GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election

[MiaCulpa]

Source: Raw Story - Larisa Alexandrovna, Muriel Kane

A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.

Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies. At a little noticed press conference in Columbus, Ohio Thursday, he discussed his investigation of a computer patch that was applied to Diebold Election Systems voting machines in Georgia right before that state's November 2002 election.

Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs and ABC's World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.

In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.


Full article and audio file available at the link.

Read more: http://rawstory.com//news/2008/Cybersecurity_expert_raises_allegations_of_2004_0717.html

---

Another knock-out from Lala and Muriel!

-Diane

[drm604]

1. K&R

Here's a related story: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3638926

[blackspade]

2. ruh roh!

You know it's bad news when republicons are getting on board the election theft bandwagon.
I can only hope that this blows wide open, and soon.

[mod mom]

5. Cliff Arnebeck is a former Republican who worked on Bob Dole's campaign in '88.

He is one of the most honorable/honest men I have ever met.

[damntexdem]

14. FORMER advisor to McCain.

That says it all for this election.

[wilt the stilt]

3. I live in Georgia

and one of my friends is big in the Democratic party. I have always thought that the election was fixed.

[mod mom]

4. Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis are two tenacious attorneys. Don't forget they were

threatened w sanctions along with fellow attorneys Susan Truitt (many will remember that DU's own Andy Stephenson resided with Susan while investigating Ohio), and Peter Peckarsky (DC insider).

[L. Coyote]

21. They are litigants, not to be confused with independent parties in this action.

If they are wrong about how the election was stolen, they lose their case. And, guess what?

[Twist_U_Up]

6. yea and 911 wasnt an inside job..........

:eyes:

[populistdriven]

24. Republican waving a known false flag... yawn There is fraud but this isnt it.

[L. Coyote]

27. Someone has critical reasoning. It sure is in short supply around here.

And, it needs to be applied to this as if it were a litigation in a court.

How do you win a case you have already lost? Maybe, you find some pertinent destroyed evidence, like lost White House e-mails by Karl Rove?? Then you use a presumption in law that destroyed evidence must be construed to favor the plaintiff....???? That is how this makes even a little sense.

The district courts have jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States for conspiracy to interfere with civil rights if two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President, or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege.

[kay1864]

7. Georgia in 2002, huh?

That was the one where Democratic Vietnam vet Senator Max Cleland (who lost three limbs in battle) was somehow...



wait for it...



"unpatriotic".



Defeated in his bid for a second term. Many here on DU have postulated that election was rigged.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. I agree Cleland was smeared,

and clearly did participate in battles, but his injury was an accident, and not from a battlefield.

It was a grenade that had come loose from a fellow soldier's gear. Cleland bent down to pick it up, thinking he had dropped it himself. Cleland has a memoir, "Strong At The Broken Places" where you can learn more.

Questioning his patriotism was of course, a crock.

[JDPriestly]

40. How often have youard of people being hurt by grenades

going off outside of a war zone? A person who is hurt by a grenade is suffering a war injury even if the grenade goes off in his own pocket. He only has the grenade, his fellow soldiers only have the grenade because he is involved in a war. He is either preparing for a battle or engaged in a battle. Cleland is no less a war hero because he was not injured during the course of a battle with the enemy. He was not injured in his backyard. Cleland is just as much a hero, probably more, than McCain.

Accidents with grenades are very, very, very rare outside of war zones. They may occasionally happen during military training, but I haven't heard of such a case, and I doubt that there are very many. Maybe the exception is when someone finds an old grenade either in a soldier's souvenirs or on a former battlefield.

[Joe Chi Minh]

45. If there was no battlefield, there would have been no grenade. QED. Don't

split hairs on a matter like that.

[Stevepol]

18. "Postulated"? Barnes was up 11 points 4 days before the election

in a good pre-election poll and lost by 5 or 6 points, about a 17 point flip.

Cleland was up by about 5 I think and lost by about 8, around a 13-point flip.

