Ok, now that the dominoes are all starting to topple for Diebold...the question is "will anyone in the MSM notice or be able to cover it"?

Thanks, Brad, for this coverage.

I don't know if the dominoes are falling, but certainly the knot is tightening.

Combined with the securities fraud lawsuit and the upcoming hack test in California, things are getting very prickly indeed.

Now the real work starts --- it isn't just Diebold, of course, and it isn't just the Republicans, and this stuff has been creeping into place for decades while none of us were paying attention. It isn't just national politics either, the local races --- especially the county and city commissioners, councilmen, aldermen and supervisors, along with the sheriffs depts. and for elected jurisdictions, the election supervisor positions themselves have been a playground for tampering.

The tighter we draw the knot on all concerned, the more rats desert the ship, the more people try to maneuver themselves into the free pass line, reinventing themselves and making excuses and pointing fingers.

And we're not even close to reaching real resolution of the problem. I envision right now that it isn't just Diebold execs who are huddled in a room. It is also key people who are "helping" the American people --- you know, because we aren't capable of dealing with the reality of this --- trying to frame the issue (ie. Republicans trying to steal the election --- rather than the truth, voting machines built for fraud foisted upon us decades ago), trying to control the issue, trying to bandaid the issue, trying to divert attention into non-essential corners of the issue.

We need to keep pressing to reveal the root causes here. In 1965, we had the Warren Commission doctoring up reality on the Kennedy assassination because "Americans couldn't handle the truth." Protecting us, you know.

Let us refuse to allow such a thing to happen in the voting issue. We want full access, we must face this squarely, we must keep at it until the roots of the problem are exposed to full sunlight.

We are resilient. We can handle it. Now, more than ever, we must be vigilant about spin and insist on continuing to the very core of this issue.

I can GUARANTEE you that this doesn't stop at George Bush, nor does it stop with Republicans. Black Box Voting has dusted this baby off to the very foundation.

Our ETA for the detailed report is March 2005.

Bev Harris

Off topic sorry, but for those who where interested in the Wilkes/Cunningham scandal, and for those who arent but should be:

http://www.dailykos.com/...ory/2005/12/14/105941/04

So, do we have a complete list of states or precincts using electronic voting machines with specific manufacturers?

If so, then we should send out 6 or 7 warning 'letters' to the authorities in those places. It's quite possible those individuals are not so well informed as the readers of this blog. Let's not forget that blogging is still relatively new to most people.

Inform.
Educate.
Change their minds.
Change the world.

I think Bev meant '06, but thats what happens with us aged peeps,

I E-mailed the St Pete Times, with a link and a comment,
probably be ignored, but what the heck, it's worth a try

Why are these two latest stories about Diebold not being reported at all by the mainstream news? Are they that afraid of it? It's not like it's small news, I don't think.

This is not the first time this has been done.

The same results have been shown in other tests, and in fact any similar machine used to process 80% of the votes in the US is just as easily hackable.

These are really not very challenging to a hacker who wants a challenge, they are ho hum to hack.

The big news is that this is not news to the presstitutes in the MSM.

I would like to see the press cast out the rest of the presstitutes like Judith Miller, and wake up and smell the corruption.

The oceans are getting polluted by the puke the rest of the world is depositing there as a response to our claim to be the holy democracy, while we torture, invade, occupy, and deny.

I am sick as hell with all this too ... but not gonna give up ... wouldn't be prudent.

"I can GUARANTEE you that this doesn't stop at George Bush, nor does it stop with Republicans. Black Box Voting has dusted this baby off to the very foundation.
"

Well said. I think it has become pretty clear that the Dems are every bit as guilty as the Pubs, if anybody is guilty.

Those crapmachines are in use here in El Paso county CO. I'm going to forward this information and post it on the EP Dem blog right now.

Die Diebold!

