ed note: CAUTION - The following thread, dominated by the anonymous poster calling himself "Wally O'Diebold", is --- not surprisingly --- filled with all manners of disinformation and other deceitful nonsense. Nonetheless, it's useful to have Mr. O'Diebold on the record here, even if his comments violate many of our rules against disinfo, misinfo, and sliming other commenters. For now, we are making an exception, and allowing his comments to stay. For now. So proceed with caution and keep in mind he is able to tell you anything from behind his cloak of public anonymity without any accountability. For now. Therefore, take all of it with the exceedingly large grain of salt it deserves.
-- BF

Dear Brad,

Repeating a bunch of misinformation doesn't make it true.

1. Interpreted code is not specifically banned by federal HAVA guidelines. HAVA makes no mention of interpreted code whatsoever. The relevant standards are the FEC standards, and they don't disallow the use of interpreted code either, except where specific other listed conditions also apply.

2. Diebold's equipment was not de-certified in California for use of illegal software patches. All DREs from all vendors were de-certified in California. Most were later re-certified except for the specific case of the Diebold AccuVote-TSx, for which it was ruled that as new equipment the TSx would require addition of a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) prior to re-certification. The VVPAT requirement actually applies to all new DRE equipment in that state. The first times you made that claim it was ignorance. Now you're just being deceptive.

3. The 20% failure rate in the California volume test that you love to quote so much is a matter of subjective opinion: around 20 incidents were recorded in a test of 10,000 ballots cast, and no votes were mis-recorded or lost in the test. But that's fine, I'll give you the 20 percent. The truth that you conveniently leave out is that two small issues were identified and corrected as a result of the test and a subsequent re-test of the system resulted in a 100% success rate. And for what it's worth, the results of similar volume tests published last week for equipment by Sequoia, Hart-Intercivic and ES&S had much higher failure rates than the 20% you like to toss around: try upwards of 40% for the Hart system, and 60% for the ES&S system. So based on the volume tests you're so fond of referring-to, Diebold's equipment has the lowest error rate of the ones tested to date --- by far. Not that it means much, because the method you're using to calculate "20%" (or 40% or 60%) is bogus anyway. By that method, you could do a test of a single machine and successfully cast 1,000,000,000 ballots on it: but if there's a paper jam on the billionth-and-one ballot you'd conclude there's a 100% failure rate. Whatever.

I get that you don't like Diebold or their equipment. An intelligent and informed person could even make a credible argument against either (although an equally intelligent person could also make a credible counter-argument). But repeating the same bunch of deceptive bullshit to the same handful of true believers over and over again here is just weak. Hey, what do I care? It's your blog and your reputation.

Here's hoping the Los Angeles DA comes to his senses and goes after big Jim March next!

Your pal,
Wally

Whoo-ey you're fast, Brad! You beat us to the punch.

Your story contains many valuable insights. I have linked it and recommended it at the end of our story on this. I hope people spread both stories far and wide.

We have published a letter from Jeb Bush and his crony, Sue Cobb, basically trying to finesse Ion Sancho out of a job.

In addition, we've identified some of the key flaws in the BUSINESS MODEL which allows a limited pool of vendors to blackball a government official.

The Florida advisory vindicates Ion Sancho --- but, ironically, just as this went out he got his threat letter from Jeb.

Spread the word, folks. People of courage are standing up, and are drawing blood, and the latest maneuver is to punish them.

Ion Sancho is being punished.
Steven Heller is being punished.
Lynn Landes is being punished.

If we do not stand together, who will be next?

woops, forgot the link:

http://www.bbvforums.org...messages/1954/19494.html

And as for Wally O'Diebold:

"Interpreted code is not specifically banned by federal HAVA guidelines. HAVA makes no mention of interpreted code "

Yes, it is the FEC guidelines and yes, they do ban interpreted code in the manner in which it is used in the Diebold optical scan machines.

"2. Diebold's equipment was not de-certified in California for use of illegal software patches. "

It was decertified because Diebold repeatedly lied to the secretary of state, about illegal software patches and other things. It's a pattern with Diebold, this business of lying to secretaries of state. And a pattern of corrupt business practices is called... go ahead Wally, you fill in the blanks.

"Here's hoping the Los Angeles DA comes to his senses and goes after big Jim March next! "

Well first there would have to be a crime, or in the case of L.A., a whistleblower to attack in order to get the focus off the real criminals. But okay.

Your pal,
Bev

Dear Bev,

Clearly you misunderstand the FEC guidelines. If interpreted code as it is used in the Diebold machines is forbidden as you suggest, then why has it been repeatedly OKed by federal testing authorities and the NASED committee that issues the certifications? A report from the testing authorities issued just last week - a report, mind you, specifically about the alleged forbidden code - conspicuously fails to disallow it. The obvious conclusion: your interpretation of the FEC standards is different from the interpretation of the people whose job it is to interpret it. And I know you're not technical so I'll explain it here in layman's terms: tough shit for you.

And no, Diebold's machines were not decertified due to illegal software patches. I know that's the story you like to put out there, but it's unadulterated bullshit. All the DREs from all the vendors were decertified at the same time, and none were decertified for "illegal software patches". I assume that Brad's just misinformed on the subject so I'm content to post the correction but otherwise give him a pass. You on the other hand, know better: when you misrepresent what happened, you're just lying.

Theft is a crime, Bev... hence the pickle Heller's got himself into. Maybe you shouldn't have burned your source if you were that worried about his welfare. He's not a whisteblower if he didn't blow any whistle - which he reportedly didn't (and couldn't have, since the stolen material was pretty innocuous if you actually read it). He gave the stolen documents to Jim, who knew they were stolen, and receiving stolen property is also a crime. Of course the DA's not going to go after ol' Jimmy, but the thought does make one kind of giggle.

Too bad you and Jim threw Steve under a bus by outing him and then bragging that he gave Jim (who later gave them to your pal Ian) the stolen goods. I know you've since tried to modify that perception, but unfortunately for Steve, Jim's original story's still out there. Along with your own comments clearly stating that his materials weren't even used in the only "whistleblower" action that's even halfway relevant - which leaves Heller as nothing more than a thief.

Academically yours,
Wally

Wally:

"If interpreted code as it is used in the Diebold machines is forbidden as you suggest, then why has it been repeatedly OKed by federal testing authorities and the NASED committee that issues the certifications?"

Yeah there's the million dollar question. Or is that just the amount of the bribes that got passed around?

"A report from the testing authorities issued just last week - a report, mind you, specifically about the alleged forbidden code - conspicuously fails to disallow it. "

Yeah. And did anyone notice they sent the code TO THE WRONG ITA? Ciber labs tests software --- ie. GEMS, and Wyle labs tests firmware. That is what they are designated to do and allowed to do. In fact, Wyle labs did the original testing where they missed a security defect the size of British Columbia. So why was this latest whitewash report done by Ciber? It's the wrong lab. Find me any reference anywhere that has Ciber doing the ITA testing for firmware. And by the way, I've interviewed Shawn Southworth in person. His credentials are insufficient for this. He even admits that.

"the interpretation of the people whose job it is to interpret it. "

Yes well. These are the people who'd certify a pocket calculator jammed halfway into a banana if you pay them enough [hat tip to Jim March for that analogy], so I'm not impressed with their interpretation.

"And no, Diebold's machines were not decertified due to illegal software patches. "

Read the report. Oh yeah, that's right, the current S.O.S. pulled it off the Web. If Jim March wanders through here, maybe he'll publish a link to a version he saved.

" Theft is a crime, Bev... hence the pickle Heller's got himself into."

Racketeering is a crime too. Oh, and the documents Heller was looking at because he was ordered to look at them --- they were documents where Diebold's own lawyers were planning to lie to the secretary of state --- then actually lied --- then thousands of voters were unable to vote because of the lie. The documents show that Diebold was told that what they were doing was a crime, and showed a budget being prepared for Diebold's criminal defense, and Diebold went ahead and committed fraud anyway.

Steven Heller is a whistleblower. Diebold is the one committing the crimes.

Wally,

Please just shut your mouth and give it a rest. I've already proven every one of your points wrong.

No, Wyle labs didn't even look at it. They test software, not firmware that is what Ciber tests.

I have evidence now Wally that your friends including Urosovich wired money in for some shennanigans....you better hope you have more than a court order.

When we're done, Diebold will so far under you will have to administer CPR. And the federal labs who tested it, were bought & paid by Diebold so really the entire process needs to be reviewed as everyone is aware of how insecure Diebold is.

Doug E.

Bribes? Interesting theory. I trust you have some proof before you go throwing around something like that.

Here's a thought: if certification were as simple as paying off the right person, why do you suppose there are uncertified versions of anything, ever? Why is Sequoia still trying to get a federal certification for its equipment after two years? Why did it take Diebold over a year for the TSx? Why did it take ES&S most of last summer and fall to get it for their AutoMark device? You'd think it would have been easier for all of these companies to simply cut someone a check. As per usual, your bullshit conspiracy theories hold no water.

As for your assertion that they sent the thing to the wrong ITA, that's just nonsense. Voting machine firmware is typically tested for FEC compliance at Wyle Laboratories: in that statement, at least, you are correct. Of course, the recent review by Ciber was not for federal certification purposes - all of the equipment in question was already, and remains today, federally certified. California secretary of state Bruce McPherson asked (specifically) for Ciber labs to perform an additional security audit of one part of the system about which concerns had been raised. Despite how you've spun that on your web site, it has nothing whatsoever to do with federal qualification status and it never brought the federal qualification status of the system into question (you should probably apologize to people for misleading people about that and duplicitously getting their hopes up). Why SoS McPherson asked Ciber to do the review is something you'd have to ask him. Maybe he wanted another set of eyes to look at it, since Wyle Labs already had. Maybe that's the reason he also asked his own VSTAAB to look at it as well. By all available evidence, the man seems extremely diligent to me. Of course, from your perspective it probably just adds one more layer to the conspiracy.

As a side note, I do find it interesting that the list of people who've reviewed this allegedly "secret source code" is literally growing with every passing week. Funny.

It's fascinating that you personally don't agree with the interpretation of the FEC standards by the certification labs and the NASED committee. Unfortunately it's not especially relevant. I'm pretty sure that nobody at either level really gives a rat's ass what Bev Harris' personal interpretation of the standard is. And quite frankly, there's no reason why they should since you clearly don't even understand it.

Jim's calculator in a banana analogy is stupid, but then again I expect no less from a self-professed network administrator who couldn't understand that 192.168.0.2 isn't an address on the internet. Possibly his finest moment ever, and a testament to the technical prowess of the BBV crew as a whole.

You're lying about what the stolen documents say. It's not worth debating further, we can agree to disagree since the audience in this particular venue is just going to believe you without ever reading them anyway. But we both know the truth, and that's good enough for me. And at least we agree that the documents were stolen, which is of course the relevant point.

Diebold's not committing any crimes, you just made that up. And honestly it's a bit hard to take, considering the source.

Best,
Wally

DOUG ELDRITCH #6

Dear Doug,

1. You've "proven" nothing of the sort.

2. You're 100% wrong. Wyle Labs tests firmware and hardware, and Ciber labs tests software. As such Wyle Labs has already reviewed the firmware, and now it's been reviewed by Ciber as well at the specific request of the California secretary of state.

3. Shenanigans? Do tell. I look forward to the story. And I totally mean that, because you make me laugh.

Your BFF,
Wally

>"You're lying about what the stolen documents say. "

If you've read them all, you're either Diebold or Jones Day. That means you either haven't seen them all or you are one of their damage control guys and you're trying to minimize their importance while you blame the whistleblower.

It's really pretty inexplicable, isn't it? Testing labs that recommend, over and over again systems that a chimpanzee can hack. I could teach a pigeon to delete entries in GEMS --- can you possibly explain how Ciber kept recommending GEMS over and over? No one, NO ONE says GEMS is secure.

So why'd they recommend it? And how can anyone take Ciber, or Wyle, or Steve Freeman, or Paul Craft, or any of these clowns seriously when they overlook this stuff over and over?

Now, as for the interpreter: Whatever you want to claim about the "right" interpretation of an interpreter, the reason it was an issue in the first place is that it is a security risk.

When we blew through the security to hack the system in Leon County, the issue with AccuBasic and the function of the interpreter during the election showed that these issues are all too real. You can steal an election with this stuff.

If I don't have any technical prowess, how come I can change the GEMS password of any elections official in America? Because you're right, I don't have any technical prowess. Those of us without technical prowess are particularly shocked when we can defeat the system in 60 seconds or less.

How can anyone defend an ITA that consistently recommends such systems?

Wow Brad!

It's obvious you've really gotten under the skin of the Diebold crooks. They've sent a professional troll to try and obfuscate all the issues and he/she/it is such an arrogant a__hole that anyone reading this jerk's comments will immediately be even more doubtful about the integrity of this company and what this hyperaggressive and defensive troll has to say.

Keep it up Wally! You're great comic relief.

"Why did it take Diebold over a year for the TSx?"

You silly fool they own the ITA company, DID YOU KNOW 100% OF THE MONEY FOR CIBER COMES FROM DIEBOLD? Why do you think the TSX escaped every major testing authority and had backdoors? Was that just an "accident" to steal elections wherever Diebold wants, and to pay whoever it wants to get "selected"?

I'm all over your NEOCON GAME asshole, and I have proof..

It won't be you who is laughing once I'm through Wally, WE will have the last laugh in court.

Howard Ahmanson is so proud of his little operation isn't he, aka Diebold? You neocons are all pathetic, and you're going down as the worst bunch of losers history ever wrought......

>:-D

Doug E.

Hear, hear, Floridiot! You have the most cogent comment in this thread. Dirt simple. No viable argument against it either.

Doug (#6), I, for one, do not want him to "shut" his "mouth".

If I had any doubts that Bev and Brad were onto something, or that Clint Curtis is telling the truth, this person's long, detailed, posts make it clear that they are.

Doug, he says "...You make me laugh", but this is not a person who is "laughing". His darvo-like tactics are transparent. If he were laughing, he wouldn't even be here.

::::::::::::::::::

All my life, when a product was flawed, such as a car, TV, or car tires, the product gets recalled. These machines have failed too many hack tests. Like any faulty product, they need to be taken off the market.

You can't have machines that fail hack tests in our elections. This is in violation of my basic rights as an American citizen (yours, also).

Ad hominum attacks on those who have uncovered these faults only strengthen their position, and leads one towards the conclusion that the flaws were intentional.

................so I, personally, would prefer if he keeps up with his posting. Better to keep this sort of thing in front of you.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**'Expose Tom Feeney'**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Bev and Brad are working hard to uncover some very disturbing anomolies. Calling what they have been reporting "misinformation" isn't the truth, simply because one says it is true.

The bottom line for me: Unaccountable, clearly hack-able, machines have no place in my voting process.

If they are welcome to you, then you're not showing me that you care too much about your right to having your vote counted in a dependable manner.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

A general suggestion: Mind the ad hominum nature of your posts, people; if you have a valid point, it only detracts from it; it adds nothing we can use. The only ones who can appreciate it (if even them), are the ones who already agree with you. You lose the undecided/opponent every time, and invalidate your point.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**'Expose Tom Feeney'**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Please pardon me for doing so, Floridiot, but I actually missed your post (#16), and read it after I posted. Beautifully and simply put.

"Nuff said", indeed.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**'Expose Tom Feeney'**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Bob,

This guy is truly hilarious and is being paid by Howard Ahmanson no doubt. A team of investigators is going to be ripping open one of these schools in florida soon enough.....

Lets find out who really has the last laugh Wally, you are an outright liar. You work for Diebold and it is obvious to everyone.

You said something so hilarious and ridiculous no one would believe it: You said these machines are the best on the market and haven't lost ANY real votes.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That was the biggest shot to your credibility right there! Dear lord, I am going to see you go under. You are committing perjury if this was a court room. The flaws and crooks in your company stack up to one large conspiracy sham, and the voting vendors, aka Diebold & Sequoia pay alot of the ITA boards fees and also pay for REAL IT experts to sign NDA agreements so they can't expose the flaws.

Now you see it!

You're caught Wally, keep on digging that grave.

Doug E.

After hearing the evidence and argument Wally, I have to agree with Floridiot, Doug E and Bev Harris.

The Berkeley Report supports their assertions, and says:

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

"Successful attacks can only be detected by examining the paper ballots: There would be no way to know that any of these attacks occurred; the canvass procedure would not detect any anomalies, and would just produce incorrect results. The only way to detect and correct the problem would be by recount of the original paper ballots, e.g. during the 1 percent manual recount."

I am not an electronics or software expert, but like most of you, I use the stuff constantly and have had my fair share of crashes, glitches, and lock-ups. I use ATMS and swipe credit cards at the grocery store and service stations--- there is , in short, a common sense element to all of this.

Seems to me sufficient distrust of the electronics in voting machines is there to step back from them until the bugs are worked out. Just because large companies are heavily invested in the product--or local governments--there is no reason to continue their use. If machine makers suffer consumer resistance, they modify their behavior and their products---that is, if it is a true "business".

What we see is a whole series of corporations who behave more like defense contractors and suppliers. They defend themselves like Lockheed and General Electric. It's like "Yes, we know the Osprey has a few problems and , yes we crashed about 6 of them during flight readinessl tests, but ylook---you're gonna lose your investment in our testing program and our tantalizing pricing of the finished product if you end the program now. Are you crazy? Just commit to buying our defective machines--that's all we ask. We promise to deliver ones that really do work as well as we originially specified in --oooh, another two election cycles. Deal?"

Isn't this what folks complain about? Isn't it common sense?

I know I have made an argument that technicians like both Doug and Wally would find beneath consideration. But it is essentially the argument what boils underneath all of this stuff.

There are lots of places in this world that do very well by pen and paper vote-casting. It's worth resorting to it again.

The Berkeley Report says further that:

"Interpreter bugs lead to another, more dangerous family of vulnerabilities: However, there is another category of more serious vulnerabilities we discovered that go well beyond what Mr. Hursti demonstrated, and yet require no more access to the voting system than he had. These vulnerabilities are consequences of bugs - 16 in all - in the implementation of the AccuBasic interpreter for the AV-OS. These bugs would have no effect at all in the absence of deliberate tampering, and would not be discovered by any amount of functionality testing; but they could allow an attacker to completely control the behavior of the AV-OS. An attacker could change vote totals, modify reports, change the names of candidates, change the races being voted on, or insert his own code into the running firmware of the machine."

...

"The bugs are classic, and can only be found by source code review: Finding these bugs was only possible through close study of the source code. All of them are classic security flaws, including buffer overruns, array bounds violations, double-free errors, format string vulnerabilities, and several others. There may, of course, be additional bugs, or kinds of bugs, that we did not find."

Does anyone remember the book The Cuckoo's Egg, by Cliff Stohl?

It is a true story of a case where the NSA, Pentagon, CIA, and many, many other government computer systems were hacked. And I mean HACKED BIG TIME!!!

The hack was done thru bugs in an editor program in the operating system. Bugs can be used to hack, and as the report shows, this is real.

What Stohl pointed out is that one of the greatest vulnerabilities is thinking a system is unhackable.

You must, to initiate any strong security system, admit that it is hackable, then watch closely.

A weak system begins with an arrogant assumption that the system cannot be hacked.

SUDS #23

In the current state of official examination of the machines and the software, I too advocate no electronic machines in our elections.

There are no official safe inspections that will make sure the machines and software are safe, so we stick with paper and hand counts.

Bottom Line: If it's insecure... it shouldn't be used in elections.

Even I know how to code my own checksum system to store with data to ensure it's not corrupted or influenced outside my software.

I can program applications that don't suffer overflow flaws without difficulty too... so... it makes me wonder..

How could Diebold be THAT stupid and careless??

(apart from doing it INTENTIONALLY)

From someone with a LOT of technical experience... I say that Diebold are either extremely careless... or... are completely untrustworthy.

Considering they seem to handle making ATM's, etc. without too many hassles.. I'm inclined to believe they're just plain criminal.

Talk all you want Wally... you're fighting the evidence and testimony that many of us have seen ongoing now for months and months.

You may sound convincing, but we know how desperate Diebold and complicit Republicans are. We're seeing desperate but plausible denials and still... we aren't buying any of it.

Show us evidence of your claims, explain why you think you know so much about all this... put yourself into context... it's obvious you're an insider in this debacle to some degree.

We don't trust you Wally and much of what you've posted has all been refuted by others here.. point for point.

If anyone wants a lesson on misinformation, read the book "The Republican Noise Machine", and then take this comment #1 jerk's comment, and put it into context of what you learned in the book. This guy must be sitting on his PC, waiting for Brad's next post on DIEBOLD, so he can be the first post. Get a life, Bub. We don't fall for misinformation here in the 'NO-BULLSHIT' zone.

Does anyone realize, that this guy is sitting at his PC waiting for DIEBOLD-only Brad-posts? Which means he has such a hard-on for posting DIEBOLD misinformation, he sits and sits and watches all of Brad's non-DIEBOLD posts go by, and waits and waits, sees a new post, has his finger on the 'enter' button, and thinks, "oh, this isn't a DIEBOLD related post", then sits and sits and sits....WOW!!! How much you bein' paid by DIEBOLD, Bub? Hope it's more than minimum wage!!!

Hey Wally O'Diebold, YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the spins this "Technical Advisory" leans on is that humans will be able to make up for some of the obvious security flaws of Diebold's machines.

Even if there was a bona fide effort to be honest and forthright, which clear history and law of the last election shows, is not practiced, machines must not burden election site workers such that they become baby sitters to machines that mess up.

Republican Blackwell of Ohio was a war with the notion of fair election practices, and the federal court in Ohio issued orders against him.

One such order is linked here.

So these human security measures are clearly not the way to solve these technical problems, which as m3 #25 points out, seem so inept and bizarre from a quality standpoint, that one wonders if the bugs are there on purpose.

Subpoenas.
Get them under oath.
We know exactly what questions to ask and to whom.

Wally has his computer set to instantly capture messages about Diebold. He's a damage control guy or one of the examiners who will get caught in the wringer when someone FINALLY get's these guys subpoenad and put under oath to answer questions under penalty of perjury.

