HANG the vote-stealing thieves. And FLOG the Cowardly Democrats, for pretending not to notice...
The hypocrisy and gall know no bounds. Secretary of State Rice, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of War and Torture and Rendition and Kangaroo Courts Rumsfeld, and of course the idiot prince, President George W. Bush, all run around the country and the world, blathering on endlessly about "FREEDOM!" and "DEMOCRACY!", even as they snigger in their closed-door meeting rooms about American bodies floating down flooded New Orleans' streets ("ANOTHER excuse to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to no bid, no oversight Halliburton contracts!"), and even as they howl with delight at all the voters across America left wondering if their votes were even counted... or more precisely, if their votes for Democratic candidates weren't SWITCHED to the Bush-Cheney totals.
We can't even begin to enumerate all the shennanigans that took place in CRITICAL SWING STATE Ohio, alone, in 2004, except to mention in passing: #1. remember the Harris County (?) Elections Supervisor who TOSSED OUT the press and media from the district's late-night counting session, claiming an FBI terror alert.. an alert the FBI stated unequivocally was never made? #2. ALL the polls were trending for John Kerry in Ohio... every one, yet EVERY election discrepancy, every problem, every major disagreement between polls and returns (whether pre-election polls or exit polls), in EVERY INSTANCE the actual returns broke for the Bush votes. #3. In 2000, a large number of newspapers endorsed Texas Gov. George W. Bush. By 2004, over HALF of these papers - many of them conservative papers, run by conservative editors and conservative publishers, REFUSED to endorse President Bush for re-election. On the other hand, tens of thousands of Democratic voters were ENERGIZED to come out and vote, not because of John Kerry's "attractive personality", but because they were deeply opposed to Mr. Bush and his party's agenda. On election night, tens of thousands of voters STOOD IN LINE FOR HOURS. In most cases, in ALL cases, the long lines were in Democratic leaning precincts, either poor minority precincts or college precincts with young voters. In almost every case, Republican-voting precincts had plenty of vote machines (as one might expect in "richer", more well-funded precincts), and vastly fewer problems. When one of two vote machines alloted for a large number of voters (in a poor district) breaks down, there are longer lines at the one (or few) remaining machines. Such glitches and errors plagued Democratic-leaning precincts all through Ohio's long day of voting in 2000... and again, in EVERY vote-counting discrepancy, the votes seemed to swing for Bush, even repudiating pre-election and exit polls by large percentages to do so.
ALL THE ABOVE WAS IN Ohio, IN 2004, ALONE.
Today, over a year and a half later, the problems are WORSE- WIDELY DOCUMENTED HACKABILITY of vote machines manufactured by REPUBLICAN-owned companies, companies which REFUSE to use the security measures (and verifiable or "open source" software and computer code) that the banking and gambling industries use every day for the past decade.
IT IS AN IN-YOUR-FACE assault on the INTEGRITY of the Voting Process, and across the board, Republicans try to make the situation MORE CONFUSING, so as to cover any premeditated hacking, and the Democrats pretend not to notice.
For example, here at the Florida State statutes, click on Title IX Electors and Elections.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/
You will search long and hard for a statute dealing with machine-code inspection for "back door" (or "secret key") computer code to ALLOW vote fraud, BECAUSE SUCH A STATUTE IS * NOT * IN FLORIDA's election law!
PAGES upon PAGES upon PAGES of election law, and NOWHERE is there a provision to make sure that machines are not made HACKABLE by that staple of spy movies and computer hacking, a " back door entrance" to allow a programmer to enter the system long after it has been handed over to the end-user. Florida's government is entirely dominated by treasury-looting Republican scoundrels, from the Governor's office to the State Senate to the Statehouse to the local cities and counties to the Republican-leaning corporate news outlets. Even "liberal" news organizations such as the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel are accomplices to the "see no evil, hear no evil, pretend no evil exists" potential for serious and chronic VOTE FRAUD in Florida's elections.
This above rant is only a bare INTRODUCTION to the problem of VOTE FRAUD in Ohio, Florida, and across America - WHEREVER Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S voting machines are used. The Chairman of Deibold was (until he resigned in the face of financial fraud accusations) Wally O'Dell, the 2004 co-Chairman of the "Ohio for Bush" Republican campaign committee. Likewise, ES&S and Sequoia are owned by Republican officials.
These below sites are only the briefest, current introduction to the problem of AMERICAN DEMOCRACY SUBVERTED through institutionalized, chronic, unverifiable vote fraud via unverifiable election machines that are (compared to electronic gambling machines and banking software) child's play to hack.
*******************************
Minor glitch found in Allegheny County voting machines
Expert tricks county's new electronic system but calls the problem a minor one
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06088/677611-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- After four hours of testing yesterday, a glitch was found in the voting system Allegheny County is planning to use in the May 16 primary.....
*********************************
More glitches trigger halt in testing of new county voting machines
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06089/678087-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a CRITICAL SOFTWARE PROBLEM is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's UNLIKELY THE MACHINES WILL BE CERTIFIED for use in Pennsylvania. [note: this is TWO YEARS AFTER the problems in the 2004 elections!]
If they aren't, Allegheny County MUST SCRAMBLE for new ones before the May 16 primary and MIGHT LOSE a $12 million federal grant for the replacement of its lever-style machines. [note: the Republicans RIG the LAWS, to ENCOURGE ADOPTION of Republican manufactured voting machines that are PRONE TO HACKABILITY.]
*****************************************
As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security
In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System
By Zachary Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 22, 2006; A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012101051_pf.html
As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.
Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.
Sancho's most recent demonstration was last month. Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, manipulated the "memory card" that records the votes of ballots run through an optical scanning machine.
Then, in a warehouse a few blocks from his office in downtown Tallahassee, Sancho and seven other people held a referendum. The question on the ballot:
"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"
Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.
*********************************************************
Bradblog.com is doing a great job of keeping up with the tsunami of reports of INSTITUTIONALIZED VOTING FRAUD, thousands of election machines across America vulnerable to hacking, if not DESIGNED to make them EASY to switch the vote totals FROM the true winning candidate, to the losing candidate:
<< But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked. >>
*******************************
Sequoia E-Vote Systems Found 'Hackable' in PA, Testing Shut Down After Machine Failures!
'Software Clearly Unstable,' Says Testing Official Who 'Transformed Handful of Votes into Thousands...in an Instant'!
Ten-Year Old E-Voting Systems from NV Planned for First Time Use in PA This Year
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002626.htm
Meanwhile...in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, where plans to use Diebold's hackable Electronic Voting Equipment have recently been nixed, Plan B seems to be failing too. The machines they'd hope to use instead, as made by Sequoia Voting Systems, have now been shown to be hackable as well.
Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette picked up on the story yesterday, and followed up today on the testing being run in Allegheny County by Dr. Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, on the "new" Sequoia Voting Machines. The county had hoped to use these systems -- ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines as purchased from Clark County, Nevada who is moving to a different Sequoia system -- in their upcoming Primary Elections in May. That plan, now may be in grave doubt.
The testing of the machines has found so many problems -- including Shamos' findings during "tampering tests" that he was able to instantly "transform a handful of votes into thousands" -- that he has now simply shut down the entire process described as "pointless" due to all of the errors in the software.
According to today's report...
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a critical software problem is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's unlikely the machines will be certified for use in Pennsylvania.
As you may recall, it was machines made by Sequoia which failed so miserably across the state in Illinois just last week during the Primary Elections there. Just a handful of the many mainstream reports covering the meltdown are here, here and here.
Now pay attention...because this can be confusing...
Illinois' Cook County (Chicago) had used new Sequoia "Edge" machines in the recent primary that had been purchased by Clark County, Nevada. Since Illinois' primaries were first, and Sequoia didn't have time or inventory to fill both orders, Cook used Clark's machines for last week's contest only.
Those "Edge" machines, which failed so disastrously in Cook County, IL, are now to be shipped to Clark County, NV who is selling their own ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines to Allegheny County, PA. It is those ten-year old machines which are now being tested in Allegheny and failing so horrendously.
All of which begs the questions: How well were those "Advantage" machines tested in Nevada in the last ten years? How much is Nevada now looking forward to using the new and failed "Edge" machines that they had loaned for a single use to Cook County, IL? And finally, will Clark County, NV bother to test them to find out if they too are hackable like the ones -- modified a bit by Sequoia on the way, apparently -- that they've just unloaded on Allegheny County, PA?
But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked.
