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Latest Featured Reports | Sunday, October 6, 2024
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Add'l defendants include Trump, Jr., OH A.G. Yost, OH U.S. Sen. candidate Moreno, LA Rep. Higgins...
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THIS WEEK: Creepers, Cowards and Conmen! (And they're all the same guy!)... In our latest collection of the week's creepiest toons...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

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Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
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His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
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The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

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Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


Guest Blogger Jeeni Criscenzo Calls on Every Candidate to 'Voice their Objection to this Glaring Breach of Security!'
The Democratic U.S. House (CA-49) Nominee on Problems Seen in the Recent SD County Election, Proposed Short-Term Solutions, Says Every Voter 'Should be Outraged'...
By Jeeni Criscenzo on 6/19/2006 7:35am PT  

Guest Blogged by Jeeni Criscenzo

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jeeni Criscenzo is now the Democratic nominee running against incumbent Republican Rep. Darryl Issa for the U.S. House seat in California's 49th congressional district. In her guest blog below, she speaks about some of the horrendous outrages and other disastrous election administration she witnessed in San Diego County's Election on June 6th. She was a primary candidate that day, the same day as the now-questionable Busby/Bilbray race which was run on easily-hacked Diebold voting machines sent home overnight with poll workers prior to the election. Those "sleepovers" are in direct contravention of both state and federal laws and regulations implimented specifically in regard to Diebold voting systems. Thus, ignoring those rules and laws rendering them illegal for use in that election.

Criscenzo's district is split across both San Diego County and Riverside County (who also have their own share of problems with their County Registrar of Voters), so her election was run on the same presumed-corrupted machines as those used in the Busby/Bilbray race.

I spoke with her at some length last night, and I'm happy to see that, unlike so many Democratic candidates --- including Busby --- she is now more than willing to stand up and raise hell about these very clear outrages. While I have several concerns about her short-term suggested solution of using Absentee Ballots to fight back against the rise of the machines, her perspective is a unique one which deserves to be heard. She makes many points about which I wholeheartedly agree. I'll let you (and her) discuss any concerns in comments here.

No matter the nuanced quibbles, I'd urge you to support candidates like Criscenzo who are willing to speak out loudly and clearly about what the hell is going on here as we all work to find possible solutions to the ongoing and rapid crumbling of our current electoral system. Her campaign website, for more info or to send your support, is right here. --- BF

=============

Want Voting Integrity - Just Mail It!
by Jeeni Criscenzo

There has been a lot of talk since the California elections last week about the integrity of the vote count, particularly in the run-off election in the 50th District between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray. It's not surprising that Busby's supporters are dubious of the results: polls showed Busby ahead by 3 to 7 points in the days before the election. An apparent Bilbray win is explained away as the result of a last minute blunder by Busby. If you plan to fix an election where the candidate you want to win is behind in the polls, you need to create a reason for the sudden change on election day, and there it was - Voila! - a last minute slip-of-the-tongue blasted throughout the country by the lock-step right-wing media.

As a candidate who won by a landslide (I was unopposed for the Democratic nomination for Congress, CA District 49), I'm in the fortunate position of being able to look into the election process in San Diego without being called a sore loser.

I made some troubling discoveries on Election Day when I visited 37 precincts in Oceanside as a roving poll monitor (or as Carol Hilton, my friend and monitoring partner, dubbed us --- "Poll Cats"). So last Friday, I visited the Registrar of Voters office to ask questions and to see for myself how the count was being handled....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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The Fox 'News' Spin Machine Gets To Work...
HuffPo Presentation 'Balances' the Fox/RNC Propoganda, Helps Spreads the Real Story Instead!
By Brad Friedman on 6/17/2006 3:51pm PT  

The Fox 'News' Republican Spin Machine was up bright and early on the day following the Busby/Bilbray election (which was conducted on illegal/decertified voting machines) to ensure the predictable party line was heard loud and clear. No matter whether they had any actual facts to bear out their reporting.

BRAD BLOG commenter, "Stop_George" has put together a great Flash Presentation for Huffington Posts's "Contagious Festival" to help set the record straight.

Please watch it, and then use the "Send to Friends!" link at the bottom of the page to spread the word and help the presentation climb up the festival rankings so thousands of more Americans will see it and learn what went on here!

