Wisconsin: Waukesha has used machines that can be hacked.

[midnight]

"You can imagine my shock at hearing this. As I researched further, I discovered a frightening and potentially dangerous situation with these machines. Seems not only does the technology leave our votes open to fraud and manipulation by allowing tampering with the data cartridges, but they can also quite easily be manipulated via modem, which the Pewaukee machines are loaded with, according to your information. In fact, in November 2006, the National Institute of Standards and Technology reported it could not devise a test to confirm the accuracy of software-dependent voting machine tallies. Apparently, vote flipping can be programmed by anyone having access to any form of machine software at any time. Local security measures can't overcome an already present line of malicious code.

Princeton University professor Andrew Appel demonstrated this potential for vote fraud when he acquired six Sequoia touch-screen machines on eBay for $86 each. Within seconds, his students broke the lock and inserted a code to flip votes only on Tuesdays in November without leaving a trace of evidence.

I also learned that Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Diebold, and Sequoia are the companies primarily involved in implementing the voting stations throughout the country. All three had strong ties to the Bush Administration. The largest investors in ES&S, Sequoia, and Diebold are government defense contractors including Accenture."http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/28/980222/-Complaint-Against-The-GAB-(WI)-and-Kevin-Kennedy


Why would Kevin Kennedy allow this? He is part of the Govt. Accountability Board that is suppose to make our votes safe.... Wisconsin has been an assets to the PTB...

[FreakinDJ]

1. Nothing to see here folks - just a "Clear and Present Danger to Democracy"

[BeFree]

2. Right

It really isn't anything to worry about....
Unless it may concern you as to how these rotten republicans keep getting elected.

Then it's like: OH SHIT!

[Wounded Bear]

3. This shit amazes me....

In a world where we have literally millions of ATMs on every fucking corner that are probably 99.999% accurate and safe from tampering, we can't build a voting machine that is the same?!?!?!

When I first heard the stories about the voting machines so many years ago, it always struck me that it seemed like somebody had some leftover '80's technology circuit boards laying around and said, "Hey! Let's convert this crap into voting machines!"

Gawd, I hate Republicans and corporate Amerika.

[ret5hd]

6. i think you are conflating the definitions of "can't" and "won't"

[xchrom]

4. Recommend

[glinda]

5. Next election they need outside monitors as well.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. Yet many Wisconsinites on here..........

STILL insist on putting all their eggs in the "electoral" basket. EVEN WHEN IT'S PROVEN TO BE COMPROMISED!

[pacalo]

9. AMEN.

[999998th word]

10. Not me

:thumbsdown:

[Scuba]

8. Any electronic voting machine can be rigged. As for Kevin Kennedy....

...why would anyone consider using a company was complicit in the Enron scandal, then changed their name and moved offshore to avoid taxes, as an outsourcing solution for elections? Talking of course about Arthur Andersen/Accenture.

For that matter, why outsource elections.

[midnight]

29. This is very concerning...

[Ohio Joe]

11. Some of this is simply dead wrong

"but they can also quite easily be manipulated via modem, which the Pewaukee machines are loaded with,"

They have no one with the ability to put in the code to prevent this? Holy shit, I gotta get them to give me a job because it's not that hard.

"In fact, in November 2006, the National Institute of Standards and Technology reported it could not devise a test to confirm the accuracy of software-dependent voting machine tallies."

While I don't know if NIST said this or not, if no one can figure out how to verify the votes... Again, this is not hard.

"Apparently, vote flipping can be programmed by anyone having access to any form of machine software at any time."

Any form of machine software? What does this mean? It can't be what it says because that is simply not true. Machines have an operating system and that system will only run software for that OS... Unless you also install an emulator but now you are opening more cans of worms. Plus, this would be easily detectable.

"Local security measures can't overcome an already present line of malicious code."

Why not? Don't they test the machines? Do they not know how? Just what kind of security do they have that sucks so bad? Why don't they fix it? Again, this is not hard.

"Princeton University professor Andrew Appel demonstrated this potential for vote fraud when he acquired six Sequoia touch-screen machines on eBay for $86 each. Within seconds, his students broke the lock and inserted a code to flip votes only on Tuesdays in November without leaving a trace of evidence."

