BBV: from Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee!

[Vadem]

Outrageous: CEO lobbies for Bush while seeking contract to sell voting machines


Republicans have sunk to a stunning new low.

First there was Florida and the theft of the 2000 presidential election by the Supreme Court. Then there was the California recall. And of course, there is Tom DeLay trying to rig the Congressional elections in Texas to ensure that the Republicans keep the majority in the U.S. House so they can advance their radical agenda.

Now – to show that Republicans will truly stop at next to nothing to win elections and hand the keys of the national treasury over to their fat cat donors - there is Walden O'Dell, the CEO of Diebold Inc. Diebold is the company that wants to get the contract to provide and program voting machines in every state for the 2004 election and O'Dell is raising money exclusively for President Bush and the Republican National Committee (RNC). O'Dell, in a fundraising letter on August 14th, committed "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" according to the Associated Press. In the 2002 election cycle, O'Dell gave $5,965 to the RNC while Diebold gave the RNC $95,000.

This is outrageous!! Not only does Mr. O'Dell want the contract to provide every voting machine in the nation for the next election – he wants to "DELIVER" the election to Mr. Bush. In fact, Mr. O'Dell's fundraising appeal on behalf of President Bush came one day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three companies eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election. INCREDIBLE!! On the day before the Ohio Secretary of State was set to qualify Diebold to provide voting machines for the state of Ohio, its CEO said in a letter he will "DELIVER" Ohio for President Bush.

There are enough conflicts in this story to fill an ethics manual – but suffice it to say – when it comes to an issue as sensitive as how and who tabulates the votes of the American people – this episode is truly outrageous. Either Diebold should cease seeking the contracts for voting machines or Mr. Bush, the RNC and its affiliated committees should return the campaign cash they have received from Mr. O'Dell and his fundraising appeals and from Diebold.
HELP US STOP ANOTHER ELECTION FROM BEING STOLEN! Today, I'm asking you to sign a petition to the Chairman of the DSCC, Senator Corzine, to show your support for fighting back. Republicans must stop trying to steal elections. Sign our petition and send them a message today:

http://www.dscc.org/information/stopvotingmachines/

After you sign the petition, forward this to everyone you know. People MUST be educated about the tactics Republicans embrace. Their sickening attempts to hijack fair elections must be stopped. Florida 2000, California 2003, Texas redistricting – I could go on and on. Don't let Republicans get away with it. Sign the petition today.



Sincerely,
Andrew Grossman,
Executive Director, DSCC

[Vadem]

1. Bev, I think you wrote this missive from the DSCC! LOL

Unbelievable! I think the DSCC must be reading the BBV threads here on DU! What do you think?

[punpirate]

3. I think that...

... Bush's new name for Wally O'Dell is the same he gives Rove when Rove screws up: Turd Blossom.

[RapidCreek]

2. Done

thanks for posting this!

RC

[althecat]

4. Kick n/t

[dmr]

5. Done

[leftchick]

6. Thank You for this!

Done and forwarded!

[Kolesar]

7. O'Dell was an idiot for putting that in writing

"Deliver Ohio to George Bush"

[The Night Owl]

12. That would be called hubris.

Republicans think they own America. They honestly believe they can get away with just about anything. Just look at Dubya... So many scandals, we can barely keep track of them all.

[Donna Zen]

8. Signed

with a kick

[shirlden]

9. Dare I dream

that this means the Dems are going to get serious about this issue?
Or is it only because campaign funds are involved ? I am not convinced that my party any longer cares. If O'Dell offered to give them matching funds, they would say thanks and walk away. SIGH....but I signed anyway. Only 99.9% cynic.

:kick:

[hedda_foil]

10. OMG BBV hits the bigtime!

Unbelievable!

[The Night Owl]

11. Is Corzine the first Democratic leader to show interest in BBV issues?

If so, kudos to Corzine.

Now, where are our other Democratic leaders on this important issue? Asleep at the wheel?

[flpoljunkie]

13. Great to the DSCC involved in this urgent problem!

Done. Don't forget to forward this petition to your friends and relatives.

:kick:

[HootieMcBoob]

14. Sign the petition

It's really important that we sign this. This is very good news. One thing though: they should have put something in about the security problems with the machines -- lack of paper trail -- no outside verification, etc.

[davsand]

16. Has the Hacking challenge happened yet?

I don't recall hearing the results from the challenge that was offered that the machines could be hacked and not leave a trail. Has that happened yet or is it still ahead?

Laura

[BevHarris]

26. Still ahead

.

[MoonGod]

49. Umm, is there going to be SOFTWARE involved?

I seem to remember that it was suggested they would only have an empty box to "hack" into. Has that issue been settled?

