Diebold in CA- Machinations Behind Closed Doors

The Seven Reasons NOT to Certify Diebold

November 21, 2005

CALIFORNIA ELECTION PROTECTION NETWORK

A non-partisan organization of over 25 groups across California

coming together to achieve their mutual election integrity goals

Sacramento. Today was an exhilarating day in Sacramento. Deja vu of 

The last Diebold hearing, this new attempt to certify Diebold wares once

again raised the near-unanimous ire of concerned citizens. The passion

and dedication of the people attending was palpable. To witness more

than 125 citizens, journeying great distances--on short notice and on 

a short holiday week--who all came together to defend the integrity of

our democratic processes, was to witness the real "Patriot Act."

Without the dedication and vigilance of these activists, other

concerned citizens would never have known that behind closed doors, 

the machinery of the Secretary of State's office was in high gear ready to

certify Diebold.

Testing Diebold

Diebold suffered some setbacks earlier this year trying to meet the 

New state requirement for a voter verified paper audit trail. In its

initial test this summer, the AccuView printer attachment to the TSx

model touch screen voting machine had a staggering 30% performance

failure rate. Diebold made adjustments, resubmitted, and reportedly

passed a second test in September, clearing the way for rectifying the

Tsp machines in four counties where they've been suspended since 

spring

2004.

Test Results: Passing With a Weak Thumb's Up

California's official voting equipment certification tester, Steve

Freeman, issued a slightly qualified "thumbs up" for Diebold. Freeman

applied his stamp of approval despite the fact that he did not run

tests on the specific security holes revealed by computer security

experts Avi Rubin, Herbert Thompson and Harry Hursti, which

Blackboxvoting.org later applied in demonstrations of undetected

vote-switching conducted under simulated election conditions. As one

election official (who asked not to be identified) said of the State's

passing grade on the testing results, "Isn't it like examining a

patient for small pox and proudly announcing that their teeth are

clean?"

Aces Up Sleeves?

Jim March of Blackboxvoting.org provided the most riveting and 

Colorful overview of the various new ways recording and tabulation can be 

Hacked on Diebold equipment. His gift for explaining technical

intricacies kept the audience on the edge of their seats. After

detailing uncorrected software and hardware defects in Diebold voting

systems that remain standing invitations to vote fraud, March noted

Diebold continued refusal to release its source code for testing, or 

To identify the authors responsible. March concluded his remarks with 

This advice to public officials promoting the use of Diebold voting

machines, "If you don't want to be accused of cheating at cards, don't

let aces fall out of your sleeves at every step."

The Seven Reasons NOT to Certify Diebold

Numerous members of the California Election Protection Network (CEPN)

delivered spoken testimony. The CEPN also entered into the record 

their press advisory titled "Seven Reason NOT to Certify Diebold."

[Attachment 1].

SB370: Cart Before the Horse

Michelle Gabriel of the Voting Rights Task Force and CEPN, raised an

excellent point about the recent passage of SB370. (SB370 will allow

voters to read their hard earned and soon to be required accessible

voter verified paper trail upon the event an audit.) Yet to satisfy 

the impending SB370 Gabriel something to the effect of, No one has yet

bothered to test under real life conditions, whether its practical, or

even possible to do an audit using Diebold's AccuView printer and its

roller-fed, thermal-paper tape. Let's test this equipment for all its

required tasks BEFORE certifying it, because the Secretary of State's

Office has NO right to risk the security of our next election with

untested election machines.

Diebold Groups Surprising About-Face

In a surprise about-face, all of the disabled groups represented at

Monday's hearing went on record against certifying the Diebold

equipment, stating that it simply does not meet their specific needs.

Over the past two years many disabled groups have lobbied and 

Litigated forcefully for the adoption of Diebold-type voting systems. There has

been much speculation about the motives behind such pro-Diebold

efforts, considering that the Diebold campaigning began AFTER Diebold

made a six-figure contribution to the largest national association of

the blind.

Disabled Groups & HAVA

The reversal by disability groups at Monday's hearing is very

significant, because the most forceful influence driving county

elections officials to the purchase of DRE (touch screen) voting

machines like the Diebold TsX has been the threat of lawsuits brought

by the disabled against election officials resisting the switch to DRE

voting systems. There is a pervasive misconception, actively promoted

by DRE vendors and supporters, that the Help America Vote Act (HAVA)

requires touch screen (DRE) voting systems as the only suitable means

to address disabled voting needs. HAVA merely requires that voting

systems enable disabled persons to vote independently, and there are

non-computerized voting solutions that meet this condition. [See,

http://www.votersunite.org/info/accessibility.asp ] Further, last year

a federal court decision clearly stated that the rights of the 

disabled cannot come at the expense of the majority of voters. [ See

http://evotingcase.notlong.com ]

HAVA: "Use it or Lose it"

The major threat driving voting system purchasing decisions has been

the HAVA funds' "Use it or Lose it" deadline, set for the stroke of

midnight at the end of this year. County elections officials who have

found the voting equipment options offered them unacceptable, given 

the confusion about which federal standards may eventually be required,

wish to avoid hasty purchases they may later regret. Many would prefer

to forego the one-time federal funding bonanza and wait for better

voting systems to be developed under clear federal standards.

