Busby/Bilbray race invalidated + hand recount petition.

from Truthout.org. Long debunking of the security of Diebold machine. Petition to recount at very bottom.


Security Breaches for 'Sleepover' Voting Machines Used in Busby/Bilbray Race Invalidated, Decertified Their Use in the Election! BradBlog.com. Wednesday 14 June 2006.

The electronic Diebold voting systems used in the special run-off election last week for California's 50th U.S. House district were effectively 'decertified' and invalidated for use in the election after massive security breaches in the storage of those systems were sanctioned by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, The BRAD BLOG can now conclude.

Based on the review of several different very specific state and federal requirements, laws and provisions, the unsecured overnight storage of Diebold voting machines and their memory cards in poll workers houses, cars and garages in the days and weeks prior to the closely watched election between Republican Brian Bilbray and Democrat Francine Busby violated several federal and state provisions which, if not followed, would revoke the certification of use for the voting systems in any California election.

In the wake of discussions yesterday with SD County Registrar Mikel Haas, who admitted to The BRAD BLOG that storage in poll workers' cars could not be considered secure, it has now become clear that several violations of certified provisions of use for Diebold voting machines - which have been found and confirmed in the past several months to be highly tamperable by dozens of methods and by the company's own admissions - occurred in last week's race...

When it was discovered last December, after a security examination of Diebold optical scan systems in Leon County, FL, that both op-scan and touch-screen systems made by Diebold could be hacked via their memory cards - due to the presence of so-called "interpreted code" which is banned by federal voting systems standards - both federal and California officials instituted new security requirements concerning their use in elections. The violation of those requirements, as has clearly occurred in the CA-50 race, would effectively nullify their certification for use in the state of California.

Adding fuel to the concerns of the incredibly cavalier statements about the security issues related to this matter by Registrar Haas (read on below) is the fact that just last week, two different elections in an Iowa Republican primary revealed that the popular incumbents - who had both apparently "lost" their races after paper ballots were optically-scanned - had in fact won their races after a subsequent manual hand-count revealed the scanners were programmed incorrectly. Those revelations, along with the details of CA-50 that we have been reporting here, have led non-partisan election watchdog organization VoteTrustUSA to join us in demanding that SD County prove their reported results are accurate by carrying out a full manual hand-count of all paper ballots and "paper trails" in the race.


(more)


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061506K.shtml

:kick:

and do a hand recount or redo the whole election?

I know...two chances -- zero and none.

Unless Busby gets involved nothing is going to happen.

Well, not 0%, but realistically close to nil.

Kerry didn't get involved and what happened? * happened! Busby has to fight, too!

"Sore loser", "get over it", etc. GOP media machine will not let the Constitution or any statutes stand in the way of taking power.

Along with the ethical local, state and Federal leaders who are informed and who understand the cancer that is eroding our election system.

No progress is ever made against those abusing power and privilege. Unless Americans mobilize locally and demand total citizen control of our elections and the way they are implemented, the election fraud will not only continue, it will get to a place where we cannot take back the control. We cannot continue to allow corrupt private companies and government officials to appoint who they want to win elections.

This really has nothing to do with either political party. On the contrary, the political parties have now become the property of the most wealthy individuals and those driven by control and power whose primary agenda is to maintain a substantial division between Americans, prevent any fairness and/or healthy governmental processes that stand to benefit everyone, ironically even themselves.

Political parties are essentially irrelvant now, or worse, they are now working against our best interests because they have been taken over by the same power mongers whose agenda is to keep us immobilized by the division and the distractions they promote and inflate.

The enemy of fair elections are those who deny us the fair elections demanded by our Constitution and Voting Rights Act.

The neocons and power abusers won't just give us fair elections.

That is why they are installing electronic voting machines - so they have access to the votes and they are the ones who are counting the votes.

Its up to us to become actively involved in spreading the word and participate in the process instead of expecting others to do the work. There are no "others". Its up to us as Americans.

