ALERT: Diebold Making Visits to County Election Equipment

[mod mom]

From: "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ALERT: Diebold making "visits" to county election equipment

Please forward to your local elections officials:

Credible first-hand reports have been received from multiple states
recently that Diebold is making unannounced visits to counties, sometimes
when the elections supervisor is out of town. Diebold has prevailed
on assistants and managed to gain access to the voting equipment.

Elections employees have reported to Black Box Voting that their questions
to Diebold are not being answered to their satisfaction.

HERE IS WHAT TO LOOK FOR AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT:

1. Program changes: Watch very carefully whether Diebold puts a
card into your machine and boots it up. Alert your staff to be on the
lookout for this. By inserting one card, either the operating system or
the voting software can be altered. Inserting two cards can change both.

Such changes can hide evidence of the kind of security vulnerabilities
found by Harri Hursti and Security Innovation Inc. in Emery County, Utah.
However, replacing the operating system and programs does not ensure
the integrity of your machines, since the security vulnerabilities found
appear to be able to survive overwriting both the operating system and
the programs.

2. Swapping out equipment or components: We have credible reports that
Diebold has been swapped out motherboards in multiple counties. We have
less firm reports that Diebold has made reference to repartitioning memory
and/or other adjustments. Either swapping the motherboard or repartitioning
could obscure evidence of programming that shouldn't be there, and/or
introduce new vulnerabilities to your system.

3. Swapping or recording serial numbers. The Diebold serial numbers do
not appear to be burned into the machine/motherboard itself, but are simply
affixed with a plate that can be swapped.

You should, immediately, photograph each of your machines' serial numbers.

Diebold denies that they have sold used equipment. However, a recent
response from Deborah Seiler, the former Diebold sales rep who is now
Elections Registrar for Solano County, California, gives a perception that
someone is not being forthcoming.

Solano County used the Diebold TSx for one election and then rejected the
system. Seiler, who took office shortly after Solano rejected the Diebold
equipment, has reportedly responded to a public records request for Solano
County TSx serial numbers by claiing that they were given back to Diebold
and that Solano County no longer has them.

Diebold's odd explanation in Utah, that there were perhaps Chinese or Asian
fonts on touch-screens delivered to Utah, would be consistent with selling
machines from California. There were some 800 to 900 TSx machines,
apparently, rejected by Solano County.

Black Box Voting encourages all recipients of "new" Diebold TSx machines
to log serial numbers immediately, photograph or videotape them, and do so
before Diebold arrives to visit your machines if at all possible.

REQUIRE A SPECIFIC WRITTEN WORK ORDER

This is your right and responsibility as a public official. Do not allow anyone
to intimidate you.

It would be a good idea to take the keys to the voting machine storage
facility with you when you are not in the office. Advise your staff not to
allow Diebold to access your machines without your presence.

If Diebold comes to visit your machines, you are advised to tape record,
videotape, and have several witnesses present to observe exactly what they do.

Better yet, tell them you need a WRITTEN WORK ORDER specifying what they
will be doing in detail before you authorize it, and stand over them to observe
during any access to any part of your system. If the work order will involved
putting in cards and booting up the system, before Diebold is allowed to place
any card in the machine, take a photograph of each screen, including the first
screen with the OS and B/L number at the top. Bear in mind that in the past,
some Diebold changes kept the reported number the same.

Diebold is a private company. As soon as you take delivery on your system, you
have the responsibility to be in control of it at all times. You are under no obligation
to allow a vendor access (even if your state has mandated that you take these
machines).

The upcoming security report, along with the testimony of Wyle Labs at the
California Senate Elections Committee hearing last week, provide clear indications
as to why preservation of your system AS IT WAS DELIVERED TO YOU should
remain "as is" until there is an opportunity to have the appropriate authorities
replicate the new security report.

* * * * *

Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501c(3) organization focused on
protecting the fairness and accuracy of elections.

[dchill]

1. Not to worry...

they're just fine-tuning their proprietary software, which the finest judiciary minds (Republican appointees) have decided that we don't need to have access to. Nothing to see here, people.

:sarcasm:

[Greyskye]

2. K&R

this is important people.

:kick:

[mod mom]

3. I agree-important! nt

[Amaryllis]

4. Can't have any more of those Hursti Hacks! Not good PR.

[FogerRox]

5. KNR