Looks like he bought the bait!!! Time to file in an injunction, I knew the likes of McPherson weren't serious.

By the way.....you might want to point out when going to court, the relevant statutes and also the fact Diebold is facing numerous prosecutions and could be sold off, aka dissolved.....In fact, thats exactly whats happening. They are going to be out.

So why allow their machines at all if the division is going under?

Another argument for court. Make it stick like glue.

History of the voting machine...

Doug

brick by brick, this democracy, this country, is being dismantled. most of the american public won't know until its too late. WAKE UP!!!

This is part of a pattern of things going on in California that are NOT GOOD at all. Black Box Voting has more details and action items:

http://www.bbvforums.org...gi?file=/1954/19353.html

Jim March
BBV Staff

It's time to get busy boys and girls.

Jim March was too modest to reprint his whole article here, but it tells you exactly what to do. He knows: He spent the last week negotiating his butt off in Sacramento.

Forget injunctions. Forget calling the governor. Call the California Senate Rules Committee, who are all ears but need to log call volume to demonstrate political support. Ask them to subpoena the bastards. This will happen, so get your dialling fingers ready by Tuesday please.

Below are their numbers and exactly what to do, plus all the information you need about why now is the time. Send this to your friends, post it to your lists, because this is big:

- - - -

This is a very important news post, with national implications because --- with YOUR help --- today's miscarriage of democracy will give you the first good shot at subpoena-induced sworn testimony from voting machine makers and testing labs. Vendors and voting machine examiners: Enjoy the reprieve that McPherson just handed you, because the American citizenry --- with the help of some California senators --- is about to make sure it stops right now.

Citizens: Instructions are provided in this article.

Red flag: Meet bull

THE RED FLAG: Today California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certified Diebold's entire product line, including the TSx touchscreen machine with its "toilet paper roll" paper trail --- you know, the design that removes the privacy of your vote. He also approved the Diebold optical scan system, knowing it can be hacked, and he approved the Diebold GEMS system, knowing it can be hacked, and all accessories and accompaniments.

The system was approved despite 100 percent public opposition and despite not having the ITA report back. (Welcome to Black Box America.)

YOU'RE THE BULL: It's time for you and everyone you know to make phone calls for subpoenas!

We are seeing a pattern of obfuscation and cover-up. YOUR help will be needed to get to the bottom of it all.

The Feb. 16 California Senate Elections Committee hearing on certification was hit with no-shows by ALL FOUR major vendors (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart Intercivic).

Representatives from Wyle and Ciber testing labs declined to appear. Both the technical staff and the PR flaks for the California Secretary of State's office blew off the Senate Elections Committee.

The Secretary of State's office is now "legally late" on a series of public records requests made by California Elections Committee Chairperson Debra Bowen.

This lack of response to a California Senate hearing is a potential disaster in the making. With no election insiders willing to answer questions, the vendors as a whole (and Diebold in particular) along with the now-infamously inadequate test labs start looking like they're coated with non-stick Teflon.

It's not nice to blow off democracy, and we are asking you, the taxpayer, to refuse to allow testers and vendors to thumb their noses at the California Senate. It's your tax dollars that are paying for this equipment, which you have asked NOT to be purchased at all.

That Senate hearing on 16th could end up doing more harm than good, because if subpoenas don't happen, it tells American citizens that they are impotent and that laws, federal regulations and standards don't matter. That is, unless you and your friends make some phone calls to gouge that Teflon.

This is your best shot to drag the right people to the questioning table, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Complicating things: the head of the Senate Elections Committee (Debra Bowen) has to get permission from the California Senate Rules Committee to have subpoenas issued.

Fortunately there are good people at Rules. Of their five members, the chair (Sen. Don Perata-D) has a good record in electronic voting issues and Sen. Cedillo-D also has a decent grasp of these issues. Sen. Bowen is the 3rd Democrat on Rules and we know where she stands. The two Republicans (Sen. Jim Battin (Vice-Chair) and Sen. Roy Ashburn) are approachable on this issue too. Only three of these Senators are needed to invoke port subpoenas (or letters containing promises of subpoenas upon failure to appear).

YOUR PHONE CALLS ARE NEEDED to Rules Committee members

Urge support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who didn't testify on the 16th.

