Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Have voting machine vendors violated state and federal fraud statutes?

I'll leave the answer for that question to the attorneys. Have the vendors sold their voting systems with a promise of maintaining the secrecy of the vote? Have any of the vendors represented their DREs as being accessible? Have vendors represented their systems as being totally in compliance with the federal voting systems standards? If the answer to any one of these questions is yes then the vendor misrepresented their products. Hundreds of millions of dollars have now flowed from the tax payer, through state and local election offices to the vendors. Instead of buying more lies the people spending our money need to go back to the vendors and begin to ask questions. Prove to us that your system meets all of the accessibility mandates in the law.

Prove to us that the system you sold us maintains secrecy of the vote.

Prove to us that your system does not contain banned interpreted code.

If you can't prove it then give us our money back. If you refuse to give our money back then be prepared to go to court.

Much more to back up the above, and the other notable voting news stories today, all linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Recently a VP for one of the vendors told me in an email that I should not necessarily believe all of the voting machine failures reported by the media. She said, "I would hope you would know not to believe everything reported by the media! There are many factual errors and opinions that are expressed by the media which do not necessarily equate to the truth of each and every scenario." Then she told me, "You should speak to the election officials who conducted these elections below and others where problems are reported for more accurate information." In my response I asked if I should be talking to all of the election officials who have now become vendors, or were vendors only to come back to being election officials.

What confidence should I have in getting the truth from a Kathryn Ferguson, who was the elections director in Clark Co., Nevada, and brought Sequoia DREs into that county then moved to Santa Clara Co., California, where she brought in Sequoia DREs only to quit and be rewarded by Sequoia with a job? Or, any of the thousands of election officials who have spent hundreds of thousands of their voters' tax money to buy voting systems that don't work, from vendors who deceive them about those systems, and now must defend those purchases or look like fools?

As usual, links to all of today's voting news stories (including one that hits on the above point) all found below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

At least two California counties have announced that they may change from touch-screen voting to paper and optical scan. Of course this means buying more equipment from the vendors. Rather than just buying more they should be turning to the vendors of their failed touch-screen systems and demanding their money back. If nothing else, the California "Top-To-Bottom" review proved that the machines the vendors peddled were unreliable, inaccessible, and insecure. It's time that the vendors were held responsible for their sales practices. Not to be outdone, election officials in some Pennsylvania counties are demanding that they be allowed to use their AVS WinVote system. The federally certified lab iBeta has stopped testing the latest AVS product because AVS decided not to pay their bill. Before they stopped testing, though, iBeta found 1,946 source code anomalies, 25 serious documentation problems, and an unauthorized change of motherboards. Election officials want to ignore those problems....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

In yesterday's DVN I mentioned that Smartmatic had been looking for a buyer for Sequoia for "over a year." In fact Smartmatic announced it was looking for a buyer for Sequoia on 22 Dec. 2006 so it has been 8 months. Both Sequoia and ES&S have released statements in an attempt to make lemonade from the lemons served up by Dan Rather's Report. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

ED NOTE: ARTICLE UPDATED TO REFLECT SEQUOIA AND MICHELLE SHAFER'S SHAMELESSLY SCRUBBED, DOCTORED, BACKDATED DOCUMENT. SEE EXPLANATION MID-ARTICLE. - BF

This morning I woke up to an email from Michelle Shafer, Vice President of Communications and External Affairs for Sequoia Voting Systems. Shafer wanted to point out that I had misstated the facts in yesterday's "Daily Voting News" when I asked, "And what about the sale of Sequoia? Smartmatic has been looking for a buyer for Sequoia for over a year now."

Shafer pointed me to a Sequoia press release, from December 22, 2006, in which they say, "The company also today announced its intent to seek an acquirer for Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, a leading provider of voting technology in the United States that Smartmatic has owned since March 2005."

In other words, they've been seeking a buyer for 8 months, not a full year as I'd reported. I responded to let her know I'd be more than happy to issue a correction in today's DVN, as well note the error in the DVN posting here at The BRAD BLOG.

