Homeland Security has admitted to giving such a warning to Warren County, and the officials in Warren who claimed they did have never offered the names of any such individuals.
Neither Brunner nor Dann have investigated the disturbing allegations surrounding that incident either, to our knowledge.
Central tabulators which process paper-based optical-scan ballots are notoriously vulnerable to hacking as well. Though, in theory, proper audits of paper ballots might reveal tampering in the event that a tabulator is hacked, decentralized counting and posting of results is generally acknowledged by experts to make such tampering far more difficult to accomplish without detection.
Brunner’s statement admits that “the researchers commented that with the lack of technical measures in voting system design, its integrity ‘is provided purely by the integrity and honesty of election officials.'” Such officials would still be responsible for overseeing all tabulation at the county level under Brunner’s new recommendations.
A recent report from Houston, earlier this month, highlighted the ease by which a single individual could change the results for an entire county election with just the push of a few keystrokes on a county-based central tabulator.
VotersUnite.org’s Executive Director, John Gideon, a frequent contributor to The BRAD BLOG, notes that central-based ballot scanning also makes recommendations by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) for notification of over-voting on ballots, virtually impossible.
“The vendors are already lining up to sell their expensive, high-speed scanners to Ohio,” he tells us. He also pointed out problems seen in recent elections with counties who have “outsourced” their counting to voting system vendors at the county level, instead of relying on the more decentralized and more transparent precinct-based optical-scan systems, while mentioning that he’s so far had difficult finding information in the EVEREST report that is critical to such vote-counting methods.
“All the stuff I’ve seen in there so far refers to DREs, not op-scan,” Gideon said.
In addition to central based optical-scanning, Brunner made several recommendations that would push the state closer to all absentee (“vote-by-mail”) voting.
She has recommended “no fault” absentee voting and “Election Day Vote Centers” to combine precincts into “super precincts”.
Election experts have long regarded absentee voting as the most vulnerable to fraud, manipulation and “vote-buying”. While Voting Centers have had a short, but storied history of recent failure in places like Denver, where technical problems during the ’06 election created impossibly long lines, and likely kept hundreds of thousands of voters from being able even cast a vote.
Brunner has also recommending that special “issues only” elections, such as the one to be held next August in Ohio, be carried out as a “vote-by-mail” election, with no in person voting.
While Democrats across the country, including even California’s SoS Bowen, have begun to recommend “vote-by-mail” as a cure to the woes of electronic voting, many Election Integrity advocates are warning against such a move, arguing that both transparency and ballot secrecy is greatly diminished by mail-only elections. The possibilities of fraud, they also argue, are greatly increased in the bargain.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s page, with links to report from the EVEREST testing, is available here.
Dump em, or get off the pot lady.
Okay, I get it now, a recommended ban with just as stinky an alternative, correct?
Somehow I don’t get the warm fuzzies yet!
Wait …I’m confused…two democrats (Bowen and Brunner) are gonna dismantle the system that got them elected legitimately….so we can go back to a time when voter fraud and mistakes disenfranchised their party?
Hip hip Hoooray!!!
I’m starting to like this plan.
{ED NOTE: OMSmedia is the far-rightwing Don Haas, the brother of San Diego’s far-rightwing former Registrar of Voters (and one of the county’s worst, as he’d never met a Diebold system he didn’t love, nor a voting system he wasn’t willing to make LESS transparent by shutting out voters from the ability to have any accountability at all.) Also please note that Brunner’s study was a bi-partisan study and she was joined in her announcement today by the Republican speaker of the Ohio Legislature. Don, since you have a conflict of interest in discussing these items, it would be nice if you mentioned it when making such comments, so I don’t have to. Transparency, ya know? I realize the Haas’ bros. are not big fans of that, however. — BF}
The Ohio SoS needs to do more than release the umpteen-millionth study proving the machines are hackable. We already knew that.
No one can take her seriously when she proposes “remedies” that take exactly the steps needed to open up the most powerful attack vectors for optical scan voting.
No one should take her seriously until she holds the Ohio elections officials accountable in Warren County (and she needs to do as tough-minded Kentucky auditor Crit Luallen does, and turn them over to every level of prosecution she can find, in order to bypass their crony army).
No more excuses. If Kentucky can clean up its mess, Ohio is certainly sophisticated enough to clean up its corruption problem. I have lost count of how many Kentucky officials, including elections officials, have gone to jail after Crit Luallen’s audit/turn ’em over to multiple agency prosecutors approach. Even more have had to resign.
Brunner is a former judge. She certainly knows what it means when records are destroyed in violation of a court order (presumption of a crime).
After looking at the characters she proposed bringing in for the study (including Scott Konopasek’s outfit, hello!) and watching her refuse to even meet with citizens carrying armloads of hard evidence that election laws were broken, I’m no fan of Brunner.
