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Send to friendFirst the Impossible, Now the Improbable, in NY-23
Source: Gouverneurtimes.com
2nd in a series
Click NY23 tag to see all related stories.
by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Friday, 27 November 2009 12:14
CANTON, NY – As reported earlier this week, the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections has certified impossible numbers in the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Ninety-three (93) “phantom votes,” more votes counted than the number of ballots cast, were reported in six election districts, and negative numbers were reported for the “blank ballots,” or “undervotes.”
Such numbers are a red flag, indicating that something is terribly wrong with the electronic vote tabulation system countywide. Further scrutiny of the election results reveals numerous precincts where the results, although not always mathematically impossible, are not credible.
On Friday, November 6, three days after the election, one of the involved campaigns obtained from the Board of Elections a spreadsheet of the preliminary (unofficial) election results, precinct by precinct. Absentee ballots had not yet been counted. This serves as an important “snapshot” with which to compare the final (certified) results.
As previously reported, voting machine failures at eight polling places in St. Lawrence County caused the Board of Elections to hand count those ballots. Realistically, there was no other choice but to do so. According to the Board, the locked voting machines were transported to a warehouse in Canton where the ballots were counted by hand. The problem with this procedure is that it is illegal under § 9-100 of New York State Election Law, which requires that the votes be counted at the polling place:
§ 9-100 At the close of the polls the inspectors of election shall, in the order set forth herein, lock the machine against voting, account for the paper ballots, canvass the machine, cast and canvass all the ballots, canvass and ascertain the total vote and they shall not adjourn until the canvass be fully completed.
ImageCast optical scan voting machine, Onondaga County
For three of these polling places, the preliminary hand count could not have been correct. In Louisville, there were 885 actual voters at the polls, but only 691 votes were counted for Congress on Election Night. In Waddington, there were 754 actual voters at the polls, but only 347 votes were counted for Congress on Election Night. In Rossie, there were 138 actual voters at the polls, but only 94 votes were counted for Congress on Election Night. Fifty-three (53) votes were counted later. Bill Owens got 50 of them.
§ 9-102.3(b) Paper ballots and emergency ballots cast during voting machine breakdowns which have been voted shall then be canvassed and tallied, the vote thereon for each candidate and ballot proposal, announced and added to the vote as recorded on the return of canvass.
§ 9-108.1 The board of inspectors, at the beginning of the canvass, shall count the ballots found in each ballot box without unfolding them, except so far as to ascertain that each ballot is single, and shall compare the number of ballots found in each box with the number shown by the registration poll records, and the ballot returns to have been deposited therein.
Another problem with these voting machines is that it is mechanically possible to open both ballot slots, and both locked boxes, even while the optical scanner is operating. This opens the possibility that ballots could be deposited into the wrong ballot box, inadvertently or deliberately, and never be counted. An eyewitness who voted at the only polling place in Russell told me that she was not allowed to place her own ballot in the machine; a poll worker examined her ballot and placed it into the machine for her. This caused her to be concerned about both the privacy of her vote and the security of the vote count.
2nd in a series
Click NY23 tag to see all related stories.
First the Impossible, Now the Improbable, in NY-23
Northern NY Newsby Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Friday, 27 November 2009 12:14
CANTON, NY – As reported earlier this week, the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections has certified impossible numbers in the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Ninety-three (93) “phantom votes,” more votes counted than the number of ballots cast, were reported in six election districts, and negative numbers were reported for the “blank ballots,” or “undervotes.”
Such numbers are a red flag, indicating that something is terribly wrong with the electronic vote tabulation system countywide. Further scrutiny of the election results reveals numerous precincts where the results, although not always mathematically impossible, are not credible.
On Friday, November 6, three days after the election, one of the involved campaigns obtained from the Board of Elections a spreadsheet of the preliminary (unofficial) election results, precinct by precinct. Absentee ballots had not yet been counted. This serves as an important “snapshot” with which to compare the final (certified) results.
As previously reported, voting machine failures at eight polling places in St. Lawrence County caused the Board of Elections to hand count those ballots. Realistically, there was no other choice but to do so. According to the Board, the locked voting machines were transported to a warehouse in Canton where the ballots were counted by hand. The problem with this procedure is that it is illegal under § 9-100 of New York State Election Law, which requires that the votes be counted at the polling place:§ 9-100 At the close of the polls the inspectors of election shall, in the order set forth herein, lock the machine against voting, account for the paper ballots, canvass the machine, cast and canvass all the ballots, canvass and ascertain the total vote and they shall not adjourn until the canvass be fully completed.
