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2-5-06: What protects your personal i...

Black Box Voting » Latest Investigations from Black Box Voting » 2-5-06: What protects your personal information once it enters e-elections?

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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 3530
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 18 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 3:32 pm:

UPDATED 1:37 PST Feb. 6: Do companies like Choicepoint have a vested interest in making sure elections become computerized? You be the judge -- here are the kinds of databases that are and will be created with new e-elections technology:

- Massive computerized statewide voter registration databases
- Voter identification cards and voter biometrics
- VoteRemote-style electronic signature databases
- Electronic poll check-in databases
- And proposed by some companies, databases for electronic verification of your vote

Are there any laws at all that protect this kind of information from being purchased by companies like Choicepoint, one of the nation's primary resellers of personal information to homeland security, law enforcement agents, employers, insurance agencies and direct marketing groups?

For an up-close look at data-brokering activities, let's take a look at Choicepoint subsidiaries and its acquired companies.

What Choicepoint does is merge together data from various sources and then resell it (along with services crunching the data into new uses) to various other parties. Consider whether you want ANY data acquired from elections-related databases available to merge into these uses. Here is an incomplete list of Choicepoint subsidiaries and acquisitions.

Choicepoint is headed by Derek V. Smith (CEO), Douglas Curling (COO), Steven Surbaugh (CFO), all of whom are also directors. It employs John Ashcroft's new lobbying firm for federal lobbying. Here's what Choicepoint is into:

Choicepoint subsidiaries

Correction: Choicepoint President Doug Curling called Black Box Voting today and said Choicepoint has "No business relationship at all with Equifax." Curling also said Equifax was "a parent company" and "a company I used to work for."

Here's how that unwinds: SEC documents show Equifax spun off Choicepoint in 1997, although various ongoing contractual arrangements have been in effect since then, and as recently as 2005, Equifax discloses that they purchase data from Choicepoint. The current Equifax/Choicepoint connections, which do not appear to be accurately characterized as "no business relationship at all," nevertheless are not particularly pertinent to this story and therefore, we have removed them and placed them in later posts in this thread so as not to lose any information.

BBV asked Curling directly about purchases of voter registration databases and his wife's involvement and/or direct funding of election reform groups. That new information is in a separate post downthread.

- ABI Consulting Inc., a drug screening company

- Accident Report Services, Inc., a provider of police records

- Applicant Screening and Processing, a tenant screening company

- APPLICATION PROFILES INC a background check company

- THE BODE TECHNOLOGY GROUP, INC. Specializing in DNA testing and felon databanking

- Bridger Systems, Inc., a USA PATRIOT Act compliance company

- BTI Employee Screening Services, Inc., an employee pre-screening services company

- Cat Data Group, data collection services

- CHARLES JONES INC, Patriot Act "person of interest" lists

- CDB INFOTEK a seller of public records

- CHOICEPOINT BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES INC.

- ChoicePoint Direct Inc., formerly known as Customer Development Corporation, a database marketing company

- CHOICEPOINT POLICE RECORDS INC., law enforcement-related records

- CHOICEPOINT PRECISION MARKETING INC., marketing

- CHOICEPOINT PUBLIC RECORDS INC., distribution of public recods

- CHOICEPOINT WORKPLACE SOLUTIONS INC., employment-related services

- CITI NETWORK, INC. a tenant screening company

- C.L.U.E. INC, we have no clue what this does

- CPPM INC

- Customer Development Corporation, now known as ChoicePoint Direct Inc., a database marketing company

- DATABASE TECHNOLOGIES, INC, merged w. Choicepoint Public Records Inc, did the Florida 2000 election felons purge

- DataTracks Technology, Inc., a public record information company

- DataMart, Inc, a database software company

- DATAMART PROCESSING COMPANY

- DATEQ INFORMATION NETWORK, INC , an insurance underwriting services company

- DBT Licensing Corporation (this is the Choicepoint entity that took over Database Technologies.

- DBT Online,, a public records provider

- Drug Free Consortium, a drug testing company

- Drug Free, Inc., a drug testing company (EPIC)

- EQUISEARCH SERVICES INC - This company is in the current Georgia database listing the Choicepoint address and the Choicepoint officers, so one would expect that it has ties to Choicepoint.

- EQUISEARCH SECURITIES INC. - also shares address with Choicepoint and officers with other Choicepoint companies.

- i2, INC. This in in Wash. DC area, don't know what it does

- Identico Systems, LLC, a customer identity verification company

- INFORMATION AMERICA INC (merged w. Choicepoint Public Records Inc)

- insuranceDecisions, Inc., an insurance industry claims administration company

- THE INFORMATION CONNECTIVITY GROUP, INC (merged w. Choicepoint Public Records Inc)

- Informus Corporation, a company enabling ChoicePoint to offer products online

- INSURITY INC, customizes insurance policy rating & issuance software & business outsourcing services

- Insurity Solutions Inc., an insurance rating company

- Kramer Lead Marketing Group, aka List Source, Inc.a marketing company

- L&S Report Service, Inc., a provider of police records

- List Source, Inc., d/b/a Kramer Lead Marketing Group, a marketing company

- Marketing Information & Technology, Inc., a direct marketing company

- Medical Information Network, LLC, an online physician verification service

- Mortgage Asset Research Institute, Inc., a mortgage fraud monitoring company

- NATIONAL CREDIT AUDIT CORPORATION

- NATIONAL DATA RETRIEVAL, INC, a provider of public records information

- NATIONAL DATA RETRIEVAL, LLC

- National Drug Testing, Inc., a drug testing company

- National Medical Review Offices, Inc.

- NATIONAL FRAUD & IDENTITY THEFT CLEARINGHOUSE INC

- NATIONAL RAPE EVIDENCE PROJECT, INC

- NATIONAL SAFETY ALLIANCE, INCORPORATED

- NSA ATLANTA, INC and NSA Resources, Inc. drug testing

- OLI ACQUISITION, INC

- Pinkerton's, Inc., a preemployment screening company.

- Professional Test Administrators, Inc., a drug testing company

- Programming Resources Company, insurance software company

- PUBLIC RECORDS ONLINE INC

- QUICK TEST INC

- RAPSHEETS ACQUISITION CORPORATION

- Rapsheets.com, an online provider of criminal records data

- RESIDENT DATA, INC a residential screening services provider

- RRS Police Records Management, Inc., a provider of police reports and related services

- SEARCHPOINTE INC

- STATEWIDE DATA SERVICES, INC.

- SUPERIOR INFORMATION SERVICES INC

- Templar Corporation

- TML Information Services, Inc., a provider of motor vehicle reports

- Total eData Corporation, an e-mail database company

- Tyler-McLennon, Inc., a background screening company

- VIS'N Service Corporation

- Washington Document Service, Inc., a court record retrieval service

- VITAL CHEK NETWORK, INC a provider of vital records

Please see this page, comprehensive work done by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which provided some of the information above.

What does this have to do with elections?

1. This should serve as a wake-up call to U.S. citizens, whose vigilance will once again be called upon now to examine what protections are written into law to prevent the massive new databases created through voting systems from being used to invade privacy.

2. We need to become aware of the various databases that are created through different components of the voting system.

While voter registration will be an obvious target for data-brokering, another potential gold mine will be the databases created by the mail processing software for absentee ballot processing, and especially the signature capture databases used with systems like VoteRemote. Other vendors are beginning to come out with hand-held electronic polling place aids which are equipped to communicate data wirelessly.

What laws protect our data at each stage of the election cycle? Any laws?

Is Choicepoint the only company who can benefit from targeting e-elections databases?

Actually, what got Black Box Voting started on this story was an examination of the list of lobbyists who were working on enacting the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). We discovered that at the same time, many of the same lobbyists were working on enacting the "e-Government Act of 2002."

We began wondering how electronic voting systems and other e-government initiatives interact.

For more education on the e-government phenomena, do some Googling of one of the architects of the Georgia Diebold purchase, Larry Singer, who was with the Georgia Technology Authority at the time. Check out some of his deals (and why was he showing up in Ohio during Diebold purchasing pitches?).

Should there be no databases?

Of course databases are extremely useful. Like any technology, though, they need an analysis of safeguards and potential abuses before implementing them and especially before selling them or making use of them for other purposes.

It seems that very little discussion has taken place about the ethics of data-brokering, especially in elections.

Regarding the elections issue, full disclosure is important about who is lobbying, who is funding elections-related industries and groups, what data is created, how it is used, what protections prevent other uses, and what penalties will be invoked for breach of privacy of an elections-related database.

* * * * *

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

Pat Vesely
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 3
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 8:48 pm:

Here's some testimony by Lillie Coney before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Hearing on Proposed Voluntary Guidance to the States on Implementing Statewide Voter Registration Databases, Boston Massachusetts, April 26, 2005, from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) located in Washington, DC.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/register/eac_testimony42605.html

<snip>

Privacy is an important component of a democratic election system.1 In order to exercise their right to vote most states require voters to make information about themselves available in the public domain. There are approximately 215 million eligible voters in the United States with only 144 million of them registered to vote.2 It is common knowledge that voter registration rolls are used to select jury pools for local, state, and federal judicial proceedings. However, most voters do not know that in many states voter registration data is considered public information that is available to third parties for non-voting related purposes. In a limited number of states and under certain circumstances voters are provided the option of limiting the amount of information provided to a third party. Is it time to ask ourselves if the lack of opt-out privileges is the best policy for voter registration?

Some state practices regarding voter registration records limit the type of voter information shared with third parties. For example the full date of birth, place of birth, mothers maiden name, previous address, and whether a person routinely votes absentee may be withheld.

There were signs during the election of 2004 that identity thieves used social engineering attacks in attempts to obtain social security numbers from voters.3 In several states authorities reported that registered voters received unsolicited calls from individuals who said that they needed the voter's social security number to confirm their registration.4

A few states in an attempt to comply with HAVA are hiring private companies to build the state's centralized voter registration database.5 The use of private contractors raises concerns about the other possible uses of the personal information provided by the state. Also the move to create statewide voter registration databases may further erode the privacy of voters.

Another challenge faced by administration of centralized voter registration lists are the problems presented when attempts are made to purge voter roles by using data obtained from non-voting related sources. In 2000, a data broker acquired by ChoicePoint before the election provided the state of Florida with a list of 8,000 names that incorrectly identified legal voters as having felony convictions in the state of Texas.6 This error lead to the denial of voting rights for legally registered voters in that state.

Before the adoption of centralized voter registration rolls, policymakers, the public, and the media should carefully investigate the risks associated with this proposal. The observations on how states and local governments adopted e-voting technology may indicate that the statewide centralization of voter registration lists may involve contracts with private companies. To date there is evidence that some states are in fact taking this route as a means of meeting the HAVA's 2006 deadline for voter registration databases.7 One information management company, Accenture, is making progress in winning contracts. The States of Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have hired Accenture to manage or assist them in developing their statewide-centralized voter registration databases.8 Accenture is the company responsible for creating the Florida 2004 error prone felon purge list, which was discard after a court order forced its disclosure prior to the election.9 The Miami Herald discovered that Accenture wrongly included 2,119 names among those listed for removal from Florida's voter registration roles for the November 2, 2004 election.10

<snip>

1 , Testimony, Technical Guidelines Development Committee, Hearing on Human Factors and Privacy, available at http://www.vote.nist.gov/voting_statement.pdf September 22, 2004

2 Kim Alexander and Keith Mills, Voter Privacy in the Digital Age, California Voter Foundation, May 2004, at http://www.calvoter.org/issues/votprivacy/pub/voterprivacy/introduction.html.

3 Marcia Savage, pg. 57, "Former Hacker Mitnick Details the Threat of �Social Engineering,' Computer Reseller News, April 28, 2003

4 Voters, Beware of Scammers' Election-Year Scheme, KANSAS CITY STAR, October 14, 2004, at 3.

5 Dara Kam, Voter-Tracking System Faces Hurdles After Thousands Say they were Purged from Rolls, FLORIDA TODAY, October 4, 2001, at 1.

6 "Florida's flawed "voter-cleansing" program � Salon.com's politics story of the year," SALON.COM, December 4, 2000.

7 Judith Davidoff, Accenture Work Behind Schedule, Capital Times, March 2, 2005, at 8A.

8 Judith Davidoff, Accenture Work Behind Schedule, THE CAPITOL TIMES (Madison Wisconsin), March 2, 2005, at 8A.

9 Chris Davis and Matthew Doig, pg. A1, "Shining light on company behind felon voter list," Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 14, 2004

10 The Miami Herald, pg. 1, "Florida cash keeps Bermuda tax haven green," July 15, 2004

<more>

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/register/eac_testimony42605.html

FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 3540
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 9:47 pm:

Pat Vesely:

Thank you so very much for providing documented, right on-point material. I could quote and quote and quote you, your analysis is so spot-on.

quote:
ChoicePoint, the firm that collected the data, finds itself the target of growing criticism abroad and investigations in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico over whether privacy laws were violated. Latin American media have decried the company's actions, including what Mexico claims was the illegal sale of confidential voter registration records of more than 65 million of its citizens.

Bingo. The company was Choicepoint and what it purchased was voter registration lists and what it used them for was unrelated to elections, and without the voters' permission or knowledge.

quote:
..police raided the offices of two businesses suspected of selling information to ChoicePoint, The Associated Press reported. One of the businesses had a database containing federal voting records

The company is Choicepoint, and it's buying from illegal third-party vendors, and the menu includes federal voting records.

quote:
Are you saying that Choicepoint isn't connected to the rest of those companies or doesn't collect and aggregate any or all of those data sets and resell them? Are you implying that the laws prohibit them from getting involved in voter registration databases at some point in the future if they so choose?

Bingo again.
- Choicepoint IS connected to these companies
- Choicepoint DOES aggregate data sets and resell them
- The laws ARE NOT sufficient at this time to protect voter information.

quote:
(From Lillie Coney, EPIC: "most voters do not know that in many states voter registration data is considered public information that is available to third parties for non-voting related purposes."

Bingo. Once again, we're rushing ahead to some vague hoped-for future voluntary standards for an issue that's barely being discussed.

quote:
Lillie Coney again: "A few states in an attempt to comply with HAVA are hiring private companies to build the state's centralized voter registration database"

Not just a few. Almost ALL the states are contracting with private vendors for this. Check out Saber, DIMS, and the fumbling of Accenture on this.

quote:
Coney again: "Before the adoption of centralized voter registration rolls, policymakers, the public, and the media should carefully investigate the risks associated with this proposal."

That is precisely the issue in this article, and thank you Pat Vesely for documenting further that the concerns are real, that Choicepoint already has an undesirable track record, and that when it comes to election integrity, there is no place for conflict of interest.

Jim March
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jimmarch

Post Number: 115
Registered: 01-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 11:10 pm:

We could do a whole 'nuther article on Accenture and their record of unbelievable incompetence. Failed contracts of every description, voting related and otherwise. Formerly known as Anderson Consulting until Arthur Anderson ruined the name in the Enron fiasco.

To their credit Anderson Consulting had already been spun off from AA by the time the Enron thing went down but Anderson Consulting had a WORSE rep prior to that.

Accenture is best known in voting circles for getting in a joint venture to do military absentee voting...with a Saudi Arabian company as partners.

Now lesse here...if you want Democracy protected, I dunno 'bout y'all but the first place *I* want to go to look for it is Saudi Arabia. Right? They've got SO much experience in such matters...grrr.

* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html

Pat Vesely
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 4
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 11:22 pm:

I thought John gave something of a "MicroSoft" tech support answer above when he said, "ChoicePoint has not, does not now, and, they say, will never have anything to do with elections."

While his response was technically correct, it didn't address the problem that you were describing.

ChoicePoint really doesn't have anything to do with elections per se, BUT.......

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

(edited by admin to remove speculation about motivation. Issues only, guys.)

Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii

Post Number: 200
Registered: 08-2005

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 11:27 pm:

We should take a closer look at the US Hispanic Leadership Institute, founded by Dr. Juan Andrade.

Considering that for the last 30 years the USHLI has been meticuously gathering data on all demographics for Hispanic voters throughout the U.S. and has published 425 studies relating to those demographics, it would seem quite possible that this extensive amount of data would have caught the attention of Choicepoint and/or our government.

When I spoke with a person working at the USHLI, to coordinate BBV's interview with Dr. Andrade in April of 2005, I asked how one could obtain a copy of these demographics and I was told that USHLI sells them. The cost would be based on how comprehensive the data requested is.

I'm very interested in finding out who has purchased this data and whether it's been primarily purchased by political parties, candidates, agencies (governmental or otherwise) and, of course, voting machine vendors.

Following is a link to the USHLI website describing this service:

http://www.ushli.com/research/demographics.html

Dr. Andrade has also lectured on American politics at the request of governments and political parties in Bolivia, Haiti, Colombia and other Latin American countries, which means he has contacts and influence in Latin America and may well be gathering the same kind of demographic data in these cities for political reasons as well.

Following is an interesting editorial written by Dr. Andrade for the Chicago Sun-Times regarding the expanded use of immigrant ID cards that supports the documenting of personal data of all immigrants (whether legal or illegal) coming to the U.S. Although he puts this in a positive light, I wonder if he's thinking of the best interests of these immigrants or not. You decide:

quote:
"Expanded use of immigrant ID cards benefits us all; Wouldn't it be better to have 200,000 more immigrants helping police rather than hiding from them?

16 May 2003
Chicago Sun-Times

"A public hearing on the amendment to expand the matricula consular ordinance to include countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean that have offices in Chicago should be held promptly by the Cook County Board Finance Committee. The amendment would benefit an additional 200,000 immigrants working and paying taxes in Cook County. After the public hearing, the Finance Committee should report the amendment out favorably for a vote by the full board.

The Mexican Consulate started issuing cards as legal identification in 2002. About 200,000 immigrants have received this very sensible and valid form of identification. Seeing what Mexican immigrants were paying to send nearly $10 billion home annually, banking institutions quickly started accepting the cards. Using them, immigrants were able to open checking accounts, deposit payroll checks, use ATM machines, build and maintain good credit, start a savings plan and work toward qualifying for a home mortgage. The influx of billions in new dollars enabled banking institutions to strengthen their portfolios, serve and bring into the banking system a much larger part of the community, and make a little profit. It was a win-win situation all the way around.

Chicago's City Council promptly adopted an ordinance recognizing the legitimacy of the cards, requiring all city departments to accept them. The Cook County Board followed suit a few months later. City and county governments and banks in a number of other states did the same thing. To obtain a card, any Mexican immigrant-- whether here legally or illegally--had to provide a photo ID and a birth certificate. To prevent fraud, the card had to have at least seven safety features, including watermarks and other marks that were visible only by using a decoder.

City and county officials correctly agreed that, with proper identification, immigrants would be more inclined to cooperate with police officers investigating crimes. Immigrants are reluctant to volunteer information that could prove helpful for fear of being arrested for lacking sufficient identification, though they had nothing to do with the crime. The card also allows their children to get a library card.

Finance Committee Chairman John P. Daley should schedule a public hearing as soon as possible. Last year he sponsored the amendment to expand the county ordinance, which died when the term ended, and the current proposal, which already has five co-sponsors, is virtually identical. Only four more votes from the remaining 12 commissioners are needed for passage. The 200,000 cards issued to Mexican immigrants have not resulted in any problems with city or county departments or libraries, and our banking institutions have certainly profitted.

Why shouldn't the same consideration be extended to immigrants from Central and South America and the Caribbean? The consuls general from almost every country with offices in Chicago are ready to testify in favor of the amendment. So why exclude them?

Commissioner Roberto Maldonado has worked long and hard in carefully gathering political and public support for the measure because it would serve the people of Cook County well. Some people have expressed security concerns, and in the post-9/11 era, that's understandable. But the public and our political leaders should understand that this amendment will allow every immigrant from Central and South America and the Caribbean who has been here at least six months to register with his or her country's office in Chicago, and to be photographed and identified.

What better homeland security enhancement could we want? Isn't it better to know who everyone is and where everyone lives? Wouldn't it be better to have 200,000 more immigrants helping police solve crimes rather than hiding from them? Wouldn't it be better to have children reading library books rather than performing poorly in schools because they lack access to the information they need? Wouldn't it be better for Chicago area immigrants--who, as the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago reported last year, earn an estimated $5.45 billion annually--to deposit their money in local banks?

Immigrants would clearly benefit from passage of the amendment, but so would the rest of the people of Cook County. The County Board's Finance Committee should hold a public hearing immediately and let the people have their say."

Just some food for thought.

Kathleen

FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 3549
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 11:39 pm:

Kathleen,

That was an interesting post, and I appreciated the links. I wonder if USHLI ever sells its data to non-political purposes, like marketing firms and so forth, and what information it contains.

I was very surprised to see Dr. Andrade pushing ID cards for Hispanic immigrants.

Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii

Post Number: 201
Registered: 08-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 11:45 pm:

Me too, Bev. Perhaps we should endeavor to find out!

Kathleen

Pat Vesely
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 5
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 12:10 am:

I'm a little interested in their "Special Reports" and how they might be used for the 'social engineering' of disenfranchisement campaigns.

http://www.ushli.com/research/special_reports.html

Special Reports

From time-to-time USHLI will publish special reports. For example, in 2006 USHLI will publish a special report analyzing Hispanic voter registration in Chicago and Cook County by age, gender, precinct, ward, county board district, representative and senate districts, congressional districts, and judicial districts.

Another report will profile the Hispanic population in Chicago by community area, race, ancestry, age, income, labor status, educational background, homeownership, citizenship status, and language preference, with a similar profile of Hispanics in Cook the collar counties.

A third special report will profile the states of Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey by race and political representation.

Could these be the new 'swing states'?

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii

Post Number: 202
Registered: 08-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 7:02 am:

Excellent analysis there, Pat!

In our interview with Dr. Andrade, we couldn't understand why a man with such impecable credentials would even consider lobbying for a voting machine vendor. What did he expect to gain?

Studies have shown that the Hispanic Community is the fastest growing minority in the U.S. That equates to political clout and power if you have at your disposal the demographics of all Hispanic voting blocs in the U.S., which USHLI definitely has.

Your point about "social engineering" is very astute in how it relates in the context of computer security. For example, here's a link to an article explaining how social engineering could be used by a hacker:

http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1527

Something to think about.

Kathleen

(Message edited by admin_ii on February 06, 2006)

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 1676
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
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Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 8:01 am:

Kathleen,

That Social Engineering article (also Part II) is a humdinger. Thanks for the link.

Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii

Post Number: 203
Registered: 08-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 8:10 am:

So much for the "perimeter" defense election officials are swearing by and asking us to trust!

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 1677
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 8:50 am:

I'll say.

Even the most well-intentioned and on-the-ball election officials and staff would find it hard to avoid these kinds of exploits.

I had never realized this was called "social engineering."

I'd call it "how to get inside access and information by manipulation."

Julio Edwards
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Juliox

Post Number: 11
Registered: 11-2005

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Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 11:33 am:

One problem I have with the signature part of voting is that I have a terrible signature and it is rarely the same. It could easily cause my vote to be expunged for not matching some electonically scanned version of my signature. In fact, since Colorado uses the same photo and signature on our driver's licenses everytime they send out the renewals (all done my mail now, every ten years), they have a really old photo and signature of me on file.

John Washburn
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johnwashburn

Post Number: 3
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
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Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 11:45 am:

"Social engineering sounds better than short cons, short games, or grifting

Early hackers use the techniques of short cons to gather information or gain access to a system. The term social engineering was adopted because it was the social aspect of the a hack as opposed to its software engineering or hardware engineering aspects. I guess this was as social as many could get.

As an added benefit the euphemism, "social engineering", let's you avoid thinking about the theft-related roots of your "social engineering" feats.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 3553
Registered: 12-2004

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Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 2:06 pm:

Equifax info originally in lead article.

Per Jim, Equifax owned them he was appointed the head of choicepoint in 1997.

- CHN ACQUISITION CORP, the old name of what became EQUIFAX HEALTHCARE INFORMATION SERVICES, INC.

- EQUIFAX CITY DIRECTORY, INC, directory services, apparently; don't know if this is still active, came out of the Cleveland area.

- EQUIFAX CONSUMER INFORMATION SERVICES, INC. (Changed name to EQUIFAX DIRECT MARKETING SOLUTIONS, INC.

- EQUIFAX CREDIT INFORMATION SERVICES, INC. (changed name to EQUIFAX INC. )

- EQUIFAX DIRECT MARKETING SOLUTIONS LLC and
EQUIFAX DIRECT MARKETING SOLUTIONS, INC.

- EQUIFAX GOVERNMENT AND SPECIAL SYSTEMS INC

- EQUIFAX HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, INC.

- EQUIFAX INC.

- EQUIFAX INFORMATION SERVICES LLC

- EQUIFAX INVESTMENTS (U.S.) INC.

- EQUIFAX INVESTMENTS (MEXICO) INC.

- ELRICK & LAVIDGE INC (changed name to
EQUIFAX INVESTMENTS (U.S.) INC.

- HEALTH ECONOMICS CORPORATION (changed name to EQUIFAX HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES)

Catherine Ansbro
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Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 2:50 pm:

I should have said,

"Social engineering" is about how to get (often illigitimate) access for the purpose of (often illegally) obtaining data or information by manipulating, lying, impersonating, flirting, etc.

