Spread the word... MN vote tally system is very unsecure

[Oreo]

I just sent this to KARE-11 and KSTP. Please spread the word.

I just found this pdf file that shows how to logon and tally the votes for the election. I am an IT professional and there are so many things wrong about this. Shared passwords that are intentionally given to a large group of people gives you no way to trace anything that may have been done wrong. The votes are uploaded as simple txt files. My 2 year old could open one of those and change numbers.

While the media may be taking a pass on the fraud that happened in this election, don't you think it's important to make sue future elections aren't stolen.

Here is the pdf file which you can openly download from the MN SOS website. That in itself is frightening.

http://soshelpdesk.sos.state.mn.us/SVRSProfile/SVRS/ENR_File-Upload.pdf

For more info... read here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x62773

[scarletwoman]

1. Do you actually KNOW how votes are tallied in Minnesota?

They are counted at the precinct level and the physical ballots are sealed in an official envelope with the count written on the outside which is witnessed and signed off on by ALL the election judges present at that precinct.

They are then hand delivered to the county auditor, who records the numbers AS WRITTEN ON THE ENVELOPE AND WITNESSED BY THE ELECTION JUDGES. Then the physical ballots are hand delivered to the Secretary of State's office.

Do you really think that when a precinct clerk KNOWS that she/he delivered an envelope to the county auditor with a particular vote total witnessed and signed by all the election judges, that no one is going to notice if a different total shows up in the official results? That's just absurd.

I'm getting fed up with alarmist crap being posted here by people whom I suspect have no clue as to how our Minnesota voting system is set up. I'm an election judge, and a DFL county unit party officer -- in other words, I have an inside view of how our elections are run.

You cannot manipulate the vote totals by changing numbers on a pdf file when every single precinct KNOWS exactly what their totals are before they are delivered to the county, and there is witnessed and signed paper backup at every step of the process.

sw

[preciousdove]

3. Doesn't mean the machines didn't change the totals at the precinct

The judges are just sending in what the machine told them the ballots said. They don't know if the machine was correct or not anymore than you or I do. Too bad we don't have two or three different manufactured scanners to compare the ballot totals.

In 2000 Diebold hired foreigners to "represent them" at the polls. They were told to tell immigration that they were just visiting not working and then they went back home. I noted one at Newll Park in a letter to the editor after that selection. I didn't find out who the man was until the Diebold memos became available months later.

Again the memos reveal that Anoka county allowed Diebold to beta test without getting permission prior to 2000. The founding and running of Diebold machines has been corrupt throughout and as far as I can see they just got a little less careless, not more reliable.

We are not immune here to technological fraud and the fact that we have good people as judges does not change the fact that the machines are not secure.

I didn't wholly understand the first post so I don't know if your reply debunked the possibility but your reply did not address the machine problems at the precinct level and we do need to be vigilant.

[no name no slogan]

6. But there's a built in paper trail

As sw said, the physical ballots are counted and witnessed by several people, and then sent to the Sec of State. So even if the electronic count is recorded improperly, there's not only the paper trail of the ballots, but the testimony of those people who witnessed the tally and the sealing of the envelope.

Does this mean we don't have to be vigilant? Of course not. We need to be aware of these things. But it doesn't mean we should go into 'alarmist' mode and call in the big guns over every little incident that may not "look right". Too much crying wolf won't solve the problem, either.

[scarletwoman]

7. As no_name_no_slogan posted above, there ARE paper ballots.

By law, a certain percentage of mandatory random audits are done in precincts with optical scan machines. That means that paper ballots are counted by hand to compare with the machine totals. State representative Bill Hilty will be introducing a bill in the next session to increase the percentage of mandatory random audits, which has the backing of both the House and Senate DFL leaders.

WE DO NOT HAVE PAPERLESS VOTING in Minnesota. This was put into a bill that already passed in 2003, that there will be NO paperless touch screen voting machines allowed in Minnesota.

I posted more details about all this in the "Kiffmeyer" thread on this page.

