Dump Diebold! Action alert

Subject: Dump Diebold! Please help get Diebold kicked out of California


All -- Tonight I participated in a conference call with the California Election Protection Network. Jim March of Black Box Voting informed us that Bev Harris has been busy doing research and will be dropping the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on Diebold in time for the May 19th hearing. That hearing will determine whether Diebold will be kicked out of California is being held. Once the dust settles, Diebold's already tarnished reputation should be reduced to dust.

Jim March from Black Box Voting has asked us all to please e-mail bmcdanno@ss.ca.gov and tell the Secretary of State to "Dump Diebold!"

If possible, please also attend the hearing, or a rally outside, in Sacramento. Here are details:

Office of the Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
1st Floor - Auditorium
Sacramento, California 95814

This is at the "Archives Plaza" light rail station - the station is
literally right at the front door of the place. Hearing starts at 10 am but be there by 9 am.

Below are details and background info you can use in your e-mails.

-- Miriam


Dear Concerned Citizens,

It appears the easiest way to stop Diebold from coming into the county
will be to stop the state from certifying them. There's a meeting
currently scheduled for this in Sacramento on May 19. The more people
who show up, the more likely our chances become of stopping them. You
can sign up to speak, or just be a body to show the numbers of people
who care about this super important issue.

We also hope to get some people who can sign up to speak but then yield
their time to the experts from Black Box Voting (Bev Harris's group) and
Open Voting Consortium (a group working with the Univ. of CA system to
create a simplified computerized voting using open source code and
ordinary machines - no proprietary nonsense). That way the people with
the most knowledge can get more than the 3 minutes typically allotted.

Please see the information below and consider making the drive up there
on the 19th if you can.

Thanks!

Lisa Pease

======= ALERT ========== ALERT ========== ALERT ==========

From: Jim March
Date: May 4, 2005 10:38:38 AM PDT
To: CalifElectionProtection@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Diebold hearing, Sacramento, May 19th - BE THERE!

Folks,

On May 19th 2005 there will be a meeting regarding the certification of
a whole slew of Diebold voting products. You can refer to the SecState's
agenda here:

http://ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/vsp_agenda_0519a.pdf

This hearing is our golden opportunity to throw Diebold out of this
state once and for all. Back around April of '04 the Shelley-era VSPP
came close but then pressure seems to have triggered a "back off on
Diebold" effect...culminating in some of the SecState's office's
documents damning Diebold getting *purged* as active links on the
SecState's site.

WE NEED BODIES. We need mass public protest of the level we achieved
January through April of '04. We need to come back and say WE'VE HAD
ENOUGH BECAUSE THE MADNESS HASN'T STOPPED. See "background material"
below.

Even if you're not going to speak, we STILL need you as a "time waiver"
- you fill out the speaker card but give your two minutes of time to Bev
Harris, myself or some other key speaker. We need to organize this ahead
of time outside, look for organizers with black armbands if you can help
out in this critical area - two minutes isn't enough time to discuss the
crimes committed by Diebold Election Systems!

WHERE:

Office of the Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
1st Floor - Auditorium
Sacramento, California 95814

This is at the "Archives Plaza" light rail station - the station is
literally right at the front door of the place.

WHEN: 10:00am but show up a bit early so we can organize.

BE THERE!!! MAKE A DIFFERENCE! BROADCAST THIS ALERT FAR AND WIDE!



BACKGROUND MATERIAL:

* A few days before the meeting, the "staff report recommendations" (the
"discussion starting point") for the major agenda items will be posted
at the SecState's website next to the agenda. It's not there yet but
look for it and read it over as it's an important guide to "where their
heads are already at", what their concerns are, what they're glossing
over...it will be at:

http://ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm

Item: Instant Runoff Voting has been approved by public vote in Berkeley
but is being wrongfully held up in Alameda County. See also:

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-03-05
<http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-03-05&storyID=21
313> &storyID=21313
<
<http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-03-05&storyID=21
313>
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-03-05&storyID=213
13 >

The BlackBoxVoting public comments on this meeting as prepared by myself
with the assistance of Bev and other members of the board of directors
of BBV is available at:

http://www.equalccw.com/sscomments9.pdf

It is a VERY powerful document.

Issues in brief:

Just looking at the SecState's meeting agenda linked above, at least one
bit is brand new, a Diebold "paper trail version" touchscreen.

There's the obligatory "update du jure" to GEMS.

But MOST surprisingly, software that they've been distributing all along
and illegally withholding from certification are now supposedly
"Federally certified" and are being run through the state cert process.
These three bits are all connected to the smartcards and are items
complained about by Bev Harris and myself as far back as late 2003/early
2004: "Spyrus voter card encoder", "Key Card Tool software", "VC
Programmer software".

Three problems:

1) How come nobody at the state or Fed certification systems noticed
these needed cert before?

2) How is it that these "newly Federally certified pieces" are certified
to 2002 standards yet are closely integrated into everything else which
is certified to 1990 Federal Elections Commission standards? How can two
different security process standards be used to evaluate two different
parts of one overall package?

3) Why is it that ONLY those pieces of custom code Bev and I caught them
at are the ones being "brought into the light" now? Did Bev, myself and
the rest of the activist community spot EVERY problem? It doesn't seem
likely since we can't get full access to this stuff to check them out!!!

There are numberous other problems with continuing to rely on Diebold.
The legality of the certifications of all their products are in question
in part due to the individualized login requirements (a security
*basic*) found in the FEC standards from both 1990 and 2002 and
functionally missing from GEMS.

Details are in:

http://www.equalccw.com/sscomments9.pdf

There will yet more damaging revelations on Diebold prior to the May
19th meeting that I can't go into right now. Let's just say...Bev has
been VERY busy :).

BE THERE!!! MAKE A DIFFERENCE! BROADCAST THIS ALERT FAR AND WIDE!

Jim

I will make it happen.

Tweet loudly for those of us who might not be able to make it.

I'm trying to juggle a business appointment so that I can go, too.

:evilgrin: