EXCLUSIVE: ES&S Attempts to Block PA County's Independent Audit of Failed Touch-Screens

[BradBlog]

Source: BRAD BLOG



EXCLUSIVE: ES&S Attempts to Block PA County's Independent Audit of Failed Touch-Screens
After no objections previously, the nation's largest e-voting company attempts to kibosh computer scientists' forensic examination in Venango County, PA...

Despite failing to object for months prior, the nation's largest electronic voting system vendor, ES&S, is now attempting to stop a landmark independent examination of their e-voting systems in a Pennsylvania county dead in its tracks.

An October letter from the company, obtained by The BRAD BLOG, charges that Venango County, PA is in violation of their contract agreements with the Omaha-based e-voting Goliath, even as two volunteer Carnegie Mellon computer scientists are in the midst of a forensic audit of the county's May 17 primary election. The county's investigation comes on the heels of apparent failures of the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting system during their recent primary and several other recent elections in Venango.

The 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic system has failed in a number of elections nationwide, but is still widely used across the country and slated for use once again in more than a dozen states in next year's Presidential election.

The Venango study, which we first reported on in early October as it began, came about after worries arose during a 2008 election when the ES&S system reported that some county candidates "had zero votes", as the county's Republican Board of Elections chair, Craig Adams recently told us while we were guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show…

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8874


Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8874

[annabanana]

1. CLEARLY ES&S has something to hide.. . .

Like those damn machines are completely hackable at many levels. We should NEVER have allowed our franchise to be captured by private corporations.

[teddy51]

2. I find it incredible that both this company and DieBold are still being

used at all. The fact that there is no verifiable trail is crazy.

[msongs]

4. more incredible that democrats in position to do so are doing Nothing about these machine systems nt

[DeSwiss]

6. Which is the most telling of all.

Because it demonstrates pretty clearly, that it really doesn't matter who we elect. It becomes more a matter of the level of craziness we prefer, and the rate of descent of the nation as a whole.

- They all represent Mammon......

K&R











http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hklqkwyISuk">''All tyranny needs to gain a foothold, is for people of good conscience to remain silent.'' ~ Thomas Jefferson.

[No Elephants]

25. Please see Reply 24. I believe the expression "Read it and weep" fits.

[DeSwiss]

32. Not libelous in my state. I voted for Barack on one of those E&S's

At least I think it counted. I'll never know for sure.

And it's the same in other states. They should be outlawed everywhere.

Why? Because it is both unconstitutional (in my view) and definitely immoral for any private entity to control the public's votes through their implied proprietary ownership of computer codes. Exclusive ownership of which is granted to them at the public's cost to enforce and its behest since we provide the legal framework for its exclusivity. In other words, without the public they have no interest that anyone is bound to protect on their behalf. They can't have it both ways. If they don't like that deal, then they can take their damn code to another country.

Period.

- Now when we accomplish that, I'll be happy weep for joy! Meantime, what I said above stands.

[No Elephants]

24. Downright libelous to say they did nothing: "House defeats paper ballot funding" (2008)

http://fcw.com/articles/2008/07/21/house-defeats-paper-ballot-funding.aspx

How dare you imply they were slackers!

[bvar22]

33. It is important to point out here that...

..in 2008, The House was controlled by The Democratic Party.


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity99!
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[Scuba]

5. Makes you think there's 535 crooks in Washington. n/t

[a simple pattern]

11. 545.

And then some.

[duhneece]

9. Which is why NM legislators demanded voter-verified, auditable ballots

They are computer counted, but a group of mixed-party citizens audit a random sample of all elections and can hand-count if elections are contested.

ALL states need to demand this...or we need a federal law.

[BradBlog]

13. Yeah. Just one problem with that...

You're idea for a "random sample" spot-check of paper ballots after "all elections" is swell. Unless, of course, that sample is not so "random", as was the case in Ohio's largest county after the 2004 election during the attempted Presidential recount, for which which two top election officials in Cuyahoga County were given the maximum sentence for having gamed that "random" spot-check:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4071

[duhneece]

14. Yup, gaming the random sample is illegal nt

[YvonneCa]

20. ...

Thanks for the memories... :)

[demodonkey]

21. I personally saw the same thing in other Ohio counties during that recount....

...no one was prosecuted in ANY of them, but they were doing the same thing Cuyahoga did.

MB

[No Elephants]

27. Thank heaven James Carville alerted his wife to that recount while she was sitting in Cheney's

office with Robert Woodward.

I bet Woodward got quite a kick from putting that in his book.

Hmmm. I wonder why a Republican journalist was sitting with a Republican strategist and a Republican Vice President as Presidential election votes were being counted?

Oh, well, I'm sure Woodward is always perfectly appropriate and objective. Nothing to see there.

[No Elephants]

26. Boston kicked out machines and went back to paper ballots in 2004.

Of course, that was Kerry's Presidential, the Mayor of Boston is a Democrat and Boston is the most liberal part of a (then) liberal state.

Computers count ours and we don't get a copy, but it's "close enough for government work."

[saras]

12. If they were a legitimate business, they'd JUMP at the chance to be proven clean

...nuff said.

[No Elephants]

23. This company bought Diebold.

"Premier Election Solutions,<1> formerly Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (DESI) was a subsidiary of Diebold that makes and sells voting machines. In 2009 it was sold to competitor ES&S.Another subsidiary selling electronic voting systems in Brazil is Diebold-Procomp, with minor market share in that nation. In 2010, Dominion Voting Systems purchased the primary assets of Premier, including all intellectual property, software, firmware and hardware for Premier’s current and legacy optical scan, central scan, and touch screen voting systems, and all versions of the GEMS election management system from ES&S.

At the time ES&S spun off the company due to monopoly charges its systems were in use in 1,400 jurisdictions in 33 states and serving nearly 28 million people."

Much more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions

[qb]

3. As far as election problems go, the MSM has determined that "You can't handle the truth."

Thanks to bradblog for keeping us posted.

[No Elephants]

28. Doesn't that pretty much apply to everything nowadays?

"All the news we deem fit for you to believe."

[cui bono]

7. KnR

[dipsydoodle]

8. And don't forget folks

:sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

31. It's good to be the dictator. (I never see fresh flowers next to my ballot box!)

[pam4water]

10. I'd really like paper ballots back.

[No Elephants]

29. Please see Reply 24.

[valerief]

15. Secret electronic voting is the Aladdin's Lamp of despots. nt

[fascisthunter]

16. notice how silent both political parties are on this issue?

[No Elephants]

30. How dare you? Please see Reply 24.

[FailureToCommunicate]

17. Occupy ESS and Diebold ??

Love ESS's tag line:

"Maintaining voter confidence"

[sulphurdunn]

18. Only in Wonderland can it be

real to design a tabulating system that puts a "1" in column A or Column B, depending on where a voter touches a screen, and them adds them all up at the end of the day and spits out a total that is so complex it requires unauditable "proprietary software" to add the numbers. This is not rocket science. This is bullshit. These machines could be designed by college kids and build by high school vocational students in my garage. Of course the goddamn things are rigged. They were designed that way. Duh! What is really Orwellian is that most voters wouldn't have a clue about what this article is talking about even if they bothered to read it. :crazy:

[Rex]

19. 'Enhancing the voting experience'

Wonder how many years it will be before the M$M 'finds out' these machines can be hacked by a computer science class? Oh right, never.

[snot]

22. I continue to see this issue as a top priority.

Sooner or later, we have got to replace all vulnerable voting and tabulation machines.

[bvar22]

34. The fact that neither dominant Political Party has made this an issue...

...scares me more than any other single issue in America today.

You would think that after the Stolen Election in 2000,
and the "questionable" election in 2004,
that THIS would be a Priority Up Front Issue with the Democratic Party.
But NO.
Nothing but SILENCE from our Party leadership.
I can think of only one reason WHY,
and THAT scares me.

Only from the distant, marginalized Loony Left Wing of the Democratic Party can you find somebody willing to question the security of our election in the USA.
The elections in Venezuela are MORE Open, Transparent, and Verifiable than our elections.

Over 92% of the American people (Democrat & Republican) support Transparent Verifiable Elections.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x446445

Secure, Transparent, Verifiable elections are EASY and inexpensive:
*One Day Voting, National Holiday

*Paper Ballots

*Deposited in transparent ballot boxes

*Publicly Hand Counted with Internet Video Feed Surveillance

*Results posted on the Polling Station Door

*No Ballots or Ballot Boxes moved from the Polling Station until the election is certified

*Independent Exit Polls
(Independent Exit Polls are the Gold Standard for monitoring Fair Elections.
That is WHY One Day Voting is so important.)




Mail In Voting is the least secure way of voting.



There are MORE opaque, private, secret, Black Boxes being used to "count our votes" today
than in 2008 when the Democratic Party took control of the White House, The House, and The Senate.
WHY?
:scared:



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity99!
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