Hacking Democracy

This need to be shared with our friends.

I just did

I am a typical female and actually cried at the end of that. I wonder if our 2008 political candidates have ever taken the time to watch this. I am appalled. I am so sad for our country. I am proud to have donated to the grannies though.

Stephanie B, mom of 3

Democracy ? We don't need no steenking democracy.

http://rattube.com/blog1/...

Once a voting process is deemed flawed, and in error......a legal injunction should be served up. There has to be a law around here somewhere addressing the possibility of voter fraud......especially if the ones responsible for the count are behind it.

This documentary film is a MUST SEE for anyone who loves their country and the American Way of Life.

The fact that computer scientists were able to hack into a Diebold "accuvote 2000" "memory card" and subversively alter election results is alarming to say the least.

"America's been took. It's plain to see." -Paris

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy

http://www.dailypaul.com/...

From Brad Blog --MrFreedom

http://www.bradblog.com/?...

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 1/16/2008 8:09PM

NH CONTEST: DIEBOLD MISCOUNTS REPORTED ACROSS MANY CANDIDATES, WARDS, IN FIRST DAY OF ELECTION CONTEST HAND COUNTS

Also: Diebold Memory Cards Unaccounted For; Public Record Request by Election Integrity Advocates on Ground Reveal 550+ Votes Read as Blank by Op-Scanner in Stratham...Clinton, Kucinich Observers There, Nobody from Obama or Edwards, Says Election Attorney...

Blogged by Brad Friedman from on the road...

(As mentioned in previous items, I'm now on the road --- currently in Oakland for the Thursday night screening of the more-ironically-named-than-ever documentary, UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections --- and doing my best to keep up while moving. So apologies for the terse reports for the moment, as I continue to roll and have limited time online.)

LATEST OUT OF NH: Disparities being found during hand-counts of ballots, in many wards, many candidates. Diebold op-scan memory cards unaccounted for at the moment, Secretary of State (SoS) doesn't track them after elections, doesn't track error reports during elections. LHS Associates (see below) handles all of it instead, according to reports on the ground. Public records request reveals hundreds of ballots in one area scanned as blank due to incorrect ink used on ballots, and other problems on LHS problem report forms.

***

Numbers are now being posted from both the Democratic and Republican hand-counts in the NH Primary Election contest. So far, only wards in Manchester (Hillsborough County) have been hand-counted, and disparities between the original counts from the Diebold optical-scan machine and the hand inspections seem to be occurring in many wards, and for many candidates.

Here is the SoS Recount page with the totals, that I haven't yet been able to review in full. http://www.sos.nh.gov/rec...

While sources on the ground at the counting today have told me that officials were not announcing the originally counted results at the counting room, the SoS web page lists what they claim are the original counts --- previously verified by nobody --- versus the recounted numbers.

The disparities, as I've quickly been able to review them, are small, but consistent, in ward after ward, across almost all of the candidates. I'm told that the manufacturers of the optical-scan machines (in this case, Diebold) have estimated an expected error rate of 1% on this type of tallying device which, as noted by one of our contacts in NH, is ridiculous, if you consider that most states and counties only kick in "automatic recounts" when the margin between the two leading candidates is less than .5% or so.

ADDITIONALLY...Public records requests are being made on the spot, for errors and malfunctions at various voting precincts. An early review of the error forms turned over from the public record request made by Election Integrity experts overseeing the counting, has revealed that in Stratham there were some 550 ballots that were not read by the op-scan at all. They were seen as blank ballots. Officials there noticed the problem, and then hand-counted some 3000 ballots after the error was discovered.

Apparently, as we've seen elsewhere, voters were given the wrong pen to use and the op-scanners did not "see" this particular type of ink.

Some of the election day error and incident reports, as read to me over the phone just now by Susan Pynchon of Florida Fair Elections Coalition and Paddy Shaffer of Ohio Election Justice Campaign, both of whom are on the ground in NH overseeing the counts, and assisting Republican contest candidate Albert Howard...

