Black Box Voting: Latest Diebold Lie

[BevHarris]

AP Wire story -- "None of the elections officials who supervise the 50,000 touch-screen machines serviced nationwide by Diebold Election Systems has reported glitches or hacks that have resulted in known miscounts or fraud, said Mark Radke, director of the voting industry division of North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/10/02/state1428EDT0094.DTL

Go here and download Chapter 2 for more http://www.blackboxvoting.com -- There are at least 15 that are problems with Global Election Systems/Diebold. But here's one example:

(Page 44)

"April 2002, Johnson County, Kansas -- Johnson County's new Diebold touch screen machines, proclaimed a success on election night, did not work as well as originally believed. Incorrect vote totals were discovered in six races, three of them contested, leaving county election officials scrambling to make sure the unofficial results were accurate. Johnson County Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt said that internal checks revealed that the system had under-and-over-reported hundreds of votes. Schmidt said the voting machines worked fine, they just tabulated wrong.

"The machines performed terrifically," said Robert J. Urosevich, president of Diebold Election Systems. 'The anomaly showed up on the reporting part.'

"The problem, however, was so perplexing that Schmidt asked the Board of Canvassers to order a hand re-count to make sure the results were accurate. Unfortunately, the touch screen machines did away with the ballots, so the only way to do a hand recount is to have the machine print its internal data page by page. Diebold tried to re-create the error in hopes of correcting it.

"'I wish I had an answer,' Urosevich said. In some cases, vote totals changed dramatically. (footnote 78)

"78 - The Kansas City Star, 5 April 2002; "Election errors unnerve Johnson County official""

- According to Diebold spokesman Joe Richardson, no patches were done in Georgia. According to the secretary of state's office, program modifications were made to 22,000 machines.

- According to Diebold press release on the SAIC report, the SAIC report showed Diebold's election system to be one of the most secure ever. According to the Washington Post, the SAIC report exposed 328 flaws.

- According to Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, they are never hooked up to the Internet. According to their manuals and their memos, they did.

- According to Diebold, they had no indication of any security breach because of their FTP site. You'll see. Chapter 8.

And now, according to Diebold, there has never been a known miscount on their machines.

Oh, that's right: The machines counted correctly, they just got the wrong totals. (I feel better now.)

Bev

[Classical_Liberal]

1. OOps

I wrote my letter to the editor on that one.

[BevHarris]

2. Rachel Konrad, the writer, is one of the good guys though

She has really done a good job of getting this story out. I spoke with her on this; she said she definitely does not want to give them a platform to lie. She's downloading the chapter now also.

I'm glad a letter to the editor went out. By the way, I think the Kansas City Star article is on the web somewhere. If someone finds it, might want to post the link here.

Bev

[KC]

9. Kansas City Star article

Posted on Fri, Apr. 05, 2002

Election errors unnerve Johnson County official
By ROBERT A. CRONKLETON
The Kansas City Star

Johnson County's new high-tech voting machines, proclaimed a success Tuesday night, did not work as well as originally believed.

Incorrect vote totals were discovered in six races, three of them contested, leaving county election officials scrambling to make sure the unofficial results were accurate.

Johnson County Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt said Thursday that internal checks revealed that the system had under- and over-reported hundreds of votes, sometimes for write-in candidates

snip

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/3000664.htm

[BevHarris]

12. Thanks!

Gee -- does KC stand for Kansas City?

Thanks for the link!

[KC]

13. You're welcome

No, KC is just a nickname I've been stuck with for years

I'm in NC :)

[Junkdrawer]

3. Why lie small when big lies pass so easily...

- or -

Lies on page one, corrections in the Letters to the Editors

[Eloriel]

4. Hmm, wish I could remember what Kathy Rogers was saying

when we last spoke (cough) about Johnson County, KS. Seems to me she was using that example, not fully described, in her argument against paper ballots.

Yeah, let's not have paper ballots. So messy and inconvenient actually getting the count right.

