Lost in all of the front-end voter suppression and voter registration fraud news over the past many months this cycle, is the continuing “back-end” threat to Election Integrity still very much present in our unoverseeable, easily-manipulated, oft-failed electronic voting systems — both touch-screen and paper ballot optical-scan systems.
Helping to balance that, if only a bit this week, we get some excellent investigative local TV news reporting from Miami’s Michele Gillen and her CBS4 Investigative team. They have noticed that we still have a very serious problem with the privatization of our supposedly-public electoral system, which now employes proprietary computer systems from private companies to determine the results of our elections…
From the printed version of the above report…
What keeps him awake at night? Whether you can trust the machine you will be voting on.
“We still have not secured the process to ensure that that machine has read that ballot correctly and it is 100 percent accurate. Because it is wrong to assume that the machines are always right. They’re not, “ Sancho tells CBS4 Chief Investigator Michele Gillen.
“I think the citizens should be screaming from the rooftops,” he punctuates with the candor and directness he is known for.
The legendary Ion Sancho, quoted above, is Leon County, FL’s long-time Supervisor of Elections, so trusted by both parties that he was named to oversee the (eventually aborted) 2000 Presidential Election recount in the Sunshine State. He was also the first election official in the nation to allow an independent hack test of an electronic voting system. That test resulted in the stunning hack of a Diebold optical-scan system as seen in the shocking climactic scene of HBO’s Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary Hacking Democracy.
Despite that very public hack, almost seven years ago, the very same machines are still in use in dozens of states. All the rest use computers that are virtually identical, and as easily manipulated and as often malfunctioning.
Sancho goes on, in the report above, to give today’s Florida election system a grade of “F. F. F.” He’s being kind though.
CBS4’s report goes on to add that “other Florida election supervisors” that they have met with to date have similarly stressed that “they are uncomfortable that they must rely so heavily on the machine’s manufacturers for answers as to what’s working…. and potentially not working… in their voting systems.”
Sound familiar?
Just go read the rest and/or watch the video report above from CBS4’s Michele Gillen, please.
We spoke earlier this week to the producer of the CBS4 investigative series, and she promises The BRAD BLOG there will be regular, new installments in the series between now and Election Day, including what she described to us as a “very big” story in the weeks ahead.
Oh I love you for giving me some good news!!!Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ion Sancho, what a hero. And a newspaper willing to report this? Holy Gomma Lahbouwockie!!!!
Go get ’em, Brad!
Bout fuking time, but how many potential voters will not vote because of this report figuring their vote won’t count…Oh well.
Between the electronic vote tallying, the “voter fraud/i.d.” meme, and slamming new Dem registrants, Repubs must be knocking down 15% of the Dem vote…no?
Great job as always Brad.
But why is it that none of the media or anyone else does this for the YEARS leading up to an election instead of a few weeks prior?
That should tell you something that the Miami-Dade SOE refuses to answer questions: it’s also against the state ethics laws, and possibly our state open public records laws. I am sure it is against Miami Dade County’s code of ethics to refuse to answer questions or knowingly mislead. These statements don’t vary county to county that much, as they are based on state rules of ethical behavior for public officials.
Video Oct 3 2012- Attorney Bill Risner on KVOI radio WakeUp Tucson – Election Fraud is Real, Culture of Corruption in Pima County, why Early Ballots shouldn’t be counted before Election Day and what all this means. Link to video.
Here is a link to facts filed with the courts: That “County administrator C.H. “Chuck” Huckelberry, has systematically subverted critical controls required to protect the purity of elections. The elimination of those controls has permitted county management to take advantage of the ability to cheat presented by defects in our computerized election system. As a result, county management fraudulently rigged the Regional Transportation Authority election on May 16, 2006 and has the ability to manipulate the outcome of any Pima County election, including not only bond elections, but the elections of members of the Board of Supervisors, themselves.”
It’s time to end the media blackout. Public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy.
Pima County Elections owned the same device used to program the memory cards: link to the Invoice and purchase order.
Affidavit about who hack the RTA Election of May 16, 2006
Fraud Flyer with 10 points:
Video – Two minutes into the video shows how Pima County Elections using a “crop scanner” to program the memory card before voting so that it would print the results they wanted as opposed to the actual votes. The purpose of the Black box report was to warn county election departments of this potential mechanism of fraud, now famously referred to as the “Hursti hack.” The report came out July 4, 2005. By August 3, 2005, Pima County had purchased the same device. Video clip, 6 minutes.
Video – Attorney Bill Risner Explains How Election Fraud Works in Pima County (Tucson) Arizona. This is the 19 minute version.
Thursday, August 9, 2012; Arizona Election FraudIs Stealing Two Billion in Taxes a Crime Too Big to Prosecute?
(7)Pima County’s Manger “Chuck Huckelberry” created a monster PR Staff, AZ Daily Star: Josh Brodesky: County’s new PR force: Good use of tax funds? Sunday, October 9, 2011.
When It Comes To Election Integrity In Arizona There’s Nothing Like Having An “Elephant in the Room” Or At Least A “Big Donkey” August 8, 2010.
Pima county has spent several million dollars keeping this suppressed.
Election integrity is not rocket science. The issue boils down to one word — transparency!
The only way we can be assured that the candidate who is declared the winner is the same candidate who actually received the most votes is by means of Democracy’s Gold Standard — hand-marked paper ballots, publicly hand-counted at each precinct on Election Night with the results publicly recorded and posted at the precinct before the ballots, and recorded results, can be forwarded to a tabulating center that publicly posts each precinct result and adds up the totals.
Democracy’s Gold Standard will be achieved only if and when the public, at-large, comes to understand that e-voting, whether by touch-screen or paper ballot optical-scan systems, entails not only an exercise in “blind-faith democracy,” but an extraordinary waste of public funds that flow to the coffers of e-voting system manufacturers, some of whom are not even located within the U.S.
By contrast, it is far cheaper to hire, train and employ temporary poll workers to hand-count ballots on Election Night. The funds used to pay local poll workers are then recycled into local economies.