HAVA & DOJ Enforcement

But now a new pressure is being applied to force purchase decisions 

For DRE equipment. At the time of last summer's second Carter-Baker

Commission, which addressed the public's eroding confidence in our

voting systems, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement

announcing that state election departments that failed to make

arrangements for equipment upgrades effective by Jan. 1, 2006 would be

visited by Department of Justice (DOJ) investigators. Marin County

election official Madelyn DeJusto recently said, "And when you get a

visit from them [the DOJ] they don't go away."

Hold on HAVA

Megan Matson of Mainstreet Moms Operation Blue (MOB) [

http://www.themmob.com ] eloquently presented her organization's idea

for a "Hold on HAVA" campaign, in solidarity with the National 

Alliance of County Officials (NACO). This national elections official

organization seeks to extend the HAVA deadline for two years. In a

recent impassioned plea to members of Congress, NACO explained that

they have no "crystal ball" to see what equipment will be certified.

Further, the Election Assistance Commission--the four-person panel

charged with supervising the enactment of HAVA--is months behind its

own deadlines for setting these standards. [See, Attachment 2]

The "No Hearing Hearing"

Much has already been written about the peculiar nature of today's

certification hearing [See, http://tinyurl.com/c6g4v ] The hastily

assembled delegation of Election Division officials before whom the

citizens spoke on Monday has no decision-making role. Those officers 

do not even have an advisory role in this certification decision. Under

former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, there had been a Voting

Systems and Procedures Panel expressly charged with advising the

Secretary of State. No longer. Those sitting in chairs on stage Monday

were props in a show of minimal compliance with the certification

procedure's hearing requirement. Our good citizens who pleaded for

election integrity can only hope that perhaps Secretary McPherson or

someone he designates may possibly read and consider any of their

remarks before issuing a decision on Diebold certification. California

Sen. Koretz (Dem) is the first legislator to question this break with

previously established protocol for seriously considering citizen

comment. [See Attachment 3]

Media Coverage of Today's Events?

Given the nearly total blackout in the mainstream press on questions

raised by recent elections, citizen activists were heartened to see an

unprecedented turnout by the news media for Monday's voting system

certification hearing. Longtime Sacramento media consultant Cress

Vellucci exclaimed, "I've never seen this much media show up for this

kind of event." TV camera crews were dispatched by two local NPR

television affiliates and Sacramento's Channel 3. Radio reporters from

KQED, KPFA, KPFK and a CNN affiliate recorded and conducted interviews

during the demonstration. Writers were assigned by the AP wire,

Stockton Press, Oakland Tribune, Sacramento Bee, and Sacramento

Reporter.

Where's the Media on Election Integrity?

Curiously, to date, not a single news agency of national stature has

even mentioned the highly critical 117-page report issued by the

Government Accountability Office (GAO) of October 12, 2005, which

catalogs widespread electronic voting failures and warns of 

continuing,unattended security risks in the nation's voting systems. [See,

http://tinyurl.com/bv6f6 ]

New Opportunities for Coverage

The first articles breaking the events of earlier today have

sidestepped the issues of Diebold voting systems' insufficiencies and

the company's history of election law violations, choosing instead to

feature the State's contention that the systems have the passed the

requisite tests.

Where in the World is Bruce?

The integrity of California elections is now in the lap of Governor

Schwarzenegger's appointed Secretary of State Bruce McPherson (Rep). 

He did not bother to descend from his upstairs office to hear the

testimony of citizens in the auditorium. But two others interested in

his job--State Sen. Debra Bowen (Dem) and Forrest Hill (Grn) were both

present and keenly attentive to the Diebold hearing issues.

What's Next Behind Closed Doors? "Good Night and Good Luck"

What's Next will take place Behind Closed Doors: There is a closed

meeting next week in Sacramento, to be held at the Hyatt Regency on

November 27-28. [ See,

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vst_summit.htm ] Its stated

agenda is to discuss the conditions of certification and "best

practices."  Some of the invited officials are known to be those who

have openly flouted election code and zealously supported relaxed

election integrity standards. Yet, on balance, no one was invited from

our steering committee, despite the fact that we are a non-partisan

organization of over 25 groups across California dedicated to election

integrity. We have been tipped off by an election insider that we will

are blacklisted from participating in this summit.  While we would 

like to believe that it is a misunderstanding only time will tell. In the

meantime, we do have rejection letters from Bruce

McDannold of McPherson's office stating that we cannot attend, but 

That we may rest assured that our views will be represented. [See,

Attachment 4]  We wonder how Bruce McDannold can make that assurance?

After reviewing the summit's agenda, we know that there are three

attendees, computer scientists, who share our concerns. But they speak

from a computer expert perspective--not ours.

We Can Do It Right!

If the Secretary of State is indeed blacklisting the CEPN, an

organization who has demonstrated its desire, ability and knowledge in

the discussion voting integrity, we respectfully ask for

reconsideration.  Democracy is at a critical juncture:  At the 

November 27-28 Summit California will determine its future election practices

for years to come, and attendance by our informed citizens is not only

desirable, but necessary.

