Video Your Vote, a joint YouTube, PBS effort, will use maps to monitor equipment failures, long lines, more.
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At Youtube: a legal primer on how to video your vote.
Showing posts with label electronic voting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electronic voting. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
MI Voting Machines Fail Pre-Election Tests
From Wired, via Huffington Post:
(and the article continues . . . .)
Optical-scan machines made by Election Systems & Software failed recent pre-election tests in a Michigan county, producing different tallies for the same ballots every time, the top election official in Oakland County revealed in a letter made public Monday.
The problems occurred during logic and accuracy tests in the run-up to this year's general election, Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson disclosed in a letter submitted October 24 (.pdf) to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The machines at issue are ES&S M-100 optical-scan machines, which read and tally election results from paper ballots.
Johnson worried that such problems -- linked tentatively to paper dust build-up in the machines -- could affect the integrity of the general election this week.
"The same ballots, run through the same machines, yielded different results each time," she wrote. "This begs the question -- on Election Day, will the record number of ballots going through the remaining tabulators leave even more build-up on the sensors, affecting machines that tested just fine initially? Could this additional build-up on voting tabulators that have not had any preventative maintenance skew vote totals? My understanding is that the problem could occur and election workers would have no inkling that ballots are being misread."
Tuesday's election is expected to be the busiest ever, and ES&S tabulators -- both touchscreen machines and optical-scan machines -- were responsible for counting 50 percent of the votes in the last four major U.S. elections, according to the company. The company's optical-scan machines are now deployed in 43 states.
Johnson, who could not be reached for comment, said that "four of our communities or eight percent" had reported inconsistent vote totals during the logic and accuracy tests with the ES&S machines. She also said that conflicting vote totals had surfaced in other areas of Michigan as well, though she didn't elaborate on this in her letter. "While problems with performance and design with the M-100s have been documented, this is the first time I have ever questioned the integrity of these machines," Johnson wrote in her letter.
According to news stories, a race in the August Republican primary in one Michigan township did have a discrepancy in tallies that were counted by hand and by ES&S optical-scan machines. The clerks race in Plymouth Township was recounted after the losing candidate requested it. The initial machine count had showed Joe Bridgman defeating Mary Ann Prchlik by 1,920 to 1,770. But the hand count narrowed the margin to 1,885 to 1,727. Officials attributed the discrepancy to "smears and marks" on the ballots, which skewed the results when they were run through the machines.
(and the article continues . . . .)
BREAKING NEWS: Massive vote machine failures in NV
The following is an exclusive from Brad Friedman's Brad Blog:
The BradBlog report continues here.
EXCLUSIVE: Obama/DNC Incident Report Database Reveals Startling, Wide-Spread Voting Machine Problems Across Nevada During Early Voting
Presidential Race Missing on Ballots; Machines Go Down; Votes Not Recorded; Printers Jam
Attorneys Decline to Take Action to Remove Machines From Service, Ensure Paper Ballots for Voters...
Wide-spread voting machine failures have been reported to the Obama/DNC election protection hotline in Nevada since early voting began more than a week ago in the state, The BRAD BLOG has learned. All voters who vote in person in the crucial battleground state are forced to cast their votes on 100% unverifiable Sequoia EDGE touch-screen voting machines with the VeriVote "paper trail" printer add-on.
Attorneys monitoring the incident reports coming in to the hotline have taken no action in regard to removing the failed machines from service, despite reports of the presidential race not appearing at all on some ballots; voters having problems selecting their preferred candidates; machines not starting up at all; "paper trail" printers jamming or running out of paper, and; a number of machines at a number of sites which refuse to work at all.
And this is just during early voting. A number of those startling reports are posted at the end of this article...
Democratic Officials Refuse to Impound Machines, Despite Myriad Failures...
We've been reporting for weeks about the lack of action being taken by the Obama campaign and the DNC in regard to wide-spread voting machine problems across the country (e.g., detailed story on that here, Obama attorney responds here).
We've noted that while Obama/DNC has, this time around at least, compiled a sophisticated "election protection" database in each state, their continuous assertions of "thousands of attorneys on the ground on Election Day if anything goes wrong," is both too little and too late, as well as being precisely what we heard from Kerry/DNC in 2004 before they failed to take appropriate action with failed machines. They then quickly conceded the race just hours after polls in Ohio finally closed.
The Obama/DNC response to wide-spread problems with voting machines failing in state after state has been no better than Kerry/DNC's, in that failed machines have been allowed to stay in service, and their attorneys have not fought for paper ballots for voters instead.
In fact, in Pennsylvania, state Democrats have been fighting against paper ballots. Even after the NAACP successfully sued the state Dems (who were joined for a time during the case by state Republicans) to require them to have some emergency paper ballots on hand, it's become clear that county officials in that crucial battleground state are likely to not have enough paper ballots at polling places for voters in the completely-predictable event of voting machine breakdown. PA also uses 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems across most of the state.
We've urged the Democrats to take action to remove problem machines from service, such as those flipping votes on screens in so many states and even failing to register Oprah's vote. We advised them to impound such machines rather than dangerously calling for them to be "recalibrated" in the middle of the election. They have not done so. Anywhere.
The following reports from the Obama/DNC "Atlas Voter Protection" database in NV, concerning the state's faulty, error-prone, hackable, 100% unverifiable Sequoia touch-screen systems are remarkable. These are the same machines that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) recently said voters in his state were "fortunate" to have, during a radio interview in Reno. (3 minute MP3 here.)
The senator was convinced that the "Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail" printed by the machine somehow offered protection for voters, even though the paper trails on such systems often fail and are not properly verified for accuracy by a majority of voters. Moreover, the "paper trails" on these machines can be hacked as well, in such a way that the tampered totals would match the internally tampered numbers, even if officials bothered to count them, which they don't. (See UCSB's video demonstrating how to hack such machines in seconds, in such a way that even a 100% hand-count would be unlikely to reveal the tampering.) . . . .
The BradBlog report continues here.