The good news is there are many more of us than there are of them. However, as I have said they utilize political parties and their solely owned "Media Industrial Complex" to keep us ignorant of the issues that we need to know the most, divided from one another, totally distracted and in denial.

We have to ignore and fight the divisions they continue ignite and inflame through issues like "gay marriage", immigration issues, and other manufactured, propagandized subjects.

Our unity as American citizens is their greatest fear.

Bottom line: it's up to us.

They are never going to be fair. In fact, it will only get worse unless more Americans get involved and bring our elections and the tabulations of those elections back to the local level. Its up to us to make elections fair. There should be no greater issue taking our energy and our commitment.

just on the suspicious results--or on the egregious non-transparency of the whole election system. She gets a new election on this, if it comes before a fair and objective judge. They can't even follow the measly security rules in their non-transparent, unverifiable, Bushite-controlled voting system! Christ!

The judge in the 17-county lawsuit--the touchscreen counties (illegally certified Diebold touchscreens)--agreed to let some of them out of the suit (about half, as I recall) with the promise that they would use paper ballots in the next election, while the issue of the illegally certified machines is argued and ruled upon. That would be the right solution in San Diego CA-50: A new election with hand-counted paper ballots only.

I imagine this is dicey for Busby, who won the Dem primary and will be running against Bilbray in the fall, for the permanent (2-year) seat. I hope she realizes that election integrity is the PRIORITY ONE issue for the progressive (majority) Democrats and others who support her, and there is literally nothing more important for our democracy and country right now than restoring TRANSPARENT elections.

I think it's likely that chain of custody on the optiscan paper ballots, absentee and other paper ballots, and the touchscreen "receipts" (for what they are worth), has been broken and cannot be relied upon. A recount is not enough. There needs to be an investigation and a lawsuit, and a re-voted paper ballot election. One problem is TIME. By the time recount, investigation and legal procedures can be put in motion and get anywhere, the November election will be upon us, and even if a judge acts in a timely manner, the "results" of a SECOND non-transparent election will be clashing with the upshot of the first. The first was just filling the jailed Republican Cunningham's seat in the interim. It could be that voters will be so outraged by that time, that they will sweep Bilbray away along with the rest of the nest of vipers in Washington DC--in a huge turnout that overwhelms the machine advantage to Republicans and warmongers. I certainly hope that happens. But I think all of these considerations are secondary to the matter of yet another clouded election--the one that just happened--in which no one can have any confidence in the results.

I'm reminded of the deliberate chaos that the Bush junta created in Iraq, and then again in New Orleans. They see chaos as an opportunity for thieving. They have created havoc with our election system, that could result in civil unrest and instability, even if the Democrats take over. (Can you imagine what Freepers will be doing if we manage to restore legitimate elections?) Long term uncertainty and no confidence may prevail. An election system as dirty as this one is not good for anyone. And the longer it goes on, the closer we get to a point of no return, after which nothing our government does has any legitimacy any more.

This must be stopped. And I hope that Busby has the good sense, the patriotism, and the long term thinking to stop it now, before it goes any further. With no transparency in the election system, her chances in the fall are just about nil anyway.

Any update on the rules for recounts and election challenge lawsuits? Is Busby's participation essential?

Bilbray will have already moved all of his stuff to DC and voted on 10 different resolutions.

the GOP doesn't need elections - they just take over offices they want.

We're fighting over the building blocks of Democracy. The results determine where the money goes. What this is all about is corporate good vrs. public good. :donut: :donut:

it was declared null and void in December of 2000, and has been walked on, pissed on, and shredded by Karl Rove ever since.

:kick:

:eyes:

"The result of all of this would be that if there had been malicious tampering with these voting systems, no amount of observations of the tabulation would reveal the tampering that had occured inside the machines. Unfortunately, candidate Francine Busby's own statement in regard to this matter, seems to reveal that she is wholly unaware of the incidiousness and invisibility of the points in question here and, as we'll show, the fact that the voting machines, as used in her own election, were in clear violation of the law."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061506K.shtml