You can tell when a story makes Diebold uncomfortable by when they send out the trolls. The more inside and technical information the troll has, the more the content of the article upsets them. And Wally O'Diebold is most likely closely connected to the Calif. Secretary of State's office, or is someone within Diebold. Or both.

Dear Bev,

You and your subpoenas.

Subpoenas would be hilarious because I'm pretty sure that if anyone from Diebold were actually issued a subpoena, their sworn testimony would look a lot like what I've posted above, which is of course, the truth.

If I were subpoenaed, I would probably just save a lot of time and read the transcript from this very thread. I'd probably throw in a few "Bev Harris is lying" blasts just for the hell of it, and because it's also true. (Yes I know, you'd sue. But I'd win, because it's easy to demonstrate said lying. Maybe I'd even get Jones Day to represent me.) Of course I won't get subpoenaed so it's all moot. I'm just saying, is all.

As for "you can tell when a story makes Diebold uncomfortable", can you tell when a story makes Diebold giggle like a schoolgirl? Here's a hint: if it features Jeffrey Dean, it probably falls into that category. If (like this particular story) it features Ion Sancho f$%*ing himself over and then crying about it, it definitely falls into that category. If it features someone actually going to prison for stealing some documents from their lawyers, it probably falls into a whole new category that's way beyond giggles. (If that person's Jim March, some of the weak and elderly employees probably die from laughing.)

Funny that you think I'm a troll (ha) from the California secretary of state's office or from Diebold. I thought your only detractors were David Allen and Roxanne Jekot? You probably reached that conclusion because I know about the failed Hursti test in December. The truth is, everyone knows about that. It was big news in the industry, even if you neglected to report it.

Release the 990 forms, Bev Harris (if that's your real name). Why play it coy? Is the IRS still watching you because of the gymnastics studio thing? If I show up at your office with a video camera and a written request for the form will you give it to me as required by law?

Totally off-topic: do you know who Howard Ahmanson is? I'm trying to decipher Doug's posts and figure out what the heck he's talking about.

Love ya,
Wally

He has the same kind of writing style (or seems to me, I could well be wrong) as the guy who was here the other day bashing Bev.. talking about "she libled me!" and refused to discuss what it was.. sent us to DU to read a long set of posts (didn't bother) about how terrible she was.. then one of these posts here is about "throwing the wistleblower under the bus"?

Wonder if the same guy trying to make sure everyone is against Bev is trying to make sure everyone gives the corporation the benefit of the doubt on all this.

Funny, we're having this drawn out debate because the FACT is, machines should not be trusted with this kind of thing. Too many dishonest people in this country (proved time and again by all the indictments going on in Washington at present) to trust something so EASILY MANIPULATED as this.

Paper.. human hand counting.. KISS.. really..

He's not a whistleblower. You said it yourself, none of his stolen information was used in the only relevant "whistleblower" lawsuit. Thus, he is merely a guy who stole some documents from his employer. Which is entirely Steve's prerogative... but I think if you steal from a law firm with Jones Day's reputation, you're probably stupid enough to get what you deserve.

I know it's fun to act like Diebold is some kind of evil cabal. And maybe they are (or at any rate, maybe they should be if they're going to take the rap for it anyway). But for what it's worth, on the Heller thing Diebold's nothing more than a spectator munching popcorn. Believe whatever you like, of course.

The ITAs are not at all inexplicable, except to people unequipped either mentally or experience-wise to understand the explanation. Thus I will not waste any effort in the attempt.

GEMS is a front end to an RDBMS. By it's nature it's always going to be a front end to an RDBMS. It can use a simple RDBMS or a high-end enterprise RDBMS. You can leave it open, or you can secure the crap out of it - bearing in mind that secured or not, someone needs the key to the lock. So it's either open, in which case the guy with access to the system (i.e. the election administrator) can access the RDBMS. Or it's heavily secured, in which case the guy with access to the system (i.e. the election administrator) can access the RDBMS by virtue of having the key to get in. I have no doubt that Diebold will eventually produce a version of GEMS that adds some protective measures on the database, but even if they do you're quite honestly no further ahead. The problem in your scenario is that you don't trust the election administrator. And if you don't trust the election administrator, then your choice of election management software or voting machines is really the least of your problems.

You don't understand that your concerns are not concerns that are shared with people who actually run elections. Go ahead and hand count some paper ballots if it makes you feel better. Great. What are you going to do at the end of the night - write down the totals on a highly-secured napkin? No, of course not (well OK, maybe Ion is). Most people are probably going to enter them into something useful, like an Excel spreadsheet. Or for the more sophisticated and enterprising election staff (wait for it) some kind of database (gasp). Either way: is that napkin or spreadsheet or database "secure"? Does entering the hand-counted totals into a spreadsheet invalidate the (over-estimated) confidence derived from the hand-counting? The election administrator has access to the napkin or the spreadsheet, after all, and can simply "hack" the totals the minute nobody else is around. Heck, I could train a pigeon to do it myself. Big deal.

As for the interpreter, it's not a risk at all. Two separate studies found that the system is secure enough to use in a real-world election, with the caveat that certain procedural steps should be taken in the specific case of the optical scan machine (!) - steps that are already standard operating procedure or best practices recommended by Diebold in the first place. Amazing. In fairness to your view, a number of potentially serious but almost entirely academic issues were identified, along with the suggestion that "in the long term" they should be addressed. Diebold's response, far from denial, was to agree (!) and to commit to making a new release available in the short term (!) to address all identified issues. I suppose that's unacceptable in your world: clearly the only appropriate response would be to, I don't know, go out of business or something instead.

You did not "blow through any security" in Leon County and it's laughable to characterize your antics that way. Ion Sancho programmed a memory card and handed it to you with the invitation to do whatever you wanted to do to it. No "security" was "blown through" by anyone. Harri Hursti was handed a read-write memory device and given the opportunity to modify its contents. Amazing. The card was never tested for logic and accuracy after his manipulations, and the card was never set for election after his manipulations (which would have destroyed the interesting part of his attack). On the other hand, given that kind of inappropriate access to the system and the complete absence of anything remotely resembling normal testing/setting-for-election procedure, he was clearly able to modify the contents of the card in a way that the system should have been able to prevent or detect. That's been confirmed by the Berkeley study (with a suggested mitigation strategy of - and I'm paraphrasing - "don't be a Sancho") and it's one of the things Diebold said they'd address. Hardly earth-shattering when you put it in an appropriate context, but then that's not really your gimmick.

(This is all of course supported by the failed Hursti attack in California in December, where it was admitted by Hursti himself that no "Hursti-style" attack was possible when the system was operated according to normal procedures. I missed that story on your web site, I must have had to read about it elsewhere. But clearly: until the code is updated to address it, if you're an election administrator dumb enough to hand random untrusted people your AVOS memory cards and let them wander down to the pool by themselves with them to do some tampering, and you don't do any testing of the cards afterwards and never set the machine for election to clear any counts or apply/check any seals afterwards, then you should probably do some post-election auditing of the paper ballots to cover up your gross negligence during the pre-election setup and testing. Fair enough.)

I'm glad we agree on the subject of your technical prowess. Guess that's something. Maybe we can fan this tiny spark into a mighty flame of agreement on a wide range of issues. How do you feel about the statement "Jim March is a buffoon"?

Say hi to all your family and friends on the board of directors for me. Ask them when the big IRS 990 form is coming out: there are a lot of people anxiously waiting for it, what with the whole gymnastics studio tax evasion/fraud thing.

Domo arigato!
Wally

What "caveat report" Wally?

Where's your hard documents or your proof?

Now you're just back-pedalling...that's not going to cut it bud.

Documents prove Diebold is the MOST insecure voting system on the block with multiple security holes that flip election results.

They can't even come close to Sequoia or ES&S, both of who lost thousands of votes.

Doug E

DOUG ELDRITCH #11

Dear Doug,

1. Diebold does not own any ITAs.

2. Ciber derives roughly 0% of its revenue from Diebold. Most of its testing is related to other industries entirely, and only a very small percentage of their business derives from voting systems at all.

3. The TSx hasn't "escaped" any major testing authority. It's the only voting system I'm aware of that's passed both Wyle and Ciber labs. It's also been reviewed by SAIC, by RABA, by CompuWare (twice) and by Berkeley. In each case, updates have been made (or Diebold has committed to make, in the most recent cases) to the system in response to any concerns that were raised by the reviewers. It's fair to say at this point that the Diebold AccuVote-TSx is - quite literally - the most thoroughly-reviewed voting machine in the history of mankind.

4. There are no back doors in the TSx code, you just made that up. No study of the system has ever found any back doors. No study of the system has ever found any vote-rigging code. No study or test of the system has ever found any mis-recording of votes whatsoever. If you're in possession of some study that I'm unaware of that does find any back doors or vote-rigging code, please forward it because I'll want to fire someone.

5. Your quote "I'm all over your NEOCON GAME asshole, and I have proof.. It won't be you who is laughing once I'm through Wally, WE will have the last laugh in court" cracked me up. It sounds like that line from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where Jay is typing on an internet message board "all you motherf$%*ers are gonna pay. You are the ones who are the ball-lickers! We're gonna f$%* your mothers while you watch and cry like little bitches." Awesome, dude.

6. You're going to have to supply more info on the whole "Howard Ahmanson" thing. It's late and I'm too tired to google him to find out who that it.

Also, you forgot to tell me about all the shenanigans!

Still your BFF,
Wally

What good reason would anyone have for arguing for these machines collecting numbers that cannot be accounted for should be entrusted with our votes, particularly since they've been shown to be so hack-able?

I know there are plenty of bad reasons.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**'Expose Tom Feeney'**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Wally troll

Why not sell Diebold to the UAE/Dubai dudes ... or perhaps they already have those machines ... I mean after all, HAMAS is pals with them. Perhaps that is how HAMAS won the election and now Bush wants them to get our ports too (gives new meaning to I/O ports).

Hamas UAE (link here).

DOUG ELDRITCH #13

Dear Doug,

I'm not back-pedalling on anything. I'm pretty sure at this point that you lack the capacity to understand anything I write.

At least we can agree on your last point, i.e. "they can't even come close to Sequoia or ES&S, both of who lost thousands of votes." That's true: there's actually no comparison. As far as I know, Diebold doesn't actually lose anybody's votes, so you're right... they can't even come close.

Respectfully yours,
Wally

If we need someone to troll on over from Diebold,
and it takes that many paragraphs to explain both sides of an argument, guess what, hand counted paper ballets is the only solution
How many paragraphs does it take to say
One person puts an "x" on a ballot, with a pen
Two people count the ballots, two people check their counts,all four sign the paper, call in the results to the state (public) authority, votes are not final until the paper is received by the state authority
Or, we could continue to let these Fascist buggers run our country into the ground, for their fun & profit
Counting with computers is NOT the answer, by using them, our Democracy is just an illusion
Nuff said...

I was told that counting paper ballots by hand is NO LONGER ALLOWED BY LAW, according to a lawyer for the Illinois State Board of Elections.

My county is so small there are only 300 votes, on average, to count at each polling site. It's stupid to spend all that money & go thru extra training for judges, etc., when the crappy machines are not reliable anyway. I spent a lot of time on this subject, calling, visiting officials, etc & that's the final answer I got.

In regard to the troll from Diebold--
Listen, because this concept is important to keep in mind.

CREATING DOUBT is the signature m.o. of the Rove/neocons.
They use it whenever normal people come to obvious conclusions based on facts they don't like.
---they lie & CREATE DOUBT.

Wally, the Diebold troll, is lying---his goal is to CREATE DOUBT.
People take action when they're sure about something--if neocons can CREATE DOUBT in your mind, you aren't sure what to do, or you aren't sure someone is guilty. That causes inaction.
They did this with global warming for years & years.
They paid scientists & Republican 'think tanks' to twist facts & sling bull around so people wouldn't know for sure that global warming is ruining earth & needs attention, because taking action to stop it would hurt corporation's bottom line.
Real scientists & even government scientists knew it all along, but the corporate-controlled media would not let the real scientists be heard. Bush even took out parts of government reports that warned of it, the dirty pig!
We're living in a fascist nation, friends.
Now, with the ice caps melting at an alarming rate, it's a process that's too late to stop.
I truly hate their guts for that.

Actually, global warming is more important than ALL the political problems we speak of here---because when earth goes, so do we, & then none of this will matter.

CREATING DOUBT has been the only thing that has kept America from storming Washington at midnight with torches in hand, & dragging some God-dammed (& I mean that literally if there is justice in this world) pond scum by the hair, tar & feathering them, & throwin 'em in jail.

If all that isn't enough--Bush is trying to stick it to us once again:
The Senate is insisting on including $5.4 billion in new taxes to be paid by America's Big Oil companies.
WHY?
1. Because the top 5 oil companies have enjoyed a windfall $300 billion in profits, at the expense of higher prices for you & me, just since Bush took office.
2. Because from now until 2011, these same Big Oil companies won't have to pay $7 billion in royalties to us, that they should pay, for the priviledge of being allowed to drill in our federal lands because of a decade-old loophole.

The White House & Republican leadership in the House of Representatives are firmly against making Big Oil pay.
And Bush, with a 30% approval rating, had the nerve to threaten a veto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's like Bush is standing in a room with 1000 citizens, & even though only 300 of them approve of him--he still has the nerve to go against the 700 majority & insists on screwing them ALL.

Contact your Senators & Representatives & demand they support HR 4297, which is a $5.4 billion tax increase for Big Oil---or, just continue to remain in the toe-touch position.

Dear Charlene,

You may consider me a troll, but I'm not lying. Everything I've posted is information you can look up and verify for yourself, so feel free.

I don't really have any comments on your tirade about the white house being against making Big Oil pay. It's kind of off-topic.

On the other hand, I can assure you that global warming doesn't really exist. I've looked into it.

Warmest regards,
Wally

Well, Wally, if you're not lying, and you're in here for the good of your country, WHY aren't you advocating hand-counted paper ballots? WHY would any American defend a method in which we could not trust 100%? If you're not one of the pigs selling your fellow citizens into hell, willing to pay ten times what you'd save in taxes not to pay taxes, are you just here for drill?

Remember the pigs' favorite maneuver to save their asses is...

all together now group===" CREATING DOUBT!"

When the facts & your gut tell you one thing, but the soul-less & pitiful trolls that the neocons plant, who have sold out their humanity & their dignity for pence tell you another, be aware.

They've done this with the Iraq war--'it's not patriotic to dissent', when dissent is really the basis for Democracy--or 'you aren't supporting the troops', when the troops want us to save them & come home---or 'if we leave there will be chaos', when the US is the one causing the chaos.

They've done it when they tried to take the "secure" part out of Social Security with the fake 'crisis' that never was. Bush & Co. want big corporations on Wall Street to get our money instead of us.

Name something---Katrina, Plamegate--the UAE & the ports deal--they just CREATE DOUBT & conquer.

Didn't your gut tell you, without any facts at all from the git-go, that trusting a foreign country involved with 9/11 & Bin Laden with our security is WRONG?

You MUST go to independent news sources to get facts. You will not get the truth about what is going on from the corporate controlled media--which is most TV, radio & print.

No matter what the new problem is--get the facts & remember, the pigs create doubt to conquer.

Make no mistake, this is a war between corporations & the people.
To wrench control of our nation back from the filthy hands of big businessmen, who are very much like Scrooge was in 'A Christmas Carol'---devoid of soul or compassion & who care only about counting their shekels.
And well they should count it because they have sold their humanity, their souls, for this money & have nothing left of real value---although they haven't realized it. They are truly poor--poor in spirit.

Let's hope they wake up from their money-lust & emptiness in time to save themselves.

OK...I'm almost afraid to ask this question because I know I am sooooo far behind the curve on this issue but here goes.....

If we have a paper trail and someone wants to throw the process in a tizzy what's to say that they can't cast a ballot, get a paper receipt and run out and say " THAT'S NOT WHO I VOTE FOR....FOUL, FOUL, FOUL" (even if it WAS correct?) There are people on both sides who will never accept that their candidate is losing.

Please forgive my ignorance. it's very hard for us non-tech people to understand all of this. I consider myself terribly accomplished if this Dell of mine boots up properly every morning!
Emma

Emma, allowing as how there are people that twisted, it's simply even more reason to have hand-counted paper ballots. The hard evidence is there to be counted until long after the candidate is not only out of office, but long after all of us are dead. NO PROBLEM TRUSTING THAT, BECAUSE IT CAN BE CHECKED AND RECHECKED AS MANY TIMES AS ANYONE WANTS.

Wally say "On the other hand, I can assure you that global warming doesn't really exist. I've looked into it.

And just when I thought he/she/it was serious. You see, I've looked into it, too.

No, it's the usual LOLing, having a great time at your expense, trollic mode. Haven't we seen it a thousand times?

Now, if Wally is serious - why isn't he serious? Make it clear why putting our voting rights in the hands of corporations, insiders, and their "experts" is the right thing to do. Surely, it doesn't think we have no interest in the matter.

Did you get the...your interpretation of the FEC standards is different from the interpretation of the people whose job it is to interpret it. And I know you're not technical so I'll explain it here in layman's terms: tough shit for you? I guess that cuts to the heart of the matter.

Honestly, Wally, there really can only be a few reasons you spend so much energy defending these people, when it costs far more to support their shtick than to just trust the electorate's desire to live in a decent society, where everyone has a voice:

a.) Some lazy nigger might live off my tax money;

b.) some sleazy queer might get a marriage license;

c.) some toothless prole might get to put his kid through college; or

d.) my own corruption won't pay off.

I reiterate, "conservatives" have pumped more money and energy into screwing the little guy than just paying the taxes ever would have cost. What is your motive? What is the sense in pouring hundreds of millions into developing a space pen, when a damn pencil would have done just fine? Your work, here, is plain anti-American. No getting around it.

Dear Agent99,

I'm not here to save the country, I'm here to correct a few incorrect statements on an internet message board. I'll leave saving the country to you fine folks.

I will say this, however: hand-counted paper ballots is never going to fly. It's too labor-intensive, it's too expensive, it's too error-prone and it's too subject to tampering. Argue if you like, but the history is there if you care to look it up. For these reasons, no election administrator in a jurisdiction of any significance is going to go there. If you don't trust the things they are doing then you should come up with a credible alternative for them to explore. Demanding hand-counted paper ballots is a complete waste of time. Don't shoot the messenger... come up with a better alternative than the ones election administrators currently have available to them.

Dear Charlene,

You can call me a "soul-less pitiful troll" and a "neocon pig" and whatever else makes you feel better. Obviously you've got some issues and need to take it out on someone.

But for the record: Diebold didn't cause 9/11, Diebold isn't hiding Osama bin Laden, Diebold isn't causing global warming and Diebold didn't start the Iraq war. Not only that, but Diebold didn't mess with social security. Nor did they cause hurricane Katrina, nor did they expose Valerie Plame. And to top it all off, Diebold didn't sell any ports to the UAE either.

You want to blame the voting machines for all these problems you perceive in society. That's your choice. I suppose it beats the alternative.

Dear Emma,

That's actually a good question. One type of denial-of-service attack is for a voter to claim the machine printed out the wrong candidates and to cry foul, even if it actually printed them correctly, in order to try and get the machine taken out of service. All VVPAT-equipped machines will actually let the voter print their selections and then reject the printed copy in order to go back and make changes/corrections, but that won't stop someone determined to lie. You're absolutely right that there are people on both sides who won't accept that their candidate is losing. Meet Charlene, for example.

Always,
Wally

Wally, it's obvious you don't want to save anyone and that you're leaving that to others, the QUESTION is: Why are you spending so much energy trying to prevent people from being saved? WHY do you want to spend energy and money to help insure the little guy leads a miserable life? WHY is spreading false information at such length something you want to do? It's almost certainly option d.), with a good basis in a.), b.) and c.). There aren't any other plausible reasons. You don't need technical expertise to see this. A first grader could point it out. If we nix these ULTRA-EXPENSIVE and completely untrustworthy machines, a few capitalists don't get to make fortunes, and the whole country gets to feel secure about their votes again. It's a win-win for everyone but the few capitalists who want to make fortunes providing candidates with a way to cheat their way into office. IF THERE WERE NO WALLY O'DIEBOLDs, there would be no stinking Bush Administration. Hundreds of thousands of oppressed, tortured and murdered people would not have suffered that way. THAT is your bread and butter. FACE IT, AND SHUT UP.

Everyone notice the way this Diebold troll is working in an attempt to bait us.
He can't afford to be ignored or dismissed--he MUST make a stir to accomplish his purpose--that's why he throws in little zingers like "..tough sh__ for you". He MUST engage us & elicit a spirited response in order to discredit his accusers & get as large an audience as possible to listen to his crap, which is all lies.
He pretends someone blamed Diebold for most everything, which no one did.
No one blamed Diebold for anything except lies, lies, & more lies.
Diebold's product has been shown to be the worst on the market, slapped together like a kids home-made go-cart, is how the people at blackbox voting described it, I believe.

Dear Agent99,

You're being ridiculous. I am not spending a single ounce of energy "trying to prevent anyone from being saved", nor am I doing anything to help ensure any little people lead a miserable life. Nor am I spreading any false information: everything I've posted here is true, and you can look it all up yourself if you want independent confirmation.

The machines aren't "ultra-expensive". Outfitting a precinct with a single AccuVote-TSx machine to accomodate voters with a disability costs anywhere from $2200 to $2700, depending on the deal negotiated. Outfitting the same precinct with a Vote-PAD plastic sleeve and a tape recorder costs around $2200, or virtually the same price. By that comparison, the voting machine is quite reasonably-priced.

The "whole country" doesn't feel insecure about their votes now. You're extrapolating from your group of activists. There are 16 million voters in California - which is ground zero for election reform activism - and senator Debra Bowen was able to muster only 2,500 virtual signatures in an online anti-Diebold internet petition. And that's 2,500 signatures from a worldwide audience, it's not even limited to the 16 million voters in California. The election reform crowd is certainly vocal and certainly active, but the vast majority of people don't subscribe to its views. I suppose it's easy to lose sight of that when you're in the thick of it.