And of course on the same day pigs were able to fly.

Meanwhile, anybody who mentioned anything about what these numbers might mean was suddenly a "conspiracy theorist."

There was enough fishy stuff during this election to supply GA's seafood restaurants for a year.

The exit polls mysteriously disappeared from the IT soon after the election and no mention of them is now made of them except to note some problems in their administration or design or functioning.

Of course, Diebold got the contract to count every vote in GA without paper, without auditing, without even the remote possibility of the vote being checked by anybody except Diebold. Wow. I wonder why people might suspect something?

[disndat]

42. Cleland lost

because the Diebold machines were used for the first time, according to Mike Malloy a resident of the State. Connecting the dots?

[L. Coyote]

22. Very, very, very old news. Why drag this out now in relation to Ohio punch card voting??

Did E-Vote Firm Patch Election?
Kim Zetter Email 10.13.03
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2003/10/60563

Diebold Election Systems has had a tumultuous year, and it doesn't look like it's getting any better.

Last January the electronic voting machine maker faced public embarrassment when voting activists revealed the company's insecure FTP server was making its software source code available for everyone to see.

Then researchers and auditors who examined code for the company's touch-screen voting system released two separate reports stating that the software was full of serious security flaws.

Now a former worker in Diebold's Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machines before the state's 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials.

If the charges are true, Diebold could be in violation of federal and state election-certification rules. ...

..............

[Tigress DEM]

47. Because it's causing McSame to lose supporters.

Because it's credible reports from people who have every reason to lie.

Because the most important part of the election is getting every vote correctly counted and anything that further buries Diebold is another nail in their coffin on the way down.

Because this country will NEVER NEVER "GET OVER" two rigged elections.

[Joanne98]

25. On the night of the 2002 election I was watching Hardball and Laura Ingraham

was on... Matthews was asking the panel which state they were watching and she said Georgia! Everybody else was like why? I think she knew.

[Tigress DEM]

48. Would not doubt it. She is so "wrong" in my mind.

A counselor who treats people the way she does. It's just weird.

I hear her voice and I have to change the channel. I can not stand her.

[KamaAina]

34. Supposedly, when Chambliss (R-Waste of Oxygen) was asked about potential vote-rigging,

he just smiled. Or maybe smirked.

[IA_Seth]

8. It took Hagel cozy-ing with Obama...

But at least it's out there.

Whether anything will come of it is another matter all together.

[desktop]

9. The sad part is the main stream media won't touch these stories

I have never been more convinced that electronic voting machines have and are being tampered with, and fixed outcomes have occurred. But no matter what expert, eyewitness, or participant comes forward, the main media will only acknowledge these stories as if the people involved are suspect kooks. The media does not want the truth to come out because it means our whole system of government is fixed, which it is.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

12. They might just HAVE to

Let's hope this thing snowballs into such a mega scandal, that the public can't get enough of it (like the OJ trial ;)

[Christa]

10. K & R

No kidding.

We all know it was tampered with. I hope someone ACTS non this.

[superconnected]

13. Please don't get on any planes Mr. Spoonamore.

[eagertolearn]

32. I was thinkng the same thing. This guy should be laced someplae unknown and highly secure!n/t

[MasonJar]

15. After the 2002 election there were several stories indicating that the

machines had been tampered with after their inspection.

[nikto]

16. Don't get your hopes up

The Korporate Media won't seriously report on it;
Middle-America couldn't handle the Truth, regardless.



Ironically, if the Economy falls completely apart--Currency-crash, $8.00 Gas,
Mass bank-failures, unprecedented unemployment, bread lines, etc etc,
THEN AND ONLY THEN will mass numbers of regular folks be able to actually contemplate
the True depth (and CAUSE) of corruption, and destruction, that has been wrought upon our
political system (By KKKonservatives and Big Biz--NOT by Liberals!).