Monday, November 3, 2008
BREAKING: Federal Judge Compels GOP IT Guru Mike Connell To Give Deposition in Ohio '04 Election Case
From Brad Friedman's Brad Blog, on impending testimony today, compelled from Mike Connell, IT expert in Ohio 2004 election:
Contentious Hearing Today Results in Order For Republican 'High-Tech Forrest Gump' to Testify Under Oath on Monday
Appearance to Answer Questions on 2004 Election Scheduled Just 24 Hours Prior to Election 2008...
Guest Blogged by Steve Heller of VelvetRevolution.us
The Republican IT guru, recently described as a "high tech Forrest Gump" for his proclivity to be "at the scene" of so many troubling elections since 2000, and even at the heart of the "lost" White House email scandal, has been ordered by a federal judge to appear for an under-oath deposition next Monday in Ohio.
The BRAD BLOG has learned that Mike Connell, the Republican IT guru whose company, GovTech Solutions, created Ohio's 2004 election results computer network, appeared in federal court today, as compelled, and has been ordered to appear for his deposition on Monday, November 3, just 24 hours before Election Day 2008.
Today's court order came after a contentious hearing, at which Connell was present. The hearing was part of a long-standing voting rights violations lawsuit, King Lincoln v. Blackwell, as previously covered by The BRAD BLOG and by Velvet Revolution's Election Protection Strike Force here and here.
Though Connell's attorneys have fought to quash the subpoena, recently issued after the judge lifted a stay on the case several weeks ago, it looks like his options to avoid testimony, or at least jail for avoiding it, may have come to an end. The attorneys in the case have said that Connell's testimony may well lead to the subpoenaing and under-oath questioning of Karl Rove, who, they say, would be unable to use Executive Privilege as an excuse to avoid such a subpoena in a civil RICO case...
For more details on Connell, and his role in the '04 election and within the GOP, see the video clip at right from John Ennis' recently-released documentary Free For All.
The issues in the King Lincoln v. Blackwell suit are complex, but in a nutshell, some Ohio voters filed a lawsuit alleging voting rights violations and election irregularities in the 2004 Presidential election in the Buckeye State. Taking the sworn deposition of Connell, the man who set up the computers for reporting election results, and re-routing them through his company's own Tennessee servers late on the night of the '04 election, has been a high priority for Election Integrity advocates and attorneys in Ohio.
While this story is still breaking and developing, from what we've been able to learn so far, sources tell us that Monday's depo will have a time limit of two hours. Any information gathered regarding trade secrets related to Connell's company, GovTech Solutions, will be under seal, as per the judge's order today.
Also under seal will be any and all information gathered about allegations that Connell has been the victim of witness intimidation by Karl Rove and/or Rove's associates. As reported on by The BRAD BLOG reported last Summer, plaintiff's lead attorney in the case, Clifford A. Arnebeck, had sent an email to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on July 24, 2008, stating in part:
"We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to 'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations."
In related news, our friends at RAW STORY have an article today headlined "Documents reveal how Ohio routed 2004 voting data through company that hosted external Bush Administration email accounts." That company was SmarTech, Inc., and the architecture for the 2004 election results reporting system in Ohio has been at the heart of this case.
As reported by RAW's Larisa Alexandrovna today:
Newly obtained computer schematics provide further detail of how electronic voting data was routed during the 2004 election from Ohio’s Secretary of State’s office through a partisan Tennessee web hosting company. … The flow chart shows how voting information was transferred from Ohio to SmarTech Inc., a Chattanooga Tennessee IT company known for its close association with the Republican Party, before the 2004 election results were displayed online.
See her story for more, including the schematics for both the '04 and '06 web servers in Ohio. Of course, we'll continue to update this story as the case proceeds...
Additional reporting by Brad Friedman
The BRAD BLOG covers your electoral system, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great election integrity documentary films in return.
Contentious Hearing Today Results in Order For Republican 'High-Tech Forrest Gump' to Testify Under Oath on Monday
Appearance to Answer Questions on 2004 Election Scheduled Just 24 Hours Prior to Election 2008...
Guest Blogged by Steve Heller of VelvetRevolution.us
The Republican IT guru, recently described as a "high tech Forrest Gump" for his proclivity to be "at the scene" of so many troubling elections since 2000, and even at the heart of the "lost" White House email scandal, has been ordered by a federal judge to appear for an under-oath deposition next Monday in Ohio.
The BRAD BLOG has learned that Mike Connell, the Republican IT guru whose company, GovTech Solutions, created Ohio's 2004 election results computer network, appeared in federal court today, as compelled, and has been ordered to appear for his deposition on Monday, November 3, just 24 hours before Election Day 2008.
Today's court order came after a contentious hearing, at which Connell was present. The hearing was part of a long-standing voting rights violations lawsuit, King Lincoln v. Blackwell, as previously covered by The BRAD BLOG and by Velvet Revolution's Election Protection Strike Force here and here.
Though Connell's attorneys have fought to quash the subpoena, recently issued after the judge lifted a stay on the case several weeks ago, it looks like his options to avoid testimony, or at least jail for avoiding it, may have come to an end. The attorneys in the case have said that Connell's testimony may well lead to the subpoenaing and under-oath questioning of Karl Rove, who, they say, would be unable to use Executive Privilege as an excuse to avoid such a subpoena in a civil RICO case...
For more details on Connell, and his role in the '04 election and within the GOP, see the video clip at right from John Ennis' recently-released documentary Free For All.
The issues in the King Lincoln v. Blackwell suit are complex, but in a nutshell, some Ohio voters filed a lawsuit alleging voting rights violations and election irregularities in the 2004 Presidential election in the Buckeye State. Taking the sworn deposition of Connell, the man who set up the computers for reporting election results, and re-routing them through his company's own Tennessee servers late on the night of the '04 election, has been a high priority for Election Integrity advocates and attorneys in Ohio.
While this story is still breaking and developing, from what we've been able to learn so far, sources tell us that Monday's depo will have a time limit of two hours. Any information gathered regarding trade secrets related to Connell's company, GovTech Solutions, will be under seal, as per the judge's order today.