Your points about "if there were no Wally O'Diebold's there would be no stinking Bush Administration" is ridiculous. In 2000, the voting machines you fear so much gave more votes to Al Gore and it was the supreme court that screwed you over. In 2004 George Bush garnered several million more votes than John Kerry. Even if you postulate that the voting machines were rigged (and they weren't), it's not possible to shift literally millions of votes without detection. Of course you'll argue that I'm wrong, and that's OK: we can cheerfully disagree. But any credible election person would tell you that it's not possible to engineer a change on that scale, and they'd be right.

Anyway, it's always a pleasure to respond to nasty hate-filled invectives from my fans. I like to keep it real with my peeps and such. Keep up the good work!

Your friend,
Wally

Dear Charlene,

You certainly seemed to be accusing Diebold of all manner of sins back in reply #38. If I misinterpreted then I apologize.

I don't need to discredit anyone's accusers, they do a perfectly good job of that all by themselves. You can call what I've posted "crap" all you like, but that doesn't change the fact that it's all true: google it up for yourself if you don't believe me.

Diebold's product hasn't been shown to be the worst on the market at all. I haven't actually seen any studies performed on anyone else's systems. Technically they're all black boxes in the truest sense of the word. Heck, the ES&S machines didn't even record the votes correctly in California in the last two elections or in the state's own parallel monitoring tests. Their machines counted negative 25 million votes in one Ohio county in 2004. Wouldn't that make their system the worst? Unilect's system literally lost over 4,000 votes in North Carolina in 2004's general election. Advanced Voting Systems equipment lost thousands more than that in the 2004 primary in Virginia. Wouldn't that make one of those systems the worst? What exactly are your criteria for "worst"?

And frankly, it's not that interesting to hear how the Black Box Voting people describe anyone's equipment. Those people are mostly a bunch of tax-evading crackpots prone to overusing the word "stunning". If you want to convince me of anything you'll need to come up with a better source than that.

Respectfully,
Wally

The Diebold troll thinks information that is "googled up" is a one-stop shop for research! ha..
We're dealing with a limited intellect here, folks.
It does explain a lot though.

Notice that all of a sudden, the pig is trying to take a nicer turn now. He's wanting to exchange his nasty persona for a nice one in hopes of getting some people to accept him & his crap, because so far, his game ain't workin.

NOT.

He's the same little weasel we first met who dissed Bev's expertise & then told her it was "tough sh_t" for her.

The dumb Diebold troll thinks that pointing out all the different ways the competition's machines suck, will make his little Diebold poo-box look good.
He must have forgotten what blog he's on.
He's preachin to the choir.
We know all about the whole thing, in detail.
That was a stupid tactic, by any measure.
Like WE are going to believe his claptrap machines alone, out of all the rest, are reliable, when we already know the others are not reliable either.

I think he's gettin desperate.

In the pig's last paragraph, he shows us that he's been on blackbox voting, the other mainstay exposing the electronic voting machine scandal along with Brad's.
Evidently, he got shut down there, too, judging from the language he uses to describe them.
I laughed out loud when the Black Box experts that looked into Diebold's machines, expecting to find at least a mediocre level of craft, instead found out they were 'slapped together like a kid's home-made go cart'.
It's very funny & so spot-on.
Except when you realize some of us have to vote on these crappy things...

And finally, the presumptive troll for 'Die-Bold' (& that company WILL die trying to act bold) actually believes that we might care about his opinions. He says "if you want to convince me of anything you'll need to blah, blah, blah..."
He needn't flatter himself.
We don't.

I'm signing off--slapping the troll around is getting too easy & monotonous.

Wally.. you must be the first person I've heard of that has confused a Denial of Service attack with social engineering.

Even if paper ballots were more expensive than spending the millions already spent on extremely weak machines that blatantly fail to do the job and disenfranchise millions of voters... it's worth it, especially if it maintains the integrity of the democratic process... something we have little reason to have faith in right now.

Your spin doesn't detract from the fact that Diebold's machines are insecure, inaccurate and worse... apparently prone towards erring in the favour of Republicans.

Now.. you may be correct... it may be that ES&S and Sequoia machines are as bad or worse on ACCURACY... but doesn't that tell you something...

It tells us all... that this technology is NOT suitable for use in elections.

As for BBV being a good source or bad source, at least they provide their sources and explain their allegations clearly... and are prepared to setup tests and demonstrations to prove their point.

Unless you can add weight to your allegations of tax-evasion, they're likely to fall on deaf ears here... though I'm guessing this is probably a half-baked attack to try to discredit BBV.

Bring us proof of your allegations and we'll have more time to listen to you.

Until then, we'll be inclined to trust those who have proven their claims either through hard evidence or through demonstration.

As of now... BBV are WAY ahead of you

I'm also guessing you are mentioning the 'stolen documents' in an attempt to discredit or silence the content of those documents.

Also note, that despite the failure rates of other voting machines, you actually aren't refuting the point that has been made:- Diebold's machines are among the most easily hackable, if not the easiest to hack... requiring very little technical skill.

"it's not that interesting to hear how the Black Box Voting people describe anyone's equipment"

If you hold private interests above the democratic process... of course you'll come to that conclusion... but I, like anyone else who gives a damn about democracy, thing the right to vote and have your vote accurately counted, is absolutely paramount.

"But any credible election person would tell you that it's not possible to engineer a change on that scale, and they'd be right.

Let me guess, those who are implicated are credible, those who just observe the cheating and report on it (Like Sherole Eaton) are not credible?

Have you never heard of doing things subtlely, a few votes here.. a few votes there..

in total enough to make a difference... but individually... it's easy to claim that it "wouldn't have made a difference anyway".

We must've heard that a good 20 times before we started to get suspicious.

You're trying to fight against what has been uncovered gradually for over a year. You'll have to try 100 times harder before anyone takes you seriously.

Diebold has a black mark against it, it's made insecure machines, it's been careless with it's resources, it's tried to hide the fact it's machines are unsuitable for use in elections and it's tried to fight against measures that would provide the voter a receipt of their ballot.

Practically everything we've seen from Diebold all points to the same thing.... they want their insecure machines to be used and would rather spend their time lying and denying than they would make their machines actually suitable for elections.

Why have Diebold resisted so much to checks and balances???

If Diebold was my company I would have had these problems fixed as and when they were reported... not leave them to poison yet another election.

I guess an obvious possibility for this action, or rather inaction... is INTENT to corrupt elections.

Oh, silly me! It was the Supreme Court that mucked up the votes and the machines that tried to elect Gore. How reasonable! Here, I've been hysterical behind the hijacking of my country, and the drive to install dictators with a hiccup of nested code, when all along it was my science fiction imagination. There is no vicious little moron, who has YET to have been elected, mystically able to break treaties, flaunt the constitution, torture people, rob the treasury, bankrupt the future, and shock and awe struggling Iraqis behind bald-faced lies. These zombied legislators on C-SPAN must actually have received the requisite votes. I'm just hypnotized by citizen bloggers pretending to be heroes for us imaginative old bats. Phew! Thanks for tuning me up, Wally! I might have become dangerous.

Dear Charlene,

You are a mean person.

"Limited intellect"?

"Pig"?

"Weasel"?

"Dumb Diebold troll"?

"Poo-box"? (OK really... "poo-box"?)

"Slapping the troll around?"

Honestly, that's all uncalled-for. You don't see me pointing out that you're the personification of intellectual poverty do you? I don't go around pointing out that you can't spell or compose a coherent sentence to save your life. I merely pointed out (pretty nicely, I thought) where your information was incorrect, and I did it without once making the pretty easy-yet-gratuitous observation that your conspiracy theories are mostly batshit nonsense that anyone with more than one firing neuron would instinctively dismiss. And this is the thanks I get? I'm making the sad smiley face right now just for you.

(And honestly, don't kid yourself about "slapping the troll around." I'm repeatedly making you look like an idiot and you're not even sufficiently-equipped to realize it. And I'm being nice for God's sake - you'd cry if I bothered to exert myself a little.)

Let's put the name-calling behind us and be pals. I'm quite willing to discuss Diebold and their voting machines rationally and address any questions or concerns you might have, but one's motivation tends to wane in the face of all the nasty insults.

Go ahead, ask me anything!

Ever yours,
Wally

Doug - Please do not use personal attacks against other commenters (You called Wally an "asshole"). No matter how much their comments may, in fact, be meant as pure mis/disinformation and damage control.

Thanks!

Wally - The same goes for you. Your personal attacks on Bev Harris are inappropriate. That, along with the amount of disinfo you've been dumping here would normally earn deletion and/or banning. However, I believe the debate is interesting and useful (and telling).

As Colbert would say, "You're on notice".

Please don't give me a reason to ban you all together since you've been walking that line ever since you slithered in here.

Thanks!

Thanks, Brad.

And by the way, just for the record: Diebold's machines, especially the TSx, are indeed shoddily constructed and prone to all manner of defects, but I am of the opinion that Sequoia machines are actually worse.

We have the most information on Diebold, but all four of the major manufacturers have significant problems.

For example, Hart Intercivic just crashed and burned in California volume testing recently. ES&S central count STILL counts backwards at 32,000 votes, and it isn't just Broward County. They haven't fixed it. And Sequioa --- I am trudging along on making a user friendly version of the massive logs in Palm Beach County, which is the worst Sequoia county we've found, but they all are full of errors, and Sequioa is also quite hackable.

I'm not against technology, but I am against technology when the manufacturers hide the fact that it is insecure and doesn't work properly.

FYI: The recent California study did not study GEMS, but one of the scientists has now written a response to a list of questions, and in it he says he believes the GEMS security problems are just as significant as the memory card problems.

Dear Brad,

Thanks for the generous offer to reveal my name on a message board where I'm alone amongst a number of demonstrably hate-filled and possibly violent posters, some of whom I'm certain (while I'm sure they are otherwise kind and decent people), would not hesitate to stalk me to my home and possibly try to kill me. And while there are certainly amusing ways to deal with those people when they show up on my doorstep, the prospect of having my good name and that of my family and friends smeared all over the internet in a typical Harris-ian slander-fest is not especially appealing somehow. So although I appreciate the generous gesture on your part, I'll have to politely decline for now.

In terms of serious accusations against Bev Harris, I did suggest that she's been accused and/or investigated in the past for tax evasion and or fraud (which is not an accusation on my part per se, but as a conciliatory gesture on my part I'll accept that it could have been taken that way.) If Ms. Harris wants to state publicly that she has never in fact been accused of or investigated for tax fraud or tax evasion under any of her aliases then I'll gladly withdraw the accusation. Well, either that or post the supporting documentation and evidence. I'll defer either way pending any response Ms. Harris cares to make. By way of other accusations against Ms. Harris, I claimed that she has "no technical prowess", a claim that was acknowledged by Ms. Harris herself in post #9. I also claimed that she was lying about certain facts on which I have already elaborated at relative length above. I'm going to stand by that claim as well, for obvious reasons. So ban away, I suppose. But that won't change the truth of what I've said.

As for Jim March, the only accusations I've made against him are that he's incompetent in the area of network administration and that he's a buffoon. I'm going to stand by those as well, and I'll cheerfully refer you to any number of public posts by Mr. March himself if you require any proof beyond my say-so. Upon reflection, I realize that I also claimed Mr. March received stolen property (a crime) from Steven Heller and that he subsequently turned that stolen information over to Ian Hoffman. Since Mr. March made those very statements himself to the LA Times, I'm going to stand by those as well.

So in the end you may consider me a coward, as you've indicated you will do considering my chosen response. Well, sticks and stones, I suppose. But consider that there's more to being grown-up than posting your identity on an unfriendly message board, and that taunting and name-calling is actually pretty juvenile.

In the end, it's your blog so ban me if you like. Censorship and suppression of contrary evidence is after all the hallmark of modern election reform activism. Until then, I will graciously continue to post what you and your pal Ms. Harris (if not some of your more loyal readers) have obviously deduced is accurate information from an extremely knowledgeable source. If you decide that neither you nor your readers needs to read what I have to say, I'm sure there are lots of other places that are more open-minded.

Graciously,
Wally

Dear Kat (#55),

I wouldn't worry about whether California SoS has guaranteed his own election in November, at least not on the basis of certifying some Diebold machines.

The truth is that all the equipment was already certified and in use, with the sole exception of the AccuVote-TSx DRE. There's a misperception that California is moving to Diebold voting machines. That's not actually true. In total, around 18 counties in California were already using Diebold equipment (some of them for quite a long time) prior to the recent certification announcement, and the net result is that those 18 counties will simply keep using Diebold equipment. And in all likelihood, California will remain about as blue as it has been for the last 20 years or so. Possibly more so, given George Bush's recent unpopularity.

Take Alameda County, for example: in the November 2004 presidential election, Alameda was the only county in California to run Diebold AccuVote-TS DREs. And in Alameda County, John Kerry won nearly 75% of the vote compared to around 23% for George Bush. Los Angeles County voted on punch cards that were tabulated by Diebold's GEMS tabulator, and John Kerry won with a convincing 63% of the vote compared to less than 36% for George Bush. (Amusingly, George Bush won San Diego county - where Diebold TSx units were banned and Diebold AccuVote-OS optical scan machines with recountable paper ballots were used instead - by a margin of 52.5% to 46.4%. One can't help but wonder whether the touch screens would have helped Kerry there.)

Prior to 2004, Alameda also voted overwhelmingly against recalling Gray Davis - on Diebold AccuVote-TS DREs. Alameda also voted overwhelmingly against Arnold Schwarzenegger in the recall race. So despite the eventual statewide outcome, the only voters using the AccuVote-TS DRE in the state were still able to successfully register their votes against.

Anyway my point wasn't to re-hash recent election history. It was simply to clarify that:

a) California's not making a big move to Diebold equipment for the next election; the same counties that were already using Diebold equipment will simply continue to use it. And,

b) Democrats are capable of winning in California - and in point of fact, winning by massive margins - even in the face of Diebold DREs and GEMS central tabulators.

So in the end I wouldn't worry that McPherson's rigged anything in his favor. In all likelihood, the candidate who runs the best campaign is likely to win, which is exactly as it should be.

Regards,
Wally

Wally #56

Putting sugar on a pile of crap does not change the pile of crap into a pile of sugar. The engineers posting on this thread are more competent than the engineers whose work produced an incompetent election machine you still extol. We know.

You have demonstrated no technical prowess that comes even close to Bev's years of experience, and yet you put her down personally.

And you put Jim down because he stood up to incompetent election officials even in the face of felony charges, and he stood his ground and prevailed.

These two folk, Bev and Jim, have more integrity than can be found in the whole DESI disorganization.

Remember that the people who drove the corvair knew it was unsafe at any speed. GM resisted. Eventually GM became junk in bonds following its junk in product.

GM is practically a foreign corporation now, because Americans know when junk is defined as "quality". Foreign because it put itself above its nation and its people. Foreign because it can no longer pass the smell test.

Bev knows election machines today are unsafe at any speed. Diebold Election Systems, your iron soul, resisted too, just like GM. And it still does, like a big stout pig. Eventually it will also become junk in stock following its junk in product, and junk in denial.

In general, fools cannot learn from experience and the facts. They think slither tongued rhetoric is the way to solve the problem. Git r done is better.

And in fact slither tongued rhetoric is the way to low poll percentages. You have attained low poll percentages here, like the politicians you and yours are desperate to keep in power. How low can you go in taking freedom of elections from Americans?

The slippery slope of low polls and stock prices is what you are on when you advocate junk machines that steal voting freedoms thru deceit.

Try as you may, though, you will never catch up with your prototype Dick "Hot Shot" Cheney.

We grant your distorted wishes so now slide into the oblivion like those who took sacred offices of the public trust and like Judas of old, backstabbed the people, America, and the good way.

You are so proud of who you are and what you represent that, unlike Brad, Bev, and Jim, your popularity does not allow you to give your name.

Hey, its a low poll thang Wally, just ask the Beaver.

Although, I must confess I am no where near finished reading this, I am so interested in this comment by Brad in the above article that I must write now:"However, since Florida law specifically disallows ballots which have already been counted by machine to be hand-counted or even audited, the true election results would never have been known. Even in the case of a recount --- which would not have occurred in the case of the mock election test, since the flipped results were nowhere near close enough to have triggered a mandatory recount --- such ballots could only be rescanned by the machines which has miscounted them in the first place."

My comment: So, op scans with any kind of random mandatory audit is a useless paradigm, to put it mildly, as I have been saying for a very long time. We need hand counted paper ballots (HCPB) and the immmoral, illegal people that are driving our beautiful planet Earth to extinction, have outlawed hand counts of any vote first done by machines. (Again, as per article.) The government gets it very clearly. When will the voting rights community get it.

Wally #57

You said "In all likelihood, the candidate who runs the best campaign is likely to win, which is exactly as it should be" (emphasis mine).

No, that is not how it should be. It should be that the person who can govern best should win.

We all know that Dick "Hot Shot" Cheney and Karl Rove campaign better than anyone else.

And that they govern worse than anyone else.

I mean, if you believe the polls. He is at a whopping 18% now that we have seen him govern. He misses the mark and damages things around him.

So talking in spin and rhetoric designed to deceive the people by covering up incompetence and ineptness ... campaigning ... is talking the talk.

Butl the proof of the pudding is in the governing, walking the walk.

Dick "Hot Shot" Cheney and those who work for him, such as the prez, just like the machines used to "get them in", are not up to par when it comes to walking the walk.

Mr. Diebold said:

"I will say this, however: hand-counted paper ballots is never going to fly. It's too labor-intensive, it's too expensive, it's too error-prone and it's too subject to tampering. . . . no election administrator in a jurisdiction of any significance is going to go there. If you don't trust the things they are doing then you should come up with a credible alternative for them to explore."

I am curious about this statement. Paper ballots have been fine for, what? 200 years? I have always trusted paper ballots. What's wrong with them?

As for Mr. Diebold's comment (in #46) that Californians are not insecure about Diebold machines, may I respectfully ask what kind of crack he is smoking?

Mr. Diebold said (in #46):

"There are 16 million voters in California - which is ground zero for election reform activism - and senator Debra Bowen was able to muster only 2,500 virtual signatures in an online anti-Diebold internet petition. "

You may find this hard to believe, but most Californians don't even know about Bowen's petition. (It was not mentioned in the articles about her in the LA Times, so the majority of people --- who rely solely on the MSM --- are not gonna know about it.)

I have a bigger concern, though, and perhaps Mr. Diebold can explain this. Why do Diebold machines only err to the right? I have never gotten a good explanation of this. Please don't repeat that oft-quoted statement that the former CEO promised Bush that he would "deliver Ohio" to him. It can't be THAT simplistic. (Can it?)

As far as Bruce McPherson failing the citizens of California and certifying the potentially faulty machinery for us to vote on: Has anyone checked on WHY he did it? Does Diebold, or the GOP have something on him? (I understand that some of the results and proceeds of the NSA spying was on political persons . . . ) Is he gay and in the closet? Was he caught in a compromized situation with an underaged person? There simply must be more to his sudden decision to turn his back on the voters he promised to protect. If I had any technical or geek skills, this would be the trail that I would follow.

Finally (sorry to be so verbose, but I am totally new to this), can anyone explain why the DOJ is trying to SHOVE this technology (via HAVA) down the throats of every election commissioner across the country, when there is an obvious problem? God, the DOJ is even suing states who are not "towing the line!" Doesn't that scare people? Doesn't that suggest "Big Brother" tactics?

Our right to vote (for the person of OUR choice) is absolutely the most precious right we have as citizens of a free country. To vote is the single most important government function that individuals perform. Why rush this? Why wouldn't the US Government wait until every single bug is worked out so that everyone will be assured that these machines will actually perform 100% of the time? (And, on that note, why on earth, would they use Windows???)

Mr. Diebold states in #57:

". . . . . Take Alameda County, for example: in the November 2004 presidential election, Alameda was the only county in California to run Diebold AccuVote-TS DREs. And in Alameda County, John Kerry won nearly 75% of the vote compared to around 23% for George Bush."

The Diebold machines in Alameda County were specifically discussed in the articles about Heller (A criminal to Mr. Diebold, but IMO the whistleblower and a true AMERICAN.)

SEE: "DIEBOLD'S REVENGE, L.A. Weekly, March 1 2006, which (in summary) states:

". . . . . Heller came across the internal documents exposing irregularities in Diebold’s electronic voting machines. He passed the documents along to an intermediary who placed them in the hands of Beverly Harris. Harris then turned over the documents to Heller’s intended recipients in Sacramento and Oakland.

" . . . . . The Diebold memos were published on the Tribune’s Web site in April 2004, a month after voting irregularities surfaced in San Diego and Alameda counties by voters who were turned away at the polls while others had to use paper ballots.

" . . . . . In one memo, the law firm warned Diebold, before the March primary, that its use of uncertified vote-counting software in Alameda County, starting in 2002, violated California election law and broke its $12.7 million contract. The lawyers also warned that Diebold faced greater culpability if it knowingly violated California election law. According to the memos, Jones Day also looked into whether then–California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley had the power to investigate the company’s practices."

Perhaps, if the Diebold machines had not produced irregularities in Alameda County, Kerry might have taken 90%, rather than just 75% of the vote.

-Pran

Brad, are you sure about the following:
"In a related bit of news, we were recently told by Sancho, during an on-air interview we conducted with him last Tuesday on The Young Turks radio program, that Florida state election law disallows the manual hand recounting, or auditing, of machine-counted ballots."

Is this a law change, or is Sancho aware of some part of the law that everyone else is ignoring? Because Florida counties have definitely been doing manual recounts of machine-counted ballots. Famously, the 2000 recount was a manual recount of machine-counted ballots.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D - FL) argues in his lawsuit that Florida law requires that every single ballot be capable of manual recount and that therefore DREs are required by law to have a manually countable paper trail. He definitely has a different (or, should I say, opposite) interpretation of the law than Sancho's.

Was there possibly some misunderstanding about what Sancho said?

BTW, kudos to both Brad and Ion Sancho for their courageous and vitally important work on behalf of the rest of us. This post is just a friendly fact-check.

