VOTE FRAUD IS OUT OF CONTROL
But the public doesn't grasp its implications for them!
Copyright © 1995-2008 by Thomas E. Harries, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved
Notice: This page is now being updated for the 2008 election.
THIS PAGE IS THE ORIGINAL ARCHIVED VOTE FRAUD PAGE.
IT HAS BEEN REPLACED AND IS BEINGUPDATED BY AREVISED VOTE FRAUD FOR THE 2008 ELECTIONS.
CLICK HERE
TO VISIT THE NEW AND UPDATED VOTE FRAUD PAGE.

CURRENT
Recount of New Hampshire voting approved, January 14, 2008.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from

the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important

for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy

of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the [fascistic] State."

Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister

Hitler's Third Reich

AND SO WE CAN ASK,
"WHY THE GREAT NATIONAL HUSH ABOUT VOTE FRAUD?"
Where is the public outrage?
Where is national legislation to counter it?
[NOTE: since convincing evidence of corrupted votes emerged immediately after the 2004 election,
the problem of corrupted electronic voting machines remained practically ignored by all but a few
professional engineers and investigative journalists. But in the two months prior to the election of 2006,
there was a burst of publicity from a few mainstream journalists, and a growing public awareness
has finally begun to develop as to the nature and extent of this threat. The one program in the main stream media
who has picked up on this challenge and followed it is Lou Dobbs Tonight (CNN, 6:00 pm Eastern)]

THIS IS AN APPEAL TO MEET THE STILL WIDELY UNAPPRECIATED NEED TO
ADDRESS GROWING CORPORATE INSTIGATED VOTE FRAUD THAT WAS
INTENDED TO GUARANTEE THAT THE 2006-2008 ELECTIONS WOULD GO TO THE
CHOSEN CANDIDATES OF THE BUSH-CHENEY MACHINE.

The evidence below will show that, beginning with the election of 2000,
under the shield of the "big lie," a slow motion coup d'etat has been
unfolding in which our government's focus on the rights and needs
of the American public has steadily been replaced by overpowering and
unaccountable corporate control made possible and assured by election fraud.
Corporate control and national governments grow to equal each other!

[NOTE: early assessment of the 2006 mid term election results confirm the
accuracy of this thesis which has been posted here since the spring of 2006.
Click here for current and growing evidence of 2006 election fraud]

Unless quickly reversed, this dangerous and brazen initiative is a portent of the relentless trend toward
total corporate dominance of this nation, the loss of individual rights, the loss of
redress by democratic processes and the risk of widespread enslavement of
the public to corporate rule outside of remedies via the vote.

AS THE PUBLIC BECOMES AWARE OF THIS TREND OF OUT-OF-CONTROL CORPORATE POWER,
RIGHT WING VOTE FRAUD BECOMES REQUIRED
TO MAINTAIN THEIR POLITICAL CONTROL OF THIS NATION.

THIS PROBLEM TRANSCENDS TRADITIONAL POLITICS
BECAUSE IT DEALS WITH A THREAT THAT IS BECOMING
A STAKE IN THE HEART OF OUR DEMOCRACY

QUICK LINKS
TO ITEMS ON THIS PAGE

CONVENIENT LIST OF LINKS MENTIONED ON THESE PAGES

UPDATES BASED ON 2006 MIDTERM ELECTION RESULTS

Introduction

Samples of Actions to protect State, County and Local Elections

Smith Letter: Supervisor of Elections re unaddressed fraud potential

Follow-up letter to Smith,

Letter to the Editor: Johnstown Tribune-Democrat

Letter to Harry VanSickle, Pennsylvania Commissioner of BCEL
reply to his unsatisfactory response to my Smith letter that was sent to him by John P Murtha, US Representative from Cambria County

Brief presentation to Cambria County PA Commissioners

Summary: Why the Urgent Need to Challenge Vote fraud in America

Invisible Ballots: a resource for personal and community awareness

UPDATES

Response by Diebold to Allegheny Councils' recommendation against Diebold

SUMMARY OF LINKS TO VOTE FRAUD BACKGROUND AND DOCUMENTATION
DURING THE 2006 PRE-ELECTION PERIOD

THE MOST SERIOUS DANGER TO OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
IS NOT THE PRESENCE OF VOTE FRAUD ITSELF, AS TROUBLESOME AS IT IS!

