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My mom voted absentee this election 6-8-10 and swe... More -- CALIFORNIA - Republican listed on Democratic primary ballot?

Please Pass This to Mrs. Harris / Help if You Can.... More -- SUBJECT: What can I do, who can I contact, to get started on election reform in California?

I am the executor of my mother's will and I just r... More -- Subject: Victory Texas sending absentee forms to "the estate of"

Following is a an article I wrote, which can also ... More -- Many of you are already aware of the recent German Constitutional Court's decision to BAN VOTING MACHINES IN GERMANY.

NEVADA: Please everyone comment on this bill.
Tha... More -- Subject: New election reform bill

NEVADA: Maybe a contest to watch as maybe it will ... More -- Subject: Las Vegas Ward 4 will go to recount

There are serious problems with the Hawaii electio... More -- Dear Citizens of Hawaii,

The Governeur Times.com
November 20, 2009

VIRU... More -- [Since I was not able to add a new thread in the Lates News Column, I am putting it here. SURPRISE! Another problem with machines in a close election with questionable results due to machine issues. Kathleen Wynne]

From: Bob Babson, 3371 Keha Drive, Kihei, Hawaii 9... More -- To: Citizens of Hawaii

... More -- An upcoming election for a public water district board has three positions to be elected. Four candidates are running. Three are incumbents. The election therefore is "plurality-at-large" or "Block Voting" or "Bloc Voting." The voting is also not "one person, one vote." It is a "weighted vote" based upon land value. Four developers have 27% of the vote out of 691 rate payers. The County Clerk has given instructions "Vote for Three" on the ballot. Voting Theory has a concept of "Bullet Voting." That is, we may want to place only one vote for our candidate and not vote for any other candidate to give our candidate a better chance of unseating the incumbents. The language should have been "Vote for up to Three." The County Clerk is refusing to change the printed ballot. What can we do? Was the language proper? The county is Alpine County in California.

In addition to built-in fraud possibilities, all e... More -- (Letter from Gerry Hébert, Liberty Township, Porter County, Indiana to Kathy Kozuszck, Director)

I have 2nd citizenship now - (It is legal to have ... More -- Americans have the government they deserve!

NATIONAL: Although there was no big surprise last ... More -- SUBJECT: Scrutinize these races and issue results more closely

I have been unsuccessful in finding out informatio... More -- RECEIVED FROM COUNTY OFFICIAL: Subject: ES&S m100 optical Scanner Cleaning

Have been looking at some expenditures, ran across... More -- Bev Harris: Here are quick tips to help you pick out expenditures related to elections:
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(TN) 8/10 - 10 CANDIDATES FILE LAWSUIT OVER MASSIVE ELECTION IRREGULARITIES IN SHELBY COUNTY - MEMPHIS TN: 8/25/2010 - This is the most brutal voter disenfranchisement and election tampering and case we have witnessed yet. See detailed press release below for just a few of the specifics uncovered to date.

On Aug. 12 2010, at the behest of several local individual citizens, Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris and Florida Fair Elections Coalition (FFEC) founder Susan Pynchon came to Shelby County Tennessee to assist with gathering and analyzing evidence on voter disenfranchisement and voting machine issues in the county's Aug. 5, 2010 election.* We've been here two weeks now.

Problems in this election disproportionately affected Black voters. Accumulated problems uncovered so far quantify to tens of thousands of votes, in an election where just a few thousand votes separated winners from losers.

Here is the press release issued by the plaintiffs regarding the lawsuit filed yesterday. The details are startling:

August 25, 2010

AUGUST CANDIDATES FORMALLY SUE DUE TO IMPROPRIETIES IN ELECTION

Ten countywide candidates in the August 5th election have formally filed an election contest in Shelby County Chancery Court requesting injunctive relief. The ten plaintiffs in the suit include certain non-partisan judicial candidates as well as certain Democratic nominees, all of whom competed in the County General Election earlier this month. Based on an inspection and investigation of the Shelby County Election Commission (SCEC) and of August 5th election records, the suit claims that the election process was incurably flawed to the extent that the citizens of Shelby County were denied a free and equal election as required by Article I of the Tennessee Constitution.

The suit alleges widespread irregularities, improprieties, discrepancies and voting problems so significant as to have affected the outcome of the August election and to have caused the election results to be incurably uncertain. Already known is the massive error already acknowledged by the SCEC and described by the SCEC itself as "unacceptable" where invalid and inaccurate voter eligibility records were provided to polls on Election Day potentially affecting 5,400 voters and turning away thousands.

This lawsuit is intended to assure that the OTHER substantial and appalling improprieties which occurred in the August election are brought to light, investigated and resolved for all citizens and for every future election.

The handling and mishandling of the August election by the SCEC is an embarrassment to our county and a violation of every principle on which our country was founded. Regardless of race, party or gender, every citizen is entitled to better and is entitled to an unimpeded and transparent voting process. Our upcoming November election, including the vote on consolidation of Memphis and Shelby County, is important to many, and we intend to do everything in our power, with the approval of the courts, to assure that every citizen's vote counts. None of us should tolerate incompetence or impropriety.

Examples of problems from the suit:

1. Votes Without Voters: According to SCEC records, the Participating Voters List for the August election includes 176,119 voters. Without explanation, the Certified Statement of Votes Cast shows 182,921 votes as being cast in the August 2010 election. Thus, according to SCEC's own records, 6,802 more votes were cast than individuals who participated in the August
2010 election.