ImageCast optical scan voting machine, Onondaga County
Comparing Poll Books, Absentee Lists to Initial Counts
An audit of the poll books and absentee voter lists for these eight polling places reveals that the final vote count cannot be correct in two of them. In Massena’s 1st and 2nd districts, there were 565 actual voters at the polls and 26 absentee ballots, for a total of 591; but there were 575 votes counted for Congress and 11 “blank” ballots, for a total of 586, which indicates that 5 ballots were not counted. In Rossie, there were 138 actual voters at the polls and 6 absentee ballots, for a total of 144; but there were 147 votes counted for Congress and 4 “blank” ballots, for a total of 151, which indicates that 7 extra votes were counted.For three of these polling places, the preliminary hand count could not have been correct. In Louisville, there were 885 actual voters at the polls, but only 691 votes were counted for Congress on Election Night. In Waddington, there were 754 actual voters at the polls, but only 347 votes were counted for Congress on Election Night. In Rossie, there were 138 actual voters at the polls, but only 94 votes were counted for Congress on Election Night. Fifty-three (53) votes were counted later. Bill Owens got 50 of them.
Lock Box Ballots Overlooked?
One possible reason for the short counts on Election Night is that the Sequoia/Dominion ImageCast machines have two slots and two bins for ballots. There is a slot which sucks a ballot into the optical scanner, much like a dollar bill is sucked into a vending machine, and after the ballot is scanned it drops into a locked box. There is another slot in the front of the machine which can be opened when the scanner breaks down and emergency paper ballots need to be segregated and counted by hand; these ballots drop into a separate locked box. It is possible that the Board of Elections initially counted the ballots from one box but not the other. But this is precisely why § 9-102.3(b) of New York State Election Law requires that the ballots be counted in public at the polling place, and why § 9-108.1 requires that the number of ballots be cross-checked with the poll books to be sure that all the ballots have been counted.§ 9-102.3(b) Paper ballots and emergency ballots cast during voting machine breakdowns which have been voted shall then be canvassed and tallied, the vote thereon for each candidate and ballot proposal, announced and added to the vote as recorded on the return of canvass.
§ 9-108.1 The board of inspectors, at the beginning of the canvass, shall count the ballots found in each ballot box without unfolding them, except so far as to ascertain that each ballot is single, and shall compare the number of ballots found in each box with the number shown by the registration poll records, and the ballot returns to have been deposited therein.
Another problem with these voting machines is that it is mechanically possible to open both ballot slots, and both locked boxes, even while the optical scanner is operating. This opens the possibility that ballots could be deposited into the wrong ballot box, inadvertently or deliberately, and never be counted. An eyewitness who voted at the only polling place in Russell told me that she was not allowed to place her own ballot in the machine; a poll worker examined her ballot and placed it into the machine for her. This caused her to be concerned about both the privacy of her vote and the security of the vote count.
Blank Ballots Beyond Belief
As previously reported, the number of “blank” ballots, or “undervotes,” is calculated by subtracting the number of votes counted for a given office from the total number of ballots cast. In the Congressional race, the highest percentage of “blank” ballots anywhere in St. Lawrence County was in Russell’s 2nd district. According to the poll book there were 590 actual voters at the polls, and there were 9 absentee ballots, for a total of 599, in Russell’s 1st and 2nd districts combined. According to the certified results there were 334 ballots cast, of which 19 (5.7%) were blank, in the 1st district, and 264 ballots cast, of which 29 (11.0%) were blank, in the 2nd district. It is highly unlikely that 11% of the voters made no choice among three candidates in one of the most hotly contested races in the nation.
Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23
Source: Gouverneurtimes.com
Impossible Numbers Certified in NY-23
Northern NY Newsby Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
CANTON, NY – The election results certified by the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections for New York’s 23rd Congressional District contain some numbers that are mathematically impossible. These numbers were requested in person and transmitted by e-mail just hours before certification on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009.
For six election districts in St. Lawrence County (the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 7th districts in Canton, the 14th district in Massena, and the 2nd district in Oswegatchie) negative numbers appear in the column for “blank” ballots, known in other states as “undervotes.”
Blank vote counts are ballots in which the voter did not choose any candidate in a given election and are determined by subtracting the total number of votes cast for the candidates from the number of voters who completed ballots. The remaining number would be those voters who didn't cast a vote for that election.