[dusty64]

15. Glad to see them FINALLY

paying attention and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

[Eloriel]

17. Fabulous

:kick:

Eloriel

[RedEagle]

18. I Have Trouble With This

The petition just calls for fighting the rabid right- it does not call for any action plan to protect voting integity.

Without that, is the DSCC really going to get specific and address OUR issues? Or just orate and write letters of outrage rather then productive action.

Can anyone get the DSCC to get specific?

I like the idea that SOMETHING is finally happening here. But the detail, again, is the problem. If they yell specifically about the fraud potential of these voting systems, then they are really being poductive and not creating more green house effect with all the hot air.

This is a step forward. However, they need to make a leap.

[Vadem]

19. Here is the contact info for the DSCC:

This is the perfect opening for us to educate them on the BBV issue so let's get going:



Contact the staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:

[e-mail]
120 Maryland Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002
202-224-2447


Andrew Grossman, Executive Director: [e-mail]


:bounce:

[RedEagle]

25. Thanks Vadem

If they get a mass mailing, they might get the message.

I have another tactic, although I don't like using it, because we must get these thugs out of office.

But to those civil liberties groups, non-profits, whoever, who have chosen to adopt the non-paper line or are quiet, I just inform them when they ask for donations that I will donate when they start mandating voter verified paper ballots, used in recounts and ROBUST audits of the computer tallys.

Ditto for political contributions right now, and that one hurts, because I want to. I tell them the same thing and that if they don't, I'm just throwing my money away and I refuse to do that.

There are pros and cons to that strategy, but I can't contribute big bucks anyway.

Every survey, every piece of correspondence should go back with one message- mandate voter verified paper ballots.

When you list priorities, list that one first. Nothing else really matters.

[Vadem]

28. RedEagle, I did the same thing regarding contributions

that you did, i.e.,

"But to those civil liberties groups, non-profits, whoever, who have chosen to adopt the non-paper line or are quiet, I just inform them when they ask for donations that I will donate when they start mandating voter verified paper ballots, used in recounts and ROBUST audits of the computer tallys."

I remember especially the last time the DSCC hit me up for a contribution, I printed out a bunch of BBV info and enclosed it in their envelope with a note stating that when they start doing something about the touch screen voting machines and mandating a voter verified paper ballot, I would send them money. LOL Looks like it is time for me to put my money where my mouth is. I also enclosed Rush Holt's bill, H.R. 2239, and sent that to them as well and asked them to sponsor it and write a similar one in the Senate.

So who knows, maybe my little act of rebellion had something to do with this stand on BBV by the DSCC!

[Eloriel]

42. I called them this afternoon and

sent them the 40-page report Hedda_Foil and I have been slaving over for weeks and weeks now. All hot-linked and footnoted and ... all that jazz. It's a pretty good overview hitting most of the key points in enough depth to be credible (IMNSHO).

I'm sure your calls and/or emails will be superb impetus for them to really pay attention.

Eloriel

[Vadem]

56. Eloriel, how can I get a copy of your and Hedda_foil's

research paper? We need to send it out far and wide, as well as have a copy for our own research!

[John_H]

20. This should remind BBVers

that simple, obvious stories make the majors, as I've been a pain in the ass about, apparently futiley (is that a word?) for months.

Say what you want about Dem leadership, but their message people ain't (usually) dumb. They know this story is perfect for mainstram hoes.

My humble suggestion? You'll get more milage, impress more reporters, sell more books, change more laws, and damage the rethugs more if you focus on getting a machine or mockup hacked.

I mentioned the whole thing to a friend's intellectual property lawyer husband at a party last week. He said there may be a way arounf the copywrite thing but he'd have to think about it. When I hear from him, I'll let you know what he says.

[RedEagle]

24. Yay John! Let us know ASAP- this is important

John_H

This is really important. Don't let it drop. Give us all the specifics including out of pocket costs.

If we had a lawyer standing right there with the paperwork to back up the demonstration....

Thanks, really waiting to hear about this one.

[John_H]

35. Update: Lawyer's questions

1)He's confused about the terminology "immunity from prosecution" in the posts I've forwarded him. I told him that I didn't know if anyone had been threatened with prosecution, or if people were just concerned about the possibility of prosecution. Has anyone threatened anyone with a lawsuit or prosecution?

He's confused because apparently statutes and case law have provisions for "security checks" run by people who licence software and/or buy hardware from a vendor, especially in systems in which very high security is vital.

2)I am correct in telling him that at least one state official in one state has agreed to "the challenge," right?

[BevHarris]

39. Yes, Cathy Cox agreed but then reneged on her part of the deal

by saying that instead of hacking an election system, the hack would have to take place on a fake voting machine without any software in it.

The challenged that was accepted was to show how the election system can be rigged. Apparently Cox is not interested in honoring her acceptance of the challenge, because she will not permit the challenger to hack an election system, only an empty box, when even the box isn't a real black box.