The real problem that must be confronted and removed is the enormous reservoir of evil upon which
the apparatus of vote fraud floats. The core element of this evil is an implacable lust for
power and control by organizations that are unaccountable to the electorate
for the conditions they create solely to advance and protect their unilateral self interest. For this reason,
the most urgent priority for the new Congress must not only be the creation of legislation
to empower the detection and removal of any and all efforts to perpetrate election fraud,
but to create strong and enforceable regulations that impose severe punishments for
both those that design, and those that implement election fraud in any form.

THE SYMPTOMS OF EVIL: Important Background and Context

The urgent problem of vote fraud must be understood in context in order that the scale of the threat can be fully understood. As you study the mind blowing scale and scope of the information provided in the links below, ask yourself, in the presence of abysmal pre-election polls showing extremely low public confidence in the President and Republican dominated Congress, why was the Republican right wing not more concerned about the wrath of the electorate costing them their seats in the 2006 and 2008 elections? Ask why they were not sufficiently concerned to stop the kind of atrocities noted in the links below against our way of life and our Democracy. The 2006 Dubai Ports World, Inc. scandal is only the most recent and over reaching of the pattern that has evolved since 2000. As of this date, the promise of Dubai Ports World to place all operational port controls with American companies has not been fulfilled.

The one answer that holds up is that, prior to November 7, 2006 mid term election, the Republican Congress (including right wing Democrats) were certain of re-election because they had been told by their right wing inner sanctum, that THE FIX IS IN, for those who faithfully adhere to the corporate party line. The Bush-Cheney vote fraud machinery was intended to insure their re-election to Congress in the 2006-2008 elections.

The link below documents the unmistakable fascistic trend being orchestrated by this administration, one reason why they MUST resort to vote fraud as the public slowly begins to awaken to this reality.
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
also
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/04/30/bush-claims-he-has-author_n_20085.html

********

This link below documents the ongoing array of over 1,300 right wing attacks on the needs and rights of the electorate and our Democracy itself, through this administration in 18 categories related to American values, needs, and wants:.
http://www.thousandreasons.org/reasons.php

********

Also read Professor Mark Crispin Miller's article called, Let's Get Real, which links the "Big Lie" strategy of the Bush-Cheney fraud machine with the philosophy of the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, who is quoted on top of this page.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1692/

**********

In order to further consolidate corporate power that is independent (of US laws) that was begun with the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NFTA,) there is evidence of Bush-Cheney actions through the largely secret Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that have implications that are outright treasonous. These action are found in their machinations intending to create a NORTH AMERICAN UNION which dissolves the geographic boundaries of the United States between Mexico and Canada. This effort is potentially treasonous because:

There are no provisions in the Constitution for such an arrangement

It is an outright violation of certain Constitutional provisions

The effort is being done largely in secret through the CFR to avoid required Congressional involvement and public knowledge

It would destroy numerous safeguards that assure the territorial, economic, and political integrity of the United States

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14965
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Union

NOTE: because of the total dominance of corporate control of the main stream media (MSM) including the Public Broadcasting System whose Board of Directors is tightly controlled by corporate linked right wing extremists, there is chronic systematic distortion, filtering, and obstruction of news and information that is supportive of the rights and needs of the middle and lower economic classes in this country. This prejudice and unfairness alone constitutes a major threat to the continuance and health of our Constitutional Democracy that has already been replaced by a corporocracy. [definition]

PRE ELECTION 2006 INFORMATION RESOURCES ON VOTE FRAUD:
The following links are focused on the history and problems related to fraudulent electronic voting devices and precinct protocols in the elections of 2000 and 2004, with respect to what must be done to protect the electorate (YOU) in the coming election of 2008.

