The Diebold Factor

Ack! I searched for a thread on this. Honest I did! I searched in US Politics, though...

This from the thread I started in US politics:

I know you've probably read Clint Curtis's Affidavit, but I'm posting the video of the courtroom testimony, if anyone is interested. Congress-women and -men and Senators are asking the questions. It's really pretty good.

Video Testimony

The programmer claims that he designed and built a "vote rigging" software program at the behest of then Florida Congressman, now U.S. Congressman, Republican Tom Feeney of Florida's 24th Congressional District.
...
"He detailed, in his own words, that; (a) the program needed to be touch-screen capable (b) the user should be able to trigger the program without any additional equipment (c) the programming to accomplish this needed to stay hidden even if the source code was inspected."

Yes I saw that video on another site, incredible. Diebold is starting to creep back into the media with the HAVA Deadlines commin up, and it looks like Diebold and ESS are putting a show on to make it look as though they are in competition when as shown earlier in this thread, the ownership of the companies certainly betrays a less competitive image eh? Here's what's in the news lately...
What a bunch of crap, when you know who actually owns both companies, this sounds like a bunch of hooie.

source
Officials with ES&S competitor Diebold Election Systems are warning state and county officials against using Diebold equipment and software with other products. Diebold Election Systems Inc. is a McKinney, Texas-based subsidiary of Diebold Inc.

"The commingling of other election-related products with [Diebold products] is at the user's own risk," Diebold officials wrote in a "product-use advisory" to county officials. "Buyers of [Diebold products] should also be aware that the products carry licensing and intellectual property rights and restrictions."

Diebold's products can't be used with "any third party vendor's certification" process without the company's "prior written authorization," a company official wrote in a letter to the state.

The warnings, issued in separate letters last month to state and county officials, will likely delay tests of AutoMark and its possible certification as a federal deadline looms for Volusia and other counties to purchase disability-accessible voting devices.

The deadline is Jan. 1 under the federal Help America Vote Act.

But Volusia County Elections Supervisor Ann McFall said she needs to know this month whether the county wants to replace its entire voting system or if it wants to purchase supplemental -- but paperless -- touch-screens.

www.10news.com...
Watchdog Group Challenges Election Results
Citizens Question Reliability Of Machines
SAN DIEGO -- An election watchdog group is asking for a recount of last week's mayoral vote, saying there are serious questions about the reliability of the computer system used to count ballots.
Major concerns are coming from Brina-Rae Schuchman and the Citizens Audit Parallel Election project.

Looks like they Central Tabulator worked so well for them, they are now lobbying for them in name of eliminating dead voters...

source
At this year's Neshoba County Fair, amid the usual political hyperbole, Secretary of State Eric Clark gave one of the most impassioned speeches — about machines.

Specifically: voting machines.

While it may seem passing strange for an outsider to understand how anyone could get hot and bothered about a machine, particularly one that would normally seem as dry as dust as a voting machine, there is, of course, a lot more to it.
In addition to the concern that surfaced in the 2000 presidential election over "hanging chads" in the Florida voting debacle (prompting every state, including Mississippi, to wonder if "it could happen here"), Mississippi has had its own heated election debate over voter fraud.

While Clark was most impassioned about the cost and efficiency of the new machines that will be offered to every county in the state, not said was that it should virtually eliminate the voter ID issue. Computerized voting with touch-screens connected to a central data base could finally kill off the "dead people" vote. Those looking for election fraud behind every bush will have to look elsewhere.

If you try to observe the Central tabulator, they will lock you up.

www.scoop.co.nz...
Viewing Diebold Vote-Tallying Screen Prohibited
Thursday, 28 July 2005, 1:28 pm
Article: www.blackboxvoting.org

Viewing The Diebold Vote-Tallying Screen Prohibited

www.blackboxvoting.orgJim... March, a member of the Black Box Voting board of directors, was arrested Tuesday evening for trying to observe the Diebold central tabulator (vote tallying machine) as the votes were being counted in San Diego's mayoral election (July 26). (- online discussion: www.blackboxvoting.org... -)

According to Jim Hamilton, an elections integrity advocate from San Diego, he and March visited the office of the registrar of elections earlier in the day. During this visit, March made two requests, which were refused by Mikel Haas, the San Diego Registrar of elections.

1) March asked that the central tabulator, the computer that tallies up the votes from all the precincts, be positioned so that citizens could observe it. According to Hamilton, this would have required simply moving a table a few feet.

2) March also asked for a copy of the ".gbf" files -- the vote tally files collected during the course of tabulation – to be provided for examination after the election.

