Voting-Machine Maker to Princeton Researcher: ‘Hands Off’

[tpsbmam]

Source: Wall Street Journal

Princeton Professor Edward Felten astonished Congress and increased doubts about electronic voting two years ago when he showed a House committee how easily he could open a Diebold touch-screen machine, insert new software and alter vote totals.

Now, Sequoia Voting Systems, the other large voting-machine maker, has sent Felten an email suggesting legal action if he tries the same thing on its equipment.

Felten, a computer scientist, said the Constitutional Officers Association of New Jersey approached him after about 60 Sequoia voting machines across the state seemed to malfunction during the state’s Feb. 5 primary. In end-of-the-day audits of those machines, he said, the total number of ballots cast for one party or the other didn’t agree with the sum of the ballots cast for that party’s candidates. The numbers were typically off by one, he said: “Usually we saw one too many votes for one party and one too few for the other.”

.......

On Friday night, however, Felton said he received an email from Sequoia warning that the counties would violate licensing agreements if they shared the equipment with him and that it had “retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any noncomplaint analysis.”

Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/18/voting-machine-maker-to-princeton-researcher-hands-off/?mod=googlenews_wsj

[drm604]

1. What are they afraid of?

If their machines really are totally reliable and un-hackable then I would think that they would welcome such scrutiny.

[olddad56]

5. the are probably afraid that they can't keep their promises to the republicans..

if anyone has an opportunity to hack into one of their machines.

[davidinalameda]

2. what's the saying-thou doth protest too much?

they're hiding something

I think that's just obvious

those counties should tell them to hit the road

[maryallen]

3. Funny about Exit Polls for NJ being "wrong," as well as ...

SIXTY voting machine MALFUNCTIONING on February 5.

Just a coincidence, I'm sure ...
(sarcasm)

[Hutzpa]

26. Not only NJ

New Hampshire has an exit poll that was completely off the mark too.

[truthisfreedom]

4. HAH! What better way of drawing unwanted attention to themselves. Congress should be up in arms

over this.

[tjwash]

11. They are up in arms...

Why just yesterday, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi hauled off and gave him the dirtiest look he had ever gotten in his life.

[varelse]

15. why, if looks could kill...

he'd have a mild sunburn!!!!!!!!

:rofl:

[sarcasmo]

6. Are we afraid of the truth?

[DeeDeeNY]

7. Intimidation works once again

"The New Jersey counties have since withdrawn the offer of the machines"

[Seabiscuit]

17. What I don't get is why any state or county would ever trust these voting machine makers ever again.

I'm happy to see the New Jersey counties withdrawing their offer to this particular company for their machines. There has been more than enough proof out there of use of these machines by Repukes to commit election fraud for so many years now I am simply stunned by the monumentally outrageous stupidity and/or corruption of the people responsible for foisting them on us in the first place.

But these machines are made by companies who are run by Repukes and are used to steal elections for Repukes. They are deliberately "defective" (read: hackable/tamperable) so that voting results can be altered in favor of Repuke political candidates.

It's a travesty that these companies are threatening intellectual property lawsuits against researchers who have discovered or are attempting to discover why they produce faulty results.

It's a travesty that Congress hasn't acted against these companies and acted against the use of such machines for voting in a democracy where we the people are guaranteed by the Constitution that our votes will count.

And it's a travesty that any state or county even considers using such machines in our elections.

We will never take our country back from the criminal element that currently dominates our governments until states and counties are forbidden by law to ever conduct elections using such machines.

[Vinca]

8. This stinks to high heaven. Can you say President McCain? nt

[arundhatiroyfan]

9. They can't make it any clearer what they are going to do.

N/T.

[moggie]

10. There should be no talk of "intellectual property" in the machinery of democracy

It's madness. If you must have electronic voting, it needs to be via technology which is owned by nobody and is open to scrutiny by all. This is so obvious even a child could understand it.

[Drifter]

13. Indeed ...

It should be all open source / open hardware.

Cheers
Drifter

[Peace Patriot]

37. They have it in Venezuela: OPEN SOURCE CODE--anyone may reveiw the code

by which the votes are tallied--and they furthermore handcount a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud.

We have TRADE SECRET CODE in the machines and...ZERO handcount in many states, and a miserably inadequate 1% in the best of states.

