BREAKING: Judge Orders Release of Pima County, AZ Voting Database

Diebold's GEMS Tabulator Files, Containing Data from '06 Election, Ordered Released to Democratic Party Experts for Scrutiny, Possible Release to Full Public Decision Seen as Important Victory for Election Integrity Advocates...

Guest Blogged by Michael Bryan, Esq.

Judge Michael Miller, in a carefully reasoned and balanced opinion, today ordered the release of the final Diebold GEMS tabulator database files from the contested 2006 Regional Transport Authority (RTA) election. The judge denied, without prejudice, full public access to every MDB and GBF database file for the 2006 elections in the possession of Pima County until and unless the plaintiffs can address remaining security concerns which might arise from that larger release.

The BRAD BLOG has been following this case closely because unsecured tabulation systems like GEMS are widely used in American elections and completely open to insider manipulation. For background and detailed commentary about the case see my 12/8/07 wrap-up post on the trial.

The immediate goal of the Democratic party --- to be able to look closer at the final election databases for the 2006 election --- is fully satisfied by the ruling. But the broader goal of being able to look at a time series of backups for discrepancies or discontinuities that could indicate manipulation, as Arizona Election Integrity advocates have feared, is stymied for the moment...


It is still unclear whether the judge will grant on-going injunctive relief to turn over the final database files from every election going forward. The denial of access to the entire series of database files indicates that the court may still need to be satisfied as to any remaining concerns about security resulting from on-going and multiple disclosures of this type of data before granting such an injunction.




http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5457

erased or destroyed before it can be provided?

Diebold who makes ATMS used windows platforms for their voting machines so they could be modifed.

This should be interesting.

"It was rat chere behind the file cabinet all along, Andy."

I think it could have genuinely been lost without malicious intent. I wouldn't use Access to record the number of times I make a bowel movement every day, let alone use it to store voting records.

"...the release of the final Diebold GEMS tabulator database files..."

It's a tiny election somewhere only a small crowd of people really care about, but it grants legal status to claims upon how e-voting companies migrate their voting machine data to their super-reliable machine that figures out the totals.

:)