Contact list:

Senator Don Perata (Chair)
(916) 651-4009

Senator Jim Battin (Vice-Chair)
(916) 651-4037

Senator Roy Ashburn
(916) 651-4018

Senator Debra Bowen
(916) 651-4028 (Yes, call her too so she can log the support calls, it's important since it allows her to back her position from the grassroots.)

Senator Gilbert Cedillo
(916) 651-4022

Black Box Voting Inc. seldom puts out calls for grassroots pressure, as we feel this powerful tool can be diluted with over-use. But now is the time.

How to deliver your message

Be quick, be polite, be professional. Here's your message: ask for "Rules Committee support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who won't otherwise inform the Elections Committee as to what's going on".

This is about volume of calls logged.

Therefore, not only should YOU make calls, but this needs to go out to your list.

Why this certification is a red flag

California does NOT have the Wyle Labs ITA report back on the memory card and interpreted code. McPherson sent the code back to the labs after issues were triggered by Black Box Voting in a June 20, 2005 "19202 request".

To recap, Wyle should never have approved the use of interpreted code OR "electronic ballot box" memory cards that can be pre-stuffed with negative and positive votes, especially when you can use Diebold's funky private "AccuBasic" code to fake the zero report that's supposed to catch such manipulations.

Black Box Voting asked the Secretary of State's office to review this issue, per California Election Code 19202. Shortly before Thanksgiving, the Calif. Sec. State's office formally requested Black Box Voting to do a review but under contrived and ridiculous test conditions written by Diebold.

This turkey shoot led to a bit of squabble. The Secretary of State's office buck-passed the situation to Wyle, and Wyle still hasn't responded.

Not surprising: If Wyle says interpreted code is OK, they've violated the FEC 2002 published standards yet again. If Wyle says it's a problem, any reasonable person will ask "how did you approve it in the first place!?"

This is a classic Catch-22 which Wyle appears to be unable to resolve.

Members of the Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board (VSTAAB) two UC Berkeley researchers tested the code for Secretary of State McPherson and blasted the system. It is stunning that McPherson is still certifying the system, which is clearly out of compliance with FEC standards.

Because Black Box Voting made the 19202 request we believe we have every right to that data, especially since Election Code 19202 requires the Secretary of State's office to "report on it's accuracy and efficiency."

The public commentary in California on this system is running 100 percent against certification. The federal testing authority appears to be dumbstruck. With your help, Black Box Voting WILL get to the bottom of this if it takes a backhoe and bulldozer to do it.

California Sec. State staff reports late AGAIN

A hearing on 3/1/06 at the Secretary of State's office will take public commentary on a slew of new or revised voting machines from ES&S, Sequoia, Hart and Populex. The agenda and other information has been posted here:

http://ss.ca.gov/electio...tems/agenda_20060301.pdf

What's significant by its absence is the legally required staff reports on these machines to allow the public to give informed testimony. The California SecState's office has consistently promised to make these available a month ahead of time (again, as required) but as of today they're a no-show:

http://ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm

This agency doesn't appear to care much about informed commentary.

Item three: What? No regulations YET!?

This one is important, folks. Almost a year ago the activist community in California discovered something important in California Election Code 19205:

19205. The Secretary of State shall establish the specifications for and the regulations governing voting machines, voting devices, vote tabulating devices, and any software used for each, including the programs and procedures for vote tabulating and testing. The criteria for establishing the specifications and regulations shall include, but not be limited to, the following:
(a) The machine or device and its software shall be suitable for the purpose for which it is intended.
(b) The system shall preserve the secrecy of the ballot.
(c) The system shall be safe from fraud or manipulation.

"Regulations" has very specific meaning in California: it means the agency in question has to write a set of rules, submit them for public comment and hold meetings with public input on them.

Without regulations the agency can make up the rules as they go along, which in times past (admittedly prior to the McPherson administration) we’ve seen as they play favorites in fairly obvious fashion, with the treatment of Avante voting systems as opposed to major vendors with more political clout being classic across 2003 and 2004.

Worse, at present the Secretary of State's office blocks all questions from the public during the "public commentary" meetings. We can't question their certification staff or the vendors. This is a travesty which we could fight in a proper regulatory wrangling process but the McPherson administration has ignored this vital reform for the nearly a year they’ve known about the legal requirement.

They've ignored the law on this for nearly a year, folks. ALL future certifications appear to be illegal on their face until this is fixed.

