My reporting here, and the concerns expressed about the Busby/Bilbray election results as announced, have little or nothing to do with Francine Busby or Brian Bilbray or even, in particular, the June 6th U.S. House special run-off election in California’s 50th congressional district.
It has only a tiny bit more to do with San Diego. And only slightly more than that to do with California.
It has everything, however, to do with democracy. Across the entire country. As opposed to any one race in any one area.
If I’ve not been clear on that until now, please allow me to set the record straight.
The concerns I’ve reported — and will continue to report — over the blatant disregard for the rule of law and clear illegalities endorsed and encouraged by the SD County Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas, and apparently approved at this point by California’s Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, have everything to do with the future viability of democracy in this country in general, and a perhaps naive hope that there’s a chance in hell that taking action now will help to salvage a shred of legitimacy for this November’s election.
That can only happen if action is taken now, however, directly in regard to the Busby/Bilbray election results as announced.
As far as I can see it, what happens in regard to Busby/Bilbray will be America’s last, best, and only hope of affecting any real election reform prior to the November 7th general election. That’s why, for me, this has become “Line in the Sand” time.
Never, in the two-and-a-half year history of The BRAD BLOG have I set aside almost everything else in order to cover and raise attention to a single story — to the exclusion of almost every other story — for such a long period of time as I have done since the original coverage of this matter the day after the June 6th election.
Since then, I’ve stated many times in both written and spoken words that I don’t actually give a damn who won the Busby/Bilbray race and that I didn’t even much bother to follow any of it prior to Election Day. I’ve got no dog in the hunt and only care that the person who actually received the most votes is the one that was declared the winner. At this point, there is absolutely no way of knowing who actually won.
The fact of the matter is that just two or three months after both the federal certification oversight body (NASED) and California’s own Secretary of State issued emergency “security mitigation requirements” in light of newly discovered and massive vulnerabilities in Diebold’s voting systems, those security requirements were entirely tossed out the window when all of the machines were sent home with poll workers for overnights in the days and weeks prior to the election. In doing so, the machines themselves were effectively rendered illegal and uncertified for use in any California election, and at the federal level as well.
Unless something is done, the same thing is about to happen in elections across this entire country.
(NOTE: Lou Dobbs will be covering this issue on CNN tonight I am told. Including interviews with some of the poll worker sources we gave them after originally reported on them here at BRAD BLOG.)
I’d have hoped that more media, candidates, individuals and even Election Reform organizations would have come to understand the national significance of what all the sturm and drang here has actually been about. If they haven’t, that’s likely my failing. So I’ll try again to make both myself and the stakes here crystal clear…
What happens here and now — in regard to this race and its results as announced — will send a signal to elections administrators across the country. The signal will be one of two…
Either the rule of law must be followed in the administration of elections, because the citizens of this country demand accountability and verifiability in our elections and democracy itself depends on confidence in the results of these elections…
Or the message will be that elections officials, spending billions and billions of our own tax dollars, are welcome to ignore all such laws and emergency security provisions in the wake of the first-time use of the world’s most tamperable voting machines, tell us on Election Night whatever (unverified and unverifiable) numbers they wish, and Americans will subsequently roll over and say “Great. Good enough for us. We’ll believe anything you tell us. Even if you haven’t and couldn’t prove your results are accurate if your life depended on it.”
I received an email the other day from a congressional office complaining that I hadn’t given any coverage to a so-far successful effort by Republicans to indefinitely postpone a vote on the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“Busby is one race, one region,” the staffer wrote, “this affects the ability to seek justice nationwide.”
I replied that, of course, in normal times The BRAD BLOG would have covered the cynical, shameful, and anti-democratic story of Republicans scuttling the renewal of the beloved and necessary Voting Rights Act with much prominence. Perhaps even with a siren! We have covered issues surrounding the Voting Rights Act many times here. And, of course, we will continue to do so.