It is an alternative to hacking. Or, it can be used in conjunction with hacking. E.g., A person might fool someone over the phone into giving them a key person's login and password so that they can then hack into a system without having to guess the password.

Bev Harris
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Posted on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - 10:28 am:

We have some 2006 Cleanup Crew members looking into the political use of data-brokered lists, where the data comes from, who is behind it, and who has access. Thanks to John Howard for this catch, which I have transferred here.

Republican and Democrat Parties Know All About You

NewsMax.com Wires Monday, Oct. 20, 2003

WASHINGTON � Voters' ballots are still secret, but technology is helping political parties get a good idea who will vote, how they'll vote and the best way to make sure they vote, long before people actually head to the polls.

The Democrat and Republican parties are collecting information about millions of individual voters, a key ingredient in their 2004 campaign game. The close 2000 presidential election showed how important getting even a fraction more of a party's supporters to the polls can be.

Democratic National Committee has "DataMart," a new 158-million-record database of voter information connected to "Demzilla," which tracks and manages party contact with donors and activists. Republican National Committee has a 165-million-name database called "Voter Vault."

They Know Which Lie to Tell

"We can tell you exactly which house on which street we need to get out the vote, because we know that the issues they are concerned about are Democratic issues," party Chairman Terry McAuliffe said. "And we know what to say, and we know what not to say."

DNC has 306 pieces of information attached to every name, he said. In addition to its value in get-out-the-vote efforts, the data the parties accumulate helps fund-raisers, who can use it to spot voters who identify with a party but haven't yet donated to it.

It also can help parties lavish special e-mails, direct mail and phone calls on small-dollar donors, who have become even more valuable now that the campaign finance law has banned corporate, union and unlimited individual donations.

The Democrat party's database includes Census data, such as block-level demographic information; national consumer data, which provides individual details such as whether a person is married, owns a home and has children; voter files, which are available from several states and show a person's party identification and which elections he has voted in; and rundowns on how precincts voted in past elections.

Republican National Committee declined to say what kind of data Voter Vault has. Frank Fahrenkopf, who made developing voter files a priority when he was RNC chairman in the 1980s, said technology had come a long way since then.

They Know Who Has a Gun

Before user-friendly data and databases, RNC, figuring outdoor-sports enthusiasts would be receptive to the party's message, obtained hunting and fishing license lists on computer tapes from the states.

"We would compose special letters from President Reagan to them dealing with issues of hunting and fishing and outdoor life and so forth. So we were targeting the message," Fahrenkopf said.

The party, figuring anybody within 3 miles of a base probably lived or worked on it and tended to be conservative, had special mailings and get-out-the-vote efforts for people living near military bases, he said.

...

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/10/20/100539.shtml

================

While the name "DataMart" (the list used by Democratic political operatives) is interesting, because Choicepoint certainly is affiliated with various DataMart corporations and LLCs in Georgia according to the Georgia secretary of state corporations information. However, the DataMart lists were created by a company called PlusThree (http://www.plusthree.com). We have not been able to find out whether PlusThree purchases data from Choicepoint or the DataMart corporation affiliated with Choicepoint. PlusThree says they did not outsource when creating the list, but does provide the identity of the data brokers that provided their lists.

John Washburn
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Posted on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 - 10:40 am:

Data mart is also a generic term for a specific sub-set of data in a data warehouse to facilitate data mining within a well-defined topic.

For example a beer company may have a data mart for point of sale (POS) materials and sales by brand so as to facilitate discovering which POS materials actually prompt a change in sales volume.

melodee hallett
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Posted on Monday, February 13, 2006 - 2:35 pm:

HI, I believe C.L.U.E. has something to do with insurance data gathering. I hear about CLUE reports being pulled when someone is applying for insurance.

M. Hallett

Jim March
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Posted on Monday, February 13, 2006 - 7:17 pm:

We have another breaking computer security problem related (albiet one-step-removed) to Choicepoint:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/02/the_new_face_of_phishing_1.ht ml

This is a VERY bad situation where scammers got ahold of "security certificates" making their scam look legit.

If you're not aware, "Phishing" is where criminals set up a website that looks like a bank or other financial company and asks people to fill in confidential information that is then used for identity theft.

It is NOT normal for such scam sites to get accredited by organizations like Choicepoint, and represents a fairly serious breakdown of checks and balances.

Jason Aaron Osgood
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Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006 - 5:16 am:

Bev, Kathleen, Jim, John W, John G, Everyone-

Thank you for all your efforts. The state-wide voter registration database stuff is a huge concern of mine. Mostly as a potential tool of disenfranchisement. The loss of privacy is also very troubling (ChoicePoint, TIA/Poindexter, Seisent, NSA/The Matrix, etc.). Alas, I still don't have any ideas on how to address that.

The Washington Citizens for Fair Elections intend to address our state's VRDB at an upcoming meeting. Maybe June or July. Our very new, very sparse website is http://www.wafairelections.org. Right now, we're mostly about education and networking. Perhaps when we find our legs, we'll effectively lobby and such.

Cheers, Jason Aaron Osgood / Seattle WA

---

zappini.blogspot.com

Bev Harris
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Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006 - 5:02 pm:

Hi, Jason, and welcome to Black Box Voting. I will surely visit your Web site, and good luck! I'm glad to see that you share concerns about what will be done with the databases, and of course, with their corrolary, voter disenfranchisement.

Bev Harris
Founder
Black Box Voting

James E Lee
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Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 6:26 am:

Dear Moderator:

This is in response to the factual errors posted here regarding ChoicePoint. I realize that some of the misstatements originated in the media or other public forum. However, the statements posted here and the conclusions drawn from them are incorrect or incomplete.

To be clear, ChoicePoint has not been involved in the past, is not involved now, and has no plans to be involved in the future with the development, deployment or management of any voting systems or technology. Whether by misunderstanding or willful misstatement of the facts, any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.

We hold a deep and abiding respect for the fundamental right to vote. Nowhere is this more clear than in the steps we took following the purchase of Database Technologies (DBT) after they had provided the voter exceptions list for the 2000 Florida elections. In keeping with ChoicePoint�s policies, we discontinued all involvement with voting processes and helped federal and state government agencies and private organizations determine what, if any, impact the project had on the ability of registered voters to cast their ballots. Although the Florida election issues were not of our making, we did not hesitate to do what we could to ensure similar situations would not occur again.

The bottom line is this: You may not agree with our view of the truth or that our business model provides benefits to consumers and society (a different discussion for a different day and forum). None of this changes the fact that we share a core belief: people, not technologies or machines, should determine who is eligible to vote and ensure every vote is counted.

Please remove the references to ChoicePoint from your discussion thread, or at a minimum, please post this response.

Sincerely,

James E. Lee
Chief Marketing Officer
ChoicePoint

Bev Harris
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Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 8:16 am:

Dear James from Choicepoint,

I didn't see where you actually point out the "factual errors" you allude to. Instead you seem to be bringing up issues that were not even in the article. However, I appreciate your response and we will respond to each point you made. You say:

quote:
To be clear, ChoicePoint has not been involved in the past, is not involved now, and has no plans to be involved in the future with the development, deployment or management of any voting systems or technology.

I see this type of parsing of words quite often from Diebold. I am disappointed to see it from Choicepoint.

Nowhere in our article does it say that Choicepoint is involved with, or has any plans to be involved with, the development, deployment or management of any voting systems or technology.

Our article is about the issue of databases and the use of data which are produced due to the deployment of computerized voter registration databases, electronic pollbooks, electronic signature capture for the absentee authentication programs, and other components of voting.

It is the position of Black Box Voting that citizens should have the right to vote without having ANY of the data brokered to Choicepoint for amalgamation into specialized databases like those your firm sells to the FBI, homeland security, and to other entities for insurance, business or marketing purposes.

Nowhere in the Choicepoint statement you posted here did I see you address the central point of this article. What I am looking for is a statement as categorical as the one you did make (which was nonresponsive to the issue in the article).

Here is the kind of statement we are looking for from Choicepoint:

(I have not been able to find such a statement anywhere and nothing to this effect is contained in your response.)

If you said this: "ChoicePoint has not been involved in the past, is not involved now, and has no plans to be involved in the future with the purchase of, processing of, sale of, or distribution of any data that comes from the act of voting -- including data from voter registrations, signature capture, pollbooks, absentee ballot sorting, or any other database that is captured through the act of citizenship called voting."

That statement would begin to open a dialog on our concerns.

I believe that you cannot make that statement, because according to the Associated Press, you HAVE purchased voter registration databases. Is it true that you resold the information to the Department of Homeland Security, as alleged in one of the mainstream news articles?

James, the statement you make here seems to be misleading, if not straight-out untrue:

quote:

we discontinued all involvement with voting processes...

If you "discontinued all involvement with voting processes" why is the wife of Choicepoint President Douglas Curling on the board of directors of VoteTrustUSA and why is money from Choicepoint (through Curling to his wife) funding VoteTrustUSA? Has this funding for VoteTrustUSA and other voting rights groups been coming from Mrs. Curling directly, or from their foundation? If the money is from the foundation, has it been disclosed to the affiliates of VoteTrustUSA that according to SEC documents the Curling Foundation is a stockholder of Choicepoint?

Douglas Curling is not only the president of Choicepoint, but he is an officer of a large number of subsidiary operations. Through his own stock, that of his children, and a related foundation, Curling certainly has ownership in Choicepoint. I'm trying to discern how having his wife on the board of directors for one of the leading national elections organizations, and funding it, can be construed as "having no involvement in voting processes."

If this is not a conflict of interest, why was Mrs. Curling participating in the VoteTrust "Leaders" communication list under a false name instead of her own? Didn't the participants have the right to know that they were sharing their innermost strategies with the wife of the president of Choicepoint?

Conflict of interest

Our contention is that data brokering businesses such as Choicepoint stand to benefit from many different facets of electronic voting, because we do not yet have any laws that address the purchase of, combining of, or use of signature capture databases, pollbook databases and mail-in ballot processing software. In many states the laws regarding brokering of voter registration data are murky, insufficient or missing altogether.

I see that Choicepoint actively lobbies for legislation to increase its access to databases -- that makes sense, in view of your business model. However, it doesn't then stand to reason that you'd have no interest in the databases produced by voting processes.

quote:

Although the Florida election issues were not of our making, we did not hesitate to do what we could to ensure similar situations would not occur again.

Can you point me to the company policy that you will not purchase, process, amalgamate or otherwise use databases that arise from any component of computerized systems that handle registration, absentee processing, voter check-in, voter identification, or any other aspect of the exercise of this act of citizenship?

That's what I'm looking for.

Now, let's look at the Database Technologies issue a bit more

May I ask, when did your public company begin its due diligence for the purchase of Database Technologies? As I read the timelines, since due diligence takes place six months to a year before acquisitions, DBT was actively involved in the felon purge during the time Choicepoint would have been performing due diligence.

While you say that you had nothing to do with the felon purge, did you know of it before purchasing this company, and if not, how did your due diligence process miss this?

quote:

The bottom line is this: You may not agree with our view of the truth or that our business model provides benefits to consumers and society (a different discussion for a different day and forum).

I think you have a very clever business model and certainly it provides benefits. This is typical of most applications of technology -- along with benefits come side effects that can be very unpleasant, or can even outweigh the value of the benefit itself.

At a minimum, when implementing technology, we must identify areas that can result in undesirable consequences and open up a discussion of mitigations.

As pointed out above, the discussion of database brokering and the ethical/civil rights issues that arise with the databases produced through computerized voting, registration, check-in, ID, and mail processing has not been adequately discussed.

Most people don't even know what databases are produced, and no one has been publicly discussing how to prevent misuse.

quote:

None of this changes the fact that we share a core belief: people, not technologies or machines, should determine who is eligible to vote and ensure every vote is counted.

However, this is also unresponsive to the point of the article. The point of the article is: What databases are produced by the current and pending systems, and what are the regulations and practices pertaining to the use of that data? I still have not seen anything from Choicepoint on this issue.

quote:
Please remove the references to ChoicePoint from your discussion thread, or at a minimum, please post this response.

I see that you posted the response. Last I checked, we still have a free press. It is not appropriate to tell an organization to remove references to you unless we have made a factual error, and your response did not list a factual error in what we wrote.

I look forward to hearing specifics on the issue of this article: Use of databases created during the act of citizenship that is voting.

quote:

We hold a deep and abiding respect for the fundamental right to vote.

What I am looking for from Choicepoint is a public statement about this company's deep and abiding respect for the right of every citizen to an expectation of privacy of the data generated by their participation in the electoral system.

