(1) Jennifer Cohn (@jennycohn1) | Twitter
She is an investigative journalist for The Young Turks
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Serious design flaw in ESS ExpressVote touchscreen: “permission to cheat”
Serious design flaw in ESS ExpressVote touchscreen: “permission to cheat”
QUOTE (Full Article):
"SEPTEMBER 14, 2018 BY ANDREW APPEL 4 COMMENTS"
"Kansas, Delaware, and New Jersey are in the process of purchasing voting machines with a serious design flaw, and they should reconsider while there is still time!
Over the past 15 years, almost all the states have moved away from paperless touchscreen voting systems (DREs) to optical-scan paper ballots. They’ve done so because if a paperless touchscreen is hacked to give fraudulent results, there’s no way to know and no way to correct; but if an optical scanner were hacked to give fraudulent results, the fraud could be detected by a random audit of the paper ballots that the voters actually marked, and corrected by a recount of those paper ballots.
Optical-scan ballots marked by the voters are the most straightforward way to make sure that the computers are not manipulating the vote. Second-best, in my opinion, is the use of a ballot-marking device (BMD), where the voter uses a touchscreen to choose candidates, then the touchscreen prints out an optical-scan ballot that the voter can then deposit in a ballot box or into an optical scanner. Why is this second-best? Because (1) most voters are not very good at inspecting their computer-marked ballot carefully, so hacked BMDs could change some choices and the voter might not notice, or might notice and think it’s the voter’s own error; and (2) the dispute-resolution mechanism is unclear; pollworkers can’t tell if it’s the machine’s fault or your fault; at best you raise your hand and get a new ballot, try again, and this time the machine “knows” not to cheat.
Third best is “DRE with paper trail”, where the paper ballot prints out behind glass; the voter can inspect it, but it can be difficult and discouraging to read a long ballot behind glass, and there’s pressure just to press the “accept” button and get on with it. With hand-marked optical-scan ballots there’s much less pressure to hurry: you’re not holding up the line at the voting machine, you’re sitting at one of the many cheap cardboard privacy screens with a pen and a piece of paper, and you don’t approach the optical scanner until you’re satisfied with your ballot. That’s why states (such as North Carolina) that had previously permitted “DRE with paper trail” moved last year to all optical-scan.
Now there’s an even worse option than “DRE with paper trail;” I call it “press this button if it’s OK for the machine to cheat” option. The country’s biggest vendor of voting machines, ES&S, has a line of voting machines called ExpressVote. Some of these are optical scanners (which are fine), and others are “combination” machines, basically a ballot-marking device and an optical scanner all rolled into one.
This video shows a demonstration of ExpressVote all-in-one touchscreens purchased by Johnson County, Kansas. The voter brings a blank ballot to the machine, inserts it into a slot, chooses candidates. Then the machine prints those choices onto the blank ballot and spits it out for the voter to inspect. If the voter is satisfied, she inserts it back into the slot, where it is counted (and dropped into a sealed ballot box for possible recount or audit).
So far this seems OK, except that the process is a bit cumbersome and not completely intuitive (watch the video for yourself). It still suffers from the problems I describe above: voter may not carefully review all the choices, especially in down-ballot races; counties need to buy a lot more voting machines, because voters occupy the machine for a long time (in contrast to op-scan ballots, where they occupy a cheap cardboard privacy screen).
But here’s the amazingly bad feature: “The version that we have has an option for both ways,” [Johnson County Election Commissioner Ronnie] Metsker said. “We instruct the voters to print their ballots so that they can review their paper ballots, but they’re not required to do so. If they want to press the button ‘cast ballot,’ it will cast the ballot, but if they do so they are doing so with full knowledge that they will not see their ballot card, it will instead be cast, scanned, tabulated and dropped in the secure ballot container at the backside of the machine.” [TYT Investigates, article by Jennifer Cohn, September 6, 2018]
Now it’s easy for a hacked machine to cheat undetectably! All the fraudulent vote-counting program has to do is wait until the voter chooses between “cast ballot without inspecting” and “inspect ballot before casting”. If the latter, then don’t cheat on this ballot. If the former, then change votes how it likes, and print those fraudulent votes on the paper ballot, knowing that the voter has already given up the right to look at it.
Johnson County should not have bought these machines; if they’re going to use them, they must insist that ES&S disable this “permission to cheat” feature.