Bev has just made a point the size of Jupiter… more than one. This has been studied to death. Dispositive action is what we need… yesterday… long ago… this is beyond the beyond idiotic. It’s as if the entire government is lined up against clean elections.
It isn’t as if there weren’t thousands of other travesties we could work on.
Why the hell can’t we just SOLVE this one already!
WTF! Why would citizens just sit back and say, “Ok, just count our elections in the back room, we’ll believe anything you say about the outcome”? What has the world come to. It is that the vendors are so intertwined with the ROV and the SOSs that NO ONE, NO LOGIC, NO SENSE OF DECENCY, NO CARING FOR TRANSPARENCY AND HONESTY can be found in SOSs and ROVs? Is that where we are?
Pulling scanners out of the precincts (which I’m not a fan of having them there in the first place but if they won’t do hand counts in the precincts either) means we have NOTHING to compare the results coming out of the central tabulator to. Thus there is no “check and balance”, the very concept that the constitution envisioned in establishing this republic. to allow citizens to ever, ever be able to verify if ANY election is fixed or not.
This kind of trend, including the infamous VBM, has got to stop. We HAVE to rise up and say HELL NO, WE WON’T GO – this system and this administration are a sham and we just won’t take it any more!”
Just send a wave of those senor citizens up there to show them some Cleveland justice!
Hey, we are observing the legacy of imperialists and nationalists, the major part and parcel of our national fantasy since the embryonic advent of the military industrial complex at the dawn of the industrial age.
The brand of psychology nurturing it to this day believes that what we do is ipso facto valid, because as the head of the civil rights division of the Department of
JusticeJust Us puts it, good imperialist nationalistic white folk live longer than underlings.America does pure and upright elections as a beacon to the world is the doctrinal talking point.
But as we know we are not in America any longer Toto, we are living in AmurKKKa, the land of the
freefee takers and the home of thebravegrave makers.Like the song says:
(America, by Paul Simon). Only problem is, America has been replaced by “AmurKKKa”, and so the lost will not be found.
How will this affect spending as one way to improve the election machine fiasco? Start with California where SoS Bowen started this type of action:
(Wikipedia). And that 6th largest economy in the world has some problems:
(NBC 11 News, emphasis added). Meanwhile a bank the size of California or so is in emergency mode too:
(Breitbart, emphasis added). Is it about time for somebody to tell these experts that they are “doin a heckuva job“?
Voting machine improvement by extravagant expenditures may have been dealt a death blow by all this fiscal wonderfulness, because it was not too long ago that houses in parts of Ohio where sold off cheaper than automobiles!
And that was at the beginning of this fiscal emergency. Hunker down and hang on.
Brunner wouldn’t take the well-researched CA study at face value, and wasted months doing unpublished duplicate tests. Now, she wants new systems in place in 60 days. Also, nobody in OH has started a suit for refunds from the machine mfr’s.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
C = droppin like a rock.
http://finance.google.com/finan...nt=ob&q=C
Federal Workers need only look at their TSP.
(What did you loose yesterday? 4000? 5000? 6000? 10,000?) Or did you just pump and dump AAPL?
With the mainstream corporate media pushing candidates, I predict…. (note this is my opinion as of 15 DEC 2007)
1. I predict, Hillary Clinton will be the next president (regardless of the nasty disenfranchisement tricks and secret electronic tabulation of actual votes)
I hate to say that, I’d RATHER Kucinich win, but I don’t see Dennis Kucinich getting any public debate or airtime like the other Corporate Owned
playerscandidates. I personally like and will vote for Kicinich. If your republican I hope your alternative is Ron Paul. But I don’t think Paul is as much as a leader as Kucinich is -just my opinion.2. I predict, we are already in a recession and that it’s not made apparent yet. (maybe they’re shredding the books still?)
I believe the motive is to destroy the dollar completely and move on to the Amero. I am thinking the only protection is to hold physical gold. Cause chaos has broke loose with trading. It will take DECADES to fix.
3. I predict, that these electronic voting machines that “tabulate votes electronically” will continue to grow and completely replace our ideal of “paper ballots hand counted under the sun with public oversight.” All our fighting will be for nothing, because the powers that be don’t care, they are drunk on power, and if allowed to continue down their path will destroy all life on earth.
4. I predict, that now that most of our civil rights have been removed from the oath breakers shredding the US Constitution; the powers that be will start destroying people by using their new gained power. This will be as simple as oiling the squeaky wheels or completely destroying those of us who would shine a bright light on the cracks of this impenetrable dark fortress. Furthermore slowly over time more and more rights will be removed until we are in Martial Law under these fascists.
