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Black Box Voting Update III: Seattle
Part I outlined Bev Harris' recent talk to Seattle, with suggested websites and an invitation to the Voter Reform meeting Monday 2/14, spearheaded by Governor Christine Gregoire, Washington.
Part II described potential solutions to problems encountered throughout the country in the last two elections.
Part III covers Harris’s harrowing story,. The following is my own report, as no press were there, to my knowledge. I have included other links to information on Bev Harris, and she has a book called Black Box Voting.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/ 0410/040310_news_blackbox.php
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/12/int03323.html
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
By Harris's account, she found Diebold's secret files as a citizen using Google. One file was called "Rob Georgia" and included instructions for the Georgia election. She downloaded 6 CDs of files and began to study them. She states she was theatened by Diebold with jail if she looked at the files. She then released them on Democratic Underground for 3 hours in the middle of the night and scientists looked at them under assumed names. Seven CDs of data went to an expert in New Zealand and sixteen days later there was a story in the New York Times. A month later, 13,000 memos were leaked to her and her website was taken down for 30 days, but Dennis Kucinich put them up on his website. A week later, she states, there was an entrapment attempt by Secret Service but she was too smart to open an encrypted file. The government interviewed her five times about what she knew about Diebold. They asked for IP addresses of all who visited her website, which she refused to disclose. At this point, she sought counsel from a California attorney to assist her in getting the Secret Service to back down.
Last June, she formed a nonprofit and went to visit election officers all over the country. She became concerned not just with the machines but with quality control. For example, in Arkansas, one district with a typical 25% voter turnout suddenly had a 125% turnout. She found widespread procedural breakdown. In Florida, she found a sudden negative 16,000 votes that she noted for Gore and this was exactly the amount needed to swing the 2000 election to Bush. Election results were being reported by a cousin of George Bush's.
In Alachua County, Florida, Harris asked for copies of poll tapes under the Freedom of Information Act and was given unsigned (not yet authorized) tapes a week later. At a warehouse she found three people with poll tapes and pens in their hands, creating fresh poll tapes. She then found the real signed poll tapes in a garbage bag. She grabbed them. On the way to the copy machine, the bag split open. Two police cars pulled up and a film crew followed her as she got more missing records from the garbage. Poll tapes for one-third of the county were still missing. This would not have changed the results of the national election but was more evidence of local tampering, which she believes to be widespread, as there is no quality control to prevent it.
A computer scientist studied Pinellas County, Florida and found shredded absentee ballots, which he videotaped and weighed. Harris' general conclusion was that a monkey could hack into most of the computer systems but that also, county election officials all over the country could easily follow protocols of their own choosing. Adding insult to injury, Teresa LePore, the replacement for Katherine Harris, was promoted to head “Investigations of Election Fraud.”
Harris also amusingly related her experiences at the hacker's convention in Las Vegas. She told how the CA Secretary of State said "Oh my God!" when shown how easy it was to hack into the system. She talked about going to Blackwell's office in Ohio two weeks ago, in a private building with private security. "Oh no!" is what they said when they saw her driver's license. She described their security setup as "a bizarre overly secure Gestapo environment." She talked about a diehard guy on the east coast who has filed suits against voting machines since the 1940s, as he claimed gears were stripped and cheating occurred.
There are discussion under way about workshops and possibly an appearance by Harris at Town Hall. There have obviously been attempts to undermine her credibility and there has been friction with the media and within her organization. It is easy to see why there are many who want to stop her and others like her. We cannot afford not to work on this!
Harris's book is available on her website. She likes to think of her work as "Open Source."
Published on Saturday, November 6, 2004
Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked
by Thom Hartmann
When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.
"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.
And some believe evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.
The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.
While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios largely matched the Kerry/Bush vote, in Florida's counties using results from optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.
In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.
In Dixie County, with 9,676 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.
The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.
Yet in the touch-screen counties, where investigators may have been more vigorously looking for such anomalies, high percentages of registered Democrats generally equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry. (I had earlier reported that county size was a variable – this turns out not to be the case. Just the use of touch-screens versus optical scanners.)
More visual analysis of the results can be seen at http://us together.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm, and www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm.
Note the trend line – the only variable that determines a swing toward Bush was the use of optical scan machines.
read more... http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
DiAnne you mentioned Andy Stephenson in an earlier post, well Andy is having serious health problems and needs help.
