Fact-esque

Ah, That's Better

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

via Jeff Fecke at Shakes

Linkety Link Link

Molly Ivins makes a sort of endorsement from Heaven, which doesn't make me want to vote for Obama as much as it makes me ache with missing Ivins.   She would have had so much fun with this election.

The Mortgage Crisis made simple. (via Mithras)

Dean Baker says that a bailout is a bailout is a bailout and that some accountability to go with the inevitable would be just swell.

For Nell, commenting at Thomas': PA primary voter registration closes March 24.  Register, people! 

Speaking of voting, a leading Bucks County paper has finally come around to the realization that voting on machines that cannot be recounted is a bad idea.   Of course we own the $3.8M white elephants now and the Republican County Commissioners continue to refuse to do the right thing and trash'em.   The good news is that the Coalition for Voting Integrity, which has been right on this issue since forver, is keeping the pressure on and people are joining the call.  Maybe we'll get a miracle in Bucks County and be voting on precinct-based op-scans in the fall. 

eVoting in the News!

Yay!  The NYT, famous for incomplete and lackluster coverage of the national disaster of electronic voting, has published the story they should have published six years ago.  Kudos to them.   It's 8,000 words long and if you are new to the issue, I recommend that you read it.   If, when you are finished, you are depressed and/or confused, I will give you the antidote now:   All the problems mentioned in the story can be solved with voter-marked paper ballots and proper audits.   Municipalities should feel free to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on any fancy schmancy ballot counting devices they want as long as those results are used for preliminary, always unofficial results and the official results wait for the hand count of the voter-marked paper ballots.  Precinct-based op-scans are a good way to go.   

Systems that fit that bill can be in place in time for 2008.  This issue is not difficult and that's good news. 

Ohio to Offer Paper Ballots

to anyone who requests one.   Good for Ohio.  Looks like everything is lining up perfectly for Pennsylvania to be the Florida of 2008.  Woo hoo!

Psssst ... C'mere .... I Gotta Tell You Somethin'

Prince Spaghetti Day is back!   

In honor of delicious dinners everywhere, take a minute today to call your Congressperson and to tell him/her to vote AGAINST H.R. 811, which has lovingly been renamed Microsoft 811 or alternately The Vendor Protection Act.   It's supposed to come up for a vote today.   Act fast!!

Voice of the Voters is On the Air - and in Your iPod

I just sent this to the Coalition for Voting Integrity's mailing list, so you get to read it too!   

Summer is winding down, which means that the last week of vacations is coming up.   But the Coalition for Voting Integrity has been hard at work all summer long bringing radio and Internet listeners all across the country interviews with the nation's biggest names in voting news.

If you missed any of the shows aired over the summer, you can listen to them via podcast or at the Voice of the Voter archives.

LIST OF SUMMER VOICE OF THE VOTERS SHOWS

Aug. 22:  Tom Courbat, founder of Save R Vote, will provide an analysis of the impact of Secretary of State Bowen's historic decisions following the top-to-bottom review of electronic voting machines used in CA; John Gideon, executive director of Voters Unite, will discuss the situation in PA's Wayne, Lackawanna and Northampton Counties, where Advanced Voting Solutions has been denied certification of their WINvote DRE touchscreen system; Ellen Bukstel & Nancy Wuerzburger wrote the song "They Lost My Vote," often heard on Voice of the Voters! Lori Rosolowsky is this week's guest host.

Aug. 15, repeat of Aug. 8: Matt Blaze, member of team that peformed the recent security review of voting machines used in CA, coauthor of Security Problem Excuse Bingo, and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, an advocate for paper ballots.
Blaze Transcript.
Kucinich Transcript.
Audio
Podcast

Aug. 1: Tom Courbat, founder of Save R Vote, interviewed by guest host Lori Rosolowsky in the wake of CA Secretary of State Bowen's report revealing voting machine vulnerabilities.
Audio
Podcast

July 25: Gregory Luke, election law attorney, discusses S. 1487, the "Ballot Integrity Act."
Audio
Podcast

July 18: John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action, re the privatization and outsourcing of U.S. elections, plus the illegality of DRE voting machines.
Audio.
Podcast.

July 11: Bruce O'Dell, information technology consultant and election integrity activist. See his most recent article re HR 811 at OpEdNews.com and report "Landslide Denied: Exit Polls vs. Vote Count 2006." Plus Nancy Tobi, of Democracy for New Hampshire.
Audio.
Podcast.

July 4th Revolutionary Extravaganza!   Strait Talks and Voice of the Voters joined forces, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood, "Words of Freedom" radio host George Flynn, and local singer/songwriter Lori Rosolowsky
Podcast

June 27:  Bo Lipari, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), recaps "Citizens 1, Microsoft 0" (see Bo's Blog). 
Audio.
Podcast.

"This is Central to Whether You Have a Democracy or Not"

Congressman Dennis Kucinich was interviewed on Voice of the Voters, the Coalition for Voting Integrity's radio show, last night.   He was joined by a leader of the team that proved that California's voting machines should be carefully collected, packed up and sent to the bottom of the ocean for all that good they do California voters.  They are, in short, worthless.   

