for everyone asking questions about the NV paper trail ...

THE LIE BEGINS
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2003/dec/10/515999082.html

Nevada has long been a pioneer in the implementation of new voting technology. Clark County (Las Vegas) was one of the nation's first large voting jurisdictions to utilize electronic voting when they purchased the full face AVC Advantage from Sequoia Voting Systems nearly ten years ago.

http://www.sequoiavote.com/article.php?id=55

Heller's decision was music to the ears of state Democrats, as their state chair penned a letter to the secretary of state a day before his announcement. However, the party is disappointed that 2,100 machines in Clark County won't have a paper trail until 2006. They plan to fight for voter verifiable receipts at Clark County polling areas for next year's election.
"Nevada has a history of close races, and 2004 is probably going to be another one of them," said state Democratic Party spokesman John Summers. "People just want to make sure their vote counts, and a paper trail is the best way to do that."

http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2003/12/17/local_news/shrapnel/shrapnel.txt

When the Gaming Control Board's Electronic Services Division reports to me that one system is superior to another, I'm going to place my confidence in that equipment," Heller said. "They are responsible for verifying the security and integrity of various electronic gaming machines throughout Nevada and, therefore, accountable for millions of dollars on a daily basis. My level of confidence in selecting Sequoia was greatly increased after receiving this report."
Heller said there were several other factors in his decision to select Sequoia Voting Systems for the entire state, including the fact that 70% of the state's voters already utilize Sequoia DRE voting machines. "Clark County has successfully used Sequoia DRE's for the past 10 years," Heller said. "That means the majority of Nevada voters are already comfortable and experienced in using this style of DRE machine."

http://sos.state.nv.us/press/121003.htm

CONCERNS:
“Nevada has a history of close elections. As one of the top battleground states in the upcoming Presidential election in 2004, it is almost certain that the outcome of the vote in Nevada will be as close as ever. It would be irresponsible to have 2,100 machines in Clark County unable to verify the count of thousands of votes - in the case of a recount - by virtue of this decision, and prevent our ability to recount in Clark county, from where the majority of Democratic votes will come.” – NV State Dems to Heller & Lomax asking for printers on the old Clark County machines.

http://www.nvdems.com/action.php?actionid=5
Oct. 29, 2003 PT

Software used by an electronic voting system manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems has been left unprotected on a publicly available server, raising concerns about the possibility of vote tampering in future elections.
Snip…
The security breach means that anyone with a minimal amount of technical knowledge could see how the code works and potentially exploit it. According to a computer programmer who discovered the unprotected server, the files also contain Visual Basic script and code for voting system databases that could allow someone to learn how to rig voting results. The programmer spoke on condition of anonymity.

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61014,00.html

Clark County may have to spend as much as $12 million by 2006 to replace 2,100 older electronic voting machines that cannot be upgraded to allow printing of each ballot cast, Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said Wednesday. They already purchased 700 of these newer "Edge" machines.

Heller and Lomax initially thought the older Clark County Sequoia machines used for the last decade could be retrofitted with paper trail devices. But Lomax said he has had numerous discussions with Sequoia officials and they are not certain they can retrofit the older machines with the devices. He added he notified Heller and Clark County officials of the potential problem six months ago.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-17-Thu-2004/news/24119915.html

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED BACKGROUND

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63618,00.html

Although the VeriVote printers will be used in every Nevada county, only about 30 percent of Nevada's voters will vote on them. That's because Clark County, home of Las Vegas with 70 percent of the state's population, owns an older model of Sequoia touch-screen machines that can't be modified. The county will have to install at least one new machine with a printer in each polling place to give voters the option of having a paper trail. But Clark County won't have enough new paper-trail machines to accommodate more than a fraction of voters, and the deadline for replacing the remaining machines is the federal election in 2006.
The machines and procedures for using them need to be in place by Aug. 21, when early voting for the Sept. 7 primary begins. If the printers don't pass testing, the seven rural counties that plan to use them exclusively will get Sequoia optical-scan equipment instead. These machines require voters to fill out a paper ballot with a pen before it's scanned into an electronic machine.
Snip..
Although Nevada voters may take comfort in their new printers, there is a glitch in the plan. Under Nevada law, if the election results have to be recounted, the printed ballots would not be used because they don't meet the current specifications for paper ballots. Current law refers only to standard-size paper ballots that voters use for absentee, provisional or optical-scan voting.
Stanford's Dill said a paper record is pointless if officials aren't required to count it.
"It is crucial that paper ballots have precedence over electronic records," he said. "The voters had a chance to verify the paper ballots but not the electronic records, so the paper ballots are more trustworthy."
The Nevada legislature could eventually change the law to accommodate the new technology, but the legislature meets only every other year and won't be in session again until February 2005.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20041003-124752-2729r