Of course we have to remain vigilant; but the fact is, there are elected DFLers in the state legislature who have already been on top of this issue for several years. It's not as if no one has been paying attention!

sw

[Oreo]

4. What is this system for ?

Why is it needed and why would they post the instructions on the web for all to see. Are you so sure Kiffmeyer isn't planning on changing the way things work? Is it alarmist to see something so ridiculously easy to hack and want more people to know about it.
While I am the first to admit I don't know everything about how are votes are tallied, can you understand why people would be bothered by this?

[no name no slogan]

5. I work as a webmaster for the state. You wouldn't BELIEVE the stuff...

...that's posted on the state websites that you can access with relative ease.

Unfortunately, not every state employee is computer- or web-savvy-- nor should they be, if their job doesn't require extensive computer skill. However, to do their jobs properly, these workers STILL need to access a variety of manuals at many different times of the day or night.

Due to the administrative overhead (and ever-shrinking state budgets), it is next to impossible to create and maintain individual username/logins for the workers of all 68+ counties in the state-- especially for a system which is only used once a year, at most.

Also factor in that most of these users will probably FORGET their username/pwd combo over the course of the task at hand, and you've got an overstretched help-desk staff (who can barely keep up with the calls they have now, btw) and a critical situation on hand.

Using a single username/password was probably an acceptable compromise for security and administrative purposes-- especially for a seldom-used system such as this one. It is definatly not perfect, not by a long shot. However, given the current state budget situation and the administration in office, it's probably the best we can hope for-- for now.

[preciousdove]

11. Pawlenty called for IT solutions to help with the budget

My brother spent the first part of his career as a consultant cleaning up after Arthur Anderson Consulting at Republican Airlines, 3M, the city of Springfield MO and St Paul companies among others. He then decided to offer his own product along with a few colleagues since that was what he was giving these people because AA had given them ca-ca for their money. Target Corp has been using his continually upgraded product for years now but he has yet to do as well as he should.

Anyway he took the time to look into some terrific solutions to save tons of money and make things, integrated, user friendly and secure and finally got an appointment only to find that the staff that was talking to him were "outgoing" and even if they listened to them the incoming group would just throw out anything they recommended. (The incoming group never called him back.)

Anyway I read a couple months ago that a huge consulting fee had been awarded to somebody to do what he had already started on his own dime because he figures he could give back and promote his product at the same time. He figured it was somebodies brother-in-law or a campaign contributor who was going to pull another Arthur Anderson and do nothing for a whole lot of taxpayer money.

Minnesota used to be the state that works on many levels and I would like to see it work again. Is anything positive happing in that vein?

[no name no slogan]

15. Yup. The "Drive To Excellence". Consulting by Deloitte & Touche

...or "Toilette and Douche" as they're known by many a smart@$$ IT geek.

Yes, we've all been sweating out the "Drive-By Excellence" (as my coworker calls it). Basically, it's just a way for Tim to squeeze more $$ out of an overly-strapped state government, so he won't have to go back on his "I won't raise your taxes" pledge. In fact, the department I work for currently has an administrative overhead of 3%-- most corporations would KILL for that low a number.

Notice how Tim announced it last fall, and set the end date to December? He did that for a reason: the next biennium starts in JANUARY, and therefore a new state budgeting cycle. He's a clever guy in that respect.

That's why he's putting the screws to the Tribal Casinos, too. Thankfully, they saw through his $250mil ruse and laughed in his face.

Pawlenty is very desperate right now. The DFL legislative victories have the Repubs quaking in their boots. They know we're going to clean house come 2006. If Tim reneges on his "no new taxes" pledge between now and November 2006, he is FINISHED.

There's a lot of very talented people working for the state right now, but unfortunately, like most big companies, the management doesn't like to listen to its employees. Instead, it pays 10x as much $$ for a "consultant" who basically tells management exactly what it wants to hear, and the same problems stick around, and nothing gets fixed.

[Krupskaya]

2. This hed made me laugh.

It's not perfect, but what we've got here is not bad. Scarletwomon speaks the truth: Hear her.