__________________________________________

[Attachment 1]

Seven Reasons NOT to Certify Diebold

1.      The GEMS Defect

         Reported by BOE Harris and Dr. Herbert Thompson, and 

Independently confirmed by the security consultant firm Compuware on commission from

the state of Ohio, the GEMS Defect concerns the central vote 

tabulating database that accumulates all the precinct and absentee votes for all

Diebold optical scan and touch-screen voting systems. Despite

assurances by Diebold, records obtained by Black Box Voting show that

this issue has not been resolved in either California or Ohio, or

apparently any of the other 1,200 jurisdictions that use Diebold. A

critical set of Compuware documents confirming this was suppressed by

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Votergate the Movie  available for free download [

http://www.votergate.tv ] contains footage from a national TV 

broadcast

of Bev Harris instructing Howard Dean how to hack GEMS and untraceably

alter vote tallies in under two minutes. Additional vulnerabilities

have since been found and publicized at http://www.blackboxvoting.org.

   "By successfully directing Canvas [commercial software] at the GEMS

modem interface, the team was able to remotely upload, download and

execute files with full system administrator privileges. All that was

required was a valid phone number for the GEMS server."

--Trusted Agent Report, Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting System,January 20,

2004

Prepared  for the Maryland General Assembly by: RABA Innovative

Solution Cell (RiSC)

2.      Stuffing the Electronic Ballot Box with Diebold Memory Cards

         Finnish computer expert Harry Hursti, in cooperation with the

elections administration of Leon County, Florida, has demonstrated in

real-world voting conditions that executable code on the memory cards

integral to the operation of  Diebold optical scanners and touchscreens can be 

quickly manipulated to change vote counts without detection.

Brief account:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/

5921.html?1117238594#POST6997

Full report:   http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf

         California's voting systems testing consultant Steve Freeman 

Has confirmed that Diebold's proprietary programming language AccuBasic

writes "report files used to configure AccuVote-OS and AccuVote-TS

report contents and printing in precinct count mode. They are actually

loaded into the memory cards for the AV-OS and AV-TS where their logic

is executed.

. . . The risk occurs in the opportunity to replace the verified file

with some other .abo file . . . or by replacing the current code with

rewritten code performing other operations."

         Commenting on Freeman's report, Black Box Voting notes that 

it is

possible to insert fraudulent code onto the memory cards that is

date-specific, so that it will pass Logic & Accuracy testing pre- or

post-election but trigger pre-planned manipulations on election day.

         Invoking California Election Code 19202, Black Box Voting 

Formally requested Secretary of State McPherson to conduct a replication of the

Hursti memory card exploits for the Diebold touchscreen and optical

scan systems. Six months later, California still has not performed 

this test.

3.      Inauditable Absentee Ballots on Diebold Optical Scanners

         Just prior to the recent statewide election, technical 

Experts assigned by the Libertarian Party to inspect Diebold systems in San

Joaquin, Marin, and Alameda counties found that in the Diebold 

"central count" optical scanners, "a critical paper audit component is missing

for all absentee and mail-in ballots, and also for recounts."

         Diebold's central count scanners are unable to write backup 

Data to memory storage, instead passing all vote counting directly to the

notoriously insecure GEMS tabulator. No "poll tapes" or secondary

source of data is retained, and there is no way to check whether the

GEMS security defect was exploited without obtaining the GEMS vote 

Data files. Diebold refuses to release these files.

4.     The Secretary of State's Own Tech Advisors Are Warning Against

Diebold

         Below are excerpts from a technical review commissioned by 

 Secretary McPherson concerning the AVVPAT printer module added to the TSx

machines. The report, titled "Analysis of Volume Testing of the

AccuVote TSx/AccuView" is available at

http://ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/ 

vstaab_volume_test_report.pdf

p. 7: "... It is possible that these failures are a sign of a large

number of other latent software defects."

"... this issue warrants further investigation before any modified

versions of the TSx are certified."

"The fundamental barrier to analysis of these software errors is the

lack of access to source code ... we have no way to perform such an

independent evaluation.  This is a very unsatisfying position to be 

in."

p. 8: "We believe these failures constitute one of the strongest

arguments for the State of California to take possession of, or

otherwise arrange for unfettered access to, the full source code and

binary executables for all electronic voting machines." ... there is 

no

way to know whether the defects have been fixed satisfactorily (as

opposed to just hidden), or whether they represent symptoms of more

serious architectural flaws, without access to the source."

5.    The Federal and State Voting System Certification Process is

Broken

         Two testing labs in Huntsville, Alabama --Ciber Labs, run by 

Shawn Southworth, and a Wyle Labs office supervised by Jim Dearman--are

responsible for repeatedly certifying defective voting machines that

violate Federal Election Commission (FEC) standards.

         The limited functionality testing performed by these 

Federally contracted "independent testing authorities" (that derive at least a

third of their funding directly from the voting system vendors they 

are inspecting) and by California's consultant Steve Freeman, does not 

test