Three Complaints Filed on Georgia SoS Inspector General

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE       December 21, 2009

Alternatives to Forced E-Voting Proposed in US Justice v. NY State HAVA Suit

FOR RELEASE ON OR AFTER: DECEMBER 15, 2007

Amicus Filed in Federal - NY State Lawsuit Over Voting Machines

Two Dozen Election Integrity Groups Back Brief to Bar E-voting

[ALBANY, NY, Dec. 15] Seeking to avert a federal Justice Department takeover of New York's 2008 federal election, and a possible court-ordered purchase of computerized voting machines, attorneys Andrea Novick and Jonathan Simon of Election Defense Alliance (EDA) on Friday filed an amicus brief in United States v New York State Board of Elections [2] (Case # 1:06-cv-263). The case is scheduled for argument in United States Federal Court in Albany on December 20.

The Voting Rights division of the Justice Department is suing the state board of elections for its alleged failure to comply with Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requirements for voting systems that assist voters overcoming physical or linguistic barriers to voting. The Justice Department is seeking to compel New York to deploy computerized voting systems to address HAVA requirements.

The amicus brief, filed on behalf of 32 election integrity groups and individuals, argues that hand-counting the two federal races in New York in 2008, combined with the addition of accessible ballot marking devices at every polling site, is consistent with the essential requirements for democratic elections and will bring the state fully into compliance with HAVA, as sought by the Department of Justice.

Novick, who practices in New York state, recognized that the federal-state legal standoff over HAVA presented what co-counsel Simon called "an opportunity to offer an alternative solution that moves away from other states' disastrous experience using secret, computerized vote-counting equipment."

"Hand-counted paper ballots satisfy the requirements of HAVA, and fulfill the democratic requirement for transparent verification that computerized systems cannot," Novick said.

As remedy, the brief recommends that the federal court order hand-counting of ballots for the two federal races (president and congress) on New York's ballot next November. The federal HAVA requirements at issue apply only to federal elections.

The brief cites multiple New York state legal precedents defining the right to vote as not merely casting a ballot, but including rights to observe and confirm that ballots are received and accurately counted as cast.

The brief also argues that New York's currently-used mechanical lever voting machines are legal under the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), if supplemented by an accessible ballot marking device at every polling site to accommodate voters with special needs.

More than 200 pages of supporting documentation were filed with the brief--including overwhelming evidence that electronic voting systems are not only error and manipulation-prone, but also unconstitutional in their secrecy of operation and lack of transparent means to verify the vote count.

The documentation also includes detailed procedural guides and cost and time estimates for hand counting ballots, prepared and submitted by election integrity groups and individuals who signed on to the brief.

Novick saluted the "cooperation and enthusiasm displayed by our colleagues across the election integrity spectrum" in preparing these critically important documents for the court.

For further information and updates on scheduling please contact Sally Castleman at SallyC[at]ElectionDefenseAlliance[dot]org [3] (781-454-8700) or Jonathan Simon at VerifiedVote2004[at]aol[dot]com [4] (617-538-6012).

For further case details, news, and links to court documents, see

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/projects/DOJ_v_NY_HAVA_complaint [2]

Georgia Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to State E-Voting System

Media Advisory

Georgia Supreme Court to Hear Landmark Voting Rights Case

WHO: Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA [5]) is a diverse, non-partisan coalition of Georgia voters and organizations who filed a voting rights lawsuit against the current method of Georgia electronic voting that they contend cannot be properly verified, audited, or recounted.

WHEN: Monday July 13, 2009
10:00 am

WHERE: 40 Capitol Square #507
Atlanta Ga. 30334

WHAT: The Georgia Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a landmark E-Voting rights case that is being followed nationally.
Plaintiffs contend that their voting rights are being unconstitutionally abridged based on admissions collected by election officials that:

• Tabulation server results can be altered on Election Day without detection;
• Votes can be swapped between candidates on Election Day without detection;
• The voting machines do not meet legal requirements under which they were procured and allegedly certified;
• County and state tabulation servers cannot be certified according to state and federal procedures; and much more.

Media Contacts:
Garland Favorito
(404) 664-4044 or (404) 606-3206

Motions & Case Information: www.voterga.org [5]

Additional articles on the evolution of this lawsuit:  http://electiondefensealliance.org/georgia [6]

Germany's Federal Constitutional Court Rules E-Voting Unconstitutional

 Federal Constitutional Court – Press office

Press release no. 19/2009 of 3 March 2009
Judgment of 3 March 2009 – 2 BvC 3/07 and 2 BvC 4/07 [7] –
Use of voting computers
in 2005 Bundestag election unconstitutional

The Federal Constitutional Court rendered judgment on two complaints
concerning the scrutiny of an election, which were directed against the
use of computer-controlled voting machines (so-called voting computers)
in the 2005 Bundestag election of the 16th German Bundestag (see German
press release no. 85/2008 of 25 September 2008). The Second Senate
decided that the use of electronic voting machines requires that the
essential steps of the voting and of the determination of the result can
be examined by the citizen reliably and without any specialist knowledge
of the subject. This requirement results from the principle of the
public nature of elections (Article 38 in conjunction with Article 20.1
and 20.2 of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz – GG)), which prescribes that all
essential steps of an election are subject to the possibility of public
scrutiny unless other constitutional interests justify an exception.
Accordingly it is, admittedly, constitutionally unobjectionable that §
35 of the Federal Electoral Act (Bundeswahlgesetz – BWG) permits the use
of voting machines. However, the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance
(Bundeswahlgeräteverordnung) is unconstitutional because it does not
ensure that only such voting machines are permitted and used which meet
the constitutional requirements of the principle of the public nature of
elections. According to the decision of the Federal Constitutional
Court, the computer-controlled voting machines used in the election of
the 16th German Bundestag did not meet the requirements which the
constitution places on the use of electronic voting machines. This,
however, does not result in the dissolution of the Bundestag because for
lack of any indications that voting machines malfunctioned or could have
been manipulated, the protection of the continued existence of the
elected parliament prevails over the electoral errors which have been
ascertained. To the extent that the manner in which the German
Bundestag’s Committee for the Scrutiny of Elections conducted the
proceedings was objected to, the complaint for the scrutiny of an
election was unsuccessful.
In essence, the decision is based on the following considerations:
  I. The objections to the errors of the proceedings for the scrutiny of
     elections which had been conducted before the German Bundestag were
     unsuccessful. Even though the duration of the proceedings between
     the lodging of the objection to the election and the German
     Bundestag’s decision was more than a year, this is not yet a
     serious procedural error. The duration of the proceedings alone
     does not deprive the German Bundestag’s decision of its foundation.
     Nor is the fact that the Committee for the Scrutiny of Elections
     refrained from conducting an oral hearing of the complainant’s
     objection to the election, and also apart from this did not
     deliberate in public, a serious error which deprives the German
     Bundestag’s decision of its foundation.
 II. The principle of the public nature of elections, which results from
     the fundamental decisions of constitutional law in favour of
     democracy, the republic and the rule of law prescribes that all
     essential steps of an election are subject to the possibility of
     public scrutiny unless other constitutional interests justify an
     exception. Here, the examination of the voting and of the
     ascertainment of the election result attains special significance.
     The use of voting machines which electronically record the voters’
     votes and electronically ascertain the election result only meets
     the constitutional requirements if the essential steps of the
     voting and of the ascertainment of the result can be examined
     reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject. While
     in a conventional election with ballot papers, manipulations or
     acts of electoral fraud are, under the framework conditions of the
     applicable provisions, at any rate only possible with considerable
     effort and with a very high risk of detection, which has a
     preventive effect, programming errors in the software or deliberate
     electoral fraud committed by manipulating the software of
     electronic voting machines can be recognised only with difficulty.
     The very wide-reaching effect of possible errors of the voting
     machines or of deliberate electoral fraud make special precautions
     necessary in order to safeguard the principle of the public nature
     of elections.
     The voters themselves must be able to understand without detailed
     knowledge of computer technology whether their votes cast are
     recorded in an unadulterated manner as the basis of vote counting,
     or at any rate as the basis of a later recount. If the election
     result is determined through computer-controlled processing of the
     votes stored in an electronic memory, it is not sufficient if
     merely the result of the calculation process carried out in the
     voting machine can be taken note of by means of a summarising
     printout or an electronic display.
     The legislature is not prevented from using electronic voting
     machines in elections if the possibility of a reliable examination
     of correctness, which is constitutionally prescribed, is
     safeguarded. A complementary examination by the voter, by the
     electoral bodies or the general public is possible for example with
     electronic voting machines in which the votes are recorded in
     another way beside electronic storage. In the case at hand, it need
     not be decided whether there are other technical possibilities
     which make it possible for the electorate to trust in the
     correctness of the procedure of the ascertainment of the election
     result in a way that is based on its retraceability, thus complying
     with the principle of the public nature of elections.
     Limitations of the possibility for the citizens to examine the
     voting cannot be compensated by an official institution testing
     sample machines in the context of their engineering type licensing
     procedure, or the very voting machines which will be used in the
     elections before their being used, for their compliance with
     specific security requirements and for their technical integrity.
     Also an extensive entirety of other technical and organisational
     security measures alone is not suited to compensate a lack of the
     possibility of the essential steps of the electoral procedure being
     examined by the citizens. For the possibility of examining the
     essential steps of the election promotes justified trust in the
     regularity of the election only by the citizens themselves being
     able to reliably retrace the voting.
     If computer-controlled voting machines are used, no contrary
     constitutional principles can be identified which could justify a
     far-reaching restriction on the public nature of the election, and
     thus on the possibility of examining the voting and the
     ascertainment of the result. The exclusion of ballots unwittingly
     being marked in an erroneous manner, of inadvertent counting errors
     and of erroneous interpretations of the voters’ will in vote
     counting does not as such justify forgoing any kind of
     retraceability of the voting. The principle of the secrecy of the
     vote and the interest in a rapid clarification of the composition
     of the German Bundestag> are also no contrary constitutional
     interests which could be invoked as the basis of a far-reaching
     restriction on the possibility of examining the voting and the
     ascertainment of the result. It is not constitutionally required
     that the election result be available shortly after the closing of
     the polls. Apart from this, the past Bundestag elections have shown
     that also without the use of voting machines, the official
     provisional result can, as a general rule, be ascertained within a
     few hours.
III. While the authorisation to issue an ordinance, which is granted by
     § 35 BWG, does not meet with any overriding constitutional
     reservations, the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance is
     unconstitutional because it infringes the principle of the public
     nature of elections. The Federal Voting Machines Ordinance does not
     contain any regulations which ensure that only such voting machines
     are permitted and used which comply with the constitutional
     requirements placed on an effective examination of the voting and a
     reliable verifiability of the election result. The Federal Voting
     Machines Ordinance does not ensure that only such voting machines
     are used which make it possible to reliably examine, when the vote
     is cast, whether the vote has been recorded in an unadulterated
     manner. The ordinance also does not place any concrete requirements
     as regards its content and procedure on a reliable later
     examination of the ascertainment of the result. This deficiency
     cannot be remedied by means of an interpretation in conformity with
     the constitution.
 IV. Also the use of the above-mentioned electronic voting machines in
     the election to the 16th German Bundestag infringes the public
     nature of the election. The voting machines did not make an
     effective examination of the voting possible because due to the
     fact that the votes were exclusively recorded electronically on a
     vote recording module, neither voters nor electoral boards nor
     citizens who were present at the polling station were able to
     verify the unadulterated recording of the votes cast. Also the
     essential steps of the ascertainment of the result could not be
     retraced by the public. It was not sufficient that the result of
     the calculation process carried out in the voting machine could be
     taken note of by means of a summarising printout or an electronic
     display.
  V. The electoral errors which have been identified do not lead to a
     repetition of the election in the constituencies affected.
     The electoral error which results from the use of computer-
     controlled voting machines whose design was incompatible with the
     requirements placed on an effective possibility of examining the
     voting does not result in a declaration of partial invalidity of
     the election to the 16th German Bundestag even if it is assumed to
     be relevant to the allocation of seats. The interest in the
     protection of the continued existence of parliament, the
     composition of which was determined trusting in the
     constitutionality of the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance,
     prevails over the electoral error because its possible implications
     on the composition of the 16th German Bundestag can be rated as
     marginal at most, for lack of any indications that voting machines
     malfunctioned or could have been manipulated, and because, also in
     view of the fact that the established infringement of the
     constitution took place when the legal situation had not been
     clarified yet, they do not make the continued existence of the
     elected parliament appear intolerable.
This press release is also available in the original german version [8].

Copyright © 2009 BVerfG

Landmark E-Voting Challenge Appealed to Georgia Supreme Court

Press Release June 1, 2009

Media Contacts:
Garland Favorito
(404) 664-4044

Georgia Supreme Court Brief Filed in Landmark E-Voting Rights Case

ATLANTA, GA – Citizens involved in an electronic voting rights lawsuit, filed a brief [18] today that will be heard by the Georgia Supreme Court. The brief appeals a ruling on a 13-count lawsuit that is being followed nationally.

The suit contends that the former Secretary of State violated voting rights of Election Day voters by failing to protect them with an auditable election process and tangible ballots as required by law and the state Constitution.

The citizen appellants charge that machine independent audit capabilities are only available in Georgia via optically scanned absentee ballots and that indiscernible electronic records cannot be properly verified by voters, audited by election officials or fully recounted.

Key federal issues before the court include whether or not Georgia considers voting to be a fundamental right explicitly and implicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution. Fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny under provisions of previous U.S. Supreme Court case law. The appellants believe that the current method of voting cannot withstand such scrutiny because of numerous deficiencies including admissions by state witnesses that:

•    Georgia’s E-voting systems were piloted, certified and acquired without having the independent audit trail that the law required;
•    Voting systems can swap race totals among candidates without detection;
•    The tabulation servers do not meet federal vote fraud prevention standards;
•    Election results can be manipulated by county officials without detection;
•    Testable requirements cannot ensure the software counts votes accurately;

The appeal brief cites misapplied case law and 17 errors of facts where court conclusions conflicted with the evidence in the record.

Appellant Mark Sawyer, stated: “We don’t consider the original ruling to be legitimate. It has almost as many flaws as the voting systems. The court did not acknowledge any of the evidence we collected, did not factually refute any of the arguments we made, and did not understand and rule properly on arguments in at least three of our counts.”

The initial court order and appeal brief are posted at the www.voterga.org [5] web site.

Major Miscount of Vote in 2006 Election

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Major Miscount of Vote in 2006 Election:

BOSTON, MA - November 16, 2006
CONTACT: Jonathan Simon 617.538.6012

Election Defense Alliance, a national election integrity organization, issued an urgent call for further investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic election equipment, after analysis of national exit polling data indicated a major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in U.S. House and Senate races across the country. “These findings raise urgent questions about the electoral machinery and vote counting systems used in the United States,” according to Sally Castleman, National Chair of EDA. "This is a national indictment of the vote counting process in the United States!"

As in 2004, the exit polling data and the reported election results don’t add up. “But this time there is an objective yardstick in the methodology which establishes the validity of the Exit Poll and challenges the accuracy of the election returns,” said Jonathan Simon, co-founder of Election Defense Alliance. The Exit Poll findings [19] are detailed in a paper published today on the EDA website. [Note: The preceding link is to the original report; an updated version issued Jan. 17, 2007 is available here.] [20]

The 2006 Edison-Mitofsky Exit Poll was commissioned by a consortium of major news organizations. Its conclusions were based on the responses of a very large sample, of more than 10,000 voters nationwide*, and posted at 7:07 p.m. Election Night [21], on the CNN website. That Exit Poll showed Democratic House candidates had out-polled Republicans by 55.0 percent to 43.5 percent – an 11.5 percent margin – in the total vote for the U.S. House, sometimes referred to as the “generic” vote.

By contrast, the election results showed Democratic House candidates won 52.7 percent of the vote to 45.1 percent for Republican candidates, producing a 7.6 percent margin in the total vote for the U.S. House — 3.9 percent less than the Edison-Mitofsky poll. This discrepancy, far beyond the poll’s +/- 1 percent margin of error, has less than a one in 10,000 likelihood of occurring by chance.

By Wednesday afternoon the Edison-Mitofsky poll had been adjusted, by a process known as “forcing,” to match the reported vote totals for the election. This forcing process is done to supply data for future demographic analysis, the main purpose of the Exit Poll. It involved re-weighting every response so that the sum of those responses matched the reported election results. The final result, posted at 1:00 p.m. November 8 [21], showed the adjusted Democratic vote at 52.6 percent and the Republican vote at 45.0 percent, a 7.6 percent margin exactly mirroring the reported vote totals.

The forcing process in this instance reveals a great deal. The political party affiliation of the respondents in the original 7:07 p.m. election night Exit Poll closely reflected the 2004 Bush-Kerry election margin. After the forcing process, 49-percent of respondents reported voting for Republican George W. Bush in 2004, while only 43-percent reported voting for Democrat John Kerry. This 6-percent gap is more than twice the size of the actual 2004 Bush margin of 2.8 percent, and a clear distortion of the 2006 electorate. There is a significant over-sampling of Republican voters in the adjusted 2006 Exit Poll. It simply does not reflect the actual turnout on Election Day 2006.

EDA’s Simon says, “It required some incredible distortions of the demographic data within the poll to bring about the match with reported vote totals. It not only makes the adjusted Exit Poll inaccurate, it also reveals the corresponding inaccuracy of the reported election returns which it was forced to equal. The Democratic margin of victory in U.S. House races was substantially larger than indicated by the election returns.”

“Many will fall into the trap of using this adjusted poll to justify inaccurate official vote counts, and vice versa,” adds Bruce O’Dell, EDA’s Data Analysis Coordinator, “but that’s just arguing in circles. The adjusted exit poll is a statistical illusion. The weighted but unadjusted 7 pm exit poll, which sampled the correct proportion of Kerry and Bush voters and also indicated a much larger Democratic margin, got it right.” O’Dell and Simon’s paper, [19] detailing their analysis of the exit polls and related data, is now posted on the EDA website.

[Ed. note: The original Landslide report (link above) released on 11/17/06 has since been updated to address questions EDA received in response to the original publication. The updated version of 01/17/07 can be downloaded here [20].]

Election Defense Alliance continues to work with other election integrity groups around the country to analyze the results of specific House and Senate races. [22] That data and any evidence of election fraud, malicious attacks on election systems, or other malfunctions that may shed more light on the discrepancy between exit polls and election results will be reported on EDA’s website.

This controversy comes amid growing public concern about the security and accuracy of electronic voting machines, used to count approximately 80 percent of the votes cast in the 2006 election. The Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy, in a September 2006 study, was the latest respected institution to expose significant flaws in the design and software of one of the most popular electronic touch-screen voting machines, the AccuVote-TS, manufactured by Diebold, Inc. The Princeton report [21] described the machine as “vulnerable to a number of extremely serious attacks that undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts it produces.” These particular machines were used to count an estimated 10 percent of votes on Election Day 2006.

A separate “Security Assessment of the Diebold Optical Scan Voting Terminal,” [23] released by the University of Connecticut VoTeR Center and Department of Computer Science and Engineering last month, concluded that Diebold’s Accuvote-OS machines, optical scanners which tabulate votes cast on paper ballots, are also vulnerable to “a devastating array of attacks.” Accuvote-OS machines are even more widely used than the AccuVote-TS.

Similar vulnerabilities affect other voting equipment manufacturers, as revealed last summer in a study by the Brennan Center [21] at New York University which noted all of America’s computerized voting systems “have significant security and reliability vulnerabilities, which pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state, and local elections.”

The most prudent response to this controversy is a moratorium on the further implementation of computerized voting systems. EDA’s O’Dell cautioned, “It is so abundantly clear that these machines are not secure, there’s no justification for blind confidence in the election system given such dramatic indications of problems with the official vote tally.” And EDA’s Simon summarized, “There has been a rush by some to celebrate 2006 as a fair election, but a Democratic victory does not equate with a fair election. It’s wishful thinking at best to believe that the danger of massive election rigging is somehow past.”

EDA continues to call for a moratorium on the deployment of electronic voting machines in U.S. elections; passage of H.R. 6200 [21], which would require hand-counted paper ballots for presidential elections beginning in 2008; and adoption of the Universal Precinct Sample (UPS) handcount sampling protocol [24] for verification of federal elections as long as electronic election equipment remains in use.

The Exit Poll analysis is a part of Election Defense Alliance’s six-point strategy [25] to defend the accuracy and transparency of the 2006 elections. In addition to extensive analysis of polling data, EDA has been engaged in independent exit polling, election monitoring, legal interventions, and documentation of election irregularities.

*The sample was a national sample of all voters who voted in House races. It was drawn just like the 2004 sample of the presidential popular vote. That is, precincts were chosen to yield a representative (once stratified) sample of all voters wherever they lived/voted--including early and absentee voters and voters in districts where House candidates ran unopposed but were listed on the ballot and therefore could receive votes. As such, the national sample EDA worked with is exactly comparable to the total aggregate vote for the House that we derived from reported vote totals and from close estimates in cases of the few unopposed candidates where 2006 figures were unavailable but prior elections could be used as proxy. It is a very large sampling of the national total, with a correspondingly small (+/-1%) MOE. There were four individual districts sampled for reasons known only to Edison/Mitofsky

ABOUT ELECTION DEFENSE ALLIANCE
The purpose of EDA is to develop a comprehensive national strategy for the election integrity movement, in order to regain public control of the voting process in the United States. Its goal is to insure that the election process is transparent, secure, verifiable, and worthy of the public trust. EDA fosters coordination, resource-sharing, and cohesive strategic planning for a nationwide grassroots network of citizen election integrity advocates.

Jonathan Simon, Co-founder, Election Defense Alliance. He is an attorney who prior work as a polling analyst with Peter D. Hart Research Associates helped persuade him of the importance of an exit poll-based election “alarm system.” Jonathan[at]ElectionDefenseAlliance[dot]org 617.538.6012

Bruce O'Dell is head of the Election Defense Alliance Data Analysis Team. His expertise is in the design of large-scale secure computer and auditing systems for major financial institutions. Bruce[at]ElectionDefenseAlliance[dot]org 612.309.1330

Sally Castleman, Co-founder and National Chairperson, Election Defense Alliance. She lends her skills in conceptualizing, designing, implementing and managing programs as well as her experience as a strategist. She has a long career in grassroots political activism. SallyC[at]ElectionDefenseAlliance[dot]org 781.454.8700

Open Letter to Riverside County Registrar and Supervisors

To the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, Registrar of Voters, Media, and Others

by Tom Courbat, Executive Director, SAVE R VOTE

Just to let everyone know, I have been trying to keep the issue of the proposed security testing of the election system (the hack that Supervisor Stone proposed) on a professional level. I will continue to do so, and obviously cannot control (nor would I attempt to control) the bloggers out there. Mr. Friedman has taken a keen interest in this issue in Riverside, along with election integrity issues throughout the United States, and often makes pokes at those he believes are not moving fast enough in the right direction, or whom he deems to be “waffling” on important election integrity opportunities. His story today on Jeff Stone follows the story on the conviction and imprisonment of Republican Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, who, in conjunction with Jack Abramoff, drafted HAVA ($4 billion for e-voting vendors) and refused to allow any changes/improvements to it in subsequent years. See these two stories below this email.

I continue to urge Mr. Stone and this Board to support a realistic security examination of the election system under the conditions that ANYONE would have available to them before, during and after the election. To establish the very limiting parameters on conducting a security test is like a jewelry store owner leaving the back door and the safe open and telling a security company he wants them to test the security of his facility, but they can ONLY come in the front door, they can ONLY stand in front of the locked glass jewelry case for 15 minutes, they can’t reach around the back, and they can’t bring in any tools, and they can’t study the facility or talk to employees before making the attempt. He goes on to tell them that if they can’t steal jewelry (undetected) in THAT 15 minute period, he concludes that his entire facility is completely safe. Come on Mr. Stone, does the county REALLY believe the election system is tamper-proof? If you don’t remove the new restrictions you added long after making the initial open offer, then the public and media can only conclude you really DON’T believe the election system is tamper-proof, thus telling everyone their votes MAY or MAY NOT have been counted the way they were cast.

By refusing to meet with SAVE R VOTE to discuss potential ground rules, notwithstanding a response from the Secretary of State’s office, Mr. Stone is making it incredibly difficult to establish meaningful dialog on what makes sense, and forces us to communicate via the media. We have elected to provide the media with as much information on this issue as possible since we really have no other method to communicate with Mr. Stone and the Board, other than the 3 minutes allotted to each of us at the Board meetings each week, in which the Board members either ignore our comments and recommendations, or make defensive or derogatory comments as the “last word”. There is no open dialog about the issues with the election system, and even the fact that the Blue Ribbon committee will hold its first meeting at 10 a.m. on next Tuesday (conveniently at the same time the BOS is meeting and discussing the Registrar’s report on the November 7th election), SAVE R VOTE was never notified, and in fact, my email inquiry to Chairman Tavaglione regarding the date/time/location of the meeting went unanswered, further perpetuating the sense that the County really doesn’t want participation in the process by election integrity advocates. And since the committee reports directly to Chairman Tavaglione, it would seem that he would be fully apprised of the particulars of the meeting.

Why there has to be such resistance to recommendations to shore up the security of the election system is difficult to fathom. I know the County has spent over $35 million (likely closer to $40 million) on a system that you tout as being “top of the line”, but observations from those without a vested interest show a totally different picture. It is time to move forward with the “hack test”, then conduct a full-blown election system security audit (top to bottom – everything) and implement safeguards to limit the opportunities for manipulation of the system.

And finally, as we have recommended before, a comprehensive audit by a firm with no ties to Riverside County needs to be conducted on two aspects of the ROV – 1) the processes and procedures being used and how/if they comply with the spirit and the letter of the appropriate laws/regulations and how these procedures impact the voter and 2) a financial audit to determine how much was spent before e-voting and how much is now being spent on the system that was supposed to save taxpayers $600,000 per year, and whether those expenditures were made within legal and procedural guidelines (sole-sourcing, certified system at time of purchase commitment, etc.)

My research shows that last year the county spent an unbelievable (astronomical?) unbudgeted amount on elections and has spent more every year since implementing e-voting than they ever did prior to Sequoia coming onto the scene. I will be releasing the specifics of this research next week, with full documentation, and it will be very disturbing, to say the least.

The taxpayers of this county deserve to know the true total cost of this system, just as they deserve the right to watch the votes being counted and results fully posted. So far, none of these has been forthcoming from the County, and SAVE R VOTE has had to take lead on this to make progress on behalf of the citizens/taxpayers/voters in Riverside County. We have been professional, diligent and persistent in our endeavors and we will continue in a like manner. We will continue our appearances at the Board each week, and will be in attendance at the Blue Ribbon committee to provide observations and recommendations.

Tom Courbat
Executive Director
SAVE R VOTE
Riverside County, CA

R. H. Phillips "Witness to a Crime" Fall Tour Events

Scroll Down for Witness to a Crime Fall Tour Schedule Below

Richard Hayes Phillips has been the leading investigator of the fraudulent 2004 presidential election in Ohio. His work was relied upon by John Conyers in challenging the Ohio electors in Congress, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in his article for Rolling Stone magazine, and by Justice Algenon L. Marbley in issuing his federal court order protecting the ballots from destruction. 

Assisted by teams of volunteers equipped with digital cameras, Phillips amassed some 30,000 images of forensic evidence.
Then he analyzed it all himself, examining 126,000 ballots, 127 poll books, and 141 voter signature books from 18 counties in Ohio.

Phillips began investigating the Ohio election when he received an unsolicited e-mail containing obviously erroneous election results from Cleveland.  He quickly found that hundreds of votes in certain precincts had inexplicably shifted from John Kerry to other presidential candidates. 

This made him a witness to a crime, with a duty to investigate further and to present his findings publicly. The result is the book, Witness to a Crime [29].  It is an investigative report and eyewitness history, the document of record for what really happened in Ohio.

PLATE 9. Two of 24 "wild card" absentee ballots found among nine precincts in   Darke County. These ballots have nothing printed on the back side. In these precincts there were 70 extra ballots -- more ballots photographed than the official number of ballots cast, or the number of persons who attempted to vote,or both. These "wild cards" could have been available for use by any county on an "as needed" basis in a scheme of old-fashioned ballot box stuffing. (See pages 276-277).

Mon. Sept. 8, 7:00 P.M.
Marin Peace and Justice Coalition
First Methodist Church
9 Ross Valley Road
San Rafael

Tue. Sept. 9, 7:00 P.M.
Election Defense Alliance
Grand Lake Theater
3200 Grand Avenue
Oakland, California

Wed. Sept. 10, 1:00 p.m.
Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera

Thur. Sept. 11, Book signing, Noon to midnight
Election Defense Alliance
Grand Lake Theater
3200 Grand Avenue
Oakland, California

Fri. Sept. 12, 7:00 p.m.
Humboldt County Green Party
Northtown Books
957 H Street
Arcata

Thanks to Radio KKGN "Green 960" for promotional support of the Northern California appearances
What Happened in Ohio?
LISTEN UP [32]

OREGON

Mon. Sept. 15, 6:30 p.m.
Eugene Peace Works
World Café
449 Blair Boulevard
Eugene

Wed. Sept. 17, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Alliance for Democracy, Portland Chapter
and Democracy Action Group of the First Unitarian Church

Elliot Hall, First Unitarian Church
1011 SW 12th Avenue
Portland

WASHINGTON

Fri. Sept. 19, 7:00 p.m.
Progressive Democrats of Washington and Washington Public Campaigns
Olympic View Community Church
425 NE 95th Street
Spokane

MONTANA

Tue. Sept. 23, 7:00 P.M. Free general admission
University of Montana, Department of Environmental Studies
and Montana League of Women Voters
Gallagher Business Building, Room 106
University of Montana, Missoula

Wed. Sept. 24, Election auditing workshop, 1:00 p.m.
University of Montana, Environmental Studies Program
University of Montana, Missoula
Students and faculty only

Thur. Sept. 25, 6:00 p.m.
Northern Plains Resource Council
Green Building
Corner of South 27th Street and Third Avenue South
Billings

NEW MEXICO

Mon. Sept. 29, 7:00-10:00 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Church
107 West Barcelona Road
Santa Fe

Tue. Sept. 30, 7:00 p.m.
Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice
202 Harvard SE
Albuquerque

Wed. Oct. 1, 6:30 p.m.
Food Not Bombs, Taos Peace House and Infoshop
801 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte
Taos

Thur. Oct. 2, Time TBA
Las Vegas Peace and Justice Center and Casa de Cultura
First United Presbyterian Church
1000 Douglas Avenue
Las Vegas, NM

TEXAS

Fri. Oct. 3, 7:00 p.m.
Vote Rescue
Brave New Books
1904 Guadalupe St, Suite B (downstairs)
Austin, Texas

OHIO

Sat. Oct. 11, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Yellow Springs Street Fair
Yellow Springs, Ohio

San Mateo Democratic Party Protests Paper Ballot Shortage in Primary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  February 8, 2007
Contacts:

Andrew Byrnes, Chair
San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee
Phone: 650-575-8112

Gail Work, Chair
San Mateo County Democratic Party Election Integrity Committee
Phone: 650-400-9909

Paper Ballots Unavailable at San Mateo County Polls
San Mateo County Democratic Party Calls for Investigation into Election Day Ballot Shortages

[San Mateo County, CA]  -- By 10:00 a.m. on election day, February 5th, San Mateo County election observers saw that paper ballots were in very short supply at numerous polls.

Requests for more paper ballots from many polls workers across the county were made to the elections office beginning mid-morning.

Despite the county's purchase of onsite equipment to allow printing of paper ballots, poll workers were told to wait until they were "down to a few" ballots before requesting more.

Between the paper ballot request time, the printing time and delivery time, delays were being felt by voters and poll workers throughout the
day at many polls.

With record voter turnout, this was frustrating for voters who were directed to electronic voting with the lack of paper ballots at many of the polls.

"I observed that many polling places in the county kept running out of paper ballots", stated Gail Work, San Mateo County Democratic Party Election Integrity Chair.

"Our team of volunteer election observers saw that no new ballots would be ordered for delivery until they were down to as few as two ballots at a polling place. This caused delays in voters being processed and therefore discouraged people from voting at all or from voting on paper," Work continued.

"I'm concerned that paper ballots are being discouraged in polling places because it's more convenient for election office internal operations and reports results faster.

We should not permit fast election reporting to take precedence over absolute assurance of accurate election results. Many voters prefer to
use paper, especially after the Secretary of State Debra Bowen's top-to-bottom review of security on these machines," Work said.

Official election observers for the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee saw poll worker preference for electronic voting when paper ballots ran short, despite voter preferences.

Paper ballots were short or ran out at an estimated 40-50 polls with wait times of 4-5 hours to get more ballots. Some polls never received refills and waited for as long as five hours.

At one East Palo Alto poll, a voter there requested a paper ballot three times and then was finally discouraged from using that paper ballot entirely.

The procedure is supposed to be that voters are offered paper ballots when they arrive at the polls.

On February 5th, voters had to request, sometimes repeatedly, a paper ballot.

This discouragement of paper ballots deprives voters of their right to be fully informed of their options and to choose the paper option for voting.

Paper ballots must be made available to voters who do not choose to use electronic voting machines.

The San Mateo County Democratic Party supports further investigation into the cause and effect of the shortage of paper ballots for the Presidential primary election.

Voters who were declined a paper ballot at their polling place are requested to file a Voter Complaint Form to the Secretary of State's office.

Find this form online at:  http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_fraud.htm [33]

Three Candidates Join VoterGA Lawsuit as Plaintiffs

Press Release
Tue. Nov. 21, 2006

2006 Election Candidates Join E-Voting Rights Suit

ATLANTA, GA – VoterGa, a diverse non-partisan coalition that organized an E-Voting rights lawsuit filed in Georgia during July of this year, announced today its intent to enjoin three 2006 election candidates as plaintiffs to the suit. Included are a Democrat, Republican and an independent write-in candidate who are questioning the 2006 primaries, run-off and general election, respectively.

Mary Wilhite, a Republican who took first in a House District 22 primary but was edged in a run-off by 35 votes, stated she was offered a recount that could not truly be performed. “Our Cherokee County Elections Director agreed to a recount because the victory margin was only 1% but state procedures simply re-accumulate previous totals. No ballots were ever recounted because no ballots actually exist. The process was completed in about a half hour with no change in results.”

Woody Holmes, independent write-in candidate for Georgia House District 65, stated that on the day his election was certified, Fulton County reported he had only two votes. After he questioned the results, the next day the county changed the total to 217 but Holmes believes he got that many votes in a single precinct. He explained: "Our campaign went door-to-door and collected signatures of support from over 800 voters, we distributed 250 yard signs, mailed 4000 campaign pieces to homes in the district, operated a phone bank to get out the vote as well as using automated phone calling to reach out to voters. My message was grounded on issues important to the voters in the district, noting the differences between me and my opponent who was the only named candidate on the ballot."

Former Democratic State Senator, Donzella James, who ran for the 13th U.S. Congressional District, questioned the results of her primary. “There is no way for candidates to truly determine if they won or lost. We must insist on machines and procedures to ensure that every vote is recorded accurately just as it was cast. Even if there is little that can be done about our races this year, all Georgia voters and future candidates will benefit from restoring accountability to our elections.”

The landmark lawsuit challenges the legality and constitutionality of Georgia’s current voting method including the audit trail pilot. It charges that recounts are not currently possible, ballots and people were unconstitutionally removed from elections, electronic voters are not afforded the equal protection given absentee voters and that machine accuracy cannot be determined on Election Day with or without the pilot. The lawsuit can be viewed at the web site, www.voterga.org [5].

Media Contacts: Garland Favorito (404) 664-4044

An End to "Faith-Based" Voting: Simple, Powerful, UBS Method (Universal Ballot Sampling) Compared to HR 811 Audit Standards

Report Updated June 17, 2007
Original PRESS RELEASE
September 8, 2006
For Immediate Release
Attn: Political assignments

NEW! Updated version, "Universal Ballot Sampling" (UBS). [35]
Calculations and report revised to test audit standards proposed in H.R. 811.

Download a PDF of the NEW revised report pertaining to H.R. 811 audit standards here [35]

Asking for Election Results is a Criminal Offense in Cuyahoga

November 6th, 2006

Victoria Lovegren may be arrested on criminal charges for seeking to see precinct-level election results in Cuyahoga County!

Cuyahoga County is filing criminal charges against me because I asked some volunteers for the Vote Count Protection Project to call some of the Election Day Technicians, and ask them if they would be willing to write down some of the Voting Unit election results on a data-collection form, to used for vote-count verification purposes.

We were doing this because Blackwell’s directive on 11/1 said that we could not add any more “Observers” to the list of observers, so we could not get “inside access.”

We were doing this because Cuyahoga County was NOT going to post results for the public to see.

We were doing this because of Cuyahoga Board of Elections' dismal record of the May Election debacle, secrecy and law-breaking,, and, in general, 92% of the public distrusts electronic voting!

We were doing this because the proposed post-election “audit” being paid for by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections is a total SHAM! The audit will NOT be counting actual ballots, but subtotals of ballot counts, and will not be counting all precincts, but a subset of the precincts. Their proposed “audit” is nothing of the sort!

The people want to “see” the precinct-level election results, and the CCBOE is refusing to let us see them. From the calling that volunteers made yesterday, we learned that Election Day Technicians were told, during training, that they could NOT read aloud the totals on the Summary Totals report, they, in fact, could not even LOOK at the totals on the report, and, obviously could not let anyone ELSE look at them.

The CCBOE continues to operate in secrecy, and are now trying to intimidate anyone who seeks transparency in the election process. They are making an example of me because I am getting too close. How dare we ask to see precinct-level results?

They told me that I could get counsel and then report to a hearing tomorrow at 1:30pm—election day. They have nothing better to do, on election day, than to stop this dangerous middle-aged woman!

If you would like to support me tomorrow as they throw the book at me—they said I was being charged with criminal “obstruction of business” ORC 2921.31—please come to the Cuyahoga Board of Elections at 1:30pm.

Thanks so much,

Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D.

Cuyahoga Board of Elections
30th and Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH
216-443-3200

EDA Affiliate Shows Chicago Voter Database Open to Attack

Click here [39] to print.

Georgia SoS to "Validate" Own Electoral Bid for Governor

Conflict of Interest

Secretary of State to Use Unverifiable Voting in Bid for Governor

Secretary of State Karen Handel recently announced a bid to become governor of Georgia in 2010 and by doing so, has set up a conflict of interest unprecedented in any other state. The Secretary of State is responsible for conducting all state elections including her own and Georgia is the only state in the union planning to conduct the 2010 elections on unverifiable voting machines installed statewide. Georgia’s E-voting systems have no Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) ballots that can be verified by the voter, audited by election officials and retained for recounts.

Ironically, when Karen Handel ran for the office in 2006 she gained support from many E-Voting rights activists after producing a “Basics” platform report that defined the exact steps necessary to solve Georgia’s voting dilemma. Her platform report stated:

· “The electronic voting machines currently used in Georgia’s elections are already obsolete”
· “Voters should have the ability to review their ballot both electronically and manually on paper”,
· “Procedures must be established for audits of elections to verify that the electronic vote totals are accurate.”
· “The paper audit trail should be the determining factor in discrepancies in the vote and should be the ballot of record.”

In spite of these statements, Secretary Handel has taken no significant action in the first two years of her term to rectify Georgia’s E-voting problems but instead, has focused on defending Voter ID photo requirements. E-Voting rights activists who supported her in 2006 are now dismayed that she has been preoccupied with the potential of individual vote fraud cases while ignoring the vulnerability to mass disenfranchisement for all Georgia voters.

Secretary Handel is now considered to be the gubernatorial frontrunner after all other leading candidates in her party dropped out of the primary within the first 30 days of her announcement. That includes the Lt. Governor, the House Speaker Pro tempore, and a U.S. Congressman. In the most bizarre of these withdrawals, Lt. Governor Casey Cagle, announced he would not run for Governor due to health reasons but stated he still plans to run again for Lt. Governor.

Insiders have long believed that Karen Handel was a designated choice of current Governor Sonny Perdue. Perdue was elected during 2002 in a stunning upset when the unverifiable voting machines were first implemented by former Secretary of State Cathy Cox. Purdue, who was outspent by a huge margin, stunned incumbent Roy Barnes while Saxby Chambliss upset triple amputee, Senator Max Cleland. Those races were recognized nationally as landmark upsets in 2002 and referred to by TV talk show host, Sean Hannity, as the “earthquake in Georgia”.

Now the only apparent defense that Georgians have to avoid a major conflict of interest in the 2010 elections is a law suit pending before the Georgia Supreme Court. That suit challenges the legality and constitutionality of current Georgia elections based on admissions collected from the state’s own expert witnesses during depositions. These admissions include the lack of an independent audit trail that was legally required, the inability to detect vote machine recording errors and the inability to detect manipulation of election results on the tabulation servers. Plaintiffs contend that such evidence clearly shows that their right to vote and have their vote properly counted has been abridged.

More details about the lawsuit are available at voterga.org [1] .

National Election Day Vote Vigil Poster

Take ID to the Polls Just to Be Sure
Read why. . . [40]

Download the poster at the bottom of this post, under the heading "ATTACHMENT."

Customize it with local event announcements in the "How to Connect" text area.

We suggest gathering at county election centers tonight [41] as soon as polls close and vigil as the votes come in.

Other Election Defense Actions:

Everyone can participate in Precinct Tally Capture and collecting county tabulator results.