These are not normal times, however. And, as I pointed out in my reply — and to several others recently along the same lines — even if we could ensure tomorrow that every single American who wanted to vote legally was allowed to do so without problem or disenfranchisement, we still won’t have legitimate elections without seeing to the problem of the security of the machines using secret software, written by private companies, to count our vote without any sort of accountability or transparency.
This is a lesson that the DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and virtually all Democratic lawmakers have apparently yet to grasp.
I’ve heard recently that the DNC will soon be announcing an initiative for “Election Protection” for this November’s election. The initiative will include attorneys, poll-watching and a paltry $500k to pay for it all. Not one word, as far as I’ve heard (and I’d be delighted to hear otherwise from anyone at the DNC) about what the hell will be done to ensure integrity of the voting machines proliferating the electoral landscape for the very first time this year — the year the disastrous Help America Vote Act (HAVA) mandates kick into full gear.
If the DNC and any of the other organizations and/or candidates give a damn about Electoral Integrity the time to act is now. Busby/Bilbray is the only federal election in the country at the moment, and it’s the first one to have occurred since the discovery of the massive vulnerabilities in this new crop of electronic voting machines (Diebold in proven particular, but all of them in theory). As mentioned, those newly discovered vulnerabilities have sent both states and the federal oversight bodies scrambling to produce emergency “security mitigation requirements” for the approved use of such machines.
But what good are such rules and laws if they are not followed?
In San Diego County, in the Busby/Bilbray (CA-50) race, those emergency requirements were all but ignored when San Diego County’s registrar Mikel Haas sent the machines home for overnights with poll workers in the days and week prior to the election. California’s Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson, who convened a special commission of independent computer scientists and security experts to assess the problems once they came to undisputed light last December, has blithely ignored the fact that his own so-called “conditional certification” for the machines, based on his own “security procedures“, were clearly violated.
The machines used in San Diego county on election day were uncertified then by both state and federal standards. They are as presumed-contaminated as a blood sample would be if taken at a crime scene, then sent home for storage in a worker’s car or garage for a week before being brought into the crime lab, as the voting machines were.
The announced results of the election, therefore, as based on totals reported from presumed-tainted optical scan systems — on the same day that two different races in Iowa were overturned after a manual hand-count of ballots revealed that the announced post-optical-scan loser had actually won the race instead! — will always be suspect until they are verified via a 100% manual hand count of the paper ballots used in the race. (And with the hope that the chain of custody for the ballots themselves has been secure this whole time. Not an easy presumption to make given Haas’ own appalling lack of security and ability to follow the rule of law in administrating the election up until now.)
It is for these reasons, not because any of us actually care about the Busby/Bilbray race in particular, that so many election protection organizations, candidates and individuals have now declared “NO CONFIDENCE” in the reported results and are demanding a manual hand-count of the ballots.
By applying enough public pressure on officials, enough that a judge might order a manual hand-count of the ballots (a COUNT, not a REcount as paid for by citizens or the candidate, since we already paid them once to count the ballots, and they failed to do so!), we want to send a signal to elections officials across the country that these things, such as following the rule of law, actually matter.
On the other hand, if absolutely nothing is done now, I assure you that by November — when some 435 U.S. House races and 30-something U.S. Senate races occur on the very same day — we will have an unmitigated disaster on our hands, for which it will be largely too late to do anything.
Need more indication that action must taken now before elections are held in thousands of counties across the country on the same day? See what’s now being reported as having occurred in Riverside County, CA on Election Day!
No security. No accountability. And, most tragically of all in the bargain, no democracy.
It’s time to act now. I will do so, to the best of my ability. If the media and the various political parties and the host of candidates who will be directly affected by this don’t wish to do so, that’s up to them.
I’ll be doing so either way. Because it’s not about them or their victory or their loss in any election. It’s about our democracy. And, apparently, it’s up to us to try and preserve it.
Even if many of those folks don’t understand it. Or worse, even if they do understand it, but don’t think it’s worth bothering.
I suggest that nothing in this election year, no single issue, is of greater import to our country. That’s why I’ve been going to such extraordinary measures. I hope you’ll join me.