I wouldn't be so quick to declare victory here. The key phrase to note is, "Leon County supervisor of elections Ion Sancho told Black Box Voting that HE will never use Diebold in an election again." (My emphasis on "he"). NOT that the county will never use it again, but HE won't. Consider this guy's job in serious danger now. The Repugs will find some way to get him replaced pronto with someone who will look the other way while Die-Bold machines slip back in to the county's voting booths.

That's right--the Dems are almost as corrupt as the Repubs, but they're not in power so can't do as much damage.
Between stealing elections, controlling all the media with fake corporate news so nobody knows what's happening, lying to start a war, trying to privatize every aspect that was once the domain of our government, underfunding every important program we have, like schools & the judicial system, the un-Patriotic Act, letting Wall Street coruption run rampant with no restrictions, not to mention Congress, & only passing legislation that benefits the richest 1% of this country---
FOLKS, WE'VE BEEN SCREWED.
This is no fluke, people.
This is a very real WAR.
The corporate world, with Bush as their puppet, are serious about taking over our nation, & they are well on their way, if not the victor.
STAND & FIGHT!
Do ONE thing today or tomorrow. Just one thing. Call or write a letter to your Representative, County official, local newspaper. You can find time today or tomorrow to do this.
Don't lay in the trenches & whine!
You can't win a war that way.
STAND & FIGHT!

What is the problem with the MSM???
Is there anyone in the media who can push these stories???

epppie #8

You said, regarding voting machines "I think it has become pretty clear that the Dems are every bit as guilty as the Pubs, if anybody is guilty".

Not in the 2004 presidential election, and not in the 2000 election either.

The information I have, mainly Phd. and other experts of both parties, does not support your hypothesis.

re: mainstream media --

Only a tiny percentage of newspapers have all their stuff online. Radio has very little online, and TV picks and chooses what it puts online.

We've been averaging about 2 MSM interviews a day for weeks now, and I can tell you that for a test that was only completed at 7 p.m. last night (AFTER all mainstream media deadlines had passed) I'm pretty pleased with the pickup. Of course, my background is in media so I know what is realistic, regardless of the kind of story, and this is a particularly tricky one.

Last night at 9 p.m. Kathleen had an interview with a Colorado radio station for a bigger segment to air on Sunday. I was interviewed on Coast to Coast from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. last night. I did another fairly large radio interview at 1 p.m. today, and have had three newspapers call.

Reuters wire service picked up the stockholders suit, and it doesn't get much bigger than that. Reuters is an international wire service.

The first Hursti attack in Leon County started picking up mainstream coverage a few days after it happened, and continued to get mainstream coverage in several major papers, for at least three months aftewards. This stuff picks up a life of its own after a while, and is used for fodder on subsequent articles as related stories arise.

I happen to know that Ion Sancho was mostly not available this morning, and that means MSM can't run with it, since they need a confirm from him.

I agree that by and large the mainstream media has not done its job on this story, but part of that is because the U.S. scientists have not done their job. One requirement for MSM is that they get an academic or public official to quote. I know for a fact that many of the scientists have not been forthcoming with the media, especially before the Nov. 2004 election, when all the big ones in this movement knew of the GEMS defect, the remote access vulnerabilities, and some of them knew the memory cards execute code. They said nothing, so don't just blame the media. I get chided all the time for holding these guys feet to the fire, but come on --- why is it more important to get a government grant and retain access to testify before panels like the Carter-Baker Commission than to tell it like it is BEFORE the presidential election? One prominent scientist, widely considered to be in the "good guy" camp, has known since 1992 that the problems are very significant. Another has known since 1996.

When I needled about this just yesterday, I got this answer: "It depends on your definition of 'knew.'"

What bullshit.