Following is a link to June 2, 2006, Rolling Stone Magazine article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. His article meticulously documents the entire scope and scale of 2004 vote fraud in Ohio. This article is sufficiently credible with numerous valid citations that it could be qualified as the first Chapter of a Ph.D. Dissertation (Statement of the Problem.)
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

As a result of that article, Solon, an on-line magazine printed an attack article by Farhad Manjoo in which he criticized the accuracy and depth of the Kennedy article. That attack was responded to by Mark Crispin Miller, a nationally recognized authority on vote fraud that Manjoo also attacked in his article. Below is a link to Miller's response to the Salon article by Manjoo. It appears in the Huffington Post because Salon refused to publish Miller's scholarly assessment in rebuttal to Manjoo's piece.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-crispin-miller/some-might-call-it-treaso_b_23187.html

This link provides a complete summery of representative articles documenting vote fraud, and the attacks on whistleblowers who have acted to prevent it. Note especially the boxed summary by Mark Crispin Miller near the top of the page:
http://www.crisispapers.org/topics/election-fraud.htm

This link provides some initial information on factors related to the proper testing and monitoring of electronic touch screen voting devices at the precinct and at the central tabulator:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/73/15587.html

This link provides information on the issues surrounding the fraud vulnerable iVotronic (ES&S) touch screen voting devices in Florida:
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814,101146,00.html

This link points to a Washington Post article that describes the problems of electronic voting devices on some east coast states, and their aggressive marketing by Diebold and other providers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601518.html?referrer=email

This link provides the details of the "Hursti Defect" in electronic touch screen voting devices:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf

This link points to a site with further links to articles documenting the "Thompson Defect" dealing with the GEMS central vote tabulator:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/2197/14274.html

This link point to several critiques of the national election consultant MICHAEL IAN SHAMOS, PH.D., JD by Bev Harris and Black Box Voting:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/15688.html?1136067478

This site documents the challenge that California voters are facing in confronting culpable state officials who refuse to do the right thing to protect against vote fraud using electronic voting devices in that state:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/2398.html

This site contains a variety of links that document the presence of vote fraud in the 2004 election:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/archives/cat_vote_fraud.html

This site contains an enormous number of links that cover a large number of aspects of the status of election fraud using corruptible electronic voting devices in the 2004 election:
http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book109h.htm

This link shows the extent that the Florida governor, Jeb Bush, is willing to go to assure that fraudulent voting devices will remain in Florida over the efforts of the honest Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho to stop it, including firing Sancho:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/19494.html?1141491677

This link provides guidance for recognizing known problems of the ES&S iVotronic touch screen machines during a vote. It was prepared for Pennsylvania voters but is applicable to iVotronic machines anywhere.
http://www.votepa.us/forms/primaryactionforms/DontLetComputerEat_iVotr.pdf

Video demonstration by Huffington Post blogger Marty Kaplan on HOW TO HACK A DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINE.
This is an undetectable process that can be done by a typical voter in a voting booth within two minutes. This hack can be amplified when accomplished by coordinated teams of right wing shills in swing precincts on election day.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/how-to-hack-a-diebold-vot_b_26301.html

HOW TO PROTECT THE VOTE:
This link points to a 57 slide presentation that clearly outlines the complete and proper steps for insuring that electronic touch screen machines cannot corrupt the vote. Allow time for the PDF file to load:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/presentations/attacks-public.pdf

INTRODUCTION

PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINKS OFFERED IN THE LETTERS AND ELSEWHERE BELOW
TO FIND CONVINCING INCONTROVERTIBLE DOCUMENTATION OF
WIDESPREAD REPUBLICAN ORCHESTRATED ELECTION FRAUD IN SWING STATES.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS COMPLETELY IGNORED THE FRAUD
THAT CAUSED THEIR DEFEAT IN BOTH 2000 AND 2004.
THEY IGNORED THE EXISTING PRESENCE OF FRAUD THAT PUT THEM
AT RISK IN THE ELECTION OF 2006 AND REMAINS A REAL THREAT FOR 2008.

WHY???

BOTH PARTIES ARE EQUALLY UNDER THE CONTROL OF RIGHT WING
CORPORATE POWER THAT IS DEDICATED TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
A DESPOTIC GLOBAL OLIGARCHY IN WHICH THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES
IN THE USA AND THE WORLD ARE MADE SERVANTS WITHOUT RIGHT OF APPEAL.

THE CORPORATE CONTROLLED MEDIA,
BOTH NATIONAL AND LOCAL,
STAND MUTE.
(save Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN 6:00 PM EST)

EVIDENCE OF GROSS MEDIA NEGLIGENCE? OR RIGHT WING CULPABILITY?

