Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, FRI. 1/5/07 Feds Failed to Warn on

Flawed E-Vote Lab

InternetNews.com

January 5, 2007
Feds Failed to Warn on Flawed E-Vote Lab
By Michael Hickins

The Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which is responsible for accrediting testing labs that inspect electronic voting machines, failed to notify local officials that it has refused to accredit Ciber, which tests the software for most of the electronic voting systems currently in use.

Ciber was allowed to certify software patches, such as the ones that fix problems that surfaced in the run-up to November's mid-term elections, notably in Maryland, where e-poll book devices caused havoc during the 2006 primaries.

Officials in California and other states also relied on a report from Ciber that dismissed concerns raised by computer experts who demonstrated security flaws in electronic voting machines.

Local election officials were not made aware of Ciber's status, however, reinforcing claims by election integrity activists that the EAC is more concerned with protecting voting machine vendors than the rights of the electorate.

In testimony given to the House of Representatives on July 19, 2006, EAC Commissioner Donetta Davidson noted that her agency had enacted "a certifying process for the first time," but made no mention of Ciber at the hearing.

The initial assessment of Ciber was completed on July 20.

Davidson also testified that the EAC will "maintain a register of accredited labs and post this information on its Web site to fully inform the public about this important process."

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3652306
emphasis mine

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BLOGGED BY Brad ON 1/5/2007 2:16AM

Sends Letter to Outgoing CA Sec. of State Attempting to Create New Conditions for Hack Test! Computer Security Experts Deride!
EXLUSIVE: Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone's Complete Letter to SoS Bruce McPherson

In a letter obtained by The BRAD BLOG, Riverside County, California, Supervisor Jeff Stone attempts to move the goal posts concerning the ill-considered challenge he issued to Election Integrity advocates in December during a public, video-taped meeting.

The letter, sent by Stone on Wednesday to outgoing California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, attempts to unilaterally create unrealistic (some might say desperate) conditions for a proposed hack test of the county's electronic touch-screen voting machines, made by Sequoia Voting Systems. When Stone initially issued the challenge, he included no such ground rules.

Computer scientists and security experts interviewed by The BRAD BLOG, as well as a number of reports and studies from nationally-recognized bodies, understand what Stone apparently doesn't: the major threat to voting machine malfeasance comes not from a voter walking up to a voting system on Election Day, but rather from insiders who are easily able to gain unsupervised access to the machines.

The letter to McPherson from Stone is posted in full at the end of this article.

As we reported in mid-December, Stone had challenged Election Integrity advocates from Democracy for America-Temecula Valley, during a public meeting of the County Supervisors, to bring in a programmer willing to attempt a hack of Riverside's voting system. His offer was simply "to set up an appointment with one of our machines and I’d like him or her to verify that they can manipulate that machine."

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3988

Ventura County Star

By Thomas D. Elias
January 5, 2007

An anxious time is just about to begin for the two interest groups that have done more than anyone else in recent years to make Californians feel uncertain about the integrity of their elections.

Those two groups: The makers of electronic voting machines of various types, many of whose devices have been shown to be both hackable and problematic in other ways. And county voter registrars who bought those machines largely with many millions of dollars derived from the federal Help America Vote Act, which was more concerned about speed of conversion to new technologies than whether they were trustworthy.

Now comes Democrat Debra Bowen, elected last fall and just now about to move into her new job as secretary of state, California's top elections officer. As a state senator from Marina del Rey for the last eight years, Bowen was the Legislature's leading skeptic of new-fangled voting machines and their bells and whistles.

Her appointed predecessor and defeated autumn opponent, the former Republican state Sen. Bruce McPherson of Santa Cruz, was anything but a skeptic, certifying virtually any machine any county registrar wanted to buy and imposing questionable checks on their performance.

Those easygoing days are over for machine makers like Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Sequoia Voting Systems and others, and for the registrars who bought their products, often under tight federal deadlines to do something.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/opinion/article/0,1375,VCS_125_5257345,00.html

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

yes! Sweet victory.