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Democracy: Works Great When You Use it! Use it or Lose It!
By Brad Friedman on 6/17/2006 2:22pm PT  

Join PDA, The BRAD BLOG, Tribune Media's Bob Koehler, VelvetRevolution.us (and now, CA Election Protection Network!) and thousands of Americans so far, in declaring NO CONFIDENCE in the reported results of the Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House of Representative run-off election last week in California's 50th congressional district!

See how poll workers taking the voting machines home for overnights days before the election rendered them uncertifed and illegal for use by both State and Federal standards, leaving the announced results wholly unverifiable at this time.

Take your democracy back! Declare "No Confidence!" Sign the VR petition...

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Computer Veteran Writes: 'The potential abuse in electronic voting systems in enormous'
Says 'Voters must have confidence in outcome of elections'
By Brad Friedman on 6/17/2006 2:05pm PT  

From today's Indianapolis Star...

Electronic voting systems have enormous potential for abuse

I've been building computers since 1977. The potential abuse in electronic vote systems is enormous. You have to be able to trust the voting systems or voter trust will evaporate.

It has come to my attention that the Busby-Bilbray special election in CA-50 on June 6 was conducted on Diebold voting machines, many if not all of which were left unsecured in the homes, cars and offices of poll workers in the weeks prior to the election. Diebold touch screen and optical scan machines have been proven by California's secretary of state to be unreliable in the field and vulnerable to hacking in unsecure environments. Because improper procedures were used in this election, no one has proof that these machines were not subject to memory card switches or other easy tampering techniques such as manipulating the counters.

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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By Brad Friedman on 6/16/2006 8:04am PT  

PBS' News Hour with Jim Leher covered electronic voting as it occurred in last week's California primary. Suffice to say, while the report was "balanced" strongly towards a pro e-voting position, there were a number of points worth noting, and which underscore the points I've been making re: the illegalities in the Busby/Bilbray election fiasco.

======
UPDATE: Thanks to David Edwards, the video of the report is now available here: Video in Streaming Flash format...
======

1) Virtually every shot of a Diebold touch-screen voting machine shown in use on Election Day last week in the story, clearly reveals the (nearly-inexplicably) opaque plastic door designed into these systems as being closed over the view window of the so-called "Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail" (VVPAT) printer --- begging the question of how many voters actually bothered to verify their so-called "paper trail" when using these machines.

2) One long-time poll worker is asked what he's seen so far this year with the new voting machines. "Confusion," he replies. Then he goes on to report that voters are supposed to confirm their choices on the screen instead of via the "paper trail"...

SPENCER MICHELS: Don LeBlanc manned the polls in Stockton.

Will they get to look at the paper trail to see if they've voted correctly?

DON LEBLANC: Well, you look on the computer screen.

SPENCER MICHELS: But not the paper itself?

DON LEBLANC: No, that's for the computer --- that's for the people at the office.

SPENCER MICHELS: All right.

3) Computer Scientist David Jefferson from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who examined the systems for CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson, in light of the recent Utah analysis of Diebold touch-screen systems revealing they could be hacked with two minutes of physical access and no password necessary says (Francine Busby campaign, please take note!)...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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Website Statement, Email to 60k Members Calls on Officials to Hold Manual Hand Count of All Paper Ballots and 'Paper Trails' due to Illegal, Unsecure Use of Diebold Voting Machines in Important National Contest!
By Brad Friedman on 6/15/2006 2:24pm PT  

Joining a growing drumbeat of individuals and organizations, including The BRAD BLOG, Tribune Media's Bob Koehler and VelvetRevolution.us, the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) has just issued a declaration of "No Confidence" in the reported results of the Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House of Representative run-off election last week in California's 50th congressional district!

We are told that other organizations will likely be issuing similar statements and declarations on this matter soon.

TO REVIEW: The election was run on highly hackable Diebold voting machines that were sent home overnight and unsecurely with poll workers for days prior to the election which rendered the machines both illegal and uncertified for use in the election under both federal and state laws, requirements and statutes. The GOP has since rushed to swear-in Bilbray before the votes were counted, or the election even certified by the state of California.

PDA's strongly worded declaration of "No Confidence" posted on their website and is currently being emailed to all of their 60,000+ national members, urging the public to sign VelvetRevolution's Petition demanding a manual hand count of the ballots.

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Asks 'How Could This Be Allowed to Happen?'
By Brad Friedman on 6/15/2006 12:43pm PT  

Emily Messner, a blogger at WaPo, has picked up on what's been going on in the Busby/Bilbray election fiasco and asks "How could this be allowed to happen?"