As mentioned, Sequoia officials were predictably quick to dive into spin-control/crisis-management mode claiming they can simply continue to fix the software problems right on up "until just before the election." Said Larry Tonelli, Sequoia's state manager for Pennsylvania and New York:
We can't even begin to enumerate all the shennanigans that took place in CRITICAL SWING STATE Ohio, alone, in 2004, except to mention in passing: #1. remember the Harris County (?) Elections Supervisor who TOSSED OUT the press and media from the district's late-night counting session, claiming an FBI terror alert.. an alert the FBI stated unequivocally was never made? #2. ALL the polls were trending for John Kerry in Ohio... every one, yet EVERY election discrepancy, every problem, every major disagreement between polls and returns (whether pre-election polls or exit polls), in EVERY INSTANCE the actual returns broke for the Bush votes. #3. In 2000, a large number of newspapers endorsed Texas Gov. George W. Bush. By 2004, over HALF of these papers - many of them conservative papers, run by conservative editors and conservative publishers, REFUSED to endorse President Bush for re-election. On the other hand, tens of thousands of Democratic voters were ENERGIZED to come out and vote, not because of John Kerry's "attractive personality", but because they were deeply opposed to Mr. Bush and his party's agenda. On election night, tens of thousands of voters STOOD IN LINE FOR HOURS. In most cases, in ALL cases, the long lines were in Democratic leaning precincts, either poor minority precincts or college precincts with young voters. In almost every case, Republican-voting precincts had plenty of vote machines (as one might expect in "richer", more well-funded precincts), and vastly fewer problems. When one of two vote machines alloted for a large number of voters (in a poor district) breaks down, there are longer lines at the one (or few) remaining machines. Such glitches and errors plagued Democratic-leaning precincts all through Ohio's long day of voting in 2000... and again, in EVERY vote-counting discrepancy, the votes seemed to swing for Bush, even repudiating pre-election and exit polls by large percentages to do so.
ALL THE ABOVE WAS IN Ohio, IN 2004, ALONE.
Today, over a year and a half later, the problems are WORSE- WIDELY DOCUMENTED HACKABILITY of vote machines manufactured by REPUBLICAN-owned companies, companies which REFUSE to use the security measures (and verifiable or "open source" software and computer code) that the banking and gambling industries use every day for the past decade.
IT IS AN IN-YOUR-FACE assault on the INTEGRITY of the Voting Process, and across the board, Republicans try to make the situation MORE CONFUSING, so as to cover any premeditated hacking, and the Democrats pretend not to notice.
For example, here at the Florida State statutes, click on Title IX Electors and Elections.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/
You will search long and hard for a statute dealing with machine-code inspection for "back door" (or "secret key") computer code to ALLOW vote fraud, BECAUSE SUCH A STATUTE IS * NOT * IN FLORIDA's election law!
PAGES upon PAGES upon PAGES of election law, and NOWHERE is there a provision to make sure that machines are not made HACKABLE by that staple of spy movies and computer hacking, a " back door entrance" to allow a programmer to enter the system long after it has been handed over to the end-user. Florida's government is entirely dominated by treasury-looting Republican scoundrels, from the Governor's office to the State Senate to the Statehouse to the local cities and counties to the Republican-leaning corporate news outlets. Even "liberal" news organizations such as the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel are accomplices to the "see no evil, hear no evil, pretend no evil exists" potential for serious and chronic VOTE FRAUD in Florida's elections.
This above rant is only a bare INTRODUCTION to the problem of VOTE FRAUD in Ohio, Florida, and across America - WHEREVER Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S voting machines are used. The Chairman of Deibold was (until he resigned in the face of financial fraud accusations) Wally O'Dell, the 2004 co-Chairman of the "Ohio for Bush" Republican campaign committee. Likewise, ES&S and Sequoia are owned by Republican officials.
These below sites are only the briefest, current introduction to the problem of AMERICAN DEMOCRACY SUBVERTED through institutionalized, chronic, unverifiable vote fraud via unverifiable election machines that are (compared to electronic gambling machines and banking software) child's play to hack.
*******************************
Minor glitch found in Allegheny County voting machines
Expert tricks county's new electronic system but calls the problem a minor one
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06088/677611-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- After four hours of testing yesterday, a glitch was found in the voting system Allegheny County is planning to use in the May 16 primary.....
*********************************
More glitches trigger halt in testing of new county voting machines
By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
Thursday, March 30, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06089/678087-85.stm
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a CRITICAL SOFTWARE PROBLEM is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's UNLIKELY THE MACHINES WILL BE CERTIFIED for use in Pennsylvania. [note: this is TWO YEARS AFTER the problems in the 2004 elections!]
If they aren't, Allegheny County MUST SCRAMBLE for new ones before the May 16 primary and MIGHT LOSE a $12 million federal grant for the replacement of its lever-style machines. [note: the Republicans RIG the LAWS, to ENCOURGE ADOPTION of Republican manufactured voting machines that are PRONE TO HACKABILITY.]