It doesn't take a genius to see these flaws, and it doesn't take a $7 million grant either. I mean damn --- I figured out the GEMS password was worthless while practicing cut and paste in my basement, and everyone knows I'm no expert. I was so broke I had to borrow my mortgage payment, after working this issue nonstop for nine months and shutting down my business to do so. If WE don't need $7 million to expose a memory card hack, and if two old ladies can find a guy with no fancy academic credentials from Finland to do this, why did this stuff have to sit there for over a decade with no scientists confirming it to the press, or ever writing an honest study on it?

I myself took Dr. Herbert Thompson to meet face to face with key members of the California secretary of state's office AND California's chief technical consultant in Aug. 2004. Despite his courageous work, they said nothing --- NOTHING --- to the press to confirm the GEMS defect and said they would work on it AFTER the election. And, of course, now even Diebold admits it's true.

Why would we expect the mainstream media to take courage when we see so little among the experts the MSM must look to for quotes?

All things considered, I think we're (most of the time) getting reasonable coverage. What I've heard, through the grapevine, is that the scientists chose not to say anything because they plan to unveil a "solution." My take on this, if true, is that we absolutely cannot trust humans who withhold critical evidence right before an election from an already aneomic press, just so they can fully bake up a solution and ride in on a white horse at some unspecified date in the future.

Most of the experts in this country who are dealing with the voting machine issue have had years --- sometimes as much as a decade --- to tell it like it is. They have not done so. Is it any wonder the press is gun-shy?

As I say, root causes. Let's not be so anxious to cozy up to power that we sacrifice truth for access. The citizenry is the ONLY hope we have to tackle these very difficult issues.

If you think the experts did a great job over the past decade of handling this, fall in line behind them as they ride in to save the world. I can tell you now, if that happens, it will ONLY be because we, the ordinary citizens, set the stage, crafted the saddle, provided their weapons and slapped the horses on the rump to get them moving.

I say, the healthiest thing that's happened in 50 years in this country is the massive movement of ordinary citizens to insist on watching, questioning, and becoming involved personally in our own elections. Never again should we think someone else will get it right. It's up to us to hold public officials' feet to the fire, and the scientists as well. If they won't play ball, as we have done before, the two old ladies from Black Box Voting will hunt for people with guts in foreign countries. Once they tell us what's in the machines, the U.S. scientists tiptoe into the waters to confirm.

There are reasons why the press is so slow to respond. So far, the response isn't bad, considering that we're operating with a lobotomy on this country's academic brains.

They will come forward, but only after citizens like you and I and Brad make it "safe" for them to do so. You know, wouldn't want to lose a nifty grant or a day's pay or get a whif of criticism on one's Ph.D. I'm also getting damn tired of the tidy refusal to look at incriminating program code due to DMCA concerns. I'll put it on the line here: I have stated to these scientists and now publicly --- if someone has to go to jail for reverse engineering elections code that has put our national security at risk, I'll do it.

In fact, there are many of us who'll do it. We don't have three or four elections more to waste while the tidy bowl men tiptoe around this thing.

Sorry for the rant. You can't believe the stuff I see, day after day, while out in the field. Watching the hack yesterday --- which took a grand total of 45 minutes for Harri to create, and just minutes to execute, literally made me sick. It made Florida Fair Elections Director Susan Pynchon cry. She's been begging --- BEGGING the U.S. scientific community for help with hundreds of pages of Volusia County logs she has, filled with anomalies, from the 2004 records that she got and we got (I gave the whole stack to her for her lawsuit). From the big cheeses who waltz around Washington D.C. she got zip, nada, and mostly not even a glance at her documents.

Too busy to look at evidence, but not too busy to hobnob or accept a 7 million dollar NSF grant. I have learned of an all hand-counted paper ballot location with 3,500 voters and up to 30 questions on the ballot that gets its votes counted accurately before the voting machines are done on Election Night. Asked one of the scientists why they are rejecting paper ballot solutions based on one lame-ass study about how the human brain works, presented at NIST, instead of fricking studying actual locations that do it. Of course we all know the answer: Keep the computers involved, keep it complex, and you've got lifelong job security. The answer I got, by the way, was that "ACCURATE" will look at that. In a year or two. What the hell is THAT?

Well I am not waiting for some "solution" that we don't even know is even there to appear in a few years. We've got to roll up our sleeves and make this happen, working around our country's lobotomized academia to get this into the press any way we can.

All things considered, reporters are struggling just like we are.

Whew.

Rant central.

And as Harri Hursti always says, "It is what it is."

Bev Harris

I am not talking about any general newspaper. The Tallahassee Democrat posted an editorial about how they will no longer put national news on the front pages after they were traded by Knight - Ridder for a few Northern papersowned by Gannett. I have noticed that since then our "news" paper has covered mostly fluff pieces and in my opinion nothing that would offend the Bush administration, Jeb Bush or any other REPUBLICAN in the area. They were quick to pick up on the story about Scott Madox (Democrat)and his money woes before his gubernatorial campaign even got off the ground. Theylove to pick up on any leftist or Democrat scandal, but anything the Christian Right-wingers want, they get around here.

I live here in Bibleland and am an out lesbian and I don't have time for being positive when it is not due. And I will not sit back and be silent as the U.S. Constitution is being stepped on by those in power. I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!

One thing everyone can do is e-mail the Public Editor at The New York Times, Byron Calame, and ask, "Why is the paper not covering O'Dell's resignation and the class-action suit against Diebold?" The address is public@nytimes.com

If O'Dell were the C.E.O. of any other Fortune 500 company, his resignation under fire would be cited at least in the business section, probably in the news section as well. The presumptive link to the 2004 election would make it a front-page story under any normal circumstances.

That's the point. To borrow a phrase from the McCarthy era (don't like to, but if fits), "Bill Keller is a conscious agent of the 2004 election conspiracy."

Well, Bev, you've sure blazed this trail for us, and I can't thank you and bbv.org, and Harri Hursti and Ion Sancho, and bradblog, and Dr. Freeman, and all the others who've stood tall in the face of mocking, taunting, demeaning establishment attacks, enough.

And Brad: to help the mainstream, uninformed media people who may come here to try to get up to speed on this issue - note that in your story here you mistakenly state that this was a test hack of a "Touch-Screen" Voting Machine and Central Tabulator. It was, of course, an OPTICAL SCAN Voting Machine and Central Tabulator internal hack. And since so many people still think that optical scan systems are "paper ballot" systems, without a central tabulator, that's an important confusion to avoid. "Paper Ballots" refers, most precisely, to those paper ballots which are HAND-COUNTED for an election result. All other paper that is processed by machinery to allow for digital tabulating of results (optical scanners, for example), is useless as a "paper trail" IF THE PAPER IS NEVER HAND-COUNTED. Which is exactly what many jurisdictions are expert at preventing, with arcane recount rules, and limited public access to the evidence.

USA Today is covering O'Dell's resignation.

I am seeing a general lack of understanding about typical news timelines in the mainstream media. Internet media is much quicker.

The mainstream media can cover O'Dell's resignation, but that's not a major story unless it has a tie-in to something else. They can't speculate about it being due to voting machines, they'd have to have a source or proof or a statement from Diebold.

They can cover the stockholder's suit and probably will, but they usually wait until they have a copy of the lawsuit in hand, and they go over it and make a few phone calls to sources for quotes. Take away all political stuff and let's say this is a normal news story --- I'd expect that to take 2-3 days.

Obviously, there are quicker turnarounds, but it depends on how "hot" the story is. To make it "hot" you need tie-ins with other breaking news or you need it to be one of those feeding frenzy stories that everyone's trying to scoop each other on.

For the hack story, they need a direct confirm from Ion Sancho. Since this happened after deadline last night, that means they can't get that quote until today for tonight's news. They'll get a more thorough story if they get his formal press release, and more places will get that. I think we'll be seeing some newspapers cover the hack story tonight or tomorrow, possibly as late as Friday or Sunday.

