No Warning from EAC for Serious Flaw. Election Reform, & Related News Tuesday, 4/17/07

[Melissa G]

ES&S Touch-Screen Voting Systems Found Vulnerable To ‘Serious’ Viral Vote-Flipping Attack; U.S. Elections Assistance Commission Refuses To Issue Warning.



http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4396
see post 1 for details...

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Tuesday, 4/17/07


All members welcome and encouraged to participate.



Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.


2. Post stories using the new Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.


4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.




Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

[Melissa G]

1. ES&S TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING SYSTEMS FOUND VULNERABLE TO 'SERIOUS' VIRAL VOTE-FLIPPING

BLOGGED BY Michael Richardson ON 4/16/2007 9:05AM
EXCLUSIVE: ES&S TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING SYSTEMS FOUND VULNERABLE TO 'SERIOUS' VIRAL VOTE-FLIPPING ATTACK; U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION REFUSES TO ISSUE WARNING
Scientific Report Finds 'Serious Security Vulnerability' Similar to 'Princeton Diebold Virus Hack' in Widely Used iVotronic System, Allowing a Single Person to Change Election Results Across Entire County Without Detection
Despite GAO Confirmed Mandate to Serve as Info 'Clearinghouse,' Embattled EAC Says They Will Take No Action to Alert Elections Officials, Public
By Michael Richardson and Brad Friedman

While revelations surrounding the mysterious 18,000 "undervotes" in the November 2006 U.S. House election between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan in Florida's 13th Congressional district continue to inform the nation about the dangers of electronic voting machines, new information has recently come to light exposing a shocking lack of responsible oversight by those entrusted with overseeing the certification of electronic voting systems at the federal level.

An investigation into what may have gone wrong in that election has revealed a serious security vulnerability on some, and possibly all, versions of the iVotronic touch-screen voting system widely used across the country. The iVotronic is a Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting machine manufactured by Elections Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), the nation's largest distributor of such systems.

The vulnerability is said to allow for a single malicious user to introduce a virus into the system which "could potentially steal all the votes in that county, without being detected," according to a noted computer scientist and voting system expert who has reviewed the findings.

And yet, despite their federal mandate to serve as a "clearinghouse" to the nation for such information, a series of email exchanges between an Election Integrity advocate and officials at the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) has revealed that the federal oversight body is refusing to notify states of the alarming security issue.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4396

[Melissa G]

2. The EAC Gopher Bash

The EAC Gopher Bash

by Nancy Tobi
http://www.opednews.com

The Holt Bill (H.R. 811) is being advertised as a "paper trail" bill, but it also makes permanent the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The EAC is four White House appointees who control the nation's voting systems.


Holt Bill proponents say that this is not a problem. They point to recent news coverage of the EAC, showing its incompetence and its questionable and even fraudulent actions. They say that the EAC has conducted itself so poorly as to make itself irrelevent. They look to hiring new Commissioners to "do a better job".

But the issue is not who are the Commissioners or how they conduct themselves. The issue is the very entity itself: four White House appointees with the power to determine what voting equipment is in use in our nation's elections, and to influence policy through the release (or nonrelease, as the case may be) of valid (or fraudulent) studies and reports.

Activists point to the EAC's first Chair, DeForest Soaries, now a vocal critic of the Commission. One of Soaries' first acts as Chair was to seek the authority to cancel national elections in case of a "homeland security threat". Soaries' resignation, and his subsequent criticism of the EAC is not about the inherently undemocratic nature of the Commission in our political structure, but rather the lack of authority held by the EAC. There is no solace to be found in this school of thought. The problem is not, as some activists claim, that we need to hold the EAC accountable or even replace current Commissioners with "better" ones. The problem is the existence of the entity itself.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_070414_the_eac_gopher_bash.htm

[Melissa G]

3. "SUPERIOR COURT RULES ALAMEDA COUNTY REGISTRAR VIOLATED ELECTION LAW IN RECOUNT OF 2004 ELECTION"

Thanks to the amazing kpete for the post and the DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x471048

"SUPERIOR COURT RULES ALAMEDA COUNTY REGISTRAR VIOLATED ELECTION LAW IN RECOUNT OF 2004 ELECTION"
April 17, 2007
"SUPERIOR COURT RULES THAT ALAMEDA COUNTY REGISTRAR VIOLATED ELECTION LAW IN RECOUNT OF 2004 ELECTION"
Strumwasser and Woocher has issued this news advisory about this recent court order. The advisory begins:


A Superior Court judge has ruled that Alameda County and its Registrar violated both the Elections Code and three separate provisions of the California Constitution in denying voters their recount rights in a 2004 election.