Union County New Jersey and the entire state of Delaware are (to the best of my knowledge) in the process of purchasing ExpressVote XL machines, which are like the touchscreens shown in the video but with a much larger screen that can show the whole ballot at once. New Jersey and Delaware should not buy these machines. If they insist on buying them, they must disable the “permission to cheat” feature.
Of course, if the permission-to-cheat feature is disabled, that reverts to the cumbersome process shown in the video: (1) receive your bar-code card and blank ballot from the election worker; (2) insert the blank ballot card into the machine; (3) insert the bar-code card into the machine; (4) make choices on the screen; (5) press the “done” button; (6) wait for the paper ballot to be ejected; (7) compare the choices listed on the ballot with the ones you made on the screen; (8) put the ballot back into the machine.
Wouldn’t it be better to use conventional optical-scan balloting, as most states do? (1) receive your optical-scan ballot from the election worker; (2) fill in the ovals with a pen, behind a privacy screen; (3) bring your ballot to the optical scanner; (4) feed your ballot into the optical scanner.
I thank Professor Philip Stark (interviewed in the TYT article cited above) for bringing this to my attention."
QUOTE (Full Article):
"SEPTEMBER 14, 2018 BY ANDREW APPEL 4 COMMENTS"
"Kansas, Delaware, and New Jersey are in the process of purchasing voting machines with a serious design flaw, and they should reconsider while there is still time!
Over the past 15 years, almost all the states have moved away from paperless touchscreen voting systems (DREs) to optical-scan paper ballots. They’ve done so because if a paperless touchscreen is hacked to give fraudulent results, there’s no way to know and no way to correct; but if an optical scanner were hacked to give fraudulent results, the fraud could be detected by a random audit of the paper ballots that the voters actually marked, and corrected by a recount of those paper ballots.
Optical-scan ballots marked by the voters are the most straightforward way to make sure that the computers are not manipulating the vote. Second-best, in my opinion, is the use of a ballot-marking device (BMD), where the voter uses a touchscreen to choose candidates, then the touchscreen prints out an optical-scan ballot that the voter can then deposit in a ballot box or into an optical scanner. Why is this second-best? Because (1) most voters are not very good at inspecting their computer-marked ballot carefully, so hacked BMDs could change some choices and the voter might not notice, or might notice and think it’s the voter’s own error; and (2) the dispute-resolution mechanism is unclear; pollworkers can’t tell if it’s the machine’s fault or your fault; at best you raise your hand and get a new ballot, try again, and this time the machine “knows” not to cheat.
Third best is “DRE with paper trail”, where the paper ballot prints out behind glass; the voter can inspect it, but it can be difficult and discouraging to read a long ballot behind glass, and there’s pressure just to press the “accept” button and get on with it. With hand-marked optical-scan ballots there’s much less pressure to hurry: you’re not holding up the line at the voting machine, you’re sitting at one of the many cheap cardboard privacy screens with a pen and a piece of paper, and you don’t approach the optical scanner until you’re satisfied with your ballot. That’s why states (such as North Carolina) that had previously permitted “DRE with paper trail” moved last year to all optical-scan.
Now there’s an even worse option than “DRE with paper trail;” I call it “press this button if it’s OK for the machine to cheat” option. The country’s biggest vendor of voting machines, ES&S, has a line of voting machines called ExpressVote. Some of these are optical scanners (which are fine), and others are “combination” machines, basically a ballot-marking device and an optical scanner all rolled into one.
This video shows a demonstration of ExpressVote all-in-one touchscreens purchased by Johnson County, Kansas. The voter brings a blank ballot to the machine, inserts it into a slot, chooses candidates. Then the machine prints those choices onto the blank ballot and spits it out for the voter to inspect. If the voter is satisfied, she inserts it back into the slot, where it is counted (and dropped into a sealed ballot box for possible recount or audit).
So far this seems OK, except that the process is a bit cumbersome and not completely intuitive (watch the video for yourself). It still suffers from the problems I describe above: voter may not carefully review all the choices, especially in down-ballot races; counties need to buy a lot more voting machines, because voters occupy the machine for a long time (in contrast to op-scan ballots, where they occupy a cheap cardboard privacy screen).
