BBV: The most OUTRAGEOUS irresponsible officials yet

[BevHarris]

In Florida -- a state where polls show 47% to 47% Bush vs. Kerry, and it could very well come down to just a few votes: According to the Miami Herald, and I want you to read this sentence very carefully:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8904999.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

"State officials counter that there is no need for recounts, or an audit trail, on the touchscreen system."

This article goes on to state that the ES&S system cannot be manually audited (even if you use the flawed model where you audit simply by reprinting the ballot facsimiles in the machine) because the ES&S software scrambles the machine ID numbers, making it impossible to match data with machine -- and, of course, again, even with the flawed software using the flawed model, they STILL found missing votes, 162 of them, that no one can account for.

And in Maryland:

http://www.thesentinel.com/309613084226347.php

The court dismissed the lawsuit against touchscreens, saying that the Board of Elections doesn't have to answer to the courts.

The Maryland suit was brought by one of the biggest law firms (Kirkland & Ellis) with consultation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

This, folks, is what can happen when judges (appointed by officials elected by your votes, and often elected directly by your votes) go bad. And how will anyone recall a judge who acts like an idiot, if votes -- on the new Maryland unauditable Diebold touch screens -- can never be audited?

And this is what happens when secretaries of state get rid of the checks and balances.

Anyone who thinks that restoring integrity to the voting system is not the NUMBER ONE ISSUE to protect democracy, think again. The two examples I listed above are just the tip of a very large iceberg, one that has taken decades to form.

Bev Harris

[Cheswick2.0]

1. the people of Florida need to riot

but they needed to do it long ago and they did not. Florida is hopeless.

[BevHarris]

3. I wasn't planning to do Florida on the kickbacks investigation

because everyone knows it's crooked, and they'd just think "oh, that's just Florida."

Actually, I'm finding a pretty broad infrastructure for election rigging that goes nationwide.

What proof of fraudulent conduct would make Floridians mad enough to say ENOUGH ALL READY -- everybody out of the pool -- we have to disinfect our voting system? Is there any one target you folks would see as having potential to unravel Florida?

Is there anything at all that can clean up that odiferous swamp?

[cmayer]

48. You need a real live inside whistle blower with docs.

And video of meetings. A credible, high ranking whistle blower.

Things are really scary right now. If the conspiracy is as widespread as a lot here think that it is, they won't be able to keep it tamped down forever. I hope.

[Trajan]

6. I hate to think that chaos and riot are SOLUTIONS ....

are they ? .....

[rpannier]

2. Hopefully the California Lawsuit

will cast enough light on Diebold's faulty machines and force states to require a papertrail.

[BevHarris]

5. Nope. The California decision helped in Ohio but in Maryland

you have the same machines in use that California decertified, and a court just said that even the courts have no authority over elections boards in Maryland.

Florida just approved the system that California decertifed (they did so AFTER decertification). Rotten to the core.

[Catfight]

4. Florida shouldn't even be allowed to participate in a democracy,

since they obviously don't care that their votes don't matter. It should just be decided by the electoral vote. It's just the elderly, Latin or minority vote anyway, who cares about them. This is the age of the overweight fat as you can be white man world! Pigs at the troth baby! oink oink

[BevHarris]

7. I'm sure that DU's MadFloridian would beg to differ

It is the public officials who are fighting fair elections who don't deserve to participate in democracy. In general, I think that felons right to vote should automatically be restored once they've done their time, but I wouldn't mind seeing some of the real crooks in Florida do time and permanently lose their right to vote.

They have removed enough checks and balances to "deliver the vote," folks.

And remember -- "the vote" means congress, state legislature, judges, construction contracts, school boards, local county supervisors, and indirectly, "delivering the vote" controls every aspect of your daily life, from the economy that drives your employment income to the potholes in your road system to the privatization of your water supply.

[tkmorris]

34. As a Florida resident

That may well be the most offensive thing I've ever read here at DU. You ought be ashamed of yourself. In fact I can't even think of words to describe how I feel about that TRIPE you just posted. I think you owe some very dedicated Floridians an apology.

