Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Oops! Diebold can't be happy about this!
OK, Diebold, what's next? Are you planning to issue a "take down" for house.gov?
Via Cyndy Roy at American Samizdat
This probably doesn't make any difference. Diebold is a large company offering many products beyond their e-vote machines, and each division is responsible for their own security vulnerabilities. But Diebold ATMs were compromised by the Nachi worm in August. If this means anything for voting security advocates, it means that truely talented security professions are in short order.
California Gets E-Vote Paper Trails ... maybe
Obviously however, some folks just don't get it, and this time it is the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials (CACEO). Claiming that Shelley had "overstepped his bounds", CACEO head and Shasta County Clerk Ann Reed called the decision "a major defeat for the disabled community, as well as the minority-language communities." Riverside County Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend said she could not say yet whether the CACEO would pursue legal action against the state, but the group will be meeting next week to discuss its response.
Comments: Groups like CACEO perhaps are our greatest hurdle because they are the people charged with running our elections (and purchasing this technology). Unfortunately, many of these people are simply in over their heads when it comes to technology issues.
CACEO is of course correct to be concerned with disability and minority-language access to the voting booth. The problem is that they view such access to be unaddressible by technology, when clearly it is not. Whatever solutions have been implemented to provide for these concerns on e-vote machines without printers can certainly be extended to e-vote machines with printers, and if to any extent it might not, no one would object to alternative methods of providing voting booth access to those with problems.
And this is the problem. We have thousands of people making these decisions on e-vote technology when too few of them have and understanding of the technology itself. In business when a similar problem is encountered, the solution is obvious: Hire a consultant to evaluate the options and separate real from imagined problems. The problem is that qualified consultants are quite expensive, and when product selection is at a county level, they are simply too expense. In Maryland, where the product selection was conducted at the state level, the consultant option was indeed used, and though I've previously expressed my reservations regarding what I consider to be their premature selection of Diebold, they at least appear to be on the right track on the security problems they face as a result of that selection.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
From the Archives: "None Dare Call It Treason"
Perhaps the best on-line article covering Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that handed Bush the presidency. Originally published in The Nation on February 5, 2001, Vincent Bugliosi's article is a classic. If you missed it back then or just want to reread it, this is where to do it.
Monday, November 17, 2003
Short Takes:
- Apparently Gore Vidal doesn't think too much of E-Voting either. This interview is a worthwhile read for many reasons, but his comments on E-Voting are close to the end of it.
- According to two political scientists at Spelman College and Western Carolina University, voter turnout is directly affected by the distance voters live from their polling place. Moshe Haspel and H. Gibbs Knotts also suggest that "unscrupulous election officials could manipulate election results by rejiggering the locations of precincts to increase or decrease turnout in certain neighborhoods."
- Residents of Leeds and the Thousand Islands Township in Canada don’t go to the polls to vote anymore. They vote by mail and have found that the method substantially increases voter participation.
Boone County, Indiana election officials reported a serious overvote problem in their recent election when computers there showed approximately 144,000 votes cast. The problem was almost certainly a software error, as a lengthy collaboration between the county's information technology director and advisers from the MicroVote software producer (Google search) fixed the problem. The corrected totals for the county showed a total of 5,352 ballots cast from a pool of fewer than 19,000 registered voters.
Update: It turns out that the problem in Boone County was not a software problem after all. As The London News Review reports (why do I have to go to England to find this?), the MicroVote software requires each machine to be "reset" between elections, and requires all new machines added to also be "reset". Apparently, Boone County election staffers did not do this, hence the error. MicroVote thus dismisses this as user error, but apparently this has happened before with their system (Montgomery County, PA (1995) ~ Initial Report and MicroVote's Rebuttal).
So no, it was not a software problem, because the software worked exactly as designed, ... which makes it a design problem in spite of MicroVote's protestations of innocence. Allow me to put on my "design cap" for a moment, because I've mentioned this before.
Computer types love to design systems. It's one of their favorite things to do. But left to their own devices (as in little user input), they tend to design systems that are easy for people like themselves to use, but not necessarily easy for others unfamiliar with the details of their systems to use. And that is exactly what happened in these instances. It is all too easy for them to claim "dumb user", when in fact the real case is the dumb designer who did not take into account his "dumb user".
