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July 27, 2007 Open Letter to CA Secretary of State Bowen By Rebecca Mercuri Dear Secretary of State Bowen, At a cost of $1.8M, you now have various reports http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm that confirm that all of the State’s Hart, Diebold and Sequoia DRE and OpScan voting systems can be hacked in various ways. Potential hacks include the all-important ability to have a VVPAT print out one thing and the DRE total reflect something else (thus rendering the VVPAT useless) as well as the capability of detecting election mode (thus enabling the pre-election testing to appear correct, while the actual election has been compromised). All of these are types of hacks that many knowledgeable people (including myself) have been publicly saying for years could happen, and now you know that for sure they can. In addition, you know that “the security mechanisms provided for all systems analyzed were inadequate to ensure accuracy and integrity of the election results” and you also have learned that all of your State’s voting systems fail to meet the Federal accessibility requirements. Unfortunately, the report also provides you with a fall-back position whereby these wretched election products can continue to be used — by claiming that many of the attack scenarios can be mitigated through better physical security, security training of staff, and contingency planning. Of course the report fails to really explain what those mitigations need to be, and it also omits mentioning that if the staff or the vendor happens to be corrupt and their contingency plan is to cover up their tracks, we now know for sure that fraud is certainly possible. So it’s probably not a good idea to throw more money at additional security mechanisms and training while everyone pretends that they’re conducting legitimate elections, since insiders will still have the upper hand. Anyway, all these extra controls really won’t help your disabled population vote independently and privately either. Here’s a novel thought: why not just get rid of the junk the voting system vendors have sold your gullible counties over the past few years, demand a refund, and let your citizens vote on paper and do the counting themselves? Many disabled people can use inexpensive disposable ballot templates (that will also work just fine for those who cannot leave home or hospital, unlike the expensive DREs). And if you happen to scrape together another $1.8M (say from that vendor refund), I can help you assemble a team of world-class Ph.D.’s to validate that you can more than adequately ensure accuracy and integrity of election results with hand cast, hand counted, paper ballots. If you like, we can even add features to the paper ballots (similar to those used by your State lottery) that will make them and their contents far more secure than anything you have now. It’s an idea whose time has come. Hope you’ll think about it, since this electronic stuff just isn’t going to cut the mustard, no matter how much additional cash you spread on top of it for security purposes. Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions. Respectfully, Authors Website: http://www.notablesoftware.com Authors Bio: Rebecca Mercuri has been in the forefront of the voting integrity movement since 1989. She provides expert witness services for elections and other forensic computing matters. |
Most vote machines lose test to hackers
John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, July 28, 2007
State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California’s voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems’ electronic functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.
The researchers “were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested,” said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the “top to bottom review” of every voting system certified by the state.
Neither Bowen nor the investigators were willing to say exactly how vulnerable California elections are to computer hackers, especially because the team of computer experts from the UC system had top-of-the-line security information plus more time and better access to the voting machines than would-be vote thieves likely would have.
But this still doesn’t mean a VOTE will be delayed, since they could proceed with a delayed-implementation bill. It is simply misleading to try to pass off (as the NY Times does) all opposition to Holt as being from election officials and some disability activists, and that the election officials main concern is simply that of time before 2008 to implement changes.
“We don’t have the time to implement needed changes to elections in time for November 2008, 16 months away” (give the primary an exemption if need be) is not a very persuasive argument. No reasons are given for why this is the cas, and no justification given for why it might NOT be the case. Thus, the NY Times leaves the reader with no choice but to accept, even if grudgingly, the story line that is being fed for why a 216 sponsor bill is falling apart. The NY Times just pretends that there is no public interest worth reporting on, either in the form of arguments that elections officials could do the job if they got off their butts, or in public interest arguments against the Holt bill. Message: Don’t worry folks, it’s just details of administrative implementation, no serious problems here. And that’s highly misleading reporting, but it is probably what the NYT got fed by someone.
Federal elections are two years apart so we are never more than 23 months away from another federal election. So this can always be used as an excuse and as a way to panic people into making bad compromised decisions: the upcoming critical federal elections…
Paul
FULL REPORT:
Read more.
20
"Something's in the works"
Thursday, July 19, 2007
(07-19) 12:19 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) –
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal.
Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity in 2003. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments. Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
[snip]
* The 2006 conviction of Alabama’s former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman for bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud has raised serious concerns. Mr. Siegelman was indicted in 2004, two years after losing the governor’s race by a mere 3,200 votes in the closest governor’s election in Alabama state history. In May, 2007, Jill Simpson, a Republican attorney in Alabama who had worked for Mr. Siegelman’s 2002 Republican opponent, swore in an affidavit that in 2002, a former protege of Karl Rove told a small group of Republican political operatives that Karl Rove and two U.S. Attorneys in Alabama were working to “take care of” Mr. Siegelman. The Rove protege, Bill Canary, is married to Leura Canary, who President Bush appointed in 2001 to be the U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Alabama. In 2005, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Alabama indicted Mr. Siegelman (Ms. Canary recused herself from participating in the Siegelman case in 2002). In her affidavit, Ms. Simpson said that Bill Canary told her and two colleagues that “Karl [Rove] had spoken with the Department of Justice and the Department was already pursuing Don Siegelman.” The phone call that Ms. Simpson was referring to occurred in November, 2002, when Mr. Siegelman was seeking a recount of the vote he had just lost, and when Republican operatives were concerned that Mr. Siegelman could be a significant political threat in future elections. There have been several reported irregularities in the case against Mr. Siegelman that raise questions about his prosecution. In 2004, charges against Mr. Siegelman were dropped by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Alabama before the case went to trial, and the judge harshly rebuked prosecutors bringing that case. In the RICO case filed in the Middle District of Alabama in 2005, there have been allegations of jury tampering involving two of the jurors who convicted Mr. Siegelman. These and other irregularities prompted 44 former state attorneys general to sign a petition “urging the United States Congress to investigate the circumstances surrounding the investigation, prosecution, sentencing and detention” of Mr. Siegelman.[snip] Steven Biskupic’s name appeared on a March, 2005, list that was compiled by Department of Justice staff which named U.S. Attorneys who could potentially be ousted. In January, 2006, Mr. Biskupic indicted Ms. Thompson; that same month, Mr. Biskupic’s name had been removed from the DOJ list of U.S. Attorneys who might be replaced. After Ms. Thompson’s conviction in June, 2006, the campaign of Gov. Doyle’s Republican opponent, U.S. Representative Mark Green, seized on the conviction as a means to paint Gov. Doyle as corrupt. The Court of Appeals, finding that no crime had been committed, acquitted Ms. Thompson, declaring her “innocent,” but of course, the political damage had been done and could not be rectified.
[snip]
* The prosecution of Dr. Cyril Wecht in the Western District of Pennsylvania by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan has also engendered controversy. It has been alleged that the case of Dr. Wecht, a prominent 75-year old Democrat who was the coroner in Allegheny County, is indicative of other prosecutions in the Western District – since 2001, the U.S. Attorney has never indicted a Republican official, and has only prosecuted officeholders who are Democrats. Dr. Wecht, a world renowned forensic pathologist and television commentator, was charged with misusing his office and personally enriching himself by, among other things, striking a deal with a local university to trade unclaimed cadavers for university lab space. Claiming Dr. Wecht was a flight risk, Ms. Buchanan advised his defense lawyers, including former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, that her office intended to arrest Dr. Wecht and subject him to a “perp walk,” even though Dr. Wecht and his lawyers repeatedly offered to self-surrender and voluntarily appear in court to be arraigned. Reportedly only after former Attorney General Thornburgh spoke with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty did Ms. Buchanan agree not to arrest Dr. Wecht and subject him to a “perp walk.” In court filings, Dr. Wecht alleges that Ms. Buchanan’s office inflamed the press by making inappropriate statements. The U.S. Attorney’s office urged the courts to set the trial in October, 2006, a month before the congressional elections; the case was postponed only after the federal appeals court agreed to hear motions by Dr. Wecht’s attorneys. Yet U.S. Attorney Buchanan has not brought charges against at least two Republican officials who, like Dr. Wecht, are alleged to have misused their office staff.Read full article.
Here is an analysis of problems with S1487. There are 25 areas of function, and many of them have severe problems.
I hope that all activists can agree that this bill is the wrong way to election reform.