That's why they have a president who has run a scrupulously lawful, beneficial government for ten years--having won three elections (including a Bush/U.S. taxpayer funded recall) by increasing margins, in highly monitored elections--and why the Bush junta hates that government and its president, Hugo Chavez. He was really and truly elected, and enjoys a 70% approval rating--unlike Bush, who was not elected either time, and has an 18% approval rating. The other reason, of course, is oil. How dare a South American country use its oil profits to help the poor?! It grinds on Bush, Cheney, and--interestingly, and forbodingly, on Donald Rumsfeld*, whom we thought we had "retired." Mark my words, the Bushites have coming-to-fruition war plans in South America, because there is transparent vote counting not only in Venezuela, but also in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina (the 'axis of leftist evil' that sits on vast oil reserves in the Andes), and transparent vote counting, as well, in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Nicaragua. Virtually the entire continent has gone democratic and leftist, and is following its own regional path toward social justice and self-determination. The Bush junta's 'coup de grace' to the world will be an attempt to destroy democracy in South America and its new leftist alliances, and regain global corporate predator control of the oil and other resources.

It all comes down to transparent vote counting, in the public venue, vs. "trade secret" vote counting in private corporate control. Democracy vs. fascism. And, when our relations with South America are all shot to hell (some time around November), like our relations with just about everybody else in the world, maybe we'll find the way to change this, and restore our sovereign control of our election system. But it sure looks like it's going to get worse before it gets better.

-------

*"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

Note: You need to read between the lines a bit, as always with Rumsfeld--and, for alternative sources of info, I recommend: www.venezuelanalysis.com, and www.BoRev.net (hilarious AND informative).

[ooglymoogly]

47. exactly right. nt

[Norrin Radd]

12. Treasonous language from Sequoia VS. n/t

[groovedaddy]

14. Some of us just don't get it - MONEY/Profit is now KING, trumping the constitution,

the Republic, Democracy, the Bill of Rights and morality. They will do anything to protect their market position, even if it means the undermining of democracy.

[rosesaylavee]

16. Paper. Ballots. NOW.

7 years. We have been fighting these criminals 7 years. Enough.

K & R

[GAtomboy]

18. I couldn't agree more

PAPER Ballots!!! I work in the IT field, I know how easy it can be to hack these programs and manipulate the results. Electronic voting should be illegal.

[leQ]

38. i ditto that (eom)

[The Wizard]

19. unclean hands

Sequoia's threat exposes them as crooks and liars. If the State owns the machines, the State should have the right to confirm their accuracy.
We need a Sequoia voting machine party akin to the Boston Tea Party. This overpriced crap belongs in History's dust bin. We have to encourage absentee balloting or any other alternative imaginable. As for the threat of a Sequoia law suit: They won't move on it as it will expose them as frauds. Once the law suit begins the discovery process ensues, and that is the fly in the Sequoia ointment. It's a bluff. That's a can of worms they don't want opened.
Of course a law suit would carry on well beyond future elections, and as such, Sequoia machines could be sequestered until the matter is resolved. Bring on the Sequoia law suit now. Any election officials who back down in the face of Sequoia litigation threats are exposing their own unclean hands.

[Peace Patriot]

39. Absentee ballot only gives you a paper trail. It does not give you a verified election.

They scan the AB votes right into the rigged electronics--and the AB vote, like the ballot with optiscans, is dumped into a box and never seen again. The results can still be totally fiddled. (Note: Many states have ZERO audit--no handcount of any kind as a check on machine fraud. And even the best states do only a 1% audit--totally inadequate in a "trade secret" code system. We need a minimum 10% handcount to detect fraud.) This is not to say that AB voting couldn't be used as protest--a voter boycott of the machines. But be aware that the optiscan/central tabulator system (including scanned AB votes) can easily be rigged.

As for lawsuits, see my post below. Sequoia may desire a lawsuit, so that Bushbot judges can enshrine their "right" to profit from our elections in law, as happened in FLA-13 WITH NO OBJECTION FROM OUR DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSHIP--in fact, they're covering it up. They're COVERING for ES&S and its "trade secret" code! We've got a very bad situation, friends, with the Democratic Party and these election theft corporations.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

55. Yes, unclean hands, exactly!!

Another brilliant legal mind on this board, I see. :hi:

[The Wizard]