Larry Lomax, registrar of voters in Clark County, Nev., which includes Las Vegas, is equally as confident of a successful election in his battleground state.
Nevada election officials tapped Sequoia Voting Systems Co. of Oakland, Calif., to provide touch-screen and other computerized voting machines, specifically because Sequoia could provide an ATM-style printer, which allows a paper trail.
Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller used HAVA funding to buy more than 1,000 printers, which cost $500 per unit, as well as 1,935 touch-screen voting machines, priced at $2,500 each.
Mr. Lomax said touch-screen machines will be used exclusively in all counties except his own, Clark, which includes 70 percent of Nevada's voters.
"We're using 740 touch-screen machines, plus another 2,000 computerized machines. Of the touch-screens, we bought 200 in 2002 and 540 this year," he said.
A razor-thin outcome could have prompted a recount, but it would have likely been challenged in court because votes cast on touch screens — everywhere but in Nevada — cannot be manually recounted owing to the lack of a paper trail. Nov. 04

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=31213

Ray Martínez, who until becoming an EAC commissioner was an Austin attorney, says that time constraints limited the EAC's work. Still, he's happy that provisional voting is now offered nationally, because in 17 states prior to the act, if people's names were mistakenly left off the voter rolls, they lost their vote, period.
But he allowed that more work may be needed, such as creating uniform rules about which provisional votes are actually counted, a distinction now left to each state.
He also addressed the issue of providing an auditable paper trail for electronic voting machines.
"Every jurisdiction provides what works best for them and the majority did not provide a paper trail, but they have their own ways to secure their systems," he said by phone from Cleveland, where he was monitoring the election.

"On the other hand, the state of Nevada decided that they feel best if they provide their (electronic voting) machines with a voter-verified paper ballot. They did that in September with their primaries and it was successful and they have implemented that system throughout the state."
Why only Nevada would demand such a trail from voting machine vendors is unclear. But it may be that since that state regulates hundreds of thousands of computerized slot machines, its officials know computers can go haywire.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/global-includes/printstory.jsp?path=/news/metro/stories/MYSA110704.1B.Guerra.307bafe7.html

From the airport, Bush rode with Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Secretary of State Dean Heller to the convention center. He briefly discussed Yucca Mountain, vowing to support any court decision on the proposed repository. He also touted Nevada's successful primary election, the first in the nation with the use of voting machines with verifiable receipts, Sandoval and Heller said."

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Sep-15-Wed-2004/news/24771397.html

Secretary of State Dean Heller, the state's top election official, should stop speaking at Republican-sponsored campaign events to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, a liberal advocacy group said Thursday.

"He should be a statesman, not a politician," said Terence Tolbert, director of America Coming Together-Nevada.

The group, which backs Democratic candidates and liberal causes, charged that Heller was a "Republican operative" who would lose the confidence of voters should the election be particularly close in Nevada. "
The group also charged that, as a Republican, Heller would have knowledge of what they called Republican-backed voter suppression efforts in Nevada.

"You want to have confidence that the person in charge of elections in this state is not partisan," Tolbert said, acknowledging he had no evidence that Heller had done anything illegal. --LVRJ (10/08/04)

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Oct-08-Fri-2004/news/24943832.html

Nevada's top Republican political leaders, including Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval, who is the state chairman for the Bush-Cheney re-election effort, also oppose the Yucca Mountain repository.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-18-Fri-2004/news/24129885.html

Nevada's top Republican political leaders, including Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval, who is the state chairman for the Bush-Cheney re-election effort, also oppose the Yucca Mountain repository.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-gov/2004/nov/12/517815076.html

"For this year's general election, Nevada is the only state where virtually every voting machine has a paper backup that could aid in a machine malfunction, an audit or a recount.

"If you want to talk about security, I would say right now the electronic voting devices in Nevada are the most secure devices in the country right now," Heller says."
Nevada voters have been using the Sequoia touchscreen machines with the paper trail in Clark County -- which includes Las Vegas -- during early voting that began October 16.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/10/28/nevada.evote/

Nevada was the only state to use "statewide" voter-verified paper ballot printers attached to electronic voting machines on Election Day. –LVSun 11/12/04

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-gov/2004/nov/12/517815076.html



And the lies continue ...or is it an attempt at making a smoke screen so no would take a closer look at those Las Vegas numbers on the old Sequoias??

