Felons, Drug Dealers & Uncertified BBV Systems

Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting, and Andy Stephenson, Democratic candidate for Washington Secretary of State, have uncovered information that brings concerns about electronic voting to a new level. This information affects both optical scans and touch-screens; it also affects the security of absentee ballots.

What we have, in Washington State, is this:

We’ve got the state election director misstating when versions were certified, somebody at the secretary of state’s office signing off on software with no NASED number, and when we try to find out what software is actually authorized, we get the buffalo shuffle. We’ve got a convicted drug dealer printing our ballots, a 23-count embezzler programming our voting system, and our absentee ballots are being funnelled through a private company that hires mainly immigrants but also people straight out of prison.

We’ve now documented 10 states that are using unauthorized software, and internal memos that indicate that five Diebold programmers uploaded these unauthorized programs, knowing that this was not allowed.

- Bev Harris & Andy Stephenson

As a candidate for secretary of state, I feel that protecting voting is the most important responsibility of the secretary of state. The secretary of state is charged with maintaining the public trust in the systems that run and count elections. Assuring that the vote is FAIR and that EVERY citizen's voice is heard is an overriding concern of election officials.

Today I call on these officials to make a clear and public accounting of their own systems. The public has a right to know when uncertified, and unapproved software is counting an election, and it also has a right to have those elected officials explain clear violations of the law. For the law states that software running these machines must be approved, and tested, and analyzed by independent testing authorities (ITAs) before it is used in voting machines. And when a software technician installs a “patch” or does an “upgrade” to any part of the system, then that system has been compromised, unless that patch or upgrade is also approved and certified.

David Elliott, State of Washington Director of Elections.

David Elliot, the director of the institution charged with certifying software, has to date not provided a full and complete accounting of approved and certified software versions. Mr. Elliott is also reportedly responsible for entering the computer room on primary night 2000 and uploading a tabulation software update that was not approved nor certified. Bob Terwilliger of Snohomish County, admitted on the Mike Webb show that he allowed one of his programmers to install a modification onto his county’s voting equipment.

The "patch” was supposedly an update to a function that presents the raw number data into “reports.” But without a public disclosure of versions, patches, and feature numbers, one is forced to assume that these numbers are being withheld for a reason. What we are talking about is that systems in Washington and all across the country which we have found are using untested, unverified software, and the people in charge of the systems refuse to acknowledge the versions they are running on.

Today Sam Reed current secretary of state, announced that we will have a “paper trail.” What we need is a voter verified paper ballot, and then we must put robust, fraud-deterring audit procedures in place. Today’s announcement falls far short of the needs we have right now to ensure a fair and valid election.

As most of you already know, the touch screen systems around the country, being implemented under the auspices of the HAVA act, have come under fire by many in the academic, political, and scientific arenas, and recently, the media, for good reason. The reason is that these systems, these companies and our election officials are quietly trying to bamboozle the public into accepting these machines.

These machines that are so grievously flawed that people around the country have banded together to counter this threat to democracy in the United States. The media has written hundreds of articles about these problems and computer scientists around the world from such noted institutions as John Hopkins University, have documented these security threats in lengthy papers that detail hundreds of security flaws.

The security breaches with the software also transfer to the people programming, installing and running the system. Those charged with ensuring that only certified software is running during elections cannot tell us with any amount of certainty whether or not the system is in fact running certified software.

• Diebold Election Software was left unprotected on a public website.

• Leaked internal Diebold e-mail's show a pattern of deception, but looking deeper what’s really going on is nothing less than an outrageous abuse of the public trust.

• In King county your absentee ballot is handled by a private firm and the chain of custody cannot be ensured.

• I have requested the version numbers in use in Klickitat via a public records request and numerous follow-up phone calls. The information is still not available. I was told by Jean of El Paso County Texas that the version number running on their Diebold equipment was "None of my business".

• The outright stonewalling of election officials, such as Dawn Weaver, election administrator of Klickitat county Washington, is something that the media should be looking into.

• These officials sit in meetings, and tell state house and senate committees, that “paper-jams” are a serious concern. But their concerns are not valid. My concerns about unauthorized programs, stonewalling public officials and the lack of security in our absentee ballot counting, are of much higher priority.

ENDS

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