Eloriel

[BevHarris]

7. Johnson County doesn't have paper ballots

They've got the same touch screens as Georgia. (Which had the same screen freeze / clock fix problem, by the way -- check Brit Williams statement, when he indicates that only happened in Georgia).

I spoke with Connie Schmidt last spring. She was adamant that the machines must have a paper ballot, but she had accepted Diebold's b.s. about the individual printout the machine does (after the fact) being sufficient.

Well, when they went to get the count from the touch screens, it didn't match GEMS.

Funny thing.

But Mark Radke says there has never been an error. (Okay, it didn't miscount, it mistallied). (!?!?!)

[zbdent]

5. I fear that the only way we'll get the touch-screen voting machines

nullified is if Bush is trounced overwhelmingly despite the efforts of the Right.

You would have the "liberal media" constantly calling for an election "do-over".

[creativelcro]

6. Amazon cannot get the BBV book?

bev, what's going on with Amazon ?
___________________________________________
Greetings from Amazon.com.

We are sorry to report that we will not be able to obtain the following
item from your order:

Bev Harris "Black Box Voting: Vote Tampering in the 21st Century"

Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we've
since found that it is not available from any of our sources at this
time. We realize this is disappointing news to hear, and we apologize
for the inconvenience we have caused you.

We have cancelled this item from your order.

Your credit card will NOT BE CHARGED for this item because you only
pay for items when we ship them to you.

Your order is now closed.

Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address
that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com, and we hope to see you again.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
http://www.amazon.com

[Junkdrawer]

8. Just got the same email a few minutes ago...

Your book is still on the site. I'll see if I can reorder...

[Junkdrawer]

11. They took the new order...

It now says: "usually ships in 11-14 days". Let's hope that was why they canceled the first order.

[BevHarris]

10. News to me.

We'll check into it.

[Kelvin Mace]

17. Amazon is as competent as Diebold

Which is why you order straight from us, your friendly neighborhood publishing company.

http://shop1.got.net/plan9/Search.bok?category=Black+Box+Voting

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org

[Cocoa]

19. cut them some slack

I'm sure if the book existed, they would gladly fill the order.

[BevHarris]

20. Amazon generally does not carry any title not already in its warehouse

except for major accounts. We didn't expect them to carry the book until it shipped; that is standard procedure with them for mid-size and small publishers.

They called us and advised us of orders, and they made an exception to list the book. That's why I think this is just a computer glitch - it went whaaa??

[Kelvin Mace]

23. Some people never give up...

[BevHarris]

24. Just for you, Cocoa, we put Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 up early

Remember, Chapter 1-2 were due Wednesday and we had them up Tuesday night. Chapter 3-4 were due up Friday but we got them up Thursday night.

Just for you, Cocoa, I'll try to have Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 up by noon my time Tomorrow, 3 days early.

And thank you for being so supportive. How do you like the book -- or have you bothered to read any of it?

Bev

[alfredo]

14. Looking for the article. I love Google

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/3000664.htm

Posted on Fri, Apr. 05, 2002


Election errors unnerve Johnson County official
By ROBERT A. CRONKLETON
The Kansas City Star



Johnson County's new high-tech voting machines, proclaimed a success Tuesday night, did not work as well as originally believe

[angka]

15. they're just hoping the news cycle will cover their lying asses

this is too obvious. nobody's gonna buy such demonstrable bullshit.

as audacious as the present administration's lies, which i do not believe is a coincidence...

[4dog]

16. Glad you are finding time to post, Bev

I thought you would be chained to the word processor.

[Kelvin Mace]

18. Actually, I have her on the phone

as we are going over the chapters making last minute changes. We someone has to put the other on hold, we check the latest news.

Afterwards, I chain her back to her computer and disconnect her modem.

<g>

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org

[RedEagle]

21. Front page, please

kick!

[Andy_Stephenson]

22. Not to hijack the thread...but

Bev I am glad to see you back in the saddle again.

:hi: