Chimpanzee demonstrates erasure of voting system log
Bev
Harris
09/28/2004 News
Articles
Chimp video Download: chimpanzee hacking Diebold audit log
“Impossible.” --
David Bear, Diebold
Simply by double-clicking the file, we opened a real Diebold
audit log file, using real Diebold software. We then highlighted
the records we wanted Baxter to obliterate.
What the chimp did: Baxter then hit the "Delete" key, erasing the audit log records, and then the "Enter" key,
confirming the command.
Conspiracy to conceal electronic voting machine problems
in Ohio?
Bev Harris
Black Box Voting.org (select
for full story)
I have come into possession of a pair of letters written
by a former Hart-Intercivic technician to the Secretaries of State
for Ohio and Texas. These letters detail a "long history of concealing
problems" and a willingness to ignore potentially serious problems
“largely for the sake of corporate profit.”
Mysterious touchscreen voting machine found
September 29, 2004 USA Today (select
for full story)
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Members of the State Board of Elections
were surprised to hear reports Tuesday that Diebold touchscreen
voting machines similar to those used in Maryland were found abandoned
recently on a street and in a bar in Baltimore. ..
Judge rules e-voting vendor misrepresented law
Matthew Fordahl
October
1, 2004 Associated Press
(select
for full story)
SAN
JOSE, Calif. - A
manufacturer of electronic voting equipment knowingly misrepresented
its claims when it sent threatening letters to the Internet providers
of people who had posted the company's internal documents online, a
federal judge has ruled.
Diebold Inc.'s letters claimed the leaked documents violated its
copyrights under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and demanded that
they be removed immediately. But the same law bars making threats when
the copyright holder knows no infringement occurred.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel issued
a summary judgment in favor two Swarthmore college students, who posted the
material, and their Internet provider Online Privacy Group, which
declined to comply with Diebold's demands...
Calling for Ballot Reform - One Hunger Striker and a Chimpanzee
If Congress doesn't pass the Federal Paper Ballot Emergency Act, and soon, John Kenney might die.
Rebecca Trela
September 26, 2004 Scripps Howard Foundation Wire (select for full story)
Washington, D.C. - Kenney, 44, is
on a hunger strike seeking reform of what he believes are critical
flaws in the use of electronic voting machines. He wants Congress to
require paper ballots for the November election and improved methods
for counting punch cards and other machine-read ballots.
Since Sept. 7, the former real estate agent and overseas school principal from western New York State, has drunk only water, coffee and juice with electrolytes. He is prepared to continue with his effort until the Nov. 2 election - a total of 55 days.
Fixing the Vote
Ted Selker
October 2004 Scientific American
(select
for full story)
... The infamous 2000 U.S. presidential election dramatized
some very basic, yet systemic, flaws concerning who got to vote and
how the votes were counted. An estimated four million to six million
ballots were not counted or were prevented from being cast at all--well
over 2 percent of the 150 million registered voters ...
Making sure that your electronic vote will be counted
October 2004 Consumer Reports (select
for full story)
NO HANGING CHADS Some 50 million people are expected to vote electronically.
Critics worry about rigging and recounts.
Next month, nearly one-third of voters will be able to cast their ballots on a computer touch screen--a highly controversial development. Some surveys show that people trust electronic voting, but the prospect alarms some computer scientists and voters’ rights groups.
People in precincts that already offer e-voting have reported the
use of unauthorized software, nonworking machines, and delays in tallying
votes cast onscreen ...
Lost Record '02 Florida Vote Raises '04 Concern
Abby Goodnough
July 28, 2004 New York Times
(select
for full story)
MIAMI, July 27 - Almost all the electronic records from the
first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have
been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the
presidential election draws near.
"The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last
year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the
2002 ...
..."This shows that unless we do something now - or it very well
may be too late - Florida is headed toward being the next Florida...
1,500 Phantom Votes Were
Cast in Last Week's Election
Mark Kreuzwieser
June 19, 2004 Carolina Morning News
(select
for full story)
Election officials now say that 1,500
votes certified June 10 were
phantoms, ballots never cast
by Jasper County voters...
..officials had uncovered 1,500
votes more than the number
of voters who actually
signed in at polls on June 8...
..."Evidently, it was a (voting)
machine error," Jasper Election Commission
Chairman Lawrence Bowers said
during candidates' protest
hearings...
Today Indiana, Tomorrow
Your State
Elaine Kitchel
June 07, 2004 Intervention Magazine
(select
for full story)
Take Indiana, for instance. WISH TV, an
Indiana television station,
did a recent in-depth investigation
of the election
woes plaguing some Indiana
counties after some precincts
ran out of republican ballots
shortly after the polls opened,
and after some counties reported
thousands more votes
than registered voters...
