“The most serious thing any software company can do is not fully test its products,” William Singer told The BRAD BLOG this afternoon about the federal fraud case he filed nearly two years ago, which has finally been unsealed by a judge as of today.
“To release a product for important purposes that has not been tested at all is quite shocking, I would say. Especially since it indicates that nobody can predict what, when, or how it might fail,” Singer explained about the e-voting systems made by Hart InterCivic, for which he worked as a technician several years ago. “It would make a mockery of any certification.”
Despite having some direct involvement in the case from the beginning, The BRAD BLOG has been unable to report any details on it for going on two years — we haven’t even been able to offer the names of the plaintiff or defendant in the case — since originally reporting that it had been filed in federal court, due to the fact that it was under seal, waiting for the U.S. Attorney General to decide whether the DoJ would join the suit or not.
Singer’s suit is the fraud case which originally made waves when it was first filed two years ago, with the aid of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Florida attorney Mike Papantonio, until it then went “underground” due to the legally mandated seal disallowing the plaintiff and his attorneys from offering any specific details to the public.
As AP reported today, the seal on that federal qui tam (fraud, false claims) complaint, brought on behalf of the United States by Singer against Hart, one of the big four American voting machines companies, has now been lifted, and the case may finally proceed as originally filed.
The BRAD BLOG has obtained the complete complaint and the judge’s order lifting the seal…
• The full complaint may be downloaded here [PDF, 45 pages].
• The judge’s order unsealing the case as of last night is here [PDF, 2 pages]
The second page of the complaint, which we are still plowing through, sets the initial grounding for the case…
In March of 2006, The BRAD BLOG broke the exclusive story of the Hart InterCivic whistleblower’s letters sent to the OH and TX Secretaries of State in 2004, before they were entirely ignored. Our coverage itself was also almost completely ignored by the media. The complaints Singer had sent at the time are posted in full with that original story on Singer’s plight and his fruitless attempts to notify the two state chief election officials about his concerns, and of the criminal behavior that he alleges he was witness to.
In conversations we had with Bobby Kennedy, Jr., in the ensuing months after our initial report, we’d explained to him what Singer had done, and — literally overnight — he had set the attorneys at his firm, and that of his radio co-host, attorney Mike Papantonio’s firm, to work on Singer’s case. It was soon thereafter filed in federal district court, as we reported at the time, in July of 2006. It has been under seal for nearly two years since that time, waiting for the DoJ, which had asked for extension after extension, to determine whether it wished to join the suit or not.
This week, the DoJ finally declined to join the case, which may now move forward with the attorneys who originally brought the complaint, including Papantonio’s firm, Kennedy’s firm, and attorneys in Colorado where the case was filed.
As AP summarized the case, Singer “is alleging the company cheated the federal government by falsifying information about the accuracy and security of its voting system.” He “alleges that Hart InterCivic lied to election officials around the country about the reliability of its voting system in an effort to obtain federal money allocated to the states under the Help America Vote Act of 2002.”
A computer scientist who is familiar with most of America’s e-voting systems recently told us that he has come to understand that, of all of the voting systems out there, ironically enough, Hart’s systems, which have gotten far less attention in the media than those made by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia over the years, may, in fact, “be the most insecure of them all” due to their particular architecture.
How Does the Case Proceed from Here?
An attorney close to the Singer case tells The BRAD BLOG today that “the fact that DoJ declined to join the case does not deter us for a moment.”
At the time the complaint was filed, Papantonio was irate about the behavior of the voting industry officials which he had come to learn about through his discussions with Singer and others. “When you hear the details, when you hear the caliber of the fraud,” he explained in a radio interview in the summer of 2006, “it’ll make Americans feel like they’re living in a damned banana republic, a third world country. I have never heard such outrageous facts.”
“At the end of the day,” Papantonio — whose firm has successfully taken on giants like the Tobacco Industry in the past — declared in the interview, “we’re gonna shut down some of these companies…Some day these hacks are gonna be across the table from me, and they’re gonna have to answer the questions that nobody else has been able to ask them.”
Papantonio elucidated more of his concerns — about voting machine company fraud and how it results in an assault on voting rights in America — in an interview conducted by Joy and Tom Williams for The BRAD BLOG in August of 2006.
With all of that said, however, the attorney working on the case whom we spoke to today was quick to point out that there have been significant legal developments, most notably from the U.S. Supreme Court, which have occurred during the time since the case was filed, while the law firms had been waiting for a decision from the DoJ. The attorneys are currently reviewing those legal decisions to determine how they may or may not effect their plans for moving forward with the case from here, now that it has finally been unsealed.