But here’s the amazingly bad feature: “The version that we have has an option for both ways,” [Johnson County Election Commissioner Ronnie] Metsker said. “We instruct the voters to print their ballots so that they can review their paper ballots, but they’re not required to do so. If they want to press the button ‘cast ballot,’ it will cast the ballot, but if they do so they are doing so with full knowledge that they will not see their ballot card, it will instead be cast, scanned, tabulated and dropped in the secure ballot container at the backside of the machine.” [TYT Investigates, article by Jennifer Cohn, September 6, 2018]
Now it’s easy for a hacked machine to cheat undetectably! All the fraudulent vote-counting program has to do is wait until the voter chooses between “cast ballot without inspecting” and “inspect ballot before casting”. If the latter, then don’t cheat on this ballot. If the former, then change votes how it likes, and print those fraudulent votes on the paper ballot, knowing that the voter has already given up the right to look at it.
Johnson County should not have bought these machines; if they’re going to use them, they must insist that ES&S disable this “permission to cheat” feature.
Union County New Jersey and the entire state of Delaware are (to the best of my knowledge) in the process of purchasing ExpressVote XL machines, which are like the touchscreens shown in the video but with a much larger screen that can show the whole ballot at once. New Jersey and Delaware should not buy these machines. If they insist on buying them, they must disable the “permission to cheat” feature.
Of course, if the permission-to-cheat feature is disabled, that reverts to the cumbersome process shown in the video: (1) receive your bar-code card and blank ballot from the election worker; (2) insert the blank ballot card into the machine; (3) insert the bar-code card into the machine; (4) make choices on the screen; (5) press the “done” button; (6) wait for the paper ballot to be ejected; (7) compare the choices listed on the ballot with the ones you made on the screen; (8) put the ballot back into the machine.
Wouldn’t it be better to use conventional optical-scan balloting, as most states do? (1) receive your optical-scan ballot from the election worker; (2) fill in the ovals with a pen, behind a privacy screen; (3) bring your ballot to the optical scanner; (4) feed your ballot into the optical scanner.
I thank Professor Philip Stark (interviewed in the TYT article cited above) for bringing this to my attention."
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Mysterious Death of Bush's Cyber-Guru | Maxim.com
The Mysterious Death of Bush's Cyber-Guru | Maxim.com
::snippet::
"Ohio’s secretary of state in 2004 was a fiercely partisan Christian named Ken Blackwell. Blackwell had hired a company called GDC Limited to run the IT systems, which had subcontracted the job to Michael Connell’s company, GovTech. Connell had in turn sub-contracted SMARTech, an IT firm based in Chattanooga, to act, it was claimed, as a backup server.
“By looking at the URLs on the Web site, we discovered that there were three points on election night when SMARTech’s computers took over from the secretary of state,” says Arnebeck. “It is during that period that we believe votes were manipulated.”
In computer jargon it is known as a man-in-the-middle attack.
“At the time I didn’t know who SMARTech were,” says IT expert Stephen Spoonamore, opening a file on his computer showing the Internet architecture map of the 2004 Ohio election. He points to a red box in the bottom right-hand corner showing SMARTech’s server.
“Then I found out: They host Rove’s e-mails. They host the RNC’s Web site. They host George Bush’s Web site.” His voice rises in disbelief.
“I go, ‘Holy shit, this is a man-in-the-middle attack! These guys have programmed the state’s computers to talk to a company with ties to the Republican Party.’ It’s brilliant.”
With his wiry hair and designer glasses, Spoonamore looks like a character in a Tim Burton movie. A lifelong Republican, he is also one of the world’s acknowledged experts on cybersecurity, with a résumé that includes work for the U.S. armed forces and the FBI. In his spare time he has devoted thousands of hours to investigating cyberfraud in American elections. “I know I sound crazy when I talk about this stuff. No one wants to believe it. They say, ‘No one would steal an elec--tion.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, they would. And that’s exactly what they did.’ ”"
...more....
::snippet::
"Ohio’s secretary of state in 2004 was a fiercely partisan Christian named Ken Blackwell. Blackwell had hired a company called GDC Limited to run the IT systems, which had subcontracted the job to Michael Connell’s company, GovTech. Connell had in turn sub-contracted SMARTech, an IT firm based in Chattanooga, to act, it was claimed, as a backup server.
“By looking at the URLs on the Web site, we discovered that there were three points on election night when SMARTech’s computers took over from the secretary of state,” says Arnebeck. “It is during that period that we believe votes were manipulated.”
In computer jargon it is known as a man-in-the-middle attack.