Also under seal will be any and all information gathered about allegations that Connell has been the victim of witness intimidation by Karl Rove and/or Rove's associates. As reported on by The BRAD BLOG reported last Summer, plaintiff's lead attorney in the case, Clifford A. Arnebeck, had sent an email to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on July 24, 2008, stating in part:
"We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to 'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations."
In related news, our friends at RAW STORY have an article today headlined "Documents reveal how Ohio routed 2004 voting data through company that hosted external Bush Administration email accounts." That company was SmarTech, Inc., and the architecture for the 2004 election results reporting system in Ohio has been at the heart of this case.
As reported by RAW's Larisa Alexandrovna today:
Newly obtained computer schematics provide further detail of how electronic voting data was routed during the 2004 election from Ohio’s Secretary of State’s office through a partisan Tennessee web hosting company. … The flow chart shows how voting information was transferred from Ohio to SmarTech Inc., a Chattanooga Tennessee IT company known for its close association with the Republican Party, before the 2004 election results were displayed online.
See her story for more, including the schematics for both the '04 and '06 web servers in Ohio. Of course, we'll continue to update this story as the case proceeds...
Additional reporting by Brad Friedman
The BRAD BLOG covers your electoral system, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great election integrity documentary films in return.
RoveCyberGate.com: more Connell, Blackwell details
RoveCyberGate.com
UPDATE: 11/1/08: Late yesterday, a Federal Judge in Akron, Ohio ordered Mike Connell to submit to a deposition hours before the presidential election to talk about possible election manipulations.
The full story is here. Mr. Connell, it’s time to tell the truth and get with the new dynamic, the one called accountability. Yours is the first of many depositions to get to the bottom of this shameful chapter in American democracy. You have a unique opportunity to do the right thing now. The Bush family is not going to protect you or cover for you any longer.
UPDATE: 10/28/08: Attorneys filed a motion to compel testimony of Connell to interrogate him about his knowledge of the inter-workings of the GOP computer systems. See Memo here. They included an affidavit of Spoonamore stating that the Ohio 2004 election was manipulated by a inside Man in the Middle King Pin attack. See Affidavit here.
UPDATE: 10/23/08: VR Calls For DOJ Investigation Into Why Bush/Rove IT Expert Mike Connell Asked How to Destroy White House Emails
Reporter Rebecca Abrahams wrote this week at Huffington Post that on October 11, 2006, longtime Bush/Rove IT expert Michael Connell met with cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore to learn how to destroy data on White House computer hard drives This was during the height of the United States Attorney scandal and during the tenure of Connell's former employee, David Almacy, as director of the White House Internet and E-Communications Director.
Abrahams quotes from Spoonamore's emails which reference notes taken at the time of the meeting. Connell was accompanied at the meeting by Randy Cole, the former President of Connell's company, GovTech Solutions, now running for Ohio Congressional seat 41. When Spoonamore realized that Connell and Cole were asking how to destroy White House data, he terminated the conversation and told them that what they were asking about was illegal.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently appointed prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against those involved in the US Attorney scandal. Today, in a press release, VR called for that investigation to include what role and knowledge Michael Connell and Randy Cole have regarding the destruction of White House computer data, and, as Abrahams suggests, whether Connell knows where the White House email backup is located.
UPDATE: 10/7/08: Velvet Revolution Calls On John McCain To Fire Michael Connell For Covering Up For Karl Rove In Federal Election Manipulation Lawsuit
Velvet Revolution today issued a press release calling for Republican candidate John McCain to fire computer expert Michael Connell from his campaign for covering up alleged election manipulations of Karl Rove and others. Mr. Connell, the GOP’s top computer expert, was subpoenaed based on a September 19th court order to testify under oath in an Ohio federal lawsuit looking into serious allegations that Mr. Rove has directed a strategy to illegally manipulate elections through the use of computer technology. Rather than cooperate in the investigation, Mr. Connell hired attorneys close to the Bush/Cheney Administration and refused to appear for the deposition arguing client (GOP) confidentiality. Those attorneys have said that they will do everything possible to keep Mr. Connell from testifying before the November general election. See press release pdf.
UPDATE: 10/3/08: VR Offers 100K Reward In RoveCyberGate Case
Today, VR offered a $100,000 reward for information from whistleblowers who have knowledge of election related criminal activity by Michael Connell, Randy Cole, Karl Rove and others. You can see the full ad here. The information must result in a conviction.
UPDATE: 10/1/08: VR Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Connell and Rove
In light of Mike Connell’s stonewalling of the subpoena in this case, Velvet Revolution today called for Attorney General Mukasey to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the conduct, actions and knowledge of Michael Connell and his confidential work for Karl Rove and George Bush vis a vis election manipulations and destruction of data. VR also called on Congress to hold hearings and place Mr. Connell under oath to testify about election rigging, destruction of White House emails, and spying on Congress. See PDF news release.
UPDATE: 9/30/08: Stay Lifted, Depositions Ordered, Connell Subpoenaed, Connell Stonewalls
Many new turns in this case the past few days. On September 22, the federal court lifted the stay in this case and ordered depositions to begin, starting with Bush IT Expert Michael Connell. (See Order in PDF) A few days later, Connell was subpoenaed and ordered to produce documents. He hired three high powered GOP-connected attorneys and filed a Motion to Quash (See Motion in PDF) and an affidavit stating that his information is confidential.(See Affidavit in PDF) His attorneys have refused to make him available for deposition and have indicated that they will not let him testify unless forced to by the court. Attorney Arnebeck intends to secure a court order to enforce the subpoena.
UPDATE 9/18/08: Ohio Attorneys File Papers To Take Deposition Of Bush IT Expert Michael Connell And Others-Includes Spoonamore Affidavit
Yesterday, Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck asked the federal court in Columbus to allow him to place Bush IT guru Michael Connell under oath to ask him about his 20 year work for the Bush family, including his work for Jeb Bush in Florida 2000 and for Ken Blackwell in Ohio 2004. “The public has a need and right to know, before the next presidential election, that the top Republican IT expert shares a concern about the vulnerability of electronic voting systems to fraudulent manipulation, and that this is not just “conspiracy theory,” Arnebeck wrote. Arnebeck also advised the court that he would seeking depositions from others, including Karl Rove. See Court filing.
