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| 10-16-08: New results middleman spott... |
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| Author |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 9883
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 9:04 pm: | 
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The following locations are using software and, in some cases, hosting voter registration data and results on the servers that belong to a Florida company called SOE Software: (CA) Contra Costa, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, Shasta, Ventura; (CO) Arapahoe; (FL) Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Pasco, Palm Beach, St. Lucie; (IL) DuPage, McHenry, Lake; (KS) Johnson; (NC) North Carolina Board of Elections; (NM) Dona Ana, (NY) New York State Board of Elections; (SC) South Carolina State Election Commission; (TX) Dallas, Tarrant, Williamson.
The Tampa, Florida firm produces the "Clarity" software suite used with Hart Intercivic and also announced an alliance with Diebold to integrate its software. Here is the company Web site:
http://www.soesoftware.com/customers.html
By backtracking the Arapahoe County, Colorado Web site "arapahoevotes.com" you will eventually wind up at ClarityElections.com, a site owned by SOE Software:
http://arapahoe-co.connect.clarityelections.com/
According to domain and server ownership records from WhoIs, this site is NOT owned by Arapahoe County, but instead by Tampa's SOE Software. Further checking will show you that the Florida company hosts data from the voter registration database for Arapahoe County:
http://arapahoe-co.connect.clarityelections.com/PrecinctFinder.aspx
There are approximately 5,000 elections jurisdictions nationwide, and fewer than two percent of these are on the Black Box Voting "Watch List" for concerns with election integrity issues. Out of the 25 locations listed by SOE Software, however, 11 happen to be Watch List locations. DuPage, Palm Beach, Los Angeles, Arapahoe, Johnson...counties that seem to be in the center of early purchase for many new and controversial technologies.
WHAT'S A MIDDLEMAN AND WHY THE CONCERN?
A middleman entity is a person or system that sits in between the votes first counted and the results finally reported. For example, if you were to hand count votes at a polling place, then hand the results sheet to a courier, who then drives the results and ballots somewhere else and reports them, that courier is inserted between the original results and the reported results.
Middlemen are in a position to see the results before they are officially reported, and may be in a position to alter the results before they are reported.
Another example of a middleman is the Central Tabulator computer, which aggregates results. Whoever operates that computer is in a position for "first look" and alteration.
Another example is the company that provides the server which hosts the results when they are posted publicly. As results stream into the server, the owner of the server can get access to the results for first look or alteration.
PROTECT THE COUNT
If you are a credentialled observer or poll worker, please stay 30 minutes extra and video or photograph the results BEFORE they leave the polling place.
If you are not a credentialled observer, you can still capture evidence. Plan on spending 90 minutes on Election Night to visit polling places and video or photograph the results tapes, which should be posted on the door. These results should be publicly posted and you will not need to enter the polling place to capture evidence. Hardly anyone does this, but these results are important because they are printed BEFORE middlemen see them.
Here is a short 4-minute video that explains this:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/video.html#protect-the-count-1
We are working collaboratively with YouTube and the election protection action, Video the Vote, and collaborating with other groups as well to get the word out early next week. When you get video, upload to VideoTheVote.org on Election Night, and post a link in the appropriate state and location here. Volunteers can then compare these original results with those that show up after the middleman is involved.
Other middlemen have been identified in Ohio (from 2004, this has changed); and in 2008 in Illinois, Kentucky and Colorado.
Some locations will not post results at the polling place. Although all locations listed above vote at polling places, the following locations will not print results until they go through middlemen:
Los Angeles; San Diego; Santa Clara; Shasta County California; New York state; and Williamson County, Texas.
All other locations should have polling place results posted so you can capture video of, and protect, those results before they get to middlemen.
MORE INFORMATION
Here is an article I wrote for OpEd News about this:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2008-election-results-to-b-by-Bev-Harris-080929-93.html
Please note that I learned of a correction after the editing time had passed: The discovery and research behind the Smartech middleman in Ohio should be credited to researchers with ePluribusMedia.
DO MIDDLEMEN MEAN THE ELECTION WILL BE COMPROMISED?
No. They are in a position to cheat, and they are privatized so it is not possible to learn much about what they do. It is important to know who they are.
For example, the Smartech firm that served as a results middleman for Ohio is extremely partisan and a highly inappropriate choice. The LEDS LLC middleman is involved in an ethics scandal in Colorado right now. The GBS/Fidlar middleman in Illinois is also highly partisan.
