By the way, a related post is important, about the meeting tomorrow night:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=993519OK, the following strange little saga still just doesn't sit right with me. Creative writing assignment -- which ones connect to which? Here are a bunch of unrelated incidents, some of which probably tie together, some are probably just incidental. Anyone here a novelist who can weave an explanation out of some of the following pieces?
1. October, shortly after the California recall election: VoteHere "source code" started getting peddled around to activists. It was done in a way that smelled of entrapment efforts -- specifically, by sending an e-mail which directed the recipient to click a link to VoteHere source code. I got the email, but certainly didn't click the link, and notified others to avoid it, as it sounded like an entrapment effort. More on that at
http://www.blackboxvoting.org (requires a scroll down).
2. December 16: Andy Stephenson and I revealed that former Washington secretary of state Ralph Munro (currently chairman of VoteHere), and current secretary of state Sam Reed, had presided over the use of unauthorized software in at least five Washington counties. At the same time, we revealed that convicted felon Jeffrey Dean had been given a position with total access to the King County vote tabulation system. (Later, we found that he also apparently had access to components of the touch screen system, the optical scan machines, and the punch card and optical scan ballots used in many states).
On the same day, after being harangued by Washington State legislators earlier insisting on a paper ballot, current Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed announced that Washington would get a "paper trail" -- but reading the fine print, this promise had what we call a "VoteHere clause" -- it said a paper trail OR a method to individually verify ballots. VoteHere is a printout with a code on it that you go compare with the Internet and it is supposed to tell you your voted was properly recorded.
3. December 30: Andy Stephenson and I visited secretary of state Sam Reed's office, requesting the signature pages for the so-called "certified" Diebold software used in Washington State. We were given only three pages, and they did not cover many versions we knew to be in use. One, with former secretary of state (now chairman of VoteHere) Ralph Munro's signature, had the ink bleeding through the page. I couldn't really tell if it was wet or not. Certainly, whatever they handed us was an original.
4. Last week: VoteHere does a full blown press deal announcing they have been "hacked." This comes complete with publicity photo. Strange, because they are an encryption company that specializes in Internet voting and voting security. Seemed odd to make a big announcement about being hacked, seemed odd that they were "hacked" in the first place, the alleged theft of source code seemed odd, since VoteHere had planned to make it public anyway through Dr. Dill's web site this fall. It also seemed strange that they were announcing it Dec. 30 or whatever, since it was alleged to have happened in October.
What struck me as even more peculiar was Jim Adler's assertion in his MSNBC interview that VoteHere's "hacker" somehow triggered a trip wire and they were supposedly watching him as he hacked; it also seemed strange that they were saying they knew who the hacker was -- if so, why hadn't he been arrested? I thought it was mighty convenient that the hacker was alleged to be an "activist" who was against e-voting. And to add to the pile of things that didn't smell right, they insisted this "hacker" also "hacked" the Diebold memos. Now, some say that claiming origination to the Diebold memos may be worth tens of millions in Qui Tam whistleblower money. But who would believe you, if you claimed you hacked the Diebold memos -- unless you did something like "hack" VoteHere also? Pure speculation, and only worth a "hmmm."
5. On the same day, Andy started getting followed by a dark colored GMC Envoy, and this continued to the point that he called the police, who showed up to interview the follower. Nothing resulted and the follower drove away, but showed up again a couple days later.
6. Andy and I went back to visit several locations in the Washington state capitol Monday Jan. 5, with a videographer. One place Andy visited was the secretary of state's office, where he again attempted, unsuccessfully, to get the secretary of state signature pages from Ralph Munro and Sam Reed for software used in our elections.
Another lengthy visit was with the executive ethics division. I discussed ethics complaints filed against former secretary of state now VoteHere chairman Ralph Munro, for his inappropriate and precocious involvement with VoteHere; I am also pushing ethics complaints on three more individuals associated with the secretary of state's office, in connection with inappropriate activities connected to VoteHere. I'm not going into more detail, since there are others involved in this. Suffice it to say there seems to be a pattern of cross-hiring between the S.O.S. office and VoteHere, and there also seems to be inappropriate vendor promotion going on by the S.O.S. office in connection with VoteHere and one of VoteHere's contractual liasons, Sequoia.
7. Two days later, I get a call from the Secret Service, wanting to interview me in connection with the VoteHere "hack." Now, I had reported the entrapment effort to the FBI (who has told me that VoteHere had not reported the hack to them). This was not the followup interview for my FBI report, but the Secret Service. He said that the Secret Service runs the Cyber-Crime unit in coordination with the FBI, but he was calling me based on my posts on the Web, not based on my report to the FBI. He was not aware that I had reported the entrapment attempt to the FBI.
I did say in my online posts that I'd be delighted to speak with the cops. I am not surprised by the contact, and I do have information that may be valuable but I find the timing rather interesting.
I do encourage as many of you as possible to attend the meeting described in the link at the top of this post. If you live in Washington (or Portland) take a moment to read through that message. I believe it will be well worth the effort to attend.
Bev Harris