2nd Eureka Paper Picks Up Call For Election Official's Resignation

C'mon people, we are off to a fast start in our campaign to unite California election reformers...

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=6504

Area voting machines could have flaws
by Shane Mizer, 12/16/2005

AccuVote machines used in Humboldt County elections may be vulnerable to hacking, according to a recent test in Florida.

The machines succumbed to security expert tampering in a Leon County, Fla., test observed by elections supervisor Ion Sancho.

(snip)

Dave Berman, a member of the local electoral reform watchdog group the Voter Confidence Committee and author of guvwurld.blogspot.com, has recently called for McWilliams’ resignation due to his failure to properly safeguard Humboldt County’s elections.

“The conditions for our elections right now guarantee that we are going to have an inconclusive outcome because we’ve got paperless electronic voting machines across the country,” Berman said. “If we can’t verify the vote with a recount, how can we know what the true outcome is? Therefore there is no reason for confidence in the results that are given, just blind trust.”

Diebold spokesman David Bear claimed Sancho’s test was not conducted in a real environment and therefore does not reflect a realistic outcome.

“At no time has he ever included us in his test or followed any industry standards or his own policies and procedures on how to properly conduct an election,” Bear said. “It’s somewhat foolish to be providing people with the ability to bypass securities by supplying passwords and unfettered access. It’s sort of analogous that if I give you the keys to my house and the password to my alarm of course you can get into my house.”

MORE...

Also see yesterday's thread announcing the first mention of resignation.

more access than the vendors have in many precincts.

They are in full cya mode. If it would help them to change the story they will try. One way not to let them is by writing a letter to the editor of the Eureka Reporter: editor@eurekareporter.com.

I did this in response to yesterday's piece in the Times-Standard. I called the BS about "real-world" testing conditions. This is the closing excerpt of what I submitted:

This is both disingenuous and wrong. Concerns about hacking go beyond mysterious and nefarious outsiders. The conditions for the test hack revealed what any unscrupulous insider could do. That is not an accusation against McWilliams. He does stand accused of defending indefensible election equipment. Anyone who is resigned to keeping our current election conditions should resign and make way for someone determined to improve these conditions.

n/t

We have momentum with this campaign and should continue to strike while the iron is hot. Where are our letter writers and phone callers? Who else is blogging about this? We need details reported here to keep fueling the fire. Thanks again kster.

the biggest threat--totally unauthorized, private personnel, with passwords and backdoors and internal modems and god knows what. And in Diebold's case, convicted felons for programmers, and a CEO (until early this week) who was a major donor to Bush and promised in writing to "help deliver Ohio to Bush/Cheney in 2004."

David Bear just rides right around this OBVIOUS point. It's not so much our election officials we don't trust, Mr. Bear, or random hackers. It's YOU!

Good work, GuvWorld! I shall write to Eureka paper.

More than that, ESSENTIAL work. Challenging these election theft systems locally is probably our best hope for reform.

write letters to? That would make it easiest for people. We'll get more letters out that way. Thanks!

Thanks for jumping in Peace Patriot, I appreciate your encouragement. This is a link to a directory of many CA newspapers:

http://newsdirectory.com/news.php?co=USA&p=ca

Here are Humboldt media contacts:

Arcata Eye: news@arcataeye.com, 707-826-7000
Eureka Reporter: editor@eurekareporter.com, 707-476-8000
Eureka Times-Standard: editor@times-standard.com, 707-441-0500
HSU Lumberjack: thejack@humboldt.edu, 707-826-3271
Humboldt Advocate: news@humboldtadvocate.com, 707-825-9400
KHUM: info@khum.com, 707-786-5104
KMUD: news@kmud.org, 707-923-2513
Life & Times of Southern Humboldt: 707-923-2824
Mainstream Media Project: info@mainstream-media.net, 707-826-9111
North Coast Journal: ncjournal@northcoastjournal.com, 707-826-2000
The Independent: indie@asis.com, 707-923-4205

I hope people will be working these points with their own local media so there isn't really a single publication I'm asking people to contact. Get this out anywhere and everywhere you can. Then share here and in comments to the GuvWurld Blog. Seriously, this is one of the strongest points of this campaign. The media coming out of Humboldt can be used by others around the state working on this campaign. Anything that hits media elsewhere will surely help us here. Nice model, eh?

I consistently find myself at odds with the reasoning presented in T-S editorials, including today's piece opposing the rationale for a proposed ballot measure that would prohibit non-local corporations from spending money on Humboldt elections. I'm not involved with that campaign for several of my own reasons, none of which are reflected in today's commentary. In brief, I oppose all corporate funds in elections, not just the impossible to define "non-local" money. I think a more useful measure to bring forward would prohibit all corporate funds or work to address the absurd Supreme Court notion that money is equivalent to speech (though this really cannot be addressed through a local ordinance so we're better off focusing on other things all together).

In a similar manner, and with acknowledgment that internet polls are recognized as being unscientific (to the extent that the Eureka Reporter stopped presenting an online poll for all its worthlessness), it would be nice if the new T-S poll went down in a mass of NO votes.

Are you confident that Humboldt County's vote-counting system tallies accurate results?

Total Votes = 134

Yes 76 Votes, or 56.71 %
No 58 Votes, or 43.28 %

Visit www.times-standard.com to weigh in. Perhaps consider dropping a line to editor@times-standard.com reminding them that the real question is not "Are you confident..." but rather "Is there a basis for confidence, other than blind trust?"

So as the kids say, DU this poll!

in getting rid of Diebold!