I have not yet looked up more information on SOE Software, but have pulled its corporate documents from the State of Florida. It's officers include:
BENNETT, BRUCE
SCHNEIDER, MARK A
MARC, FRATELLO J
MICHAEL, HATCH L
CHRIS, PEIFER
Because it has access to sensitive information and acts as an election results middleman, it will be a good idea to learn more about this firm.
SOE Software, owns ClarityElections.com, which acts as an election results middleman:
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Tiffany Calhoun
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Isola1
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - 6:17 am: |
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I really appreciate people who are willing to do what the government should be doing. Americans pride is suppose to be freedom and Democracy. Now that we know that the Republicans have been stealing elections, and our own Supreme Court was not willing to upload the law for the people, I am willing to organize protesters to make our government start being honest with the will of the people. As a political science major this deeply dissappoints me and discourages that what we say will be honored. All I can think of is the history that could be made in Nov. 08 election, but might not be because there is already signs of people voting for Obama and it giving the vote to McCain. This is cheating and I will not stand by and let this. My job is to get communities involved to demand a fair election. We will not have another election that is stolen by the Republicans or any other party or person. Counties that are using these systems should be forced to prove that their machines are non-bias. The current GEM system is outragous. Any partisan private company should not be allowed to be contracted by government officials to run a cheating election. These companies, and county officials should be fined, prosecuted, and jailed for these occurrences of major fraud. Our Democracy is proving once again to be no Democracy at all. I want my vote to count for what it is, and I am sure all other honest Americans feel the same. |
John Wyman
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ixoye
Post Number: 2
Registered: 10-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 - 2:23 pm: |
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I'm pretty sure San Diego uses SOE for Poll Worker training only. |
karen reineke
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 209
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 10, 2008 - 4:14 pm: |
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marc fratello of soe software previously was part of powercerv..which settled an security exchange fraud case for 1,500,000
Conclusion: According to the firm's 10-K filing dated April 15, 2003, the parties have agreed to a settlement that was approved by the Court. A judgment dismissing the action with prejudice was entered by the Court on December 16, 2002.
By the Notice of Pendency of Class Action, a Settlement Fund consisting of $1,500,000 in cash has been established. A hearing will be held to determine whether a proposed settlement of the action as set forth in the Stipulation and Agreement of Settlement dated July 10, 2002, is fair, reasonable and adequate and to consider the proposed Plan of Allocation for the Settlement proceeds the application of Plaintiffs' Counsel for attorneys' fees and reimbursement of expenses.
As summarized in the same Notice, the Action was initially filed in this Court on or about July 24, 1997. Defendants filed motions to dismiss the initial Complaint in March 1998. The Court granted the motions on January 12, 2001, with leave to replead. Plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint on February 16, 2001 (the "Complaint") alleging, among other things, that Defendants issued a false and misleading registration statement (the "Registration Statement") and prospectus (the "Prospectus") in connection with the initial public offering of 3.3 million shares of PowerCerv common stock on or about March 1, 1996 (the "IPO" or the "Offering"), thereby violating Sections 11, 12(a)(2) and 15 of the Securities Act of 1933 and disseminated materially false and misleading statements regarding PowerCerv, in violation of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. In particular, the Complaint alleged that Defendants made materially false and misleading statements in the Prospectus and during the Class Period concerning the growth of the Company and the market acceptance of its products.
The original complaint alleges that PowerCerv, certain of its officers and directors, the co-lead underwriters of the company's March 1, 1996 initial public offering, and certain venture capital investors violated the federal securities laws by disseminating false and misleading statements about PowerCerv's products and business prospects. The complaint alleges that defendants knew at the time of the offering but did not disclose that PowerCerv's newest products needed further enhancements and additional features and that the company was struggling to achieve sales of its newest products. The complaint also alleges that shortly after the offering, Alex. Brown & Sons, Inc. and Robertson, Stephens & Co., the underwriters of the offering, issued "booster shots" designed to further inflate PowerCerv's price by making additional false and misleading statements about the company's business and prospects. The complaint alleges that when the truth about the company's prospects and revenues was disclosed in a July 24, 1996 press release, the underwriters lowered their recommendations from "buy" to "neutral" and PowerCerv's stock price, which had been as high as $19 on May 21, 1996, declined to as low as $3 1/8 on July 25, 1996 on large volume.
he lists being proud of his accomplishments at powercerv on the soe software home page
from security fraud to election fraud isnt much of a jump i guess |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5369
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 3:36 am: |
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Karen,
Interesting.
Have you come across anything describing Marc Fratello's role at PowerCerv?