Conclusions: We’re seeing a horrifying pattern of obfuscation and illegality wrapped together and supporting each other. We have reason to think that the California Rules and Elections committees acting together can shed light on this series of backroom dealings and we're asking YOUR help in making it happen.

Any one of these items viewed individually would be bad news.

Together? Well folks, WE better hang together on this. If democracy as a transparent and lawful concept cannot be restored in California, the rest of the nation will go with it and our Republic is doomed.

This ain’t a drill folks. Grab a phone, start dialing. Polite, professional, short clear message, FIRM is what works.

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

BREAKING UPDATE:

The Secretary of State's office has released the Berkeley report on the Diebold product line:

This document borders on the bizarre. We find the following quotes of particular interest:

Harri Hursti's attack does work: Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS is definitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server.

...and:

Interpreted code is contrary to standards: Interpreted code in general is prohibited by the 2002 FEC Voluntary Voting System Standards, and also by the successor standard, the EAC's Voluntary Voting System Guidelines due to take effect in two years. In order for the Diebold software architecture to be in compliance, it would appear that either the AccuBasic language and interpreter have to be removed, or the standard will have to be changed.

California can only run software certified by the Federal ITA process, by state law. The "Berkeley team" is saying flat-out that such certification was NOT done correctly, therefore the entire Diebold product line is illegal under state law.

IF YOU BELIEVE CITIZEN OVERSIGHT OF ELECTIONS IS IMPORTANT, PLEASE JOIN THE 2006 ELECTION CLEANUP CREW. WORK STARTS NOW. WE WILL PROVIDE ONE ON ONE CONSULTING TO HELP YOU UNCOVER WHAT'S GOING ON IN ELECTIONS NEAR YOU. E-MAIL crew@blackboxvoting.org. (Allow a few days for a response, due to our heavy travel schedules.)

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

JIM: Its this point where we bring in the big guns.....

Prepare to file for court, now that you have them in direct violation of the law. Perfect timing: If one or two injunctions is filed, they can be duplicated in other states. Then we can smash their doors down, Diebold is going belly up with our collective work.

Doug E.

Bev

I passed it on to the Washington FBI office also, we will get subpoenas. The offices in CA are closed for now, but I still encourage everyone who can to call the offices, leave a message or two and stand firm. We're going to get these boys with the gloves off.

Doug

The NeoCons want California bad. It is the world's 5th largest economy. You can see Rove and Cheney salivating over California.

LOTS of bad news today. The shutdown of the investigation into the NSA eavesdropping by the Senate seems to have gone completely unnotced by the MSM, as has Mike DeWine's drawing up a bill to make it legal to bypass the FISA court for domestic wiretapping.

The only bright spot is that finally this stuff might convince the Dems that it is no longer business as usual in DC. That the NeoCons really ARE bad, bad guys.

Beyond that we got nothing. Everyone get ready to be herded into those domestic detention areas Kellong, Brown and Root just got almost a billion dollars to build. Bye, America. Hello, Fascism.

Thanks for nothing, mainstream media. Go fuck yourselves.

Bev, also an e-mail blast to your list, and maybe if VR comes on board also, with concise directions of who to call and what to say on Tuesday, would be a big help on this one.

Fuck the neocon spies....We got them cornered now, the bastards have nowhere.....I'm going in for the KILL!!!

Doug E.

Will get busy making calls. Thanks Bev for the heads up!! Somehow I'm not surprised with the shenanigans!! Their plan for 06 and 08 are clear - more rigged elections!!

Is Secretary of State McPherson a Republican?

Doug E #9

They are evidently not shaking in their boots. Instead they are in your face.

Even tho Bev, Jim, and the crew at BBV beat them in court and have an injunction in place.

All of this is due to the failure to have a real accountability in American politics.

I salute one republican who knows who to punish for wrongs (link here).

He, instead of blaming democrats for not discovering and stopping NSA spying on Americans, blamed the Bush regime and sued them.

Wow, what a concept. Put the blame on the perpetrators ... where is this nation heading?

For Doug E.: If Diebold goes under, their voting machine division will either go out of business or be sold off to another company as part of the liquidation process. In fact, they've given hints that they plan to sell it off anyway.

McPherson's motives are suspect. But the best challenge to his action isn't to question his motives, because then the burden of proof is on the questioner. It's to ask, "Mr. McPherson, if these machines are used in 2006, but Diebold is no longer standing behind them because they're out of the business, who is responsible to the citizens of California for flaws that might develop?"

