HR550 is more important than ever as the 2006 midterm elections grow closer.
AP is reporting that state officials are completely stymied by the challenge of trying to make voting machines WHICH WERE BUILT TO BE HACKABLE AND UNSECURED secure, in advance of the January 1, 2006 deadline for complying with reliability standards:
Across the country, officials are trying multiple methods to ensure that touch-screen voting machines can record and count votes without falling prey to software bugs, hackers, malicious insiders or other ills.
These are not theoretical problems - in some states they have led to lost or miscounted votes.
One of the biggest concerns - the frequent inability of computerized ballots to produce a written receipt of a vote - has been addressed or is being tackled in most states.
An October report from the Government Accountability Office predicted that steps to improve the reliability of electronic voting "are unlikely to have a significant effect" in the 2006 off-year elections, partly because certification procedures remain a work in progress.
"There's not a lot of precedents in dealing with these electronic systems, so people are slowly figuring out the best way to do this," said Thad E. Hall, a political scientist at the University of Utah and co-author of "Point, Click, and Vote: The Future of Internet Voting."
In North Carolina, more stringent requirements - which include placing the machines' software code in escrow for examination in case of a problem - have led one supplier, Diebold Inc., to say it will withdraw from the state, where about 20 counties use Diebold voting machines.
A different type of showdown is brewing in California, where Secretary of State Bruce McPherson says he might force makers of the machines to prove their systems can withstand attacks from a hacker. One such test on a Diebold system - Diebold machines were blamed for voting disruptions in a 2004 California primary - is planned.
The state has been negotiating details with Harri Hursti, a security expert from Finland who uncovered severe flaws in a Diebold system used in Leon County, Fla. (He demonstrated how vote results could be changed, then made screens flash "Are we having fun yet?")
Diebold isn't the only culprit, but Diebold IS the only company whose CEO promised to deliver a state's electoral votes to a particular candidate in the 2004 elections. That candidate was NOT John Kerry.
Much digging has been done into Diebold's machines. Brad Friedman has been on the case with this for some time, and today Raw Story interviews Friedman's source, a whistleblower within the company who goes by the pseudonym "Dieb Throat", who reveals that Diebold has absolutely no interest in complying with measures designed to make voting accurate and secure (emphases mine):
“I’ve absolutely had it with the dishonesty,” the insider told RAW STORY. Blasting Wally O’Dell, the current president of Diebold, the whistleblower went on to explain behind-the-scenes tactics of the company and its officers.
“There’s a lot of pressure in the corporation to make the numbers: `We don’t tell you how to do it, but do it.’ [O’Dell is] probably the number one culprit putting pressure on people,” the source said.
Diebold spokesman David Bear rebuts the charges. “Diebold has a sterling reputation in the industry," Bear said. "It’s a 144-year-old company and is considered one of the best companies in the industry."
Previous revelations from the whistleblower have included evidence that Diebold’s upper management and top government officials knew of backdoor software in Diebold’s central tabulator before the 2004 election, but ignored urgent warnings—such as a Homeland Security alert posted on the Internet.
“This is a very dangerous precedent that needs to be stopped—that’s the corporate takeover of elections,” the source warned. “The majority of election directors don’t understand the gravity of what they’re dealing with. The bottom line is who is going to tamper with an election? A lot of people could, but they assume that no one will.”
Concerns about Georgia, Ohio elections
The insider harbors suspicions that Diebold may be involved in tampering with elections through its army of employees and independent contractors. The 2002 gubernatorial election in Georgia raised serious red flags, the source said.
“Shortly before the election, ten days to two weeks, we were told that the date in the machine was malfunctioning,” the source recalled. “So we were told 'Apply this patch in a big rush.’” Later, the Diebold insider learned that the patches were never certified by the state of Georgia, as required by law.
“Also, the clock inside the system was not fixed,” said the insider. “It’s legendary how strange the outcome was; they ended up having the first Republican governor in who knows when and also strange outcomes in other races. I can say that the counties I worked in were heavily Democratic and elected a Republican.”
In Georgia’s 2002 Senate race, for example, nearly 60 percent of the state’s electorate by county switched party allegiances between the primaries and the general election.
[snip]
The whistleblower is also skeptical of results from the November 2005 Ohio election, in which 88 percent of voters used touch screens and the outcome on some propositions changed as much as 40 percent from pre-election exit polls.
“Amazing,” the Diebold insider said.
[snip]
“My feeling having been really deep inside the company is that initially Diebold, being a very conservative and Republican company, felt that if they controlled an election company, they could have great influence over the outcome,” the source, a registered independent, said.
“Does that mean fixing elections? Not necessarily, but if your people are in election departments and they are biased toward Republicans, you will have an influence…I think this is what they were buying, the positioning. Obviously screwing with the software would be a homerun—and I do think that was part of their recipe for getting into the election business. But the public got involved and said 'Hey, what’s going on?' That pulled the sheet off what their plan was with these paperless voting machines.”
[snip]
Neither the TSX nor the older TS6 election equipment systems used by Diebold were designed to be retrofitted with paper trails. “The TSX was designed and brought to market after the paper trail issue erupted, yet it was introduced as a paperless system. But the uproar became so great… The public forced Diebold to put printers on their machines.” Adding printers to existing computer hardware together poses challenges.
The TS6 machines can’t be retrofitted with paper at all, leaving 35,000 voters in Maryland and Georgia to rely on paperless, faith-based voting.
Even if the blank paper problem could be solved, there are other serious problems with some TSX equipment. “The system that was offered to San Diego was purely experimental—the TSX and the electronic poll book, the check-in device,” the Diebold insider stated. “Voters couldn’t access the system to vote with the electronic poll book if the batteries died.” The high rate of breakdowns involving access cards for the poll book caused major problems, the source added. “The interesting part about this device is that it had never been used before. That was probably not certified.”
San Diego has since warehoused its TSX system, pending a decision by the state on whether to recertify. San Diego County now uses Diebold optical scanners—but those pose security problems as well.
Conservatives love to scream conspiracy nut at people who point out these problems, which can only mean that they think it's perfectly OK to rig an election, as long as their candidate wins.
The are many of us who do not necessarily believe that Senators such as Saxby Chambliss and Elizabeth Dole legitimately won their seats in 2002. I do not believe that George W. Bush won the popular vote in either the 2000 or 2004 elections -- because of voter intimidation and electronic voting. An elected leader is not well-served by this kind of doubt in his or her legitimacy. If George W. Bush feels beleaguered these days by people like me, he should think about how he won his office. I never liked Reagan, but I knew he had been legitimately elected via a lawful process -- not because of a quid pro quo with a campaign contributor who just happens to run a company that makes voting machines.
The corporatization of politics is ominous. In the last few days we've had the Ford Motor Company, which is seeking a government bailout, cuddle up to the hatemongers in the Christofascist Zombie Brigade, quite possibly in the hopes that making nice with "the base" might change the White House's mind about tax breaks and other incentives to help them emerge from their own managers' bad decisions. Are corporations now going to be enlisted to enact rules and policies that will affect most Americans because the Administration doesn't have the support to enact such policies on a nationwide basis by codifying them in law? And what is the payoff?
NONE of this is partisan. It's not about George W. Bush, though he is the first president since Kennedy to have this kind of doubt about the legitimacy of his election. It's about what we're supposed to stand for as we hold ourselves up as the beacon of freedom and democracy to the world.
Please sign the petition to support HR 550 now, if you haven't already done so. If the corporations have, in fact, bought the government in its entirety, at least let's force the government to admit it.
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