5. I predict, oil goes to $300 a barrel no matter who is in charge of the USA. For those that can remember the fist fights at the filling stations, it will be worse and this will happen before oil hits $300. People will die in the streets for stealing or protecting oil. I don’t know the exact price that this will happen. But it also doesn’t need to happen if vehicles were converted to burn steam using special electronics, plasma timing and the resonant frequency of atoms beneficially. (note: screw electrolysis !!)
6. Technology goes way beyond what we are being told.
7. The Media will consolidate into a horrible singular voice, net neutrality will be an asterisk With communications already screwed up thing are going to get much worse, those who own the electronics and the networks will profit at the suffering of the people.
8. Death will be real bad. Not sure when it happens but if our unsustainable course continues it will be worse than ever in known history. Very few or nothing at all will survive.
In John McGloghlin style — Bye Bye
~phil
By the way I hate Citi, they’re the ones that call me in the middle of the day for no reason!
Must have left an extra BOLD, this post closes that tag.
{Ed Note: Not anymore, Phil. Gotta do it from the main software now. –99}
Way to get to the substance of the report Bev!
Clearly this is all about 2004: How could a risk assessment of voting systems not mention Warren County once?!?
You’re on to something BIG!
Perhaps you will investigate what underhanded forces were at work when Ohio’s constitution gave the SOS different duties and responsibilities than KY gave to its auditor. Perhaps you can also unearth why more former judges are not doing something about a violation of sitting federal judge’s order to preserve the ballots when he’s not doing anything?
Among all of truckloads of 2004 evidence, did you send any of the “umpteen-million” studies on ES&S or on GEMS with Digital Guardian to her before she started? Care to cite any now?
Clearly you should share some of your secrets about How To Be Taken Seriously.
Your right again 99, Bev has put her into very clear perspective. Thanks Bev! But as to your lament,”Its as if the entire government were lined up against clean elections” I would say this audio may help understand why:
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrit...k.php?id=47321
Its about an hour long interview of Daniel Estulin who has been researching the Bilderbergers for years and has just written a book on them. Stay safe dude! After listening to it you come to understand both parties are involved in this group as well as many msm people, and megacorporate heads. By keeping their candidates from both sides in place, they are destroying our constitution which may be the only thing that stands in the way of their total world control. Seriously worth a listen, this guy is no ranting crazy.
I heard Estulin talking about it on Guns and Butter a month or so ago. Very informative. He’s certainly a lot more balanced about it than the rest of the people up in arms about Bilderberg, CFR, etc. I got the feeling that he really does have a good source and has been working patiently for a long time.
Yeah, I figured you already knew. Who knows though, maybe some more people will listen, get a grip, and start thinking seriously about saving our Constitution.
Hey folks, Things are so mellow in canuckland lately,Though, Shock, I’ve had my sygate firewall tell me I’m being tracked by the -honest to goodness- ‘US ARMY’ after writing politically! Hope I can class action one day… It seems hard to believe that after 7 years of ‘hell’ there isn’t a more local mainstream effort to get people to ALSO volunteeringly record their Vote on an anti-voting fraud data base to ‘Make sure their votes count’ and have them counted by people working for ‘Political Integrity’. Hard Drives are cheap. Tell people to also register their vote online! Hard to fraud things up if ‘They’ don’t know who is on another easy to check database. Best Wishes.
Ohio: Further confirmation of a Kerry landslide
TruthIsAll
http://us.share.geocities.com/e...ponse.htm#Ohio
On December 14, 2007, Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman reported that the Ohio Secretary of State confirmed that the 2004 election could have been stolen:
“Ohio’s Secretary of State announced this morning that a $1.9 million official study shows that “critical security failures” are embedded throughout the voting systems in the state that decided the 2004 election. Those failures, she says, “could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State.” They have rendered Ohio’s vote counts “vulnerable” to manipulation and theft by “fairly simple techniques.” Indeed, she says, “the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant.” In other words, Ohio’s top election official has finally confirmed that the 2004 election could have been easily stolenâ€.
—–
“The final official tally for Bush—less than 119,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast—varied by 6.7% from exit poll results, which showed a Kerry victory. Exit polls in 2004 were designed to have a margin of error of about 1%.
In various polling stations in Democrat-rich inner city precincts in Youngstown and Columbus, voters who pushed touch screens for Kerry saw Bush’s name light up. A wide range of discrepancies on both electronic and paper balloting systems leaned almost uniformly toward the Bush camp. Voting procedures regularly broke down in inner city and campus areas known to be heavily Democratic.
In direct violation of standing federal election law, 56 of 88 counties have since destroyed all or part of their 2004 election data.â€
__________________________________________
The Implausible Final Ohio Exit Poll – matched to an official corrupt vote
Kerry won the unadjusted (WPE) Ohio Exit Poll by 54.4-45.6% and the 12:22am Composite (adjusted) by 52.1-47.9%.
