EXCLUSIVE: LEAKED 2003 REPORT ON MD'S DIEBOLD SECURITY FLAWS IS "PENTAGON PAPERS OF E-VOTING"!

[BradBlog]

EXCLUSIVE: LEAKED 2003 REPORT ON MARYLAND'S DIEBOLD VOTING SYSTEMS REVEALS SERIOUS SECURITY CONCERNS WERE WITHHELD FROM ELECTION BOARD, GOVERNOR, PUBLIC!

Long-Sought Document Finally Surfaces Showing America's Largest Voting Machine Company, MD State Election Director, Hid Major Flaws From State, Country!

Original 200-Page Security Report — Said to be 'The Pentagon Papers of Electronic Voting' — Previously Released Only in 38-Page Highly Redacted Form…Until Now…

Special to The BRAD BLOG by Guest Blogger and Freelance Network News Producer, Rebecca Abrahams...

In September, 2003 Linda Lamone, the Administrator of Maryland's State Board of Elections and President of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) hands over a critical study on the security of the Diebold Election Systems machines that count all of Maryland's votes.

Between the time that the State of Maryland commissioned the highly respected Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to evaluate the effectiveness and security of their electronic voting machines and the time that the study is made public, critical pieces of information have been edited, omitted and, in some cases, words added, to fundamentally alter the original meaning of the report's conclusions.

The original SAIC report, coming in at nearly 200 pages, was reduced, redacted and altered such that the only version the public — or even state officials including the Governor and the full State Board of Elections — would ever be allowed to see was a wholly sanitized 38-page version of the report.

Until now.

For the first time, we've been able to review the complete, much sought-after, unredacted version of the SAIC report which has been kept at bay from Maryland state officials…as well as the computer science and security community…as well as the election integrity community and public at large since it was originally completed in 2003.

It has been called "The Pentagon Papers of Electronic Voting Systems" by some members of the computer science and security community.

Our EXCLUSIVE access to that document — which we will be releasing in full shortly — was made possible by a patriot whistleblower. The information, some of which is detailed here, could be explosive in the final days before the Midterm Elections.

As well, a transcript of an EXCLUSIVE unaired network interview that I carried out with Lamone — in which she tore off her microphone and cut off the interview after I dared to confront her on some of these issues — follows as well...

URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3719


---
Brad Friedman
THE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...
http://www.BradBlog.com
VELVET REVOLUTION's Election Protection Strike Force!
Of the people, by the people, for the people...
http://www.VelvetRevolution.us/ElectionStrikeForce

[Rainscents]

1. Brad, as alway... you do excellent work!

[Jack Rabbit]

2. It's not even Friday on the West Coast

It's not even Friday on the West Coast and we're having quite a Friday news dump already.

[tblue]

3. Tell Keith!!!

[Old and In the Way]

4. Holy Moly....the Rosetta Stone!

Maybe now, we can demand paper ballots until we get these compromised POS terminals secure.

[rumpel]

5. WoW!

:applause:

[Oilwellian]

6. There should be a large outcry for paper ballots tomorrow

Brad, you should be on Lou Dobbs tomorrow night demanding paper ballots as well. I hope he takes note of your breaking story.

[Peace Patriot]

7. California is at great risk! People may not realize it, because we have a

reputation as a "blue" state, and as having tough regulations. But we have a Diebold shill appointed by Scwarzegger for Secretary of State--after a dirty bit of black ops that got our good Sec of State (the one who sued Diebold back in 2004, Kevin Shelley) "swift-boated" out of office. The Schwartz appointee, Bruce McDiebold (er...Bruce McPherson) has undone all of Shelley's reforms, and we are now set up, more than ever, to become an artificially Bushified state.

It is very dismaying to see the rest of the country waking up from this nightmare, while California seeks deeper into it.

Our only hope here is that DEBRA BOWEN (running against McDiebold) can buck both the machines and the Schwarz red tide, and win the Sec of State contest--certainly the most important race in California, and possibly in the country, on election fraud/election reform issues. Californians have a penchant for electing opposite party candidates for the down ticket state posts like Sec of State. And Bowen's running about even. So I have hope. But there is so much at stake for Diebold, that it's almost inevitable that they will steal it for McDiebold (McPherson).

I'm beginning to think now that the reason they got rid of Shelley was that he was smelling a rat in the weird Schwarz Recall election (six weeks to campaign, the gift of millions of dollars in free campaign publicity from Time mag and Larry King, and 125 candidates on the ballot--making it extremely easy for Diebold GEMS tabulators to shift votes around). Shelley had been in office less than a year when that happened. Barely time to get his footing. It was the first real Diebold election. He began putting two and two together, then sued Diebold for the lies they told about the security of their machines, demanded to see their source code, decertified the worst of their election theft machines (the touchscreens), and provided Californians with a paper ballot option at the polls, all about six months before the 2004 election. He was the nation's leading election reformer.

McDiebold (McPherson) has made all of this go away. He illegally RE-certified Diebold touchscreens. He even watered down our right to a paper ballot (--gave corrupt county election officials permission to substitute a "Provisional" ballot). He is your typical dirtbag Republican--secretive, stealthy, toadying up to power, and doing the bidding of his corporate masters. He has basically destroyed the integrity of California's elections.

THIS is why the surge of Absentee Ballot voting has been greatest in California. People are trying to get around the rigged electronic system, and are PROTESTING it, by voting Absentee in huge numbers. (It's up to 50% and 60% in some places--and that's the part we know about.)

I think it may be hopeless--if not dangerous--to fight Diebold head on. They and ES&S are evil corporations, in my opinion, with close ties to the Bush Junta and far rightwing causes. It might be a better strategy to try to get a paper ballot system by default, by organizing all these AB voters into a strong force on local election officials, to push them to implement some simple, common sense measures for proper handling and counting AB votes. All that's needed are, a) HAND COUNT AB votes, and b) post the results BEFORE any electronics are involved. Then AB voting will become the only reliable way to vote, and everybody will vote by AB. Public scrutiny, public vigilance, and these two demands.

[althecat]

8. Links & Coverage Of Circumstances Around The Original SAIC Report

AVI RUBIN'S ORIGINAL REPORT - SAIC WAS COMMISSIONED TO RESPOND TO THIS
http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/index.html
AVI RUBIN'S BLOG (Seems likely he will chime in on this soonish)
http://avi-rubin.blogspot.com/

BEFORE...

US: SAIC TO WHITEWASH DIEBOLD - DU FORUM POST BY BEV HARRIS ON THE SAIC COMMISSION ANNOUNCEMENT
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=131243&mesg_id=131243&page=

Sludge #156 – SAIC Connected To E-Voting Whitewash
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0308/S00173.htm
Saturday, 23 August 2003, 6:28 am
Column: C.D. Sludge

Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0308/S00145.htm
Wednesday, 20 August 2003, 11:22 am
Article: www.ecotalk.org - Lynn Landes


********

WHEN RELEASED

MD. RISK ASSESSMENT REPORT - SAIC
http://www.dbm.maryland.gov/dbm_search/technology/toc_voting_system_report/votingsystemreportfinal.pdf (DEAD LINK)
Fortunately it has been archived here http://bravenewballot.org/resources/SAIC.pdf

SAIC Report On MD. Diebold Voting Machines
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0309/S00313.htm
Thursday, 25 September 2003, 9:22 pm
Press Release: SAIC
SAIC Report On MD. Diebold Voting Machines
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Maryland Proceeds with Voting Machine Installation
Independent Analyst Submits Positive Review of Diebold Machine
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0309/S00312.htm
Thursday, 25 September 2003, 9:20 pm
Press Release: Diebold Election Systems
For Immediate Release:
September 24, 2003


January 20 2004
AFTER THE REDACTED SAIC REPORT WAS RELEASED RABA DID A MUCH BETTER REPORT FOR MARYLAND...
http://www.raba.com/press/TA_Report_AccuVote.pdf
Summarised by WIRED MAG'S KIM ZETTER
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62109,00.html

[enough]

9. k&r

[moodforaday]

10. One tiny wish

Fantastic job, and let's hope we will see the complete document. But if it's published on Brad Blog in tiny yellow font on black background, who's going to read it? I'm serious! My eyes hurt whenever I try to read anything on that site. Black on white may be boring, but it's used for a reason. Now there's also black tiny Times New Roman on lime. It's so badly designed it's not even funny.

[renate]

12. Brad does fantastic work, and I know neither of us wants to sound ungrateful

...but yeah, it's pretty hard to read. Thom Hartmann even mentioned it when he was talking to him yesterday, and Thom is such a gentleman (so it was a quick mention and very polite), so we're not the only ones who find it to be kind of a barrier to using that otherwise wonderful site.

[BradBlog]

17. Click PRINT VERSION on any BRAD BLOG story for plain Black on White

n/m

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

11. When the report is published, I'll get excited

If I can read it on that horrid yellow on black background site.

Note to Bradblog webmaster: Read some usability studies regarding color and legibility of text.

[BradBlog]

18. Is DU Taking up a collection?

I'd be delighted to do a sight make-over. Have been trying to for months in fact. But news comes first and in the meantime both time and funding to have someone else do such a remake is virtually non-existent.

We have added the PRINT VERSION button however, so every story can be read in plain black and white. Hope that will suffice until more drastic measures can be allowed to occur.

Brad

[LiberalEsto]

13. I wish the IRS would audit Lamone

I wonder whether she's been getting any extra income over the past few years.

[Jack Rabbit]

14. K/R

This is important.

[In Truth We Trust]

15. K&R Hand Counted Paper Ballots NOW! ...or Fascism Forever.

[Peace Patriot]

16. See how the Wall Street Journal is slandering Absentee Ballot voters!

You want an indication of what the Corporate Rulers fear most, re their electronic voting coup? See this WSJ article. It's the ABSENTEE BALLOT voters--ordinary citizens BOYCOTTING the machines in huge numbers. This IS the revolution, friends. And we need to get on it, focus it and LEAD it--to put pressure on LOCAL election officials to HAND-COUNT Absentee Ballot votes and post the results BEFORE any electronics are involved. These common sense demands CAN be achieved--locally!

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009167

Trying to get rid of Diebold and ES&S, and their billions of dollars in contracts, and the corrupt officials who are protecting them ISN'T WORKING. Ordinary citizens--in their desperate effort to get their votes counted, by voting with an Absentee Ballot--are pointing the way to a DIFFERENT strategy for getting verifiable elections. A LOCAL strategy of getting the Absentee Ballots counted properly!

The Dark Lords don't care about scandal and malfeasance and exposes--as long as the people keep voting on their machines! They know that MONEY and CORRUPTION will keep these machines in place, no matter how much scandal there is. MONEY and CORRUPTION put these machines in place. MONEY and CORRUPTION is going to keep them there--and the MOST that can be accomplished by exposing Diebold scandals (if the corrupt and collusive leaders of our own Party are any guide) is getting rid of the touchscreens and paperless voting, leaving in place an optiscan/central tabulator system that is ALSO run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by private Bushite corporations. A "paper trail" is nearly worthless if they still control the central tabulators! Ergo: The ONLY way around this system is Absentee Ballot voting combined with forcing LOCAL election officials to count the AB votes and post the results BEFORE the AB votes are entered into the rigged electronics.

We can battle Diebold and brethren all we want, on a national level--and I'm certainly not against exposing them--but the truth of the matter is that our own Dem Party leaders voted en masse for the election system to be rigged in this way. (All Dem Senators, with two exceptions*, voted in favor of it, as did all but sixty House Dems.) This means that we cannot expect even a Dem majority in Congress to enact real reform. ALL of them are beholden to Diebold and ES&S for their (s)election. (Some may have been elected anyway, but that's the not the point--Diebold/ES&S can unelect at will.)

We--the election reform movement--have no STRATEGY for achieving transparent elections in this circumstance. We know what we want--what's needed--but we have NOT come up with any way to get there. Ordinary voters are GIVING us a strategy--handing it to us on a silver platter--by their Absentee Ballot voters' revolt against the machines. It's up to 50% and 60% in some places. At least half of California is voting by Absentee Ballot this time--and AB voting has increased exponentially--quintupled in some places--all over the country, in direct proportion to the cancerous spread of these rigged electronic voting machines.

It's like Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott! One day, an ordinary person, fed up with segregation, sits down in a seat where she is not allowed to sit because she is black. Then others join that individual protest by BOYCOTTING the buses--and WALKING miles to work. This didn't change the system instantly--but it created a fundamental sea change in how the system was viewed by OTHER ordinary people.

Boom! Public consciousness takes a quantum leap forward. Why the hell should black citizens have to sit at the back of the bus?!

If the electronic machines are rigged--and almost everybody now realizes that they are--why the hell are we voting on them? Why are we endorsing these bad actor corporations ECONOMICALLY by USING their crapass, hackable PRODUCT?

We are cooperating with our own oppression every time we vote on one of their machines. And millions of voters are realizing this and voting by Absentee Ballot as a PROTEST!

The WSJ, AP, the NYT, the Sacramento Bee, all say it's voters choosing "convenience." That is BULLSHIT. They NEVER MENTION voter distrust of the machines even as a possibility. They are doing their Corporate number on us, all in concert, with the same talking points--to PROTECT their rigged election system from this massive voter revolt, so that WE don't realize, and ordinary people don't realize, what it's REALLY all about, and the potential power of this citizen revolt.

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

*(The two dissenting Senate votes on the "Help America Vote Act" were Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. I'm not inclined to attribute these "no" votes to Clinton's and Schumer's belief in democracy. I think it may have more to do with New Yorkers' attachment to their old, reliable, and virtually unriggable, mechanical lever voting machines. New Yorkers have resisted e-voting, even in the face of bullying by the Bush Junta. But I have to say that their "no" votes have given me pause, in my kneejerk leftist reaction to both of these Senators. They voted for the Iraq War, for instance. How can they believe in democracy, when they didn't even uphold their oath of office to defend the Constitution? Still, these two "no" votes do stand out.--the ONLY Senate votes against HAVA. Go figure. It has given me a bit of hope that if Hillary is Diebolded into office, we might be able to get rid of these rigged machines, even so.)

[texpatriot2004]

19. So, the powers that be have known all along...

but of course.

[mom cat]

20. Great work Brad! Thanks from all of us.

[emlev]

21. BRAD hosts ELECTION COVERAGE! Radio and Online!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2562471&mesg_id=2562471

[chill_wind]

22. Brad, your comittment and dedication to these issues has been unsurpassed.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

K&R.

[Joanne98]

23. I hope Linda Lamone goes to prison for this!

[Tin Man]

24. Great stuff - dying to read the full SAIC report. However, some things don't quite add up...

First off, Maryland originally contracted to buy Diebold DREs in March of 2002, yet the SAIC report wasn't delivered until September of 2003 - so I don't quite understand why did Diebold was granted authorization to edit the SAIC report for "proprietary information"? If Maryland actually owned those machines, couldn't they have them tested however they felt warranted (or smashed them to pieces and burned them to ashes, for that matter), without oversight of Diebold?

Secondly, assuming that Diebold was granted editorial priviliges to remove ostensibly proprietary information from the report, I don't understand how there seems to be 2 different versions of the report delivered to Maryland. If the intent of Diebold was to interject itself into the production of the report in order to control the information presented to Maryland, how did they allow a full version of the report to *also* be delivered to Maryland? I mean, what was the point of Diebold bothering to edit the one version, if the full version was also to be delivered as part of the contract?

[lonestarnot]

30. The hen's beat the fox with sticks?

[AntiFascist]

25. K&R

[freedomfries]

26. K & R

great work brad!

[kestrel91316]

27. kick

[lonestarnot]

28. Damn! Hurry! It's Friday! I need to read!

[Imagevision]

29. Bush/Rove can only win if election fraud via Diebold etc. is used...

Something major will occur making it even more obvious.

[mirandapriestly]

31. SAIC

SAIC has strong ties to the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and defense contractors like Titan and Raytheon. They receive over 80% of their income from government contracts. I am surprised that they would give a fair report in the first place.