[Eric J in MN]

8. The group fighting for accurate elections in Maryland is TrueVote MD.

The group fighting for accurate elections in Maryland is TrueVote MD.

Consider making a small donation to them, even if you live in another state. I live in Minnesota, but I gave them a donation.

www.truevotemd.org

[Bake]

9. Sad sad day -- our democracry rotten to the core.

The machines scramble the votes, no need for an audit trail, who gives a shit anyway ...

Sadly, some of us still believe in democracy. It's getting harder to keep the faith though.

Bake

[senseandsensibility]

10. Bev

I hate to go off subject (I know FLA is extremely important) but as a Californian, what do you think of Kevin Shelley allowing some CA locations to stick with the touchscreens? Are the safeguards sufficient? They seem to be in high Republican areas, which is suspect to me. Keep up the great work!

[BevHarris]

30. It's not okay to stick with the touch screens.

But he did put in some auditing requirements that will help citizen auditors catch machines miscounting. (Black Box Voting Rapid Response Team: Email [email protected] with "more info please" to request info on how to join)

We need to focus on August/Sept primaries, catching real miscounts, using core audit data. Still not too late to correct this before November, if there is a meltdown somewhere (or everywhere).

Bev

[mzmolly]

39. I balanced ATM machines made by Diebold. Why can't they just upgrade

to a machine with a paper trail? There would be a hard copy inside the machine, and a printed recipt. That would mean that the numbers are verifiable via the hard copy. Some say this wouldn't solve the problem, but I can't see how it wouldn't. You'd have every vote accounted for?

[CrispyQ]

11. If Bush wins in November . . .

...how will we know if he won fairly? We know he didn't win at all in 2000 & this time the issue with the touch screen voting terminals is even bigger. What will we do? We will not know if our election was hijacked or not. Write our crooked congressmen? Will we riot in the streets? What?

I hate to even think about it, but we must consider the possibility that he will 'win.'

[Eric J in MN]

12. exit polls.

MoveOn should hire Zogby to do exit polls, so we'll know.

[senseandsensibility]

13. Has there been

any suggestion by MoveOn that they are considering this? I think that many people would be willing to contribute to that!

[Eric J in MN]

14. No, MoveOn didn't say that. This is just me. (nt)

nt

[ContinentalOp]

16. Good idea,

Exit polls would be great and I would certainly trust Move On and Zogby personally. But the polls might not look so good to the general public if they were funded by the "hitler ad" group. Is there anyone else who could fund the exit polls?

[loudsue]

17. It doesn't matter if we DO know....who's going to listen to polls when

the votes get certified anyway!

Yes....we DO need exit polls, because it helps with the research on our cause. However, we can't even UN-elect the crooked Elections Supervisors because the votes are rigged! They've got us in a catch-22.

I think all we can do is continue to publicize this, and push and protest and go to the meetings and talk it up...WITH RESEARCH IN HAND, until they just get so phucking sick and tired of the growing numbers of angry voters that they decide to do the right thing.

That's why it is SO IMPORTANT that we keep the full-court press on, and why we need to bring EVERYONE into the fold that understands the insidious nature of the thing...talking it up at every meeting of every organization that any of us belong to: Kiwanis, Sunday School, NOW, local and State Dem Party meetings, PTA's....EVERYWHERE.

One thing EVERY ONE OF US can do right now, is donate to www.blackboxvoting.org and www.verifiedvoting.org and help out the leaders of this movement that are trying to organize the issues, and put out the talking points.

Printing, lawyers, plane tickets, web-hosting, phone bills.... NONE of that is "free", and these guys are fighting the likes of Diebold, ES&S, etc.

We need lobbying groups on the Hill, as well, that can compete with some of these big corporations.

I know this is a frustrating battle, because the obviousness of the obstruction is so blatant!!! But enough termites can still bring down the house, and we have to keep gnawing away at this until it grows, exponentially. And it will -- I mean, look how much has been done already!