Great stuff, Brad, and so true. I hesitate to use this word because it has become tired and trite with overuse, but I will anyway: You are a true hero, a patriot in the finest sense of the word, and I admire the heck out of the work you’re doing. I just wish (for the moment) that I didn’t live diagonally opposite SoCal, so that I could register my support in person.
Thanks!!!
Brad
It would also be nice to know if this was all planned, and if elections are just part of the Matrix to make us think we can actually elect a person we want to and vote out a person we do not want.
All this we are talking about is really, really so yesterday … like 1984 … oops … like Orwell.
Check out what the “blogs” of that day were saying (link here).
You can shock the hell out of the electronic election machine audience with these quotes from a 1988 official report:
(link here, bold added).
And ask why did the NY Times stop writing articles about insecure voting systems after 1985 “¦ is there any relation to Orwell’s book 1984 perhaps?
Perhaps Orwell was closer than we first imagined???
Things are getting curiouser and curiouser “¦ or is it Matrixier and Matrixier?
Hey there is a line in the sand, but which side is it that is afraid to cross over?
Am I dreaming or does this quote:
(link here, bold added), make the hair on the back of your neck stand up too?
Well, come on now, is it deja vu or is it just the Matrix?
I second that, Peg!
Great picture, Dredd….THAT should be on a flier!
Dredd,
Jesus Christmas! That link….if I were capable of being shocked & horrified at this point, that article is pretty goddamn shocking & horrifying.
Also it makes me (us) feel like utter fools, straining to explain all this to “doubters” & struggling to get the truth out while (can you hear it in the background?) republican goons roll on the floor hooting with maniacal laughter.
Since I can’t get to Los Angeles or San Diego to fight on the front lines in person, I just made a $25 contribution to Brad via the link at the bottom of this page.
Anybody care to follow?
Charlie L
Portland, OR
Charlie L #8
With the links I have been reading today, which are two decades old, like soooo yesterday duuuude (yet so NOW), I think we should try to beam out there thru the phone lines like Neo did in the Matrix.
I mean, like Joan says in #7 …
We are the second generation to try to fix it … but there has been a severe silence of the goats since circa 1984 … and I wonder if the Train Wreck already happened one generation ago????
Brad – I totally agree! This should be a LINE IN THE SAND. If a legal path is not forthcoming then we should all support the funding of a manual hand recount of the 50th. Haas will probably charge $100K to have it done but this should be a line in the sand and I am willing to contribute $500 to the effort. The demand has to be delivered by a person from the 50th within 5 days of certification. HAS IT BEEN Certified? The San Diego Registrar of Voters website has been static since Thursday 6/22/06.
Lou Dobbs just reported on the fact that election workers in San Diego County, CA, and around the country, have been storing voting machines in their homes. Susan Pynchon of Florida, who participated in Ion Sancho’s test of hackable Diebold machines last December, was interviewed. Now that the ice has been broken between Dobbs and Pynchon, maybe they will someday report on the results of Sancho’s test.
Maybe.
I hope I’m not behind the times on such a prediction.
Brad — You convinced me! Great work, really.
In our world of despair, a little ray of hope. The INTERNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY
Link
Lou is reading our posts!
YAY! LOU!
Can you hear us up there, Lou? There’s some real patriotic Americans here on Brad Blog!
Thanks, Lou!
Lou, next report on the history of DIEBOLD/ES&S/electronic voting machines…it’ll be a blockbuster of a report!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.onlinejournal.com/ev...804landes.html
Dan, don’t kid yourself. On-air personalities are NOT reading this blog, or probably any other than their own.
If we are LUCKY, their staffers are assigned to “keep track of us” and that’s better than nothing.
Keep the good, solid evidence flowing and maybe a few of them will be won over until they are fired or “Ratherized” into oblivion.
For me, the “canary in the mine” is Brad Friedman, Mark Crispin Miller, Greg Palast and Randi Rhodes — if any of those four have a “Silkwood,” I am getting the heck out of Dodge before the border wall is finished and we find out the razor wire is on the INSIDE.
Did anybody else take up my challenge to donate? I will post my PDF of the receipt page if you don’t believe me.