2. Missing Vote Batches: Unexplained errors in vote count are reflected by the voting machines. Vote batches are numbered sequentially based on when they are uploaded from the voting machines, and all early vote uploads to the central tabulator should reflect an upload date of August 5.

However, two of the batches mysteriously reflect an upload date of August 12 (the first day of inspection) yet they remain sequentially listed with the other early vote batches that were all uploaded on August 5.

Further, twenty batches of vote uploads are no longer in the system at all (vote batches 245-265) with no record of them at this time. The missing batches potentially contain between 6,000 and 18,000 votes.

3. Provisional Ballots: Errors were committed with provisional ballot counting. Eight entries appear in the GEMS software audit log at SCEC stating that provisional ballots were manually entered on August 12, 2010, but only one entry appears in the batch entry, and according to the poster log, 13 batches were manually entered. Plus, only about 70% of the provisional ballots cast are being credited as valid.

4. Turnout Inconsistencies:inconsistencies exist in the SCEC's daily turnout figures for early voting sites. During early voting, poll watchers for candidates documented voter turnout at specific early sites, yet the turnout figures subsequently released by SCEC for each day were inexcusably inconsistent. Final voter count taken after the last voter voted each day should have exactly matche... More

(SC) 6/10 - QUESTIONS TO ASK IN SOUTH CAROLINA - As you've probably heard, a South Carolina election yielded implausible -- some would say impossible -- results this month. I'm following up on tips provided by some people on the ground there, and Brad Friedman, of the Brad Blog, has been doing an excellent job of reporting the daily updates on this unusual situation; I've included several links to his stories at the end of this article.

Just a note or two on the questions that really need to be answered at this point in time:

1. The profile of this particular anomaly appears to rule out voting machine malprogramming at the county level. Whatever went wrong in South Carolina voting machines happened (most likely) in Omaha, or (less likely) at the state board of elections level.

Therefore, it's about time that we find out the name(s) of the programmers in Omaha who coded the iVotronic cartridges that went out to South Carolina.

Typically, ES&S programs its iVotronics in Omaha, or sometimes with a subcontractor.

2. A results flip on voting machines can be caused by inverting candidate ID numbers in the internal mapping. This can happen either at the voting machine level (and could produce a global effect, transversing all precinct machines), or it could happen at the central tabulation level.

- To shed more light on this, more specifics are needed on the L&A testing, to learn the number of machines tested and whether a script was used for the L&A test or real voters physically entered votes. MY BET: Not many machines were tested, perhaps 1-3 percent of them, and they made ample use of scripts to test. More on why this could be important in a minute.

I also want to see a complete comparison of 100% of the poll tape results with the final tabulation. This helps pinpoint any source of any voting machine misprogramming.

The candidate ID number assigned on the memory cartridges needs to be compared with the number assigned on the Unity tabulation system.

Here's how internal Candidate ID swapping works. Note that it can be purposeful or accidental:

Let's say the candidate mapping is supposed to go as follows ...

Name of Candidate / Internal mapping number
Vic Rawl / 820
Alvin Greene / 670

With this mapping, each vote for Vic Rawl is tagged to internal ID number 820, each vote for Alvin Green is tagged to internal ID number 670. On the screen, you see the names spelled out, but the computer inserts the data into a candidate ID number field, which is hidden from public view.

Now, without changing any spelling on the names, nor any positioning on the ballot, you simply swap the internal ID numbers in the data table(accidentally or on purpose). Like this:

Vic Rawl / 670
Alvin Greene / 820

Vic Rawl's votes get mapped into the data tables corresponding to ID 670, Alvin Greene's to the 820 portion of the table.

The beauty of using the candidate ID field to swap votes is that the references in all other parts of the system will automatically swap the data as well.

I've experimented with candidate ID swapping in the Diebold GEMS system. It's a gorgeous little hack - and you can do it in any precinct, or even just with the absentee votes, a perilous process here in Washington as votes float in AFTER election day to be counted.

Any time the absentee results have an opposite trend from the Election Day results, internal ID mapping may be the place to look.

Now, this ID mapping swap can happen on the front end from the election management system used to program the memory cartridges, or it can happen on the back end, on the central tabulation machine as votes are added up on Election Night.

The reason I'm so interested in Omaha's potential role in South Carolina is that if there was a candidate ID mapping swap, if it came through the state board of elections into the tabulator system through some patch or update, the poll tape results would NOT match the Election Night results. A complete set of matching poll tapes would point AWAY from any state involvement in the tabulator (or any middleman results reporting system), and TOWARDS Omaha's front-end programming.

If an internal candidate ID swap took place on the front end, it would have been the vendor that programs the cartridges.

There is one additional wrinkle: A Logic and Accuracy Test should catch this. But as we know, L&A tests don't always catch voting machine miscounts, and the DRE machines often use a computer script, rather than real voter input, to execute the L&A test. In other words, a scripted L&A test would not necessarily catch either accidental or deliberate internal candidate ID swaps.

MORE DIAGNOSTICS

Copies of all Unity and iVotronic audit logs need to be printed out and examined.

The memory cartridges need to be examined by dumping their contents and reviewing the code and data.

I think we'll be seeing some interesting forensics on this one.

Check out the Bradblog stories here:

•SC Election Commission Hoodwinks Local Medi... More

(FL) 6/10 - ELECTION REFORM WORKERS MEET IN VOLUSIA COUNTY Election-reform workers meet in DeLand

DO ELECTRONIC ELECTIONS PASS THE TEST?
by Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER

Without elections, we aren't free people. And if election results can't be verified by the public, we don't know if we are free.

