Miller-McCune’s David Rosenfeld files a good story on the dreadful state of the hackable, insecure, error-prone machinery — both DRE/touch-screen and paper-based optical scan — still used across our electoral landscape in 2008.
Despite a few small-ish errors, Rosenfeld succeeds where so many before him have been unable: Properly quoting both the scientists and Election Integrity experts who know what they’re talking about, while giving fair opportunity to respond from voting machine company and elected officials who are either in denial, uninformed, or simply willing to lie.
Folks like Ellen Theisen of VotersUnite.org, Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, computer scientist David Wagner of UC Berkley, and yours truly (from The BRAD BLOG) are quoted from the truth-telling side.
On the misleading and/or state of denial and/or lying side, we hear from a Diebold spokesman, and officials from both the NH and TX Secretaries of State offices.
The latters’ comments — particularly those from the SoS offices, where one would think they have a duty to both be informed and tell the truth about their voting systems (unlike Diebold, where we might expect them to continue their long, unfettered, and desperation-built reputation for lying) — are simply stunning.
Diebold spokesperson Chris Riggall (yes, an unfortunate name for a voting machine spokesperson) offers the usual nonsense in response to all of the many independent tests around the country which have found the company’s voting systems — both paper-based and touch-screen — to have been easily hacked in seconds. “In some cases the studies have been lacking in appropriate perspective and balance,” Riggall misleads in response.
But the TX and NH SoS officials quoted were even more outrageous in their outright states of denial, and/or the ease with which they are willing to simply mislead (okay, lie to) the reporter…
“The machines were not proven to be faulty,” TX SoS spokesperson Scott Haywood lied to Rosenfeld, by way of just one example.
NH Deputy SoS David Scanlan’s comments are arguably even more pathetic and/or disingenuous, as concerning the charge that the very same Diebold optical-scan systems used to hack a paper-based election — as seen live in HBO’S landmark 2006 documentary Hacking Democracy (watch the stunning hack here) — were also allowed for use to tabulate 80% of the ballots in the recent, incredibly anomalous, NH Primary Election.
“I know we use an Accuvote,” Scanlan told Miller-McCune.com’s Rosenfeld. “I’m not technical enough to tell you whether it’s the same one that was used in the film, but it’s possible.”
Not technical enough, Mr. Scanlan? Not technical enough or not interested enough? Or just not honest enough to admit to the reporter what just about anyone familiar with elections already knows and can look up on the Internets in two minutes time.
New Hampshire uses the very same, hackable, Diebold Accuvote-OS with firmware v1.94w as seen being hacked in Hacking Democracy.
In addition to running a horribly administrated election last January, Mr. Scanlan would also appear to be either a liar, or criminally negligent in not knowing which secret, hackable vote-counting system his office has approved to tabulate 80% of the ballots cast by citizens in his own state. Take your pick. It’s one or the other.
And as the film came out nearly a full two years ago, it’s further negligence that Scanlan and/or his boss SoS William Gardner hasn’t bothered to find out, demand a security upgrade from Diebold, and/or bothered to institute any sort of post-election audits to at least try to determine whether their voting systems have counted ballots accurately.
Read Rosenfeld’s full article here, to fully appreciate both the bad guys mentioned above, and the (finally) the equal treatment offered to the good guys, such as yours truly and others, for a welcome change.
It’s not technical, it’s more like cooperative, collective, conspiring, criminal, collaborative, culpable, etc.
It seems we are headed for a Oligarcic, Chinese type Communist, Fascist police State.
The Business Plot of 1933 has come to fruition.
Glad to see the good word is being spread. Maybe some day soon there will be conversation other than dead silence when I bring it up.
The EI election movement has had a theme song or so since the first dark ages all the way down to the current dark ages.
The old dark ages theme song took on a rock morph in the 60’s theme song for the 60’s election movement
It probably fits the Texas thingy Brad is sedding about in this post for the current dark age.
But for the entire movement history, The Beat Goes On is probably the most far reaching theme song for the EI movement, since someone is always getting the beat one way or the other, if you know what I mean.
NH seems to want crooked elections …my opinion after watching BBV’s Butch and Hoppy videos. In a fair court of law their election officials would all be found guilty of purposely throwing the election for Shrillary. My guess is a lot of Ron Paul votes were stolen there too.Howard Dean knows . Guess since he has had the DLC dogging him since he first ran for prez…it has been a fight he could not win. Hopefully, after Obama is president ..he will team up with RFK Jr. and work for fair elections.Hope there isn’t an all out war over Fl. and Mi. / DNC and DLC. I’m proud of US for seeing through the Clintons at last.
Scanlan’s comments are as absurd as they are unbelievable. As the NH SoS representative to the NH legislature, Scanlan plays the role of Diebold defender, testifying against every piece of legislation ever brought that would have protected NH elections from corporate control and secret vote counting. He knows full well what systems we are using because he worked to ensure the FL2000 firmware was approved for use in NH in 2006. Prior to that NH had been using an older – presumably less hacker-friendly – version. But 2004 ballot redesign legislation — resulting from collusion between certain legislators, Diebold/LHS Associates, and I would assume certain folks from the NH SoS (a reasonable assumption because they are never out of the loop on legislation affecting them, and because I personally heard discussions in the NH SOS office about the ballot changes and costs) — meant that NH “had to” “upgrade” to the 1.94W firmware. In other words – the whole state went to Diebold-only and 1.94W only. We were told this was the only machine and the only firmware that could read the nice newly designed ballots. What a coincidence!