William Pitt just posted on Truthout a way to help him.
Will Pitt - FYI
Will Pitt - Overview T O needs your help
A Friend in Need
By WilliamPitt,
Thu Feb 24th, 2005 at 08:47:20 AM EST :: Voter Rights ::
If you have followed the push for election reform over the last two years, you have probably heard the name Andy Stephenson. Andy, who worked for a long time with the folks over at BlackBoxVoting.org, has been at the forefront of the fight to make sure that every vote is counted, every vote counts, and that our elections do not become a privatized exercise in electronic touch-screen theft.
I was with Andy in Seattle last July at a Rolling Thunder event. I was trying to be upbeat about the looming election, but Andy could not summon the will to do more than tell the hard truth. On that day, he predicted everything that happened in Ohio, Florida, Nevada and elsewhere. I ran into him again at the inauguration protests this past January, and he had an 'I %&$#!*@ told you so' face on that could have cracked granite.
For the last several weeks, Andy has been suffering through a bout of Hepatitis. The word came down yesterday, however, that his siauation is far more serious. "I apparently have a tumor growing around the bile duct where it passes through my pancreas," he wrote. "The tissue sample was consistent with malignancy; it could be benign but I am planning for the worst."
Andy has been out of work for several months; he gave pretty much his entire life to the
more>
http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/2/24/84720/3496
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"Who Got Glitched: An Election Reform Teach-In"
Sunday, Feb 27th, 2:00 - 5:00 pm
The Church at Ocean Park
(2nd and Hill, Santa Monica)
Presenting:
Bev Harris, Black Box Voting, Investigator
Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Free Press,(Attorney, Moss vs. Bush/Cheney/Blackwell)
The Jonas/Quinn/ Ritt legal team for Ohio
Blair Bobier, Green Party, ‘The Ohio Recount' Great Film Clips & ‘Building a Civil Rights /Voter Rights Coaliton’
Moderated by Ian Masters, KPFK
with Butch Wing, Rainbow Push
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange & Codepink
Brad Freidman, Velvet Revolution
Kevin Spidel, Progressive Democrats
Blair Bobier, Green party
Susan Clark, Pro-Democracy Advocate
Mandeep Gill, Citizen Lobbyist ..and YOU!
Tickets $10 - No one turned away for lack of funds
Ticket orders & info: tickets@citizensact.org
Seating limited. Reservations recommended.
http://www.citizensact.org/pages/2/index.htm
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The Onion is just as valid as CNN...
Having said that, here is Bush's hunt for the Ark of the Covenant..
Bush Determined To Find Warehouse
Where Ark Of Covenant Is Stored
WASHINGTON, DC—In a surprise press conference Monday, President Bush said he will not rest until the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant, the vessel holding the original Ten Commandments, is located. "Nazis stole the Ark in 1936, but it was recovered by a single patriot, who braved gunfire, rolling boulders, and venomous snakes," Bush said, addressing the White House press corps. "Sadly, due to bureaucratic rigmarole, this powerful, historic relic was misplaced in a warehouse. Mark my words: We will find that warehouse." Bush added that, after they are strengthened by the power of the Ark, U.S. forces will seek out and destroy the sinister Temple of Doom.
battlebob,
When I recently saw the movie, I recognized the locale for the final scene--the Archives buildings near my campus.
But I disagree that the Temple of Doom needs to be found--I think we all know where that is located as well.
Posted by: Marc Trager at February 24, 2005 10:27 AM
Marc,
Great articles about the Florida elections and the issues with optical scanner returns!
I think optical scanners have two paper trails. One is the ballot itself and the other is a cash-register tape (The ones in Arizona are like this). It is a simple but tedious job to reconcile the numbers. If the numbers add up but the count is different from the reported results then the PCs were hacked (As an old pro, it is very easy to do). It depends what kind of protection they had.
No where is it mentioned if the ballots or the tape were looked at. Is this where the Supreme Nines stopped the count?
... and whenever I raise the points that are referenced in the article I posted above with any of my republican friends or family, they immediately start with the conspiracy-nut accusations.
How long until the Republican mascot changes from an elephant to an ostrich... can I get a show of heads in the sand?
OT but I found this clip of Inside Politics with a supposedly debate of the USANext group (aka SwiftBoatLiars). The interesting thing about this is who debates these slimeballs. Well lets get someone like David Brock, that would be a worthwhile debate, right? But remember we are dealing with the "Liberal Media", so they will go with a guy from the Cato Institute, who doesn't like the AARP ad but who is all for Social Security privatization.
The fog deepens:
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/cnn_ip_usanext_050223-01.rm
This coversation ran for almost 7 minutes.
Now on Keith Olberman he also had a story on it, with who these guys ( USA NEXT ), if you notice the story runs 35 seconds. Hmmmmm, now that is liberal. Do I see a bit of blue sky through the fog, nope it was my imagination.
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/olbermann_assassination_charges_050222-01.rm
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BB-mixing up Harrison Ford's Indy Jones with Bush and the covenant will never do, although he loves dressing up with great leather jackets. Which side is he on? The Nazis? Maybe they have the WMDs.
And Karen, please no association with Bush and temples. We're off to Palm Springs this weekend to be with GOP Jews for Bush, not my element in wealth or philosophy.
The problem with auditable trails is that they are not recounts, and most legislation doesn't require them, or by a percentage that is meaningful to find or look for fraud. Nothing like a simple ballot and checking for verification while casting the ballot is the final vote verdict.
Now having bought those awful e-machines, states will have to throw good money after bad until they throw them out. Computers may be sexy, but we know how vulnerable to hacking.
KerryDem...
I dont watch any television news programs anymore, and one of the (many) reasons is the representative from the left more often than not seems to have a pushover to debate the issues, looking quite wimpy and weak, and rarely making salient points that would so obviously blow the person's arguement on the "other" side right out of the water...
Swift Boat Style.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/24/opinion/24dowd.html?th
KerryDem,
Maureen had a good slimeboat wrap-up today.
Marjorie, I read that it was quite good.
Marc, I don't watch TV news either, but many still do and in this clip the guy debating the SwiftBoat Liars is not from the left but the right, that was the point I was trying to make. I get all my news from the internet including these videos.
NO SURRENDER !!!
Marjorie,
The only association I make with Bush and Temples has to do with his direct relationship to the moneychangers.
Oh that the New Testament WAS literal and he would be thrown out on his ear...
As for our fellow Jews, you have your work cut out for you. Forebearance and clarity of the direct gaze back into the eyes of those spouting nonsense...and have fun!
~why did many "red state working class" voters vote against their own best interests?
the following link is written by a liberal (who comes from a working class background) for those among us who want to try to better understand the "red stater" voter. This writer makes some valid points that we can use to "reframe" the discussion about why a liberal fights for the economic/social rights of a "red stater" conservative:
This is why I'm a liberal
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/23/134320/464
Gannon: Kerry to sign letter to ask for investigation
"Senator Kerry will be signing,” April Boyd, Kerry’s press secretary, said.
“There’s more screening to get into a Bush for President rally than the White House press room,” Boyd added. “A Girl Scout troop can’t even go on a public tour of the White House, but a Republican Party right wing activist of sketchy origins got daily West Wing access? This latest scandal makes Armstrong Williams look like a saint by comparison.”
Also Reid and Kennedy and of course Durbin.
NO SURRENDER !!!
KD
Kerry knows so much about so many things, going back 20 years with this same crowd. Enough to make an earnest, honest prosecutor's heart sad and fighting mad.
Who would be madder than having this/his election stolen, yet he's working it, like a grown-up.
Gotta love him!
‘I asked to come. They allowed me to come’
Access to the White House press room was easy, former reporter Jeff Gannon tells NBC’s Campbell Brown in an exclusive interview
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7022981/
Today show
Updated: 9:09 a.m. ET Feb. 24, 2005
He has become infamous in Washington. A conservative White House reporter with a past he wanted to keep secret. NBC’s Campbell Brown talked with Jeff Gannon about his time in the White House and how he was so easily able to gain access to one of the country's most secure places.
He says he has been exposed by left-wing Internet bloggers who are trying to destroy his career. But at White House press briefings, Jeff Gannon was a regular:
Jeff Gannon: Since [there are] so many questions about what the president was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam?
And at another press conference:
White House press secretary Scott McClellan: Go ahead, Jeff.