During the tallying of the election, the Diebold computer was positioned too far away for citizens to read the screen. Citizens could not watch error messages, or even perceive significant anomalies or malfunctions.

Unable to see the screen, March went into the office where the tabulator was housed. Two deputies followed him and escorted him out.

Reminds me of that old Twilight Episode called the The Old Man in the Cave.

Hey what's happening in Ohio today... Hmmm Fraud?

www.ohio.com...
$10,000 check not from us, Diebold says
Election official punished for passing donation along

And this stuff is just SOME ...OF TODAY's news guys...
ed to shorten two links

[edit on 2-8-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

And in the news the next day...

www.insidebayarea.com...
Diebold worse than reported
Alameda County officials eye other voting systems, promote absentee voting
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

Diebold's latest electronic-voting machine, desired by dozens of counties nationwide, fared worse in the nation's first mass testing than previously disclosed, with almost 20 percent of the touch-screen machines crashing.
Those software failures are likely to send Diebold programmers back to work and perhaps force the firm into weeks of independent laboratory testing.

With 17 California counties — including Alameda, Marin and San Joaquin — considering purchase of the Diebold AccuVote TSx, as well as dozens of counties in Ohio, Utah and Mississippi, the delay could put at risk tens of millions of dollars in sales and throw open the door to Diebold competitors.

Throw open the door to competitors eh? What like ESS? I think they are trying to consolidate the voting machine industry now like they have does any other major industry, by demonizing one company to promote another. TTheir stock is bottoming out as well. This is nothing out of the ordinary in the coporate world, but what makes this intersting is who owns the two companies.

They got out of an anti-trust suit today as well...
source

If you don't buy the Diebold Machines, you have to pay thousands of dollars... What kind of crap is that?

www.djournal.com...
Counties that decide not to go with the Diebold machines must pay thousands of dollars for new machines, if they don't already have approved equipment. Counties that join Clark will receive the Diebold touch-screen machines at no cost.

Shouldn't we have been doing this sort of thing before we mandated them?
washingtontimes.com...

A deal signed in Ohio...

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Diebold Inc. entered into a reseller agreement with Hirsch Electronics Corp., which manufactures high-security access control and security-management systems for financial institutions and other entities and markets, according to a news release. Under the agreement Diebold will supply a line of protection products such as access-control and security-management systems to the government market.
"The addition of Hirsch's products allows Diebold to expand the range of choices available to our customers and re-emphasizes our commitment to provide high-end, advanced security systems that meet the needs of our federal clients," said Dennis Moriarty, vice president of Diebold Global Security.

Ah the illusion of choice...

www.djournal.com...
Diebold competitor tells counties they have a choice
7/19/2005 7:14:11 AM
Daily Journal
BY LEESHA FAULKNER
Daily Journal
TUPELO - Diebold's competitor has reminded county officials that they have a choice in who provides their voting machines.
Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., points out that Mississippi election law allows counties to conduct business with the vendor of their choice. The letter is signed by Steve Evans, regional sales manager for ES&S, and Mike Devereaux, vice president of the company.

More conflicts of interest...

sun-sentinel.com
Supervisor of Elections for Electronic Voting Michael Johnson, whose former company worked as a subcontractor for election equipment vendor ES&S

Localized Opposition to Electronic Voting seems to follow a pattern of Futility, here's a good example, call a meeting and they don't show up.

godesoto.com
HERNANDO — Officials in DeSoto County are anxious to meet with Secretary of State Eric Clark to voice their strong opposition to a plan that calls for adopting touch screen voting machines in Mississippi.
A meeting had been set up for Friday but had to be canceled when a number of county officials said they were unavailable.

godesoto.com
edited FOUR lengthy link

[edit on 3-8-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

Bumping this as it's important to remind people of how their freedoms are in danger.

Indeed with the mid-term elections right around the corner, we see little to no progress has been made, and electronic voting machines are being LEASED to election boards across the country, still lacking certification and testing. Do we really want a company that is literally running around bribing election officials to be counting our votes? The Central Tabulators can be hacked in under a minute now.
Here's just a few of the more recent headlines...

New Failures: Diebold Even Worse Than Reported

"offered campaign funds to county officials while trying to persuade them to use Diebold's voting machines."

Did Diebold lobbyist try to tempt elections board chair with $$?

"People acting on behalf of Diebold Inc. tried to donate money to the local parties of Democrats and Republicans who sat on the boards"

Voting machine company to pay county $1.2 million

Report says Diebold Inc. attempted to pressure election officials into buying their equipment

lawsuit alleging Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell gave preferential treatment to a competitor.

the company used unapproved components in November’s municipal election without telling the board, she said.

