County sells off freedom

[MelissaB]

County sells off freedom

By: PAUL JACOBS - For the North County Times

Freedom is priceless, but democracy in Riverside County just sold for $12 million-$14 million.

At last Tuesday's meeting, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to purchase new election machines to bring the county up to 2002 technology requirements.

The decision was a foregone conclusion. Right before the item came up, Supervisor Bob Buster volunteered that he was approving the purchase. A public hearing is a mockery when decisions are made in advance, which is precisely why the Brown Act forbids prearranged decisions. Yet, public servants from the White House to the Board of Supervisors chambers know that rules, regulations and laws are things to be ignored and worked around.


From the day Riverside County purchased electronic voting machines, the registrar of voters has had to get a waiver to ignore the part of the state code that requires posting preliminary results at each precinct at the end of the election day.

This was the only way citizens could independently audit an election. Patriots have fought and died for this great democracy that we are stupidly allowing to be bamboozled away by putting our blind trust in three private corporations with secret voting software.



More: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/01/15/opinion/jacobs/19_45_481_14_06.txt

[MelissaB]

1. another snip

Fascism has a firm foothold in America. Politicians and election officials believe the lies told to them by corporations. They keep their eyes and ears closed to any dissent, because kings and queens accept no advice from lowly peasants.

After residents spoke and were strictly limited to the three minutes allowed to address the board, Buster took the opportunity ---- and more than three minutes ---- from his bully pulpit to emphasize his total faith in electronic voting. He allowed no rebuttal from the members of the public that he redressed. The gods behind the dais have no interest in listening to individuals who have actually studied the issue and volunteered their time in the interest of serving this democracy.

The proprietary election equipment requires additional security, according to industry and election insiders. The public will be distanced from observing the vote tallying and will have little visibility of the processing of our ballots. The only things worse than pregnant chads are invisible, movable chads. The people are becoming irrelevant in this democracy.

Paper ballot systems have about five points of entry for potential tampering and that is the system that takes thousands of people working in concert to throw an election. Electronic elections have about 97 points of entry and one well-placed person with only a couple of minutes of access can totally manipulate an election.

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

---- Josef Stalin

[MelissaB]

2. Here is his article from last week.

We must protect our democracy

By: PAUL JACOBS - For The Californian

In a world of wired and wireless technology, it's a relief to learn that our Toyota Prius may get carjacked, but it won't be easily hacked. It's a shame Toyota doesn't make electronic voting equipment.

Researchers with the Finnish computer security firm F-Secure recently made repeated attempts to introduce multiple versions of the Cabir virus into the Prius' operating system using Bluetooth wireless technology. The Prius was immune to the Cabir virus that was originally released in 2004 and designed to attack cell phones and PDAs.

...snip


Back to the issue of technology, I was surprised to learn that Japan has dabbled in electronic voting, but they are keenly aware of the pitfalls of the system. Unlike American election officials who robotically deny anything ever going wrong with our electronic voting machines, Japanese officials give their election system more judicial scrutiny.

In 2005, a judge in Japan nullified the results of a 2003 election, citing "negligence in the administration concerning electronic voting." The ruling supported a local civic group's claim that there were errors in the electronic ballot system. The computerized voting system was shut down for up to 83 minutes at all 29 polling stations during the election because the voting machines overheated, the court said.

The scenario in Japan is eerily similar to what has reportedly occurred twice with Riverside County's electronic voting system. During the 2000 and 2004 elections, witnesses claim the tallying machine halted for close to an hour and when the counting of the votes resumed, there appeared to be an alteration of how the votes were trending before the shutdown. One of those contests has generated litigation against the county, but our courts and the American public appear eagerly ignorant regarding the sanctity of electronic voting.

Unlike the Prius, our voting machines use proprietary software that incorporates Microsoft products in some applications. The proprietary status prohibits election officials and the public from examining the computer codes that determine the future of our democracy. Even as Microsoft products are notorious for vulnerability to hacking, manipulation and various forms of attack, independent verification that software security patches have been installed or validating the use of certified version of election software is lacking.

