ED NOTE: Diebold’s Charles “Buck” Jones has sent us an email about the following story, with a scan of a correction published by the Union Tribune concerning the following story. The “Accu-Vote” machines referred to in their story, as originally reported below, are actually “Optech IIIp” optical-scan machines made by ES&S, not by Diebold. The complete correction, reportedly published by the Union Tribune, is posted at the bottom of this blog item. We appreciate the information from Mr. Jones, and only wish that Diebold was as responsive to answering questions and clarifying the mountain of problems and failures in their own machines as they are with ES&S’s. We are also delighted to see that Diebold follows BRAD BLOG’s reporting so closely. Even on a Saturday.
======
Diebold’s hackable Accu-Vote (Hack-U-Vote?) machines fail again.
ES&S’s “OpTech” (Op-Wreck?) machines fail again.
From New Hampshire’s Union Leader on Thursday…
That faulty equation — results of a warrant article vote from Tuesday’s election ballot — was the first clue for Grafton town officials that something was wrong.
As a result, two voting machines used to collect ballots in the annual town and school district meetings are now in the custody of the Attorney General’s Office, removed from the town yesterday, said Grafton Selectman Jennie Joyce.
…
She said the voting machine showed no signs of malfunctions during two pre-election tests — most recently one week prior to the election.
It’s notable, by the way, that the Union Leader’s story refers to the “Accu-Vote” machines being confiscated, but never mentions the maker of the machines — in this case, Diebold. (Actually, ES&S, and the machines were “Optech” machines instead. See the clarification below.)
It’s unclear from the story whether these were optical-scan or touch-screen machines, but apparently there is some paper that can be counted to get an accurate count of the election, instead of an “Accu-Vote” count of the election. According to the article, “Joyce said she is in favor of recounting ballots, both by hand and by machine.” — so it would seem there is something to actually go back and count.
And yes, the problem is referred to as a “glitch” at one point in the story. As it always is. This time in reference to a heretofore unknown issue (at least to us) concerning “dip switches” on these machines…
“They told me one of the dip switches let go, or the problem had to do with one of the dip switches not being set — that’s what LHS told me after I read them the information from the tally sheet,” McDow said.
The toggle switch glitch likely caused some ballots to be counted twice, McDow said.
The “Glitch” that Would Destroy American Democracy. Cuz we let it.
UPDATE: According to a Diebold employee who notified The BRAD BLOG (see the Ed Note added to the top of this article) the Union Tribune posted the following correction to the story referenced above:
We have not been able to find the correction published on the Union Tribune website, but this New Hampshire state page seems to confirm that Grafton County uses the ES&S “Optech” machines instead of the Diebold “Accu-Vote” machines as most other counties in New Hampshire do.
We’ve also learned, since running this piece orginally, that New Hampshire does not allow for the use of touch-screen (DRE) machines. So the voting systems in question here, are all optical-scan machines, akin to the Diebold optical-scan machine used in Ion Sancho’s recent “hack test” in Leon County, FL which demonstrated that such machines could be hacked to cause election results to be completely flipped without a trace being left behind.
Sorry, but I need to know. Is it "DEE – bold", or "DIE – bold?"
The official name is "DEE-bold".
Though it’s often mispronounced as "DIE-bold" as it was on Real Time with Bill Maher last night when he discussed early focus on the 2008 Elections by saying that "Diebold hasn’t even printed the phony ballots for it yet."
Note: a Diebold joke also made its way onto Stephen Colbert’s "The WORD" last Wednesday night.
So perhaps the reality of what’s going on here is finally making it’s way into the mainstream…(If you can consider Maher and Colbert "mainstream" anyway).
In German, if ‘e’ and ‘i’ are together, the second vowel is always long. But it should be
"Die Bold Democracy".
Let’s put this in perspective. If a couple hundred votes are off by that much, how much off was the 2004 election with tens of millions of votes???
How much off? Just enough, of course.
What the fuck. DIP switches?!?