(Was he a top executive? underling? programmer?) |
karen reineke
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 210
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 12:37 pm: |
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the soe software home page about fratello reads as follows
Marc joined SOE Software in 2002 as the next step in a long, successful entrepreneurial career. He is recognized among the business leaders in Western Florida, having held leadership positions Mobil Oil, Sperry Univac, and PowerCerv. He is particularly proud of his success at PowerCerv, where he guided the company through a NASDAQ IPO which raised over $50,000,000. Among his career highlights are:
Inc Magazine Florida Entrepreneur of the Year, 1996
Master of Business Administration, Wharton, 1991
so he takes credit for the ipo thingy on his new companies home page..what his actual postion was im not sure |
karen reineke
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 211
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 1:17 pm: |
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in bloomington illinois we have an election board
http://www.becvote.org/minutes.htm
read the minutes and u can track askEd being purchased,soe being decided on and later paid for,it wont let me copy and paste from the mins but oct 2006 is whr the systems start changing,in oct they report contracts r signed for askEd,then in nov ,they write a check to robis elections inc for $90,469.50(robis is owned by david davoust,whom bev has reported on)
in dec another check for 49,490 was written to robis pls ovr 18,000 to es&s (which seems to have a true cash cow here in blm)
in jan ms standford reported on her wash dc trip to attend the jeolc and brought back the idea of using soe software(also in notes another $8049 bucks to es&s)
in feb another 3400 to robis and stanford reports that chris peiffer(soe)contacted her about buying all 3 systems for a discount
march-soe software purchasing is approved
april-es&s gets $5324.91
soe gets $35,604
may-robis 3429.
june-es&s $38,582,58
july 14,900 to soe and ms standford recommends buying the votec vemacs for 64,900 bucks to deal with electronic registration
and then the published minuetes stop |
karen reineke
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 212
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 1:25 pm: |
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ovr 300,000 bucks to keep track of 41,961 registered voters,,,and thats just the money i can find thats out in the open
another interesting tidbit is that mclean county did not switch to the soe reporting and the county clerk was prosecuted for "stealing" 300 stamps ,and "forcing" an employee to give her kid a ride...she went to court and was found not guilty but the timing makes me wonder if the 2 r connected |
karen reineke
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 213
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 1:29 pm: |
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http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/08/17/news/doc46c5fa1d13c26921189981.txt
david rands was the spc prosecutor for milton |
karen reineke
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 214
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 1:50 pm: |
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C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Local Settings\Temp\Temporary Directory 1 for detailxml[2].zip\detail.xml
besides the fact that we dont need to spend tons of money to count 40,000 voters
besides the fact that i dont trust electronics
besides hating the way the new soe reports
besides being terrified of neo cons like davoust and fratello
the system isnt accurate
let me explain...we had a constitutional convention question on the ballot in the general election...every voter got a lil paper explaining that if u didnt vote yes,if u left the oval for no blank,it would read the blank no oval as a no BUT in the above link u can see that 3040 undervotes were reported for that question
now if the yes votes r yess and the no votes r nos and the blanks r no votes...how can there be undervotes? |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 1127
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 3:09 pm: |
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Maybe the instructions given were inaccurate, kind of like "Dems vote tomorrow, GOP today"?
Sounds like an instruction that the YES people would give to reduce the NOs -- just a thought.
Now if Marc Fratello was in charge of the IPO as he claims, and the complaint related directly to the IPO, he's.... not a guy I'd want to be dealing with:
Defendants issued a false and misleading registration statement (the "Registration Statement") and prospectus (the "Prospectus") in connection with the initial public offering of 3.3 million shares of PowerCerv common stock on or about March 1, 1996 (the "IPO" or the "Offering"),.... |
karen reineke
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Karen_r
Post Number: 217
Registered: 12-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 3:53 pm: |
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the instruction were from illinois sos...the theory being that if u didnt vote yes it would be counted as a no...there should be no undervotes..thats the point the program did NOT give an accurate count
here is one more thing,after primary i called a neighboring county clerk,was first time she had used the soe program,her numbers were late,she felt kinda lost and lil defensive but i asked her...so how many dem ballots did u give out and how many rep ballots...she said,after a few mins of searching,this program doesnt tell me that
she sounded very surprised,as u know its impossible to do an accounting w/o knowing how many peops voted
look at jh work on another thread the soe reports all 384 precincts reporting and keeps adding votes (80,033 votes)when there r no more precincts for the votes to come from
looks like they just pull numbers out of the air |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 1131
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 5:51 pm: |
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I think that's an awful way to count a race/referendum. First of all, is this standard all the time in Illinois so voters are familiar with this method? Second, because there is no "decline to vote" option, the no is a bit ambiguous.