[scarletwoman]

8. Thanks for your support!

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Sheeeeeeeesh... :eyes:

sw

[Oreo]

9. it's unfortunate

that not everyone is lucky enough to have your vast knowledge. As a network administrator, I have spent the last 5 months working to become SOX compliant. This is a mandate given to us by the government. We cannot share passwords and we are forced to change passwords on a regular basis. Shouldn't the election of our officials at least meet these regulations?
So as part of the system, it's easy for you to blow off people's concerns. Shouldn't citizens question the system that makes up what decides who runs the country? Your blowing this off as a not being a problem is probably a good indication of how diligent the people of MN need to be in insuring the validity of future elections.

[scarletwoman]

13. I never claimed to have "vast knowledge",

and as for being "part of the system" -- I'm a grassroots progressive activist doing whatever I can from the ground to keep progressive values alive in the DFL.

I also happen to have the good fortune to have Bill Hilty (district 8A) as my state representative, who has been THE leader in the Minnesota legislature in the fight for clean and fraud-free elections. He has been on top of this issue since 2000, including his victorious effort to prevent the use of paperless electronic voting machines in Minnesota.

I've known Bill personally for over 2 1/2 years -- some of our earliest conversations were about the voting system issue. He is one of the most dedicated and progressive persons I have ever known -- in fact, he and his wife, Laurie, were Kucinich delegates to the DNC. He's worked hard on the voting issue, and I've been in contact with him throughout.

You and some others suddenly show up here full of alarm and righteous indignation, when I know that there have been people working on this issue for YEARS before most people were even paying attention.

I don't know who you are. I DO know Bill Hilty, and I know the work that's been done and the work that's ongoing. I'm not "blowing off" the issue, I'm trying to tell you that long before YOU got all hyped up about it, there have been people working on it, people who will CONTINUE to work on it -- people I personally know and trust, people who have access to the FACTS and the inner workings of Minnesota state government.

I make no apology for the fact that I give my personal connections, experiences and knowledge as a grassroots DFLer a whole lot more weight than alarmist messages from anonymous posters on a message board.

sw

[preciousdove]

10. Gee where have I heard that before?

That's the same thing Wellstone's people told our little group the day he flew back to Washington to accept the illegal FL and TX electors for 2000 The sky did fall for all of them. (Only Democrats go down in planes, funny law of the universe).

Since then America has lost its jobs, pensions, schools, plunged into debt, alienated most of the world by attacking a nation that had attacked nobody in 20 years, given away our rights and let health care/insurance companies steal us blind.

Excuse me but what color is the sky in your world and what would have happened if Democrats who had some power then had done the right thing and stopped the treasonous takeover then instead of acting like this was all some cocktail party game?

Check the blogs. The people who lived in Germany in the 1930's cannot believe that once again good people do nothing while evil is put in power. They can verify what is happening even if the Democrats insist on remaining subjects in the land of OZ.

You put THE paragon of virtue, Patty Whetterling up against Kennedy and lost because you did not convince enough people that she COULD fight for them because the Democrats have been wimping out for the last 15 years. That WAS the DFL's job this time to get that seat. You had the right candidate. Instead all we got was phone calls whining "we have to get Bush out" send us money.

Gosh I didn't realize how much I wanted to say this and I am not sorry I have.

[Carolab]

12. HONESTLY the level of ignorance here is astonishing

The problem with Minnesota's system, as with OTHER optically scanned systems in use across the country, is that the CENTRAL TABULATORS are easily hacked and results changed.

If you see errors such as I have seen on the SOS website--i.e., MORE VOTES than voters, which has been reported in many other precincts across the country--it leads you to conclude that the numbers have been altered.

Even IF the totals were correctly recorded by the pollworkers and even IF they were correctly entered into the database, the central tabulators could still have been easily hacked and the numbers changed.

It appears that they were, when the number of signatures + ballots (absentee/military) listed on the website don't match the TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTES.

What is so damned hard to understand about this?

Chuck Herrin, a Republican hacker, just did an interview about this very subject. He says the SAME thing and talks about how incredibly easy it is to do and how UNSECURE these systems are. In fact, this is the very type of thing Ida Briggs and Nader are looking into in New Hampshire.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm

[scarletwoman]

14. You're correct. For example, I have NO idea who YOU are.

How long have you been a Minnesota political activist? How many legislators have you corresponded with on the voting issue? How many meetings at the Secretary of State's office have you gone to? Which county auditors have you talked to? Which precincts have you worked at as an observer or election judge?

Don't be shy. Please let us know your credentials, and how you come by your Minnesota election expertise. It would be very helpful, don't you agree?

sw

[jean]

16. Earth to scarletwoman: The majority of DUer's are anonymous. Apparently,

many people prefer NOT to broadcast their names, credentials and pictures over the World Wide Web.

By now, we’ve all read of your DFL grassroots involvement and accomplishments. Kudos! Please keep up this fine work.

But you are missing the point on this topic. You do not 'get it.'

While you are the expert in knowing about and reporting on MN DFL activities and policies, you are uninformed about black box voting. You cannot find out about this stuff at a state meeting - you have to read and listen to the computer experts.

This is not about your friend advocating against paperless touch screen machines over the past few years. It's not about him pushing, in upcoming days, for a higher percentage of random audits. That's all very good news, but not material to the topic, which is:

Election fraud and/or irregularities, right now, here in MN. Computer experts, who have never talked to any of our county auditors or visited the SoS's office, have NEVER been a MN grassrooter OR met you, have said there are vulnerabilities in systems like the ones we use in MN.

Can you explain why there are vulnerabilities in central tabulation for both opti-scan and touch screen machines? Can you explain why the method for tabulating opti-scan ballots at the precinct level does not guarantee accuracy at the central tabulating level? You won’t find answers to these questions at a state meeting.

Our fellow DUer’s offer linkage and information about all of this. If you can’t handle not knowing everyone’s name, credentials or whatever, perhaps you should stay out of those conversations.

You ask Carolab how many this, how many that, what’s your name - in essence you want to have a pissing contest. Why don't we concentrate on aiming outside our tent - don't we have a common cause?

Please take some time to educate yourself on this stuff. It's informative to read your reports of what's going on at local and state meetings and what is coming up for MN. Thank you.

But you, in turn, need to think about accepting other people’s reportage on BBV issues. There is more than one way to develop Minnesota election expertise.

[scarletwoman]

17. The fact is, I've met many of the MN DUers who post here in the MN forum.

That's one of the beauties of having our own state forum, we AREN'T anonymous to each other. A number of us know quite a bit about each other's political activities here in Minnesota.

So all of a sudden you and others come charging in here posting all this stuff about possible voting problems in Minnesota without bothering to so much as mention if you even LIVE in Minnesota, and with nothing more concrete to offer than speculation that fraud could happen.

All I'm trying to say is that there are people working in the Minnesota government that already KNOW about all these nasty possibilities, and have already been working to prevent them for YEARS. This stuff isn't news, Representative Hilty was consulting with Bev Harris over two years ago!

I've been following the BBV stuff ever since HAVA was passed. Don't tell me I "don't get it", I was educating myself and involving myself in this issue LONG before you ever joined DU.

Raising alarms doesn't mean a thing unless there's some concrete plan for taking action. Several times already I've laid out the action that I know is already being taken. If someone else wants to chime in with THEIR plan for doing something, great. The lectures are getting old...

sw

[jean]

18. That is the beauty of DU - people can meet up, post pix of themselves AND

others can choose not to. People can post as much or as little profile info as they like. After checking the registration date on my profile, you wrote: "I was educating myself and involving myself in this issue LONG before you ever joined DU." Since you've been interested in this issue, I would appreciate your insight into MN central tabulator, password and access vulnerabilities.

You've laid out actions you know are already being taken on some HAVA issues, but MN hasn't done much about central tab, password, access issues. We see alarming evidence of this in the pdf file of the MN SoS Election Night Reporting Manual, found through online research and posted by Carolab.

Raising alarms means everything. We're turning the focus to these problems and a plan of action will evolve. You can't develop a plan until the problem has been exposed and analysed, no? These are newly exposed flaws - MN has no current plan for addressing them.

My profound gratitude goes to BBV and thousands of other activists (some anonymous or working behind the scenes, not constantly trumpeting their credentials), who are working their hearts and minds out to expose and eliminate election fraud.

[mzmolly]

19. Yikes!

:scared: