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David L. Dill, http://www.verifiedvoting.org
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CONTENTS
* VerifiedVoting.org Incorporates as Non-Profit, Begins Fundraising
* Our web site has a new look
* H.R.2239/S.1980 Report (and Boxer's New Bill)
* Good News!! Serve Program Cancelled
* VerifiedVoting.org Uncovers Proof of Votes Lost BY DREs
* Raba Technologies Hacks into Diebold Machines with the Greatest of Ease
* Wexler's Lawsuit for a Paper Trail in Florida Gets a Hearing
* Mississippi Senate Declares Last November's Election Invalid
* Additional Security Measures Ordered for the California Primary
* Twin VVPT Bills Introduced into Minnesota House and Senate
* ES&S Causes Illegal Elections in Indiana
* National Day of Student Action, Feb. 25
* VerifiedVoting.org Sponsored its First Press Conference
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VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG INCORPORATES AS NON-PROFIT, BEGINS FUNDRAISING
VerifiedVoting.org is now an "org"!
VerifiedVoting has operated for more than 8 months on the efforts of a core
team of volunteers with no funding other than their time and what they pay
for themselves.
We are inspired by the progress that the paper trail movement has achieved
over the last 13 months, and we are proud of our contributions to those
accomplishments. But we recognize that we are engaged in a serious battle
against people with the resources to hire lobbyists and PR firms to spin the
issue. We need funding that will allow our views to be heard concerning this
matter of national urgency.
VerifiedVoting.org has incorporated as a 501(c)(4) non-profit, which means
that we can engage in political activity, but that contributions are not
tax-deductible.
We can now accept on-line contributions. If you have questions or need
further information, please contact us at contact@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG HAS A NEW LOOK!
As we approached incorporation, we decided that a new logo was in order. We
held a contest, selected our favorite from a selection of wonderful entries,
and asked the winning designer to join our team. This led to the
development of a new "look and feel" with improved navigation. The first
phase of the redesign was launched today. Be sure to visit the site to see
the changes. And if you have updated information for our state pages,
please let us know.
H.R.2239/S.1980 REPORT (AND BOXER'S NEW BILL)
H.R.2239 now has 114 co-sponsors, including 7 Republicans. There are no
official co-sponsors for S.1980, but we are expecting good news soon. On
another note, Senator John Edwards is now a co-sponsor of Senator Clinton's
bill (S.1986). S.1986 does not mandate a voter-verifiable paper trail, nor
does it require disclosed source code or surprise recounts.
VerifiedVoting.org does not support Clinton's bill.
Senator Barbara Boxer has introduced a bill (S.2045) that is very similar to
S.1980. Much of the language is copied directly from H.R.2239.
VerifiedVoting.org will post an analysis of the bills next week. Watch for
it in the Important Announcements.
Many of you are visiting your Congress people. Great! Please keep it up.
Guidelines for visiting legislators or staff are here:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/town_meeting_resources.asp
GOOD NEWS!! SERVE PROGRAM CANCELLED
February 5, 2004, the Department of Defense, citing security concerns,
cancelled the Secure Electronic Registration and Voter Experiment (SERVE)
designed to allow U.S. military personnel and civilians living overseas to
cast an absentee ballot over the Internet.
http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/politics-0/1076
016241230950.xml
That's the bottom line! Here's the sequence of some events that preceded
this excellent news.
1) January 22, 2004, David Wagner, Avi Rubin, David Jefferson, and Barbara
Simons - commissioned to analyze SERVE - released their report recommending
that SERVE be shut down because the current Internet architecture could not
be made secure.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/01/21/internet.voting/index.html
2) Shortly after the report was released, organizations from both parties
appealed to both Congress and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to cancel
SERVE. The organizations included Republicans Abroad and Democrats Abroad,
as well as several others whose primary concern is for Americans overseas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61273-2004Jan29.html
3) A few days later, on February 2, in an expected move, the DoD cancelled
the test of SERVE scheduled for South Carolina, stating that the system was
not yet certified.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/technology/0402/03/technology-53859.htm
Then on February 5, 2004, SERVE died. ROP. Congratulations, David Wagner,
Avi Rubin, David Jefferson, and Barbara Simons for a job well done!!
We applaud the Department of Defense for heeding the advice of the experts
and taking the necessary precautions to protect the votes of Americans
living abroad. We encourage the states to follow the Pentagon's lead and act
on the advice of the experts who are warning of the insecurity and
unreliability of paperless electronic voting.
VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG UNCOVERS PROOF OF VOTES LOST BY DREs
November 2002 was not so long ago that links to election articles don't
still get passed around in emails. An article on lost votes in Wake County,
North Carolina, is one example When VerifiedVoting.org received the link, we
called the Director of Elections to find out the type of machine. The
conversation revealed more than we had anticipated. Here's the brief
version.