“At the time I didn’t know who SMARTech were,” says IT expert Stephen Spoonamore, opening a file on his computer showing the Internet architecture map of the 2004 Ohio election. He points to a red box in the bottom right-hand corner showing SMARTech’s server.
“Then I found out: They host Rove’s e-mails. They host the RNC’s Web site. They host George Bush’s Web site.” His voice rises in disbelief.
“I go, ‘Holy shit, this is a man-in-the-middle attack! These guys have programmed the state’s computers to talk to a company with ties to the Republican Party.’ It’s brilliant.”
With his wiry hair and designer glasses, Spoonamore looks like a character in a Tim Burton movie. A lifelong Republican, he is also one of the world’s acknowledged experts on cybersecurity, with a résumé that includes work for the U.S. armed forces and the FBI. In his spare time he has devoted thousands of hours to investigating cyberfraud in American elections. “I know I sound crazy when I talk about this stuff. No one wants to believe it. They say, ‘No one would steal an elec--tion.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, they would. And that’s exactly what they did.’ ”"
...more....
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Voting-machine firm merger investigated - Florida - MiamiHerald.com
Voting-machine firm merger investigated -
Florida
- MiamiHerald.com
Florida's attorney general is investigating a voting-machine company merger that has voting-rights groups worried that the move will concentrate too much power over democracy in one private company.
BY MARC CAPUTO
HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is conducting an anti-trust investigation of a voting-machine company merger that would create a near-monopoly over the levers of democracy in Florida and much of the United States.
McCollum's office has issued at least six subpoenas covering every major voting-machine company as part of a civil investigation of Election Systems & Software's $5 million acquisition of Diebold Inc.'s elections division -- a merger that would give a private company too much power over the machines used to castvotes, voting-rights groups say.
``Our office engaged in this issue because anti-competitive behavior can seriously harm consumers,'' McCollum said in a written statement. ``Competitive behavior encourages the best products be available to consumers, including technology, particularly in a market as sensitive as the voting systems market.''
Under the state's 1980 anti-trust law, McCollum could persuade a court to levy fines against ES&S or prevent the company from operating in Florida. By next year, the company is expected to be the exclusive provider of voting machines and services in 65 of the 67 counties in Florida, the nation's most important swing state.
That means, under the acquisition announced Sept. 2, ES&S will provide election services to 92 percent of Florida's 11.2 million voters.
More broadly, ES&S's purchase of the competitor company gives it control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's precincts, according to a federal lawsuit in Delaware filed by a rival company, Hart Intercivic. The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting its own inquiry.
McCollum's investigation came to light Wednesday after eight voting rights groups sent him a letter urging him to open an inquiry -- unaware that his office had already opened its investigation Sept. 10. The first subpoena was sent out Oct. 2.
``I'm glad to hear there's an investigation. We need action now,'' sad Dan McCrea, president of the Florida Voters Foundation, one of the groups that sent the letter.
``Florida counties are negotiating their contracts now to prepare for the 2010 elections,'' McCrea said. ``They can suffer the potential damages for dealing with a monopoly now. So intervention needs to happen now.''
McCollum's spokeswoman, Sandi Copes, said the office could not comment on a pending investigation.
The subpoenas show that McCollum is searching for every type of document that the voting machine companies have, from ``pencil jottings'' to memos to canceled checks and even electronic images of websites.
Spokesmen and lawyers for ES&S, Diebold and the other voting companies could not be reached or would not comment on the case.
Documents show that the companies that received subpoenas are: ES&S, Diebold Inc., Hart-Intercivic, Sequoia Voting Systems, Scytl and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation.
In a Sept. 23 Herald/Times story about the initial concerns of the merger, ES&S offered assurances that the acquisition ``will result in better products and services for all customers and voters alike.''
But Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said monopolies are bad for voters and consumers.
``In a monopolistic situation,'' he said, ``price goes up, quality goes down and there's almost no innovation.''
Simon said a looming issue the Legislature will face next year: how toprovide better voting equipment for disabled people who can only use touch-screen voting machines.
``We can't have separate but equal,'' said Simon, who signed Wednesday's letter along with McCrea's group and the Broward Election Reform Coalition, Common Cause, Florida Consumer Action Network, Florida Council of the Blind, Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections and Voter Action.
In the Wednesday letter, the advocates suggested that McCollum's office cooperate with other states and the federal government, join the Delaware lawsuit filed by Hart-Intercivic and collect and submit data to the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which is investigating as well.