Thanks. I heard "DIE-bold" on the news on the radio this morning, and it’s been freaking me out.
Nowhere near as weird as infrared ports on the machines, eh?
what the hell are DIP switch settings used for on these machines
ds1 on=repugs total plus 1 %
ds2 on=repugs total plus 2 %
ds3 on=repugs total plus 3 %
ds4 on=repugs total plus 4 %
ds5 on=repugs total plus 5 %
ds6 on=repugs total plus 6 %
ds7 on=repugs total plus 7 %
ds8 on=repugs total plus 8 %
only tech staff should access to DIP switches as they are mounted on the motherboard or pci card ?
anybody seen a function table for the DIP switches ?
if a dip-swtich "let go", that’s a physical malfunction and says the boards/systems aren’t very robust (or someone dropped the machine).
If it was "not set", but seemingly WAS SET the week before during "testing" (since it all worked), then someone CHANGED the setting.. which begs the question, what kind of security is around these machines and who gets access to them?
What I find AMAZING is, they have to "recount by hand and machine".. WTF? So lemme get this straight.. HUMANS have to spend the time to (re)COUNT these votes because the machine failed (and was managed to be caught and discusses).. Am I the only one asking "why the fuck spend millions and millions on machines that don’t work when you have to do it by hand ANYWAY" ???
I think DIP switches are a lot more weird than infrared ports, given that they are actually the stated reason for the miscount.
In any case, DIP switches on a fucking voting machine are absurd. What are we going to find out next, they run on 6 D batteries?
DIP Switches for DIP shits. As long as we accept this state of affairs, our democracy is not "in trouble", it’s already gone.
It’s the old Stalin story over again: doesn’t matter who casts what votes where when and why, what matters is who counts them and how. God dammit, how the fuck could we outsource our election process to the lowest bidder? I mean, if there’s one place where the gov’t should maintain watertight control (if it was really a gov’t for the people by the people) it’s the elections, no? Asshats.
I live just across from Grafton County in VT, would be curious to find out which of these confounded contraptions we use around here…
While I quite agree that dipswitches should not be used in any device where reliability is needed (especially voting machines), thingwarbler’s way of expressing that opinion is, to say the least, offensive. It suggests that he does not know just exactly what IS a ‘dipswitch’.
DIP (Dual Inline Package) any device with 2 parallel rows of pins, that plug or solder into a circuit board.
I.E. an IC Chip (Intergrated Circuit)
DIP switch has a row of little switch across the top. Pictures . . .
http://images.google.com/images...s&spell=1
DIP switches are primarily used to set parameters in the hardware or firmware.
BUT may be read by the software to effect change . I.E calibration, diagnostics & (% gop advantage).
Similar are the little jumper plugs on motherboards and hard drives, but more convenient to use.
DIP Shit – I.E. 43rd president of U.S.A.
Maybe "Buck" is Wally O Diebold ?
I thought their was also Wi-Fi capability on some of this crap, besides infrared and 10/100 LAN ports
What else do they have hanging off of these pieces of junk for access ?
Probably a couple of USB ports with the letters "hack here" printed above them, sheesh
Get rid of all of them, Bucko
You got your money already, now skidaddle off to South America, where all the Nazis go when defeated
Judge of judges is correct (of course he already knew that), but he forgot to mention that the switches are only found on older motherboards.
JWRJR, Like Ed McMahon says "You are correct sir (mam)"
I am thinking that Diebold’s "Buck" Jones might also be "compsysengineer" who posts frequently at the Diebold message board on yahoo.
Does it matter Diebold or ES&S? I believe the CEO’s are/were brothers?
DIEBOLD/ES&S Ties
Brad, you are the hound dog of all journalists at exposing e-vote (Republican) takeover of our democracy. Great job!
Everyone talks about the stolen presidential elections, but no one ever talks about the stolen Congressional elections that have occured in at least the last three elections, and possibly this coming November.