Gannon: I would like a comment on the angry mob that surrounded Karl Rove's house on Sunday. The president said Thursday in his press conference that he was reaching out to the press corps. What did he mean by that? And why would he feel the need to reach out to a group of supposedly nonpartisan people?
His troubles started when he was called on by the president at a Jan. 26 news conference and took a swipe at Democrats with his question:
"...How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality," he asked the president.
Campbell Brown: Were you in that press conference as a plant by the White House?
Gannon: Absolutely not. I mean, look at it, Campbell. If the White House was going to use a plant, wouldn't they pick a better one than me?
Meaning someone without Gannon's past. Because when the liberal bloggers went digging to find out just who this guy was, they turned up some eyebrow-raising material.
Brown: You have said that you registered a number of pornographic Web sites. Is that accurate?
Gannon: Well, I registered a number of domain names, that some have suggested are…
Brown: Pornographic Web sites.
Gannon: Well, yes.
Brown: Did you advertise yourself as a gay, male escort for hire on a Web site?
Gannon: I cannot go into those specifics. I can tell you that there is a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of fabrication out there, and a lot of misinformation.
Brown: Why can't you then clear it up right now? The cameras are rolling.
Gannon: As I've said, I've been advised not to get into the specifics out there. Is there some truth out there? Yes. Is there a lot of falsehood out there? Absolutely.
But Jeff Gannon isn't really Jeff Gannon. He uses the pseudonym because his real name is difficult to pronounce, he says.
Gannon: My name is James Guckert.
Brown: James Guckert?
Gannon: Yes.
Brown: It's not so hard to pronounce.
Gannon: Well, when you read it, it's always pronounced some other way.
Brown: So, who was the White House clearing into those briefings every day? Was it James Guckert? Or was it…
Gannon: Yes.
Brown: Jeff Gannon?
Gannon: I go to the gate. I show my driver's license, which I showed you. It has my given name. And that's how I gained entry.
A quick check for a criminal record is all that's required. Gannon avoided the extensive FBI background check most reporters go through for permanent access.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan has said he did know Gannon wasn't using his real name, but that, "he, like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly.”
But was Gannon working for a real news organization?
His employer was an Internet site called GOP-USA, funded and staffed by Republican activists to promote a Republican agenda. He then worked for an off shoot site of GOP-USA called Talon News.
"In this day and age, when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is a journalist," said McClellan.
Brown: You don't deny you were writing news with a perspective, with a partisan perspective?
Gannon: Absolutely.
Some might say, how does a guy who works for an obscure, Internet publication, with a background that is linked to Internet porn in some fashion, get into the daily briefings and get to ask the president a question at a news conference?
Gannon: I asked to come. They allowed me to come. And apparently there isn't a very high threshold as far as somebody's personal life to gain access.
Democrats are jumping on this, accusing the White House of being lax about security and of manipulating the media. Several Democrats have signed a letter to the White House demanding further investigation.
I found this while searching around the internet, it is verrrrrry interesting.
Thanks to TIVO and video blogging, Bush's rare public appearances can now be shared over the Internet and put under close "linguistic" scrutiny. James Poling was shocked when he caught Bush in the act on 12/20/04:
This is very strange. What the hell is wrong with President Bush, and I don't mean in the "oh my God you lied and invaded a country way" I mean in, I think there's really something either mentally or physically wrong with him.
Watch this video! [Link to C-SPAN clip that no longer exists but archived here.] Go to 16:47 in the press conference and keep your eye on Bush. He is in the middle of speaking to the press and he suddenly drops his head and mumbles something and then immediately continues speaking. It is seriously one of the oddest things I've ever seen.
Can anyone tell what he says? What the hell was that?
Does he have tourettes? Is he talking into his tie? Did his shoe fall off? Seriously, I have never seen anything like this.
You can find the clip at the following link just forward it to 16:47. Just scroll down it is in the last part of the article.
http://blog.democrats.com/node/3519#comment
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I was just thinking something. If this was a Deomcratic administration, there would be so many special investigators and so many speical committees and so many special prosecutors running around reporting their findings, Democrats wouldn't be able to move around town without getting called before some commission to be hung out to dry. The MSM would be outing people with "BREAKING NEWS' like wildfire.
But, what do we have? Total silence. Foolish silence. Silence so corrupt and overpowering that it stinks like a dead whale left to rot on the beach. I guess we are stuck with the stench until it creeps into more noses.