Really? First off, you don't just insert code. First you have to have the executable that is running. Next, you have to decompile it, then wade through the resulting assembler code and find where you have to insert the code you want. Then you have to re-compile it and reload the machine with the new executable. No way this is done in seconds... No fucking way. In addition, you would have to be carrying at the least a laptop loaded with an emulator for whatever OS the voting machine is running and the proper cables to connect to the machine. One more note, this cannot be done in an un-detectable way as the size of the executable will change as well as it's last modified time/date stamp. Oh... and you have to pray really hard your emulator's compiler re-compiles in a way so that everything else still works as it did before. I've done enough conversions to know that different compilers can have programs give different results.

[kickysnana]

14. We always need fresh eyes on this...

First of the people who engineered the machines are active in the hacking of the elections. The OP is trying to understand but may not have your knowledge.

It has been proved over and over that hacking is possible, not difficult and eye witnesses testimony plus the numbers have been run to show it is very probable.

As to why our spineless Dems let this happen you would have to ask them (perhaps a hundred times to get them to concentrate on something besides being densely bipartisan.)

The first documented case was in New Hampshire when Bush beat McCain in the primary.

It is so comforting to believe that our elections are legitimate but it just is not so and until enough people realize that nothing will change.

PS. I am not an expert but I have been following this and the debates a long time. The most telling was a teleconference by the manufacturers that was posted by someone investigating. The conference was to hire as a group a former CIA guy to harass and discredit the people IN ANY WAY questioning electronic voting. You can find that back in the DU archives along with lots of technical and eyewitness data to the elections from 2000 forward. Also there is a DU group that does have some experts, I cannot recall the name.

[Ohio Joe]

16. oh I do not deny voter fraud

The person in the OP made it sound like anyone could walk up and just make the machine flip votes, not a problem. OnTheOtherHand in the next post links to the document that explains what was done and some of what it took to do it and to be honest I think they downplay some of the complexity.

I have no doubt voter fraud can be done by someone determined enough... and the repugs are nothing if not determined. The machines have some very bad design going on that could and should be tightened up. Even if we were to use paper ballots and hand counting voter fraud can be done. I don't think the issues in and of itself is the machines but rather the piss poor design of them.

[OnTheOtherHand]

15. a few things

I'm not sure specifically what statement by NIST is being referenced. The prevailing definition of software independence is that "A voting system is software-independent if an undetected change or error in its software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome." Based on that definition, it's pretty much tautologically true that one can't "confirm the accuracy of software-dependent voting machine tallies" without trusting the software.

What's missing is that many voting systems, including those used in Wisconsin, aren't really "software-dependent." Most votes were cast by hand-marked paper ballot; the rest (should have) produced some voter-verifiable paper record. So there's no great mystery, in principle, about how to verify the election results: look at the paper. It's unfortunate, in my opinion, that some of the Wisconsin ballots were actually recounted by machine. All things considered, I think the Wisconsin recount provides pretty strong evidence that Prosser won, although there are definite problems.

Don't they test the machines? Do they not know how? Just what kind of security do they have that sucks so bad? Why don't they fix it?

Not sure what you are getting at here, but how specifically does one verify that the machines are running the software they are supposed to run, and that the software always and everywhere performs according to spec? How one tackles the first problem would depend on the system, of course. Even if that problem is licked, the second problem is really tough.

As for what Appel and colleagues did with the AVC Advantage, it's probably best to read their report. This isn't a trivial attack, but in my judgment it's a real one. There are several really interesting studies of security vulnerabilities in voting systems -- and, yes, some of them boggle the mind.

[Ohio Joe]

17. Thanks for that link, I had not seen the report before

Appel talks about some of the testing methods for the machines in the linked document. He describes some really rudimentary ways and how to beat them but for something like a voting machine rigorous testing should be mandatory before each election.

You are correct in that the amazingly shitty design of these machines does boggle the mind. As I said a few posts up though, I don't think electronic voting in and of itself is the issue, voter fraud can be pulled off no matter the method but with a proper design, verification method and security (really all required regardless of the voting method) they can be just fine. I think Appel definitively showed these machines to be shitty enough that voter fraud can and almost certainly has occurred using them.

[OnTheOtherHand]

18. with DREs, not holding my breath for sound design

I'm not the sort of person who lives in fear of the stealermachines, but I'd say the prevailing view among the people who study voting systems is that it's really hard to get the design right and to demonstrate that you have. Maybe with the right incentive structure, we'd get it. So far, not so much. The technologists tend to favor software-independent systems -- of which, for now, optical scan systems are probably the best example. The optical scanners themselves have plenty of problems, but at least there are ballots to look at.

There are some smart people who argue that although DRE security is sketchy, ballot security is so hard to get right that DREs are a very reasonable alternative, at least in principle. I'm not really sold on that position, but I think it's good to do a solid threat analysis and not just hate on one approach in the abstract. As you say, election fraud is possible with any voting method.

By the way, "election fraud" is the favored term when voters themselves aren't doing anything wrong.

I almost took it for granted, but I should say that it's good to discuss this issue with someone who I know has the chops to actually look at the research! California's Top-to-Bottom Review and Ohio's Project EVEREST produced some interesting conclusions about the systems widely used in those states.

[PeaceNikki]

19. I can tell you that every ballot in Waukesha County that went through the machines was also

simultaneously counted by official observers (while I was there). Some theorize that the machines were hacked and then ballots were swapped before recount to match tapes. Sure, that's possible but we have no clear evidence of fraud, only opportunity for fraud. There's a difference.

I agree 100% with the statement "I think the Wisconsin recount provides pretty strong evidence that Prosser won, although there are definite problems."

There were a lot of problems and a lot of things that need to change. The biggest takeaway is: we need to watch. We do not have enough observers to cover the almost 200 wards in Waukesha County. Many of us who participated in the recount in Waukesha County are assembling teams to train and organize, especially in the municipalities that were most problematic. I do not buy into the "all elections are hacked" mantra and think it's a destructive position to take.

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. I've appreciated your posts ever since the election

I first came to DU in early 2005 because my friend Febble was getting some heat for saying that maybe Kerry didn't actually win, and I thought I could catch her back. Wow, did I learn things I never wanted to know. I'm afraid you have some idea what I mean. There is more good than bad, but the bad certainly catches one's attention.

Yeah, it seems to me that if we can think clearly about evidence -- the evidence we have, and the evidence we would like to have in future elections -- we have a much better shot at election verification than if we're just omnidirectionally terrified. Trained observers are a big part of that. Fixing those damn ballot bags would help, too!

Hey, wasn't Waukesha about to finally vote to approve its recount minutes?

[PeaceNikki]

21. I have said it repeatedly here... those bags suck.

They're difficult to close. They were poorly sealed after recount AT the recount. We have two board members who re-sealed ballots after count and one of them REALLY had a hard time. Ramona, the Democrat, is VERY careful, VERY precise and always gets it right. Pat Karcher's had to be redone because a few times she makes the same mistake that results in "seals" like we saw in the Brookfield (and several other) bags. It happened a few times in full view of the public at the recount when they resealed the ballots.

In each case of suspicious bags, they got testimony from local clerks under oath about the handling. Also in each case the ballots were counted separately and the numbers matched the canvass and the suspect bags did not skew either candidate higher than the rest of the ward(s) being counted.

I am a data geek so I was anxiously crunching #'s in those bags DYING to find some proof. I really was. I wanted to see obvious fraud, but I didn't. It still could have happened, sure. But I think it would have been very difficult to coordinate. There just wasn't solid evidence. We all learned a lot and I hope our clerks learned a lot. I spoke to many and they seemed genuinely committed to doing better.

Thanks for the reply, I've caught a lot of crap here on DU for remaining pragmatic about fraud in this race. I do this because I was there and I get very annoyed when people call it a "recount" with the quotes around it. It was run well in Waukesha County. The Board members were wonderful and the process was smooth and fully open to us. Reports otherwise are wrong. All votes were hand-counted or click-counted as each went into the machine. Nobody running the show ever denied us when asking for more information, pictures, items entered into evidence/official record. We are not podunk idiots who let the GOP walk all over us in WI, not even Waukesha County. We are Wisconsin and we are fighting. I love the term "omnidirectionally terrified". :)

I am not sure when the minutes will be released. The optimist in me hopes that the reason the minutes haven't been released yet is because GAB is thoroughly investigating. We entered a lot of shenanigans and slop into evidence.

[BeFree]

22. "...a lot of shenanigans and slop..."

So, the "recount" had a lot of shenanigans and slop?

Why am I not surprised?

And no minutes yet? How long has it been?

I do remember some very bad accusations being issued about the whole process in Waukesha and detailed right here on DU.

So what am I to make of this from your post:
"It was run well in Waukesha County. The Board members were wonderful and the process was smooth and fully open to us. Reports otherwise are wrong."

I am seeing some real contradictions here.

[PeaceNikki]

23. No, the recount *exposed* shenanigans and slop.

The shenanigans and slop were at the municipality level on election night and when ballots were secured before sent to the county. There's no contradiction at all.

Yeah, some of the exaggerated drama reported here included "zOMG!1!!! Ripped Delafield bag had 10,000 ballots in it!!" when the entire town only has 6,500 and it was one bag from one ward.

[OnTheOtherHand]

25. I did hear some gripes about the process in Waukesha

Not that it wasn't open, but that it seemed to be organized in a way that rendered it inefficient, with tabulators spending a lot of time waiting for permission to move to the next step. That's probably better than having them charge ahead on their own initiative -- but a really slow recount wears out the observers and can burn valuable calendar time. Of course, the bad seals caused delays, and people would have been rightly livid if the board hadn't spent extra time on those.

I know what you mean about being a data geek. I saw a lot of magical thinking along the lines of "there were X ballots in that poorly sealed bag, so we should subtract 2X votes from Prosser's margin," which is a fail in more than one way. (Not even to mention the assertions that X=10⁴, as you cite below.) I also think there was some confusion about the purpose of the recount. The main point of a recount is to try to establish who won. So Kloppenburg rightly (IMHO) didn't challenge the result of the recount, because at that point she couldn't make a strong case that she actually won. That doesn't mean that everything is copacetic -- obviously not.

[PeaceNikki]

26. Exactly.

The gripes I've read about the process were complaints like, "the poll books are over there, the ballots, somewhere else, etc". But we were methodically doing one reporting unit at a time. Other counties were counting multiple units concurrently, we did one at a time in the smaller room and increased that a bit when we were moved. The official observers were were working like well-oiled machines on day 2. Many of us were there most or every day and knew our roles and quickly brought n00bs up to speed. The poll books, ballots, machine counts and absentee review being separated worked well because we had people who quickly because "experts" in each, knew exactly what to look for in each part of the process and were able to focus on their specific area. This was important because there are very specific things you need to do in each. For example, when they were hand-counting and at the point of separating by candidate, the idiot Prosser reps would watch the Prosser pile with me. Dumb. I was watching the Prosser pile for Kloppenburg votes, THAT's what to watch for. They would make mistakes, we'd call them on it and they'd correct. The tabulators would work in teams of 2 and we quickly learned who the ones who made mistakes and needed to be watched more carefully.

There have been a lot of nasty things said about Waukesha County here on DU. Now I know now Texans feel. :) The fact remains that we have the third highest number of Democrats of all 72 counties in WI. Raw numbers, not percentages. We need to pull together and work the polls, watch the polls and get every single last one of the Democrats TO the polls. We have a wonderful group of Democrats here and it's tough to watch us all get thrown under the bus for merely being here.

[midnight]

30. Romona was played by Kathy to not know what was going on....

On Thursday, I then showed up as per normal procedure at 9am and the canvass again went normally and concluded sometime between 4pm and 5pm. During the course of the day, the issue of minor vote corrections in New Berlin and Lisbon came up, but again nothing of a historic nature or reflecting glaring irregularities. In fact, the matter of vote totals in Brookfield City came up specifically during the course of Thursday�s canvass. In retrospect, it seems both shocking and somewhat appalling there was no mention of discovery of this 15,000 vote �human error� that ultimately had the potential to tip the balance of an entire statewide election. How is this possible?