…thingwarbler said on 3/18/2006 @ 7:54pm PT…
I live just across from Grafton County in VT, would be curious to find out which of these confounded contraptions we use around here…
You can look up to see what voting machine manufacturer your city/county uses here.
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/
DIP Switches. To run "diagnostics". Right.
DIP switches on circuit boards don’t fail.
Unless they’ve been repeatedly excercised.
What a waste of taxpayer money.
I offer a solution.
****PAPER, PEN & PEOPLE****
1. Paper and pen is the obvious choice for casting ballots.
2. Instead of having appointed people, there should be a pool of all registered voters, that are picked AT RANDOM, much like the way jurors are picked. (Perhaps BOE officials should be elected, too!)
3. Add to this that companies MUST give employees PAID days off for training and working Election Day. It’s OUR Republic and OUR democracy! Let the voters run their own elections! Tell me, what red-blooded, patriotic American wouldn’t take two PAID days off work to ensure their democracy is working? Give the voters OWNERSHIP of the PROCESS! Power to the People!
4. This would also include no funny black boxes counting votes: Paper and pen and hand counting. This is how they STILL do it in Canada! No more republican-backed companies (ES&S, Diebold, Sequoia, TRIAD, et. al.) getting a WAD of OUR TAX $$$ on bogus, insecure machines and stealing our elections! Use Web-Cams to monitor the voting and counting, too.
5. Each precinct can use a simple adding machine with a triplicate paper tape. They FAX their results to the BOE of their county. The same process is repeated for counties to report totals to the state BOE. Instant Paper Trail!
I’d add that IF we MUST use ANY electronic tabulation, that it be OPEN-SOURCE code, available to the General Public for review. (Australia uses this now.) Hardware would also have to be scrutinized, since WiFi can easily be incorporated in any electronic device – takes about three chips. BUT Paper Pen and People should be the way of the day! Any electronic machine (especially the central tabulators) can break down or be hacked, no matter how secure!
Also, the paper ballots could use any number of security devices, similar to how money and checks are printed (microprint, bar codes, security threads and so forth) to prevent ballot duplication.
* * * *
I’m open for suggestions.
Namely, how to get this adopted.
They stole the RON initiatives in Ohio, no?
Who IS counting?
http://www.whoscounting.net/
Dip switched are used to direct signals as to destinations. Think of a machine with a lot of bins. the setting of the dip switches determine which bin to place product in. all the possible combinations of dip switch settings are in the software.
lets say you have dems, repubs, independents, libertarians candidates. A dip switch bank of 8 on-off dips.
If, a combination of on-off switches= straight dem ticket. All you have to know? What’s the combination of on-ff switches = straight repub ticket.
The dip switches can be used to manually change the intent of the voter.
You can manually tell the software what to do.
NC Voter #18
Your URL in your post ruined the format. URL’s should be displayed as follows:
[a href="URL GOES HERE" target="_blank"]link here[/a]
NOTE: replace each ‘[‘ with ” and it will become:
link here
Kevin #21
The increasingly certain method for detecting election fraud is going to come from exit poll science:
"Exit polling is a well-developed science, informed by half a century of experience and continually improving methodology"
(link here, page 7, bold added). See also Polling and presidential Election Coverage, Lavrakas, Paul J, and Holley, Jack K., eds., Newbury Park, CA: Sage; pp. 83-99).
It is the number one weapon against fraudulent elections. But as with most fraud, the strength and the weakness in all systems is in the people of the system.
We know that "Edison/Mitofsky samples voters for a nationwide exit poll as well as for each state’s exit poll" (ibid).
We know then, where the attack to establish the coverup will come from. We can expect a major movement to corrupt Edison/Mitofsky from the inside. That is the pattern we see in the electronic voting machine industry.
Lets take a look around and check them out.
well, if you really want to pronounce Diebold correctly, it would be DEE – BOHLT. The IE is a long E and the final D is ennunciated as a T, not a D.
