Navigation
Topics
Log In
Log Out
:
Special Search
New Today
New This Week
Advanced Search
Tree View
Your Account
Edit Profile
Register
Forgot Password
Tools
Help/Instructions
Policies
...
|
| (CO) 11/2012 - COLORADO SETS THE STAG... |
|
| Author |
Message |
   
Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin
Post Number: 11732 Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?  Votes: 20 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, November 1, 2012 - 10:21 am: |
|
Colorado election integrity and transparency is now officially out the window, with a series of corruption protection rules and new laws. 1. Let's begin with the unflappable Donetta Davidson, who collaborated with convicted embezzler Jeffrey Dean(1) to remove voter privacy, through a contract specification that required him to redo his absentee mail software in order to embed a method to tie voted ballots to the voters. This shifty business, which now includes all absentee ballots cast on Hart eSlate machines, has led to a blockade on ALL Colorado election accounting records (see #4, below). 2. Next, in a move that has most of us scratching our heads, Colorado Sec. State Gessler proposed new rules in December 2011 to remove requirements for continuous video surveillance.(2) Though billed as "cost saving," note that most video surveillance nowadays is simply piped into digital files stored on a Web site. Since cameras are already installed, there is no significant cost savings in allowing non-continuous surveillance. 3. Sec. State Gessler also decided to reduce the number of seals on voting machines,(2) to the chagrin of election integrity groups like Voter Action, whose investigations and litigation demonstrated vulnerabilities requiring the seals in the first place. The "cost savings" in this measure can be counted in pennies. 4. A number of protective accounting measures crucial for evaluating election tampering have been taken off the table though a new law to block election-related public records examination. Donetta Davidson led the lobbying for this law. Davidson had become a commissioner of the U.S. Election Assistence Commission, then took a step down to take over the Colorado Clerks Association. In this capacity she led a fight to block the media and citizens from examining the ballots. And no wonder: She knew that due to changes made under her administration, private companies had marks embedded on the ballots enabling them to harvest data tying votes to voters. Thanks to a lawsuit by Colorado citizen Marilyn Marks, of The Citizen Center, sponsored and assisted by Black Box Voting, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed right to examine ballots. Marks was shocked when she discovered that identifying marks on the ballots allowed her to immediately associate every voted ballot with the voter who cast it. Marks, The Citizen Center, (and Black Box Voting) are now involved in litigation to permanently prohibit this harvesting of personal political information. In the interim, Sec. State Gessler has required that the identifiers be removed for November 2012 only. With ballot examination affirmed to be in the public domain, Davidson's next move was to block ballot examination until after all remedies had expired. Using her clout, she lobbied successfully for the removal of ballots -- AND OTHER CRUCIAL ELECTION RECORDS, SUCH AS POLL LISTS -- from any access by election watchdogs until 45 days after the election.(3) One telltale sign of election tampering is when thousands more votes than voters show up. But in Colorado, neither the media nor the public will be allowed to examine the poll lists or the list of names for voters said to have voted absentee, until too late to do anything about discrepancies. 5. And then there is the matter of alleged Romney ties to the second-biggest voting machine manufacturer in America. These connections are being minimized by Internet outlets like Snopes, but the straight truth is that Hart Intercivic, the firm that supplies two-thirds of Colorado counties with their voting machines, is now owned by a spin-off of Bain & Company (H.I.G. Capital).(4) A majority of Hart's directors are now H.I.G. guys, and the directors of H.I.G. are Romney bundlers and donors who don't hedge their bets by donating to any other presidential candidate. This isn't the first time Romney has had his buddies in charge of crucial election processes this year. Some weeks after the misreported figures in the Iowa caucus, which incorrectly cited Romney as the winner, Black Box Voting uncovered that Romney staffers had been brought in to run the Iowa Caucus, and the Nevada Caucus too. Besides heading Romney campaign functions, these guys were associated with an odious Colorado political firm which narrowly escaped prosecution for maliciously misleading political ads.(5) And the Romney affiliation with Hart Intercivic doesn't rule out his buddies -- or Obama's buddies -- or George Soros -- or the Chinese, for that matter -- owning the other companies. Election Systems & Software (ES&S) does not reveal who its owners are, and we don't know who owns Dominion either. ES&S directly handles voting machines in three Colorado counties; it co-produces elections on the old Diebold equipment with Dominion, with ES&S supplying technicians in some U.S. locations and Dominion in others. Dominion owns Sequoia Voting Systems (or does it? No one seems to be quite sure...), used in large metro Denver County and in Pueblo.(6) Confused? American elections are now so far removed from the hands of the people that self-governance is just a memory. 6. Romney's business buddies owning Colorado's main voting machine company demonstrates, at the very least, an appearance of impropriety, but it carries with it something more: Actual opportunity to alter results. Unlike most Diebold voting machine locations, whose county technicians set up each election using voting company software, Hart has its customers send files directly to Texas, where its programmers and technicians have their way with the files, sending them back to the counties to put in their voting machines. This centralized control point does in fact enable tampering with results from a remote location. Paper ballots? Well, not all Colorado counties even have them, but thanks to Donetta Davidson and her cronies, they are off limits for human examination and will be interpreted only by the Hart machines. The Hart system has built-in secret functions in its system, discovered by researchers in the Everest Study commissioned by then-Ohio Sec. State Jennifer Bruner. "Undocumented functions" are accessed through the registry, geek territory for most of us but accessible by any administrator. Voting systems are supposed to be certified and they are not supposed to contain "undocumented functions" accessible through sophisticated built-in back doors into the registry. These are certainly not accidental and not even the researchers for the EVEREST study were able to determine what these functions do.