Fighting Diebold-Ground zero is California-Action alert

This is a multi front war, what with georgia, Ohio , Florida, Pennsylvania and other key states in play, but Friday afternoon the SoS of CA announced he was certifying the machines over the objections of thousands of anti machine activists.

There are CALLS and EMAILS you can make to the offices of several elected officials here , no matter where you're from.
One of the things DU is good at.

Please I BEG YOU, make the calls, do the emails, save our state from electoral disaster. I lifted this info from ms_in_la 's diary on Daily KOS ; thanks to her and her website, Who's Counting?

FIRST

Here is your contact list for the Rules Committee, you need not be Californian: Urge support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who didn't testify on the 16th.

IT'S ONLY 5 CALLS/ EMAILS

Senator Don Perata (Chair) D
(916) 651-4009
District office (510) 286-1333
Senator.Perata@sen.ca.gov

Senator Jim Battin (Vice-Chair) R
(916) 651-4037
Jim.Battin@sen.ca.gov

Senator Roy Ashburn R
(916) 651-4018
senator.ashburn@sen.ca.gov

Senator Debra Bowen D
EMAIL ONLY Debra@debrabowen.com - (Ms. Bowen is mounting this case and will be busy preparing, emails are welcomed-- See below*)

Senator Gilbert Cedillo D
(916) 651-4022

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SECOND- What to say:

Be concise, be polite, be professional. Here's your message: ask for "Rules Committee support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who won't otherwise inform the Elections Committee as to what's going on".

The key people: Diebold head programmers, federal testing labs (Ciber, Wyle) that repeatedly certified these flawed systems, voting system examiners who took taxpayer money, spent hours on so-called "security exams" on systems your 12-year old sister can hack, then repeatedly recommended for certification.

This is about volume of calls logged, emails sent. Not only should YOU make calls, but this needs to go out to your list.

Polite, professional, short clear message, FIRM is what works. Your passion and conviction will speak volumes.

Once subpoenas go out, that will have nationwide impact. Never before have the key witnesses had to answer questions under oath in public. That will unravel the garment, and we are so close. Demonstrate that the citizenry of America wants those guys compelled to testify, with subpoena power, under oath. Per Bev Harris..."Perjury will follow". It's our best shot that is achievable before the critical Nov. elections.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIRD - if you want to do more:

Suggestions from Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org-


Next comes gathering evidence in the form of public records. I'll work with any who volunteer to send customized public records request letters, will help
you learn the ropes, will suggest some really juicy stuff to ask for. This year, it is all about mentoring individuals to regain their power as citizens. Just one
person can make a difference.

But you need evidence, and records requests are the best way to get it. For the power of a single records request by a single individual, look at what Joan Quinn achieved in the article called "Voting machine examiners chickening out" on our home page, I think it's the third article down on www.blackboxvoting.org.


* UPDATE: State Senator Debra Bowen, working feverishly on the forefront of election integrity, wrote me last night to request that we email her offices rather than call. Her words:

"Email is great because it is easy for us to log and report -- and we can actually prove how many emails we've received!"

"We are going to need an enormous amount of people power in the next couple of weeks. Together we can change this whole pathetic mess. Let's stand up for our democracy RIGHT NOW."

"Please email me in support of issuing subpoenas rather than calling -- you will save my staff a great deal of time logging calls, and you know what kind work we have
to do right now. You can always call and fax later!"

Use this address:

Debra@debrabowen.com

"Anyone cross-posting, please include the contact info -- www.debrabowen.com and the email address. My team will strategize
about this in the next 24 hours. There is so much happening at once."

"I have a stack of documents to read, so I'm going to log off. We'll get our contact plan out before offices open on Tuesday, but email doesn't have to wait for the end of a holiday weekend."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The arguments over who is what in the party mean nothing if we lose control of the vote counting.

I am not sure the best thing to write.

I am concerned with the Sec of State certifying Diebold voting machines. I would ask for Rules Committee support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders to ascertain the true vulnerability of these systems.

Sincerely

:hi:

:kick:

We Make Democracy DIE

I am going to become a Californian in just a few weeks, from Ohio. I will be damned if I will move from one diebold stronghold to another!

and bienvenidos!

getting some type of a action or publicity for the issue. And I think the GOPs in Cali have a certain fear of him based on his enormous popularity.

No one's found deliberate fraud yet - and it's not for want of trying. But every time someone with integrity like David Dill comes out and says Diebold is no better - and no worse - than the other DREs, someone starts shouting that this time will be different.

If you want a voter verified paper trail - say so. If you want to do away with DREs because they're notoriously inaccurate - mention that. But simply parroting a party line with no evidence to back up your accusations is making the entire subject more difficult to approach rationally.

is Subpoenas on KEY WITNESSES -- on election industry and certification insiders (who failed to come forth on the 16th) to testify under oath.

The Goal: Subpoena-induced sworn testimony from voting machine vendors and errant testing labs, voting machine examiners.