In 2004, Berkeley voters requested a recount of an election for a citizens' initiative conducted on a Diebold electronic touchscreen voting system. Exercising their rights under section 15630 of the Elections Code, which provides that a voter may examine "all ballots ... and any other relevant material as part of any recount," the voters asked to see the copies of the votes redundantly stored in the voting units, the audit logs from those machines, the results of Logic & Accuracy system tests, and the chain-of-custody records for system components. Former Alameda County Registrar Bradley Clark refused to provide any of this "relevant material." The voters filed suit.

http://electionlawblog.org/archives/008268.html

[Melissa G]

4. Virginia Bans New DREs in First Step Toward Verifiable Voting

Virginia Bans New DREs in First Step Toward Verifiable Voting
By Ivy Main, New ERA for Virginia
April 15, 2007
Last week Virginia Governor Tim Kaine signed legislation prohibiting local governments from buying new direct record electronic (DRE) election machines starting July 1, 2007.

After that date, localities needing new election machines as their populations grow or their DREs break down are expected to turn to optical scanning machines that read paper ballots. Legislators hope this the gradual phase-in of the new system will ease the financial strain of purchasing new machines, while moving the state in the direction of verifiable voting.

The state’s current DREs do not produce a paper record of individual votes that permits voters to verify that their votes have been properly recorded, and that can be preserved for auditing the machines or recounting close elections. By contrast, precinct-based optical scanners allow voters to verify their votes, and the paper ballots can be preserved as a “paper trail” for audits and recounts.

As initially proposed, the Virginia legislation called for the changeover to optical scan to occur by 2010, and would have required election officials to conduct audits to ensure the accuracy of the machines. Cost concerns, as well as intense opposition from registrars, led to the elimination of these provisions.

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2384&Itemid=113

[Melissa G]

5. Thirteen Significant Problems in H.R. 811, the New Holt Bill

Thirteen Significant Problems in H.R. 811, the New Holt Bill

Thirteen Issues with the Holt Bill (HR 811) As Written

Contact: Nancy Tobi, ntobi(at)democracyfornewhampshire(dot)com, 603.315.4500

1. The timeline for 2008 implementation is unobtainable by the federal government's very own guidelines with respect to the EAC Certification Program and voting equipment that would be available, tested, and certified to that program’s requirements. Because 39 states require some form of compliance with Federal Guidelines, they must use equipment to meet these EAC standards. However, there is no voting equipment on the market that can or will meet the text conversion (“Accessible Media”) or the VVPAT (archival quality paper) requirements under the EAC Certification Program by 2008.

2. Section 2 Special Rule for Votes Cast by Absent Military and Oversees Voters. Pre-empts state's rights to disallow fax and e-mailed ballots. States, such as NH, use state-issued paper ballots for the Military and Overseas voters in order to protect their voting privacy and the integrity of the state election.

3. Section 2(d)(1) The Conversion of Printed Content to Accessible Media is an unfunded mandate for voting equipment that does not exist and probably will not exist until at the earliest 2012-2016. Jim Dickson, lobbyist for American Association of People with Disabilities, has publicly stated that the AAPD and other disability groups oppose the Holt Bill on these grounds.

4. Section 247(c)(Item 9) The prohibition of undisclosed software does not provide any exemption for COTS software (commercial off the shelf). No existing voting equipment meets this requirement because they all use COTS, and many use Microsoft software. Microsoft will never share its code, and this requirement would make every piece of voting equipment in use today illegal, requiring jurisdictions to replace equipment at a high cost, unfunded by HR 811.

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/13_problems_Holt811_Tobi

[Melissa G]

6. Academics Call Foul On Florida Test of Voting Machines

Academics Call Foul On Florida Test of Voting Machines

Two academics say that tests run by the state of Florida to determine what went wrong with e-voting machines in the disputed Congressional District 13 race were badly designed, and the results are essentially useless. They've released their response (.pdf) detailing problems with the tests -- which some have touted as evidence that there was nothing wrong with the machines, made by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).

For those who haven't been following the issue closely, a little background: Some 18,000 ballots cast on the touch-screen machines didn't record a vote in the CD-13 race between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan. Buchanan won the race by fewer than 400 votes and was sworn into Congress. Jennings is calling for a re-vote because hundreds of voters claimed they had problems with the machines -- although they voted for Jennings or Buchanan, when they reached the review screen at the end of the ballot it showed no choice selected in the CD-13 race. These are the voters, of course, who caught the problem. The Jennings camp says there are likely voters who never looked at the review screen or didn't look closely enough to see that no vote appeared on the review screen before casting their ballot.


