Florida Subpoenas Vote Machine Companies

[DR CHIP]

Florida Subpoenas Vote Machine Companies



TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida's attorney general said Wednesday his office has issued investigative subpoenas to the three companies certified to sell voting machines in Florida as he reviews a dispute between the firms and Leon County's elections supervisor.
Diebold Inc., Election Systems & Software Inc, and Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. have refused to sell equipment to let disabled voters cast ballots without help in Leon County. Elections supervisor Ion Sancho has been outspoken about his concern that the devices can be easily manipulated to change race outcomes.
The companies' refusal has left Leon County, which is the home of the state Capitol, in violation of the federal Help America Vote Act.
"It is critical for our democratic process to work efficiently and effectively, but of most importance, fairly," Attorney General Charlie Crist said. "These subpoenas are to ensure that the rights of our voters with disabilities as well as all Florida voters are secured."
Crist wants to see copies of documents relating to sales of voting machines by Diebold, Election Systems & Software and Sequoia in Florida since January 2003. Crist's office began the investigation in early February.
"We haven't seen it, but obviously we will review it," said David Bear, spokesman for the elections division at Diebold.
Michelle Shafer, spokeswoman for Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia said the company "regards any allegations of wrongdoing in this matter as without merit and stands ready to fully cooperate" with the investigation.
"We are confident a review of the facts will show that our company made a decision not to enter into a long-term formal relationship with Leon County after a thorough examination of our previous working relationship with the county," said Ken Fields, spokesman for Omaha-based Election Systems. "We did not believe that we would have the kind of working relationship that is key to providing smooth running, reliable and accurate elections. "
© 2006 Associated Press

[FORD]

It's great that this is finally getting some mainstream publicity, but why do I NOT trust the current state government of Florida to handle the situation properly?

What could Be a Concievable reason why the Efficiency of such an investigation might be compromised in such a state?

[DR CHIP]

Well Crist is a strong Republican and he will probably run for Governor after Jeb....strictly speaking from a Floridian's perspective....

Side note: appears Crist is a pretty good guy (as far as politicians are concerned).....

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
It's great that this is finally getting some mainstream publicity, but why do I NOT trust the current state government of Florida to handle the situation properly?



I know.....

Let's go back to letting them decipher chads again.

:gulp:

http://www.kevindiehl.com/humor/Manual%20Recount.jpg

[FORD]

At least the chads can be counted. Provided the Supreme Court stays out of it.

You can't prove Diebold votes. And that's why the electro-fraud machines can't be tolerated.

[DR CHIP]

Originally posted by FORD
At least the chads can be counted. Provided the Supreme Court stays out of it.

You can't prove Diebold votes. And that's why the electro-fraud machines can't be tolerated.

There needs to be some sort of paper trail, agreed.....or at least a print out of every voting screen, that is in a non-modifable file like a pdf.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
At least the chads can be counted. Provided the Supreme Court stays out of it.



Or algore.

He tried selective re-counting some 15 odd times and still didn't get the outcome he was looking for.

:D :D :D

http://www.pritchettcartoons.com/cartoons/gore-hell.jpg

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by FORD
You can't prove Diebold votes. And that's why the electro-fraud machines can't be tolerated.

Except in Washington state, right FORD?

I'm sure you'd be all over Diebold if Gregoire had lost.

[knuckleboner]

Originally posted by DR CHIP
There needs to be some sort of paper trail, agreed.....or at least a print out of every voting screen, that is in a non-modifable file like a pdf.

for what purpose? if it doesn't have my name on it (and given the secret ballot nature of our system, i do NOT want my name on it), what would it prove?

the ONLY way to ensure 100% that there has been no voter fraud is to have completely open and public elections.

[Hardrock69]

Dupe Thread.

Close it.


http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34952

[BigBadBrian]

You were the only one posting in the other thread.

Keep this one open. :)

[Nickdfresh]

Mainstream Media beginning to run stories about E-Vote Machine Failures.... Profile Pm Email Search Buddy IP

USA TODAY Front Page Report on E-Voting Machine Problems!
Disastrous IL and TX Primaries Discussed, Our Own John Gideon Quoted...

