John: Mail in voting in Washington is not secure.

This record needs to be formally corrected: ie Diebold controls the sole vendor who prints the ballots for Mail in voting.

There is zero assurance that tampering will not occur in Washington if they use mail-in voting only

In fact the only way to ensure an accurate count of the ballots is with proper administrative oversight, or to the term I've seen AutoMark style paper ballot counting using digital images.

I don't think anyone will ever trust computers for votes. But this would crack down on the largest instances of fraud, by having secure oversight & digital counting of the ballots I have read.

Doug E.

I second what Doug E. says about the insecurity of mail-in voting.

I was disturbed to see a very misleading article published this weekend in the Seattle Times, implying that Black Box Voting is in favor of it.

Rest assured, neither I nor the Black Box Voting group has endorsed mail-in voting. The Seattle Times' Keith Ervin selectively reported in a way that gave exactly the opposite impression of what I told him. My position is:

1) Digital optical scanners are preferable to the older kind because they take a digital photograph of each ballot, a public record we can examine. However, digital scanning need not be mail-in. Hart Intercivic makes precinct-based digital scanners, and they are used in Yakima County and Skagit County.

2) Mail-in voting is extremely insecure and tamper-friendly as it is practiced in King County, for the following reasons:

a. The GEMS central tabulator is known to be easy to tamper with --- even Diebold admits this now. The traditional protection for this is the poll tape. All mail-in systems do not have a poll tape, and thus leave GEMS tampering with no safeguard except "trust us."

b. King County uses PSI Group to process both outgoing and incoming mail-in ballots. This firm is not sufficiently secure. We recently obtained a staff list, and found convicted felons and families full of immigrants, most likely some without proper paperwork, since the payroll register lists some with no last name, like "jack jack"

The accounting for incoming ballots is simply not there and until it is, mail-in voting will be the preferred place to enact election fraud.

c. The signature comparison model is a very weak way to authenticate voters, made worse by procedures and technology. The Diebold "Vote Remote" system allows subjectively selected standards for automated comparison, which can be changed from precinct to precinct. State law appears to be leaning toward ditching the paper record of the signature in favor of an electronic image. The Vote Remote signature comparison module has never been certified, and never will be, because it escapes through a loophole and certification is not required. Functions that export data back and forth from the voter registration database are therefore never examined by anyone.

d. The ballot printer, Diebold, has too many unaccounted for ballot floating around. Financial documents we have obtained indicate that they plan for a 25 percent "spoilage" (overprinting) rate. While King County supposedly accounts for its ballots, there seems to be no requirement for the Everett-based ballot printing plant to do so. What happens to all the extra ballots?

e. The concept that insiders should be trusted is fundamentally flawed. Would you put your diamonds in a safe deposit box, where the contents are supposed to be secret, if a lone bank employee could access your box when no one is looking, without any log of that activity, and no videotape? That would surely lead to he-said, she-said arguments. "Trust me" is a ridiculous concept in elections. "Oversee me" and "verify me independently" are better concepts.

I've seen the recently installed video cameras at one of the King County facilities. They are insufficient. Who reviews them, anyway?

Mail-in balloting is profoundly unwise.

I will be meeting with King County Executive Ron Sims this week, and will ask to tape record the meeting so it is not misrepresented, and will file a full report on BlackBoxVoting.org.

Thank you, John, for your consistency in collecting the news stories, and thank you all for your vigilance on these matters.

Bev Harris
Founder
Black Box Voting, Inc.

Bev or Catherine

Where are the public records & documents yet for this election race, any idea yet?

Ohio 2005 Election Reform race cites "problems" with the memory cards.

Has anybody yet been able to obtain public record requests from this election, and/or poll tapes?

Is there any kind of information yet on who had controlled these memory cards?

I'm curious...

Doug E.

I'm not sure of what system of mail in voting we use here in Oregon but it seems to be working and it isn't like we have any shortage of born again whack jobs whose angry god is telling them to steal votes for christ.
One thing about paper ballots, people get suspicious when 10,000 of them are found in a swamp somewhere.

Wow. Now the local press is trying to spin John Gideon into a supporter of all mail-in voting. On KIRO this morning, the teaser for an interview implied that "support was growing for all mail-in voting" and implied that John Gideon had a different point of view than Joan Krawitz (both are working with VoteTrustUSA). But the only actual quote from John was that mail-in voting increases participation.

