Guest Blogged by John Gideon

The UK's SC News reported today that Princeton's Professor Felten discovered that the key to gain entry to the memory card slot on the Diebold AccuVote TS is the same key that you may have to open your desk drawer, filing cabinet or even a hotel mini-bar [emphasis added]:

Avi Rubin, Johns-Hopkins University Professor and computer scientist, points out in his blog this morning:

So we now have a key that can be obtained from nearly anywhere and a "secret" password [1111] that everyone knows, and Diebold's David Bear says if proper access controls are maintained at the polling place there should be no problems. Perhaps Bear is talking about someone looking over the voter's shoulder to ensure they don't spend two minutes hacking into the machine?

All of this comes on the heels of the report from Princeton University, thanks to The BRAD BLOG, that was first reported here.

As well, it comes on the heels of the challenge to the Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House election in June in San Diego when these Diebold voting machines were sent home overnight --- in violation of both state and federal law --- for "sleepovers" with poll workers for days and weeks prior to the election. Here's a video that we missed at the time: Poll workers, on May 30th, taking home their pre-programmed, election-ready Diebold voting machines to store in their houses and cars 7 days prior to the June 6th election!

Any of them could easily have opened the "secure" systems with a mini-bar key, or, as the Princeton folks demonstrated on FOX "News" last week, they could have picked the lock themselves in 10 seconds. Of course, as we now know, it would have taken them less than a minute thereafter to insert a vote-flipping virus on the machines which could then affect every other machine used in the race.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

The fallout from the 'train wreck' in Maryland this week will not go away for awhile I'm afraid. There will surely be more calls for firings, and there should be. Heads should definitely roll but will the real people who are responsible be the ones to lose their jobs or will some underling suffer for the mistakes of their bosses? Will the state learn anything or will they just have an investigation and blame the problems all on poll workers and the voters? They hired the Election Center to do an investigation so there is no way Diebold will share any fault in this. Even the Washington Post has taken to disinformation and obfuscation in their reporting this weekend....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

On Friday's (Sept. 15) show Lou and Kitty reported on the new Princeton University study and the lawsuit in Colorado to stop the use of e-voting machines. The BRAD BLOG reported on their inside access to the Princeton study earlier this week.

The director of the Princeton study, Ed Felten, was also interviewed live on CNN's American Morning where he demonstrated the hack. FOX News also had him as well, and we'll have that video in full shortly.

UPDATES: The Fox "News" video is now available here. Lou Dobb's version of the virus hack is here:

A text-transcript of a shorter version of the report from Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Diebold has now admitted that Maryland was the first state to use new 'e-poll books' and that they had no reasons yet why the machines were crashing throughout the day (three machines over 40 times in one polling place). Of course their first response is that the problem was all the poll workers and how they set-up the equipment. / Rhode Island conducted a state-wide recount for one race with the results being exactly the same as the original count. Of course, they just re-ran the memory and the recount was complete in 10 minutes. / The White House has named a new EAC Commissioner to replace Paul DeGregorio. The new nominee clearly has no qualifications for the job and her nomination actually violates the Help America Vote Act of 2002....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Milwaukee officials are counting every ballot by hand in order to find out how many ballots were really cast in Tuesday's election. They presently report 35,000 more ballots counted than cast. There is presently no plan to count any races. / The gentleman who "certifies" voting systems for the state of Colorado had to admit in court documents that he is not an 'expert'. He joins the growing list of non-experts who make crucial decisions on voting systems; people like Paul Craft, Brit Williams, Doug Lewis, and the EAC commissioners. / Tens of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots are still to be counted next week in Montgomery Co. Maryland / E-Poll books used in Maryland seem to have been a huge problem. Voters came to the polls to vote only to be told they had already voted according to the machines ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Just as important as the voting machine issue is the issue of voter suppression. Why is it alright for legal voters to not be given a chance to use their right to vote? Why is it alright for states to overly restrict voter registration drives? Why is it alright to use ballots that are confusing and lack complete instructions? Today a US House committee met, after very little notice, to mark-up a bill that would keep hundreds of thousands of elderly, minorities and poor voters from being able to vote in Nov. This bill, HR-4484, would require every voter in the US to re-register to vote and to prove they are citizens and all before this November. This bill was replaced with another bill that will give us all another year but the substitute bill is even more restrictive in nature. Why is this alright? / On Wednesday EFF filed a brief with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to reject a request to dismiss an EFF lawsuit against the Ohio secretary of state and governor. The suit alleges the defendants abdicated their responsibilities to ensure Ohio residents had a right to vote. / Montgomery Co. Maryland is hiring the Election Center to investigate their failures. Sigh!!...

