CALLING theCOPS ON Diebold in CA: "Scoop" Independent Media

[autorank]

Thank the Lord for "Scoop" Independent Media...If CM won't handle it, then this innovative internatoinal news source will. CA, it's time to say good bye to Diebold and all the other lousy touch screens and counting machines. Do it like the English do (in voting)--paper ballots counted in public!!! Now!!!

Sunday, 25 December 2005, 8:07 am
Opinion: Michael Collins

California Activists Call the Cops on Diebold:
The Campaign to Unite California Election Reformers

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00246.htm
(segments published w/permission of author)

Movement for legal action against officials who allowed unauthorized software changes to voting machines starts in Northern California. Strong local support.

Special Report by for "Scoop"
Michael Collins

Humboldt Co., CA. A major challenge to election equipment maker Diebold Corporation began in California last week. Dave Berman is a nationally known internet activist who blogs under the name GuvWurld. He is calling on all Californians to ensure election integrity by holding public officials accountable for what he argues are gaping security holes and illegal alterations of Diebold voting machines. One part of the plan asks local activists to demand investigations of unauthorized changes to voting machines by the beleaguered election systems company. The plan has strong local support in a major Diebold territory, Humboldt County. Humboldt County includes Eureka, Arcata and Humboldt State University and is at the very top of the California coastline.

Concerns about Diebold practices in California

Berman cites multiple concerns about Diebold business practices but focuses on the combination of unauthorized installations of Diebold software patches in as many as 17 California counties and the acquiescence of local election officials to that practice, clearly barred by California code. Berman asked the following pointed questions:

Who allowed Humboldt's voting machines to have uncertified software installed in them? Was someone in the Humboldt county elections department complicit in this crime or merely negligent? Is this person still employed by the elections department, and if so, why?

<snip>

U.S Government Accountability report on elections at risk.

GuvWurld's Berman took this information and applied the recent findings of the U.S. Government Accountability Office's Report on electronic voting. The report made clear a number of vital concerns about the reliability of voting technology. The report also provided ammunition for the many election integrity activists who have been making these same points for years. Among the findings, GAO noted that some electronic voting machines can "flip votes" from one candidate to an opponent without any means of auditing to detect fraud. The report found security on voting machines to be particularly lax. When it does exist, vendor personnel too frequently use simple ID names and passwords. GAO also found that some vendors had such poor security, access to one machine allowed access to large networks of machines in operation during elections.
[br />Berman began asking loudly and publishing some very sharp questions when he found out that his home county, Humboldt, was one of the Diebold sites where unauthorized software installations were made.

Berman's campaign aims at having Californians all over the state asking these very same questions to their local officials and district attorneys for a start.

<snip>

The GuvWurld campaign against Diebold and quiescent election officials represents a new aggressive, proactive stance. Dan Ashby of the Voting Rights Task Force (VRTF) told us, "Our most recent meeting concluded with recognition that instead of always reacting defensively to further inroads on electoral integrity, we need to come up with some full time proactive strategies."This realign or resign campaign directed at election officials in the Diebold counties seems to me a very good place to start." Activist groups like the CPEN and VRTF are now determining if and how they will participate with the GuvWurld campaign. Ashby is hoping that activist pressure will convince Secretary of State McPherson to refuse to recertify Diebold's DRE touch screens in California. He argues that, "To reward this worst-of-class, repeat offender by granting an extended franchise in the nation's largest voting market - after all the Diebold dirt that has floated to the surface these past few years - is just unthinkable."

--------------------------

Wow!!! That Ashby from CA really nails it. "I've got a new attitude" is obviously going to be the theme song for the election integrity/election fraud movement in the new year. It's our time!!! Make it happen!!!

Let's all support the GuvWurld campaign to unite CA activists and get the voting laws enforced.

[FogerRox]

1. lotta blue ink there--- but this is more good news

Merry Impeachmas

[OldLeftyTreeHugger]

4. a href doesn't have an /a

Merry Impeachass!

Go GuvWurld, go Dave!

This is what it will take. Individuals in their hometowns standing up for the protection of the root from which our democracy grows: The Vote.

I'm doing it in mine, who else it doing in their's? It's truly grassroots.

