EDA's blog
NYT_Ed_030308
Source: NYT Editorial, March 3, 2008, with comments by CACEO official Steve Weir, corrected by EDA Coordinator Tom Courbat
A New Role for Defense Contractors?: Counting Votes
By The Editorial Board
There has long been good reason to worry about Diebold voting machines. Many are “black box” electronic machines that do not produce paper records, so voters have to accept the results they report on faith.
Diebold, however, has not inspired much faith. It has been accused of illegally using uncertified software on its voting machines,
exposing elections to possible tampering, and of making glitchy machines that misrecord votes.
Then there’s the little matter of the company’s CEO signing a letter before the 2004 election — in which his machines would be counting many
of the votes — saying that he was committed to helping deliver Ohio to President Bush.
(The Onion has a hilarious video up on Youtube, a mock news report about Diebold accidently releasing the results of the 2008 presidential
election before the voting occurs. View it here.)
Humboldt Democratic Party and Redwood ACLU Resolutions for Hand-Counts
Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:07 pm (PST)
Dave Berman and the Voter Confidence Committee have won two significant allies in the battle for transparent vote counting. In his essay, linked below, Berman further clarifies the concept of uncertainty inherent in computerized voting systems:
"The Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee (HCDCC) by a vote of 7-4 adopted a resolution calling on the County of Humboldt, CA to ditch Diebold by the June Primary Election and commence hand-counting paper ballots.
The resolution (see full text link below) also states that the HCDCC 'will commit some of its resources to educating the community about the benefits of this change, and to recruit registered voters to serve as pollworkers and/or voter counters.'
....
If you really want to get to the core of what has plagued our elections most, beginning with the 2000 presidential election, the crux is that we don't all agree on the outcome. Why is that? More than any other reason, it is secret vote counting.
....
Current elections require our blind trust, or faith, rather than providing us with a reason to believe the reported results, a rational "basis for confidence."
....
Instead, inherent uncertainty is created, waters intentionally muddied to the point that we can't know for sure. This happens everywhere, not just with "elections." It is not an accident or unintended consequence.
....
What we get is a rift in the perception of reality. Matters of fact become differences of opinions that can never be resolved, like paperless electronic voting and other secret vote counting systems that create unverifiable "elections," events that are not really elections but resemble them closely enough to fool most people."
Read the full Resolution adopted by the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee 2/13/08, at
SC"The ballots shall not be counted in secret."
South Carolina Constitution
 
An Appeal to John Edwards to Take a Stand for Voting Rights
Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent News
Washington, DC
Media, election, and judicial reform advocate Mark Adams, JD, MBA of Tampa, Florida discovered something very important in the South Carolina Constitution. It provides for secret voting but bans secret vote counting. All elections by the people shall be by secret ballot, but the ballots shall not be counted in secret. The right of suffrage, as regulated in this Constitution, shall be protected by laws regulating elections and prohibiting, under adequate penalties, all undue influence from power, bribery, tumult, or improper conduct.
South Carolina Constitution, Article II, Section 1
Friday, January 18:
The Outsourced, Unaccountable New Hampshire Election System
and Implications for the Recounts Underway
by Bruce O'Dell, EDA Co-Coordinator for Election Data Analysis
It's disturbing but hardly surprising to hear that LHS, the vendor that runs New Hampshire elections, took custody of the Diebold optical scan memory cards after the 2008 primary election.
In New Hampshire, LHS uses the notorious GEMS central tabulator software to program individual memory cards for each optical scan device that will be counting votes in each voting location. The memory cards contain ballot definition files that are used by the optical scan software to interpret
which marks on the ballot correspond to which candidates on the ballot at that location. The memory card also contains software, but of course, we know that software is perfectly benign... if you believe the vendor, because of course no one is allowed to independently examine those cards before or after the election. Oh, yes, the memory cards also store the"results" of the election.
After the election, each optical scan machine prints out a "poll tape"which reports the vote totals by race and candidate for that machine at that location. The poll tapes are signed by local election officials and couriered to the Secretary of State by NH state troopers. Unlike most jurisdictions, New Hampshire does not use GEMS to tabulate the vote; elsewhere, in most places that use Diebold optical scan voting equipment, the memory cards are couriered to the county election office and plugged
back into the county's GEMS server for upload and "automatic" tabulation.In New Hampshire, the poll tapes are manually tabulated by an individual using Excel.
