Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"Voice of the Voters" 1360AM OR on the Internet at Link or click from our website saveourvote.com; Wed. evenings at 8PM EST. Avi Rubin will be tomorrow evening's guest. / ""They erroneously assumed these machines are like computers," Bear said of the computer scientists and hackers who claim they've cracked voting-machine codes. "They are only plugged into the wall for power; they are not computers [and] they're not plugged into the Internet. A lot of these 'security experts' that have passed judgment don't have an appreciation for the environment we're operating in. They're saying these are how these things would operate in a computer/Internet world, but we're not in a computer/Internet voting scenario." According to Bear, before elections the machines are kept behind a locked door with a secure piece of tape covering the slot where the memory card is inserted." / And while David Bear is perfecting his stand-up act UConn has done a full study with a Diebold Optical-scan machine and the results are just as scathing as the Princeton study of the TS DRE."...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Yesterday the University of Connecticut released a report of the results of a study they did of the Diebold AccuVote Optical Scan voting system the state will be using in the future. This new report, commissioned by the Secretary of State, is as scathing as the recent Princeton Report accomplished on the Diebold TS Direct Recording Electronic machines.

In his blog, Johns-Hopkins University Computer Scientist Avi Rubin says:

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org

As Lou and Kitty look into the investigation by the US Treasury Department into the sale of Sequoia Voting Systems to Venezuelan nationals Lou summarizes and speaks for many; "The idea that we are at this stage with all of the problems that you've documented that have been demonstrated with these machines, the ties between the testing laboratories and the manufacturers, the fact that software is proprietary and that election officials wouldn't be in charge of a recount on these things, it's just mind-boggling."

The text-transcript of Monday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Voters in Ohio, as well as all other states, will have the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline manned and ready to provide assistance. The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that involves the private bar in providing legal services to address racial discrimination, and Proskauer Rose LLP, an international law firm with more than 700 lawyers in the United States and Europe, have joined forces with other law firms and voting rights groups as part of Election Protection - a program to protect the right of every eligible Ohio voter to cast a meaningful ballot and have that vote counted in the upcoming November 7 election. / Now Sequoia and Smartmatic say that they voluntarily submitted themselves to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) investigation. Quite frankly what does it matter whether an unreliable voting system is put out by a company owned, in part, by Chavez or another group of Venezuelans? The system is still just as unreliable. / Sequoia also has a problem with a new law suit in Nevada where a citizen activist is suing for the loss of her vote in 2004. / ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of the manufacturer of electronic voting systems used in Denver and Arapahoe County by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The federal inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corp., and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control over the firm's operations, officials and others familiar with the investigation said", according to the New York Times ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

"Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it's not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them on the spot --- essentially, to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual." These machines may be used 150 to 250 times on election day. And it seems the county expects them to "slip" out of calibration. Not a big issue because they have a "15 STEP PROCESS" to fix that condition??? / Informal discussions between Sequoia Voting Systems owner, Smartmatic, and the Treasury Dept. have now become a formal investigation, it seems. How much say does Hugo Chavez have in our elections? / In the laugh of the day officials in Lonoke Co Arkansas think they may be done counting votes and have the lights turned off by 9:30PM on election night. / Miller Co, Arkansas Election Administrator is resigning at the end of the year because ES&S representatives "are grossly incompetent, mean-spirited and can't spell"....

Blogged By John Gideon, 28 October 2006

Still over a week from election day and already the problems are piling up. Meanwhile the vendors and their shills are making excuses and attempting to sell the voting public a line of garbage. Among the shills is a federal agency, the Election Assistance Commission, that is supposed to assist the voter and, instead, has sent their chairman out on the road to defend the vendors.

In a blog posted yesterday, Brad said it well:

In a rebuttal to DeGregorios' opinion piece in the Tallahassee Democrat Avi Rubin, Johns-Hopkins Professor, computer scientist and author of "Brave New Ballot" had this to say in his blog:

In The Mean Time Across The Nation...

Blogged by John Gideon

The Chicago Tribune has reported this evening that someone has hacked into the DuPage Co. Illinois Election. Under a list of qualifications for voters someone had added a new requirement that a voter may not be a homosexual.

Once the county election office was notified of the attack they removed the newly added requirement and took actions they thought would stop any further attacks. However, later on Thursday or sometime this morning another requirement was added that proclaimed, "Your grandfather must have voted."

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Today the Associated Press reported that 11 people who worked for a firm hired by the Republican Party were indicted for voter fraud. The workers were paid as much as $10 per Republican registration so they signed-up anyone they could and changed their party affiliation to Republican.