The MSM
Posted by: tutterfly at February 24, 2005 02:47 PM
May I suggest that we call them the RWCM-Right Wing Corporate Media.
Also, totally OT-if any Ed Schultz fans want to see the pictures from Monday's live show in Boulder, go here...........
http://www.am760.net/jacor-common/globalphotos.html?eventID=28255&eventsection=&pagecontent=
~~"class action lawsuit reform" was the beginning...then came SS "reform"...next up for teamBu$h: "tax reform"...when they say "simplify the tax code", they mean less taxes on the investor class, more on the working class. This new appointee happens to be an "expert on tax policy", just in time to push teamBu$h's "tax reform". Something tells me this won't be good for the average taxpayer:
Bush promotes economic adviser
Thursday, February 24, 2005 CNN
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday promoted Harvey Rosen to be chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, the group that advises him on economic issues and prepares the administration's annual economic report to Congress.
Rosen is considered one of the country's leading experts on tax policy. One of Bush's top domestic goals in his second term is to overhaul the country's tax system to make it simpler.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/24/bush.economicadviser.ap/index.html
KD
This subject feels familiar, like at the end of the day no one knew what to make of it. It was at the time when he seemed less coherent and more jumpy, eyes blinking more than usual. Maybe anti-depressants. Maybe too much early drinking. Sure this capture wasn't of sometime earlier?
Lately, he seems to be off the appearance of meds, and now he is in your face, cocky cruel. No more Mr. Aw Shucks Nice Guy.
Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at February 24, 2005 03:17 PM
Would that be simpler for his ELITE BASE to rob the rest of us more?
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Marjorie, I can only go by the date, there is a link to where it is archived but my computer brings up PC language, so you might want to check that.
NO SURRENDER !!!
Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at February 24, 2005 03:17 PM
Something tells me a push for "leveling" the taxpayer playing field is in the offering with Rosen...
Translation: lower tax burden for the upper crust... or as I like to call it, Stale Bread.
nancyjane--
that works for me.
I had thought of Shills 'r Us media too.
or Lying for a Buck Medias (LBM)(le bums, how bout that for Andree?)
or Spun Stupid Media
geez, the list could be endless
tut-all of those are good. My main objection to MSM is that it's neonut terminology & we should have our own. They are criminaly inept.
nancyjane--
I agree. No matter what we call them, we have nothing until we prove they are dead and doing the work of the evil underworld.
Maybe we could just simplify it and call them the
Lifeless Media?
Would people then stop listening to a bunch of idiots who are happilly trying to get us all killed?
Or "the reporters formally known as the MSM?"
HOUSTON - The fraud and conspiracy trial of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling has been set for Jan. 17, 2006, a federal judge said Thursday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7025584/
Can I get a witness???
Army Awards Bonus to Halliburton for Supply Work
50 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army said on Thursday it had given bonuses to Texas company Halliburton for its logistical work in Kuwait and Afghanistan (news - web sites) but had not yet decided whether to give a performance-based bonus for disputed dining services to troops.
Army Field Support Command said in a statement it had given Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root ratings from "excellent" to "very good" for more than a dozen task orders for work supporting U.S. troops in Kuwait and Afghanistan.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&u=/nm/20050224/us_nm/iraq_halliburton_dc&printer=1
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Wal-Mart hit with $7.5M jury verdict
Jury found the discounter discriminated against a disabled employee; assigning him to garbage duty.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7025584/
February 24, 2005: 4:04 PM EST
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A New York jury ordered Wal-Mart to pay $7.5 million in damages to a disabled former employee in a class-action lawsuit in which he claimed the retailer unfairly reassigned him to garbage duty even though he was hired to work in the pharmacy department.
The plaintiff, 21-year-old Long Island resident Patrick Brady, suffers from cerebral palsy. According to the plaintiff's attorney Douglas Wigdor, Brady applied for a position in the pharmacy unit of a Wal-Mart store in Centereach, NY. and was hired in the summer of 2002.
But Brady, who worked for just four days before he quit, claimed he was soon reassigned to other responsibilities that included collecting garbage and shopping carts in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Name for the media corpse you say?
How about the Rip Van Winkle Society?
Wait, let's write to Polly Sigh and ask him/her/it?
Ahhhhhhhhhhh...savor that new thread smell........