Blackwell improperly favored Diebold in selecting electronic voting machines for use statewide

National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela and the the recent acquisition of Sequoia Voting Systems

"the ability to manipulate results at the central tabulator (where the final vote totals are stored) even when printers are added to the machines."

"didn't have the required three years of experience with electronic voting systems"

"While it's true that no machines have been certified... what's not being said is that more and more commissioners are going ahead with the decision-making process."


mod edit: link fix

[edit on 9/5/2005 by Gools]

The key to effective election reforms is to insure that every vote is accounted for.

Diebold is selling election results regardless of how the votes were actually cast.

This has been posted before I'm sure, but for god's sake, if you haven't seen this yet, please watch this...
www.iwilltryit.com...
Can there be any doubt?

That has indeed been posted before, but it's always worth another look. And no, there can longer be any doubt, if there ever was---the current crowd has stoen two elections and is running this country into the ground before people wise up. Bush and his controllers literally stole the White House and now they are looting our nation's treasury , resources, and even Social Security if they can get their hands on it---the blatant theft of all of America's publis assets by private corporations, with Cheney as their hired controller and Bush as their hired spokesman, is going to leave this country a much poorer place, and not just in financial terms.
---Ryan

The exit polls alone should have told most people that something was up, but you know how gullible
most people are.

Any seasoned IT pro knows that you can hack any Microsoft based program.

Bush supporters were obviously fine with the results, but no one was allowed to effectively
study the source code for vulnerabilites.

These people have essentialy written a voting program that can guarantee the outcome of ANY election
as long as they use the voting machines provided.

The evidence is gone, but it DID happen here.

It certainly did happen here, my big concern is this : how can we see to it that it never happens again? I mean, optical scan votig with no paper receipt seems to be the voting method that's spreading like wildfire---and something like 80-plus percent of those machines are manufactured by Diebold. It seems like the Republicans will have a firm grip on power unless and until they decide to give it up, since the machines are all registering votes for them no matter what the people casting the votes want.
---Ryan

Sometimes the names are enough:

Diebold = die bold

or

Diebold = diabolo.

'nough said.

It is not so much the machines, but how the results can be manipulated in the software source code.

The machines themselves are not changing the result, but since they print no permanent record, this makes the combination highly desirable if you wish to market " an election system"

The source code is either tweaked to maintain a certain advantage or it allows remote access
to manipulate the talleys at the server level.

As long as you have adminitrative remote access, you can overide any " unfavorable" results.

Without access to the source code by independant inspectors and no permanent verifiable
hard records, these systems can literally guarantee the results of ANY election.

Essentially they have created Stalin's dream machine.

Originally posted by RyanC
how can we see to it that it never happens again?

Raise hell about it, and keep raising hell about it until people start listening. Ripples require a splash somewhere. Talk about it, make sure people understand that the legal ownership of thier vote is sold to a private company, tell them that proprietary source codes means that no legitimate electoral oversight is even possible.
Also if you follow what I call the Sub-News, Diebold has been courting some Democrats lately as well, gearing up for the next election I suppose.
This is the most serious of Conspiracies, a real live threat to our way of life.


Here's a good example of how far it's gone...
Remember the Angry "Citizens" of Florida were rioting to stop the recount that was all over the media during the elections?
Here's a better picture of them...

Excellent picture and diagram of the suspects, Twitchy. I actually saw that very same thing first exposed a few years back on the "Counting On Democracy" video by Greg Palast. It's sort of a video companion to his book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," and is well worth a look if you can find it. Of course, common sense dictates that the Republicans can't mount much of a "grassroots" presence even if they try---remember all of Bush's campaign rallies this year? None of them were actually oepn to the public---his appearances were announced ahead of time and tickets were distributed at collection points in the cities in which he was to appear a few days ahead of time. In order to get tickets to these supposedly public events, you had to sign a statment swearing that you were a Bush supporter and intended to vote for him! This guy doesn't even have the backbone to face down good old-fashioned hecklers and his campaign team did everything possible to weed them out in advance. Truly pathetic, and it further shows that this "president" is actually so afraid of the people that he is supposedly the "leader" of that he has to be insulated from them at any cost.
---Ryan

What is really sickening is they flew all of these guys in overnight when they knew the election wasn't going their way. It was about this same time they found a mail truck full of democratic ballots down there. Sickening.

It is not so much the machines, but how the results can be manipulated in the software source code.

The machines themselves are not changing the result, but since they print no permanent record, this makes the combination highly desirable if you wish to market " an election system"

The source code is either tweaked to maintain a certain advantage or it allows remote access
to manipulate the talleys at the server level.