GIVE TILL IT HURTS! What are you going to do with the money in Gitmo anyway?
It’s maddening to realize that this has been going on since the 80’s & Reagan!
AAAUGGGHHHH!
I need to put this in perspective.
When we fix the computer-based election fraud in our country–which we will eventually–it will be the first part in our massive government corruption problem to be corrected.
Next, we’ll work on media consolidation. If people know what is going on once again, like they used to back in the day–they’ll demand change.
Or:
we can vote yes to the National Initiative, take the sole power to make laws out of our corrupt government’s hands, put it back into our own collective hands & fix the ENTIRE corruption problem all at once.
We deserve it ALL to be fixed right now! Not in 20 years. Or never.
Our country could be so very, very much better–not just for us–but we could stop the killing we are doing all over the world, really aide global warming etc etc–it IS our collective fault–it’s our government gone awry. WE need to fix it & soon.
Election fraud is very important.
But, remember, when any candidate gets into office, they seldom do what they said they would do. They answer to corporations & not us. So, even if we do get the proper winner–he’s corrupt!
And, I can’t help but think that if we could wave a wand & make every election counted correctly tomorrow–we’d still have corporate America ROFL because all they need to do is get to whoever is elected, corrupt them, & their dirty takeover of America continues…
It won’t solve our problem to only excise the election-fraud-tumor when corruption cancer has already spread & is terminal.
Every part we fix helps a great deal, but we need to fix it ALL, not just one part.
The National Initiative addresses the problem in it’s entirety. Give it a look. Gravel2008.us
Dredd – (C) # 4,…
Thanks for sharing that link,..
Annals of Democracy – Counting Votes.
If our election administrators claim to be in the blind,.. they are more likely criminality ill informed. It is their job to specifically protect
the election process from this type of contamination.
How could they allow that such outrageous a mockery
be made of our DEMOCRACY ?
Charlene,
I think most here agree that fighting the election fraud for November should be our top priority, to ensure that our votes are counted properly to remake the congress the way the majority of Americans think it should be and not corrupt hacksters. We need to put all of our efforts to help Brad with this.
Second step (amongst other things in investigating and tearing out wrongdoing in congress and other parts of government) is to lobby to get “Clean Elections” financing of political campaigns not just locally but for national elections too. We need to take corporate money out of politics, or nothing we want such as the National Initiative or things to deal with other essentials like Global Warming is going to pass with the corporate masters demanding their “due”. I think there could be enough people in congress that hate the pay for play institutionalized bribery that is in place now that if we get enough of them “threatened” by their constituents, they’ll vote to put this in place, and at that point we’ll have a big step in freedom from corporate rule and be more apt to pass other things like the National Initiative your describing.
#13 Floridiot,
THANK YOU FOR THAT LINK!! I haven’t read through all of it yet but it looks good. I’ve been wondering how one could go about asking the rest of the world for help. I hope people go to that link & read about this organization & spread it around.
There are people in other countries on this blog: can you spread this around PLEASE?!
Go to Comment 13, click on the link & read & pass it on. PLEASE!
Yes, Floridiot, thanks so much for the IED link. Years ago, I was saying we needed to beg other countries to come to the rescue of our democracy. I guess I was prescient! Everyone, read the link at #13!!
Seems to me that, at this point, a hand recount of the 50th race would be pointless. If there has been fraud and chicanery, you can be sure that those responsible for it have gotten their hands on the paper ballots by now and made sure that when the hand recount is done, it will match the electronic results. Recounting now is like closing the barn door after the horse has fled.
Partial transcript from todays Dobbs Report as he discusses voting machines. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRAN...26/ldt.01.html
…In the upcoming midterm congressional elections, a little more than four months from now, a third of the nation will be casting ballots on electronic voting machines. Tonight, new questions about the extraordinary lack of security that results from the use of these machines. Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In San Diego county Patty Newton volunteered as an election worker in the June 6th primary. After her training class for electronic voting machines, she got the surprise of her life.
