Bev Harris
Diebold AccuVote - Bush Connection...etc.
Tue Feb 17 03:32:25 2004
64.140.158.30

CONTACT: Bev Harris
Office: 425.228.7131
E-mail: blackboxvoting@aol.com
Location: Renton, WA
Time Zone: PST
CONTACT: David Allen
Office: 336.454.7766
Fax: 336.454.8028
E-mail:david@plan9.org
Location: High Point, NC
Time Zone: EST

Cathy Cox looks at a Diebold AccuVote TS machine and sees the future of voting.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/

Georgia's secretary of state gushes over its high-tech features, which she says have significantly lowered the number of uncounted votes and the possibility of election fraud.

Ginny Howard looks at the same machine and sees the mechanism that will undo democracy.

Greedy corporations and power-hungry politicians will conspire to steal elections by manipulating results electronically, the retired math teacher from Smyrna believes.

In the chasm between Cox and Howard, a debate is growing over touch-screen voting.

There is no evidence that any American election has been manipulated through the use of electronic touch-screen voting machines since they were first used in 1996. Yet as Cox's employees prepare 28,000 machines for Georgia's March 2 presidential primary, accusations that they can be rigged have put the state's top election official on the defensive.

*Sigh* How many times do I have to explain to these people that the major danger with these machines is that if done right, there will be NO evidence of tampering. Hell, even if done wrong, people like Cox believe in the machines so much they will NEVER question the results.

In the machines' November 2002 Georgia debut, voters and officials reported some glitches, mostly frozen screens. Republican poll monitors reported that about 100 voters in 20 counties complained the machines didn't properly record their intentions — they tried to vote for GOP candidates but the machines highlighted the Democratic candidate instead. When the voters alerted poll workers, the machines were adjusted and the votes corrected. Officials said the problems were misaligned screens — not evidence of hacking.

While everybody focuses on the danger of "hacking" voting machines, the more immdeitae threat is the crappy software doing things like this.

Overall, the machines received rave reviews. In two subsequent University of Georgia telephone polls, people said they found the machines easy to use and generally trustworthy.

WHEN was the poll taken? Before our after the revelations of how bad the machines are came out?

The researchers concluded the system is vulnerable to attacks that use software programs designed to discreetly activate themselves and change election results. Also, Rubin said, blank smart cards could be bought and programmed by someone able to decipher the necessary computer language to make "homebrew" voter access cards. The privacy of the voting booth would allow someone to sneak in a stack of the homebrew cards and vote multiple times, he said.

Rubin later revealed he held stock options for and served on the technical advisory board of VoteHere, a Diebold competitor that manufactures election software. He maintains the stock options were worthless and that he hadn't had contact with the company for two years. But the disclosure gave his critics ammunition to discredit his report.

Unfortunately for the critics (Diebold and its lackeys), Rubins report, which backed Bev Harris' initial findings was upheld by the SAIC report and the Raba Report (not to mention two separate reports in Ohio, Diebold's home state).

Touch-screen opponents have alleged that Barnes' and Cleland's 2002 upset defeats are suspicious because of a last-minute fix to the machines.

The state had to apply "patches" — software repairs — at the last minute because many of the screens were freezing during tests. Patches are common in the computer world. But the state didn't have time to recertify the machines to make sure the fixes contained no malicious commands. The patches were tested after the election and found to be legitimate, Cox said.

If there was nothing wrong with the patches, why did Diebold REPEATEDLY deny that they were applied?

Joseph Richardson, a spokesman for Diebold, denied that a patch had been applied to the Georgia machines: "We have analyzed that situation and have no indication of that happening at all."

Salon.com 2/20/03

Again, I ask: If the patches were completely legal and harmless, why does Diebold to this day deny they were ever installed?

What did Cathy Cox say about modifying software before she found it convenient to do so?

"Any modification to the hardware, firmware, or software of an existing system which has completed Qualification, Certification, or Acceptance testing in accordance with these Rules will invalidate the State certification unless it can be shown that the change does not affect the overall flow of program control or the manner in which the ballots are interpreted"

One would think that the proving should be done BEFORE an election, not ex post facto.