Blogged by John Gideon

Today the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that vote totals in three-quarters of the cities 314 wards are suspect.

The paper reports:

The state is blamming the bogus vote totals on programming problems but they seem to be only concerned with the total number of ballots reported and not the total number of votes given to any particular candidate.

Apparently this is nothing new for the city and county of Milwaukee as they have been in trouble with the Wisconsin state legislature for not following state canvassing statues for over 5 years.

Maybe this time the city and county will do the right thing and figure out what the problem is finally. It's past due that they do something.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Tonight Lou reported on the complete failure of the Maryland primary. Thousands of voters were forced to vote on 'provisional' ballots instead of the state's vaunted Diebold Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines. At least those voters have a paper trail of their votes, but will they actually be counted? What a failure and it should all be laid at the feet of state Director of Elections Linda Lamone and Governor Ehrlich who both share responsibility for this failure.

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

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE) has just announced that a Sarasota County Judge has found in their favor and against the county voting officials and the Florida Secretary of State.

SAFE had been proposing a ballot initiative that would require voter verified paper ballots and independent random audits of election results in Sarasota County. The County Commissioner chose to go to court instead of allowing the legal petition to move forward.

The press release from SAFE says:

This is a big announcement from a hard-working group of activists who still have an uphill battle to force their county to use a voter verified, auditable voting system.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Today the Brennan Center released another report. This report congratulates Congress for implementing the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and taking us forward. However, the executive director said, "the way it is being implemented by many states, combined with new underhanded efforts to crack down on voter registration and participation, could move the country backward. We see a real problem coming up in November in the elections." / Today, also, Princeton University scientists released a report on the vulnerabilities of the Diebold TS voting system. This is the first time that hardware, firmware, and software have been investigated at the same time and the vulnerabilities are staggering. / Unbelievably Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams said Tuesday that he hopes the statewide adoption of electronic ballots will boost voting among young Texans and make elections more secure. Why would anyone think elections are more secure after witnessing what happened in Maryland yesterday? / Lancaster Co. Pennsylvania commissioners just purchased 92 additional eSlate DREs. Meanwhile the county elections director is asking all voters to use the paper ballots and eScans. It seems that someone has a lack of confidence in DREs. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Since when is "it's close enough" a good response when talking about our elections? Since when is "the problems identified won't change the results so we are going to ignore the problems" a good response when talking about our elections? Since when is every vote counts NOT a good response? / The Arizona SoS drug her feet and now a state law that requires a hand recount of ballots to check the machines won't be done on today's election unless the DoJ can approve the audit by tomorrow evening / Maryland seems to have been a complete 'Train Wreck' of an election. The problems will all be blamed on human error and people like Linda Lamone will do all they can to sweep the problems under the carpet. Human error was a large part of the problem and the blame should start at the top. ...

Blogged by John Gideon

This morning voters in much of Maryland awoke with plans to go to the polls early and then head off to a normal day. Unfortunately when they got to their polling places they only found locked doors.

As reported by the Baltimore Sun many poll workers did not show up for work this morning and when they did they many had no idea how to operate new voting technology called "e-poll books" which are a necessary part of the voting process in Maryland and many other Diebold states. The workers were not trained to use that technology because Diebold did not provide the technology to the state until it was too late to properly train the pollworkers.

According to the Sun...

Not unusual? What an unbelievable statement to make when talking about elections. It's his job as the president of the Board of Elections to ensure that every poll worker is trained and that no equipment is new to them. What should be unusual is that Mr. Jones keep his job.