PATTI NEWTON, FORMER POLL WORKER: We were given slips of papers, had them stamped by one of the staff members and we were directed to drive across to the parking lot to pick up our voting machines and take them home. We all felt an ominous kind of responsibility. It was not something that we were told we would be doing.
PILGRIM: She stored the electronic voting machine here, on the floor of her garage for seven days until the election. According to Vote Trust USA, states with so-called sleepovers for electronics voting machines are California, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Florida, but certain counties in other states do it also. Voter activists say while millions have been spent buying the machines, counties don’t have the budgets for storing them or delivering them on election day.
SUSAN PYNCHON, FLORIDA FAIR ELECTIONS COALITION: Each jurisdiction has been given money through the Help America Vote Act to purchase the machines, but many of these jurisdictions are strapped when it comes to trying to maintain them, already, and to have this some huge delivery charge on top of that, that money comes directly out of the local taxpayers’ pockets.
PILGRIM: In Florida the Volusia County Department of Elections manual makes it official, “Pick up the voting equipment and ballots at your designated pick-up site prior to the day of the election. As soon as the items are picked up, they must be stored in a secure place.” But on March 5th in Dallas County, a 14-pound electronic voting machine was stolen from the home of an election judge. Today the Dallas sheriff’s office told us the voting machine has still not been recovered.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now, voter activists say this simply reinforces the argument that the only real way to make sure that the machines haven’t been tampered with is to have a paper trail record of the machine on election day, so if there are any questions the machine can be audited. Lou?
DOBBS: So often I say, what in the world are we thinking about in this country?
PILGRIM: It’s pretty mind-boggling when you start to look at this, that these machines would be in private homes.
DOBBS: What are the companies that make and run and maintain these machines saying?
PILGRIM: They basically made the sale and say they should be secured. But, the definition of secured, as we have just proven is a little bit nebulous.
DOBBS: I think nebulous is a very kind word for it. I mean, this is enough to scare the dickens out of anybody.
PILGRIM: Yes DOBBS: Kitty thank you very much, Kitty Pilgrim.
I’ve read that, according to HAVA, paper ballots must be provided on demand to accomodate provisional voting. Okay, but what about registered voters? If a registered voter asks for a paper ballot (like I did last time), under law, must it be provided? What law is it that specifies this? I need to have precise information. My elections commissioner cannot even get the answer to this question. I want to inform the people in my state that they can ask for PAPER ballots, like I did in the last election. The paper ballot was provided to me but the ENVELOPE it was put in was only designed for provisional voters and required some amount of personal information that would have been redundant, time consuming, unnecessary, and confusing to fill out on election day. The confused poll worker had me fill in half of the information requested on the envelope before I could make him understand that I was already registered. Dialogues with my elections commissioner have led to the creation of a new envelope for registered voters who want to vote on paper in my county. This is a good thing, but now my elections commissioner says he doesn’t think the law specifies that paper ballots must be provided on request (except for provisional voters) and that if everyone in my county asked for paper, they would run out of ballots.
Is there anyone out there who can point to the exact law that governs this issue?
ALSO–
When the contents of Brad’s post on the IrDA ports was conveyed to him, my elections commissioner put tape over the ports of the few older machines which had this feature ( they are no longer used for voting anyway). He says the the Diebold machines are not hooked up to the internet or any other system. He says the protocol governing their exposure to poll workers is very strict: there are cameras, he has the only key, and probably other things I’m forgetting. In short, he believes the Diebold machines are now safe, and that the recent information that points to a feature in their design that leads to an overwhelming breach in their integrity is too vague and unspecific. Can any of you provide links that can provide unequivocal proof of their hackability even if they are not hooked up to any system and poll worker access to them is limited ? Or, are they really now safe?
One other thing! My elections commissioner says advance voting is a very good way to do it. The vote is then on paper and election day systems don’t suffer as much stress. Any thoughts?
I’m really feeling alone with this, it’s not my field and I’m stumbling along, so thank you to those of you who can offer some information.