There are precedents where a citizen who accepts a challenge is immediately hit with legal retaliation. One case involves a music industry challenge, I believe -- the company invited people to hack its system, even offered immunity, a group of computer scientists hacked it immediately and were promptly hit with DMCA.

The group of computer guys included, incidentally, Adam Stubblefield and Dan Wallach.

The Hopkins/Rice report was written by: Dan Wallach, Avi Rubin, Adam Stubblefield, and Yoshi Kohno.

Knowing what happened to Wallach and Stubblefield, DemActivist requires clear paperwork that prevents Cox from offering a challenge and then attempting to retaliate.

However, even that is on hold since Cox clearly has tried to renege. She has not been released from honoring her commitment, however.

As for Diebold, since Georgia offered specifically to "set it up" they need to show that they have the authority to set it up. That means, they need to produce paperwork that shows they have the right to "set it up" meaning, they have the right to offer to allow DemActivist to hack Diebold's system, which is the only election system used in Georgia elections.

Clear as mud?

Bev

[AP]

40. What you need to to do is look at Cox's contract with the licensor.

If they (or, specifically their designated agents) are allowed to reverse engineer, or decompile the code, or whatever for security purposes, then they can designate D.A. their agent for this purpose (which you'd want in writing). If this provision isn't in the agreement, then you'd ask them to get a letter agreement stating that Cox can designate and agent for this purpose. If Cox won't let you see the agreement (which she should, because it's a government K), or if they won't grant the letter agreement, I'd make a HUGE stink about it.

[DEMActivist]

46. One problem with that

Georgia specifically EXEMPTED the confidentiality agreement they signed from the Open Records Act when they established the 21st Century Voting Commission.

We can't SEE the document - it's locked down tight.

[AP]

48. The C.A. is locked down? Or the entire contract is locked down?

Usually, you'll have a C.A. when you enter into negotiations to license technology. It just says that you won't disclose any trade secrets or details of what they're trying to sell you so they can still compete with their competitors and (if it's a 2-way) they won't tell your secrets to your competitors. Now states don't have competitiors, so that should be a one-way C.A.

After you give your sales pitch and describe your technology and all your other trade secrets and business methods and what not, then you enter into the contract.

In theory, because the C.A. will have attached specific details of the trade secrets covered by the agreement, it kinda makes sense that you could lock that away.

However, since the C.A. doesn't license an rights to use the product, the C.A. can't tell you anything about the State's rights to decompile and test for security flaws, and whatever, so you wouldn't be all that interested in it anyway.

What you ARE interested in is that contract itself. Because the contract is just a list of prices and things that constitute breach, and warranties and covenants and scope of rights granted (which is the thing you need to see), there's no reason that anything in it except for the price would constitute a trade secret in most circumstances, and selling something to the government isn't like most circumstances so I don't even know how you could keep the contract price confidential.

Unlike in the sales pitch, it would be very unusual for the contract to disclose trade secrets or private information (other than the prices you actually charge). The contract will, however, contain a confidentiality clause in most cases with a broad scope (forbidding you from talking about the terms of the contract or anything else you've learned, which is overreaching because your competitors probably assume that you have a provision stating that failure to pay the contract price constitutes breach of contract) but no government should be signing a contract which has broad C.A.s forbidding any discussiono of the terms of the contract, and no business selling to the government would be losing much if its competitors knew its contract terms (in fact, most public companies are required to disclose the terms of their commercially significant contracts (with price terms redacted) so that shareholders have insight into the buiness).

If a state or local government is signing contracts which are entirely confidential, I'd make a big political issue out of it.

In any event, for your purposes, you need to see the license, not the C.A. Maybe they're trying to distract you from the license by answering a question you're not asking when they tell you the C.A. can't be seen.

It would be nice to know how these companies pitch their wares.

What would also be nice would be to know what constitutes breach (or, more telling, perhaps, what DOESN'T constitute breach). The former would help you figure out ways to force your government to invoke the breach remedies (and hopefully, termination is one of the remedies for serious breach). The latter would be a good indication of how easily these governments were going in these negotiations. For example, if there are no warranties by the licensor which had termination as a remedy for a serious breach, you could make a lot of political hay over the fact that your local government is being a terrible steward of your right to vote and your dollar.

[DEMActivist]

50. It's all locked down

Every bit of it. We're not allowed to see the contract, the technical data package, the sales pitch - nothing.

[AP]

51. That is stunning. GA's state gov't allows its officials to enter into

contracts which nobody can see. Where's the oversight?

How do you know they're including all the warranties and termination provisions any prudent party would ask for in a contract.

This is the equivalent of a slush fund.

It's totally wrong for a government to do this.

[AP]

52. How did you make the request for the license

And how did they justify keeping it secret?