Yet this is the exact environment in which these machines will be used. A flurry of temps are hired before each election, and somehow all of these people are expected to suddenly understand and perfectly execute the system designers' intent. The real world simply does not work that way, and any designer who expects it to is a fool.
But read the News Review report because it's got a lot more links than I've used here.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
More on California's Diebold certification:
Wired News is out with two more articles on the California Diebold controversy. In "Suspect Code Used in State Votes" (11/6), Wired provides additional specifics on the "scandal". Meanwhile, efforts to determine exactly what software was changed and when continue.
In the late-breaking "E-Vote Firm's Bill Comes Due" (11/11), California has announced that it will not continue with the certification of Diebold voting machines until the company pays for an audit of all the company's voting machines used in the state. The halt in Diebold certification is causing problems for counties that have selected Diebold, but California election officials would "rather err on the side of inconvenience and delay."
Walden W. O'Dell, a longtime Republican, is a member of President Bush's "Rangers and Pioneers", an elite group of loyalists who have raised at least $100,000 each for the 2004 race. In mid-August, Walter sat down at his computer to compose a letter inviting 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends to a Republican Party fund-raiser, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year," he wrote. Pretty typical stuff for a Republican fund raiser. Only one problem: Walter is also the CEO of Diebold, Inc., owner of Diebold Election Systems.
So starts this extensive New York Times article, which runs through a host of other problems Diebold has faced lately (the Hopkins/Rice study [239 KB, PDF], the FTP-software discovery, the leaked e-mails, and the Maryland/SAIC study (See "Did I say that?" below). Over all, a good "go to" article for anyone just getting into the Diebold e-vote issue.
Other Diebold Election Systems in the News:
- Electronic Voting Firm Sued Over Threats ~ 8:52 PM 11/4/03 - AP Online
- Voting machines face two tests ~ 9:33 AM 11/4/03 - CBS MarketWatch
- Diebold Warns on Electronic Voting Papers ~ 10:21 PM 10/29/03 - AP Online
- Reality check in the election booth ~ 10/3/03 - Maryland Gazette ~
Amazing! - Diebold Election Systems Tabulates Accurate, Secure Votes In Boston ~ 10:32 AM 10/3/03 - Press Release
Did I say that?
Did I say that Maryland "got it" while Georgia didn't? Well, let me back off a little and say that Maryland got it better than Georgia did, but still doesn't quite get it.
On a side note, no sooner than Ehrlich got done giving the go ahead on the state-wide Diebold installation than it was learned that Gilbert J. Genn, a well-known Annapolis lobbyist, represents two companies involved in the overhaul of the state's voting machine system. Mr. Genn, a former Montgomery County delegate, is registered as a lobbyist for Diebold Election Systems Inc., the company that has a $55 million contract to provide the state with its electronic voting system, and Science Applications International Corp., the computer security company the state recently hired to examine the Diebold voting machines for flaws. Ehrlich has ordered an investigation.
Let me explain further my feelings on the Maryland Risk Assessment Report [Body (1.25 MB, PDF), Appendix B (response to the Hopkins/Rice study, 700 KB, PDF)]. While this was a good study in that it highlighted many important vulnerabilities, it missed two critical issues:
- It addressed security vulnerabilities as if Maryland election workers were honest. Now I am not suggesting that they are not, but it is a far more trivial problem to design and build a secure system when you assume employee honesty. It is much harder when you have to provide for the possibility of employee dishonesty. This is especially troublesome in voting systems because a large influx of temporary workers are hired only for a particular election.
- It failed to address the fact that this software simply shouldn't have all of these problems!. Let me explain. You're sitting in front of your computer. It's a pain in the ass. Software doesn't always work right. It crashes, sometimes with no apparent cause. But this is just what computers are like, right?
No, they're not! If computers were like that, they never would have gotten this far. But it is apparent that the authors of this report think that they are, and that is simply a bad assumption. Here's the difference:
- Your home computer: It runs on an operating system (O/S) that can run on many different computers. Each of those computers has a different set of input/output (I/O) devices attached, and more can be added or deleted per your needs. Your O/S will run thousands of different programs, each with different needs. It can run several dozen of these simultaneously (multi-tasking). It handles dozens of different communication protocols, some local (your printer, your DVD, etc.) and some remote (your home network, the internet, etc.) And all of this stuff goes on simultaneously. Pretty amazing. And consider also that you can buy one of these for less than $1,000, the O/S and your programs being a small fraction of that purchase price. And you wonder why your home computer is tempermental at times? Easy. You get what you pay for.
- Now contrast that with a touch pad voting computer: First, hundreds and perhaps thousands of identical touch pads are purchased at a single time. Each of these runs at most four programs: Receive the ballot, record the vote, (perhaps) transmit the results, and (perhaps) run in test mode. And none of these run simultaneously. Communications protocols? Five: Run the display, accept input, read/write hard drive, read/write votes, and (perhaps) communicate externally. Compared to your home computer, this is a walk in the park. And the price tag? Millions of dollars. So why so many problems? There is only one answer to this: incompetence.
So here are the key points of this situation. Maryland's purchasers of these computers have expectations of them that are consistent with their own experience with their home computers. But the authors of this study are clearly "computer professionals". As such, they should have written this study from the perspective of their own experience and expectations, and not from the perspective of the experience and expectations of their client. But they did not. Why?
On a side note, no sooner than Ehrlich got done giving the go ahead on the state-wide Diebold installation than it was learned that Gilbert J. Genn, a well-known Annapolis lobbyist, represents two companies involved in the overhaul of the state's voting machine system. Mr. Genn, a former Montgomery County delegate, is registered as a lobbyist for Diebold Election Systems Inc., the company that has a $55 million contract to provide the state with its electronic voting system, and Science Applications International Corp., the computer security company the state recently hired to examine the Diebold voting machines for flaws. Ehrlich has ordered an investigation.
What a way to run an election. As the Washington Post, suggests, "Why leap?"
Louisiana Run-off this Saturday:
Louisiana's run-off for governor will be held this Saturday (11/15). (An interesting review of the candidates is here.) Voting machines in use there during this election:
- Two parishes use 3,992 iVotronic voting machine by ES&S. (iVotronic machines were in use during the troublesome Miami-Dade County elections in 2002, although equipment quality is not believed to have been a source of those problems.)
- Sixty-two parishes remain on an assortment of older manual voting machines (4,272 machines total).
Senator Harris?
"It's been a little overwhelming. We're getting phone calls from all over the state, ringing off the hook. Everyone is telling me that I'm the only moderate, electable candidate."
-- First-term U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.)
Remember her?Voting Without a Choice
"The point of elections is to test ideas and hold officials accountable. This process is short-circuited when like-minded voters are so concentrated in districts as to render the outcome a certainty. Lack of competition amplifies ideological differences and further polarizes U.S. politics, because Republican officeholders need not answer to Democratic constituents and Democratic officeholders can ignore Republican voters."
-- Washington Post Editorial, 11/7/2003
via BushWatch
via BushWatch
Originally published November 12, 2003
Kudos to Jim March:
When I first heard that California had halted the certification of Diebold voting machines, I wondered if Jim had heard. For any who doesn't know, Jim's a California boy and was one of the original crew that worked over the Diebold software that Bev Harris found unguarded on an FTP site.
As it turns out, Jim knew a lot about California's Diebold decision. He was the one who made it happen. Pick up PDF copies of his correspondence to and from the California election people that brought all of this about as well as his very own "take down" notice from Diebold. Good job, Jim!
And for anyone who's interested in trying out the Diebold software themselves, you can also get copies of it along with detailed test procedures from Jim's website.
Election 2003 Results รก la Diebold:
Kentucky, who elected Republican Ernie Fletcher as governor by a 10-point margin, uses Diebold election machines (including touch pads) only in Jefferson County (~17% of total state population). Jefferson County however gave a 51.3%/48.6% edge to Democrat A.B. Chandler.
Mississippi, who elected Republican Haley Barbour as governor by an 8-point margin over incumbent Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, uses Diebold election machines (but not touch pads) state-wide.
A third Southern governor's race goes before the voters in Louisiana on Nov. 15. Louisiana does not use Diebold voting machines. (But see "Louisiana May Toss ES&S Touch Pads" below.)
New Jersey gave the Democrats control of the state Senate with gains in both houses of the legislature. New Jersey does not use Diebold election machines.
In major mayoral contests: Philadelphia re-elected Democrat John Street as mayor. In Houston, Republican Orlando Sanchez and Democrat Bill White are headed for a runoff. In San Francisco, Democrat Gavin Newsom and Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez are also headed for a runoff. None of these cities use Diebold election machines.
