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[SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000]2-28-06: Take action NOW: Bullies pounding on whistleblower[/FONT][/SPAN]

"[Steven] Heller is getting pounded. He's the victim of bullies; a huge, powerful, wealthy, politically connected corporation and their equally huge and powerful international law firm are slamming him, grinding him up in legal machinery for allegedly lifting up the pretty skirt Diebold shows to the world, exposing the dirty, stinking criminal secrets that lie beneath.

"For what he's alleged to have done, there was nothing in it for him. No financial gain (in fact a serious financial loss, because he got fired from his job, and he's had to pay 10s of thousands of dollars to his lawyers, and owes them 10s of thousands more). And he's now at risk of over 3 years in state prison. It's insane. His cause is a worthy one, and he needs our help. Please call, write and email today.

Email the Los Angeles District Attorney's office at [A href="mailto:[email protected]"][FONT color=#323232][email protected][/FONT][/A].

A good old fashioned snail mail letter is very powerful tool:

District Attorney's Office
County of Los Angeles
210 West Temple Street, Suite 18000
Los Angeles, CA 90012-3210

And of course, phone calls:

Telephone (213) 974-3512
Fax (213) 974-1484
TTY (800) 457-7778 (8:30am - 5:00pm M-F)

(From Huffington Post):
[A href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-soby-jr/whistleblower-charged-wit_b_16411.html" target=_blank][FONT color=#000000]MORE: Whistleblower story [/FONT][/A]

Bradblog: [A href="http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002472.htm" target=_blank][FONT color=#000000]The Whistleblower story[/FONT][/A]

And while you're at Bradblog, check out these important stories:

Candid America project in action - Citizen catches election official on tape:
[A href="http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002473.htm" target=_blank][FONT color=#000000]Pima County official rushes at a citizen for asking about Diebold contract[/FONT][/A]

[A href="http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002467.htm" target=_blank][FONT color=#000000]Squealing like a stuck pig[/FONT][/A] - Alaska officials fighting release of Diebold vote data files

Another article on Steven Heller's whistleblowing punishment:
[A href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lyn-lear/whistleblower-hero-is-thr_b_16409.html" target=_blank][FONT color=#000000]Whistleblower Hero is Threatened with Prison for Exposing Diebold[/FONT][/A]

[FONT color=#ff0000]More information for your calls, letters and faxes:
[/FONT]

Case Number BA298120
Arraignment date: 4/24/06.
High tech crime division: 213 580 3272

In a nutshell: Heller is a whistleblower. He witnessed a law firm and its client conspiring to lie to the secretary of state. During his employment, they then carried out their plans and actually did lie to the secretary of state as planned. The lie caused voters to be disenfranchised.

The timing of the arrest is suspicious, and it appears to be an attempt to throw cold water on any other whistleblowers.

Blog this, contact the press on this.

Those numbers again:

District Attorney's Office
County of Los Angeles
210 West Temple Street, Suite 18000
Los Angeles, CA 90012-3210

And of course, phone calls:

Telephone (213) 974-3512
Fax (213) 974-1484
TTY (800) 457-7778 (8:30am - 5:00pm M-F)[/DIV]

I wonder what the other side of the story is?

The other side of the story is one of very well documented corruption.

[SPAN class=updatehead][FONT color=#ff0000][FONT color=#000000]PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO [/FONT][A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/" target=_blank]http://www.blackboxvoting.org[/A][/FONT][/SPAN][/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000][/FONT][/SPAN] [/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000]2-17-06: Election family tree: Who got us into this and how did they meet each other?[/FONT][/SPAN]

As we unravel the family tree responsible for the current elections mess, to our surprise it looks like some of these people are in fact legally related. This article exposes some of the ties, family and otherwise. Let's open the closet and look at some of the underpinnings of today's secret elections:

Two of the most ardent proponents of election secrecy and paperless voting, Los Angeles County Registrar of Elections Conny McCormack and former San Bernardino Registrar Scott Konopasek, appear to be practically brother and sister-in-law, yet we can't find that they have disclosed this.

"I'm too dumb to sleep," wrote Riverside County (Calif.) activist Art Cassel after discovering information hinting at a family relationship. He was joined online in the wee hours of the night last weekend by Bev Harris of Black Box Voting. Soon, Cassel and several BBV researchers were running down more information to learn more about McCormack and Konopasek's relationship.

A recent obituary reported that a family included a son (Austin McCormack, Conny's husband) and Kathryn Konopasek, a daughter. Seeing this Dallas Morning News article, Riverside County activist Art Cassel contacted Black Box Voting. We found that Kathryn "Kate" Konopasek, Conny's sister-in-law, is married to Dean Konopasek. The name Konopasek is quite rare. Cassel found that Scott Konopasek, who now lives in Highland Calif., went to high school in Utah and attended Brigham Young University. Dean Konopasek, who now lives in Alaska, attended Utah State University around the same time. Black Box Voting found that no other family named Konopasek appears to have resided in Utah at any time. Circumstances do support the hypothesis that Dean and Scott are siblings, but we do not have documentation on that yet.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Konopasek's current company: Forefront Election Solutions[/FONT]

[A href="http://www.forefrontelections.com/" target=_blank]http://www.forefrontelections.com/[/A]

When the King County general election in 2004 didn't pass the smell test, Konopasek's Forefront Election Solutions was suggested to "audit" the election. Forefront lost that deal to another enigmatic entity: The Election Center, run by R. Doug Lewis.

While in Sacramento this week, BBV investigator Jim March pulled the corporate documents of Forefront Election Solutions. Currently, Scott Konopasek and his sidekick Stephen Trout are running the company. They launched it in 2004 when Konopasek was fired from his position in San Bernardino County.

Forefront Election Solutions LLC is an elections consulting firm that reportedly was involved in a pitch for a telephone voting system to Los Angeles County Elections. Activists who attended the meeting reported the involvement in Los Angeles County of Konopasek and Forefront to Black Box Voting.

[FONT color=#ff0000]What McCormack and Konopasek have in common[/FONT]

Konopasek and McCormack have raised the ire of voting activists for their outspoken opposition to a paper trail (McCormack, as recently as last June, was advocating against a paper trail in public testimony). Both are over-the-top practitioners of secrecy against the citizenry in elections.

Konopasek referred to Black Box Voting as conducting a "jihad," comparing activists to terrorists at a California public hearing while complaining about a proposed plan to have citizens monitor elections.

In July 2004, Konopasek admitted to BBV investigators that he has sometimes adjusted election data during elections. At the time, BBV investigators were asking if Konopasek knew of any reason that could cause vote totals to go down for a candidate in the middle of a count (which happened to Howard Dean, a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary, in March 2004 in Mohave County, AZ). Konopasek replied that this had happened under his watch in San Bernardino. He claimed that it was due to a need to "massage the data" between the tabulator and the voting machine, adding that the problem had been solved.

This attracted the interest of Adam Cohen, a member of the New York Times editorial board, who -- unbeknownst to Konopasek -- happened to be observing the BBV investigators. He had been quietly sitting on a bench in the San Bernardino elections office while Konopasek made this surprising statement. Cohen immediately got up, made a notation, and asked for details. Cohen had joined Black Box Voting for the visit to San Bernardino, and Konopasek's admission ended up in the New York Times on Aug. 8, 2004.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Paperless pushers: Like one big happy family -- The elections money-go-round[/FONT]

Before heading to San Bernardino, where Konopasek purchased Sequoia paperless touch-screens, Konopasek pushed paperless Sequoia touch-screens into Snohomish County (WA). Snohomish has since dropped the machines.

Prior to Snohomish County, Konopasek was elections supervisor for Salt Lake County (UT), the location that also spawned paperless touch-screen advocate Michael Vu who is now Cuyahoga County (OH) director of elections.

Vu became Salt Lake County elections supervisor not long after Konopasek left. At the age of 28, Vu took over mammoth Cuyahoga County (OH) elections. When visited by BBV investigators Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne, Vu cited Riverside County (CA) registrar of elections Mischelle Townsend as his "mentor."

Townsend, who resigned suddenly after a series of inquiries by local citizens, is listed on Konopasek's web site for Forefront Election Solutions as one of the consultants.

It was this meeting with Vu that stimulated the formation of the Black Box Voting nonprofit group. Harris and Kathleen Wynne, the activist who first pioneered the voting machine reform issue in Cleveland, had been horrified at Vu's energetic and arrogant promotion of a paperless Diebold touch-screen system. After hearing that he was mentored by Mischelle Townsend (who was at that time under investigation for allowing a Sequoia technician to upload data into the tabulator during a live election), Harris decided that it was time to create a formal group to investigate what is really going on behind the scenes in U.S. elections. Harris and Wynne ditched a luncheon meeting in Cleveland to discuss the idea and six weeks later, Black Box Voting, Inc. was born.

Back to the paperless pitch people: Stephen Trout, who was Konopasek's sidekick in San Bernardino, had been with former Calif. Secretary of State Bill Jones. After his tenure as Secretary of State, Jones went on to pitch Sequoia touch-screens as a "consultant" for Sequoia. And if that wasn't fishy enough, when anti-paperless touch-screen Secretary of State Kevin Shelley took over in California, Trout left to help Konopasek get Sequoia paperless touch-screens into San Bernardino County.

McCormack behaves as if Diebold is family as well. At one time, she went on a personal vacation with then-Diebold salesperson Deborah Seiler. At the California VSPP meetings, in a room filled with people, McCormack typically sits with Diebold. McCormack's picture has been on the Diebold Web site advertising its products.

McCormack's commitment to nontransparent elections was exposed when her staff [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/13095.html" target=_blank]pulled a bait and switch[/A] on observers in November 2005, telling reporters and citizens that optical scan machines were the tallying machines. When asked about this by Harris, McCormack's staff admitted that tallying is done in another location, off limits and not viewable by the public. Harris questioned McCormack about this violation of California law. McCormack refused to allow Harris (or any other member of the public) to observe the tallying and instead called in five members of the Los Angeles County sheriff's department to guard Harris and others, lest the citizenry make a break for it to attempt to watch any vote tallying.

In July 2005, BBV's Jim March was [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/8556.html" target=_blank]arrested in San Diego County[/A] when he tried to watch the vote-counting.

[FONT color=#ff0000]It's time for full disclosure[/FONT]

Whether or not they like secrecy, Konopasek and McCormack need to disclose any family relationship. If they are brother and sister-in-law, this is clearly relevant to any recommendations, endorsements, special access, and business dealings. It would be likely that they would have met at their weddings, perhaps decades ago, and any interfacing of their public elections work should be examined.

Conny Drake McCormack married Austin McCormack in Dallas, Texas. She had been in charge of jury pools, was then moved up to Supervisor of Elections in Dallas County, where she immediately got into hot water for allegedly disenfranchising minority voters by shorting them on ballots. BBV investigator Kathleen Wynne has obtained the court documents on that investigation, and she will be posting those soon.

McCormack was subjected to a two-year investigation by the Texas attorney general's office for alleged election-rigging, in connection with the 1985 election of Dallas Mayor Starke Taylor (an interesting character in his own right; to finance development of property he was hoping to develop, pending a land use decision by city officials -- he was one of the officials -- he took out a loan with a savings and loan association that he also owned. He defaulted on his loan and the S&L went out of business. Then he sued the S&L for making bad loans.)

The investigation in McCormack's alleged rigging of Starke Taylor's election was eventually dropped, after McCormack left the state of Texas to take a position in San Diego County, replacing Ray Ortiz. Together, MCormack and Ortiz had been leading a national association of elections officials when Ortiz was indicted on several counts of fraud. McCormack subsequently took Ortiz's position in San Diego. Ortiz went to work for a voting machine vendor.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Time for Southern Calif. citizens to get to work on this[/FONT]

Let us know if you'd like guidance on what records to seek. More information needs to be obtained about why Konopasek was fired, how he was selected and hired in the first place, and what Forefront Election Solutions is doing.

If Konopasek's firm, Forefront, is doing business with Los Angeles County, it needs to be determined how he gained access to Los Angeles County for the telephone voting sales pitch. Who paid for his "consulting" services? Black Box Voting is conducting public records requests to learn whether McCormack has hired Forefront for anything, and if so, if she disclosed any family relationship with Konopasek. We are also seeking records as to whether Konopasek listed McCormack as a reference, or obtained recommendations from her, in any of his work with either San Bernardino or other counties.

RESEARCH WAS CONTRIBUTED FOR THIS ARTICLE BY ART CASSEL, BEV HARRIS, KATHLEEN WYNNE, JIM MARCH AND CATHERINE ANSBRO.