Will you make a public statement that Choicepoint will not purchase, obtain, process, re-sell, distribute or otherwise use ANY of the databases created during mail ballot processing, signature authentication, polling place check-in, or any aspect of the voting process itself?

Will you also make a statement that Choicepoint will publicly disclose the involvement of its principals and their family members in funding, directing or participating in citizen's groups related to the voting process?

The purpose of disclosure is to allow citizens to form their own opinions about what information they want to share, with whom, and to come to their own conclusions about any conflict of interest that may exist.

Pat Vesely
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Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 11:56 am:

To Mr. James E. Lee, Can you please point me to the "Opt Out" form I can fill out to have my personal information excluded from your "business model"?

You claim, "We hold a deep and abiding respect for the fundamental right to vote." What about my fundamental right to privacy? If I can't trust you to honor my right to privacy because you think you can make a buck off of collecting, aggregating, and selling my personal information without my consent, how can you expect me to trust anything you have to say about your supposed "respect" for my right to vote?

Sincerely,
Pat A. Vesely
Charter Member
Black Box Voting.org

Paper ballots are the 'Currency of Democracy'. They've been helping to curb election fraud since 139 BCE!

Bev Harris
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Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 1:19 pm:

To Pat Vesely:

Back to the originally scheduled programming...

quote:
To Mr. James E. Lee, Can you please point me to the "Opt Out" form I can fill out to have my personal information excluded from your "business model"?

Exactly. The issue with database brokering and computerized elections is the voter's right to privacy.

At no time should a person have to worry that because they vote, someone will make a tidy profit selling their private information to the Dept. of Homeland Security.

It isn't just Choicepoint doing the database brokering, of course. There are many groups that do this, and we need to take a close look at public policy in this regard.

Russell Novkov
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Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 3:36 pm:

ChoicePoint is a bad deal, especially if it has to do with John Ashcroft.

Russell J. Novkov

Russell Novkov
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Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 3:57 pm:

It should only be up to the people to decide.

Russell J. Novkov

John Gideon
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Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 5:18 pm:

Here I am again. No matter how much I try to stay away from here I keep getting drug in. It needs to be made crystal clear that ChoicePoint has not, does not now, and, they say, will never have anything to do with elections. They purchased DBT (DATABASE TECHNOLOGIES, INC,) after the 2000 election and it does not do election data bases any longer. The inclusion of ChoicePoint in this piece is incorrect.

DBT got a contract with the state of Florida and warned the state that the information they were putting together was not accurate because it included many names that did not belong on the list. The state told them that's what they wanted because they expected the counties to scrub the list. The counties didn't do that. That is NOT DBTs fault and is certainly not the fault of ChoicePoint.

Greg Palast, from whom you must have gotten much of this information, knows the facts but refuses to admit that his reporting was wrong. So he has just continued the lie.

Executive Director, VotersUnite.org

Bev Harris
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Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 5:26 pm:

John,

This article is about data-brokering and its implications for computerized voting systems, not about felon-purging.

Your instant defense of Choicepoint, rather than dealing with the data brokering issue, leads me to ask: Do you or any groups you are affiliated with have any ties to Choicepoint?

If you or your groups are funded by Choicepoint-affiliated individuals, or have governance by anyone associated with Choicepoint, disclosure would be appropriate before further discussion.

Choicepoint has an obvious interest in the databases created by computerized voting systems.

I did not get any of this from Greg Palast. I got this from examining the Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Alabama, Virginia, California, and other corporate databases to determine what kinds of companies are actually owned by Choicepoint. What triggered my interest was research I did last Sunday on the HAVA lobbyists, which led me to the e-Government bill lobbyists, which led me to take a fresh look at the data-brokering issue.

The topic of this article is not felon purges. You are correct that Choicepoint bought Database Technologies in Dec. 2000, a couple weeks after the election was decided. That being said, due diligence for acquisitions by a public company normally starts about a year in advance; during the time that the felon purges were taking place, Choicepoint was almost certainly doing due diligence on the company, and that would involve looking at the felon purge program, since that was a major contract and Database Technologies was a Florida-based company.

The topic of this article is the obvious conflict of interest that arises when a company whose very livelihood and competitive advantage comes from purchasing databases may choose to pursue acquisition of databases created by various components of computerized voting systems.

Jim March
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Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 5:32 pm:

John,

First, Bev didn't talk to Greg Palast on this.

Second: Choicepoint is a scary operation involved in all aspects of data collection, including data collection FROM the government and in some cases on behalf of the government. They have a contract with Homeland Security worth more than $60mil.

One of the most valuable set of government databases out there is voter registration data, and another is electronic pollbook data from polling locations. The ability to tell "who voted" is an indicator that the voter is politically active, knowledge that is a valuable commodity in some circles, both business-sector and for political operatives/party officials.

It is inherent in what Choicepoint IS that they are interested in, at a minimum, electronic voter registration databases and most likely electronic pollbook data.

The latter is most commonly associated with electronic voting. Diebold's plan is to combine touchscreen smartcard production and electronic pollbooks in the same box, such as the infamous PCM500 that failed in Alameda and San Diego Counties in '04. Birthing pains aside, that device and items like it are "the future" according to some very scary people.

People like Diebold - and given who they are, what they do and who they interact with, almost certainly Choicepoint.

No lies involved. Some speculation, yeah, but...again: look at who they are, what they're doing, and tell me with a straight face they're not lurking in the background.

Bev Harris
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Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 6:04 pm:

Good point, Jim.

Converting the voter registration cards into electronic signature capture, then storing the captured signature images in a database, would provide a particularly nice database for resale. Once all the state databases are computerized, that would be what -- 110 million signatures?

As you point out, the VoteRemote-style software neatly clips those signatures out into efficient electronic image files, in a nifty database for easy storage, and tied to other personal information. How cool. Who wouldn't want that?

At one point, Choicepoint apologized for selling their database information to criminals and promised it wouldn't happen again.

And now, a word about words:

quote:
ChoicePoint has not, does not now, and, they say, will never have anything to do with elections

I'd like to see the exact words of what John Gideon says they said (and where did they say it?); even so, they could tell the truth and still have a conflict of interest.

You can say "we won't be involved in elections" but still purchase databases (or allow a subsidiary or intermediary to purchase them for you); then you can resell the election-derived data to, say, the FBI. And by the way, did you know -- Choicepoint apparently has a special subscription-only Web site just for the FBI, through which they share data they have acquired.

That's probably a very handy thing, but my question is -- did people give their permission for their data to be shared with the FBI?

By the way, that brings up another point Jim made that I hadn't thought about much. He leans Libertarian, and it probably came naturally to him.

What we've got here is the GOVERNMENT selling taxpayers personal data to a private company, which in turn combines it with other data gathered from other government sources, and also private sources, and resells data on steroids back to the GOVERNMENT, often for agencies engaged in surveillance and Patriot Act-type activities.

There are many taxpayers who would not approve of that, if they knew. But then again, who knew?

And by the way, I don't give a rat's ass if it's a Democrat doing all this data-brokering. Since when was it an automatic free pass to say "I'm a Democrat and I give to Democrat candidates?"

The heavy, heavy fund-raising done for the Democrats by the Chief Operating Officer of Choicepoint simply cannot be used to grant a conflict of interest waiver when it comes to elections integrity.

Jim March
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Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 5:37 pm:

One more detail Choicepoint might be tempted by: databases of scanned signatures of the type produced by Diebold's "VoteRemote" product.

Stop and think: just selling that to Federal law enforcement would be worth a fortune. The Feds can't just subpoena that from county elections officials because of that silly ol' thing called the "Constitution" but once the data is available in commercial databases, they can buy it.

(edited by admin to remove speculation about motivation. Issues only, guys.)

Pat Vesely
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Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 8:25 pm:

John, did you actually read the OP? You posted a couple of things that left me scratching my head and wondering what you're thinking.

First off you say, Here I am again. No matter how much I try to stay away from here I keep getting drug in.

Nobody dragged you in here John, you posted of your own accord.

You state, "It needs to be made crystal clear that ChoicePoint has not, does not now, and, they say, will never have anything to do with elections.

Why does that need to be made "crystal clear"? You seem to have missed the little problems that ChoicePoint had in central America, specifically in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, and seven other Latin American countries.

Mexico claims ChoicePoint stepped across the line

By P�RALTE C. PAUL in Atlanta and SUSAN FERRISS in Mexico City

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Uncle Sam is watching more of you, which may come as no surprise, given the post-terrorist reality of Sept. 11.

What may be surprising is that even before the attacks, the United States was quietly purchasing dossiers on millions of citizens in 10 Latin American countries from an Alpharetta-based firm. The reason: to help verify the identities of Latin American nationals accused of committing crimes in the United States and help in the larger effort to find potential terrorists.

Now, ChoicePoint, the firm that collected the data, finds itself the target of growing criticism abroad and investigations in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico over whether privacy laws were violated. Latin American media have decried the company's actions, including what Mexico claims was the illegal sale of confidential voter registration records of more than 65 million of its citizens.

At the heart of the controversy is the question of what constitutes a confidential record.

Mexican authorities say voter registration rolls there are not public, and only political parties and election officials are permitted access to them. ChoicePoint executives maintain they have not broken any laws because the information gathered is public.

On Friday, Nicaraguan police raided the offices of two businesses suspected of selling information to ChoicePoint, The Associated Press reported. One of the businesses had a database containing federal voting records, AP reported, citing police.

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/0403/27privacy.html

"The inclusion of ChoicePoint in this piece is incorrect."

I have to ask you why? Are you saying that Choicepoint isn't connected to the rest of those companies or doesn't collect and aggregate any or all of those data sets and resell them? Are you implying that the laws prohibit them from getting involved in voter registration databases at some point in the future if they so choose? Are you trying to imply that the laws prohibit Choicepoint, their subsidiaries, or any other public or private corporation from collecting voter registration information and adding it to other existing databases?

You then posted the following 'straw man' statement that also left me wondering.

DBT got a contract with the state of Florida and warned the state that the information they were putting together was not accurate because it included many names that did not belong on the list. The state told them that's what they wanted because they expected the counties to scrub the list. The counties didn't do that. That is NOT DBTs fault and is certainly not the fault of ChoicePoint.

While what you posted may be correct, I see nowhere in the OP where BBV.org claims that the felon purge was the "fault" of either company, just that DBT was used to compile the original list and Choicepoint subsequently bought them. It strikes me as odd that you had to capitalize the word NOT to emphasize your disagreement with a statement that wasn't implied in what you responded to.

Do you or VotersUnite.org think it's OK for private corporations to aggregate data from voter registration databases in ways that would be illegal for the government to do? Is VotersUnite.org against pushing for laws restricting how private corporations may use information collected from voter registration databases?

Your post seems rather odd to me considering what you were responding to.

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 3560
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 4 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 4:49 pm:

Curling denies relevance of wife's involvement as a director of VoteTrustUSA.

Curling admitted that his wife Donna Curling "probably is" on the board of directors of VoteTrustUSA. "She's on the board of two or three groups," he said.

Harris: "Which groups are those?"

Curling: "You'll have to find that out for yourself."

Harris: "Is she funding any voting groups?"
[We have two credible reports that she is.]

Curling: "That's none of your business."

Harris: "If Choicepoint money is funding election groups it should be disclosed."

Curling said that absolutely no Choicepoint money is involved. Black Box Voting responded that monies that come from Doug Curling out of Choicepoint to his wife would, in fact, be coming from Choicepoint. We asked if she has any other employment.

"That's none of your business," he snapped. "It's your personal view that my wife's activities should be disclosed."

Harris:" Have you purchased any voter registration databases?"

Curling: "That is incorrect."

Harris: "It was reported in the Associated Press."

Curling: "That was years ago."

BBV repeated the question about purchase of voter registration databases several times, but Curling never really answered it.

During the conversation today, Curling threatened litigation against Black Box Voting several times. We assured him that we would issue a correction for any facts we got wrong and asked several times for what facts were incorrect. Curling said his people would be sending that along.

"I would encourage you strongly not to publish anything else" he said, until BBV receives the correction. Then, before publishing, he told us to call him and gave his phone number.

On several occasions, Doug Curling said "We need to determine whether my interests and you're interests are the same!" The context each time was, basically, we will come to a meeting of the minds about the agenda here, or Choicepoint will set its litigators upon Black Box Voting.

Black Box Voting responded that the point was getting the facts straight (rather than determining whether our "interests" are the same.) In fact, it is this very sticky business with becoming obligated to the "interests" of major donors that caused us to make the excruciatingly painful decision to turn down a recent $25,000 grant.

We are reporting the conversation without "vetting it" first with Choicepoint because Curling was barking out orders so loudly that three witnesses who happened to be in the office heard the conversation.

There was one more comment that we could not determine the context for. Curling stated that "congress is aware of this." I was a bit taken aback, so he might have said high public officials, but I'm pretty sure he said "congress." And I don't know what "this" refers to.