I'm wondering if they cut off the main part of his comments, like the Seattle Times did with mine, to produce an impression exactly opposite of the truth, trying to imply that VotersUnite is backing all mail-in voting.

This is getting annoying. Local politicians seem to want to spin the truth, not listen to the truth.

John, want to set the record straight about the position of VotersUnite and mail-in voting?

I have been in communication with Joan Krawitz, VoteTrustUSA, and she shares Black Box Voting's concerns that mail-in voting is likely to be a problem.

Doug E,

Since I'm not BBV staff I don't know everything that has or hasn't been done. Re: Ohio Nov. 2004 I believe there were different groups involved and I don't know who is doing what. To be honest I have a hard time keeping everything straight. Perhaps Bev could comment if she sees this.

BBV did comprehensive national Public Records Requests this summer following the release of the Hursti Report. They were quite clever. First, they mailed (by registered mail--so proof of receipt is documented) the Hursti report to many hundreds of election offices. (I'm not sure, but I think they sent them to all the election offices that used any brand of optical scanner, since that's what the Hursti report was about.) A few months later they sent the same offices PRRs for all correspondence that mentioned Hursti, BBV, Bev Harris, etc. This was so they could document what action (or lack thereof) had been taken by all these election offices once they had been informed of the security vulnerabilities demonstrated by the first Hursti hack.

This proved that 1) these election offices were informed of the security vulnerabilities but 2) (in most cases) they did nothing about it. There are implications re: fiduciary trust.

This trawl also yielded direct information (or rather misinformation) from Diebold, as it showed exactly what lies they were telling to the election officials around the country.

The tone and content and degree of cooperativeness (or lack thereof) also raised red flags, as in--who's trying hardest to cover up something? For example, some obstructive replies were written by lawyers in ways that made it quite clear they were trying to be intimidating. Or, the person who responded would say things that weren't accurate (e.g., say they didn't have to provide this information, when actually their state laws obliged them to do so.)

All of this will probably be used for some kind of legal strategy and to support legal actions by other groups, organizations and individuals. However I don't know what this legal strategy might be and I assume it would not be revealed publicly before it's wise to do so.

Want to see how your Ohio (or other state) election offices responded to these PRRs? (Warning--some of these responses are hysterically funny. As in do you laugh or do you cry. And lots of these officials could do with a refresher course in basic reading comprehension and grammar.)

Anyways--all the responses to the PRRs, separated by state, are available here:
http://www.bbvforums.org...97/10456.html?1131981098
Give this thread a chance to load as it does so alphabetically by state.

I'd love to know what you make of these responses. I found many of them quite revealing.

With the Chimp declaring himself to be above the law, Congress, the Constitution, and the will of the people, all that left is for Congress to either impeach him or declare him Emperor. If it's the latter elections are a mute point. Maybe he'll still let us have local elections.

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

Catherine

That's just disgusting. It makes me see here that they are hiding things big time, why else would they obstruct the public record requests?!??

For Ohio especially!!! Has anyone had any luck getting the 2005 Ohio election public records?!!??

By the way, I got a response from Governor Easley today on the issue of using these machines in North Carolina:

"Dear Mr. Eldritch,

Office of the Governor"

Hopefully this means they will NOT try to change the laws and will keep Diebold & Sequoia out.

Doug E.

Apparently John Gideon is FOR all mail-in voting. I'm surprised, especially since he says he does not support the VotoScope concept, which at least increases our ability to exercise oversight by reviewing the photocopies of the ballots with a free open source tool. Here is an exchange at BBV.

I would like to caution you that this must not become personality-driven or flame bait. The key is to debate the issues while making sure we understand the arguments.

--------------

From John Gideon, just posted at Black Box Voting:

"First, any opinions are mine and not those of VotersUnite.Org which takes no stance on issues like this.

"I have, personally, always supported vote-by-mail. I took the time to speak to elections officials in Oregon about how they administer the system. I'm convinced that with proper oversight and procedures vote-by-mail (vbm) can be a secure system.

"Look at the numbers now. Many of the elections in the state pre-2006 were vbm anyway. Over 60% to 70% of all voters already vbm. By going vbm we cut DRE use down to a very minimum number.