Please read the kos thread linked in the OP. People have even posted letters they've sent and invited others to use them. Lots of good info there, including fax #'s

http://ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/agenda_20060301.pdf

Or do you only object to Diebold systems, which have been more closely examined that any of the others?

http://insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_3522960

The scientists recommended having counties change the encryption keys on all Diebold touchscreens and maintain tighter controls over the memory cards and PC cards, for example by requiring two people be present whenever the cards are moved or their contents changed. Serial numbers for the cards and the tamper-proof seals to lock them into the voting machines will have to be logged by elections officials at each polling place.

McPherson adopted those recommendations in certifying the Diebold machines for the June and November statewide elections. His staff wrote Diebold Friday urging the company to fix the bugs in its software and eventually to get rid of the interpreted code entirely.

``The report was written by some pretty heavy critics of electronic voting systems,'' said Jennifer Kerns, a McPherson spokeswoman. ``We're confident that we've gone above and beyond the call of duty to test it, and above and beyond what other evaluations would have revealed and can maintain the integrity of the vote.''

I don't understand why you think that. You should read the diary at kos - there's too much information to bring over.

California can only run software certified by the Federal ITA process, by state law. The "Berkeley team" is saying flat-out that such certification was NOT done correctly, therefore the entire Diebold product line is illegal under state law."


The Feb. 16 California Senate Elections Committee hearing on certification was hit with no-shows by all four major vendors (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart Intercivic). Representatives from Wyle and Ciber testing labs also declined to appear.

because the name of this thread begins with "Fighting Diebold", which immediately tells me that someone hasn't been paying attention to this issue.

Fine - I read the Kos piece and it doesn't have a single informative link for a skeptic wishing to verify the author's premise. I've already quoted what the "Berkeley team" had to say and California's reasonable reaction.

The whole issue of interpreted code is a question of interpretation - and I see nothing wrong with insisting on the stricter language. But the scientists have examined that issue and made their recommendation - and the California secretary of state adopted it.

As for the meeting

http://www.senate.ca.gov/ftp/SEN/COMMITTEE/STANDING/EL/_home/HearingAgendas/Agenda2-16-06.htm

Look at who was scheduled to appear - how can you be a no show when you weren't expected? The vendors and labs were invited to attend and declined - so what?

I'm all for citizen participation - but get your facts straight. No one has yet found deliberately nefarious code in Diebold machines - objecting to them now, when the professionals' legitimate objections have just been addressed isn't constructive.

is dangerous programming which give innacurate results.
There's the lines which address changing vote totals.
There's the ability to change totals via remote modem.

I'm concerned about these "features" as windows refers to all vulnerabilities.

They aren't deliberatley "nefarious" but coincidentally can be used to alter election results.

And I think we all agree that the Bush administration has already amassed far more than their share of coincidences.

Diebold is the most dangerous of these systems, the company whose CEO stated he would "do whatever it takes" to bring Bush victory in '04.
Diebold is the system just certified by our SOS as of Friday afternoon, so, yes, it is Diebold we fight.

I'll leave Sequoia to you, Fredda.

The certification was conditional on Diebold modifying their system to remove the "interpreted code".

Where did you get the idea that you can change the totals remotely? That wasn't demonstrated anywhere I've seen.

And I hope you're aware that it's Diebold's *former* CEO who made that stupid remark.

You don't have to leave anything to me ... I've done more than my share to bring this issue to the public's attention. If *you're* going to call others to action - the least you can do is get your facts straight and present a coherent message.

everyone is on the same page with the exception of you.
If you don't understand what we're fighting here, fine.

Stay out of it if all you can do is carp; I think everyone on this thread is perfectly aware of the roles and shortcomings of Diebold, and that includes any featured negativity injected into things by a dubious uncredentialed source or a somewhat wacky bystander, if you get my drift.

See you in Ohio Fredda

Someone posted the FAX numbers at the kos diary:

District Offices

Fax (510) 286-3885 Perata
Fax: (951) 653-9524 Battin
Fax: (661) 323-0446 Ashburn
Fax (310) 318-6733 Bowen


Capitol Office
Fax (916) 327-8817 Cedillo

And if anyone needs help writing a letter a couple people posted letters with the invitation to use them or use them as templates.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/19/134751/152


I posted this at the Election Reform forum here and Amaryllis pointed out that we need to stress the under oath part!!


Thanks Capn Sunshine!

:hi:

:kick:

There was nothing wrong with Gray Davis...except he was DEM Gov. of BIG "Blue" state...with LARGE Workers' Comp Fund that Repugs had their eyes on (Ohio-style. Worked there...certainly could work here.) THAT, and "re-districting." If that fails, there's always "natural disasters" to "relocate"/"lose" lots of Blue voters. If all else fails, wouldn't rule that one out.

Oh, I am being pessimistic. Haven't had my coffee yet.

in quotes? Do you know something?

I've posted a similar message in GD. We need critical mass on this issue.

There's a lot of static coming from not so surprising places in DU regarding this issue.

We'll win this, what motivates them to stop us is only money.
We on the other hand, work for free.