So today's a double-popcorn day. Go over the new Jeffrey Dean documents, and then save some popcorn to watch as Black Box Voting gets the s**t kicked out of us.

Again.

Pat Vesely
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 6
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 - 6:48 pm:

I can see why Doug's a little 'edgy' about this subject.

http://www.lists.opn.org/pipermail/org.opn.lists.local_activists/2005-March/0018 31.html

<snip>

Records show Smith and Curling bought and sold 458,600 company shares in
eight biweekly transactions between Nov. 9 � after the company had
confirmed the breach � and Feb. 15 � the day the company publicly
disclosed the breach.

The buying and selling by the two men continued in recent days,
even as Smith has been working around the clock to keep major
shareholders from running away.

Smith's and Curling's trading activity, involving ChoicePoint stock,
was much less frequent by comparison in previous years, according to SEC
records and an analysis with Thomson Financial.

In 2003, Smith and Curling each made only one stock transaction, and in
2002, Smith made three transactions and Curling made one transaction,
according to Thomson Financial.

<more>

I'll bet he wants that forgotten!

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

John Gideon
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johngideon

Post Number: 214
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 8:39 am:

Bev disingenuously asks; "If you "discontinued all involvement with voting processes" why is the wife of Choicepoint President Douglas Curling on the board of directors of VoteTrustUSA and why is money from Choicepoint (through Curling to his wife) funding VoteTrustUSA? Has this funding for VoteTrustUSA and other voting rights groups been coming from Mrs. Curling directly, or from their foundation? If the money is from the foundation, has it been disclosed to the affiliates of VoteTrustUSA that according to SEC documents the Curling Foundation is a stockholder of Choicepoint?"

This is BS. I don't know how many times it needs to be repeated that Donna Curling is NOT on the Board of Directors of VoteTrustUSA. In fact, there is NO Board of Directors of VoteTrustUSA. Get your facts correct before you make statements, please. You will have a lot more credibility when you check your facts first.

As usual you also continue to use a wall paper paste brush to paint an oil painting. Neither Doug Curling, Donna Curling, or a "Curling Foundation" are funding VoteTrustUSA. Yes, Donna kindly helped us pay for a conference last year. So did other funders. Donna has made it crystal clear that the funds were hers and not from any other source. VoteTrustUSA, unlike some groups, relies on funds from the citizens and the blood, sweat, and, at times, tears of it's volunteers.

Get your facts straight and quit trying to involve other organizations in your vendetta.

Executive Director, VotersUnite.org

Pat Vesely
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 24
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 11:19 am:

John Gideon, Executive Director, VotersUnite.org, wrote, "In fact, there is NO Board of Directors of VoteTrustUSA."

On the page at this link, votetrustusa.org lists Joan Krawitz as an "Executive Director", Warren Stewart as the "Director of Legislative Issues and Policy", and yourself also as "Executive Director".

I'm just wondering what state you're incorporated in. From my recollection, a "Board of Directors" may not be required in some states, but if there's large amounts of donated funds involved, it's a very good practice to have a board in place for a number of good reasons. See below.

http://www.nonprofits.org/if/idealist/en/FAQ/QuestionViewer/default?category-id= 17&item=1&section=18&sid=47648288-166-FJfHJ

Is a Board Necessary?

Summary:
Many factors affect the answer to the question. Being incorporated is probably a good idea; corporations usually have boards.

Discussion:

A reader asked on September 14, 1999: "Is a board necessary? We have a small non profit association and are trying to locate information on whether or not we have to have a Board of Directors. We are not incorporated. Can you refer us? Thanks."

Putnam Barber answered:

Much will depend on what state you are in. Some provide for what are called "unincorporated associations." Others do not. In the second sort of state, you will probably not be able to open a bank account or do other business in the association's name without incorporating (or taking some other action to create a formal organization to act on the members' behalf -- some states permit other forms such as partnerships).

Further issues have to do with taxes, insurance, and other "corporate" obligations. It is my impression that many states and localities make no special effort to deal with very small organizations, especially those where there is little or no financial activity. If the leadership of the organization is willing to go forward without the protections and guidance of the corporate form, and if there's not a lot of money changing hands, you can probably operate indefinitely without encountering any external requirements.

But I question the wisdom of proceding in this way. The protections for leaders and members that are built into the corporatate form are significant. And thinking through issues in advance of difficulties can prevent a lot of unhappiness if things go awry. Many good ideas have come to woe over the years over disputes about who controls the affairs and the assets of the organization. Often, having clear rules on the books will prevent that from ever happening because people have confidence that affairs will always be handled in a straightforward and predictable way.

If you do elect to form a corporation, then having a board -- or at least officers -- will almost certainly be required. If you want, you can probably have the board consist of all the members of the association or make other arrangements that suit the specific situation and goals of your group. You make these decisions as you draft your bylaws and articles of incorporation. These are the sorts of issues you will find discussed in a good book on forming a nonprofit. One that is often used is Anthony Mancuso's "How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation in All 50 States" published by Nolo Press. You can purchase the 4th edition online through Amazon.Com by clicking on this link (and the Nonprofit FAQ will receive a royalty from Amazon which we will use to maintain the Nonprofit FAQ): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0873374517/internetnonprofi

There is more information about this subject in the "Where to Start" article at the Nonprofit FAQ -- see http://www.nonprofits.org/npofaq/02/01.html

Putnam Barber
Editor, The Internet Nonprofit Center :: http://www.nonprofits.org/
President, The Evergreen State Society :: http://www.tess.org

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

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Paper ballots are the 'Currency of Democracy'. They've been helping to curb election fraud since 139 BCE!

John Gideon
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johngideon

Post Number: 215
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 11:54 am:

Pat,
Look again. I am not 'Executive Director' of VoteTrustUSA. I am Executive Director of VotersUnite. Neither organization is a 501(c)(3)and that point is clearly made on the VoteTrustUSA website.
And, "[I]f there's large amounts of donated funds involved, it's a very good practice to have a board in place for a number of good reasons." That's probably true and it would be a good thing. The problem is that the large amounts of donated funds do not exist and, for the most part, it is as I said; blood, sweat, and tears.
Again, there is NO board of directors of VoteTrustUSA. If Bev had asked someone would have told her that.
And, just for full disclosure, VoteTrustUSA is a project of International Humanities Center which is a 501(c)(3). That is clearly stated on our website.
And, VotersUnite does not actively solicit any funds. There is a donate button and an address for checks to be sent but I do not go out, as some do, and put a request for donations on everything that I send out. I actually prefer not taking any money because then I am not answerable to anyone.
All I ask is that facts be corroborated before they get posted. It only takes a phone call or an email. It's simple. If you don't ask and you don't post the facts then your credibility is in question.

Executive Director, VotersUnite.org

Pat Vesely
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 26
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 1:11 pm:

John, I stand corrected, however, after looking at the Donate Now! page on the VoteTrustUSA.org site I find the following statement,

"Vote Trust USA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization. As a project of the International Humanities Center, a 501(c)(3) organization, VoteTrustUSA can offer donors tax deductibility to the full extent permitted by law."

Maybe it's just me, but I find the above statement to be anything but clear as to VoteTrustUSA.org's status as a 501(c)(3) organization. To me the use of the terms "nonpartisan nonprofit organization", and "VoteTrustUSA can offer donors tax deductibility to the full extent permitted by law" clearly infer that VoteTrustUSA.org has a 501(c)(3) status of their own. Had you not pointed out the words, "As a project of the International Humanities Center, a 501(c)(3) organization", a casual reader might easily make the same mistake I did. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I also find it just a little bit misleading to give people the title of "director" in a "nonpartisan nonprofit organization" that is not recognized by the IRS as such, and has no official Board of Directors offering oversight and accountability of the organization. Again, that's just my personal take on it. I'll be absolutely sure that in the future when I reference either organization that I'm clear about their IRS status and organizational oversight and accountability.

I apologize for any wrong assumptions I made and will be sure to check with any organizations I post about in the future, lest there be any changes to their official status that I'm not aware of.

All I can offer in my defense is that I don't spend any time investigating other voting rights groups, even the one's whose members smear this organization on a regular basis, because I barely have enough time to keep track of all of the investigations of the vendors, lobbyists, elections officials, and legislators that are impacting my rights as it is.

Thanks again for setting me straight on this.

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

Paper ballots are the 'Currency of Democracy'. They've been helping to curb election fraud since 139 BCE!

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 3739
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 1:10 pm:

John,

Neither organization is a 501(c)(3)and that point is clearly made on the VoteTrustUSA website.

It's not very clear. The VoteTrustUSA Web site says "VoteTrustUSA is a national non-profit, non-partisan organization..."

To most Web site visitors, that's looked at as the same thing as a nonpartisan nonprofit 501c(3). Most visitors don't know the difference, but if what you're saying is correct, there is a huge difference.

You wrote, "I actually prefer not taking any money because then I am not answerable to anyone.

That's an interesting stance to take.

About the importance of fund raising

I have always thought the "we never solicit a dime" statements are self defeating. When I established Black Box Voting I set out a modest budget, about $350,000 per year, to enable us to cover travel costs and modest salaries for a few people.

The largest single expense for our organization, aside from paying four salaries (we have a 3/4 time admin assistant) has been the Thompson and Hursti hack demonstration projects. We are not finished with those yet.

The largest portions of that have been legal fees and travel. Lodging was not cheap either. We put Hursti up for five months in various Holiday Inns around the country.

We once put Dr. Thompson up in a Motel 6. (Pat Vesely will remember that; he and his wife were there too, because he was documenting a meeting with Thompson and the secretary of state.). There was a shooting in the parking lot that night and I mean gun shooting, not film shooting. I have never again subjected world-class experts to the crunchy carpet conditions, though Kathleen and I can tell you of some exceedingly gross motels we've stayed at when not accompanied by the scientists. (Actually, word up to Motel 6, it is one of our favorite places to stay, generally high quality for a good price.)

Our own travel expenditures are, after payroll, the largest line item in our budget. The largest part of our work besides the kick-ass research we do here (which involves travel in many cases) is citizen training.

When we are on the road, we sometimes fund raise but our policy throughout 2005 was to leave ALL of the proceeds with the local group to help them grow.

You would not see the Juan Andrade confession of taking $20,000 a month from Diebold had we not gotten on a plane and gone to Chicago to get it.

You would not see the Palm Beach County audit that we're presenting in Palm Beach this week had we not sued Palm Beach and then gone to get the records, meeting with citizens along the way.

In fact, when looking at the accounting records last week I'm amazed we got through it. I often took 2 red-eye cross country flights a week, sometimes three, and I'm also amazed that my marriage survived.

Raising money means increasing the amount of things you can do.

It's as simple as that. It is really very detrimental to the movement to encourage the elimination of fund raising. Instead, we should be helping grass roots organizations learn the ropes of funding the actions they need to take.

Volunteers are the glue that holds this together but...

With just three investigators and 10,000 jurisdictions in the U.S., we know we have to gather information through citizen volunteers. Volunteers sometimes burn out, and you can't hold them accountable if they miss a deadline. We love them! But also, you can't hold volunteer toes to the fire very well when you have rigorous deadlines or yucky-work.

We met our first-year goals

We're well on our way to meeting our second year goals. I am very, very proud of this organization -- the integrity of the people in it, the fact that we set out a daunting budget and met it, and the results we've been able to achieve thus far.

We all have so much further to go.

But John, you never answered any of the questioned I posed above. Nor did you address any of the issues (fake-name smearing and stripping out attribution) that have produced some of these problems.

It's time. Let's do that conference call and resolve these code of conduct issues. I've already said I'll help you out by withdrawing from a grant application so that VoteTrustUSA can have it. Name me one other organization that has done that, or would even consider doing that.

You guys will have to stop the fake-name smear stuff, disassociate yourselves from voting group leaders who persist in that behavior, attribute work properly, and generally be above-board in your dealings with Black Box Voting.

I think by withdrawing from the grant so you can have it we have offered to make the first step in a very generous way.

James E Lee
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jameselee

Post Number: 2
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 12:35 pm:

Ms. Harris - I'm sure VoteTrustUSA can, and will, speak for themselves, but ChoicePoint has not provided any funding to VoteTrust or any other advocacy organization interested in the issues surrounding voting.

James E. Lee
CMO
ChoicePoint

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 1811
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 4:34 pm:

James,

I note that Bev Harris chose her words carefully. She referred to a "Choicepoint-related" grant. She did not claim the grant came directly from Choicepoint.

Perhaps this was a grant from the spouse of Choicepoint's top two executives. This could be seen to be an indirect (or covered-up) way of moving funds from Choicepoint to VoteTrustUSA. If some VoteTrustUSA principals were not revealing their true names this strengthens the possibility of a deliberate cover-up to hide the original source of the funds.