"There will be legislation introduced this legislative session that will force audits to be done on optical-scan systems. I will be working on lobbying for that legislation.

"There will be legislation introduced this legislative session by Sam Reed to make it easier for him to certify voting systems (remove the requirement that systems must be tested, certified and used in another state). I will be lobbying against that legislation.

"Later this month public hearings prior to certification of Diebold TSx and Hart eSlate machines are going to be held. I will be arguing against certification of both systems.

"I follow the lies and misinformation from the SoS Office. It is my opinion that with everything that is happening out in the open and behind the scenes that vbm is the best option to get around all of that.

T"hat's my personal opinion and NOT the opinion of VotersUnite.Org which has no opinion on this issue."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Executive Director, VotersUnite.org"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by Bev Harris at Black Box Voting:

"I have to confess that I am shocked. You said you DO NOT SUPPORT the VotoScope idea, where citizens can verify all the ballots.

"I assumed you didn't support it because, in the case of Diebold, VotoScope is used with mail-in ballots and I figured that, like many of us, you knew that mail-in was a playground for fraud.

"So, to clarify, are you saying that you favor mail-in AND you are not in support of the free check-it-yourself VotoScope type software, which citizens can use to at least get some level of checks and balances (though not enough)?

"I'm so surprised I just don't know what to think.

"BTW, I had heard that Ellen is not currently with VotersUnite because she is working on promoting the Vote-Pad tool. Is that true, and if so, wouldn't that mean you are the only person at VotersUnite? If you are the only active leader at VotersUnite, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume your opinion represents that organization? "

---------------------------

I would like to add --- and this is very important --- that at this point it is imperative for Gideon to spell out precisely what is meant by "Proper oversight" with absentee voting.

I sincerely hope he is not advocating a "trust us" model where citizens cede oversight to public officials and computer scientists.

Note that the CURRENT state of mail-in voting includes signature comparison software that is not required to be examined or certified, interacts with voter registration databases that have not been adequately studied, the CURRENT state of mail-in voting lacks appropriate auditing at both the ballot printing plant and the incoming ballot stage

I had heard that Gideon is also against the digital image scanners, but I hope he will clarify that position as well.

This our personalities, it is about public policy and issues.

I say, don't change a system to one where safeguards MIGHT be put into place. Require the safeguards as part of implementing the system, if you do it at all.

I'm waiting to see what is meant by Gideon by "proper safeguards," because if he can propose good ones then Black Box Voting will definitely recommend them.

Bev Harris

typo.

"This our personalities, it is about public policy and issues. " should read

"This is not about our personalities, it is about public policy issues."

I have to agree that we CAN NOT trust public officials with mail-in voting using the current system.

Diebold is manufacturing ballot printers, other companies are in charge of handling the ballots, and if we follow this to conclusion we're back dealing with DREs again because of the fraud associated with mail-in voting.

What I *THINK* is neccesary, is to have alot of security cameras. This goes for ANY election center when doing vote-counting by mail. But more importantly, what I *REALLY* think is neccesary is having digital ballot scanners or scanned images of the ballots that are voted on.

We can NOT trust public officials to handle our votes correctly since they have already allowed machines in that have secret source code!!

We just CAN'T. And that means we need trained poll workers and proper CITIZEN oversight just like in Canada.

Seriously why can't we just do it the way CANADA does it!??? They rarely EVER have fraud!

And plus, with digital auditing tools & scanners this increases the speed of the counting but also the accuracy, UNLIKE our current election model which is so opaque russia wouldn't trust it.

Doug E.

Wow, if old fashioned honesty was still alive it really would not matter how we vote.

Old fashioned honesty is the kind where an individual will tell the truth come hell or high water, even if it helps his or her political opponent.

In the absence of that it is a matter of being able to catch the fraudulent folk. And that is a matter of having folk who will go after the fraudulent folk.

Which scares the hell out of me because I know a substantial portion of the DoJ leadership are neoCon criminals who see the truth as a weakness.

It would be nice if we could have several options on voting, and not let it be known which one would be used until shortly before the elections.

Then use a combination of techniques to keep the evil doers at bay.

But since we can't afford that ... and we must choose some system ... I favor a system that checks the background of election people to the max.

And checks an election machines even more.