O8) Prayers going out for protection and success for you, Bev, and the other champions of this cause! O8)

:kick::kick::kick::kick:

[RedEagle]

23. You Can All Do Something

Litigation is bringing some of the rats to light.

But many of the core problems have to be addressed at the local level.

Find out who controls the money for voting and voter registration systems in your area. Who has to approve the contracts. County council, etc.

Petition the council for an ordinance (whatever it takes in your area) to create a citizens advisory committee to oversee procedures, equipment purchases, and make recomendations.

This is not a committee that involves itself in the everyday affairs of auditors and election officials. It helps set the broader issues of types of equipment and how it will be used.

For example, most of the new voter registration systems are digital signature capable. You can make sure at the county and perhaps even state level, that there is always a requirement for a physical signature in a poll book- paper- at the polls. This is an important check and balance, so that you know how many people actually voted and are not dependent on some computer record for that information.

Same thing with voting systems. If the county has yet to purchase any, you can have input on what system it will be or set parameters of performance, like voter verified paper ballots, or mandating voter verified paper ballots from current systems.

At this level, you can even have input about what kind of RFP will got out for bids.

Local officials all have to get elected and most are accutely aware of public perception of how they do their job. Anyone denying citizen involvement, at this level in particular, is putting themselves in a precarious spot.

Keep the fight up at all levels but we must work on the base from the bottom up to effect lasting reform. And I'm beginning to think we need to be referring to the fight for honest, auditable, accountable elections as reform, because it's becoming painfully obvious the system has been sick for some time.

People have fought for the right to vote and that was a reform movement. Now, it becomes a nationwide fight for reform so that our votes are counted as cast. Everyone has been given only the first half of the equation (except of course in places like Florida). The right to vote becomes meaningless unless that vote is counted as cast.

Voting reform- to insure that every vote cast is counted as cast, to insure checks and balances at every point in our election process, from voter registration to voting.

But all of you have to get involved at the local level too. Become members of citizen committees. There is usually quite a bit of precedence for such entities, so it's easier to follow previous examples and you have a process you can follow.

These committees should have representatives from the parties, LWV, groups like Rainbow, local voting advocate groups, a rep for independent voters,.... you get the idea.

Do this YESTERDAY.

Control has been wrested from citizens at all levels. We can whack at the head of the dragon but unless we take away the underpinning, he'll keep reappearing. This is like a beast that keeps growing a new head. Fight on all levels but make sure that the foundation the beast depends on is eliminated.

YOU will have to do this.

If this happens across the country, well, ;-) it sure isn't what the opposition wants. Heaven forbid CITIZENS get involved in the voting process unless it is just casting ballots when told.

Go take back our representative democracy. We're supposed to elect our officials, not special interests.



:yourock: :evilgrin: :yourock: :evilgrin: :yourock:

[BevHarris]

31. The good news and the bad news:

RedEagle gave us both:

The bad news --

We have to do this ourselves, starting at the local level and working up.

The good news --

We get to do this ourselves, starting at the local level and working up. (That's called "democracy." It still does work, if we do it ourselves.)

[ContinentalOp]

15. We'll know

"If Bush wins in November how will we know if he won fairly?"

I think it's pretty clear at this point that he doesn't have a chance in hell of winning fairly. If he wins then I for one will have no doubt that the election was hijacked.

[TruthIsAll]

33. If Bush "wins", that means he stole it. Period.

He lost in 2000 by many more than the 539,000 votes nationwide and the 537 in Florida.

I estimate he lost by 2 million nationwide and by over 50,000 in FL, not including the 100,000 voters who were disenfranchised and would have voted 90% for Gore.

He is in much, much worse shape now. Ther is no way in hell that he can win honestly. He knows it. Congress knows it. We know it at DU. But most of the public doesn't.

[Kanary]

18. Now that you're talking how desperate the situation is...

I'd like to hear from you what you would think of an idea some friends of mine are kicking around...

