Friday, October 29, 2010
North Carolina Republicans File Lawsuit Against Electronic Voting Machine Failures
 The Brad Blog has just broken a story over the lawsuit the North Carolina Republican Party has filed against the State Board of Elections over the use and failures of the electronic touch screen voting machines. Amongst the allegations is the votes being cast for Republican candidates are being flipped to Democratic candidates instead. The Daily Comet also reported. Below is an excerpt from The Brad Blog on this breaking story:
"This afternoon, Legal Counsel for the North Carolina Republican State
Executive Committee sent a letter [PDF] to the NC State Board of Elections threatening legal action if their "demands" were not "immediately" met for taking a number of specific actions to mitigate reported touch-screen voting problems describes as "significantly more widespread than the NC GOP initially understood."
The GOP attorney, John E. Branch III writes that the voting system problems should have been addressed prior to the early voting period "and, to the extent they were not, the touch screen systems should have been been banned."
The problems in contention are related to reports of the state's ES&S iVotronic e-voting systems reportedly showing votes as flipping from Republicans to Democrats on the screen. The threat from the state GOP comes on the heels of complaints made last week in two different NC counties, Craven and New Hanover. Those reports were a switch from previous years when voters in dozens of states had reported votes flipping largely from Democratic to Republican. Branch charges that the party has "received word" that similar problems have emerged in "Mecklenburg...Randolph...Cumberland, Wilson, Pender, Forsyth, Lenoir and other
counties," which all similarly use the oft-failed, 100% unverifiable ES&S touch-screen voting machines. The same systems are also used in more than a
dozen other states...
In a sharply worded response [PDF] to Branch's letter late this afternoon, Gary O.
Bartlett, Executive Director of the State Board of Elections charges the GOP
letter was "apparently intended to elevate isolated occurrences with touch screen voting equipment into a crisis of confidence in the integrity of the election." Bartlett downplayed the concerns, as elections officials usually do, describing them as "no different than ones that must be addressed in every election."
North Carolina Election Integrity advocate Joyce McCloy, Director of NC Coalition for Verified Voting and editor of Voting News tells The BRAD BLOG that vote flipping in the state "has historically been from GOP to DEM". She also notes the acrimony between the state Republicans and the Board of Elections, explaining that many of the county BoEs have a Democratic majority and that the state's largest local e-voting vendor, Print Elect, who program the machines in a number of counties, is a "BIG donor to the DEM Governor".
In truth, however, there is no way to know how any touch-screen voting machine actually records a vote during an election. What is shown to voters on both the screen and the so-called "paper trail" printed out along side it (on many such systems) may not reflect the way the votes are actually recorded internally. To that end, there is no way to know that any vote has ever been recorded accurately, as per any voters intent, for any candidate or initiative on any ballot in any actual election using a touch-screen voting machine.
The ES&S iVotronics were indeed certified at the federal level, but by contractors selected and paid for by the vendor themselves and who tested the systems in secrecy. Subsequent independent analysis, by a number of states, have found "serious" flaws in the systems. A study released by the state of Florida in 2007 found the systems were vulnerable to viral vote-flipping attacks. The state eventually decertified the systems after 18,000 votes were lost all together during a 2006 U.S. House special election decided in favor of the Republican by just 369 votes.
One of the "DEMANDS" listed in the GOP attorney's letter to the State Board of Elections is for an order to be issued requiring poll workers to keep a record of complaints (which Bartlett says they already do), but to include "the identify of the voter, the time the voter voted, the specific voting machine used by the voter, and the nature of the voter's complaint" in such incident reports.
Such a requirement, however, would likely result in the loss of privacy for that voter's secret ballot. That's just one more problem to add to the ever growing list of reasons why, as the GOP's Branch correctly noted, "the touch screen systems should have been been banned." In addition to North Carolina, the ES&S iVotronic is used, according to VerifiedVoting.org's database at polling places in Arkansas, Washington D.C., Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
• 10/28/10 Letter from NC GOP to NC's State Board of Elections [PDF]• 10/28/10 Response to NC GOP from NC's State Board of Elections [PDF]"
Read the full story at The Brad Blog.