...and they report:

In a truly brilliant move the chairman of the Orange County Democrat Committee leaked the news of the indictments stealing the thunder from Secretary of State McPherson who wanted to wait until Monday to have a press conference. Reporters attempted to contact the Secretary but calls were not returned.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

The West Virginia SoS is recommending to Kanawha Co. that they run all paper ballots twice to ensure the machines are counting accurately. The county is refusing to take that step which will ensure accuracy of the vote count. / Georgia will be using ExpressPoll (e-poll books) at the polls this year. Are they the same as those that failed in Maryland or do they have the modifications that were required in Maryland but never federally certified? / "The equipment has been tested by independent agencies and federal agencies," said Mark Radke, the director of marketing for Diebold, the company that makes the machines. [Independent = we pay them to do the testing and test what we tell them to test.][No federal agency does any testing] / ES&S machines are failing in early voting in Garland and Sebastian Co.s Arkansas ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org

In what may be the most revealing of all of the "Democracy At Risk" series Lou and Kitty discuss the broken system of certifying electronic voting systems for use by the voter. Lou correctly points out that the system represents a conflict of interest between the manufacturers and the Independent Test Authorities (ITA) who are paid by the manufacturers to test and approve the manufacturers products.

The text-transcript of Thursday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Lou Dobbs has taped a one-hour "Democracy At Risk" special to be aired at various times on CNN this coming Sunday. Be sure to tune in. / The Washington Post has found that new system boards were installed in Diebold voting machines used in Maryland. These modifications were made in several thousand machines in 2005. The modification was meant to fix a problem with touch-screen freezes. The WaPo investigation seems to reveal that the modification was made without the knowledge of State Board of Elections members. / The cutoff of names by Hart machines in Texas is frustrating for election officials. "I don't like it. We've been asking the vendor to address this issue for a couple of years now," Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said. The names are cut off because of the size of the letters onscreen, which "causes longer names to truncate," Hart InterCivic Vice President Phillip Braithwaite said. / "It's really terrible," said Robert J. Antonetti Sr., elections administrator in Prince George's Co Maryland about the late delivery of paper ballots by Diebold. "Time is running out. It's going to deny people the right to vote." I ask again; is Diebold doing to Maryland what they did to Kevin Shelley and Bruce Funk and attempted to do to Ion Sancho?...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org

Last night Kitty, sans Lou who is in Texas, reported on election judge training in the state of Maryland. Taking place at the University of Maryland, all election judges, whether experienced or not, are subject to the new training. However, with elections less than two weeks away, officials are questioning the preparedness of the volunteer poll workers who must learn the new Diebold e-voting system. Let's hope Diebold will not be able to blame all of their failures on the voter and the poll workers. (That's probably too much to wish for though)

The text-transcript of Wednesday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

And so it begins! Today the Washington Post has revealed, in a superbly written and investigated story, that Diebold secretly made modifications to thousands of their voting machines in Maryland and that everyone involved seems to have forgotten to tell the State Board of Elections about it.

It seems that after the state bought machines in 2002 they began experiencing intermittent and wide-spread screen freezes. Finally in 2005 Diebold installed all new systems boards in all 4,700 machines.

And, oh by the way, they forgot to tell the State Board of Elections that they had done anything. The State Elections Administrator, Linda Lamone, and her staff seem to have known but members of the SBOE seem to have been left out of the discussion.

UPDATE FROM BRAD: This is a very detailed story with a duplicitous cast of characters and it is very well investigated and told. Kudos to WaPo's Cameron W. Barr for this coverage! We look forward to seeing much more of it!

Also see Baltimore Sun's coverage which offers still more damning details about the duplicity of both Diebold (who still has the MD contract and hasn't yet been sued) and the MD State Board of Elections as headed by the Democratic Diebold-apologist Linda Lamone (who still has a job, remarkably enough.)

UPDATE FROM JOHN 10/26 4:45am PT: A coalition of candidates in Maryland has now asked that only paper ballots be used in the upcoming election. The coalition, with candidates for different offices and representing different political parties, has joined together under the banner of the non-partisan Candidates Alliance for Recountable Elections (CARE). A media release explains their stance on this subject and is below...

NOTE: The coverage of the Hart Intercivic screen display problems in Virginia having been found now in other states such as Texas and California has been moved to it's own item here....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

As reported by The BRAD BLOG on Tuesday, Hart Intercivic machines being used in Virginia are cutting off the names of candidates when they appear on the review screen. Thus James H. "Jim" Webb shows as James H. "Jim" on the screen.

Well, when a problem is found in one place it is going to be found elsewhere too. Now counties in Texas are reporting the same problem according to the Austin American-Statesman.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 mandates that a voting machine must provide the voter with an ability to review their vote before they finalize the process. These machines may be in violation of that law but that can be left to the attorneys. It might be nice if those attorneys showed up now, instead of after the election when it'll be too late.