What about asking for election observation by other countries? Yes, I know USians would be incensed, but the evidence is fairly clear that our votes are being manipulated. Seems to me we NEED some help from outside observers.

I'm sure you've thought of this, so I'd like to hear your opinion.

Kanary

[TruthIsAll]

19. Bev, you must get on 60 Minutes - NOW!

We have 5 months to go. The arrogance/stupidity of these election officials is pure fascism.

Where is Kerry on this? Not a peep.

What the hell is going on? I'm in FL, and they are disenfranchising 47,000 blacks and getting away with it-again.

And what about Theresa LePore, the Butterfly Queen? And Jeb Bush. And...

[BevHarris]

26. 60 Minutes has called me -- takes them 3 months though

They usually start working on a show 3-5 months ahead of time.

Better bets are CNN and network news. But there are no news tie-ins without elections, and no more significant primaries until August.

[cmayer]

49. 60 Minutes can work faster when they have to.

A friend of mine used to be a producer for 60 Minutes.

Stay with it, and work the 60 Minute competition as well. A little professional jealousy never hurts.

[MoonRiver]

44. You can't blame Kerry for this.

So please don't go there. I can just hear the rightwing talking points: 'Kerry anticipating massive defeat to *, and is already following in Al Bore's and Sore Loserman's footsteps.' IF the worst occurs and * steals another one, AND this can be verified through exit polls, international observers, or whatever, THEN it will be Kerry's AND the DNC's responsibility to do something. Let's not unnecessarily create a firestorm for Kerry when he's ahead in the polls and might actually win by a landslide regardless of banana republic FL.

Peace

[BevHarris]

45. Oh, okay. It's only the integrity of our electoral process at stake

IF the worst occurs and * steals another one, AND this can be verified through exit polls, international observers, or whatever, THEN it will be Kerry's AND the DNC's responsibility to do something.

Newsflash: You can't prove election theft through exit polls. And by the way, they cancelled exit polls after two elections in a row showed that the voting machines didn't match the exit polls.

International observers can't prove election theft either.

If you want to prove election theft, first, you MUST be able to audit -- there MUST be physical evidence available to examine. That means there must be voter verified paper ballots. Estimates are that a minimum of 20%, and possibly as high as 50%, of all votes will be cast on touch screens in the coming election. That means that at least 20% of the votes can't be audited at all. There will be no way to prove fraud, even if you have a battalion of "international observers" and some credible organization is convened at the last minute to do exit polling (a logistical impossibility at this point), even if its exit polls are so far off you could ride to the moon on the discrepancy. No way to prove it without auditability.

Even with physical evidence, there are numerous ways to do large scale rigging of both absentee ballots and optical scan, and yes, even punch cards. The difference is that fraud is at least theoretically provable, since there is physical evidence which could (theoretically) be used to audit.

Let's not unnecessarily create a firestorm for Kerry when he's ahead in the polls

This issue would make him immensely popular, as would a much greater commitment to dealing with the outrage of continued purging of black voters.

By the way, Kerry needs minority votes to win. And I've been spending a significant amount of time in the 'hood, both with African American and Latino groups. It's below the radar, but the rumbling -- about both voter purging and unauditable voting -- is growing. Kerry could capitalize on this issue. It looks like Bush will -- his team ordered the Black Box Voting book overnighted to them, and I would guess, since they probably know all about how to rig elections, they did so to see how they might use it to take ownership of the message in some way.

Bev

[AndyTiedye]

20. We'd Written off Florida Anyway, but to Lose Maryland could be fatal

Is there any appeal possible in MD, other than the Supreme Court?

If they can paint Maryland red, Kerry is in serious trouble.

[Eric J in MN]

21. Yes, they can appeal. Help them.

Yes, they can appeal. Help them.

Click the link below:

[RBHam]

22. It's in the hands of the mainstream media now

Bev has been on all the shows - the truth is out there. Most people have heard something about the unreliability of BBV.