Brad! Do you smoke? I sure wish you wouldn’t! You’re so valuable! I smoke three packs a day and all I do is cough all the time! I’m trying to quit! I hope you will too! I hope you’ll keep jumping up and down over the controversial Ohio election! Jerry
I’m talking about drawing a line in the sand dude, across this line you do not.. and also, dude, voter fraud is not the preferred nomenclature. Election fraud. Please.
All y’all that scream, like me, for Voter Verified Paper Ballots – notice that this is what they have in CA-50!
Yet they’re still screwed! Mandatory random counts as audits have got to happen. And with mandatory total counts (they are NOT recounts!) if the machines in the random counts are off by so much as ONE VOTE…
We gotta have that. Don’t just think your state is safe if y’all pushed VVPB thru…
“The price of Democracy is eternal vigelance.”
shw
Bluebird said:
Ask him if the memory card ballot definitions are downloaded from an FTP site.
Others can provide more. But see the Hursti II report here for some of that unequivocal proof you’re looking for:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf
As it shows, just two minutes of physical access, no password necessary, allows someone to completely overwrite the election software, the operating system and the computer firmware.
Brad, I agree completely with what you are doing on this topic because it seems that this is the only way to get national media attention to this very important matter.
🙂
Jerry O’Riordan #25
You do a very good Circumstantial Ad Hominem (explanation here), so I salute your trainers.
However, we here are better at analogy and discourse than to mentally build a nexus between smoking and whether or not the 2004 Ohio election is “controversial”.
There are more apt words to describe it than that. “Controversial” in the context of Ohio 2004 means “I haven’t studied the detail facts yet and so I am relying on what bubba Rush says”.
Here is an astute article that may remove some of the “controversy” from your deliberations (link here).
Calling the 2004 election “controversial” is a bit like calling Al Capone “redoubtable.”
Oldturk #18
Original thanks should go to Larry Bergan and Floridiot.
All I did (after the hair stood up on the back of my neck after reading Larry’s post in another thread, then Floridiot picked up on it and came up with a doozy too) was to share it.
I mean is it quite coincidental that 1984 and the major advent of electronic voting machines are so very closely related?
I found a book:
http://www.booksamillion.com/nc...pid=1403963924
It is written by the computer scientist who did the incredibly up-to-date report (mentioned in post #2) … in 1988. It was published recently (Jan 2006).
I do not know how well the book is written … just now found the link to it.
As long as their using these machines, I’ll never trust the vote again…NEVER !!! I don’t care what safeguards they tell me their using, it’s all bullshit
Then I’ll be able to live up to my handle
Idiot: a person that doesn’t vote or pay attention to what his government is doing (Late 1800 McGraw-Hill definition I found in my kids history book)
At this moment, I guess, I’m the antithesis
Dredd (#25)
Seems to me that Jerry O’ was trying to express his wish for Brad’s health so that he/we might prevail in our efforts against election fraud. Maybe I’m ignorant of history or something, but you’re kinda jumping down his throat for a word, when, it LOOKS as if he’s expressing solidarity. Heck, even Mike J., who clearly loves to irk the snot out of anyone he can, has jumped in here to express solidarity… maybe it was a typo… maybe they mean it! They’re Americans (I think?) and OUGHT to care passionately about it.
Seems to me that cross-denominational, so to speak, unity is starting to happen. This is NO time to get so intense with our emotional overload that we jump down each other’s throats. It’s time to WORK HARD, LOVE HARD, KEEP OUR GOOD HUMOR SO THAT WE CAN THRUST WITH VITALITY AND UNITY AT THE PRECISELY RIGHT MOMENT.
Everybody, fired-up is good. If the emotional force tries to leak out in negative ways, jump up and have a quick power walk around the block, open the window, beat your chest, watch a Daily Show Clip or something that never fails to make you laugh, before pressing on.
Hard work in desperate times does not have to be so agonizing. We can actually have fun together, and raise each other up, to keep the vitality flowing. This stuff is DEADLY SERIOUS BUSINESS. We will crash and burn if we do not watch our energies, do not keep our energies positive. That we are fighting a negative… think about it… is the very proof that we must stay positive to prevail. I’m not talking Pollyanna “positive” — I’m talking actual performance of the task at hand. The only thing negative energies gets done in the way of “performance” is suffering and death. Take that the bank.