For Scanlan or ANYONE in the NH SOS office to pretend they don’t know what the F is going on is ridiculous given the fact they would have had to negotiate payment of some $10,000 to LHS for the firmware changes in existing equipment, additional payment of some $6000/each to 25 NH towns needing to now use Diebold instead of ES&S. I would think that forking over some $160,000 would have registered some awareness of what they were involved in. Not to mention a four hour hearing of the Ballot Law Commission in which citizens testified AGAINST the approval of the faulty firmware and in which the Diebold vendor himself testified the firmware was defective.
That 2006 approval of the 1.94W firmware, by the way, was without doubt illegal in and of itself but we in NH have yet to find any attorneys willing to help prosecute the illegality of NH elections. Even the NH ACLU refuses to help.
Unfortunately for people like Mr. Scanlan, the evidence trail is too deep and too wide to claim ignorance.
See LHS President Silvestro admit to the NH Ballot Law Commission that the 1.94W firmware they approved is defective right here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jCt-XAI-WMA
Thanks Nancy, your doing great work!
Oh, Nancy… that’s going on my YouTube favorites.
What I can’t fathom about all this is why people cannot understand that attempting to change election results, attempting to replace the legitimate government with an illegitimate one, is an act of treason in a democratic Republic. Bombs and bullets are not the only way to overthrow the government, and treason doesn’t become less treasonous because you overthrow the government with electrons instead of gunpowder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmQERqp2oXo
Glad you like the youtubes. Here are some more:
See Scanlan talk his Diebold talk on NH talk TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vxdaNhBFWI
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-jTySjDJTdw
See the NH Ballot Law Commission vote to approve defective firmware:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3ysheRLXuhA
and more, including Hursti testimony to NH Legislature:
http://youtube.com/handsonelections
Precinct Voting: Paper ballots input to PC (Excel); Uploaded to Internet; Votes/Totals Verified Online
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/HAVAOnePC.htm
There are approximately 200,000 precincts nationwide (average of 4,000 per state). How much would it cost and how long would it take to ACCURATELY process and count the votes in an average precinct of 600 voters?
HAVA look at this.
Just One (1) $400 Personal Computer is used for ballot data entry (PAPER BALLOTS ARE FILLED OUT BY THE VOTER); $100 Printer; $100 Excel spreadsheet; Total cost is $600. Three (3) volunteers are needed to input/verify the ballot data. Volunteer A reads the ballot, B enters the data, C verifies the result.
This is the process: The voter fills out a ballot marking each selected candidate’s code (i.e. a=Dem,b=Rep,c=Ind). The volunteers use their god-given optical scanners (EYES) to read the ballots and enter the codes in a spreadsheet. As each choice is entered, the spreadsheet automatically calculates the total vote and percentage for each candidate.
Assume data entry/verification takes 1 minute per voter. Total data entry time would be 600 minutes (10 hours)spread out over 12 hours on Election Day. Data entry would be completed shortly after the polls closed.
The following simple steps complete the process:
1) Print the spreadsheet (1 minute).
2) Upload the sheet to the Internet (10 seconds) so that anyone can check the precinct results.
3) Upload the sheet to the Central Tabulator (10 seconds). The published totals should match the precinct totals on the Internet and the local PC
That’s it.
Physical locations of redundant data files:
1) The original ballots are retained in a secure location
2) Precinct Excel file: recorded voter id, verified votes and totals
3) Internet files: copies of uploaded Excel files for online viewing
4) Internet District/County/State composite files for online viewing
Many advantages over current method:
1) Secure paper ballots- documented chain of custody
2) Data redundancy- discrepancies between local/internet files must be accounted for
3) No proprietary DRE/central tabulator code (just public Excel/VBA, password protected)
4) No bribing of SOS gatekeeper to purchase DREs
5) No need to recount votes
6) Diebold/Premier & ES&S out of the DRE/Opscan voting machine business
The Internet precinct files can be used as a check on the Exit Polls.
Sample Excel Precinct Worksheet (cells are password-protected):
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/HandCountedSecureExcel.xls
Total votes are calculated using the Excel function: COUNTIF (range, party code)
Example: Total Democratic (column B, rows 10-509) votes for president:
242 =COUNTIF (b10.b509,â€aâ€)
Precinct 101 (500 voters)
Party code: a=Dem, b=Rep, c=Ind
Voter Ballot Code: 101xxxxxx
Pres Sen Rep Oth1 Oth2 Oth3 Oth4 Oth5 Oth6 Oth7 Oth8
Dem 242 233 252 242 233 252 242 233 252 242 233
Rep 234 244 225 234 244 225 234 244 225 234 244
Ind 24 23 23 24 23 23 24 23 23 24 23
VoterID
1010001 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010002 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010003 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010004 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010005 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010006 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010007 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010008 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010009 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010010 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010011 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010012 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010013 c c c c c c c c c c c
…..
…..
…..
1010487 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010488 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010489 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010490 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010491 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010492 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010493 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010494 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010495 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010496 b b b b b b b b b b b
1010497 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010498 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010499 a a a a a a a a a a a
1010500 b b b b b b b b b b b