The dumping of Diebold will probably be tied to that.

It's not at all unusual for the media to take 3-4 days on a story like this.

As I've said before --- you do realize this is going to lead into the biggest story since 1776? Reporters aren't dummies. They know this one needs to be handled with care at this stage.

What I expect to happen next is an all-out effort at containment, by people in government who we might consider to be "the good guys." The reason for this will be to protect us and to preserve stability and prestige in foreign relations.

I'm saying, we'll never get this solved unless we are alert for attempt to contain the story. We need the whole thing out, and it's a big bad mess of a boondoggle that goes back before Bush and before HAVA. Believe me, they'll try to contain it at any of a number of points before coverage of it goes all the way to the core.

But Brad, we all know that the real issue is VOTER fraud, like that guy who allegedly registered to vote as a Mr. "Jive F. Turkey". THAT's the problem. Stop pestering the wonderful, super-duper, perfect folks at Diebold. Their software is perfect - it never makes a mistake.

(snark: off)

Maybe we need to be in place and ready to challenge any and every vote count result which came from an electronic voting machine. If they can be challenged in a court as unverifiable then perhaps the whole lot of them can be tossed out to make a very big stinking story.

The more I think about this article, isn't this proof the electronic machines can be untraceably hacked? Does anyone realize how huge this is? Our Congress should IMMEDIATELY pull all the electronic voting machines. This is our democracy at stake, and it has been proven it's not secure!!!

to: Dredd

> the Dems are every bit as guilty as the Pubs

>>Not in the 2004 presidential election, and not in the 2000 election either. The information I have, mainly Phd. and other experts of both parties, does not support your hypothesis.

The folly most people succumb to in analyzing this issue is that they assume it is all about the presidential election. Factor in the other races, starting with the breadwinner races from a bribery perspective (councilmen, aldermen, commissioners, supervisors, sheriffs). Work upward from there and also factor in manipulation of the party primaries. Then tell me what you see.

The rotten core of this issue is not the presidential race, and in fact, you can't rig a presidential race without the rotten core. There is absolutely nothing you can do to tidy up the presidential race and control of the U.S. Congress until you clean the infection in the core. You can't even temporarily tidy up the presidential because yes, I know we're all in a hurry.

The problem with the popular analysis --- that this is driven by presidential politics --- is that it is not actually driven by presidential politics.

Corruption of presidential politics is the by-product, albeit a whopping stinking toxic pile of a by-product.

Bev Harris #22

That's a very significant point about the importance of local elections. Not only are these positions important springboards to other bigger positions, they are the places where corruption is rife. Yet all too often people don't know much about the candidates for the "less important" offices. And the exit polls ignore these races.

The media doesn't help much. And it's not always easy to find out what influences might be controlling various candidates. (E.g., what property developer is supporting which candidate; what are the hidden agendas; what is the money trail and power base of positions that don't look very important from the outside?)

We can't afford to ignore the "small-fry" elections. The local-level power bases are what makes other nastiness possible in the bigger positions.

I would love to see Bev Harris comment further on the statement she made last night on Coast to Coast (yep, I was listening at that hour here in the East) about Kerry benefitting from some vote fixing in New Hampshire.

That's the first time I have heard any mention of Kerry. My sister actually got me involved in this after the Iowa caucus when Kerry emerged as the winner "out of nowhere" and Dean self-destructed. Dean's howl that night had a very Muskie-like flavor to it, in my opinion (does anyone remember what Nixon did to Muskie?).

Anyhow, I'd like to see any elaboration on the Democrat primary race from Bev because that would help explain why Kerry didn't challenge the results in Ohio - because he was just as guilty. If that comes out, we would indeed have a "smoking gun."

Come on Bev, spill the beans on Kerry.

Yes, Bev Harris is right. I never knew I'd agree so strongly with her on something but this is it--the rotten core starts in the local elections.

Even right-wing republicans are furious about this, and in Arizona are doing everything they can do to impound the machines and instigate a discovery process for ballots.

Whoever wins on these cheating machines, is always corrupt, is never good for the people, and always works for someone else first.

Clearly they are mostly picked by the NEOCONS who have always been here. Diebold & Sequoia or ES aren't republican companies, they are NEOCON companies....

They donate to the hard right republicans and the hard left democrats.....Just like Connie McCormack. And they ALSO donate to people who are alligned with the communist party....

This is why Fitzgerald and I'm sure other prosecutors take the threat so seriously.....these companies are not doing ANYTHING good for the united states, and have compromised voting for everyone now and obviously there is just as many Joe Lieberman's as there is Randy Cunningham's.

They WERE elected by fraud and using corporate money, and obviously as Bev says, you must root out the VIRUS cause of all this!!!! Because you will turn around and see everyone upset about this, and it is truly something that got even worse with the mainstream introduction of e-Voting.

The media can be a powerful ally in that as well, as long as you don't make the whole thing "partisan". Address it as the concern of anyone getting a fair vote, period. Clearly that starts in the most corrupt of them all, Diebold Global Elections, and goes right down the line to city council races. After all Arizona & South Dakota are now going to court over these machines.

Lets get the right message out there!!!

Doug E.

Die bold has 10s of thousands of ATM machines all over that work perfectly dispensing money (have to). But in the fall election in Ohio there are multiple voting machine problems due to.....humidity? BULLSHIT!

It is time for a "Stand Alone Federal Election" where the only items on the ballot are President, Senator and Congressman.
Voting machines would not be necessary any more as a hand count would be easy.
All State , County and City issues should be decided at a different time.
The result will be no long lines and a much simpler ballot allowing for a standard across the whole country.
This must be done to ensure a fair and Democratic Election with no chance of error.

Florida should seek criminal indictments against Diebold for fraud. They should also sue Diebold for the cost of the fake voting machines and for punitive damages.

i wonder if keith olbermann will cover this?

Bev Harris #22
"Corruption of presidential politics is the by-product, albeit a whopping stinking toxic pile of a by-product."

Excepting this comment as true, it’s obvious that the people in "lesser positions" will never instigate any type of investigation or inquiry into election fraud because their own position will be threatened or exposed. Also as "they" move up the chain of power they will take their corrupt practices with them and the void created by their "move up the chain of power" will be filled by a "friend" who will protect the system that has served them so well. Also if the person above you is aware of how you got your position it’s very hard for you to object to any of their “doings”.
911 showed how things collapse; you must destroy the foundation that supports things if you want the whole thing to collapse.

Yikes MMI, that sounds like your typical corporation!!!!

And that's just what Diebold is not, that company is one of the worst....well corporations anywhere.

I don't think there's enough people alive to see how many dead bodies are in Diebold's closet...

They should have Florida join the prosecution, spend a few million to get rid of Diebold too and start saving democracy. We might just see Blackwell & friends have to be sworn in under oath!!

Doug E

I don't care who gets in the way in this one. You are right. It is not about party lines this time; it is about our fundamental right to vote. The corner stone of Democracy.

The scab needs to be ripped off the festering sore that we call our government.

MMIIXX #34

Corporations are also in bed with Democrats and with non-neo-con Republicans, as well as with neo-con Republicans. It's not a political issue. They'll try to buy influence with anyone. Our lack of oversight of corporations facilitates this.

Bev #14

You said "One requirement for MSM is that they get an academic or public official to quote".

That is an arbitrary, useless, capricious, and phony requirement. It is self imposed by the presstitutes in the MSM and is absolutely no excuse whatsoever.

If an electronic voting machine can be hacked by someone from Columbine High School, who the hell cares what some jerk off who knows the sizes of all the moons of Jupiter cares about voting machines?

