Republican tactics prevail. No oversight expected. Not to say the Obama
camp doesn't have a few aces up its sleeve, unconcerned about not
changing the laws around voting machine ownership. Or perhaps this was
the bigger plan all along--that Obama was only supposed to get one term.
If we stick around another few decades, perhaps we'll find out.
*Natalia*
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9651
By Brad Friedman <http://www.bradblog.com/?author=3> on 10/21/2012,
12:56pm PT
(snip)
The voting machine conspiracies belong in same category as the Trump
birther garbage.
Todd was responding, no doubt, to the many folks who have been
justifiably concerned of late, since it was discovered that a bunch of
Bain Capital investors, led by Mitt Romney's son Tagg, via a company
called H.I.G. Capital (believed to stand for Hart Intercivic Group) took
over control of Hart Intercivic <http://www.cabrilloadvisors.com/398/>,
the nation's third largest voting machine company, in 2011.
The Austin-based Hart company, according to VerifiedVoting.org's
database
<http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/searched.php?ec=allall&state=AS&equipment_type[]=All+Types&vendor[]=Hart+InterCivic&model[]=All+Models&vvpat=all&submit=Search&rowspp=20000&topicText=&stateText=>,
supplies electronic voting machines and paper ballot tabulators that
will be used to tally votes in the Presidential Election this year in
all or parts of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana,
Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and
Washington.
I offered my point of view about those concerns
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9628> earlier this month, explaining that it
was not just the private ownership of Hart's machines by Romney backers
which voters should be concerned about, but the private ownership of the
similar systems /in all fifty states/ that will once again be used to
tabulate the results of this year's Presidential Election with little
--- and very often zero --- possibility of oversight by the public or
even by election officials.
Todd does an extraordinary disservice to the electorate with Tweets like
the one above, and I'd be happy to come on his daily MSNBC show any time
to explain why, as I have told him via Twitter in response to the above.
As Todd has not responded in kind, and to expand upon my response to
Todd there, I'd like to ask him these few respectful questions...
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when paper ballot optical-scan
tabulators made by Sequoia Voting Systems in Palm Beach County
declared incorrect results of three different races last March
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9221>, including declaring two losing
candidates to be the "winners"?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when the Canadian firm, Dominion
Voting, which now owns Sequoia Voting Systems admitted the failure
in Palm Beach was caused by a bug in /all versions/ of its central
tabulation software <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9224> which will be
used to tabulate the Presidential Election (and many others) on
November 6th this year in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida,
Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when, despite using Dominion/Sequoia's
recommended "fix", the same problem occurred /yet again/ in Palm
Beach County's August primary elections, as their Supervisor of
Elections recently explained to me on air
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9590>?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when 16,632 votes were found
unaccounted for <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6341> when those same
machines were first used in Palm Beach County back in 2008?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when eight (8) top election officials
--- including the County Clerk, a Circuit Court Judge and the School
Superintendent --- in Clay County, KY were sentenced last year to
156 years in federal prison <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8514> for
gaming elections, including changing the votes of voters on ES&S
electronic touch-screen voting machines?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when the President of Diebold Election
Systems, Inc. (by then renamed Premier Election Systems, which is
now owned by the Canadian firm Dominion Voting) admitted in 2008
that the company's GEMS central tabulation software, used in some 34
states, does not tabulate votes correctly
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6309> and routinely drops thousands of
them when they are uploaded to the central server?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when Diebold/Premier's spokesman
admitted to the CA Secretary of State during a 2009 hearing that the
supposedly permanent "audit logs" in all versions of its GEMS
central tabulation system fail to record the deletion of ballots
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6995>, after it was discovered that
their electronic tabulator had failed to tabulate hundreds of paper
ballots in a Humboldt County election
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6733> (or to even notify system
administrators that it had deleted those ballots
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6741>)?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when the CA Sec. of State decertified
federally-certified electronic voting and tabulation systems made by
Diebold, Sequoia and Hart Intercivic
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4914> in 2007 after a state-commissioned
team of computer science and security experts from the University of
California, Livermore National Laboratories and elsewhere
"demonstrated that the physical and technological security
mechanisms" for all of the state's electronic voting systems (also
used across the rest of the country) "were inadequate to ensure
accuracy and integrity of the elections results and of the systems
that provide those results" and that their "independent teams of
analysts were able to bypass both physical and software security
measures in every system tested <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4880>"?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when the 2007 landmark study
commissioned by OH's then Democratic Sec. of State, found
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5443> "Ohio's electronic voting systems
have 'critical security failures' which could impact the integrity
of elections in the Buckeye State" and when she (unsuccessfully)
recommended, along with the then Republican Speaker of the Senate,
who is now the state's Republican Sec. of State, that all
touch-screen systems in the state be decertified due to concerns of,
as she told The BRAD BLOG <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5463>,
"viruses that can be inserted into [Ohio's e-voting and tabulation]
system through something as simple as a PDA [Personal Digital
Assistant] and a magnet and then the cards are passed from machine
to machine almost like Typhoid Mary" so that "If there is malicious
software, like a virus put into the system, it can not only affect
the machines at the polling places, it can affect the tabulation
that occurs at the server and it can also affect future elections if
it's not detected"?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when the /New York Daily News/
discovered in 2012 that hundreds of paper ballots at just one
precinct in the Bronx went uncounted
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9151> in 2010 during the September
primary (failure rate of 70%) and the November general election
(failure rate of 54%) on their brand new ES&S DS200 paper ballot
optical-scanners, which are also used in OH, AZ, MI and elsewhere?