As long as you have adminitrative remote access, you can overide any " unfavorable" results.

Without access to the source code by independant inspectors and no permanent verifiable
hard records, these systems can literally guarantee the results of ANY election.

Essentially they have created Stalin's dream machine.

That's about as well put as I've ever seen it...
The whole Diebold thing goes WAY beyond party lines...it's pretty much completely overhauled and corrupted the American public elections system.

There is no check and balance here...just the fate of the leadership of our nation in the hands of unchecked software engineers... Truly, the founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves....

It isn't a "threat" though, it's already a reality... That picture above is an excellent example....

I watched in abject horror as my specific polling place came out as for Bush...despite the fact that an (estimated) 90% of those I saw at the polls were wearing Kerry/Edwards stickers, etc. Not that Kerry was a great choice either, but right then, I knew something was terribly wrong...and that the election was now completely out of the hands of the public (in reality it always was....i.e. Electoral College)....

Perhaps a change in tactics is in order?

Forget campaigning....the new focus should be getting your guy into senior management in Diebold!!!!

Why Kerry afraid to speak on vote fraud? KERRY USED ES&S/DIEBOLD E-VOTE RIG TO OUST DEAN!


KERRY USED ES&S VOTE MACHINES TO RIG THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PRIMARY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, TO OUST DEAN, SEALING THE SKULL AND BONES'ERS IN EACH "PARTY." KERRY IS JUST AS GUILTY AS BUSH OF VOTE FRAUD. THAT IS WHY KERRY IS QUIET. Dean would have been the Democratic Party Ticket, legally,--until e-vote fraud came to the "rescue" for the aristocratic elites of the U.S. Moreover, did you know that VP George H. W. Bush won a wierd "unexpected upset" (due to e-vote machines?) in 1988 against Republican front runner Bob Dole. This happened in New Hampshire as well.

Everyone knows that Kerry's father was high up in the CIA, just like Bush's father, right?

Everyone knows that Kerry covered up for Bush in the Iran/Contra Commission (and covered up for the Bush family in the BCCI investigation), right? The Iran/Contras commission was the "Kerry Commission." BCCI was (partially) investigated by Kerry as well.

Small world, eh? Kerry will avoid this like the plague, because he is part of the Bush family networks, and a beneficiary of vote fraud himself to get to the Democratic Ticket in 2004!

Report

I didn't know about this until now...Not surprising though.

Bunch of frauds and inept aholes...

Nice find True Lies!!!!

Not sure about the source though

As stated previously this goes beyond party politics folks. It looks like the voting machine companies may be in control of who gets elected in both parties.

Question:

Does that electronic nudge simply go to the highest bidder or is this part of the Skull & Bones v. Skull & Bones set-up? And what does that say about a political system?
.



[edit on 9/8/2005 by Gools]

Sadly, a truely honest and worthy leader would never stand a chance in the current
electoral process.

I've been voting since I was 18 ( a looong time ago )
and I have ALWAYS felt that my only choice was to vote for the lesser of two evils.

I still can't for the life of me figure out why we permit this to continue.

We will never change the system by only voting in the Presidential elections
once every 4 years.

That's their game and they win every time.
The current 2 party system is just there to give us the illusion that we actually have a voice.

In reality, the billionaire tycoons have the only voice these people hear.

If we honestly want worthy leadership, we need to start at the bottom
weeding out corruption at the local level, then work our way up until we
rebuild the entire house.

You can't build a strong house on a weak foundation.

And that's what we've done.



[edit on 8-9-2005 by FallenFromTheTree]

After repeated embarrassing glitches at the polls, elections officials in Miami-Dade County have recommended scrapping the county's $24.5 million electronic voting system in favor of paper ballots with optical scanners.

As reported in today's South Florida Sun-Sentinel...


Report
Ok it was there, but this blog caught the report

The report from earlier this month demonstrated, amongst other things, that "there were 5,917 cases where there were more votes than signatures" and that "In another 2,208 cases, there were more signatures than votes."

The voting machines in question, which failed the voters and costs millions of wasted tax dollars, were made by Electronic Systems & Software (ES&S), one of two companies (along with Diebold) which record and count 80% of the votes iPennn the United States of America.
---------------------


The state of PA also recognizes this and is taking action to dump es&s.
Now if only the other states will catch on.

I suppose it is our duty as american's to contact our elected to let them know we demand paper ballots hm?


Also I found this:
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED:To Restore Public Confidence in NC Elections


www.democraticunderground.com...

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin



[edit on 10-9-2005 by TrueLies]