[montanto]

17. Oh shit!! I'm shocked.

[GreenTea]

19. Most people don't believe how much control the republican owned electronic

voting machines have, over 90% of the people vote on them....So many have their heads up their ass, they think Obama is just going to cruise to a win as if the republicans who own these machines will not try and steal it....why shouldn't the republicans steal....they keep getting away with it....people don't believe it and the republican corporate media never reports it!

[eagertolearn]

33. Has anyone checked the machines from the primary?

I believe that the republicans would like us to believe that the exit polls are not reliable and they were reinforcing that with this last election. Many of them were very different (with Hillary winning more then expected). Especially the ones with mainly electronic voting machines. I think the same people were playing with the numbers and if we don't stop they will steal the next election.

[ShaneGR]

20. He's a former McCain advisor....

At the Ohio press conference yesterday, the former McCain adviser said Michael Connell, of the Republican Internet development firm New Media Communications, had designed a system that made possible the real-time "tuning" of election tabulators once Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell had outsourced the hosting of vote counting on the same server which hosted GOP campaign IT systems. He said he didn't believe Connell was behind the alleged fraud, but that he should be considered a key witness.

Spoonamore also confirmed he's working with Connell on overseas election issues and that Connell is now working as John McCain's IT developer.

Connell has a long history with the Republican Party's IT infrastructure. In 2001, for example, he set up MajorityWhip.gov for then House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. He also helped built georgewbush.com, as well as the Ohio GOP site Spoonamore referenced.

Sources close to Spoonamore said he was very concerned that he would lose his contracts as a result of coming forward and would take a "large financial hit." These sources added that, despite his concerns, Spoonamore felt obligated to reveal what he knows to the public. "He felt he had no choice as an American citizen but to come forward, and he also knows the likely consequences of him doing so," one source said.

[L. Coyote]

23. So, we have a Republican waving a known false flag. Whooo hooo, what is new??

A bunch of Republicans, former Republicans, and litigants (trying to make a pile of money?)
are passing out a large buffet of misinformation, new useless innuendos and distractions from the evidence.
I'M NOT IMPRESSED in the least.

Are they losing their case?

Why no mention of ballot-switching and cross-precinct voting?
Why no mention of the punch card problems?

[Joe Chi Minh]

46. If I were a republican recruiterof Internet operatives, Coyote, you'd be close to the top of

my list, you play the devil's advocate so frequently and so well. I suppose you do it for a bit of fun, but I expect most of us find it very tiresome.

[varelse]

26. Some of the questions in this thread are addressed in the article

Why blow the whistle? Because it appears that the tampering did cost the Democrats the election in this case, when they'd been the 'favorite' in the race. Also, the circumstances were somewhat suspicious:

The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Why did he wait until now? From the article, it looks like the usual reason people don't come forward - he had a lot to lose:

Sources close to Spoonamore said he was very concerned that he would lose his contracts as a result of coming forward and would take a "large financial hit." These sources added that, despite his concerns, Spoonamore felt obligated to reveal what he knows to the public. "He felt he had no choice as an American citizen but to come forward, and he also knows the likely consequences of him doing so," one source said.

I'm glad this is coming out now, because we do need to be alert. There is no reason to expect that all the votes will be counted fairly, accurately and correctly in the November elections if we do not demand full accounting of the vote counters NOW.

[bitchkitty]

28. NO doubt in my mind, and there never was.

There's no way that Barnes lost the election in 1992. God, I hate those bastards!!!

[DissedByBush]

29. A little hype

I've believed Diebold did this for years, but I think they're hyping Spoonamore's fame a little much. I'm in the field of "cyber-security" (I hate that term) and I've never heard of him.

Get someone like Ed Felten or especially Bruce Schneier, then you can claim "one of the most prominent" computer security experts caught this.

[bitchkitty]

38. No doubt - but this is the same media

who refer to Ann Coulter as a "Constitutional scholar."

[defendandprotect]

30. IMO, this couldn't be done without "media" helping to cover this up . . .

to what degree did they know . . . ?