So Florida conducted two tests -- a mock election on ten machines (five used in the election and five set up for the election but never actually used) and a review of the source code. According to the reports the testers released in January, they found nothing wrong with the machines in either the hands-on test or the source code review to account for the high undervote rate in that race.

Now David Dill at Stanford and Dan Wallach from Rice University have released their response to the Florida reports. Among the problems:

The testers examining the machines defined acccuracy as a machine making a correct electronic copy of the review screen. Dill and Wallach say this ignores whether the review screen itself is correct. If a voter touched the machine to vote for a candidate and the vote showed up on the ballot page but not on the review screen, the machine would still be considered accurate, according to the Florida testers, if it copied the error on the review screen.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/04/academics_call_.html

[Melissa G]

7. FL - Panel to look at District 13 challenge

Panel to look at District 13 challenge
Panel meets Tuesday to review Southwest Florida congressional election.

By JEREMY WALLACE
H-T POLITICAL WRITER
[e-mail]

It is a long shot that a new congressional task force will reverse the results from the Vern Buchanan-Christine Jennings race, but by even reaching this point it shows the place Sarasota County's disputed election is getting on the national stage.

On Tuesday, a U.S. House of Representatives task force will review the 13th Congressional District results -- the first time in a decade that such a panel has been formed. It is considered by some to be the most serious legislative election challenge in at least 20 years.

Buchanan was declared the winner by 369 votes, but Jennings contends that a malfunction with touch-screen voting machines caused 18,000 voters to have no vote registered in Sarasota County, where she prevailed.

Despite the unusual attention the appeal is getting in Congress, analysts say they would be shocked if the House ordered a new election.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070416/NEWS/704160576

[Melissa G]

8. Senate ties early primary to voting machines with paper trails

Senate ties early primary to voting machines with paper trails
By Stephen Majors, Associated Press Writer | April 17, 2007

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. --To get a reluctant state House to fund the replacement of touch-screen voting machines with ones that leave a verifiable paper trail, the Senate has attached to the plan one of the House's most desired goals -- an earlier Florida presidential primary.

The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a far-reaching elections bill (SB 960/1010) that gives House Speaker Marco Rubio what he wants -- a presidential primary on the last Tuesday in January, pushing Florida past a dozen other states that have recently moved their primaries to Feb. 5.

But with that sweetener comes nearly $28 million to replace the touch-screen voting machines used in 15 counties with optical scan machines. Included in the funding is money for "ballot-on-demand" technology for early voting in 29 counties.

Rubio, R-West Miami, has said he doesn't believe the state should have to pay for those counties that made the decision to go with touch-screen machines.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/17/senate_ties_early_primary_to_voting_machines_with_paper_trails/

[Melissa G]

9. Docs Point to E-Voting Bug in Contested Race

Docs Point to E-Voting Bug in Contested Race
By Kim Zetter, Wired News
April 17, 2007
This article was posted at Wired.com and is reposted here with permission of the author.



Symptoms consistent with a known software flaw in a popular electronic voting machine surfaced widely in a controversial election in Sarasota County, Florida, last November, despite county officials' claims that a bug played no role in the election results, according to documents obtained by Wired News.



Activists say the flaw might have contributed to the high number of lost or uncast votes in a now-contested congressional race.



Incident reports from the election reveal Sarasota County poll workers from at least 19 precincts contacted technicians and election officials to report touch-screen sensitivity problems with the I-Votronic voting machine. In those incidents, voters were forced to press the screen harder and repeatedly to register a vote. The complaints mirror the symptoms of a bug that the machine's maker, Election Systems & Software, revealed prior to the election in a warning unheeded by the county.



Additionally, the documents -- obtained through public records requests by Wired News and the Florida Coalition for Fair Elections -- show the problems also appeared on a smaller scale during the primary election in Sarasota County two months earlier. This contradicts statements by Sarasota supervisor of elections Kathy Dent, who told Wired News last month that no such problems happened during the primary, and that she only learned voters were having problems with the touch screens after the November election was over and votes were counted.

DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x471063
more from article here...

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2392&Itemid=51

[Melissa G]

10. UK- How new counting system has added to the cost

How new counting system has added to the cost

DOUGLAS FRASER, Scottish Political Editor April 18 2007
The Holyrood elections will cost 36% more than four years ago, mainly due to changes in the counting system.

The officials running the ballot on May 3 have estimated it will cost £19m, whereas the 2003 ballot came to roughly £14m. That previous figure is unclear as some of Scotland's returning officers have failed to complete their accounts after four years.