In other contexts the financial activities of immediate family members are considered relevant, and it seems appropriate to similarly consider them relevant in this case.

A sizable contribution from an election-data-mining company to a voting activism organization, that passes through an immediate family member, does not look to me like an arms-length, independent transaction. It seems to be a "Choicepoint-related" transaction, which is how it was described.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 3769
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 7:04 pm:

The spouse of a key executive and major stockholder is termed a "stakeholder."

That is a broader term than shareholder or corporate officer, but falls into the same bins when it comes to disclosure protocol.

Pat Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 358
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 12:05 am:

Special Update:

In response to a request about information alleged in a current thread at the Democraticunderground.com web site I would like to offer the following clarification of the relationship between John Gideon and Black Box Voting.org.

In post # 141 made by DU'er "mom cat" at the thread linked here, the following misinformation was presented,

quote:
mom cat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Jul-16-06 09:51 PM
Response to Reply #86
141. You are not completely forthcoming about the source of the John Gideon

quote and have failed to mention some pertinent information.
John Gideion made that quote on the BBV site in his capacity as a Director of BBV:

"John Gideon
BBV Leadership Team
Username: Johngideon

Post Number: 213
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)
Posted on Sunday, February 05, 2006 - 05:18 pm:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here I am again. No matter how much I try to stay away from here I keep getting drug in. It needs to be made crystal clear that ChoicePoint has not, does not now, and, they say, will never have anything to do with elections. They purchased DBT (DATABASE TECHNOLOGIES, INC,) after the 2000 election and it does not do election data bases any longer. The inclusion of ChoicePoint in this piece is incorrect.

DBT got a contract with the state of Florida and warned the state that the information they were putting together was not accurate because it included many names that did not belong on the list. The state told them that's what they wanted because they expected the counties to scrub the list. The counties didn't do that. That is NOT DBTs fault and is certainly not the fault of ChoicePoint.

Greg Palast, from whom you must have gotten much of this information, knows the facts but refuses to admit that his reporting was wrong. So he has just continued the lie. "

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/17778.htm...
I found this from following your link in an above post of yours.

In this piece, John Gideon was speaking as a Board Member of BBV, on the BBV site, yet you do not say that a director of BBV was slandering Palast. Instead you leave out the BBV information and only cite John Gibson's ties to VTUSA. Such misappropriate attribution weakens your case.

John Gideon is not now, and never has been a "Board Member" or "Director" of Black Box Voting Inc. The designation of "BBV Leadership Team" is something that the forum software automatically adds to any persons posts after they have hit a certain number of posts on the forum. It indicates nothing more or nothing less.

John Gideon is the Executive Director of VotersUnite and the Communications Director of Vote Trust USA. John has done an outstanding job of educating the public through his Daily Voting News service which is widely distributed to numerous Voting Rights Organizations and is also available via Scoop Independent News. John's only affiliation with BBVinc. is as a registered member of this forum.

As with all members of this forum, all comments and opinions expressed by him in his posts are clearly his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Black Box Voting Inc. or any other organization he may represent unless he expressly states that such is the case.

John Gideon has been a valued member of the voting rights community for some years now and the membership of Black Box Voting.org wish him continued success in his fight for electoral integrity. I just wanted to make it clear that he in no way represents Black Box Voting as either a "Director" or member of the "Board of Directors" of this organization.

On two related matters of speculation that have been promulgated in that same thread I would like to offer the following information to help put an end to the 'spin' about our organization.

There have been hundreds of posts questioning why the 'qui tam' settlement donation by Bev Harris has not been reported in the first year financial documents. The answer is really quite simple.

Although the settlement check from Diebold was delivered to the State of California in May as reported on this site, the State then had to cut a check to Lowell Finley's law firm (Plaintiffs Attorney) for their percentage of the settlement moneys after legal fees, and subsequently, the law firm had to draft separate checks to the plaintiffs. (Bev Harris and Jim March) Bev then had to wait for her check to clear before she could draft a check to BBV.org for the 90% left after 'tithing' 10% to her church. All of this took time that resulted in the check being delayed till late June. Black Box Voting's Board of Directors then had to wait till their next scheduled meeting to seek legal advice and discuss how best to segregate these funds from their other account to ensure that they were properly accounted for and protected against misuse.

It was determined that a separate 'Legal Trust Fund' should be established for litigation purposes to best assure proper accounting.

The fund was set up and the check deposited on July 05, 2005, placing it in the second fiscal year finances of the organization. Look for it in the next 990 report.

There has also been a lot of speculation as to who made the three $10,000 contributions in FY 04/05. Most organizations involved in such politically charged areas as this do not make a habit of 'outing' their donors for obvious reasons, but we have asked the donor if she would mind our making her name public and she has graciously agreed that it would be all right. Her name is Laurie Grace. She was one of the "angel donors" who donated very large sums to progressive causes after the 2004 election. In addition to BBV.org she also donated to Verified Voting.org and others.

If anyone wants more information than this they may request it in writing from the Board of Directors of Black Box Voting.org and I'm sure they can fill you in.

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 3046
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 2:17 am:

When I posted at Kos as Catherine a some people made the same assumption about me. They saw "Leadership Team" beside my name on my BBV posts and assumed I was on the BBV Board or had some kind of Administrator privileges such as changing/deleting other peoples' posts, none of which is true. They also claimed I had this exalted status going back to when I first started posting at BBV! Then some posters at Kos said it was inappropriate that I had not "disclosed" my (supposed) "Leadership" position at BBV in my posts at Kos.(!)

Then someone speculated (wrongly) about my "true" identity as some other Catherine a whose name had been mentioned somewhere else. I didn't bother responding to any of this because it was so stupid (anyone who wanted to confirm that I am who I am could have done so with 2 minutes of time on the internet).

Then I was banned from Kos without explanation, warning or question, and no opportunity to set the record straight.

Kos and DU undoubtedly have a role to play and can sometimes be a source of useful information and discussion. However, on both these websites people who post the truth about certain topics get banned, whereas those who disinform, smear and libel other people or organizations are allowed to continue posting--even after they have been informed that what they are saying is incorrect or libellous. (In fact, pointing out that something is libel can lead to immediate banning.)

Both websites also harbor veritable teams of posters who will come out of the woodwork to bash Bev or BBV (and, more recently, Brad Friedman and Greg Palast).

Now some of the most prominent BBV-bashers are defending Choicepoint. Why? Because their actions are technically "legal". All kinds of legal decisions have been made in relation to elections (e.g. SCOTUS after 2000 election) but legality on its own does not equate to something being morally or ethically defensible.

One of the most prominent BBV-bashers (Boredtodeath) has recently said that if anyone sues her in relation to Choicepoint, Donna Curling will pay her legal fees.

Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl

Post Number: 691
Registered: 01-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 5:23 am:

Who's Donna Curling? What position does she have that makes this indicative of something?

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 3047
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 6:31 am:

Donna Curling is the wife of the President of Choicepoint. It is her participation in election reform group VoteTrustUSA in some kind of leadership capacity (including her participation on an in-house mailing list using a different name) that is under discussion.

If you read the entire thread above you'll have the background about ChoicePoint. When an immediate family member or a top company exec. is involved in donations etc. that is not recognized as an arms-length transaction. (In other words, it is difficult to separate the person giving the money from ChoicePoint and its vested interests.)

Greg Palast has recently revealed more aspects of ChoicePoint's involvement in elections (e.g., the company obtained voter registration lists for Mexico and supplied them to the US government).

Many are eager to excuse ChoicePoint's involvement in the 2000 Florida election fiasco, claiming that a company called DBT had prepared the caging lists and Choicepoint had not yet bought DBT at that time. However, company acquisition normally takes place over many months (or years) of careful examination called due diligence. ChoicePoint either was aware of what DBT had done, or should have been aware. For all we know, ChoicePoint may have bought DBT because of its fancy footwork for the state of Florida.

According to one poster, ChoicePoint has been bragging about its work for FL. It's hard to see how they can brag about their FL work on the one hand and also claim that they had nothing to do it.

Questions (and eyebrows) are raised when the wife of ChoicePoint's President gives donations to an election reform group and participates in what she herself has claimed is some kind of leadership capacity, yet she did not reveal her true identity to other members of the private list-serve group.

In many business or tax contexts, Donna Curling's relationship with VoteTrustUSA would not be seen as an arms-length relationship from ChoicePoint because of her husband's influential role in the company. While not illegal it raises questions about judgment and indirect influence, as well as the real possibility of confidential VoteTrustUSA information or strategy discussions finding their way to ChoicePoint in a way that VoteTrustUSA members might not intend or desire. There is the potential for infiltration, or the appearance of infiltration. Damage can be done without an individual actively trying to exert influence.

What would you think if the husband of a top ES&S executive gave a donation to BBV and participated on the BBV Board or a BBV strategy committee using a fake name and without revealing their family connection to ES&S to other Board/committee members? Wouldn't that be a bit unseemly? It would not be illegal but it would not smell right, either. The questions becomes, is it wise or appropriate for VoteTrustUSA to continue its relationship with Donna Curling? Why has it continued as long as it has? Are VoteTrustUSA unaware of the risks to its mission and its reputation?

The issue hinges on the fact that ChoicePoint's corporate activities (gathering data about private citizens and selling it to the government, including voter registration information) are in direct conflict with VoteTrustUSA's stated aims (reforming legislation to provide more fairness and transparency in US elections).

Individuals have rights to make donations. Organizations have the right to receive donations. Ethical organizations also have responsibilities to take care to prevent undue outsider influence or even the appearance of undue influence or infiltration by an entity with aims that oppose those of the organization.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 5408
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 9:13 am:

Thank you, Pat Vesely and Catherine Ansbro, for injecting reasoned discussion into the information here. For any who have become confused, there is a food fight going on at DemocraticUnderground.com, where not a single person from BBV is allowed to issue clarifications, rebut libel, or correct the facts.

Apparently the Democratic Party has become enamored of taking contributions from the wife of the president of Choicepoint. The two major Democratic blogs, Daily Kos and Democratic Underground, appear to have management that is opposed to the viewpoints and strategies of Black Box Voting, and we are a nonpartisan elections watchdog group so perhaps that should not come as a surprise.

There appears to be an agenda by the Democrats to paint elections problems as strictly "them vs. us" -- bad Republicans doing evil deeds to innocent Democrats.

At Black Box Voting we have learned that the facts do not bear that position out. Both sides appear to be trying to take control of elections using various means. It is more of a "custody battle" -- whichever side has custody of the voting machines in a particular juridiction, whichever side has custody of the voter registration data and whichever side has custody of the local procedures appears to have an advantage in that jurisdiction -- with some exceptions, in those areas with local elections officials that are scrupulous about transparency and fairness.

It is also true that by cobbling together local opportunities and identifying those jurisdictions which are corrupt and "open for business," a federal election can be affected at the national level.

So now we have Choicepoint -- and an issue, data mining, and an article by Black Box Voting examining the intersection between data mining activities and elections. That is an entirely valid line of inquiry by any journalistic standard.

Out of the woodwork comes a Director of an elections integrity group, John Gideon, who has done outstanding work (albeit pro-technology, anti-hand counted paper ballots work). He accuses Black Box Voting of taking our information from Greg Palast. At the time this article was written, we hadn't seen work by Palast on the issue of data mining and its intersection with elections data. He may have had a body of work in this area, but aside from the felon purge work we weren't aware of it at the time.

What we had seen was databases. Massive signature image file databases produced by programs made by Diebold. Linkages of voter data through unregulated intermediary software and hardware, a topic we'll be writing about shortly. Massive, powerful, customized databases like Voter Vault, owned by individuals who engage in political dirty tricks. So we decided the issue of data mining, and its intersection with elections, should be explored.

Then we find that this type of unethical data mining does have ties to Choicepoint -- especially concerning, the illegal attempts to purchase voter registration databases in Mexico and elsewhere.

Instantly, we are attacked by a director of VoteTrustUSA, we get the nastiest possible call from Doug Curling, the president of Choicepoint, we start finding out about money being paid to an activist in Georgia and a voting integrity group.

Black Box Voting is on the same page as Greg Palast and Paul Lehto. Any voting integrity activist or organization that has accepted money from Choicepoint or a spouse of the president of Choicepoint should give it back. It's dirty money.

Both I and Kathleen Wynne are out of town and have limited access to the Internet, but I will take a moment here to thank Pat and Catherine for straightening out some facts. In a nutshell, to answer the allegations being made on DemocraticUnderground, which are being left to stand because we are not allowed to post there:

1) Black Box Voting did not instigate the article in the Atlanta Progressive News. I was called for comment by that reporter AFTER he had become concerned about the off-the-record but vehement defenses of Choicepoint being provided to him by some activists and groups. I was called AFTER he talked to Palast. He asked questions, I answered them. I deal it out straight and I'm not going to lie and say "it's okay to take money from Choicepoint" or that Choicepoint is/has done nothing wrong.