Bev Harris at post #2 pointed out that:

"Ion Sancho is being punished.
Steven Heller is being punished.
Lynn Landes is being punished.

If we do not stand together, who will be next?"

And when will we know some whistleblowers and anti election corruption activists have been taken away to government hell (link here)?

If these people will go to such lengths to make stealth machines why would they not make a stealth judicial system to take care of those who try to expose such machines (link here)?

Do you feel safe when all you know is what Big Brother tells you (link here)?

No, I'm sorry, it's not that simple Wally. Just like you, so too do those hell-bent on winning elections enough to change votes or suppress voters operate in secrecy. If nobody has anything to hide, why not allow all American citizens to vote, count their actual ballots in full public view, and ban central tabulators controlled by private corporations? Who loses with this scenario? Bush as in Florida in 2000?

Now that over $3 billion has been spent on inferior voting systems, American taxpayers lose, and of course the Wally O'Diebolds of the world. So much more is at stake.

Obviously, in the last two presidential elections, the wrong candidate assumed power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You might say the "best candidate" always wins, but I think it ought to be the candidate who receives most of the public's votes. It's not the man that rubs Americans the wrong way (from my perspective), it's the Bush administration's policies which are extreme, based on lies, and dangerous to representative government worldwide.

My vote matters and I don't want it counted by a machine or central tabulator. I want civic-minded members of my community to come together on Election Day to ensure the candidates who receive the most votes as cast by the people actually win the election. I think there are millions of others who agree with me. And those who don't really aren't that informed YET because of a defunct national media, two-party politics, and a multi-million dollar pro-machine PR campaign based on lies. The word is getting out however which I guess is why folks like yourself who support machines that favor GOP candidates are all riled up.

Chill out Wally. Your friends have had a short window of opportunity that's about to be fully exploited. Enjoy the pinnacle of your success while you still can. And remember, a lie is a lie is a lie.

Dear friends,

I've just finished reading this entire thread (!), and with one notable exception I love and honor you all. It is obvious to all honest observers that what has happened to our electoral system in this country is part and parcel with the fascist takeover of our government, our lives, humanity in general, and our precious, fragile earth. Our grief knows no bounds, nor should it.

Chris Floyd decries California's betrayal into complicity here. Please read it.

Hi Peg and all,

I had just finished sending that article out to lots of groups and people before I came here. It is MUST READING. Several of us knew that the fix was in way back then, when they first put Arnold in.

Wally, let's talk about DIMS and Ohio. Is it a fact that the Diebold DIMS system lost or deleted or misplaced tens of thousands of registrants in Ohio. Is it a fact that Ken Blackwell's office failed or refused to ensure that all registrants were properly maintained in the DIMS data base, and that emails were sent to Diebold memorilizing this fact. Is it a fact, that DIMS caused over 100,000 citizens in Ohio to have to vote provisionally (an that many of those votes were not counted).

Now let's talk about Maryland. Is it a fact that Bob Urosevich personally fed vote tallies into the central tabulator in Montgomery County during the 2002 election while elections officials were not present.

Now let's talk about Georgia--prior to the Max Cleland election, Diebold put patches on the machines there for the state purpose of fixing a problem with the time clock. However, that patch did not fix the clock. Was there any other purpose for that patch?

Now let's talk about Wall O'Dell. Isn't it a fact, that he promised to deliver the votes in Ohio to the Republicans and George Bush. Isn't it a fact that he was a Bush pioneer and a vocal supporter of the Republican party. Isn't it a fact that he was forced out of Diebold in December for not being able to turn the company around. Isn't it a fact, that he has been sued for insider trading and stock fraud. Isn't it a fact that there has been a referral to the SEC for a criminal investigation against him and Diebold for insider trading and stock fraud.

Now let's talk about the memory cards--isn't it a fact, that a person with a nefarious intent could do what Hursti did and manipulate the votes in a Deibold election, either directly or by inserting a malicious code that would then be transferred into the central tabulator. Isn't it true that the memony cards that the voter uses could be manipulated in advance by a partisan to not cancel after the vote, and then simply be reinserted dozens or hundreds of times to manipulate the vote without any way of noticing. Isn't it true that the Supervisor Cards can be used by a partisan to delete votes so as to manipulate an election. Isn't it true that those cards are not secure in the sense that Diebold produced thousands of them and they are distributed in unsecure ways. Isn't it true that the IRa ports on some models of Diebold machines can be used to manipulate the votes in an election without detection.

ALL - Having read through the entire thread above now, I'll ask the rest of you (not just Doug and Wally) to mind the personal attacks against other commenters.

WALLY - I have given you a bit more leeway than I'd give most other commenters. For a number of reasons. Amongst them, your personal attack against Bev Harris --- which would normally be sufficient for removal --- have been allowed "with a warning" since Bev, aside from being a commenter, is also a public figure. That's a similar leeway that commenters who personally attack me also receive.

However, you have now made some very serious, and unsupported charges against both Bev and Jim March.

You will note that Bev and Jim and myself, all use our real names when we post here.

You, however, have chosen to hide behind the veil of anonymity when making your attacks against others.

At this point, if you wish to continue such attacks and/or misdirection and/or misinformation (or what you perceive as correcting misinformation of others like myself or Bev, etc.) then then least you can do is identify yourself.

Will you do so?

It surely would add to the credibility you clearly seek here on these topics.

If you won't, then I suppose I'd have to quote from Mr. Colbert yet again to say that "You sir, are a coward".

But since I'm sure you're no coward, I'll await your announcement of your identity.

I'll even go so far as to allow you to begin posting under your own name, as changing user names is not normally allowed here. Please feel free to be my guest (as I have allowed you to be so far.)

If you've got nothing to hide, as expect your positions to be respected here, I'm sure you'll tell us your name. Remember, you know mine, Bev's and Jim's. So be a man (or woman) and join the grownups who aren't afraid to identify themselves publicly when discussing such important issues.

Thanks!

Your exceedingly generous host,

Brad

Wally #46 -
You say, "The machines aren't "ultra-expensive". Outfitting a precinct with a single AccuVote-TSx machine to accomodate voters with a disability costs anywhere from $2200 to $2700, depending on the deal negotiated. Outfitting the same precinct with a Vote-PAD plastic sleeve and a tape recorder costs around $2200, or virtually the same price. By that comparison, the voting machine is quite reasonably-priced."

I'm sure that if you are close to the inside and have any knowledge of Diebold you know this is factually an incorrect statement. First, the TSx is not accessible to voters with disabilities. It is for the blind and seeing impaired but not to anyone else as mandated by HAVA. That fact has been admitted to by David Bear in testimony in Washington state recently. It is coming but not here yet according to Bear.

Second, Diebold has a contract with the state of Ohio that they cannot sell any voting machines anywhere for less than they are selling them in Ohio. That contract is for around $2500 so $2200 is misinformation. As you are aware the number of machines (size of the county) determines the cost so most counties will pay well over $3000 per unit.

Third, Vote-PAD sells for $2000 per precinct. No more than that. It is also a one-time only charge. No add-ons. No licensing fees. No technical contracts. No maintenance contracts. None of the add-ons that Diebold requires. (See http://www.columbusdispa...3/05/20060305-C1-00.html ) Also no climate-control storage, expensive batteries, maximum of 5 years life span.

BradBloggers: Please continue to do what you can to raise more awareness among Californians that they are on RED ALERT and in danger of losing their vote and voice. The level of vote suppression tactics about to be employed is like nothing we've ever seen before (and what we've seen so far is horrible). The level of suppression will increase as the effort to rig the elections electronic machines intensifies. Either form of disenfranchisement provides much needed cover for the other in this disgusting "ends justify the means" scenario, which is criminal.

The fact these electronic voting machines were certified in California by an appointed SOS is bad enough. Has McPherson in effect guaranteed his actual election in November?

Electronic voting and vote tallying machines must be banned from our elections, that is if we value transparency in our government.

Paul Lehto in a recent interview said, "Our vote is like our soul," and in my opinion this is exactly what these corporate whores are after. And we must have the guts to stand up and tell them to back off NOW. Let's stand united.

Thanks Bev & Brad.

So many responses, so little time. Here goes:

DREDD #58, #60 - Yes, I put down Bev's technical prowess. And if you read post #9 by Bev herself, she agrees with me. Now you can impugn my own prowess if you like, but the truth is that I can count the number of people on the planet who know more about Diebold's equipment than I do on the fingers of one hand. Maybe that's not worth much in the real world. But it puts me miles ahead of Bev Harris on that particular subject, if nothing else.

As to your other point, I agree: in a perfect world the person who can best govern is the one who should be elected. But we live in this world, Dredd, and it's the best campaigner that wins. That's why Bill Clinton won, and that's why John Kerry lost. Blame it on the machines if you like, but it's just looking for an excuse.

PRANTHA TRIVEDI #61, #62 No, hand-counted paper ballots haven't been fine for 200 years. There are laws against them in some places specifically because they haven't been fine. Boxes of paper ballots get found floating down the river. Pollworkers who count the ballots misplace them, or deface them with pencil lead hidden under the fingernail. They fill in extra votes for races that are undervoted. Insiders stuff the ballot box with extra paper ballots containing selections of their choice. There is a very long, very celebrated, and very documented history of paper-based election fraud in America. That's why there are laws against them. That's why people vote on things like lever machines. Campaign to bring them back if you like, but you're ignoring history that your opponents won't ignore and you're most likely going to get an unfavorable outcome. Which isn't to say you have to accept DREs or anything else. If you don't like the DREs, or the optical scan machines, or the punch cards, or the lever machines, or whatever else your county is using, then come up with a credible alternative for your local election administrators to embrace. They aren't going to listen to your call for hand-counted paper ballots in any significantly-sized jurisdiction.

And no, John Kerry wouldn't have won 90% in Alameda county. Winning 75% of that many voters already constitutes an absolutely crushing victory. California may be blue, but even George Bush can probably muster in the low 20% range there.

As to your question "why do Diebold machines only err to the right", I'll simply say that they don't err at all. Or that if they do (and for the sake of accuracy, everything except DREs - such as optical scan or punch card readers - have some small but measurable error rate) the error rate is evenly distributed. There's no documented evidence that the machines err to the right, that's just a myth promulgated on the internet. Various tests in California indicate the DREs count with 100% accuracy. Big public hand-recounts in places like New Hampshire in 2004 indicate the optical scan machines count the votes for both sides faithfully. I know people here are going to dispute the claim, so I'll just make it and leave it at that - it's not like I expect to change anyone's mind.

As for why SoS Bruce McPherson certified the equipment, the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one:

a) He's actually managed to stall it for nearly a year, on various grounds. He put up several new requirements, all of which Diebold eventually met. All the federal qualifications have also been met. All the independent reviews he commissioned tell him you could use this equipment in an election. At this point he doesn't have much reason left not to certify the equipment, except for potential political gain (i.e. to curry favor with a few hundred vocal activists) or for pure spite. In either of the two latter cases, there's the possibility of a lawsuit by Diebold itself. But all that aside,

b) Delaying certification through 2005 was certainly an option, but the reality in 2006 is that California (like everywhere else) has to actually hold elections. And to hold elections, you need to use your voting equipment. As I alluded to above, lobby for hand-counted paper ballots all you like... but nobody's ever going to contemplate that option for a million voters in San Diego county, or for six million voters in Los Angeles county. Given that all the equipment in question has met all the requirements and that there are elections in March and in June, it's pretty unlikely that he'd de-certify anything in February. What are they going to do, just not hold any primaries?

That's all just speculation on my part, obviously, but it's probably not far off the mark. Remember too that all of Diebold's equipment was already certified except for the AccuVote-TSx units that are sitting in warehouses in San Diego and San Joaquin and Kern counties. Everywhere else the voting equipment was already certified and in use. And in those three counties, temporary Diebold optical scan equipment was already in use. So really, nothing's been lost or gained by the recent certification of the TSx: all the same people are still voting on Diebold equipment either way.

Anyway that's much longer than I intended to write, but I hope it clarifies. Something.

KAT #65 - You misunderstand me. I'm not telling people how to vote, I'm responding to misperceptions about the votiing equipment. If you want to allow all Americans to vote and count those votes in public and ban central tabulators, I have absolutely no issue with that. (Well that's not entirely accurate --- I don't think all citizens should get to vote. Kids who are 6, for example, probably aren't qualified. But in principle I have no objection to your statement.)

You're wrong in your statement about the last two elections. In 2000, you're right: the wrong candidate assumed power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The other guy clearly got more votes, and the supreme court decided the result. But you're wrong about 2004: like it or not, the right candidate won. Which isn't to say that I like him, or prefer him, or don't think that he's an idiot: it's simply to say that he got a few million more votes than his opponent, and that as a result - like it or not - he was the clear winner.

PEG C #66 - I'll go ahead and assume that I'm the exception. Too bad, I was hoping we could all be friends.

STORM #68 - I honestly don't know anything about voter registration in Ohio, or Ken Blackwell's actions there, or about the counting of provisional votes there. So I can't make an intelligent comment on that.

I also don't know whether Bob Urosevich fed any vote tallies into a central tabulator in Montgomery County in 2002 without any election officials present, as you allege. But I seriously doubt it. It sounds mostly like something TrueVoteMD would make up.

In Georgia there was a problem discovered with the clock. The specific "patch" I believe you're obliquely referring to consists essentially of updated default audio clips and rich-text files for things like button labels, although I know it's been touted as a mysterious software patch whose purpose was to "rob" Georgia --- a fanciful myth.

Wally O'Dell was a supporter of and fund-raiser for George Bush. He sent out a fund-raising letter in which he declared he was committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes for the president in 2004. He didn't write the letter but he signed his name to it, and it was a pretty idiotic thing to do considering that he was CEO of a company that produced voting equipment at the time. Obviously (well it's probably not obvious to this audience) he was not promising to use his voting equipment to steal Ohio's votes for the president - it was just a massive blunder on his part. (As an ironic side note, Diebold equipment was used in only 2 of 88 Ohio counties in 2004, and the vast majority of the votes counted on Diebold equipment there was for Kerry.) Wally resigned as CEO of Diebold in December, but prevailing theory is that he was forced out because of declining revenues from the ATM division. It's probably good speculation that negative publicity over his idiotic campaign letter and the resultant negative publicity for the company may have factored into the decision as well, but the main reason was declining revenues from the ATM side of the business. I don't know whether he's been sued for insider trading and stock fraud, but he's probably named in the pending class-action suit filed against Diebold last year.

As for memory cards: no. And I'll elaborate:

a) There is no way to "insert any malicious code on a memory card that would then be transferred into the central tabulator". That's something that's been promoted by Black Box Voting, and it's absolutely incorrect.

b) In the specific case of the AV-OS optical scan machine, there is a specific and fairly limited Hursti-style manipulation that could be exploited - if (and it's a pretty big "if") malicious insiders had free access to the memory card after it's been tested and cleared and set for election, and before it's sealed in the machine behind tamper-proof seals. That's a summary of the Leon County demonstration and its pre-conditions. The same test failed in California because there was no avenue of attack when real-world procedures were followed. Diebold has indicated (in response to the Berkeley study) that they'll address that potential exploit, and others identified in the study, in an upcoming firmware release. In the meantime, existing use procedures (similar to those used for ballots and ballot boxes) should be followed to eliminate any opportunity for manipulation of the cards.

c) The description in (b) above applies only to the optical scan machine. The AccuVote-TS and AccuVote-TSx DREs incorporate features to detect any Hursti-style tampering. Of couse, the same use procedures should still be followed regardless - it's just not a good idea to leave untrusted people with unsupervised access to your election materials and equipment, whether it's paper ballots and a cardboard box, or a sophisticated DRE.

d) There is no way to manipulate a voter access card to "not cancel" after the vote such that it could be reinserted dozens or hundreds of times to manipulate the vote without any way of noticing. The card's always cancelled after voting and there's no way to turn that feature off.

e) The voting machine software contains no way to delete specific ballots or change any votes, whether you have a supervisor card or not.

f) Access cards are as secure as the jurisdiction wants to make them. The jurisdiction can, and should, change the access keys used by the cards at their discretion. Attempting to access the card data with an incorrect access key will destroy the card after a (very) limited number of attempts.

g) The IrDA port on the AccuVote-TS can't be used to manipulate any votes without detection. It can't actually be used for anything at all.

Warmest regards to all,
Wally

Wally,

Jim has posted the following at BBV http://www.bbvforums.org...mp;post=18338#POST18338:

"I think it's still true what Rebecca Mercuri stated in 2001: "It is a known fact that the computer industry does not have the capability, at present, to assure a safe, reliable election using only electronic devices."
As Bev has said or implied over and over, these systems are in use precisely to make fraud easier. Until the voting population rebels en masse and forcibly and unequivocally rejects computerized voting and vote-counting, we'll just continue to get the run-around in terms of "testing", "certification", "HAVA compliance" and all the other irrelevant beaurocratic details. And the machines will continue to be used.
"Rebecca Mercuri's Statement on Electronic Voting" is at www.notablesoftware.com/RMstatement.html

Her first seven points are:

"*Fully electronic systems do not provide any way that the voter can truly verify that the ballot cast corresponds to that being recorded, transmitted, or tabulated. Any programmer can write code that displays one thing on a screen, records something else, and prints yet another result. There is no known way to ensure that this is not happening inside of a voting system.

* Electronic balloting systems without individual print-outs for examination by the voters, do not provide an independent audit trail (despite manufacturer claims to the contrary). As all voting systems (especially electronic) are prone to error, the ability to also perform a manual hand-count of the ballots is essential.

* No electronic voting system has been certified to even the lowest level of the U.S. government or international computer security standards (such as the ISO Common Criteria or its predecessor, TCSEC/ITSEC), nor has any been required to comply with such. Hence, no current electronic voting system has been verified as secure.

* There are no required standards for voting displays, so computer ballots can be constructed to be as confusing (or more) than the butterfly used in Florida, giving advantage to some candidates over others.

* Electronic balloting and tabulation makes the tasks performed by poll workers, challengers, and election officials purely procedural, and removes any opportunity to perform bipartisan checks. Any computerized election process is thus entrusted to the small group of individuals who program, construct and maintain the machines.

* Although convicted felons and foreign citizens are prohibited from voting in U.S. elections (in many states), there are no such laws regarding voting system manufacturers, programmers and administrative personnel. Felons and foreigners can (and do!) work at and even own some of the voting machine companies providing equipment to U.S. municipalities. [This may no longer be true, but it was true when Mercuri wrote it.]

* Encryption provides no assurance of privacy or accuracy of ballots cast. Cryptographic systems, even strong ones, can be cracked or hacked, thus leaving the ballot contents along with the identity of the voter open to perusal. One of the nation's top cryptographers, Bruce Schneier, has recently expressed his concerns on this matter, and has recommended that no computer voting system be adopted unless it also provides a physical paper ballot perused by the voter and used for recount and verification." "

Dear John Gideon,

I'm not going to quibble over the accessibility of the AccuVote-TSx. Smarter people than me have declared that it meets HAVA-mandated accessibility requirements, and that's good enough for me. If David Bear indicated at a Washington certification hearing that enhancements are coming to accomodate an even wider audience of disabled voters, then so much the better.

(Speaking of which, congratulations on Washington's recent certification of the AccuVote-TSx. I'm told that Black Box Voting didn't even bother to show up to the public hearing. One supposes (to quote Jim) the "profit potential" just wasn't "crazy" enough.)

Your interpretation of the Ohio contract is a bit incorrect, but I'll defer. Call the TSx price $2,700 for the sake of this discussion - that's the sale price in Ohio.

As for the Vote-PAD, I think it's awesome. They're literally selling a plastic sleeve and a tape recorder for $2,000. My apologies for the earlier quote - I thought I'd read somewhere that the price was $2,000 to $2,200, and maybe I mis-read that or maybe the price has since changed. Anyway. I think they do understate the labor cost required to prepare the plastic sleeves for the large number of ballot styles in some jurisdictions. To stay with the Washington state example, King county alone had over 5,400 ballot styles for their last election. Thus, that's (at least) 5,400 distinct plastic sleeves to prepare, assuming you want to deploy a single Vote-PAD sleeve per ballot style, and at least 5,400 distinct sets of audio to record. And that's a lot of work (and a lot of corresponding cost) that's been magically hand-waved away. When you total it up, I suspect it would run into the same ballpark as DREs (given that at $2,000 it's technically already in the ballpark). But for less complex jurisdictions, or for jurisdictions that are willing to absorb the labor cost, I think Vote-PAD is as good an alternative as anything else out there. I say that with the caveats that:

a) I've never actually used Vote-PAD and I'm accepting the testimonials in their marketing material at face value, and

b) I'm not a disabled person and don't pretend to speak on the behalf of people who are.

Economically the Vote-PAD and a DRE solution are similarly-priced when you take TCO into consideration. Maybe Vote-PAD can eventually take some of the $1,900 in profit per unit to build some additional tools to defray the effort/cost of sleeve preparation. If they do, Vote-PAD certainly becomes a more economically-attractive option.

All of which is just philosophical discussion, of course. I wish the Vote-PAD people well, and I'm mostly interested in correcting mis-information about Diebold.

Best regards,
Wally

Wally,

You make numerous assertions that certain things can or can't be done with Diebold equipment. However, demonstrations have already shown otherwise. Your assertions are only that--assertions without any supporting evidence.

It would be great if all the voting machine companies would make their equipment available for inspection. In other applications (airplane flight control, for example, and similar systems where public safety is involved) the software code is obliged to be revealed for independent analysis and testing. Voting systems deserve at least as much scrutiny. "Trade secrets" is not allowed as an excuse for non-disclosure in these other applications, and it should not be allowed in the case of voting machines.

It would also be great if the ITAs were to carry out proper penetration threat analysis. None of the voting machine equipment has been required to meet security standards (ISO etc.). The ITAs did not test security, as revealed by documents obtained through FOIA requests.

Your assertions as to the relative costs and security of electronic solutions compared to hand-counting are incorrect. There are several threads at BBV that discuss this issue at length.