________________________________________
'In the certified election results . . . where the voting machines appeared to be working properly, the computer-generated vote counts cannot possibly be accurate
as they are showing more votes counted than voters'
________________________________________
In Canton's 7th district, the certified results show a total of 148 ballots cast. The results of those votes were counted as 88 votes for Owens, 11 votes for Scozzafava, and 80 votes for Hoffman. The problem is that these numbers add up to 179 votes counted for the candidates, and there were only 148 ballots cast; St. Lawrence County certified these numbers to the state as accurate with the number of 'blank' ballots reported as -31.Phantom Voters
The Board of Elections stated repeatedly that their numbers add up, and strictly speaking, they do. But negative numbers should not be required to make this happen.Election analysts refer to this phenomenon as “phantom voters,” because they are apparitions. They do not actually exist. There can never be more votes counted for any office than the number of actual voters who cast ballots. There could be one or two, if on occasion an actual voter forgot to sign the poll book, but never 31.
In addition to the 31 “phantom votes” certified in Canton's 7th district, there are 16 more in Canton's 2nd district, two in Canton's 4th district, 20 in the 7th, 22 in Massena 14th district, and 2 in Oswegatchie 2nd district.
These numbers are minimums. As 'blank' votes do often occur when a voter does not choose a candidate, the number of blank ballots are commonly a positive number. According to the certiified results there were 757 "blank" ballots countywide, or 3.0% of the total ballots cast. Thus, along with the -31 "phantom votes" in Canton's 2nd district, there were likely four or five people who actually cast a 'blank' ballot, meaning that the number of phantom votes is more like 35 or 36 for that district.
________________________________________
'Thus, in the cases cited above, there may have been enough actual voters at the polls
to account for the vote totals for the candidates.
But the numbers do not match up, they do not withstand an audit,
and they should not be certified by the State.'
________________________________________
Poll Book Auditing
An audit of the poll books revealed that there were 537 actual voters at the polls in Canton's 7th and 8th district, which voted at the same polling place, and there were 25 absentee ballots, for a total of 562. According to the certified results, there were 179 votes counted for Congress in Canton's 7th and 375 in Canton's 8th, making 554 altogether, but only 529 voters cast ballots.
Similarly, there were 435 actual voters at the polls in Canton 2, 4 and 6, which voted at the same polling place, and there were 26 absentee ballots, for a total of 461. According to the certified results, there were 449 votes counted for Congress, but only 411 ballots cast.
In Massena's 14th district, a single-precinct polling place, there were 365 actual voters at the polls, and there were 14 absentee ballots, for a total of 379. According to the certified results, there were 363 votes counted for Congress, but only 341 ballots cast.
Maine Miscounts and Strangeness
[From a message circulated Friday, Nov. 13 to election integrity lists]
After about 50 follow-up questions, the secretary of state's office finally conceded that someone
By Bev Harris
Maine has many of the best things in elections -- 200,000 votes are counted by hand, without the typical centralization of control that we're seeing nowadays; election administration is disbursed throughout 500 locations, and statewide hand counts are affordable.
Now for the bad news: I spoke with two different people in the Maine Secretary of State's office this morning. I was incredulous at some of the answers I received, which were both misleading and inappropriate. I wrote this quote down as she was saying it:
"We have not and do not give out results to anyone, we have 23 days to do this."
I spoke with Julie Flynn, deputy secretary of state, and Tracy Willett, who I had to push very hard to get a last name out of.
Both confirmed that the ONLY results avaible to date come from the Bangor Daily News, and that this newspaper does NOT get its results from the secretary of state, but rather, from a volunteer network that calls in on Election Night. In fact, this volunteer network is probably the AP or Voter News Service setup, going by various names but basically, the reporting network for the news media which consists of local poll workers or elections people getting paid by the press to call in their numbers.
I pointed out to the Sec. State's office that the 2nd and 11th biggest municipalities in Maine both appear to have miscounts . . . or something.
Augusta appears to have a 27% overvote in the marijuana issue and no, I do NOT believe this is just some random difference in how they vote. That's because the variation in that issue averages about 1 percent when looking at all 500 locations, and rarely varies much more than that except in Lewiston, another apparently miscounted location. In Lewiston, it appears that there is an 8.5% undervote in the marijuana issue.
Now, I realize that the most high profile issue is the gay marriage issue, but the Augusta and Lewiston anomalies may reflect on the overall vote counting. Both use ES&S Optech machines. The miscounts may be due to ballot stuffing, or to a typo by the Bangor Daily News, or to a voting machine miscount, or to voting machine tampering. The miscounts of the marijuana issue may affect only that issue, or may be symptomatic of a problem affecting other issues like Question 1 (repealing gay marriage) or even all the issues.
I have made a formal request for the Augusta and Lewiston results to the Maine Secretary of State's office.
After about 50 follow-up questions, the secretary of state's office finally conceded that someone
could go in to their office and ask to see their results sheets, beginning 3 days after the election. . .
When I asked if ANYONE came in to ask to look at results for this election,
both persons I spoke with said "No."
By Bev Harris
Maine has many of the best things in elections -- 200,000 votes are counted by hand, without the typical centralization of control that we're seeing nowadays; election administration is disbursed throughout 500 locations, and statewide hand counts are affordable.
Now for the bad news: I spoke with two different people in the Maine Secretary of State's office this morning. I was incredulous at some of the answers I received, which were both misleading and inappropriate. I wrote this quote down as she was saying it:
"We have not and do not give out results to anyone, we have 23 days to do this."
I spoke with Julie Flynn, deputy secretary of state, and Tracy Willett, who I had to push very hard to get a last name out of.
Both confirmed that the ONLY results avaible to date come from the Bangor Daily News, and that this newspaper does NOT get its results from the secretary of state, but rather, from a volunteer network that calls in on Election Night. In fact, this volunteer network is probably the AP or Voter News Service setup, going by various names but basically, the reporting network for the news media which consists of local poll workers or elections people getting paid by the press to call in their numbers.
I pointed out to the Sec. State's office that the 2nd and 11th biggest municipalities in Maine both appear to have miscounts . . . or something.
Augusta appears to have a 27% overvote in the marijuana issue and no, I do NOT believe this is just some random difference in how they vote. That's because the variation in that issue averages about 1 percent when looking at all 500 locations, and rarely varies much more than that except in Lewiston, another apparently miscounted location. In Lewiston, it appears that there is an 8.5% undervote in the marijuana issue.
Now, I realize that the most high profile issue is the gay marriage issue, but the Augusta and Lewiston anomalies may reflect on the overall vote counting. Both use ES&S Optech machines. The miscounts may be due to ballot stuffing, or to a typo by the Bangor Daily News, or to a voting machine miscount, or to voting machine tampering. The miscounts of the marijuana issue may affect only that issue, or may be symptomatic of a problem affecting other issues like Question 1 (repealing gay marriage) or even all the issues.
I have made a formal request for the Augusta and Lewiston results to the Maine Secretary of State's office.
Introducing the New, Improved EDA Working Group Forums
New, improved EDA Working Group Forums are now open at the new ElectionDefenseAlliance2.org website.*
Everybody is invited to read the following intro and illustrated guide to the new Forum features.
Current Working Group members** are invited to come on over, do a walk-through, poke the buttons, upload files, and generally get to know all the things you can do in the new EDA Working Group Forums, generation 2.
** Note: Working Group registration is required to access Forum areas, and you will need to log in with your EDA Username and password.
Click this link for the new EDA Working Group Forums entry page *
* Note: The URLs for EDA2 are temporary while the site is being built, but will become ElectionDefenseAlliance.org when site 2 is finished.
** Note: Working Group registration is required to access Forum areas, and you will need to log in with your EDA Username and password.
Click this link for the new EDA Working Group Forums entry page *
* Note: The URLs for EDA2 are temporary while the site is being built, but will become ElectionDefenseAlliance.org when site 2 is finished.
Guide to New Features in Working Groups Forums
Screenshot of gateway page to the new Working Group Forums.
Gradual Transition, Old to New
The new EDA Working Group Forums all reside on the new EDA 2.0 website still being developed,
but the new Working Group Forums at site 2 are fully functional now, and new content can be filed in the new Forums by any member, at any time.
but the new Working Group Forums at site 2 are fully functional now, and new content can be filed in the new Forums by any member, at any time.
The original Working Group Forums on the main EDA website remain open, and are where most of the Forum content still resides. Go to the original Forums if you are seeking those resources.
(Reminder: Forum access requires you to log in to the site with your EDA account Username and password.
See this Web Account Guide for a refresher).
Want to Help?
See this Web Account Guide for a refresher).
Want to Help?
All content in the original Forums will be copied over to the new 2.0 website, but this is a manual process, and will take some time.
However, it will take less time if Working Group members would like to help. It is copy-and-paste work, using the Content Editor tool.
You will soon learn everything you need to know about posting and composing pages on the EDA site (or any other Drupal-based website).