Kevin, the media organizations mostly stopped doing exit polls after the 2000 election. they claim they stopped because the polls were obviously flawed as they didn’t match the election totals. really.
there won’t be any exit polls to match up with the election machine output. they’ve made damned sure of that.
If it was pronounced like Humboldt, it woud have a tee on the end of it
Do you pronounce would, wooled ?
On Humboldt, the D is silent
On Diebold, is the D silent, without the T even being there? OK
Fact checks from the ground in NH:
1) The seizure of the machines and the recounting both by hand and by machine are unusual occurances in NH. We normally do all of our recounting by hand. I assume they are doing both because they want to check out the machines as well as just get the final count of record (which is the hand count).
2) 55% of NH polling places use machines to tally votes. Of these, there are only 25 towns currently using ES&S machines, and all of these will be replaced either by Diebold AccuVote or by handcounting prior to the 2006 election. This is because of a ballot redesign that can’t be read by the ES&S and can only be read by Diebold. (Long story – check out our website for more information on this one.)
3) In NH we are pretty conservative, hold things close to the vest, and generally don’t blast a lot of shit out over the airwaves until we check things out thoroughly. It seems there is more to this than meets the eye, and maybe the whole story will be known following the public recount next Saturday the 25th.
4) There is a lot of information about NH voting machines, the grassroots push for hand counting, and Diebold’s new NH monopoly on our website: http://www.DemocracyForNewHampshire.com
5) 45% of our polling places (roughly 20% of our ballots cast in 2004) are already counted by hand in NH. All statewide and local recounts are handcounted. We can teach people a thing or two about how to do this right, but the Grafton story of people "too tired" to do the job right, even when using machines, points to a huge problem. We need to recognize this as we try to implement handcounting across the nation.
This is absurd. Really. I am a midling coder, doing it only rarely and for relatively simple projects and I’m sorry, a simple ballot is just that, SIMPLE.
Voting isn’t arcane or complex, it is a bunch of yes or no votes (or abstentions/lack of votes). The simplest of simple for coding. It is beyond understanding that people who purport to do coding as their life’s work couldn’t get this right. It is beyond understanding how these companies would go out of their ways to make a simple vote into something so complex that they can’t get their yeas and nays to actually add up properly. I can only believe that every single voting machine company has been founded by people who are stuck in a Rube Goldberg contest (in their minds) and simply can’t stop themselves.
Of course, given the moronic simplicity of voting and the coding of a program to tally said votes, Occam’s razor says that the reason they have made their machines Rube Goldberg devices is to hide nefarious vote rigging. The problem is that their devices are so screwed up in complexity that they can’t find what parts to tweak to make the tallies add up properly. Idiots and criminals.
Last fact check:
In NH each city and town decides for itself what manner of counting to implement: hand or machine. Counting is done at the municipal and not the county level. The issue in Grafton is in the town of Grafton and not the county. Additionally, voting machines need to be approved for use in NH by the NH Ballot Law Commission, which inexplicably just last week approved Diebold firmware 1.94W (the version Hursti hacked into in Florida).
***News Alert***
This just in from ES&S. It wasn’t DIP switches that caused the miscount as we’ve been told. It was actually a vacuum electron tube that needed to be replaced. Also, a moth flew onto the processor and got fried, so there are a few bugs to work out as well.
Filed by Wally Ee’esseness
OT
Who’s ya daddy
Administration Blocks Ex-Hostages’ Bid for Damages From Iran
dip switches can be used to do anything … alter hardware options/configuration ,enable software options/configuration … the only limit is the function of the equipment utlitizing the D.I.P. switches.
as a rule they are limited use switches ,sometime requiring a small screw driver or pen to change the position of the slider
Actually the Die in Diebold is pronounced Republican and the bold is pronounced corruption. Diebold = Republican corruption.
The dip switches are actually quite easy to fix. Take a sixteen oz. Stanley hammer and smartly strike the dips with it. Be sure to use an anti-static cuff or ground yourself first. Wouldn’t want to damage any delicate CMOS circuitry would we?
Dredd #27: You have repeated what I’ve been saying for a while. Since the 2006 elections will probably be stolen, we need to keep posting the pre-election polls & exit polls as much as possible.
I’m keeping tabs of the Casey-Santorum polls. Casey has a double-digit lead. When Santorum wins 51%-49% ala Bush/Kerry & Schmidt/Hackett, we have to immediately start a broadcast campaign.
Why are the Democrats silent on e-vote theft??? It is the Democrats who should be posting the pre-election polls far and wide. But, we’ll do it too.
The party(s) who are affected by e-vote theft, which is every party except the Republicans, are supposed to be "watch-dogging" this and screaming about it. And aren’t there elected officials who are supposed to be ensuring that our votes are not compromised? Where are the dissenting party(s) and where are the officials who are in charge of keeping our democracy safe? Where are they?
Hence, BradBlog, Blackboxvoting.org, etc…HAD TO come into existence, because people who’s job it is to do this, AREN’T DOING THEIR JOB!!!!
This includes the MSM, who has a blackout on e-vote fraud and Republican ties to e-vote companies. And the biggest blackout story of all, is that ALL discrepancies on e-vote machines favored one party—the Republican party. Therefore, not random errors. Random errors would wash at a 50/50 clip overall. Not 100%-0%. Not random at all, according to the statistics, and according to professors of statistics at colleges and universities around the country.
Comment #24 by Lugnut:
I second the motion. Paper & pencil, laborious to count but then there is an actual record of how people voted.
Thanks Bradblog for your story.
FWIW, I once met a state rep in N. Carolina who won his election on a recount after an optical-scanner-run election went against the exit-poll results. Turns out the optical scanners were somehow set to discard all party-line votes. This gent was a Republican, and now highly suspicious of all automated vote counting. I told him a few hair-raising facts about DREs and database vulnerabilities, and he wholeheartedly agreed with me (and those above) that we should do like the Canucks: vote with pencil and paper, count by hand.
I heard Thom Hartmann say 85 % of the votes (even those on paper here in Oregon) are counted by corporations.
Allons, citroyens!
Happy Third Anniversary, courtesy of Assclowns of the Week, #31.
From what I understand about dip switches, they are used in setting voltage settings and clock speeds. I see no way they could affect some software programs count of something.
That’s not just bogus, that lame obvious bogus.
When they talk about DIP switches it’s possible they’re talking about something different all together. The technical illiteracy of people should not be underestimated.
However the vagueness and sheer ridiculousness of this claim reminds me of the old 2004 excuse that "the computer was doing to many things at once and some data got lost". It just sounds like bullshit, plain and simple.
I would love to have paper & pencil voting, and voting day Nov. 2 would have to be a national holiday requiring more man power with a paper and pencil vote. But, the more people involved and the more manual the effort, the less chance of a few people changing millions of votes (the electronic way). The more people inherantly involved in a manual effort, the harder it would be for more people to keep quiet. Electronically, one person can swing thousands, if not millions, of votes. That is too much power in too few people’s hands.
Manual effort, and Nov. 2 national holiday. The most important day in America should be a day off, to concentrate on the most important thing: voting.
I know there was a effort to make Nov. 2 a national holiday & day off…it probably went nowhere. What day is more important than Nov. 2 for the United States? And don’t say Christmas…puleeeeez….
Kate dips switches can be used for any function the designer needs ,any thing , voltage and clock speed are familiar to most PC up-graders.There will be a "function table" for the dip switches on these machines, that is what needs checking.
Big Dan
"Why are the Democrats silent on e-vote theft???"
Here’s why there’s no comment Bush Authorized Domestic Spying
You may want to remind your readers that the head of ES&S is the brother of the guy who heads Diebold.