Since undervotes are so common on races and questions that people are unfamiliar with (the vote totals dropping off after the key race/s on the ballot), it seems that the design of the question (blank means no) takes advantage of the typical undervote rather than reliably gauging the voters' intent.
If this is always how yes/no ballots are done in Illinois, maybe I'm wrong. I just don't think it is a particularly clean cut way to decide a question.
In fact, I would like to see an elimination of undervotes by having a "decline to vote in this race" option for voters. That would make it impossible for hand changes to a ballot (although that particular spot on a ballot might make it easier to arrange a machine miscount of those "decline to vote" votes.
However, let's come back to your point about undervotes. Seems to me that they would have to change the way the computer is programmed to tell it to read a blank as a vote. If, however, the election official knows that undervotes on that question equal no votes, then the sum of the nos plus undervotes would equal the no votes and it should be reflected in the election paperwork. Does the machine tape tally with the paperwork totals by using this formula? or not?
I have to ask -- Did the SOS want a "no" as the desired result?
Sure sounds like a good way to have "no" win out. DID no win? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5374
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 1:00 am: |
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Can you imagine the situation if blank votes were routinely counted as a yes?
It is inappropriate to force any interpretation where something has been left blank. |
Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 172
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 1:28 am: |
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Aha: "interpretation" of the intent of the voter!
I believe that WA has done a pretty good job of this - they have a public reference document that guides elections staffers on how to interpret a wide range of standard and peculiar markings on the ballots. You may download the PDF file from this page:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/administrators.aspx .
There, is a link to the file:
"Statewide Standards on What is a Vote".
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/_assets/elections/2008StatewideStandardsonWhatisaVote.pdf .
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 1132
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 4:25 am: |
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Marian, does the Washington state system allow for the interpretation of a blank ballot as a yes or a no by implication?
That's breathtaking. |
Marian Beddill
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Uu7thprinciple
Post Number: 173
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 8:44 am: |
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A blank ballot in WA is neither a yes nor a no by implication. And this is considered for each contest individually. The lack of any marking for any of the candidates (or the issue) is called an "undervote" on that contest. Undervotes are tallied by themselves, as are overvotes, neither are tallied as voter intent to favor or reject.
Since we are all-VBM in 37 of the 39 counties, including my county, these results get read at two places in the system - the first manual review of ballots by a two-person team for physical damage and improper markings, then the actual read by the OpScanner.
Marian
http://NoLeakyBuckets.org
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Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 229
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 8:49 am: |
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elimination of undervotes by having a "decline to vote in this race" option for voters
w/ an additional "none-of-the-above" option
voting would be very much more expressive...
How many of those who don't vote would if they could vote "none of the above"?
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Marc joined SOE Software in 2002 as the next step in a long, successful entrepreneurial career. He is recognized among the business leaders in Western Florida, having held leadership positions Mobil Oil, Sperry Univac, and PowerCerv. He is particularly proud of his success at PowerCerv, where he guided the company through a NASDAQ IPO which raised over $50,000,000. Among his career highlights are:
Inc Magazine Florida Entrepreneur of the Year, 1996
Master of Business Administration, Wharton, 1991
so he takes credit for the ipo thingy on his new companies home page
We see this so often...
these "entrepreneuiral" success stories...
that are actually backstage megabux$$s expressing their agendas building up false success stories for folk who are going to be frontmen for backstage megabux agendas.
Media trumpeting and awards are parts of the process of building surrogate-masks.
So is the fund-raising success that looks so much like proof of competence...
w/o showing competence at which of whose agendas. |
Michael T. Aupperle
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Auplvo11
Post Number: 31
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 10:42 am: |
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In Nevada we have a "none of these candidates" option on the ballot for all statewide elected offices.In 2004 election we still had over 27,000 total over and under votes in just Clark county NV. that appeared as if by magic and disappeared the same way.I am firmly convinced these over and under votes categories are just a way to steal votes/elections and/or cover up for the completely unreliable electronic voting and tabulating systems and/or incompetent election workers. |
Patti Walker
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Sensiblysane
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2010
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 9, 2010 - 3:24 pm: |
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Does anyone know if SOE Software received or receives federal HAVA (Help America to Vote Ace, 2002) to start his business? I know the elections officials who buy the software do it with federal funds, but I need to know if the company itself received any kind of federal assistance in start-up funds or continuing funding of the operations.
This is very important as I ...well, you should read about it in the paper soon. |
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