(Town of Stratham, 9:00pm)

PROBLEM: Printout indicated 550 "blank voted" ballots which indicated that bad pens were used.

SOLUTION: Went to Stratham to confirm that approximately 15 bad pens were used on election day. The town had, by that time, hand counted and announced those results as official.

PROBLEM: Too many blanks, used wrong marking pens

SOLUTION: Sent Gerry and Tina with lucid machines. (Town of Lebanon, precinct #2, 9:00 (am or pm?))

PROBLEM: Corrupt Count.

SOLUTION: Shut off and back on. Count back to 155. (Town of Manchester, 9:30pm)

PROBLEM: P/U 3rd Bad Machine per John S. (likely refers to John Silvestro, owner of LHS)

SOLUTION:

I spoke with Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, who is also on the ground in NH, and she asks: "If it wasn't 550 ballots, but just 55 or so in some places, would they even have seen it and known to recount ALL of the ballots?"

She also noted that the error report came from LHS Associates, the private company (with the, um, less-than-reputable background) that is the sole Diebold vendor, programmer, operator and service provider in NH and most of the other New England states.

LHS, apparently, is the one responsible for tracking (or not) and reporting (or not) any such errors, rather than the Secretary of State or local election officials, it would seem. That tracks with previous BRAD BLOG reporting on LHS, and how they operate in Connecticut, where there are similar concerns for whether or not the SoS even knows what the error rates are for the system they use, since problem reports are given to LHS instead of to public officials.

The BRAD BLOG has reported within the past few days machine problems during the election in a number of towns. In fact, of the first four towns we called that used the Diebold machines, all four reported machine failures of one type or another.

FURTHER...Voting Rights attorney John Bonifaz, legal director of VoterAction.org, was on the scene today, and just told me that he has great concerns about the transparency of both the initial election and the hand-count auditing process that got under way in earnest today.

"I'm very concerned that this is not a fully transparent process that is happening there," he told me.

The sensitive memory cards containing the programming and tabulation from the Diebold optical-scanners are apparently "missing in action" for the moment. Those cards, as viewers of HBO's Hacking Democracy know by now, may be used to hack an election, such that only a proper hand-count of the paper ballots afterwards will reveal the hack. (See the video of that hack for yourself right here. The same exact machine being hacked in that film was used across the state to count 80% of the ballots in NH in last week's primary.)

And yet, says Bonifaz who spent time today speaking with New Hampshire Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of State and Deputy Attorney General, nobody seems to have any idea where those cards are and what has become of them.

He says he was told by Secretary of State William Gardner that his office doesn't get involved in tracking what happens to those memory cards. Some have reportedly been returned to LHS, and may have had their memory erased already.

"When you have a private company counting 80% of the votes, and you later learn that the memory cards are unaccounted for, you have a serious question about the transparency and accountability in that process," Bonifaz said.

He notes that federal law requires all materials from elections be preserved for 22 months after the election. So if those materials have already been lost, destroyed, or over-written, there are legal questions that must be addressed.

Bonifaz also noted that while representatives and observers for the Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich campaigns were on site, nobody at all seemed to be there from either the Barack Obama or John Edwards camps. (Incredibly enough, I might add!)

* *

Our earlier report today had a number of important updates that you may wish to review. Including the fact that the Kucinich people have asked for more observers (with video cameras if you have them!) at the State Archives Bldg., 71 South Fruit Street, Concord, New Hampshire, to help oversee the 6 counting teams. Much more in that report as well...

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The Ron Paul revolution is coming through your town. Either jump on board or get the hell out of the way!!!

From Opednews --MrFreedom

http://www.opednews.com/a...

What to expect from a NH Recount and Why

by Mark Crispin Miller Page 1 of 2 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com

The NH recount is going forward after all, as many of you have pointed out to me.

However, Kucinich is settling for a partial recount---which, as Nancy Tobi argues here, is likelier to cover up the fraud (if any) than expose it.

MCM

I understand that Howard is going ahead with the Repub recount after Gardner backed off a challenge to his interpretation of the law that all the cash had to be paid up front. I also understand there are operatives working on Howard to only do a partial recount. The Kucinich team has already decided to only do a partial recount. Below is a little piece I wrote to explain why a partial recount, just like a random audit, does not have any statistical merit in detecting fraud. Again, this recount does not solve our problem. We need a full investigation to reveal the truth behind decisions that were made that resulted in NH handing over 81% of our votes to a private corporation, which counts them in secret, whose second line of business is data mining, and whose executive management includes a convicted felon - a drug trafficker. The recount is a good campaign PR for Kucinich maybe, but does little for the cause of election integrity. You are free to distribute this. I have also attached a small file that explains more about LHS Associates.

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HOW DOES NEW HAMPSHIRE'S RECOUNT CULTURE FACILITATE RATHER THAN DETER ELECTION RIGGING?

New Hampshire officials like to point to our accessible recounts as both a deterrent to fraud and as "proof" that our machines are functioning just dandy. But let's look at some of the characteristics of the NH culture, and we see that it actually is a great cover for election rigging.

NH recount characteristics:
1) Generally done for state rep races (low stakes)
2) Almost never done for high stakes federal or gubernatorial or primary races
3) Candidates usually discouraged by their party from pursuing recounts (sore loser factor)
4) Candidates choose areas to begin recount, and often stop the recount before it is completed if they find no reason to believe the recount will result in a change of outcome

So with this in mind, let's look at a scenario for hacking NH:

We now understand that there is a confluence of the data mining and voting industries. ChoicePoint, for instance, helped rig Florida 2000 by removing undesirable voters from the Florida voting rolls (94,000 Black voters who it was believed would have voted Democrat).

In New Hampshire (and all of New England, in fact), LHS Associates is the Diebold vendor. LHS programs our voting machines for every election: 81% of NH ballots are controlled by LHS-Diebold programs.

Now here's what most people don't know: LHS has a secondary line of business. They collect demographic, census-style data. They are a DATA MINING company.

So here is how it works:

Election rigging is never a wholesale swath of rigged machines across the country. It is Florida 2000: identifying the demographic risks to your candidate and then "taking care" of them. In Florida, it was taken care of via the voting rolls - they removed 94,000 eligible voters (identified demographically as leaning Democratic) from the rolls. Other methods include programming the machines to flip votes from one candidate to the other.

NH Senate Race 2002
If you know, for instance, that certain wards in Manchester have the demographic profile of giving their vote for Shaheen, then you rig those machines to tweak Sununu enough votes to overcome the Shaheen demographic risk. Polls have shown that it is going to be a close race and indeed, the results proved this out.

But strangely, the election results exactly flipped the poll projections and gave Sununu the win rather than Shaheen.

It's a little surprising in some typically Democratic leaning areas, but there was, after all, that VERY EFFECTIVE anti-Shaheen smear campaign the weekend just before the election, wasn't there? And voters are so obviously easily swayed by those last minute smear campaigns, as evidenced in these vote flips going from Shaheen to Sununu so unexpectedly.

So let's say Shaheen decides to ask for a recount under NH law and tradition. (She didn't, unfortunately.) But let's say she begins with
Manchester. She finds that the hand counted paper ballots in most of the wards give Sununu a few more votes, maintaining his lead.

It's a known fact that every hand count gives each candidate votes, because there are always some votes that the machines don't count (write ins, or mismarked, or whatever).

Shaheen does find that a couple of the wards in the recount give her those votes and in fact make HER the winner in those wards, and not Sununu. But not by much, and the differential between the hand and machine count is very small, practically statistically insignificant in and of itself. And even so, the differential uncovered in a hand count is easily explained away (write-ins, folded ballots that were miscounted, etc. etc.).

No reason to suspect tampering at all, especially when the other Manchester wards reveal no change in the outcome.