*****************************************
As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security
In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System
By Zachary Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 22, 2006; A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012101051_pf.html
As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.
Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.
Sancho's most recent demonstration was last month. Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, manipulated the "memory card" that records the votes of ballots run through an optical scanning machine.
Then, in a warehouse a few blocks from his office in downtown Tallahassee, Sancho and seven other people held a referendum. The question on the ballot:
"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"
Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.
*********************************************************
Bradblog.com is doing a great job of keeping up with the tsunami of reports of INSTITUTIONALIZED VOTING FRAUD, thousands of election machines across America vulnerable to hacking, if not DESIGNED to make them EASY to switch the vote totals FROM the true winning candidate, to the losing candidate:
<< But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked. >>
*******************************
Sequoia E-Vote Systems Found 'Hackable' in PA, Testing Shut Down After Machine Failures!
'Software Clearly Unstable,' Says Testing Official Who 'Transformed Handful of Votes into Thousands...in an Instant'!
Ten-Year Old E-Voting Systems from NV Planned for First Time Use in PA This Year
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002626.htm
Meanwhile...in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, where plans to use Diebold's hackable Electronic Voting Equipment have recently been nixed, Plan B seems to be failing too. The machines they'd hope to use instead, as made by Sequoia Voting Systems, have now been shown to be hackable as well.
Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette picked up on the story yesterday, and followed up today on the testing being run in Allegheny County by Dr. Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, on the "new" Sequoia Voting Machines. The county had hoped to use these systems -- ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines as purchased from Clark County, Nevada who is moving to a different Sequoia system -- in their upcoming Primary Elections in May. That plan, now may be in grave doubt.
The testing of the machines has found so many problems -- including Shamos' findings during "tampering tests" that he was able to instantly "transform a handful of votes into thousands" -- that he has now simply shut down the entire process described as "pointless" due to all of the errors in the software.
According to today's report...
HARRISBURG -- A state voting-machine examiner yesterday halted testing of the machine Allegheny County intends to use in the May primary, saying it was pointless to continue until a critical software problem is resolved.
"It's not useful to continue because [the software] clearly is not stable," said Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.
Sequoia Voting Systems, the Oakland, Calif.-based manufacturer of AVC Advantage voting machines, will have a chance to fix the software and have it retested in a week or two. Otherwise, it's unlikely the machines will be certified for use in Pennsylvania.
As you may recall, it was machines made by Sequoia which failed so miserably across the state in Illinois just last week during the Primary Elections there. Just a handful of the many mainstream reports covering the meltdown are here, here and here.
Now pay attention...because this can be confusing...
Illinois' Cook County (Chicago) had used new Sequoia "Edge" machines in the recent primary that had been purchased by Clark County, Nevada. Since Illinois' primaries were first, and Sequoia didn't have time or inventory to fill both orders, Cook used Clark's machines for last week's contest only.
Those "Edge" machines, which failed so disastrously in Cook County, IL, are now to be shipped to Clark County, NV who is selling their own ten-year old Sequoia "Advantage" machines to Allegheny County, PA. It is those ten-year old machines which are now being tested in Allegheny and failing so horrendously.
All of which begs the questions: How well were those "Advantage" machines tested in Nevada in the last ten years? How much is Nevada now looking forward to using the new and failed "Edge" machines that they had loaned for a single use to Cook County, IL? And finally, will Clark County, NV bother to test them to find out if they too are hackable like the ones -- modified a bit by Sequoia on the way, apparently -- that they've just unloaded on Allegheny County, PA?
But back to the halted tests in Allegheny...and the claims by Sequoia officials that the problems found were "no big deal". Shamos doesn't see them as "no big deal" and is concerned that a malicious hacker could do precisely what he was able to do in these tests...
Dr. Shamos encountered yesterday's problem during a test for vote tampering. In an instant, he said, he was able to transform a handful of votes into thousands.
Developers quickly fixed the problem by replacing a file in the tabulation software, but that didn't alleviate Dr. Shamos' concerns. A malicious hacker could easily make the same switch, allowing votes to be changed, he said.
"What control is there over the software package if different files can be swapped in and out?" he asked.
As mentioned, Sequoia officials were predictably quick to dive into spin-control/crisis-management mode claiming they can simply continue to fix the software problems right on up "until just before the election." Said Larry Tonelli, Sequoia's state manager for Pennsylvania and New York:
posted by verifi at 9:57 AM
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