Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org
In a recently released report, New York Attorney Andrea Novick, Esq., tells members of New York state government and now the world that the vendors of the voting machines that most of us use are NOT responsible citizens and why. This report was written for, and addressed to, Governor Spitzer, the State Board of Elections and the State Legislature.
In her report Novick explains that New York state has laws that should bar any of the vendors from doing business in the state.
New York State is about to start testing the products of vendors who by any reasonable application of the State Finance Law (SFL) and New York State Comptroller’s Procurement and Disbursement Guidelines (Vendex rules) should be barred from doing business in New York. I have included below a partial documentation of the available evidence revealing the myriad of ways in which the vendors fail to meet the criteria for responsible contractors. The State is responsible for affirmatively requiring all necessary disclosure to satisfy itself of the sufficiency of a vendor’s responsibility. To assist in this effort, I have prepared this memo.
New York State Law states the following about corporate integrity…
1. The Corporation must show a history of legal and ethical behavior. Corporations with a history of the following are prohibited from contracting with local jurisdictions to provide voting equipment: criminal indictments, criminal convictions, civil fines and injunctions imposed by governmental agencies, anti-trust investigations, ethical violations, tax delinquencies, debarment by the federal government, prior determinations of integrity-related non-responsibility, and other indications of illegal or unethical behaviors.
2. The Corporation must have performed at acceptable levels on other governmental contracts. Corporations with a history of the following are prohibited from contracting with local jurisdictions to provide voting equipment: reports of less than satisfactory performance, early contract termination for cause, contract abandonment, court determinations of breach of contract, other indications of bad faith.
Novick gives examples as to how Election Systems and Software (ES&S), Diebold Election Systems Inc., Sequoia Voting Systems, Liberty Election Systems (NEDAP) and Avante have all shown a lack of integrity to perform the contract and failures in performance. These five companies are now all attempting to get a foothold in what will be a very lucrative venture when New York finally settles on what will replace their lever voting machines.
Novick supports her accusations with historical facts about each of the vendors.
For ES&S the report begins:
ES&S’s current ethical violations, violations of state laws and civil fines and injunctions, as documented below, are significant enough to demonstrate the company’s ineligibility to do business in New York. It is inconceivable that this state, particularly under this Governor, would choose to do business with ES&S given the repeated complaints across the nation of abusive and irresponsible business practices. These include repeated acts of lying to and threatening of state officials. Some background history of how ES&S came into existence sheds light on who this company that New York is nonetheless proposing to do business with, really is. The companies which have been merged into what is now ES&S reflect the very abuses Governor Spitzer targeted as Attorney General.
Diebold’s financial problems are highlighted:
As of March 31, 2006, there were ten outstanding lawsuits against Diebold charging Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) violations. The Voters Unite report referenced at footnote 1, describes a securities fraud class action suit filed against Diebold in December, 2005 on behalf of investors who allege a fraudulent scheme by Diebold and its executives to deceive shareholders. The SEC is formally investigating.
Novick then goes into detail about the founding of Diebold Election Systems Inc. as Macrotrends, in 1988, and the felons who founded that company.
Novick begins her section on Sequoia thusly:
The third largest electronic voting machine manufacturer has demonstrated the very unethical business practices condemned by Governor Spitzer’s Public Employee Ethics Reform Act of 2007. Sequoia’s revolving door practices are precisely the kind of behavior the Governor has singled out as prohibited in New York. In addition Sequoia has shown the same lack of ethics and violations of the Vendex rules as have the other vendors. The violations relevant to consideration pursuant to the Law are highlighted below. Sequoia’s rampant corruption and regular violations of New York’s Law and rules should enjoin New York from continuing to do business or entering into new contracts with Sequoia.
With regards to the security and accuracy of Liberty’s voting machines Novick points out:
In 2003, Ireland spent 50 million euros on 7500 Nedap DREs, but has never used the machines because of their vulnerabilities. The Irish government created an Independent Commission on Electronic Voting (the Irish Commission) to examine the security of these DREs. The Irish Commission published two reports that raised critical doubts about the accuracy and reliability of the software used to count votes on the Nedap/Liberty DREs.39 In September 2006 an independent Dutch voting integrity group published a highly critical analysis of the Nedap/Liberty DREs, revealing how easily the machines could be hacked and how open they were to undetectable control over the election results.
With regards to Avante, Novick points out that the voting system is new since 2001 and has not been certified anywhere. Therefore there is no history. However, Avanti seems to be learning from it’s older cousins. In 2005 New York state adopted a law that requires election machine source code be archived with the state. Avante uses Microsoft proprietary software for their operating system and their election management system. Avante knew that source code escrow law existed but they ignored it when they coded their machines. On the eve of the beginning of the state’s selection process, Avante and Microsoft attempted to convince the state election commissioners to ignore the law.
Novick points to the following:
Perhaps the clearest example of Avante’s lack of integrity to do business in New York is exposed in the closing lines of Mr. Gleim’s [Rick Gleim, Avante Vice President] email. Trust us, Avante concludes because “Vendors voting equipment has been proven worthy around the country.” Really? One needs only look at the extensive evidence of faulty equipment, excessive breakdowns, tampering, vote flipping, mysterious under votes, impossible vote tabulations, etc. to see Mr. Gleim’s claim is patently false.
Novick begins her conclusion with this:
A reasonable interpretation of the State Finance Law and the Vendex rules should prohibit the State’s entering into contracts with any of these voting vendors on the myriad of grounds set forth herein. The documented evidence provided in this memo, as well as in the article from Voters Unite referred to at footnote 1, entitled Voting System Companies Fail to Meet New York State’s Requirements for “Responsible Contractors”, as well as the additional evidence available to the SBOE when it undertakes its investigation of these vendors, overwhelmingly establish these vendors ineligibility to do business in New York.
NOTE: It is important that credit also be given to Ellen Theisen of VotersUnite.Org who provided some of the information used by Novick in writing her report. Theisen has also written a report on the same subject matter; “Voting System Companies Fail to Meet New York State’s Requirements for “Responsible Contractors””.
Looks like New York has it covered
Good work Ellen.
# 1. The Corporation must show a history of legal and ethical behavior. Corporations with a history of the following are prohibited from contracting with local jurisdictions to provide voting equipment: criminal indictments, criminal convictions, civil fines and injunctions imposed by governmental agencies, anti-trust investigations, ethical violations, tax delinquencies, debarment by the federal government, prior determinations of integrity-related non-responsibility, and other indications of illegal or unethical behaviors.
# 2. The Corporation must have performed at acceptable levels on other governmental contracts. Corporations with a history of the following are prohibited from contracting with local jurisdictions to provide voting equipment: reports of less than satisfactory performance, early contract termination for cause, contract abandonment, court determinations of breach of contract, other indications of bad faith.
I BEEN SAYING THIS FOR AWHILE!! It should be not only Corporations, Companies, but Individuals and it should apply to ALL OF GOVERNMENT! Why is Rumsfield still in the Pentagon? When will these revolving doors be stopped?
Let’s not forget all the bastards from the 60’s and 70’s Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Iran-Contra… and on and on
Are there still POW’s in Laos, Cambodia?
Well, I have my own answer.
The day that Breaking your OATH OF OFFICE is prosecuted.
Thank you for getting it, Ms. Novick! Two of the biggest ways the American public are manipulated into believing they are still free are voting on electronic voting equipment (along with other GOP election fraud practices) and believing in the korporate compromised MSM who except in rare instances even come close to reporting accurately on electronic voting and election fraud (not to be confused with voter fraud.) Here’s a great article she wrote on a free press:
http://www.opednews.com/article...have_lost_.htm
If the majority of people look at these two issues side by side they’d start to see it’s how the corupted get where they are, and make their billions in war and energy profiteering together.
So, will this be enough to have the republican EVM makers declared persona non grata?
Or is the addiction to irresponsible republican citizenship by the reds in the red states, in the EVM world, in the Senate, in the House, just too much? They are shutting down recovery by filibuster after filibuster, DeLay after DeLay.
And add the addiction to republican oil, the republican addiction to being in Iraq, and one must wonder “is addiction to them stronger than america’s relationship to reason”?
So far the addiction to irresponsible republicans has been more than the nation could handle. Since we got the first one’s free from Newt and his republican contract
withon americans in 1994, our reality market is bearish.We need to get america to a rehabilitation center soon, and we need to get the “I’m not a crook” crooks to a jail near you soon.
