BBV: New dirt on Blackwell, Diebold woes re GEMS, FEC failures

Here are some more facts about Blackwell and some tidbits about Diebold and BBV in general. Maybe the FEC needs to be DU-ed.

Synopsis: This report contains new evidence that Ken Blackwell needs
to be removed. New information is provided on Los Angeles Registrar
Conny Drake McCormack, and the strange priorities of the FEC
as it investigates rapper "P.Diddy" instead of Blackwell or McCormack)

DIEBOLD ADMITS TO THE GEMS DEFECT (VIDEO CLIP)

On Oct. 17 2005, an ordinary citizen in Cleveland, Mr. Wright, asked
what may turn out be the most important question of the year. What
is Diebold's explanation, he wanted to know, for the VBA Script hack
of the GEMS central tabulator performed by Dr. Herbert Thompson?

Here is the videotape showing Diebold Election Systems Chief Engineer
Pat Green admitting that Diebold knew of the defect since 2004:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/videos/GEMSDefect.mpg (8,860 KB)

Black Box Voting has learned that the August 18, 2004
CompuWare Report was hidden from the public by Ohio Secretary
of State Ken Blackwell). Here is the tampering risk assessment,
which Blackwell had in his hands BEFORE the Nov. 2004 election,
but withheld from both the public and the Election Assistence Commission (the federal oversight committee charged with ensuring the security of elections in all states, not just Ohio:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/reports/GEMS-RISK.pdf
(full report: http://www.bbvdocs.org/reports/diebReasses081804.pdf)

This leads to the crucial question: If Diebold knew, and if Ken
Blackwell knew, why wasn't the Election Assistence Commission told,
why were no other secretaries of state told, why didn't Blackwell tell the Ohio election officials using GEMS, and why weren't the mitigations deemed necessary by CompuWare ever implemented?

FEC TO INVESTIGATE RAPPER "P. DIDDY" SEAN COMBS

But Ignores Blistering GAO Report on Insecure Voting Machines
-- No Scrutiny of Election Violations --

According to a press release
(http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/13160.html,
)issued by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a conservative "ethics" watchdog group that specializes in filing complaints against progressive politicians and groups, the FEC has notified the NLPC that it will take up a complaint against rapper Sean Combs for his 2004 "Vote or Die Campaign." The NLPC Web site says the case has been assigned "Matter Under Review number 5684." The NLPC hypes the so-called investigation, though the FEC letter itself appears more tepid, almost a form letter:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/FECCombs.pdf

Black Box Voting, a minority-governed nonpartisan elections watchdog, says the FEC has better ways to spend its time and your dime. The FEC claims they are not staffed for many investigations. If that's the case, why is a P. Diddy investigation on their priority list at all?

The FEC is not investigating Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell
who withheld critical security information. Public records requests
submitted by Black Box Voting have revealed that neither Blackwell nor Diebold corrected the GEMS defects before the 2004 election. These defects remain uncorrected in nearly 800 jurisdictions.

The FEC is not investigating the findings of the General Accounting
Office voting system security report, released Oct. 21, 2005, which
cites multiple security problems with the voting systems currently in use. Among the problems cited by the GAO Report: flaws in voting
system security, access, and hardware controls, weak security
management practices by vendors, and multiple examples of failures in real elections. Full GAO report:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/reports/GAOReport_ElectionSecurity_102105.pdf

The Help America Vote Act allocated $4 billion to buy voting machines that taxpayers never asked for, many of which have turned out to be defective. The FEC is not investigating.

A false claims lawsuit filed by Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris
and investigator Jim March recovered $2.6 million for California taxpayers from Diebold Election Systems because of its poor voting machine security and improper testing and certification. The FEC never investigated whether such false claims affect any of the other 31 Diebold states, even after the California secretary of state requested a criminal investigation, citing Diebold's lies to state authorities. More on false claims suit:
(http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/6738.html)

In October 2005, Black Box Voting revealed documents showing that
in 2002, Diebold made misrepresentations to the Georgia secretary of
state. (http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/GA-falsehoods.pdf)
In August 2005, Diebold submitted a letter to the Arizona secretary of state(http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/AZ-sos-moreland.pdf)
which contained serious misrepresentations pertaining to a security
problem called "the GEMS defect." One would think that making false
claims to three secretaries of state in four consecutive years (2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005), might represent a concern, but the FEC is not investigating this. (full Gorgia sales presentation:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/GApresentation.pdf)

The FEC is investigating Sean Combs for allegedly flying in a private jet while conducting a "get out the vote" drive. The complaint alleges that people who spoke at his rallies made statements beneficial to a candidate (John Kerry). What the FEC has never investigated is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel's $5 million stake in Election Systems & Software, the company that counted Hagel's votes (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-3.pdf)
when he ran for office in 1996 and 2002. Nor has the FEC investigated Wally O'Dell, the Diebold CEO who promised to "deliver the votes to Bush in 2004."

VOTING MACHINE PROBLEMS AND PROCEDURAL VIOLATIONS HIT HARD NOV. 8
2005 elections, casting doubt on Ohio and Detroit elections and revealing civil rights violations in Los Angeles.