20. Sue the bastards

If our elected officials can't figure out how to get a verified paper trail with greatly overpriced printers attached to obsolete (Vic Commodore 64) computers, perhaps they could give us the option of voting with hand counted ballots filled out with cheap pens.
Enough already. We want our votes counted.
Free and fair elections are the bedrock upon which real democracies stand. We the people demand paper ballots. And if some voters are incapable of filling out paper ballots they can vote via absentee ballots.
They've come up with every excuse imaginable to suspend verified voting. If they refuse to provide paper ballots they should be sued out of office. Every resident of this state should sue for verified voting, as the electronic ballot box is a fraud. All legislators who deny verified voting need to be asked why they oppose a government of, by, and for the people.
Why is the code that counts the vote proprietary? We’re not talking about defense secrets. We want our votes counted in public, not in secret. Anyone wanting to hide how the vote is counted is up to no good, and playing by election rules set forth by Joseph Stalin.
The world's oldest democratic republic will be nothing more than the newest fascist tin- horn dictatorship unless this voting issue is equitably settled.
We've spent half a trillion to give 25 million Iraqis purple thumbs and paper ballots. We should be able to spend some of our money on pens, paper and some thumb ink.
No more excuses. Legislators must deliver or be sued for consumer fraud and return to the State Treasury their salaries in triplicate.
Having anything less than a verified paper trail invites corruption, and worse, the possibility of insurrection.
The whirring sound in the background is our founding fathers spinning in their graves.

[Hutzpa]

25. There is an easier solution to all

of this, simply use the format of the ATM machines, whenever you retrieve money, you are given a
receipt, why not do the same with voting machines.

It would be the safest way to keep paper trail because people will have proof of them voting and
whom they voted for.

[tachyon]

33. That isn't good enough. Your little slip of paper is no guarantee of how the actual count

was done. It's different from an ATM transaction because with those you have more records downstream to verify the amounts.

[Hutzpa]

41. Instead of attacking

my solution why don't you try and give YOUR idea in preventing voter fraud.

It sounds like you have a more solid opinion as how we approach this, or
you're comfortable with the present situation whereas voting companies
continue to disenfranchise voters.

[tachyon]

46. I didn't mean to attack your idea, just pointing out it is also subject to fraud.

I want an actual paper BALLOT that can be easily and clearly marked (and doesn't have chads)... preserved for
at least a couple of years in a safe place.

[bad_robbie]

48. Voting receipts have their own dangers . . .

. . . unfortunately. A receipt could open up the possibility of vote buying and voter intimidation. It could be from one's boss, or some thug working for one candidate or another, or other scheme that I haven't thought of because I don't have enough evil in me right now.

Maybe the receipts could be encoded so that they weren't human-readable, but that would defeat the purpose, too.

You're right that ATMs are better at auditibility. Even a paper trail within the DVR machine (like an ATM has) would be more tamper-proof than the current system.

[happygoluckytoyou]

21. IGNORE THE VOTER BEHIND THE CURTAIN

[spotbird]

22. Let them sue

I double dare them to sue.

[Broadslidin]

23. And to think, the Founding Feudal Fathers set the stage for this scam.....

with an entrenched, easily manipulated
two political party biz.

Protecting their financial interests from the
riff :patriot: raff.

[pegleg]

24. The democrats have had the opportunity to address this issue

and it has been virtually ignored by them.

[DFW]

27. Connect the dots

When the people vote, Republicans tend to lose more.

When voting machines made by Republican allies are used,
Republicans tend to win more, including some improbable
upsets.

The next Democratic Attorney general will (or should) set
in motion legal proceedings to jail those who have committed
electoral fraud, and advocate the abolition of manipulable
vote-counting equipment.

Obviously, the people who make these machines stand to lose
contracts if their equipment is no longer used. They also
stand to lose their liberty, if their machines are forensically
examined, and their actions brought to light.

[Lugnut]

28. What are they hiding?

:kick:

[Subdivisions]

29. They threatened him

with an email? Not very formal is it?

[bagrman]

30. What happened to the Harlem districts that cast no votes for Obama

[smoogatz]

31. If the votes are counted in secret, there's no democracy.

Simple as that. It doesn't matter if they're counted inside a locked room or inside a black box run by proprietary software. If corporations count the votes, corporations determine the outcome.

[BobTheSubgenius]

32. These companies are offering a ludicrous position.

They produce software that registers increments of one. How hard can that be?

[Peace Patriot]

34. As always with big corps, the issue is not the issue. The issue is POWER.

The issue is not whether they're shaving off one vote here, one vote there. To them, the issue is their ability to do so without detection, and, in particular, without the prying eyes of the public upon them. Whether their machines are crapass junk or not, and routinely fuck up results with machine "errors" and "breakdowns," doesn't matter. Whether their machines are easily hackable--especially insider hackable--does not concern them, nor the corrupt election officials who cover for them. The issue is POWER. With POWER--the power of "trade secret" vote counting--they can turn any election at any time, and the politicians know this, and are therefore beholden to a new entity in the story of democracy. They are not beholden to the people any more. They are beholden to rightwing Bushite electronic voting corporations.

Surprise, surprise. Do our Democratic representatives ACT LIKE they are beholden to rightwing Bushites, and not to the people? Why, yes. Come to think of it.

Sequoia, Diebold (recently renamed 'Premier') and ES&S can turn them out of office next time around--just as they had the POWER to do so in '06, and '04 (and in some elections--where e-voting machines had been installed early, notably Georgia, in '02).

There has never been a more frontal assault on the sovereign power of the people in our democratic country than 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY vote counting.

It is mind-boggling.

This arrogance of Sequoia (in threatening the professor) is mind-boggling. The arrogance of ES&S, in the FLA-13 Congressional election, where their machines 'disappeared' 18,000 votes for Congress in Democratic areas, and handed the election to the Bushite by 369 votes, is mind-boggling, not only for what they got away with, but for what they said about it in court--that their "right" to profit from our election system TRUMPS the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted, even in a stinko election like FLA-13. Also mind-boggling: The judge agreed. And perhaps most mind-boggling of all: the FAILURE of our so-called Democratic Congress and our Democratic Party leadership to do anything about it. Nothing! They did NOTHING!

Which brings me to my final point. They let the FLA-13 case languish in committee for a year. Meanwhile, the WRONG candidate sat in Congress casting Bushite votes for a constituency that did not exist. Then, quietly, at the turn of the year, as we headed into the 08 primaries, buried in the news: Christine Jennings (the Dem winner in FLA-13 whose election was stolen by ES&S) withdrew her challenge in Congress, and Congress (read Dem leadership) tossed that hot potato to the GAO. Within minutes, it seemed (a couple of weeks, maybe a month), the GAO comes out with a report that whitewashes the FLA-13 election theft, and, days later, the head of the GAO abruptly resigns, complaining of untoward Congressional influence on the GAO's famously objective investigations (the last honest agency of government). And HE gets a posh job at some think tank. (Sorry, there are no heroes in this story.)

I've done a little dot-connecting on this one. That's how it looks to me--like something that cries out for further investigation, and something that could reveal some real bad guy Democrats, who, for reasons unfathomable (but which we can guess at), are PROTECTING RIGHTWING BUSHITE ELECTION THEFT CORPORATIONS.

I have long suspected this, and worse--that the passage of the "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA-$3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle) in the same month (Oct 02) as the Iraq War Resolution (IWR-$3 trillion war boondoggle) are RELATED, and that the purpose of HAVA was/is to shove this unjust war down the throats of the American people, 56% of whom opposed it from the beginning (Feb 03, NYT poll; other polls 54-55%) and SEVENTY PERCENT of whom opposed it today. Few people are aware of that 56% early opposition, but the warmongers and corporatists were aware of it, you can be sure. It was in anticipation of that significant anti-war majority GROWING to wild, unprecedented levels of disapproval (70%!), that HAVA was enacted, and non-transparent voting systems, controlled by Bushite corporations, were fast-tracked all over the country during the 2002-2004 period.

Again, what does this Congress look like? It looks like the OPPOSITE of the American people. 70% of the people hate this war and want it ended. 60% to 70% of Congress STILL favor the war, even after the 06 Congressional 'elections' in which the war was the main issue on peoples' minds. And they don't just favor it, they have voted to ESCALATE it, and to lard Bush/Cheney with billions more of our tax dollars to keep killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights.

What's. Wrong. With. This. Picture?

The hidden symbols within it--that everything in the foreground is obscuring--are the corporate logos of Sequoia, Diebold and ES&S. The owners of the "trade secret" code that is 'disappearing' this awesome, unprecedented, historical antiwar majority.

And just in case you don't know who these corps are, take a gander:

DIEBOLD: During '03-'05, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; their rep is so bad, they recently split the election division off and renamed it 'Premier';

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), whose initial funder and major investor is rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things); and

SEQUOIA: The third major election theft industry player, which hired former Calif Secretary of State, Republican Bill Jones, and his chief aide, Alfie Charles, to peddle their machines--in an egregious example of the corruption that private corporate vote counting has fostered ("revolving door" employment, lavish lobbying, corporate secrecy, corporate lawyers writing our laws, and the heady power of multi-million dollar electronics contracts in government).

These are the people who are "counting" virtually all of our nation's votes, under a veil of corporate secrecy.

The Democratic Party "position" on this is: just add ballots (a paper trail) and everything will be fine. Kind of a bit late. But the main trouble with this--besides giving BILLIONS more of our tax dollars to these rightwing corporations to "fix" the problem of paperless voting--is that nobody counts the ballots! Many states have a ZERO audit (hand-count of ballots against machine totals)--and many states still have no ballot TO recount (no audit/recount is possible). And the best states have a completely inadequate 1% audit (a minimum 10% is needed to detect fraud). It is not a solution. It is a cover-up--just like the GAO report.

In any case, the dogs of war have been unleashed, and were given a phony "mandate" in 2004, and the 1.2 million dead innocents in Iraq, and the 4,000 U.S. soldiers, cannot be brought back to life, and the millions of wounded, tortured, displaced, and orphaned cannot be healed, cuz all the aid money has been stolen by the most thieving, criminal administration in our history and perhaps in the history of the world. With the silence and collusion of much of our own party leadership.

Mind-boggling seems hardly a strong enough word.

[bad_robbie]

49. Don't forget about Chuck Hagel and ES&S

Senator Chuck Hagel won an out-of-the-blue upset to get elected senator from Nebraska in 1996 and re-elected in 2002. The same Chuck Hagel who was the Chairman of ES&S's parent company. The same ES&S that counted most of Nebraska's votes that year, what with it being the local company -- located in Omaha.

I remember reading about that in 2003, paying special attention, since at the time I was a temp engineer, working for the contractor that does much of the hardware and software development for ES&S.

Based on my experience there, I don't think that ES&S iVotronic systems are easily hacked by outsiders, since they don't run a commodity OS or use commodity system boards. They could be compromised by an inside job, though. One of my duties was to help "clean up" the software for 3rd party audit -- meaning we had to make it readable and fit the auditor's requirements. The purpose of the audit was to comply with FEC requirements that the code be verified by an outside party. Unfortunately, the cleaned-up code never got re-integrated into the production software. That which was audited was not the code used to count the vote.

[Peace Patriot]

54. Just caught up with your comment. Wow! A lot of us have suspected as much--

but I don't think anyone has the evidence on it or has witnessed it--like you have. I haven't read such an account anywhere else. But it's not a topic that I know a lot about, other than "tip of the iceberg" tidbits, and the highly corrupt, and highly secretive, outlines of the whole situation, including how the federal (i.e., Bushite) Election Assistance Commission was set up, how they were told to go slow with regulation prior to O4, how their "certification" process is basically industry "regulating" itself, and fraught with secrecy, etc.

What you have just said seems to me to be a major revelation (that the cleaned up, audited code is not the code used to count the votes). Have you thought of writing it up for publication? Z-mag? Rolling Stone? Mother Jones? Bradblog? Or at least as an OP for our own DU election forum? You might also want to contact folks at Voters Unite, who publish the great booklet, "Myth Breakers: Facts about Electronic Elections" (www.votersunite.org). See what they have to say about it, talk with other tech experts, and decide what can be done, or what you are wiling to do, to expose both ES&S and the election theft industry in general, on the issue of the secret code and auditing of it.

My read on ES&S, they are worse than Diebold, especially because they are not as well known. It's as if we have a huge scorpion hidden in the darkness of our election system, which has already bitten and poisoned our democracy, and is lurking there, ready to inflict the lethal sting, perhaps this November.

Thanks for this info! And WELCOME TO DU!

[liberal N proud]

35. Excuse ME!

:wtf:

These f$%@# know that there is something hidden that they don't want exposed.

[Rider On The Storm]

36. I've blogged about this twice in the last 24 hours

If you'll please forgive the links offsite:

Sequoia Voting Systems threatens Princeton researchers
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/18/14447/3914

Sequoia Voting Systems SUCCESSFULLY threatens Princeton researchers
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/19/92852/6282/187/479847

The first one contains a number of email addresses for Sequoia personnel,
including one that I have good reason to believe belongs to the guy
who signed the threat. The second is a followup (of course) and also
discusses the designation of some Ohio voting machines as a crime scene.

[TomClash]

40. Sequoia

has a snowball's chance in hell of winning that case in NJ.

[Sam Ervin jret]

42. Intellectual property concerns do not trump civil rights concerns. Ever .Hand it Over.

No questions asked or answered. Like the Bush administration does business.

[Magleetis]

43. The crooks

are going to rig another one. This is the only way we can be defeated in Nov. and they know it.

[The Doctor.]

44. I know a great way to resolve the situation without violating license agreements...

GET RID OF THE DAMN THINGS!

[yardwork]

45. Well that's not suspicious or anything.

This would be funny if it weren't so dreadful. Our elections are being stolen and apparently that's fine with Congress.

[FlyingSquirrel]

50. Hey, doesn't this belong in Election Reform?

Hee hee hee just kiddin'

:silly:

Dissent is patriotic

:patriot:

[Supersedeas]

51. is this America or Russia?? the public no longer has an interest in fair elections?

[Auntie Bush]

52. The states should all refuse to buy any electronic equipment until

the Company proves within a shadow of a doubt that they are dependable, accurate and non-hackable.

[Blue_Tires]

53. ttt