In addition to what is said here, there’s another reason that these machine vendors aren’t “responsible citizens”. That is, they are NOT persons, despite certain corporate serving judges’ judicial activist feelings on that subject.
For those care about the truth and facts on attempted smearing about Congressman Holt and AVANTE are invited to read our position. Clarification of AVANTE’s position on Election and Voting System Integrity and posting in OpEdNews.com:
If you are too busy, the following is a summary.
AVANTE’s positions and actions:
1. AVANTE has deep respect for the tireless efforts by the election integrity activists, academics and technology experts. Their efforts have contributed to the many and continuous improvements of the voting systems and processes.
2. AVANTE respects the desire to have open sources in election system or having the voting system as transparent as possible. Our company software is always available for scrutiny. We differ in the feasibility of having ALL of the source codes made available for at least in the near term of five to 10 years without dramatic lowering in the voting system accessibility requirements in HAVA. AVANTE believe explaining and telling the truth about this “physical impossibility” represents deepest respects to the State of New York and its voters. We hope our actions in servicing its ballot marking devices speaks to our integrity as a company. We hope speaking the truth will not be considered as “attacking” New York election codes.
3. In terms of the many smearing, defamation, and misinformation leveled against us, AVANTE has never donated to any national parties or political leaders including Congressman Holt. All of the company’s founders and stockholders have not donated to any national elected officials with more than $100.
4. AVANTE does not belong to any trade lobbying organizations and has not joined the Election Technology Council or its predecessor ITAA. AVANTE continues to maintain its independence and voice of supports to those that promoting election integrity. AVANTE believes that the current problems in DRE with VVPR voting systems are related to the design and engineering rather than the solution and concept. AVANTE have proven that all of the specific problems known and caused tremendous constellation have a solution. AVANTE regrets for some misconception that our staff may have conveyed that other election companies have earned their “stripes”.
5. AVANTE believes that current optical scan voting systems and processes are much less than equal to the integrity required by the current EAC 2005 voting system standards dictating the DRE with VVPR. They lack the ability to prevent tampering once the ballots have been submitted. This point is highlighted in the recent study in Florida.
6. For those that may not know us well, AVANTE have its many systems certified in 15 states and have sold its systems to NJ and NY. AVANTE continues its commitment and efforts in selling its paging and full-face DRE with properly engineered and designed VVPR. Besides trying to recover the value of its intellectual properties, AVANTE continues its commitment and efforts in perfecting and selling its ballot marking device as well as precinct-based optical scan system that captures the digital image of each ballot and show the voters as exactly how the system is registering their ballots not just having over-voted or under-voted contests.
This is in response to the comment posted here, which defend Avante saying:
“AVANTE respects the desire to have open sources in election system or having the voting system as transparent as possible. Our company software is always available for scrutiny”
That’s a lie. Avante chooses to use closed source software for its entire voting system. Avante, along with the other major vendors, would like the right to count our votes on its DREs in secret and will never tell us the secret magic behind that “official tally” nor is any of the source coding as to how their DRE was programmed to process and count the votes, available for scrutiny.
Avante can’t escrow the source code for its operating system because it chose to use Microsoft, which won’t escrow. But even if Avante chose to be as open as Diebold and ES&S, who can escrow their source code for their operating system (what a statement– can’t even rate as high as Diebold and ES&S)”“ that still would be concealing their source code from the public.
THERE IS NOTHING AT ALL TRANSPARENT ABOUT AVANTE”“ QUITE THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.
Here’s some excerpts from what I wrote in response to Avante’s email which Avante sent to all the election commissioners in NY in an effort to try to get them to ignore NY’s escrow law the way Avante had done. The full response to Avante’s email can be found at Avante’s (Not Very Good) Offer to New York Voters but start with New Yorkers for Verified Voting’s Bo Lipari’s Voting Machine Vendors ““ We Can’t and We Won’t .
The source coding for the software for the operating system itself as well as the election management system (EMS), is claimed to be secret, proprietary information. Under New York’s law, at least the SBOE is required to view this source code (even as we the public are left in the dark); hence the escrow requirement. Now that New York is preparing to restart testing voting systems Avante, a vendor who never had any intention of complying with NY’s escrow laws, argues at the 11th hour that our Law is so unfair (to Avante) that it deserves to be violated!
