Forum Navigation
Topics
Log In
Log Out
:
Forum Search
New Today
New This Week
Advanced Search
Tree View
Forum Account
Edit Profile
Register
Forgot Password
Forum Tools
Help/Instructions
Policies
CLICK STATE TO SEE:
"WATCH LIST"
Marked with: 
"OPEN & HONEST"
Marked with: 
...
|
| 6-12-06: Trouble seeks trouble - King... |
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5186
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 9:18 am: | 
|
Citizen elections oversight is like the detergent you see on TV commercials. Your oversight of elections is beginning to clean up the mess by breaking up the opaque film sitting on top.
Like this:
King County (WA) elections chief Dean Logan has been under fire for "finding" ballots over and over during Washington's 2004 gubernatorial recount, and for the awkward discovery of three hours purged from his audit log during the middle of a vote count. Currently, King County citizens are angry with Logan for trying to force his entire million-vote county into mail-in balloting -- in a harried hurry, without pilot testing, using an insecure absentee counting system.
King County may clean up its act -- Logan is leaving -- but he is migrating to Los Angeles to congeal with Conny Drake McCormack who runs one of the least transparent locations in the country.
Logan will become McCormack's right hand man. Los Angeles County Registrar of Elections Conny McCormack has been under fire nonstop for 20 years, on civil rights violations, for partnering up with vendors on vacations and vendor advertising, and for violations of California's laws requiring citizen observability during elections.
In the big picture, the Conny & Dean show may be a good thing. Citizens used to be fighting for clean elections on two fronts. Now these particular challenges have adhered to each other in a single location. More and more, embattled elections overseers are leaving their positions to seek safety amongst birds with similar feathers.
Let's take a look at how some of the most problematic public officials have congealed. But first, a word about MOST elections officials, who represent the clean pool underneath the overlayer:
Elections officials have one of the toughest jobs on earth.
Let's be clear about this. Most elections officials are salt-of-the earth good people being hammered by HAVA, forced into dependency by vendors, and just when they find themselves between the rock and the hard place, they have come under the greatest scrutiny ever by citizens.
Being an elections official is like being a high profile football coach. If a game or a player goes bad, angry fans will run you out of town on a rail. Or, put another way, conducting an election has been compared to putting on a wedding -- everything happens on one non-reschedulable day and if a single thing goes wrong, someone captures it on video and you might lose your job.
Elections work is extremely challenging, but it's made worse when a small percentage of obstructive and vendor-friendly officials achieve positions of influence. It's one thing to have a mishap or two, but certain elections officials seem to be in trouble all the time.
Who's greasy?
Residents of this community include some of the blindest voting machine testing experts in history, secretaries of state who are now voting machine company directors, citizen-unfriendly former state elections directors, and certain local elections officials famous for obfuscation.
Whereas the most troubling characters used to be spread across positions of power, pressure produced through citizen oversight has now resulted in so many resignations and terminations that we now find the most problematic players huddling together in small pods.
Thank goodness for citizens, like you, and for courageous elections officials like Bruce Funk and Ion Sancho -- solid Americans willing to wade right into the mess to try and clean it up.
Two years ago, Black Box Voting published a list called the "Gotta Be Replaced" list. Several of the characters on that list have now resigned. Some of those that resigned formed consulting companies.
Some of the "Gotta Be Replaced" list remain in office, embattled. Those who have remained try to hire those who resigned, as consultants, to come in and give seals of approval to problematic elections and equipment.
Among the first public officials on the Gotta Be Replaced list:
Scott Konopasek: Was elections chief in Salt Lake County (UT) went to Snohomish County (WA) where he ushered in Sequoia touch-screens; from there he went to San Bernardino County (CA) where he also pushed through Sequoia touch-screens.
In August 2004, Konopasek admitted to Black Box Voting investigators (unbeknownst to him, in front of a New York Times reporter) that he had occasionally had to "massage" the data on election night. That admission made the New York Times. Two months later Konopasek apparently offended county supervisors so badly that he was terminated.
Konopasek and his sidekick, Stephen Trout (formerly of the Bill Jones regime at the California secretary of state's office), formed an elections consulting company.
Conny McCormack: McCormack had been in charge of jury selection in Dallas County (TX), where she became head of elections. Shortly after taking office, Drake-McCormack was hit with violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1964 over an incident related to installation of voting machines. She subsequently came under investigation by the Texas Attorney General on allegations that she had manipulated an election by shorting ballots in African-American districts.
While still under investigation, McCormack went to San Diego County, CA. She took over from San Diego's Ortiz, who had been indicted. McCormack turned over the reins in San Diego County and took over in Los Angeles County.
Conny McCormack appears to be related to Scott Konopasek through marriage (her sister-in-law is a Konopasek.) Black Box Voting has an unconfirmed report from local citizens that Konopasek's new consulting firm participated in a vendor meeting with McCormack regarding a telephone voting system.