Drop me a line if you would like to help. Put "Moving Day" in the subject line.
The Transition to EDA 2.0
However, it will take less time if Working Group members would like to help. It is copy-and-paste work, using the Content Editor tool.
You will soon learn everything you need to know about posting and composing pages on the EDA site (or any other Drupal-based website).
Drop me a line if you would like to help. Put "Moving Day" in the subject line.
The Transition to EDA 2.0
Exclusive of the new Forums, and the new EDA Webstore (coming next), all other EDA website content will remain for the time being on the original EDA website location. Migration of original site content to the new 2.0 website will take place gradually over a longer timeline.
When all the content has been copied to the 2.0 site, the original site will be turned off and the ElectionDefenseAlliance.org domain will be turned on at the 2.0 site.
When all the content has been copied to the 2.0 site, the original site will be turned off and the ElectionDefenseAlliance.org domain will be turned on at the 2.0 site.
Skipping Between EDA1 and EDA2
Navigation links in the top-level menu systems of both sites, will shuttle you back and forth between EDA1 and EDA2,depending on where the pages you are seeking, actually reside.
Because your EDA Web account Username and password are the same for both sites, you will be able to switch back and forth
with no problems.
Continue Reading for illustrated How-to
==========================
Foreign Contributions and the Supreme's Overdue Decision on Campaign Funding
The Supreme Court of the United States will soon announce a major decision on our lightly controlled system of campaign funding. Will it retain some limitations on corporate influence or will the court blow the lid off and cause a perpetual flood of unrestricted corporate contributions?
An additional outcome may surprise and shock the public.
If the Supreme Court overturns the lower court's decision, foreign nationals, corporations, and governments with partial ownership of U.S. corporations will, in effect, end up contributing to and influencing U.S. candidates in federal elections.
The Supreme Court surprised many when it agreed to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that enforced key sections of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold) -- Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
In January 2008, the Federal District Court, District of Columbia upheld an FEC action that barred Citizens United, a right wing nonprofit corporation, from airing an extended attack on Hillary Clinton called Hillary: The Movie. Citizens United is headed by David Bossie, a well known political enemy of the Clintons. Citizens' lead counsel, Ted Olsen, is an alumnus of the infamous 1990's Clinton bashing Arkansas Project.
The lower court found The Movie violated provisions of McCain-Feingold since some funding for the movie came from the general treasury of Citizens United, rather than a segregated account for political action, e.g., a Political Action Committee (PAC). The Movie had the sole purpose of convincing viewers that Clinton was unfit for office, making it an example of electioneering communications -- the overriding purpose of which are to advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate. And The Movie was planned for broadcast both 30 days prior to Democratic primaries and 60 days prior to the general election (had Clinton won the nomination), blackout periods for electioneering communications.
In its appeal, Citizens argued that broadcast restrictions in McCain-Feingold should be overturned to allow unrestricted electioneering communications funded directly from corporate treasuries.
But the appeal also served as a vehicle for lifting virtually any ban on corporate giving. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that corporate funding of campaigns from general funds could be restricted. The heart of the decision is found here:
"they (the Michigan laws) are justified by a compelling state interest: preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption in the political arena by reducing the threat that huge corporate treasuries, which are amassed with the aid of favorable state laws and have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas, will be used to influence unfairly election outcomes. Justice Marshall, Austin v. Mich. Chamber of Comm., 1990
Lead counsel for Citizens United, Ted Olsen, argued that "Austin was wrongly decided and should be overruled." He counters with another case that claimed,"First Amendment’s protection against governmental abridgment of free expression cannot properly be made to depend on a person’s financial ability to engage in public discussion.” Ted Olsen, Merits Brief, p. 30, Sept. 9
This challenge to the Austin decision is the true threat within the Trojan horse argument over broadcast restrictions on political hit pieces. The goal of this appeal is nothing less than the legal treatment of corporations as the equal of individual citizens and lesser groups in the political process resulting in an even greater advantage for corporations to control elections.
Sequoia Announces Open-Source, Open-Architecture "Frontier Election System"
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
____________________________________
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.
* Press Release
* Source: Sequoia Voting Systems
* On 8:00 am EDT, Tuesday October 27, 2009
____________________________________
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.
Seeing Through Sequoia's Transparent Election System
Staying Focused on the Real Solutions
10.27.09
Today's announcement of the Sequoia Frontier open-source E-voting system is a significant fork in the trail to election integrity, but it would be a mistake to confuse this half-way mark for our destination.