[creeksneakers2]

31. I can't find anywhere

where it says an expert gained possession of the patch and decoded it and proved it was designed to fix the election. The article says the expert couldn't tell much without access to the main program. I don't see anything more here than very suspicious activity.

This does cry out for a follow up investigation.

[NoodleyAppendage]

35. Great. But, the Eunich Dems in the House and Senate WILL DO NOTHING about it. Sad reality. n/t

J

[TheMadMonk]

36. How to turn this into a Republican "win".

Now that public sentiment and polling thereof has demonstrated that it is essentially impossible to engineer a Republican victory, float these stories of "less than secure" voting apparatus, but don't make too big a song and dance about it, just give it enough airtime that the public becomes aware of the possibility of a problem.

Next, fiddle the system so as to give a number of Democratic candidates an even larger victory than they would otherwise enjoy in a fair system and do it clumsily. After the elections "discover" the fiddling and splash it across every front page in the country and give it more air time than Brittney and Micheal playing volley ball with the body of their aborted love child.

"Scandal! Scandal!! SCANDAL!!!11!!" Invalidate the results and suspend all elections until these "recently discovered" problems can be "properly" address while letting the talking heads speculate endlessly over the possibility/probability that 2006 results were equally "anomalous" so as to call into question the legitimacy of the existing Democratic majority.

With government effectively paralyzed, have the Supreme Court step in and "invest" the Executive with all powers of government until such a time as "fair and ballanced" elections can be guaranteed.

[AnnieBW]

37. Just sent this to my Husband

He works in cyber-security and is fact-checking it.

[farmbo]

39. Big story on Columbus Progressive Talk WVKO 1580 Saturday 7/19 2:00 pm!!!

A group of election fraud activists has filed suit to compel punishment of 40 Ohio counties' Boards of Election who "inadvertently" shredded their 2004 presidential ballots before the statutory retention period-- and in contempt of a federal court injunction (USDC Southern District of Ohio, Judge A. Marbley). The Plaintiffs are being interviewed Saturday on WVKO's "Blue State Diner". Please tune in-- or log on-- and call with your questions.

WVKO's internet live stream:

http://www.wvko1580.com/

(Don't forget to send a note or a check to the advertisers)

Folks... just think. These slimy BOE officials were so concerned about the apparent evidence of election fraud contained on the ballots and poll books that they risked slam-dunk misdemeanor convictions... to avoid felony prison time if the litigation could press forward with discovery.

Marbley's a good judge and fair-- a Clinton appointee. These counties (on Ken Blackwell's advice) flaunted a federal court order. Some people will be going to jail... and may wish to chat a bit with SOS Brunner before the door clangs shut.

[NeoTheo]

41. Spoonamore?

Like in Spoon a some more out to them?

These kinds of stories I take with a big grain of salt as it is presented as if there really is a question about weather or not our elections are being manipulated.

[JohnWxy]

43. THEY were found out in 1 what 300 tricks. Jee, I wonder if MSM will cover this? HA!

RECOMMENDED!

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.

Concerned by the electoral outcome, the whistleblower approached Spoonamore because of his qualifications and asked him to examine the Diebold patch.

[TOOLZ]

44. See NEW VIDEO here of HOW they've been hacking our elections!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIDsiukzfIY

From the new feature film FREE FOR ALL! which can be seen for free or downloaded at http://freeforall.tv

The new lawsuit announced this week in Columbus identifies a lynch pin of how Rove et Al. have been hacking our elections: Mike Connell, a little-covered player in this field, who I illustrate in FREE FOR ALL! as the computer programmer who was making Ken Blackwell's website to report the 'official' Secretary of State election totals while simultaneously promoting lies about John Kerry through the Swift Boat Vets for Truth website. Besides the fact that he's worked for the Bushes since the 80's, made every other GOP website, and also has access to all of Congress's emails, there is sufficient reason to focus in on this Southerner.

The truth is starting to get out!

[GreenTea]

49. Kick!