(Mike J. — THANK YOU for expressing your solidarity with this crucial matter, and thank you very much for not irking the snot out of me this morning. Have a nice day.)
Agent99 –
Very well said. 🙂
Agent99,
As you once said we must work to “recover detached compassion”.
If we all work together it can be accomplished.
Flush limbaugh needs the Viagra to reach the cup to piss in . . .
Brad (# 28)
Brad, thanks for the response and the information. To paraphrase my elections commissioner: the software is installed through a removable disk called a pcmcia flash drive. They do this one machine at a time and on average, once a year. He says it takes about a month to get the software on to all of the machines. When I asked him if they download the memory card definitions from an FTP site he said they do not, actually, he says, they do not download them at all ( some counties let the vendors set up the ballots, our county does not), it’s a tedious process but they do it all themselves. They do not enter our paper ballots on touchscreens.
The slot is locked when the drive is not in place. Keys to the machines are locked in one room , the data cards are locked in another room. Since different people have access to each of these rooms, it takes four staffers to have both of the rooms opened at the same time.
He does the math and figures that it would take one person fifty hours without resting to rig all the machines. THEN the new software would need to pass through to the vote tabulation server.
Thanks for the Harry Hursti tip. I know I’ve sent one of the reports to my elections commissioner. Can’t remember if it was the second one and can’t find it in my records, but will send the link you provide on to him to cover the bases.
Personally, I agree with a previous poster– I will never trust these machines. No matter what precautions are taken, I’m voting on paper (even though fraud occurs with paper ballots too). Another huge problem: the GOP thug squads, so carefully organized to bash, cheat, and jam the votes into their column using any possible means. These crimnals are brilliant at stealing power (and utter fools at using it). It would be good to find some organized ways to try and expose them BEFORE election day.
Brad, you’re THE GUY, and, you must be all worn out. Here’s a hug: O. It’s not very big, but I mean it!
Thanks for the hug, Bluebird. I’ll take what I can get! 🙂
Worn out? Yup. But that’s okay. Hope to rock the house in LA tonight and SD tomorrow! Hope folks are coming!
Sounds like your Election Director takes security seriously. That’s great news.
A couple of points to watch for though based on your comments:
Only one machine needs be gamed to infect the rest of them. See Computer Scientist David Jefferson’s comments in the PBS News Hour recently on that (Search BRAD BLOG for “PBS News Hour” and you’ll find it quickly. No time to find it myself right now)
Also, that flash drive PCMCIA update he mentioned? That’s the Hursti II concern! Well, one of them anyway. Once machines are programmed in election mode, the secondary PCMCIA slot needs to be sealed up tight (along with some other places) to ensure it can’t be used to overwrite the existing software/hardware. No password is necessary to do this! Just the right filenames on the PCMCIA card. Incredibly.
Here’s another good piece
“Election Night Projections – Cover For Vote Rigging Since 1964?”
Link
Gosh … if Jerry is all concerned because Brad smokes … gosh … I guess the right wing fascists are ok after all … they love Brad but would never tell us that before … thanks Jerry … you just changed everything …
And I suppose Rush was caught with a bottle of Viagra at a sleepover with some election machines, where the result was a pregnant chad … and now the only thing to do is a constitutional amendment against gay election machines …
Sorry, I do not care to jump in bed (be embedded) with the republican dictatorship, nor do I give much of a sh*t about what they think of erection machines (yes I can speak Japanese).
Heavy sigh…. Dredd.
Rock and roll…. Brad! xoxoxoxoxox
Dredd #41
I guess without the pills it would have been a hanging chad!
Sorry, oh so sorry – I couldn’t help myself.
HEY BRAD
This story is the #1 Featured article at Freepress.org!
You are sure getting around! Excellent!
Thank you Brad!
#19 Calipendence
I think most here agree that fighting government corruption is top priority & election fraud is first on the list.
