GuvWurld, Dave Berman, said it loud and clear on Christmas Day, "Call the Cops on Diebold." Do it, go after them at the local level, go after them in court, go after them any way you can. This is so blatant.
And don't expect party leaders, politicians to do it. It's the citizens job to protected the franchise. It's your number one right and priority. Politicians have their own thing, which may or may not include election integrity. Bless Bowen and the fighters but you are the force that will overturn this total garbage.
It's a rigged game, fix it and make it work right. There is no better place to start the Velvet Revolution in earnest than California.
Get this link around. It's a great battle callhttp://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00246.htmCalifornia Activists Call the Cops on Diebold:
The Campaign to Unite California Election Reformers
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 (permission to quote liberally
granted by the author, me)
December, 25, 2005
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 CaliforniaBerman 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?
Prior to the March 2004 California presidential primary, Diebold was scrambling to make its machines meet the needs of some large county customers. In this process, Diebold wrote several letters to then California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. The letters claimed that Diebold was about to get approval for new voting machine software from the Federal government. Diebold used this to request provisional certification allowing their equipment to be used in the primary.
The
"Staff Report on the investigation of Diebold Election Systems, Inc" outlines deception and unauthorized changes in software. The deception was noted when the report stated "…the vendor had abandoned, if not undermined attempts to seek federal qualification at almost precisely the same time it assured the VSPP (Voting Systems and Procedures Panel through it's letters) that approval was imminent." Worse, the report found that Dieobld "installed uncertified software on election machines in 17 (California) counties." The exact nature of the software installation cannot be verified. Diebold routinely seeks "confidentiality agreements" with customers, barring them from inspecting machines or "seeing inside" through access to computer "source" code, the basis for machine operation.
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"When elections are conducted under conditions that prevent conclusive outcomes, the Consent of the Governed is not being sought. Absent this self-evident source of legitimacy, such Consent is not to be assumed or taken for granted.""The conditions that prevent conclusive outcomes" are exemplified in the current effort to unite California election reformers. Since Florida 2000 a national movement has emerged to challenge the conduct of elections. The movement focuses on weak software and methods associated with voting machines and vote tabulators, partisan manipulation of election practices by Secretaries of State who also actively campaign for those running in elections they supervise, and the right wing bias of election machine companies.
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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."