BBV: Activists demonstrate alleged flaws in voting software

[Kadie]

Activists demonstrate alleged flaws in voting software

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer


Last Updated: September 22, 2004, 07:30:19 PM PDT


WASHINGTON (AP) - Activists and computer programmers Wednesday demonstrated what they said were flaws with electronic voting machines that could allow hackers to change vote outcomes Nov. 2. They recommended new procedures for states and counties to put in place before Election Day.

Voting machine manufacturers, however, denied their machines could be tampered with and dismissed the demonstration as scare tactics. The head of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission said at least some of the proposed changes were unrealistic.

Bev Harris, an outspoken critic of electronic voting and author of "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," led the National Press Club demonstration that included a film of a chimpanzee hacking an election.

Using a laptop computer, she demonstrated what she said were easy hacks to software by Ohio-based Diebold Inc., which is used in central tabulators that will count votes Nov. 2 in some 1,000 counties. Harris contended that hackers could easily change vote totals by entering the database through a backdoor method. She also claimed hackers could enter the standard way after obtaining passwords, then manipulate vote totals and cover their tracks.

more...
http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/9181648p-10081488c.html

[eridani]

1. Kick n/t

[althecat]

2. wired yarn

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65031-3,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next2

[annabanana]

3. This is IT?!?

THIS is the extent of the coverage of Bev's press conference? Did NO ONE show up? Don't they care? WTF!!

[Boredtodeath]

5. No, that's not it.....it gets worse

The chimp only opened the door to ridicule.

Defenders and manufacturers of the electronic voting systems dismissed the Wednesday demonstrations as fantasy and called the concerns raised by critics baseless.

"What was presented was analogous to a magic show," said David Bear, spokesman for Diebold. "In a real election environment, people don't have unfettered access to the system."

Kara Sinkule, spokeswoman for Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, ridiculed the display.

"If you allowed a monkey access to the cockpit of an airplane — without any physical security whatsoever — he could possibly cause it to crash," Sinkule said. She said Georgia has "multiple, overlapping security" elements to safeguard its system.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0904/23voting.html

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RedEagle]

8. Please supply links and quote where Avi Rubin say he's given it up.

Interesting that you only quote what you want to hear.

The piece in Wired was especially revealing on the access and how simple it was.

Please specify, with documentation, why those security holes are in ANY kind of voting system, especially as redundant items.

FYI, Avi Rubin did a stint at the polls with the touch screeens.

Bev has spent all night observing county's central tabulator. Came up with PAGES of problems observed and yes, they let in someone with a lap top.

Touch screens only added another security problem.

Central count systems, both Diebold and Sequoia, have been the subject of investigation recently. Seems Riverside, California has yet to explain why individuals were allowed access to the system.

Observation of procedure has only confirmed a weak, unenforced, security process.

It's always the same thing- IF an election happens to go with undisclosed problems, the machines are then "great." If there are problems, even the vendors who vaunt "security procedures" are the first to lay the blame at the feet of the very people they say will insure security.

But that doesn't answer the question. Why are the systems so poorly designed that it takes, multiple, outboarded, (not part of the system itself) security measures to try to insure that nothing can happen to the machines or counting system ?

[DubyaSux]

13. Simply said,

Bev Harris is telling you what you need to hear. There are more flaws in her hysteria than the flaws she claims exist in the equipment she thinks is the spawn of Satan.

Here's Diebold's response to her and her ilk's assertions:
http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/response7.pdf

Don't read it if you can't handle two sides to a story. Don't read it if you think the response is a pack of lies they continue to regurgitate at the risk of lengthy jail sentences. Don't read it if you think the same things they say here are lies, but believed by the multitudes of election officials - both democrat and republican - because they are not as smart as Bev Harris.

Because nothing will convince you there is no need for this hysterical movement.

Bev Harris will have you believing in elections being decided on dimpled pregnant hanging chads. Bev Harris will have you believing in democrats being too stupid to stop an election being rigged. Bev Harris will have you believe a monkey can walk into a precinct with a laptop and change the election. And finally, Bev Harris will have you believe each precinct in the United States tallies a million votes each. So, even if this fraud somehow occurred at a precinct, the results will be flawed by much less than the TOTAL over vote and under vote counts across the Unites States (7%).

Bev Harris will have you put George Bush back in office using the same outdated crap that got him here to begin with just so she can be proven correct.

And she is wrong. Very, very wrong. THAT is why nobody is listening to her. Her theories hold no water, she is wrong in her "facts", she assume the worst in everybody, and defies common sense and logic. As someone said, put a monkey in the cockpit, and the results of your landing could be altered. But it just can't happen.

[notadmblnd]

15. you work for diebold don't you?

and very argumentative, in simple terms.. you protest too much.

[RedEagle]

16. Why don't you begin by answering my question about Rubin?

Please provide documentation and references where Rubin states he is quitting.