Blogged by Brad on the road... "Primary voting-machine troubles raise concerns for '06" is the headline on the front page of today's USA Today . The article even quotes regular...

Blogged by Brad on the road...

"Primary voting-machine troubles raise concerns for '06" is the headline on the front page of today's USA Today. The article even quotes regular BRAD BLOG Guest blogger John Gideon of VotersUnite.org.

Here's their lede...

WASHINGTON — Problems using voting machines in the Texas and Illinois primaries this month have reinforced fears that the 2006 elections may be beset with glitches.

"There's a lot of evidence that some of those fears are coming to pass," says Doug Chapin, president of Electionline.org, a non-partisan group that studies elections. "The theory that new technology results in error seems to be borne out early in the process."


The article is mostly stuff that regular BRAD BLOG readers are likely familiar with while the MSM is still busy playing catch-up on these matters. (Who could have forseen such troubles, after all?)

The Voting Machine Industry and Elections Officials, are, in general, still in denial mode -- blaming "human error" for the "glitches". That too will change over time as the MSM realizes they're being sold a bill of good when they report such things within that phony framework.

The story covers briefly, USA Today-style, the many troubles in the IL primaries (previously covered by BRAD BLOG here), including the 400+ missing Sequoia Memory Cards in IL (previously covered by BRAD BLOG here), the 100,000 extra votes added by Hart InterCivic and ES&S machines in Tarrant County, TX (previously covered by BRAD BLOG here and here), the TX Sec. of State's shutdown of a recount in Tom Green County, TX (previously covered by BRAD BLOG here) and the former Conservative Republican (they don't mention that part) Supreme Court Justice preparing to challenge the election in TX (previously covered by BRAD BLOG here -- with more to come very shortly on this, btw!)

From the 2 states to have disastrous primaries so far, USA Today also looks forward to the 48 more still ahead of us, noting that "10 states hold primaries in May, including Pennsylvania, which is scrambling to train voters and poll workers."

And our man Gideon, ever the eternal pessimist (can't image why) is then quoted as follows:

The state is "a disaster waiting to happen," says John Gideon, director of VotersUnite.org, a group that is skeptical about electronic voting.


No worries. Plenty of Election Officials and Voting Machine Vendor spokesfolks are quoted in more detail to let us know that everything is perfectly under control.


http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002614.htm



Here is the article in question:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washin...-machines_x.htm


Primary voting-machine troubles raise concerns for '06
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Problems using voting machines in the Texas and Illinois primaries this month have reinforced fears that the 2006 elections may be beset with glitches.

"There's a lot of evidence that some of those fears are coming to pass," says Doug Chapin, president of Electionline.org, a non-partisan group that studies elections. "The theory that new technology results in error seems to be borne out early in the process."

By Marcy E. Mullins, USA TODAY, Source: U.S. Election Assistance Commission
States receiving the most federal money to upgrade voting systems since the Help America Vote Act was passed in 2002 (in millions).

More than 30 million Americans will be voting on unfamiliar equipment this year, after modernization required by the Help America Vote Act. Congress passed the law in 2002 to address problems stemming from the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

Among early trouble spots:

• The largest jurisdictions in Illinois, Chicago and Cook County, encountered problems in the March 21 primary. In some cases, precinct election judges didn't get hands-on training before the election. There were paper jams, misplaced memory cartridges containing election results and long delays in counting.

Cook County Clerk David Orr says some problems were the result of introducing two new machines in each precinct: a touch-screen ballot and a machine that optically scans paper ballots. "We had our share of problems, but you expect it with new stuff," Orr says.

• In Texas, a candidate for the state Supreme Court will contest the March 7 primary because of what he calls widespread problems using new machines.

In Fort Worth, an initial ballot count showed about 150,000 votes even though there were only one-third that many voters, says David Rogers, campaign manager for the candidate, Steve Smith. And in San Angelo, balky new equipment and a close local race led to a recount that was halted after it appeared some votes were missing.