Now we shall see just how controlled the mainstream media is. When will they follow up on this information? Do their own in-depth reporting? Eh? Just how "vigorous" will the "free press" be in exposing this massive voting fraud scheme?

By the way, for those of you wondering why John F(raud) Kerry isn't raising a stink about this - consider this: Just HOW did he come from NOWHERE to overtake the popular, anti-War candidate Howard Dean?
Bev has reported that many of these BBV machines were used during the caucuses...

Things that make you go, :wtf:

[loudsue]

24. Things that make you go, "wtf".... is right!

Another bonesman, CFR. And John Edwards attended the Bilderberger's meeting this month, too.

Too many dots people are failing to connect.

I also appreciate RedEagle's post about how to get involved at the local levels.

We need armies of us out there working on this issue.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Karenina]

25. Kick!

:kick:

[Joanne98]

28. Edwards attended the Bilderburger meeting?

No shit. I guess we know who's going to be VP.

[BevHarris]

27. Actually, I haven't reported that -- haven't had time to document

that machines were used in caucuses.

It is true that the version of software used in New Hampshire never got federal certification.

It is true that I have had reports of rigged caucuses, but the reports I have were not done on machines, and I haven't had time to vet them out.

I am, however, seeing that the infrastructure has been in place for election rigging on a larger scale than I had thought, before I started focusing on the kickbacks investigation.

Bev

[loudsue]

35. I had suspected this for a long time, Bev,

And when I first got interested in the issue, I was reading www.votescam.com and saw where Pat Buchannan had done an investigation of this YEARS ago.... I believe there was one election in Arizona, in particular, that was mentioned on Votescam that was blatantly rigged.... and that wasn't "touch-screen", either.

No damn wonder the country has gotten into such a mess. I have a feeling that there will be more and more resistance to auditing elections as we get further into this. However, I think we need to be publicizing the past rigging, as well, and get people on board for having multiple checks & balances along the way -- and every error needs a special audit.

I have a feeling the CFR, the Bildebergers, the CIA, and the big corporations will do all they can to interfere, not to mention the congresscritters who are enablers of the world power players. It absolutely INFURIATES power players when they have to answer to "the little people", since they are thoroughly convinced we are all stupid, and BELOW them, and that we are NOT entitled to any rights that they don't want to bestow on us.

Even if it takes a revolution, we need to get this issue straightened out. It's going to take a long time to fight the full battle, but just getting the touch-screens' "proprietary software" outlawed is a big start, and I'm hoping we'll be fairly successful by November.

O8) May we, the people, win this battle, and may we win it SOON! O8)

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick: - For the Sunday crowd!

[JohnGideon]

38. Clarification on New Hampshire

I'm sure Bev knows this and just framed her words, by mistake, to make it look like there was a problem with New Hampshire using un-certified software. In fact, there is no requirement in New Hampshire election laws that hardware or software be Federally certified. There is also no Federal law that states that voting systems must be certified.

This lack of a certification law is not unusual. It is true in New Hampshire as well as at least two southern states (Miss. and Louisiana, I believe).

[BevHarris]

42. There was no mistake. You are missing the forest for the trees

Yes, New Hampshire does not require itself to use federally certified software. But they don't examine the source code and they don't use software that has ever been through federal testing, so what this means, at its core, is that no one has the foggiest idea what's in the software that New Hampshire uses.

Form over substance. What they need to do us, first, AUDIT properly and also, use (preferably) publicly owned open source software, if they use machines at all, or at least, use software that SOMEONE has looked at.

New Hampshire uses uncertified software. They fill in the check box at the state level, say that's all state law requires them to do, which is true, but no one has examined the software itself. That's just a very haphazard and reckless way to run an election system.

Bev

[JohnGideon]

46. NO ONE Examines and Software

I have no problem, and agree, with what you say here. The problem I have is to just throw out a fact like "New Hampshire used uncertified software in the primary". That makes it sound like NH violated a law by doing that. They didn't. The fact is true on the face but it does not tell the real story.