In other words, it's like buying a car from American Motors or Studebaker. The guarantee is worthless.

To all the BradBlogians who think it's OK for soldiers to murder because they're following orders, "What on earth is wrong with you???"

Big Dan #14

I am not one of them ... for damn sure. That is a fascist defense which the NAZI party relied upon at Nuremburg.

It is a viewpoint from those who do not have a strong self image or concept of indivicual responsibility.

All responsibility, and therefore accountability, rests upon the foundation of the individual behavior.

Upon that we can build national accountability and international accountability.

America is fast loosing the notions we were founded upon ... individualism ... individual rights and individual accountability.

The current regime and the current congress are group think which means anti individual.

Therefore when one of them gets in trouble, like a criminal gang, they all come together to cover up, stall, and try to get the criminal off.

The American thing to do is hold anyone to the law no matter if they are one of "us" or one of "them".

Soldiers are aware of the military law making it wrong to obey any wrong order. And officers are aware that the military law holds them accountable as well.

Both the soldier and the officer are culpable for giving or following an order to murder.

The "devil made me do it" defense is invalid and worthless.

And when the republican regime orders NSA spying on Americans the soldier who obeys is just as guilty as the one giving the order ... the president.

And when the republican congress lets the president off because he is one of them, the whole notion of accountability and a nation of laws is just a pipe dream.

Blaming the democrats for these acts of the commander in chief is also just as immoral.

Folks, does anyone think this kind of shit is leading to civil war? Anyone out there thinks it's time to arm ourselves and start a revolution? Disclaimer: Not that I would actually ever advocate taking up arms against the gov't, but does anyone see that happening?

I personally feel, we are already living under a dictatorship. Just look at what the democrats did to Hackett. Both parties are totally corrupt. Where is our Oliver Cromwell???????????????

Big Dan #14
I second that emotion. I've been ten rounds with my father over this. He is ex-Air Force. Did not vote for Bush this term, thinks the war is a travesty, but holds the troops entirely blameless - they are just following orders. Can't seem to get beyond that. These differences are straining the family bond, to be sure.

A campaign should be started NOW to encourage California voters to vote BY ABSENTEE BALLOT ONLY until and unless the State gets its sh*t together and the voters can be sure their vote will be counted.

THAT will ensure beyond doubt that a paper trail will exist to verify the count.

PLEASE START THE MOVEMENT HERE AND LINK IT TO AS MANY BLOGS AS POSSIBLE AND MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE VOTE TO BE RIGGED.

ABSENTEE BALLOTS ONLY UNTIL THESE CURSED MACHINES ARE GONE!! PAPER VOTES ONLY!!

For Soul Rebel: Does your dad think torture is O.K. if the soldiers are "just following orders?"

If so, please give him a one-word message from me. NUREMBERG.

Bill, the absentee thing won't work. Those absentee votes are either fed into Diebold machines to be counted or simply not counted at all and left to pile up in a warehouse. Nice try.

No, we are screwed no matter how you slice it.

Nelson: Just wait till the NeoCons sic the bird flu on us (coming in as soon as 30 days, and likely making landfall in Florida (land of Jeb!) Then the NeoCons will roll out their martial law and use the military to "quarantine" us in their shiny new KB&R detention centers they just got hundreds of millions to build.

Yes, there is some sick shit coming down the pike, and not one Dem is standing up to do anything about it. Have none of them even READ the goddamn PNAC manifesto? It's out there in the open, you moron head-in-the-sand Dems.

But a revolution? Well, the problem is that much of America still buys the Bushco 9-11 lie and would never even dream they'd sic bird flu on us because that is just too messed up to even conceive of. So how can we rebel when the enemy is us?

There's only one thing for sure--things are GRIM. Anybody expecting things to change in the 2006 elections is living in fairy land.

For everyone: I got through!!! Now is the time to flood their offices, let them know they will serve subpoenas and fight these little freaks back from whence they came!!!!!

Robert; yes this is a perfect time to tell them that Diebold won't be around.....not worth having machines if the company is going under that *owns* them....

Doug E.

Bill Arnett #18 -

From Bev at kos last night:

Guys, absentee is especially dangerous w. Diebold (4.00 / 2)

Diebold stripped out the key protection that would detect GEMS tampering. Your 12 year old sister can own the absentee votes without leaving a trace, short of counting the absentee ballots.

When a candidate in Marin County noticed that he won on polling place votes but lost hugely on absentees, he asked to do a recount. They told him it would be $13,000 just to sort the ballots, which they jumbled together.

You vote absentee, anyone with access to the central tabulator for 60 seconds, even years before the election, can own your vote.

And by the way, even aside from GEMS and the stripped-out Diebold absentee security, guess who wrote the mail-sorting software AND the signature authentication software for Diebold ?

That's right, Jeffrey Dean, whose testimony on this matter in a 2004 trial is posted on our Web site. Read and weep, he was convicted on 23 counts of computer fraud and his software counts your absentee votes.

Now, don't you think it's time to place a few phone calls to get Senate Committee subpoenas issued?

Instructions downthread.

Cheers,

by BevHarris on Fri Feb 17, 2006 at 10:10:11 PM PDT

WHO'S COUNTING

Sorry - should have "refreshed" before posting... Thanks jIMcIRILE !

Thought the following was an interesting interview, explaining why our illustrous Dem leaders don't mention election fraud... I don't agree with everything he says, but his views on why everyone's so unwilling to speak out explains a lot.

Rewriting Our Rotten History of Elections

"When you look into the background of the two US companies that supply 80% of the electronic voting machines in use here, what you find is, to put it mildly, shocking: an incestuous web of ultra-right-wing connections."

History Of Electronic Voting Machines

OOPS! I didn't realize I posted an Abu Ghraib comment in this voting article. Sorry! Comment 14.

Brad, could you take out StupidDan's comments & subsequent torture/murder comments, and put them in the Abu Ghraib article? I don't want to mess up this important voting related article. I'm glad too see more BradBlogians than I originally thought, are against murder, though.

Well, is it revolution time yet? Hey. OUR Founding Fathers recommended it. So's I guess I can repeat it.

I simply wonder where the repukes got so many friendly fascists to do the machines and all the other crap they've done... like 911 etc.

Or is the bulk of em simply clueless dupes thinkin they're doin something good. I always knew fully one half are below the mean on IQ and a quarter to a third of those above the mean are mostly crazy for one reason or another and with psych ops directed towards the 'homeland'..... how many are left who can actually think?

In any case, ah'm getting more pessimistic by the minute.....

Anybody got any cheer to pass around?

The FBI can't issue a subpoena on their own. Only courts (civil and criminal) and the state/federal legislatures can subpoena *testimony*.

The FBI or other forms of cops can do search warrants for documents or other evidence. The equivelent in the world of subpoenas is the "subpoena duces tecum" which is Latin for "hey you, get your butt in here and bring the following documents/items with you while you're at it".

With McPherson's people blowing off public records requests by Bowen's office and the Elections committee, the stage is set for subpoena duces tecum against the SecState's office for the documents.

Basically folks, we have a chance here to get to the bottom of things much faster than we could in court.

Okay, Californians...

Fight these fuckers!

I saw a Diebold truck at my local B of A just the other day...and I see Haliburton vehicles daily at the oilfields near my home in the Baldwin Hills, just southwest of downtown Los Angeles. This is downright scary. We're surrounded!

So is the best strategy to vote absentee? I'm always afraid my absentee ballot will never be counted.

The Bush Administration was extremely disappointed that the Palestinians adopted their own version of Diebold for the recent elections... Hamas won by a landslide!

We need a group to draw serious attention to this issue (and a thousand other related issues).
Please, someone reading this who has free time and access to other people who also see the potential for great harm to our nation detailed in the story above, please organize some sort of public protest we can all join in.
We must draw attention to the crucial nature of this issue. Certainly the American public will stand up and do something in order to remain free, or will we?
We must stand againt this... while we still have enough freedom to stand at all.
Hear me.

# 27 - Rickie asked --- ...ah'm getting more pessimistic by the minute.....Anybody got any cheer to pass around?

Well, you don't have to agonize over what to do with your life. It's pretty clear. Help save democracy. That is our meaning - and what a meaning.

It gets me up every morning to face the day. (That and a hunger for justice.)

Folks:

This is really serious. spread the word and make those calls Tuesday. Public input still has an effect around here.

If you live around Sacramento, pay them a visit.