"So, to summarize what our survey reveals: We have Democrats running and hiding, afraid to stand up to the President even when he gets caught breaking the law. We have the media mindlessly reporting GOP talking points even when they are factually false and when the falsehood could be easily verified with about 60 seconds of research. And we have Republicans accusing those few Democrats who are willing to criticize the Leader of being on the side of Terrorists, while the media passes along those false accusations without comment and Democrats run away and hide some more, never showing any offense or anger at all from watching Republicans accuse them of treason." Glenn Greenwald, "The Finegold Resolution: A Case Study in Broken Government" in The Huffington Post, 3-17-2006

THE FIRST FREEDOM TO BE LOST AS OF THE ELECTIONS OF 2000 AND 2004
IS OUR RIGHT TO A MEANINGFUL VOTE, AND TO HAVE THAT VOTE ACCURATELY COUNTED.

I have posted the following letters and related information here
in order to get the widest possible distribution.
Please call this URL resource to the attention of your
socially responsible friends and contacts,
and especially, those who are not.

Today our soldiers are being killed and maimed,
as they spill their blood in Iraq and Afghanistan,
allegedly to protect our freedoms here at home. Meanwhile, back home,
THEIR SACRIFICES AND FREEDOMS ARE AT RISK TO BEING BETRAYED
HERE AT THEIR BALLOT BOXES UNTIL THE ELECTION OF 2008.
We dare not permit this betrayal to continue in our voting precincts.

Use the information and guidance below to first
grasp the scale and scope of the problem, and
validate for yourself the legitimacy of this concern.
THEN TAKE WHAT ACTION YOU CAN!!

One simple way is to e-mail the URL of this site to your
networks of relatives, friends and associates.
You can also organize and grow a coalition to
investigate the security protections at local county precincts.
BUT ACTION IS KEY TO PREVENT ELECTION FRAUD NOW.
Be sure to follow ongoing updates at the bottom of the page.

UPDATES BASED ON 2006 MIDTERM ELECTION RESULTS

PRE 2006 ELECTION PREDICTIVE REPORTS OF ELECTION FRAUD BEING LIKELY

ARS technica Primary and early e-voting problems point to gathering storm 11/1/2006 5:42:14 PM, by Jon Stokes
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061101-8131.html

"...two major new reports from independent research groups detail the myriad security breaches, and procedural and technical problems in the 2006 Ohio primaries; stories from early voting in Texas indicate that the paperless DREs in at least two counties may have a partisan bias; another major new report from the University of Connecticut details a whole raft of security vulnerabilities in Diebold's optical scan voting machines; finally, BlackBoxVoting.org has released "push this, pull here" instructions for multiple voting on a Sequoia DRE, no hacking skills necessary."

GLOBAL RESEARCH The 2006 U.S. Midterms: Another Stolen Election? by Prof. Michael Keefer November 4, 2006

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KEE20061104&articleId=3700

"...the short list of items anticipating Republican fraud in the midterm election offers a representative cross-section of current concerns—including evidence of further massive purges of voters’ lists, and evidence from unimpeachable sources that the touch-screen machines manufactured by two of the major suppliers of voting machines, Diebold and Sequoia, have been designed to facilitate electoral fraud.

It’s worth noting, by way of coda, that these skewed machines were hard at work well before election day. According to a report published in the Miami Herald on October 28th, voting machines in Democratic-leaning Broward and Miami-Dade counties in southern Florida had already during the preceding week been detected flipping the choices of early voters from Democratic candidates to Republicans."

The above concerns appear to have been valid as the evidence begins to come in.

DOCUMENTED REPORTS OF 2006 ACTUAL ELECTION FRAUD

Election Defense Alliance (EDA) releases major report on vote fraud in the 2006 national mid term election: http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rob_kall_061117_clear_evidence_2006_.htm

Their report, as summarized by an article in OpEdNews.com, demonstrates that there was massive and wide spread election fraud including hacked machines. The official results showed that machine counted Democratic votes were significantly below what was predicted by the post voting exit polls. Even so, because of the unusually high voter turnout, the Democrats were still able to prevail in 32 Congressional voting Districts when they ought to have prevailed in 50+ Districts. "...The Democratic margin of victory in U.S. House races was substantially larger than indicated by the election returns."

In short, the analysis suggests that the Republicans hacked accessible machines across the country as late as two weeks before the election. This can explain the arrogant confidence shown by Rumsfeld, Rove and Bush in the weeks leading up to the election, and their persistent refusal to compromise on their "stay the course" strategy in the face of evidence showing wide spread voter disapproval. But the alterations they programmed into their hack were such that the hack was insufficient to override the unexpectedly high turnout in favor of the Democrats. In effect, the Democrats prevailed in spite of the extent of widespread attempts at vote fraud. The EDA report strongly recommends that paper ballots be used in 2008, and until rules and verifiable procedures be established to guarantee the integrity of the electronic vote and its associated precinct protocols.

" "The most prudent response to this controversy is a moratorium on the further implementation of computerized voting systems. EDA's O'Dell cautioned, "It is so abundantly clear that these machines are not secure, there's no justification for blind confidence in the election system given such dramatic indications of problems with the official vote tally." And EDA's Simon summarized, "There has been a rush by some to celebrate 2006 as a fair election, but a Democratic victory does not equate with a fair election. It's wishful thinking at best to believe that the danger of massive election rigging is somehow past." "

Stay tuned as further technical assessments of the 2006 election dynamics continues to arrive and be posted here.

Florida District 13 iVotronic Machine Issues:
http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/005583.html
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/11/22/florida_13/

Jennings Contests Election Results in Katherine Harris District. Complaint Cites Significant Machine Malfunctions That Call Results Into Doubt Sarasota, FL – Citing statistical and eyewitness evidence of significant machine malfunctions sufficient to call into doubt the result of the election for Florida Congressional District 13, the Christine Jennings campaign today officially contested the election in Circuit Court.

OpEdNEWS.com The 2006 Elections: Fraud? No Fraud? November 14, 2006 at 18:08:26
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_diane_pe_061114_the_2006_elections_3a_.htm

Election fraud has reached such technical sophistication in some places that it requires weeks of sophisticated technical analysis to produce verifiable and credible proof that fraud occurred.

"...On Bill Maher's Real Time on November 10, actor Rainn Wilson inferred that there was no fraud, saying that if the Democrats lost they'd be out in the streets, implying that there was no fraud and they would be sore losers, and the Republicans aren't protesting.

This simplistic, two-dimensional thinking ignores the fact that there was a lot of fraud: that the margins were larger than the actual numbers indicated, that the Democrats probably lost some races in which more people voted for them. There are people, like Donna Edwards of Maryland, who should probably be in the new congress. This was probably the reason why some Republicans and Rove were overconfident about results. I also believe that George Allen and Conrad Burns did not push for a recount of the "close" Virginia and Montana races because scrutiny might reveal the fraud."

[under ongoing development, check back for updates]

ACTIONS TAKEN TO PROTECT AGAINST VOTE FRAUD
AT THE STATE, COUNTY AND LOCAL LEVELS PRIOR TO THE 2006 ELECTIONS

The following two letters can be used as a template (model) to be modified by you and sent to any county or state election supervisor in a county relevant to you to challenge any suspicious lack of security. You can apply the information below to detect and challenge any attempts to manipulate the vote by any means. Initiatives for 2008 should begin now in 2006.

LETTER TO THE CAMBRIA COUNTY ELECTION SUPERVISOR

The link below connects to a letter that was sent to the Cambria County (PA) Supervisor of Elections on December 26, 2005. The letter expresses concern about the county's intention to purchase corruptible iVotronic (ES&S) touch screen voting machines.

CLICK HERE
to visit the letter to the Cambria County Elections Supervisor

You can use the points of concern noted there for any letter you wish to direct to your local Election Supervisors in your community. That letter and a subsequent follow-up letter were both ignored by Mr Smith. This is just one symptom of the presence of this widespread, but unaddressed, threat. One must ask whether this suspicious silence is merely a symptom of simple bureaucratic negligence and indifference, or does it suggest a more sinister culpability in creating the conditions that make precinct voters vulnerable to fraud?

Be aware that for every act of vote fraud in the United States, there are potential whistleblowers who are necessarily involved behind the scenes. They may be ready to come out, provided the local community can help them rise above their natural fears due to direct or implied coercion and intimidation from their controlling masters.

Local media should be encouraged to seek out such vital sources of confirmation of active or planned vote fraud.

Diebold Responds to Allegheny County (PA) Council's
Recommendation Against Diebold

CLICK HERE
to read the substance of Diebold's response
Note that Diebold's attacks do not dispute the technical findings of experts,
as much as they resort to ad hominem attacks on those experts and even the Council's members.
Further, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA,) was created by the corporate owned
members of both parties in the Congress,
thus privatizing under corporate control the votes of the entire electorate of the United States.
The counts of direct electronic voting devices cannot now be independently verified.

Posted on May 11, 2006

THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION WAS RECEIVED AS AN E-MAIL FROM BLACKBOXVOTING.COM
This Illustrates the Scale of Aggressive Resistance of Voting Machine Manufacturers orchestrated by the political right .
[Edited for placement on this page. Brackets and emphasis added]

----- Original Message -----

From: Black Box Voting

To: Thomas Harries
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 11:53 PM
Subject: Touch-screens fails security test; Diebold retaliates

------------------------------------------------------------
Black Box Voting : From BBV::

Touch-screens fails security test; Diebold retaliates

------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by Bev Harris [Investigative Journalist] on Friday, May 05, 2006 - 08:52 pm:

quote---------------------------------------------------

This week, the state of Pennsylvania sequestered all Diebold touch-screens to implement an emergency security measure. Several more states are expected to follow Pennsylvania. [This is a victory for voter rights activists]

The state of Utah has known that a critical security risk exists in its Diebold TSx touch-screens, but chose to punish the courageous
public official responsible for identifying the defect instead of taking any efforts to learn what the problem is and correct it.

Below is an excerpt from a security alert faxed to the Utah Lt. Governor, state elections director, Emery County attorney and Emery County commissioners on March 24.

SHOOT THE MESSENGER

Utah officials ignored the warning entirely, and instead flew Diebold attorneys to Emery County on the governor's airplane, where the Diebold lawyers were allowed to sit into a private executive session. In this session, a decision appears to have been made to block Emery County Elections director Bruce Funk from executing his duties. In Utah, the law requires that any employment decision be publicly noticed (it was not) and the county attorney is the designated counsel for county elections officials (County Attorney David Blackwell chose to side with Diebold against Bruce Funk). According to a tape recording of the public portion of the meeting, Bruce Funk repeatedly requested an attorney, but this was denied to him.

Funk was an eye witness to the security testing by Harri Hursti [the engineer who first exposed security defects in Diebold voting machines]and Security Innovation, Inc. He knew first-hand that the machines] represented a significant security risk. County commissioners told him he was going to be required to use the machines anyway, Diebold refused to provide a letter in writing indicating that machines it sold weren't used or loaded with inappropriate software; Diebold then told Emery County that it was going to cost $40,000 to check over the machines (the Diebold contract limits them to charging just over $1200 per day, Emery County has just 40 machines, and re-flashing all machines with a new system takes no more than 10 minutes per machine).

Funk was told that he would not be permitted to watch Diebold technicians work on the machines, and they had already "visited" his machines while he was out of town for a day.

LEGAL ISSUES

Because Funk was denied a lawyer, he didn't know that a little-known 1929 law in Utah was sometimes used by public officials to browbeat each other out of office. If certain public officials gang up and intimidate another public official, threatening punitive measures and dire consequences, urging resignation, if the targeted official tenders even a tentative and conditional resignation, under some interpretations that is held to stick. Diebold and the county succeeded in browbeating Funk into temporary submission; he quickly notified them in writing that he had no intention of resigning, so they locked him out of his office [see also the courageous efforts of Florida's Leon County Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho in opposing Diebold.]

Black Box Voting has assisted Funk in securing qualified legal counsel and is underwriting the public policy legal actions to defend Funk against Diebold's actions -- ironically, with Diebold's own money, won in a Diebold false claims suit in California. A $76,000 fee was paid to Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris, and was subsequently contributed as a restricted donation for public interest litigation. The Diebold money is now helping support the fight by whistleblower Stephen Heller, who is facing retaliatory action by Diebold's attorneys. Diebold false claim funds are also underwriting legal actions to help Bruce Funk fight Diebold's retaliation. In Funk's case, the lack of public notice and failure to put his employment matter on the agenda likely outweighs the 1929 law, as does the county's refusal to provide him with counsel, failure to allow him to sit in on the private meeting with Diebold lawyers concerning his employment, and insistence that he take responsibility for elections held on machines he knew to be insecure.