Marc Caputo can be reached at mcaputo@ MiamiHerald.com
Florida
- MiamiHerald.com
Florida's attorney general is investigating a voting-machine company merger that has voting-rights groups worried that the move will concentrate too much power over democracy in one private company.
BY MARC CAPUTO
HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is conducting an anti-trust investigation of a voting-machine company merger that would create a near-monopoly over the levers of democracy in Florida and much of the United States.
McCollum's office has issued at least six subpoenas covering every major voting-machine company as part of a civil investigation of Election Systems & Software's $5 million acquisition of Diebold Inc.'s elections division -- a merger that would give a private company too much power over the machines used to castvotes, voting-rights groups say.
``Our office engaged in this issue because anti-competitive behavior can seriously harm consumers,'' McCollum said in a written statement. ``Competitive behavior encourages the best products be available to consumers, including technology, particularly in a market as sensitive as the voting systems market.''
Under the state's 1980 anti-trust law, McCollum could persuade a court to levy fines against ES&S or prevent the company from operating in Florida. By next year, the company is expected to be the exclusive provider of voting machines and services in 65 of the 67 counties in Florida, the nation's most important swing state.
That means, under the acquisition announced Sept. 2, ES&S will provide election services to 92 percent of Florida's 11.2 million voters.
More broadly, ES&S's purchase of the competitor company gives it control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's precincts, according to a federal lawsuit in Delaware filed by a rival company, Hart Intercivic. The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting its own inquiry.
McCollum's investigation came to light Wednesday after eight voting rights groups sent him a letter urging him to open an inquiry -- unaware that his office had already opened its investigation Sept. 10. The first subpoena was sent out Oct. 2.
``I'm glad to hear there's an investigation. We need action now,'' sad Dan McCrea, president of the Florida Voters Foundation, one of the groups that sent the letter.
``Florida counties are negotiating their contracts now to prepare for the 2010 elections,'' McCrea said. ``They can suffer the potential damages for dealing with a monopoly now. So intervention needs to happen now.''
McCollum's spokeswoman, Sandi Copes, said the office could not comment on a pending investigation.
The subpoenas show that McCollum is searching for every type of document that the voting machine companies have, from ``pencil jottings'' to memos to canceled checks and even electronic images of websites.
Spokesmen and lawyers for ES&S, Diebold and the other voting companies could not be reached or would not comment on the case.
Documents show that the companies that received subpoenas are: ES&S, Diebold Inc., Hart-Intercivic, Sequoia Voting Systems, Scytl and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation.
In a Sept. 23 Herald/Times story about the initial concerns of the merger, ES&S offered assurances that the acquisition ``will result in better products and services for all customers and voters alike.''
But Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said monopolies are bad for voters and consumers.
``In a monopolistic situation,'' he said, ``price goes up, quality goes down and there's almost no innovation.''
Simon said a looming issue the Legislature will face next year: how toprovide better voting equipment for disabled people who can only use touch-screen voting machines.
``We can't have separate but equal,'' said Simon, who signed Wednesday's letter along with McCrea's group and the Broward Election Reform Coalition, Common Cause, Florida Consumer Action Network, Florida Council of the Blind, Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections and Voter Action.
In the Wednesday letter, the advocates suggested that McCollum's office cooperate with other states and the federal government, join the Delaware lawsuit filed by Hart-Intercivic and collect and submit data to the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which is investigating as well.
Marc Caputo can be reached at mcaputo@ MiamiHerald.com
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story
Murder, Spies and Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story
This is from the official website for "Murder, Spies and Voting Lies"
Part 1
Part 2:
Go to the official website to buy the video and see more.
To get the DVD at discount see Amazon "My Favorites" widget below.
This is from the official website for "Murder, Spies and Voting Lies"
Part 1
Part 2:
Go to the official website to buy the video and see more.
To get the DVD at discount see Amazon "My Favorites" widget below.
CRIME SCENE PHOTOS: The Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney / Yang Enterprises, Inc. Vote-Rigging Scandal [Raymond Lemme Police Photos, Valdosta, GA]
CRIME SCENE PHOTOS: The Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney / Yang Enterprises, Inc. Vote-Rigging Scandal [Raymond Lemme Police Photos, Valdosta, GA]
Judge hearing Florida vote rigging case murdered and covered up
Judge hearing Florida vote rigging case murdered and covered up
KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With 'Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines'
KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With "Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines"
BradBlog
Circuit court judge, county clerk, and election officials among eight indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, 2006
Used popular, unverifiable ES&S touch-screens to flip votes...