IF YOU BELIEVE CITIZEN OVERSIGHT OF ELECTIONS IS IMPORTANT, PLEASE JOIN THE 2006 ELECTION CLEANUP CREW. WORK STARTS NOW. WE WILL PROVIDE ONE ON ONE CONSULTING TO HELP YOU UNCOVER WHAT'S GOING ON IN ELECTIONS NEAR YOU. E-MAIL [email protected]. (Allow a few days for a response, due to our heavy travel schedules.)

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/" target=_blank]http://www.blackboxvoting.org[/A][!--/Text--][/DIV]

Yes I understand your side of the story Adam. What I was wondering about is the other side.

Not to suggest that you're being untruthful, but this isn't exactly an unbiased report. Your side is that the company is the evil empire, the companies side is that they've been misrepresented. As usual it's likely that the truth lies somewhere in between.

So I guess my question should have been, does anyone know of any reports on this story from unbiased sources?

I've read a bit about this and it sure seems to me there was a huge amount of vote fraud. I usually turn a pretty sceptical eye towards this stuff, but the evidence is overwhelming that there was indeed a lot of tampering, pre-loading of votes, and a lot of "over-voting". Diebold won't show people the source code for the voting program, which in my view ought to be available to every voter. By law it ought to be Open Source. Too much funny business with Diebold, you could write a dozen books and barely scratch the surface.

Sometimes the truth doesn't lie in the middle, Witch.

There was a [A href="http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001838.htm"][FONT color=#0000ff]Dept. of Homeland Security warning[/FONT][/A][FONT color=#0000ff] [/FONT]that Diebold  tabulator software is hackable. A non-partisan [A href="http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001940.htm"][FONT color=#0000ff]GAO report confirming[/FONT][/A][FONT color=#0000ff] [/FONT]the failures and loss of ballots via electronic voting was published.  A recent[FONT color=#0000ff] [/FONT][A href="http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf"][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00" color=#000000]independent [/FONT]analysis [PDF][/FONT][/A][FONT color=#0000ff] [/FONT]commissioned by the Secretary of State of California warns about the hackable "interpeted code" used in Diebold voting machines, despite a ban on such code by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) guidelines.  [FONT color=#0000ff]CAN'T GET MORE MAINSTREAM THAN THAT, Witch.[/FONT]

In other words Diebold has broken the law and the integrity of American elections is as threatened by the complicity of corrupt public officials, yet the only person facing a lawsuit and possible jail-time is a whistle-blower who, at great personal sacrifice, acted in the interest of the American public.

None of the sources in your post could even remotely be considered unbiased Adam.

Which is precisely what I was referring to. You have an opinion, and you choose sources that agree with you. I have yet to form an informed opinion, although I have suspicions, and so I need to see reports from some unbiased sources to make sure I'm forming my opinion fairly.

What you've given just doesn't count as unbiased. Occam's Razor tells us that the truth is probably somewhere between your position and The other side.

The bipartisan GAO (General Accounting Office) couldn't "even remotely be considered unbiased"??  [A href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf"]http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf[/A]  How about laws against the kind of hackable "interpeted code" used in Diebold voting machines, stated in the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) guidelines -- they couldn't "remotely be considered unbiased"?? Nor could an independent report commissioned by the Secretary of State of California [FONT color=#0000ff][A href="http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf"]http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf[/A][/FONT][FONT color=#000000]  written with the assistance of Chris Karlof and Naveen Sastry of the University of California "even remotely be considered unbiased"??  [/FONT][/DIV]

[BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"]Adam_Fulford wrote:


The bipartisan GAO (General Accounting Office) couldn't "even remotely be considered unbiased"??  [A href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf"]http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf[/A]  [/DIV][/BLOCKQUOTE] In the post I was referring to, you didn't reference this document, you referenced some guys blog who obviously has an axe to grind. In addition, this document is in no way saying what your original post in this thread says, so it's not really a help to you.

[BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"]How about laws against the kind of hackable "interpeted code" used in Diebold voting machines, stated in the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) guidelines -- they couldn't "remotely be considered unbiased"?? [/DIV][/BLOCKQUOTE] That's assuming that the Diebold machines actually contravene those guidlines. So far you havn't given any independant sources that show this is the case. Again you've given us the claims of some very biased sources that may or may not be misrepresenting the actual facts.

[BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"]Nor could an independent report commissioned by the Secretary of State of California [FONT color=#0000ff][A href="http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf"]http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf[/A][/FONT][FONT color=#000000]  written with the assistance of Chris Karlof and Naveen Sastry of the University of California "even remotely be considered unbiased"??  [/FONT][/DIV][/BLOCKQUOTE]
Is that actually the transcript of said report? Hard to say. Anyone can type up a "report", put a fancy sounding title on it and pdf it. The report isn't signed, it bears no seal, and there's no independant corroboration that it is genuine. You've already accused one organisation of lying, who's to say this votetrustusa.org is honest? I'm not willing to take your word for it, sorry.

As I've said before, I'm suspicious of the voting machines, but I see no need to take the word of one very biased side over the word of the other very biased side. That is why I would like to see info from unbiased sources, which you have certqainly not yet given.

[DIV class=document]February 22, 2006

The Honorable Bruce McPherson
Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Secretary McPherson:

I strongly urge you to reverse your February 17th decision to re-certify Diebold's voting machines for use in California. Your decision contradicts your earlier commitment not to review Diebold's re-certification request until it had been approved by the federal Independent Testing Authorities (ITA) and your commitment not to certify any system that doesn't comply with all standards established by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Furthermore, your decision violates state law. While your decision may be good for Diebold and its shareholders, it is not in the best interests of California's voters or our democracy.

Federal ITA and HAVA Issues

On December 20, 2005, you announced that you would not consider reviewing the Diebold systems until the ITA had acted. Specifically, you stated, "During a thorough review of the application for the Diebold system currently pending certification, we have determined that there is sufficient cause for additional federal evaluation. I have consistently stated that I will not certify any system for use in California unless it meets the most stringent voting system requirements." Attached to your statement was a letter from the chief of your Elections Division to Diebold, written presumably at your direction, stating, "We require this additional review before proceeding with further consideration of your application for certification in California. Once we have received a report from the federal ITA adequately analyzing this source code, in addition to the technical and operational specifications relating to the memory card and interpreter, we will expeditiously proceed with our comprehensive review of your application." The ITA has yet to conclude its review of the Diebold memory cards, yet you have re-certified the machines in direct contradiction of your December 20, 2005, commitment to the voters.

On August 3, 2005, you announced that "[a]ll systems certified by the Secretary of State's Office shall comply with the standards and requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) [Public Law 107-22, 106th Congress], including all requirements, standards and regulations promulgated pursuant to authority derived from HAVA, as well as complying with all other applicable requirements and standards explicit in federal and state laws, and any requirements, standards and regulations deriving authority from federal and state laws." As you know, the 2002 Voting System Standards adopted by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) were adopted by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) as the first set of guidelines adopted under HAVA. Those guidelines recommend that voting machines not be certified for use if they contain interpreted code. The Diebold machines that you re-certified on February 17 contain interpreted code, which is in direct violation of your August 3, 2005, commitment to follow the higher standards set forth by the EAC and the FEC.

Violations of California Law

Your decision to re-certify Diebold's machines violates California Elections Code Section 19250(a), which precludes the Secretary of State from approving the use of any direct recording electronic (DRE) voting system unless it has received federal qualification. You sent the memory cards back to the Independent Testing Authorities (ITA) in December 2005 because, as you noted in the letter from the chief of your Elections Division to Diebold, ". . . this component was not subjected to federal source code review and evaluation by the Independent Testing Authorities (ITA) who examined your system for federal qualification. It is the Secretary of State's position that the source code for the AccuBasic code on these cards, as well as for the AccuBasic interpreter that interprets this code, should have been federally reviewed." If it was your position on December 20, 2005, that certain components of the system had never been federally reviewed, how could you lawfully certify a system on February 17 under Elections Code Section 19250(a) that contains these uncertified components?

Your decision to re-certify Diebold's machines also violates Elections Code Section 19251(a). As you know, as of January 1, 2006, all DRE voting systems have to come with an accessible voter verified paper audit trail (AVVPAT). The AVVPAT must be "provided or conveyed to voters via both a visual and a nonvisual method, such as through an audio component." The Diebold TSx doesn't comply with this provision of the law. Instead, it provides an audio read-back of how the voter's ballot was recorded electronically, not how it was captured on the AVVPAT, which makes the AVVPAT on the Diebold DRE useless for blind or visually-impaired voters. Given that fact, it appears Diebold's voting systems don't comply with Elections Code Section 19251(a) and therefore can't lawfully be certified for use in California.

Required Public Process Not Completed

Finally, there is a significant legal issue that needs to be addressed regarding the lack of public notice and absence of a public hearing that should have preceded your decision to re-certify the Diebold machines. Although the report is dated February 14, 2006, the fact is this report wasn't released publicly until after you issued your decision to re-certify the Diebold machines on February 17. The argument that the November 21, 2005, hearing you held on Diebold obviates the need for a new hearing under Elections Code Section 19204 doesn't suffice, because your decision to re-certify Diebold's machines was based solely on a report that wasn't available, completed, or even envisioned at the time of the November 21, 2005, hearing. To hold a public hearing without providing the public with the information on which you based your decision to re-certify the Diebold machines only serves to undermine the public hearing requirement of the law.

For all of these reasons, I call on you to restore transparency to the voting machine certification process, which begins by reversing your decision to re-certify Diebold's machines for use in California.

Sincerely,

Debra Bowen, Chairwoman
Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee[/DIV]

Interesting letter. Did Debra Bowen write it?

And how does this letter show that a whistleblower is being bullied?

Yes.

The LA District Attorney is going after Stephen Heller, who was the whistleblower who presented the evidence that allowed California to succesfully sue Diebold, yet isn't going after Diebold that knowingly broke California law and compromised the integrity of American democracy.  Witch, you decide.

[FONT size=4][SPAN id=article_body_title]Diebold whistle blower faces theft charges [/SPAN]

The price for saving democracy[/FONT]
By [A id=article_body_lnkEmailForm href="jvascript:__doPostBack('article_body$lnkEmailForm','')"]Nick Farrell[/A][A id=article_body_authormail title="email the author" href="http://www.theinquirer.net/page_controls/[email protected]"][/A]: [SPAN id=article_body_submitted]Tuesday 28 February 2006, 08:02[/SPAN]

[FONT size=2][SPAN][FONT size=3]A MAN who leaked documents that proved that Diebold was using dodgy machines to run an election, now faces three charges of stealing computer data, commercial burglary and receiving stolen property. [/FONT]

[FONT size=3]Stephen Heller has pleased not guilty to the charge and his brief will say that anyone who saw those documents could have reasonably believed that thousands of voters were going to be potentially disenfranchised in upcoming elections.[/FONT]

[FONT size=3]Heller was a contractor working as a processor at the legal firm of Jones Day, the Oakland Tribune claimed. He was given a memo to type from Jones Day attorney to another regarding allegations by activists that Diebold had used uncertified voting systems in Alameda County elections beginning in 2002. [/FONT][FONT size=3]The memo said that using uncertified voting systems violated California election law and that if Diebold had employed an uncertified system, Alameda County could sue. [/FONT][FONT size=3]A subsequent report by the office of the Secretary of State found that Diebold had marketed and sold its systems before gaining federal qualification and had installed uncertified software on election machines in 17 counties. [/FONT][FONT size=3]The Oakland Tribune published the legal memos on its website in April 2004 and police decided Heller was the source. By a strange quirk in California law, a whistle blower is protected from action from his employer, but can still have the book thrown at him by the officers of the law. [/FONT][FONT size=3]If convicted on all three charges Heller could face three years and eight months in state prison. More at the LA Times, [/FONT][A href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/socal/la-me-diebold22feb22,0,33600.story?coll=la-news-politics-local" target=blank][FONT size=3]here[/FONT][/A][FONT size=3]. µ[/FONT]

[/SPAN][/FONT]

Los Angeles Times article about the vindictive persecution of whistleblower hero of American democracy Stephen Heller:[/DIV][A href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/socal/la-me-diebold22feb22,0,33600.story?coll=la-news-politics-local"]http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/socal/la-me-diebold22feb22,0,33600.story?coll=la-news-politics-local[/A]

Adam_Fulford wrote:
The LA District Attorney is going after Stephen Heller, who was the whistleblower who presented the evidence that allowed California to succesfully sue Diebold, yet isn't going after Diebold that knowingly broke California law and compromised the integrity of American democracy.  Witch, you decide.[/DIV]_____________________________________________________________
 I'm not going to decide. I don't have enough corroborated unbiased information to make an informed decision. That's the point I'm trying to make here.