Of the new budget, £4.4m is being spent on an electronic counting system being provided by a private company. A similar amount is being spent on using the same scanning and digitising system for the council ballot, though it is not clear how much councils are spending.


The main reason for changing the counting procedure is because the proportional voting system for councils has changed to include multiple preferences by each voter in wards of three or four councillors, making the calculations more complex than before.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1335422.0.0.php

[Melissa G]

11. House task force treads lightly in disputed Florida election

DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x471066

House task force treads lightly in disputed Florida election

Apr 17, 2007 6:19 PM (1 hr 44 mins ago)
By PHIL DAVIS, AP

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The House will weigh in on the disputed election in Florida's 13th Congressional District, but the time frame remained unclear Tuesday after the first meeting of a task force charged with investigating allegations of 18,000 lost votes in the race.


House Republicans said congressional intervention in the election dispute between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings before state courts rule on the case is "premature and risky." But Jennings, who lost to Buchanan by 369 votes and is backed by Florida's nine Democratic representatives, said it is time for Congress to take up the issue because the lawsuit is bogged down in Florida appellate court.

Task force chairman Charles Gonzalez, D-Texas, said Tuesday the three members of the group - two Democrats and a Republican - will meet officially within two weeks to decide how to continue. He described Tuesday's private meeting with lawyers from both sides as a background briefing.

"We have a process in place that will serve both of them well and fairly," Gonzalez said. "Whatever decision made by the task force and the recommendation made to the full committee is not going to be made on partisan considerations. That's all I can guarantee you."

http://www.examiner.com/a-679306~House_task_force_treads_lightly_in_disputed_Florida_election.html

[Melissa G]

12. Connecting the Dots in Election Fraud

Connecting the Dots in Election Fraud

by Lynne Glasner
http://www.opednews.com
DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x471071

As the hot air continues to rise, causing unpredictable currents, the Republicans and their pundit pals continue to complain that attorney-gate is a lot of hot air. The excuse of “Clinton did it too” is beginning to deflate. No he didn’t. In every administration, almost all of the US Attorneys are replaced at the beginning of the term. Yes, Clinton did that; so did Reagan, Bush 41, and even the neo-Bush, each at the start of their presidency. “By law, US attorneys are appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate for a term of four years, explains Congressional Quarterly.” http://www.cq.com/flatfiles/editorialFiles/temporaryItems/2007/attorneys.pdf>

But the issue is still further clouded by the motive behind the purge. Either out of a desire to be politically correct or an unwillingness to apply a criminal mindset to the Bush Administration, Congressional committees are not acting as if they are investigating a crime. Though Bush has yet to mimic “I-am-not-a-crook” Nixon, without looking at the motives, it’s hard to come up with probable cause.


It’s important to apply facts to the truthiness of the Republican Talking Points. The issue isn’t the replacement of US Attorneys by a new administration; the issue is the dismissal of US Attorneys without cause in the middle of their tenure. The Congressional Research Service filed a report on the historical record of the hiring and terms of US Attorneys over the last 25 years. In the period between 1981 and 2006, there were only three U.S. Attorneys who were dismissed without apparent cause in the first four years of their terms. During this time frame, at the end of every administration, most of the US Attorneys left, as was the expected practice. But there were only 10 who left involuntarily, and all but two of these left under at minimum, a cloud of “improper” behavior. So, yes, it is a big deal.

Again, we must apply fact to the spin and Republican Talking Points because there’s a gap not only in the emails that went missing, but in the facts that are being tossed around as truths. The spin-meisters want the public to retain the sound bite “voter fraud.” Drip, drip, as they squeeze out the talking points, the timing of each response carefully calibrated from a general “dismissed for poor performance” to “dismissed for not prosecuting voter fraud.”

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_lynne_gl_070417_connecting_the_dots_.htm

[nicknameless]

13. Get back up there!

:kick:

[Land Shark]

14. kicks for melissa G's work on this thread

[rumpel]

15. gee it is 11pm pst and mine is the 5th?

where is your love folks?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

16. It took me about 5 months to get advocates to look at ES&S Memo

everyone said, "oh thats interesting..." and then that was it.

So if it takes 5 months for computer scientists and other activists to look at
a memo that includes a warning by the vendor that voters may move to the next
screen without casting a vote!

So, I am not shocked that the EAC with Noodle Brain Donetta Davidson isn't sending out
an alert.

Maybe the EAC will catch on quicker than everyone else, but darn it someone should have listened about the smoothing filter memo and other info sooner.