On today’s BradCast, another blockbuster report confirms vulnerabilities in our nation’s voting systems that I’ve been trying to warn about for more than a decade, and several other stories not receiving the dire attention merited this week. [Audio link to complete show is posted below.]
In advance of Tuesday’s highly contested U.S. House Special Election in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District — the most expensive House race in U.S. history — Politico Magazine’s Kim Zetter offers an absolutely chilling bombshell of a report headlined “Will the Georgia Special Election Get Hacked?” She reports that gigabytes of unsecured data — including passwords for e-voting system central tabulators, voter registration databases and much more were kept on a wholly unsecured web server, potentially for years, at Kennesaw State University’s Center for Election Systems.
The KSU Center, as they describe on their website, was “created and charged with the responsibility of ensuring the integrity of voting systems in Georgia” since the state adopted its statewide, 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting system in 2002. Those same machines are still used there today, despite their age (they run on a version of Windows 2000) and massive, well-documented vulnerabilities to hacking and insider manipulation. Nonetheless, the Center for Election Systems has long been cited as a model for election administration by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and is responsible for the security and programming of every 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting system, computerized central tabulator, and electronic pollbook used across the state of Georgia.
The unsecured data files at Kennesaw, according to Zetter, were discovered prior to last year’s Presidential Election and reported to the Center, but were still available online for download without a password at the beginning of March this year, during the run-up to the April primary election in the GA-06 House race. The data may, in fact, have been available there for years, even as Kennesaw’s Executive Director Merle King, who has spent years testifying in court on behalf of Diebold’s systems, reportedly failed to inform GA Sec. of State Brian Kemp about the breach last year after he was informed of it. In fact, Zetter notes that he warned the outside computer security researcher who discovered it not to inform the state. GA’s former Sec. of State, Karen Handel, is the Republican House candidate in the reportedly very tight GA-06 race against Democrat Jon Ossoff and is said to have repeatedly blocked a security analysis of the Center years earlier while serving as the state’s chief election official.
When the results of the House contest are announced on Tuesday night — whichever party’s candidate is declared the winner — it will be virtually impossible to know if the results are accurate or if even one vote cast on GA’s 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems were recorded as per any voter’s intent.
While many of the vulnerabilities in GA’s terrible voting and tabulation systems have been publicly known for years, the fact that the security at Kennesaw’s Center for Elections is even far worse than ever imagined is both new and absolutely chilling in regard to both Georgia elections, and all others across the country, as I explain in detail on today’s program.
Beyond that nightmarish report today, we also cover two different fatal attacks on Muslims over the past 24 hours, one in London and one in Virginia (and Donald Trump’s failure to comment on either of them); The new Democratic strategy to slow down progress on the Obamacare replacement bill being crafted by Senate Republicans in complete secrecy, without public hearings or amendments in advance of a possible floor vote on the controversial legislation before the July 4th recess; And, the U.S. shoots down a Syrian bomber over Syria in violation of international law and without any authorization (or complaint or debate) from Congressional Republicans or Democrats alike, even as the weekend incident has drawn the wrath and potential targeting of U.S. aircraft over Syria by its ally Russia…
Several other recent programs in The BradCast’s series of reports leading up to the GA-06 U.S. House Special Election:
- 4/4/2017: Computer and e-voting expert Barbara Simons on the initial reports of a “massive breach” of the state voter database files at Kennesaw State University
- 5/8/2017: Garland Favorito of election watchdog VoterGA.org on the group’s disturbing analysis of the central computer tabulator failure on the night of the April primary in GA-06.
- 6/6/2017: Election integrity expert Marilyn Marks on her lawsuit demanding hand-counted paper ballots in the GA-06 race.
- 6/12/2017: Diebold document whistleblower Steven Heller on Diebold caught lying in California in 2004 about the exact same machines still used in Georgia in 2017. (CA decertified them after Heller’s disclosure.) And on the NSA analysis recently released by NSA contractor Reality Winner on spear-phishing attacks that may have allowed access to the voting system computers of election officials across the country prior to the 2016 Presidential election.
With the GOP in total control of Georgia’s Congressional election outcome, Ossof obviously has no chance.
It’s just a question of what phony vote tally % the GOP desires to create here.
I figure the GOPer will win with a 1.4% (50.7 to 49.3) plurality, making it look not quite as close as forecast, so the GOP can claim to be in less trouble with voters than they are. But they can’t stretch it too much.
In any case …
Absolutely. positively, no way Ossof wins.
DonL:
Couldn’t agree with you more.
We’ve all seen this crappy movie before.
What we need to do is make election fraud a capital crime. Changing the outcome of an election is tantamount to overthrowing the government. This is the most serious business there is in a democracy.
Worth driving home again and again.
Except I reecommend changing that last “if even one vote… were” to a “if even one vote… was“. The “were” would be right in a subjunctive mood (a wish, a suggestion, a command, or a condition that is contrary to fact) “” but here you’re discussing a conditional IF, a condition that may possibly be fact. … Alternatively, the confusion may be that it follows the plural word “systems”, but it refers to the singular word “vote”.
Imagine that…
They stole the election before nightfall this time.
Bully. 🙁
The Democratic establishment poured more money then ever into this election.
How’s that working out for you?
Apparently, well enough. 🙁
Don’t blame Georgians, don’t blame Americans; blame the machines and the other obvious election theft techniques.
I can say that, until the voting machine corporations allow us to find out what’s going on inside their machines and stop hiding behind propriety over democracy as an excuse for black box bullshit.
Anticipointment marches on.
Here comes another 40 bucks Brad.
Republican rigging of voting machines requires Democratic party silence.
A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of a few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.
— Tacitus
Mark Robinowitz:
I’m not going to look Tacitus up right now.
I can name two Democratic party leaders who used statements and actions against the voting machines, (pathetic; I know).
Can you name any prominent Republican or any prominent politicians from whatever party you’re in, who could make that claim?
There are a few grassroots, low level Democratic Party people who admit Republican run voting machines are phony, but the Dems as a whole (and their senior officials) don’t dare discuss this.
Most rank and file Dems think the 2016 “results” were merely a result of the Electoral College. Few paid much attention to the warnings from Greg Palast, Black Box Voting, Brad Blog, et al.
I gave up on the Democrats when the Clintons were in the White House. None of the above is my political affiliation.
Are there any exit poll results from the georgia election to compare to the final tallies?
Just wonderin’.
DonL @ 12 asked:
Nope. No exit polls were done, to my knowledge.
> “No exit polls were done, to my knowledge. “ “” … and in the most expensive House election ever, heavily covered by the news, where there’d already been that report of security breaches in the voting system, isn’t the absence of exit polls a curious thing?