Attached to the filing are two affidavits, one from cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore and the other from analyst Richard Hayes Phillips. The Spoonamore affidavit asserts that the election computer setup used by Ken Blackwell in 2004 provided the means and opportunity for the manipulation of the election results. “ The vote tabulation and reporting system, as modified at the direction of Mr. Blackwell, allowed the introduction of a single computer in the middle of the pathway. This computer located at a company principally managing IT Systems for GOP campaign and political operations (Computer C) received all information from each county computer (Computer A) BEFORE it was sent onward to Computer B. This centralized collection of all incoming statewide tabulations would make it extremely easy for a single operator, or a preprogrammed single "force balancing computer" to change the results in any way desired by the team controlling Computer C. In this case GOP partisan operatives. Again, if this out of state system had ANY digital access to the Secretary of State’s system it would be cause for immediate investigation by any of my banking clients.” See Spoonamore Affidavit.
The Hayes affidavit asserts that after reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents, ballots and other election records, “it is my conclusion that there is so much evidence of ballot alteration, ballot substitution, ballot box stuffing, ballot destruction, vote switching, tabulator rigging, and old fashioned voter suppression, that the results of the 2004 presidential election, would have been reversed” had there been a real investigation. See Hayes Affidavit. He insists that the time is now to take depositions from those implicated in the theft of that election.
Tell Congress to investigate Karl Rove’s cyber strategy to illegally manipulate elections. Click here to send an email to your Congress Members demanding immediate public hearings on whistleblower allegations that Rove architected and directed illegal attacks on Democratic candidates through the improper use of corporate funds channeled through fake Web-based front organizations, the improper political use of the Justice Department to prosecute opposition candidates, and the use of Internet based IT networks to alter election results.
UPDATE: 11/1/08: Late yesterday, a Federal Judge in Akron, Ohio ordered Mike Connell to submit to a deposition hours before the presidential election to talk about possible election manipulations.
The full story is here. Mr. Connell, it’s time to tell the truth and get with the new dynamic, the one called accountability. Yours is the first of many depositions to get to the bottom of this shameful chapter in American democracy. You have a unique opportunity to do the right thing now. The Bush family is not going to protect you or cover for you any longer.
UPDATE: 10/28/08: Attorneys filed a motion to compel testimony of Connell to interrogate him about his knowledge of the inter-workings of the GOP computer systems. See Memo here. They included an affidavit of Spoonamore stating that the Ohio 2004 election was manipulated by a inside Man in the Middle King Pin attack. See Affidavit here.
UPDATE: 10/23/08: VR Calls For DOJ Investigation Into Why Bush/Rove IT Expert Mike Connell Asked How to Destroy White House Emails
Reporter Rebecca Abrahams wrote this week at Huffington Post that on October 11, 2006, longtime Bush/Rove IT expert Michael Connell met with cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore to learn how to destroy data on White House computer hard drives This was during the height of the United States Attorney scandal and during the tenure of Connell's former employee, David Almacy, as director of the White House Internet and E-Communications Director.
Abrahams quotes from Spoonamore's emails which reference notes taken at the time of the meeting. Connell was accompanied at the meeting by Randy Cole, the former President of Connell's company, GovTech Solutions, now running for Ohio Congressional seat 41. When Spoonamore realized that Connell and Cole were asking how to destroy White House data, he terminated the conversation and told them that what they were asking about was illegal.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey recently appointed prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against those involved in the US Attorney scandal. Today, in a press release, VR called for that investigation to include what role and knowledge Michael Connell and Randy Cole have regarding the destruction of White House computer data, and, as Abrahams suggests, whether Connell knows where the White House email backup is located.
UPDATE: 10/7/08: Velvet Revolution Calls On John McCain To Fire Michael Connell For Covering Up For Karl Rove In Federal Election Manipulation Lawsuit
Velvet Revolution today issued a press release calling for Republican candidate John McCain to fire computer expert Michael Connell from his campaign for covering up alleged election manipulations of Karl Rove and others. Mr. Connell, the GOP’s top computer expert, was subpoenaed based on a September 19th court order to testify under oath in an Ohio federal lawsuit looking into serious allegations that Mr. Rove has directed a strategy to illegally manipulate elections through the use of computer technology. Rather than cooperate in the investigation, Mr. Connell hired attorneys close to the Bush/Cheney Administration and refused to appear for the deposition arguing client (GOP) confidentiality. Those attorneys have said that they will do everything possible to keep Mr. Connell from testifying before the November general election. See press release pdf.
UPDATE: 10/3/08: VR Offers 100K Reward In RoveCyberGate Case
Today, VR offered a $100,000 reward for information from whistleblowers who have knowledge of election related criminal activity by Michael Connell, Randy Cole, Karl Rove and others. You can see the full ad here. The information must result in a conviction.
UPDATE: 10/1/08: VR Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Connell and Rove
In light of Mike Connell’s stonewalling of the subpoena in this case, Velvet Revolution today called for Attorney General Mukasey to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the conduct, actions and knowledge of Michael Connell and his confidential work for Karl Rove and George Bush vis a vis election manipulations and destruction of data. VR also called on Congress to hold hearings and place Mr. Connell under oath to testify about election rigging, destruction of White House emails, and spying on Congress. See PDF news release.
UPDATE: 9/30/08: Stay Lifted, Depositions Ordered, Connell Subpoenaed, Connell Stonewalls
Many new turns in this case the past few days. On September 22, the federal court lifted the stay in this case and ordered depositions to begin, starting with Bush IT Expert Michael Connell. (See Order in PDF) A few days later, Connell was subpoenaed and ordered to produce documents. He hired three high powered GOP-connected attorneys and filed a Motion to Quash (See Motion in PDF) and an affidavit stating that his information is confidential.(See Affidavit in PDF) His attorneys have refused to make him available for deposition and have indicated that they will not let him testify unless forced to by the court. Attorney Arnebeck intends to secure a court order to enforce the subpoena.
UPDATE 9/18/08: Ohio Attorneys File Papers To Take Deposition Of Bush IT Expert Michael Connell And Others-Includes Spoonamore Affidavit
Yesterday, Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck asked the federal court in Columbus to allow him to place Bush IT guru Michael Connell under oath to ask him about his 20 year work for the Bush family, including his work for Jeb Bush in Florida 2000 and for Ken Blackwell in Ohio 2004. “The public has a need and right to know, before the next presidential election, that the top Republican IT expert shares a concern about the vulnerability of electronic voting systems to fraudulent manipulation, and that this is not just “conspiracy theory,” Arnebeck wrote. Arnebeck also advised the court that he would seeking depositions from others, including Karl Rove. See Court filing.
Attached to the filing are two affidavits, one from cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore and the other from analyst Richard Hayes Phillips. The Spoonamore affidavit asserts that the election computer setup used by Ken Blackwell in 2004 provided the means and opportunity for the manipulation of the election results. “ The vote tabulation and reporting system, as modified at the direction of Mr. Blackwell, allowed the introduction of a single computer in the middle of the pathway. This computer located at a company principally managing IT Systems for GOP campaign and political operations (Computer C) received all information from each county computer (Computer A) BEFORE it was sent onward to Computer B. This centralized collection of all incoming statewide tabulations would make it extremely easy for a single operator, or a preprogrammed single "force balancing computer" to change the results in any way desired by the team controlling Computer C. In this case GOP partisan operatives. Again, if this out of state system had ANY digital access to the Secretary of State’s system it would be cause for immediate investigation by any of my banking clients.” See Spoonamore Affidavit.
The Hayes affidavit asserts that after reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents, ballots and other election records, “it is my conclusion that there is so much evidence of ballot alteration, ballot substitution, ballot box stuffing, ballot destruction, vote switching, tabulator rigging, and old fashioned voter suppression, that the results of the 2004 presidential election, would have been reversed” had there been a real investigation. See Hayes Affidavit. He insists that the time is now to take depositions from those implicated in the theft of that election.
Tell Congress to investigate Karl Rove’s cyber strategy to illegally manipulate elections. Click here to send an email to your Congress Members demanding immediate public hearings on whistleblower allegations that Rove architected and directed illegal attacks on Democratic candidates through the improper use of corporate funds channeled through fake Web-based front organizations, the improper political use of the Justice Department to prosecute opposition candidates, and the use of Internet based IT networks to alter election results.
IT expert compelled by fed. court to testify on '04 Ohio election administration
e Pluribus Media Journal reported that today, Monday November 4, Computer IT expert Mike Connell will be forced by a federal judge to testify about what he knew about the construction of computer architecture in the 2004 election in Ohio.
By veteran Ohio politics reporter John Michael Spinelli:
Columbus, Ohio: With only a couple more days until the nation votes, the news from yesterday's federal court hearing in Cleveland that Mike Connell, an IT expert who was working for then-Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in Ohio on election nights in 2004 and 2006, will come in to testify on what he knows about the computer architecture setup on those election nights and whether Bush wrongfully won Ohio and a second term in the White House and whether such systems still exist, is as nail biting as any final episode of "24" when anti-terrorist maverick agent Jack Bauer saves the day by neutralizing a nuclear bomb from exploding.
In an email message to OhioNewsBureau Saturday, chief plaintiff lawyer Clifford O. Arnebeck, whose 2006 lawsuit alleging voter suppression in 2004 has now morphed into an attempt to prevent the possible corrupt activities that a man of interest like Connell can shed light on from happening again in three days, was in the Carl Stokes Federal Court Building in Cleveland Friday, along with Connell and his trio of defense attorneys. "At the end of the day yesterday at the US District Court, Judge Solomon Oliver denied Michael Connell's motion to quash the subpoena issued for his deposition testimony, and ordered the deposition to take place at noon on Monday November 3, 2008 in Cleveland," Arnebeck wrote.
Arnebeck and others have long known that Connell was a key inside IT contractor for Ken Blackwell in the administration of the 2004 and 2006 elections, at the same time he was managing the IT function for the Bush Presidential campaigns and other Republican partisan campaigns, from 2000 to 2004 to 2006.
Arnebeck and his his cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore , who is lending his credibility and knowledge to the allegation contained in the King Lincoln case before US District Judge Algernon in Columbus, have identified Connell as a key witness to Karl Rove's various maneuvers affecting elections during this decade.
Connell's defense attorneys, from the powerful Columbus law firm of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan and Aronoff , have sought to delay their client having to sit and testify until after Tuesday's General Election. Connell, who has worked for the Bush family for decades, with assignments that included working in various positions for Jeb and George W. Bush, switched Republican teams a while back and teamed up with Arizona Sen. John McCain. The underdog Republican has in the remaining weeks of this election exuded a unique air of confidence that he can win Ohio, and maybe other states, despite trailing his opposition in most states. This air of supreme confidence troubles Arnebeck and Spoonamore, who supports McCain and knows Connell from professional acquaintances. In Ohio, depending on what polls are used, the race between the two is either within the margin of error (meaning it's a statistical dead heat) or shows Obama up by as many as 12 percentage points.
Election watchers and researchers who have been tracking the trail of Connell through their own methods of cyber sleuthing for years, believe Connell and his associates may have compromised the presidential election in Ohio in 2004 by inserting a computer, among other tactics, into the Ohio secretary of state's vote information transferal system. Such tampering, they say, could explain how votes were "tuned" to Bush and away from Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president that year. Experts, such asSpoonamore, an expert on data security, thought the election results turned odd in a dozen or so Ohio counties late on Election Day.