That was the message delivered by Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris, when she visited DeLand to address election activists.

Harris has gained national fame, crisscrossing the United States many times since 2002 to investigate election fraud and failures of electronic voting systems.

Electronic machines, including computers and scanners, count more than 80 percent of the votes cast in the United States in county, state and federal elections.

But computers no longer count votes in Germany.

Harris told the DeLand audience that, in 2009, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled citizens must be able to verify election results, reliably, and without any specialized knowledge about voting machines.

Because that standard can't be achieved with electronic voting, Germany elected to revert to paper ballots. Germany joined Ireland, the Netherlands, India and even Nigeria — all of which have returned to paper ballots and hand counts.

In the United States, however, computerized elections are the norm. Paper ballots are scanned and the results tabulated by computers. Touch-screen computers that don't produce paper ballots are in use, and Internet voting is being discussed.

The trend is worrisome for Harris and others like her, who have uncovered computerized elections across the country skewered by fraud, machine malfunction and carelessness.

"Democracy has never been tested before by electronics," Harris said.

After a decade of work, Harris said, she has boiled down the essentials of a good election, to four answers citizens must be able to obtain and independently verify:

• Who was eligible to vote?

• Who actually voted?

• Was the vote cast the same vote that was actually counted?

• Was the vote-counting accurate?

With vote-counting done by computers that operate on secret software, answers to the four questions are impossible to obtain and verify, Harris pointed out.

Even when there are paper ballots, information is routinely concealed from the public, she said. Voters are told information is unavailable, or proprietary. They are denied the right to observe poll-closings and ballot-handling. Chain-of-custody procedures for ballots are sometimes not followed. In some cases, ballots and poll-tapes produced by the ballot-counting machines have been destroyed.

After the 2004 election, Harris went Dumpster-diving outside the Volusia County Elections Office, where she — along with voting activists Susan Pynchon and Ellen Brodsky — found signed poll tapes from the election that had been discarded. The reported results differed from the results on the signed tapes.

Their investigation into the 2004 election was detailed in the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy.

Pynchon, who lives in DeLeon Springs, went on to found Florida Fair Elections Coalition, which hosted Harris' visit in May to DeLand. The work of the nonprofit organization, based in DeLand, has been recognized in many states, and was recently used by Wisconsin to guide the certification of voting machines for use in that state.

Brodsky, who lives in Broward County, founded Broward Election Reform. Brodsky recently won a court victory in Broward after she was arrested for trying to attend a canvassing-board meeting.

Both Brodsky and Pynchon ran for the office of elections supervisor in their respective counties, promising greater accountability and public access to elections processes. Both women lost.

http://www.beacononlinenews.com/news/daily/2731 More

(KY) 6/10 - VENDOR ASSERTS TOTAL CONTROL OVER RECOUNT; PRICE GOUGING GALORE - Let's parse out what's wrong in Boone County, Kentucky.

In the May 2010 primary, just 74 votes separated incumbent judge executive* candidates Gary Moore and Cathy Flaig.

* Kentucky's "Judge Executive" position is akin to County Supervisor.

This was the first time Boone County used paper ballots in many years. A high number of voters marked ballots with check-marks or X's instead of filling in the box -- a situation known to produce inconsistency in the optical scan ballot readers.

In a situation with known discrepancies, a hand recount that exactly matches the machine count indicates fraud, since machines do not read and interpret ballots exactly as the human eye. Kentucky is a voter intent state. The checks and Xs matter in a recount, whether or not the machine can read them.

Boone County Clerk Rena Ping estimated a whopping 15 days to count 12,000 ballots, inflating estimated charges to an intimidating fee.

However, counting a single race on 12,000 ballots will take only 2.5 days at most, based on hand count statistics from New Hampshire. In the next post, I will reprint page 92 from the book "Hands On Elections" (by Black Box Voting board member Nancy Tobi) to show you the calculations, based on actual hand count experience instead of Rena Ping's speculation.

Rena Ping recommended paying $500 per day per counter --$62.50 per hour per person. Flaig's attorney estimated $100 per day; actual costs based on New Hampshire hand counts are $10 per hour for two counters, $20 per hour for a counting supervisor. This works out to $80+$80+$160 per day for all three counters, total $320 for three counters, which divides out to an average cost of $107 per day.

Two and a half days for three reasonably paid counters works out to $800 total -- NOT $22,500, as quoted by Rena Ping.

NOW THE PRIVATE CONTRACTOR STEPS IN

If you think a county clerk can intimidate candidates by producing inflated recount figures, wait 'till you see this:

Harp Enterprises, the private contractor that monopolizes ballot printing, programs the voting machine memory cards, and provides Election Day technical support for 96 of Kentucky's 120 counties, really balloons costs.

Kentucky now uses paper ballot eScans, but still uses the paperless Hart eSlate as its accessible voting system. Anyone is allowed to vote on these, not just the disabled. Harp Enterprises** (not to be confused with Hart Intercivic) quotes the following absurd pricing for recounting the paperless eSlate votes.

** Harp Enterprises is a middleman, functioning much like LHS Associates in New England.

First, Harp takes control of the vote recount on the eSlates. (You heard me.)

The candidate, in Kentucky, is supposed to turn over eSlate recounts to Harp Enterprises, who will say what the votes are. This violates Kentucky law, which requires the Circuit Court Judge to control ballot recount processes, and it is also a conflict of interest to turn a recount over to the same private entity that programmed the cards in the first place.

"Trust us," the private company says (though its employees are not certified or sworn, and we don't know their names). "We will tell you what the vote count was."

Now, for this usurpation of the public right to see and authenticate the count, Harp Enterprises claims it needs three technicians, at $1200 per day each, for two full days, to extract the vote counts from machines for about 50 precincts.

Then Harp wants $1500 to transport the information across the street.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

My friends, current US election customs bend the public over a barrel and molest your right to democratic elections. But people aren't squealing.

The ultimate corrective measure will be to ban concealed processes from elections. And by "concealed" I am referring to "concealed from the public." The Kentucky procedure conceals counting from the candidates and also bars the public from watching anything at all.

Hand counting at the polling place, or the Humboldt County process (scanning and releasing ballot photographs BEFORE the election is certified) move us in the right direction.

But to get reform on a larger scale, we need to GET PEOPLE SQUEALING. We need to build the foundation for successful and meaningful reforms -- ie, banning concealed processes from elections -- at the legislative or judicial level.

We need to get to the tipping point. We need to TALK ABOUT THIS. Blog about it. Video examples of concealment.

This isn't about "confidence" and it is certainly not about finding ways to "trust the vote." It's not about paper trails or paper ballots or "security."

This is about CONCEALMENT OF ESSENTIAL ELECTION PROCESSES FROM THE PUBLIC. Until we ban concealment, we have a false democracy, not a real one.

* * * * *

Here I have archived the Boone County recount news article:

NKY.com - June 4, 2010 by Mark Hansel

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100604/NEWS0103/6050350/Boone-r... More

(CA) 6/10 - SUTTER COUNTY VOTING MACHINE TESTING PERFORMED IN SECRET - First, appreciation to this reporter for covering this story. But the story reveals a number of problems:

During testing, the Sutter County, Calif. machines did not pass the test. Testing was shut down. Then officials addressed the issue in private and later told those who had attended the failed testing that the problem had been solved, offering them a result sheet generated without public witnesses. This violates the public testing requirement in California, and perhaps also the Brown Act (public meetings).

The above secrecy problem is just another tentacle of the overall problem of concealment of election process from the public. If the public lacks the ability to see and authenticate crucial election procedures (ie. who actually voted; the counting process), we cannot ultimately select our representatives unless insiders CHOOSE TO ALLOW IT.

Also of interest in the article archived below is the description of enforcement procedures:

A citizen must file a complaint with the secretary of state, who is to refer it to the local district attorney if it is deemed to have merit. I have seen several election law violations in various states referred to the local D.A., but we simply do not see the D.A. ever prosecuting an election official. Ever.

The district attorney usually has a conflict of interest. D.A.s are elected by a concealed process controlled by the very election officials to be investigated. In many locations the D.A. is also the designated defense attorney for the election official.

* * * * *

Appeal-Democrat - June 3, 2010, by Ben van der Meer

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/test-95619-equipment-singh.html

Sutter County's voting machines questioned

The challenger to Sutter County Clerk-Recorder Donna Johnston said he has serious concerns about the equipment being used to conduct Tuesday's primary and the methods used to test the equipment, but Johnston said his fears are unfounded.

Gabrial Singh, a Live Oak resident and former county planning commissioner, said he believes Johnston improperly conducted a required test of voting equipment and procedures.

"It's not only my election I'm concerned about," said Singh, who has not held elected office before. "It's the entire ballot."

Singh said Johnston hadn't scheduled a voting procedures and equipment test until after he contacted her office on May 17.

On May 20, the day of the scheduled test, Singh and several others, including two Sutter County supervisorial candidates, came to the county's elections office to observe an initial run-through of equipment used to count votes.

Soon after the test began, Singh said, the county's voting equipment stopped working properly, and the test was halted. He said Johnston told him he'd be informed when the test resumed, but later in the day, got a call from Johnston saying the equipment had been fixed and he could read a report on what happened.

"That's why they call it a public test," Singh said. "That hasn't been done."

Such tests of both procedures and equipment are required under state elections law, but enforcement is up to individuals to make a complaint to the California Secretary of State's Office for investigation.

If a violation is found, the Secretary of State's Office would forward it to a local district attorney for possible charges, according to the secretary's press office.

Johnston said Singh's concerns were over the initial failure of voting equipment to print out a report of ballots cast and tallied. The problem was corrected, she said.

"I'm not sure about his allegations," she said of Singh. "He's probably not completely familiar with the procedures and how it's done."

She added she's confident she followed the law in her public test, which must be done before every election.

Yuba County Clerk-Recorder Terry Hansen, who had her public test on May 17, said problems found in such a test aren't rare, but are almost always centered on people rather than equipment.

"There's only one outcome that's acceptable: the tally comes through," said Hansen, adding her public test included casting votes in every race, for every candidate, in every possible language, and in every possible method, either electronically or by pen mark.

"You want the expected outcome for every possible event," she said.

Hansen said she'd have greater concerns if a test turned up an equipment error than one caused by a person.

Singh said he's less concerned about how the public test results affect his race.

"I may win, I may not," he said. "The reason I ran was because I didn't believe the sanctity of elections was being followed."
More

(USA) 5/10 - CITIZENS WARNED THEY WILL BE ARRESTED IF THEY WATCH, VIDEO, ATTEND MEETINGS - This story happened in Kentucky, but those of us working nationally see these kinds of problems in Florida, California, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Arizona -- basically, nationwide.

In May 2010, Bullitt County (KY) citizens invited Black Box Voting to attend the primary election and speak to a gathering at a meeting about election protection.

Citizens were then warned by public officials that they would be ARRESTED if they hosted or attended the meeting.

VIOLATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS

The Kentucky Constitution Article 1 Part 4 affirms the right to freely communicate thoughts and opinions. Part 6 affirms the right of peaceful assembly. The United States Constitution also affirms the right to free speech and peaceful assembly. Any official who tries to stop a meeting by threatening arrest for hosting or attending the meeting is engaging in intimidation and civil rights violations.

CONTENT OF THE PROHIBITED MEETING

Not really germane to the issue, since US and state constitutions guarantee the right to freely express our thoughts and opinions, and the right of peaceful assembly guarantees the right to attend the speech.

But for anyone who cares to know, I covered election-related civil rights and how to monitor election checks and balances.

WHO TRIED TO BLOCK ATTENDANCE AT THIS MEETING?

It began with the Bullitt County elections official, County Clerk Kevin Mooney. I visited Mooney on May 12 and asked him what the problem was with this meeting. He stated (erroneously) that the husband of one of the people hosting the meeting was a candidate, and said there was an appearance of impropriety because it might look like a candidate is trying to gain influence over poll workers and therefore he objected to the meeting.

He was incorrect on his facts -- no wife of any candidate on the May ballot was organizing the meeting, and the county elections chief should know who's on the ballot -- but even if Mooney had been correct, this would not have been sufficient cause for blocking a meeting.

The meeting was nonpartisan and open to the public. Invitations were given to both Democrats and Republicans.

Kevin Mooney was concerned that Pioneer Village Police Chief David Greenwell (who will be a candidate for sheriff in November) might be perceived to be attempting to manipulate poll workers if -- in May -- his wife (Kathy Greenwell*) helped organize a public meeting about election protection. This statement makes even less sense when we realize that Mooney himself will be on the November ballot, and he has extensive direct access to poll workers and helps select them!

*Kathy Greenwell was one of the election protection advocates who traveled to New Hampshire in 2008 to help monitor chain of custody in the presidential primary.

Even if the May poll workers are identical to November poll workers (not likely), Mooney's access to poll workers would be much more intimate than Greenwell's. In fact, according to a recent news article, Mooney hires his own staff to act as poll workers.

Mooney would probably be offended by implications that he might try to manipulate poll workers, but if that's the case Greenwell -- widely regarded as an honest cop in Bullitt County -- should be even more offended. Lacking any evidence, for an election official to single out one candidate with such implications is inappropriate.

If Mooney is truly concerned about creating a wall between May poll workers and November candidates, he needs to recuse himself from his own role as county elections chief, since he will be on the November ballot himself running for County Clerk. Greenwell's opponent for the sheriff's race, whose employees also work the election, would need to recuse his employees as well.

None of that's going to happen, and therefore Mooney's contention that a nonpartisan public meeting in May should be banned because a wife of a future candidate helped arrange it is nonsensical.

Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan organization. We talk with and speak all kinds of events, never in a partisan manner.

BIGGER VENUE, MORE ATTENDANCE

The meeting was postponed because so many local citizens were intimidated by threats of arrest. It was rescheduled for a few days later, in a bigger venue. Not only did Bullitt County citizens attend the meeting, but people came in from six other Kentucky counties, and one women drove in from Indiana to attend.

"YOU MIGHT SAY SOMETHING ILLEGAL"

When I opened my speech, I asked if anyone had been threatened with arrest if they attended. Hands shot up around the audience. Later, I asked a party official why anyone would try to threaten people with arrest.

"Because you might urge them to do something illegal," was his answer. It is a crime in Kentucky to urge someone to commit a violation of election law -- vote buying and so forth being a tradition for election corruption in some regions.

But if I was going to urge people to break the law, it would be... More

(CA) 6/10: SEC. STATE BOWEN ISSUES EXCELLENT ADVISORY - AND YOUR STATE SHOULD DO THIS, TOO - The recent California election administrators advisory about elections audit logs (shown in its entirety at end of this article) will be helpful for elections freedom of information, as long as it is followed. It deserves to be implemented by every state.

People would assume that such advisories are followed, but that is a flawed assumption. There are no consequences for noncompliance, and even if there were, citizen complaints tend not to be investigated, and even if an investigation actually takes place, enforcement and punishment are as rare as a blue steak.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent advisory, and somewhat helpful.

Computerized voting systems conceal the most crucial elements of elections from the public, leaving only bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence for citizens to obtain with open records requests. They don't give us those records until it's too late to have any impact on the election.

Author Richard Hayes Phillips ("Witness to a Crime"), has my favorite answer to those who say "The election's over, what's your point?"

"I'm a historian," he replies. "I have all the time in the world." That answer is a corrupt official's worst nightmare.

We're currently left to dig through mountains of data for hints of what might have transpired.

When I say "bits and pieces" I mean just that -- the audit logs do not tell you who really won the election, but they can shed light on how many memory cards were made, when they were processed, what time voting machines were turned on (and off), along with other items of circumstantial evidence.

In a single election there are enough bits and pieces to fill a small wheelbarrow so that patriotic nerds can toil away, trying to put pieces together. But yes, these audit logs ARE somewhat helpful.

Of course, some election officials make it as difficult as possible for the public to get copies of the audit items.

Once the public does successfully assert its right to obtain the records, some counties provide the materials in the most user-unfriendly formats possible; for example, instead of exporting a table of numbers in a format that can be analyzed in a spreadsheet they say you can only have it on sheets of paper. (Spreadsheets help you automate sorting data and calculating the numbers, percentages and so forth.)