But I do not think we can categorically rule in or out any technical system ... the only thing we can rule out for sure are dishonest election folk and dishonest election machine makers.

By the way, I DONT suggest to anyone that we take this too overboard or try to bulk our elections with so much security its no longer fun.

NO, I believe everyone here has to make concessions somewhere....but I also have to say that when we decide on a voting system, *we need to ensure it is going to be NOT only the most ACCURATE voting system---but also the most easily implemented to REDUCE fraud*.

Because no one can eliminate that but we CAN get it back to normal..

Doug

Dredd

I share your lack of faith in the former Justice Department heads such as Von Spokovsky, but I can assure you of this:

They are no longer running the show...

When Michael Chertoff and his advisors left the DOJ over a year ago, who were the real Zionist neocons that control was passed back to the REAL Justice Department and now we have a crackdown on all the neocons and I can assure you that they are back on the side of the people.....

But the main problem here is, Von Spokovsky and his friend Larman are about to be appointed to HEAD the Electoral Assistance Commission and since they are so corrupt.....they will TRY to derail verified voting.

Which is why it is so VITAL that we get the current EAC to do its job, before *THEY* attempt to change and break the rules....

I have a feeling these guys are going to walk into a trap. What we got here ladies and gentelman, is foreign spies, mafia, aka "neocons" if you will controlling everything including the *VOTES* for the time being.

It is not in the hands of ANY of the political parties. Now they are going to fight tooth and nail every step of the way to ENSURE, ENSURE the fact their own system stays in place and they can use the Pentagon to cause any war in the world they want.

I'm of firm belief that this will NOT be solved except with criminal prosecution, which is why I'm suggesting reform our election system and then let them attempt to tear it down---to catch them IN the act!

Which will happen...in fact look at Abramoff's employer Greenberg Traiurg, which is heavily involved with Diebold. They are now under prosecution by the SEC.

We have to simply pull the threads out, we need to get behind the ideology OF THE ACTUAL FRAUD PERPETRATORS, who are exclusively neocons and understand what would make them DO what they do. And even understand what would make them FRAUD elections in order to start wars, and so on. And THAT is what will ensure the fraud gets cracked down for real

And for that you need to CATCH them first, the Zionist Neocons who are currently very much trying to stay out of the spotlight!

Doug E.

Credit goes to RAWSTORY for keeping up on all the connections to Greenberg Traurig

Doug Eldritch

John G,

It would be interesting to know more about what vote-by-mail procedures are used in Oregon, and how they differ from counties in Washington. I imagine they are different.

How tight is the chain of custody in Oregon? Are any aspects of ballot handling subcontracted to private companies? Do they vet employees more than elsewhere? How do they authenticate that ballots are from who they say they're from? Do they keep close track on batch numbers for votes that are sent out and received? How are their ballots counted? By hand or by machine?

I know next to nothing about Oregon's voting system other than that it's vote by mail and that it has increased voter turnout, but I've always wondered since I've never heard any complaints.

Have there been problems but they've been kept behind the scenes or no one's looking?

Is the Oregon political system "cleaner" in general than Washington's?

Would love to hear from any Oregonians out there, in addition to John G.

Bev Harris said above:

"I would like to caution you that this must not become personality-driven or flame bait."

And then said:

"at this point it is imperative for Gideon to spell out precisely what is meant by "Proper oversight" with absentee voting."

I might suggest that a friendly tone, amongst all of those of us who are fighting fundamentally for the same thing (in this case, free, fair and transparent elections), would be useful.

Don't know how Bev met her comments above, or other attempts to draw out some thoughts from John re: Mail-in balloting, but it certainly sounded like a bit of a challenge and/or assualt from my quick reading. Especially the part attempting to call him out as "the only one at VotersUnite" or whatever that was.

I strongly agree with Bev that it would be very useful to side-step the less-than-constructive "personality wars" in these matters. And to that end, at least, I'd ask that *all* of us be a bit more careful, forgiving, friendly and that we take special measures to avoid even the appearance of aggressiveness when discussing such matters amongst ourselves.

I'm quite certain it's been a long and growing learning curve for all of us citizens on these matters which none of us began as "experts" on. We've still got much to sort out as we move forward and continue to learn. Facts, as we know them, along with personal opinions will undoubtedly change.