Isn't there a sunshine law in GA? Did you ask to see the statutory authority for their position. Technically, you as a citizen are a party to the contract and should be entitled to see it.

[John_H]

53. Just got off the phone w/ him and

You've got to get a copy of that contract ASAP. Once she accepted the challenge publicly, that contract became relevant the challenge. When I told him that they won't let you see it his words were. "Oh....well that certainly is odd. They need to get a lawyer immediately down there in GA."

[AP]

57. I don't know state law in GA, but I can't believe any

law would justify making the contract for the licensing of the machines and the softward confidentials.

I can understand their argument for wanting to keep the code secret (but I think it's wrong) and I can understand the justification for keeping their sales pitch secret (which will probably be attached to the confidentiality agreement, if GA's lawyers were being good lawyers), however, this points to the problem with having private companies conduct public business. Sure they're have competitors in their market, and sure you don't want to give away your ideas to your competitors, but they are selling to the public, and the public should know all the sales pitches.

As I said above, I can see no justification for the refusal to turn of the contract for the machines and softward. I could understand if they wanted to redact the monetary terms (but again, shouldn't the public know what they're paying), and sure they might redact a password or something like that. But like I said, the public should know what promises the state and Diebold are making to each other, and more imporantly, what breaches can result in termination.

I suspect that ultimately one of the politically damaging angles to this story is that the states entering into these contracts are giving away the farm and asking for no promises in return. That would be a huge story if these contracts don't, for example, have a single warranty by the licensor, the breach of which automatically terminates the contract (including all obligations to pay).

Think about it. What if these contracts could be executed haphazardly, without any standards, but the state is totally obligated to pay the full contract price no matter what. I would say that any lawyer representing the state who did that should be disbarred. That is gross negligence.

[Eloriel]

43. Please do

Please start a separate thread about it.

What we've heard is that there's a principle in the law that you can't use the law to hide behind the law. IOW, you can't hide behind copyright laws on your software if your software itself breaks the law. HOWEVER, I don't know how DMCA applies here, which sounds like it has some truly repressive stuff in it. (I still haven't researched it like I should.)

Too, being able to use that "principle in the law" only protects you down the line -- you still get a lot of trouble for yourself between arrest or law suit and being acquitted or the suit dismissed or ruled against (or whatever). Yep, it could be hell.

Eloriel

[John_H]

54. The point is you want to prevent a suit

even if what you do is perfectly legal, they'll sue you because their pockets are deeper. They want to make it especially expensive for you--even if you win.

[shirlden]

21. kick

:kick: N/t

[rucky]

22. Done

...and passed on to 5 friends

[Junkdrawer]

23. Done

:kick:

[shance]

27. Done and kicked!

n/t

[Zhade]

29. Sorry to post this again...

...but the topic I posted in GD moved near the bottom within a minute, due to some hot threads! The below is a copy of that post, apologies for redundancy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

ATTN BBV Activists: new mirror site for test files now up

Howdy!

I have uploaded a mirror of Jim March's Diebold test notes page (http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html) and all but two of the files are now accessible through an additional webspace. Please feel free to access the files at http://www.smashthetrifecta.com - this will help ease the traffic load on Jim's site.

None of the files have been changed in any way. I approached Bev Harris about mirroring these files, and have accepted the risk that comes with doing so. Kudos and credit to Jim and Bev for all of their hard work and dedication to this vital issue - they are true champions of liberty!

(EDIT: please let me know if you have any problems accessing the site or the files.)

[Vadem]

30. Thank you Zhade! I did miss your earlier post and glad that

you posted it here. I'll check out your site.

:)

[Robbien]

31. Signed it. . . . eom

[Greyskye]

32. Done

and a :kick: back to the front page.

[bearfan454]

33. Signed and KICK !

KICK and more KICK !

[RedEagle]

34. I Want To Hear From That Lawyer

Kick!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

36. it's about time!

Do I detect a backbone growing in the Democratic leadership?

[tjdee]

37. Jon Corzine is so great!

See, this is what the DSCC chair *should* be doing.

Thank you Tom Daschle, for appointing my senator this cycle!

[Vadem]

38. Corzine is good!! I really like what he says every time I see

him on C-Span. He is the Chair of the DSCC but the email was from Andrew Grossman, Executive Director. I think they are getting the message from us from all the emails, calls, and threats to withhold money from them unless they start showing some backbone against this fradulent administration. Let's hope the worm has turned!

[Vadem]

41. shameless kick to the front for signup!

:kick:

[Eloriel]

44. One good kick

:kick:

Eloriel

[ibegurpard]

45. Get back up there, dammit!

:kick:

[oasis]

47. done

[4dog]

55. Good that some Democrats are finally facing voting reality.

No, they're not angels, but they can help people see who the real devils are.