Gleaned from privileged sources, Arnebeck thinks Connell will "not lie" if he's asked pointed questions on what he knows about the work he and his company did for Blackwell then, and whether any vestiges of that work, such as secret cyber back-doors or other computer architecture work, still exist and whether they are in place to again flip votes from Obama to McCain for this election like some believe happened four years ago.
The reference to the popular TV series "24" may not be so far fetched as it seems. The star of that series is always chasing the bad guys against a ticking clock that usually has some explosive device attacked to it. The explosive device in Ohio, while not a bomb with devastating potential, could be aDoomesday Machine for voting that operates to the benefit of Republicans when the vote is close enough, as it could be in Ohio, so that the cyber thievery of the system can do its work with little to no detection.
"This sends a signal to every member of Karl Rove's team of 'electricians' assigned to fix vote counts in Tuesday's election. When you turn a switch to flip a lot of votes, just think of it as turning the key on a jail house door, behind which you will be spending a lot of years," Arnebeck warned Rove and others who have malicious ideas about subverting the will of voters, as he suspects occurred during previous elections.
By veteran Ohio politics reporter John Michael Spinelli:
Columbus, Ohio: With only a couple more days until the nation votes, the news from yesterday's federal court hearing in Cleveland that Mike Connell, an IT expert who was working for then-Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in Ohio on election nights in 2004 and 2006, will come in to testify on what he knows about the computer architecture setup on those election nights and whether Bush wrongfully won Ohio and a second term in the White House and whether such systems still exist, is as nail biting as any final episode of "24" when anti-terrorist maverick agent Jack Bauer saves the day by neutralizing a nuclear bomb from exploding.
In an email message to OhioNewsBureau Saturday, chief plaintiff lawyer Clifford O. Arnebeck, whose 2006 lawsuit alleging voter suppression in 2004 has now morphed into an attempt to prevent the possible corrupt activities that a man of interest like Connell can shed light on from happening again in three days, was in the Carl Stokes Federal Court Building in Cleveland Friday, along with Connell and his trio of defense attorneys. "At the end of the day yesterday at the US District Court, Judge Solomon Oliver denied Michael Connell's motion to quash the subpoena issued for his deposition testimony, and ordered the deposition to take place at noon on Monday November 3, 2008 in Cleveland," Arnebeck wrote.
Arnebeck and others have long known that Connell was a key inside IT contractor for Ken Blackwell in the administration of the 2004 and 2006 elections, at the same time he was managing the IT function for the Bush Presidential campaigns and other Republican partisan campaigns, from 2000 to 2004 to 2006.
Arnebeck and his his cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore , who is lending his credibility and knowledge to the allegation contained in the King Lincoln case before US District Judge Algernon in Columbus, have identified Connell as a key witness to Karl Rove's various maneuvers affecting elections during this decade.
Connell's defense attorneys, from the powerful Columbus law firm of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan and Aronoff , have sought to delay their client having to sit and testify until after Tuesday's General Election. Connell, who has worked for the Bush family for decades, with assignments that included working in various positions for Jeb and George W. Bush, switched Republican teams a while back and teamed up with Arizona Sen. John McCain. The underdog Republican has in the remaining weeks of this election exuded a unique air of confidence that he can win Ohio, and maybe other states, despite trailing his opposition in most states. This air of supreme confidence troubles Arnebeck and Spoonamore, who supports McCain and knows Connell from professional acquaintances. In Ohio, depending on what polls are used, the race between the two is either within the margin of error (meaning it's a statistical dead heat) or shows Obama up by as many as 12 percentage points.
Election watchers and researchers who have been tracking the trail of Connell through their own methods of cyber sleuthing for years, believe Connell and his associates may have compromised the presidential election in Ohio in 2004 by inserting a computer, among other tactics, into the Ohio secretary of state's vote information transferal system. Such tampering, they say, could explain how votes were "tuned" to Bush and away from Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president that year. Experts, such asSpoonamore, an expert on data security, thought the election results turned odd in a dozen or so Ohio counties late on Election Day.
Gleaned from privileged sources, Arnebeck thinks Connell will "not lie" if he's asked pointed questions on what he knows about the work he and his company did for Blackwell then, and whether any vestiges of that work, such as secret cyber back-doors or other computer architecture work, still exist and whether they are in place to again flip votes from Obama to McCain for this election like some believe happened four years ago.
The reference to the popular TV series "24" may not be so far fetched as it seems. The star of that series is always chasing the bad guys against a ticking clock that usually has some explosive device attacked to it. The explosive device in Ohio, while not a bomb with devastating potential, could be aDoomesday Machine for voting that operates to the benefit of Republicans when the vote is close enough, as it could be in Ohio, so that the cyber thievery of the system can do its work with little to no detection.
"This sends a signal to every member of Karl Rove's team of 'electricians' assigned to fix vote counts in Tuesday's election. When you turn a switch to flip a lot of votes, just think of it as turning the key on a jail house door, behind which you will be spending a lot of years," Arnebeck warned Rove and others who have malicious ideas about subverting the will of voters, as he suspects occurred during previous elections.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Digest of electronic voting threats to Tuesday's election
The integrity of Tuesday's election is under threat. The threat lies in electronic voting machines. The majority of the news reports on electronic voting machine errors involve votes from the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama. We have begun to see a pattern of "vote-flipping," or vote-switching," from Barack Obama to John McCain. Television talk show host and media executive, Oprah Winfrey experienced voting on a machine that did not register her vote. As we see in a video at the upper right, she recounts her frustration with the voting machine.
While we are presently seeing more concern about Democratic votes flipping to the Republican candidate, corruption of vote integrity can swing either way. Just as this writer will doubt a McCain victory (after near universal polls giving safe margins to Obama), voters can doubt the legitimacy of Democratic victories. Republicans can doubt the legitimacy of the Democratic sweep of 2006; and they can cry foul this Tuesday should Obama win.
As a matter of principle, the electronic machines should be scrapped. We should return to the lever machines. These machines are still in use in New York City. They have served New York with very few major glitches for generations. We should not blindly rush to technology, simply because it is new. Technology-fetish is jeopardizing the legitimacy of our electoral democracy.