So let's all try to move forward together, if possible, as we learn and share the information that we've picked up along the way.

Right

I just need to make a very important correction to the above. Hans Van Spakovsky is going to become head of the Federal Election Commission this next week, not the electoral commission.

They are two different groups, although the FEC still supervises election matters. Both Han Van Spakovsky and Lenhard, Robert D. Lenhard are former lawyers and one of them is the typical neocon thinking we've come to get used to with the government.

Van Spakovsky was the one who vehemently worked to make legal the re-districting which was done in a discrimination fashion.
Van Spakovsky argued to have Delay's redistricting be permanent

Also he's been involved in the same kind of shadiness we can recognize right away via Abramoff, so if you want to know who one of these guys are just look at Jack. They need to be watched very carefully re: voting security

As well there is Robert D. Lenhard's relationship with Novak from Time Magazine. He's her husband which has been reported here before.

Doug E.

Brad,

Thanks for the constructive criticism. I will work especially hard this year to improve on tact (except with vendors who foist improperly designed equipment on us).

And Brad, and John Gideon, thanks again for the work that you do.

Now, back to the issue:

If we're going to go to mail-in balloting, the answers to the above questions will make or break election integrity. Here are the issues Black Box Voting has identified and some of our recommendations:

1. Black Box Voting recommends using Business Reply Mail, which charges only for returned envelopes, thereby producing a formal accounting from the U.S. Post Office as to how many absentee ballots were mailed back. The public must be able to compare the Post Office accounting with the Elections Office accounting.

2. Black Box Voting recommends a requirement that the results report break out the absentee results precinct by precinct (including split precincts) so that DEMOGRAPHICS CAN BE MAINTAINED.

3. Third party contractors, if used, should be SUBJECT TO PUBLIC RECORDS LAW and OTHER DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS.

Third party contractors should be required to provide the names of every employee who processes the ballots, all supervisor, physical access logs (keys and who has them), and the list of other clients for company.

In our upcoming book, Black Box America, we will reveal a lot about 21st Century bribery techniques, which make very heavy use of barter --"you do this 'favor' for me and you get the lucrative contract to something else."

For example: Mail processing firm - how confident can you be that the mail processing firm can be trusted with absentee ballot processing if they derive 10 percent of their total income from the state Republican (or Democrat) Party for candidate mailings? What if that figure is 50 percent? Ninety percent?

Ballot printing firm: Do you really want them printing ballots, which in today's computerized world can be rigged in various ways, if they also have the printing contract for a business run by the state Republican chairman? Shouldn't that at least be DISCLOSED?

4. Like poll workers, the employees of any third party companies, and also the elections office should be certified and sworn and asked to sign audit forms that account for the ballots on the front and back ends of each activity phase

5. Use of Webcams, which broadcast the image to the public Internet, should cover all areas where ballots are processed, whether with third party contractors or the elections office.

6. Ballots must be serial numbered, and the serial numbers must be verified and SIGNED OFF by those who process the ballots.

7. The ballot printing firm must be required to account for the total number of ballots printed, and (like the elections office) required to submit audit documentation signed by the employees who did the printing, along with the supervisor. Any "spoiled" ballots and any overages must be turned over to become part of the public record, and fully accounted for.

8. Key people from third party contractors should be required to file personal financial disclosure forms, as should all key people from the elections office.

9. Anyone with access (keys) and anyone with supervisory responsibilities should be background-checked. Names of all with access should be part of the public record.

10. Better ballot authentication techniques need to be used. This is an area where biometrics might be appropriate. If that sounds too intrusive, perhaps we should rethink the idea of mail-in voting.

I've strained my eyes for many hours looking at signatures. Unless you are trained, signature comparison isn't as easy as it sounds. In fact, look at the Snohomish County and Volusia Poll tapes and you'll see that some signatures vary significantly in the course of a single DAY.

11. Any electronic signature recognition software needs to be, at a minimum, public source and also fully examined and certified.

12. If automated, the bar-coding and ballot-sorting software also must be examined with public source code. (Imagine you are the mail processing firm. Imagine that your software can be programmed to sort one out of every 10 envelopes for an inner city precinct into a separate category. Hmm. What could you do with a batch of sorted and selected "undesirable" votes? "Lose" them?)