("Bev Harris is telling you what you need to hear. There are more flaws in her hysteria than the flaws she claims exist in the equipment she thinks is the spawn of Satan.")

And it's not like you're only quoting what you want to hear. Please tell us why we should believe Diebold, specify links and stories that are not generated by Diebold's PR department and show that they have actually- with evidence, fixed the flaws found in their systems.

As for officials, I sat in a meeting with auditors who lied to state senators and the media about voting problems that had already been reported in the media. Please tell me why, if Diebold is so outstanding, if the whole evoting thing is so outstanding, they continue to treat state voting officials to sponsored dinners, golf games, cruises, lobster fests.... Shouldn't the systems sell themselves on their "sterling" qualities alone?


Please state, with evidence and references, why there is no need to be concerned about the voting situation in our country. PR from vendors is not proof. Every day there are more and more stories about how these machines screw up. Please reference where your reality is coming from. After all, we can't begin to understand where you are coming from if you don't give us the background to do so.

("Bev Harris will have you believing in elections being decided on dimpled pregnant hanging chads.")

Actually, if you pay attention, it's not the chads and she's been focusing on from square one, it's the problems with touch screens and central counting systems. And as Dan Spillane pointed out, the reasons for problems in Florida had to do with no equipment maintenance, chad trays not being cleaned, bad ballot design, etc. And I recall quite clearly the 16,022 votes in Velousia that came from optical scan systems that Bev brought to everyone's attention. Greg Palast observed the optical scan systems that behaved differently depending on which county they happened to be in. Chads were the marching slogan to unaccountable voting. It wasn't the punch cards in Florida that were the real problem. What had to be stopped at all costs was any recount of the optical scan. Divert and yell, then use it to stampede people to paperless voting.


("Bev Harris will have you believing in democrats being too stupid to stop an election being rigged. Bev Harris will have you believe a monkey can walk into a precinct with a laptop and change the election.")

If you think that, you haven't come to the logical conclusion of the demonstration. The point is not whether a chimp or any other animal can change an election, the point is that it is that easy, quick, and simple. Changing an election should not be easy, quick, and simple.

Are democrates stupid? I don't recall that statement but I could have missed it. What they seem to be are too immobile about the problem. You see, it's a nonpartisan issue and in some states like Georgia, the democrats are the ones apparently "protecting" the touch screens and Cathy Cox. Same type of situation in Maryland.


("And finally, Bev Harris will have you believe each precinct in the United States tallies a million votes each.")

Sigh, actually, this is well documented and please reference where this is stated. Most voting machines, except for large cities, will only see 150 - 350 votes. So unless the precinct is mega large- or consolidated, it's not happening. It was actually the vendors who didn't want paper who were claiming printers could not handle thousands of votes in a precinct. Research showed that claim was lame.


("So, even if this fraud somehow occurred at a precinct, the results will be flawed by much less than the TOTAL over vote and under vote counts across the Unites States (7%).")

Ah, but we're not saying it only occurs at a precint. The central tabulators are at greater risk and if you really want to affect an election, you do it there. Witness Velousia 16,022. That was an upload to a central tabulator. But since you brought the subject up, according to the Cal/Tech Mit study on residual votes (over votes and under votes), averaging the results of the two races used, one of which had a presidential race, DRE's were only slightly better than lever systems, giving a 4.10% rate of residual votes. Paper ballots, Punch cards, (YES, punch cards) and optical scan were all better. But please do reference the study that shows that precinct results will be less flawed than the residual vote rate. I would be interested in looking at that. In addition, you make a very good case, if the residual rate is 7%, that we need to audit way above that just to catch the residual vote flaws, let alone any other anolmolies.

("Bev Harris will have you put George Bush back in office using the same outdated crap that got him here to begin with just so she can be proven correct.")

Let's see- Punch cards? According to the testimony before the Committee on Rules and Administration of the United States Senate, 3/14/01, punch cards were not the predominate system used in the most disenfranchised areas of the country, and almost all of that where Hispanic statistics were concerned could be traced to Los Angeles.
http://www.rules.senate.gov/hearings/2001/031401knack.htm
You don't suppose it was the heavy lobbying by vendors, who wanted congress to mandate the removal of antiquated voting equipment so they could make profit, that had anything to do with trying to eliminate punch cards?

(And she is wrong. Very, very wrong. THAT is why nobody is listening to her. Her theories hold no water, she is wrong in her "facts", she assume the worst in everybody, and defies common sense and logic. As someone said, put a monkey in the cockpit, and the results of your landing could be altered. But it just can't happen.)

Please reference the theories and your rebuttal to each backed up with independent, non-sponsor related research.

And no, Bev does not assume the worst in everybody. First hand experience has shown most election officals absolutely dependent on the Secretaries of State and The Election Center. But please, do state the wrong facts and the research- not PR from vendors, that backs up your assertions.