Thanks to Blog for Arizona (Michael Bryan) for coverage of today's groundbreaking decision: http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2008/01/pima-county-boa.html
Pima County Board of Supervisors Advances Election Integrity
Votes Unanimously to Release All 2006 Election Databases
At today's hearing at the Pima Board of Supervisors, after a number of false starts, the Board voted unanimously to release the entire database series from the 2006 primary, general, and RTA elections and to drop the appeal of Judge Miller's ruling. The records release greatly exceeds the records required to be released by Judge Miller's ruling, demonstrating a great deal of leadership on election integrity by all the members of the Board.
A consortium of technical experts of the three recognized political parties will work with Pima County's technical advisor John Moffitt to provide the records to all the parties as soon as practicable. The parties should have access to the databases by the end of the week.
This decision by the Board to drop the appeal and release more records than required by court order is a major statement of openness and transparency by the county. Providing the entire series, rather than only the final election file as ordered by Judge Miller's ruling, allows forensic experts from the parties to verify that database contents that should not vary during the counting of an election have, in fact, not been altered. Such verification is a critical piece of evidence whether or not an election has been tampered with by insiders. It also allows further investigation of forensic methods by which to test and verify that elections insiders have not acted improperly in running the election.
Election Defense Alliance Wishes You
Original posted at http://www.miamiherald.com/516/story/323853.html
Associated Press, Wed, Nov. 28, 2007
TALLAHASSEE -- Democrat Christine Jennings has withdrawn a lawsuit over her 369-vote loss in a 2006 congressional race because a federal investigation will meet the same goals as the court case, her lawyers said.
Jennings withdrew the suit Monday in state Circuit Court here as the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, began testing electronic voting machines she claims malfunctioned in Sarasota County last year.
State testing previously failed to disclose problems with the touch-screen machines that could explain why they failed to register results from up to 18,000 voters in the 13th District race between Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan.
State officials declared Buchanan the winner, but Jennings challenged the result in court and the House of Representatives.
Jennings' lawyers wrote in court papers that the congressional investigation will accomplish the same objectives by trying to determine why there were so many non-votes and whether Buchanan is entitled to the seat.
The withdrawal does not affect another challenge by 11 voters still pending in the same court. Republicans, though, hailed Jennings' decision as a victory.
''While Christine Jennings finally did the right thing by giving up her frivolous lawsuit, it comes a year too late,'' said Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer.
Jennings was traveling Wednesday and not immediately available for comment.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Nicole Winger
November 19, 2007 (916) 653-6575
CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen Sues ES&S;
Over Sale of Unauthorized Equipment to California Counties
Secretary seeks at least $15 million in penalties and reimbursement for counties
SACRAMENTO – Secretary of State Debra Bowen today filed suit against Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S;) for nearly $15 million after a four-month investigation revealed the company had repeatedly violated state law.
Secretary Bowen is suing ES&S; for $9.72 million in penalties for selling 972 machines that contained hardware changes that were never submitted to, or reviewed by, the Secretary of State. Furthermore, she is seeking nearly $5 million to reimburse the five counties that bought the machines believing they were buying certified voting equipment.
“ES&S; ignored the law over and over and over again, and it got caught,” said Bowen, the state’s top elections officer. “California law is very clear on this issue. I am not going to stand on the sidelines and watch a voting system vendor come into this state, ignore the laws, and make millions of dollars from California’s taxpayers in the process.”
"Scoop" Independent News
Washington, D.C. Saturday, 20 October 2007
Letter from an Ohio Board of Elections (Holmes County) on missing 2004 ballots.
Letters from the Edge - Part 1
"Overall this blatant destruction of evidence only reinforces the widespread belief that the 2004 election was stolen."
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Free Press
August 2, 2007
The 2004 presidential election was mired in controversy all over the country. Candidate Kerry's legion of volunteer lawyers was ready to fight anticipated election fraud. Serious challenges were defused when Kerry conceded the election in the early morning of November 3, 2004. Failing to recognize that candidates cannot concede the votes of citizens, the news media and political parties called it a night.
Original article published at Bradblog.com: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4985
ES&S Facing Massive Fines, Possible Decertification in CA for Use of Uncertified Modifications to Voting Systems
Illegal Changes to Company's AutoMARK Ballot Marking Device Could Bring $10,000
Fine Per Machine, Full Refund of Purchase Price, Prohibition from Doing Business in State of California...
By Brad Friedman from St. Louis, MO...
  ES&S, the country's largest distributor of voting machines, looks to be in a lot of trouble in California. A public notice from the CA Secretary of State's office was posted this morning by Thad Hall of CalTech announcing that the company "has violated" CA Elections Code by modifying "hundreds of units of a version of the AutoMARK ballot marking device" without certification or permission of the Secretary of State...
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