There is more, I just got tired putting this together. I hope you can understand why I questioned this in Nevada ...plus I had some insider knowledge passed to me about Rove and Bush's campaign meeting with Heller, Guinn, and other top Republican state elected officials and party leaders that was held just before Heller announced his "paper trail strategy last year. Rove is from Reno, has a sister living there and a brother who owns Granite constrution. Rove was sure to hand his state to Bush just like Jebbie did in 2000.

I wish there were something I could do to help you with all of this, but I'm barely keeping my own situation under control right now. :(

It was clear to me from the start that the election process in this state was going to stink to high heaven. And then, speaking of Gov. Guinn, I have read that he is almost as bad as * in that he can't really conduct an interview without somebody there to guide him on what to say. Is that really true? I figure you'd know if anyone would.

those same rumors about Guinn are being sad up here in northeast Nevada ...

did you see the story a few days back on national news where Rove was rewarding Guinn with the national republican governors group's top Republican Governor award? Must have been a pay back for his Bush re-election campaign work. I think he just stayed out of the way as his own first time campaign manager, Pete Ernaut, was involved with Rove...

sad state of affairs.

BTW, here's an article I saved the link to that talks about doubts a conservative think tank had about the Vegas Sequoias almost ten years ago.

http://nj.npri.org/nj98/08/democracy.htm

and here is a hit list from 98 of what these same old machines did wrong. Scary to think they were even used to help Bush defeat Kerry in Vegas on November 2.

http://nj.npri.org/nj98/09/democracy.htm

kolbermann@msnbc.com (Keith Olbermann)
the GAO in Washington
votersunite.org
Votewatch
Votergate2004
Madsen
Other sites compiling lists of voting irregularities?

my original plan was to send the list to all the national media and ask them to post corrections in their papers, etc. about this false/truth Nevada paper trail scenario. My brain works in strange ways and I get worried I am not making the point in a logical fashion so that is where I stopped.

I did send some of it to Randi Rhoads but in a messier version then this....

I do think I sent some of this to the Cobb people a few weeks ago and assumed the sentence in their press release today about the machines and the paperless trails was about this ...but I guess I don't know.

this was my favorite editorial about what was going to happen on Nov. 2 in Nevada and this guy is like a border line conservative libertarian but I do agree with his comments...you gotta read the whole thing...


VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Wasn't this taken care of 10 years ago?

And so it turns out that this fall most Clark County voters won't get to vote on machines that print out a hard-copy receipt showing how the computer really registered our votes, after all.

After much fine-tuning, the software necessary to run the the $9 million worth of retrofit devices was finally OK'd by the federal government about a week ago, leading to much bugling and ballyhoo that, "Nevada counties will be the first in the nation to offer a verification printout of a completed ballot, allowing voters to review their choices before processing them."

If the updated machine gets it wrong, you can try again. Then all those hard copy ballots will be stored in a big vault, in case a recount is necessary, explains Clark County Registrar of Voters Harvard "Larry" Lomax.

Sounded great to me. Till I read down to the part where they admitted, "Clark County will have one print-out machine at each polling place. The county's older machines are not capable of providing printouts."

The older machines won't be retrofitted with the new printers -- Or will the machines be replaced entirely? Whichever costs more, I presume -- until after Nov. 2, see, when Diebold will try to use its electronic machines in other states to throw the election to George Bush.

(The New York Times revealed this winter that Bev Harris, who's writing a book on voting machines, found Diebold proprietary software on an unprotected server, where anyone could download it. "This in itself was an incredible breach of security, offering someone who wanted to hack into the machines both the information and the opportunity to do so," Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote in early March. "An analysis of Diebold software by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Rice Universities found it both unreliable and subject to abuse. ..." The software Ms. Harris found was in a folder named "rob-Georgia.zip." Diebold machines were used to record the unusual Republican upset election victories in Georgia last year. Diebold's CEO has publicly vowed to help George Bush win re-election.)

But not to worry. Nevada's machines aren't Diebold machines. Nevada's machines come from Sequoia Pacific, which is not a bunch of partisan crooks. Honest. The fact that Mr. Lomax's predecessor, former Clark County Registrar Kathryn Ferguson, landed a high-paying job with Sequoia Pacific out in San Francisco after she managed to buy thousands of their machines here under a no-bid contract? Sheer coincidence. And hardly "partisan."

more...

http://carapace.weblogs.us/archives/015535.html

Now that the Glibs are going to ask for a recount, without a paper trail, how can a hand recount take place? Does anyone know the law about that? Could the lack of the ability to recount throw out an election?

Thank again! :)

nell@fairelection.us
and
Urdur.Gunnarsdottir@odihr.pl

I will.

I don't live in NV, but I talked with Dean Heller about the implementation of new systems with printers, and I never once got the idea that the county with 70% of the vote would NOT have them.

Huh.

I see now some REALLY carefully wording in an AP story -- check it out --

Nevada's e-vote free of serious problems
California, Washington, D.C. considering similar systems
By Rachel Konrad
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:11 p.m. ET Sept. 13, 2004
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5988836/

Silver State voters cast electronic ballots Tuesday on a $9.3 million voting system with more than 2,600 computers and printers in every county.

It sounds like the printers work on every machine in every county, but NO, apparently not. Can't tell it from that sentence though.

and I believe that Heller got more than just a little help from his pal and Renoite, Karl Rove. You know the old, it this but when I make you look over there you think it is this!!! Is that a bait and switch tactic by any chance?

Why would they need to do that? Why try to make Nevada look question free? It really bothers me that Bush only beat Kerry by 21,000 approx.

And just think, they bought over 2,000 new machines with printers but there were almost as many in Vegas without!!!

I am wondering if you know anything about Washoe County election status? And Patricia Axelrod's efforts? http://lmno4p.org/nevada

how Sequoia gave Washoe County the software or machines at high dollar cost for free if they went with Sequoia. See, Washoe's clerk was one of a few in the state that fought with Heller over his choice he made just a few weeks after meeting with Rove and Bush.

first came in to Nevada and it probably ties into why our SOS made sure we went with them again. They have tight relationships with each other!!!

Now you gotta realize that Nevada has strict regulations on inspections, certification of electronic SLOT MACHINES. Think about that.

This article is part of a mob story site that is part of Steve Miller's stuff. Now there's a real "junk yard dog" investigative reporter!


When Suspicions First Arose

snip...

In 1987 Clark County voters cast their vote on paper ballots. Because of the closeness of the outcome, Stupak paid $17,000 to the Election Department for a recount of the paper ballots. The circumstances leading up to this recount have reverberated though our town ever since.

snip...

In 1994, I was asked to participate in an evaluation of voting systems being considered to replace the antiquated system then in use in Washoe County, Nevada. The second largest metropolitan area in our state was evaluating the products from four venders. Three of the venders offered systems that included paper ballot back up, and one did not. Our committee tested all the systems and concluded that the Sequoia Pacific should be disqualified because it did not have the necessary redundancy required to maintain voter confidence. In other words, Sequoia Pacific's equipment did not allow there to be a paper ballot recount in the event of a contested election.

Washoe County went on to purchase an optical scan system that utilized a paper ballot and a computer. It was chosen because if the computer failed, or if a recount was ordered, there were paper ballots available to verify the results of the election.

Following my participation in the evaluation process, I telephoned Clark County Commission Chairman Bruce Woodbury and Commissioner Don Schlesinger. I told them of the committee's findings and requested that Clark County carefully evaluate the purchase of an optical scan voting system and disqualify the paperless Sequoia Pacific system from contention.

In a letter written to the Washoe County Commission by Registrar of Voters Marlene Henderson, she stated "There is no way to conduct a 'recount' on the Sequoia AVC because there simply are no physical ballots to recount!"

She went on to say "The Sequoia costs 1000% more than the optical scan system and is incapable of processing absentee mail in ballots or challenged ballots forcing the purchase of a second system."

This letter convinced the Washoe County Commission to purchase an optical scan system with a paper ballot backup that is currently in use.

snip...

On May 10, 1995, State Senator William R. O'Donnell made the following statement, "I would like to encourage the Sequoia Pacific Company to come up with a printed type ballot that can be dropped in a box, individually, by a voter at a very reasonable price. If not, then I would hope that the county would look into and consider very carefully the aspects of getting out of that contract and going to a machine that is more appropriate to do the things that this body would request."

The concerns of Senators O'Connel and O'Donnell fell on deaf ears as did my request to Commission Chairman Woodbury that the paperless Sequoia Pacific machine be disqualified. When the Clark County Commission voted to purchase the paperless system, only one Commissioner voted against the purchase. That Commissioner was Don Schlesinger. Schlesinger was defeated in the next election (counted by Sequoia Pacific equipment). The Commission also voted to hire a new Registrar, Katherine Ferguson.

Now a computer counts our votes and there are no paper ballots available to examine in the event of a recount. If a recount is requested, the computer is again fired up and a download is made of the contested election's results. Therefore there is no way of physically verifying the accuracy of the election. How did this happen and who was responsible?

When questions arose in 1995 as to whether it was legal in Nevada to vote electronically in the absence of a paper ballot backup, our state's Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Pappa responded that the Sequoia Pacific computer produced what she called a "Functional Equivalent" of a paper ballot! She went on to say that such an equivalent was "exactly the same" as a paper ballot and that she therefore fully approved the paperless system.

Since Clark County has been using the Sequoia Pacific machines, several unusual things have occurred. The day before the election in 1998 when the ballot question regarding the quarter-cent sales tax increase to pay for a second water line to serve the needs of the casinos and developers was to be voted upon, the Las Vegas Review Journal and KTNV Channel 13 News conducted a poll. The results showed that 80% of those surveyed did not approve of the tax increase and it would go down to defeat by an 80/20 margin. The following day the vote took place and the quarter-cent sales tax increase passed by an 80/20 margin - the opposite result from the previous day's survey!

In 1999, the Las Vegas primary election had another anomaly. In the Ward One race, the early votes started 17 days prior to the day of the election. These early votes were reported on Cox Cable News beginning election night at 7:05 PM and indicated that the incumbent had 63%, his closest challenger had 23%, followed by three other candidates with 10%, 2%, and 2% each. At 10 PM all votes had been counted and the final percentages in Ward One again were 63%, 23%, 10%, 2%, and 2%. Unexplainably, no changes had occurred since 7:05 PM.

I have studied the Sequoia Pacific voting system for many years and I am convinced that its' paperless status is perfectly suited for mass vote manipulation. To quickly and inexpensively remedy the situation, the county should heed Sen. Bill O'Donnell's suggestion and install a printer on each voting machine. That way the voter could review the printout of his or her ballot and deposit it in a locked box next to the voting machine in the event it was needed for a physical recount to verify the results of the electronic ballots.


more...

http://www.americanmafia.com/Inside_Vegas/9-30-02_Inside_Vegas.html

have you seen this piece on Buzzflash about Washoe County?

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04490.html


Sequoia Gives Away Electronic Voting Machines in Swing State Before November Election


snip...

No, I hadn't seen that. Thanks alot... They are such monsters of manipulation. Makes me sad and mad.

You are doing some good work here! Thank you for your efforts.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

My precinct (we voted at the Becker School on Hillpointe) didn't have machines with paper trails. For the general election, I voted early at the poll in Sun City. All of the machines there were the new types with the paper trail. I felt much better voting on those.

I still don't know if it really makes a difference to have the e machines with printers or not. Computers screw up so why wouldn't the possibility of a flawed emachine with printer be impossible? I think we need to go back to the punch cards. We still have ours in Elko County ....some of them were new ...

Note the date below of this story and Sequoias were used all over Nevada with and with paper trails...


05:00 PM Oct. 29, 2003 PT

Software used by an electronic voting system manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems has been left unprotected on a publicly available server, raising concerns about the possibility of vote tampering in future elections.

The software, made available at ftp.jaguar.net, is stored on an FTP server owned by Jaguar Computer Systems, a firm that provides election support to a California county. The software is used for placing ballots on voting kiosks and for storing and tabulating results for the Sequoia AVC Edge touch-screen system.

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61014,00.html

if it's wrong, cancel it.

That said, I prefer optical-scan (SAT-style) ballots like we use in Minnesota.

then the ones who could produce some sort of a paper trail. As is explained under this "equal protection" thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x81249

makeamericacount this week when they went to get a recount started. It was disgustng. Then I found this article from September. Seems like he ram-rodded through some procedures on how to handle "recount" requests through our Governor, Bush NV campaign chairperson.

Sept. 11, 04

"I fear that this election is going to be very embarrassing for some states," said Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller. "The scrutiny is going to be so intense from one end of the country to another. The media is far more focused on the details of elections and how they are run than they were before Florida in 2000. I don't think you can be prepared for that level of scrutiny."

Some key swing states are still scrambling to fine-tune their election recount procedures. The Iowa legislature passed a law in April requiring election officials there to rewrite administrative rules defining what constitutes a vote, some of which address how ballots would be tallied in a recount. The public comment period on the new rules ended less than two weeks ago.

Just days ago in Nevada, Heller carried emergency regulations clarifying recount procedures to Gov. Kenny Guinn for his signature.

http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/politics/election/ref_ballots/story/1644350p-9362473c.html