Once the canvass had been completed and the results were finalized, I was called into Kathy�s office along with Pat (the Republican observer) and told of an impending 5:30pm press conference. It was at that point that I was first made aware of an error Kathy had made in Brookfield City. Kathy told us she thought she had saved the Brookfield voter information Tuesday night, but then on Wednesday she said she noticed she had not hit save. Kathy didn�t offer an explanation about why she didn�t mention anything prior to Thursday afternoon�s canvass completion, but showed us different tapes where numbers seemed to add up, though I have no idea where the numbers were coming from. I was not told of the magnitude of this error, just that she had made one. I was then instructed that I would not say anything at the press conference, and was actually surprised when I was asked questions by reporters.

The reason I offer this explanation is that, with the enormous amount of attention this has received over the weekend, many people are offering my statements at the press conference that the �numbers jibed� as validation they are correct and I can vouch for their accuracy. As I told Kathy when I was called into the room � I am 80 years old and I don�t understand anything about computers. I don�t know where the numbers Kathy was showing me ultimately came from, but they seemed to add up. I am still very, very confused about why the canvass was finalized before I was informed of the Brookfield error and it wasn�t even until the press conference was happening that I learned it was this enormous mistake that could swing the whole election. I was never shown anything that would verify Kathy�s statement about the missing vote, and with how events unfolded and people citing me as an authority on this now, I feel like I must speak up.http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x867323#867370

I wish I could link to Waukesha Dems. page but it shows no info. any longer about this statement....

[PeaceNikki]

32. Yes, I spoke with Ramona at length about this at convention

She's a sharp and smart lady. She was not told about the Brookfield votes going unreported until just before the press conference.

[midnight]

27. Does anyone know how many votes were on the March 30th

poll tape from Waukesha..

.Waukesha fraud – Deep throat speaks: A slip of paper is the “deep throat” of the Supreme Court Election Fraud:"It is peculiar how the smallest, most innocent, observation can become the “straw that breaks the camel’s back.” Barb With was volunteering as an observer at the Waukesha recount when she made a glaring discovery. The poll tape that was being counted and matched for votes cast in the April 5 election for Supreme Court Justice was dated March 30, 2011. When she brought the suspicious date to the attention of election officials, they could not come up with any reason for the mis-dated poll tape. Weeks later Barb appeared before the Assembly Committee for Election and Campaign Reform. This is a portion of her testimony: An observer of the Waukesha County recount noticed such a small, innocent piece of paper that was spit out of a voting machine in Pewaukee. It was a poll tape from a voting machine on which is recorded your vote. But what caught her eye was the date at the top of the tape: 03-30-2011 or March 30. That was six days before the Supreme Court election of April 5!"http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1570545

[PeaceNikki]

28. I wasn't there that day, but I will find out when I meet with the election integrity group.

I can tell you that Pewaukee is a small reporting unit. I am still unclear as to whether that tape was from a DRE or optical scan. If DRE, there were generally VERY few DRE votes per ward (single digits).

[Blue Owl]

12. Sounds like the Kathy Nickolaus gold standard again

:mad:

[Kurovski]

13. K&R. (nt)

[kimsarah]

24. Where are the Democrats

The GOP has forced upon us Voter ID laws to require photo ID and other forms of proof that the voter is who they say they are (even though evidence of voter fraud that would prompt such legislation is non-existent).
Who does this impact? Democrats.
So why don't we have Voting Machine certification laws, where prior to each election, boards of elections swear and certify that the voting machines are tamper-proof. This is more logical than Voter ID laws, because there are likely actual cases involving tampering with machines by flipping, especially on the touch-screens. Touch Kerry's square, and the machine counts it for Bush.
So where are the Democrats?

[hobbit709]

31. ALL of the machines can be hacked

And as long as they won't let anyone see the source code no one can tell what the machine is really doing.