Bush won the2:06pm Final (2020 respondents) by 50.9-49.1% in which vote shares and weights were adjusted to force a match to the recorded Ohio vote. Of course, the Final 2pm National Exit poll was forced to match the recorded National vote. It’s Standard Operating Procedure.
Using preliminary 12:22am Ohio exit poll weightings in the Final, it would have been necessary to inflate the Bush vote shares to implausible levels to match the recorded vote. So the weights were adjusted in favor of Bush to minimize the vote share inflation:
First-time Voters
Of the 14% who were first-time voters, 55% were for Kerry. Are we to believe that he won just 47% of the other 86%?
When Decided
Of the 21% who decided in the month prior to the election, 62% voted for Kerry. Are we to believe that he won just 45% of the 79% who decided earlier? Did Bush lead by 10% in any of the pre-October polls?
Party ID
The weights changed from 38D/35R to 35D/40R, a 7.9% shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 17% of Democrats to match the recorded vote. He had 8%.
Ideology
Liberal/Conservative weights changed from 21/32 to 19/34, a 9.5% shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 23% of Liberals to match the recorded vote. He had 13%.
Voted for Senate
Democratic/Republican weights changed from 43/57 to 36/64, a 16.3% shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 14% of those who voted for the
Democratic Senate candidate. He had 7%.
Election Models: calculating the True Vote
1)The Election Calculator determined that Kerry won by 54.1-45.9% (1.22% annual voter mortality, 5% of votes uncounted in 2000)
2)The True Vote Model had Kerry winning by 51.5-48.5% (0.87% total mortality).
3)Based on 3% of total votes cast were uncounted and a 6.8% switched vote rate, Kerry won by 53.3-46.7%.
There was also a Secretary of State directive not to destroy them. She’s the secretary of state. It was a directive of the office she runs that was violated. She can do something about that.
When a Chinese company sells a defective toy in America, we can’t pull it off the shelves fast enough! We want to know how those toys got into the country in the first place!
But when study after study after study after study show that we’ve purchased defective voting machines by manufacturers who seem to lie more than they truth, we keep using the SAME testing labs (or personnel; Ciber’s guy just moved over to Wyle), we have the SAME people that certified the NASED stuff on the EAC technical guidelines committee, we keep buying from the SAME companies.
We know what it looks like to take a problem seriously. You recall all the Tylenol bottles. You pull the Chinese toys off the shelf. You ban imports of beef from countries that had infected stock. You call in all the Ford Pintos.
Yes, the report does add more to the pile of information about defective voting machines. But the procedural recommendations roll out the red carpet for wholesale fraud with the optical scans. And we can see that Jennifer Brunner isn’t about to topple this house of cards.
Kevin Shelley had the same position, and at least he did refer Diebold for criminal prosecution. She could do the same.
Bev,
With all due respect, anything is possible to those who do not know what they’re talking about.
Does Ohio really need more dilettantes solving its election’s problems on the internet?
“BEVOHIO,”
With all due respect, you’re someone with an agenda. Because you don’t show yourself, either it’s not proper for you to be here, or else you’re a gutless, cowardly Bev-bashing troll, and nothing more.
BEVOHIO,
OHIO needs it’s election process repaired from top to bottom. If that state isn’t screwing people from long lines, vote caging, counting in secret by using a fake DHS terrorism alert, flipping votes electronically (where nobody can see or validate) or destroying records that were supposed to be saved, denying recounts and god knows what other nasty tricks we still haven’t heard about. OHIO is a disaster.
So let’s see Bev Harris has fought against one or more of these problems.
And BEVOHIO has done what exactly besides attack Bev’s character?
Give me a break.
Since this report on voting machines has been issued by the Ohio secretary of state, we can assume that voting results from counties in Ohio using these machines is suspect.
Given that, how can anyone have faith in the recent congressional election results on Dec. 11 in OH-05? Are there plans for a manual recount? A new election on paper ballots? Or does the secretary of state have no plans for ensuring fair and accurate ballot counting in Ohio during actual elections? I guess we can all assume that the newest Republican congressman was appointed regardless of whether he was elected or not.
It’s about time you fellas got your act together.
Dont beat about the bush like women,make it clear suspension of elections will not be tolerated.
Attacked Bev’s character? When? Where? The only character assassination I’ve seen has been of Secretary Brunner and the entire bipartisan statewide group of election officials and citizen poll workers who have been lumped together and treated with contempt.
Bev’s character is not for me to judge any more that the character of Secretary Brunner, both of whom I believe are committed to election integrity. However, I do question Bev’s logic and grasp of the particulars. And I don’t think that the many incredibly important things she has done to promote election integrity entitle to immunity from questioning of her false statements or non-sequitur criticisms.