(7) 7. Loosey-goosey absentee system combines with obstruction of observation: Half of all ballots in Colorado are likely to be cast absentee, due to the implementation of not only no-fault absentee, but active promotion of "permanent" absentee status by Donetta Davidson's Colorado Clerks Assocation. With "permanent absentee" they send ballots even if they were not requested, and following a tussle, they also send ballots to people who didn't request them who haven't voted for years. Seems like a prescription for insider-driven absentee fraud (where an elections worker exploits names of inactive voters to insert ballots into the pool). It also seems like it would at least be a good idea to allow extra careful observation of the whole absentee process, to authenticate the ID numbers of voters in whose name ballots are being cast. Unfortunately, this is not the case. "We used to stand beside the workers and look to see if the person reading an ID number and the person typing the ID number into the system were doing it properly," [Mary] Eberle said. [Eberle was a watcher for the American Constitution Party who is also a member of the watchdog group Citizen Center] "We could see how well they matched the signatures on a ballot envelope with the voter signature on file in [the state's registered voter database]. Well, we can't do that anymore..." (8) According to The Colorado Independent: Marty Neilson, Republican Party election watcher, walked out of the Boulder County Clerk's building in disgust as workers there tabulated primary voting results the last week of June. Neilson said she couldn't see anything of substance and felt like she was participating in a sham exercise in oversight. "[Clerk Hillary Hall] kept us behind [solid] walls and behind glass walls," Neilson told the Colorado Independent. "We are there to view the whole process, which is what the statutes say we're supposed to do, from the time the [election workers] get the ballots to the time they verify the signatures and then count the votes. But it was a charade. I left because why stay? There was no reason to be there." * * * * * The core of a true democratic system is the concept of self-governance. If the public is not allowed to see and authenticate essential parts of the election (who can vote - voter list; who did vote - poll lists; the counting of the vote; and chain of custody) -- if the public is left standing in the dark while insiders control the levers of operation and accounting, you don't have self-government at all. What you are left with is the government choosing itself. * * * * * FOOTNOTES (1) Jeff Dean involvement in vote by mail software: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/70328/81241.html Colorado demand to tie votes to voters: (full transcript: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/1-10-06-04kim-v-dean.pdf - 1,007 KB) ; Page 19: ..."okay, if this voter showed up in the subsequent upload, then I need to ... tell them ... what ballot number he was assigned so they can pull it [the voted ballot] back out. It was a fundamental change in the way the program worked. Q When you say Colorado was told that, do you know who told them that the program was capable of doing that? A Jeff [Dean] More: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/133/80503.html (2) Denver Post; Posted: 12/07/2011 02:19:33 PM MST; Updated: 12/07/2011 03:52:07 PM MST; By Sara Burnett http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19490338 "Among the changes being considered: - Eliminate the requirement that video security surveillance of areas where election software is used be "continuous." Video surveillance is required for 60 days prior and 30 days after an election. - Eliminate requirement that a county clerk or election judge who suspects tampering report it to the Secretary of State. Instead, such investigations would be handled at the county level. - Reduce the number of tamper-proof seals that must be placed on seams of cases that hold the equipment's electronic components. (3) New law to restrict access to election records http://www.centerpostdispatch.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=1701 (4) Romney ties to Hart Intercivic: http://truth-out.org/news/item/12204-does-the-romney-family-now-own-your-e-vote (5) Former Romney staffers run Iowa, Nevada caucuses: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/81900.html (6) Map of voting machines in Colorado: http://www.verifiedvoting.org (7) Hart use of registry for undocumented functions: http://www.bbvdocs.org/hart/EVEREST-Hart.pdf "18.3.2 Windows Registry Misuse The Windows registry is a operating system service that maintains configuration parameters for applications installed on the computer. The Hart system makes extensive use of the registry to enable/disable features of the system. While in general the use of the registry is not a problem, Hart uses it to enable critical functions and security sensitive operations. Issues arise because anyone with the appropriate privileges on the computer can read and change the registry. Thus an attacker without any Hart system passwords or hardware tokens can affect the security and behavior of the system. "...An interesting characteristic of the registry use in the Hart software is that it (generally) periodically checks registry entries, rather that just checking them at start-up. This has the consequence that triggered features can be turned on and off without restarting the software. "We found references to many dozens or more of registry entries used by the Hart EMS applications. We were only able to investigate a small number of these. The vast majority of registry entries are undocumented, and their purpose is often unclear. (8) Blocking meaningful observation of absentee processing: http://coloradoindependent.com/author/johntomasic
The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.
|
   
Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin
Post Number: 11733 Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?  Votes: 6 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, November 1, 2012 - 10:43 am: |
|
map of Hart locations in Colorado: Green = Hart Intercivic Red = ES&S / Diebold Yellow = Sequoia / Dominion
For full map of voting systems in USA by vendor, see page 3 of this document: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBV-AntiTrust-Letter.pdf The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.
|
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 199 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, November 2, 2012 - 12:34 pm: |
|
Bev, I'm very alarmed by this. I now live in Lancaster County, PA, a Hart InterCivic county. I applied for an absentee ballot, and was astounded to see multiple barcodes all over the margin areas, at least three different ones. No two were alike. I do know that the PA SURE system does not have the capacity to record a ballot number field in it. If my ballot's barcodes are matched to my identity, it is being done on the Hart software side, where it would have no legitimate purpose, and not on the PA voter registration system side, so I'm okay there. You say these codes are unique? If so, I have a call in now to the state Commissioner of Commissions, Elections & Legislation, a personal friend, to look into this. If this Hart capability is not disabled in Pennsylvania, we have a state constitutional violation here. I voted a split ticket, and I'm proud to say so, but this ain't good. By the way, there also was an obvious human readable serial number on the tear off stub of my ballot, and the instructions were explicit about tearing that bad boy off before mailing, in accordance with law. That number bore no resemblance to the long numbers (many digits) next to the barcodes. Also, the outside affidavit envelope had my unique voter number in human readable and barcoded format on the label the SURE system cranks out. That just makes it easier for my envelope to be scanned as a received ballot. So that's fine, too. The problem occurs IF some hunk of software ties THAT barcode to any unique barcode of my ballot. THAT would be enough to get me very angry - COURTROOM angry. Lancaster County doesn't want to get me courtroom angry. They wouldn't like me very much when I get courtroom angry. I don't lose election cases, and I don't take prisoners. I get real nasty. And I have the resources to take appeals to the state appeals courts if I can't get justice in county court. I've been spoling for a fight with this provincial county for some time. I'd enjoy mussing up a county judge's hair a little. |
   
Marilyn Marks Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Marilyn_marks
Post Number: 53 Registered: 11-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, November 2, 2012 - 1:14 pm: |
|
Kurt, I have spent my last year working on it. It is sadly very true. The clerks and SOS all denied it in Colorado until August 20, when the SOS finally caved into our compelling evidence. I am scrambling now and don't have time to write a lot about this big subject but go to www.TheCitizenCenter.org. Also, Kurt, send me a personal email at Marilyn at AspenOffice dot com and send me your phone number and I'll give you a call tonight or over the weekend. Please save a copy of your ballot. all pages. And the envelope. Get everyone you know to do the same. Marilyn Marks www.TheCitizenCenter.org
|
   
Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin
Post Number: 11734 Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?  Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, November 3, 2012 - 8:50 am: |
|
The identifiers are also on Sequoia Dominion absentee ballots in Washington, and are on ALL DRE voting machines for all vendors in Indiana now. Because this has been done in a clandestine way, I expect we will find massive use of identifiers among multiple vendors. What I haven't found yet is any use of identifiers on non-absentee polling place PAPER ballots. Also, from what I understand, the state of California has banned Hart and other vendors from putting their vote tracking identifiers on California ballots. It is hard to shock me nowadays, but one thing I do find shocking is that many of the Colorado clerks knew of the privacy-removal device, but pretended it did not exist and/or couldn't be used to look at people's votes. When caught, the response seems to be "well, it's just the government looking at your vote, so that's okay." It is probably even worse for the government and its vendors to look at your vote than for some random private citizen to do so. NO ONE should be able to look at how you voted. As an illustration of just how badly ballot identifiers can go wrong -- consider that Koch Industries (45,000 employees) and Westgate Properties (almost 10,000 employees) sent their employees notices that if Obama gets elected, they can expect layoffs. Now imagine if Koch Industries or Westgate Properties were getting a feed on how each employee votes. There is a movement for write-in votes for Ron Paul right now. In many locations, we now know that those voters' choice to write in Ron Paul's name will be tracked. The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.
|
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 200 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, November 4, 2012 - 8:32 am: |
|
Well first, I can dispense with the Ron Paul nonsense, in my state and any with a similar election code. In states like mine, THERE SIMPLY IS NO SUCH THING AS DOING A WRITE-IN FOR PRESIDENT! You are writing in for some unknown Pennsylvanian named Ron Paul to be a Presidential Elector, not the Texas Congressman to be President. Here is what I have learned since my post above. Lancaster County, PA uses the Hart InterCivic eScan as the primary form of in-precinct voting, with the eSlate as the HAVA-compliant accessible device. The absentee ballot I received in the mail is utterly identical in every way to the ballots MOST people will use in-precinct, and in fact it will be scanned at the precinct after the polls close. Note: any voter who merely prefers the eSlate must be allowed to use it instead of the eScan paper ballot system. Don't laugh. I know MANY people who prefer paperless electronic voting compared with opscan. I may even be one given my long history with Shoup/Danaher 1242's. My current plan is this. I intend to go to my polling site (my cause of absence has been cancelled and this is what our law requires of me) and cancel my absentee ballot. I will then identify who I am and was, electorally speaking, and I will patiently wait for a lull in the voting so I can be shown all the options of voting type available to me. If I see unique barcodes on the ballots other than on the removable stub, I will hop in my car and drive to the City of Lancaster (23 miles) and ask to see the Election Day judge, and I will file a Writ of Mandamus ordering the destruction of any and all databases tying voter identity to ballots. Go ahead Lancaster County, screw with me. |
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 201 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, November 4, 2012 - 9:19 am: |
|
Bev, I have been aware for at least 9 years that matching a ballot, electronic or paper, to a voter's ID has been one of the vendors' Holy Grails. They have even "sold" it as a "feature". Here's why. Election jurisdictions largely HATE provisional ballots. They will do nearly anything to get out of the hassle of dealing with provisional ballots. I've been out of the election admin field for 7 years now and provisional ballots STILL give me anxiety attacks. I hate 'em. They sell false hope. Vendors have been selling the "feature" of allowing provisional ballots to be handled identically to regular qualified voters' ballots, and if needed, take them OUT of the totals after the fact. As Chairman of the HAVA State Plan Board, I was inundated by these vendors. I told them all to go to hell because what they were suggesting was not only illegal, but textually unconstitutional under our state's constitution. |
   
Marilyn Marks Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Marilyn_marks
Post Number: 54 Registered: 11-2009
Best of Black Box?  Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, November 4, 2012 - 9:28 am: |
|
Kurt, I am as incensed as you are about this. With respect to the destruction of the database idea, what we learned here in Colorado is that the clerks kept claiming "there is no database with traceable information. The barcode is not in the voter's record." Speaking hyper technically, they were correct. The information was in two different files---so it takes a couple of minutes to merge to create a look up table. Distinction without a difference. But their excuse of "we have no database" worked for years. Finally, in litigation discovery we were able to obtain the two files to merge to see how traceable the ballots have been. If you want to call me, I will show you exactly how it was done in several counties here, and exactly what to look for on those barcodes and which fields to look at. Marilyn Marks www.TheCitizenCenter.org
|
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 202 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, November 4, 2012 - 2:12 pm: |
|
Marilyn, In PA, the existence of the database is only a peripheral issue. The illegality here is the mere possibility of making one. |
   
Marilyn Marks Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Marilyn_marks
Post Number: 55 Registered: 11-2009
Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, November 4, 2012 - 2:27 pm: |
|
Kurt, Totally agree. We just couldn't get any official to see that here until we could prove that even I could use the files to show how people voted. I literally have a file on my laptop of how every person voted in the June primary in Eagle County (Vail). Ridiculous. Only then could we get the practice stopped. And STILL, we lost the lawsuit in federal court, when the judge declared that the government workers have a right to know how you vote!! (we are appealing that decision of course.) Marilyn Marks www.TheCitizenCenter.org
|
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 203 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 5:16 am: |
|
I am not a fan of going federal on the question of a right to a secret ballot. I would much rather go to my state judiciary. Your mileage may vary. |
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 204 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 8:43 am: |
|
Well Bev, It seems we now have a jusrisdiction using unique identifiers on their in-precinct paper opscan ballots - Lancaster County, PA, home of the Amish people a la the Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis movie titled "Witness". All ballots used in the Hart eScan scanner have unique barcodes, absentee and in-precinct in Lancaster County. |
   
Marilyn Marks Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Marilyn_marks
Post Number: 56 Registered: 11-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 9:09 am: |
|
Kurt, Do you the scheme of how the barcodes are laid out? If not, I can send you the defuult layout and how the 12 digit serial numbers work if you want. Marilyn Marks www.TheCitizenCenter.org
|
   
Marilyn Marks Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Marilyn_marks
Post Number: 57 Registered: 11-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 9:11 am: |
|
Kurt, You probably told us this already and I missed it, but how many PA counties use Hart? Marilyn Marks www.TheCitizenCenter.org
|
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 205 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 9:34 am: |
|
I have an image of my ballot, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to post it here. |
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 206 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 9:45 am: |
|
It appears 5 counties in PA use Hart InterCivic products, but only 2 use the eScan in precinct - Lancaster and Bedford. Three others use the eSlate for in-precinct voting. Those are Fayette, Blair, and Pike. Lancaster is the only one with a HUGE population, and it is a one-party world, as Republican as any in the nation. |
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 207 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 9:48 am: |
|
I show a 14 digit barcode running vertically at the top left, a 12 digit at bottom left, and a 10 digit at bottom right. That last one is not unique at all. Every sample ballot I've looked at has the same number there. |
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 208 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 9:59 am: |
|
To see the actual sample ballot for my precinct, see: http://ballots.co.lancaster.pa.us/default.aspx Then select the Eastern Lancaster County School District and the first one that shows up, Brecknock - Bowmansville, is it. Which is the offending barcode? I'm writing my Writ of Mandamus / Injunction order now. |
   
Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 209 Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 5, 2012 - 1:08 pm: |
|
Latest on Lancaster County: 1) The county offers all voters two options to vote - the Hart eScan optical scan and the Hart eSlate DRE. 2) If all or nearly all voters vote optical scan, any one can tell how every voter voted by getting access to the duplicate list of voters. 3) If a watcher is present all day, he can STILL keep a checklist of who voted by opscan and tell how they voted, because their ballots have unique serial numbers on them that are sequential. 4) The more voters who vote by paperless eSlate DRE's, the more removed the list of voters gets from the serial number on the paper ballot, so that ONLY someone who keeps track of who votes how can still access this information. 5) Not good enough! It's still illegal, whether a person can do the match or not. The CAPABILITY IS THERE. 6) I will be doing my civic duty and voting by paperless DRE, not opscan. |
|
|