She explains why sending home Diebold voting machines with poll workers, overnight and unsecured for days, is outrageous (and, as we reported yesterday, also illegal) underscoring the point with this graf from NEWSWEEK's Steven Levy just a week or two ago:

It requires only a few minutes of pre-election access to a Diebold machine to open the machine and insert a PC card that, if it contained malicious code, could reprogram the machine to give control to the violator. The machine could go dead on Election Day or throw votes to the wrong candidate. Worse, it's even possible for such ballot-tampering software to trick authorized technicians into thinking that everything is working fine, an illusion you couldn't pull off with pre-electronic systems.

She forgot to give us credit for breaking and continuing to cover the story. But we're not really looking for credit, we're just looking for some democracy.

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Begins Petition Drive for Manual Hand Count of Paper Ballots and 'Paper Trails'!
By Brad Friedman on 6/15/2006 7:30am PT  

VelvetRevolution.us declares 'No Confidence' in the reported results of the Busby/Bilbray Election. Here's why.

Sign the VR petition demanding a manual hand count of paper ballots and paper trails to assure the election was tabulated correctly even though it was carried out on uncertified Diebold voting machines in contravention of state and federal law.

Election reform starts here. It's up to you now to spread the word!

(DISCLOSURE: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us)

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On California Elections Officials: 'Democracy is in the Hands of People Who Regard it as More Trouble Than It’s Worth'
By Brad Friedman on 6/14/2006 5:59pm PT  

Tribune Media Services columnist, Robert Koehler, has declared 'No Confidence' in the recent Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House election about which we've been reporting extensively on here at The BRAD BLOG over the past week.

In his latest column, online today, in papers tomorrow, Koehler discusses "democracy extremists" such as yours truly (who he refers to as "democracy maven Brad Friedman" so how could we not like him?) and the mess of an election held last week in San Diego where the world's most hackable voting machines --- Diebold's --- were sent home for overnight with poll workers in the weeks preceding the election.

The sleepovers, Koehler confirms, are in direct violation of the CA Sec. of State, Bruce McPherson's own recent security mitigation procedures for use of Diebold systems, apparently violating their certification for use in last week's election, as we reported in detail earlier today.

Koehler's as appalled as we are and writes in his tremendous column (please read the whole thing!):

A spokesman at [San Diego County Registrar Mikel] Haas’ office subsequently confirmed the “sleepover” (as Friedman put it). And another spokesman, at McPherson’s office, who took the better part of two days to return my calls, refused to answer a simple, point-blank question: Were chain-of-custody requirements violated in San Diego County? Instead, she e-mailed me a copy of the secretary of state’s certification process, which seemed to confirm that indeed they were. Further calls to McPherson’s office have not been returned.
...
I don’t know whether the secretary of state’s allegiance is to partisan politics or just a quick count. But like others who have looked on appalled at the procedural sloppiness of this election, I have no confidence in Bilbray’s 4,732-vote “victory” over Busby. Worse, I fear that democracy in the electronic era is in the hands of people who regard it as more trouble than it’s worth.
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San Diego County Registrar Admits to Security Lapses Which Would Nullify Legal Use of Systems According to Both State and Federal Requirements, Provisions!
Registrar of Voters Not Concerned, Says Poll Workers would 'have to want to commit a felony, which knocks out most of our poll workers'
By Brad Friedman on 6/14/2006 3:11pm PT  

The electronic Diebold voting systems used in the special run-off election last week for California's 50th U.S. House district were effectively 'decertified' and invalidated for use in the election after massive security breaches in the storage of those systems were sanctioned by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, The BRAD BLOG can now conclude.

Based on the review of several different very specific state and federal requirements, laws and provisions, the unsecured overnight storage of Diebold voting machines and their memory cards in poll workers houses, cars and garages in the days and weeks prior to the closely watched election between Republican Brian Bilbray and Democrat Francine Busby violated several federal and state provisions which, if not followed, would revoke the certification of use for the voting systems in any California election.