When she sees this small and seemingly inconsequential differential is found in one or two areas, Shaheen, per NH tradition and culture, calls off the recount, not wanting to appear a "sore loser" or to "waste the Secretary of State's time" or to "waste" money when "clearly" - although the race was tight, Sununu had the edge.

What she hasn't figured on, is that this is how vote-rigging is done: by shaving small percentages off the unfavored candidate in lots of different districts. She hasn't thought through that all those small shifts add up, and in fact, she WAS the winner, but never knew because she called off the recount, per NH tradition, and the full number of ballots were never counted to get the real result.

So let's say I am an election rigger. In the case of Diebold management, I have learned the bizness at the feet of the best: Watergate burglars and embezzlers alike. Given our NH traditions, and since it is well known that NH almost NEVER conducts full recounts for these high stakes federal races anyway, rigging the machine count is a risk worth taking for anyone smarmy enough to undertake such a clumsy enterprise as the phone jamming crime of that same election.

Especially since all you need to do is flip a small percentage of votes from Shaheen to Sununu in several targeted demographically risky areas. It's a matter of taking your demographic maps, then overlaying them with your election programming maps. Line it up, and presto, you've got the vote flips shifting the race from Shaheen to Sununu.

So this is what we are facing. Lots of little ChoicePoints all over the nation. And we have our own right here in NH: LHS Associates. This is not a good thing for NH, and not for our democracy.

***

Mark Crispin Miller is the author of Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform, which is now out in paperback from Basic Books, with over 100 pages of new material. He may be reached through his blog at markcrispinmiller.com. A movie based on his off-Broadway show, A Patriot Act, is available on DCD at www.patriotnation.com.

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The Ron Paul revolution is coming through your town. Either jump on board or get the hell out of the way!!!

I was shocked. Bev should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, seriously.

Also try to catch "Uncounted". http://www.uncountedthemo...

Here is the trailer for "Uncounted": http://www.uncountedthemo...

Equally shocking.

This is a very disturbing and dangerous video!! Disturbing because our democracy may be hackable, dangerous because it makes me just want to not even waste any more of my time or money voting or trying to get any candidate elected. I mean what's the point of all the hard work we are doing here and the money we are donating if its all for nothing??

America is dead.

This makes me want to submit a Freedom of Information Act to my local county for all the machine tallies; to go through their trash to look for anomalies; to see if our local county vote really adds up. What say you America? Anyone up for some county trash picking?

This is disturbing. In my life time the first I heard about vote fraud was the jokes about Mayor Daley in Chicago in the 1960 Kennedy / Nixon race. It went dormant more or less until Bush / Gore 2000, but since then (and the advent of e voting) hardly an election goes by without allegations of voter fraud.

If this belief becomes wide-spread...it could get ugly...3rd world ugly. You can't watch this information and not come away thinking OMG the whole process is a scam.

I don't know what to think now. Money bombs, constitutional candidates, grass roots participation, it can all be wiped away with a few million dollars, some memory cards, and a good hacker.

Why are the votes secret? Why can't we see in real time at each poll at least a running total of the results? And, there has to be a hard copy until this can be triple redundant encrypted. But I just don't know??? This is big and very very bad.
Chairman

- ie no paper trail - is very very sketchy. But I have to wonder if elections can be easily rigged by hacking the machines...well then why do the presidential candidates bust their humps trying to get a few votes? Couldn't Romney or Obama or Clinton or Paul just spend some of their millions and buy the nomination?

Also, keep in mind that "The Grannies" are recounting an election in which no touchscreen machines were used. Seems like they are worried about the wrong state. Florida might be the place to do some serious post-election auditing.

So when I marked Paul on my absentee balot.. I probably voted for Bush.. um I mean Mackpain...eek..

it is undeniable proof of voter tampering and fraud.

My summary of the HBO documentary: Votes are easily changed through access to the memory cards. It is transparent and undetectable. Election results are altered by whoever has the most $$$ or influence.

Why is there no national outcry to fix it?