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| 10-31-06: Reports from the front line... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5817
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 14 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - 8:23 am: | 
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Anyone who can get at the yellow button can ruin the election. It takes no password, no computer knowledge, no equipment.
The formula is printed in materials that have been distributed to thousands of people. The machines will count millions of votes.
Citizens -- not scientists or certifiers or testing lab authorities -- identified the problem and have now notified the California secretary of state, and emergency measures are reportedly being taken in California, but not yet in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, or any other state using Sequoia Voting Systems, the third-largest voting system vendor in the U.S.
An extraordinary Southern California citizen, Ron Watt, verified the security problem, which Black Box Voting will explain in detail below. The California secretary of state was formally notified by the California citizens.
The California Secretary of State's office followed up on a conference call among Bruce McDannold (Sec. State's office), Riverside citizen Tom Courbat, and Tehama County citizen Ron Watt on Friday Oct. 28.
After hearing what these citizens revealed, the Sec. State had Sequioa demonstrate the process which, in effect, allows any citizen to cast multiple votes
Sequoia agreed it could be done, but claimed it would be difficult to do unnoticed (they focused more on voters doing it than the idea of an insider doing it)
The Secretary of State contacted every California county that uses Sequoia and confirmed with them that they were indeed aware of this feature.
California counties are to inform all their poll workers of this and instruct them to be very vigilant during the Election Day to anyone spending too much time in the booth, or reaching around to the back of the machine where the button is located. Poll workers are supposed to be instructed to listen for a beeping sound made when the yellow button is pressed.
The Secretary of state is reportedly going to require increased signage regarding criminal penalties for tampering with voting equipment are to be prominently displayed on every machine.
Additional steps should be considered, and Sequoia now has joined Diebold as a company that produces provably insecure voting systems that should be recalled. Both the WinEDS central tabulator deployed by Sequoia and the Sequoia touch-screens with the yellow buttons are insecure.
While it may be caught if extra votes are entered using the yellow button hack, which ones would be thrown out if there are too many?
Here is how the "Yellow Button Hack" is done:
1. Go to the back of the voting machine. Press and hold the yellow activate button (about 3 seconds). Release when the screen says "waiting for next voter".
2. Press and hold the yellow button again until the screen says "change to manual activation?"
3. Touch the "Yes" button on the screen.
4. At that point there will be a message on the screen that says "Manual activate voting enabled" (this is just displayed briefly)
5. Next message will read "Waiting for the next voter" When you see that you touch the message that says "start voting" or "resume voting" located in the lower right of the screen The AVC Edge is now set up for poll worker activation mode.
Here is the sequence:
If it's regular voting (as opposed to provisional)
a. Once you've touched the start or resume the "waiting for next voter" appears
b. Activate the ballot by pressing and releasing the yellow activate button
c. Activate the correct party for the voter AND press the yellow activate button using the keypad on the display screen
d. Select the voter's language if appropriate
e. Vote. (Once the voter has completed voting and cast their ballot. Prepare the Edge for the next voter. If the next voter is a regular voter repeat step B and D above.
You can now vote as many times as you want to.
This information was obtained in a public records request
You will find it in the AVC Edge with VeriVote Printer Poll Worker's Guide Booklet 5 Troubleshooting Document version 2.01 with date Dec. 29 2005.
WHAT TO DO WITH EVIDENCE:
"Never put it in a funnel."
Always PROPAGATE evidence to at least 5-7 different places:
- A reporter
- Black Box Voting
- Your local elections office (this will seed it into the public record)
- Your e-mail list
- Your local elections reform group
- The EIRS reporting system
- A blog
- Someplace unexpected
EVIDENCE = video, audio, photos, public records
(stories and anecdotes are not evidence)
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Leonard Schmiege Gyan Hardman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leonardgyan
Post Number: 17
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - 1:17 pm: |
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We are aware of this in Pinellas county Florida.
Thanks for the alert.