On Nov. 8, 2005 in Texas, new touch-screens could not choke out a
result, so technicians for a vendor "manually retrieved" the votes from inside the computer. The FEC has asked no follow up questions about why a vendor's technicians are handling votes at all, since they are not certified or sworn elections officials, nor has the FEC inquired how touch-screens with no paper ballots that can't find their own votes managed to pass testing and certification, or how a technician can reach into a touch-screen to "retrieve" votes.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/13130.html

In Ohio, the Nov. 8, 2005 election produced staggeringly impossible
numbers, but the FEC is not investigating why more votes showed up
than voters, nor why the election reform ballot issue voting machine
results were exactly opposite of the pre-election polls.
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1559

In Detroit's Nov. 8, 2005 election, procedures broke down in 26 precincts causing nine electronic ballot boxes to go missing. These were not all recovered until two days later. At that time, thousands of other bogus votes were counted. However, the FEC is not investigating. http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/13139.html

Los Angeles citizens aren't permitted to watch their votes being
counted, a clear violation of California law. Black Box Voting was
told the results "came out the same as expected" so we should not
be concerned. Regardless of whether the votes "come out right,"
hiding crucial vote-tallying processes is a civil rights violation, and powerful Los Angeles County Elections Registrar Conny Drake
McCormack has a history with minority vote suppression and rights
violations.

Before taking the position in Los Angeles County, Registrar
Conny Drake McCormack was the target of a Texas legislative
effort referred to as the "Get Conny Drake bill,"(See footnote 1)
an unsuccessful effort to find a way to fire elections officials who
engage in voting violations targeting minorities. She had allegedly
been withholding ballots in African-American districts. On another
matter, regarding voting machines, she was found by the Department
of Justice to have violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. She was
also subjected to a two-year election fraud probe by Texas attorney
general Jim Mattox on another matter. While still under investigation in Texas, Conny Drake McCormack took over elections in San Diego(replacing Ray Ortiz after he was indicted), then became elections chief in Los Angeles County, where she has arranged for votes to be counted on a customized, home-brewed tallying system, hidden from public view.

On Nov. 8, Black Box Voting observed Los Angeles County election
workers conducting a bait and switch.
(http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/13095.html)
While the press and the public were instructed to look in a window
to a room containing optical scan machines, results actually came out of a different set of computers in another room, which was hidden from view. The press was told that the system is certified and tested, but Black Box Voting cannot find that the Los Angeles tallying system, customized under Conny Drake McCormack, was ever examined by federal testing labs or the state of California as required by law. Though she is now the most powerful elections official in California -- and one of the most influential in the nation -- the FEC is not investigating Conny Drake McCormack.

For more information on things the FEC is not investigating, see investigations(http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/1954.html)
and News (http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/114.html)
at Black Box Voting (.ORG)

(Footnote 1) Dallas Morning News, Mar. 31 1987: Elections Chief Resigning After Troubled Tenure ..."bumpy roads ... include Attorney General Jim Mattox's continuing investigation into vote-fraud allegations ... Ms. McCormack weathered investigations by the U.S. Justice Department, the Texas secretary of state's office and the Dallas County district attorney's office ... legislation dubbed
the "Get Conny Drake (her maiden name) bill' ... Top Democratic officials called for her ouster. Roy Orr, a commissioner at the time, called her "a jerk at the wheel' and "a typical bureaucrat.' John Wiley Price, now a commissioner, called her a liar and a racist.

Any idea on how this affected the Ohio election?

"removing" his ass.

The NYT? Keith? We keep seeing these report on DU but there doesn't seem to be any real organization to our protests. Is anyone from DU Ohio working on this? Just tell me what to do, who to contact and I'll do it. So would many other. We need an organized, concerted effort on this voter fraud stuff. Maybe we should choose one influential paper or one Senator or ??? and EVERY DU member start emailing, calling, etc., daily!! Republican and Dem reps from Ohio?

The Toledo Blade broke the Tom Noe Coingate scandal and has been by far the most aggressive and inquisitive paper in Ohio regarding this and other issues. The Other Paper, an alt newsweekly in Columbus, would also be good to contact, they would probably do something on this. No doubt Bob Fitrakis and company at The Free Press will be on it, but they are mostly preaching to the choir. We need broader coverage.

I live in Columbus but just moved here and don't have any "ins" yet. Anyone?

The web site for the FEC makes it seem as if it's primarily aimed at campaign finance regulations.

One of the letters from the FEC given in one of the links that discusses the case being pursued against P. Diddy is written by Jeff S. Jordan, Supervisory Attorney, Compplaints Examination and Legal Administration, but I don't know if he would be an appropriate one to write to.

But my question is if the Federal Election Commission can't investigate crimes committed against the voter committed by people like Blackwell, who can? This is supposedly the agency that investigates breaking of the election laws, and that's MORE THAN JUST CAMPAIGN FINANCE.

Anybody else have any ideas?

If we could find one person or office to write to, we could inundate them with demands that they investigate the improprieties in OH. And if they can investigate P. Diddy, why can't they investigate Blackwell?

kicked.