As for your concerns about ballot stuffing and vote rigging with paper ballots--

There are many countries which use hand-counting and who have solved the issues about custody chain of paper ballots, and effective fraud prevention. Canada, Italy and Ireland come to mind as good examples. Doing the counting in the polling places, with observers from all parties and the general public, immediately after the polls close, is one common feature of well-run elections using paper ballots. Also, there must be proper security of the ballots both pre- and post-election.

With electronic machines it's possible to manipulate many thousands of votes without detection. That's exactly what the Hursti hack showed, and this has been substantiated by subsequent inspection (e.g. GAO Report). This makes the implications of using voting machines far more of a threat to democracy than paper ballots.

As for cost, in all cases, hand-counting is a less expensive option, even if one hires many extra workers at $12/hour.

In your own cost calucations you didn't include all the extra expenses that accompany electronic voting machines: climate-controlled secure storage; added training for poll workers and election administrators; updating and maintenance; cost of numerous additional supplies and related equipment; added legal costs; costs for recounts; etc.

I have not attempted to put a cost on the loss of transparency and democracy that can occur with electronic voting.

Best wishes.

OT - Breaking News:
More shocks surfacing in Florida, this time in relation to the voter registration system--

State: Absentee vote count 'will not be a problem' in elections

By MAURICE TAMMAN

"With just days before elections, state officials were scrambling this week to determine whether they had a problem that could call into question tens of thousands of absentee votes.

The problem surfaced in the state's newly minted central voter database, a multimillion-dollar project that is supposed to cleanse the voter rolls of errors and prevent voter fraud.

The Herald-Tribune on Wednesday found thousands of mysterious entries in the tally of historic votes that suggested people had already voted in elections that haven't yet occurred. "

http://www.bbvforums.org...amp;post=18337#POST18337

Wally,

More breaking news just for you--

Voting machine support costly

Elections boards and counties stunned by expense; state aid for training ends after primary

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Mary Beth Lane - THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

"The cost of service contracts for new touchscreen voting machines has left county elections officials across Ohio in sticker shock.

Many say they need the extra ”and expensive” technical support to program and run the machines properly and ensure the integrity of elections.

But a spokesman said Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell thinks counties can run the systems themselves after the May 2 primary election, when state-paid training and technical support ends.

Counties are not required to have extra technical support after that. It's their choice.

The full coverage plan offered by Diebold Election Systems to service its touch-screen voting machines in Fairfield County, for example, would cost $90,000 a year. Partial-coverage options are available at $60,000 and $21,000 a year.

"It just about blew our minds away," said Alice Nicolia, director of the county Board of Elections. "

http://www.bbvforums.org...amp;post=18339#POST18339

Dear Catherine,

Bev is being ridiculous when she claims electronic voting systems are being installed to make fraud easier. They're being installed to make election administration easier and less expensive.

I think Rebecca Mercuri's great. She's certainly not the kind of self-serving tool that, say, Avi Rubin is.

Let's examine her points that you so typically repeated.

a) I agree in principle with the statement about fully-electronic systems. Rather than get into a debate over the merits of code inspection and testing, I'll simply say "deploy the voter-verifiable paper ballot" option, which is of course what Dr. Mercuri advocates. Thus this point is irrelevant.

b) Ditto for the second point you quoted. Deploy the VVPAT. Let's move on.

c) As Dr. Mercuri points out, no voting system is required to comply with the ISO Common Criteria or anything else. All voting systems comply with all relevant standards. Lobby your legislators if you want to expand those standards to include ISO Common Criteria or anything else you want, and I guarantee that the vendors will meet them.

d) Yes, a computer-based ballot layout can be made as confusing as a paper-based ballot layout. I fail to understand the point. By your implied logic, both should be disallowed because both can be made equally confusing.

e) Pollworker tasks are largely procedural, regardless of the type of voting system employed.

f) There's nothing inherently wrong with foreigners in general. You live in Ireland, for God's sake. Do you think you should be distrusted or thought less-of by actual Irish people? As for felons, that's just tiresome. I literally laugh at every extra mile Bev Harris rides that poor horse.

g) There's no un-crackable encryption scheme in existence: only schemes that haven't been cracked yet. Nevertheless, these systems do what they can within the limits of current technology. So Bruce Schneier is right: deploy the VVPAT option, and refer to (a) and (b) above.

So it's all mostly pretty moot when you actually think about it, except maybe for point (c). But thanks anyhow for the fascinating update on what Jim has posted on another message board.

Your pal,
Wally

Can anyone here doubt for a second that wally is a paid operative from Diebold sent to try and muddy the waters with half-truths and oversimplifications of the issues? Would ANYONE who was not in some way closely connected with that company be willing to expound so verbosely and so unquestioningly and Stepford-like on the virtues of voting equipment that has been shown to be untrustworthy by such independent and non-partisan sources as the GAO. Would anyone but a paid operative be willing to spend the amount of time this individual has droning on and on about this company and their machines?

Would anyone but a Diebold troll make a statement like: "And no, John Kerry wouldn't have won 90% in Alameda county. Winning 75% of that many voters already constitutes an absolutely crushing victory. California may be blue, but even George Bush can probably muster in the low 20% range there." Anybody with any understanding or intellectual honesty would realize that, like many states, California has red areas and blue areas (which, in total make it bluer than red), some very red and some so blue that a 90% vote for Kerry would have been perfectly possible and also an ideal place to shave a few percent off the vote total there and elsewhere in order to give a certain candidate a national "mandate" and a seeming legitimacy whether deserved or not?

wally states in #70: "it's not like I expect to change anyone's mind." Well then, what is your purpose here wally? Definitely not to inform in a truly honest fashion.

I have just one question Wally,How come you just showed up here after Bruce Mac pherson re certified Diebold? I have not seen you around here for the last year and a half when all these breaking stories were first presented here by Brad, Bev and Jim. I have seen their names here thru the thick and thin but you just show up and we are supposed to take you seiously? I don't have a clue who you are,but it is awfully suspicious how you show up and start calling other peoples integrity into question. (O.K. it was 2 questions)

Dear Catherine,

No, nobody's ever disputed "otherwise" with respect to anything I've posted here. At least not honestly.

Fascinating discourse about the aviation industry. How about this: you write to Boeing (or the manufacturer of your choice) and ask them for a copy of their source code for a 747 avionics system because you'd like to review it. Let me know how that turns out, and then we'll talk again. (Of course you know that it's a false argument you're making.)

The threads at BBV discussing the relative costs of hand-counting vs. machine counting are incorrect - mostly because the only participants are people who don't know anything about running elections. Thanks for the reference, however.

I can't believe it took over 70 posts before the Canada straw man showed up. Let's examine Canada for about two seconds, since it's also germane to your previous point about the costs of hand-counting. (And feel free to substitute Italy or Ireland if you prefer.)

A Canadian federal election consists of each voter voting for one candidate, in one race with a total of maybe 5-7 candidates. The votes are cast on paper, and hand-counted at the precinct. Of course, that's a pretty straightforward job with only one vote-for-one race, which as you know, isn't the case in America by a long shot. But OK.

Canada is a little bigger than California in population. What would you estimate the cost to be to hold a single election of that size, dutifully hand-counting that single race on a paper ballot? A million dollars? Ten million dollars? Try over two hundred million dollars, or around ten dollars per voter. For a single race. Extrapolating that number to the US as a whole, it would cost over two billion dollars nationally... per election. A number that makes the total funding for HAVA look like mere pocket change. To count one race. Obviously the number grows substantially when you factor in places in the US that have 30, 40 or even 50 races per ballot. But let's ignore that for now. Canada holds one federal election every 4-5 years (somewhat more frequently in the case of a minority government). The US holds a federal election every two years. Moreover, Canada doesn't have any primaries. The US generally holds two primary elections in a federal election year, each of which costs as much as the general election. I think the point's been sufficiently made, to wit:

a) You're intentionally comparing apples and oranges when invoking the Canada straw man. Canadian and American elections have virtually nothing in common. And,

b) Canadian elections are far more expensive than their American counterparts, despite being simpler and less frequent, and despite using hand-counted paper ballots instead of "expensive" voting machines.

As to the rest of your follow-up posts, which can mostly be summarized as election administrators complaining about costs: maybe they should try the Canadian approach for a while, eh?

Cordially yours,
Wally

Wally,

1) Citizenship is appropriate to expect as a minimum standard for those involved with the development of voting systems. Clearly we disagree on this.

2) You feel that voicing concerns about having convicted felons write software code for elections are "tiresome"--even when the conviction was for fraud involving software programming. Is that the best you can do to attempt to downplay this issue?

3) Since you appear to be in favor of VVBP, what are your thoughts about why Diebold took away the audit log from its scanner software that counts absentee ballots? That leaves a wide open opportunity for throwing entire elections just by carrying out a Hursti attack or other manipulation such as on the GEMS server on the absentee ballots.

4) VVBP are worthless unless they are actually counted (which some states are now making illegal) AND there are strict protocols in place for chain of custody with excellent observance of these protocols. Earlier you mentioned the NH recount as a shining example showing how accurately the machines performed. That recount was worthless because of the poor security and undocumented custody chain of ballots. It would have been easy to substitute ballots to ensure that the "right" votes counts were produced by the recount.

5) Relying only on election procedures to provide election security--while not requiring security standards of the software and hardware themselves--is incompetent and irresponsible. Your argument would not hold up for any other application. Systems of any kind should be designed to be idiot-proof, to avoid user error or intentional misuse. You seem satisfied to place all responsibility on users, even though this approach would not be considered adequate for even rank beginners at software programming, let alone experienced professionals for mission-critical applications.

6) Your confidence in reliance on procedures alone indicates that you have little understanding of "social engineering" factors. If you require further material to understand what "social engineering" refers to, let me know.

Best wishes.

Wally,

I didn't claim avionics code could be reviewed by a member of the public at the drop of a hat. I said it was open for independent review by the party that ordered it. A programmer with personal experience has vouched that it is, indeed, open for inspection, and this is a requirement of getting the contract in the first place. This is also true of other applications--not just avionics.

You claim others haven't "honestly" disagreed with you. I have, and so have other posters here.

Your financial comparisons are inaccurate. Have a look at the spreadsheet tool Linda Franz has developed before you make more unsubstantiated assertions.

Elections in the USA typically involve many more races and issues--and (unfortunately) they typically involve far fewer candidates per race, with many races being unopposed. This makes elections faster and easier to count.

Counting carried out in the polling place is both quick and secure.

In Italy the counting is observed by citizens who are not paid, but who are required to participate similar to jury duty. That keeps costs down and supports active citizenship.

You never addressed my point about including ALL costs when comparing differing systems. Apples and oranges, indeed!

You didn't address most of the other points I made, either.

Good luck.

You know, yesterday, a wingnut I know forwarded to me a racist slideshow entitled "What We're Up Against". Somebody had taken a video clip of a bit of street theater somewhere in the Middle East. It started out depicting a man with a little microphone gathering people to watch a little boy get his arm run over by a truck and emerge unscathed. Some jerk took the clip and turned certain shots into a slideshow, omitting the part where the kid comes out unscathed, and adding a little story about this being the punishment for stealing a loaf of bread.

Somebody sat down and did a little work to deliberately mislead people who might not otherwise retain the requisite amount of xenophobia to continue to support the slaughter of innocents, and is spreading it all over our nation. Wally is doing something almost identical, misleading people for nefarious ends, and as sinister. We seem to have grown a little population of sociopaths who walk among us as if they were normal Americans, spewing information they know is wrong, crafted with an ugly end in mind, claiming always to be card-carrying members of the mainstream. When you respond to them appropriately, they have a cow about name-calling and free speech, etc. We usually try to treat this mental illness, but lately we seem to be indulging it.

It truly is as if the neocons have unleashed on us a little army of specially trained sociopaths from the asylums. I know a guy who has a special corner of his web site for these guys. Sure, let them speak freely, just let them do it in a special room so that people who want to endure their poisonous exudations will know where to find them, but the rest of us can have a chance of maintaining the serenity to contribute positively to the cause of redeeming our country.

Really, Brad, it is hard enough to maintain the vitality necessary to be effective against the forces of facism that have taken power in America. You've invited the public into your home to learn about what is really going on in the world. How long would you endure Wally holding forth this way in your home? And, if you endured it long, how many of your good neighbors do you imagine would stick around, knowing they had to endure this noise trying to drown out the real information they wanted? Their first impulse would be to help you chase him off. If that didn't work, the best that could be made of it would be to run in, grab your leaflets and run out. Hardly any would stick around to discuss the information you worked hard to bring them. How many would be able to try to come up with solutions to problems, unite to make something positive come of learning this information, with this guy belching forth big black clouds of disinformation the while?

In #70, Mr. Diebold said:

" . . . . . There is a very long, very celebrated, and very documented history of paper-based election fraud in America."

SEE? With paper-based balloting, There is a _DOCUMENTED_ HISTORY OF FRAUD! This is precisely my point. With e-voting equipment, there is no documentation. There is no way to find out if fraud occurred at all.

Also, Mr. Diebold said:

" . . . . . e) The voting machine software contains no way to delete specific ballots or change any votes, whether you have a supervisor card or not."

Respectfully, how do YOU know this? Isn't this the exact issue in Arizona, Alaska, and a few other states? Diebold says that their proprietary, non "open source" (Windows-based) software is not subject to review by computer experts. (Frankly, this is why I believe that Diebold is as crooked as "the Dukester." In computer software litigation cases, the parties usually agree to have a couple INDEPENDENT computer experts examine the code in order to determine whether this or that occurred. Diebold refuses to do this.)

" . . . . . g) The IrDA port on the AccuVote-TS can't be used to manipulate any votes without detection."

Again, most respectfully; how could YOU possibly know that the IrDA ports can't manipulate votes without detection? Why did Diebold physically ADD them? If we already know that Diebold LIED to California's SoS in 2004 when it misrepresented that certain previously identified problems with its software were "fixed," why should we ever believe the B.S. that the IrDA ports are there for "no reason at all"?

" . . . . . It [IrDA] can't actually be used for anything at all."

Again, WHY are the IrDA ports there in the first place?

Look, legitimate computer manufacturers DO NOT build computer equipment and ADD parts that are going to be useless or "can't be used for anything at all." Businesses tend not to spend the additional money. Diebold intentionally physically installed these IrDA ports FOR SOME REASON. (There were no IrDA ports on the earlier machines. Now there are IrDA ports.) What is Diebold's real reason for ADDING them?

As for why SoS Bruce McPherson certified the equipment:

The Berkeley study said there ARE problems. But, MORE IMPORTANTLY, the Heller Wistleblower case tells us that Diebold egregiously VIOLATED CALIFORNIA ELECTION LAWS for using uncertified voting systems and disenfranchising our voters (even in Alameda County)!

Diebold should have been prosecuted because Diebold (1) defrauded the state government and taxpayers of California, and (2) disenfranchised California voters. And the Heller documents PROVE that Diebold's lawyers knew that these violations were subject to CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS.
So, California should have prosecuted Diebold, but it did not. California's SoS should have barred any use of Diebold machines, across the state (if, for no other reason than to punish the WRONGDOER), but it did not.

Instead, California gave Diebold MORE money and contracts (and is prosecuting the American who blew the whistle)! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Mr. Diebold said:

" . . . . . If you don't like the DREs, or the optical scan machines, . . ."

I am not as savvy on the acronyms. What are "DRE's?"

" . . . . or the punch cards, or the lever machines, or whatever else your county is using, then come up with a credible alternative for your local election administrators to embrace."

Where I live, we (used to) use the "ink-punch" paper ballots (where we can see our ACTUAL vote.) I am absolutely fine with them.

" . . . . . They aren't going to listen to your call for hand-counted paper ballots in any significantly-sized jurisdiction.

I ABSOLUTELY don't mind machine readers doing the physical count of our votes on punched or inked PAPER ballots. None of my neighbors mind that either. Here's what you don't quite get (and I am frankly at a loss as to why you don't grok it): Paper ballots can be physically recounted if there is an issue as to whether the machines that count them have screwed up --- or if someone in the polling station has been dishonest.

Hey Wally! Diebold lied to SOS of California!

April 30, 2004

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley Bans Diebold TSx for Use in November 2004 General Election
Also Decertifies All Touchscreen Systems in California Until Security Measures are Met

SACRAMENTO – Secretary of State Kevin Shelley today banned the use of touchscreen voting systems in four counties and decertified all touchscreen systems in California until security measures are in place to safeguard the November vote.
“We are taking every step possible to assure all Californians that their ballots will be counted accurately,” Shelley said.
Shelley decertified one type of touchscreen system, the Diebold TSx system, banning its use in the four counties where it is installed: Kern, San Diego, San Joaquin, and Solano. He took the additional step of requesting the Attorney General to investigate criminal and civil actions against Diebold in this matter based on what he called “fraudulent actions by Diebold.”
These actions were detailed in a report issued April 20 by the Secretary of State’s office. The report indicated Diebold’s persistent and aggressive marketing led to installation in a number of counties of touchscreen systems that were neither tested, qualified at the federal level, nor certified at the state level – and that Diebold then lied about it to Secretary of State officials.

“We will not tolerate the deceitful conduct of Diebold, and we must send a clear message to the rest of the industry: Don’t try to pull a fast one on the voters of California,” Shelley said.

In the remaining 10 counties using touchscreen systems, Shelley said he would require the counties to either install a voter-verified paper trail before November, or to meet 23 security measures before he would recertify those systems.

“I was proud to be the first Secretary of State in the nation to call for a voter-verified paper trail on touchscreen systems, and today I am taking immediate actions that will allow us to get there,” Secretary Shelley said. “But I understand the financial constraints counties are under right now and they will not incur any additional cost as a result of the measures I have announced today.

“I want to state clearly and unequivocally: there will be a paper trail for every single vote cast in the state of California, and it will happen on my watch,” Shelley said. “By May 30, the state of California will have standards in place for Accessible, Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (AVVPAT).

I call on the federal government to move immediately on this issue as well, and just this week I have received positive indications from the chairman of the newly formed Federal Elections Assistance Commission that it will do so.

These actions will clear the path for every county in the state using touchscreen systems to put a paper trail in place.”
-more-
http://www.ss.ca.gov/exe...releases/2004/04_030.pdf

Shall we keep Wally here?

Make him/her work for the dollars he is being paid by diebold or whatever Diebold apologist is paying him/her?

Brad, if you ban Wally, then he won't be able to earn his keep.

Wally, since you are an insider, can you provide any documents to support what you say?

If so, post or perhaps email them to Brad, if you are bashful.

That way, you can at least support what you are saying. I think maybe you are making stuff up, but I am willing to see any verifiable evidence.

That's just the point, NC Voter. We're all willing to see verifiable evidence. That's why we're here, but Wally's not doing that. He's just injecting black clouds of poison into our attempt to process information. It's WORSE that non-productive. Its aim is to make an awful mess of anything that threatens effectiveness against the insults to our country being perpetrated by a group of people whose greed has replaced most of the matter inside their skulls and ALL of the flesh inside their hearts.

It isn't even as easy as looking elsewhere for information if you can't bear this torture. Brad has, clearly, or Wally wouldn't have gotten this assignment, become the man to see about the voting mess. It's plenty agonizing enough already, thank you. Let somebody else bring verifiable evidence, if there is any, which we can be fairly certain there isn't. Does anybody honestly think Brad and Bev are just dreaming this all up? No. That's why Wally is here: Obfuscate reality; make people too tired to try to understand the information, let alone formulate effective action.

Ban Wally.

Dear Mr. "Diebold,"

As I indicated above, I have read this entire thread. One thing is glaringly conspicuous in its absense from your posts - references and links.

I can't imagine why.

Dear NC Voter,

You just posted proof of what I claimed much, much earlier... i.e. all touch screens, not just Diebold's, were de-certified in California. All at the same time, and none for "installing illegal patches".

In fairness to your point of view, then-SoS did single out Diebold and ask the attorney general to look into whether any criminal charges were warranted against that company. The AG, upon consideration, decided that no criminal charges were warranted. For his part, Mr. Shelley later resigned in disgrace amid some fairly serious charges allegations of financial impropriety.

Before he left, Mr. Shelley did create standards and requirements for a VVPAT. The newly-recertified AccuVote-TSx, of course, includes just such a unit.

Dear Prantha,

You're right of course. The long, documented history of paper-based vote fraud is exactly the reason why America should go back to that method. Good luck with the lobbying, I suspect you have an uphill battle ahead.

As for how I know you can't delete ballots or change votes on the AccuVote touch screen machines, you'll just have to take my word for it I suppose. Or don't, it makes no difference to me. Like I've said many times over, I don't expect any "true believers" to believe (or even consider) anything I say at all. Ditto on the IrDA port. I said it already on another thread: if you think you can do anything via the IrDA port on older AccuVote-TS machines, then be my guest and try it in Georgia or Maryland. Bring a powerful magnet while you're at it, I always find the magnet myth pretty amusing too.

(And just for the record, you have it backwards. The older machines have an IrDA port. The newer machines don't have an IrDA port --- because it's not used or needed for anything. Once again, I don't expect you to believe me but it's easily verifiable if you exert yourself.)

Dear Catherine,

Responding to the same tired BBV rhetoric is tiresome, so I will be brief.

1. The discussion of felons is "tiresome" in this specific instance because the truth of the matter is that the person in question, i.e. Jeff Dean, never wrote a single line of code in GEMS, in the AccuVote-TS firmware, or in the AccuVote-OS firmware. I'm not going to argue the point, because I know you simply believe everything Bev Harris says. The fact of the matter is that she's wrong, she knows she's wrong, and it's funny watching her ride the Jeff Dean horse into the ground. I personally cheer her on with every new Jeffrey Dean post.

2. My financial comparisons are not inaccurate. The last two Canadian federal elections cost more than $200 million each, or on the order of $10 per voter. You can easily look that up. American ballots are bigger and more complex, and to hold elections the same way that they're held in Canada would be at least as expensive, and in point of fact much more so given the number of races on the typical ballot and the complexity-adding US-specific issues such as ballot rotation, straight-party voting, etc. Spreadsheets by Linda Franz aside, you can't make a credible argument that the numbers don't compare. Paper-based elections, hand-counted or otherwise, are not cheap. No elections are cheap, but to suggest that a hand-counted paper-based election is preferable on a cost basis is just misinformed.