Other sites — including conspiracyplanet.com — have regular features on touch-screen voting. The site also has features claiming the moon landing was a hoax.

Jeebus! Thanks a lot for putting forth Diebold and Cox's agenda. What does the fact that one loony web site agrees with us have to do with the fact that practically every computer professional and scientist in the world agrees with us? I can find KKK web sites that link to stories in the AJC, does that invalidate the AJC's reporting? Does the AJC like seeing their name linked to the Klan? No? Well now you know how it feels.

"No system is perfect," wrote Executive Director Bill Bozarth, "but we see nothing in the current Georgia implementation to warrant any consideration for going back to other voting systems. The level of collusion required to carry out vote stealing is so great as to render it extremely unlikely. The chance of a fraud occurring and subsequently going undetected is virtually zero."

Actually, awfully damed easy when most states aren't even using certified software. I would love to ask this man what he bases this statement on. Also, he does not address the issue of crappy software screwing up an election.

Bozarth, who worked for IBM for 30 years, said he spoke with touch-screen opponents. "The people really adamant about this are people in the political extremes who believe there is a conspiracy afoot," he said.

What did Bozarth do at IBM? Was he a programmer? A salesman? A janitor?

"I feel reasonably comfortable," MacDougald said recently. "There's always a theoretical possibility [of tampering]. That can never be excluded, regardless of the voting technology. But the measures that were previously in place, with the new measures and technical fixes that are being made, bring the issue within a reasonable degree of security."

Would these be the "fixes" that the Raba Report discovered STILL hadn't been fixed? Would these be "measures" involving the fact that voting machines in Georgia have been found in people's CAR TRUNKS?
Posted by David on Monday, February 16 @ 17:43:12 CST (2 reads)

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Black Box Voting Vote tampering in the 21st century : Arizona ...
... Black Box Voting Vote tampering in the 21st century by Bev Harris • Friday October
17, 2003 at 07:07 AM. Black Box Voting Vote tampering in the 21st century. ...
http://www.arizona.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/12886.php

========================

VOTESCAM: The Stealing of America - Vote and Election Fraud
The official web site for the book 'Votescam: The Stealing of America' by James &
Kenneth Collier- banned from display in bookstores, it has sold 30000 copies ...
Description: The official web site for the book 'Votescam: The Stealing of America' by James & Kenneth Collier...
Category: Society > Issues > Conspiracy > Alleged Crimes and Coverups
http://www.votescam.com/


James & Kenneth Collier: Votescam: Contents
VOTESCAM. THE STEALING OF AMERICA. ... To order the printed edition and the videos,
see the official Votescam site. Votescam: The Stealing Of America. ...

-----------------------------------

FELLOW AMERICANS, IT BEEN A WELL KNOW FACT THAT THE
VOTING SYSTEM HAS BEEN CORRU8PED FOR YEARS!

"Any modification to the hardware, firmware, or software of an existing system which has completed Qualification, Certification, or Acceptance testing in accordance with these Rules will invalidate the State certification unless it can be shown that the change does not affect the overall flow of program control or the manner in which the ballots are interpreted"

Conspire.Com | VoteScam
... happened. George Bush may have received a Votescam benefit in an election
that was rare in that it was a significant upset. According ...
HTTP://www.conspire.com/votescam.html

Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century has provided numerous articles on voting machine ownership, errors and security to news publications worldwide. In writing Black Box Voting, she spent over two thousand hours researching voting machines, and interviewed dozens of witnesses including many election officials and even voting machine programmers who work directly for the firms that build these machines. Harris owns Talion.com, a publicity firm, and has been writing professionally for 10 years. She is also the author of "How to Embezzle a Fortune", tips on how to identify accounting fraud and recover embezzled funds.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=8

COAST TO COAST AM:
Mon 02.16 >>
Investigative journalist, Bev Harris (website) will share her years of research into ballot tampering, security problems, Internet voting, and our need to acquire a safer and more secure voting system
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/