Internal Memos: Diebold Doing End-Runs Around Certification [View All]

[BevHarris]

Copies of Memos: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/diebold-memos-1.htm

If certification isn't being done properly, the whole house of cards falls. The above link takes you to actual copies of internal Diebold memos which show that uncertified software is being used in elections, and that Diebold programmers end-run the system.

Our voting system, which is part of the public commons has recently been privatized. When this happened, the counting of the votes, which must be a public process, subjected to the scrutiny of many eyes of plain old citizens, became a secret.

The computerized systems that register voters, will soon sign voters into the polling place using a digital smart card, record the vote we cast, and tally it are now so secret they are not allowed to be examined by any citizens group, or even by academics like the computer scientists at major universities.

The corporate justification for this secrecy is that these systems adhere to a list of "standards" put out by the Federal Election Commission, and that an "ITA" (Independent Testing Authority) carefully examines the voting system, which is then provided to states for their own certification.

However, the states typically do not examine the computer code at all, relying instead on a "Logic and Accuracy" test which will not catch fraud and has frequently missed software programming errors that cause the machines to miscount.

A Diebold message board has been used since 1999 to help technicians in the field interact with programmers to solve problems. The contents of this message board were quietly sent to reporters and activists around the world, most likely by a Diebold employee. In a letter to WiredNews, Diebold has acknowledged that these memos are from its own staff message boards.

Without further commentary, judge for yourself whether Diebold has been following certification requirements: Go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org/diebold-memos-1.htm and judge for yourself.