And now the digest of electronic voting trouble, with a mind to recent news:
Brennan Center and other places researched the vulnerabilities issue.
The generic term for electronic voting machines appears to be: digital recording electronic systems (DRE).
All states have electronic systems, except New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. These states have combinations of electronic systems and more traditional systems. Only New York State retains lever pulling machines. Oregon has optically scanned mail-in ballots.
Click here for Pew Center on the States' chart on voting systems, by state,
“Colorado Independent” reports: County Clerk in one Colorado county quarantines voting machines.
Research sponsored by Common Cause:
--which cites June 2006 Brennan Center report on vulnerablities of machine hacking.
Cause of vote flipping.
Viruses can be planted in the ES&S machines.
As of May 2008, fears that machine could be virus-infected.
Some battleground –including Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania-- states use computers that were demonstrated in previous elections to have machines that were vulnerable to hacking:
2006 HBO documentary that documented problems that indicate problems with machines' integrity: Hacking Democracy.
iVotronic machines deemed vulnerable to virus-hacking and vote-flipping: “More confirmation of vote flipping by e-voting machines,” Under the Dome, April 19, 2007.
16 states carry the vulnerable iVotronic machines:
Suspicions that there is coincidence of where certain candidates do well, and where there are patterns of problematic voting: per Bev Harris, of Blackboxvoting.org: "I'm supposed to be nonpartisan," Harris said. "But I looked at a dozen states way before the primaries that I identified would have problems, and it's almost a 100 percent correlation with where (Sen. Hillary) Clinton has done well."Faulty Machines Ready to Count Your Vote,” Miller-McCune, May 12, 2008.
One Colorado county quarantined a problematic voting machine: Bradblog, 10/30/08 .
Other vote problems:
“Vote-Fraud Fears Fall Before Disenfranchisement Fear,” Miller-McCune, October 24, 2008, The decisions, either by judges or secretaries of state, bring to a close several of the legal battles detailed in the latest compendium of swing-state disputes Miller-McCune.com reported earlier this week, and focus on the right to vote trumping the fear of fraud.
Voters for winning candidates have more confidence in integrity of system in counting their vote, than voters for losing candidates: “Do Americans Trust Their Voting System? Miller-McCune, October 29, 2008 .
Distrustful citizens conduct their own exit polls: “Citizen Exit Poll Driven by Distrust” October 31, 2008 .
DEMOCRATIC PARTY MACHINERY and MEDIA
Democratic National Committee attention to issues of machines' vulnerability to hacking or flipping: none.
Major media, such as national television networks to these issues is null. Only more marginal outlets are giving attention to this issue. Type a Google news searches of the words "vote flipping" with the quote marks closing the quote. You will get minor media outlets. The most notable media outlets giving attention to the story include: MarketWatch, CNN International, Guardian [UK], and one New York Times story (albeit, at the date of October 24, this is dated; there needs to be an update on this story). There are no other nationally known newspapers, no major television networks giving attention to the story.
Where there is hardly any TV news attention, there is hardly any public consciousness on the issue.
While we are presently seeing more concern about Democratic votes flipping to the Republican candidate, corruption of vote integrity can swing either way. Just as this writer will doubt a McCain victory (after near universal polls giving safe margins to Obama), voters can doubt the legitimacy of Democratic victories. Republicans can doubt the legitimacy of the Democratic sweep of 2006; and they can cry foul this Tuesday should Obama win.
As a matter of principle, the electronic machines should be scrapped. We should return to the lever machines. These machines are still in use in New York City. They have served New York with very few major glitches for generations. We should not blindly rush to technology, simply because it is new. Technology-fetish is jeopardizing the legitimacy of our electoral democracy.
And now the digest of electronic voting trouble, with a mind to recent news:
Brennan Center and other places researched the vulnerabilities issue.
The generic term for electronic voting machines appears to be: digital recording electronic systems (DRE).
All states have electronic systems, except New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. These states have combinations of electronic systems and more traditional systems. Only New York State retains lever pulling machines. Oregon has optically scanned mail-in ballots.
Click here for Pew Center on the States' chart on voting systems, by state,
“Colorado Independent” reports: County Clerk in one Colorado county quarantines voting machines.
Research sponsored by Common Cause:
--which cites June 2006 Brennan Center report on vulnerablities of machine hacking.
Cause of vote flipping.
Viruses can be planted in the ES&S machines.
As of May 2008, fears that machine could be virus-infected.
Some battleground –including Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania-- states use computers that were demonstrated in previous elections to have machines that were vulnerable to hacking:
2006 HBO documentary that documented problems that indicate problems with machines' integrity: Hacking Democracy.
iVotronic machines deemed vulnerable to virus-hacking and vote-flipping: “More confirmation of vote flipping by e-voting machines,” Under the Dome, April 19, 2007.
16 states carry the vulnerable iVotronic machines:
Suspicions that there is coincidence of where certain candidates do well, and where there are patterns of problematic voting: per Bev Harris, of Blackboxvoting.org: "I'm supposed to be nonpartisan," Harris said. "But I looked at a dozen states way before the primaries that I identified would have problems, and it's almost a 100 percent correlation with where (Sen. Hillary) Clinton has done well."Faulty Machines Ready to Count Your Vote,” Miller-McCune, May 12, 2008.
One Colorado county quarantined a problematic voting machine: Bradblog, 10/30/08 .
Other vote problems:
“Vote-Fraud Fears Fall Before Disenfranchisement Fear,” Miller-McCune, October 24, 2008, The decisions, either by judges or secretaries of state, bring to a close several of the legal battles detailed in the latest compendium of swing-state disputes Miller-McCune.com reported earlier this week, and focus on the right to vote trumping the fear of fraud.
Voters for winning candidates have more confidence in integrity of system in counting their vote, than voters for losing candidates: “Do Americans Trust Their Voting System? Miller-McCune, October 29, 2008 .
Distrustful citizens conduct their own exit polls: “Citizen Exit Poll Driven by Distrust” October 31, 2008 .
