Date: Wed Dec 14 02:04:10 2005
From: jei at cc.hut.fi (Jei)
Subject: OT: Amazing, the Diebold insider said.

What is US Secret Service doing? CIA? FBI? Hello?
Anybody interested in doing their job??
Apparently not. Pays too well not to.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_insider__alleges_company_plagued_1206.html

...

Shortly before the election, ten days to two weeks, we were told that the date 
in the machine was malfunctioning, the source recalled. So we were told 'Apply 
this patch in a big rush. Later, the Diebold insider learned that the patches 
were never certified by the state of Georgia, as required by law.

Also, the clock inside the system was not fixed, said the insider. Its 
legendary how strange the outcome was; they ended up having the first 
Republican governor in who knows when and also strange outcomes in other races. 
I can say that the counties I worked in were heavily Democratic and elected a 
Republican.

In Georgias 2002 Senate race, for example, nearly 60 percent of the states 
electorate by county switched party allegiances between the primaries and the 
general election.

The insiders account corroborates a similar story told by Diebold contractor 
Rob Behler in an interview with Bev Harris of Black Box Voting.

Harris revealed that a program patch titled rob-georgia.zip was left on an 
unsecured server and downloaded over the Internet by Diebold technicians before 
loading the unauthorized software onto Georgia voting machines. They didnt even 
TEST the fixes before they told us to install them, Behler stated, adding that 
machines still malfunctioned after patches were installed.

California decertified Diebold TSX touch screen machines after state officials 
learned that the vendor had broken state election law.

In California, they got in trouble and tried to doubletalk. They used a patch 
that was not certified, the Diebold insider said. Theyve done this many times. 
They just got caught in Georgia and California.

The whistleblower is also skeptical of results from the November 2005 Ohio 
election, in which 88 percent of voters used touch screens and the outcome on 
some propositions changed as much as 40 percent from pre-election exit polls.

Amazing, the Diebold insider said.

Diebold is headquartered in Ohio. Its chairman Wally ODell, a key fundraiser 
for President Bush, once promised in an invitation to a Republican fundraising 
dinner to deliver Ohios electoral votes for Bush. The staffer said the company 
has a deep conservative culture.

My feeling having been really deep inside the company is that initially 
Diebold, being a very conservative and Republican company, felt that if they 
controlled an election company, they could have great influence over the 
outcome, the source, a registered independent, said.

...

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Oct/gee20031009022127.htm

Fraud feared in electronic voting machines
Security holes abound

...

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/15595.html

Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 03:42 pm:
Breaking:

Due to security design issues and contractual non-performance, Leon County 
(Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho told Black Box Voting that he will 
never use Diebold in an election again. He has requested funds to replace the 
Diebold system from the county. He will issue a formal announcement to this 
effect shortly.

Finnish security expert Harri Hursti proved that Diebold lied to Secretaries of 
State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the 
memory card.

A test election was run in Leon County today with a total of eight ballots - 
six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting 
machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thomson and by 
Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be 
hacked.

At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri 
Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A "zero 
report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, 
Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.

The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard 
Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the 
election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.

Correct results should have been:

Yes:2 No:6

However the results tape read:

Yes:7 No:1

The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the 
GEMS central tabulator. The central tabulator is the "mothership" that pulls in 
all votes from voting machines. The results in the central tabulator read:

Yes:7 No:1

This proves that the votes themselves were changed in a one-step process that 
would not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure - using only a 
credit-card sized memory card.

Diebold Elections Systems head of research and development Pat Green 
specifically told the Cuyahoga County board of elections that votes could not 
be changed on the memory card.

According to Public Records responses obtained by Black Box Voting in response 
to our requests shows that Diebold promulgated this misrepresentation to as 
many as 800 state and local elections officials.

In other news, according to Bradblog a stockholder suit was filed today against 
Diebold by the law offices of Scott and Scott:

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002153.htm

Permission to reprint granted with link to http://blackboxvoting.org

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