Go to http://electiondefense.net [42] for instructions and data forms to collect live vote data today and tonight and upload it to the

Election Defense Alliance Election Data Analysis Project

Click Here to See What We Are Doing to Defend the Midterm 2006 Elections [43]

Our work will not end on midnight, November 7. We will need to publicize findings of our Data Analysis Project, and mobilize public response to suspect and unverifiable election returns.
We may need to take legal action to contest fraud and malfeasance in the conduct of the elections. All of this will require available contingency funds.

Click Here to See What Else We Can Still Do With Your Help Nov. 7 and After [45]

Next Step to Put Paper Ballot Plank in ALL Party Platforms

Media Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 18, 2008 — SAN FRANCISCO

Multi-Partisan Effort Calls for Verifiable Elections Plank in ALL 2008 National Party Platforms!

Contacts: Dale Axelrod Phone: 415-824-1549 E-Mail: dalea@sonic.net [47] Web site: www.PaperBallot.info [48] Dan Ashby Phone: 510-233-2144 E-Mail: info@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org [49] Web site: www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org [50] Election integrity activists were gratified this spring at the California State Democratic Party Convention in San Jose, CA to help get an amendment passed to the State Platform's Political Reform section, striking the words "paper trail" and substituting instead the words "a paper ballot as the ballot of record." This is a very important distinction that MUST be put into every NATIONAL Party Platform for 2008. Only with a tangible, paper ballot can a voter have confidence that there is something to count. We now urge concerned members of all politically affiliated organizations (i.e,, local clubs, County Central Committees, etc., and especially if you will be participating in the Republican Party’s Historic Online platform drafting process (link: http://www.gopplatform2008.com/rpc_faq.aspx [51] --- submissions will be reviewed starting on Tuesday, August 26th) to push for the adoption of the following resolution as a plank of your national party platform: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proposed Paper Ballot Platform Plank --- Verified Elections:

“Be it resolved that we shall demand, actively work for, and support reliable, fraud-free elections by requiring that all voting systems shall provide a paper ballot, marked and verified by the voter, as the ballot of record.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please feel free to call or email for more information on this MULTI-PARTISAN appeal TO DEMAND transparent and trustworthy election standards. For relevant links and updates please visit: http://www.PaperBallot.info [48]

Pima Democratic Party Wins Lawsuit Releasing E-voting Databases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – MAY 23rd, 2008
Media Contact: Vince Rabago, Chair, Pima County Democratic Party
________________________________________

“A national victory for open government and transparency”

Democratic Party Wins Lawsuit to Obtain Past and Future Electronic Voting Records

Tucson, AZ (5/23/08) Today a judge ordered the release of past and future electronic electiondata in a public records lawsuit by the Pima County Democratic Party againstthe Pima County Board of Supervisors. The judge found no proof of any security risk to future elections byreleasing the records.

Vince Rabago, Chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party,applauded the decision. “This is a national victory for open government and transparency in elections,” declared Rabago. “If you are going to have electronic voting and election records, you need to have electronicoversight. This is an important win for accountability, oversight, and transparency in our democracy.”

Since late 2006, the Democratic Party had fought for release of public records to conduct its statutory oversight role, after finding anomalies in a post-election review of audit log data. Pima County refused to release the records and forced the Party to file a public records lawsuit.

After a four-day trial in early December, the judge ordered the release of 2006 primary and general election databases. On January 8, 2008, the Pima County Board of Supervisors was met with public pressure from citizens and activists, including representatives from the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties, and agreed to go beyond the judge’s initial ruling by releasing records for the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election, after a motion for reconsideration by Chairman Richard Elias.

A week later, Supervisors Bronson, Valadez, and Day reversed course and decided to continue fighting to keep past and future election records secret.

On May 5, 2008, the Democratic Party went back to courtseeking election records dating back to 1998 and the ability to obtain recordsin future elections. The Party presented testimony from national experts who concluded there was no security risk fromreleasing the databases.

Today’s ruling orders the release of past election records and allows for future election records to be released immediately after the official results of an election are released. The timing of the release is important because Arizona law has a 5-day period to challenge election results after the official results are released.

Rabago commented on the review of election records in the future, noting that consultants working for the Party have designed and are developing a software program to allow for rapid review of electronic election data for any given election to check for tampering or even electronic glitches that could affect the outcome of an election.

“The software code for this analysis tool will be ‘open source,’ which means the software will be open to review or use by anybody and will not be subject to any proprietary or trade secret restrictions. This is how election software should be, but isn’t yet.”
* * * * * * * * *
Click here for news article and court ruling [53]

Save R Vote Report Rips Riverside County for Mishandling 2008 Election

PRESS  RELEASE

For Immediate Release Tuesday April 14, 2009

Contact  

Tom Courbat, Founder, SAVE R VOTE

Cell:  951-536-6091

E-mail at this address [54] 

__________________________________

Save R Vote Delivers Critical Review of Riverside County Election Procedures

Report details election law violations, miscounts, security breaches in 2008 election

WHERE:      Riverside County Board of Supervisors chambers, 4080 Lemon Street, Riverside, CA

WHEN:      Tuesday April 14, 1:30 p.m. Live Video at 1:30:     http://bosvideo.co.riverside.ca.us/ppportal/agenda/webcast.aspx [55]

"Missing Pieces [56]," a devastating citizen review of the 2008 presidential election conducted in Riverside County, CA, will be presented to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and the press today at 1:30 p.m. by SaveRVote founder and EDA Election Monitoring Coordinator Tom Courbat.

The presentation will  be streamed live over the Internet via this URL:    http://bosvideo.co.riverside.ca.us/ppportal/agenda/webcast.aspx [55]

The report, prepared by Courbat and the citizen volunteers of the Save R Vote [57] election monitoring organization, documents violations of election law and egregious failures by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, Barbara Dunmore, and her departmental staff, to secure, track, or even properly count the ballots in the November 2008 presidential election.

Save R Vote volunteers on election day and night photographed evidence [58] of election law violations, logged missing memory cards ("electronic ballot boxes"), and in their subsequent 5-month examination of Riverside County election records, found vote counting and ballot auditing errors in official county election reports numbering in the tens and even hundreds of thousands.

The exhaustively documented Missing Pieces report, presented in its entirety on the Election Defense Alliance website, consists of an executive summary [59], findings and recommendations [60], a slideshow of photographic evidence [58], and a spreadsheet analysis of oversized precincts [61] exceeding legal limits.

SaveRVote concludes its report urging the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to commission an independent auditing firm to conduct a true forensic audit of the county's election canvass process, as well as a computer systems security audit of the county's Sequoia voting system by independent qualified experts. More than 120 citizen volunteers with SaveRVote examined 20,000 election documents in what is believed to be the most comprehensive forensic review ever performed on a single county election system.

_________________________ 

SOURCE LINKS

Entire report and supporting materials

http://electiondefensealliance.org/Riverside_Missing_Pieces [62]

 

Streaming web video of presentation at 1:30 p.m. Pacific via:

http://bosvideo.co.riverside.ca.us/ppportal/agenda/webcast.aspx [55]

 

Executive summary

http://electiondefensealliance.org/Riverside_Missing_Pieces#MissingPiecesSummary [63]

 

Findings and Recommendations

http://electiondefensealliance.org/Riverside_Missing_Pieces#SRV_Findings [60]

 

Slideshow of Photographic Evidence

http://electiondefensealliance.org/files/MissingPieces_Evidence_Slides.pdf [58]

 

Spreadsheet Analysis of Oversized Precincts (exceeding legal limits)

http://electiondefensealliance.org/files/Riverside_Oversized_Precincts.xls [61]

 

This announcement circulated by Election Defense Alliance

 

Election Defense Alliance is a sponsored project of International Humanities Center, a 501(c)(3) organization

 

Tri-partisan Coalition Denounces Illegal Vote-Counting in Maricopa County

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, February 4, 2008

Contacts:

Sen. Karen Johnson 602.926.3160 kjohnson[at]azleg[dot]gov fax: 602.926.3429

John R. Brakey 520. 250.2360 AUDITAZ[at]cox[dot]net

Jim March 916.370.0347 1.jim.march[at]gmail[dot]com

Tri-partisan Coalition Denounces Illegal Vote-Counting in Maricopa County

[ PHOENIX, AZ] -- Several Arizona Legislators and a tri-partisan citizens’ coalition will present an official complaint alleging use of illegal vote-counting software and obstruction of citizen observation rights by the Maricopa Elections Department in a press conference Monday, February 4th, at 12:30 pm on the Arizona Senate lawn.

The Arizona Election Transparency Project will support allegations that the Maricopa Elections Department and vendor Sequoia Voting Systems have illegally been using uncertified ballot programming software to conduct county elections with legal and technical investigatory documentation distributed to the press.

Copies of a sweeping public records request to be served on the Maricopa County Elections Department today will also be distributed to the press, political parties, and the public.

Sequoia Voting Systems is the manufacturer of the computerized election equipment used in Maricopa. Recent revelations by a former Sequoia employee, corroborated by technical examination reports commissioned by the States of California and Pennsylvania, show that an entire subsection of the Sequoia product line known as the Ballot Preparation Software (“BPS”) essential to program ballot definitions in elections, was fraudulently withheld from mandatory certification review at the federal and state levels.

According to Sequoia’s own product manuals, the BPS ballot preparation software tool can take total control over a computerized election database – and therefore over the recording of the votes. The BPS software application is integral and necessary to the operation of the entire Sequoia voting system.

Federal and state law requires that computer voting machine systems be subject to certification review. The documented failure to subject the Sequoia BPS software application to certification review renders the entire Maricopa County computerized voting system illegal according to the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which authorized the purchase of the voting equipment.

The integrity of the federal voting system certification process is itself in question, following delayed public disclosure last year by the federal Election Assistance Commission that two of the three private test labs it had contracted to perform certification testing of the nation’s computerized voting systems were subsequently disqualified for failure to perform the required testing. All of the computer voting systems currently in use in Arizona were certified by these now debarred test labs.

The coalition presenting today’s press conference also condemn the Maricopa County Elections Department for obstructing citizen rights to election observation and oversight. The County has recently denied computer specialist Jim March and election activist John Brakey credentials as official public observers of pre-election logic and accuracy testing of the county’s electronic voting system.

Brakey and March were the lead investigators in a recent successful public records lawsuit against the Pima County Elections Department which resulted the release of 300 election databases, the largest release of raw election data in the history of electronic voting. Brakey and March are supported in their insistence that “voting is secret, but the counting is public” by Arizona Revised Statute 16-601 which states, “The count shall be public, in the presence of bystanders.”

The coalition of citizens and legislators convening today’s press conference declare that the County's refusal to allow technically qualified citizen observation of elections compounds their violation of election law by the continued use of uncertified and therefore unlawful vote-counting software in the conduct of public elections.

For the The Arizona Election Transparency Project:

John R. Brakey, Democrat, Tucson

Randy Graf, Republican, Tucson

Dan Gutenkauf, Republican, Tempe

Michael Shelby, Democrat, Phoenix

Jim March, Libertarian, Tucson

This Press Release Distributed by Election Defense Alliance.org

UNCOUNTED Press Kit Download

The producers of UNCOUNTED have prepared a 25-page guide to the film, downloadable as an MS Word document.

Click to download: http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/files/Uncounted_PressKit.doc [64]

Synopsis & Film Specs 3

Film Description 4

Credits 5 – 6

About the Production 7

About the Filmmaker 8

Interview with Filmmaker 9 – 10

The Issues 11 – 17

The Heroes 18 – 20

Resources 21

"UNCOUNTED" West Coast Premiere Jan. 15 in Sacramento

The documentary film UNCOUNTED exposes how Americans were cheated during the 2004 and 2006 elections – and how “enraged” voters have turned their anger into citizen activism – to safeguard the vote. Eyewitness accounts from whistleblowers are backed up by election experts in revealing how Jim Crow tactics, electronic voting machine security breaches, vote count manipulation, and illegal behavior by a major voting machine manufacturer all threaten the very core of our democracy – the vote. Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, elected officials, and rank and file voters are all part of a growing movement in America to correct an election system gone bad.

Anthony Sheppard, 916.705.3165 tony [at] csus[dot]edu> [67] Co-Director, Sacramento Film & Music Festival

NASHVILLE, TN (January 4, 2008)—The West Coast theatrical premiere of the new film the nation is talking about, UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections, occurs January 15 as an Official Gold Circle Screening of the Sacramento Film & Music Festival.

UNCOUNTED is a feature-length documentary that exposes the threat to the core of our democracy – our right to vote.

"We've always had an eye for topical political and social impact documentaries", said Sacramento Film and Music Festival Co-Director, Anthony Sheppard, Ph.D. "So a well researched and produced documentary about the integrity of the voting system, just as we're going into an election year, was a perfect opportunity for our off-season screening series. We're proud to bring it to Sacramento where this has been such a debated issue."

UNCOUNTED, which drew a sellout crowd to a theatrical premiere in Nashville, is written, produced, and directed by multiple Emmy award-winner David Earnhardt. The film examines how the fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater election fraud in 2006 and now looms as an unbridled threat in 2008. In factual and logical ways, a variety of computer, statistical, and election experts show how the unethical and illegal manipulation of the vote can change the outcome of every election – whether on a local, state, or national level.

“California is a critical part of the UNCOUNTED story,” says Earnhardt. “California is where one man with everything to lose blew the whistle on the illegal activities of Diebold, one of the biggest makers of voting machines in America.” In UNCOUNTED that man, Steve Heller, describes the heavy price he paid just for telling the truth. Former Oakland Tribune investigative reporter Ian Hoffman helped Heller make his story public. Eventually, the California Secretary of State took Diebold to task for using illegal and unsecured software in voting machines.

The West Coast premiere of UNCOUNTED is sponsored by KSAC 1240AM, The Peter B. Collins Show, and the Crest Theatre. Additional support comes from Sacramento for Democracy, a group committed to free, fair and open elections. The organization’s Communication Director, Bill Lackemacher, says the approaching February 5 primaries make the theatrical premiere timely. “With the California presidential primaries just around the corner, now is the time for the average citizen to learn about the vulnerabilities with our voting systems and what they can do to safeguard our democracy.” Lackemacher enthusiastically adds, “This film is a must-see for anyone who believes that the core of our democracy is the right to vote and have that vote counted as cast."