13. Voter Registration database software needs to be public. The specific import and export functions of the voter registration software, the signature processing software, and the tallying system itself need to be publicly examinable and certified and protected in a way that no changes can be made.

14. The number of ballot processing locations needs to be limited. Effective use needs to be made of access logs and 24-hour a day Webcams.

15. The tallying machines that count the ballots should:

a. Produce digital images of every ballot scanned.

b. At the moment it is scanned, a hash code should be generated based on the unique set of pixels on that ballot. These hash codes should be made public as soon as each batch is scanned. (They reveal NO information about how the vote went, so they can be released for ballots scnaned before the election in counties that do that. However, with the high speed ballot scanners, there may be no need to scan ballots before the election, and we should consider stopping that procedure, as it is ripe for abuse).

c. The digital ballot images should be released publicly every couple hours from the time the polls close until the election is certified.

The hash codes for the ballot images can then be checked by any candidate, newsman, or citizen to make sure they match those released earlier by the election office.

d. The codes printed on ballots that trigger executable functions (yes, all optical scan ballots have them) should be public, not proprietary. There should be NO hidden or undocumented or undefined comments in the ballot trigger functions.

e. All starter cards, control cards, and ender cards should be digital imaged at the time they are run through the machine, with hash codes, treated as transparently as the ballots themselves.

Black Box Voting thanks Harri Hursti for the excellent analysis of how to create truly public oversight over the tallying of digitally scanned ballots. Note that digital scanners are already produced by Diebold and Hart Intercivic. The hash code function can be overlaid by the local jurisdiction, whether or not the vendor wants to cooperate. Hart has the advantage that its PRECINCT-BASED scanners are also digital.

As you may know, Black Box Voting has sponsored a research project which has produced citizen software for independently analyzing digital ballot images. The software was written by Harri Hursti, at Black Box Voting's expense, and is being made available for free to any citizen who obtains sets of ballot images. You can view each ballot, analyze batches of ballots, do forensics, like identifying whether any images were substituted, cloned or otherwise modified.This software is called VotoScope and is available now, though we need to tweak it as different vendor's ballot images come in.

However, note that items 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 are NOT mitigated by the VotoScope.

We prefer to see VotoScope used with traditional precinct-based voting, because right now, that process is more secure, especially if the images are hash-coded and released immediately from the precincts.

We believe that going to all mail-in balloting without even addressing the 15 issues listed above is not secure. For those advocating mail-in balloting, we're hoping to see a dialog evolve on the specific 15 points raised above.

Thanks, I know this is down-thread and no one is likely to read it. But here it is.

Cheers,

Bev Harris

I agree with all of the points especially point 14.

To be blunt I think point 14 is one of the most important ones. When you have ballots, mail in voting or digital scanners; and you have too many points of access- that presents an open opportunity for fraud or MISCHIEF.

To me there should be no remote access, it should be outlawed. The number of points where the ballots are counted or tallied should be no more than TWO- one for the voter and one for verification!!!

Then from there, with proper oversights I agree that the mail-in voting could be dealt with. Point number 1 is not familiar to me but sounds innovative, how would you keep track of the post office addresses for assorted votes lost in the mail?

Doug E.

Doug,

Good points. Really analyzing the attack points and mitigation strategies is a work in progress. We need to open a vigorous dialog on it.

Had a lengthy meeting with elections officials today. I was so proud of Kathleen Wynne, Jim March, and two of our board members who attended --- Joseph Bailey III is always great in the board meetings, a real stickler, and he didn't pull any punches in the meeting. Kept bringing them back on point when they veered.

First and foremost, we need to address four real problem areas:

1) The third party contractors.
2) The GEMS tabulator security
3) The accounting for the ballots at the ballot printer
4) In King County, the apparent Class C Felony that took place in Sept. 2004 when three hours "disappeared" from the GEMS audit log. We asked for an update on the investigation, and it turns out they never even turned it over to the prosecutor. As Jim pointed out, the way it's set up now, the whole thing starts to crumble if you have an insider committing felonies.

Yes the accounting for the ballot printer is the crucial one. That is where I believe methods of attack will most formally be used as well as: GEMS...

Also it is interesting to hear about King County's logistics. I hope they do turn it over to a prosecutor now, nothing sends a signal like criminal convictions for the perpetrators.

Doug E