Just out from the NJ Star-Ledger…
Election officials in Bergen, Gloucester, Mercer, Middlesex, Ocean and Union counties were instructed to turn over the machines by April 15. Activists trying to persuade Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg that electronic voting machines should be discarded succeeded in convincing her that examining these counties’ machines is critical to their case.
“In order to succeed in our case and show Sequoia machines are insecure and can be hacked into, we need to look at these machines,” Venetis argued. Clerks in the six counties uncovered discrepancies in 60 machines when they doubled check the vote tallies after the Feb. 5 presidential primary.
Michelle Shafer, a spokeswoman for Sequoia in California, said her company would try to have the subpoenas quashed. But no motions were filed today with Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg, who is presiding over the case in Trenton.
In the meantime, we repeat our background detail on this amazing (and sometimes hilarious) story in full below, as we ran it this weekend when one of the Princeton professors threatened by Sequoia found the failures in NJ were even worse than previously thought.
Please note: The same failed Sequoia AVC Advantage touch-screens are scheduled for use in Pennsylvania in the important upcoming Democratic Primary!…
On Super Tuesday, Sequoia’s AVC Advantage touch-screen voting machines failed to boot up in many places, forcing the Governor himself to wait 45 minutes before he could cast his vote. After Super Tuesday it was found that the Sequoia AVC Advantage has misreported voter turnouts.
Sequoia offered a feeble excuse for the failure, without offering evidence to support it, which blamed both voters and poll-workers instead of themselves for the multi-million dollar embarrassment. County election officials across NJ then unanimously called for an independent investigation of the machines by Princeton computer profs Felten and Andrew Appel.
Sequoia then threatened legal action against both the professors and the counties should they undertake such a technical review of their self-described “tamperproof” machines. The counties folded to the company’s strong-arm tactics, while hoping either the state AG or SoS would commission such a review.
Sequoia’s website was then hacked, but not before they could release misleading propaganda claiming they loved third party independent reviews so much they were willing to then sponsor one on their own by selecting and paying an unknown “independent company” named “Kwaidan Consulting” to do one on behalf of Sequoia.
Kwaidan was then revealed by The BRAD BLOG to be no more than a “blonde nymphomaniac”-seeking babe-magnet named Mike Gibbons, who, after being commissioned by Sequoia for this important analysis, suddenly discovered a new-found love for George Bush, Jesus Christ, Albert Einstein, and the U.S. Constitution. The babes and the Jim Beam would have to wait.
Much as those voters and election officials in Pennsylvania, set to use the exact same machines two weeks from now in the upcoming, all-important, Democratic Primary, will have to wait to see if the machines work at all. Then, of course, they will simply have to trust the reported results, no matter what the machines tell them, since it is strictly impossible to discern whether any single vote cast on them was actually recorded as any single voter intended.
All Riiiiiiight! Lock those babies up!
Investigation is great!! What else can we do besides forward the story around??
http://www.GetItStraightBy2008.org
http://pol.moveon.org/paper2008
These are the best actions I’ve found to take.
The tabulation errors printed on the election results tapes might have been cause by buggy software in any of the Firmware, Operating System, Election Application System or Ballot Definition software layers, but I’d look first at the Ballot Definition software written in the days just before the election.
Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg should order Sequoia to disclose the exact Ballot Definition source code and the programmer(s) who wrote the Ballot Definition software for the faulty machines. It would also be interesting to know exactly how the Ballot Definition software was tested and by who.
Why the Ballot Definition Software running in the NJ touch screen voting machines is a good candidate for the tabulation errors:
Ballot definition software, hurriedly written in the weeks just before each election, is not independently tested or audited. Ballot definition software is not submitted to any independent testing laboratory for audit and often it is not directly tested by county election officials.
Furthermore, memory cards/modules, on which ballot definition software is delivered to county elections offices, can also carry other software components that can update firmware, OS and EAS software as the ballot software is loaded onto each and every voting machine. Even if the version of firmware, OS and EAS software installed on voting machines is the audited and certified version, such updates from memory cards/modules invalidate the audit unless they have been scrupulously logged, audited and tested. County election officials across the U.S. all too often do not carefully inspect those memory cards/modules to know exactly what software components may be loaded onto their voting machines. In fact, it is the contractors who often load the memory card/module contents onto voting machines.
Those election jurisdictions that do test their ballot definition software often just execute a testing procedure written by the same contractor that delivered their ballot definition software. Yes, the person that writes the ballot definition software often creates its certifying test procedure. A few counties across the U.S. do construct their own test procedures to augment the test procedures delivered by their contractors. Even when these basic function testing procedures are executed, they are run in a “test election” mode rather than the actual Election Day mode, so the ballot definition software is never subjected to a true Election Day field test.
counties were instructed to turn over the machines by April 15.
Who’s been watching the machines up until now, and who will watch them between now and the 15th?
Just wondering….
Encouraging news!
Orangutan #2 –
Unfortunately, the actions you’ve pointed to — those by Common Cause and MoveOn — do not distinguish between paper trails on touch-screen machines and real paper BALLOTS.
Both CC and MoveOn have long been intent with demanding touch-screen VVPATs (“Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trails) instead of insisting on the banning of touch-screens period, as they are not safe at any speed for American democracy. With or without a so-called “paper trail”.
Demand a paper BALLOT — that is actually counted — for every vote cast in America.
heh
Can I say that Mike Gibbons is a fan of The Hulk funnies and he likes to run funny corporations too?
I wonder if these machines will take the fifth or do a McCain Tirade?
You can say anything you like about Gibbons, Floridiot. Chances are, from the additional information that I’ve been able to learn about him, it’s very likely to be true! 🙂
Orangutan #2 wrote:
Right on!
Great news Brad…When you get the chance, Sock it to us !
Oh yeah, I was thinking also about Gibbons male friend on his old my space page was probably his boy toy…It could figure along with The Hulk thingy 😛
Sure wish baghdad burning could be the end of the purple finger fallacy of fate … that voting machines would recordify … or that papers would ballot, because electrons or at least photons really, really do conform to the heisenberg uncertainty principle.
Recordify the misunderestimations of nukyular votin machines spazmos. 😉
BTW a large tornado just went thru Brad Texas, and is heading my way.
V – know, vino, vino.
thems cod wurdz …
Link (YouTube)
a good read.