A spokesman for the secretary of state's office, Scott Haywood, says human factors accounted for any glitches, and they have been fixed. "Anytime you are using a new system, officials have to get used to it," he says. "Our biggest focus now is to increase training."

The next test: 10 states hold primaries in May, including Pennsylvania, which is scrambling to train voters and poll workers.

The state is "a disaster waiting to happen," says John Gideon, director of VotersUnite.org, a group that is skeptical about electronic voting.

The task is manageable, counters Michelle Shafer of Sequoia Voting Systems, an equipment maker that has customers in Pennsylvania and 19 other states. "We have seen this coming and have ramped up as best we can," and will be ready by November, she says.

_________________________________


As The BRAD BLOG reported last week, a Conservative Republican former Texas Supreme Court Justice had been considering an Election Contest after electronic voting machine problems and inexplicable tallies plagued the first-in-the-nation March 7th primary in the Lone Star State.

Steve Smith -- who ran for election to the state Supreme Court, Place 2, in the Republican primary against an opponent backed by both Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry and the Bush family -- will be filing an official Election Contest this afternoon in Travis County District Court, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

Since our previous report, the Smith for Supreme Court campaign has been examining election tallies around the state and report that they continue to find anomolies in virtually every county they look into.

"The more research we do, the more irregularities we find," campaign manager David Rogers told The BRAD BLOG this morning.

The problems are being found on machines made by both Hart InterCivic and Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S) -- the two major Electronic Voting Machine vendors supplying the state of Texas.

Rogers says the campaign plans to file the Contest before 5pm (CT) today. The Contest (to be posted in full here when available) will outline some of the many problems they have found so far including counties "where there were more votes than voters."

They hope the Election Contest may allow, for the first time, a closer examination of both the Hart InterCivic and ES&S electronic voting machines used in Texas elections, as well as elsewhere around the country.

An earlier statement from the campaign had detailed a number of the campaign's initial findings including several mysterious totals in Smith's home county of Tarrant where officials admit some 100,000 votes were incorrectly added to the reported results on Election Night.

Smith had outperformed his statewide average in Tarrant County during the 2004 Election by 13%, but this year, his campaign reports, he underperformed the statewide results by 23%. One other such puzzling number reported previously by Smith's campaign:

Winkler County, which went for Smith by margins of 260-92 (74%) and 468-249 (65%) in the 2002 and 2004 elections, went against Smith by an unbelievable 0-273 (100%) margin. Governor Perry received only 83% of the vote in Winkler County, and no other contested candidate topped 80%. The propositions on the ballot topped out at 93%.Says Rogers, "We are contesting the state as a whole, but looking at specific larger counties where there problems and a few of the smaller counties where the mistakes were absolutely egregious." .

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002615.htm

[Hardrock69]

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

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...

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 know the hardware is fine. It's been out there for eight or nine years so we're moving ahead with training and shipping machines [to Allegheny County]. The software doesn't need to work until just before the election so we've got time. It's no big deal," he said.


Not sure how such software changes could be testified and certified if they are made "just before the election" -- so we fail to see how this is "no big deal."

Neither do we understand, with the hardware "out there for eight or nine years" how Sequoia failed to find and fix these problems on their own previously. With that in mind, why should they be trusted to get it right just days before an election???

But that didn't stop another Sequoia spokes from blaming everyone else for problems with their own shitty machines, dredging up last week's (literally) excuse from Illinois and, apparently, trying to apply it here:

"The problems are not necessarily inherent in the equipment itself, but in the initial intersection of the new technology and the people who use it," said Sequoia spokeswoman Michelle Shafer.


It's unclear whether Shafer was referring to the problems in Illinois where Sequoia has been blaming poll workers for the fact their machines failed, or whether she's suggesting that the problems Shamos has found has something to do...somehow or another...with "the people who use it." Those "people", in this case, being Shamos who knows how to both use and test -- and now, apparently hack -- Sequoias Electronic Voting Systems.


http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002626.htm

[Nickdfresh]

Sorry I missed this dupe H69, but there were responses in it...

[Hardrock69]

Shoot, man, no problem....