It is rank bullshit to elevate voting machines to the realm of mysticism where we need some robed, self absorbed, elitist who can't tie his fricking shoe laces to tell us about voting rights.

That is the most ridiculous notion I have heard yet. The fact of the matter is that the presstitutes in the MSM are right wing and they are consumed with a mythical notion of the nature of the American condition. They have a religious adherence to things political, and have given up their mission.

Their mission is to speak truth to power. And to do so without permission from the high priests at XYZ labs, Inc. Hell, have we forgotten that our democratic principles and Bill of Rights were constructed without the assistance of comments from "academic or public official to quote"?

Scientists have no obligation to make comments on machines of politicians, and for the presstitutes in the MSM to gen up some "requirement" that they do is nothing less than absurd.

The real reason they have created this red herring is so they do not disturb the body politic nor their advertisers who grease their palms.

Bev #22

The exit polls had a certain party winning up until the last moment. The errors in the electronic voting machine results by and large went to the opposing party.

Gerrymandering lawsuits, which have now made it to the Supreme Court, have to do with a certain party, and the politician from that certain party is under indictment for money laundering during that gerrymandering timeframe.

The owners of the flawed electronic voting machines belong to that party, stated publicly they were in favor of politicians from their party winning elections whose results were counted on their machines, and are now facing lawsuits for fraud, etc. for comments they made in public about the electronic voting machines that counted the votes.

I do not need some white robed scientist to tell me what is wrong with this picture, nor which party has control as a result of said elections.

Bev, you are truly a hero.

>What I expect to happen next is an all-out effort >at containment....to protect us and to >preserve .stability and prestige in foreign relations.

You must also mean so as not to tarnish global "Brand America".

Having travelled outside the U.S. somewhat, it occurs to me that FOX, CNN, NBC have network stations all over the world. Much of their success no doubt comes from the prestige and glamour of "Brand America". America, land of truth, hope and dreams, right?

Making America look bad makes FOX, CNN, NBC look bad in their foreign markets, dulls their lustre, and threatens continuing profits overseas.

When there are profit$$$ at stake, the Corporation will choose it over ethics and truth anyday.

Sadly.

Corporations are in bed with the neo-cons,how can they "spill the beans" to the public without "self-incrimination" ?

ELECTION 2006 THE YEAR OF REDEMPTION-MAYBE!!!

And away we go!! The off election year 2006 is here and the vultures are swooping down to peck clean the bones of American voters again. But there will be no fair elections if there is no election reforms that remove the “DeiBold” voter-rip-off, “ we fix it like you want it,” machines and the processes by which the counting of votes is presently conducted...

{ed note: Please do not copy and paste entire articles. The rest of this article has been removed here and can be found at the website posted below.}

BY: Dr. J. Alva Scruggs

Your comments are appreciated

Email; jscru5750@aol.com

Website; http://franklyspeaking.info

I have a pretty rough idea about what should happen next. If Diebold told all these election officials something in order to sell their machines to them, and that something was wrong, couldn't there be some sort of civil/criminal action to be taken? Obviously this would mean gaining access to and sifting through a lot of contracts, and differing federal and state election laws, etc. etc., but the potential upside is tremendous. A class action lawsuit from a broad range of local communities against Diebold would (one would think) gain some sustained publicity. And if they could actually get some money out of Diebold, the bill for replacing the machines wouldn't be forced entirely onto taxpayers.

Maybe this has already been looked into or is being looked into? Anybody out there know whether this could actually be done?

To underscore at least part of Bev's first rant above, I've been busy giving interviews on all of the above as well to MSM types over the past three days or so.

And the NYTimes did, indeed, contact me this morning for info on the Diebold suit (I'll not mention the reporter's name for various reasons).

As well, you'll note the MSM coverage of the Leon County hack in several now-more-recent BRAD BLOG items. Which much more to come, I suspect.

