Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
The Kentucky Attorney General, Greg Stumbo, has announced that during his investigation of the state’s voting system usage, as reported several weeks ago by The BRAD BLOG, a surprising result has been discovered.
Just prior to the AG’s investigation, Diebold Elections Systems, Inc. (now re-named Premier Election Solutions), sent a letter to Jefferson County, KY, election officials to tell them that they had been using an uncertified voting system for the last three elections.
At the beginning of the investigation Stumbo had contacted the Secretary of State, Republican Trey Grayson, who is rumored, like Stumbo, to be a gubernatorial candidate. SoS Grayson assured him that only certified systems were being used in the state.
Grayson was wrong…
As reported in today’s All-American Patriots Stumbo had asked Grayson, on August 7, to confirm that all voting systems used in the state were certified for use by the state. In response to that request Grayson had responded, “All systems in use in Kentucky today were unanimously certified by the State Board of Elections pursuant to KRS 117.379 and comply with the federal voting system guidelines in place at the time of certification.”
On August 27, Diebold/Premier Election Systems notified Jefferson County, the most populous county in the state, that they had been using an uncertified voting system for the past three elections at least.
This letter has led to a letter from the AG, who is now demanding answers from the SoS after the Secretary lied to him.
2. How is it possible that the Accu Vote Optical Scan (“OS”) units sold and deployed in Jefferson County were not state-certified?
3. What safeguards and protections will be implemented to prevent future recurrence of this failure?
4. Why did your office fail to advise OAG upon receipt of the Diebold/Premier letter admitting to a lack of certification?
5. Why were the OS units not upgraded to meet the 2002 Voting Systems Standards (“VSS 2002″) promulgated by the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) on April 30, 2002?
6. Were any federal funds authorized under the Help America Vote Act (“HAVA”) used to purchase these OS units? Were any federal funds made available to Jefferson County to bring it into compliance with HAVA and VSS 2002? If not, why?
All good questions that can lead to more investigation.
Of course, the county elections office, state Board of Elections, and the Secretary of State’s office all say that no votes were lost in any of the elections where the illegal voting system was used.
And as reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal, today Les Fugate, spokesman for the state Board of Elections, has stated, “We are disappointed that instead of working to improve elections in Kentucky, the attorney general’s office is more interested in headline chasing and uninformed rhetoric. Kentucky law makes it abundantly clear that the power to purchase voting equipment” is the purview of counties.
Fugate never does ask why the Secretary of State lied to the Attorney General in the first place.
The Attorney General has promised to continue his investigation into the state’s voting systems.
John, populace is not the same as populous.
Other than that, this is great work. Keep after these voting machine thieves until we’ve completely rolled them back.
Thank you for the comment. Correction has been made. The editor seems to have been asleep at the time.
I’m confused. How are any of the six questions not intended to “improve elections in Kentucky”.
Especially 2,3,5, and 6. While 1 and 4 are about accountability, the others are directly related to making sure the machines are certified for use in future elections.
Come to think of it, why is the AG doing this instead of the SoS. I would hope that all Secretaries of State are evaluating their state’s voting machines and verifying certification.
I’ve been really hoping, justice would be caughting on back over here!
THANK YOU
GREGG STUMBO
AG OF KENTUCKY
blessings to you and yours.
I would also assume that the most populous county would be the most urbanized county in the state and most likely to have a large non-white, non-GOP, Democratic Party-leaning electorate. Can anyone confirm that? This could also help explain the motivation to make sure it has the most inferior equipment and most likely to lose votes and/or help swing the outsome in the GOP’s favored direction.
How cool it would be if the good election guys and gals outnumbered the bad guys and gals!
Actually, I think going after the county officials who approved the use of the equipment makes the most sense because they are more likely to rat everybody else out than the SOS. It would be like the decline and fall of Ken Blackwell, but in Kentucky. The SOS and his immediate staff are the ones who are beneficiaries of anything corporate voting machine companies might offer. The county officials were patsies but they probably know enough to bring incriminating evidence forward faster.
Wasn’t there a questionable election for Senate there in ’04? Or was it in ’06?
shw
@ ewastud Jefferson County is Louisville. It is the largest, most progressive city in KY and has a large, politically active black community. I can’t speak to the demographics because I don’t know the city that well, but Hopkinsville and Madisonville also have proportionately large black populations. I am here to tell you though that the rural white communities have vote suppression too. I had the misfortune to end up in Somerset, (Pulaski County)KY where Democrats can’t even get work. Don’t even try to put a Dem bumper sticker on your car unless you can afford a traffic ticket every day until you remove it. When I signed the register in 2006, the poll worker pushed a button on a small machine beside the register and out came a small piece of paper. She walked over to the voting machine and pushed some buttons, then turned to me and said “The machine is ready now.” She handed me the paper and walked back to the register to sign in my husband. I went through the screens voting for every Democrat I could find, and was entirely shocked to find Mitch McConnell’s name on the ballot! I was thrilled to vote for his opponent, but amazed that I didn’t know he was running. At the final screen, there was McConnell’s name. I backed the machine up and voted for his opponent again. This vote stuck, and I cast my vote. I picked up the small piece of paper and left with my husband. His paper had 4 digits on it. Mine had 4 different digits. I don’t think any ballot cast in Pulaski County was secret that year. And that was extremely intimidating. Small town, finite number of jobs. Vote wrong, starve. We left.
The Lexington Herald Leader reported the next day that McConnell had won with 75% of the vote. However, McConnell was not up for election in 2006. I think it was a test to see how many people were aware of the vote fraud and were checking their ballots. It also served to make anyone who reported the numbering sound crazy to an outsider. BTW, Senator Bunning retained his seat in the senate by 51% of the vote. Rove’s favorite 50+1. BTW, KY is an economic and political suburb of Ohio. But inside every little town in KY is an angry majority intimidated into silence.
The KY AG should focus thier investigations on all KY
county commissioners and voter registrar who approved
the purchase of uncertified Diebold electronic voting
machines.Once the KY AG starts probing into the county’s activities,the very county officials will start to rat out Diebold and the KY SoS the save thier
own hides.