...Is it any wonder Orange resigned her
position after she blew
the whistle on ES&S
when the company asked her
to cover up a software problem
it had? “I
was faced with a moral and
ethical dilemma, and I felt
the only thing that
I could
do was come forward and tell
the Marion County Clerk what
had happened,” Orange
continued in her interview with WISH-TV...
Two Voting Companies & Two Brothers
Will Count 80% of U.S. Election - Using BOTH Scanners & Touchscreens
Lynn Landes
April 27, 2004
EcoTalk.org
(select
for full story)
Voters can run, but they can't hide from
these guys. Meet the Urosevich
brothers, Bob and Todd. Their respective
companies,
Diebold and ES&S, will count (using
BOTH computerized ballot scanners
and touchscreen machines) about 80% of
all votes cast in
the upcoming U.S. presidential
election.
Both ES&S and Diebold
have been caught installing
uncertified
software in their machines....
...Even if states or counties
hire their own technicians
to re-program Diebold or ES&S
software (or software from
other companies), experts say
that permanently installed
software, called firmware,
still resides inside of both
electronic scanners and touchscreen
machines and is capable of
manipulating votes...
return to top
Testing of voting machines
inadequate, election experts say
Erica Werner
June 24, 2004 San Diego Union Tribune (AP)
(select
for full story)
WASHINGTON - Electronic
voting machines are not tested
thoroughly enough before being
used in elections,
voting experts said Thursday.
The processes that we're talking about
here are much more out of control
than anyone's willing to admit.
There's virtually
no control over how software
enters a voting machine," Michael
Shamos, a computer scientist
at Carnegie Mellon
University, told a House Science
Committee subcommittee
hearing...
The Money Trail: The inside
story on Diebold and the NFB
Black Box Voting
(select
for full story)
" ... Election officials
feel that they have been bullied
by the members of the NFB, many feel that
they
have no choice but to acquiesce
... As a blind person, it is important
to me to
be perfectly clear, so I will
explain. The Diebold, Inc. machines have
no accountability,
no way of verifying votes." — Kelly Gutensohn,
a blind mother of eight who recently filed
a racketeering
lawsuit against
Diebold and the National Federation of
the Blind.
Riverside County’s
outspoken registrar
was a national poster child for touchscreen
voting, but problems
with the machines
may have just ended her career
Andrew Gumbel
Los Angeles City Beat
(select
for full story)
RIVERSIDE - Late
Monday [21 Jun 04], word came that
Mischelle Townsend, Riverside
County’s
Registrar of Voters, had abruptly
quit her job mid-term. She
said she wanted to spend more
time with her family, and nurse
her father-in-law through his
impending knee
surgery. Worthy
sentiments, for sure. But she
didn’t
mention anything about a controversial
March 2 election for county
supervisor that was still being
contested, and the
recount that had become entangled
in problems attributable, in
part, to the county’s
electronic voting machines.
Nor did she mention anything
about potentially explosive
new details regarding the possible
manipulation of those machines.
Likewise, no mention
of the big list of questions
to this effect from Los Angeles
CityBeat sitting on her
desk since last Saturday...
The man who headed
Sequoia’s resuscitation
team in Riverside, southern sales manager
Phil Foster, was subsequently indicted
in Louisiana for “conspiracy to commit
money laundering and malfeasance” - charges
later dropped in exchange for his
testimony against Louisiana’s state commissioner
of elections...
Diebold Reveals Software Illegally Used in Maryland
Elections
Maryland Citizen Group Demands Answers and Accountability
News Release
June 17, 2004 Campaign for Verifiable Voting in Maryland (select
for full story)
Diebold Election Systems, Inc. has admitted that the electronic
voting machines used in the March 2004 primary in Maryland contained
software that had not been federally qualified (which makes it use
in the Maryland primaries ILLEGAL). Maryland law requires that voting
systems and any modifications to those systems comply with applicable
federal qualification standards before the State Board of Elections
may certify them for use in an election..."
League of Women Voters
drops support of paperless voting machines
Rachel Konrad
June 14,
2004 ASSOCIATED PRESS
(select
for full story)
The League of Women Voters
rescinded its support of paperless
voting machines on Monday after hundreds of
angry
members voiced concern that
paper ballots were the only way to safeguard
elections
from fraud, hackers or computer malfunctions...
"...My initial reaction is incredible
joy and relief," said computer scientist
Barbara Simons, 63, past president
of the Association for Computing
Machinery and
a league member from a chapter
in Palo Alto, Calif. "This issue was
threatening to split the league
apart. ... The league
now has a position that I feel
very comfortable supporting..."
return to top
MAKING VOTES COUNT
The Disability Lobby and Voting
June 11, 2004 New York Times Editorial/Op-Ed
(select
for full story-requires purchase)
…The National Federation of the Blind, for instance,
has been championing controversial voting machines that do not provide
a paper trail. It has attested not only to the machines' accessibility,
but also to their security and accuracy — neither of which is
within the federation's areas of expertise. What's even more troubling
is that the group has accepted a $1 million gift for a new training
institute from Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, which put the testimonial
on its Web site. The federation stands by its "complete confidence" in
Diebold even though several recent studies have raised serious doubts
about the company, and California has banned more than 14,000 Diebold
machines from being used this November because of doubts about their
reliability.
Disability-rights groups have had an outsized influence
on the debate despite their general lack of background on security
issues. The League of Women Voters has been a leading opponent of voter-verifiable
paper trails, in part because it has accepted the disability groups'
arguments…
Fight over electronic voting riles League of Women
Voters
June 11, 2004 CNN (AP)
(select
for full story)
...Some local chapters are so angry that they are
flouting regulations and planning to speak
against the national stance Friday and Saturday at the league's biennial
convention in
Washington. They're threatening to nominate new board members and a
new candidate
for president who would rescind the league's support for paperless
voting systems...
Fla. Elections Office Failed
to Log E-Voting Flaw;
Florida elections office was
aware of touch-screen voting
glitch in Miami-Dade months ago
Matthew Haggman
June 2, 2004 Miami Daily Business Review
(select
for full story)
Florida Secretary of State
Glenda Hood's office was notified about
a systematic malfunction in the electronic
voting system used in Miami-Dade and
Broward counties two months earlier
than she acknowledged last week.
On Thursday, Hood, an appointee of Gov.
Jeb Bush, told the League of Women Voters
that she only learned about an audit function
problem in the iVotronic machines by reading
a Daily Business Review article on May
13. "It was not reported, as required
by state statute, to the division of elections," Hood
said in response to a question on Thursday.
MAKING VOTES COUNT
Who Tests Voting Machines?
May 30, 2004
New
York Times Editorial
(select
to download pdf of
full story)
Whenever
questions
are
raised
about
the
reliability
of
electronic
voting
machines,
election
officials
have
a
ready
response:
independent
testing.
There
is
nothing
to
worry
about,
they
insist,
because
the
software
has
been
painstakingly
reviewed
by
independent
testing
authorities
to
make
sure
it
is
accurate
and
honest,
and
then
certified
by
state
election
officials.
But
this
process
is
riddled
with
problems,
including
conflicts
of
interest
and
a disturbing
lack
of
transparency.
Voters
should
demand
reform,
and
they
should
also
keep
demanding,
as
a growing
number
of
Americans
are,
a
voter-verified
paper
record
of
their
vote...
Lax controls over e-voting
testing labs
ELECTION OFFICIALS RELY
ON PRIVATE FIRMS
Elise Ackerman
May. 30, 2004 (San
Jose) Mercury News
(select
for full story - free registration required)
... Neither the testing
procedures nor the testing
results are considered to be
public information, and these testing
laboratories have not traditionally
been subject to direct oversight
by election officials. For
years, the testing system
was managed by a private center
that also accepted donations
from voting-equipment
manufacturers.
``I was shocked,'' Shelley recalled. ``Everyone
seemed to be in bed with everyone
else. You had these so-called
independent testing
authorities floating out there
in an undefined pseudo-public,
pseudo-private status whose
source of income is the vendors
themselves...''
Solano County drops Diebold voting
system
Decision follows California secretary
of state's call for probe
Ian Hoffman
May 26, 2004 Oakland Tribune
(select
for full story)
...On
Tuesday, Solano
County supervisors said no
in a 3-1
vote and sent packing the nation's largest
supplier
of touch screens
and second-largest supplier of voting systems. "There was
a confidence issue with the
way Diebold conducted business
with the county and the state
in the past year," Rosenthal said. "I
think from the board's position,
they were
told one thing and it was something
else.
What it was
was Diebold oversold the (testing)
status of their
equipment
and led the board to
believe something that
was not true..."
As the U.S. Congress considers
legislation to restrict the use of electronic
voting machines, 13 House of Representatives
members have ordered an investigation into
e-voting security
Paul Festa
May 17, 2004 CNET News.com (select
for full story)
In a letter dated May
14, a bipartisan group asked
the General Accounting Office--Congress's
investigative
arm--to study the security
and reliability of a wide range
of electronic voting technologies. "While
the existing data indicate
that these machines can be
more accurate than outdated
punch card voting machines,
experts are becoming increasingly concerned
that many of these
electronic voting machines
have other flaws," the
letter read ...
return to top
In review of [ES&S] iVotronic’s performance in Homestead,
162 ballots failed to appear, problem slow to surface
Matthew Haggman
May 26,2004
Miami Daily Business Review (select
for full story)
For the second time in two weeks, an internal memo from a Miami-Dade
County election official has exposed a new round of auditing flaws
that have plagued the iVotronic touch-screen voting machines used in
Miami-Dade and Broward counties...
Count Crisis?
Elections official warns of
[ES&S] glitches that may scramble vote
auditing
Matthew Haggman
May 13, 2004
Miami Daily
Business Review (select
for full story)
A scathing internal review of the
[ES&S] iVotronic touch-screen
voting machines used in Miami-Dade
and Broward,
Fla., counties, written by
a Miami-Dade County elections
official, has raised fresh
doubts about how accurately
the electronic machines count the vote...
House Seeks Further E-Voting
Research
Roy Mark
May 18, 2004 Internetnews.com (select
for full story)
With national elections less than six months
away, two key committees of the U.S. House of Representatives are seeking
a General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation into the security and
reliability of electronic voting machines.
Blind voters rip e-machines
THEY SAY DEFECTS THWART GOAL OF ENFRANCHISING SIGHT-IMPAIRED
Elise
Ackerman
May. 15, 2004 San Jose Mercury News (select for
full story - free registration required)
Disabled-rights groups have been some of the strongest
supporters of electronic voting, but blind voters in Santa Clara County
said the machines performed poorly and were anything but user-friendly
in the March election ...
Noel Runyan, a blind voter and computer scientist
who is an expert in designing accessible systems, said touch screens
are a good idea in theory, but they need a thorough redesign to work
in practice. He said the voting companies appeared to have ignored
feedback they solicited from groups of blind voters as they were developing
their systems ....
Washington State Lawsuit Seeks to Decertify Diebold Optical Scan
System
blackboxvoting.org (select
for full story)
In the first pre-emptive lawsuit against voting machines filed by
a candidate, Andy Stephenson -- a candidate for Washington Secretary
of State -- has filed for an injunction to decertify Diebold GEMS central
count software used in four Washington counties...
The release notes submitted by Stephenson demonstrate that the software
had over 600 changes, including many new features, requiring it to
undergo certification according to Washington state law.
"... The panel delivered a scathing report and accused the state's
largest supplier of DREs, Diebold Election Systems, of jeopardizing
the primary by using uncertified software and marketing a voting system
before it was fully functional..."
May 5, 2004 PBS Online NewsHour (select
for full story)
They've been doing a bait and switch on software that
has resulted in the disenfranchisement of voters in various counties,
and that has resulted in a reduction in the confidence not only of
DREs, but in voting, in general.
E-Voting Oversight Overwhelms U.S. Agency
May 4, 2004 Associated Press (select
for full story)
As alarm mounts over the integrity of the ATM-like
voting machines 50 million Americans will use in the November election,
a new federal agency has begun scrutinizing how to safeguard electronic
polling from fraud, hackers and faulty software ...
"We've
found some deeply troubling concerns, and the country wants to know
the solution," said
DeForest B. Soaries, Jr., a Republican and former New Jersey secretary
of state named by President Bush in December to lead the agency .."
PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Video
replay of May 5, 2004 newscast on electronic voting (Cable
or DSL connection recommended. Select the "PLAY VIDEO" link
under the heading "Electronic Voting")
return to top
The Touch of Corruption
The biggest problem with touch-screen electronic voting may not
be the electronics
Jon Spayde
May 2004 Issue Utne.com (select
for full story)
The problem the United States faces is bigger than
one of machines and technology. It involves a crisis of confidence
brought on by a crisis of conflicts of interest.
Diebold knew of legal risks
Attorneys warned firm that use of uncertified
vote-counting software violated state law
Ian Hoffman,
April 20, 2004 Oakland Tribune (select
for full story)
Attorneys for Diebold Election Systems Inc. warned
in late November that its use of uncertified vote-counting software
in Alameda County violated California election law and broke its $12.7
million contract with Alameda County ...
E-Voting developers on the defensive
April 26, 2004 CNN web site (select
for full story)
Computer scientists, lawmakers worried about glitches
A growing number of federal and state legislators
are expressing doubts about the integrity of the ATM-like electronic
voting machines ...
... The head of the newly created federal agency
charged with overseeing electronic voting called Diebold's problems
"deeply troubling." The bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance
Commission, formed in January to develop technical standards for electronic
voting ...
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell commissioned a study
...
In December 2003 Ohio's Secretary of State
commissioned a study of security problems with machines.
Fifty-seven were identified and no follow-up study was done to determine
if they were corrected. We only have vendors’ claims that they were "fixed."
Maryland Voters
File Lawsuit to Force Upgrade of State's Electronic Voting Machines
April 21, 2004 PRNewswire (select
for full story)
WASHINGTON - A cross-partisan group of registered
Maryland voters filed a lawsuit today against the Maryland State Board
of Elections and its Administrator, charging that new Diebold AccuVote-TS
electronic voting machines recently purchased by Maryland fail to comply
with both state and federal law...
Secretary of State [California]
Kevin Shelley Bans Diebold TSx for Use in November 2004 General Election
News release from California Secretary of State (select
for full story)
Also Decertifies All Touchscreen Systems in California Until Security
Measures are Met
... The report indicated Diebold's persistent and
aggressive marketing led to installation in a number of counties of
touchscreen systems that were neither tested, qualified at the federal
level, nor certified at the state level, and that Diebold then
lied about it to Secretary of State officials ...
New voting equipment [ES&S] didn't
pass state muster
John Fritze
April 21, 2004 The Indy Star full
story not available
Marion County clerk says Omaha company [ES&S]
tried to cover up error by reinstalling old software. The Marion County
Election Board will hold an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss whether
to take any action ...
... The problems have not been confined
to Indiana ...
A Compromised Voting
System
April 24,
2004 New York Times Editorial (select
for full story-purchase required)
California's
secretary of state, Kevin Shelley, is expected to decide in the next
week whether the state's electronic voting machines can be used in
November. His office has just issued two disturbing studies
one on machine malfunctions in last month's primary, another on misconduct
by one of the nation's leading voting machine manufacturers that
make a strong case against the current system. Refusing to certify
the state's electronic voting machines at this late date is a serious
step, but there are compelling reasons for Mr. Shelly to decertify
some, and perhaps all, of them ...
return to top
Problems in Indiana
April
2004 Citizen Online (select
for full story)
Indiana discovered problems this week with equipment
made by Election Systems & Software Inc., which apparently installed
uncertified software in five counties without notifying the state's
election commission...
Diebold
used outdated technology incorrectly
January 26, 2004 Computer World (select
for full story)
Avi Rubin, technical director for the Johns Hopkins'
Information Security Institute in Baltimore, which evaluated the Diebold
source code, says the company's developers used Data Encryption
Standard, an outdated encryption technology, and "then they used
it wrongly ... "
His team's research claims that smart cards used
by voters to access the machines can be counterfeited, letting voters "cast
multiple ballots without leaving any trace." Furthermore, security
was lax enough to permit precinct workers to fiddle with the machines'
vote tallies ...
Computer Scientists find Diebold code fatally flawed
Stephanie
Desmon
January 30, 2004 Baltimore Sun (select
for full story)
Prominent computer scientists have studied
the Diebold code - some of which was found unprotected on the Internet
- and found hole after hole in its security.
Dr. Michael A. Wertheimer, spent 21 years as a cryptologic
mathematician at the National Security Agency. Wertheimer said it would
take nearly a complete rewrite of the computer code to fix the machines'
flaws.
Ohio’s Governor agrees:
On April 1st, 2004 Governor Bob Taft was quoted as
saying that the state should be "cautious and deliberate" in
the acquisition and deployment of new technology, "particularly
if you're talking about technology where there is no way to go in after
the fact through a more manual kind of recount to verify that the machine
results are accurate where questions are raised."
Even Secretary of State
Kenneth Blackwell confirms the need for a paper trail on
important issues
Here is a quote from his own web site: "USERS
OF THIS DATABASE SHOULD NOT RELY SOLELY ON THIS DATABASE INFORMATION.
ALTHOUGH THE LIKELIHOOD OF DATA ENTRY OR OTHER ERROR IS SLIGHT, USERS
ARE ADVISED TO CONFIRM SEARCH RESULTS BY CHECKING THE PAPER RECORDS
ON FILE IN THE SECRETARY OF STATE'S OFFICE OR COUNTY BOARDS OF ELECTIONS
..." (see
web site)
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