Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

It has been a very slow weekend. Next week look for something about the “evidence” that Sequoia’s VP Michelle Shafer promised would prove the recent “Dan Rather Report” was wrong; it proves nothing at all. There will also be something about the childish actions of ES&S who seems to think they have an ability to act arrogant and not be called out for it....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Just as newspapers used their headlines to lead their readers in how they wanted them to understand the California Field Poll mentioned in yesterday’s DVN, the voting industry’s trade group has attempted to do the same. The Election Technology Council reads the poll as saying 82% of the voters polled are confident in the vote counting process. In fact, only 44% have great confidence in the process. The ETC also ignores the rest of the poll which shows that 32% of the respondents have the most confidence in paper ballots while 31% have the most confidence in touch-screen voting and an equal number, 31%, have the most confidence in punch-card voting. So, while Michelle Shafer and David Beirne of the ETC seem to like to add findings together to make a point, we can show that 63% of the respondents like paper based voting systems and have little confidence in touch-screen voting....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today’s news brings us more from California. A poll was conducted by The Field Poll in the state with 402 registered voters responding. The questions asked were to gauge the voters’ confidence in different modes of voting, i.e., paper ballots, DRE, and punch card. The report showed a near equal percentage of voters had confidence in each of the three voting methods, with paper ballots leading by one percentage point. 44% of the voters polled had a great deal of confidence that their ballot was being accurately counted without regard to the system being used. What is interesting is reading the headlines from those sources reporting on this poll. The poll results are entitled, “Voter Confidence In Touch Screen Voting Systems No Different Than Its Confidence In Other Vote Methods.” The newspapers then put on headlines that reflect their opinions, from “Many skeptical on vote counting” to “Voters confident in counts” to “Electronic voting trusted, poll shows.“ There appears to be no truth in marketing there. [Note: A hat-tip to Frank D. Russo, who wrote about the same issue in today’s “California Progress Report”]...

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

So now ES&S is in trouble, again, in California. They appear to have sold uncertified AutoMark voting systems to counties and those systems were used in recent elections. I think it is important to know that this is an ES&S issue and not an AutoMark issue. AutoMark is a separate company that happened, at the time, to have an exclusive sales agreement with ES&S. Hopefully AutoMark will distance themselves from ES&S....

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Here we go again with more wrong-doing by a voting machine vendor. This time ES&S (no surprise there) got caught modifying AutoMark voting machines used in many California counties by voters with disabilities. California state election law does not allow any modification to any voting system without notification to the SOS and a determination that the modification does not affect the accuracy and efficiency of that system. It seems that ES&S made a modification to hundreds of AutoMark machines used in counties across the state and did it with no notification. The state has announced a public hearing for 20 September when specific relief will be discussed. That relief could be $10,000 per incident and/or decertification and/or banishment from the state for one to three years and/or other fines or restitution including refund of all tax-payer money spent to purchase those machines. It will be interesting to see how many local election officials suddenly come to ES&S’s defense. And the burning question is whether the modification was federally approved and how many other states have machines modified by ES&S in the dark of the night?...

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 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 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 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 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

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? ...