Suggestion: I rarely read your blog because it’s so bloody hard to read with its green background and profusion of boxed ads. I makes my mind go bonkers just to look at it. I hope you’ll clean it up, keeping in mind that a lot of over-30 folks tune you out, missing important stuff. GET RID OF THE GREEN. PLEASE!!!!!!! Election fraud is the primary issue in this country and bringing attention to it is is the only way we’ll get rid of the crooks in power. Don’t let your efforts only be read by the young and determined. Make it easy on us old-timers. PLEASE GET RID OF THE GREEN BACKGROUND.
Thanks
Dual Citizen, It’s ST. Patrick’s Day here 24-7 Have a Pint . . . . .
#46, they could make voting day a holiday if they wanted to, all they would have to do is move Veterans day back a couple of weeks and make it a law that everybody gets off, so there would be no shopping allowed that day, but the Corporatocracy doesn’t want everyone to vote (might end up with a populist in the White House)
It is Irresponsible to Design in DIP switches for anything other than A ONE TIME or Service Technician setting.
DIP switches are fairly delicate Devices, because they are small mechanical device that may be easily Abused.
As compared with 99.9% of electronic devices they have limited Functional life Especially if they are "Heavy Handed"
in maine we thumped Reagan (twice), Bush I (once), and The Village Idiot (Bush II) (twice) with number 2 pencils…with no recounts…
Floridaidiot: Exactly! Corporate America and the super-rich elites do not want everyone voting. It’s absurd that Nov. 2 is not a national holliday.
Chuck: Funny they got "thumped" NOT on machines. How do you vote up there in Maine?
Maine can use the pencil since there is not wide spread corruption. The repubs look for the most corrupt states. When I heard Miss. was going to get a lot more money for their sec. of state, I knew they would have much more corrupt elections. Team Bush helped freedom’s cause in the south with Katrina. Could someone computer savvy look up the salaries of sec. of state..fed. money allocated and see if there is a coorelation?
And let’s remember how Skull and Bones stole the 2004 Presidential Primary for vote frauding Kerry:
Title: Why Kerry afraid to speak on vote fraud? KERRY USED ES&S/DIEBOLD E-VOTE RIG TO OUST DEAN!
Author: worthy repost
Date: 2004.11.17 06:24
Description: KERRY USED ES&S VOTE MACHINES TO RIG THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PRIMARY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, TO OUST DEAN, SEALING THE SKULL AND BONES’ERS IN EACH "PARTY." KERRY IS JUST AS GUILTY AS BUSH OF VOTE FRAUD. THAT IS WHY KERRY IS QUIET. Dean would have been the Democratic Party Ticket, legally,–until e-vote fraud came to the "rescue" for the aristocratic elites of the U.S. Moreover, did you know that VP George H. W. Bush won a wierd "unexpected upset" (due to e-vote machines?) in 1988 against Republican front runner Bob Dole. This happened in New Hampshire as well. Everyone knows that Kerry’s father was high up in the CIA, just like Bush’s father, right? Everyone knows that Kerry covered up for Bush in the Iran/Contra Commission (and covered up for the Bush family in the BCCI investigation), right? The Iran/Contras commission was the "Kerry Commission." BCCI was (partially) investigated by Kerry as well. Small world, eh? Kerry will avoid this like the plague, because he is part of the Bush family networks, and a beneficiary of vote fraud himself to get to the Democratic Ticket in 2004!
http://portland.indymedia.org/e...1/303703.shtml
I live in Grafton.
Here is the latest on this.
————————————-
Resident suing Grafton over Town Meeting voting recounts
April 7, 2006
GRAFTON, N.H. –The head of New Hampshire’s Libertarian Party is suing Grafton over a Town Meeting recount.
John Babiarz lives in the town, where officials recounted the ballots by machine and by hand for some articles because election night tallies revealed more votes than voters. The recount changed the outcome for a planning board seat and confirmed a proposal for a trash compactor had lost.
Babiarz argues the town should have relied on machine recounts, not hand counts.
Officials say there was a discrepancy between the number of voters and number of votes because some ballots were counted twice on Town Meeting day.
—————————————————-