Some state laws require that they release electronic records in electronic form if you request them in that form, but not-so-good officials like to convert data tables into harder to use PDF files instead of spreadsheet-friendly formats you ask for, like TXT, CSV, and TAB files. (These are just as easy to produce as a PDF.)

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen's advisory tells election officials to make the materials available, and furthermore, to make the user-friendly electronic formats available when requested. It tells election officials to consult ahead of time with their vendors to find out where the audit reports are and how to access them when requested. It requires archiving backup copies, so election officials can't say they overwrote the files, and sets out retention policies so the audit logs will be kept for a period of time just like other key election records (for example, ballots).

This should be very good news to citizens like Tom Courbat, who has a court battle going with Riverside County right now over refusal to provide records in a sensible format.

We'd be even happier to see an advisory recommending that election officials print out all audit files and reports and post them promptly on the Internet, a suggestion from Susan Pynchon of Florida Fair Elections Coalition. This wouldn't be difficult or expensive. It would be somewhat helpful, though it doesn't get at the core problem -- concealment of the count itself.

June 1,2010
County Clerk/Registrar of Voters (CC/ROV) Memorandum #10181

RE: VOTING SYSTEMS - AUDIT LOG BEST PRACTICES

Attached is a document outlining a collection of best practices aimed at ensuring counties can protect and preserve their voting systems audit logs.

The best practices were developed in consultation with county elections officials and voting system vendors following a review of the voting system audit logs conducted by University of California. Berkeley, computer science professor David Wagner at the request of the Secretary of State. The best practices recommendations, which includes a link to the Voting Systems Audit Log Study, are attached below for your convenience.

The Secretary of State's office strongly encourages all county elections officials, if they have not already done so, to adopt these practices.

If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Voting Systems Technology Assessment at (916) 653-7244 or at votingsvstems@sos.ca.gov.

Attachment: 1

Best Practices For Maintaining Voting Systems Audit Logs
June 1, 2010

Background

In December 2007, Humboldt County elections officials learned that a problem with its ... More

(USA) 5/10 - QUESTIONABLE LEADERSHIP ON WORLD DEMOCRACY - Does the US want a back door into other nation's elections?

Someone had to say it. So I will.

The United States has been cheerleading the concept of concealed vote counting round the world in a most unhealthy way, unless it is sham democracy we are really after.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before congress in glowing terms regarding India's e-voting system,[1] yet these opaque electronic voting machines conceal key election processes from the public, putting control into the hands of government insiders -- hardly democratic, and in India's corruption-prone environment, downright dangerous.

Despite Clinton's earlier assurances, Indian e-voting machines have recently succumbed to manipulation by a team of researchers. Here's what one of them had to say about India's e-voting system:

quote:I've studied electronic voting machines for years, but I've never had such a strong sense that actual fraud might be taking place. There have been dozens of reports from around India that politicians have been approached by engineers offering to manipulate the machines to steal votes. My Indian coauthor, Hari Prasad, was himself approached by a prominent party and asked to help them with such manipulations! ... there are probably a million people in India with the necessary electronics skills. -- Alex Halderman, one of a team of researchers who proved the Indian machines can be used to illicitly control election outcomes.[2]

Is it that certain US leaders are woefully uninformed, or might it be that there are some in high positions who discreetly believe that elections must be controllable? ("If necessary.")

At least one US leader believed just that. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was so appalled at the prospect of a democratic Chilean election installing a president of whom he disapproved that he said,

quote:"I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
—Henry Kissinger, June 27, 1970

To paraphrase journalist William Blum, there's one thing the United States hates more than an international leader deemed politically undesirable, and that is a democratically ELECTED politically undesirable leader.

Depite successive US expenditures to control the Chilean election, Salvador Allende was democratically elected in 1970. Kissinger subsequently began lining up support for a military coup.

According to the CIA, the US had no vital national interests within Chile. The world military balance of power would not have been significantly altered by an Allende government. But according to Kissinger, Chile was a virus that would infect the world with its ideological platform.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE CURRENT US PRO E-VOTING STANCE?

With every e-voting system ever examined succumbing to multiple election-control attacks, and when no reputable computer scientist will claim that a concealed computerized system can be secured against insiders (like government custodians and the vendors they select), enthusiasm by US leaders for such systems is getting hard to explain without a bit of skepticism.

Tidier than involvement in a coup, and less expensive than investing in enough propaganda to thwart a democratic election, e-voting has now proven to provide the opportunity for a "Plan B." If desired. In case it's necessary.

Now, before you tell me that you believe no such ulterior motive need be involved, let me just say: It's not acceptable for national leaders to pretend that a counting process which is concealed from the public should be trusted. They should know better. What I am suggesting is that some of them DO know better.

E-VOTING IN ESTABLISHED AND DEVELOPING WORLD DEMOCRACIES

Germany has banned its e-voting system, deeming it unconstitutional because it conceals essential election processes from the public. E-voting systems have also been banned in Ireland and the Netherlands.

Nigeria, while struggling mightily with basic democratic concepts like freedom of information and the private ballot, decided this week to ban e-voting for 2011 elections in favor of privately voted paper ballots, hand counted in public.

The Philippines are currently experiencing a meltdown in their own Smartmatic e-voting system, with a last-minute recall of 76,000 memory cards. The Philippine election organization, called COMELEC, should perhaps change its name to COMEDIC, except that the impact on democracy in the Philippines is anything but a comedy.