3. Diebold never "took away the audit log from its scanner software that counts absentee ballots" at all. Bev Harris made that incorrect claim, and as per usual you're simply parroting what she said without question and without even the tiniest glimmer of independent critical thought. Here is the truth, although you're not especially interested in it: there is no audit log or report printed from the central count firmware because it doesn't count any votes. In that mode, GEMS counts the votes based on where the scanner says the marks are, and it works that way because in that central count mode there are more ballot styles than would actually fit on an AccuVote-OS memory card. Since the scanner doesn't actually count any votes in that mode, there's no report for it to print. And since there's no report for it to print (because it's not counting any votes) Diebold certainly didn't "remove" any audit log or report from the firmware, since no such log or report was ever part of that firmware in the first place. Moreover, since GEMS is literally doing all the work there's no memory card used at all in that mode. And since there's no memory card used, there's no possibility of a Hursti-style attack against that particular setup. The nonsense you're repeating is entirely based on incorrect information posted by Bev Harris that is complete bullshit, predicated entirely on the fact that she doesn't have a clue how the system works. Obviously I don't expect you to believe a word I'm saying, but if you had any integrity as a researcher/activist you'd make a few simple calls because it's easy to confirm that I'm telling you the truth.

(Of course, I'm sure that's the only bit of disinformation ever posted by Black Box Voting. Odds are that everything else they've ever posted is 100% correct and not to be questioned.)

I'm going to quit right there. All of your information is just a repetition of Bev Harris' misunderstanding and/or misreporting of the entire system. Your posts here, like your posts at BBV, contribute nothing new to the discussion so I'll let my previous answers stand without repeating them. Tell Bev she's welcome to come back and try again in person, because as a rule I don't generally deal with underlings.

Your friend,
Wally

Brad, since Wally refuses to become a real person around here, the least you could do it post his IP or IPs. Even if he is cloaking, a comparison between his and other IPs used by certain trolls could be revealing.

I find this entire thread rather odd.

John

Long diatribes like (#99) are simply like a cat covering a turd.

Simple point: My vote needs to be accountable. With these machines, it is not!

There are too many questionable faults with these machines for them to be entrusted with my vote.

My vote needs to be ACCOUNTABLE, damn it!

You can write steadily for five days straight, and you won't change this basic fact.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**'Expose Tom Feeney'**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Eomer asked (way back there up at #63):

Brad, are you sure about the following:
"In a related bit of news, we were recently told by Sancho, during an on-air interview we conducted with him last Tuesday on The Young Turks radio program, that Florida state election law disallows the manual hand recounting, or auditing, of machine-counted ballots."

Is this a law change, or is Sancho aware of some part of the law that everyone else is ignoring? Because Florida counties have definitely been doing manual recounts of machine-counted ballots. Famously, the 2000 recount was a manual recount of machine-counted ballots.

As I pointed out in the original article above, Leon County's Democratic Election Sup. Sancho told me about on Tuesday, and Duvall County's Republican Election Sup. Holland confirmed it for me on Thursday.

That law, I believe, was put in place after 2000. Specifically as an (inappropriate) reaction to the 2000 Florida Debacle.

Agent99 - In re: your question about why I've let "Wally" post his continuous stream of anonymous (publicly anyway) sliming of others and disinformation. Believe me, I've asked myself that same question. While it may ultimately be an error to do so, he's provided some very useful admissions for which I'm happy to provide him an outlet. That information, ultimately, will be more useful than any of the poor souls who chance upon this thread and are unable to appreciate the disinfo for what it is.

Unlike Diebold, we believe in open, honest and transparent debate here. If only "Wally" had the courage to identify himself publicly, then it would at least be "open". But as per their style, secrecy and dishonesty prevails from the once-fine folks of Diebold.

Looks like Wally is posting from his own IP, and not a proxy, based in Surrey, BC - minutes away from Diebold's office in Burnaby, both just east of Vancouver.

No doubt the odds of being a Diebold troll just dropped to even money.

John

Dear Brad,

Juvenile. You people crack me up.

Enjoy all the big "admissions", because the truth will of course set you free. I'm not sure why you think you need any special admissions from me when you can just make up whatever "facts" you need as per usual. However, please accept my invitation to re-post anything I've posted here wherever you like. Just try to get it right for a change, and maybe leave out your usual asinine editorializing. Or don't - it's your blog, and it's actually kind of funny when you post information that's blatantly incorrect and/or stupid.

Too bad you and your loyal readers don't appreciate accurate information. Oh well. Can't say I didn't try.

Your former pal,
Wally

eomer, in #63 you asked "Is this a law change" referring to Sancho's statement that real manual audits and recounts are illegal in Florida. Yes, the law has been changed. See HB 1567, which was signed into law by Jeb Bush on 6/20/05, and took effect on 1/1/06. Sancho was probably referring to sections 58 and 59.

WALLY O'DIEBOLD, in #70 you gave a list of fraud problems which have happened with paper ballots (poll workers filling in undervoted races, boxes of paper ballots floating down the river, etc.). Every one of the problems in your list can be prevented by LETTING THE PEOPLE WATCH. Fraud happens when unscrupulous people have UNSUPERVISED access to the ballots or the ballot box.

It's very difficult to mess with an 8.5" x 11" paper ballot, and even more difficult to mess with a bulky ballot box, while multiple people are watching you. But it's NOT difficult to mess with a little electronic memory card which is about the same size as a playing card. People have been "palming" playing cards for centuries, and getting away with it, even while other people are watching.

John Dean - Yes, it seems we were posting at same time.

That said, I checked with both Bev and Jim (the folks who were catching the bulk of Wally's slime) right away as a courtesy, and they were fine with leaving Wally to his devices here. Had they not been, I'd have removed his nonsense in a heartbeat with an explanation as to why (as I always do in such cases).

Hi Wally,

To clarify more of your inaccurate assertions--I have never hesitated to disagree with Bev Harris in either style or substance when. I have raised questions (usually in public) and have always received courteous responses.

Different points of view are welcome at BBV.

What is most significant and useful about BBV is not the personal opinions of BBV staff, but the quality of primary research documentation (e.g., obtaining correspondence, audit logs and poll tapes via FOIA requests and PRRs; videotapes; obtaining Diebold documents that Diebold had tossed into an insecure dumpster, breaking SEC laws and revealing crucial primary data in relation to Diebold money trails to lobbyists; scanning documents so that others can see the evidence for themselves).

Their assertions is consistently backed up by primary references which anyone in the public can check for themselves. Their integrity and quality of research is impressive.

So--I'm not impressed by any one individual's opinion, rather I'm impressed by the quality of documentation behind an individual's opinion.

Another important role that BBV plays is by supporting a wide range of individuals and voting activist groups, including providing tools to help other groups uncover quality information and share it more effectively. For example, see this thread on "Tips to make your research easier" at http://www.bbvforums.org...p;file=/17801/17802.html

This "shares the wealth" so that all researchers can do more for themselves and rely less on others to do it for them.

There are lots of other great groups out there, both nationally and locally. Fortunately this is a "headless" group so folks like you, Wally, will never succeed by targeting a particular group or individual.

Your post ignores well-substantiated fact--such as the fact that Diebold was found guilty by CA courts because it had lied to election officials and had to return $12.7 million of taxpayers' money.

Your post ignores the facts of a felon with numerous convictions playing a key role in Diebold software development, and the fact that many aspects of the code he wrote have never been inspected and will never be inspected--yet our voting machines run on them and no independent 3rd-party inspection is permitted. You call this "tiresome"--well, it's important. Many folks don't realize the implications of Dean's contribution to Diebold code and that, due to technicalities, it has been and will be excluded from scrutiny.

Your remarks concerning the audit logs for counting absentee ballots are disingenuous and represent serious disinformation. As the BBV inspection of polling tapes and audit logs has shown, these can indeed provide useful information since in some cases they may provide evidence of clumsy attempts at tampering. Also, Diebold elsewhere touts the comparison of the GEMS info with the tapes from the other machines to be an important cross-check. Even though the Hursti attack can get around this cross-check, the comparison can nonetheless reveal traces of machine access and/or attempts at manipulation.

Your response also ignores the potential of hacks of the GEMS central counting computer. The vulnerability of this system to many kinds of attacks is legendary. That's why having no record of a previous count of the absentee ballots is so problemmatic. It means that anyone could just add in as many extra absentee ballots as required to come up with the desired election results.

I'm curious as to why a ballot would be scanned if there was nothing counting it?! You'd be aware, of course, that an electrical record of the ballot can be manipulated, which is why it's important to count the authentic paper record of the ballot and to keep records of this count prior to any movement of ballots.

Brad,

The Diebold troll's propaganda needs to go.
The dis-information campaign he's on is not productive for the blog & not fair to the honest patriots who come here because they want to get straight info.
He's detracting from the good being done here by creating doubt with his half-truths & spin-doctoring.
In fact, I recognized some of the same 'stock' explanations & phrases this Diebold troll used.
I first heard them when I had the confrontation with that horrible old fart that represented ES&S at my county's election judge training meeting.
Since the 2 companies are owned by the Urosevitch brothers, who are both Bush 'pioneers' last I heard, I suppose they studied from the same 'talking points' instruction manual.
I've read on this subject--this aggressive mind-game is one of the signature neocon tactics!
We're falling right into his hands.
He doesn't have to prove anything--all he has to do is keep slinging half-truths & near truths long enough to sound convincing.
If you've noticed, some are beginning to take him seriously too.
That's exactly what he wants.
He wants us to ask him specific questions about Diebold so he can "go to work".
I had a game plan to frustrate him so he'd leave.
That's why I never gave him credence by addressing him directly--I puposely only pointed out his game & insulted him so he couldn't "go to work"---Hey, my tactic was working too!
Did you see how angry & frustrated he was in his last comment to me?
Did you read the silly, impotent stuff he wrote? And, of course, at the end of his insulting attack on me, he tried to seem nice again, in a last desperate attempt to get me to ask him some QUESTIONS ABOUT DIEBOLD--which is what he's paid to do.

I was winning. I was beating him out of getting to play his game & then you stopped us.

I know you're bending over backwards to be fair & let him stay, which is honorable & noble on your part. I'd expect nothing less from you.
But now that we've heard his accusations, listened to his game, & taken his insults to you, Bev, & the rest of us, the return from his continuing presence is nil.

The bloggers won't think you're afraid of him or unfair, or have something to hide, judging from the few comments so far.
Some might feel it's your duty to protect the sincere patriots who come here from his ilk.

You can off him guilt free, Brad.

Wally:

It appears you have quite a bit of knowledge regarding the Diebold voting systems. Perhaps you can provide some answers:

1. What was the version number of the source codes used in the memory cards at the time they were tested by the ITAs during the qualification process?
2. What was the version number of the same source codes that were tested by the Technical Advisory team that Secretary McPherson used to review the memory card?
3. How are the memory cards typically loaded with the current election and ballot definitions, especially in the counties with large numbers of individual DRE units?
4. Can a person with a supervisor card delete a particular data file resident on a memory card?
5. Can a person with a supervisor card upload the contents of a memory card more than once?
6. When a voting unit is sent home with a poll worker or left unattended at a polling place, prior to an election, can the memory card be accessed for purposes of read/ write while still being retained inside the locked compartment door?
7. More than once the Conditional Certification issued by the SoS requires that the system comply with all state and federal laws, including specifically the 2002 VSS in order to be aceptable to use. Since we know that as currently configured the voting system does not comply with the 2002 VSS (as per the conclusion of the team that Secretary McPherson hired to examine the memory card coding)
A. How can the counties meet this requirement for use?
B. How will Diebold be able handle the financial liability when counties discover that contrary to most of their contracts, Diebold is not delivering a voting system that complies with the conditions required for approved use in the State of California?
C. Will Diebold be willing to defend the counties against any lawsuits that might arise challenging their use of voting systems that are not in full compliance with the law?
D. Is Diebold prepared itself to take-on the additional legal and financial liability that would invariably insue if any county has to return any state allocated funds (whether HAVA or Prop 41) because they contracted for and/ or purchased a voting system that does not comply with the law?

Something else I thought was particularly indecent of "Mr. O'Diebold" was his reference to accusations and investigations against other individuals--accusations I've never heard claimed before. Accusations--not convictions. That's below the belt. Anyone can make an accusation about anybody--that doesn't make it true. And anonymous accusations are particularly nasty--and when repeated often enough they can take on a life of their own.

Anyone can make an anonymous accusation or trigger an accusation (and I'm not saying there are any actual accusations or investigations as stated by "Mr. O'Diebold"). I could accuse Brad Friedman of something heinous, and spread it around publicly via anonymous web postings. I could then truthfully reported that "Brad Friedman had been accused of xxx" and "Brad Friedman was being investigated for xxx." I'd be telling the truth in talking about "accusations and investigations"--but that doesn't mean that Brad would be guilty of anything!

If I did this repeatedly might it hurt Brad's reputation? Probably. And this is the danger of allowing anonymous accusations to circulate.

Tellingly, "Mr. O'Diebold" never responded to the *real* convictions: the fact that Diebold's principal programmer (including pre-Diebold development done through a company with a different name, which was bought by Diebold) was a convicted felon, and that he came back and did work for Diebold even after Diebold had claimed he was no longer working there. Notice--not an "accused" felon, but a convicted felon--and convicted of particularly severe accounting fraud involving programming hi-jinks such as setting up a second set of "books".

Neither did "Mr. O'Diebold" address Diebold's *real* conviction for lying to the State of CA, with a massive fine.

As Charlene points out, these are classic disinformation tactics. They are being skilfully used--and unfortunately they can be very harmful.

Consider some of the purposes it serves
--spreading doubt, as Charlene rightly emphasizes
--sullying the reputation of other individuals and groups
--wasting the time and energy of people who would otherwise use their time more effectively (e.g. lobbying legislators, carrying out useful research) (Any time spent replying to "Mr. O'Diebold" means time that is not spent in more productive work.)
--posts by those who lose their patience with this person are then used as fodder for subsequent postings--that is, "he" baits posters and tries to make them impatient and then uses their response against them to damage their own credibility.

Charlene's right that we shouldn't respond. "Don't feed the trolls" as the saying goes.

I wonder if this is also an attempt by "Mr. O'Diebold" to find out the extent and nature of public focus. Surely he must realize that there of plenty of information accumulating behind the scenes that is yet to come out, in addition to the damning evidence revealed to date.

Keeping this person's disinformation posts in public view are only relevant if they are genuinely revealing useful information (e.g. that IP address is interesting), and if responses to the posts are educational for those who may come to this website with little previous background on the issues.

The question is, how would an *uninformed* newcomer to this website respond? they might be taken in by "Mr. O'Diebold"'s confident assurances if they have not seen the actual source documents discovered by BBV and others, or if they have not taken some time to understand the technical issues involved.

Brad, Charlene is right--you shouldn't assume that no damage can be done. Even if BBV folks have said it's okay to leave this up, it could still be doing more harm than you realize.

I hope Wally O'Diebold isn't being paid by Diebold in Diebold stock! He's losing his shirt, then!

Hello:

I have seen some of the postings here, and I have some concerns about a "blog" being a free site with the ability to express FREE thought without the fear of being censured or deleted. Brad - No matter if you disagree, you should allow Mr. O'Diebold's material to stay on the site. A free society requires all thought to be expressed, right or wrong. I had thought the Internet would be the freest expresssion, more so than a college campus is at present with its so-called political correctness and censureship.

I take no one at face value. I have been to many demonstration of voting equipment as well as talked to many people around the country. I travel on business, and I read the Internet a lot. I see these individuals (Bev, Jim, Catherine) on BBV. Some of their points are valid, as are Mr. O'Diebold's, and some are invalid. Let's work together...to make our election systems better. Enough of the name calling, the accusations without checking out facts and making a solid conclusion. Enough of beating dead horses into the ground...

Enough..

One last comment - IS John Dean a real name, or Agnet 99 (nice Get Smart reference)? Leave Wally's name alone. There are a lot of names on this site that are not real. BBV accused me of not having a correct name, of which I took offense.

Enough...Let's work together

re: Mr. fake-name's accusations.

Give him rope so that he can continue in the fine job he's doing of hanging himself.

Jody --- You are doing amazing work, both here and in the information you've sent via email.

You all are doing a great job in this thread as well, and thanks to Brad for handling this in a very professional way.

At BBV, several paid operatives for various manufacturers have tried to come on and post information. We always allow the manufacturer and their employees to post, but only with full disclosure of who they are. Note that Ken Hajjar, an LHS employee who services Diebold, has posted several challenges at BBV. These are lively and passionate on both sides.

When allowing people to post under fake names, you get into the problem that they can make any allegation they want and you can't take action. I have tried just about every approach in response to fake-names who post libel. Nothing really works, because if you answer one thing they ignore it and move to something else. It's best just to ignore the smears and stay focused on the topic, and all of you are doing an excellent job of that.

Real names, particularly for people who run election reform Web sites and for people who work for voting system vendors, create a better level of dialog because there is more accountability. Note that Brad Friedman, John Gideon, Kathleen Wynne, Jim March, John Washburn, Pat Vesely, Susan Pynchon and many others have ALWAYS posted by their real names. In the election integrity movement, using your real name is an act of leadership.

The Declaration of Independence was signed by real names. It wouldn't have been too impressive under names like "hoppybunnypants" or "Wally O'Diebold." John Hancock knew perfectly well that some people would hate him. He signed his name as large as he could.

Refusing to use your own name when you run an election reform group or work in the elections industry is a way of hiding your statements from the courts, and from senate hearings where you might have to appear under oath.

I notice that the Diebold no-name has not answered a single one of Jody Holder's questions.

Heh.

Here are some more:

Apparently when selling the system to places like Mississippi and so forth, Diebold was claiming that the parts are made in the USA. Are they really, Mr. Diebold?

And, Mr. Diebold, can a poll worker take the TSx machine out of its elections interface and into another?

Got any buffer overruns besides the 16 found by the California team?

Perhaps no-name can explain to us the implications of a buffer overrun for security.

And as a fine demonstration of my confessed lack of technical prowess, note that I couldn't even do the smiley right in the above post. Oh well.

I've been meaning to address something Mr. fake-name said upthread, about GEMS. He believes that he citizens should trust the elections officials.

That is not how elections are supposed to be set up. From the beginning, you'll see that each step of election preparation and counting is supposed to be within public view and overseen by members of competing political parties. At no point should citizens and political parties have to "trust" an elections official.

The California team that did the study of the Hursti attack specifically was not provided with the GEMS software, and at least one of the scientists, David Jefferson, has already responded to Jody Holder in writing that he feels the GEMS software is at least as big a concern.

As for stripping out the security from the absentee counter: We have spoken with election officials who tell us the system used to have the ability to print poll tapes. At any rate, thanks for confirming that the ONLY system that counts absentee ballots is GEMS. That means the Diebold response to the GEMS vulnerability --- the poll tapes are the tampering protection --- does not apply to absentee votes. Washington state will go about 70 percent absentee in the next election, possibly as much as 90 percent if King County gets the transition made. California will be at least 40 percent absentee.

GEMS defects have not been corrected. If you are in a Diebold county, whoever gets at GEMS owns your absentee vote.

>"The California team that did the study of the Hursti attack specifically was not provided with the GEMS software"

Should say "was not provided with the GEMS source code."

It is my understanding that they were NOT ALLOWED to have a TSx machine either, and were forced to run the program on their own computers. This begets the question: What is it on the TSx machine that you didn't want them to see, Mr. O'Diebold?

I think we've lost track of the original thread. The original discussion was about the reliability of Diebold systems and whether or not they confirm to the FEC guidelines. No proof was offered that they are or that they do.

The Berkeley Report clearly states that (in their opinion) the interpreter is in violation of the guidelines. See bullet point 4 on page 3 of the report.

The Shamos Report from PA opines that the interpreter meets certain exceptions to the guidelines which allow such code (see the bottom of page 4 of the 2006/01/17 report), HOWEVER, the logic he uses is in violation of the NASED guidelines. NASED guidelines (seen
here indicate that if there is any confusion over a portion of the standards --- such as the incorrect reference that Shamos notes and "re-interprets" --- that NASED and only NASED are the ones who get to interpret the standards. In other words, Shamos exceeded his authority when saying that the TSx was 2002-compliant.

In post #12, Wally asserts that GEMS is merely a front-end to a database, via an RDBMS (remote database management system). This is untrue. A "real" RDBMS must contact a database --- such as Oracle, DB2, MySQL, etc --- and log in to that database. GEMS, however, does not. Instead it reads and writes RAW MS-Access files using standard Windows APIs. This is what allows the GEMS hack to work; all you have to do is double-click on the file and you can edit it. This information was provided to me by a Diebold technician during a presentation to the Durham County Board of Elections and the public on 2005/12/13, so about 50 people heard and saw this conversation.

Finally, the reason the cryptography on the TSx is worth next-to-nothing is that the bit used to generate the private key for the TSx has been the exact same for nearly a decade now, as it was hard-coded into the system. Doug Jones notified Diebold of this problem in 1997, yet the Hopkins Report and the Berkeley Report both found the exact same code in the system in 2003 and 2006 (respectively). This is equivalent to making cars for nearly 10 years, all of which shared the same key.

Care to comment, Wally?

Re: Phil McCracken #106, 107

Notice that this person made his entry onto this thread with a comment about how no one should be banned. Is he supporting his "buddy" O'Diebold? Or is this his alter ego?

Mr. McCracken said on BBV, "I have very knowledgable sources from both the public as well as private. I know I am correct on this issue...please trust."

PLEASE TRUST???!!!

Mr. McCracken was asked to provide his sources of information regarding assertions he made about Diebold equipment. BBV pointed out the similarity between his comments/misinformation, and statements made by Diebold. Responding to his misinformation took an inordinate amount of staff time. See the BBV response here:
http://www.bbvforums.org...amp;post=16956#POST16956

Now Mr. McCracken shows up here at BB. He uses language strikingly similar to that used by Wally O'Diebold. He implies that O'Diebold is reasonable, and that his claims were substantiated--which they were not.