The West Coast premiere screenings are on Tuesday, January 15 at the Crest Theatre, 1013 K Street in Downtown Sacramento. Show times are 5:30 and 8PM. Tickets for the Sacramento screenings can be purchased online at http://www.tickets.com/browseother.cgi?minpid=6145879 [68] and at the Crest Theatre box office. A question and answer session featuring filmmaker David Earnhardt, along with Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com and other special guests will follow both screenings.

David Earnhardt is a producer/director of 30 years and a former broadcast executive. He is a winner of both Emmy and Iris awards. A national documentary on children’s rights, a biographical documentary about jazz legend Helen Humes, and a comedy special featuring an up-and-coming Jay Leno are among Earnhardt’s many credits.

PRESS KIT: http://UncountedTheMovie.com/press.html [69]

PROMOTIONAL TRAILER: http://UncountedTheMovie.com/trailer.html [70]

CONTACT FILMMAKER: David[at]ep-video[dot]com [71]

For more information about the Sacramento Film and Music Festival go to http://www.sacfilm.com [72].

To learn more about the Peter B. Collins Show, visit http://www.PeterBCollins.com [73].

And to find out about Sacramento for Democracy, visit http://www.sacramentofordemocracy.org [74].

Ballot Evidence of Election Tampering to Be Destroyed

REPORTERS: Links and attachments from this page provide original source documents on the RTA election ballot tampering story, including:

* Ballot destruction memo [75]
* Sworn affidavit re: ballot tampering*
* Background facts on the RTA election* [76]
* Pima County election integrity lawsuit [77]

The lawsuit resulted in a court-ordered release of Pima County election database records (the computerized record of votes) corresponding to the actual paper ballots, about to be destroyed.

Scroll down for Press Release, Ballot Destruction Memo, and Affidavit attesting to confession of election fixing in the RTA election by an elections department employee at the direction of senior county officials.

Contact:
Bill Risner, Esq. / AUDITAZ
520- 622-7494

EVIDENCE OF RTA ELECTION TAMPERING TO BE DESTROYED BY PIMA COUNTY

SWORN TESTIMONY OF CONFESSION OF TAMPERING

Where: Valdez Main Library Downtown, downstairs meeting room

When: July 9, 2008,

Time: 1:30 p.m. promptly

New information about the planned destruction of the actual paper ballots from the RTA (Regional

Transportation Authority) and tax increase election has come to light this week. These ballots are

scheduled for destruction by Pima County Treasurer Beth Ford unless immediate action is taken by

Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office to preserve this important evidence.

Up to this point, the so-called investigation by Attorney General Goddard’s office has been generally

described by election integrity groups as “a sham.”

Among the irregularities in that investigation was an untrue claim that the Tucson election reform

community approved of the attorney general’s decision to deny a hand count of the ballots from the RTA

election.

BREAKING NEWS: Further evidence of tampering with the RTA results has been exposed by a former

county employee. He will testify, under oath, that Bryan Crane, election computer operator, feared

discovery of the fact that he, at the direction of Elections Director Brad Nelson, had tampered with

the data from the RTA election, materially “fixing” the election to approve rather than reject the RTA.

On behalf of the public and election integrity activists, AUDIT AZ demands a complete re-investigation

of the RTA election by Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office, including:

1. Preservation of the actual ballots

2. A full hand count of all the ballots, with witnesses.

3. Determination whether there are criminal acts to be prosecuted.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Ballot destruction memo and background facts on the RTA election and court ordered release of election

database are available for download at: http://www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org/RTA_evidence [78]

Sworn affidavit to be released at 2:30 p.m. July 9, same location.

Press Release by AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections, Arizona) distributed by Election Defense Alliance

Election Defense Alliance is a program of International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.

1. The RTA passed by a surprisingly large margin. Polls taken before the election showed it losing. Sales tax increases for roads had lost badly in four previous elections.

2. Election Division staff printed unauthorized vote total summary reports after the first day of RTA early ballot scanning.

3. Before the second day of RTA early ballot scanning, Election Division staff erased the first day’s database backup by over-writing it. This required responding to two warning messages, one from GEMS and one from Windows.

4. Election systems expert Michael Shamos of Carnegie Mellon advised the AG investigator of possible RTA fraud to hand count ballots, echoing advice from local election activists.

5. The AG Investigator lied to Shamos in an email, saying that “local naysayers” were onboard with not looking at ballots. The opposite was true and the investigator knew it, because he had engaged in a shouting argument with local naysayers about this issue.

6. IBeta tests [80] conducted under contract with the AG investigator of the RTA election should have included looking for possible swapping of yes and no votes, but did not.

7. County staff directed all aspects of the IBeta testing [80], and led the testers to look at irrelevant items and to disregard potentially important items.

8. A whistleblower has come forward saying in a sworn affidavit that Bryan Crane told him privately that he had “fixed” the RTA election, under direction from his bosses.

9. The County Treasurer has announced a plan to destroy the RTA ballots ASAP.

10. A Microsoft Access manual was seen and photographed in the vote tabulation room on election night. Use of MS Access on an election computer was and is illegal.

11. Democratic Party observers were prevented from investigating cables connected to the tabulation computer after the RTA on the pretext that it was a non-partisan election.

12. A tape of ballot layout held by the Secretary of State for use by the Attorney General in any fraud investigation was never examined during the RTA fraud investigation where it was potentially key evidence. Instead it was returned to the suspects, who “lost” it.

13. The Pima County Board of Supervisors, through their lawyers, claimed there was a substantial risk that all election employees handling the election computer would “take the fifth” and refuse to answer questions based on a fear of criminal prosecution.

14. The Pima County Board of Supervisors has never requested an internal investigation of the Election Division.

15. Neither Brad Nelson nor Bryan Crane nor any Election Division employee has been reprimanded for any violations of rules or procedures.

16. At the end of the RTA Election Day, the database was NOT backed up, as it has been in virtually every other election. The database was not backed up until three days later, after all results had been published.

17. The Pima County Election Division purchased a “crop scanner” computer-hacking tool ten months before the RTA election. This tool had no other purpose in the Election Division than to illegally alter the programming of precinct voting machines.

18. Jim Berry retired from his job as the County Administrator’s assistant in early 2005 and was immediately hired by the County to do a precinct by precinct study of how Pima voters had voted in bond elections, and “other duties” as assigned. Mr. Berry collected $75,000 from the County for this contract, while at the same time collecting $12,000 from a pro-RTA group for helping them with the RTA campaign.

--Bill Risner, Esq. and Mickey Duniho, AUDITAZ

CA Sec. of State Sues ES&S for Unauthorized Sales

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

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.”

The sales in question involve ES&S’s AutoMARK ballot-marking devices that 14 California counties use to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requirement that voters with disabilities have a way to cast ballots privately and independently. Unlike direct recording electronic (DRE) devices, the AutoMARK prints a voted ballot that is counted by an optical scanner along with other paper ballots.

In July 2007, Secretary Bowen learned that ES&S had sold AutoMARK A200s – a version of the AutoMARK A100 that had been altered without authorization from the Secretary of State – to five counties in 2006. The counties collectively spent about $5 million for the equipment: Colusa bought 20 machines, Marin bought 130, Merced bought 104, San Francisco bought 558, and Solano bought 160.

Elections officials in the five counties believed they were purchasing the certified AutoMARK A100s when, in fact, they had purchased AutoMARK A200s. At least some of the five counties used the AutoMARK A200s in elections.

Under California law, no voting system or part of a voting system can be sold or used in the state until it is fully tested and certified by the Secretary of State. Vendors also are required by law to get the Secretary’s approval of any changes to a certified voting system. However, ES&S failed to notify, or receive approval from, the Secretary of State before making changes to the AutoMARK A100 and selling the 972 AutoMARK A200 machines that contained the unauthorized changes to the five counties.

The Secretary of State’s office held a public hearing on the matter on October 15, 2007. At that hearing, ES&S asserted the Secretary of State was notified about changes to the AutoMARK. However, ES&S provided no evidence before, during, or after the hearing to substantiate its claim. The company also contended the changes to the AutoMARK A100 were so minor that ES&S was not required to submit them to the Secretary of State for review. However, Elections Code section 19213 states unequivocally that it is the Secretary of State, not a voting system vendor, who decides whether any proposed changes require the Secretary to re-examine the system.
In August 2005, the prior California Secretary of State conditionally certified the ES&S AutoMARK A100 for use in California. One of the conditions of certification was that “[n]o substitution or modification of the voting systems shall be made with respect to any component of the voting systems… until the Secretary of State has been notified in writing and has determined that the proposed change or modification does not impair the accuracy and efficiency of the voting systems sufficient to require a re-examination and approval.” This condition echoes Elections Code sections 19214.5 and 18564.5, which require notice to, and approval by, the Secretary of State for any changes to a certified voting system.

Secretary Bowen issued her official findings and decision in the matter this morning. The Attorney General, who is representing the Secretary of State in the case, filed the complaint on the Secretary’s behalf in San Francisco Superior Court today. Both documents are available at:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ess_automark_hearing.htm [86]

Secretary Bowen is seeking the following penalties under California Elections Code sections 18564.5 and 19214.5:

§ Damages of $10,000 per violation, totaling an estimated $9.72 million for the 972 machines sold in California. Half would go to the counties where the violations occurred and the other half would go to the Secretary of State for use in bolstering voting system security efforts.

§ A refund of approximately $5 million to the five counties for what they paid to ES&S, regardless of whether the voting system was used in an election.

§ Penalties of $50,000 per act for the unauthorized insertion of uncertified hardware into a voting machine.

§ Penalties of $50,000 per act for failing to notify the Secretary of State before changing a voting system certified for use in California.

EDA Study Finds Major Flaws in HR 550 Election Audit Proposal

PRESS RELEASE
August 17, 2006
For Immediate Release
Attn: Political assignments

Election Defense Alliance Partners in Independent Exit Poll Project

October 21, 2006

The Warren Poll, Steven Freeman, and Election Defense Alliance Join Forces as Vote Count Protection Project

With increased consciousness of the dangers of electronic vote-counting technology, there is increasing grassroots pressure for independent election verification. In elections around the world, public-domain exit polls are central to such efforts. Unfortunately, US media consortium exit pollsters have announced that they will no longer release any data even to their media clients until they can "correct" their numbers so as to make them conform to the official count. In other words, what they report is no longer exit poll data at all, but rather a meaningless affirmation of official numbers.

To obtain an honest assessment of how people voted and whether or not machines are recording votes accurately, groups around the nation have developed plans to conduct exit polls. We are pleased to announce that several groups at the forefront of the national election integrity movement groups pushing for independent exit polls will be coordinating in this effort under the banner of the Vote Count Protection Project.

The combined exit poll will implemented by Kenneth Warren of The Warren Poll, Steven F. Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania, and Jonathan Simon of Election Defense Alliance. At the same time, election data forensics will be implemented by Stephanie F. Singer of Campaign Scientific and Bruce O'Dell of Election Defense Alliance.

All data and findings will be available for independent analyses.

More information is available on the web:

http://www.electionintegrity.org/vcpp.shtml [94]
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org [95]
http://www.campaignscientific.com [96]

The Vote Count Protection Project is an initiative of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism, a 501(c)(3) organization. The Election Defense Alliance is a 501(c)(3) organization. All contributions are tax-deductible.

Stephanie Frank Singer is a mathematician, an author, and an entrepreneur. She is co-director of the Vote Count Protection Project.

Originally published at OpEdNews.com [21]

NH Fair Elections Committee Statement on Recount Investigations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Feb. 20, 2008

New Hampshire Fair Elections Committee Statement Regarding Activist Recount Investigations

These concerns were not unexpected, given the broad range of scientific findings about the rates of failure and ease of tampering with the Diebold Accuvote 1.94W machines used to count more than 80% of New Hampshire's votes.

Both Democratic and Republican candidates requested recounts; the Democratic recount only covered one county, the Republican was statewide. Eight independent national voting integrity organizations sent representatives to New Hampshire to conduct citizen oversight and investigations of the recounts, in part due to the importance of the NH Primary. These groups are all based outside of New Hampshire. They came to New Hampshire as free agents, uninvited by the New Hampshire Fair Elections Committee or, to our knowledge, by any NH activist.

The NH Fair Elections Committee (FEC) greatly values and appreciates these efforts, but it must be made clear that the FEC, a nonpartisan citizens action group focused on election integrity in the Granite State, has not been involved in the recount investigation.

Additionally, the FEC currently maintains a neutral position pending results and data analysis from these citizen investigations.

The FEC supports the petition from GOP candidate Albert Howard to the NH Ballot Law Commission, which appeals the recount on the basis of legal and procedural failures, and which requests investigations and suggests beneficial improvements to NH election procedures.

New Hampshire elections are exemplary in many ways, not the least of which being that 45% of our polling places conduct 100% transparent, open, publicly observable, hand count elections. The FEC has been instrumental in sharing NH hand count methodologies with other states in the nation, and the "NH method", as it has come to be known, is widely regarded among national voting integrity groups as the Gold Standard for conducting honest elections. Other factors in New Hampshire elections, such as grassroots local control, and open recount process, are also considered exemplary.

Nonetheless, a preliminary review of the recount investigation results indicates several areas where existing laws and procedures may have not been followed as well as they could have been, and other areas where new laws and procedures would enhance our election integrity.

The NH Fair Elections Committee has always worked collaboratively with the NH Dept of State and the NH legislature. The FEC has consistently informed state officials and representatives of our concerns that more than 80% of New Hampshire vote counting has been outsourced to private interests, resulting in these votes being counted using corporate controlled, proprietary, secret vote counting technology.