Times Union

Democrat's wife faces charges after GOP poll watcher seeks "justice"

By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Friday, January 5, 2007

MECHANICVILLE -- Suspecting massive election fraud, Republican poll watcher Michael Coleman launched his own investigation last fall to see if voters really lived in the city.
He learned the primary addresses of several voters by filing for their school tax exemption forms. And on Election Day, when they allegedly came to vote in Mechanicville, he legally challenged their residency.

The affidavits voters signed in response are now evidence in an investigation being conducted by the Mechanicville Police Department, which is looking into whether several people who live outside the city illegally voted in Mechanicville's November election.
So far, the Mechanicville Police Department has charged Linda Young of Halfmoon, wife of Nicholas Guilianelli, the vice chairman of Mechanicville's Democratic Committee, with four voting-related felonies.
"There may be other arrests pending," Police Chief Joseph Waldron said. He would not elaborate.

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=550800&category=SARATOGA&BCCode=LOCAL&newsdate=1/5/2007

Officials say Ciber, a past electronic voting-machine tester, isn t failing. It just faces tougher standards.
By Katy Human and George Merritt
Denver Post Staff Writers
Article Launched: 01/05/2007 01:00:00 AM MST

State and federal election officials reassured voters Thursday that safe and secure elections can be held even though the nation's biggest voting-machine test company doesn't have federal approval.
Last summer, assessors found problems at Greenwood Village- based Ciber Inc., one of three U.S. companies that test whether such computers meet federal standards.
Testers in Ciber's Alabama office didn't adequately document their work, according to officials with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
But the same federal officials said Ciber's problems are not about shoddy work but about shifting government standards for voting-machine testing.
"I think they kept good documentation; we're just requiring more," said U.S. Election Assistance Commission chairwoman Donetta Davidson, former Colorado secretary of state.
Colorado Secretary of State- elect Mike Coffman said that as soon as he takes office next week, he and his staff will be closely scrutinizing the accuracy and security of Colorado's voting machines.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4953389

1/4/2007 3:23:30 PM, by Nate Anderson

The federal Election Assistance Commission is charged with helping state governments ensure that elections are fair. Much of their work, naturally, has to do with evaluating the reliability and security of electronic voting machines, but the government has so far refused to get into the business of vetting machines itself, choosing instead to let the auditing be done by private firms who are paid by the voting machine manufacturers. Ciber, one of these testing companies, has been doing work for state governments for years, but the EAC found that its testing procedures were not well-documented, and Ciber was not accredited for future testing.

Ciber's run-in with the feds actually happened over the summer. As of August 15, 2006, the EAC had only accredited two firms (PDF): SysTest (which tests software and hardware) and Wyle (which tests only hardware). Ciber didn't make the first cut, though this was not widely reported until this week.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070104-8553.html

Computerworld

Vern Buchanan was seated, but his opponent is still fighting the results

Marc Songini Today’s Top Stories

January 05, 2007 (Computerworld) -- The swearing-in of Republican Vern Buchanan as U.S. representative in Florida's 13th District doesn't ensure that he will serve a full two-year term, new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week.

In response to questions from U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, (D-N.J.), Pelosi said the seating of Buchanan won't affect a lawsuit filed by his rival in the contentious race, Democrat Christine Jennings, seeking to overturn the results.

Jennings in November filed suit against state elections officials contending that problems with Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S) iVotronic touch-screen systems used in the district gave the election to Buchanan in error. Buchanan won by 369 votes, but questions have emerged about why some 18,000 ballots recorded no votes for either candidate in the hotly contested congressional race -- even though the ballots showed votes for lesser offices.

The 18,000 "undervote" represents about 15% of the total votes cast in the race.

"The seating of this member-elect is entirely without prejudice to the contest over the final right to that seat that is pending under the statute and will be reviewed in the ordinary course in the Committee on House Administration," Pelosi, (D-Calif.), said while presiding over the House of Representatives for the first time.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9007318&intsrc=news_ts_head

Herald Tribune

By VICTOR HULL
victor.hull@heraldtribune.com
SARASOTA COUNTY -- The touch-screen machines at the center of this county's disputed District 13 congressional election were not reviewed and approved by a lab now under a federal ban, a state official said Thursday.

Sarasota County's iVotronic machines, which are also used by Charlotte and more than a dozen other Florida counties, were examined by another testing firm, Wyle Laboratories, said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the state agency that oversees elections.

Wyle's review, intended to ensure that the machines meet minimum performance standards, took place before Florida's Division of Elections certified them for use in the state in 2002, Ivey said.

Another lab, Ciber Inc., came under scrutiny after The New York Times reported Wednesday that the federal Election Assistance Commission has prohibited it from approving new voting systems because of quality-control issues and a lack of testing documentation.

Although Ciber Inc. did not review the iVotronic machines used by Florida voters, it did test the centralized software that local elections offices employ to tabulate votes recorded by the touch-screens.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070105/NEWS/701050342

A collection of their Articles



http://heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?CATEGORY=NEWS0521&template=ovr2

WOW :applause:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 4, 2007
2:37 PM

CONTACT: People for the American Way
Nick Berning or Drew Courtney
202-467-4999 / media@pfaw.org

Court proceedings and congressional investigation must be complete and election problems remedied before anyone is seated permanently; Florida debacle a 'teachable moment' demonstrating need for national election reform

WASHINGTON - January 4 - In response to Congress' provisional seating of Vern Buchanan today to represent Florida's 13th District, People For the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas released the following statement:

“The congressional leadership has made clear that the seating of Vern Buchanan as Congressman for Florida’s 13th District is provisional, lasting only until the controversy swirling around the election in Sarasota County is resolved by the courts and by a congressional investigation. We commend the congressional leadership, and especially Congressman Rush Holt, for recognizing the gravity of Sarasota’s election problems and for giving its voters reason to believe that they may yet be represented by someone they know they elected.

“Real and serious doubt has been cast on the election in Sarasota. Indeed, experts from opposite sides in the litigation agree flaws in the election actually reversed the outcome, and that the election would probably have gone to candidate Christine Jennings had the election been properly administered. No matter which candidate ultimately wins and is permanently seated, however, it is crucial that the voters know that the votes of all voters are recorded and counted.

“Many voters have provided firsthand accounts of malfunctioning voting machines and disappearing votes. Only after court proceedings and a congressional investigation seeking answers about the Sarasota undervote have run their course, and only after Sarasota's election problems have been remedied, should someone be permanently seated.

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0104-18.htm

January 4, 2007 at 14:49:25

by Bev Harris and Nancy Tobi

THE ONLINE PETITION FOR THIS IS LIVE at this URL:

http://www.wethepatriots.org/HAVA/requestbyvoters.php

Since launching our "Request by Voters" campaign three days ago, we have already received affirmations of support from more than 1,000 individual and group signers.

In the past two days alone the following election integrity organizations have signed on to our proposal to transform the Holt Bill into meaningful legislation to restore democratic elections in our nation. Voters all around the nation are responding to our proposal because they recognize, as did some of the most experienced and intelligent election officials in the nation, that it is practical, realistic, and can work.

They also understand that our proposal is based on the two critical and simple foundational principles of democratic elections: open government and citizen oversight.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_nancy_to_070104__22request_by_voters_22_.htm

Santa Fe New Mexican

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 5, 2007


The new secretary of state wants an audit of how the state spent millions of dollars in federal money that in part paid for New Mexico to change to a voting system that uses paper ballots.

New Secretary of State Mary Herrera wrote the state auditor's office Nov. 22, two weeks after her election, asking for an audit of a fund under the Help America Vote Act. New Mexico used most of the $9 million it received to buy new electronic tabulators and special marking devices for this year's general election.

Federal money also went to train poll workers and for voter education, including television ads featuring then-Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron.

Vigil-Giron's office asked the state Department of Finance and Administration last October for $800,000 in state money to pay an invoice from ES&S of Nebraska because New Mexico ran out of the federal money. ES&S billed the state for software upgrades to comply with the Help America Vote Act.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/54755.html

SysTest Labs won federal accreditation and has checked three companies' hardware and software.

By Will Shanley and Katy Human
Denver Post Staff Writers
Article Launched: 01/05/2007 01:00:00 AM MST

A downtown Denver company is one of just two firms in the nation to receive interim approval from the federal government to test voting-machine hardware and software under a new set of standards.
In August, SysTest Labs became the first company to earn accreditation from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which was established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to review the administration of federal elections.
Brian Phillips, president of SysTest, said he hopes other companies gain the accreditation.
"It would benefit the public to have a number of places doing the testing," Phillips said. "We don't expect to have a monopoly on the market. However, each of these companies should be doing it the very same way."
He noted that SysTest has performed testing for three of the four largest voting-machine makers: ES&S, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems.
Phillips said privately held SysTest generates about 30 percent of its revenue from testing voting-machine hardware and software. Formed in 1996, the company employs or contracts with 90 people locally.

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_4952947

Jan 5, 2007 08:09 AM

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Republicans are hailing a federal court ruling upholding Indiana's voter ID law as a victory for voting reforms, while opponents of the law are planning their next move. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 Wednesday that Indiana's law may prevent some voter fraud without affecting a large number of voters.

The law requires voters to show a government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot. ACLU of Indiana legal director Ken Falk says he's disappointed by the ruling and says he'll recommend seeking a rehearing before the entire appeals court.

The Indiana Republican Party and Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita call the ruling a victory for election reform.

http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=5896412&nav=0RYb

OpEd News

January 5, 2007 at 06:41:35

by Michael Richardson

Pennsylvania legislators would do well to adopt a New Year's resolution to comply with the U.S. Constitution. The "Keystone State" is the worst in the nation for unconstitutional election laws on the books--laws designed to deny access to the ballot for minor party candidates.

When a law is declared unconstitutional, the normal course of business in most states is to study the court decision, draft legislation, hold hearings, and draft new laws that conform to the Constitution. However, the Pennsylvania legislature's defiance of federal court orders has resulted in its embarrassing status as a "footnote state" in the law books. Publishers of statutes have had to insert footnotes in the law citing the controlling court orders where void laws remain on the books.

Gus Hall, a presidential candidate of the Communist Party, brought suit in 1984 against Pennsylvania's early May nomination petition deadline. The case was settled by consent decree extending the deadline until the first day of August. Six presidential elections have come and gone since Hall took the state to court and still the legislature has failed to amend the law keeping alive the court order of U.S. District Judge Louis Bechtle.

The Patriot Party went to court against Pennsylvania in 1993 over the minor party signature requirement in odd years. The federal courthouse in Allentown is named for U.S. District Judge Edward Cahn, whose court order still trumps the remaining void statute.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__070105_pennsylvania_has_mor.htm

Political Cortex

By joan reports
01/05/2007 04:44:01 PM EST

In the disputed race between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan --the two are separated by 369 votes in their claim to a seat in the US House of Representatives-- the "iVotronic" touchscreen machines at the precincts did not alert voters to undervotes, and did not ask if they wished to input a vote choice in a race that was not yet recorded.
Yet, that operation at odds with specific printed instructions on the website of election supervisor Kathy Dent (R) that showed voters the sequence to expect in casting a vote on Sarasota County's iVotronic, sold by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).

18,000 voter records registered no vote for a congressional seat, 13% of voters <1 of 8> who walked into the booth, yet only 1.2% of Sarasota absentee (paper) ballots cast no vote in that race. >> More people had a vote recorded for "Hospital Board southern district" than for the Jennings-Buchanan race to replace Katherine Harris.

http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2007/1/3/9555/10427

(the machine was supposed to have alerted the voter of an undervote - see language in screenshot on linked page)

Grassroots Summits, January 6 and 7

Northern California Grassroots Summit
Saturday, January 6th from 1:30-3:30pm
Oakland Public Library, Main Library
125 14th Street, Oakland, CA

Southern California Grassroots Summit
Sunday, January 7th from 1:30-3:30pm
Los Angeles Central Library
630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071


http://www.caclean.org/events/20070106_GrassrootsSummits.php