PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
10/19/06
Contact: Joe Irrera,
[email protected]; Phone 889-1764 (c)
Documented Election Law and Security Violations in Shelby County
Shelby County’s conduct of the August primary election may have violated basic election system security procedures. Documents released earlier this month reveal multiple breaches of security and cast doubt on the legality of the election process.
As part of a lawsuit alleging illegal voting brought by four unsuccessful candidates for clerk positions, election officials’ declarations and discovery documents call into question the election results. Although their case was dismissed October 5, Shep Wilbun, Sondra Becton, Vernon Johnson and Otis Jackson have performed a valuable service. Jim March, a computer professional who examined the county’s Diebold voting systems as part of this legal case, calls his findings “some of the most irregular procedures in America today. Nobody else in the Tennessee elections process did their jobs except for these four candidates and a handful of citizen supporters and researchers.”
March’s inspection of the Diebold voting system, performed on behalf of the 4 defendants, focused on the central vote tabulator. Computer event logs show major security violations including:
1. At 6:30 pm on Election Day, Shelby County’s main vote tabulation computer was connected to the internet through Shelby County’s computer network. Election officials claim they did this to allow electronic transfer of voting results from four regional elections offices across the county. This county network connection allowed access to the vote tabulator for anyone with access to the county’s computer network..
2. The day after the election, after 4 attempts, someone succeeded in loading uncertified software onto the Diebold central tabulator. This software enables data transfer on small USB "key chain" memory devices. Such devices can easily hold the entire file containing Shelby County’s primary election vote totals. This raises questions as to whether hidden vote manipulation may have taken place.
3. On 8/7/06 someone loaded a complete copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2000, including MS-Access on to the vote tabulation computer. This program is well known as the simplest way to edit the contents of a Diebold central vote database (and banned for use in elections in virtually all jurisdictions nationwide). It cannot be secured against tampering.
4) Evidence of actual attempts to manipulate election result reporting results exists. The computer event logs show repeated failed attempts to use an HTML editor. On 8/22/06 for a period of over an hour -- and during a period when the voting equipment was impounded by a temporary restraining order -- someone attempted to edit computer data files on the main Diebold server. The only significant files on it are vote total reports.
5. A copy of PC Anywhere, a program allowing opening the machine to outside control was found on the backup central tabulator computer.
State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson, who testified in the lawsuit, claimed nothing was amiss, while citizens in Memphis and elsewhere disagree.
“Shelby County election officials need to examine conditions that may have permitted unauthorized access and installation of software. Otherwise voters in this county (and ultimately the state) can have no confidence in the integrity of the November election,” said computer expert Joe Irrera of Nashville, a member of a non-partisan voting reform citizen coalition, Gathering to Save Our Democracy and Common Cause TN. “It's hard to explain these violations of known standard security practices in election processing,” he added. “Our group simply wants to see that votes are counted accurately in November. The Secretary of State and the Coordinator of Elections have a duty to the citizens of Shelby County.”
Irrera suggests the following 5 corrections that, if made immediately, would go a long way to fixing these problems:
(1) Remove all unauthorized and/or uncertified software (including the Lexar Jump Drive encryption software, PC Anywhere, Microsoft Office Professional, and the HTML editor) from the GEMS central tabulator and backup tabulator:
(2) Change all administrator passwords;
(3) Insure that the Shelby County central vote tabulator NOT be connected to any network (via Ethernet card, wireless card, infrared port, USB port or modem).
4) From now until the election results are certified, all central tabulators need to be physically protected from unsupervised access by anyone.
(5) Before the polls close, audit all central tabulators for the presence unauthorized software.
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For more information on the lawsuit, contact attorney Javier (Jay) Bailey at
[email protected], 901-575-8702.