The FEC has testified before the Ballot Law Commission and the state legislature, asking for more responsible decision making regarding the use of privatized, proprietary, computerized vote tabulation machines. The FEC has submitted reasonable and effective legislative and procedural recommendations to mitigate the risks of tampering and failure that is posed by these machines, and to address the use of secret vote counting technology, which is in contradiction to New Hampshire Constitutional requirements for open vote counting, and to the New Hampshire Right to Know law. Although these recommendations have not yet been implemented, the FEC looks forward to continuing to work with the State to improve our election systems.

The work done on our collective behalf by dedicated and honest activists from around the nation will help us all to cure problems in procedures which have not been followed, and to identify areas for improvement where needed.

Public Notice Concerning Selection of New York Voting Machines

www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org [97]

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE, February 11, 2008
Public Notice to County Boards of Election, County Election Commissioners, and County Elected Officials of New York State Regarding Selection and Purchase of Appropriate Ballot Marking Devices

It is our intention to alert county Boards of Election, the county Election Commissioners, and county elected officials that the Liberty DRE marketed in the United States by Liberty Election Systems is manufactured by the Dutch company, Nedap, and is the same machine marketed in Europe as the PowerVote Voting System.

These DREs and their software have been found to have crucial security and accuracy flaws based
on security reports from the Netherlands and Ireland serious enough to enjoin New York's contracting with Nedap/Liberty.¹
    
The Liberty DRE  does not comply with New York's requirement that a DRE produce a permanent paper record, suitable for election audits, nor does it enable voters with disabilities to independently cast and verify their voting selections, as required by federal and state law.²

The Avante DRE, another poor choice, is similarly an inherent security risk that fails to meet legal requirements for voter accessibility.

New York should heed other states' bad experience with the abundantly documented failures and security risks
of DRE-type machines, which conceal the vote-recording function from the voters and issue only an inadequate, jam- and fraud-prone "paper trail" illusion rather than a real ballot. No DRE-type machine is appropriate for conducting elections and no further public funds should be wasted on them.

In light of the foregoing, this letter serves as our notice to all County Boards of Election, the Commissioners, and county elected officials that, should their county proceed with the selection of a DRE or Ballot Marking Device that can be converted to a DRE, Election Defense Alliance and allied organizations that represent the interests of the voter will be conducting one or more of the following actions to insure that the voting process has not been corrupted: parallel elections, citizen exit polling, FOIA requests for all relevant documentation, and appropriate legal action to ensure strict chain of custody protections for the machines, memory cards, databases, and all associated records of the vote.  

Also, be advised that investigations will be undertaken to determine that no inappropriate connections or conflicts of interest exist between lobbyists, vendors and election officials, appointees, or staff.  

Jonathan D. Simon, Co-Founder
Jonathan@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org [98]
617.538.6012

Sally Castleman, National Chairperson
SallyC@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org [99]

Daniel Ashby, Director     
Dan@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org [100]
510.275.5723

---

Notes
1. In 2003, Ireland spent 50 million euros on 7500 Nedap DREs, but has never used the machines because of their vulnerabilities.  The Irish government created an Independent Commission on Electronic Voting (the Irish Commission) to examine the
security of these DREs. The Irish Commission published two reports that raised critical doubts about the accuracy and reliability of the software used to count votes on the Nedap/Liberty DREs.

2 . New York requires that DREs produce a "voter verified permanent paper record which shall be presented to the voter" McKinney's Election Law sec 7-202 (1) j. The regulations, Part 6209.1 (am), refer to this as a VVPAT, a voter verifiable paper audit trail.  The principal reason for requiring a VVPAT is to allow a voter to verify her/his vote to see whether  it was properly recorded as cast.  Liberty's machines have not had this VVPAT in Europe and Nedap has been resistant to providing it as well.  Nedap's contempt for supplying a VVPAT is apparent from the product it is now offering in New York.  What is put forward as Liberty's VVPAT is grossly inadequate to the task and cannot be considered as complying with New York's requirements.

Election Defense Alliance is a program of International Humanities Center, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) foundation

Put a Paper Ballot Plank in All Party Platforms

MEDIA ADVISORY
For Continuous Release July 19 - 27, 2008

Subject: Calling All Political Parties to Endorse a PAPER BALLOT Platform Plank in their National Party Platform

Reporter Resource Links Below

Contacts:
Dale Axelrod
Phone: 415-824-1549
E-Mail: dalea@sonic.net [47]
Web site: www.PaperBallot.info [102]

Dan Ashby
Phone: 510-233-2144
E-Mail: Info@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org [103]
Web site: www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org/paper_ballot_plank [104]

=======================================================

Resolution to Include in 2008 National Political Party Platforms "All Voting Systems Shall Provide a Paper Ballot as the Ballot of Record."

========================================================

Concerned Members of ALL Political Parties, Election Integrity activists at the California State Democratic Party Convention were successful in amending the Political Reform section of the state party platform, striking the words "paper trail" and substituting instead the words "a paper ballot as the ballot of record." This is a very important distinction that must be put into every national political party platform for 2008. Only with a tangible paper ballot can a voter have confidence that there is something to count. We urge concerned members of ALL political party affiliated organizations, such as local clubs, assembly, senate, and county central committees, and especially those participating in "Listening to America" Platform Meetings announced by the Obama campaign across America from July 19 to 27, to push for adoption of the following resolution as a plank in your national party platform:
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proposed PAPER BALLOT Platform Plank for Verifiable Elections: "Be it resolved that we shall demand, actively work for, and support reliable, fraud-free elections by requiring that all voting systems shall provide a paper ballot, marked and verified by the voter, as the ballot of record."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Resource Links:

Paper Ballot Platform Plank http://www.paperballot.info/ [105]
Obama Campaign's "Listening to America—Help Shape the Democratic Party's Platform for Change" http://my.barackobama.com/listening [106]
2008 California State Democratic Party Platform (p.10,Political Reform,paragraph 8): http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.1193757/k.A452/Political_Reform.htm [107]
Tangible Ballot Initiative: http://www.TangibleBallot.org/ [108]
Election Defense Alliance: http://www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org/ [109]
Verifygra: http://www.verifygra.com/ [110]

Request by Voters to Amend the Holt Bill

Summary Judgment Hearing in GA Suit to Ban E-Voting

Media Advisory
For Immediate Release Sept. 5, 2008

Hearing on Motion to Ban Current Voting Machines

Media Contact:
Garland Favorito (404) 664-4044

Motions & Other Information:
http://www.voterga.org [5]

WHO: Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia, VoterGA, is a diverse, non-partisan coalition of Georgia voters and organizations who filed a voting rights lawsuit against the current method of Georgia electronic voting that they contend cannot be properly verified, audited or recounted

WHEN: Monday Sept. 8, 2008, 2:30 p.m. to approx. 4 p.m.

WHERE: Fulton Co. Superior Court
Courtroom 8B - Judge Johnson
185 Central Ave
Atlanta, GA

WHAT: Attorneys for the plaintiffs will make an oral argument in support of their motion for Summary Judgment to remove unverifiable voting machines throughout Georgia. The Defendants will argue their motion to dismiss all counts of the lawsuit.

BACKGROUND: The motion for Summary Judgment seeks to ban:

· Current Diebold AccuVote TS-R6 voting machines used in Georgia on grounds that sole reliance on its unverifiable electronic ballots cannot provide protection equal to that of verifiable absentee paper ballots also used in Georgia.

· Current Diebold GEMS servers used to count both electronic and optical scan votes in Georgia on grounds the state has already admitted that they cannot detect fraudulent manipulation of the vote and thereby, abridge the right to vote.

· Diebold AccuVote TSX machines piloted in 2006 by Georgia on grounds that their sequentially rolled election results jeopardize secrecy of the ballot as required by the Georgia Constitution, a point plaintiffs contend was already admitted in a 2007 report from the office of the Secretary of State.

CA 50 Plaintiffs Petition California Supreme Court for Review

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2007
Contact Linda A. Poniktera - 619.987.7200
Plaintiffs Petition California Supreme Court
On Ruling In California’s 50th District Election Contest

Four Events April 4-5 Mark Introduction of Texas HCPB Bill

Media Advisory
April 2, 2007

Contacts:
Abbe Waldman DeLozier
512/736-5802

Vickie Karp
512/775-3737

FOUR EVENTS:

Wednesday, April 4th, 2pm CST
Austin Capitol, Rm. E2.028
Texas House Committee on Elections hearing: Bruce O'Dell, an award-winning software
designer specializing in software security for American Express, General Motors, and other Fortune 100 companies, will deliver a 20-minute presentation to the Committee on why electronic voting is neither secure nor reliable and should be banned for use in Texas.

Thursday, April 5th, 11:15 am CST: Press Conference
Austin Capitol, Rm E2.002
Legislative Conference Room

Rep. Lon Burnam, Texas House District 90, will make the announcement of new HB 3894, mandating paper ballots, hand-counted in public view with citizen oversight, with totals posted at
the precinct level.

David Rogers, assistant general counsel of the Texas Legal Foundation and former campaign manager for Republican Texas Supreme Court Justice Candidate Steve Smith, will make a statement about his experience in the Texas 2006 primary regarding e-voting disaster and huge cost of recounts that do not even reflect voter intent. Rogers is a longtime conservative Republican activist.

Bruce O'Dell, (mentioned above), will give a statement about why electronic voting is unsafe and can not technically be made "easier, faster, nor secure…"

Sputnik, Founder and State Chairman of the Texas Motorcycle Bikers' Association, member of the National Legislation Task Force and a member of the Texas Chapter of the Lawmakers Club. Sputnik will speak in support of HB 3894.

Vickie Karp, PR Director of Vote Rescue, and board member of Black Box Voting, will address why "voter verifiable paper audit trails" won't solve e-voting fraud, and introduce VoteRescue's "Cost Analysis of E-Voting Elections vs. Hand-Counted Paper Ballots."

Joni Ashbrook of VoteRescue will present a short summary of the astronomical costs of electronically held elections as reported through interviews with Texas county election officials.

Karen Renick, Founder and Director of VoteRescue, an Austin election integrity group supporting HB 3894, will introduce the "Vote-PAD", the non-electronic voting system which allows the disabled to vote without assistance, fulfilling the mandate of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Thursday, April 5th, Noon CST – 1:30 pm
Austin Capitol, Rm. E2.00
Legislative Conference Room

A video presentation of a hacking of real Diebold electronic voting equipment (a vendor used in Texas), and a presentation by Bruce O'Dell on the acute security issues with electronic voting in Texas. Lunch, plus three repeat presentations: Noon – 12:30 pm; 12:30 pm – 1pm; and 1:00 pm – 1:30 pm. All Texas Representatives, Senators, and their Legislative Staff have been personally invited. The media is welcome to attend.

Thursday, April 5th, 7-10 pm
First Unitarian Universalist Church
4700 Grover
Austin, Texas

Showing of the startling and revealing HBO documentary, "Hacking Democracy", featuring the electronic vote fraud research of Bev Harris of Black Box Voting and ending with the hacking of real Diebold electronic Optical Scan voting equipment in a sanctioned setting in Leon County, Florida under direct supervision of the Superviser of Elections, Ion Sancho on certified election equipment; and presentation and follow up explanation by Bruce O'Dell. Media welcome.

Protest United Technologies' Diebold Buyout: Divest

For Immediate Release March 19, 2008

"Ohio Voter Mugging 2008: OEJC Announces Quarantine That Machine Initiative," http://www.prnewsnow.com/TextNews/186512.html [137]
###  

Texas Legislators To Hear Expert Testimony Against E-Voting

Press Advisory – June 22, 2008
Attn: Political Assignments Desk

Contacts:
Karen Renick: 512.496.7408
Vickie Karp: 512.775.3737
Abbe DeLozier: 512.736.5802

National Experts to Give Evidence of Hacking Electronic Voting Machines
at Austin, TX Capitol Hearing, Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

VoteRescue and its Coalition Bring in Compelling Witnesses And Host Two Related Events

Who: VoteRescue and its Coalition, Texans for REAL Elections, bringing in experts to testify

What: National experts and former election officials debunk the myth of electronic voting security and accessibility for the disabled, and will present documented testimony before the House Committee on Elections’ Interim Hearing

When: Wednesday, June 25th, 9 a.m. PLUS two other events that day – media invited

Where: Austin, Texas, Capitol Building, 11th & Congress, Rm. E2.028

Witnesses will include:

Bruce Funk: Emery County Utah election official who in 2006 invited in the Black Box Voting “hacking team” to examine his Diebold touch screen machines with printers added. They discovered “the worst security holes ever found” in electronic voting systems.

Clint Curtis: Programmer from Florida who designed “vote-flipping” software while employed at Yang Enterprises in 2000; became a whistleblower who gave a deposition about this in court. (Clint was invited by the State to testify)

Jim March: Technology expert, Black Box Voting Board member, co-plaintiff in the 2004 California lawsuit against Diebold for running uncertified software in their machines, which Diebold lost. Jim will discuss the ineffectiveness of the federal certification process of electronic voting systems.

Noel Runyan: Expert on evaluation of accessibility of electronic voting systems for the disabled. Wrote the 2007 report for the University of California stating that NONE of the e-voting systems currently in use fulfill the HAVA mandate for the disabled.

VoteRescue media contacts can arrange private interviews during the Hearing with our experts.

The link to watch the Hearing live, if you cannot attend, is: http://www.house.state.tx.us/media/welcome.php [138]

===========

TWO RELATED EVENTS, PRESS INVITED: COME MEET THE EXPERTS!

Breakfast event, 7:30 to 8:30 a.m, June 25th, prior to the Hearing, in Capitol Room E2.002 A

Reception, June 25th, 5:00 p.m. (or at close of Hearing) until 8:00 p.m. Light dinner fare, wine & soft drinks served, Capitol Room E2.002 A

Three E-Voting Whistleblowers Interviewed Together, May 2

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE EXCLUSIVE

Three E-Voting Whistleblowers Interviewed Together for the First Time Anywhere

Stephen Heller, Bruce Funk and Guest Host Ion Sancho on Voice of the Voters!

1360 AM, Philadelphia's Renaissance Radio, and the Internet

Wednesday, May 2, 8 - 9 PM Eastern Time

Doylestown, PA:
Tune in to Voice of the Voters this Wednesday, May 2 at 8:00 pm Eastern to listen to an hour devoted to three American heroes - whistleblowers, who, based on their experiences on the ground, will paint a comprehensive picture of electronic voting in America, the deceptive practices of corporations, the often misguided relationships between election officials and electronic voting machine vendors, the various system inadequacies and how the voice of the citizen is left out of the elections process.

Steve Heller became known as the "Diebold Whistleblower" when in January 2004, he stole and exposed legal documents providing smoking gun evidence about Diebold Election Systems' nefarious activities in the State of California. Partly as a result of Heller's actions, in April 2004, former California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley de-certified Diebold in California for what he called their "fraudulent," "despicable," and "deceitful behavior."

From Utah, Bruce Funk, who with Harry Hursti, was able to prove the insecurity of Diebold machines and the fact that votes could be made to disappear without evidence. He is the Emery County Clerk, who, under pressure, resigned his position rather than preside over elections that used Diebold machinery.

This week's special guest host, Ion Sancho is the Supervisor of Elections in Leon County, Florida, and the first elected official in the country to call for and carry out independent testing of electronic voting machines in his county. He is a legend in voting rights circles. In December of 2005, Mr. Sancho stepped onto the national stage when he became the first elected official in the country to call for and carry out independent testing of his county's electronic voting machines. From BlackBoxVoting.org:

Due to contractual non-performance and security design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho has announced that he will never again use Diebold in an election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. On Tuesday, the most serious "hack" demonstration to date took place in Leon County. The Diebold machines succumbed quickly to alteration of the votes.

Stephen Heller, Bruce Funk and Ion Sancho each have direct personal experience with Diebold and the scars to prove it. This week's Voice of the Voters will raise serious questions about our current elections process and those who are controlling it.

The bottom line for America: present day electronic voting machines (and supporting systems) are so fatally flawed that they cannot be secured. Find out why from three people who know and who want America to know all about it this week on Voice of the Voters. We must:

* STOP using the election process as part of the political game

* STOP having the election system of this Country determined by private parties needs for profits and political parties needs for control/victories versus citizens rights and needs for open independently verifiable, fair and elections which can be proven to original intent of the voter

* STOP vendors from financing election and government associations and meetings

* STOP and face vital truth: DREs (touchscreens) cannot provide openness and fairness

* ASK WHY are we continuing to use touchscreen-voting systems, which do not allow an independent, fully observable process? The uses of touchscreen voting runs counter to right of people to know what is really happening!

* STOP secrecy and private decisions; check "power" of political appointees to determine the direction of our election support system and make decisions with little or no oversight

As always, John Gideon, Executive Director of Voters Unite will give Voice of the Voters listeners a round-up of all the week's voting news.

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Voice of the Voters is an hour devoted to voting rights, election reform and voter-verified paper ballots. Ultimately it is an exploration of Representative Democracy itself and the responsibilities of citizens and their elected representatives. It airs every Wednesday night at 8:00 PM ET on 1360 AM and on the Internet. (http://wnjc.duxpond.com/ [139])

Note: If you use dial up internet, it is best to turn off all other programs in order to receive clearest broadcast.

Listeners can call in questions live at 856-227-1360 and submit questions in advance at Voice of the Voters

Voice of the Voters now also available as a podcast at iTunes.com under "Voice of the Voters" in the News & Politics category

Archived shows are available at http://mysite.verizon.net/resq4lzq/cvi/id267.html [140]. Click here.

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WHO: Ion Sancho, Bruce Funk and Stephen Heller

WHAT: Voice of the Voters, radio program

WHEN: Wednesday, May 2, 8PM

WHERE:1360 AM and on the Internet

**************************************

Upcoming Shows

As congress considers H.R. 811, this week's show begins an important three-part series to get the truth and provide input from both sides of this debate.

May 9: Discussion/Debate from both sides of the H.R. 811 controversy.

May 16: A special guest who will bring it all together.

Contact information:

Mary Ann Gould

Coalition for Voting Integrity

votingintegrity@aol.com [141]

(c) 215.588.8518

(h) 215.357.5206

"Are We A Democracy? " -- 2/17/07, Oakland CA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
On or After Feb. 14, 2007

Contacts: Dan Ashby 510.233.2144 Dan[at]electiondefensealliance[dot]org [142]

Jim Soper 510.258.4857 SomeThoughts[at]Aol[dot]com [143]

 Five nationally recognized election investigators will present evidence of "mass scale election fraud in recent U.S. federal elections" at a free public event Saturday,
February 17,  from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Rockridge Library in Oakland, sponsored by Election Defense Alliance.

This rare combination of speakers is possible because four Ph.D scientists on the panel are in San Francisco this week presenting their election research papers to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Joining them will be election attorney Paul Lehto, a litigator in three landmark election contest lawsuits.

The program lineup includes:

* Dr. Steven Freeman, co-author of "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?"

* Dr. David Griscom, co-investigator of a fraud that falsified optical-scan ballot counts in Arizona

* Dr. Joshua Mitteldorf, analyst, examines 2006 election exit poll divergence from election returns

* Dr. Stephanie Singer, data consultant, on public access to election data and verification of results

* Election attorney Paul Lehto, speaking on legal and political standards necessary for democracy

In recent years, major changes have occurred in the way U.S. votes are cast and counted.
The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 spurred states and counties into a $3.8 billion rush to near-universal computerized voting.
With hundreds of thousands of electronic voting machines running secret software that few understand and none can examine,
what confidence can voters have that their votes are recorded and counted honestly --
considering that it's the control of the U.S. government that's at stake?

The voters themselves are systematically exluded from direct oversight of the electronic and heavily privatized election systems we now have.
What kinds of reforms can citizens realistically expect to achieve, against the resistance of e-voting vendors, election adminstrators, and the major political parties?
These and other questions will be addressed in the speaker's presentations, and in the audience question and answer period to follow.

This event is sponsored by Election Defense Alliance, a national coordinating body for electoral integrity groups and individual citizens
working at the county, state, and national levels to establish an electoral system that is fully in the public domain, transparent and secure,
subject to manual audit verification, with citizen oversight and participation at every phase of the electoral process.

WHEN: Saturday, February 17, 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: Rockridge Library, 5366 College Avenue (at Manila) in Oakland, CA 94618
http://www.OaklandLibrary.org/Branches/rockridge.htm [144]

MORE INFO:

http://www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org/Oakland_Symposium [145]

http://www.ElectionIntegrity.org/ [146]

AZ SoS Brewer Opposes Pima Reforms; Advocates Respond

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release June 12th 2008

Contacts:
John R. Brakey, AUDIT-AZ (520) 250-2360
Jim March, BlackBoxVoting.org, 916-370-0347

Additional Background Resources Linked Below

Brewing Up Election Trouble:
Activists Respond To AZ Sec. of State Brewer’s 11-Page Letter

On 6/6/08 Arizona Secretary of State (SOS) Jan Brewer wrote an 11-page letter outlining objections to the election integrity process in Pima County.  The letter followed a June 4th vote by the Pima County Board of Supervisors not to appeal a court decision establishing that computerized election databases are public records that must be released to political parties according to state law after each election.

Beginning in 2004, Pima County citizen election integrity advocates working with and within the Pima County Democratic Party were able to cooperate with the county government to achieve significantly improved election transparency and security measures that make Pima County a model for fair elections in the state and nation. With the lawsuit over, that cooperation is now picking back up.

Brewer is intent on blocking this progress. Her press release and letter reprimanding county officials (see links at the end of this document) make clear her objections to any current and future security measures. The letter is filled with misstatements and inaccuracies that echo talking points by voting machine vendors.

Brewer maintains that most of the increased election security procedures created by Pima County in cooperation are superfluous, since the state’s “statutory and procedural security, educational and
accountability requirements” assure fair and honest elections.

Her assertions don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Brewer maintains that voting equipment is vigorously tested and certified at the federal and state levels. The state’s testing and certification process amounts to little more than an ineffective “kicking the tires” of the voting equipment.  The state does no “red team” type security analysis, in which qualified security professionals take a complete voting system and, acting as both voters and elections staff in separate scenarios, attempt to subvert a test election.
When “red team” testing was performed in California, every voting system failed miserably.

Brewer objects to the disabling of modems that could allow outside tampering to anyone who knows the phone number.
Brewer maintains that touch screen voting machines help disabled voters. Diebold and other providers of touch screen machines have long used the ploy of helping disabled voters to get their machines into polling places, while providing seriously substandard access. Brewer’s view of “accessibility” involves twisting disabled grandmothers into pretzels as shown.

Brewer adamantly opposes the county’s proposal to graphically scan ballots and upload them to the Internet.  Brewer vastly exaggerates the cost of this “security patch” which would cost under $150,000 in Pima County. This security measure was recommended by election integrity advocates working with the Pima Democrats as a check on Diebold products, declared “fatally flawed” along with every other Brewer-approved system in open court by Pima County’s own experts. Brewer has no trouble with spending $3 million to $6 million to replace the Diebold equipment with another vendor’s garbage, making her objections based on cost ring hollow.

The Need for Election Transparency

The concerns above and many more raised by Secretary of State Jan Brewer’s letter are discussed in greater detail in our full-length report, "Brewing Trouble [147]," linked below, but the point is clear. Brewer’s thinking does not include the concept of election transparency, where every phase of the election is open to the legally proscribed oversight by Arizona’s political parties. She apparently believes the voters should trust the state and counties to conduct fair elections. The Pima County Democratic and Libertarian Parties and Pima County’s officials are working together to create a transparent secure system – those are not opposites, they are hand-in-hand partners to a truly Democratic process.

The continuing efforts by Secretary of State Jan Brewer to impede our progress and to keep the process of counting votes a hidden and mysterious process makes us question her commitment to fair elections in Arizona.
                                                                                 

Read Our Full-length, Point-by-point Rebuttal:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/files/BREWING_TROUBLE.pdf [147]

Secretary Brewer’s June 5 Press Release:
http://www.azsos.gov/releases/2008/pressrelease14.htm [148]

Secretary Brewer’s June 5 11-page letter to Pima County:
http://www.azsos.gov/releases/2008/14_files/SECURITY_LETTER_PIMA_6-5-2008.pdf [149]

For Additional Context on the Pima County Election Security Lawsuit, see:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/pima_election_database_release_ruling [53]

This press release circulated by Election Defense Alliance

Election Defense Alliance is a sponsored project of International Humanities Center

Major Election Integrity Bills Moving Forward in California

Click here for the 8-18 News Advisory: Major Election Integrity Bills Moving Forward in California [21]

EDA STUDY FINDS FATAL FLAWS IN POPULAR HR 550 ELECTION AUDIT PROPOSAL

August 16, 2006

Contacts: Bruce O'Dell, Election Defense Alliance, 612.309.1330
Jonathan Simon, Election Defense Alliance, 617.538.6012

For Immediate Release
Attn: Political assignments

PRESS RELEASE:

STUDY FINDS FATAL FLAWS IN POPULAR HR 550 ELECTION AUDIT PROPOSAL
U.S. Congressional Elections would remain wide-open to manipulation

Summary

A new study released today by a group of computer security and statistical analysts reveals that, far from protecting Americaís elections, the proposed election audit mechanism in pending bill HR 550, popularly known as the Holt Bill, would in practice actually leave the election of the US House of Representatives wide-open to undetected programming error or deliberate fraud. The study proves that even widespread fraud or error affecting one out of ten precincts in an average US House race would be totally missed by HR 550 about 40% of the time!

The study also details how, even if fraud or error is actually detected by an HR 550 audit, candidates would in practice have little or no chance of assessing how many votes were affected with sufficient certainty to challenge a corrupt election, and HR 550 offers no standard for either candidates or administrators to apply in determining when a discrepancy is actionable and what action to take. A much simpler and vastly more statistically powerful alternative election validation process is described, and is urgently recommended as an alternative to HR 550.

Background

Despite credible reports of widespread error-prone programming and severe, inherent security vulnerabilities, millions of votes in America are now tallied by machines that lack any independent means of verifying that they tallied the vote accurately. Even where such means exist, they are most often not employed, or not employed properly.

In response to this unacceptable risk, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) recently re-introduced HR 550, "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005" -- a pending bill to require creation and auditing of a fraction of the paper record of all electronic votes cast in federal elections. According to Representative Holt, HR 550 has received ìbipartisan endorsement from one-third of the members of the House of Representatives, and has been endorsed by good-government groups as the "gold standard" in [election] verifiability legislation. 

A new study released today by a group of computer security and statistical expertssponsored by the Election Defense Alliance reveals that, despite its good intentions, the proposed election audit mechanism in HR 550 -- far from protecting Americaís elections -- would in practice actually leave the US House of Representatives elections wide open to undetected programming error or deliberate fraud. The theoretical critique of HR 550 is fully confirmed by data from computer simulation of 10,000 Congressional elections. As the EDA study clearly shows, the problems with HR 550 are so fundamental, they cannot be remedied simply by auditing more precincts.
A much simpler alternative is described which could detect fraud or error affecting 1% the electronic tally with 99% confidence ñ and it is urgently recommended as an alternative to HR 550.