[GuvWurld]

5. Thanks OldLeftyTreeHugger, Welcome To DU

OLTH, can you say what community you are in and what actions are happening there? In this way, DU can be an amazing place to make actual connections with other folks nearby who want to get organized.

Welcome to DU :hi:

[Rainscents]

7. Welcome to DU!!!

I'd been doing in mine and this past election, we elected Democrat city council and now, we have 3 Democrats/ 2 Republicans! Next month, they're holding meeting to go all mail in ballots!!!

[autorank]

9. You're a Welcome to DU!!! addition OldLefty TreeHugger

...and remember what that great philosopher Lauren Hutton says, "50 is the new 30!"

:hi:

[autorank]

2. Campaign Outline @ GuvWurld blog

The Campaign to Unite California Activists:
http://guvwurld.blogspot.com/2005/12/campaign-to-unite-california-election.html

[Peace Patriot]

3. This is what it's going to take--strong committed local organization.

The progressive majority in this country may not have representation in Washington DC, in any proportion to our numbers, but we still have influence at the state/local level. If Washington can't see what egregious crap this is, having Bushite corporations tabulating our votes with "trade secret," proprietary programming code--and have in fact DELIBERATELY created a fraudulent election SYSTEM--it will not be so easy for local/state officials to get away with it.

VOTERS OF AMERICA, WAKE UP!

[Rainscents]

6. Thanks for the link! Great news!

:kick:

[autorank]

8. Diebold needs to be kicked right out of CA. Make the point there.

Then the Democrats need to hold hearings. This is a state where we have real dominance in both houses.
They can investigate the special election and Diebolds role in that, the chasing off of Shelley, and the nonsense in San Diego. Lets have a McLellan type investigation -- presume you're dealing with criminals and get tough. Enough of these "vendors!"

[nicknameless]

10. Great article, as usual, autorank

And great work, GuvWorld.
What is going to happen now that ES&S machines have also be acknowledged (by McPherson, no less) to be seriously flawed?

knr

[GuvWurld]

11. Now is the time to unite behind the Voter Confidence Resolution

It has never been appropriate to simply take shots at what's wrong. We have to offer solutions and address the question "what would be better?" That's what the Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR) does. Not only does it include an election reform platform--a collection of changes that could collectively ensure conclusive election outcomes and create a basis for confidence in the results reported--it also creates the means by which we challenge the assumption that the government still has the Consent of the Governed.

The VCR is meant to be adopted on the local level, as the City Council of Arcata, CA did on 7/20/05. We should be targeting all our City Councils and County Boards of Supervisors. Another step I'm beginning to work on, and REALLY need help with, is creating an outline that gives Supervisors the beginning of an action plan for how to transition from current conditions to the conditions defined in the VCR reform platform.

[nicknameless]

13. Do you endorse hand counting paper ballots?

That's what I would like to see return.

[GuvWurld]

14. I prefer hcpb, but perhaps not endorse

It took over a year to get the Arcata City Council to adopt the Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR). I gave many presentations and participated in lots of group discussions. The point was to build consensus. Hand counted paper ballots could not carry the day because many felt it was not realistic or would meet too much resistance (despite their own preference for it).

From my view, it became a losing proposition to fight for hcpb since it would stop people from supporting the resolution. The compromise language eventually embraced allowed for the possibility of hcpb, but also open source solutions. Our version (it is meant as a template, after all) of the VCR calls for "a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast" and also "voting processes owned and operated entirely in the public domain." That means nothing paperless and nothing proprietary.

I know that this debate has been the cause of endless division in the election reform community. This is typical of the progressive movement in general. No matter what, I did not want to fall prey to this trap. I realized that even if a fight to the finish on this issue were to bring everyone into one camp, we still have many other things to be concerned about. We are also one small community and reaching such a decision here would have no affect on the overall basis for confidence in national elections.

What we needed was, again, consensus for making a statement. The statement is as much about defining a preferred set of election conditions as it is about catalyzing peaceful revolution through challenging the assumed Consent of the Governed. As more communities adopt the VCR, the frame that will emerge is "Has the Consent of the Governed been withdrawn, YET?" This posture assumes we can change the answer from NO to YES by passing the VCR in enough towns.