S1487
What does it do? Why is it wrong? Suggested solutions! www.wheresthepaper.org/S1487WhyIsItWrong.htm
Mark,
This deconstruction of S-1487 is very well done and we are proud to feature it on VotersUnite.Org. Here is just a small part of what Robert Bancroft has to say about Sen. Feinstein’s gift to Corporate America:
http://www.votersunite.org/info/S1487Deconstruction.asp
>>snip<Votes are less safe, and less likely to be counted, in S.1487:
o S.1487 replaces most references to “paper ballot” with “paper record”, a stinging reminder that the two are not equal.
o S.1487 removes the test of “clear and convincing evidence” with regards to tampering, making the paper records easier to ignore.
o S.1487 allows the paper ballots of an entire precinct to be ignored, if there is any hint of “mischief”, while H.R.811 suggests that any tampering be considered on a machine-by-machine basis
o S.1487 deletes language in H.R.811 that requires prominent reminders for voters to double-check their paper records before casting the vote.
o S.1487 adds dangerously racist “residual benchmarks”, and deletes accuracy standards established by HAVA.
o S.1487 alters disclosure requirements, to offer improved protection for corporate “trade secrets”, at the expense of vote integrity.
o S.1487 permits some machines used in vote tabulation to be connected to the internet, while H.R.811 does not.
o S.1487 deletes language in H.R.811 that would require polling stations to offer real, paper ballots, as an alternative to electronic voting.
H.R.811 makes some minimal effort to constrain the role of the Commission, but S.1487 goes hog-wild:
o H.R.811 relies on the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop best practices, but S.1487 hands that responsibility over to the Commission.
o H.R.811 would like States to play a role in the certification process. S.1487 hands control to the Commission. It even permits the Commission to break its own rules on a whim (“emergency
certification”).
o H.R.811 requires disclosure between manufacturers, labs and state election officials, but S.1487 makes the Commission the central command.
o H.R.811 mandates that the Commission shall select labs at random “to the greatest extent practicable”, but S.1487 weakens the language.
o H.R.811 requires the Commission to inform the public if it has “credible evidence of significant security failure at an accredited laboratory”, but S.1487 deletes this, preferring such knowledge remain a secret between the lab and the Commission.
o H.R.811 allows the Director of the National Science Foundation to determine who is eligible to receive grants for research, but S.1487 gives this responsibility to the Commission.
H.R.811 has a lot more to say about audits:
o H.R.811 requires that States may not give any advance notice as to which precincts will be selected for audit. S.1487 has this line deleted.
o H.R.811 allows audits to be skipped if the winning candidate received 80% or more of the total votes, S.1487 does not.
o H.R.811 requires the entity conducting the audit to “meet the standards established by the Comptroller General to ensure the independence” of all parties, and requires that audits be performed “under generally accepted government accounting standards.” S.1487 deletes all of this.
o H.R.811 attempts to outline several additional requirements for the audit, including that at least 10% of all precincts be audited in the case of a particularly close race. S.1487 suggests 2%.
o H.R.811 provides States the opportunity to develop their own audit standards, so long as the National Institute of Standards and Technology verifies the proposed method is at least as accurate as the method that H.R.811 outlines. S.1487 deletes this; why consult NIST when one can simply defer all judgment to the Commission?
o H.R.811 requires random audits, but also insists that at least one precinct from each county be audited. S.1487 deletes this safeguard.
o H.R.811 insists that the Commission adopt model audit procedures before the next Presidential election. S.1487 is content to wait until 2010.
o H.R.811 appropriates $100,000,000 to assist states in paying the cost of a rigorous audit regime. S.1487 tells States to go lay an egg.
Other assorted differences:
o S.1487 deletes several legal protections for “aggrieved persons”, who have been disenfranchised, to seek remedy.
o S.1487 cuts the total research spending by $2,000,000.
o S.1487 cuts the total grants for purchase of equipment by $400,000,000.
o While H.R.811 bases funding allocation on voting age population, S.1487 bases it on the number of precincts.
o S.1487 expands and clarifies the protection of voters who speak certain languages other than English, referring to 1965 Voter Protection Act.
o S.1487 pushes back most deadlines, many not effective until after the next Presidential election.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Mahar-Piersma, Auke
Date: Jul 17, 2007 8:51 AM
Subject: Letter to Oppose H.R. 811
To:
Auke Mahar-Piersma
Legislative Director
Rep. Dennis Kucinich
(202) 225-5871
– - – - – - – - – - – - – -
After more than three years of supporting election reform bills introduced by Representative Rush Holt, I am saddened to see the many severe flaws in the version of HR 811 as it was passed out of committee last month.” June 11, 2007
County officials welcome federal lawmakers’ interest in strengthening the integrity and accessibility of our most basic democratic institution. We look forward to working with you to address the myriad challenges facing county officials in this environment of unprecedented change in election technology rather than exacerbating these challenges by enacting legislation such as H.R. 811. March 14, 2007
Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
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