About the Authors

Bruce O'Dell, Coordinator of Data Analysis, Election Defense Alliance. O'Dell is an information technology consultant with 25 years' experience who applies his expertise to analysis of the technical security and integrity of voting systems. His current consulting practice centers on e-Commerce security and the performance and design of very large-scale computer systems for Fortune 100 clients, most recently as the chief technical architect in a company-wide security project at one of the top t20 public companies in America.
http://www.digitalagility.com/Odell_home_page.htm [90]

Jonathan Simon, JD, Co-founder of Election Defense Alliance. Simon is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law and is a member of the Bar of Massachusetts. He applies his prior experience as a political survey research analyst for Peter D. Hart Research Associates to studies of the accuracy of exit polls and other election integrity mechanisms. He collaborated on several studies assessing the accuracy of the 2004 presidential exit polls.
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/jonathan_simon [91]

Josh Mitteldorf, PhD, is affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, and is currently specializing in computer simulations that demonstrate how natural selection can act on groups and communities. He has taught physics, mathematics, astronomy, and evolution at Harvard, Berkeley, Temple, the University of Pennsylvania, LaSalle and Bryn Mawr. Since the 2004 presidential election, he has been part of a net-organized coalition of statisticians who analyze voting patterns for evidence of errors or fraud.
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jmitteld [92]

Steven Freeman holds a Ph.D. from MIT's Sloan School of Management and an M.S. in Social System Science from the University of Pennsylvaniaís Wharton School. Since 2000, he has held several academic positions at the University of Pennsylvania, where he currently serves as Visiting Scholar and a member of the teaching faculty of the Graduate Program of Organizational Dynamics in the School of Arts and Sciences. His election research has won an award from Project Censored as one of the three most important ìcensoredî stories of 2005. He is the author, with Joel Bleifuss, of Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count (New York: Seven Stories Press 2006).
http://www.phil.upenn.edu/faculty/freeman/CV.pdf [93]

About Election Defense Alliance
Election Defense Alliance [http://www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org], founded July 4, 2006, is a coalition of election integrity activists working at the state and local levels across the nation to detect and counter covert, antidemocratic manipulation of voter registration databases and electronic voting machines, and to promote honest, transparent, secure elections in which every vote is counted as cast.

EDA Contacts:

Jonathan Simon, 617.538.6012
Jonathan[at]ElectionDefenseAlliance[dot]org

Sally Castleman,
SallyC[at]ElectionDefenseAlliance[dot]org

Dan Ashby, 510.275.5723 [voicemail] 510.740.0572 [fax]
Dan[at]ElectionDefenseAlliance[dot]org

For example see http://brennancenter.org/programs/downloads/SecurityFull7-3Reduced.pdf [150]
A well-known but by no means isolated example is the Ohio 2004 "recount," in which precincts were cherry-picked rather than being chosen at random, as required by law, and vendors introduced "cheat sheets" to avoid triggering full hand recounts. Of Ohio's 88 counties, only one proceeded to a full recount.

June 12 press release at http://holt.house.gov/list/press/nj12_holt/061206.html [89]

See full report [ and updated HR 811 version with new audit detection calculations ] at http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/HR550/hr550auditaccuracy.pdf [151]

OHIO: Remembering Nov. 2, 2004

For Immediate Release, 10/28/07:
Remembering Nov. 2, 2004: A Funeral for Democracy

Summary Judgment Hearing in GA Lawsuit to Ban E-Voting

Media Advisory
For Immediate Release Sept. 5, 2008

Hearing on Motion to Ban Current Voting Machines

Media Contact:
Garland Favorito (404) 664-4044

Motions & Other Information:
http://www.voterga.org [5]

WHO: Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia, VoterGA, is a diverse, non-partisan coalition of Georgia voters and organizations who filed a voting rights lawsuit against the current method of Georgia electronic voting that they contend cannot be properly verified, audited or recounted

WHEN: Monday Sept. 8, 2008, 2:30 p.m. to approx. 4 p.m.

WHERE: Fulton Co. Superior Court
Courtroom 8B - Judge Johnson
185 Central Ave
Atlanta, GA

WHAT: Attorneys for the plaintiffs will make an oral argument in support of their motion for Summary Judgment to remove unverifiable voting machines throughout Georgia. The Defendants will argue their motion to dismiss all counts of the lawsuit.

BACKGROUND: The motion for Summary Judgment seeks to ban:

· Current Diebold AccuVote TS-R6 voting machines used in Georgia on grounds that sole reliance on its unverifiable electronic ballots cannot provide protection equal to that of verifiable absentee paper ballots also used in Georgia.

· Current Diebold GEMS servers used to count both electronic and optical scan votes in Georgia on grounds the state has already admitted that they cannot detect fraudulent manipulation of the vote and thereby, abridge the right to vote.

· Diebold AccuVote TSX machines piloted in 2006 by Georgia on grounds that their sequentially rolled election results jeopardize secrecy of the ballot as required by the Georgia Constitution, a point plaintiffs contend was already admitted in a 2007 report from the office of the Secretary of State.

VotePAD, the non-DRE Alternative for Disabled Voters, Gets Short Shrift in CA

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

California Election Protection Network
Press Contact: Dan Ashby 510-233-2144

CA Elections Staff Advises Against Non-electronic Voting Alternative for Disabled
Election activists support VotePAD as secure, low-cost, more accessible than electronic voting machines

Date: Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Time: Demonstration and press conference, 9:00 a.m.
State voting system certification hearings, 10:00 a.m.

Place: Secretary of State’s Office at 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA

Event: Demonstration and press conference by California Election Protection Network prior to state voting systems certification hearing

Issue: Vote-PAD is the first non-computerized voting assistive device to be proposed for use in California elections to enable persons with disabilities to vote independently at the polls using paper ballots. The VotePAD is being evaluated for possible use as a disability access solution in conjunction with optical scan electronic voting systems by vendors Hart (System 6.2) and Diebold (GEMS-Accu-Vote OS).

Staff and consultants to Secretary of State Bruce McPherson have issued negative evaluation reports recommending against state certification of the VotePAD assistive device intended to help disabled voters cast their votes independently. The secretary of state usually follows staff recommendations when issuing voting system certification decisions.

At the same time McPherson's elections division staff released the negative assessment of VotePAD--late on Friday August 4, affording the public little time to respond--they also recommended certification of a suite of electronic voting devices and software applications by the e-voting vendor Hart Intercivc. McPherson's staff gave the Hart system a pass, despite noting performance failures such as this one regarding the system's Tally software component that reads, stores and tabulates ballot images: "As in the previous version, Tally still cannot report vote results directly in the granularity required for the Supplement to the Statement of Vote (SSOV)."

The state reports on the VotePAD and Hart System 6.2 are available at: http://ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm [154].

Election integrity activists were dismayed by the negative assessment of VotePAD, and will be attending the certification hearing Wednesday urging at least a conditional certification of Vote-PAD as a secure voting alternative that solves disability access problems that the currently certified electronic voting machines frequently cannot (see http://www.vote-pad.us/testimonials.asp [155]).

VotePAD proponents would like to see a noncomputerized alternative to electronic voting machines that are currently promoted as the only solution for disabled voting access requirements set in federal law.

Ann West, a longtime California grassroots election activist and educator, said, “Citizens shouldn’t let corporations that sell electronic voting machines monopolize this field. There must be a diversity of choices to provide real competition.”

Dr. Forrest Hill, Green Party candidate for Secretary of State, said, "I’ve been pushing for alternatives such as this. It’s not a product endorsement, it’s a matter of principle. There must be an alternative--a non-computerized transparent means of voting. I support what Freddie Oakley, the County Clerk of Yolo says, about the Vote-PAD, that it's 'no more hackable than a number 2 pencil.' So far, in tests with voters, including those with disabilities, everyone likes it."
[For VotePAD descriptions, see http://www.vote-pad.us/ [156] and http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70036-0.html].

Sherry Healy of the California Election Protection Network points out, “The recent lawsuit against five California counties shows that disability organizations are dismayed that electronic systems only allow sighted voters to verify their paper ballot. The Vote-PAD deserves their support, since it provides a direct method of vote verification to everyone."
[See http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/PVA-Complaint.pdf].

The VotePAD vendor had offered to arrange the participation of a wide range of disability advocacy organizations in the VotePAD testing trials, but this offer was quashed by the Voting Systems Testing and Assessment Board appointed by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson.
[See http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_ellen_th_060710_vote_pad_invites_peo.htm].

The board limited test participation to a small number of undisclosed disability testers that the board selected, and barred the public from observing the trials, held July 19 and 20 at the Secretary of State offices. VotePAD proponents say the board conducted testing without adequate preparation or expert competence in usability testing criteria and methods for persons with disabilities.
[See http://www.vote-pad.us/Media/CACertTestResponse.asp]

Election activists also question apparent double-standards in state testing procedures that subject electronic system vendors to less stringent usability testing than that applied in the VotePAD trials.

"Why aren’t other systems being tested this way?" asks A.J. Devies, Disabilities Consultant to the Florida Fair Elections Coalition. "Is the Secretary of State discriminating against this non-electronic system by holding it to a different standard?”

Election integrity activists have testified in protest at numerous California voting system certification hearings over the past two years objecting to the state certification of electronic machines that fail to meet the accessibility standard for non-visible (audio) means of voter verification required by California law SB 1438 and incorporated in the state Elections Code
[see http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/03-04/bill/sen/sb_1401-1450/sb_1438_bill_20040927_chaptered.html].

"Direct record electronic"(DRE) voting machines have been heavily promoted as the solution to voting access for the disabled since the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which made available the financial inducement of $3.8 billion in one-time federal grants for voting equipment upgrades. Election integrity activists have denounced electronic voting machines as "Trojan horses" that open up the electoral process to covert hacking manipulations that can falsify election results without detection.
(See http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf [157] , http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf [158] , http://www.openvotingfoundation.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1 [159] ).

That assessment has been affirmed by overwhelming consensus among computer security professionals
(see http://www.acm.org/announcements/acm_evoting_recommendation.9-27-2004.html [160]) and by real-world demonstrations of exactly such hacking exploits, that election officials including Secretary McPherson and the federal Election Assistance Commission have been obliged to acknowledge with special security advisories
(see (http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2006/06_021.pdf [161] and http://www.nased.org/ITA%20Information/NASED%20Memory%20Card%20Report.pdf [162]).

Those revelations have in turn been the basis for a growing number of legal actions challenging electronic voting and the trade-secret proprietary claims of e-voting vendors as antithtetical to guarantees of voting rights and open government afforded citizens by their state constitutions (see http://www.atla.org/homepage/trial.aspx [163]).

An additional consideration election activists point out is the high purchase cost and continuing maintenance expense of DRE voting machines, which they say could be avoided by the adoption of sensible, low-cost, appropriate voting technology such as the Vote PAD and a similar voting assistive device called the Equalivote (http://www.equalivote.com/pg2b.html [164]).

Stu Schy of Santa Rosa, a systems usability consultant with over 20 years' experience working with the disability community, says "Sonoma County paid $4.7 million for the equipment used in the June 6 primary, and only $1.4 million was covered by HAVA. The number of votes cast on the machines was 165. That's over $28,000 per vote! We need and want a low-cost alternative."

Casey Hanson of the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition sums it up: “The nation looks to California for its leadership role. We’re all watching and we hope that the public will show up to show their support for having Vote-PAD as an alternative to computerized voting systems.”

CAN'T MAKE THE HEARING? SEND IN YOUR WRITTEN COMMENTS BY MAIL OR E-MAIL

Members of the public are encouraged to submit written comments on agenda items.

Written comment should be sent by US mail to the address (below) or by email to VotingSystemComment@ss.ca.gov [165].

Comments will be accepted for up to 7 days past the hearing date (deadline August 16, 2006).

Those wishing to provide oral comment at a meeting should complete a speaker’s card upon arrival.
In all cases, the presiding officer reserves the right to impose time limits onpresentations as may be necessary to ensure that the agenda is completed.

Those wishing to provide an extended statement shouldsubmit a request via the email address above
or contact Bruce McDannold at (916) 653-7244 at least 24 hours prior to the meeting.

* * * *

These are the VotePAD report files you can download and study in preparation for oral or written comments to enter in the hearing record.

Available for download at: http://ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm [154]

# Vote-PAD/DESI & Vote-PAD/Hart Systems: Staff Report
# Vote-PAD/DESI & Vote-PAD/Hart Systems: Consultant's Report
# Vote-PAD/DESI & Vote-PAD/Hart Systems Testing: Monitor Procedures
# Vote-PAD/DESI & Vote-PAD/Hart Systems Testing: Monitor Records, Day 1
# Vote-PAD/DESI & Vote-PAD/Hart Systems Testing: Monitor Records, Day 2
# Vote-PAD/DESI & Vote-PAD/Hart Systems Testing: Exit Surveys, Day 1
# Vote-PAD/DESI & Vote-PAD/Hart Systems Testing: Exit Surveys, Day 2
# Vote-PAD/DESI Proposed Use Procedures
# Vote-PAD/Hart Proposed Use Procedures

Election Contest Filed Demanding Accountability, Decertification and Paper Ballot Count of Busby/Bilbray Election in CA-50

For Immediate Release: July 31, 2006, San Diego / CONTACT: Ilene Proctor PR, (310) 271-5857

Press Conference Set for 10:30am in San Diego

Today, famed election attorney Paul Lehto filed an election contest lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court demanding a count of all paper ballots in the Busby/Bilbray special election to replace convicted Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham. On the face of the pleading, Lehto, on behalf of voters of CA-50, asserts that they are entitled to a 100% ballot count at a reasonable cost because of massive security violations of federal and state law by election officials.

California state law requires that all votes cast in an election be properly counted and tabulated. In the CA-50 election, however, it cannot be determined whether or not all votes were counted because legally mandated procedures were violated both in the run-up to the election and during the official voter request for a hand ballot count. County Registrar Mikel Haas sent the Diebold voting machines on "sleepovers" in the unsecured homes and cars of volunteer poll workers for weeks prior to the election in violation of federal and state law. When voter Barbara Gail Jacobsen filed for a recount, Haas set an exorbitant price of $150,000 but refused to provide the documents necessary for that count.

"Given the fact that all the voting machines were circulating in the county for at least a week prior to the election, and manipulation of a single machine can rig an election, there is no basis for voters to have confidence in the election results," attorney Lehto said. Indeed, because the Diebold machines used in the election were conditionally certified by the Secretary of State under stringent security and chain of custody conditions to protect against manipulation, the lawsuit asserts that non-compliance with those conditions necessarily requires decertification of the election results.

A press conference will take place today on the steps of the San Diego County Superior Court at 10:30 am. Lehto, voters and activists will be on hand to talk about the lawsuit and their plans for further action to ensure compliance with all California election laws.

VelvetRevolution.us, a network of scores of election reform organizations demanding honest and accountable elections, is handling the fundraising for this CA-50 legal challenge and donations are being accepted on its website, www.velvetrevolution.us [166].