. Was it 'conspiracy' garbage when the U.S. Election Assistance
Commission (EAC) released a warning in 2011 from a "Formal
Investigation Report" that those same systems failed to count paper
ballots correctly <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9006>, on the heels of
Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), OH's previous finding that 10% of those
machines failed during pre-election testing in 2010
<http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/04/some_cuyahoga_countys_voting_m.html>?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when Oakland County, MI wrote a letter
of concern to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), seeking
advice in 2008 after finding their ES&S M-100 optical scanners
"yielded different results each time" the "same ballots were run
through the same machines" <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6613> during
pre-election testing?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when Princeton University discovered
in 2006 that they could, in seconds time, implant a virus onto
Diebold touch-screen systems used in dozens of states which could
then spread itself from machine to machine and result in an entire
county's election being flipped with little chance of detection
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3467>?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when a computer security expert hacked
a memory card on a Diebold paper ballot optical-scan system and
flipped the results of a mock election (see the hack and its results
as captured in HBO's Emmy-nominated 2006 documentary /Hacking
Democracy/ here <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIAzCM3OYYc>) in
such a way that only a hand-count of the paper ballots in the
election could reveal the true results?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when a CIA cybersecurity expert
testified to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission(EAC) in 2009
<http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7021> that e-voting was not secure,
"that computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five
stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results"
and that "wherever the vote becomes an electron and touches a
computer, that's an opportunity for a malicious actor potentially
to...make bad things happen"?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' that the Vulnerability Assessment Team
(which also monitors nuclear facilities) at Argonne National
Laboratory (the non-profit research lab operated by the University
of Chicago for the Dept. of Energy) released a report earlier this
year finding that Diebold's touch-screen systems and, according to
the team's lead scientist, "pretty much every electronic voting
machine", can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade
science education <http://www.salon.com/2011/09/27/votinghack/>, or
just $26 if you want to do it remotely?
. Was it 'conspiracy garbage' when, in Volusia County, FL's 2000
Presidential Election a paper-based optical-scan tabulator made by
Global Elections Management Systems (GEMS, thereafter purchased by
Diebold to become Diebold Election Systems, Inc.) tallied /negative/
16,022 votes for Al Gore <http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6026> thanks to
a supposed "software flaw" which has /never/ been explained by
anyone, and which Leon County (Tallahassee), FL's Supervisor of
Elections Ion Sancho --- the man, so well respected by both major
parties, that he was placed in charge of the aborted 2000
Presidential Election recount in Florida --- believes was a
purposeful hack of the electronic tabulation system which is now
used in hundreds of counties in dozens of states?
I could go on and on, obviously, but I won't. You're welcome. There are
some 10 years worth of articles at The BRAD BLOG
<http://www.BradBlog.com> that folks can peruse to determine the facts
underscoring my concerns and those of the others who have legitimately
expressed them to you, Chuck Todd, about private, unaccountable
corporations --- owned by associates of Mitt Romney or by anybody else
--- having so much unoverseeable control of our once-public electoral
system.
But, to misinform your 272,035 Twitter followers, not to mention your
millions of viewers on television, that concerns about oft-failed,
easily-manipulated electronic voting and tabulation systems are little
more than "conspiracies" which "belong in the same category as the Trump
birther garbage" is an extraordinary disservice to your readers, your
viewers and the U.S. electorate as a whole.
They deserve a /much/ better understanding of our electoral system from
someone such as yourself, who is relied upon by so many as an expert in
these matters.
Again, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these concerns with
you on your /Daily Rundown/ show on MSNBC any time.
If, in fact, you are correct, that these concerns are little more than
'conspiracy garbage', you will do the electorate a great service by
having me on, and putting me in my place once and for all by explaining why.
If these concerns are not 'conspiracy garbage', as I would argue, you
would be performing a great service to the electorate by helping the
electorate understand why they are not, and what voters may be able to
do at this point to help minimize the possibilities of their votes not
being counted accurately or transparently, or even at all, this November
6th.
(snip)
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