You can listen to the show here from the Voice of the Voters archives or via podcast here. 

I'm posting a transcript of Rep. Kucinich's part of the show since you won't be able to find anything like it anywhere in the corporate media and nearly nowhere in central blogtopia (hail skippy) for that matter.

Toward the middle of the interview, Congressman Kuchinich proves what we already know - Congress is useless when it comes to ensuring the integrity of the American vote:

Rep. Kucinich: Maybe what we could do—again, I have a bill in to make paper ballots in federal elections mandatory, and states for state elections have the ability to set their own kind of format, but I think that when the federal government moves on this, it’ll cause states to come into conformity. There are ways to bring that about.

Something occurs to me,  and that is, that perhaps the distinguished guest that you have on would be willing to call my office in Washington because there may be a legal basis for a lawsuit here that deals with really denying the right to vote. And I think I’d be very interested in seeing if that research that’s been done could be the basis of a lawsuit to try to throw out that technology for use in a federal election. It may be that unless this has already been adjudicated, it may be that this is a faster route to trying to protect the vote than having to wait for Congress to do something.

MAG:  Our concern is 2008, Congressman.

DK: As is mine.

MAG:  Yes, and the way it looks now, 2000 is going to look like kindergarten in comparison, I fear, unless some actions are taken. If we leave it to the states, they feel that they have already spent a lot of money, they don’t want to spend any more and they're convinced that adding printers onto the backs of these DREs will give them some type of security. It was proven in California that this is invalid. Even with the printers, these machines are definitely unfixable. And then we hear constantly that

1. Nobody in Congress will support a ban on DREs.

2. Lobbyists are too strong over the will of the people.

3. States and county governments don’t want to make a change because it’s going to be too difficult.

DK: I can say that I’d like to talk to those who can help me build the evidence to present to raise the issue of banning them outright. That might be our only recourse. 

As for Dr. Blaze, who is "baffled" as to how the systems he studied were ever certified in the first place, you can add him to the growing list of computer experts who have had the chance to study the design and source code of DRE voting systems and has come to the conclusion that they are "fatally flawed."   

What is there to say at this point?   I've been hearing for almost eight years that this is an issue only for conspiracy nuts, that the "signal to noise ratio" obscures the story and makes it impossible to understand and write about on blogs.   The corporate media has been, predictably, a joke.   In November 2004, when Randi Rhodes asked Barack Obama about counting all the votes in Ohio, he asked her if she was "still gnawing that bone."   Sen. Feinstein's Ballot Integrity Act is a corporate-friendly monstrosity.  Rep. Holt's latest bill, HR 811, isn't any better. 

There's one option here - ban all voting systems that don't use a voter-marked paper ballot and require a proper audit.  Nearly half of the country votes on machines that are unverifiable.   No state requires proper audits of results.  The federal government should replace those systems with precinct-based optical scan machines in time for 2008.  Then use the electronic machines for an unofficial count available by the 11pm news and make the paper ballots the official record of the election.  It's always been that simple. 

The entire transcript of the Kucinich interview is below the fold.

 

Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Dr. Matt Blaze, Computer Security Expert with the Name of a Superhero! This Week on CVI's Voice of the Voters

The California study was, as far as I know, the most comprehensive independent security evaluation of electronic voting technologies ever conducted, covering products from three major vendors and investigating not only the voting machines themselves, but also the back-end systems that create ballots and tally votes.  I believe our reports now constitute the most detailed published information available about how these systems work and the specific risks entailed by their use in elections.

That's a quote from Dr. Matt Blaze, who for two months led one of the source code analysis teams in California's security review of its electronic voting systems.   Here's more from Dr. Blaze:

We found significant,  deeply-rooted security weaknesses in all three vendors' software. Our newly-released source code analyses address many of the supposed shortcomings of the red team studies, which have been (quite unfairly, I think) criticized as being "unrealistic".  It should now be clear that the red teams were successful not because they somehow "cheated," but rather because the built-in security mechanisms they were up against simply don't work properly. Reliably protecting these systems under operational conditions will likely be very hard.

The problems we found in the code were far more pervasive, and much more easily exploitable, than I had ever imagined they would be.

Tonight on Voice of the Voters, the Coalition for Voting Integrity's Internet radio show, Dr. Blaze will share his knowledge, experience and insights in a discussion of why, exactly, our vote is not safe in the hands of unverifiable and insecure voting machines and the corporations who sell them. 

Bonus:  It turns out that Dr. Blaze isn't only a computer genius, he has a sense of humor.  To be completely prepared for tomorrow's show and for some fun, download a Security Problem Excuse Bingo card, created by Dr. Blaze and  Jutta Degener.     Bucks County voters have heard most of those excuses before. 

Then, Democratic presidential candidate, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, will explain why he thinks DREs are a problem, what he thinks can be done in Congress to protect American voters from systems that are flawed beyond repair and how we can secure American elections systems in time for 2008. He'll also discuss other key issues facing the country in this historic time.

Congress is dropping the ball on this issue, offering us crummy bills that cater to the whims of electronic voting machine vendors.   It will be interesting to hear what Congressman Kucinich thinks his colleagues can do in time for 2008.

How to listen to Voice of the Voters:

Voice of the Voters airs every Wednesday night at 8:00 PM ET on 1360 AM and on the Internet. (http://wnjc.duxpond.com/)

Note: If you use dial up internet, it is best to turn off all other programs in order to receive clearest broadcast.

Voice of the Voters is also available as a podcast at iTunes.com under "Voice of the Voters" in the News & Politics category.

Archived shows are available here.

Full disclosure: I'm a proud member of CVI.

Pulling the Thread

This video comes courtesy of Chris at Susie's place via Avedon Carol.  I'm going to be redundant here because this is one of those things that can't get enough exposure.   

Chris called the video "The Problem" and s/he's right on the money.  People like Sara Taylor swear their allegiance to BushCo but let's be clear -  the rest of the government is swearing its allegiance to ever other Co. out there.  That's why we get HAVA, Holt's H.R. 811, Medicare Part D and nearly every piece of legislation written. 

It' s nice to see Leahy all up in arms with Bushkevik, Sara Taylor, but I hope he went from that hearing room to his office to tell someone to get his name off of S.1497, Feinstein's horrifying "Ballot Integrity Act of 2007."

Going even further, the bill allows those corporations to assist in deciding how to enforce the trade secrecy of their software.

Since the bill also requires that all voting systems in use after 2010 be certified by the EAC, those four Presidential appointees will decide which corporations and which of their products will be in charge of the secret vote-counting process in every State.

As Teresa Hommel of WheresThePaper.org says: “These paragraphs explicitly sell out American democracy to corporate commercial interests. The EAC and vendors, without other stakeholders such as states, parties, and citizens, will develop a process to protect private interests from public knowledge of how our elections are conducted.”

 

It's Simple Really

There's movement on the electronic voting front.  Unfortunately, it's in the wrong direction.   H.R. 811, Rep. Rush Holt's (NJ-12)  bill is a darling of the any-legislation-is-better-than-no-legislation crowd.   Apparently they haven't learned the lessons of Medicare Part D, NAFTA, CAFTA and No Child Left Behind.    H.R. 811 may have come from a good idea, but the bill has been so weighed down with dangerous changes that at this point, it will do more harm than good if passed.   You can read Voters Unite's take on what needs to be changed here.    I'd like to see the whole bill scrapped in favor of a simple bill that bans DRE's (touchscreen/touchbutton machines) and provides federal funds to states for the purchase of precinct-based optical scan systems in time for 2008. 

Grassroots activists across the country have been working day and night to get that message to Rep. Holt.     Activists like Mark Crispin Miller, who found out why that message didn't hold any sway with Congress during an email exchange with Rep. Holt's counsel, Michelle Mulder.    Here she is defending her boss' bill against the charge that it "stipulates that the e-voting software be available only to 'qualified' individuals, who must sign strict non-disclosure agreements":

"That's not what the bill said when introduced.  Therefore, you can take up your concerns with Microsoft and others in the proprietary software industry.  During Committee proceedings they lobbied very heavily against the language that was in the bill as introduced and none of you lobbied in favor of the language that was in the bill as introduced, and thus, the software industry won.  It's very simple, really."

That's one heck of a civics lesson from Ms. Mulder.  Extra points for contempt and smugness! 

To be clear:  Microsoft and others in the proprietary software industry lobbied "very heavily" and because citizens opposed to DRE machines and secret vote counts couldn't match the power of one of the largest and richest industries in the world, the software industry won.    See, it's like a game.   A game in which our elections are decided and people are placed/kept in office to make decisions to send our soldiers to war, spend our tax dollars and create public policy that affects us all.

Do what you can to even this playing field.   The Holt Bill, H.R. 811,  is coming up for a vote as early as tomorrow.  Take five minutes right now to call your representative in Congress to let him/her know that you know the truth behind H.R. 811 and that it's not okay with you if the software industry "wins" and unverifiable DREs are allowed to continue to be used in American elections.   Demand a NO vote on H.R. 811.

In the spirit of being part of the solution, here's what we should get from this Congress:

A stripped down bill for 2008 which provides for:

• Voter-marked paper ballots counted by hand or precinct-based optical scan systems
• Sufficient, timely mandatory audits for every election
• Federal Funds for all jurisdictions to meet these requirements.  Give the Billion dollars in
  funding to the states that have unreliable DRE;s (touchscreen/touchbutton) so they canpurchase precinct-based optical scan systems,  not printers since they do not offer an independent voter-marked paper ballot
• Placement in time for use in 2008
• Congressional oversight of our elections instead of allowing the EAC that role. The EAC is comprised of administrative appointees and are not elected representatives of the people accountable to the voters. Congressional oversight provides for a continued system of checks and balances that was called for in our Constitution.