Flawed software on ES&S iVotronic touch screens caused 436 ballot to be lost
in the 2002 Wake County election in North Carolina. While there have been
many reported cases of anomalies in elections using touch screen machines
(such as the 134 blank ballots cast on iVotronic machines in Florida's
January 2004 election), this is the first case in which the software was the
undisputed cause.
The malfunction occurred in the one-stop, early voting process. Ms. Cherie
Poucher, the Director of Elections, acquired absentee ballot applications
from all the people who voted on the touch screens that day. When her staff
discovered that the machine counters did not match the number of ballot
applications, they realized there was a problem. Ms. Poucher and her staff
examined the sequence numbers in the audit data, compared them to the
numbers on the absentee ballot applications, and were able to identify the
voters whose votes had not been recorded by the iVotronic machines. They
contacted the affected voters, and all but 78 of the 436 recast their votes
on optical scan ballots.
ES&S admitted the problem was caused by flawed software. They even
acknowledged that Jackson County, which was using the same firmware version
as Wake County, had encountered the same problem two days earlier. But ES&S
did not attempt to replace the firmware in Wake County until they were
contacted by Ms. Poucher about the missing votes on the machines her county
was using.
Ms. Poucher billed ES&S almost $6000 for the expenses she incurred
contacting the voters whose votes were lost by the malfunctioning machines.
ES&S paid the bill. (For complete details, see:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/documents/RaleighElection2002.pdf)
RABA TECHNOLOGIES HACKS INTO DIEBOLD MACHINES WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE
Computer security experts at Raba Technologies, hired by Maryland's
legislative services department to hack Diebold voting machines, found that
flaws in the machines could result in malicious insiders or outsiders
stealing an election. Their report stated that the Diebold machines did
accurately count the votes but could be compromised. The full report is
here:
http://www.raba.com/press/TA_Report_AccuVote.pdf
William Arbaugh, a University of Maryland assistant professor of computer
science who participated in the test, said the researchers found a
"gauntlet" of problems, including a security hole that let them remotely
dial in to the voting terminals and get administrative control of the
machines. "We could have done anything we wanted to," Arbaugh said. "We
could change the ballots (before the election) or change the votes during
the election."
Meanwhile, Diebold President Bob Urosevich said in a press release that the
Raba Technologies report confirmed "the accuracy and security of Maryland's
voting procedures and our voting systems as they exist today."
Karl Aro, director of Maryland's legislative services department, told the
television station he was pleased with the report from Raba. "It is a
validation that the system is ready to work in March," he said.
In her Wired News article (much of which is quoted in this newsletter item),
Kim Zetter included this terrific quote from Avi Rubin, "They took a study
that was highly critical of them and claimed victory. I don't understand the
continuous need to insist that things are OK."
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62109,00.html
Note that this is the FOURTH Diebold-condemning report that Maryland has
seems to be ignoring - the second that Maryland itself has commissioned.
WEXLER'S LAWSUIT FOR A PAPER TRAIL IN FLORIDA GETS A HEARING
February 6, 2004 was the hearing for Representative Wexlers lawsuit against
Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood and Palm Beach County Supervisor of
Elections Theresa LePore. The suit was prompted by the 134 unexplained
undervotes on iVotronic machines in January's special election, and the fact
that the invalid ballots could not be manually recounted as required by
Florida law. The defense argued that the venue isn't the right one, that the
case should be tried in Tallahassee.
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/palm_beach_news/article/0,1651,TCP_1020_2637499,00
.html
About 75 voting activists, including members of Florida Grassroots Project,
were there providing very vocal support for Wexler - even though there were
too many to allow in the courtroom. At this time, there is no indication of
when Judge Karen Miller will make her ruling, but we await it with
impatience.
Wexler claims touch screens are illegal because they don't produce tangible
ballots and therefore don't allow a manual recount as state law requires in
close elections.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/webreturn/?url=http://www.house.gov/wexl
er
Palm Beach County commissions got the county out of the lawsuit by agreeing
to add printers to all the county's touch-screens.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pprinters04feb04,0,9040
31.story?coll=sfla-news-palm
In fact, commissioners in all three of Florida's three most populous
counties - Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade- took a stance in favor of a
voter-verified paper trail. "The tri-county coalition voted unanimously to
send state legislators a letter endorsing a paper trail." Sequoia, the
manufacturer of Palm Beach County's touch-screen machines, immediately
offered to supply printers at $500 each, once they are developed and
certified - which may not be until after the November election.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/tuesday/news_
04518e8231cb02880029.html
MISSISSIPPI SENATE DECLARES LAST NOVEMBER'S ELECTION INVALID
In the November 2003 election, Hinds County, Mississippi used the WINnVote
touchscreen machine (the same as the one used in Fairfax County, Virginia
disastrous election). Poll workers had trouble starting the machines, some
of the machines overheated and had to be taken out of service, poll workers
were scrambling to find enough paper ballots, and many voters left with
polls without voting because of the long delays.
