Transcript of April 21-22 2004 meeting of CA Voting Panel where Diebold gets feet held to fire
Testimony April 22, 2004
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/vsptranscript0422.pdfArt CASSEL from Riverside County, CALIFORNIA
Line 16, p. 73
16 On March 2nd of this year began the longest day of my
17 life. It's still continuing. We were at an election
18 party. I was working as a volunteer for a candidate in
19 the supervisorial election. We were at an election party.
20 It was very, very close to the registrar's office. And we
21 received a call from an observer in Temecula that had said
22 that the registrar of voters had suspended the count.
23 So we immediately jumped in the car and drove
24 over to the registrar's office. At that point, we were
25 told by the registrar that the count hadn't been
p. 74
1 suspended, in spite of the fact that we had been told
2 that -- the Temecula count center had said the count was
3 suspended. There was no activity going on in the count
4 room at that time except for the fact there were two
5 people sitting at a terminal. That terminal, as I later
6 learned, is connected by Ethernet to the county server.
7 It's the only place it goes.
8 Didn't know who the two gentlemen were. One was
9 wearing a white badge that appeared to be a county badge.
10 The other one was wearing a metal badge that we couldn't
11 read from that distance. The two men sitting at those --
12 the two men at those terminals were Mike Frontera, who we
13 later learned was the vice president of Sequoia, and a
14 gentleman by the name of Ed Campbell, who works for
15 Sequoia.
16 Other than the registrar of voters there was
17 nobody else in that room, and the registrar of voters paid
18 no attention whatsoever to these gentlemen being at that
19 terminal. At that point, the vote had already been
20 started counting. There were 47 out of 150 precincts
21 reported in.
22 These gentlemen were typing at the terminal. It
23 wasn't until later that we found out they were Sequoia
24 employees. There were no county employees over them,
25 watching them, or doing anything about them. We had a lot
p. 75
1 of concern about this happening at the time.
2 Ten days later we observed another Sequoia
3 employee with a flash card in his pocket enter that same
4 count room with an employee of the registrar of voters, go
5 over to the same terminal that I had seen Mr. Campbell and
6 Mr. Frontera on. This time it was Mr. Campbell.
7 Mr. Campbell was trying to get a flash card to
8 read in the terminal -- in the count room. He was put on
9 by password into the registrar of voter's system. I know
10 the splash screen. I had watched it for two days at that
11 point and I know the registrar's splash screen. He was
12 signed on. The Riverside county employee left, leaving
13 Mr. Campbell in there with his card. Mr. Campbell tried a
14 couple of drop-down screens on it. And after doing this
15 the system rejected him and booted him out back to
16 windows.
17 Mr. Campbell looked around, did not see anyone in
18 there other than himself, and immediately put in what was
19 the same password, or very, very close to the same
20 password because there was an odd stretch and it was only
21 four or five letters that were involved in the password.
22 Mr. Campbell tried this two more times on that terminal
23 with the same result, getting booted out of the system.
24 He moved to another terminal that was located next to it
25 and tried it two more times over there. Was unsuccessful
p. 76
1 there. Moved to a terminal that I could not see directly.
2 But he apparently tried it either one or two more times
3 before moving back to the original terminal.
4 At this point an employee of the registrar's came
5 in. He said something to her. She came over to the
6 screen, used two more drop-down menus, walked away. He
7 put the card in. The same box that came up when I was
8 watching them tally ballot cards came up at that point.
9 When that happened, Mr. Campbell turned, glared at myself,
10 and picked up his card and left the room. We later found
11 out he had left that afternoon for Denver with his card.
12 Security? Security? I don't think so. I
13 recommend to people now that as long as these DRE machines
14 are there, vote absentee. Absentees used to be the bane
15 of people running for office because they were tamperable.
16 They are now gold. They are hard copies of a person's
17 vote. And it's really sad that it isn't because they've
18 become better, it's because the bar has been lowered so
19 far. This is a constitutional issue. It's the right to
20 vote. And I'll be damned if I let the Constitution get
21 trampled on.
22 Thank you.
23 CHAIRPERSON KYLE: Any questions from the panel?
24 Thank you, Mr. Cassel.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(755 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