Singer’s Long-Ignored Song
We are still reviewing the full complaint ourselves, as mentioned. But, as Singer expressed to us today, his initial concerns when he wrote the Secretaries of State in Ohio and Texas in 2005 have not changed. If anything, they’ve continued to grow as more and more information has come out over the years as to the shortcuts that have been taken, the deceptive way in which the voting machine companies have profited without accountability off American tax dollars, and the secretive nature in which America’s corporate, private voting machine companies have taken virtual complete control over our public democracy.
Singer expressed “deep regret that the situation with Hart InterCivic had to result in a lawsuit to try and bring about positive change. My attempts to resolve the situation in other ways, including complaints provided to the BradBlog in 2006, were simply unsuccessful. I have felt a personal duty to the public interest to make voters more aware of the issues facing them. The decision to make any part of elections, an issue of critical national concern, a for-profit industry is certainly a questionable choice. The decision to poorly supervise the companies involved is irrational, unreasonable, and unjustified, as my experience shows.”
“If I, a single person, can report on so many problems, so many types of serious problems, in only one company…and if my complaints were being systematically ignored, deliberately ignored, by every single secretary of state and election official across the ENTIRE nation…If not one person of authority, of any kind, asked me one single question to help them make their own decisions about which voting machine vendor to do business with, I think any reasonable person would be extremely alarmed.”
“How many other people, other problems, serious problems, have been concealed, ‘lost’, and ignored?,” Singer wrote today. “If one person can report on so many serious problems, and those problems were deliberately hidden by so many officials for so long – how much of this iceberg is still under water? Not just with Hart, or even Hart and I, but in the entire industry?”
UPDATE 3/31/08: Hart InterCivic plays “Disgruntled Employee” card, but the facts, included in the complaint itself, reveal otherwise. Full details, docs here…
Good news!, but oh boy, whatta time for this to come out.
Will they have time before November to remedy this?
And it still doesn’t help in states like Georgia, does it?
Sorry if this is common knowledge, but Hart InterCivic is related to the Kwaidan Consulting story.
Smoking guns and broken voting machines
Notes from the Field | Robert X. Cringely®
March 26, 2008
http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/2008/03/smoking_guns_an.html
They’re all related Socrates, it’s called the GOP
http://www.selfservice.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=267
Mike Gibbons asked a question about touch screens on November 21, 2004. He was looking for info on a touch screen looking like this one:
http://www.coinstar.com/us/html/A1-2-2
#3 Floridiot
It’s fun to be an amateur internet sleuth and try to connect the dots.
There is clearly fascism going on in this country. The Siegelman story. The DOJ. Illegal wars with depleted uranium. The amount of evidence there is that we are in a legitemation crisis is simply astounding.
Then there are creeps like Kos calling out BradBlog, when all he is doing is being an intrepid reporter.
We have the power of numbers. To take a line from internet blogger John Dean, we will not be silenced.
I am dismayed, though not at all surprised, that a voting machine company can sell voting systems with core software that has never been tested. While some version of the Firmware, Operating System and Election Application System software for some voting machine manufactures’ equipment may be tested to some degree, audited and stored in escrow, ballot definition software, hurriedly written in the weeks just before each election, is at most only lightly tested and is never independently audited.
Yes, the ballot definition software that will run in optical ballot scanner and DRE touch-screen voting machines in 2,894 counties and 161,111 voting precincts again in the 2008 general election this November is at most only only lightly tested, if tested at all, and it is never independently audited or stored in escrow.
Don’t you know that qui tam is a realm adminawhos do not allow to be discusting on this blogo?
Who art thou … a troll?
qui tam o
qui tam oh
qui tam ouch
qui tam ish
Still feel righteous about blasting Kennedy and Papantonio, o dredd dude?
So who wins … 😉 …
‘Agent’ 99 #8
“Righteous”? Are you a priestess or something??
So this is the Kennedy Papantinio case?
And by the way I blasted your bullshit not theirs (Kennedy et alia). You went wacko when I simply asked about it, not when I criticized it. You are doing a Hillary in bosnia here dudette.
I haven’t criticized the case yet, but I will if it stays in mysto mode too long. I have simply criticized your neurosis about going “99” if anone even mentions it like I have. (It was your salvation I GUESS … and salvation denied is hell guaranteed in your mind?) … who gives a flying fuck about such nonsense.
I have no clue where you are really coming from, but your qui tammyness is fucked up so far.
I still want to know about the qui tam case (involving the 2004 Ohio presidential election) which dries up your plum evidently, and which was touted by Kennedy and Palpotinio.
“… scuse me while I kiss the”
skybullshit goodbye!Haven’t we had enough close-to-flame wars around here lately?
I beg all to chill. Time spent keeping an eye on such things, for me at least, is time well wasted.
So if only for me…Thank you for leaning off the kill buttons.
I, for one, am heartily encouraged by the news. I have been waiting to hear how RFK’s and Pap’s case progressed. I feel that this is in capable and trustworthy hands. And I would not only say that it’s about damned time but also that finally someone is doing SOMEthing about it.
Just finished my initial complete reading of the Singer v Hart InterCivic complaint…
This sounds, in every respect like the real deal…life and death in the systems business in the USA!
If systems developers lie and defraud, they make money. If they tell the truth, they lose sales and no money is made.
This is bad enough when it happens in business settings (sometimes there are even safety and damage issues — monetary being just one kind of possible damage).
But it is an UNACCEPTABLE EVIL when the democratic institutions of our states and our country are defrauded.
I propose that we agitate for special FRAUD AGAINST DEMOCRACY LAWS, in which the usual state and federal qui tam concepts are expanded to make additional punishments, fines, etc. apply to any person or corporation who would DEFRAUD DEMOCRACY.
In the legal sense similar — not the same thing exactly — as hate crime legislation… It’s already illegal, but there are compelling collective effects to the acts that merit extraordinary attention. The interest of the state/nation in preserving democracy is special, and should not be confined to the routine legal boundaries of business fraud.
What do you think?
qui tamooh … qui tamaah … qui tameee …
Enough already … like 6 of 7 bossman Brad
seddinferred …lets focus on what we went thru in …
(don’t even ask dd about his stint in an Amurkan prison (because he refused to be a ‘warrior’ [a.k.a. killer of
millions ofmen, women, and children]) … because there are peaceful folk among us.Socrates, thanks for the kind mention.
Brad, Kennedy is involved in another Qui Tam isn’t he? Or was this the only one?
My gawd folks, you really are interested in why the Muckassy department of bushiedom (a.k.a. Department of Just Us) does not go after one of its own bushies? (No fucking way!) (if you are a brad blogger.)
I really don’t
Hillarythink so.Please 99, Kennedy, Palantino, et fucking alia, get real.
Focus on next November.
Last November (they fucked us), (I think they really fucked us), or (I think they really really fucked us) is not news, it is olds. We know all that shit already dudes and dudettes.
NE fucking XT (NEXT) people.
Dig the windshield … you can avoid more accidents by looking thru it … than looking thru the rear view mirror (that shit is yesterday bitch).
Holt just announced that he is a universal soldier, those against him are universal soldiers, those who love DRE’s are universal soldiers, Cheney, Hitler, and Bush are universal soldiers … and the question is … who can sing this song?
Hey, if its universal … it must be soldieral … RIGHT?
Wouldn’t all of this bring Mireaux into the fray?, they’re the ones that tested the junk.
By Sequoia having Kwaidan brought into this, they’re just as guilty being that Suntron is the builder of Harts machine and Gibbons is the ex whatever at Suntron.
Or are both machines the same parts in a different box?
This is going to get pretty messy, LOL
Mr MagOO DEPENDS on YOO for 2oo8 . . .
Hillary,
Waiting for your opponent to implode is no way to destroy 2 legacies !
AtLattl said:
Sure does! I was finally able to get through it yesterday, and had to say, outloud, “WOW!” at least a dozen times. And I had known about some of the issues previously, but not in the detail offered in the complaint.
Some stunning stuff that oughta run a chill down the spine of anyone paying attention…not to mention the other voting machine companies who, it seems, operate no differently.
Profits before quality. In all measures. It’s a simply stunning read if you want to give it a try. I’d recommend it! It’s also a great primer on what HAVA does and doesn’t require.
I love the irony that one of the people allege to aided in teh fraud is name Lawless.
You just cannot make up stuff like that.
I’ve seen this before, Companies racing for the Government ‘pot-o-gold’ have to sometimes cut corners due to unreasonable time constraints, without extras, by the Government or you don’t get paid and you go broke.
So, you either come up with an inferior product, get paid right away (worry about the lawsuits later) or you come up with a good one and get left behind.
Believe me, I’m not defending Hart,et al, but it’s the nature of the rigid bid process thru the Government.
By them being so rigid, it causes MORE waste as we see here. IMO
Get Togetha . . .
I have been wondering what was happening with this. Despite the fact it is in the rear view window as Dredd suggests, it is still big.
When someone dies of a new disease, investigations of the disease won’t help them, but the findings may save many in the future.
In this regards this can be big.
John Washburn said:
Didja notice another is named Barstad?
Anagrammatically Yours,
Bard
Bard! You barstad! 😛
brad, this is so exciting! thanks for sharing, and for showing such amazing restraint in keeping your tongue all this time. what a feat; not sure how well i’d have done that. eager to read the brief.
thanks, too, for trying to keep the tone here civil and respectful. truly appreciate that (as a refugee from hostility…).
you da man, dude!
#28..I agree. Nice tone. Why isn’t the web running this story? This is the meat and potatoes of bushco. …and the reason Shrillary is still in the race.
good job brad
as i watched the tx primary results odd things happened
in presidential,senatorial district 19 on 3-5-8 the sos reported in the early votes
biden 321
clinton 12,619
dodd 108
edwards 1763
obama 23,834
richardson 375
i ran a hard copy(paper)
the next day tho the sos reports for psd 19
biden 198
clinton 27413
dodd 161
edwards 756
obama 16,919
richardson 484
biden,edwards and obama lose votes ovrnight while clinton,dodd and richardson gain
is this poss? no i dont believe it is but to make a long story short,it happens all the time with “blackboxes”
The “progressives” cheered an action two years after it was filed two years after the election which was alleged to have been stolen.
That is not the worst of it, they filed it with those who stole it.
And all the fools did what in glee!
Because what it is all about!
Gawdy, gawdy, there is a what evolution preecha man … unfortunately 😉 …
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
So long as it is not a step in the wrong direction.
How relevant would a lawsuit against Stalin be?
He used paper ballots, yet they were a ruse. They were pablum for the dummies.
So who are the dummies if Stalin is sued now so long after that ship has sailed?
ANSWER: the ones thinking it matters.
The time to sue is before an election to solve the problem so that the problem does not determine the election.
If YOUR judicial system cannot handle that problem AND FIX it, then … CLUE CLUE CLUE … you live in a bannana republic … not America. (‘And they’ve all gone to look for America’).
have a good weekend weekenders …
You all need to stick together. Quit fighting each other. Dredd your point is hell of made, After the fact is too late.
It’s why I been saying what I been saying on Blackboxvoting.org
I am really really done.
This game has toasted me into the next “nutcase.” And no for the record I ain’t saying I need psychiatric help–I don’t . THEY DO!! fuckers.
Just DO IT!
Hmmm… (N-AZ) . . .
Dredd…Ever heard history is a pendulum? I think its swinging back to a more democratic state here in the US. Even the big banks and corporations are losing money.Thats what will change things. They took it as far as it could go. And it didn’t work. Be prepared for some fresh air and sun light shining on the pukes.Look at all the repukes quitting the house and senate. They can’t stand themselves.
Er Dredd…
When you have to file with the criminals that are causing the crime, you don’t really have a lot of choice where you file it, ya know?
The good news is, is that DoJ wouldn’t take the case. So we will have people on our side taking care of it now. I first reported on the Qui Tam case back in late August of 2006 and have been waiting and waiting to find out if anything would come of it. THIS is a good thing.
In fact, this is a marvelous thing. So give credit where it’s done, dude.
Thanks for the update, Brad. As expected, the mainstream media ignores this vital issue. Brittany Spears is far more important.
Your article doesn’t explain why Singer, Kennedy, Papantonio et al waited so long for the DOJ to respond. According to In These Times:
The contents of the suit could be under judicial seal for at least 60 days while the U.S. Department of Justice considers whether or not to join the suit. If U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales decides not to join the suit, Levin Papantonio may approach individual state attorneys general. If no one joins, the firm is free to, as Papantonio puts it, “stand in the shoes of the Attorney General and fight on behalf of the taxpayers and the nation.â€
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2750/blowing_the_whistle_on_diebold/ July 17, 2006
Wasn’t there a mechanism to allow the law firm to force the DOJ to respond sooner? Whom did the DOJ ask for “extension after extension, to determine whether it wished to join the suit or not”? If the DOJ asked the law firm for the extensions, why didn’t the firm refuse? Shouldn’t it have been clear that the DOJ was simply running out the clock? There now may not be enough time for this suit to ensure fair elections in 2008.
Robert, I don’t know if Brad is looking right now, because he’s out of town, and I sure don’t know, but I can think of two reasons right off the top of my head why Levin Papantonio might have let extension after extension go without refusing: [1] they were using the time to gather more evidence; and [2] they knew the extensions would be granted by the court anyway…. Or both. Maybe you could call and ask…?