Mr. McCracken says, "BBV acused me of not having a correct name, of which I took offense." Nice one. Attempt to diss an effective organization.

Mr. McCracken ends by playing nice: "Let's work together"--just like Willy O'Diebold in his posts.

Take a look at the context in which this person's identity was questioned. Do a search on BBV for McCracken as Author and make up your own mind.

As this person wasted a lot of researcher time at BBV, posters here may want to consider their own response.

Brad, you may want to keep an eye on this. I, for one, will not be responding anymore on these threads.

This guy, Phil McCracken.

That's a joke name.

"Fill My Crack In"...it's an old joke.

Does everyone get that?

Hey, "Fill My Crack In", I hope you're also going onto the sites where they really ARE lying, like Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/Bill O'Reilly, etc... I see you are very concerned about truth & censorship.

The "Befriend & Bone" technique is used, too, by "Fill My Crack In".

Let's end this once and for all.

Wally O'Diebold/Phil McCracken/et al:

This is not a rightwing site. We're not stupid. Don't even try and fool us!

You can tell they are rightwing propogandists, because they assume everyone's stupid, like rightwingers.

Not so! Go and spread propoganda on a rightwing site, or face scrutiny for lies and misinformation, here...

re: Brad #92 and Anonymous #99

Thanks for the answer to my question and --- HOLY SHIT!!! --- you're right. Florida HB 1567 takes away the manual recount in many circumstances.

For example, in Section 59:
A manual recount may not be ordered, however, if the number of overvotes, undervotes, and provisional ballots is fewer than the number of votes needed to change the outcome of the election.

So no matter how many "phantom votes" and "disappeared votes" and "suicided votes" and "lost in cyberspace votes" there may be, we have no recourse, even in counties that have a paper ballot!

Who would want a system such as this? Could it be CHEATERS?

I repeat, HOLY SHIT!!!

I find it extremely interesting that Wally O'Diebold likes the VV's and thinks it is a good way to proceed in our elections.

That alone should send up a million red flags and ring a million alarm bells for every voting rights activist that supports using VV's (whatever alphabet soup is after the VV - VVPB, VVPAT, etc).

We need hand counted paper ballots (HCPB).

John Dean - I agree with your point. While I don't usually post personal information of commenters, unless they've broken the rules such as posting under different names, Mr. O'Diebold has been given (for various reasons, either good or bad) more leeway than others would have gotten.

So, in exchange, and since he's willing to slime others without personally disclosing his identity publicly, I'm happy to offer at least the IP address he has used for every post on this thread so far:

24.86.46.74

The biggest gaping hole in Wally's logic is that he claims to feel that paper ballots are too prone to tampering, therefore our 200 years of using them was a bad idea which has somehow been miraculously solved by unencrypted proprietary code.

First of all, when paper ballots are faked/manipulated, it requires physical access to those paper ballots to accomplish. So what he has said is that a certain number of people with critical access WILL try to steal elections. We have 200 years of examples to draw from. The only SAVING grace of the paper ballot system is that its really hard (to the point of being nearly impossible) to get access to the tens of millions of paper ballots across thousands of counties in dozens of states to steal a federal election. It would require a conspiracy so large as to pretty much include a significant fraction of the US populace.

But now we're supposed to believe (according to Wally) that nobody with access to the GEMS Tabulating machines either in person or indirectly through network access will want to steal an election. The completely unsecured unencrypted GEMS database is of course too hard for people to try and modify I guess.

This is 100% contradictory to what he stated before under the paper ballot system: There are people who want to steal elections and will stop at nothing to steal them.

This all leads to the biggest flaw in his argument. Under the paper system it would have required tens of thousands of people 'in the know' acting criminally in concert to steal an election. Under ELECTRONIC tabulation and voting, now it requires only a handful of people in the know to skew the results of a NATIONAL election. How hard is it to change 49,154,032 to a slightly different number, say .... 52,247,987? Wow I just did it!! I just electronically flipped 3 million votes from one candidate to the other! Obviously it would require some select manipulation in select counties to pull off, but such cleverness is hardly beyond the capability of people who will stop at nothing to steal an election (which is what Wally says has been happening for 200 years under the paper system).

Give me my paper system please. And confirm the results by statistical handcounts. I don't trust the tabulators adding up the optical scan votes even under the mis-named 'paper ballot' system we've had for the past 20 years (which is really just a paper front-end for electronic voting).

Brad, I'm real confused here...and becoming increasingly concerned.

You have the ability to yank a post because it's disinfo, like Al Rogers' nutty posts for example, which just happened to start showing up here and elsewhere during my recent series of diaries at Kos.

In the case of "Wally," you allow his disinformation, now stating that "he's provided some very useful admissions."

I'm really curious as to what some of his "very useful admissions" are?

I would think you would delete his crap, and merely repost what you feel are his useful admissions. Instead, it appears to me that you're giving him center stage to post some really maligning stuff, cloaked in the midst of technical razzle dazzle about the machines. Indeed, it appears that "Wally" serves a sinister purpose, unknown to many here, besides merely sounding like a Diebold sockpuppet.

Open, honest folks are a fundamental part of open, honest debates. You cannot have one without the other.

I have no doubt, based on our recent communications, that you can read my mind clearly right now. So shall we cut to the chase and debate all of this, publicly, here and now, and get it all out there once and for in a search for the truth?

John

Brad, please feel free to delete my previous comment - we're obviously posting at the same time right now.

I'll check the IP out.

John

Brad,

The quite obvious but supposedly 'undercover' troll thing is irritating & drains energy & purpose from the site.
He's not gonna leak a secret, or a clue, or say anything you can sue over, since you put him on notice.
But he IS ruining your website--for me anyway.
The patriots who come here want to commiserate & find out how to help bring about change.
They don't want to expend their valuable time & effort fighting off a usurper.
I don't.
This Diebold troll has NOTHING of interest to say to me.
I have already done my homework, thank you. Hours & hours of reading, research, calling, visiting officials, e-mailing, discussing etc.
I'm past that.
I'm not wondering if there IS something wrong or not & want to debate the issue--I already know what's wrong.
This is just smoke & mirrors to create doubt & inaction---divide & conquer.
My country needs me & all of us, I haven't got time to waste playing aggressive mind games with people I don't even respect.

I, for one, am fed up.

Checked my mail.
I think the troll is trying, or has, hacked my ebay & pay pal account.
It's never happened before.

Here's an account of a really bad Diebold screwup with Diebold TS in aston County NC in 2004:

(You can read the legal corresondence if you go to the linked article, also the Election Director lost her job thanks to the shitty performance of the Diebold machines)

Documents surface in NC with Diebold and Gaston Co.
This document is fascinating:
It is an exchange between an attorney at Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (DESI) and the general counsel for the North Carolina State Board of Elections. It mostly centers around a few incidents that occured in Gaston Co., NC. It is a great illustration of a number of worrying characteristics of the vendor/jurisdiction relationship typical of modern election systems.

Three incidents are of particular note:

In one city, Dallas, NC, a bug appears to have prevented the downloading of 11,945 votes which wasn't caught for seven days. At which point, it appears the county compared paper print-outs from the precinct with the totals reported by the tabulation server. A DESI technician reproduced the bug twice and then decided to forgo usual DESI protocol and loaded the flash-based memory packs directly into the central (GEMS) server to retrieve the votes from the memory pack.

In another case, another memory pack "failed to download" and the DESI technician got approval to send a back-up file electronically to DESI technicians who then emailed the results back. After writing this data to a memory pack, the on-site technician loaded them into the central server via a tabulator unit.

Finally, the document describes hand-entering of "three to five" ballots. DESI claims as a "check and balance" this process doesn't allow the technician to enter more votes than the total vote count (that is, the number of valid plus spoiled ballots). This would implicate that one would be prevented from entering more than a certain number of votes, but, of course, does nothing to constrain what votes are entered. A human looking over the technician's shoulder is the only other constraint.

I've posted more below the fold:

[More:]

5 Highlights from the document:

There was a problem with 11,945 votes from Dallas, NC. Seven days after the election the County Board of Elections noticed that 11,945 voter were missing (the precinct rolls reported 12,867 where the GEMS system only showed 922). Apparently, 15 early voting memory packs didn't work in the standard (AccuVote-TS) process of accumulating the memory packs onto one unit and then "downloading" them into the GEMS server. That didn't work in a reproducible fashion. These memory packs had to be directly loaded onto the GEMS server by a DESI technician. This seems to have been done in a controlled manner.

DESI's accounting is just as bad as its math. They overbilled Gaston Co. around $10,000 in expenses to Gaston County due to "erroneous" invoices from DESI's accounting dept.

The DESI technician had to hand-enter "three to five ballots". The letter states that "As a check and balance, the candidate totals input must balance with the total votes cast." That's interesting, huh? Doesn't that only mean that you're forbidden from adding an arbitrarily large amount of votes? That is, you would still be free to enter in votes however you wanted as long as you didn't go over the counted+spoiled sum? Is there a stronger check and balance other than having a number of people watch you enter this information alongside with the spoiled ballots?

Look at this back-up recovery process:

"During the auditing process, Ms. Page [with the County] realized that the totals from a single disk hand not been uploaded and included in the unofficial totals. Ms. Barth [DESI] requested and received permission to extract these files by sending a back-up file electronically to DESI technicians. Steve Moreland from DESI faxed Ms. Page an authorization form, which Ms. Page signed and returned to DESI.

Once the DESI technicians had extracted the data, they e-mailed it to Ms. Page and Ms. Barth in Gaston County. At Ms. Page's direction, Ms. Barth then downloaded the information onto a floppy disk, and copied it onto the actual touch screen unit that had not worked properly. Ms. Barth also left this information on the floppy disk."

Great breakdown of costs on the last page. $4900 per tabulator, $100 per tabulator for software licensing per year.

Great illustration of County anxieties with lock-in. These are particularly telling queries from the attorney for the state:

[7.] Gaston County purchased the TS system in 1998. How many other counties in the United States still used the level of on-site support maintenance, and programming that Gaston County was still using eight years after the purchase of the system?

[8.] Is your current TSX voting system designed so that a county will have to continue using the same level of DESI support that is needed for a new system through out the lifetime of that system being used by the county? Is the TS or TSX system designed to allow competent non-DESI information technologists to assume a major part of system maintenance, programming, and trouble-shooting?

http://josephhall.org/nq.../2005/10/03/p691#more691

Wally says 10 dollars per vote in Canada. OK. Sounds like a good deal.

Follow this: polls are open for 12 hours, 5 minutes per voter per machine. That's 144 voters max per machine per election. Machines cost $2700. Cost per vote $18.75.

Now I know the machines are supposed to last at least a few years, but the $2700 doesn't include anything but the machine cost. No programing cost, maintenance, training, licensing fees, or storage costs. So getting the cost below $10 seems unlikely.

Paper only requires lay-out and printing at pennies per ballot and counting cost would be less than $1 per ballot. 2 people x $20 per hour per person at one ballot per minute = $0.67 per ballot.

For 100 million ballots to be counted in 8 hours at one minute per ballot you would need 417,000 counters (2 per ballot) at $20 per hour = $67 million. Double check! $67,000,000 divided by 100,000,000 = $0.67 per ballot.

Actually, I don't think you would have to pay people $20 per hour to get 417,000 people to do their small part in securing our vote!

It is hard to imagine how paper could cost more than $10 per voter.

Wally O'Diebold says: "hand-counted paper ballots is never going to fly. It's too labor-intensive, it's too expensive, it's too error-prone and it's too subject to tampering. Argue if you like, but the history is there if you care to look it up. For these reasons, no election administrator in a jurisdiction of any significance is going to go there."

Poor Bubble Boy Wally - paper ballots have been used in Australian federal elections for over 100 years and such elections are regarded as open, free and fair, by any international standard. Paper ballots can be recounted under court direction if any challenges to the result are raised - the risk of tampering is miniscule compared with computer codes in the hands of partisan corporations and administrators. Australian electoral officials occasionally glance over at the mighty USA to see whether there is anything useful that might be adopted, including e-voting, but invariably turn away with a shrug of pity and incomprehension - how could you guys do this to yourselves?

Wally is just that, a wally.

KEEP MR. DIEBOLD HERE. HIS PARTICIPATION HAS BEEN INVALUABLE IN DEBATING THIS ISSUE.

This site should not be just for left-wing, one-sided discussions. (We cannot learn that way.)

Look at how much discussion we've had here. It has been fabulous.

I have learned a bit more how the right wing's "the ends justify the means" analysis of this issue fails when exposed to the true facts.

By the way, go to the top of the page and search for the word, "truth." You will see that Mr. Diebold uses that word the most. (This means nothing, but it is interesting nonetheless! I recall a quote that goes something like "If a guy keeps saying, 'I'll tell you the truth," watch your wallets.")

My two cents worth...I'm a long-time "reader" and seldom post. I have to agree that he needs to be left alone. I've learned sooo much !!! Just when he has me convinced, the BB regulars straighten it all out. I probably understand this issue more now that I ever did so he's serving a purpose ( even if it's not the one he intended).

For what it's worth....
Emma

Haven't yet finished reading this lengthy, entertaining, and educational thread, but I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at Twisted World of Wally post #56.

I think ol' "Wally" has clearly lost the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy:

"...I'm alone amongst a number of demonstrably hate-filled and possibly violent posters, some of whom I'm certain (while I'm sure they are otherwise kind and decent people), would not hesitate to stalk me to my home and possibly try to kill me..."

WOW.... so Bradblog denizens are just closet killers waiting for the opportunity to murder you?

How fatuous.

Don't worry, "Wally" --- while those here on this board are discerning enough to extend the benefit of the doubt to you, that you might actually believe the mis/dis-info you espouse, no one here is so hysterical as to think that anyone who holds the sanctity of the American Vote so dear would break the law over your sorry ass. (Can't say the same for those whom you purport to protect, but that is the company you choose to keep.)

In fact, "Wally", I feel rock-solid confidence in personally guaranteeing that not a single red-blooded American citizen on this board has any real interest in anything to do with you, or in anything less than uncovering the truth about our election system and protecting our collective democracy.

So, seriously.... whose side are you on?

To whom are you more loyal: Diebold or your fellow Americans? Your company or your country? (assuming you are even an American)

That probably seems like an unfair comparison --- but ya know, "while I'm sure" you "are otherwise a kind and decent" person, I have no doubt that you "would not hesitate to stalk" those who wish to protect our elections and "possibly try to kill" them in their homes....

(Cross-posted on the newer thread, too. Thanks to all those who, for whatever reason, continue to slug it out here and everywhere else in combatting the dark forces of mis-disinformation --- y'all make me proud. And to those who are tired of all things "Wally", thanks in advance for your patience with the rest of us who need to vent.)

The battle is that our democracy has been hijacked
by a flagrantly fraudulent electronic voting system that denies any ability to audit the results. If election results are not granted the opportunity
for open verification and laws are being specifically written to prevent that,.. the only question is,.. Why-what is it that must be concealed ?

Those who toil and labor to regain our stolen democracy and bring halt to creeping neo-con
fascism,.. deserve great commendation. To those
individuals a request,.. please do not allow that your
energies and endeavours be squandered or diverted by false prophets who pray that justice be defeated or denied.

Keep those axes to those grindstones - we cheer
each spark each speck of dust. God Bless you people who's only salvation is to locate our rapidly disappearing democracy.

Wally-
Isn't it funny how the proponents of electronic voting are accusing it's detractors of being "conspiracy theorists", when they are the ones who are, one by one, being brought up on charges of... conspiracy?

Wally - Neotrace Pro results:

IP Address: 208.228.181.28
Location: 40.800N, 81.378W
Network: Unknown

Registrant:
Diebold, Incorporated
5995 Mayfair Road
North Canton, OH 44720-1550
US

Domain Name: DIEBOLD.COM

Administrative Contact:
Bredon, Jan T bredonj@DIEBOLD.COM
5995 MAYFAIR RD
NORTH CANTON, OH 44720-1550
US
330.490.6768 fax: 123 123 1234

Technical Contact:
Bredon, Jan bredonj@diebold.com
Diebold, Incorporated
5995 Mayfair Road
North Canton, OH 44720-1550
US
330.490.6768 fax: 330.490.5735

Record expires on 27-Jul-2010.
Record created on 28-Jul-1994.
Database last updated on 6-Mar-200

Catherine A - #112

IN RESPONSE TO YOUR THREAD...

"Re: Phil McCracken #106, 107

Notice that this person made his entry onto this thread with a comment about how no one should be banned. Is he supporting his "buddy" O'Diebold? Or is this his alter ego?

Mr. McCracken said on BBV, "I have very knowledgable sources from both the public as well as private. I know I am correct on this issue...please trust."

PLEASE TRUST???!!!

Mr. McCracken was asked to provide his sources of information regarding assertions he made about Diebold equipment. BBV pointed out the similarity between his comments/misinformation, and statements made by Diebold. Responding to his misinformation took an inordinate amount of staff time. See the BBV response here:
http://www.bbvforums.org...amp;post=16956#POST16956

Now Mr. McCracken shows up here at BB. He uses language strikingly similar to that used by Wally O'Diebold. He implies that O'Diebold is reasonable, and that his claims were substantiated--which they were not.

Mr. McCracken says, "BBV acused me of not having a correct name, of which I took offense." Nice one. Attempt to diss an effective organization.

Mr. McCracken ends by playing nice: "Let's work together"--just like Willy O'Diebold in his posts.

Take a look at the context in which this person's identity was questioned. Do a search on BBV for McCracken as Author and make up your own mind.

"Attempt to diss an effective organization."

CATHERINE - Give me a break. Stop the name calling and accusations. I TAKE HIGH OFFENSE with your - shall I say slander. Take a look in the mirror...and STOP the name calling. I do value BBV for some of its work. I do not always agree with BBV, but this is a democracy and MOST OF ALL Catherine, our country is founded on the exercise of FREE SPEECH...oh, I guess free speech does not apply to anyone who disagrees with you.

BTW - You never pointed out the similarity between Diebold and me. Stop the guilt by association. Sound a like McCarthyite tactics to me Catherine.

I showed up here because I have been reading this site for the last year. I like it. I enjoy the humor. I enjoy the discussions. I finally wanted to provide some input and some facts...just trying to be an honest citizen and a patriotic one.

Also, "As this person wasted a lot of researcher time at BBV, posters here may want to consider their own response.

Brad, you may want to keep an eye on this. I, for one, will not be responding anymore on these threads."

Again Catherine, please. I am sorry I wasted your "time" researching. I was attempting to truly bring some value to the table and some facts to support my validity. Obviously, you have your own points and agenda...sorry for trying to have an open dialogue.

And yes, I am nice and truly sincere when I say "let's work together." We need to work together..to move our country forward from such divisiveness.

BIG DAN - #112

"Let's end this once and for all.

Wally O'Diebold/Phil McCracken/et al:

This is not a rightwing site. We're not stupid. Don't even try and fool us!

You can tell they are rightwing propogandists, because they assume everyone's stupid, like rightwingers.

Not so! Go and spread propoganda on a rightwing site, or face scrutiny for lies and misinformation, here... "

I DO NOT KNOW "Wally" or have any sources about "Wally" And NO, DAN, I am not right wing, just a patriotic American concerned about issues. I can at least be objective...and no, I do not spread propaganda...open your mind, not everyone who believes in computerized voting is ring wing or neo con. How dare you...

Man, I like this site. It fired me up.

...grace pettigrew ,paper works in New Zealand ...
its a bit like NASA ,they needed a pen to write in zero gravity ,so they spent millions and million to develop the pen . Mean while USSR had the same problem ,where solution was to use a pencil!

if you can't re-count it ,you can't count on it

Brad:

It is so sad that Mr. Diebold left. I really enjoyed the give and take of the real debate which occurred here (especially with a Diebold insider. Where else, but here would we have gotten such an education?) Perhaps he will come back under another alias.

Yaknow, folks, censorship is a TERRIBLE, UGLY THING. It is being used by the military in Iraq right now. The marines cannot connect to progressive web sites like Air America Radio (dot com), Wonkette, Alfrankenshow.com, and donandmikewebsite.com. They can, however, connect to Bill O'Rielly, Rush Limbaugh, etc. (Brad, do you know whether YOUR site is blocked by the military?)

Let's not imitate the jerks who censor. Information is power. Gathering information from "the other side" is real power.

Pran

Thanks to BlueBear2 who has outed Wally, tracing him to Diebold.

See post here:
https://bradblog.com/archives/00002504.htm#35

Brad, assuming you can verify BlueBear2's trace of Wally O'Diebold to Diebold, perhaps you could revise your info at the top of this thread, and also on the more recent thread on which BlueBear2 posted.

This deserves a new thread of its own, once you have verified the information.

I don't get the same results for 24.86.46.74.
See: http://www.dnsstuff.com/...ll.ch?domain=24.86.46.74

The email address appears to be something like: XXX@shawcable.net ("XXX" being the unknown.

Shaw Communications owns the net range of 24.80.0.0 - 24.87.255.255 (and Mr. Diebold's IP numbers fall in that range.)

Here's what I got at http://www.dnsstuff.com/...whois.ch?ip=24.86.46.74:
Location: Canada [City: Surrey, British Columbia]

NOTE: More information appears to be available at ZS178-ARIN.

Using 2 day old cached answer (or, you can get fresh results).
Hiding E-mail address (you can get results with the E-mail address).

OrgName: Shaw Communications Inc.
OrgID: SHAWC
Address: Suite 800
Address: 630 - 3rd Ave. SW
City: Calgary
StateProv: AB
PostalCode: T2P-4L4
Country: CA

ReferralServer: rwhois://rs1so.cg.shawcable.net:4321

NetRange: 24.80.0.0 - 24.87.255.255
CIDR: 24.80.0.0/13
NetName: SHAW-COMM
NetHandle: NET-24-80-0-0-1
Parent: NET-24-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS7.NO.CG.SHAWCABLE.NET
NameServer: NS8.SO.CG.SHAWCABLE.NET
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
RegDate: 2001-07-12
Updated: 2006-02-08

OrgAbuseHandle: SHAWA-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: SHAW ABUSE
OrgAbusePhone: +1-403-750-7420
OrgAbuseEmail: **************@sjrb.ca

OrgTechHandle: ZS178-ARIN
OrgTechName: Shaw High-Speed Internet
OrgTechPhone: +1-403-750-7428
OrgTechEmail: *******@sjrb.ca

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-03-03 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

Brad #132,

Right after I had him so angry & frustrated that he was showing his true colors to everyone & unable to play his game (#51), you came on & said, (#52 & 54)

"All,..I'll ask the rest of you (not just Doug & Wally) (such as Doug calling the troll an "a__hole") to mind the personal attacks against other commenters".
So, I obeyed.