Just like the letter. You say she wrote it, but did she really? There's no signature. It's not on an official site. Anyone could have typed it up. And it doesn't support the original post at all. Yet you pull it out as if it does.

Adam_Fulford wrote:
Los Angeles Times article about the vindictive persecution of whistleblower hero of American democracy Stephen Heller:[/DIV][A href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/socal/la-me-diebold22feb22,0,33600.story?coll=la-news-politics-local"]http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/socal/la-me-diebold22feb22,0,33600.story?coll=la-news-politics-local[/A]__________________________________________________________________

Well this is a start. Unfortunately it also illustrates why we have to be careful of unbiased sources.

You are characterising this article as if it reveals "the vindictive persecution of whistleblower hero of American democracy Stephen Heller", as if it supports your conjecture entirely. In fact, it does no such thing.

What it does relate is a story about the prosecution of a person who is accused of stealing documents. Now if Heller did so, even in the course of being a whistleblower, then he broke the law. There is no evidence that the prosecution is malicious, and there is even a hint that convictions are rare.

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, refused to call Heller a "whistle-blower."

"We call him a defendant," she said. "He's accused of breaking the law.... If we feel that the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt in our minds that a crime has been committed, it's our job as a criminal prosecutor to file a case."

This is certainly a looooooong way from the picture of vicious, malicious bullying you paint in your posts. That in itself reveals the problem. When you choose to pepper a story with propagandic color, like "whistleblower hero of American democracy", it's painfully clear that the story your giving is highly unlikely to be an unbiased account.

You have an agenda Adam, and that's fine. You simply have to remember that not everyone shares your agenda. Not everyone shares your "mission". People like me need to see the whole story, and we realise that we're not going to get it from people who fervently believe one side with almost religious zeal. We understand that the articles you use are going to be either, written by people who are also biased, unreliable as to their authenticity, or if they are genuine, misinterpreted by you in order to support that which you simply must believe. That last case is very well illustrated by your interpretation of the LA Times article.




 

Witch, are in a state of denial against an overwhelming sea of evidence, and come across as rooting against the facts, for the sake of argument.

  [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00" color=#000000]MORE VINDICTIVE ACTIONS BY FASCISTS AGAINST HONEST AMERICANS[/FONT]

[SPAN class=updatehead][FONT color=#ff0000][FONT color=#000000 size=1]PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, MUST INCLUDE LINK TO [/FONT][A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/" target=_blank][FONT size=1]http://www.blackboxvoting.org[/FONT][/A][FONT color=#000000] [/FONT][/FONT][/SPAN][/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000][/FONT][/SPAN] [/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000]3-3-06: While Florida vindicates Ion Sancho, Jeb Bush threatens Sancho's job[/FONT][/SPAN]

"You could steal the election and no one would ever know," Leon County (FL) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho says.

Sancho arranged for an independent study by Black Box Voting with security experts Harri Hursti and Dr. Herbert Thompson, discovering critical security flaws in the Diebold voting system. These flaws were confirmed in a study ordered by the California Secretary of state. Today the state of Florida issued a [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/17335/Technical_Advisory_3-3-06-19497.doc&type=application/msword" target=_blank]Technical Advisory[/A] to all Supervisors of Elections based on these findings.

And today, Sancho received a letter from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sec. State Sue Cobb, threatening action by the state of Florida to take over Leon County elections.
[A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/17335/sancho-mar3-06-19493.pdf&type=application/pdf" target=_blank](Link: Letter from Jeb Bush/Sue Cobb to Sancho)[/A]

Ion Sancho is one of the most highly respected elections officials in the nation. He stood up to the state of Florida, refusing to cooperate with purging voters who are not felons from the voters list, working from lists provided by the state of Florida erroneously claiming they were felons.
[A href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/09/144240" target=_blank]Felon Disenfranchisement: Purging the Minority Vote[/A]

It is Sancho who was chosen to lead the Florida hand count in the contentious 2000 Bush v. Gore race. The U.S. Supreme Court nixed the hand count.
[A href="http://www.courttv.com/news/decision_2000/120900_ap.html" target=_blank]Scarcely begun, recounts halted in 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling[/A]

And it is Sancho who has provided the most convincing evidence of the utter failure of both the federal testing labs and Florida's state voting machine testing. Neither the federal labs caught the defects which are referred to in the [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf" target=_blank]Hursti Report[/A] as "the mother of all security holes" and "an unlockable revolving door."

[FONT color=#ff0000]Diebold knew[/FONT]

After the findings in Leon County were published in May 2005, Diebold responded by attacking and smearing the messenger (Ion Sancho), denying the problem instead of fixing the system.
[A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/10535.html" target=_blank]Diebold letters to officials[/A]

Instead of warning other elections officials so they could improve security by taking countermeasures, Diebold sent hundreds of letters to elections officials throughout the U.S. smearing Sancho for being "irresponsible" and denying that the flaws exist.

Diebold's denials didn't work in Pennsylvania. The state of Pennsylvania, after independent testing by Carnegie-Mellon computer scientist Michael Shamos, refused to certify the system.
[A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/15688.html" target=_blank]Pennsylvania declines some Diebold...[/A]

The state of California commissioned its own independent study ([A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/15688.html?1136067478" target=_blank]Berkeley Report)[/A], which confirmed the results from Leon County:
[/DIV][BLOCKQUOTE][HR SIZE=0][!-quote-!]quote: [FONT color=#0000ff]"Harri Hursti's attack does work: Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS is definitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server."

...

"Memory card attacks are a real threat: We determined that anyone who has access to a memory card of the AV-OS, and can tamper it (i.e. modify its contents), and can have the modified cards used in a voting machine during election, can indeed modify the election results from that machine in a number of ways. The fact that the the results are incorrect cannot be detected except by a recount of the original paper ballots."

...

"Successful attacks can only be detected by examining the paper ballots: There would be no way to know that any of these attacks occurred; the canvass procedure would not detect any anomalies, and would just produce incorrect results. The only way to detect and correct the problem would be by recount of the original paper ballots, e.g. during the 1 percent manual recount."[/FONT][!-/quote-!] [HR SIZE=0][/BLOCKQUOTE]

Diebold issued written statements to the [A href="http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/AZ-sos-moreland.pdf" target=_blank]Arizona Secretary of State[/A] and to [A href="http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/plainvanillaDiebold.pdf" target=_blank]elections officials[/A] throughout America claiming that passwords were needed, and also that the vulnerabilities did not exist.

Meanwhile, Ion Sancho has been blackballed by the vendors.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Three vendors make it impossible to buy[/FONT]

Diebold punished Leon County elections chief Ion Sancho by breaching its contract, refusing to provide upgrades that Leon County had already paid for. Without the upgrades, Leon County could not stay HAVA compliant.

When Sancho went to Election Systems & Software (ES&S) for a replacement system, ES&S led him on for weeks, then on the eve of the Florida deadline, refused to sell to him.

Sancho went to the only remaining authorized vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems (a system that revealed over 100,000 errors in its voting system computer logs during the 2004 presidential election), but Sequoia stalled the talks and failed to provide Sancho with an offer.

The companies seem to be tag-teaming with the state of Florida, which has given Sancho just a few weeks to purchase a system. If all three companies stall just long enough, they can effectively oust Sancho.

[FONT color=#ff0000]The state of Florida knew[/FONT]

In July 2005, Black Box Voting sent a [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/10300.html" target=_blank]certified copy of the Hursti Report[/A] to then-Florida secretary of state Glenda Hood and to then-Florida voting system chief, Paul Craft. In addition, Paul Craft received a [A href="http://bbvdocs.org/reports/rivest.pdf" target=_blank]letter from world-renowned M.I.T. security expert Ronald Rivest[/A] warning that the Hursti findings were a serious concern.

Yet the state of Florida did no additional study or testing. Glenda Hood and Paul Craft [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/13042.html" target=_blank]resigned suddenly[/A] in November 2005, with Sue Cobb and David Drury taking over -- but no studies of the critical security flaw identified in Leon County were ordered by either the former or the current secretary of state, nor were any studies done by either voting system examiner.

The problem was first reported by Black Box Voting in [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/5921.html" target=_blank]May 2005[/A], with [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/6805.html" target=_blank]formal reports[/A] going out by certified mail in July 2005. After no action by Florida officials, a [A href="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/15595.html" target=_blank]full fledged demonstration[/A] of hacking the election in Leon County took place on Dec. 13, 2005

At this time, Gov. Jeb Bush promised to look into the problem, but commissioned no studies and did nothing to decertify the system after its flaws were confirmed in other states.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Volunteers ready and willing to hand count Leon County; Florida says it's against the law[/FONT]

When news of Leon County's blackballing spread across the nation, volunteers from as far away as New Hampshire and Texas began plans to step in and hand-count the next two Leon County elections.

Jeb Bush isn't having any part of that: No hand counts can take place in Florida. It's the law.

The state of Florida has not only continued to demand that officials purchase unauditable paperless touch-screens, but actually accelerated the schedule. Whereas most states require HAVA-compliant systems by the first federal election in 2006, Florida moved the compliance date up to January 2006.

Florida has declined to certify the AutoMark, a device that enables election supervisors to comply with a Help America Vote Act (HAVA) mandate for the disabled, forcing county officials to use only paperless touch-screen machines for disabled voters.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Florida missing a key protection for county election officials[/FONT]

Privatization of public necessities into the hands of for-profit companies does not work unless certain safeguards are in place. In Florida, voting system suppliers must be authorized by the state. The state has approved only three suppliers.

There are other industries which are limited to a few suppliers -- power companies, telecommunications providers, cable networks. However, in order to become authorized suppliers these vendors MUST agree to sell to willing buyers.

In other words, "You can only buy from this limited pool of vendors, but they, in turn, MUST sell to you."

The business model doesn't work if you don't force the limited supplier pool to sell to willing buyers. Florida's failure to properly structure the elections business model has created an impossible situation in Leon County.

Requiring vendors to sell to willing buyers is a KEY SAFEGUARD in cases where the government limits the supplier pool for a public necessity.

- The state of Florida failed in its duty to ensure secure voting systems. It's testing failed to spot critical security flaws.

- The state of Florida failed to enact a provision requiring voting system supplier to sell to willing buyers, while at the same time, limiting the pool of suppliers to just three vendors who can refuse service at will.

- Diebold Election Systems failed to warn its customers of known security problems, denied the problems, and punished the county elections official who discovered the problem by refusing to perform on its paid-in-advance contract.

[FONT color=#ff0000]According to the Associated Press, Sancho plans to fight![/FONT]

"We will be talking to our lawyers over the weekend," Sancho said. "Somebody is going to pay for it."

[A href="http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=community" target=_blank]State orders security safeguards for voting machines[/A]

* * * * *

[FONT size=-2]PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, MUST INCLUDE LINK TO [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/" target=_blank]http://www.blackboxvoting.org[/A][/FONT]

[/DIV]

[P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"][A href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp%20dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.html"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.html[/A] [?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /][o:p][/o:p][/SPAN]

[P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"] [o:p][/o:p]

[H1 style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: auto 0in"][SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"]How To Steal an Election[o:p][/o:p][/SPAN][/H1][H2 style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"][SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt"]It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count. We'll wait to read his book before making a judgment about that. But Freeman has assembled comparisons that suggest Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights, according to data he presented at an October meeting of the American Statistical Association in Philadelphia.[/SPAN][/H2][H2 style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"][SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt"][o:p][img height=678 alt="How To Steal an Election" src="http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.gif" width=624][/o:p][/SPAN][/H2][P class=MsoNormal style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"][?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /][v:shapetype id=_x0000_t75 stroked="f" filled="f" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" coordsize="21600,21600"][v:stroke joinstyle="miter"][/v:stroke][v:formulas][v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"][/v:f][v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"][/v:f][v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"][/v:f][v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"][/v:f][v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"][/v:f][v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"][/v:f][v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"][/v:f][v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"][/v:f][v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"][/v:f][v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"][/v:f][v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"][/v:f][v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"][/v:f][/v:formulas][v:path o:connecttype="rect" gradientshapeok="t" o:extrusionok="f"][/v:path][o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"][/o:lock][/v:shapetype][o:p][/o:p][/SPAN]

[DIV style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #cccccc 0.75pt solid; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BACKGROUND: white; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 2pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none"][P class=MsoNormal style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: medium none; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 0in; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; mso-border-top-alt: solid #CCCCCC .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 2.0pt 0in 0in 0in"][SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"]GRAPHIC: The Washington Post - March 16, 2006[o:p][/o:p][/SPAN]

[/DIV][P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"] [o:p][/o:p]

     

uhmmm...very interesting.