I had thought ES&S would be first to market with an all-open-source E-voting system. No doubt, they're not far behind. The dwindling number of E-voting vendors still in business are now obliged to follow suit or be expunged from the marketplace, and for that we should be glad.
Although Sequoia's press release is essentially good news, the operative reality is that between now and sometime after 2012 when the open-source voting system announced today is certified for use, there will be another federal election conducted with the same batch of secretly programmed black boxes that hijacked the U.S. government in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006, and skewed the 2008 primaries, and whose predecessors, more likely than not, have been manipulating elections since shortly after their introduction in 1965.
Even if it weren't so dangerous, misapplied technology would still be an unnecessary distraction from the philosophical and practical issues that are properly the core issues of electoral democracy.
It's up to the EI movement to explain to the voting public, that even though open-source code, open data schema, and human-readable data formats are undeniably improvements over the secret, closed voting software currently in use, these features do not and can not address these fundamental civil rights principles on which democracy depends:1. All aspects of the electoral process (except the casting of secret ballots) should be transparently observable and accountable to the citizenry, without the intermediation of secret actors or unobservable software processes.
2. Public elections should be a wholly public exercise, free of dependence on for-profit corporations or any technological priesthood.
Even as the E-voting industry as a whole follows Sequoia in a transition to open-source platforms, the public will remain dependent on private contractors, costly equipment, expensive upgrades, and even more expensive maintenance and service fees in perpetuity, so long as the institution of software-mediated voting is allowed to supplant the appropriately low-tech, citizen-mediated election model based on voter-marked paper ballots hand-counted in the precincts on election night, by the citizens themselves.
EDA Opens Sequoia Voting System Source Code to Public Exam
10.20.09
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.
================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
Election Defense Alliance Opens Public Review of Sequoia Voting System Source Code
By Jim MarchElection 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.
================
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
»
A Censored Headline and Why It Matters
- Constitutional principles
- Court
- e-voting ban
- Election Integrity Lawsuits
- German Federal Constitutional Court
- Germany
- hand counted paper ballots
- Legal
- Litigation
- U.S. Supreme Court
- Constitutional principles
- Court
- Election Integrity Lawsuits
- German Federal Constitutional Court
- Germany
- Legal
- Litigation
- U.S. Supreme Court
A Censored Headline and Why It Matters:
German High Court Outlaws Electronic Voting
Justices of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Image
(DailyCensored.Com) The justices above are clearly the most rational group of high level functionaries in the industrialized world. They did what no other court would do in Europe or the United States. They effectively outlawed electronic voting. On March 3, 2009, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared that the electronic voting machines used in the 2005 Bundestag elections for the German national parliament were outside of the bounds of the German Constitution.
They reasoned that electronic voting is not verifiable because citizen votes are counted in secret. It obscured a technology inaccessible to all but a very few initiates. Most importantly, the German high court noted, electronic voting machines don't allow citizens to "reliably examine, when the vote is cast, whether the vote has been recorded in an unadulterated manner" Mar. 3, 2009.
The written opinion effectively bars electronic voting in future elections based on the complexity of voting machines and the inability of voters to watch their vote being counted. This raises the bar of acceptability well above the meaningless solutions offered by "paper trails" for touch screen voting or the so-called "paper ballots" for computerized optical scan voting machines, the most popular form of voting in the United States.
Germany's 2009 Bundestag elections were conducted with hand counted paper ballots.
Have you heard that one of the world's leading economic powers, the fourth largest economy in the world, banned electronic voting; said it was undemocratic? Given the multitude of problems encountered in the U.S. and the number of questionable election results, wouldn't it make sense that when Germany banned electronic voting and replaced it with paper ballots, there would be at least a days worth of national coverage in the United States?
Nothing like that occurred. The Associated Press (Times of India) story on the verdict danced around the periphery of the world media market with coverage in Turkey, India, Australia, and Ireland. But there were no major media takers for the AP story in the United States.
There was every reason to carry the story. In a 2006 Zogby poll, 92% of the 1028 registered voters surveyed said they agreed with this statement:
Citizens have the right to view and obtain information about how election officials count votes - 92% agree. New Zogby Poll On Electronic Voting Attitudes Aug. 21, 2006
That's exactly the proposition that the German court upheld. Surely there was an audience for the German decision but there was hardly a word from corporate media.
Why did this happen?
VoterGA Considering U.S. Supreme Court Appeal
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.
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
· 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.
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.
