Reply #23: I think ya'll are looking in the wrong places

[Eloriel]

No offense, but this kind of inquiry -- and indeed Madsen's whole line of inquiry as well IMO even with the signed affidavit -- seems to be following an unlikely and most of all a totally unnecessary direction away from where the action is.

Please remember that in the case of Diebold, whose code HAS been examined and by more people than just Avi Rubin's team including former DUer Roxanne Jekot (DEMActivist), plenty of backdoors were found giving insiders at Diebold access for tampering in numerous ways. In fact, as she described some of it to me, it sounded like it was a game to them to see how many different ways they could provide themselves virtually or absolutely undetected access. (In at least one case the bit of code involved was self-deleting, leaving NO trace.)

Perhaps ya'll should read this, if you haven't:

Hack the Vote by Chuck Herrin (a Republican)
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

We even know the names of at least some of the programmers involved because their work was clearly marked. Further, we also know that there are 5 different Diebold employees who are ex-cons -- Herrin has a very nice explanation of this in his Hack the Vote FAQ http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevoteFAQ.htm :

Check this out - No less than 5 people (Cooper, Lee, Graye, Elder, and Dean - http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf ) involved with the management and development of Diebold's systems are convicted felons, including Senior Vice President Jeff Dean, and topping the list are his twenty-three counts of felony Theft in the First Degree. According to the findings of fact in case no. 89-1-04034-1 (Washington State, King County District Court):

“Defendant’s thefts occurred over a 2 1/2 year period of time, there were multiple incidents, more than the standard range can account for, the actual monetary loss was substantially greater than typical for the offense, the crimes and their cover-up involved a high degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized accounting system that defendant maintained for the victim, and the defendant used his position of trust and fiduciary responsibility as a computer systems and accounting consultant for the victim to facilitate the commission of the offenses."

To sum up, he was convicted of 23 felony counts of theft from by - get this - planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection. The reason for the embezzlement? He needed the money because "he was embezzling in order to pay blackmail over a fight he was involved in, in which a person died."

-- more --

Now, I realize that if you're pursuing Ohio issues, Diebold machines were not the issue. IMO that doesn't really change my argument. Take a look, if you haven't, at the ownership of the vendors of these various voting machine systems: http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingMachineCompanies.htm

This is the work of Lynn Landes who has been on the issue of computerized voting for a long time. Poke around at her site, she's got some terrific information there.

I really just worry that this whole Madsen thing is a huge distraction. The best Curtis has is an affidavit saying some people (incl Feeney) were interested in manipulating the vote, nothing that says anyone did it. The most important thing is that it seems to me IT WAS LARGELY UNNECESSARY to do what Madsen alleges was done.

Now, I'm not saying that it didn't happen -- I don't know. But I worry that it's a distraction -- even if it DID happen as Madsen alleges. It's the kind of thing, IMO and from observation over these 4 years of how Bush-related "scandals," that too easily gets shrugged off, as so many others have gotten shrugged off again and again so nothing happens. One way the shrugging off happens is to isolate the issue and/or boil it down to a detail that is found to be false (Think: Dan Rather and James Hatfield's Fortunate Son), or is deemed inconsequential especially as some larger national or international issue arises to capture media atttention.

It's also, as I've already pointed out, largely unnecessary AND logistically improbable. If it happened, it happened in a much smaller number of areas than the much larger, more pervasive and IMO larger problem -- the insider hacking.

I'm not suggesting that people not follow this line of inquiry -- I just worry about it being pursued to the detriment of the larger problem that COULD go unaddressed if the focus goes entirely or even primarily on what Madsen is alleging.