Mischelle Townsend: (Riverside County, CA) - After a contentious stint as Registrar of Elections in Riverside County, where Townsend brought in Sequoia paperless touch-screens, shared a public relations company with Sequoia, appeared in commercials for Sequoia, and allowed Sequoia technicians intimate access to her voting system during live elections, Townsend resigned. She took a position with Konopasek's consulting firm to make it Konopasek, Trout and Townsend.
Michael Vu: Was elections chief in Salt Lake County, UT, from there to Cuyahoga County, OH. Vu, who told Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne that his mentor was Mischelle Townsend, was a die-hard Diebold touch-screen pusher. He presided over a 2004 general election marred by an illegally conducted recount that has since resulted in two indictments. Unfortunately, those indicted are underlings, female, and black.
Vu emerged from that fiasco untouched, but got a black eye in the May 2, 2006 primary where his new voting machines ran into problem after problem.
The Ohio situation is a mess from beginning to end -- with Diebold lobbyist Pat Gallina funneling money from his ACG group bank account to the Republican Party through a Franklin County elections official.
One of Diebold's Ohio lobbyists, Paul Tipps, was so disgusted with Ohio's "pay to play" scheme that he resigned (he had been assigned to lobby for Ohio election officials at the same time as lobbying for Diebold). Tipps formed a government clean-up group.
Dean Logan: Logan was hired by Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, who is the protege of former Washington Sec. State Ralph Munro (who now chairs a voting machine company).
After a brief stint as state elections director, Logan took over King County. His administration of the 2004 general election was regarded as a such a farce that King County administrators scrambled to find an outside consultant to validate the integrity of that election. One of the consultants suggested: Scott Konopasek's firm. Another suggested consultant was The Election Center, a private group so wildly pro-vendor that it recruited a lobbyist for vendors in 2003.
Paul Craft: Voting machine examiner for state of Florida -- After he belatedly admitted to Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho that he had known about the ability to reprogram memory cards, but neglected to tell Florida officials about it, he resigned. Shortly before resigning he founded Paul Craft, Inc., an elections consulting firm which has subsequently been joined by a former California voting systems examiner myopic enough to miss numerous security flaws, Steve Freeman, and also by another Florida official (MacGregor) while she was still in office.
The new Craft, Freeman and MacGregor outfit has been pitching their voting machine consulting services to the state of Maryland. According to public records, Craft has now been discovered doing gigs for the California secretary of state, Bruce McPherson.
Meanwhile, it looks like there will be no further embarassments in Florida. Craft's sidekick, David Drury has replaced him and the Florida legislature is busily trying to pass a bill prohibiting any independent testing.
An incomplete list of other officials to keep a close eye on:
Robert Saar: DuPage County, IL
Ann McFall: Volusia County, FL
Jeb Bush: Governor of Florida
Michel Haas: San Diego County Registrar of Voters
Cathy Cox: Georgia Secretary of State
Linda Lamone: Maryland State Elections Director
Debra Hench: San Joaquin County, CA Registrar of Elections
Kenneth Blackwell: Ohio Secretary of State
Donetta Davidson: U.S. Elections Assistance Commission
Tom Wilkey: U.S. Elections Assistance Commission
Brit Williams: U.S. Elections Assistance Commission
Eric Clark: Mississippi Secretary of State
Gary Hebert: Utah Lt. Governor
Citizens, oversight is working. Some of the "Gotta Be Replaced" list has now been replaced. True, there's been a bit of shuffling the deck chairs, but this is because certain problematic public officials have been reacting to your oversight.
Here's why oversight of your local elections infrastructure is so important:
To pull off manipulation of a federal election -- like the coming November election that offers up control of congress -- and/or to manipulate a presidential election, you need troublesome local officials. It is true that capturing a federal election would take several people, but it is also true that this is feasible.
Bobby Kennedy interviewed Black Box Voting's Bev Harris for his recent article in Rolling Stone. He chose not to use the interview, probably because it opened up new areas of questioning. And as a writer, you simply can't use everything. You have to tell a story.
The fact is, there are several different vendors, and while it is true that each vendor has vulnerabilities that can be exploited, these vulnerabilities are not identical. You can not develop one "hack" to serve all machines, or even all machines from a single vendor since different models by the same vendor will have different vulnerabilities.
How our history of election fraud is relevant to today's scenario
We know that the history of vote-rigging especially targeted certain local elected positions -- those like commissioner/supervisor/alderman that control construction, land use, zoning, and award contracts. That's where the money flows, therein lies the traditional bribery train.
Another position typically targeted is the county sheriff's position -- that position controls contraband (drugs, guns) and also signs off on the traffic studies needed to get zoning approval for land use projects.