When election fraud is out in the open for all of America to see, which it looks like is on the way now, thanks in no small part to BradBlog, that will be a happy day. But hopefully, not the end of BradBlog .
We’re all proud of Brad & hope he’ll be successful.
Yes, I already have been fighting to “get clean election financing of political campaigns” at citizen.org for quite a while.
I’ve been fighting it ALL for quite a while, & I hope others here on BradBlog have been doing the same, being inspired by Brad himself to take action to do something themselves about the mess we’re in.
It seems you’re saying the Dems will save us because you say, “ensure our votes are counted properly to remake Congress the way the majority of Americans think it should be…”
Whatever.
Brad says we are not for Dem or Rep here. We’re for the truth.
Just in case the Dems don’t save us, what is wrong with going at the corruption from ALL angles?
Having a Plan B?
If the Dems get majority in Nov. & do good things–that will be great. But in case it doesn’t happen—and even if it DOES—we can still take back law making ability into the hands of the people & SHARE power.
We can ensure total corruption will never happen again by the People voting themselves in as a sort of 4th branch of government, a new “check & balance”.
Do you know what the National Initiative is? It didn’t sound like you did.
I’m not pushing Gravel for President, although he is a good man (he’s a Dem)–but I do believe the Initiative he introduced is a very good thing that only corrupt Dems & Repubs will condemn because they don’t want to lose power.
People need to take a look at it & decide for themselves.
Good luck tonight, Brad. The force is with you…
Something I said?
Jerry O’ … I don’t think so. At least not on this thread.
You’re plea for a “Line In The Sand” prompted me to send $20.00. God, how I wish I could send more!
Jerry O’ – I’m with you on this one. I wish smoking would fall quickly out of vogue here in Bradville. At the risk of dating myself (I’m talking chronology, not autoeroticism here), I smoked like a fiend for 45 years, and always knew I’d have to quit eventually. It took a stroke just before Christmas, and the horrified reactions of the doctors (when you only have to wait 10 minutes for a CAT scan you know you’re in trouble), to finally get me to stop. The irony is, it really wasn’t a hard thing to give up. Please, Brad, do yourself a favor. We love you and don’t want to watch you make yourself sick, or worse… Love and Peace from Prague
PS – Of course, I’m talking tobacco…
#46 Charlene,
I think you and I are saying basically the same thing. Though I’m *now* a registered Democrat (registered when Howard Dean took over the DNC after being an independent), I’m not totally tied to the Dems and believe there are just as many problematic Dems in congress too. I just voted for Barbara Boxer’s PAC to support independent Bernie Sanders’ quest for the Senate instead of the other Dems, and I will probably vote for the Greens against Feinstein in November too.
I think you and I both want the same things. I’m just saying that the order we do it in is as importance as the gravity of each one, since some need to be put in place for the others to even have a chance of becoming reality. That’s why I first emphasize making sure we don’t have election fraud, to make sure our votes are counted right, whether they be for Dems, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, or what have you. I just don’t want some special interest or criminal interest to be allowed to steal it. That will shut down everything else in its tracks if they do.
I want campaign finance reform to be tackled next, because I think that special interest institutionalize bribery is a pox on both the Republicans’ and the Democrats’ houses now, with special interests trying to scam the system by buying them both off. If we can get real public financing in place that works right, it will help newer, more honest people run legitimate campaigns for both of these parties, and hopefully also for third parties as well too with less big party money steering the elections. I’m going to want to vote for the *individuals* that will serve me best and speak to my needs, not someone that just has a big party machine behind them because I think they need that in order to be able to win. In the short term though, for this to happen, I think the Dems as a party have to retake congress in November (at least Dems like Lamont, instead of Lieberman) so that we have even a chance at passing such legislation at a national level.
Once we’ve got public financing options, I’m all for looking at things like the National Initiative, which I think will have a far better chance of becoming a reality if both of those are in place than if we try to do it first with the big money machines standing in its way.
I hope we both win in November! I think enough of us out there want us to!