GOP Cries Foul Over Virginia Touch Pads:
The Washington Post reports that Republican officials have filed a legal challenge to election results from Fairfax County, Virginia based on numerous problems with their touch pad voting machines during the election there Tuesday. Problems included machines that were repaired and returned to service (effectively de-certifying them), results that had to be called in or hand delivered due to server overload, and a handful of precincts even resorting to paper ballots. Regarding the repaired machines, Christopher T. Craig, attorney for the Republicans, acknowledged that the number of votes, estimated in the hundreds, "may not make any difference, but that is not the point. It's about voter integrity."
Well said, BUT: Of the 61 co-signers of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, none are Republicans.
Fairfax County uses Advanced Voting Solutions' WINvote touch pads (See "Who Is Advanced Voting Solutions?" below) and has approximately 550,000 registered voters. Arlington County, Virginia also uses these same machines and experienced no such problems, suggesting that the problems experienced in Fairfax were the result of human error(s). Fairfax used the WINvote equipment during the 2002 election (though Arlington did not), and had few problems with them at that time.
Louisiana May Toss ES&S Touch Pads:
The Shreveport Times is reporting that Louisiana will likely get rid of 900 new Election Systems and Software (ES&S) touch pad voting machines after approximately two-thirds of them malfunctioned, overheating and shutting down, apparently during testing. ES&S replaced the malfunctioning units, but significant problems remained with trying to tie them in with other state election equipment.
Louisiana paid $3 million for the machines which were used in two parishes in the state, and will continue to use them through the November 15th gubernatorial election there. Afterwards, the state will likely standardize voting machinery across the state, and while touch pads remain an option, the use of ES&S machines is doubtful.
Who Is Advanced Voting Solutions?
Advanced Voting Solutions (AVS, formerly known as Shoup Voting Solutions) sells a line of touch pad and elections support systems and software known as WINvote. The "WIN" in WINvote stands for Wireless Information Network, which is the "technology baseline on which all components of the AVS voting system function." AVS claims that the WIN technology "dramatically simplifies polling place procedures and enhances the security and integrity of the process." While wireless technology should theoretically simplify procedures, the Fairfax County experience indicates that it can also add complications. As for enhancing security and integrity, WINvote technology is implemented using cellular communications. Cellular communications are quite trivial to intercept and/or divert, and the WINvote implementation of cellular requires that it be in an "always available" mode. Not only does this allow real time monitoring of election results (illegal), but also allows a reasonably sophisticated operator to alter voting results during transmission. But according to Bryan Finney, government relations coordinator for AVS, "There really is no way a hacker could break into this during the few minutes that this is up. That's a virtual impossibility." Mr. Finney clearly doesn't know how cellular technology works.
AVS is located in Frisco, Texas, and is led by President and CEO Howard T. Van Pelt, assuming these responsibilities in June, 2001. Van Pelt previously co-founded Global Election Systems (GEMS). Joining him at AVS are former GEMS manager Larry Ensminger, former GEMS field service manager Ingrid Giordano and former GEMS regional project manager Tyler Lincks. Together the three of them make up 4 of the 5 names cited on the AVS website, with the fifth being a Shoup family member. AVS apparently is GEMS reincarnated. (Note however that none of the four is on records as having made any political contributions from the 2000 election cycle forward.)
In addition to being certified in Virginia, AVS voting machines are also certified for use in California, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania. AVS is currently soliciting Arkansas. A list of all established vendors of computerized vote tabulation systems (as of 2/20/2003) can be found here.
From the archives: Chris Floyd publishes a weekly editorial column in the Moscow Times called "Global Eye". About a month back, he published an editorial on the American voting system called "Last Rights".
"It's dangerously naive to believe that such a gang, coming to power in such a fashion, will allow a legitimate electoral contest to take place next year. They have too much to lose. They haven't expended so much effort -- and so many thousands of innocent lives -- to build this vast engine of repression and profit only to turn it over to Howard Dean or John Kerry, just because the stupid American people say so."
It's definitely worth a read.
Originally published November 5, 2003
This just in from Wired News: California Halts E-Vote Certification ~ California Assistant Secretary of State Marc Carrel said that California was halting the certification process for new voting machines manufactured by (Guess who?) Diebold Election Systems after his office received "disconcerting information" that Diebold may have installed uncertified software on its touch-screen machines used in Alameda County. [The install must have gone like the one in Georgia!]