[A href="http://commonwonders.com/archives/col336.htm"]http://commonwonders.com/archives/col336.htm[/A]

[P align=center][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2][FONT size=4]Whistling Diebold
[FONT size=2]What price will we exact from a hero of democracy? [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[P align=center][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services[/FONT]

[P align=center][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]March 9, 2006[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]They ain't gonna kiss you just because you're a whistleblower. No matter that you exposed wrongdoing and struck a blow for fair elections. The larger good isn't always obvious to the powers that be.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]So Steve Heller, a Los Angeles-based actor whose day job is doing temporary office work, faces three felony charges, all of which are a stretch: felony access to computer data, commercial burglary and receiving stolen property. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office says he's a thief, an Internet criminal, and that's that. And, oh yeah, he violated attorney-client confidentiality, and cost a big law firm a million dollars in lost business.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]Serious stuff. And if the DA's office has its way, this is all the judge and jury will look at: the law in its narrowest sense, as though ethical issues aren't sometimes murky and enormously complicated.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]Indeed, this is the story of a 44-year-old man who had a problem in practical ethics fall into his lap a little over two years ago, when he was temping in the word-processing center of Jones Day, a major Los Angeles law firm. Among the firm's clients was [A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold_Election_Systems"]Diebold Election Systems[/A], the largest manufacturer of electronic voting machines and voting machine software in the U.S. - and probably the most controversial.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]Diebold machines are notoriously hackable and unreliable, and the company itself is as secretive as it is politically connected. The company is in the forefront of the spread of unverifiable ("trust us") electronic voting across the country, a phenomenon that many computer experts and fair-election advocates find utterly terrifying.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]"In connection with his duties on Jan. 29, 2004, suspect Heller was given an assignment to work on a Jones Day document regarding Diebold voting machines," Heller's arrest warrant attests. "After completing that assignment, suspect Heller, without authorization, accessed and printed 107 Jones Day documents concerning their representation of Diebold."[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]What the arrest warrant leaves out is that, in 2004, Diebold machines were going to be used in a number of California counties in the March primary and the November general elections, and the machines' questionable reliability was in the news a lot. And indeed, Diebold machines did malfunction in the March elections. But they didn't malfunction in November because by then they had been decertified by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley - thanks in large part to Heller's actions.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]The documents Heller, the temp word processor, happened upon and subsequently printed out revealed a potential crime in progress. Here's where the ethics become urgent. He could either ignore what he saw or, at considerable personal risk and with nothing to gain except clarity of conscience, take action. He took action.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]He gave the documents to election-reform advocates, who got them into the hands of the media and state officials. Because he did, data concerning Diebold's use of uncertified software, which was supposed to remain private, became public knowledge. "In one memo," the Los Angeles Weekly wrote, "the law firm warned Diebold, before the March primary, that its use of uncertified vote-counting software in Alameda County, starting in 2002, violated California election law and broke its $12.7 million contract."[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]And election-reform advocate Peter Soby wrote on Huffington Post: "So in a nutshell, Diebold was defrauding the state government and taxpayers of California, and disenfranchising the voters of California. And the documents prove it."[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]Many of the documents were ultimately published online by the Oakland Tribune and, through Black Box Voting, a Seattle-based organization that has been a longtime critic and monitor of electronic voting, brought to the attention of Secretary of State Shelley. Diebold was eventually decertified and became the subject of both criminal and civil proceedings. While the criminal investigation was ultimately dropped, Diebold settled its civil suit with the state out of court in November 2004 for $2.6 million.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]Meanwhile Heller, whose home was raided by police in August 2004, faces almost four years in jail if convicted on all counts. There are those who think the main point of the DA's case against him is to put a chill in the hearts of potential whistleblowers out there who have access to dirty corporate secrets that affect the public welfare. Sandi Gibbons, a spokesman for the DA's office, called such charges "ridiculous."[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]Maybe so, but I cringe at what seems like misplaced outrage. I cringe to watch the machinery of "justice" grind up a little guy who was faced with a terrible ethical choice and chose not to play it safe or dumb, but instead acted for the greater good.[/FONT]

[P align=left][FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2]It's just about democracy is all. How rare, how amazing, to learn that ordinary citizens are still sometimes capable of pulling it from the clutches of big-money cynicism. As [A href="http://www.hellerlegaldefensefund.com/"]Steve Heller goes to trial[/A], I guess we'll find out what kind of price is now being exacted for such heroism.[/FONT]

I have no idea what the point of Mr. Fulford's incessant copying & pasting was for....(http://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/icon/icon_smile.gif)

Then I guess you haven't read it through.  It appears that the democracy that Bush is so insistent on in other countries isn't really necessary at home.  The whole thing is about the flagrant abuse of power to rig elections in order to gain power.  I think it is very frightening to have votes disregarded or deliberately altered.  The perpetrators should be on trial, not the whistleblower.

Diebold helped Bush steal both elections, no question about it now. Go to blackboxvoting.com, view the documentation, and make up your own mind. Diebold voting machines came preloaded in some cases, in other cases they recorded more votes than there were voters.

And for the record, I appreciate the things Adam posts. People like him help spread the word about what's going on.

Way too long to read...

Marik wrote:
Way too long to read...

Yeah, incriminating evidence about how the elections were stolen should be limited to a paragraph or two. It's not like your rights or your freedom is a big deal or anything. So what if we're practically living in a Police State. So what if  the president can lie and start wars for profit. So what if you can be secretly arrested and held forever without being charged with a crime. So what if they stole the elections. We still have our HBO and Budweiser and that's what really counts.

TehBorken wrote:
Marik wrote:
[SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic"]Way too long to read...[/SPAN]

Yeah, incriminating evidence about how the elections were stolen should be limited to a paragraph or two. It's not like your rights or your freedom is a big deal or anything. So what if we're practically living in a Police State. So what if  the president can lie and start wars for profit. So what if you can be secretly arrested and held forever without being charged with a crime. So what if they stole the elections. [SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic"]We still have our HBO and Budweiser and that's what really counts. [/SPAN]
[/DIV]
Wayy too long to read. As long as "Survivor" hour isn't interupted and my SUV is full of gas so I can get to Wal Mart, leave me alone!!

TehBorken wrote:
Marik wrote:
[SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic"]Way too long to read...[/SPAN]

Yeah, incriminating evidence about how the elections were stolen should be limited to a paragraph or two.

Witch asks:

What evidence? So far we have seen no actual evidence. We have seen a lot of speculation and a lot of writing that is being purported to be evidence...

But so far we have seen no evidence.
 

You sound like those tobacco lobbyists who denied that there was any  evidence directly linking tobacco smoking to disease.  The evidence against  the US electronic voting machines from credible sources is a abundant and  easily found by any intellectually honest person who  seriously wants to know.   Just go to [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org"]www.blackboxvoting.org[/A] to find it, neatly compiled.  Also, check out [A href="http://www.bradblog.com"]www.bradblog.com[/A] for a list of articles and sources.

Witch asks:What evidence? So far we have seen no actual evidence.

And what would you consider evidence? What would it take to make you say, "Hmmm, something looks wrong here..."?

You sound like those tobacco lobbyists who denied that there was any evidence directly linking tobacco smoking to disease.

This really pisses me off.

Someone should start the lobby for safe tobacco.

[LI]TX: Galveston County - New voting system, same problems (Hart eSlate and eScan) [A href="http://news.galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=b5c1182c635f6be7" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080]LINK[/FONT][/A]
[LI]TX: Jefferson County - Voting woes mar debut of electronic ballots (ES&S iVotronic) [A href="http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16259795&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512588&rfi=6" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080]LINK[/FONT][/A]
[LI]TX: Jefferson County - Confusion mars new voting process [A href="http://www.panews.com/articles/2006/03/08/news/election%20news/confusion.txt" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080]LINK[/FONT][/A]
[LI]TX: Robertson County - Robertson County vote tallies delayed (ES&S AutoMark) [A href="http://www.theeagle.com/stories/030806/politics_20060308017.php" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080]LINK[/FONT][/A]
[LI]TX: Tom Green County - Computer problems delay election returns (Hart eScan) [A href="http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/home/article/0,1897,SAST_4943_4522634,00.html" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080]LINK[/FONT][/A]
[LI]TX: Webb County - Cuellar defeats Rodriguez in congressional grudge match (Counting problems – ES&S) [A href="http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/special_packages/election2004/14041526.htm" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080]LINK[/FONT][/A]
[LI]TX: Webb and Bexar County - 'Glitches' get blame in Webb (ES&S) [A href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA030806.11A.glitches.4247ae5.html" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080]LINK[/FONT][/A][/LI][A href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA030806.11A.glitches.4247ae5.html" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080][/FONT][/A][A href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA030806.11A.glitches.4247ae5.html" target=_blank][FONT color=#000080][/FONT][/A]

I only smoke filtered cigarettes.[/DIV]Last month I was diagnosed with Cancer Light.

Hi, Tenkani

Hao Jiu Bu Jian

Literal Translation: Long time no see.

Aloha, Ninja Buster!!!    (http://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Teasing/12.gif)

Hay, this thread needs some bat pics!!!!!1

[FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial]WHISTLEBLOWER WHO DEFIED THE FASCISTS RUNS FOR CONGRESS[/FONT][/FONT][/DIV][FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff][A href="http://www.clintcurtis.com/"]http://www.clintcurtis.com/[/A][/FONT][/DIV][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial][/FONT][/FONT] [/DIV][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial]CLINT CURTIS runs for Congress, 24th Distict[/FONT][/FONT][/DIV][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial][/FONT][/FONT] [/DIV][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial]'Why am I running for Congress?
[/DIV][/FONT][/FONT][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial]My name is Clint Curtis. I am considering running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's 24th Congressional District. I will [/FONT][A href="http://www.clintcurtis.com/Contribute.html" target=_blank][FONT face=Arial]need your help.[/FONT][/A][FONT face=Arial][FONT color=#000000] [/FONT].
[/DIV][/FONT][/FONT][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial]I am a former Republican who became a whistleblower that came forward and testified to Congress under oath, regarding the request from a sitting congressman to build a computer program that could, without detection, flip your vote in an election. This manipulation would allow a person or political party to take control of voting machine and decide who wins the election, regardless of the true vote count. In March of 2005, I passed a polygraph test as to the accuracy of my statements."
[/FONT][/FONT][/DIV][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial][A href="http://www.clintcurtis.com/"]Read rest here[/A][/FONT][/FONT][/DIV][FONT color=#0000ff][FONT face=Arial] [/DIV][/FONT][/FONT][A href="http://www.clint-curtis.blogspot.com/" target=_blank][FONT face=Arial]Please visit my Blog[/FONT][/A] [/DIV]

Adam_Fulford wrote:
You sound like those tobacco lobbyists who denied that there was any  evidence directly linking tobacco smoking to disease.  

Witch replies:[/DIV]Fallacy of poisoning the well. You are now trying to discredit me by association with a lobby which lies and represents a biased view that very much needs their one way view to be taken as truth. That is ingenuine in that I have not lied inasmuch as I have not promoted any opinion on the issue at all.

If one looks critically at this conversation one sees that all I've been doing is reminding and advocating the use of unbiased sources to form an opinion and reminding people that only getting information from an obviously biased source, especially one which constantly appeals to "the truth" without offering objective evidence, misrepresents other sources as supporting their view, and disparages anyone who refuses to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon.

In fact, if we look at those particular attributes, especially the misrepresenting and the disparaging of anyone who questions your conclusions, it would appear that you are much more similar to the tobacco lobby than I am.

 Adam Fulford:[/DIV]The evidence against  the US electronic voting machines from credible sources is a abundant and  easily found by any intellectually honest person who  seriously wants to know.   Just go to [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org"]www.blackboxvoting.org[/A] to find it, neatly compiled.  Also, check out [A href="http://www.bradblog.com"]www.bradblog.com[/A] for a list of articles and sources.[/DIV]
Witch Replies:[/DIV]Anyone can spuriously appeal to "intellectual honesty" in order to advance their agenda. True intellectual honesty lies in being honest about bias and looking for evidence from sources which do not benefit from the outcome. The sites you keep advocating are certainly not unbiased, and certainly not detached from the outcome.

All I've done is asked for sources which are honest, open, unbiased, present objective evidence rather than speculation, and who do not misrepresent speculation as if it were actual evidence. For that I have been subjected to derision and abuse at your hand. Does that sound like "intellectual honesty" on your part, Adam?