And I don't suppose that the media is any more complicit in keeping a lid on this story than about the wrong assertions of WMD, the Plame case, focusing on type rather than content in the TANG memos, or dozens of other, under reported stories?

[Zorra]

17. Bwaaahaaaahaaaa!!! Oh, please, give it up. This Is DEMOCRATIC

Underground.

Posting corporate propaganda, particularly from an electronic voting machine manufacturing company whose CEO is committed to delivering Ohio's votes to Bu$h, just ain't gonna work here.

I repeat:

Bwaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaa!

Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Voting Machine Controversy
by Julie Carr Smyth

COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm

"An open and honest examination of the flaws in electronic voting will lead us to only one possible conclusion: electronic voting machines are dangerous to democracy because there is no way of ensuring their accuracy" -- Dennis J. Kucinch

[BeFree]

9. Man, that sucks, ya know?

Here ya have Bev, trying to educate people about what COULD happen with the voting process, and ankle biters attack her. That just suxs.

Until the software is available for independent examination there shall be no rest of the wariness we have of these machines.

The real problem is the secretivness of the computers, coupled with the limited operators. Contrast that with the former - understood by everyone - open and simple way of counting votes by paper and one can't help but have concerns.

Any one who remains comfortable with allowing these computers to count our votes must also be comfortable with how boosh runs the country.

Wake up people, the only way that boosh can win is to steal the vote. Don't think they haven't thought of doing just that.

[gratuitous]

14. Please

Were you asleep during November and December 2000? How could anyone "waltz into a precinct with a laptop and change the election"? Perhaps you're unaware that the Bush campaign was given office space in the Florida Secretary of State's office during the alleged recount? Or that elected state elections officials are party members, and when the chips are down, tend to favor their own (cf. Katherine Harris)?

Read Toobin's "Too Close to Call" or Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" for more examples of absolutely appalling jiggery-pokery done with ballots, elections, and vote counting. Three or four official-looking guys in nice suits come stomping into a precinct or a county registrar's office, set up shop (complete with a laptop), and start messing around with things, which of the blue-haired old ladies is going to stand up and say, "Not today, buster! I answer only to the duly-elected Supervisor of Elections"?

And afterwards, when all the deliberately generated confusion dies down, who's going to listen to those ladies when they say, "You know, there were some funny things that happened on November 2. Those men that came to the precinct certainly seemed official enough. I mean, they ordered Betty and me out of the room when they arrived, and they seemed to know what they were doing. I don't think I could pick them out of a crowd, no. More tea, dearie?"

And whaddya know? All those elderly Jewish voters in West Palm Beach cast their ballots for Pat Buchanan. Don't try to sell me on the "procedures and controls in place." Anything that can be devised can be circumvented, and watching what this band of thieves has done during the last four years, they've given ample demonstration that they'll do whatever it takes to steal another election.

[AmerDem]

4. and of course none of this was picked up by

the corporate media outlets. This race is going to be so rigged even those that are expecting fraud are going to shit themselves at the extent of it all.

[annabanana]

7. kick................................n/t

[AmerDem]

12. it's pretty sad isn't it?

That a topic like this can't even stay at the top without having to be kicked. It's as if everyone feels, out of site out of mind.

Corporate media isn't speaking of it at all, politicians are hardly speaking of it. Most Americans have no idea just how much of a fraud these machines are. Watch though, come vote count time this is going to be the single biggest issue everyone will be talking about. People will start screaming "fix" and then the corporate media will be doing shit pieces on "how was the E voting problem missed before the election". All keeping with the white house talking point that no one knew how bad these machines were.

There is such a smugness with the repukes at this time that just isn't warranted based on most of the polls ( almost 50/50 ). They know they have something that will put them way over the top and E voting is that very something!

Fucking sickening!:puke:

[realFedUp]

10. kick

This is a pundit topic.

[hedda_foil]

11. Oh ye of little faith.

I was there(actually I'm quoted in several articles!) and the press was HUGE! We had 95 reporters between the two press conferences! That's unheard of for this type of event. If you check Google News under search word "Diebold," you'll see that it made 3 full pages of newspapers in almost every state. The coverage was really very good, almost all focused as we wanted it to be. The press is always going to give Diebold's rebuttal. We had provided the answers to what they said in advance, and it would have been nice if they'd given those in the articles,but that can't be expected.

We were absolutely floored and thrilled by the level of interest.

[cthrumatrix]

18. Great to hear! Where do you go from here..?

[Bushfire]

19. For daily national & state level voting news, everyone should keep an eye

at this website.

http://www.electionline.org/index.jsp?page=ElectionLineToday

Just learned today that EAC will be investigating Shelley now. Not much of a surprise that the Gropinator called on DC to have their fascist leaders dig up more dirt to keep them from releasing funds set aside to conduct a fair election.