And this is not the whole story. Added to a lack of trained poll workers to open the polls and operate the equipment we also learn that when the supplies were sent out to the polls in Montgomery County someone forgot to include the smart cards. These are the cards that have the ballot definition and the machines will not work without them.

The Sun says:

The Washington Post is reporting that voters in Montgomery County are being given provisional ballots by poll workers until the smart cards are received. Unfortunately many polling sites ran out of provisional ballots which kept voters from voting until workers could scramble to get copies made. Even more unfortunate is the fact that these provisional ballots require inspection before they can be counted. The county should have required 'emergency ballots' to be used. These ballots would just be handled as if they were received in the mail as absentee ballots.

As this is being written candidates and political parties are beginning to ask that the polls be kept open longer this evening to make up for the late start this morning. We are also getting reports that local radio and TV station switchboards are being filled with complaints from voters who have had problems this morning. The Baltimore Sun has three people taking handling a constant flood of calls from voters with complaints.

Added to all of this is information that Diebold and the state are using technicians ("rovers") who were just hired from a technical services company, PDS Technical Services, that advertised for help on Monster.com and the only technical qualification for these people who were to provide technical oversight is that they have "some high school course work".

This post will be updated throughout the day as more information comes out.

UPDATE More information from the "Train Wreck":
Poll workers arrived at work this morning to face new "E Poll Books" which they had never seen before and on which they had gotten only a minimum of training. This technology ties in with the state's new voter registration data base. Due to these two issues some voters are arriving for the first time at the polls only to be told that they had 'already voted'.

Also being reported are "Candidate selections missing from review screens, machine crashes requiring multiple re-boots, lots of precincts running out of the paper ballot back-ups, and battery problems.

UPDATED LATE THIS AFTERNOON Fox News reports that a judge has found that polls can stay open for an extra hour this evening. This will now keep the polls open until 9PM tonight. However, the county says that only paper ballots can be used during that time.

This leads to a concern about the handling of the paper ballots that many, many voters have been forced to use. Historically provisional ballots have not always been counted and handling of those ballots takes a bit more work in that each voter who cast a provisional ballot must be checked to ensure they are truly eligible to vote. Now officials are concerned that these thousands of ballots cast today due to failures in the election administration process and with technology will be handled differently than normal ballots and may not be counted at all.

According to Fox:

It will be a surprise if there are not more than one lawsuits after this debacle is done.

Also an issue is that when polling places ran out of ballots they made copies of the ballots. However, because the ballot was bigger than a normal sheet of copy paper the printed ballots were pages long. Are these new ballots legal and will they be counted? Only time will tell.

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Texas' voter database, required by federal law to be in effect on 1 Jan. 2006 will not be ready this year and the state's best estimate is now 1 Jan. 2007. / VVPAT problems? Here's a good solution from Ken Blackwell's office. If the VVPAT printer jams, runs out of paper or otherwise destroys the ballot; just run a new tape from the memory card and use that. It doesn't matter what state law says or that it's not 'voter verified'. / Tomorrow we have primary elections in Arizona, Delaware, Washington DC, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. ...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Voters with disabilities are being asked to call for an appointment to vote using the new, accessible machines in some New York counties. "Scheduling in advance allows boards to arrange transportation and minimize waiting periods for the ballot-marking devices, which can take up to an hour to use, elections officials say." Advocacy groups say this puts up unnecessary barriers for those voters. / Florida counties have used new voting machines for a couple years now but they still seem to be stumped on how to make the system work properly....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Sequoia Voting has been in a media blitz lately. Today it is a media release announcing a demonstration of their full-screen Advantage DRE in New York. Unfortunately they are still not telling the truth about their accessibility features which actually force anyone who uses them to vote as if they were blind which actually makes voting much more difficult or impossible for voters who have mobility or cognitive disabilities. / Berkeley Co. West Virginia has already identified that they don't have enough DREs to put in their polling places but it is going to cost them $480,000 to purchase enough and they can't afford them if they had gone with optical-scan they would only need to buy more pencils / ES&S has accepted blame for all of their problems in the Arkansas primary election....