In the wake of discussions yesterday with SD County Registrar Mikel Haas, who admitted to The BRAD BLOG that storage in poll workers' cars could not be considered secure, it has now become clear that several violations of certified provisions of use for Diebold voting machines --- which have been found and confirmed in the past several months to be highly tamperable by dozens of methods and by the company's own admissions --- occurred in last week's race...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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Says Sending Hackable Diebold Voting Machines Home With Pollworkers an 'Egregious Violation of Chain-of-Custody Precautions'
By Brad Friedman on 6/14/2006 6:45am PT  

Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy for VoteTrustUSA calls the Busby/Bilbray election into doubt in his article yesterday, headlined, "Vendor Failures and Lax Security Procedures Call Election Results Into Question In States Across The Country":

...In the most closely-watched election in the nation last week – the special election to fill Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunnigham’s vacant US House seat representing California’s 50th District – volunteer pollworkers were allowed to take Diebold voting machines home as much as two weeks before the election. That’s right – in spite of new "security procedures" issued by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson when he “conditionally” re-certified Diebold’s equipment for use in the state, these machines had “sleepovers” in pollworkers’ garages. Given this egregious violation of chain-of-custody precautions, its no wonder that the accuracy of the election has been called into question.

The fact that the official results are “plausible” in California’s special election is beside the point. In fact, if the corrupted results had been “plausible” in Pottawattamie County, there would have been no scrutiny and losing candidates would have been elected. After a publicly observed hand count of the ballots, voters can be reasonably confident in the results of elections in Pottawattmie County. Without a similar hand count of the California special election, voters have no reason to believe the official results are accurate.

Election officials should be held accountable for the voting technology they have advocated.
...
Having used millions in taxpayer dollars to buy unverifiable, error-prone equipment to count the votes in our elections from their friends at ES&S, Diebold, Sequoia, and Hart Intercivic, the burden is on the election officials to prove that those votes were counted correctly.

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Officials Confirm: Tainted Election Results Still Features Thousands of Uncounted Ballots, Unofficial Numbers, No Winner has Been Certified!
Now Why Would The Republicans Do That?
By Brad Friedman on 6/13/2006 4:59pm PT  

In light of our recent reports that California's special run-off election to fill the seat of disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in the 50th congressional was carried out on voting machines tainted by massive security breaches --- having been sent home with poll workers in the weeks prior to the election in violation of several state and federal directives --- Republicans have rushed to swear in the "winner" Brian Bilbray in Washington D.C. this morning, despite the election results being unverified, ballots still being counted and the "winner" not even certified in the state.

The Associated Press, who ran a photo today of a "mock swearing-in ceremony" in House Speaker Dennis Haster's office, also ran a story, widely carried unquestioningly around the country, describing Bilbray's official first day in the U.S. House, as if the election results had been legitimized. They haven't been.

"Bilbray sworn in to replace Rep. Cunningham," says the headline accompanying a story written by AP's Erica Warner and picked up widely. The story gives no indication that the questionable results of the election have yet to be certified by the state of California.

AP's coverage has been published widely today by, amongst scores of others, USA Today and Washington Post.

And yet, four sources in the CA-50's San Diego County Registrar of Voters office, including the Registrar himself, Michael Haas, along with two officials in the CA Secretary of State's office have confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that there are thousands of votes still be counted in the closely watched race, which has yet to be officially certified by either the county or the state...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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Busby States Confidence in Machine Counted Results, Ignores Fact that Hackable Voting Machines Were Sent Home with Poll Workers Prior to Election and Thus are to be Considered Contaminated Until a Full Manual Hand Count Can Verify, Validate Reported Results
Confirms She Could Still Be Certified as Winner Despite Previous 'Concession'
By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2006 10:32pm PT  

I've now heard from several high-level folks in the DNC's Voting Rights Institute who have expressed concern about the situation in the CA-50 race. I've been told they will be having more meetings to discuss the matter tomorrow, and will likely be contacting me soon for further information and/or details about the matter. They seemed to be very concerned about the information I've given them and as previously reported on the matter here at The BRAD BLOG.

I can only hope they do a better job paying attention to this, and the larger matter at stake here, than they did with their report supposedly looking into the problems with the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio. In that report, they stated they found "no evidence of fraud." Though when I drilled the now-former VRI Executive Director, Vincenty Frye about whether or not they actually investigated the many reports of fraud in that election and its recount, he admitted --- on air [MP3] --- that they did not.