Well that’s a fairly outrageous position (unless you believe that NY laws should be written for the benefit of private voting vendors rather than the citizens of NY). Indeed it would be hard to come up with a more un-American argument than:
“I, Avante, want to make sure that no one ever sees how our computers process and count the votes of New Yorkers so New York should disregard its law and allow us to keep this vital information concealed!”
And yet that is precisely what Avante is demanding.
Avante doesn’t want us to see how it has designed its voting computer to process and count our votes. If it did it would have used open source software, but it chose not to.
Perhaps it is Avante’s closing line of its email, in arguing that New York should change its law so as to eliminate any escrow requirement (such that New York could never know how the computers were programmed to count the votes) that is the most honest and revealing of Avante’s claims. Avante’s VP writes:
Well the Law was not written for the Avantes of the world merely to permit them to have their machines certified using secret proprietary software.
To Avante and the other vendors who would like us to trust them because “There is no intent to reduce the integrity of the vote” I would say, thanks, but no thanks. NYS Law had no intent to prevent you from doing business in our state. That was your choice by creating voting systems which count our votes in secret.
“AVANTE believe explaining and telling the truth about this “physical impossibility” represents deepest respects to the State of New York and its voters”
That’s a lie. Avante chose to design a closed system asserting ownership rights over the people’s information about how the votes are processed and counted. It was possible to create an open source system and others have done it. Avante CHOSE not to. It insults New Yorkers to be lied to.
“AVANTE has deep respect for the tireless efforts by the election integrity activists”
That’s a lie. What more can I say.
Today this unrespected tireless activist published these two pieces on the nightmare which is the voting systems that companies like Avante try to shove down our democracy.
Elections Belong To The People: No One Can Conceal Our Right To Know How Our Votes are Counted
HEADLINES: FROM NOW ON ALL VOTE COUNTING IN THE UNITED STATES WILL BE DONE IN SECRET. ALL CITIZENS ARE PROHIBITED FROM KNOWING HOW THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE COUNTING THEIR VOTES
Well that’s not exactly what happened. It’s actually worse.
OUR WORST NIGHTMARE IS OUR REALITY
Imagine if you woke up tomorrow morning to read:
IN THE INTERESTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY THE 2008 ELECTIONS WILL BE COUNTED IN SECRET. NO CITIZEN WILL BE PERMITTED TO KNOW HOW THE COUNTING IS DONE OR WHO IS DOING IT. THE “OFFICIAL” RESULTS WILL BE ANNOUNCED AND THERE WILL BE NO WAY TO VERIFY THEM.
Just think, then they wouldn’t have to cancel the elections under false pretenses. Imagine if this was only a nightmare.
Andi Novick
If Debra Bowen does the right thing, the only electronic voting machines ever used again will be the one that helps the disabled print a paper ballot, which can then be hand counted with public oversight.
We already have what is needed to do it!
INTERFACES FOR THE DISABLED, DESKTOPS, LAPTOPS, PRINTERS, PAPER and HUMAN BEINGS!
They print your sample ballot, just print a real ballot and were done here.
End of Nightmare.
Why can’t corporations that make EVM’s have the decency to be bi-partisan in management, oversight, and administration?
And why can’t they have a rule that they can not work as election officials for two years after they worked for an EVM company? What about it Seilor?
The current Jack Abramoff designed system, where EVM company employees go to work as election officials after selling bad equipment to the previous election officials, is like congress where the greatest Pharma legislation mandated that prescription drug prices could not be negotiated, pushed thru by republican congressmen who then went directly to work for Pharma for two million salary per year.
It is so sick even SICKO would be ashamed.
Kevin Chung #8
Your claims indicate that you have above average knowledge about Avante.
What have it and/or its sister corp been doing with the military industrial complex (DoD, etc.), in terms of contracts and/or sales?
Kevin Chung #8 … continued …
Read this thread to find out the link between EVM companies, those that work for them, and the one who certifies the EVMs, and the military industrial complex.
Do other states have these ethical violation and prior performance laws??? Or is it just N.Y.???