We are interested in being as factual as possible, and regret any error made, no matter how small. When we find one, we try to correct it immediately and transparently.

And, because our email discussion concerned being factual, I pointed out to Shafer that the press release she pointed me to had a number of wholly incorrect facts that she needed to clear up. Her press release from last December, incorrectly states:

She is flat out wrong. On a number of counts. Which I pointed out to her in my response. Her response to that was...we'll call it...a bit surprising...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It seems that Diebold tried to get out from under their voting machine division by selling it. Well, they have reported that there are no buyers so they are going to separate themselves from that division and give them more autonomy and their own board of directors and take a new name; DESI will now be PESI, Premier Election Solutions Inc. Are they really putting that division in a position where they can file for bankruptcy if necessary and the rest of the company will be insulated? And what about the sale of Sequoia? Smartmatic has been looking for a buyer for Sequoia for over a year now almost 8 months. Now that the Dan Rather Report has aired some of Sequoia's dirty laundry who is going to buy a company with that baggage and potential legal hassles?

CORRECTION 8/17/07: We had originally reported that Smartmatic has been seeking a buyer for Sequoia Voting Sytems for "over a year now". They have contacted us to let us know that their search has been ongoing, so far unsuccessfully, only since last December 22 --- eight months, instead of the year we reported. We regret the error.

All of the above stories, and many others today, are linked below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It appears that Advanced Voting Solutions (AVS), vendor for the WinVote DREs, may be in financial trouble. A report from PA, where WinVote is widely used, relates that AVS has failed to pay their bill for testing of their newest version of system. The testing lab has stopped testing and will not certify the system until they are paid. AVS is the same vendor who was just warned by the EAC for swapping out the motherboard in the new system without notifying either the test lab or the EAC. That notification is mandatory. If you have not seen the Dan Rather Report on voting issues the full program is now on-line. It is a powerful indictment of the vendors....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

Today our friends at VoterAction announced an action alert to ask the United State's Congress to take action to investigate "the increasing influence and control that private companies wage in the way we conduct our elections and to determine whether certain US voting systems companies have committed crimes under federal and state anti-fraud statutes which should be referred to the appropriate authorities for prosecution".

VoterAction is asking that you sign a petition to congress.

Their statement follows on the heels of evidence revealed in Dan Rather's stunning investigative report on "The Trouble with Touchscreens" (complete video now posted here) and charges that the report "raises serious questions as to whether US voting systems companies have engaged in commercial fraud by knowingly marketing defective products to jurisdictions throughout the country."

Their full statement can be read here in html or here in .pdf and is also posted in full below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The South Mississippi Sun Herald reports that election officials in Jackson Co are tired of having problems with their voter verified paper audit trail printers so they just want to remove them and sell them back to Diebold. One member of the election commission related that the printers get jammed up and chewed up and the machine quits. The commission considers the printer modules as being defective and unnecessary since the votes recorded on any machine can be printed out at the end of an election night. In other words, because Diebold makes a lousy printer to put on their lousy voting machines they should get rid of that printer and just keep the lousy machines. Also, today the EAC released a letter sent to ES&S accusing the vendor of not reporting that they are making their iVotronic DREs in the Philippines. ES&S must have forgotten about that....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

As we reported on Sunday, Dan Rather's investigation of the voting machine industry is causing a stir. Apparently the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) decided that something in the Rather report did not match up with what ES&S had reported to them.

The voting machine company failed to disclose that their equipment was being made in a sweatshop in the Philippines even though they are supposed to reveal all such information to the federal EAC. In a strange fit of responsible behavior, the EAC has sent them a letter of reprimand (letter is posted in full below). Though the notice amounts to little more than a friendly slap on the wrist.

Similarly, the EAC has sent a letter to voting machine company Advanced Voting Systems (AVS), for secretly replacing mother boards in their systems without certification or approval. That letter is also posted at the end of this article.

