To: All media
Date: June 15, 2005
Re: California Voting Systems and Procedures Panel hearing June 16: Diebold and ES&S
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Secret, proprietary programming code counting all our votes? Bush partisans owning and controlling our voting systems?
As Joseph Stalin said: “Those who cast votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything.”
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California election reform activists are mobilizing for the Secretary of State advisory panel meeting, June 16, in Sacramento, at which the Diebold and ES&S electronic voting machine companies will request “certification” for their latest dubious wares: unreliable, insecure, hackable and fraud-prone touchscreen voting machines and central tabulators, previous versions of which were banned in California by our former, highly vigilant Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.
Will Schwarzenegger appointee Bruce McPherson be as tough on the companies as Shelley was? That is one of the questions that reporters and investigators should be asking, as his advisory group, the Voting Systems and Procedures Panel, (VSPP) meets Thursday, June 16, starting at 10:00 am, in the first floor Auditorium of the Secretary of State Building (1500 11th St., in Sacramento, CA 95814), to consider new Diebold and ES&S voting systems.
The California Election Protection Network (CEPN), which consists of many different election reform groups, will meet in front of the Secretary of State building at 9:00 am, to discuss speakers and strategy.
Contacts:
MARC KEENBERG: hiway61abe@hotmail.com
SHERRY HEALY: sherry@califelectprotect.net
http://www.califelectprotect.net//June16HearingPressRelease.pdf ----------
The new “privatization” of our elections, brought on by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA)--which encourages but does not require conversion to electronic systems—is causing great alarm among citizens and voters. The companies involved—several with close connections to the Bush regime—require that the programming code they use to record and tabulate votes be kept as a “trade secret.” Few voters understand how their votes are counted, and not even our election officials are privy to the code. This is one of many grave problems with the new electronic voting systems. How can our elections be transparent with secret programming code?
Further, these electronic systems are highly insecure and vulnerable to hacking.
I urge all newspeople and other interested parties to get up to speed on this matter now, because it is the most explosive political issue of our lifetime. U.S. news media folk, Scoop.com in New Zealand is “scooping” you! (See the “Scoop” section, below.)
Here are some primer documents that I highly recommend:
"Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections" (2nd edition):
http://www.votersunite.org ----
Easy demo of how insecure voting machines are, by Republican hacker Chuck Herrin:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm----
Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting: "Analysis of Electronic Voting System"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5by Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, and Aviel D. Rubin of the Information Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and Dan S. Wallach, Department of Computer Science, Rice University - July 23, 2003
From the Abstract:
"Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts.// "We highlight several issues including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal. Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered without the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable. We conclude that, as a society, we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk."
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"Emerging Scandal on MD Voting Machine Performance"
"MD Election Group Calls for Independent Investigation and De-Certification of Machines (TruevoteMD.org); All MD Diebold Machines on Lockdown, Under Investigation for Widespread Statewide Election Day 2004 Failures
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/17/02212/3566 ----
Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting—in Florida's 3 biggest Democratic counties (Miami-Dade, Brower and Palm Beach); calls for investigation:
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu Report issued 11/18/04, by Dr. Michael Haut, & U.C. Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team; Haut is a nationally-known expert on statistical methods and member of the National Academy of Sciences and the U.C. Berkeley Survey Research Center
"UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count
Statistical Analysis - the Sole Method for Tracking E-Voting - Shows Irregularities May Have Awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or More Excess Votes to Bush in Florida
Research Team Calls for Investigation"
Press release:
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1118-14.htm ----
"The Corrupted Election" (2/15/05) by Dr. Steven Freeman and Dr. Josh Mitteldorf
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970 ----
“The United States of Ukraine?: Exit Polls Leave Little Doubt that in a Free and Fair Election John Kerry Would Have Won both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote”
by Ron Baiman - December 19, 2004
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997Baiman: "I conclude that, based on the best exit sample data currently available, neither the national popular vote, or many of the certified state election results, are credible and should not be regarded as a true reflection of the intent of national electorate, or of many state voters, until a complete and thorough investigation…."
Dr. Ron Baiman: Economist/Statistician - senior research specialist, Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago; teaches at the University of Chicago.
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The Scoop:
Republican connected control over the major election systems companies in the United States has been thoroughly researched.
“Bob Urosevich, CEO of Diebold Election Systems is also the founder of ES&S, a competing voting machine company. Together these two companies are responsible for tallying around 80% of votes cast in the United States. Also significant, from what we can determine about the architecture of the software, is that its basic structure was specifically a creation of Mr Urosevich's company I-Mark.”
For more background on Diebold Systems connections to the Republican Party see:
Diebold - The Face Of Modern Ballot Tampering
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0211/S00081.htm Senate Ethics Director Resigns; Senator Hagel Admits Owning Voting Machine Company
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0301/S00166.htm Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm ----------
CEPN
See:
http://election-reform.us/http://election-reform.us/background.htmlhttp://www.califelectprotect.net//June16HearingPressRelease.pdf CEPN Steering Committee:
Judy Bertelsen
Carolyn Fowler
Ferris Gluck
Anna Givens
Don Goldmacher
Jenny Hammond
Sherry Healy
Karen Indreland
Marc Keenberg
Mimi Kennedy
Cheryl Lilienstein
Sarah Rath
Sherry Reson
Eve Roberson
Maureen Smith
Marcy Winograd
CEPN includes reps from the following:
51st AD Delegate LA CA DEM PARTY
51CapitalMarch
Blackboxvoting.org
CA 6th Assembly District, Executive Committee
CA 77 Assembly District Democratic Committee
CitizenAct
City of Alameda Democratic
Code Pink
Democracy for America of Los Angeles
Democracy for America-Marin
Democracy for America, San Francisco
Dean Democrats of Silicon Valley
Election Board LA County Central Committee
GrassrootsWest.org
Left.org
New Frontier Democratic Club
Ojai Democrats
Progressive Democrats of America
Progressive Democrats of Sonoma County
Progressive Democrats, Los Angeles
San Diego for Democracy/DfA
Sonoma County Democratic Central Committee
Southern California Grassroots
United for Secure Elections
Ventura County Progressives
VOTERR
Voting Rights Task Force
Paul Wellstone Democratic Forum - L.A.
Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club - East Bay
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VSPP contact info.:
Voting Systems and Procedures Panel (VSPP)
Contact: Bruce McDannold, at (916) 657-2166, or email bmcdanno@ss.ca.gov
Office of the California Secretary of State
FAX (916) 653-3214 - Tel. (916) 657-2166,
1500 11th St, 5th Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814