The fact that you miss is that no one does any software inspection, who is not paid by the vendors to do it. That's why every ES&S DRE in the US has bugs in the audit portion of the machine.

[BevHarris]

47. New Hampshire's system is even more slipshod than most

There is no excuse for not even going through the motions of having the software checked. It allows anything at all to be on that software. What I said was that New Hampshire used software that had never been federally certified.

That's more lackadaisical, even, than most states.

The result: Statistical anomalies were present in the Dean/Kerry race. When questioned about its software, New Hampshire's officials simply said "we don't require federal certification, so it didn't have to be certified.

And they didn't do auditing correctly.

There are legitimate reasons to say that the results in the New Hampshire primary should have been questioned, the results should have been audited properly, and there is no reason whatsoever to accept the integrity of that election.

These criticisms could be alleviated, but there has been zero discussion on doing that in New Hampshire. So, like many other elections, it's reasonable to refer to it as New Hampshire*

Bev

Bev

[Joanne98]

29. Up to the media?

That's a depressing thought. I'm not surprised it's more corrupted then you thought. What they've basically done is "privatize" the vote. I'd hound Lou Dobbs. This is his theme song now. He seems to be on a "Jihad" lately. Speaking of Jihad, what about Howard Stern?

[theoceansnerves]

32. kick

kick

[RedEagle]

36. Kick

[JohnGideon]

37. Florida, Maryland, What About Every Other ES&S County

Folks, don't be led to believe that the ES&S problem is only in Florida. Doug Jones, of UIowa, was asked to go to Miami-Dade and Broward. He investigated the machines and what happened. He played with the voting machines in question. He released his study of the problems.
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/miami.pdf

One of the things he says in this report is that the same software with the same bugs may be on every ES&S DRE in the country. It's not just a Florida problem.

So, how does a county in Ohio or Maryland or Calif. or ??? find out about the problem in Florida? Does ES&S tell all of their customers? Hell no! Do the officials in Florida tell all of the other counties? Hell no! Does the EAC get notified and then pass on the word to everyone else who may be affected? Hell no! I guess it is up to us to do it.

I've already notified the media in Indianapolis so they can talk to the folks in Johnson and Marion Counties. Tomorrow I talk to the EAC and see if there is someway that they can spread the word. I know the answer already but I want to get them on record.

If you are in an ES&S county, tell your election officials. Make a copy of Doug Jones' report and hand it to them and to the local media. Make them understand that they have buggy software and if there is a close election they will not be able to audit the machines.

[donhakman]

40. If the phone lines went down election night

The election would not be modemed in to be counted or altered.

[RedEagle]

41. Great Work John

Get it on paper, too.

Perhaps send via fax and certified mail or something like that.

Create a paper trail (well, trail is the relevant term here) that will show they were notified so if they take no action, they are in the loop of responsibility too.

Sometimes we call and email but forget that setting a trail up that can be proven later makes officials all squirmy and a lot more likely to do something.

To hold their feet to the fire you have to have something to tie up those feet with.

[BevHarris]

43. On any ES&S or Hart Intercivic system -- bugs may be nationwide

that's because those two manufacturers program the local ballot out of headquarters. So any tampering, or any "glitch" (hate that non-accountable word) actually reflects on the software all over the country, because the national hq of the company programmed it.

ES&S almost certainly has this problem nationwide, and let's look at an analogy to see just how serious this is:

What they are talking about is a system that scrambles the ID number of the machine from which the data came, making it extremely difficult to match up in an audit.

Suppose you have accounting software. You have invoice numbers. You want to audit, by matching up each payment received with the corresponding invoice. But your accounting software scrambles the invoice numbers!

It's beyond ridiculous that this took place. And since, until Diebold started doing statewide sales, ES&S was the largest voting machine vendor in the U.S., counting some 68% of the vote, I think we should pause for a moment to ponder the potential size of this problem.

By the way...ES&S also programs the computers that county your punch cards, in many places.

Bev