To date, Emery County has refused to provide Funk with either a transcript or a tape or their behind-closed-doors meeting with Diebold attorneys.

DIEBOLD'S BEHAVIOR WAS EVEN MORE PROBLEMATIC

Experts for the state of California and the state of Pennsylvania have now confirmed the seriousness of the vulnerabilities discovered in Emery County. Diebold was cornered by Pennsylvania voting system examiner Michael Shamos, and was given the choice of telling the truth or lying. Shamos had already sequestered one of the machines and was prepared to examine it himself it Diebold lied. Only after this did Diebold admit to knowing about the security vulnerability, which is designed into the system.

[NOTE: Shamos himself has been under heavy fire by Blackboxvoting for questionable evaluations of Pennsylvania voting devices. Perhaps he has gotten the message.]

Black Box Voting is completing reports with Harri Hursti and subsequently with Security Innovation (which will serve as peer review for Hursti Report II). The Hursti Report on findings from Emery County will detail multiple back doors built into the system. This report will be released to the public in redacted form on May 10. The unredacted version will be provided to federal and state regulators, including the Dept. of Homeland Security's "CERT" alert system.

LETTER TO UTAH OFFICIALS

Here is a quote from the preliminary information which Utah officials chose to ignore (except for locking Mr. Funk out of his office):

end-------------------------------------------------quote:

To: Gary Herbert, Lt. Governor of the state of Utah
Cc: David Blackwell, Emery County Attorney
Bruce Funk, Emery County Elections
Emery County Commissioners
Michael Cragun, Utah State Elections Director

Mar. 24, 2006

Dear Sirs,

This is a formal notification that a security defect was found in the Diebold TSx system in Emery County, Utah by professional security experts from Security Innovation, Inc. and Mr. Harri Hursti. Because of the severity of the defects, the formal reports are being prepared with sufficient precision to garner the attention of the appropriate authorities with jurisdiction over this matter. These authorities, of course, include each of you who are receiving this notice, in addition to federal authorities in the general area of computer security.

...

The security problems found in Emery County present potentially catastrophic security defects for upcoming elections. The issue
extends outside of Emery County to additional states. The identified security vulnerability appears to be:
1) Persistent, with the ability to survive through multiple elections;

2) Difficult to detect, not only for elections official but also for security experts and even for Diebold technicians;

3) Flexible, in that the exploit can selectively affect any particular election, candidate or ballot question;

4) Accessible, in that no password, supervisor access or special equipment is needed to invoke the exploit;

5) Difficult to eradicate with any patch, reinstallation, or cleaning procedure;

6) Likely to be exploited, because the skills needed to exploit the hole are possessed by many programmers and the information needed to conduct the exploit is generally available to the public. The time needed to exploit the security hole is in the range of a week's planning time and 60 seconds for execution.

end quote-------------------------------------------------

A PATTERN OF SECURITY FAILURES

The testing in Emery County follows another set of tests by Black Box Voting in Leon County, Florida, which documented security flaws in the GEMS central tabulator and the Diebold AccuVote optical scan system

A PATTERN OF RETALIATION BY DIEBOLD

Like Bruce Funk, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho faced retaliation by Diebold and other voting companies. Diebold refused to honor its contract with Sancho, forcing him out of HAVA compliance. The only other authorized vendors then blackballed Sancho, refusing to sell to him.

The Florida Attorney General is now investigating Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia for collusion and antitrust violations.

Diebold has also been participating in orchestrated smear campaigns against Black Box Voting and its founder, Bev Harris, using fake Internet "screen names," identity theft (posing as board members of Black Box Voting to post defamation), organizing fake news Web sites smearing election integrity advocates in general and Black Box Voting/Bev Harris specifically.

Some Diebold employees tag-team with the Diebold smear squad to point elections officials toward the cyberlibel. The Diebold Internet smear squad also includes an individual from North Carolina. [When NC insisted that Diebold seal and secure their code, and place it in escrow prior to an election so that it could be examined in event of suspicious vote counts, they pulled their machines out.]

Black Box Voting, together with a team of volunteer researchers, has now obtained documents and photographs which directly tie these Internet libel campaigns to Diebold. A more detailed article on the Diebold Internet smearing, accompanied by documents and photographs, will be published here after the dust has settled on the Diebold touch-screen security failures.

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