These positions were targets for corruption going way back to the paper ballot hand counted days, and there is no reason to expect that they would suddenly NOT be targets for corruption now that we have voting machines. Once these positions are corrupted on a local level, elections are likely to follow because the commissioners/supervisors oversee the elections administrator, and the sheriff is in charge of ballot chain of custody.
A theory that could work to manipulate elections on a federal scale
To manipulate a federal election, you'd need to know which jurisdictions are "open for business." There will be a patchwork of these locations, not a blanket.
However, skilled political operatives WILL know where these opportunities exist, and will know how to exploit the local corruption as well. That's their job.
To manipulate a federal election, you'd want to be very strategic about your selection. You wouldn't go for everywhere. You'd target specific states, and within those states, you'd target specific counties or jurisdictions. You'd identify which of those jurisdictions was likely to be approachable. You'd know that, if you knew your way around the block as a political operative, because you'd have been working your way up the ladder doing elections.
It's the job of the operatives to know the lay of the land. They know who's been naughty and who's been nice.
You'd select the most "approachable" people who can get at selected strategic areas. The kinds of manipulation would vary from area to area, depending on their local "specialties."
You'd cobble together the opportunities.
Yes, national elections on the presidential level have operations with the connections, skills, and knowledge of the terrain to do that.
You'd certainly not tell the candidate what you are doing. And by the way, if the candidate had no direct knowledge, even if caught you probably can't remove him from office for vote-tampering.
You'd certainly operate in "cells" so as to minimize damage if anyone is caught.
And this is nothing new. It's just that the voting machines and new voter registration databases offer new attack points.
Can it be done?
Yes, probably.
Can it be done by one person? Not on a federal level. Not yet.
One person might be able to achieve it on a state level in a state with a uniform voting system. Those states include Georgia, Maryland, Utah and Mississippi and now, 44 of the 88 counties in Ohio, probably putting Ohio elections into the one-man-manipulation category.
It would take several people, but not THAT many people. Suppose you choose Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Within those you choose Miami, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Duval in FLA; Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Franklin in OH.
Within that you would choose the most approachable officials. You'd assign one well-placed operative in each strategic state, one who knows the terrain well enough to know who to approach.
This is why it's so important to oversee your LOCAL elections infrastructure.
And for those states that have an inappropriate level of state control (Utah, Florida, Georgia, Maryland...) citizens will also need to focus in with laser-like intensity on activities by a handful of people at the state level.
Be a detergent. Break up the grease.
* * * * *
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 2924
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 11:35 am: |
|
Thanks so much for this well-organized "road map". This is a great public service. I've noticed many of these names cropping up over and over during the last few years and it is helpful to have the background of the various movements as people change positions and merge together. I hope you'll provide updates in this thread as things evolve.
I'd like to offer three related suggestions.
I. As a counterbalance I would love to see a separate article/thread devoted to the "best of the best" in election officials and relevant supervisors/commissioners/secretaries of state. It could be supportive for election officials and others to know who they might best turn to for advice and support and for role models of integrity in difficult circumstances.
II. Likewise, it would be nice to have an article/thread documenting positive achievements by various election reform groups or individuals across the country. Since the media does a poor job of covering this, it can be easy to be discouraged or to feel that one person or a few people can't make a difference. We need to see lots of role models, and examples of positive developments that give us hope.
III. Maybe we could also do with an article/thread to highlight those media folks who have been willing to genuinely investigate and report with substance (that is, doing more than just repeating vendors' talking points or officials' reassuring words).
We need to be able to identify the points of integrity and strength that exist in our election system, while we simultaneously highlight those who most require public scrutiny and censure. |
Russell Novkov
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 72
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 7:26 pm: |
|
Corruption needs to be stopped now. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5188
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 8:17 pm: |
|
Absolutely. The next article, in fact, will profile the good guys. |
Edward Robles
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tedeger
Post Number: 41
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 12:13 pm: |
|
And George Rush says that the GOP will retain control of Congress. No doubt because the fix is already in, in places where the machines are most corruptible and disenfranchisement is rampant. I still believe that a "Voting Machine Party" is needed in some of the most vulnerable areas - public demonstrations of just how unreliable the machines are, in the presence of reporters who will report. To dispel darkness, light is necessary. |
John Washburn
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johnwashburn
Post Number: 136
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 10:48 pm: |
|
Excellent point on the local election integrity.
I published a piece on the same topic but with a slightly different focus called: All Election Integrity is Local
Any reader here may use it in whole or in part in any way you find useful. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5205
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 - 9:29 am: |
|
Thanks for the link, John. It's an astute piece. I hope it gets widely distributed. |
Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 1
Registered: 06-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 21, 2006 - 6:08 pm: |
|
Bev,
We need to add Barbara Dunmore, current Riverside County RoV to the "Watch List". You should have an op ed piece from Art Cassel that explains the tip of the iceberg why. |
|
|