Also, two students from Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons and the Online Policy Group have filed suit against Diebold Elections Systems to prevent
abusive copyright claims from silencing public debate about electronic voting machines. You can read their press release here. Note that this press release also contains some links to substantial link archives of information related to the lawsuit. You can also go to the home page of the Electronic Frontier Foundation home page to find links to stories of their recent efforts to assist in this effort. [They're providing the legal talent.]
Some of the stuff below you may have run into, but it's listed for those who might not have:
- If you want to know if your voting district uses Diebold voting machines, BlackBoxVoting.org (thanks, Bev) has published a list of such locations [890 KB PDF, approx. 3 minutes download on dial-up] covering both the US and Canada. This is a two-part list, the top covering locations that use any type of Diebold equipment, and the bottom covering locations using their touch pad equipment.
[A couple of notes on this. First, while the Diebold touch pad equipment contains security vulnerabilities, their centralized vote tallying software and hardware is far more vulnerable, especially in terms deliberate wholesale tampering. Second, just because your district does not use Diebold voting machines doesn't mean that you are not exposed to similar vulnerabilities; simply that there isn't sufficient info out about these other systems to know for sure. There is sufficient information out to suspect that other manufacturers machines are vulnerable in similar fashions.]
- Maryland's Campaign for Verifiable Voting is a great example of what local citizen activists can do on-line when they get behind an issue like this. Lots of articles of both local and national interest.
The State of Maryland, by the way, did a serious computer systems vulnerability audit of the Diebold machines before implementation, certainly in some part due to the efforts of this group. You can get that report here [1.3 MB PDF, approx. 4 minutes download on dial-up]. Some notes on it from my review of this report:
- The report is heavily redacted, with only 69 of the full 200 pages viewable in this download. I went through it in detail noting exactly where the redactions occurred and what would be in those sections. I have a high level of confidence that all redactions in it were made solely to protect the integrity of Maryland's implementation of the Diebold equipment.
- This report is exactly the type of effort that needs to be made by every state/county/district implementing any voting machinery. If anything annoys me about the State of Maryland report, it is that a lot of this stuff should not have to be done by Maryland staffers; it should be in the Diebold product when sold.
As to what cannot be implemented within these machines for security vulnerabilities (they are always there in any system), the purchased system should always include a statement of the manufacturer's own understanding of his system's vulnerability along with suggested strategies for resolving them. This would be mostly an out-of-the-box document, modified here and there as appropriate for unique needs of the purchaser.
As to this last point, we're really facing two problems here. The first is the inherent system vulnerabilities in any system, and the certain need to minimize in every way the vulnerabilities to which our voting systems are exposed.
The second is the human environment in which these systems are purchased and will operate. These two aspects of this environment are critical:
- First, most of the people involved in the purchase of these systems are simply not qualified to purchase computer systems involving high security requirements. To be truthful, most of these people cannot even envision the threats that are out there, even if they can understand the incredible security needs involved in the voting process. This leaves a gap between user expectations and the provider's ability to satisfy these. Now Maryland indeed recognized these, and took substantial action to close this gap. Maryland, if not perfect, did well. Contrast that with the Georgia implementation (Chapter 9 of the book "Black Box Voting", 120KB, PDF), and the difference is obvious. Maryland "got it" and Georgia did not. (Hail, Zell Miller.)
- Second is the uniqueness of the voting environment itself. Most of the staffers on election day are not full time staffers, and so have little if any experience in the technology presented before them. They are "temps" with no prior experience in computer security. They are honestly trained to do what they are hired to do, and they mostly and honestly try hard, but computers have exceptions of wildly different kinds. When such exceptions occur, these people will inevitably defer to anyone who simply claims a solution to the problem. This does not necessarily have to be a person with ill motives (though it may be), but at this moment, all security of the vote is lost.
House Rep Rush Holt has introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003. Among this bills provisions are requirements that all voting machines to produce a paper ballot to be used as an audit trail and for manual recounts and random audits in 0.5% of voting jurisdictions. You can go
to Thomas (H.R.2239) and find the details of this bill and its current 61 co-sponsors.
This bill, while reasonably good and obviously a necessary minimum response to electronic voting machine vulnerabilities, is hardly a shoe-in. Resistance to it includes many voting supervisors and the League of Women Voters. If you would like to add your voice in support of this bill, you can sign VerifedVoting.org's Resolution on Electronic Voting.
Finally a reminder that vote tampering comes in many forms. Walter Cronkite writes Rigging Elections, a look at the recent Texas redistricting fight.
Originally published November 4, 2003
Much to offer today. We are getting a lot of coverage and folks are starting to notice. First, two personal stories from Palm Beach County:
- One of my local TV stations carried a very good segment on touch screen voting machines on their Sunday 11 P.M. News program. This ran approximately 8 minutes (very long segment for them) and was surprisingly good. Both sides were presented fairly (Rebecca Mercuri was cited several times), but the segment opened and closed with an older woman very afraid of her vote, and so the impression was definitely left that there might be a serious problem.
- On the subject of older women, my mother (who lives in a retirement community of about 20,000) had a visit from a neighbor this weekend. There was some chatting about voting which led this woman into asking my mother if she would be willing to use an absentee ballot in the coming elections. So we clearly we are starting to have an impact among our seniors, and this is certainly good news.
On to news from the internet:
- The New York Times is out with a major (5 page) article on the Diebold memos controversy: File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech. Lots of good stuff here of course.
- The Diebold memos controversy coverage continues at Why War with weekend updates. While Diebold continues with its "take down" requests, there are now over 40 active mirrors on campuses around the country with estimated copies of the data base from some of the earlier mirrors running over 30,000.
- Along with this, the Online Policy Group (a non-profit internet provider) has also received a take down request but has decided to defy it. You can read their Diebold take down request here and their own response to it here. This is a lot more than just a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo. between the two memos, you'll get a very good framing of the copyright vs. free speech argument.
One more very significant item to report: Wired News now reports (E-Vote Software Leaked Online) that the voting machine software for Sequoia Voting Systems was left on an unprotected FTP server during the recent California recall election and copies of it were obtained from there. I have no idea who has these copies as yet, so if anyone knows how to get them, please let me know.
Originally published November 3, 2003
Diebold Legal Action Backfires:
Diebold warns on electronic voting papers ~ Black Box Voting goes big time with this article from the Boston Globe/Associated Press. This AP story provides some good background on the current fight over some 31,000 pages of Diebold internal e-mail and documents that show (among other things) deliberate (and illegal) efforts by Diebold to defraud the State of Georgia (for whom they supply electronic voting software and equipment) by avoiding mandatory recertification of modifications. Some comments:
- About a third of the way down, activist Jim March is mentioned as one of the leaders in this fight. I was glad to see him mentioned, as I've been working with him on and off for a number of months.
- About two-thirds of the way down, the AP states, "... it is not known how many copies exist." From my own scan of the controversy, I would have to estimate that there are at least 10,000 copies of this (11 MB) data base now in private hands, and I would not be surprised if their were many times more than that. [UPDATE: The latest estimate I've seen is 50 thousand copies, and that was based on site stats from only the first three mirrors.]
- A mention of Swarthmore College (where I got my copy from) concludes the article. The college has forced students to remove the data base, and has told students that even accessing sites with links to it will be grounds for forfeiture of computer access. Much more about this in the following article.
- Note that this story was also carried by the LA Times, the Washington Post, and Newsday, as well as dozens of other newspapers around the country. The story has also been picked up by the Canadian and European presses.
Targeting Diebold with Electronic Civil Disobedience ~ Why-War.com weighs in on the fray with a weblog-type format on the now eight day old effort by students across the nation to provide access to the Diebold data base. Diebold has its hands full, as indicated by this last entry indicates: "Amherst and MIT have received cease-desist letters. New mirrors are now up at UNC, Duke, Berkeley, NCSU and U Penn." Note that this page currently lists URLs for 18 mirror sites of the data base a well as linking to lots of other articles on this.
Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud ~ Scoop presents a very detailed look into the Volusia County (FL) vote fraud during the 2000 Presidential Election in which a Diebold memory card registered a 16,022 negative vote for Al Gore. (It was the entry of this card that caused Al Gore's early concession, a concession he later retracted when the erroneous tally was removed.) Included in this report are emails from Florida election officials and Diebold representatives as well as and extract from CBS's own analysis of their mistaken call of Florida for Bush. Lot's of red meat in this one.
Originally published October 29, 2003