All of which is by no means meant as an apology for the atrocious and delinquent coverage by the MSM on *all* of these issues for far longer than our democracy can safely tolerate!

A Raw Story link supports Brad's post #40 statement "the atrocious and delinquent coverage by the MSM".

A major story was DeLay'd and covered up by The New York Times.

The story was that Americans were being spied on by the government and the government did not want the story out.

The presstitutes in the MSM jumped in bed with the admin and let the admin have its way with those prestitutes.

The only thing we don't know is how much the presstitutes charged for their services (link here).

Bev Harris, you are right about many things, but you are absolutely 180 degrees wrong when you blame the scientists instead of the media.

Sure, there have been one or two rogue scientists defending the voting machine companies, just as there were a few rogue doctors defending the cigarette companies. But the vast majority of computer scientists and other computer professionals have been telling the truth about this issue, for a very long time.

It goes back at least to 1988, when a computer scientist said this to the New Yorker: "There is probably a Chernobyl or a Three Mile Island waiting to happen in some election, just as a Richter 8 earthquake is waiting to happen in California."

When states like Georgia started eliminating paper ballots, computer professionals blasted this idiotic decision. They made as much noise as they could. Their criticism was heavily covered in the nerd press (like Wired and The Register) but almost completely suppressed in the so-called "mainstream" press.

At the beginning of 2003, almost two years before the 2004 election, Dr. David Dill of Stanford wrote a resolution demanding auditable (paper) ballots, and he got THOUSANDS of other academics and computer professionals to sign it.

In the summer of 2004 the ACM made a similar recommendation, and it was supported by NINETY-FIVE percent of ACM members.

Are you complaining because the scientists didn't make a big deal out of one particular backdoor (the GEMS defect) or two, or three? You don't understand: a program of this size probably has HUNDREDS of exploitable backdoors, and Dr. Rebecca Mercuri proved in her thesis that it is IMPOSSIBLE to eliminate all of them.

Why should we expect the scientists to make a statement about every little individual backdoor, when they have already given us proof that EVERY voting system where you trust a computer is GUARANTEED to have a backdoor? It's like expecting a scientist to comment on your new proof of the existence of gravity; why should he bother, when gravity has been well understood for many years?

Or are you complaining because the scientists insisted that we need to have auditable (paper) ballots, but they didn't insist that we need to go ahead and do the audit? That's not their job. We shouldn't need a scientist to tell us that there has to be an audit; it's just common sense.

I see my doctor once per year, and in all those years he never told me that I shouldn't drink diesel fuel. I'm sure he knew that drinking diesel fuel was dangerous, but he kept his mouth shut. Does that mean he's out to get me? Or he's a bad doctor? No, it just isn't his job; I shouldn't need a doctor to tell me not to drink diesel fuel.

The scientists told us that we need to have paper ballots, and that we need to hand count all of them, or at least a statistically significant random sample of them. But on election day 2004, in many places we didn't have paper ballots, and even in many places where we did have paper ballots, we didn't actually count them. We did exactly what the scientists told us not to do.

Chuck Herrin's rant is relevant here. I'll copy&paste the beginning and end of his rant:

Who told them that you could vote securely using electronic voting machines? Salespeople, not Information Security professionals. You can't build a system based on a flawed premise, no matter how much they want to. They are still not listening to us, since we're not giving them the answers they want. But our answer is RIGHT, whether they want to believe it or not.

They ask our expert opinion, and they don't like it, so they ask another expert, and they don't like it, and they do it anyway, and then ask us how to fix it. You fix it by following the advice of your experts and not screwing up to begin with, and if it's too late to do that, you go back and do what they said in the first place in the interest of finally actually doing the right thing for your voters.

(end of Chuck Herrin quote)

As Chuck Herrin says, the computer experts have been treated pretty badly in this whole affair. When people like Bev Harris try to put the blame on the computer experts, instead of blaming all those people who ignored the experts... well, it's like rubbing salt on a wound.

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