In the meantime, it seems Francine Busby's campaign (who has still failed to return any of my calls) is now replying via Email to those who have questioned her position on the matter, and whether or not she plans to demand a 100% manual hand count of all the paper ballots and "paper trails" in the race now that it's been indisputedly shown that the secure chain of custody for the voting machines was irreparably violated when San Diego County officials sent the world's most easily-hacked voting machines home with poll workers days and weeks prior to last Tuesday's important special election run-off for the U.S. House seat vacated by the disgraced Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Her emailed statement, as forwarded by Dr. Mike Byron --- a friend of Busby's and the 2004 Democratic nominee for the U.S. House in CA's 49th congressional district --- was posted earlier today in this BRAD BLOG comment. The statement illustrates a number of troubling issues. In particular, that Busby doesn't yet seem to have a grasp on what the actual concerns are about the tainted results, as currently reported, in her own election...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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Big Eddie Begins to Get It...
By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2006 4:45pm PT  

I was tipped off that callers to The Ed Schultz Show were misreporting my coverage of the tainted results as reported by the San Diego County Registrar from the Busby/Bilbray U.S. House special election in California's 50th congressional district last week. (All BRAD BLOG stories on the topic here.)

I was able to get through to Schultz' producer (thanks, Homey!) who was able to get me on the air with Big Ed to straighten out the record after a few minutes explaining it to Ed off air. After understanding what the hell is going on here, Schultz --- who has previously declined to deal with E-Voting issues in large part --- seemed to be ticked off when he learned that security for the Diebold voting machines used in the election was irreparably breached by sending the machines home with poll workers, in violation of California guidelines, prior to the very close and very important election.

He's called for an explanation from Schwarzenegger and wonders if Sen. Barbara Boxer has yet rung in on this (she hasn't, as far as we know --- though we have heard that there's been quite a bit of buzz today "inside" the DNC on the whole matter...More on that later if we're able to get confirmable, and therefore publishable, specifics.)

You can listen to the Schultz segment in full (about 13 minutes) here:

-- Brad discussing Busby/Bilbray on The Ed Schultz Show [MP3]...

P.S. Lou Dobbs just covered the issue of Electronic Vote Fraud concerns for the 6th straight day. We'll try and get up the video, or at least a transcript of today's report later tonight.

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Emery County's Bruce Funk is Stunned by San Diego County Procedures Allowing Diebold Voting Machines to be Sent Home with Poll Workers Prior to last Tuesday's Special Run-off Election for the U.S. House
23-Year County Clerk Who Allowed a Security Analysis Uncovering the Most Alarming Diebold Vulnerability to Date Sends a Letter to The BRAD BLOG...
By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2006 1:32pm PT  

Bruce Funk, the 23-year Emery County, Utah county clerk who allowed computer security experts Harris Hursti and Security Innovation to examine the Diebold AccuVote TSx voting systems forced on him by the state last March --- which led to the discovery of a massive security vulnerability in all Diebold touch-screen systems, as originally broken by The BRAD BLOG, and subsequently followed up by New York Times, NEWSWEEK, NPR and many other MSM outlets --- writes in with his concerns about the results of last week's special election in San Diego between Francine Busby and Brian Bilbray to replace Randy "Duke" Cunningham in CA's 50th U.S. House congressional district.

(All of our reports on that race, so far, in which San Diego county blatantly defied the CA Sec. of State's own security mitigation requirements, not to mention common sense, by sending the voting machines home with poll workers days and weeks prior to the election can be read here.)

As reported recently by the Salt Lake Tribune, since allowing the security examination in Utah, Funk has been pushed out of his job by state officials, in apparent collusion with Diebold officials. (My radio interview with Funk about all of this, from my recent Guest Host stint on the Peter B. Collins Show, is here.)

In the letter on the Busby/Bilbray matter, Funk writes...

Brad,

After reading your articles on the Busby/Bilbray Election, I am in shock! The security vulnerabilities I know to be associated with the Diebold touch screen voting machine would makes this unimaginable. Utah (and Diebold themselves) accused me that by my allowing Black Box Voting security expert Harri Hursti having access to two machines in Emery County that I had jeopardized the elections for the entire state of Utah. The analysis was all, of course, supervised and video taped to document anything done by Mr. Hursti.

You just don't let these machines go outside established security procedures. Inappropriate access [to the Diebold touch-screen systems] for example; loading on a macro program can happen within minutes and will go undetected on the machine. You can access the machines as I recall even if the front doors are sealed. These security seals, that they talk about as the answer, will probably be taken off by these same poll workers and so who will even notice?

I would worry at every stage of the deployment of the machines even by those who might transport or set them up at polling locations.

I believe that people need to keep the security issues of these machines on the front burner and talk it up with everyone. My worry is that when we as people give up and get tired of the fight, then they have won. Corporate America needs to come clean about the vulnerabilities, clean them up, and let an independent group verify it. If these machines are so great why didn't they use them in the Iraq Elections?

I just can't believe San Diego would permit such a thing in such an important election. Or any election for that matter!

Bruce

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