Why is honest debate and investigation so threatening to you Adam?  

TehBorken wrote:
Witch asks:[SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic"]What evidence? So far we have seen no actual evidence.[/SPAN]

And what would you consider evidence? What would it take to make you say, "Hmmm, something looks wrong here..."?
[/DIV]

Witch replies:

I've already said "something looks wrong here". I have under no illusion that the voting machines are reliable. I know Adam wants to paint me as a planted advocate for the "enemy", but I had hoped you wouldn't fall into that trap.

All I'm saying, in general (and certainly in response to the original post in which a person who is under investigation by authorities is being painted as the poor, persecuted, bullied innocent) , is that just as one should be suspicious of the declarations of absolute innocence from the one very biased side, one should also be suspicious of the declarations of absolute evil from the other very biased side.

blackboxvoting.org has an agenda. That much is very, very clear from reading their site and from reading Adam's posts. That doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means they may not be as trustworthy as they try to portray themselves. Remember, if the company and the government can lie, so can blackboxvoting. When you get speculations being offered as if they were proven fact, you need to be suspicious. When you get letters supposedly written by someone in authority, but which bear no signature, seal, or other identifying mark being presented as proof of a conspiracy, you need to be suspicious. When people post reams of links as evidence, which end up coming from sites just as biased and unverified as their own, you need to be supicious.

I am suspicious of the Government and the company in this situation. I don't trust them and there appears to be something very wrong going on. However, intellectual honesty compels me to be equally suspicious of the conspiracy mongers on the other side who use the same tactics of misrepresentation and skewing of the evidence, and abuse and ad hominem attack of anyone who disagrees or questions them. That is why intellectual honesty compels me to question the motives of both extremes, and to search for evidence from unbiased sources to form an honest opinion.

If both sides are wrong, which is most often the case in these things, are you more vindicated if you have blindly believed either one over the other?

Bev Harris and other members of Black Box Voting [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/"]www.blackboxvoting.org[/A] are very reputable and honest people.   They have to be super careful to back up what they assert, when dealing with the vast fascist apparatus trying to hijack America's Democracy, including Diebold, a huge criminal corporation that has gone into legal attack mode several times against Black Box Voting and LOST in courts of law every time.  Diebold was successfully sued by the state of California, using the evidence that whistle blower hero Stephen Heller bravely provided to protect America's democracy.  The California Secretary of State at the time, Kevin Shelley, called Diebold's conduct "[A href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/08/BAGN68L64F1.DTL"]reprehensible[/A]" and said "[A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/national/01VOTE.html?ex=1398744000&en=322af40499b8657e&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND"]their performance, their behavior, is despicable[/A]," and that "if that's the kind of deceitful behavior they're going to engage in, they can't do business in California." [/DIV]

Adam_Fulford wrote:
Bev Harris and other members of Black Box Voting [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/"]www.blackboxvoting.org[/A] are very reputable and honest people.  

 Witch replies:[/DIV]So you say. However, you saying they are honest is an opinion, not a fact. What crooked politician has ever claimed to be crooked? What used car salesman has ever claimed to be dishonest? What conspiracy theorist has ever cautioned people to be careful how much of his rhetoric to believe?

People who misrepresent speculation as fact, and who hold up unverifiable evidence as "proof" don't strike me as being very honest. Even if they were honest, as such, there's no way to tell. They could be telling the truth as they believe it to be, but yet be completely wrong due to their bias. Their obvious bias and almost religious hatred of the other side makes them unreliable as a source of factual imformation. That's why I, and most reasonable people, perfer top form our opinions from unbiased sources.

Adam_Fulford wrote:[/DIV]They have to be super careful to back up what they assert, when dealing with the vast fascist apparatus trying to hijack America's Democracy, including Diebold, a huge criminal corporation that has gone into legal attack mode several times against Black Box Voting and LOST in courts of law every time.  

Witch replies:[/DIV]Balderdash. Conspiracy sites on the web are a dime a dozen. All of them claim to have the "truth". All of them claim that their existence is proof of their veracity because otherwise the "guv'mint" would sue them and shut them down.

The only thing it shows is that the more whacked out you are and the less verifiable your conspiracy theories are the less likely it is that your "enimies" will care what you say on the web.

 Adam_Fulford wrote:[/DIV]Diebold was successfully sued by the state of California, using the evidence that whistle blower hero Stephen Heller bravely provided to protect America's democracy.  The California Secretary of State at the time, Kevin Shelley, called Diebold's conduct "[A href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/08/BAGN68L64F1.DTL"]reprehensible[/A]" and said "[A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/national/01VOTE.html?ex=1398744000&en=322af40499b8657e&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND"]their performance, their behavior, is despicable[/A]," and that "if that's the kind of deceitful behavior they're going to engage in, they can't do business in California."

Witch replies:[/DIV]But that's not exactly what the unbiased reports say... is it? In essence you have taken stories, added your own speculation and opinion to what those stories mean, and are now trying to pass off those speculations and opinions as facts and proof. That doesn't make you very reliable as a source of information. Since you get your information from peopl who are likely to be doing the same thing, it makes it even less likely. Add to that your use of religious rhetoric phraseeology like "whistle blower hero", "vast fascist apparatus", "hijack America's Democracy", "huge criminal corporation", etc (not to mention the obvious overuse of bolding, underlining, ancd color, kind of like an email hoax) and it's obvious that you are more likely to be dealing in fallacy of appeal to emotion than to be giving us reliable information.

Unbiased and trustworthy sources don't have to resort to cliche's and tugging at our heartstrings to get us to believe them.

Once again, just so you can't try to shut me up by the use of ad hominem, I'm not defending Diebold in any way. I'm simply pointing out how unreasonable and illogical it is to come to a conclusion about one biased and untrustworthy side based solely on the empty rhetoric of the other biased and untrustworthy side.[/DIV]
 

Adam_Fulford wrote:
[div style="font-style: italic;"]Bev Harris and other members of Black Box Voting [a href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/"]www.blackboxvoting.org[/a] are very reputable and honest people.   They have to be super careful to back up what they assert, when dealing with the vast fascist apparatus trying to hijack America's Democracy, including Diebold, a huge criminal corporation that has gone into legal attack mode several times against Black Box Voting and LOST in courts of law every time.  Diebold was successfully sued by the state of California, using the evidence that whistle blower hero Stephen Heller bravely provided to protect America's democracy.  The California Secretary of State at the time, Kevin Shelley, called Diebold's conduct "[a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/08/BAGN68L64F1.DTL"]reprehensible[/a]" and said "[a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/national/01VOTE.html?ex=1398744000&en=322af40499b8657e&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND"]their performance, their behavior, is despicable[/a]," and that "if that's the kind of deceitful behavior they're going to engage in, they can't do business in California."


[/div]Blackboxvoting does indeed take great pains to ensure the accuracy and legitimacy of the material they publish. At this time, they have a lot of documents that are very damning to Diebold. Look at it this way- even if only 10% of what they claim is true, it's still a case of deliberate, willfull vote fraud

The persecution of Stephen Heller is a textbook case of people in power using their influence to shut someone up who's exposing their illegal activities. You couldn't ask for a clearer example.

I've seen a lot of stuff that indicates Diebold committed election fraud, things that are difficult if not impossile to explain away.  The more you look into it the more disturbing it becomes. I believe the truth will come out someday, and it won't be pretty.

[FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff]You know what, Witch, it is simple.  You're trying to discredit the messenger with a suspicious degree of enthusiasm and vitriol.  Don't look at the blemishes on the finger; look to where the finger is pointing -- in this case,  a cesspool of corruption that is threatening the integrity of America's democracy.  Check my sources.  The evidence backs up what I say (yes, and even how I say it).  Go to [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/"]www.blackboxvoting.org[/A] and [A href="http://www.bradblog.com/"]www.bradblog.com[/A] sites, that list an abundance of well-documented sources.

Honest Americans are fighting back against the Fascist apparatus that has been riding roughshod over America's democracy.  

Sometimes a cigar is a cigar, a Fascist apparatus is a Fascist apparatus, and a rose is a rose is a rose.[/DIV]PROTECT AMERICA'S DEMOCRACY.  Find out more about how the vast Fascist apparatus  (e.g. look at the Florida elections) is trying to castrate, rape, pillage, and abort America's democracy, for selfish and greedy ends:[/DIV][A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/"]www.blackboxvoting.org[/A] [/DIV][A href="http://www.bradblog.com/"]www.bradblog.com[/A] [/DIV][A href="http://www.verifiedvoting.org/"]http://www.verifiedvoting.org[/A] [/DIV][/FONT][/DIV]

There is some kind of technical glitch on Discover Seattle that is stopping me from posting image files.

[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"]Witch wrote...[/FONT][/DIV][FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"]I've already said "something looks wrong here". I have under no illusion that the voting machines are reliable.[/FONT]

 Now, that is something that we agree on!

Find out more about the Fascist attempt to ursurp democracy at:[/DIV][A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org"][FONT size=4]www.blackboxvoting.org[/FONT][/A][FONT size=4] [/FONT][/DIV][FONT size=4][/FONT] [/DIV][FONT color=#0000ff][SPAN class=body][FONT face=Verdana size=2]"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."[/FONT][/SPAN]
Joseph Stalin[/FONT][/DIV]

Adam_Fulford wrote:
[div style="font-style: italic;"]There is some kind of technical glitch on Discover Seattle that is stopping me from posting image files.[/div]
See this post: [a href="http://discoverseattle.net/forums/index.php/topic,13.0.html"]http://discoverseattle.net/forums/index.php/topic,13.0.html[/a]

I see.  Thanks.

you are getting too concerned about this adam

[SPAN class=updatehead][FONT color=#ff0000][FONT face="Arial Narrow"]More Exposés of the Vast Fascist Apparatus's Vile Voting Machines. Extremists have hijacked America's democracy.[/FONT][/FONT][/SPAN][/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#0000ff size=2][/FONT][/SPAN] [/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT color=#0000ff][SPAN class=body][FONT face=Verdana size=2]"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."[/FONT][/SPAN][/FONT][/SPAN][/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT color=#0000ff]~ Joseph Stalin[/FONT][/SPAN][/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000][/FONT][/SPAN] [/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000][/FONT][/SPAN] [/DIV][SPAN class=updatehead][FONT face=Verdana color=#ff0000]03-18-06: BBV EXCLUSIVE - Diebold TSx touch-screen study (Part I)[/FONT][/SPAN] [/DIV] [/DIV]PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, MUST LINK TO [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org" target=_blank]http://www.blackboxvoting.org[/A]

[!--Text--]Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk has been running elections for 23 years. He was quite content with his optical scan system. The state of Utah thought otherwise: On Dec. 27, Funk took delivery on 40 Diebold TSx touch-screen machines, part of a statewide directive.

"I had concerns about Diebold," says Funk, "but I thought, 'If the state is going to mandate it, then I guess they'll assume responsibility if anything goes wrong.'"

Not so. He soon learned that he will be responsible but the state will decide what election system will count the votes.

[img alt="Bruce Funk" src="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/19674.jpg"]
(photo: Bruce Funk, Emery County Clerk, with Diebold TSx shipment)

[FONT color=#ff0000]"You're going to hate my guts on Election Day"[/FONT]

Funk's concerns escalated when he heard a particularly unusual statement by Diebold sales rep Dana LaTour.

"Some of you are going to hate my guts on Election Day," she said to the assembly of elections officials. Later, another Diebold representative named Drew was asked what LaTour meant when she said "Some of you are going to hate my guts..."

"We're going to have problems on Election Day, and we're just going to have to work through them," he said.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Failures right out of the gate[/FONT]

Shortly after Funk received his "brand new" TSx machines, Diebold helped him do acceptance testing. Two of the 40 machines promptly failed the test. Diebold arranged to take them away.

The remaining machines showed several defects -- crooked paper feeds that jam, memory card bay doors that wouldn't close, parts getting stuck, coming loose, falling off.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Taking a closer look[/FONT]

Funk thought it might be a good idea to take a closer inventory.

He booted each machine up to check the battery. Some of the machines were marked with little yellow dots, and he got to wondering about that, too. He studied the screen messages, and noticed something very odd.

Most machines had about 25 MB of memory available, but some had only 7 MB of free memory left. One had only 4 MB of available memory. For perspective, the backup election file generated by the Diebold TSx is about 7.9 MB. Now why would brand new voting machines have used-up memory?

[FONT color=#ff0000]Time to get a more in depth evaluation[/FONT]

This prompted Funk to seek an evaluation. He asked Black Box Voting to help him analyze his voting system.