I question the relevance of 2004 to the specific issues of the voting system risk assessment conducted by numerous independent scientists who all agreed that there were serious problems with the voting systems. Whatever merit there is to criticism about 2004, it has nothing to do with the study.
I question if such a thorough review had ever been conducted of Ohio’s CURRENT set of voting systems (of which how many were used in 2004? anyone? anyone?) including ES&S and the Diebold GEMS system being used with Digital Guardian.
I question why Bev doesn’t know that all but one of the counties who intentionally destroyed 2004 election materials did so after the previous SOS told the counties that they were able to legally destroy such materials and before Marbley or the SOS ordered the materials preserved.
I question the value of focusing on irrelevant falsehoods instead of addressing Ohio’s many REAL problems and challenges.
Vote fraud, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov’t. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov’t.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and sve this country (Tea Party TODAY).
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov’t and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
Let me draw a line for you:
Brunner’s report concludes with recommendations that centralize control over chain of custody, handing it over to insiders. Counting in secret and using a non-public chain of custody for ballots invites tampering.
Here’s what 2004 has to do with it: She already knows that some Ohio elections insiders in 2004 participated in violations of election law and vote theft. Or, if she does not know this, she should. Perhaps it would help if she would stop refusing to meet with the citizens who gathered photographic evidence.
Human nature is such that you cannot design a credible public election system that depends on trusting insiders. Ohio elections history is such that it is outright crazy to centralize counting and chain of custody even more, giving over more control to insiders and blocking public counting, public chain of custody.
Brunner’s report isn’t just about voting machine issues — its grand finale is a set of recommendations that IRRETRIEVABLY BREAK CHAIN OF CUSTODY AND CENTRALIZE INSIDER CONTROL, handing it over to a set of insiders who were involved in violations of election law in 2004.
REGARDING CONTEMPT: MY CONTEMPT IS FOR THE “TRUST ME” ELECTIONS MODEL.
I happen to believe that poll workers are the salt of the earth. It is Brunner who treats them with contempt when she recommends doing away with polling places and bringing all the ballots to a central location to count.
The “Trust Me” elections model was inappropriate in the first place because it fails to protect and secure our rights as citizens to retain sovereignty over our government.
The “Trust Me” model has collapsed altogether. If you doubt this please read the collection of over 4 dozen mainstream media reports and audit reports on election officials showing them committing felonies, like identity theft, forgery, and grand larceny, which I have compiled here: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/moonshine3.pdf (I limited the report to 8 pages; I found so many examples of elections workers committing felonies I could have done a 40-page report, but who could endure reading it?)
Obviously we have many honest elections officials, but The Trust Me model requires 100% of them, along with their employees, technicians and vendors to be honest at all times. That’s never going to happen, we already know it isn’t happening, again, please read the evidence in the above report.
The “Trust Me” model means that citizens are only sovereign over the instruments of government they have created IF THE INSIDERS ARE HONEST — the “Trust Me” model will therefore produce a progressively more corrupt government.
The remedy is to make sure THE PUBLIC is able to view chain of custody and the counting. I sometimes hear officials touting the “Trust Me” model saying “all models can be corrupted.” Well, not very easily, if you simplify, keep chain of custody of the votes public at all times, and count them in public while still at the polling place.
The Trust Me elections model is dead. Stick a fork in it. Any public official still saying we have to base elections on trust of insiders should have a laugh track accompany their statements.
Bev,
First let me say I’m sorry if my disagreement comes across as inflamatory or disrespectful.
Your statements are rife with inaccuracies and falsehoods that are not helpful to addressing the real issues.
There is no “trust me†model anywhere in the report, either literally or figuratively. This is entirely your own gross mischaracterization.
Nothing that would “centralize control over chain of custody.â€
No “counting in secret.â€
She has met personally with countless citizens who have presented her with evidence (e.g., Richard Phillips Hayes and “Honest†Paddy Shaffer).
No “CENTRALIZED INSIDER CONTROL.â€
She most certainly does not recommend “doing away with polling placesâ€
Be as skeptical or cynical as you want; just be informed and factual.
Well, I for one will address the lies of the previous post later tonight, after I get back from running some errands.
But to say “no “”counting in secret”” ” is an outright lie, and thus anything else the troll above is posting should be suspect as well.
The report DOES recommend moving counting to more centralized locations. It proposes people vote in super precints…so much for poor people voting close to their homes.
Someone is telling lies in this thread, and I want to know who, and I want to know why.
to BevOHio-whoever-you-are:
Where in her recommendations does the public get to view the chain of custody from start to finish? If that’s in there, I certainly missed it.
So your premise is that bringing all the ballots in to one central location is an equally public chain of custody to counting them at the polling place after the ballot box has been sitting in full public view all day?