An interview with Rather, earlier this afternoon on CNN's Situation Room, is now posted at right. Rather's startling report will be airing beginning this evening at 8PM EDT and will air on HD Net over the next few days. It will also be on-line for those who cannot get HD Net. We'll try to provide links as soon as one becomes available. Our report from Sunday included a disturbing 12 minute preview version.

UPDATE FROM BRAD : Kim Zetter at WIRED adds a few details to this issue moments ago, including this interesting revelation of some ES&S sleight-of-hand to hide their Filipino sweatshop...

The full letters from the EAC can be found here [PDF]. A text version of both are found below...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today's news brings more complaints and whining from California election officials. Last week I questioned whether Diebold could have got word of problems with their software in Florida then made needed corrections then had the software inspected and certified for use all in less than two weeks. Today, the report from Florida State University was released....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

HD Net has announced the content of this Tuesday's "Dan Rather Reports": An hour-long investigative special report dedicated to the failures of touch-screen voting and the companies that make them. Horribly. Here's a piece of their recent media release, and a video preview is posted below...

This is on HD Net so not everyone is going to be able to see it live but there will surely be copies on-line a day or two after the episode airs, if not sooner.

In the startling preview clip (posted below) notice that the only test performed on the ES&S iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting machines by the people who manufacture the machines in the Philippines is a "shake test" to ensure there were no loose pieces left in the machines. These people who make $2.10 to $2.50 a day and work in what amounts to a sweat shop where cats, rats, and snakes were removed from the basement by the truckload.

And the American who was dispatched to deal with problems at the factory back in 2001 admits that the touch-screens failed and "bubbled" as far back as then. But what has been done about it since?

The machines made by ES&S may not have any screws loose, but the folks who think this is any way to run a democracy certainly do!

A preview clip of the first segment of Rather's report follows...

UPDATE 87/15/07: The complete video report is now posted here...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

This Tuesday, DAN RATHER REPORTS presents conclusive evidence of the failure of touch screen voting machines across the country. The episode, "The Trouble with Touch Screens," is an entire hour devoted to new information on this story. From scientists involved in testing the equipment to manufacturers in third world countries who shipped these defective voting machines to the United States, DAN RATHER REPORTS will present new information showing that these defective machines may have altered the outcome of multiple elections....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

As we reported on July 15, Ron Paul's supporters were concerned that Diebold touch-screen voting machines were going to be used in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll. Well, it turns out the concerns about touch-screens were misplaced, as the GOP chose paper-based Diebold optical-scan machines instead. But their fears of Diebold may well have been justified as two of their op-scan systems failed and delayed the reported results.

While GOP candidate Mitt Romney may have walked away with a winning edge in the Iowa Straw Poll, Diebold was true to form as their voting system failed to count ballots correctly. As the Des Moines Register is reporting two of Diebold's optical scanners failed and 1500 paper ballots had to be manually recounted by hand...

At least there were paper ballots that could be hand counted when the machines failed. Had the Republican's used Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines --- as millions of Americans are forced to do each Election Day --- there would have been nothing to go back to when the machines failed.

UPDATE: The Atlantic is reporting the number of ballots which had to be "re-run" as "about 4,500".

Either way, there were reportedly 14,203 total ballots cast. So going by the Des Moines Register's reported numbers, more than 10.5% of the ballots had to be recounted. If we go by The Atlantic's reported numbers, nearly 32% of the ballots in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll had to be recounted by hand.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

On July 27 the FSU SAIT Team released their report on their findings from their security inspection of the Diebold machines used in Florida; the same machines that Harri Hursti hacked in Leon Co and were also just purchased by Sarasota Co. On July 31 the Florida SoS Browning sent a letter to Diebold telling them that they must fix the problems identified by the SAIT report or their machines could not be used in the state. A deadline of Aug. 17 was given. On Aug. 10 the state announced that all software fixes had been made and the system was good for use in the state. This is a two week time span. How in the hell did Diebold fix the problems in the code and then the state inspect that code to ensure the repairs were made? In less than two weeks? ...