After several consultations, Black Box Voting determined that the nature of the problems in Emery County might be systemic and might be national in scope. Therefore, we arranged for and underwrote the services of Harri Hursti and Security Innovation, Inc.

Neither Funk nor Black Box Voting were prepared for the depth and breadth of the problems discovered. Based on these discoveries we will begin with a series of articles followed by concise, but more formal reports.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Part I[/FONT]

Hursti quickly determined the three most likely causes of the low memory problem:

1. There might be completely different software in the machines with low memory.

2. Some machines might contain different external data

3. Or, some of the machines might have been delivered with natively different amounts of memory available.

Hursti approached issue #2 first. If the used memory was due to external data or archived election files stored on the system, he reasoned, removing any such files would clear the memory. He discovered that some of the machines did contain test election data, and he deleted the extra data. This produced only a small improvement in available memory, however.

As for issue #1, different programs on the machines -- or, the existence of something stored in memory which is hidden, such a find would obviously be disturbing.

Issue #3, the possibility that some machines had different amounts of memory left in their life cycle, is particularly troubling. The technology choice Diebold made -- memory storage consisting of flash memory, which is known to degrade over time -- carries with it a possibility that used machines will be near the end of their memory life cycle. If such machines were delivered to Emery County as "new," this would be like buying a "new" car with 100,000 miles already on it.

The only thing that was known about the cause of this problem was that there were different amounts of memory. The reason remained to be discovered. In the course of evaluating the reason for the low memory, we learned much more about the TSx.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Is there an infra-red port for remote communications?[/FONT]

Hursti also examined the remote communications capabilities of this system. He found no infra-red (IrDA) ports.

"The whole thing here is that it's network aware even when RAS is not running. You're not dialing out and it's network aware. And it's actually configured to use an Ethernet board...It's all the time network aware...Perhaps all you need is this Ethernet cord and a wireless cord inserted and off you go."

"I haven't asked any 'pins' (Personal ID Number). It hasn't been hostile to me at all. It's a very friendly guy."

Hursti made a number of observations about the touch-screen, and connected it to his laptop for further "conversation."

In the interest of brevity, we will return to this issue in a later article in this series.

[FONT color=#ff0000]A "Shocking" discovery[/FONT]

It's common for polling places to have too few outlets for a bank of voting machines. The normal cure is to set up hook the computers up in a daisy-chain configuration, with one plug to the wall, and the rest of the plugs linking voting machines together.

Diebold's output plug falls out readily, exposing live 110 volt wall outlet power on bare wires.

[img alt="Power plug defect" src="http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/19675.jpg"]

This happened on every TSx we tested, and presents a significant safety hazard for poll workers, especially the elderly. According to Hursti, the electrocution might only result in a burned hand, and probably wouldn't be fatal.

This is a design flaw worthy of a general recall for standard consumer and office electronics.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Diebold: Down for the count?[/FONT]

While analyzing the memory storage problem, Hursti discovered a critical security hole in the foundation of the touch-screen. Then he found another in the "lobby," and another on the "first floor." Taken together, these present a potentially catastrophic security hole.

These are not programming errors, but architectural design decisions.

Black Box Voting is turning the "road map" of the most dangerous security findings over to the proper authorities. We won't let anybody sit on this for very long because elections are looming and elections officials need to know what to do now.

A concise and more formal report will be released from Security Innovation, Inc., and this will discuss the procedures for preparing a recovery path for these security holes.

[FONT color=#ff0000]Two things we have learned already:[/FONT]

1. Source code reviews alone are NOT sufficient. Access to fully functional systems MUST accompany source code reviews.

2. Honest election officials and citizens again take the lead in learning the truth about voting machines. We ask for maximum public support for Bruce Funk, who showed courage and commitment to responsible elections. The important and effective work of Utah voting integrity advocates Kathy Dopp ([A href="http://www.uscountvotes.org/" target=_blank]http://www.uscountvotes.org[/A]) and Jocelyn Strait should be applauded by fellow activists. They have played an important role to inspire this study in Utah, which may in turn assist with efforts in many other states.

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, MUST LINK TO [A href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/" target=_blank]http://www.blackboxvoting.org[/A]

California Sued Over Diebold Voting Systems
    Reuters

    Tuesday 21 March 2006

    San Francisco - Some California voters and activist groups sued the state's top election official on Tuesday in an effort to reverse the certification of certain electronic voting machines made by Diebold Inc.

    The suit, filed in Superior Court in San Francisco, is the latest salvo in an ongoing dispute about the security of Diebold electronic voting machines, focused on Diebold's TSX touch-screen system.

    A month ago, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certified Diebold Election System's TSX and Optical Scan products for use in this year's elections after a review of their security. An earlier, slightly modified version of the TSX was used in California's November 2005 special election.

    "[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"]In certifying the Diebold machines, the secretary has sidestepped his duty to deny certification to voting systems that violate state and federal standards[/FONT]," Dolores Huerta, a co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America and plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. "Diebold systems have failed in security tests and in communities around the country."

    The lawsuit seeks to block the purchase of the TSX systems and a reversal of the secretary of state's certification.

    Jennifer Kerns, a spokeswoman for McPherson, said her office had not seen the lawsuit, but she said the Diebold systems were safe and reliable.

    "The Diebold systems that we have certified have passed the most stringent requirements really in the nation," she said. "In fact we've actually been criticized about how stringent our process has been."

    Diebold came under file in California after the state's March 2004 primary election for glitches at polling places attributed to its voting systems. Some activists have questioned their vulnerability to hacking and manipulation.

    [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"]In 2004, Diebold paid $2.6 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it had provided false information about security and certification to obtain payments for its electronic voting equipment in California.
[/FONT]
    Election officials say 21 of California's 58 counties have used Diebold electronic voting systems for recent voting, and at least seven counties are slated to use the new TSX system this year.

 [FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff] [H1 id=_ctl0_articleShow_hlCont][A href="http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Voting+machines+removed+in+Grafton&articleId=37f3b7dd-a9de-4bd8-99d4-f3a60b903754"][FONT size=2]http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Voting+machines+removed+in+Grafton&articleId=37f3b7dd-a9de-4bd8-99d4-f3a60b903754[/FONT][/A][/H1] [H1]Voting machines removed in Grafton[/H1] By CAROL ROBIDOUX
Union Leader Staff
[SPAN class=articleDate][A title="Article index from Thursday, Mar. 16, 2006" href="http://www.unionleader.com/default.aspx?storyDate=2006-03-16"]Thursday, Mar. 16, 2006[/A][/SPAN]

  [DIV id=artInlAd][!-- Begin -  Site: Union Leader Corporation Zone: Article Inline --] [SCRIPT language=DOH!script type=text/XXXXscript] [!--  var keywords='';  var browName = navigator.appName; var SiteID = 1; var ZoneID = 13; var browDateTime = (new Date()).getTime(); if (browName=='Netscape') ( document.write('[s'+'cript lang' + 'uage="jav' + 'ascript" src="http://stats.unionleader.com/ad.aspx?ZoneID=' + ZoneID + '&Task=Get&IFR=False&Browser=NETSCAPE4&PageID=87347' + keywords + '&SiteID=' + SiteID + '&Random=' + browDateTime + '"]'); document.write('[/'+'scr'+'ipt]'); ) if (browName!='Netscape') ( document.write('[s'+'cript lang' + 'uage="jav' + 'ascript" src="http://stats.unionleader.com/ad.aspx?ZoneID=' + ZoneID + '&Task=Get&IFR=False&PageID=87347' + keywords + '&SiteID=' + SiteID + '&Random=' + browDateTime + '"]'); document.write('[/'+'scr'+'ipt]'); ) // --]  [/SCRIPT]  [SCRIPT language=DOH!script src="http://stats.unionleader.com/ad.aspx?ZoneID=13&Task=Get&IFR=False&PageID=87347&SiteID=1&Random=1143007717283"][/SCRIPT]  [SCRIPT language=DOH!Script] var ShockMode = 0; if (navigator.mimeTypes && navigator.mimeTypes["application/x-shockwave-flash"] && navigator.mimeTypes["application/x-shockwave-flash"].enabledPlugin) ( if (navigator.plugins && navigator.plugins["Shockwave Flash"]) ShockMode = 1; ) else if (navigator.userAgent && navigator.userAgent.indexOf("MSIE")]=0  && (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Windows 9")]=0 || navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Windows NT")]=0)) ( document.write('[SCRIPT LANGUAGE=VBScript\] \n'); document.write('on error resume next \n'); document.write('ShockMode = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.4"))) '); document.write('[\/SCRIPT\] '); ) if ( ShockMode ) ( document.write('[OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"'); document.write(' code base="http://active.macromedia.com/flash2/cabs/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0"'); document.write(' ID=banner WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="200"]'); document.write(' [PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="http://www.unionleader.com/uploads/media-items/bannerads/days_platinum_unionleader.swf?url=http%3a%2f%2fstats.unionleader.com%2fad.aspx%3fTask%3dClick%26ZoneID%3d13%26CampaignID%3d63%26AdvertiserID%3d17%26BannerID%3d65%26SiteID%3d1%26RandomNumber%3d96280"] '); document.write(' [param name="wmode" value="transparent"] '); document.write(' [PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=autohigh] '); document.write('[EMBED SRC="http://www.unionleader.com/uploads/media-items/bannerads/days_platinum_unionleader.swf?url=http%3a%2f%2fstats.unionleader.com%2fad.aspx%3fTask%3dClick%26ZoneID%3d13%26CampaignID%3d63%26AdvertiserID%3d17%26BannerID%3d65%26SiteID%3d1%26RandomNumber%3d96280"'); document.write(' swLiveConnect=FALSE WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="200"'); document.write(' QUALITY=autohigh wmode="transparent"'); document.write(' TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"]'); document.write('[/EMBED]'); document.write('[/OBJECT]'); ) else if (!(navigator.appName && navigator.appName.indexOf("Netscape")]=0 && navigator.appVersion.indexOf("2.")]=0))( document.write('[A HREF="http://stats.unionleader.com/ad.aspx?Task=Click&ZoneID=13&CampaignID=63&AdvertiserID=17&BannerID=65&SiteID=1&RandomNumber=96280" TARGET="_top"][img]" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="200" BORDER="0"][/A]'); ) [/SCRIPT]  [SCRIPT language=VBScript]  on error resume next  ShockMode = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.4"))) [/SCRIPT] [SPAN class=dateline]Grafton – [/SPAN]No matter how you do the math, 193 "yeas" plus 198 "nays" don't add up to 369 votes.

That faulty equation — results of a warrant article vote from Tuesday's election ballot — was the first clue for Grafton town officials that something was wrong.

 As a result, two voting machines used to collect ballots in the annual town and school district meetings are now in the custody of the Attorney General's Office, removed from the town yesterday, said Grafton Selectman Jennie Joyce.

 She suspects the problem falls somewhere between human error and machine malfunction. Once the polls closed and the vote tallies were logged, nobody actually bothered to do the math before calling it a night.

 "At that point nobody does the math — you're so tired, you're just trying to put the place back together and get out of there," Joyce said of the post-election process at the fire house. "It occurred to me after I got home that it didn't add up, after I had time to think about some of the numbers."

 Joyce woke Town Clerk Mary McDow with a phone call at 6:45 a.m. McDow decided the best thing to do was nothing, until the Attorney General's Office was contacted.

 She said the voting machine showed no signs of malfunctions during two pre-election tests — most recently one week prior to the election.

 Deputy Attorney General Orville "Bud" Fitch confirmed the seizure of the machines, but was reluctant last night to characterize the nature of the problem.

 "We are trying to understand what problem exists," Fitch said.

 The voting machines, one used to count town ballots, the other for school district ballots, were removed from the town for safekeeping yesterday "so everything is in one place," while the Attorney General's Office looks into the issue, Fitch said.

 Fitch would say little else about the nature of the complaint and what had occurred after the voting machines were retrieved.

 "We will examine whether there is an issue," he said. "We are trying to better understand the nature of the concerns."

 McDow, who is trained to operate the voting machine, said she learned more after placing a call yesterday to LHS Associates of Methuen, Mass., the company that services the town's Accu-Vote machine.

 "They told me one of the dip switches let go, or the problem had to do with one of the dip switches not being set — that's what LHS told me after I read them the information from the tally sheet," McDow said.

 The toggle switch glitch likely caused some ballots to be counted twice, McDow said.

 "It's really crazy. Now we will just have to wait and find out for sure," she said.

 The margin of error could end up changing the outcome of two important warrant articles, McDow said — one for a new police cruiser and the other for a compactor for the town's recycling center.