[Now updated at bottom with details from the indictments.]
Those of us who have demanded transparent voting systems because we understand that only the ability for complete citizen oversight and transparency can effectively counter those who would game elections, have been disingenuously criticized over the years as somehow questioning the integrity of the hard-working, honest election officials out there.
The fact is, those who know anything about computer security understand that it is the insiders who are, by far, the greatest threat to security on such systems, as even the phony, GOP-operative-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission determined in its final report: "There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries."
The best election officials in the country, however, will underscore that point, and agree that there is no reason any citizen should ever have to simply "trust" them.
Over the years, we've detailed the arrests and other unsavory behavior of many of the not-so-good election officials who, we were told, should simply have been trusted (our "favorite" has always been the case of Monterey CA's Tony Anchundo, who told us on air we should "trust" him, just a month or two before being arrested on 43 counts).
Well, now we've got a whole passel of still more crooked officials to add to the list. Moreover: The Kentucky officials arrested and indicted today, "including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers" of Clay County, have been charged with "chang[ing] votes at the voting machine" and showing others how to do it!
Hello?!...
From Lexington, Kentucky's NBC affiliate this afternoon:
Five Clay County officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers were arrested Thursday after they were indicted on federal charges accusing them of using corrupt tactics to obtain political power and personal gain.
The 10-count indictment, unsealed Thursday, accused the defendants of a conspiracy from March 2002 until November 2006 that violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). RICO is a federal statute that prosecutors use to combat organized crime. The defendants were also indicted for extortion, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to injure voters' rights and conspiracy to commit voter fraud.
According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006.
The article goes on to list some of the criminal actions listed in the indictment. Among them [emphasis added]:
Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 45, allegedly provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes and he also instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine.
...
Election officer William E. Stivers, 56, allegedly ...
cont'd
BradBlog
Circuit court judge, county clerk, and election officials among eight indicted for gaming elections in 2002, 2004, 2006
Used popular, unverifiable ES&S touch-screens to flip votes...
[Now updated at bottom with details from the indictments.]
Those of us who have demanded transparent voting systems because we understand that only the ability for complete citizen oversight and transparency can effectively counter those who would game elections, have been disingenuously criticized over the years as somehow questioning the integrity of the hard-working, honest election officials out there.
The fact is, those who know anything about computer security understand that it is the insiders who are, by far, the greatest threat to security on such systems, as even the phony, GOP-operative-created Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission determined in its final report: "There is no reason to trust insiders in the election industry any more than in other industries."
The best election officials in the country, however, will underscore that point, and agree that there is no reason any citizen should ever have to simply "trust" them.
Over the years, we've detailed the arrests and other unsavory behavior of many of the not-so-good election officials who, we were told, should simply have been trusted (our "favorite" has always been the case of Monterey CA's Tony Anchundo, who told us on air we should "trust" him, just a month or two before being arrested on 43 counts).
Well, now we've got a whole passel of still more crooked officials to add to the list. Moreover: The Kentucky officials arrested and indicted today, "including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers" of Clay County, have been charged with "chang[ing] votes at the voting machine" and showing others how to do it!
Hello?!...
From Lexington, Kentucky's NBC affiliate this afternoon:
Five Clay County officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers were arrested Thursday after they were indicted on federal charges accusing them of using corrupt tactics to obtain political power and personal gain.
The 10-count indictment, unsealed Thursday, accused the defendants of a conspiracy from March 2002 until November 2006 that violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). RICO is a federal statute that prosecutors use to combat organized crime. The defendants were also indicted for extortion, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to injure voters' rights and conspiracy to commit voter fraud.
According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006.
The article goes on to list some of the criminal actions listed in the indictment. Among them [emphasis added]:
Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 45, allegedly provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes and he also instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine.
...
Election officer William E. Stivers, 56, allegedly ...
cont'd
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
The Raw Story | Diebold voting system sported 'delete' button: report
Diebold voting system sported 'delete' button: "Wired's Zetter notes, 'The California report states that the 'clear' button, along with other problems with the auditing logs as well as the software flaw that caused the system to lose votes in Humboldt County (see below for more information on that flaw), should have been red flags to the testing laboratories that certified the system and should have been sufficient to 'fail' the system and prevent it from being used in any federal election.'"
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