Taking money from Choicepoint is wrong. It should be given back. Choicepoint has done some unethical things related to elections. More inquiry needs to be made into all issues pertaining to data mining and elections.

2) Roxanne Jekot, under the screen name boredtodeath, stated that Black Box Voting paid reporter Matthew Cardinale to write an article. This is libel. She does that a lot, and it should be noted that Roxanne Jekot has had a long relationship with Donna Curling, and has reportedly accepted a large amount of money from the Curlings.

3) DemocraticUnderground is speculating about $30,000 in donations to BBV by an individual. Pat Vesely is correct. That was from Laurie Grace, one of the "greats" when it comes to election reform-related philanthropy. She's given to many organizations.

4) Pat Vesely is also correct that the Qui Tam donation I made to Black Box Voting was deposited in our second fiscal year. I'm not positive it was July 5, but it was around then. I don't think the separate fund is a trust, it's just a separate bank account restricted to supporting litigation. It has so far supported the following actions: Public interest litigation defense for Stephen Heller, Bruce Funk, a public records lawsuit for ballot images, and libel actions against Diebold and Diebold employee Rob Pelletier.

Hope this clears things up, gotta go, love you all!

Bev

* * * * *

"We're counting the votes. Get over it."

Be part of the solution: Please sign up for the NATIONAL HAND COUNT REGISTRY: Go to Home Page - Hand Count Registry is right above lead story

Make November elections the biggest evidence gathering action ever. EVIDENCE = videotape, audiotape and photos. Come prepared. This time, focus on the COUNTING not just the voting.

Adele Eisner
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Eisnera

Post Number: 28
Registered: 01-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 12:59 pm:

WHOA!... or.... more WOE here!
This has been a very enlightening thread.

From a very wide view, maybe everyone is holding a little piece of their vision of somewhat "rightness"in this tighening and crazy world.
For instance, though I certainly don't agree with the perspective, maybe ChoicePoint actually sees itself, not engaged in elections, (ahem, just gathering and comingling voter data with other data without voter consent - Horrible! and Wrong! according to me) but taking "competitive advantage" of being first and biggest with all this data - as mentioned above - for paid-for Homeland Security use, as well as other "social minings". Yikes!

Maybe Gideon who has done some excellent work in making more, more informed cannot return the money. Though I agree that from a real integrity stance, instead of defending ChoicePoint, et al he certainly should force a "crystal clear" disassociation of all ChoicePoint or Curling influence, by any name, immediately.

But my biggest concern regarding this matter goes way beyond elections
- to the soon to come, now being well-prepared for, National ID cards, to be used "for the convenience of" voting, ....and maybe even for once weekly passage to go to the government market to get our bread rations - the more you've contributed, the more bread you get.....

People, sorry to be the one to say it so clearly, but a full police state is at hand, complete with Orwellian and empty-eyed, post-modern humanoid features, embedded computer chips, online non-individual signatures and all.

While pressing hard for fair, transparent elections let's not lose sight of the ultimate goal of such - to hopefully get someones in offices with the remnants of a human heart and some abiding remembrance of what the "good of the whole" and "peace" and "diplomacy" used to consensually mean to the masses even ten years ago, not according to the the upside-down notions of today's well-oiled privileged few.

Let's keep our eye's on ball and the whole picture.

As bad as they are right now, elections are not the "endgame goal" of those manipulating them, merely the quickest, cleanest-appearing way to it - if they can keep the myth of "no evil election or elected officials" going ( not if BBV has anything to do with it!)
ChoicePoint in that context, is thus, just another one of just today's greedy bit players to the real goal... and maybe in the end, getting "more bread" for their power and help.

The thing that most captures me, however, is trying to get a handle on what's going on here...not in this thread's facts... nor about each one of the activist individuals or groups involved - but what is fueling so many arguments, conflicts and "break-aparts" especially now - around this topic and on other activist lists, certainly in Ohio, and even here in Cleveland.

Is it, as I see so blatantly in this city and state, that weariness or original ego intent to this cause makes us want to at least get best ego recognition for all we've done? (along with everyone else...) Is it the increasing shortage of dollars for life, thus for such work at the grassroots level, that's "getting to" people/groups? Is it that even some election integrity activists, forget what human integrity really means when the going gets rough? Or really going out on a limb, has Orwell already hit with some measure of some sort of mind control, promoting internal conflict as the US does so well all over the world to gain control.

To be clear, none of my above speculations refer in any way to this particular discussion or this site.
But I do really wonder, just what do you think is going on right now among election reform activists just as things are changing a bit - with a few lawsuits, a drop more MSM coverage, etc?

I'm not here proposing rose colored glasses - and let's all get along stuff. But I think the conflicts are worth a thought or two - for understanding that dynamic may help also understand to help thwart politically controlled and politically fought elections.

Sorry for my tangent.

(Again, this is looking for feedback from a wise group. It is not meant in any way as referencing this site or nay individuals in this thread.)

John Gideon
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johngideon

Post Number: 240
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 2:09 pm:

I am only going to say one thing here; I have never taken any money in any way from ChoicePoint or Donna Curling. I have never taken any funds from VoteTrustUSA. Any accusations or statements to the contrary are totally false. I am a retired federal employee and a disabled Viet Nam vet. I live on my retirement. I take no money at all from this and VotersUnite quit even taking donations a few months ago. I repeat I have never taken any money from ChoicePoint or Donna Curling.

That is my one and only statement on this issue.

Pat Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 359
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 2:48 pm:

Hi Adele, From my perspective, what I see happening is a little bit of all of the above..... and then some!

My personal opinion is that I've seen this all before several times and it reeks of the old 'COINTELPRO' days during the Vietnam war. I firmly believe that there are paid interests at work here and have spent many hours investigating the money trail behind it.

Having thoroughly read the US Army's 'FM 33-1, PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS - PSYOP' manual, Google Search it's becoming quite clear who the 'instigators' are and who is being manipulated through a highly orchestrated "perception management" campaign.

Such 'PSYOP' campaigns often rely on just a small number of operatives who often aren't even directly part of the group(s) targeted. Operatives will typically be fringe members of a movement that target specific individuals or groups by using propaganda techniques, often exploiting an individual's ego to get close to them. Once in a position of trust, they use a number of tactics to sew distrust, deception, and discord amongst various factions within the movement.

I urge all activists to read "Appendix I: PSYOP Techniques" from "Psychological Operations Field Manual No.33-1" published by Headquarters; Department of the Army, in Washington DC, on 31 August 1979, conveniently hosted at this link on, of all places, freerepublic.com. (Hmmm, gee, why would they post this?)

After reading the techniques involved, go to DU and read the threads there and see how many of those techniques you can spot in use.

The best part of understanding what these techniques are and how they are used is that just becoming aware of them makes you more or less immune to their effects.

In my view, they are only trying to draw us into a side show and keep our attention focused on answering baseless charges and away from the important work at hand. The work that this organization does speaks for itself. No amount of spin can change that.

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 3049
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 2:52 pm:

Adele,

You're right to be concerned about identity cards and their implication. They've been proposed in the UK (and successfully resisted by back-benchers so far). They have also been proposed where I live, in Ireland.

As to what's causing the fractures and stresses within the election reform movement, I think there are--and always have been--folks working behind the scenes in an attempt to target and take down or at least reduce the impact of those who are the most independent and empowered groups and individuals. Where there are weak links--e.g., a person who is in genuine financial need and therefore open to receiving financial favors--the weaknesses are being exploited so that a network of subtle loyalties is created, accompanied by a gradual weakening of ethical stances.

I wouldn't assume there is anything formal or organized about this, though of course there could be. It's the kind of thing that the big players understand without it ever having to be stated.

I had a lengthy post about this here a long time ago--maybe Kathleen Wynne remembers it.

I am quite sure that what we are seeing--the scrappy nastiness at DU, the twisting of peoples' words, the internet tag-team smear campaigns, the speech limitations at dKos, the way politicians and the media respond to (or ignore) the issues we raise--these all form what is just the small, visible tip of a very large iceberg.

All we can do is cope with the things that are in our own sphere of influence. For some people, that sphere means actions taken at the national or international level. For others, it means looking at the parts of the iceberg that they can see in their own state, local area, friends, workplace or activist group, and doing what is most appropriate for their unique situation.

It is a challenge for each of us to keep awake and alert, and to keep growing in our own personal integrity. It is a call to each of us to define and redefine our values, over and over and over again.

It's about choice. Conscious choice. How apt that we are paying so much attention to the act of voting and the systems that we've put in place to govern that act of choice.

As a wise trainer said on a course I recently attended, it's about identifying and responding to the need of the situation. That's also a place that allows us to react from a place that, ideally, is beyond (or less influenced by) the dynamics of difficult interpersonal interactions, our past history and our personal patterns.

One of the things I value about BBV is that I sense that most of the posters here are genuinely trying to grow inside, trying to find a path of clarity and integrity. We try to strike the right tone, and when we don't we try again. Bev is a great role model in this respect. She leads by example, admits it when she hasn't got it quite right, and does what she can to keep growing and to encourage others to keep finding their own path of integrity. And it's not just Bev. I have tremendous respect for so many of the people who post here--

Pat Vesely for his unfaltering balance and his sense of humor
Bruce Sims for his legal astuteness and probing observations
Michelle for her dedication and generosity in sharing information with others
Kathleen Wynne for her passion and her ability to express it
John Washington for his technical skill and dedication
John Howard for his integrity and observations
Sukhara for showing the power that comes from doing the right thing
Kurt V. Bellman for generously sharing the fruits of his many years' experience as an election official
Linda Franz for her commonsense and wisdom
Jim March for his ability to go right to the front of the trenches
Adele for the inspiring example she sets, shining the light for others who focus on a particular state or local area

I could go on and on. There are so many who deserve to be mentioned, including people who rarely post and even those who listen silently. Many of us drift in and out depending on our circumstances and short-term situations.

Suffice it to say I am grateful for the chance to share my time on this planet with this group of people. It's up to each of us to move forward in our own way, and it's great to have the companionship of so many wonderful fellow travellers.

"ChoicePoint" just presents us with another opportunity to make personal choices about who we are and what we value. It's a great name.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 5410
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 3:53 pm:

Catherine, your post is wonderful. I was just citing the achievements of individuals like Melissa Urda, Bruce Sims, Adele Eisner and others to some very influential people today, as they expressed skepticism that ordinary citizens could take independent actions of their own accord, to gather evidence of the type that can actually produce change. One of the people I explained this to got it, another just couldn't quite get her head around it.

Empowered, independent-thinking people really are the most frightening thing on earth to those who wish to cheat and dominate.

And Adele, I assume you know that Diebold's latest acquisition has to do with their plan to make ID cards in connection with homeland security projects.

Pat Vesely is astute to see that this game involves subtle manipulations of perception.

Pat Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 360
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 4:04 pm:

John, thanks for that clear and concise statement of fact. If I see anyone make such allegations or comments I will surely set the record straight and alert you so that you may do the same. I have not as of yet seen anyone make such allegations about you personally. You have made it very clear on many occasions that you are doing this from the heart and not from your wallet. That said, I also believe that you are selling yourself short and kidding yourself into believing that accepting grants and donations to cover your time and expenses somehow 'cheapens' the value of your work. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In my personal opinion I believe that your Voter News Service should be written up as a special project by one of the organizations that you are part of and funded by educational grants or grass roots donations. What you do is of vital importance to educating the general public as to the vast scope of the issues facing us. If people had to rely on just what they happen to catch in their local press, they would remain vastly unaware of how prevalent the problems really are around the country.

In closing, I just want to make sure that you understood that my "update" above was not made in an attempt to distance BBV.org from you, rather, it was done in an attempt to stop you from being attacked on DU as just another "Bevbot" or "Branch Bevidian cult member". There have been at least a couple of dozen of us now that have been attacked and called every name in the book over there before being banned for no good reason. I just didn't want to see you suffer the same fate.

My advice is to get a large can of 'Troll-B-Gone' and stay focused on what you're doing. Keep up the good work, it's appreciated immensely.

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir

Post Number: 452
Registered: 04-2006

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 5:27 pm:

Catherine,

re this quote:
"Kurt V. Bellman for generously sharing the fruits of his many years' experience as an election official"

Cath, you're going to make me blush.

I'm just a guy who still loves democracy and elections even though I'm no longer making my living in them.