Insurance can compensate and replace a stolen vehicle, but very few remedies can bring back a stolen democracy.


More: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/01/08/opinion/jacobs/20_40_061_7_06.txt

[nicknameless]

3. Which kind of machines did he purchase?

I didn't see that info in the article. It sounded like maybe DREs?
Which machines, if any, have certified software? Diebold has been hammered, ES&S is in question...

It's amazing that anyone would have the gall to quote Mischelle Townsend, given her past:

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1013&IssueNum=55

<snip>

At around 8:50, Soubirous’s campaign manager, Brian Floyd, received a call from an election observer in Temecula informing him that the vote count had been stopped – apparently by Registrar Mischelle Townsend herself. The reason was not made clear. So Floyd and another Soubirous campaigner named Art Cassel jumped into a car and drove to Townsend’s office to investigate. Sure enough, the counting area appeared to be near-deserted. But then they noticed two men huddled at one of the vote tabulation computers.

One, according to their account, was typing away on the computer keyboard, while the other was standing just next to him.

The two men turned out to be employees of Sequoia Voting Systems, the private company which manufactures Riverside County’s AVC Edge touchscreen machinery. Their presence was unusual, to say the least, and even the possibility that they might be making changes to the vote tabulation software in the middle of an election was alarming to Cassel and Floyd. Sequoia insists the two men’s activities were entirely benign – merely generating lists of data to send to the Secretary of State’s office in Sacramento that had nothing to do with the tabulation software. Soubirous’s campaign staff has made no direct accusations, although it has strongly criticized the registrar’s office for allowing at least an appearance of impropriety at a time when the sanctity of the electoral process should have been paramount. Cassel and Floyd said the man at the keyboard, a Sequoia vice president called Mike Frontera, was wearing a county employees’ ID badge – something that has not been adequately explained by anyone. “What they were doing there we’ll never know,” Cassel said.

When Floyd confronted Registrar Townsend directly, she denied that the vote count had been halted. But at 9:10, according to Cassel’s account, something seemed to have changed because county employees piled back into the counting area, and results from the outstanding precincts began to be posted shortly afterward. As the night went on, Buster’s lead over Soubirous steadily lengthened until he finished up a slender 92 votes over the 50 percent threshold he needed to avoid a runoff.

<snip>

[nicknameless]

4. Also:

<snip>

Over the next few days, as the totals from absentee and mail-in ballots were added, the margin shrunk down to a tantalizing 45 votes. And that part of the count remains highly contentious, too. On March 4, Floyd and Cassel saw the second Sequoia employee, Eddie Campbell, return to the registrar’s office and watched him pop into his pocket what looked like a PCMCIA card similar to those used to store votes on individual touchscreen machines. The Sequoia AVC Edge machines do not make a paper record of individual votes, and any record of total votes for a potential recount – vital in a race ‹ separated only by 45 votes – would only be stored on that kind of card.

Floyd shouted out: “Where are you going with that?” But he received no answer.

Accompanied by different county employees, Campbell walked all the way to the vote tabulation terminals where, according to Cassel, he sat down at the same computer he and Frontera had used on election night. Cassel says he saw the head of the registrar’s information technology department, Brian Foss, log Campbell on to the computer – presumably with his own password – and then leave the room. Campbell, now on his own, called up a screen that Cassel said he recognized as the WinEds tabulation software used on the Sequoia system.

What happened next is less than clear. According to Cassel, Campbell began moving from terminal to terminal – as though he was having difficulty being accepted by whatever system he was trying to enter. Floyd, meanwhile, was anxious for an explanation and tried to track down Mischelle Townsend. It took him all day to find her, and when he did she at first said that Eddie Campbell was not authorized to be in the system and then, in the presence of Brian Foss, changed her tune and said he was.

<snip>