This is interesting news because in the past years, it has mainly been Democratic state or independent organizations that have been raising this concern on the lack of transparency and intergrity of electronic voting machines. It is GREAT news that a Republican organization is finally taking this issue of election fraud seriously. As AuditAZ has stated over and over again, election integrity is not about the Right or Left. It is about right and wrong. No democracy can ensue when votes cannot be counted accurately, transparently, and one vote per person. Labels: Diebold, election fraud, election integrity, ES and S, Republican Party, voting rights
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010
'Arti-factual' Election Results in SC
 From the BradBlog: 'Arti-factual' Election Results in SC; And a Brief History of Recent ES&S E-Vote Failure in Advance of Thursday's Democratic Primary Protest Hearing JUST IN: Protest hearing to be streamed LIVE Thursday @ 3pm ET...
Posted By Brad Friedman On 16th June 2010 @ 19:54
First, some very good news just in: The hearing for the protest to the results of last week's SC Democratic U.S. Senate primary will be streamed [1] live on Thursday at 3pm ET via Live.VicRawl.com [2]. The protest will be heard by the Executive Board of the South Carolina Democratic Party to consider Judge Vic Rawl's protest to last week's bizarre election. Second, I'm happy to say that I have finally been able to make contact with the campaign of former state legislator and Circuit Court Judge Vic Rawl [3]. I had a somewhat lengthy conversation earlier today with his campaign manager Walter Ludwig, and continue to be happy to report that it seems they have a very good grasp of the issues at stake --- in relation to the horrific ES&S e-voting system --- in their challenge to the 100% unverifiable election of Alvin Greene in SC's recent Democratic U.S. Senate primary race. As I noted last night [4], in discussing Rawl's interview yesterday on Fox, given the sharp learning curve for those unfamiliar with the complex issues involved with e-voting and Election Integrity, they've done an excellent job of getting up to speed, at least inasmuch as possible in the short time they've been forced to become "experts" on the topic. That, of course, is just another pitfall of using insanely complicated rocket science instead of common sense and eyeballs to add one plus one plus one in our current electoral system. Most candidates with questions about their election results simply can't afford the resources and computer scientists and time needed for the forensic investigation of these systems --- that's if they're even allowed access to the often proprietary trade-secret hardware and software --- following an election and prior to the date by which they must file and argue a legal challenge. That, as opposed to simply examining paper ballots and chain of custody procedures, as would be the case with sane, paper ballot elections. Ludwig seems to understand just how bad the voting system is that voters were forced to use in SC's recent election, the same system used in dozens of other states despite The BRAD BLOG's [5] best efforts over the past six years to warn of the dangers. "These machines are incredibly frail and subject to manipulation. They don't work very well." In short, Ludwig told me, "They're crap."...
'Arti-factual' Results The case he'll present tomorrow to the state Democratic Party's executive committee does not include evidence of direct manipulation, but rather, a three-pronged case combining the known problems and historical failures of the ES&S iVotronic system, in combination with the statistical and political improbabilities that Greene, an unemployed, unknown candidate who did no campaigning whatsoever, could have legitimately received some 60% of the total vote. "The results appear to be artificial, or 'arti-factual', as some people might say. As we've done our analysis, it just doesn't hold up," said Ludwig. Speaking to the oft-cited fallacy being forwarded in the media that both candidates were equally unknown entities, who each did little or no campaigning, Ludwig re-iterated what Rawl has been saying in his recent media appearances [6]. "There is an inherent presumption that these were equivalent campaigns. We campaigned, the other guy just simply didn't." Rawl has said he'd raised hundreds of thousands of dollars during the campaign, appeared at some 80 campaign events all across the state since March 1st, and had hundreds of campaign volunteers. By way of contrast, Greene didn't have a campaign website, had no volunteers, no campaign literature, and doesn't even own a computer or a cell phone. I pointed Ludwig to a number of academic findings in regard to the state's Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems which he hadn't yet known of, and discussed my concerns about the sensitive memory cards used in those systems for both programming the ballot and recording votes. As manipulation of the memory cards are one of the direct ways to potentially manipulate the machines, I've been very troubled by reports received by the campaign that some pollworkers were said to have been repeatedly accessing and swapping out memory cards throughout Election Day. Ludwig says that the cards have yet to be examined or quarantined. I strongly advised, as I have since first reporting this story [7], that someone get a court order for that immediately.