 Secretary of State Bill Gardner last night would only confirm that the machines had been seized, something he characterized as a "pretty unusual" occurrence.

 "Not that it's never happened — it happens once in a while. Sometimes it explains itself," Gardner said.

 "We'll take a look at it. Sometimes what were perceived as discrepancies can be explained, and sometimes it can't. Then you try to reconstruct what happened," Gardner said.

 It's too soon to talk about a recount, Gardner said.

 However, Joyce said she is in favor of recounting ballots, both by hand and by machine.

 "It's not be such a bad idea, just to test the accuracy of the machine," Joyce said.

 Board of Selectmen chairman Steve Darrow last night said the turn of events is not so much controversial as it is exciting.

 "I don't think it's a big scandal or anything. Either it was machine error or operator error — we really don't know," Darrow said. "It makes the whole thing more interesting. For such a small town, there's never a dull moment in Grafton."

 An assertion easily confirmed at Grafton Country Store on Route 4 yesterday, where a steady flow of townspeople gathered throughout the day to speculate about what was behind the election machine seizure, said clerk Meagan Small.

 "There were people with all kinds of opinions. A lot of people in town don't believe in the machines. They think that they don't count right. Others feel it was probably somebody's fault," Small said. "No matter what, it was definitely the subject of the day."

 Union Leader correspondent Lorna Colquhoun contributed to this report.

[/DIV][/FONT][/DIV]

 [P class=timestamp]Posted on Wed, Mar. 22, 2006

 [H1]Elections officials threaten legal action against supplier[/H1] [H2]Summit board members angered by lack of cooperation on voting machines[/H2] [H5]By Lisa A. Abraham[/H5] [H6]Beacon Journal staff writer[/H6][!-- begin body-content --] Members of the Summit County Board of Elections are threatening legal action against Election Systems & Software, the company installing the county's new optical-scan voting system, if the company doesn't cooperate more with the county.

 Board members became incensed Tuesday when ES&S officials refused to attend the board's meeting and answer questions about problems the company had with computer memory cards for the optical-scan machines.

 Hundreds of memory cards shipped to the county did not work.

 The company eventually replaced them with good cards, but only after two additional shipments of cards also failed.

 The board voted unanimously to issue subpoenas if necessary to get ES&S officials to their meetings; Democratic board member Russ Pry made the motion.

 A spokeswoman for ES&S of Omaha, Neb., did not return a call seeking comment.

 Board Director Bryan Williams and Deputy Director Marijean Donofrio discussed several new problems they said they are having with ES&S:

 [SPAN class=bullet]• [/SPAN]Difficulty getting information from ES&S about the progress of the voting system's installation.

 Donofrio said that ever since news articles about the problems with the memory cards appeared, ES&S staffers who are installing the system have become uncooperative. She likened getting information updates from them to ``pulling teeth.''

 Donofrio said she was informed by ES&S officials that their on-site project manager would not attend the board's meeting Tuesday ``because he did not have the intelligence to talk about the memory cards.''

 ``It's unacceptable for these people not to be working with you,'' Republican board member Alex Arshinkoff told Williams and Donofrio.

 [SPAN class=bullet]• [/SPAN]Delays in getting copies of the May 2 primary ballots to proofread, which has resulted in the board missing the date on its timeline for ordering ballots from the printer.

 ``They won't give us the opportunity to proofread the ballot,'' Williams said. He explained that the board, working in teams of Democrats and Republicans, routinely triple-checks the rotation of names on the ballots, but ES&S won't provide copies of the ballot to do that.

 Donofrio said in early copies the rotation -- the order in which the candidates' names appear on the ballot -- was incorrect.

 Williams said ES&S' attitude has been that the extra checking ``was not necessary,'' but the problems the board had with the company's performance have proven that it is.

 He said the board hoped to order the ballots on Monday. ``We'll be lucky to have them ordered by the end of the week,'' he said.

 However, that does not mean that ballots will not be printed in time for the May 2 election.

 [SPAN class=bullet]• [/SPAN]ES&S staffers, while training local poll workers, have actually broken three handicapped voting machines when they inserted the memory cards incorrectly.

 Donofrio said she intends to ask the company to replace the broken equipment.

 Arshinkoff accused ES&S of ``doing the job of three men -- Larry, Curly and Moe.''

 ``This is inexcusable. I think ES&S has failed in their capacity as a vendor. If this doesn't work in the May primary, we're going to have to make real hard choices,'' he said.

 Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's office purchased the voting machines for the county.

 Blackwell spokesman James Lee said the state has not yet paid ES&S for the equipment.

 ``ES&S is obligated to fulfill the requirements of its contract and the board is responsible for fulfilling their duties as elections officials, and we are working from the expectation that both will successfully adhere to their obligations,'' Lee said.

 In other action Tuesday:

 The board hired Sarah Skapin, a Democrat, as a community outreach poll-worker recruiter at a salary of $44,504. Skapin is the daughter of Jill Skapin, spokeswoman for Summit County Executive James B. McCarthy.

[!-- end body-content --][!-- begin body-end --]

[A href="http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_4559073,00.html"]http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_4559073,00.html[/A]

  [SPAN class=headline1]Court-at-law recount suspended[/SPAN]  [SPAN class=subhead]Electronic machines not providing all info[/SPAN]  [SPAN class=smalltext]By Paul A. Anrthony[/SPAN]
[SPAN class=smalltext]March 21, 2006[/SPAN]  [SPAN class=bodytext]On orders from the Texas Secretary of State's office, the recount for the Tom Green County Court-at-Law No. 2 race has been suspended midway through its second day.  About 1:30 p.m. today, county Republican Chairman Dennis McKerley stopped the recount after workers found discrepancies of as much as 20 percent between what was counted Monday and what was reported Election Night.
"We're having some trouble with the electronic equipment," McKerley said.

 Apparently, McKerley said, new electronic voting machines provided by vendor Hart InterCivic are not printing ballots for every vote cast on the machines. During recounts, which must be done by hand, the machines are designed to print out separate ballots for every vote.

 A Hart InterCivic representative is expected to arrive Wednesday morning, McKerley said, to determine whether or how to retrieve the remaining printouts.  The problem affects early votes cast in what appears to be every precinct, McKerley said. All of commissioner's Precinct 1 was affected, he said, as were all the randomly selected voting precincts in other parts of the county.  Although sign-in sheets match the counts provided by the machines on Election Night, he said, the number of printouts does not match the sign-in sheets.  More than 3,000 early votes were cast in the race between Assistant County Attorney Julie Hughes, incumbent Judge Penny Roberts and former prosecutor Dan Edwards, meaning the problem likely affects more than 600 votes of the 9,500 cast early and on Election Day.  Just 12 votes separate third-place finisher Edwards from second-place finisher Roberts to see who will face Hughes in the April runoff election. Edwards requested and paid for the recount.

[/SPAN]

The corruption and stupidity of some public elections officials knows no bounds.  The technology exists to make reliable voting machines, as evidenced by reliable gambling machines.

  [SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt"][?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /][o:p][img height=678 alt="How To Steal an Election" src="http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.gif" width=624][/o:p][/SPAN]

 Adam_Fulford wrote:
The corruption and stupidity of some public elections officials knows no bounds.  The technology exists to make[strong style="font-style: italic;"] reliable[/b] voting machines, as evidenced by reliable gambling machines.

Yup.And with gambling at least you have a chance.

[FONT color=#0000ff]Yes.  Gambling is not rigged.  This was an email to [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"]bradblog[/FONT]. Very chilling.[/FONT]

[FONT color=#0000ff][/FONT]

[A href="http://www.bradblog.com"][FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"]www.bradblog.com[/FONT][/A][FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"] [/FONT]

  [DIV align=center][FONT size=5]DEMOCRACY IS DEAD HERE[/FONT]

   [DIV class=document]From: Jerry Lobdill [EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED]
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 7:23 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: EXCLUSIVE: Hart InterCivic Whistleblower Warned of Texas, Ohio E-Voting 'Fraud' Concerns in 2004!

I am a retired physicist and system engineer who has specified, designed, tested, and evaluated computing systems for the US Navy for 30 years.

I live in Tarrant County and have been involved closely with the campaign of Doreen Geiger for Democratic Party County Chair. The March 7, 2006 election included the general election for this race. I was there on election night when Tarrant County reported periodic results of the election. The numbers of votes reported were so large that they were astonishing. The results were updated at 90 minute intervals six times. The final reported vote count for County Chair was about 44,000.

The next day there were questions from all contested races, and at 4 PM there was a press conference at the Tarrant County Elections Administration. The speakers were Gayle Hamilton, interim Elections Administrator, a vice president from Hart Intercivic, and both the Democratic Party and Republican Party County Chairs. The theme was that the error was "procedural" and not a software error. It was an error in which the running sum of votes for each candidate was erroneously substituted for the incremental count for each of the six periods. The officials emphasized that the error would not change any of the announced winners.

Although the programmer who allegedly made the error was in attendance, he did not speak.

Ms. Hamilton said that because of the error any candidate who wanted a recount would get one at no charge. Ms. Geiger and a candidate for JP, John DeLorme asked for a recount. None of the reporters in attendance apparently knew enough about computer systems to ask technical questions.

After the conference I built a spreadsheet model of the erroneous processing algorithm and showed that it would not be possible to know what changes would occur in the outcomes of the races without reprocessing the original vote counts from each of the 212 polling stations. I sent this result to the Star-Telegram (Anna Tinsley) and to all of Doreen's staff and supporters. The next day the Elections Administration announced that at least one result was changed in a Republican race. This infuriated the Republicans.

On Tuesday, March 14, Gayle Hamilton announced that the Secretary of State had prohibited her from doing any free recounts. Also on Tuesday, Doreen was told that she could not have a promised Access database of precinct by precinct returns for her race until after the vote had been canvassed. And then, instead of getting it free as promised, she'd have to pay $50 for it.

Tonight the Democratic Party of Tarrant County, in violation of the State Rules voted to approve the vote when they didn't have a quorum present. The incumbent County Chair refused to recognize points of order several times during a heated exchange on the issue. The Chair shouted down several people who rose to a point of order, and rammed the vote through. This Chair behaves as if he had some sort of financial interest in electronic voting.

Democracy is dead here.[/DIV]

 [P align=center][FONT color=#0000ff]It's not about Right or Left; it's about Right or Wrong.[/FONT] [P align=center][FONT color=#0000ff]Support the American Folk Heroes fighting the preserve America's Democracy.[/FONT]

 [P align=center]Steve Smith For
Texas Supreme Court, Place 2
[A href="http://www.SmithForSupremeCourt.com"]www.SmithForSupremeCourt.com[/A]


 [P align=center][A href="http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2006/03/major-voting-irregularities-found-our.html"]http://salcostello.blogspot.com/2006/03/major-voting-irregularities-found-our.html[/A]

 [P align=left]FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (March 16, 2006)
CONTACT: David Rogers, Campaign Manager, (512) 923-6188

(Austin)

Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith may file an election contest or request for recount, says "serious mistakes were made."

Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith announced today that he has taken the next step towards filing an election contest or request for recount in his race for Texas Supreme Court, Place 2. "Serious Mistakes were made in the counting of ballots in Tarrant County. We want one fair, accurate and complete count," Smith said. "To that end, we have filed a Public Information Act request with the Tarrant County Elections Administrator seeking to review public documents relating to the Republican Party primary election in Tarrant County," added David Rogers, Smith's campaign manager.

"Unfortunately, the true result in Tarrant County may never be known," said David Rogers, Campaign Manager for former Justice Smith. Though there were 211 election day voting locations for the 635 precincts, audit tapes reporting the election results in each machine were run in only 103 locations. One hundred and eight (51%) of the voting locations did not have properly run audit tapes.

Initial results in Tarrant County included 27,895 phantom votes. The final statewide margin between Smith and Willett was 5,441 votes. The first "corrected" result reported by Tarrant County was a margin of 7,922 (62%-38%). That margin is larger in terms of raw votes than the margin in Harris County, Dallas County or Bexar County, all of which have substantially larger populations than Tarrant County. The "corrected" results switched the first and second place results in Tarrant County's 342th District Court.

Those numbers for Tarrant County are suspect in part because Tarrant County voted for Smith in the 2004 primary by 11,423 to 10,331 (53%-47%), and Smith only lost Tarrant County in the 2002 by 17,411 to 15, 215 (47%-53%). In 2002 and 2004, the statewide margins were substantially higher (7% and 6%, respectively) than the statewide margin in 2006 (less than 1%). The combined statewide margin between Smith and his primary opponents over three elections is less than 1/40th of one percent (417 votes). (Smith: 841,586; Rodriguez, Green & Willett combined: 842,003.) If Smith's margin in Tarrant County is actually the same as his margin in either 2002 or 2004, he won statewide.