After Philippine memory cards were found to be miscounting votes, unable to get enough more in time, the Philippines then decided to obtain some 40,000 potentially election-controlling memory cards from foreign countries (primarily Taiwan and Hong Kong). Then -- pretending all was well, nothing to worry about -- they had them couriered all over the country in helicopters provided by private businessmen.[3]

According to University of Michigan... More

(AR) 4/10 - CAPITALIZING ON PRO E-VOTING MEDIA PROPAGANDA TO BUILD A BETTER VOTING RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE - An article appeared in a local Green County (Ark.) newpaper under the headline "Good to Vote Electronically." I will excerpt and link the article below; basically it is one of the hundreds of "L&A Test Shows Machines Count Votes Properly" bits that we see appearing all over the US during election season.

We are beginning to make headway in framing election integrity issues as Freedom of Information matters, and issues of public control. It is no longer just me, Nancy Tobi, Paul Lehto, Kathleen Wynne and the nation of Germany. I am seeing more and more election integrity advocates picking up the ball to introduce these concepts to other local and national groups.

Job one is to build the foundation for real, meaningful reform by developing public awareness of elections using a human rights framework. Until that foundation is built, we will find it very difficult to get court judgments or legislation to restore public controls for public elections.

This begins with the "each one teach one" approach. I wrote personally to the reporter and also posted at the Paragould Press site. Just take the bull by the horns and jump right in when you see an opportunity near you! I am generally available by phone to help you with messaging if you wish to network with other organizations on this.
* * * * *
Paragould Daily Press - April 30, 2010, by John Griffith

Greene County’s electronic voting machines and ballots are functioning correctly and are ready for early voting, the election commission said Thursday following a successful public systems test. . . .

http://www.paragoulddailypress.com/articles/2010/04/30/local_news/doc4bda4127755

Good to vote electronically
Election commission certifies electronic voting machines
* * * * *

MY RESPONSE:

Dear John,

Headlining an article "Good to Vote Electronically" could be called editorializing and it could be called propaganda, but it is not appropriately called news. Perhaps someone on your editorial staff wrote the headline.

Though the headline may have meant "the machines are 'good to go' it appears to assign a value judgement, "electronic voting is good."

Voting rights advocates would disagree. Voting electronically conceals two essential steps from the public: It conceals whether the votes you cast are actually the same as the votes the computer counts, and conceals the actual counting itself from the public. For these reasons, Germany has banned this type of voting, its high court ruling that concealing essential election processes from the public is unconstitutional.

The tests described in your article are not proof that the machines will count accurately on Election Day, or that they cannot be adjusted or manipulated by those with inside access. The redundancies you list are not particularly protective, because the public, and usually the candidates and their attorneys, can never look at the so-called redundant copies to prove they are in fact the same, and even if they were these redundant systems can be adjusted to match each other.

I hope you consider a different framework for examining election systems, through the lens of human rights. We have an absolute, inalienable right to freedom, and we are not free if the public lacks controls over its own government. While we may FEEL like we have control, through the voting booth, if in fact a set of insiders controls essential processes and conceals them from the public, this is actually a transfer of power from The People to a small set of government insiders or the vendors they select.

These are serious issues; you may agree or disagree, or want more time to think about it or discuss how concealed processes erode the foundation of democratic systems, but in any event, headlining an article "Good to Vote Electronically" would put you in the category of those who believe concealing essential public election processes from the public is "good."

And when you think about it, that would be membership in an unwholesome list.

Bev Harris
Director - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
A national, nonpartisan nonprofit voting rights organization

Paragould Daily Press - April 30, 2010, by John Griffith

Good to vote electronically
Election commission certifies electronic voting machines

Published: Friday, April 30, 2010 12:11 PM CDT
Greene County’s electronic voting machines and ballots are functioning correctly and are ready for early voting, the election commission said Thursday following a successful public systems test.

“It was successful; all candidates running are on our ballot,” commission chair Paulette Parker said.

“During tests, all votes for candidates were accounted for,” said commissioner Don Farmer.

Parker said the L and A test, short for logic and accuracy, is a diagnostics test of a machine’s capability to correctly record and tally votes. . .

* * * * *

FOR MY BBV FRIENDS - A small P.S., and please don't distract the topic by postin... More

(USA) 3/10 - HIDDEN RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ES&S ANTI-TRUST DECISION Here's a quick analysis of the possible impact of the USDOJ antitrust decision:

The acquisition by ES&S of Diebold's Premier Election Solutions has been (supposedly) nixed by the US Department of Justice on antitrust grounds. However, the DOJ erred by not acting promptly to protect the Premier Elections operation from being gutted by ES&S.

The Dept. of Justice claims that the deal flew under the radar so they couldn't stop the pillaging of Premier in time. That's not the case. The records will show that the Dept. of Justice had received -- and acknowledged -- formal complaints in time to put a protective halt on the mass firings of Premier employees.

HERE'S WHY THIS ERROR IS SO SIGNIFICANT:

The USDOJ failed to act to protect the assets of Diebold's Premier Elections unit, resulting in the problem that they now cannot mandate full divestiture of Premier by ES&S, and instead have ordered ES&S to remove itself from Premier's current locations only partially -- or perhaps, not at all.

That's right. If the acquisition were to stand, ES&S would have over 70% market share. But under the current Dept. of Justice decision, ES&S may still end up with over 70% market share.

Here's why: Because ES&S gutted Premier and fired over 100 employees, no other entity can swoop in to acquire an intact company. According to my sources inside Diebold, the Diebold corporation has no intention whatsoever of taking its Premier Elections unit back. Diebold Inc. considers the current situation to be ES&S's problem.

If another entity were to step in and buy the gutted Premier entity, they would not have enough support staff to service the accounts.

We are in the midst of an election year, with primaries coming down the road pell-mell. Counties with the Premier equipment still need to run their elections. Under the USDOJ decision, they can choose to sign with ES&S to take over their election support, or they can opt to wait and sign with an "acquirer" -- an entity that does not yet exist. The expedient action will most likely be to sign with ES&S.

THIS LEAVES THE FOLLOWING POSSIBILITIES:

a) Most or all current Premier voting systems customers may sign with ES&S to support their Premier equipment, because they have elections coming up. Firm deadlines with no other support available could effectively force counties to sign with ES&S.

b) Hart Intercivic or Sequoia might step in to become the "acquirer", and under the USDOJ agreement the "acquirer" can scramble around trying to re-hire the Premier employees that were let go months ago. Hart and Sequoia could use their existing staff to help handle election support pressure, which will be intense.

c) One or some of the subcontractors, like LHS Associates (northeast U.S.) or GBS (midwest) could expand into servicing and controlling more states. They may be licking their chops on this. In other words, LHS Associates could say "Hey, Pennsylvania, whether or not any "acquirer" shows up to buy ES&S's divestiture of Premier, we'll support you with your existing equipment."

d) Some crony of ES&S, possibly waiting in the wings all along, could step in and may perhaps have already networked with former Premier employees to take over in the event of an antitrust rollback. Since we still don't know who actually owns ES&S, and we won't necessarily know who owns some new "acquirer" entity if it is privately held. Who knows, it could even be the same guys who are quietly involved in ES&S.

e) A group of angel investment bankers may jump in and theoretically that could be an opportunity for the citizenry to jump on this to form a kind of public utility. Don't hold your breath on this outcome, which might be cool but would scare the pants off some of the dirtier players in the elections industry.

BRC VOTING MACHINE ANTITRUST SITUATION, REVISITED

This proposed agreement has similarities to the 1997 deal when ES&S got into antitrust problems after buying a massive voting machine company called Business Records Corp. Under the antitrust order, ES&S was allowed to service existing accounts and Sequoia was allowed to sell and service new accounts.

The current USDOJ decision allows ES&S to service existing accounts, but only an "acquirer" can sell new Premier equipment (if anyone even wants it!)

If any jurisdiction wants to replace more than 50% of its existing voting system with new Premier stuff, they can't go to ES&S for the new stuff, but have to buy it from the "acquirer" instead. So, it would make sense for Hart or Sequoia or one of the subcontractors like LHS Associates to jump in to grab the cash on new equipment sales. Essentially, this would only rearrange the deck chairs, and the US elections industry would remain overconcentrated.

ROLLBACK OF THE NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS

One interesting situation: Former Premier employees and the ES&S employees who were involved with supporting the Premier product line recently will be released from their nonc... More

4-22-09: Arizona A.G. releases results ... questions linger
by Jim March, with addendum by Bev Harris

Arizona AG Releases Official RTA Results:
Election A Clean Bill Of Health, Pima County Elections...Not So Much...

THE OFFICIAL BOTTOM LINE

At a press conference today in Tucson, AZ Attorney General Terry Goddard released the results of the 2006 Pima County RTA election handcount. His office says that most ballots are present and accounted for save for less than 100, and the hand count totals match the machine count of 2006 to within .01% - variances of 300 to 500 votes between the two questions, in an election with over 120,000 votes cast.

This seems to be an end to the RTA controversy...but not quite.

WHAT ABOUT THE MISSING BALLOTS?

Former NSA computer guru Mickey Dunahoe went over the high-resolution video of the handcount this week, and managed to do his own accurate-to-the-ballot count of a precinct box. This precinct contained around 1,500 ballots – filling the 12” tall box to the brim without overstuffing. The count we had managed to perform during the election was of a box of mail-in votes, counting about 1,240 or so before box-bulging began.

This would indicate that mail-in votes were literally thicker cardstock than the precinct votes. By basing our count estimates on thicker mail-in votes, our estimates on the precinct vote were off by up to 300 votes a box (with 55 precinct boxes).

When asked about the difference, the AG's office admitted not even noticing a possible difference in paper stock for the ballots.

We'll be getting the full paper trail from this "investigation" soon, and will try to revisit this and other issues.

OTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE HAND COUNT

The AG's office made three mistakes with the handcount process.

* They didn't try and do a tally of counted precinct votes against either the original statement of votes cast (SOVC) report or against the polltapes and/or pollworker “end of day report” (also known as “the yellow sheet” in Arizona). IF the paper record was manipulated, it would be easier to fake the numbers for vote totals rather than try and get fake paper ballots lined up in the correct ballot boxes. Auditing to a precinct detail level is a barrier against paper swap or alteration frauds.

* They didn't attempt to confirm paper ballot authenticity with spot-checks under a microscope or ink age analysis, or even an informal look at why the same ballot boxes hold more precinct ballots than absentee ballots.

EASY MICROSCOPE EXAM: The newest “bal... More

VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 1)
VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 2)
VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 3)
VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 4)
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Face to Face with the recount guys
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - 9 Minutes on the Road w. Butch & Hoppy
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - The Jeannie Dean Video
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Butch & Hoppy II - Pack o' Lies
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Butch & Hoppy Ia: Chase begins
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Butch & Hoppy Ib: Chase begins

Click here to read older stories

artwork contributed by art101.com

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Protect the Count:
Most of America

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Protect the Count:
Absentee & Central Count

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Protect the Count:
New England / New Hampshire

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Black Box Voting Book
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
d - Appendix
Footnotes
Index

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