In what way does the public get to view the counting — and I don’t mean “the scanning”, I mean “the counting”?
Does the public even get to capture evidence of what went into the scanner vs what results came out? That would be simple enough. (didn’t think so).
You may be confusing “scanning in public” with “counting in public”. You are certainly confusing “public chain of custody” with consolidated chain of custody viewed by a much smaller group of people.
And what’s this all about: You write
Do you have evidence that Paddy Shaffer is dishonest? If not, a retraction of that inappropriate innuendo would be the proper thing to do.
Lessee now. How do you reduce, say, 500 polling places into 87 and not do away with some polling places?
Do you have the dates you say Brunner met personally with Paddy Shaffer and Richard Hayes Phillips to review their evidence? It is possible this happened after I last spoke directly to Paddy or Richard.
And when you said, earlier, that the materials were destroyed BEFORE the court order, in some cases that was true, they were destroyed DURING the 22 month prohibition for destroying them, is that not correct?
Since 55 counties were involved in destruction of records, are you saying every one of them destroyed the records before the court order? Not a single one of them after the court order?
Do you have the dates each of the 55 counties destroyed their records?
Do you concur that some counties destroyed them before the 22-month retention period expired? If so, that is violating elections law, is it not?
The extreme importance of that is, of course, that Ohio forbade citizens from examining the ballots during the 22-month retention period. That’s why a court order was sought and obtained, to block destruction before citizens could examine them. But, when they attempted to review the ballots after the retention period had expired, many of the records had already been destroyed, hadn’t they?
This leaves a very small window. If you are saying that all 55 counties destroyed records by exploiting that small window, can you elaborate or provide details, dates and sources to buttress such a claim?
I have had the opportunity to review the pre-publication copy of Richard Hayes Phillips book “Witness to a Crime” along with photos and public records supporting his conclusions. Frankly, I am humbled by his research and the magnitude of the truth it tells. I don’t consider myself uninformed, but perhaps you can provide public records, photos, and dates that counter what Hayes Phillips and Shaffer uncovered.
I hope so. While you’re at it, can you explain how spilling coffee on sealed boxes of ballots can destroy ALL BALLOTS, and why there would be a hot pot of coffee in a locked ballot vault to begin with?
I was also wondering how a recycler picked up ballots by accident and shredded them. Did the recycling company have keys to the ballot box?
Goodness, if you can help me get more “informed” on the coffee spill, the accidental recycling, and the dates of destruction of the documents by each of the 55 counties by providing the facts and supporting documentation, I will build fire, get a cuppa hot chocolate, and settle in for a great read.
Sticks & stones, John…
Just read the report if you haven’t done so already and quote rather than assert.
(the strangely-named “BevOhio” person asserts rather than quotes)
So here are relevant quotes, with bolds in case “BevOhio” doesn’t want to read the whole sentence — From the recommendations in the report:
Richard Hayes Phillips met with Secretary Brunner on May 3, 2007. Paddy Shaffer met with Secretary Brunner in February of 2007 (can find the exact date later).
“Honest” Paddy?–off the top of my head, how many of her “confirmed” speakers and journalists and elected officials were inovlved in the Nov 2 funeral fiasco?
So in other words, Shaffer and Phillips met with Brunner BEFORE they had completed their study and obtained the public records and photographs documenting violations of elections law.
After they had obtained these documents, Brunner has indeed declined to meet with either of them, according to those dates, so my statement stands.
If the best you can do to sully up Paddy Shaffer is to imply that some people didn’t show up for a speaking event as promised, it might be best to stop implying that she is not honest.
I don’t know how many events you have organized, but most of us who have done events know that it’s not unusual for people to confirm their attendance at an event and then not show up. Sometimes you have to call them 2-3 times to remind, sometimes a confirmed speaker cancels after the announcement went out. Sometimes they confirm, you remind, they still don’t show up. I don’t think you can use that example to throw dirt on Shaffer unless you have evidence that she deliberately perpetrated a fraud, which I doubt very much.
But speaking of fraud…
Hey, didn’t a whole lot of counties destroy records during the federally mandated retention period? Please do correct me if I’m wrong on that.
What about that coffee spill? I am dying to know why a locked ballot vault featured ready-to-drink hot coffee. Lotta visitors in there?
Are the people who used a bogus Homeland Security Alert to hide what they were doing with ballots in Warren County still running elections? Gosh! And why is that?
You ask, “Where in her recommendations does the public get to view the chain of custody from start to finish?â€
But what you claimed was that she was “blocking public counting, public chain of custodyâ€
Where does she prohibit or even mention public viewing of chain-of-custody procedures? Are you saying that by not mentioning it she was banning it?
