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Widespread uncertified software in California elections
My friend Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation just sent this report by email:
Report on the use of uncertified software in California voting machinesThis afternoon I attended a meeting of the California Secretary of State's Voting Systems Panel, which is in charge of certifying and decertifying voting systems for California elections.
At this meeting the initial results from the Secretary of State's audit of counties using Diebold equipment were released. The Secretary of State's auditors discovered that of the 17 counties using Diebold equipment (both optical scan and touchscreen), all 17 had some software or firmware version in use that was not certified by the Secretary of State.
It was an astonishing piece of information -- no one knew how widespread the problem was of Diebold installing uncertified software in voting systems as was discovered in Alameda County. It turns out all of Diebold's California clients are using some version of Diebold software or firmware that is not certified by the state.
The latest version of Diebold's GEMS software that was certified in California is 117.17; the audit revealed that counties were using other versions, such as 117.20, 117.22, 117.23, 118.18, and 118.18.02. The audit also revealed that three counties -- Los Angeles, Trinity and Lassen -- were using software versions that had not been approved for use at the federal level.
It was a real bombshell. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley came into the meeting to address the panel and spoke very firmly and passionately about the need for voters to have confidence in elections. He also suggested that it is possible Diebold could be decertified in California altogether.
Not all the information the Secretary of State's auditors collected has been analyzed. I understand there is a 66 page report that may be available. The next meeting of the VSP will be held in mid-January, around the 14th, to take up the Diebold audit matter again as well as the development of voter verified paper audit trail standards for California's computerized voting systems. The Secretary of State also will conduct an audit over the next three months of the 41 other California counties' voting systems to determine whether their software and equipment is in compliance with California law.
-- Kim Alexander
December 19, 2003 at 01:17 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
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In April, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley banned a type of Diebold touch screen in California and took the unusual step of asking the Attorney General to investigate both civil and criminal actions against the company for fraud.
Two weeks later, Walden O'Dell, the chairman and CEO of diploid finally admitted it was a "huge mistake" for him to write -- in a Republican fundraising letter -- that he was committed to delivering electoral votes for Bush.
Since then, Kevin Shelley has become America's leader in ensuring there is a paper trail to prevent voting fraud. When CNN needs a comment on election fraud, they interview Kevin Shelley.
He's right, there should be a paper trail and strong safeguards to prevent fraud. In fact, there is not a single rational argument from the opposition, which consists mainly of diploid and other Bush operatives.
Since they can't logically argue against fair elections, they have now started an aggressive decapitiation attack against Shelley. The strategy appears to assume that an aggressive character assassination of Kevin Shelley will slow the movement and prevent reform before the election.
By aggressive character assassination, consider shell's hometown San Francisco Chronicle is in DAY FIVE of their front page smear campaign against Shelley. Somehow (act surprised), a bunch of documents "appeared" that suggest wrongdoing by a Shelley donor. Not surprising is the fact that there is no evidence Shelley knew of the wrongdoing or could have had anything to do with it. But with any smear campaign, you only find that out if you carefully read the whole story while the headlines suggest Shelley is guilty of the largest scandal since Watergate.
Democrats are standing with Shelley, not just for his singular focus on voting rights, but also for his long service as a groundbreaking progressive legislator. But the smears are taking their toll and are already hurting efforts to ensure a fair presidential election.
The current smear campaign is not without precedent. There have already been reports of FBI agents harassing people for speaking up against unsafe electronic voting.
We can't let CREEP win. We can't let the movement for fair elections slow because of these character assassination attacks. We can't abandon the Secretary of State because of the smear.
Stooping to this level is one more reason why our votes need to count -- we desperately need to get our country back on track.
If you're wondering why they are doing this to Shelley, here are two reasons:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2004/04_030.pdf
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/ks_dre_papers/diebold_report_april20_final.pdf
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http://blogswarm.blogdrive.com/archive/65.html
Posted by: blogswarm at Aug 12, 2004 10:21:50 PM
