Source:  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Sequoia-Voting-Systems-bw-1072912684.html/...

* Press Release
* Source: Sequoia Voting Systems
* On 8:00 am EDT, Tuesday October 27, 2009
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Sequoia Voting Systems Announces the First Transparent Election System with Fully Disclosed, Freely Available Source Code and Open Architecture Developed to Meet Federal Voting System Guidelines

Sequoia’s Frontier Election System Source Code Will Be Available for Public Download Through the Company’s Website Beginning November 2009

System Slated to Enter the Election Assistance Commission’s Federal Voting System Certification Program in Mid-2010  

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Sequoia Voting Systems officially introduced its latest revolutionary new offering – the Frontier Election Systemtm – the first transparent end-to-end election system including precinct and central count digital optical scan tabulators, robust election management and ballot preparation system, and a tally, tabulation, and reporting applications based on an open architecture with publicly disclosed source code developed specifically to meet current and future iterations of the federal Voting System Guidelines.

“Security through obfuscation and secrecy is not security,” said Eric D. Coomer, PhD, Vice President of Research and Product Development at Sequoia Voting Systems. “Fully disclosed source code is the path to true transparency and confidence in the voting process for all involved. Sequoia is proud to be the leader in providing the first publicly disclosed source code for a complete end-to-end election system from a leading supplier of voting systems and software. Sequoia’s Frontier Election System has been designed to comply with all the current Election Assistance Commission’s Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.”

Frontier is a comprehensive election system centered around digital scan Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) tabulators with patent-pending triple-relatable-records, open data formats, and publicly disclosed source code.

Sequoia’s Frontier Election System has been in active development for 18 months and has been demonstrated at various state, national, and international election conferences over the past 12 months to positive feedback from election officials and all facets of the election community. The company expects the system to enter the federal Voting System Certification Program during the first half of 2010.

“Frontier is a new system developed from the ground up with the full intention of releasing all of the source code to any member of the public who wishes to download it - from computer scientists and election officials to students, security experts and the voting public,” said Dr. Coomer. “While we are extremely confident in the quality of the software that our skilled team has developed, no software is perfect. Transparency and collaborative review will yield the most robust and secure product with the highest voter confidence.”

To this end, Sequoia will begin releasing fully functioning modules of Frontier’s systems with all source code on the company’s website at www.sequoiavote.com beginning in mid-November, 2009.

10.20.09

Election Defense Alliance Opens Public Review of Sequoia Voting System Source Code

By Jim March

Election Defense Alliance, a nonprofit organized to review and improve voting system technology and operations, has come into possession of thousands of lines of software written by Sequoia Voting Systems as part of a public records response from Riverside County, California. (Sequoia is the third-largest E-voting vendor in the nation, whose secret proprietary software counts the votes for approximately 17% of the U.S. electorate).

Because the files were obtained from a government agency in an above-board fashion, for the first time the analysis process and actual code can be released to the public and studied in a public and transparent fashion.

The entire analysis project and associated files to study are available at a new wiki:
http://studysequoia.wikispaces.com/

How You Can Help Shine Light on Sequoia

Previous voting system software analysis has been in secret, either due to non-disclosure agreements, court ordered secrecy or the review of code from legally questionable sources.

In this case, no such restrictions exist and the analysis process will be open, online and public as is proper when looking at the engine of our democratic process. “What was done in the dark will be brought to the light” as Johnny Cash put it.

The software was buried inside of data files used to store the tabulation of votes from the November 2008 general election. This practice of blending data and software has been long suspected and even alluded to in documents from Sequoia; however, the details had been obscured under “trade secrets” claims. Sequoia asserted and exercised an alleged “right” to strip the data files of anything proprietary before Riverside County turned the files over to EDA.

Although Sequoia attempted to redact their proprietary code from the election database files, they failed to strip out thousands of lines of software buried in the electon data.

The software appears to control the logical flow of the election, and is detailed enough to name the authors and dates of modifications along with what the code is actually doing to our votes. Some of it might actually have been stripped out, but we strongly suspect not due to the volume of code present.

EDA is expressing concern that such human-readable and “field modifiable” software has been banned by the federal rulebook on voting system design and testing.

Pending a detailed review, we expect to do a legal analysis of the structure of the Sequoia system thus revealed and file complaints with the proper state and federal authorities.

EDA is concerned about other known cases of failure in the certification of voting systems in which legally flawed products were allowed into the market, a trend noticed recently by NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology) in a formal letter throwing one of the authorized test labs out of the voting system test business.

Of the four labs ever credentialed for voting system testing, three have at various times been thrown out for misconduct or incompetence, only to be let back in under “restrictions.”

We believe that the source code analysis from Sequoia will document yet another such case of test lab failure along with a failure at Sequoia.

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Shine Light on Sequoia

This Sequoia code review is one part of a larger EDA Public Record Election Project (PREP), based on public records freedom of information law. We have convened an expert group of investigators and are filing public records requests for voting system database records in a number of counties.

If you can lend your software programming skills to the Sequoia code analysis, we invite your participation at the SequoiaStudy wiki.

If you'd like to research and develop election integrity legal tactics for election code enforcement and protection of citizen observer rights, please join the EDA Legal Working Group. (You don't have to be an attorney, but if you know any, invite them!).

If you can contribute financially, we need tax-deductible donations for court and attorney fees and to pay a living wage to our irreplaceable investigators who have long been working without pay, on your behalf, for election integrity.

You can designate your designations for the Public Record Election Project at the EDA donation page.
Look for the donation earmark dropdown box, located below the donation premium offers, as shown in this screenshot:

[Illustration]

Your contributions are fully tax-deductible and will be securely transmitted by the Groundspring/DonateNow donation service.
Election Defense Alliance is a program of International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Read about (and join) the Sequoia code study at http://studysequoia.wikispaces.com/

Project technical lead: 
Jim March

EDA general information:
Dan Ashby 
EDA Director
Toll free: 877.375.3930

VoterGA, the Georgia election integrity coalition that carried a landmark, constitution-based challenge to computerized voting through the Georgia court system, only to have the Georgia Supreme Court dismiss the case in disregard of undisputed points of evidence, has issued the following public letter to outline case issues and prospects, and to gauge public support, as they consider whether to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. VoterGA is seeking pledges of financial commitment to see this case through. Initiating the appeal will cost $20,000 to $25,000.

U.S. Supreme Court Appeal Considerations

VoterGA Supporters,

We now are at the most significant crossroads in the history of our landmark voting rights case.  We must quickly make a decision whether or not to appeal the Constitutional arguments of the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. I have tried to assemble the facts with as little bias as possible for your consideration. Some major areas for your consideration are:

    ·    The Georgia Supreme Court Ruling
    ·    The Basis for a U.S. Supreme Court Appeal
    ·    Appeal Costs
    ·    Appeal Benefits
    ·    Appeal Risks
    ·    Other Federal Alternatives

GA Supreme Court Ruling:

In considering whether or not to appeal, it is important to have an understanding of the Georgia Supreme Court decision. The decision had no dissenters and was slightly more substantial than the state superior court ruling but it still had the same basic flaws:

    ·    The court denied our normal right to a trial on all 13 counts of the lawsuit although we factually disputed 41 assertions made to the court by the Attorney General’s office and cited 17 lower court conclusions that had no basis in case evidence;

    ·    The court defied all U.S. Supreme Court case law for ballot counting and recounting by refusing to apply strict scrutiny to our fundamental right of voting;

    ·    The court instead applied a minimal standard of scrutiny and ruled that the former Secretary had a rational basis for implementing the machines in spite of the evidence we presented showing:

    a.    The machines do not have an independent audit trail of each vote cast as the law required. That law was in effect when the machines were procured, evaluated, allegedly certified and purchased;

    b.    The office of the Secretary of State was warned in advance of the need for voter verification, recount retention and audit controls by numerous governmental and public sources including a State Senate Committee, the head of Fulton County Elections and the 21st Century Voting Commission Report;

    c.    There was no compelling need for the Secretary to commit $54 million of taxpayer funds to replace many auditable voting machines with a statewide implementation of voting machines that cannot be properly audited.

    ·     The opinion written by Justice George Carley was cleverly worded to ignore nearly every shred of evidence that we presented, just as the lower court order did.

    ·    The opinion made conclusions with no basis in fact such as: “However, the undisputed evidence shows that the touch screen machines accurately record each vote when they are properly operated.” No such evidence was ever submitted in the case and it is technically impossible to produce the evidence without an independent audit trail.

    ·    The opinion made unsubstantiated conclusions that were in direct conflict with the facts in the case record such as:  “…uncontroverted evidence shows that the Secretary of State has properly certified the DRE voting system pursuant to O.C.G.A. 21-2-379-2.” That code section requires the Secretary of State to produce a “report."  We explained that the certification reports were never produced for the current equipment. Only certificates were provided for them.

In addition, no reports or certificates of any kind were produced for machines used in the 2001-2002 time period. Thus it is impossible for the evidence to be uncontroverted. Furthermore, we showed that the tabulation servers can never be certified according to federal guidelines, as secretary of state policy requires, because the servers cannot prevent fraudulent vote manipulation as the guidelines require.

 In summary, we did everything we needed to do to win this case in the Georgia Supreme Court:

·    Our briefs clearly presented the evidence and case law while refuting all material assertions made by the opposition;
·    Walker did what we believed to be a very good job at the GA Supreme Court oral arguments;
·    Todd followed up with a letter at the request of the Court that clearly applied all U.S. Supreme Court case law to our case and refuted the exact case law presented by the opposition because it was unrelated to ballot counting and recounting.

The court had everything it needed to make a decision based on the merits of the case but chose to ignore those merits. Since the case law and evidence we presented was never refuted by either court, I can only assume that the courts made a biased decision to protect state interests or those involved.

Source: AJC
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/court-upholds-touchscreen-voting-148666.html
Court Upholds Touchscreen Voting

By BILL RANKIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution    10:51 a.m. Monday, September 28, 2009

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday upheld the use of touch-screen voting, rejecting claims the machines violate the right to vote.
In a unanimous ruling, the court turned back a challenge by a group of citizens who filed suit three years ago in Fulton County Superior Court. A judge had previously dismissed the suit, ruling in favor of state officials.

The group claimed their fundamental right to vote is harmed because the recording, counting and retention of their votes, unlike paper ballots, are not being properly protected, which can prevent fraudulent manipulation of the results.

But the state high court, in a ruling written by Justice George Carley, found the use of touchscreen voting systems does not severely restrict the right to vote. 

Download the Court Ruling
 
 
photocredit: eyspahn
Georgia's Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling
affirming state's right to use electronic voting machines

VoterGA Response to Today's Ruling

VoterGa Supporters,

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled today that our current form of un-auditable voting does not infringe upon the fundamental right to vote and to have our vote counted. This ruling essentially gives the state a license to pretend to conduct elections.

Not one of the 100+ million votes that have been cast on the machines since 2002 can be audited for accuracy and correctness of vote recording. Georgia  law in 2001 and 2002 required that any new machines have an independent audit trail of each vote cast.

The state’s own witnesses have acknowledged that the specific type of electronic voting machines we purchased and use do not have such an independent audit trail. The machines can only internally recreate selections that may or may not have been shown to voter. Without an independent audit trail, it is impossible to determine whether the actual ballots cast on Election Day were recorded correctly. Auditable electronic voting machines were available for purchase in 2002 as they are today.

When one or two officials can commit the state of Georgia to a $ 54 million purchase of voting equipment that was illegal at the moment of purchase, there must be some mechanism of accountability. Otherwise, public officials can operate above the law.

In this particular case, the previous boss of former Secretary of State Cox, who signed the purchase agreement, was the lobbyist for Diebold, the voting machine vendor. When the people have no recourse even for a standard trial of evidence , they become slaves to their government rather than the masters of it.

The Georgia Supreme Court also upheld the remarkable lower court decision that no trial is warranted on any count of the 13-count legal suit. The Georgia Supreme Court declined to overturn that lower court decision in spite of 17 disputes of facts cited in lower court conclusions and 41 disputes of facts cited against claims made by the state to Georgia Supreme Court.

Several of these disputes involved claims that were directly contradicted by the evidence in the record and clearly cited. Summary judgment dismissals, such as the one that the Georgia Supreme Court has just upheld, are rare in this type of case because standard procedures for any court in America require the court to hear the evidence in order to determine the facts before reaching a conclusion.

Now that the state has proven not to  be unable to rule against itself on any count, some Constitutional parts of the case could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. While offering a more substantive decision than the lower court, the Georgia Supreme Court did not cite U.S. Supreme Court rulings related to ballot counting and recounting to corroborate its decision. All such U.S. Supreme Court rulings confirm that ballot counting and recounting requires strict scrutiny.

On the contrary, the Georgia Supreme Court decided that the state need only have a rational basis for implementing the voting systems. Even so, there is no rational basis for implementing a voting system that violates the law.

--Garland Favorito
www.voterga.org

P.S. I will send a follow-up e-mail on possible  next steps once we have had time to analyze the decision.

Download the Court Ruling

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