You said there were “recommendations that IRRETRIEVABLY BREAK CHAIN OF CUSTODY AND CENTRALIZE INSIDER CONTROLâ€
You quote her saying, “Eliminating points of entry creating unnecessary voting system risk by moving to Central Counting of Ballots†and “Requiring all ballots be Optical Scan Ballots for central tabulation and effective voter verificationâ€
If the difference between your claim and what she said is not immediately apparent, I don’t know what more can be said.
************************************
You said “she recommends doing away with polling placesâ€
She said “eliminating voting at individual precincts or polling places of less than 5 precinctsâ€
The critical difference being “less than 5 precincts.†A bit different than eliminating all polling places as you stated.
************************************
You said, “Since 55 counties were involved in destruction of records, are you saying every one of them destroyed the records before the court order? Not a single one of them after the court order?â€
No, I said, “I question why Bev doesn’t know that all but one of the counties who intentionally destroyed 2004 election materials did so after the previous SOS told the counties that they were able to legally destroy such materials and before Marbury or the SOS ordered the materials preserved.â€
You said, “The extreme importance of that is, of course, that Ohio forbade citizens from examining the ballots during the 22-month retention period.
So if all access to ballots was banned, where did all of the “photographic evidence†come from?
Bev,
I accept your apology, no questions asked.
Second, to explain my login name, it is BEVOhio as in Bevo–the University of Texas Longhorn mascot (based on a male bovine).
You said, “Do you have the dates you say Brunner met personally with Paddy Shaffer and Richard Hayes Phillips to review their evidence? It is possible this happened after I last spoke directly to Paddy or Richard.â€
I said, “Richard Hayes Phillips met with Secretary Brunner on May 3, 2007. Paddy Shaffer met with Secretary Brunner in February of 2007.”
You said, “â€So in other words, Shaffer and Phillips met with Brunner BEFORE they had completed their study and obtained the public records and photographs documenting violations of elections law?
Are you a total joke? Have you no shame?
LOLOL
This really is hilarious now.
The troll wrote the following:
“A bit different than eliminating all polling places as you stated.”
Nowhere in this thread, or anywhere else, has Bev Harris ever said Brunner was/is (or anyone else) eliminating, or recommending elimination, etc etc, of ALL POLLING PLACES.
“ALL POLLING PLACES.
This is an outright lie.
Troll begone, you serve no future purpose.
Brad, IP please.
You said, “If the best you can do to sully up Paddy Shaffer is to imply that some people didn’t show up for a speaking event as promised, it might be best to stop implying that she is not honest.
I don’t know how many events you have organized, but most of us who have done events know that it’s not unusual for people to confirm their attendance at an event and then not show up. Sometimes you have to call them 2-3 times to remind, sometimes a confirmed speaker cancels after the announcement went out.
Sometimes they confirm, you remind, they still don’t show up. I don’t think you can use that example to throw dirt on Shaffer unless you have evidence that she deliberately perpetrated a fraud, which I doubt very much.â€
Sorry, but I can’t accept excuses for fraudulent statements no matter how well-intentioned, especially when they come from a holier-than-thou, cast-the-first-stone #$(*% like Paddy Shaffer. If you can, that is telling about your regard for the truth.
I have organized plenty of envts and know of the problems withat may come up. I happened to have contacted many of the people from the list that Paddy had promoted and was disgusted to learn that none of them had even heard of what she was talking about.
To be VERY clear, over 50% of the people she listed as “confirmed†including yourself either NEVER knew about her misrepresentations or NEVER intended to come.
If you think that is fine, then where exactly do you draw your lines about honesty?
Second, I said “off the top of my head†and not the “best I can do†by way of example. Paddy Shaffer has little regard for truth or fact, although she often advocates positions that are correct.
I believe that it is not ok to prevaricate to promote a good idea; you and Paddy obviously may differ.
John Dean,
Your command of the facts and the issues are one of the reasons that people don’t take election integrity advocates seriously.
Bev said “How do you reduce, say, 500 polling places into 87 and not do away with some polling places?”
Ohio has 88 counties! This kind of sloppiness is a liability.
If you are not old and on your death-bed and you really want to advance something that you sound like you favor, do the following: get an education, learn the facts, and promote the turth. It’s never too late.
Troll,
Enough already. You have no credibility.
You changed Bev’s “some” into “all” and then slammed her for making a statement she did not make.
Nothing else you write matters at all.
Thanks for the laugh John!
And thanks for not wasting anyone’s time trying to make good on your lame vow to “address the lies of the previous post later tonight, after I get back from running some errands.”
Remember: there’s no shame in being pathetic–only in staying pathetic.
Bev already addressed the lies, except for the big one I caught you in that destroys any credibility you have.
So, what are you still doing here? You lied, you got caught, nobody gives a crap what you say.