A machine manager had spoken at one our voting forums on this issue which he called manual overide. A new website only for Florida voters is www.shadowvote.org has been set up to help double check the election and to help voters research and see their precinct specific ballot with candidate links. Please check it out if you are a Florida Voter. |
Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 50
Registered: 06-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 - 4:59 pm: |
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Known action taken to date by CA Secretary of State, per voice mail message late Monday night:
For video of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors meeting yesterday, in which I was lectured by Chief Executive Officer Larry Parrish, please go to http://209.128.123.171/ppportal/agenda/webcast.aspx and click on "Play" in the "Video" column on the SECOND line entitled "10/31/06". Once open, scroll down below the television to the yellow number 16 and click on it. The four individuals testifying all talk about the problems with lack of transparency in the Riverside County Elections process and implore the Board to allow Election Observer Panel members to be allowed to view the input machines in the central tabulator on election night. The response, including the lecture by CEO Larry Parrish, should be enough to put a chill in nearly anyone's spine.
The "rest of the story" will be released after about 10 p.m. tonight, or on local (San Bernardino/Riverside) PBS TV station KVCR when I am interviewed at 7:30 p.m. tonight. The call in number there is 866-367-5827.
Stay tuned! |
Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 51
Registered: 06-2006
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 1, 2006 - 5:09 pm: |
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The attachment on the above posting is NOT my recommendation, but rather the recommendation of Ron Watt, Election Integrity Advocate in Red Bluff (Tehama County), CA. It is his recommnedation, and a great one I might add, of a "fix" for the Sequoia Yellow Button Security Hole.
I posted it inadvertantly while trying to post a document regarding the known actions taken to date by the CA Secretary of State's office. That document is attached here. |
Paul Lehto
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Paul_lehto
Post Number: 12
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, November 2, 2006 - 7:30 am: |
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We should find out WHEN did the elections officials find out about this and what if any mitigation they are doing.
NOTE WELL: One manual I have says to watch the voters closely to ensure they don't vote repeatedly while it's in manual mode. That would certainly appear to invade the secrecy of the ballot, wouldn't it? The machine doesn't beep or give a lot of cues as to "cast votes" on its backside, does it? Someone would have to be watching the screen or the paper trail, if one exists.
A couple weeks from now marks the two year anniversary of me learning about this wonderful feature, I wonder if Sequoia is fully disclosing it to officials, and whether officials are fully disclosing to the public and to risk assessment auditors, etc.? |
Sandra laurie
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Sanspell
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, November 2, 2006 - 7:00 pm: |
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So there is no safe system? Is this what it it is? I can see how someone could make up more votes in person, but arent we always on to do the right thing and not do that? The thing Iam worried over are these memory cards or computers votes that I do think named Bush when he lost. And then for Kerry to not do "the right thing" and I voted for him, he just let it go, he had more power then to see it through, Iam to the point where I dont trust hardly anyone |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 3363
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, November 2, 2006 - 8:13 pm: |
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Hi Sandra,
You said, "I am to the point where I dont trust hardly anyone." I know what you mean.
Maybe we need to learn to trust ourselves more, and to rely less on experts or those we perceive to have more power than ourselves.
If we each do something--no matter how small it might be--even if that means just reading more to be better informed, or telling just one other person something we've learned, that will all make a big difference.
Sometimes the most surprising things can happen as the result of one tiny action. |
Dan Oetting
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dan_oetting
Post Number: 202
Registered: 07-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, November 3, 2006 - 9:39 am: |
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As we learned earlier in another thread, the big yellow button has been given a name by company employees. So when you you've finished voting on one of these machines, smile as you walk past the poll worker and say "Cheeseburger" 
Or when they hand you the "I voted" sticker, place it on a yellow circle that says "again and again". |
Jeff Cook
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Honestelections
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, November 3, 2006 - 11:28 am: |
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Apparently this has been around and known of for many years. It is on machines made in the 90s. Poll workers have often been trained to watch out for voters taking too much time and to listen for the beep that happens when the button is pushed.
