(CA) State set to give Diebold the OK

[Wilms]

State set to give Diebold the OK

Documents obtained by officials show printing issues have been fixed

June 12, 2005

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

In less than a week, state officials are poised to approve a new Diebold electronic-voting system that several large counties, including Alameda, want to use. But the system showed problems in security, protection of voter-privacy and printing of a paper trail during testing this spring.

State elections authorities have obscured the full nature of those problems by blacking out parts of test reports that have been released under the state public-records act and declaring other documents too full of Diebold "trade secrets" for public release.

During tests in late April and early May, a chief feature of Diebold's new computerized voting machine — the ability to print out voters' electronic choices so they could be verified and, if needed, recounted — performed so poorly that the state's testing consultant concluded "this version is not ready for use in an election."

Assistant Secretary of State Brad Clark, a former Alameda County registrar, said Thursday that those problems have been fixed, and the Diebold system desired by county elections officials is ready for state consideration.

-snip/more-

http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_2794375

[merwin]

1. Good to know that people OUTSIDE of Diebold do testing before it's

accepted by the state.

*barf*

[zapp]

2. Watch California go red

for the first time in awhile...thanks to the conscientious folks at diebold

[Peace Patriot]

3. Please see DU URGENT ACTION forum for California, at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x376696

...see especially NoneoftheAbove's post #16. Here's the organizing web site for the entire state:

http://election-reform.us

Talking points at: http://election-reform.us/talking_points.html

Also, here's the Decertify Diebold petition:

http://election-reform.us/petition.html

-------------

NoneoftheAbove says there will be no published record of written comments. I don't know how they can get away with that, but I don't doubt that it's true. The "fix is in" in California, and the VSPP is acting accordingly.

NoneoftheAbove urges attendance at the hearing (June 16, Sacramento). There WILL BE official transcripts of spoken comments.

If you can't go, you CAN blast media, state legislators and others--info at the DU site.

[New Earth]

4. CA - isn't this where the Dem. SOS was forced to resign?

For what - so they could get past him not allowing Diebold machines in their elections?

I have an idea. The next election, how bout everyone stay home and NOT vote at all, and let's see how many votes these machines can pull out of thin air. Then I think we have our proof.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Yes, they did a "black ops" job on our good Secretary of State Kevin...

...Shelley, who was forced to resign on trivial, unproven charges of corruption. He had Bush's fed election commission breathing down his neck, and no money for legal defense. (--tells you something about Shelley--one of the few non-corrupt election officials in the country!). Shelley had sued Diebold for their lies about the security of their voting machines, and decertified theirs and others' touchscreens just prior to the 2004 election--and also provided Californians with a paper ballot option.

For these things, he was destroyed.

And state Dem leaders were not innocent in that destruction. I'm afraid we have electronic voting company corruption, and other kinds of corruption, to deal with in our own party, along with everything else. (For instance, Democrat Connie McCormack, head of Los Angeles elections, is an advocate of paperless voting and of Diebold, and her best friend is the former chief Diebold salesperson in California. McCormack was instrumental in Shelley's downfall.)

Shelley was a popularly elected Democrat--and a vigilant Secretary of State, a leader in the country on electronic voting issues. Now we have a Schwarzenegger patsy appointee as Sec of State (Bruce McPherson). It's a very bad situation. But, bear this in mind: California voted for John Kerry by a 10% margin on 11/2/04, and for Barbara Boxer by a 20% margin. Some of that difference may have been votes stolen from Kerry in Bushite counties (where Boxer inexplicably outdid Kerry in votes)--but these huge Democratic margins nevertheless tell you just how "blue" California is. The only way the Bush Cartel can control this state is through election fraud. (--the same in the entire US, but especially true in California). And we're fighting back! We're onto them! They are not going to get away with this!

Bear in mind that Kevin Shelley had been in office less than a year when the phony Recall campaign was mounted (our governor chosen by Time magazine and Larry King--and by the fraudulent election system put in place by former Sec of State Bill Jones, who now works for Sequoia!!). We then had one of the more honest vote counts in the country in '04, due to Shelley's vigilance--and completely rejected Bushism. (--though I think they still managed to pad Bush's national popular vote with some % of stolen Calif. votes in the Republican counties). And today Schwarzenegger's approval rating is on a par with Bush's (the low 40's--that's very, very low!).

Again, they cannot control California without election fraud. Their news monopolies and Bush propaganda machine have less and less credibility every day, with Californians as with other Americans. Controlling us with fraudulent election systems--systems owned and controlled by major Bush donors, and run on secret, proprietary programming code--is all they have (short of actual Storm Troopers kicking down our doors and dragging us off to their secret torture chambers around the globe, and/or, more 9/11's).

That's what I mean when I say, "This is it!" This VSPP--Voting Systems and Procedures Panel--meeting in Sacramento June 16, is WHERE our democracy is being STOLEN. It's one of the prime venues of this fascist coup--and one of the more important ones. And they are all state/local venues--where the election SYSTEMS are being put in place (or are in place already).

Many of us know this--but many good people do not know it. And we need to keep telling them, and mobilizing them for action at the state/local level to achieve transparent elections, and recover our right to vote!

[rumpel]

6. Oh, boy. I have not been much on DU recently. Thank you all for the hard

work. I signed the petition and e-mailed Kuehl.

I did however also see Sensenbrenner's disgraceful performance, which is representative of the GOP tactics.
I would not be surprised of the same attitude being used to intimidate voters at the polls.

I am thouroughly disgusted, but now we have it on tape. I hope this will be shown all over the world!

[LightningFlash]

7. STOP Diebold now and mass mail headquarters!!! Protests, boycott, all.....

[e-mail]

Protest and also if there is a well received california lawfirm out there, start a lawsuit. Do not allow Diebold machines with "proprietary code" to be installed in California!!!!

[Wilms]

8. .

[Bill Bored]

9. How's that mandatory manual random auditing spec coming along?

Has a bill been introduced in the Dem state legislature?
Do we know the right percentage of machines to randomly audit yet?

Why not just put a referendum on the ballot about it?
Woops, forgot, votes might not be counted.

[tommcintyre]

10. This is NOT OK

This must just make Shelley sick!