So while I prefer hcpb, I would become disruptive and counterproductive by stridently endorsing that. Technically then, and for entirely pragmatic reasons, I may be considered agnostic on this question. I also want to say that the Open Voting Consortium has a great concept for an open source voting system. I encourage everyone to read their Ballot Reconciliation Procedure Guide for a thorough understanding of what they propose. That is an 11 page .pdf that will take you from opening the polling place through counting and storing ballots. They need serious funding to build and test a prototype. I think it has a lot of potential and would satisfy the terms in Arcata's version of the VCR.

[nicknameless]

19. Sadly, I understand what you're saying.

America is so pathetically enamored with all things electronic. Those interested in hand-counts are accused of being luddites, regardless of the fact that even MIT and CALTech show hand counting to result in the fewest errors. That study was from 2001. Wonder what would they have said about the 2004 election?

[nicknameless]

12. Kick

One more vote?

[AmBlue]

15. Happy to be the fifth K&R....

Hope this spreads like wildfire.

[autorank]

17. Mucos Gracias.

I hope it spreads too! I'm pretty confident on this one. The people in CA are relentless in a serious way and "that's a good thing."

:hi:

[PATRICK]

16. Other nations

would not tolerate, or at least suspicious opposition parties would not tolerate the top to bottom P.T. Barnum swiss cheese digital insecurity system we have chugging away chaotically with not only zero accountability but total establishment suppression of safeguards.

Some countries use open source touchscreen machines with checks and records at every level. At every level of cheating opportunity scrutiny is demanded and allowed before and after election night. STILL, wherever the vote goes digital any point in the process is vulnerable to black box theft and it is questionable whether all loopholes have been found. But, as the complaints against the GOP over the years have shown, they need wide-open, multiple fraud to win, to hide and to bully disheartened challengers. No heel will trust a single theft that is not only riskily insufficient but nakedly isolated to the probing spotlight of angry challengers. The whole system, and not just the machinery, reeks of fraud protectionism and suppression of challenges. Lined up case by case with notorious frauds or exemplary accountable systems overseas might give the confused populace a better perspective.

Even a history of American fraud might remove the naive gullible apathy that seems to afflict seduced and bullied politicians whose very existence should be justified by knowing better, by turning some of that misplaced cynicism in the hypnotized populace toward the crooks in their midst. It is the failure of both parties that make it a popular bi-partisan issue of first rank and their actions should be lumped into the murk that needs exposing, especially the HAVA double damnation scam. I especially like the cynical use of the blind, helping them to vote so we all go blind, the sort of crocodile conman line a thousand cheap flicks have made Americans accustomed to hearing.

So while we reason and compromise trying to beat the marked deck, hammering the crooks with real lawsuits is absolutely necessary. Our votes are seeping away fast by attrition, leaving islands or oases of relatively safe voting where, oddly, Democrats seem to thrive a lot more easily.

That every district in numbing ignorance of the arguments they barely know as slanted media blurbs(still stoically ignorant themselves) has to reinvent critical defenses against he well honed corporate snake oil show being strong-armed by HAVA and the GOP is a party scandal every bit as heinous as the destruction of the GOP by RW extremists.

[OldLeftyTreeHugger]

18. Good Stuff, Patrick

You've laid out the case so very well. In short, It is a VRWC, eh?

Thanks to all who welcomed me to DU. I like my anonymity here and so shall refrain from uncovering my locale, at this time.

Suffice to say that I have been reading DU for some time and have taken a particular interest in BBV. My burg has heard, and begun reacting to me, on the issue of using BBV, and my state is well on the way toward establishing protection measures. However, while these battles are won, the war does go on.

It is a war we must win, for without victory, our democracy is dead.

It looks like we shall have to endure some electronics, so, ok. But we shall hound that which we endure, and work to make our people wake up and smell the evil inherent therein.

[Wilms]

20. .

[GuvWurld]

21. Municipal Civil Disobedience

The Voter Confidence Resolution is meant as a statement of municipal civil disobedience which then must be followed by acts of non-recognition, non-cooperation and non-compliance. Today there is news from Monroe County, PA that they have chosen to ignore the HAVA deadline in protest of an "unfunded mandate." They say they will not spend any taxpayer money on election machines. This is a great example to set, even if it doesn't emphasize the election integrity angle. There is an excerpt from the article plus the link to the full story at this DU thread. Please nominate:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x406649

[althecat]

22. Kick for Autorank...

:kick:

[GuvWurld]

23. Kick for althecat (eom)