I've been in Alabama for a while again (Huntsville). I carry a picture of Shaun Southworth with me in case I run into him there, so I can pick his brain. He's not worth tracking down at his Ciber offices at this point.

I find the contrast between BBV and places like Kos and DU to be very telling. (and I say that as a man who has been alternately deified and crucified on DU, 2002 v. 2004) Some of the people here who are convinced that these issues are "them v. us" in a partisan sense should read Bev's somewhat lengthy post above. It is right on the money. To borrow the words of Tip O'Neill, (nearly) all election corruption is local.

And if you want to know where to look for it - look where one party has exercised historical control, but registration is trending against the entrenched majority party. Also look for it where something like a state official can appoint board majorities of a party not the local majority party (Ohio's cities?? Perhaps?? Maybe??).

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 3050
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 2:48 am:

Kurt: "And if you want to know where to look for it - look where one party has exercised historical control, but registration is trending against the entrenched majority party. Also look for it where something like a state official can appoint board majorities of a party not the local majority party (Ohio's cities?? Perhaps?? Maybe??)."

This road map makes perfect sense. Election shenanigans are more likely to occur in places where the existing powers that be perceive that it is necessary in order to stay in power (i.e., when they are losing popular support), and where they have the means (via appointments) to ensure that people are put in place who can be counted on to do whatever's necessary.

Admin, this tip should go into a "toolbox" somewhere.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 5411
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 5:07 am:

yep. To the toolbox it goes. Thanks!

Daniel Frank McMullan
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Seevotedan

Post Number: 46
Registered: 03-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 5:11 am:

The link above to: PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/546409/posts
in the article above has a typo in the link.

From: Pat Vesely Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 - 02:48 pm:
I urge all activists to read "Appendix I: PSYOP Techniques" from "Psychological Operations Field Manual No.33-1" published by Headquarters; Department of the Army, in Washington DC, on 31 August 1979, conveniently hosted at this link on, of all places, freerepublic.com. (Hmmm, gee, why would they post this?)

It's a great link and ought to be fixed!

Adele Eisner
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Eisnera

Post Number: 29
Registered: 01-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 6:23 am:

Thank you all for your fabulous responses!

This organization, site, and you all, continually demonstrate a field of overarching and foundational human evolvement, the lure for all life to have the opportunity to become the something more we're meant to be - not by having or grabbing or fighting for more, ie. the push to human devolution - that often surrounds and attempts to convince that it's "the real reality" each time we enter areas most in need of election reform. These responses to me are a clear indicator of the high standards of integrity and intentions that Bev and the organization puts forth, thus, attracting back same.

And John, as Pat so well pointed out, thank you, for the enormous amount you contribute to putting forth, thus reaffirming the truth of a larger "reality". I agree that your voter news service is a huge and positive contribution to many, across the nation, and probably the world.I personally have benefited from it greatly.

Regarding your last statement about Donna Curling and VoteTrust, I am trying to bring together that statement with another earlier one above, which I cannot yet do. For the sake of internal clarity, I hope you can help.

Earlier you stated that:
"Neither Doug Curling, Donna Curling, or a "Curling Foundation" are funding VoteTrustUSA. Yes, Donna kindly helped us pay for a conference last year. So did other funders. Donna has made it crystal clear that the funds were hers and not from any other source. VoteTrustUSA, unlike some groups, relies on funds from the citizens and the blood, sweat, and, at times, tears of it's volunteers."

Then in the last statement regarding this issue you said:
"I am only going to say one thing here; I have never taken any money in any way from ChoicePoint or Donna Curling. I have never taken any funds from VoteTrustUSA."

Are you trying to delineate the difference between your personal funds and VoteTrust's here?

I want to make clear that when I said, "Maybe Gideon who has done some excellent work in making more, more informed cannot return the money" I was not trying to infer that you were intermingling those resources. I was referring to you as a Director of VoteTrust, handling VoteTrust's funds.

Otherwise, I also have not seen any other reference above inferring that you are using VoteTrust's funds for personal use.

I am not accusing you of anything. Just trying to put your last statement into meaningful context , so I can understand what you thought was being said about you, and to further clarify what you are attempting to clearly convey to us.

Hoping you can help.

Thanks.

John Gideon
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johngideon

Post Number: 241
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 9:14 am:

I have never received any funds from Donna Curling or ChoicePoint. I have never received any funds for any reason from VoteTrustUSA. I am not a "Director" of VoteTrustUSA because there are NO Directors. There is a 'core group' of which I am a member. And before people, again, start saying there has to be a Board of Directors that is incorrect for VTUSA because VTUSA is not a 501C3. It is a project of International Humanities who are the 501C3. They have a BoD. Many, many organizations are 'projects' of the large, umbrella C3 organizations.

I am a retired federal employee and a retired, disabled Viet Nam vet. I live on my retirement. VotersUnite takes no funds from anyone and has not for some months now. That's it. It should be clear and simple.

Pat Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely

Post Number: 362
Registered: 02-2006

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - 9:31 pm:

John, this is getting rather silly. Yes, we are quite aware that you didn't personally receive any money from ANYONE. That is not, and has not been, a point of contention here. I don't believe I've ever seen anyone make that claim.

We are also quite aware that you are not a "Director" of VoteTrustUSA. I, PAT VESELY, misread the VoteTrustUSA page and confused your title as "Communications Manager of VoteTrustUSA" with your title of "Executive Director of VotersUnite", both of which are listed on the VTUSA web site. I have acknowledged that mistake and apologized for the error.

What is beginning to bother me is the repetitive technique you're using with this divisive message that someone has accused you personally of taking money. This appears to be an intentive inference and distorts the actual point that we're making.

The topic of this thread is the ethics of data mining operations and their potential role in election fraud. We were just notified by a member that Donna Curling has posted on the DU web site that she had donated to BBV.org back after the 2004 election and after checking the donor database, we discovered that she had indeed donated $500.00 to Black Box Voting.org. Her donation was made as one of 12,000 credit card transactions and at the time our organization had no knowledge of her status as a 'stakeholder' with ties to ChoicePoint. While we do not feel that this donation was made with any expectations for anything in return, we feel that we must return it immediately. This in no way should be interpreted as a slight against Ms. Curling or her activism with other organizations.

Pat A. Vesely ;-)

Daniel Frank McMullan
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Seevotedan

Post Number: 50
Registered: 03-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 5:25 am:

You are sending money back? In fear of being accused of partnering with Donna who has ties to ChoicePoint? Wow. (don't do it)

We all have ties to something that could be considered a conflict of interests. Those concerned with voting, have vested interests in fair elections (well most of us anyway) and seems to me that BBV.org is MOST likely to get donations from people in the "know".

BBV.org is the common honest thread between all that is voting.

I have a good friend who voluteers to help Bernie get re-elected, will you refund their donation, too? so, am I now suspect? Where does it stop?

I am not defending Mr. Gideon, he is obviously trying to change the subject. But we are all connected. And influence comes in forms other than money. Trading data is a totally different subject.

Seems to me that BBV.org does nothing in secrecy, therefore donations and influence have no effect on results. Why return Donna's $500 donation?

Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a

Post Number: 3057
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 368 (A keeper?)

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 5:38 am:

Ultimately this is for the BBV Board to decide, I imagine. I can understand the need not to accept donations from someone with such close ties to one of the biggest vested corporate interests in the election industry.

I don't think BBV would accept donations from someone tied to Diebold or Sequoia or ES&S for the same reason. BBV is a consumer watchdog organization, so it shouldn't take donations from companies it is watching, or from individuals closely associated to the the companies it is watching).

That's different from a contributor having their own preference for certain parties or candidates.

It's interesting to consider how far that principle should be extended. For example, should contributions from highly-placed elected representatives be accepted? Should contributions from high-visibility election officials or Secretaries of State be accepted? What about individuals linked to the ITAs? Are some titles or individuals on this list ok but not others? Does one draw the line on an individual basis?

It's a fascinating area to consider. The principle is that one shouldn't receive donations from someone where that contribution could be seen to be an attempt by a self-vested interest to influence what BBV does or doesn't investigate, or how BBV carries out its work.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 5414
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 8:26 am:

I appreciate Pat's vigilence. He caught me coming off a plane and let me know of the Curling donation. I was actually walking down the ramp when he called; I stopped to search the database before even going to the baggage claim. Found Curling in the database, told Pat to let folks know the money is not something we can accept, now that we know the connections. We are returning it immediately.

We had been tipped that there was a poison pill donation somewhere among the thousands of donations we got in 2004. If we were to take a donation of substantial size from ES&S, for example, that would be a problem.

We're busy, and on the road all the time, but I was so concerned about this that I took the donor list and googled everyone that gave $1000 or more. I did some of the $500 ones but stopped midway through. I did this around April 2005. Actually, I'm surprised I didn't see the Curling one -- but I would not have known the wife's name, so even if I had seen that name, I wouldn't have known it was an immediate beneficiary of the Choicepoint profits. I made notes on each donor that I researched, though, like "runs a printing company" or "name too common, no idea" or "lawyer in NY" and there were no notes on the Curling entry so apparently I didn't get to that one at all.

The first time I heard the Curling name in the context of Choicepoint was May 2005, when Cynthia McKinney expressed concern about the Curling's involvement in voting reform to me.

We're returning the donation. We don't want money tied to Choicepoint, period.

Where does it stop? It has to do with the amount of money, the closeness of the relationship to a vested interest, the level of inappropriateness of the vested interest. Our budget is substantial so a small donation can't carry any strings. The IRS sets a line at $250 for requiring nonprofits to send receipts, so that line makes sense to us. If a donation is $250 or more, from an individual with a very close relationship to an entity that has significant enough issues that it is likely to be the subject of our investigative reports -- the money should go back.

There are always process concerns -- how do we check this stuff, who does it, etc. Things could slip through.

We had one radio host require that we sign an affidavit that we were not funded by a competing vendor to Diebold. It's called a poison pill, and it's a tactic used by some corporations to pull an issue out of their hat later on if a watchdog organization is causing trouble. I don't think Donna Curling's donation was meant that way -- I think she was sincere -- but you still can't keep that kind of money when you find out about it.

These kinds of issues are legitimate, but certainly also a distraction for those of us focused on program goals.

We expect data mining / ID / registration / data brokering to be on ongoing area of investigation and reporting for BBV. There's no question that Choicepoint has crossed the line. Choicepoint should be watched like a hawk, and we are a watchdog organization.

No gray area here. The money goes back immediately, now that we know, and thanks to Pat Vesely for covering our backs on this.

Daniel Frank McMullan
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Seevotedan

Post Number: 51
Registered: 03-2005

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 9:01 am:

thanks for taking my point seriously.
this makes sense to me now.
Return the money to Donna!
sorry for the distraction.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Post Number: 5415
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 10:38 am:

Daniel -- not a distraction at all. Part of our work here is to talk out ethical issues. You raised good points!

John Gideon
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johngideon

Post Number: 242
Registered: 12-2004

Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?)

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 11:18 am:

On Feb. 6 I made a statement on this string about Greg Palast. I wish to publicly retract that statement and apologize for a personal statement I made about him.

Paul Lehto
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Paul_lehto

Post Number: 7
Registered: 04-2006

Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?)

Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 1:17 pm:

Just saw this thread for the first time in several days, since i've been traveling with my family. Hope to come back some time. I would confirm that John Gideon is correct as far as him not personally taking any money. I too do not think that is or was an issue.

I ask that all people not be swayed by any friendship they may have with me or with anyone else. Just recognize the goodness and the mistakes in every person. a flat out refusal to believe anything unfortunately can happen is probably enemy #1 to election fraud awareness. Let's neither be Pollyannas, let's spot our problems and correct them, and let's always reach for improvement. John Gideon can be proud to be batting .999 instead of a perfect 1000. If we don't allow ourselves to be imperfect, then we can not improve anywhere near as much as we otherwise would.

Personally, as long as we can stop arguing balls and strikes, I'm anxious to move on to talking about the accomplishments of many excellent players at VTUSA. I've swung and missed by not listening to others as much as I should, and in other ways I'm sure, too.

In one post, I replied to Donna Curling and referred to "negative capability", the ability to keep two competing things in mind at the same time, without dismissing either. This is hard to do for all of us, but Keats considered it the key to intelligence. Back to the baseball percentage metaphor, we have both hits and misses, we all do. In this debate over choicepoint, too much of the time one side is saying "we're perfect" and the other side dwells on the negative. Once we realize it's both, we can all move forward without denial of either side of reality.

This may seem bold, but consider how incredibly civilized this "rancorous" debate has been, when in other countries people who consider themselves on polar opposite political sides can often resort to violence to purify their ranks or to retaliate, which is something that is so far from reality here as to be ludicrous. And that's an accomplishment and a blessing and a promise that the democratic spirit of transparency and debate can still work for us today, and forever.

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