With voting machine company now bankrupt, CEO speaks out:

[kster]

No vendor "has a system that voters can trust"!
Straight from the horse's mouth

by Sean Greene, electionline.org

The market for voting systems has been a perilous one, especially for small companies. While firms can potentially land contracts to sell large numbers of systems to localities across the country looking to replace older voting machines, they must navigate a complex maze of state and federal certification procedures, endure local procurement fights, close scrutiny and meet demand for a large number of voting systems, sometimes in a severely compressed time schedule.

The realities of the market most recently took its toll on the voting-machine maker AccuPoll, which filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, leaving two counties in Texas using its products with no vendor support and a frustrated former CEO in its wake.

The company, which produced the AVS-1000, a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT)-equipped touch-screen machine, has ceased all operations.

SNIP".... "I think that vendors outright misrepresent the robustness, stability, and security of their systems. You just have to look at the litany of problems and it points at one thing, bad fundamental design, and not enough checks and balances. I also wonder why the other vendors were so adamant in fighting a VVPAT system requirement. They spent much more in fighting it than in implementing it," he said.





http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_sean_gre_060406_with_voting_machine_.htm

[Liberty Belle]

1. kicked and nominated!

How long 'til Diebold goes belly up, too?

[yourout]

2. More than a minute is too long.

Diebold needs to die and go away.

[MikMouse]

22. Be careful what you wish for

The software source code to run the machines is proprietary. If the company goes BK it is locked-up and NO changes, corrections or updates can be made by anyone. The machines are then best used as boat anchors. The owners of the machines MUST have source code access, but no company will allow it.

As far as I know this particular problem has never been addressed on any of the voting machine forums or by the buyers.

[aquart]

3. Never happen. They have ATMs.

[kster]

4. And with any luck

they will be back to ATM'S very soon and completely out of the election theft business.

[darkmaestro019]

21. Yeah, which seem to have paper trails just fine. nt

[Peace Patriot]

5. Amaryllis's post of this has more text, but I'll comment here first becaus

e kster was first.

Amaryllis's
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421360

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

Further comments by Dennis Vadura, former CEO of AccuPoll:

"I am not happy about the outcome, or the state of the industry. I think that something needs to be done. ....but I do not feel that any of the vendors has a system that voters can trust."

"I am extremely jaded by the government procurement and purchasing game. In some cases I would point the finger at sheer incompetence on the part of the procurement officers..."

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

This former CEO's comments should be blazing, one foot headlines tomorrow on the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, and should be running 24/7 along the bottom of the screen on CNN!

"BAD FUNDAMENTAL DESIGN...NOT ENOUGH CHECKS AND BALANCES," SAYS ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE CEO!

"NO ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM CAN BE TRUSTED," SAYS ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE CEO!

"SHEER INCOMPETENCE AMONG ELECTION OFFICIALS," SAYS VOTING MACHINE CEO!

:woohoo:

A person can dream, can't they?

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

Wasn't AccuPoll the one Ion Sancho was going to turn to, when ES&S and Sequoia mounted their illegal boycott of Leon County, to punish Sancho for his criticism and outside testing of Diebold optiscans?*

I can't recall, and can't find the reference. If true, who will he turn to, now that AccuPoll is bankrupt? And who drove it into bankruptcy?

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

*(--a probable violation of anti-trust laws).

See
(FLA Attorney General subpoenas the three companies)
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,110192,00.html

(An interesting comment from Sancho about HAVA in the above article)

"Sancho said that the three vendors refused to sell to him 'because they could. The laws of Florida offer no protection to elections officials. There’s no requirement that companies sell to the counties, which I think is a serious oversight in our laws. And quite frankly, the voting machine vendors have driven the HAVA legislation from the beginning.'”

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

Here's another foot-high headline for NYT, WaPo and runner for CNN:

"ELECTRONIC VOTING BILL DRIVEN BY VENDORS," SAYS FLORIDA ELECTION OFFICIAL!

and another...

BIG GOP-DONATING VOTING MACHINE VENDORS GANG UP ON HONEST FLA ELECTION OFFICIAL! NEWS AT 11!

and another...

THE IRAQ WAR? FEMA? MOVE OVER FOR ANOTHER BUSH SCAM: ELECTRONIC VOTING!

:toast: :bounce: :wow: :bounce: :toast:

:cry:

-----------

All three, Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia have close connections to the Republican Party and rightwing causes. And the "Hack America's Vote Act" (HAVA) crawled over the desks of some of the biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (also Democrat Christopher Dodd).

The "Help America Vote For Bush Act" (HAVA) was passed by the Anthrax Congress in 2002, and ponied up $4 billion to corrupt and destroy the U.S. election system, which did a thorough job of.

Headline:

$4 BILLION DOWN THE BUSH RAT-HOLE, AND WHAT DO WE GET? HACKABLE VOTING MACHINES WITH TOP SECRET VOTE 'COUNTING' CODE OWNED BY GOP DONORS! WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

Hey, NYT! You want to redeem yourselves?

:think: :think: :think: :think: :think: :think: :think: :think: :think:

[rumpel]

6. Exactly, who drove them bankruptcy.

[Amaryllis]

17. Actually I posted one minute before Kster! But apparentlly the mods

combined the two threads. We must have been writing our post at the same time and I got there just before he did. I couldn't figure out how my thread got over here when I was reading this but there is a message on mine saying it was combined with this one. I didn't know they did that! Just so the message gets out...this is very important.

[Amaryllis]

7. Bankrupt voting machine co. CEO:"No vendor has a machine voters can trust"

OpEdNews.com

Original Article at http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_sean_gre_060406_with_voting_machine_.htm

April 6, 2006

With voting machine company now bankrupt, CEO speaks out: No vendor "has a system that voters can trust"!

Straight from the horse's mouth

By Sean Greene, electionline.org

The market for voting systems has been a perilous one, especially for small companies. While firms can potentially land contracts to sell large numbers of systems to localities across the country looking to replace older voting machines, they must navigate a complex maze of state and federal certification procedures, endure local procurement fights, close scrutiny and meet demand for a large number of voting systems, sometimes in a severely compressed time schedule.

The realities of the market most recently took its toll on the voting-machine maker AccuPoll, which filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, leaving two counties in Texas using its products with no vendor support and a frustrated former CEO in its wake.

<snip>

"I am not happy about the outcome, or the state of the industry. I think that something needs to be done. I'm not sure what it is, it probably doesn't include AccuPoll at this point, but I do not feel that any of the vendors has a system that voters can trust," said Dennis Vadura, former AccuPoll CEO.

"I think that vendors outright misrepresent the robustness, stability, and security of their systems. You just have to look at the litany of problems and it points at one thing, bad fundamental design, and not enough checks and balances. I also wonder why the other vendors were so adamant in fighting a VVPAT system requirement. They spent much more in fighting it than in implementing it," he said.

<snip>

"I am extremely jaded by the government procurement and purchasing game. In some cases I would point the finger at sheer incompetence on the part of the procurement officers. Some of it is also due to them not wanting to take risk, or not wanting to make a decision for political reasons."

Authors Website: www.CountEveryVote.BlogSpot.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_sean_gre_060406_with_voting_machine_.htm

[kster]

8. This thread looks familar.......... K&R.............. nt

[file83]

9. It's scary that there is more corruption in politics than in gambling...

[Peace Patriot]

10. I was just gonna say it. Vegas goes to a lot more trouble about the

security of their slot machines than our corrupt, bought-and-paid for, 'revolving door' employment, Beverly Hilton-lavish-lobbying-junket, so-called election officials (most of them) do about the security and integrity of our election system.

My other comments are at kster's OP.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421361

(Amaryllis posted most, but kster posted first.)

[FogerRox]

11. KNR sniff-- linux OS ......gone

[Trevelyan]

12. K&R This is important and sickening and should be known by everyone.

Join bradblog.com and save our vote integrity. Why not use old fashioned paper and pencils like the Germans and Irish still do and have civil servants take off work to do the counting?

[Kellanved]

13. Don't believe that manual counts are flawless

For instance in Germany, there are cases of disenfranchised voters each time, usually due to incorrect ballots delivered to polling places. Also, there are people making a sport out of voting twice and so on. Manual counting is not without fault either, the only thing that can be said in favor, is that errors tend to neutralize each other, as opposed to systematic errors in similar machines.

Also, several German states and cities are switching to machines.

[BeFree]

16. No one says manual counts are flawless

What we are saying is that machine counts are ridiculously corruptible, and the industry is very poorly run.

What we are saying is that we have evidence that by using machines to count our votes, election theft becomes damn near universal and that theft can be engineered by just a few individuals.

Paper requires many hands and eyes looking at the system, whereas machines eliminate that vast human control mechanism leading to such fiascoes as the 2004 stolen election.

[yowzayowzayowza]

18. No.

The machines don't "eliminate that vast human control mechanism;"
our laws do by bestowing implicit trust in the machines.

An unverified manual count is just as "ridiculously corruptible" as an unverified automated count.

Quit blaming the machines for a process issue. Am I the only one weary of this?

[BeFree]

19. I don't where you come up with that...

"An unverified manual count" By its very nature a manual count is verified. Verified by the people who do the count. Whereas a machine count can not be verified by people.

Is there something you don't like about people doing the count?

Sorry if you don't like the dissing of the machines. But I'll never quit doing so as long as the machines do the counting. The machines take the place of numerous humans controlling the count and place that control in the hands of just a few knuckle-headed machine lovers.

[yowzayowzayowza]

20. Machine recorded votes cannot be verified, but...

machine counted votes can.

Your "manual count" is actually two manual counts and a reconciliation procedure.

For the record - I neither love nor fear the machines. Thar jus tools. People, otoh, ....

[SoCalDem]

14. Amazing how they always seem to WAIT to come clean, until their company

goes under or they get fired..

Any light on this debacle is good light, but it irritates me to no end that we have had THREE elections just plain swindled away from us in broad daylight, and elected officials are still not getting it.. on both sides..

[Festivito]

15. Machines are faster, but machine counts MUST be verified.

Or, we lose our right to vote.