http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0311/04/mvproblems.html
The problems were investigated by a Mississippi Senate committee, and on
January 19, it recommended invalidating the outcome of the race for the
District 91 Senate seat and holding the election over. Two days later, the
Senate approved the recommendation. The new election is set for February 10.
The last we heard the Democratic candidate, Dewayne Thomas, was considering
pulling out of the race and conceding to his opponent, Richard White. We
hope Thomas doesn't allow faulty machines to determine an outcome that
should be decided by the voters.
http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0401/21/ma04.html
ADDITIONAL SECURITY MEASURES ORDERED FOR THE CALIFORNIA PRIMARY
February 5, 2004, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ordered county
elections officials to implement additional security measures for the March
2, 2004 primary to protect voters against problems that could arise from the
use of new computerized voting machines.
Among the measures are state testing of randomly selected voting machines in
every county on election day. These 'parallel monitoring' tests will be
designed, conducted and recorded by independent experts. California is the
first state to implement this requirement, which has been recommended by
voting security experts. Shelley also directed that the source code for the
Diebold TSx be provided to his office prior to the election. The source code
will be reviewed by independent experts selected by the Secretary of State.
http://myvotecounts.ca.gov/dre.pdf
In a related article, Mercury News reports that only one county registrar of
14 who responded to inquiries said she planned to implement specific steps
recommended by the RABA report (discussed above), and that registrars in
only three counties said they had read the report.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/7885748.htm?template=content
Modules/printstory.jsp
NOTE: If you are a California voter and prefer to vote on a paper ballot
rather than a DRE, be sure to apply for your absentee ballot before February
24!
TWIN VVPT BILLS INTRODUCED INTO MINNESOTA HOUSE AND SENATE
On February 2, 2004, Representative Eric Lipman introduced H.F.1703 into the
House. On the same day, Senators Dan Sparks and Linda Higgins introduced a
companion bill (S.F. 1666) into the Senate. Not only do these bills require
a voter-verifiable paper trail, they require that all ballots be optical
scan ballots. So any touch screens the state buys must be ballot-generators,
not DREs. You can read the full text of HF1703 here:
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/cgi-bin/getbill.pl?number=HF1703&session=
ls83&version=latest&session_number=0&session_year=2004
Those of you who are from Minnesota, be sure to contact your state
legislators and urge them to enact these bills quickly!!
ES&S CAUSES ILLEGAL ELECTIONS IN INDIANA
"Members of the Johnson County Election Board on Thursday blasted a
representative from Election Systems & Software for providing allegedly
illegal voting equipment during last year's general election. The state's
election commission had not certified the software used in the machines as
reliable and accurate, which meant counties should not have used it." This
means, of course, that Indiana held an illegal election, compliments of
ES&S.
The bad news is, "There is no penalty under Indiana law for using illegal
equipment to conduct an election." It's a short article, but it's a good
read:
http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/118206-8957-009.html
This from another article: "The Indiana Election Commission is issuing a
subpoena to ES&S, requiring the company explain why it provided Wayne, Henry
and Johnson counties, and possibly three more counties, with voting
equipment that had not been certified as accurate and approved for use in
Indiana."
http://www.pal-item.com/news/stories/20040124/localnews/289055.html
NATIONAL DAY OF STUDENT ACTION, FEB. 25
On February 25, 2004, VerifiedVoting.org is planning a national day of
student action. The campaign, organized by volunteer Lisa Dangutis, aims to
get a million student signatures on petitions supporting H.R.2239/S.1980.
The signed petitions will be mailed to Congress. We hope the petition drive
will both inform university students and garner support for the bills.
VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG SPONSORED ITS FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE
On Thursday, February 5, 2004, VerifiedVoting.org sponsored a telephone
press conference. Barbara Simons and Avi Rubin were available to answer
questions from the press about the SERVE program and how their analysis
applied to the Michigan primary. The turnout was small but impressive: CNN,
Wired News, Computer World, and George Washington University reporters
attended. A short spot on CNN Thursday night mentioned a group opposing
Internet voting in Michigan because of possible hacking. Thanks to Harper
West for organizing the press conference and for bringing this CNN spot to
our attention.
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