Labels: Brad Friedman, Bradblog, Diebold, election fraud, election integrity, ES and S
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Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Citizen Transparency Wins!
The long hard battle for citizen oversight of elections and transparency was won yesterday when the Pima Board of Supervisors decided not to appeal the decision by Judge Miller to require the Board to turn over the database files since 1998 to the Democratic Party as well as any other oversight party. In addition, Pima Democratic Party attorney Bill Risner will be paid for all but $90,000 of his legal expenses (by us the taxpayers of course). The entire cost to taxpayers is likely around $1 million when you include the County Attorneys, staff, and legal fees they incurred fighting their own citizens on this. This case is a perfect example of poor government and what volunteer citizen activists can do to raise the issues and keep holding their elected officials accountable.
Had the Board of Supervisors not wasted over a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars and just turned over the data, it would have been less painful for all involved. We here at AuditAZ do want to thank the biggest obstructionists on the Board, Sharon Bronson, Ramon Valadez and to a lesser extent Ann Day. Had it not been for their "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach to this case, the general public, local media, and voters and volunteers from the Democratic, Republican, Green and Libertarian parties (plus independents) would not have gotten so outraged and our profile would not have been raised to the level it has. We thank you for all the added members who joined to help us out due to their outrage at the shenanigans both at the Board meetings and in court. Chair Richard Elias didn't exactly show leadership on this issue either.
We would be remise if we didn't send out a special thank you to Ray Carroll, who was the one Board Supervisor who consistently supported citizen rights by first voting "no" to the purchase of Diebold DRE machines and then subsequently voting to allow access to the database records we requested.
The Board of Supervisors are up for re-election this year. If this issue matters to you (and it should) check out the challengers in the other four races and ask their positions on election integrity and transparency. Accountability is essential to having your vote count and accurately recorded as the voter intended. You have the power to determine who the gatekeepers are, who is accountable to whom (our public officials are supposed to be accountable to us) and ultimately protect the constitution and the most fundamental right we have: the right to vote in clean, fair accurate elections. When you cast your votes in September and November, you can rest assured that the ability to defraud your vote just got more difficult with Judge Miller's ruling.
The hard work of Mickey Duniho, John Brakey, Jim March, Tom Ryan, as well as numerous other election integrity activists have made what was once relegated at a "conspiracy theorist" hobby into a huge victory for American citizens.
John Brakey's budget proposal for future elections can be found here. He does a cost benefit analysis that is a very good solution and work around to our already present Diebold machines.
Garry Duffy at the Tucson Citizen won an Arizona Press Club award for his work on covering this trial. A big "thank you" to him and his excellent coverage. The Tucson Weekly's Mari Herreras has written some excellent blog articles with links to documentation relating to the case and future proposals.
Now the tenuous task of analyzing the data that the PDP has obtained is underway. If you would like to help in future projects, please sign up and get involved. You can also DONATE since AuditAZ is all volunteer organization and our expenses come out of our own pockets (with big holes thanks to the current high gas prices).Labels: Arizona election law, Arizona elections, Bill Risner, Diebold, election fraud, election integrity, Jim March, John Brakey, Pima County Board of Supervisors, pima county election, Pima lawsuit, RTA
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