DEMOCRATIC PARTY MACHINERY and MEDIA
Democratic National Committee attention to issues of machines' vulnerability to hacking or flipping: none.
Major media, such as national television networks to these issues is null. Only more marginal outlets are giving attention to this issue. Type a Google news searches of the words "vote flipping" with the quote marks closing the quote. You will get minor media outlets. The most notable media outlets giving attention to the story include: MarketWatch, CNN International, Guardian [UK], and one New York Times story (albeit, at the date of October 24, this is dated; there needs to be an update on this story). There are no other nationally known newspapers, no major television networks giving attention to the story.
Where there is hardly any TV news attention, there is hardly any public consciousness on the issue.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
MIT News: important bug in Premier (nee Diebold) voting machines found
MIT News, October 27: Far from perfect
With election days away, Stewart charts progress of U.S. voting security
The expert interviewed for the story is sanguine, but important comments that tip off to points of concern, include this: "[T]here continue to be an unnerving number of cases where [electronic voting] systems are shown to be unreliable. For instance, Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) recently reported that a bug in the software that accepts and counts election results from individual voting machines has a flaw that can result in some ballots being dropped from the system before they are counted."
Click here for full article.
With election days away, Stewart charts progress of U.S. voting security
The expert interviewed for the story is sanguine, but important comments that tip off to points of concern, include this: "[T]here continue to be an unnerving number of cases where [electronic voting] systems are shown to be unreliable. For instance, Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) recently reported that a bug in the software that accepts and counts election results from individual voting machines has a flaw that can result in some ballots being dropped from the system before they are counted."
Click here for full article.
Princeton prof: e-voting machines easily hackable
With election shenanigans fresh in our minds from 2004, shouldn't we be concerned over the integrity of voting machines. Furthermore, manufacturers and politicians have resisted requirements that electronic voting machines give receipts to the voter users. This would give the voter, and the greater public, a little bit more confidence in such machines. This is amidst recent reports, in several states, of vote flipping (or vote switching) by e-voting machines.
Princeton computer science professor Andrew Appel has publicized a 158 page report that criticizes certain e-voting machines as easily hackable, "Computerworld" reported October 27.
Todd R. Weiss, "Princeton report rips N.J. e-voting machines as easily hackable
Vendor challenges research, says its machines are safe and reliable"
Read the 158 page report here, in pdf format.
Princeton computer science professor Andrew Appel has publicized a 158 page report that criticizes certain e-voting machines as easily hackable, "Computerworld" reported October 27.
Todd R. Weiss, "Princeton report rips N.J. e-voting machines as easily hackable
Vendor challenges research, says its machines are safe and reliable"
With eight days to go before the presidential election, a report has been released by Princeton University and other groups that sharply criticizes the e-voting machines used in New Jersey and elsewhere as unreliable and potentially prone to hacking.
The 158-page report, which was ordered by a New Jersey judge as part of an ongoing four-year legal fight over the machines, says the e-voting machines can be "easily hacked" in about seven minutes by anyone with basic computer knowledge. Such hacking activity could enable fraudulent firmware to steal votes from one candidate and give them to another, the report said.
The controversy involves the Sequoia AVC Advantage 9.00H direct-recording electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting machines made by Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems.
The report comes amid news stories in at least three states -- West Virginia, Texas and Tennessee -- where voters have told local election officials that they believe the e-voting machines they used tried to "flip" their votes to other candidates.
The AVC machines can be hacked by installing fraudulent software contained in a replacement chip that can be installed on the main circuit board, according to the report. Such a part replacement is very difficult to detect, it noted.
Andrew Appel, a Princeton University computer science professor who is one of the authors of the report, said that such security vulnerabilities cause doubts about the accuracy and reliability of the machines.
The plaintiffs, a group of public interest organizations, argue in their lawsuit against the state of New Jersey that the machines should be discarded because they can't meet state election law requirements for security and accuracy. State officials who back the machines argue that the machines are adequate for the job.
The lawsuit is expected to go to trial in January, but in the meantime, the court allowed the Princeton report to be released to the public.
The report gives details on how the machines could be manipulated by someone who wanted to change the results of the election, and it strongly criticizes the designs and security of the devices.
Read the 158 page report here, in pdf format.
Mysterious resignation at ES&S, maker of vote flipping machines in W Va
Several voters voters in early voting in West Virginia complained that their votes for Barack Obama flipped unwillingly to John McCain. The maker of the vote flipping (or vote switching) machines is ES&S. Mysteriously, the company's vice president, Gary Lee Greenhalgh, resigned abruptly in May, and neither he, nor the company, will say why he quit.
The Charleston Gazette inquired into the story:
Ron J. Nyden, "ES&S official left company in May"
Read the full October 26 Gazette article here.
The Charleston Gazette inquired into the story:
Ron J. Nyden, "ES&S official left company in May"
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - On Thursday, Secretary of State Betty Ireland defended her selection of touch-screen voting machines by Election Systems & Software, after several voters complained the machines were switching their votes from Democrats to Republicans.
That same day, during a ceremony at the Capitol, Ireland presented a special award to Gary Lee Greenhalgh, the ES&S vice president who sold Ireland on the machines.
Ireland called Greenhalgh "a pioneer in the use of technology in the election process."
But Greenhalgh left the company mysteriously in May, and neither he nor company officials will say why.
And while Ireland praises both Greenhalgh and his former employer, other states have rejected ES&S voting machines because of alleged security and accuracy problems.
An independent study determined that ES&S touch-screen machines could be "compromised and modified without detection, conceivably occurring before, during or after an election," presenting "serious risks to election integrity."
In recent days, at least 14 voters from Jackson, Putnam, Berkeley, Ohio, Monongalia and Greenbrier counties have told The Charleston Gazette that ES&S machines switched their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
No one has contacted The Gazette to say a voting machine flipped Republican votes to Democratic candidates.
In each case, county poll workers helped the voters correct their ballots. But several worried that others might not notice switched votes.
Read the full October 26 Gazette article here.
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