Well, maybe you guys should look here to see what Bevohio had to say back in March. Maybe ratchet back the aggression shit a tad. Breathe. Think. Mellow out.
Everyone who can read can see exactly what I said and she said by reviewing the post.
Who are you trying to fool? Do you really believe what you’re saying?
LOL 99, are you at it again?
Thanks for the breathe and think advice though…
Googling BevOhio yields 2 results
1) the post you pointed us to, which I guess is supposed to make us believe BevOhio is a poor, misunderstood good person, who just happened to go after Bev Harris from the beginning on this very thread, and lie.
2) and also, Beverly Studer via a phone number at the 2nd link, who happened to donate to the RNC in 2004, and to tell you the truth, not much else besides being a “Fundrace neighbor.”
Hmmm. Getting late, will have to look deeper tomorrow.
No you won’t Ad Hominen John–because you’re too lazy.
Is goggling a person the way you do research?
How about reading the report? How about checking facts?
Bev’s full quote backing off of her previous overgeneralization.
“I happen to believe that poll workers are the salt of the earth. It is Brunner who treats them with contempt when she recommends doing away with polling places and bringing all the ballots to a central location to count.”
I did not delete the word “some” from the quote.
“do away with”
“to get rid of; abolish; stop.”
{Ed Note: Comment deleted. Please read the commenting rules, John. Thank you. –99}
{Ed Note: Comment deleted. Calling names, attacking another commenter against the commenting rules. If you think someone is lying you can merely state it, and then move on. –99}
{Ed Note: Comment deleted. –99}
Look, I don’t like anyone having the disrespect to imply that Bev Harris is a diletante any more than you do, but you’ve turned this into a federal case and have started besmirching the living snot out of someone you don’t even know is as evil as you suppose. This level of incivility is against policy. And, personally, it really drives me NUTS when anyone starts telling anyone else they don’t belong somewhere, particularly when it isn’t even their place. So, please, just keep it within bounds if you just must keep this up.
Okay…Sheriff here.
The rules for commenting are clear that there are to be no personal attacks on other commenters. As they also note, public figures “your humble host” included, unfortunately, are a different matter.
Bev Harris is a public figure, and thus, rules are somewhat different for attacks on her, though the management retains the right to remove inappropriate and uncalled for remarks. That said, Bev seems to be handling herself just fine here in reply to BevOhio.
Unfortunately, John Dean did make some direct, personal attacks on BevOhio. And 99 allowed many of them to stand beyond, perhaps, when they should have been, and ended up deleting some comments near the end that perhaps shouldn’t have been deleted, out of her understandable frustration (yes, she too is, unfortunately fair game, since she has access to the delete button, unlike most commenters here)
BevOhio, please try to temper your attacks on Bev Harris, and keep them as constructive criticisms where you can, as you were wrong in a number of cases above (though correct on a few others). You also called Bev Harris a liar and/or other uncalled for attacks in light of some comments from Bev Harris that are, in fact, on the money and very legitimate concerns about Brunner’s recommendations.
Bev Harris, you seem to be doing fine making your case as you see fit. If you feel you’ve had unfair treatment here somehow, let me know, and I’ll be happy to review appropriately.
John Dean, accusations that someone is a “troll” is a personal attack when there is not substance, but rather just suspicion to back it up. You made some other attacks that were not appropriate. Please do not do so.
99, remember the Zen.
Let’s see where we can back off the assaults all around, and focus on legitimate points of concern. And, there are plenty here, many of which I pointed out in my original coverage of Brunner’s study and her subsequent recommendations.
Thank you.
Thanks, Sheriff.
OT,..
Floridiot,.. you would likely enjoy seeing these Siegelman interview tapes.
…
Don Siegelman speaks out about the 2002 stolen election in Alabama and how KKKarl Rove is implicated in these matters.
Mark Crispin Miller’s blog has the videos,..
http://markcrispinmiller.blogsp...-calls-02.html
Thanks Brad & Agent 99!
I hope ALL my predictions are wrong.
Much love to the real Bev Harris.
99 & BEVOHIO, pointing to the quote (from BEVOHIO) about the counting ballots in federal prison.
“I think each felon should be separately forced to hand count all the ballots as many times as it takes until they get the exact same numbers for each precinct.”
I don’t want felons counting votes. We have that now. If not from the officials, then from the software programmers. We don’t need software counting votes invisibly. PERIOD.
John Dean, my sincere apologies for accidentally drawing you into this. (I am just as angry as you–I swear)
Brad…. what can I say. Always think different, always follow your heart.
Phil,
Thank you for your kind and measured comments; you remain a gentleman & a scholar to the end.
I believe you were the only person with such an insightful perspective on my modest proposal, which can probably be best interpreted in context
https://bradblog.com/?p=4266#comment-200526
BEVOhio