Despite the fact that Tarrant County Interim Elections Administrator Gayle Hamilton has expressed a desire to count the Tarrant County ballots correctly, attorneys for the Tarrant County District Attorney's office and the Secretary of State's office have told Hamilton she may not count the ballots without a court order, an election contest or request for a recount.

"To date, there has not been a correct count of Tarrant County ballots," said Rogers. "There has been an incorrect count and there has been an attempt to correct the errors in that count. What we want - and what we understand the County Elections Administrator and the County Republican Chair want - is a single correct count of the ballots in Tarrant County. We know for certain that mistakes were made, and the acknowledged mistakes changed the Tarrant County result by a number of votes more than double the remaining statewide margin. Former Justice Smith thinks that a single accurate count is a reasonable request."

The Texas Election Code requires that a recount for a statewide office would require that all paper ballots statewide be recounted in addition to the ballots in Tarrant County, and that the expense would be borne by the party requesting the recount.

Additionally, in far west Texas, Winkler County, which went for Smith by margins of 260-92 (74%) and 468-249 (65%) in the 2002 and 2004 elections, went against Smith by an unbelievable 0-273 (100%) margin. Governor Perry received only 83% of the vote in Winkler County, and no other contested candidate topped 80%. The propositions on the ballot topped out at 93%.

Winkler county used machines from Election Systems and Software (ES&S), a company that was severely criticized by county officials in Webb county for programming errors and delays during the primary election, according to reports from the Laredo Morning Times of March 14, 2006. ES&S machines operate in 144 of Texas's 254 counties.

Beyond that, Duval County, made infamous by Lyndon Johnson's 1948 theft of the U.S. Senate election in that county, has reported an astonishing 55% turnout, with allegations of vote farming and vote fraud, as reported in the March 16, 2006 Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Additionally, Jefferson County vote totals were changed by more than 1,500 for each candidate in a race for Jefferson County Judge when a recount was held on Monday, according to reports from the March 14, 2006 edition of the Beaumont Enterprise. Jefferson County had double-counted some ballots, including 644 Republican ballots. (The Jefferson County margin between Smith and Willett is 325 votes.) Some precincts had reported more votes than voters. Tarrant County double, triple, quadruple, quintuple and sextuple-counted some votes. The Enterprise reported that ES&S would cover the cost for the recount in Jefferson County, estimated at $8,000.

According to a March 16, 2006 report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Tarrant County will charge any candidate who wants a recount. No mention was made of any offer by Hart InterCivic, whose machines were used in Tarrant County, to pick up the cost of a correct count.

Smith won 152 of 254 counties. No Republican primary was held in 18 counties, and the candidates tied in 2 counties. Willett won 82 counties (33%).

Steve Smith is best known as a conservative former Justice of the Texas Supreme Court who was elected in 2002 despite opposition from insurance industry interests. In private practice, Smith was best known as the attorney who filed, litigated and won the Hopwood case that ended racial preferences at Texas universities from 1996 through 2003. Smith served as a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court from Nov. 20 of 2002 until Dec. 31, 2004, and was one of only two Republican justices who did not accept contributions from insurance industry front group Texans for Lawsuit Reform.

 [P align=center]###

 [P align=center]Political Communication paid for by Steve Smith for Texas Supreme Court,
Susan Smith, Treasurer, P.O. Box 926, Austin, Texas 78767

This describes it pretty well:

  (http://www.bradblog.com/Images/Toles_032606.jpg)    

[A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/opinion/l27vote.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin"]http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/opinion/l27vote.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin[/A]

  LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES



Electronic Voting Glitches

To the Editor:

Re "Common Sense in Maryland" (editorial, March 23):

I am the chief Democratic election judge for District 21, Precinct 2, in Prince Georges County, Md. We have used the Diebold AccuVote-TSX machines since the 2002 primary election. From the start they did not encourage confidence in them.

When they were turned on in the 2002 elections, some of them refused to start unless we reseated the memory cards. In the 2002 primary, one of the machines chose to lock up just as the poor voter pushed the "cast ballot" button on the screen. The technician we got in to check the machine insisted that the vote was counted. Then why did we have 30 paper voter authority cards for the machine and only 29 votes recorded?

In the 2004 general election, two of our machines refused to start up. We got in another two machines, and one of them refused to use the electricity from the wall. Its internal battery was not enough to run the rest of the day, so we shut it down. These machines are quality only if you spell quality with a capital K.

Surely the Free State could find a far more reliable replacement than Diebold's TSX machines. The rest of the nation should, too. Preferably one with a good paper trail.

Paul D. Motzenbecker Jr.
University Park, Md.
March 23, 2006

  Witch wrote:
[div style="font-style: italic;"]Interesting letter. Did Debra Bowen write it?[/div] [/div][div]Yes.  She also has authored the "Voter Bill of Rights" for California voters:[/p]  1) The Right To Register To Vote. Every Californian who is eligible to vote has a legal right to register to vote without being forced to navigate through unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles.[/p]  2) The Right To Vote. Every registered voter has a right to cast a ballot. This means voters shouldn't show up at a polling place, only to find it closed for hours or be forced to stand in lines because the voting equipment doesn't work. In addition, essential information about voting should be readily available to all voters.
 
 3) The Right to Vote In A Tamper-Proof Election. Every voter has the right for his or her vote to count equally – which means no one should be required to vote using machines that have been proven time and time again to lack the security necessary to ensure that people's votes are counted accurately. If a piece of voting equipment isn't secure, accurate, and auditable, it should not be used in California's electoral process.[/p]  4) The Right To Vote On Paper. More and more counties are installing electronic voting equipment and doing away with the paper ballots that voters are used to just as voter confidence in electronic machines is plummeting. Voters should have a right to cast a paper ballot, and it should be made clear to voters that they have this choice.[/p]  5) The Right To Have Each Vote Counted Accurately. A vote is meaningless unless it is counted as the voter intended it. In recent years, every election has brought instances of votes being inaccurately tabulated and voter confidence in the election results is at an all-time low. It's time to change that.[/p]    6) The Right To Have Election Results Properly Audited.  Audits are the only way to ensure the accuracy of the vote.  Next year, when [a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1201-1250/sb_1235_bill_20060930_chaptered.pdf"]SB 1235[/a] (Bowen) takes effect, the current law requiring that 1% of precincts be audited will be expanded to include votes cast by absentee ballot and at early voting centers, and will require full transparency of the auditing process. Audits should be statistically valid, and when there are irregularities, the audit should be expanded or a full recount should be conducted.[/p]  7) The Right To An Open, Transparent, Public Process. While every voter's ballot is and must be private, that's the only thing in the electoral process that should stay a secret. We should have full transparency in elections procedures, all phases of the conduct of the election, the process used for testing, reviewing and buying voting systems, and all reports of errors and anomalies should be made public. Finally, voters should be entitled to watch the vote-counting process and the 1% manual audit process.[/p]  8) The Right To Elections Officials Who Operate Free of Partisan Influence. Anyone who is in charge of tallying the votes and certifying the results of an election, including the Secretary of State and local registrars of voters, should not endorse candidates for office in that election.[/p]  9) The Right To Know that Elected Officials Are Free From the Influence of Campaign Contributions From Voting Machine Vendors. The people responsible for setting the standards for voting equipment, for testing a voting system, or for deciding which system to buy should not be taking campaign contributions or gifts from voting equipment manufacturers who have a financial interest in the decisions that are made.[/p]  10) The Right To Find Out How Money Is Being Raised And Spent In The Political Process. Voters should be able to easily find out the true identity of any person or any entity that is contributing to campaigns, as well as how candidates and campaigns are spending their money.[/p]  For more information about Debra Bowen, [a href="http://www.debrabowen.com/"]go to her website[/a] and, if you live in California, VOTE FOR HER as Secretary of State to ensure the integrity of American democracy.
 
   

Witch wrote:
[blockquote dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px; font-style: italic;"]Adam_Fulford wrote:
[/p]The bipartisan GAO (General Accounting Office) couldn't "even remotely be considered unbiased"??  [a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf"]http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf[/a]  [/div][/blockquote][div style="font-style: italic;"] [/div][div style="font-style: italic;"]In the post I was referring to, you didn't reference this document, you referenced some guys blog who obviously has an axe to grind. In addition, this document is in no way saying what your original post in this thread says, so it's not really a help to you.[/div][div style="font-style: italic;"] [/div][blockquote dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px; font-style: italic;"][div]How about laws against the kind of hackable "interpeted code" used in Diebold voting machines, stated in the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) guidelines -- they couldn't "remotely be considered unbiased"?? [/div][/blockquote][div style="font-style: italic;"] [/div][div style="font-style: italic;"]That's assuming that the Diebold machines actually contravene those guidlines. So far you havn't given any independant sources that show this is the case. Again you've given us the claims of some very biased sources that may or may not be misrepresenting the actual facts.[/div][div style="font-style: italic;"] [/div][blockquote dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px; font-style: italic;"][div]Nor could an independent report commissioned by the Secretary of State of California [font color="#0000ff"][a href="http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf"]http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf[/a][/font][font color="#000000"]  written with the assistance of Chris Karlof and Naveen Sastry of the University of California "even remotely be considered unbiased"??  [/font][/div][/blockquote]
[div style="font-style: italic;"]Is that actually the transcript of said report? Hard to say. Anyone can type up a "report", put a fancy sounding title on it and pdf it. The report isn't signed, it bears no seal, and there's no independant corroboration that it is genuine. You've already accused one organisation of lying, who's to say this votetrustusa.org is honest? I'm not willing to take your word for it, sorry.[/div][div style="font-style: italic;"] [/div][div]As I've said before, I'm suspicious of the voting machines, but I see no need to take the word of one very biased side over the word of the other very biased side. That is why I would like to see info from unbiased sources, which you have certqainly not yet given.


[span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);"]Here's something for that clueless, stripper-seducing-for-purposes-of-a-threesome-with-his-wife, turd who pretentiously calls himself "Witch" to suck on:[/span][br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);"][br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);"] [div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);" class="BloggedBy"] BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 5/18/2007 12:48PM   [/div] [div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);" class="ItemHeadline"] Finally: The ACVR's 'Voter Fraud' Scam Outed in All Their Ignominious Shame in New Slate Article! [/div] [div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);" class="ItemSubHeadline"] Rick Hasen's: 'The Fraudulent Fraud Squad - The Incredible, Disappearing American Center for Voting Rights' [/div] [div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);" id="post-4576"] [a set="yes" href="http://www.slate.com/id/2166589/pagenum/all/#page_start"][img]http://www.bradblog.com/Images/AC4VR_ThorHearne_Exposed.jpg" align="right" border="0" height="273" hspace="6" vspace="3" width="164"][/a]I  may have more thoughts on [a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2166589/pagenum/all/#page_start"]this article[/a] a bit later, but for now, allow me to just recommend it.[/p] Loyola Election Law professor Rick Hasen outs, in some detail, the shameful case of democracy-hater Mark F. "Thor" Hearne (former Bush/Cheney national general counsel) and his  entire Rove-orchestrated ACVR "voter fraud" scam over at Slate today, in a piece titled: [a set="yes" href="http://www.slate.com/id/2166589/pagenum/all/#page_start"]"The  Fraudulent Fraud Squad - The Incredible, Disappearing American Center for Voting Rights"[/a].[/p] After more than two years of the story being [a set="yes" href="http://www.bradblog.com/ACVR"]"chronicled indefatigably" here at The BRAD BLOG[/a], as Hasen is kind enough to  point out/link to, his article summarizing the rise and fall of one of this century's most insidious assaults on American values under the guise of the ACVR GOP front-group fraud comes not a  moment too soon.[/p] Let's see if the rest of the MSM catches onto it, and if they're able to advance the story a bit to finally begin peaking under the filthy stained ACVR sheets to figure out who was really  pulling the strings behind the scam...not to mention funding it.[/p] As mentioned, perhaps more later on this, as I'm currently in the middle of a thing or two, but wanted folks to catch --- [a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2166589/pagenum/all/#page_start"]and  read[/a] --- Hasen's critical exposé, as the breadth of the full story is finally told somewhere other than here(!), and before it gets too late on a Friday.[/p] [/div] [p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 127);"][a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4576#comments"]The BRAD BLOG Finally The ACVR's 'Voter Fraud' Scam Outed in All Their Ignominious Shame in New Slate Article![/a][/p]