The question occurs - who is watching the poll workers to keep them from taking advantage of this fraud opportunity? This is easier than ballot box stuffing and probably would create a record on the VVPAT so it would look legitimate. |
Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 52
Registered: 06-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, November 3, 2006 - 5:52 pm: |
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This is a real dilema. The ones most likely to have the inside knowledge are the precinct inspectors (captains) and the roving inspectors (who troubleshoot problems the precinct inspectors can't resolve). The problem has never really been the voters - they are the least likely to know of the sequence needed to pull this off.
In CA (at least), poll workers have now (supposedly) been alerted to watch out for ANYbody spending too much time or reaching around or beeps. However - that isn't any kind of a lock-tight system to ensure no hanky-panky is taking place. I have no idea if/when any other states have been notified of this or what they are doing to take precautions.
With 10s or 100s of thousands of precinct captains throughout the U.S. (in Sequoia Counties), all of whom supposedly have the ability and opportunity to do this (activate the yellow button and vote multiple times), all that is needed is "motive" and the extra votes can/will be cast. [The volume control on the beep can be turned WAY down or off if the audio voting (headset) feature is activiated.] Money, especially in elections, has always been a strong motive to take actions that are contrary to the public good. The vote tally from the machines could even be forced to agree with the sign-in register by simply signing in someone's place who didn't show up to vote, thus increasing the number of signatures to match the number of machine votes.
This is in no way an accusation that ANY temporary worker (whom about ALL the poll workers are) would be tempted by certain offers, but it certainly COULD happen.
So what is the solution? Poll WATCHERS should certainly be alerted to this throughout the country. And, if all the poll WORKERS are told to watch for this, then any poll captains who might be tempted will be less likely to carry it out, as the poll workers will serve as watchdogs.
That's about the best I can suggest at this late point for this election. Other ideas would be VERY welcome. |
Kenneth R. Hogan
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Subvet
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, November 3, 2006 - 8:24 pm: |
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I have been reading on this site this evening and watched the HBO special last night (11/2/2006). My wife was crying just like the woman in the HBO special by the time it ended.
Shame on John Kerry. That is some pretty dark stuff going on there. I personally think there was a huge threat of some kind pointed his way. Did anyone look at Bushes eyes just before he voted in 2004 on the HBO special, and what he said. He knew he was going to win before he even voted. Just call me crazy. I am glad of one thing though. I did record the HBO special. Everyone I know that missed the program can see it at my house. Thank what ever you belive in that HBO did not cave in to those scum and pull the program.
We despertly need to take our voting rights back. Hand marked ballots and hand counted, no machines of any kind. I do not care if it takes two weeks to count the votes. At the very least we would have a fighting chance at a fair election.
If at all possible demand a paper ballot. The best I have be able to do is vote on an absentee ballets. Now that is very much in question. What kind of machine is counting it?
I guess we had better get busy. Hope it is not too late. |
Pat walters
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Trimmanfl
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, November 4, 2006 - 7:26 am: |
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Here in Florida ,We need the motorvoter law !
That way they will have to scan your DL to vote !
If you do not vote ? You do not drive ! |
David Warman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Lanwolf
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, November 5, 2006 - 7:48 pm: |
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Oh boy, where to begin? As a grizzled veteran of the Computer Industry -
1: Any computer program can be subverted by insiders with malicious intent. Any.
2: All significant programs contain bugs. This is because the combinatorial explosion engendered by their complexity renders it impossible to test all possible input sequences in finite time.
3: Any buggy progam is potentially open to subversion by outsiders with malicious intent. So actually is any apparently perfect program, when unanticipated things are done to it.
4: Any buggy program will malfunction without notice.
5: malicious intent is not necessary to cause improper operation. Fools are remarkably ingenious.
6: Elections must be conducted without the slightest appearance of the possibility of subversion by insiders with malicious intent. This is otherwise known as "transparency".
7: Code secrecy is temporary. Using code secrecy to defend against crackers is temporary. IT WILL BE BROKEN. Humans are not perfect and will let information slip out, even with the best of intentions.
The above pertains to any and all electronic voting systems. Which IMHO makes the basic idea of electronic voting laughable.
BUT we have secret code, owners of the secret code vowing to deliver elections to a particular party, and governmental laws established to both protect the secrecy of the code and to require the voting precincts to use that code.
Yes, there are procedures in place purporting to protect the integrity of the process. BUT.
They are not enforced.
They are not sufficient even if enforced.
There are extremely egregious departures from their provisions that make the whole system inherently crackable at the most elementary of levels and methods.
For example, I first saw this mentioned here (but not recently): the regulations specify two things that are blatantly ignored in the actual products: one, that none of the code running the election be interpreted, and two that no code be executable from the data cards. These are so elementary I cannot believe the design was allowed to include executable interpreted code from the data card by accident or oversight. I also cannot believe the boxes were designed so that code updates could be installed so freely.
For this kind of hard application, the running code should be written from the metal up, burned into non-reprogrammable ROM that is soldered onto the main board, cryptographically signed and scrambled by an independent authority upon certification, and requiring another strong key to be entered by the precinct supervisors at the start of polling in order to descramble the code so it can be executed, and should be open to public inspection so those that know how to program can assure themselves and their community that all is in order. These are elementary defenses against cracking. One can go further, though I would leave it to my more experienced friends (such as Bruce Schneier) to really go into what should be done if we really want electronic systems despite their inherent insecurities.
All started by calls for buzz-word compliance by technologically challenged corporate assets in Congress. Of course. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 3391
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 6, 2006 - 6:43 am: |
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Hi David,
You've really articulated those issues well.
As you said, transparency is key if we are to have fair, democratic elections. that means that ordinary people have to be able to see and evaluate what is going on and not be forced to trust anyone else, like a computer wizard. |
suzanne warden
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Suzannewarden
Post Number: 15
Registered: 06-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 6, 2006 - 7:10 am: |
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By the way, I am a Poll Inspector in Santa Clara County (sequoia machines) and I have not received ANY instructions regarding the little yellow button being a issue tomorrow. I only know of it because of you guys. |
Tom Courbat
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 107
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, July 5, 2009 - 5:27 pm: |
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Hi Bev - The URL I gave in my November 1, 2006 posting should now be changed to the updated site at http://bosvideo.co.riverside.ca.us/ppportal/agenda/webcast.aspx. If it can all be on one line, that makes getting there a lot easier. |
Jeff Spellerberg
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Happyfeller
Post Number: 3
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 1:47 pm: |
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David -
How does your conclusion match your first point: "1: Any computer program can be subverted by insiders with malicious intent. Any."
Then you conclude that the solution is a COMPUTER PROGRAM! What is wrong with everybody? Don't you get it? ELECTRONIC VOTING CANNOT BE MADE SAFE! THE SOLUTION IS NOT TO IMPROVE ELECTRONIC VOTING, BUT RATHER, TO ABOLISH IT!
Paper ballots, counted by hand by public citizens and not corporations or elected officials, is the only way to ensure fair elections.
Every computerized "DRE" has invisible computer code to make it work, at hundreds if not thousands of hackable junctures between the voter's finger and the printed result. You can never make it safe. You can never make it reliable. You can never make it honest. We don't need to make elections EASIER to conduct nor do we need to make elections EASIER to count. The answer is not: "What? Can't I vote on my ibook?" The answer is: You must get your ass down to the polls, vote on a piece of paper, and then get in a chair and help count the votes by hand, and then go to your next station and verify the votes that somebody else counted. All on election day, done by citizens and not Poll Workers, selected much like a juror is selected. And you don't bitch, because your are not doing it for pay, but for freedom. Your own freedom. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3509
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 11:25 am: |
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"You must get your ass down to the polls, vote on a piece of paper, and then get in a chair and help count the votes by hand, and then go to your next station and verify the votes that somebody else counted. All on election day, done by citizens and not Poll Workers, selected much like a juror is selected. And you don't bitch, because your are not doing it for pay, but for freedom. Your own freedom."
I like it. Except for one thing - getting the public to buy into that. Good luck with that. Tell me, Jeff, where you live and in the circles in which you interact, do you see much support for or even understanding on this? 'Cuz I don't.
The standard cannot be to merely have the correct solution, it must have popular support, too, even if it is undeniably correct.
And honestly, I am constantly bugged by the nagging belief that if we did all that; the paper ballots, the drafting of counters, the citizen directly involved democracy, the whole schmeer, in 99%+ of cases, we'd see the very same people being elected as before.
BUT that doesn't make the journey any less worth doing.
==========================================
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Dale McClain
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dale
Post Number: 193
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 12:10 am: |
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The Kick Off of this thread was in 2006.
“Anyone who can get at the yellow button can ruin the election. It takes no password, no computer knowledge, no equipment.
The formula is printed in materials that have been distributed to thousands of people. The machines will count millions of votes.”
==================================
And now I make the fourth post since 2006 on this thread. This post is meant to reinforce what Kurt is saying.
QUOTE:
“The standard cannot be to merely have the correct solution, it must have popular support, too, even if it is undeniably correct.”
=================================
Be fore I comment let me mention a troubling set of statistics.
In a Story by Jim Kouri, according to what I read in the Nashville Examiner By the end of 2008, 7.3 million men and women were under correctional supervision, including 70 percent (about 5.1 million) who were supervised in the community on probation or parole, and 30 percent (about 2.3 million) who were incarcerated in federal and state prisons or county jails, according to the latest statistical analysis by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
===================================
My comment would be:
Why Seven million and three hundred thousand people need correctional supervision In the United States is a matter to ponder.
My first thought was that banking laws were to blame … You know a guy gets a little drunk-- writes a bad check ends up in jail. Years ago that was a pattern.
Not so today -- our brilliant lawmakers have
Seen fit to write laws that fill prisons with
People who in many cases are very quiet refined people with little or no violent behavior that just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time .
You can not convince me that there are two million and three hundred thousand “Charlie Manson’s” incarcerated in the United States.
I first saw the melt down of the constitution
When federal agents started boarding and
Searching vessels on the intercostals in Florida in the search for drugs.
That was in the 80’s. Then came 0 tolerance
which meant even a slight trace of an illegal drug was sufficient cause to confiscate a boat.
What we have now is a Nation of Laws layered one on another in such a way that every known civil right of man can be trampled with impunity.
Illegal Search and seizure, False testimony, framing evidence, bribery, plea bargaining, Imprisonment with no trial , wiretapping, warrant less breaking and entering. Prison labor and all coupled up with a financial reward of funds to enlarge the prison system and Law enforcement agencies.
Do you see where I am going with this?
Well, I will explain--- if 7.3 million people allow themselves to be handled this way with out any resistance -- why can you expect a handful of disgruntled voters to raise their squeaky voices?
Dale McClain |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3510
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 6:15 am: |
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And you, Dale, are equally correct about the obscene number of incarcerated individuals in this country. In fact, that is my main professional focus - finding legislative ways to reduce our prison population without negatively impacting public safety, at least in my state's system.
The irony is that in this also, the best solutions and the politically popular solutions are a very small intersection set.
Now let me bring those Examiner stats back around to elections. 7.3 million people affected. Now, consider that whether those 7.3 million people get to vote at all depends ENTIRELY on individual state laws, which vary WIDELY from state to state. When was the last time ANY Presidential election was decided by more than 7.3 million popular votes?
Do you see the problem? If State P allows virtually all ex-offenders to vote, and State A or State F allows it only after the ex-offender petitions a Governor to have their voting rights restored, and he can refuse for no reason, how can you EVER elect a President with popular votes? The votes aren't intermixable, aren't "fungible", because eligibility is too vastly different from state to state. Enough votes to swing almost ANY Presidential election are subject to state whim. Equal Protection? Not so easily. Solution: Electoral College. You don't vote for President. You vote for who gets to vote your state's votes for President. The only way to allow states to determine eligibility is for there to be no interstate public elections.
By the way, the capital of my mythical State P is Harrisburg, State A has Montgomery, and State F has Tallahassee. All strictly fictional of course. 
==========================================
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
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Sequoia troubleshooters guide booklet pp 5-6
Transcript of Secretary of State office Voicemail message re Sequoia Security Problem