I'm not in the habit of name calling fellow commenters in the first place, but he's not a fellow commenter like the rest of us---he's paid to be here & has nefarious intent.
There's no sense in debating, hanging on every word he says, & trying to learn from a liar.
That's foolishness.
(I learned that from my ex. Ha.)

But it's your blog.

At the risk of sounding paranoid, let me point out that Prantha is Wally in cloaked attack mode.

I've worked closely with a lot of professionals from India in my time & none of them are hayseeds.
They don't use the cadence & sentence structure that he does. #133
Come to think of it, none of them care enough about our voting system to invest this much time & effort campaigning for a Diebold troll either.

Smoke & mirrors...

Charlene said -

I was beating him out of getting to play his game & then you stopped us.

I didn't stop you (or him) from anything, Charlene.

And, as mentioned previously, I certainly appreciate your point of view that he should be banned. However, I have not done so at this time.

Apparently, instead, he's chosen to run away. Oh, well.

(Note to those who find this thread a distraction, there are many comments here on the entire site, you certainly needn't read them all. I know I don't! )

Charlene:

You don't "SOUND" paranoid; you ARE paranoid. Further, I am an American! (Born and raised. Second generation.) I have never, ever been to India, or any part of Asia. Additionally, I am not a "he." I am a "she."

Also, Charlene, you have exposed some racism here. You ASSUME that people with Indian names don't care about OUR voting system? You should learn from this prejudice of yours --- that Americans come in many (perhaps ALL) colors --- and that they ALL care about what is happening in OUR country.

Perhaps the "cadence" of which you speak has more to do with the fact that I have been practicing law for thirty years. What do you think?

May I ask what in my writing style makes me a "hayseed?" (I have never been called a "hayseed" in my life!)

I am certainly not "campaigning for a Diebold troll." I am learning from him. (Big difference.) I maintain two blogs, which I do not "advertise" because they are only for my friends and family to read (they don't bother to dig around the Web for information, so I do it for them.) I simply cut and paste articles that I want my friends/family to read. Feel free to look at them - and then tell me if you think I am "Wally in cloaked attack mode":
http://equalize-congress2006.blogspot.com/
and
http://zelduh.livejournal.com/

And, for your information, I participated in the 2004 Election Protection Coalition sponsored by the People For The American Way, Lawyers' Coalition For Civil Rights Under Law, Rock The Vote, Every Vote Counts, and the NAACP (among many other organizations.) I spent the entire Election day monitoring election polls in South Central Los Angeles and Watts to make sure that they got to exercize their right to vote. I will be doing the same thing this November. (Where will you be on that day?)

OPEN YOUR MIND!
Look at the reich-wing blogs in which the bloggers simply slam progressives and bounce them out. What is the point of that? They do not learn anything if they are only talking to themselves. Further, they only solidify their prejudices, rather than learn what the "other side" is about. Let us not be so ignorant.

What I really like about this thread was that we got to talk to a real Diebold hack --- and he would respond. (And I bet that there would not have been so many posts here, were it not for Mr. Diebold's participation.) Can you tell me where else we might have been able to do this?

There is no reason to "fear" the guy, unless you are insecure in your point of view. I am not insecure in mine, and it is clear that the responses here exposed Mr. Diebold's "party line" obfuscations to the bright light of day. And, while I do not possess the tech savvy that others have here, I am still firm in my convictions that e-voting machines undermine our most precious right as Americans to vote.

So, get off your alleged "high horse" and don't be so afraid of posts from people who disagree with you --- like Mr. Diebold (and perhaps me) --- that you want to censor him (or me.) Don't assume that, if someone feels that he has a right to be here, that they are equally sleazy.

Pran
(aka "Zelduh" on my blogs)

Pran, I agree it is good to hear Diebold's arguments.

Wally, if it is so easy to find data on costs of Canada's elections, why don't you post it here. I could not find it.

I agree that machines make large-scale fraud easier. I also think that vote machines are a waste of money. Elections happen once or twice a year, or less. The support contracts make it even more expensive. What a scam. And the Justice Department forces states to buy these machines, while the public can't get at the code because it is a "trade secret." Yes, i know, the Justice Department is enforcing a statute passed by Congress, but we all know that money talks in Congress.

Dwight, thanks.

Yes, voting machines are much more expensive. Mr. Diebold is SO incorrect in his comparative analysis of the paper ballot, vs. the e-voting machine. He clearly does not have a business background, or he would know this. (By the way, Charlene; I also have a business degree.)

But the bigger scam (IMHO) is that the DOJ is forcing these machines on every state; even suing states who will not comply. I fear that, despite the polls, there could still be a Republican landslide due to these machines.

Watch for the Republican talking heads to start repeating the mantra, "Democrats just don't go out and vote." I believe this is a lie and that O'Reilly & Co. are preparing this country for another Republican landslide in November. I so hope I am wrong on this point. (The fact that Bush states that he does not care about polls worries me a lot.)

(I am still wondering why Charlene thinks I write like a "hayseed." This is bizarre to me! I write for a living. I have written quite a few appelate briefs in my time. I draft agreements all the time --- and I am a strong proponent of avoiding stupid terms like "aforementioned," "whereas," "hereinafter," etc. in agreements, preferring instead to write clearly. S.I. Hayakawa, who writes clearly and simply, is my writing model. I hope she responds to my query on that. Hint, hint. . . .)

Pran

Miss Information #139,

No.
I reconsidered, but I'm not buying it.

Only the wealthy, professional caste from India comes over here because the rest are either working at blue collar/office type jobs & can't afford it, or else they're tied up starving to death in a box on the streets.
If you have never been to India, which, in my experience, I found the wealthy go back several times a year, that explains why your writing style & cadence don't match your name.
But that doesn't make sense either because the wealthy from India are VERY involved in their culture--it's their identity, & bringing up offspring 'properly' goes without saying--they have VERY strong family & religious ties.

"Yaknow, folks..." That's hayseed. People from India have a much more formal way of expressing themselves. It's their culture.
You don't write like a lawyer either.

Tell me, at the polls in South Central LA & Watts, was your group there to ensure that what was going on got reported, or were you there to ensure it got covered up? Or did you just hear about it?

Ya know, "Prantha", if you really want "to learn" from the Diebold troll so gosh darn much & miss him so goll darn much--what's to stop you from just clicking over to the Diebold website & sitting at the feet of "the Master" & soaking up all you can get of him? Or clicking on his e-mail? That doesn't wash either.
Why stay here & campaign for him to come back over & over again when you can just go there yourself? Doesn't make sense.
You deny that you're campaigning for him.
Then why is it that EACH & EVERY ONE of your comments contain a section where you gush over the troll & enumerate all the ways his presence would lift the tone of the blog?
For eg., in describing his dialogue, you said, "It was FABULOUS." Oh really now. "Fabulous"?
Then some of your entries use the stick & not the carrot: Like when you try & spank us all for being too "left-wing", & for our "terrible" "censorship". And you elaborate--'oh, how can you learn that way--bring Mr. Diebold back.'
It's a nice touch to throw in some mild negatives in regard to the "right". Without them, it would be obvious you're a troll.
They mild references to the right wing don't hurt your game plan because it's not our opinion of the right that matters to you, it's our opinion of Diebold.
I don't know where you supposedly got your degree from, but it's foolish to think you're going to learn something in a discussion when one side is a public relations plant who's job it is to convince you that a product is good when you already know it isn't. You already know ALL ABOUT the various ways that it isn't.
Duh-uh.

The troll brought a lot of posts but they weren't productive posts that add to the quality of the blog.
They brought in a toxic element & were a waste of time & energy over nothing but accusations, insults & disinformation.

I'm not "afraid" of a troll anymore than I'm afraid of a turd.
I know you flush it down the toilet.
It's your choice if you enjoy playing in it & smearing it around.
But, if you do, eventually the entire house will stink.

Regarding the trace at #129 I traced from the web address which shows up when you mouse over his name. It didn't occur to me at the time that he could put what ever he wanted there simply by inserting it on the lines which appear just above the edit box in comments.
An IP address from Brad's incoming traffic would be the correct one.

I have to admit that I have been tricked!

And I appologize for disseminating the awful DISINFORMATION.

Sorry about that!

Wally Diebold - you are a real piece of work. I like the way you stand up for your name. Name the boxing ring and time so i can box your head completely off your body. Then in celebration i'll blow up as many Bushit Diebold voting machine that can be supplied for the event. The only thing you deserve in life is a slow painfully prolonged death like the cancerous history of diebold voting machines on a country that use to stand for something good outshining the ugle. Frigin Ruster

(After this small response Charlene's ignorant rant at #142, I am going to ignore her. She is an intolerant, and uncultured fool. If you READ my posts and my blogs, you will know my values. If you refuse to accept that you may not be as correct as you would like to be, this is YOUR problem. You will have to live with yourself for the rest of your life. I won't. People recognize bigotry when they see it. I will leave it at that. Now, to the issue at hand...)

Bluebear (#143), please know that I merely used the IP address that Brad provided in #94. Could this be faked as well? I do not know, but if it could, then Mr. Diebold could be anywhere...

BRAD, check out the "Breaking News" at http://www.ohio.com/mld/...aking_news/14039327.htm!

DIEBOLD REVISES ITS FOURTH-QUARTER EARNINGS DOWN

Diebold Inc. is revising its fourth-quarter earnings report to reduce revenue by $7 million and income by $4.2 million.

Mike Jacobson, Diebold spokesman, said the issue "involves election system warranties that were signed in 2005 but will not generate revenue until 2007-10." [probably another lie...]

The adjustment reduces 2005 earnings by 6 cents per share.

Surprisingly, Diebold shares were up 3 cents to $41.63 at midday.

Pran

Charlene #138 & 142-

You're getting a little bit scary. Lighten up!

Some points and then to bed:
Prantha referred to the Diebold spokeserson Jacobson stating the profit is down because election system warrantees signed in 2005 will not generate revenues until 2007 to 2010. How do warrantees generate revenue?

A question to Prantha: Did you give an eloquent "comment" last June in front of the SoS's VSPP that resulted in a standing ovation? If so, it matches your cadence and sentence structure. Which, by the way I appreciate.

I too fear that if people do not start demonstrating and using the "power of the people" these machines will be used and the only peaceful power will be taken from the people. There will not be reform if the right-wing controls the executive and legislative branches of government in California. With the coming centralization of registration rolls the disenfranchisement will become even worse.

While much of what appears on Brad's Blog is related to Diebold, that is mainly because we have so much more information on Diebold available to us. I can guarantee that if ES & S and Sequoia were examined to the same degree that Diebold has been we would find just as many reasons to stop their use.

The time has come for a major demonstration in Sacramento. Anyone interested?

Steve #146

Sit on it.

Yea, slam ME instead of grizzly bear dancer's #144 lame murderous rant.

Jody #147 "How do warrantees generate revenue?"

Think of it as an extended service warranty. (So that if something goes wrong 4 years down the road it'll get fixed, beyond the original 1- or 2-year warranty period.) These would be future revenues (e.g. there may be an annual charge for this), or else it may be an accounting requirement, that the revenue be spread out over the years to which it applies, rather than applied to the year in which the contract was signed.

This makes it seem that Diebold may have engaged in Enron-style accounting methods, to increase its apparent profits so as to increase share price. Then board members sell their shares when the price is high, making a fortune based on misleading accounting. Then the company revises its profits due to the change in accounting methods, so the share price falls. Then there are shareholder lawsuits . . . Which there are.

Jody #147:

I was pretty curious about Diebold's statement that they had to reduce 2005 QE4 (4th Quarter -ending) earnings. So I looked through their SEC Form 8K filings (filed whenever there is a material change) on Diebold's Investors' SEC information page (at: http://phx.corporate-ir....?c=106584&p=irol-sec).

After reading the 8Ks they filed yesterday, I now understand what it is about. Here's what it says about the reduction in 2005 QE4:

". . . . . On January 31, 2006, just prior to the announcement of its fourth quarter and year-end 2005 results, the company became aware of a possible adjustment related to the recognition of certain election systems revenue in the fourth quarter of 2005. At the time of the announcement, the company indicated the need for additional time to adequately review the matter, but management had preliminarily estimated that between $2 million to $10 million in ELECTION SYSTEMS REVENUE MIGHT NEED TO BE DEFERRED until future periods. [emphasis added by me]
. . .
". . . . .The company has since determined that $7.0 million in fourth quarter 2005 election systems revenue and $4.2 million in net income would need to be recognized in future periods. This adjustment reduced previously announced fourth quarter and full-year 2005 earnings per share by $0.06. Because of this revision, the company will recognize this deferred revenue and associated net income between 2007 and 2010. This change will have no effect on the company's 2006 full-year revenue and earnings per share expectations."

So, Diebold actually RECEIVED the $7 million but, due to ACCRUAL ACCOUNTING PROCEDURES, they cannot treat the $7 million Income as "received" until it is actually earned on their financial reports. They do not disclose in their 8K what the source of these "deferred election systems revenues" actually are, but it very well COULD BE PREPAID WARRANTIES!

So, the state election commissioners PAID for Diebold to warrantee their voting machines! It looks like the warranties might be free until 2007, but then the election commissioners prepaid for EXTENDED WARRANTIES from 2007-2010, probably as a form of "insurance" that the voting machines will be repaired if they break down during the 2008 elections...

Regarding your question about the VSPP comment; no, I was not there. I guess that the concerns raised by "the people" meant little to the VSPP.

Regarding using the "power of the people," I quite agree. I listened to RRR (Rabid Right-wing Radio) yesterday when the Clippers game kicked AAR off the air. The guy repeated the lie that "Democrats just don't go out to vote." I am sure that there is a GOP "talking points memo" telling RRR folk to constantly repeat this, so that Californians will not be surprised if there is an unprecedented Republican landslide. (If Schwarzenegger and McPherson win, we will KNOW that our election was fixed!)

Regarding electronic voting systems other than Diebold, you are correct. (We need a "Wally O'Sequoia" or a "Wally O'ES&S" to get the conversation started!) Galveston had "software glitches" yesterday with their eSlate and eScan e-voting machines yesterday. See: http://news.galvestondai...so?ewcd=b5c1182c635f6be7 .

Have there been any other reports of voting machine problems yesterday? I could not find anything.

Regarding a demonstration in Sacramento, I would love to go.

Prantha,

The Shaw Communications you found for the IP address may be relevant. For example, they could be a PR firm hired by Diebold (or some "independent" contractor in the middle) to carry out exactly this kind of activity.

{Comment deleted. Personal attacks and a bit of disinformation. Please post your comments and leave out the personal attacks on other commenters, Jill. As well, if you are going to make claims attacking the credibility of others, please include evidence --- or links to it --- to back it up. Please consider this a friendly warning since this is the first I've seen of you.}

It is common practice for many kinds of vested interests and PR firms to carry out well-organized disinformation campaigns such as the Wally O'Diebold experience. There are a number of excellent well-researched books about this kind of activity. One that is particularly well documented is "Secrets and Lies" by Hager & Burton. Drawing attention to this possibility was the purpose of my comment.

I didn't claim that this was so in this case, but rather that it was something that should be considered and checked for. Suggestions that can open a naive reader's eyes are just that--suggestions.

The BBV staff research is meticulously documented. So is the work of many people who post there. This is obvious to anyone who spends much time on the BBV website.

BBV is a place for non-technical ideas and suggestions as well as research. I'm not a techie and I don't claim to be.

Jill seems eager to discredit me and BBV. Be that as it may, personal attacks are not welcome at BradBlog.

{Comment deleted. Personal attacks. Please post your comments and leave out the personal attacks on other commenters, Jill. As well, if you are going to make claims attacking the credibility of others, please include evidence --- or links to it --- to back it up. Please consider this a friendly warning since this is the first I've seen of you. Repeating my plea to others as well, please avoid personal attacks on other commenters. Thank you!}

So now I "post all over the internet"? You must have a limited surfing range.

You display a lot of vitriol towards me and towards BBV. Yet you say nothing about the posters here who actually posted incorrect info (e.g., Wally O'Diebold probably on purpose; Bluebear2 probably by accident).

And then you accuse me of being a troll, along with lots of other personal attacks.

Revealing.

I'll take my own advice (and that of other wise posters here) and not feed the trolls.

Also..

YOU, CATHERINE, personally attacked PHIL MCKRACKIN here for spreading disinformation.

Double Hypocrisy!

Jill #152, 154, 156:

Can ya chill out a bit? PHEW! Where did you come from???

I did a little "research" (actually, I just searched this page with 156 comments on it) and found that you SUDDENLY appeared in this discussion at Comment #152.

I noticed that when I mouse over your name, the link is google.com (kinda like Mr. O'Diebold's was diebold.com).

And, interestingly, I searched for common words in your writings (since Charlene called me a "hayseed" for using a little slang, like "yaknow," I am a bit more sensitive to wording), I saw that you have other things in common with Mr. Diebold --in addition to the fact that he often responded to Catherine in a hostile way. (See #76, 79, 89)

For example, from the top, do a search for the word, "idiot" in this page. Then, check out a few additional words you used in #152, 154, and 156. You will see that you often use the same words as Mr. O'Diebold as well.

Also, just like Mr. O'Diebold, you attacked BBV, Bev Harris, etc.

This does not necessarily mean anything at all; it's just an interesting and fun exercize in comparing you and Mr. O'Diebold.

Pran

Brad,

Seeing that you deleted #152 and 154, I wonder . . .

If you checked out Jill's IP, I wonder how close it might be to:
24.86.46.74

Just a little curious.

Pran

Back in post (#18), I suggested we encourage "Wally O'Diebold" to continue posting, since I thought it would stimulate worthwhile debate. It did, for awhile.

"He" seems to have disappeared. I read a lot of good counterpoints to his posts. I wish "he"'d come back.

The more "Wally" argued, the more "he" made the case for the need for accountable, un-hack-able, hardware for our voting process in America, even if it's just the simple paper ballot.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**'Expose Tom Feeney'**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Wow, that Diebold troll guy scares me.
I nearly ate a whole box of SF Flakes reading the thread, very Stephen king. Let me offer a few ideas about him. First, having been a software writing zombie in a past life myself I'd say he's somehow related to the Dievote corp.
All those hardware and software co have internal networks that they exchange info over. Most of the people I worked with were pretty much incapable of human contact soooo everything was relayed over the network. When we weren't playing doom or sleeping in our cubes Most surf the Internet.
I'm no FBI profiler, or maybe I am(wooohaaaaa), anyway this guy fits the "I's so smart and on the edge(programmer-engineer-analyst) mold it makes my skin crawl.
I would think he's more interested in his profit sharing check than anything else.
i.e. has a vested interest in Diebolt success.
Either that or he's one of the new fed(NSA) bloggers in charge of making us all think we are on the X-files.

Here's another point I'd like to raise...
If all these machines are so capable of being hacked then why don't we all just mail in our votes.
THIS should be a focus of a national campaign for all DEMOCRATS.
I am looking into how this is done in my state of Ohio. If anybody would like to enlighten me on this issue, please Email me as I will include my Email address and would be glad to hear from you.
The best way to bypass the corrupted system is to reinvent the game.
If nobody used a box system to vote, then the people trying to effect the results would have to find another way to do it.
PLUS it would call national attention to the problem (National no confidence in the system).
I think it would be much harder to fake those kind of results, If I'm way off base then call me out.

One last thing... I'm also looking to get involved in my local campaigns here in Ohio at a grass roots level. If I can help out the democratic party here to organize and be effective then
I won't be wondering "Why ooh Why" the next day, 2006 and 2008.
(all of you do this and do it early not later), also I'd like to help at the POLLS for the mid-term and the 2008 election.
Having the polls run not just by repugs can only be a good thing.
I bet I could memorize correct voting machine procedure and recognize when a traitor is trying to sabotage the results. Wouldn't it be funny to see one of these people go to JAIL after being caught. (note to vote fraud guys: I think we'll be watching this time.)

Thanks for the ear people,
Malcolm (headonthebeach@aol.com)

What a God-awful mess. I posted yesterday in the story about Ion Sancho suing Diebold that I'd e-mailed info on Vote-PAD to his office. I received a reply from someone in that ioffice thanking me for sharing the info - and then stating that unfortunately it doesn't meet the ADA standards set by the State elections officials and therefore can't be used anywhere in Florida - and further stating that it was created by a gal from Tampa. It sounds as if Florida has mandated only electronic voting - which I absolutely have no trust in.

#160 Mquanta :
In California we have a few organizations already organizing.  You might want to check Vote Trust USA's Site for organizations in Ohio.  I am sure they would love to hear from any volunteers.
 I was planning on using an absentee ballot for the first time in my life, but they are not secure either.  Our ballot could be tossed, fed into a bogus absentee vote scanning machine, etc.; so they are not as secure as I originally thought.
If there are corrupt people managing the election, we have problems.  
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin 

#161 Dan Stafford:

I wonder if Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia helped draft the ADA standards in Florida.

Pran

Whew!

After finishing the whole thing, I'd have to say that some of the best information in the thread is some posters showing how these kind of 'debaters' work.

Perhaps a quick guide to the tatics used to obfuscate might be in order?

If we can educate people enough to recognize obfuscation when they see it, we won't have to worry as much about them being led to misinformation by an obfuscator.

As an example: watch the film OutFOXed which does an excellent job of breaking down the underhanded tactics FOX uses to distort the news. Well, once you're armed with that knowledge, go watch CNN or MSNBC and you'll see similar things going on there.

Basically, turn this into something people can take home with them.

If I'm making any sense...