CA: FRI. IMPT. CERTIFICATION HEARING - HART INTERCIVIC

[Einsteinia]

VSP CERTIFICATION HEARING ON THE HART INTERCIVIC EQUIPMENT


QUESTIONS:

1) Who’s going to this hearing?
Are we ready to let off the pressure just because we don’t have as much information on the Hart Intercivic equipment? Because, be warned, some people are beginning to wonder whether Hart Intercivic and Diebold are playing “good cop/bad cop.” While we focus in one direction. . . .

2) A High Precedent Has Now Been Set.
Now that this Secretary of State administration has set a high standard for Vote Pad, where’s the parity in what is demanded of Hart Intercivic? Where are the results of their two-day mock trial before the people with disabilities. How do the measure up to the same testing? How can we pass this equipment without equal rigor?

3) Who has more information on Hart Intercivic?
Please post. . . .


I KNOW IT’S REALLY SHORT NOTICE AND THAT WE’RE ALL DISTRACTED WITH THE IMPENDING ELECTION. BUT PLEASE REALIZE THAT THEY’RE COUNTING ON US NOT SHOWING UP. Please be there if at all possible. . . .




HERE ARE THE DETAILS:


Date: FRIDAY September 8, 2006
Time: 10:00 a.m.


Location:


Office of the Secretary of State
1500 - 11th Street
1st Floor - Auditorium
Sacramento, CA 95814


HART INTERCIVIC - SYSTEM 6.2.1

a. Ballot Now
b. BOSS
c. eCM Manager
d. eScan
e. eSlate/DAU
f. VBO
g. JBC
h. Rally
i. Servo
j. Tally

[Kurovski]

1. Kick!(nt)

[starroute]

2. Hart InterCivil is entangled with Texas crony politics

Hart is a privately-held firm whose primary investors are:

- Triton Ventures, a subsidiary of Amerada Hess.

- RES Partners of Austin, representing Richard Salwen. Salwen is a former Dell Computer vice president who is a heavy contributor to the Republican Party and George W. Bush.

- The CapStreet Group (formerly Summit Capital Group) of Houston.

- Stratford Capital Partners of Dallas, the investment firm of Tom Hicks.

- The Texas Growth Fund, an entity of the state of Texas that invests state pension funds in local and frequently high-risk companies.


Tom Hicks is the guy who bought Bush's share of the Texas Rangers in a sweetheart deal and was also the motive force behind the creation of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, a private firm which manages the university's investments, to the great benefit of Hicks and his cronies.

http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/hicks.html

Tom Hicks is a Dallas billionaire and investment banker who began raiding the University's public funds after the University refused to invest in his dental company in the early 90's. Hicks first appeared on the public scene when he donated $17,500 to Ann Richards, Texas governor at the time. He was subsequently appointed to the Board of Regents by Governor Richards in 1994.

After Ann Richards was defeated in 1994 by George W. Bush, Hicks shifted his heavy donations to Bush. Hicks gave $146,000 to Bush in both of his gubernatorial campaigns. In return for the gratitude, Bush approved legislation to form UTIMCO in 1995. Hicks had used a full-court press strategy, spending between $50,000 to $110,000 in lobbying and using with the powerful lobbying team Vinson and Elkins, who represents several Texas business interests, to achieve this dream.

Conveniently for both men, Bush appointed Hicks as the first chair to UTIMCO, which began the tradition of tit-for-tat management and good-ol' boy favoritism that has defined the relationship between UTIMCO and Texas politics since. In 1998, Hicks would make Bush a multi-millionaire by purchasing the Texas Rangers. In addition, Hicks' company, Hicks, Muse, Tate, & Furst, Inc., is now Bush's number 4 career patron.

The Texas Growth Fund is similar in its public/private nature to UTIMCO and sometimes works with it. It first invested in Hart in 2000, while Bush was still governor.

The CapStreet Group was founded by Frederick Rice Lummis II, whose family inherited a major chunk of the Howard Hughes fortune and have donated heavily to George Bush. Lummis is also a third cousin (through the Rice connection) of William S. Farish III, a close friend of the Bush family and former ambassador to Great Britain.

[Einsteinia]

4. Excellent! Too bad it isn't against the law

And why isn't it against the law.

Here's something to ponder: We have a word for non-political ties, non-partisan. But we need a simple word for non-corporate ties? Any ideas? So far I haven't found the perfect word. How about non-corporisan? Any better ones?

[liam_laddie]

3. First use of Hart gear

Hamilton County Ohio...Cincinnati...is one of only two Ohio counties to purchase a Hart system. eScans, plus one
eSlate (DRE) per polling location for disabled. The May primary was the first all-county use; there'd been a very
local special election earlier which was a test-run, so to speak.

It took MUCH longer to complete the op-scan sheet/card than to complete the ol', reliable punch card. Blacking in a rectangle, making sure it didn't have any voids, is more time-consuming than you'd imagine. Plus the pen provided had a smallish point, making it take longer than if a more appropriate nib. IMO, this factor is a major negative in the voter-ballot "interface." The card had races/issues both sides, but there was no call-out about this; many people missed the two-sided aspect. Must have a bold note to "turn over" if the card is laid out that way.

It's worth visiting the Hart website, where they give decent overviews of their products. Be especially concerned about how the BOSS system (the optional ballot design, printing,"sensitivity definitions," et al) works. This is managed by local BOE and/or factory techs, and determines a LOT about how well the election will be operated.

Below is an early July letter from a chap in Houston who's been heavily involved in election systems analysis for several years; he's a computer systems specialist/developer in his day job. He and I maintain an occasional correspondence about these issues. He makes some encouraging remarks about Hart security, but the "set-up" of the election done by their upstream software is where problems can lurk. It looks as if all modules of a full-blown Hart system are being evaluated out there. HTH
----------------------------------
XXXXX-
Good to hear from you, sorry to hear you're e-voting now. There have been lots of reports of Hart Intercivic problems but, unlike other machines, nothing along the line of easy hacking or direct access to the system. All Hart Intercivic problems (scanner and DRE) can be easily explained by misconfiguration (intentional or otherwise). Some I think are purely intentional as they require multiple mis-configurations to implement and have favored one candidate across county and state jurisdictions (Kerry/Bush in 2004 for example). The Hart architecture apparently doesn't accommodate 2-way network communications down to the e-voting machine level though this is still suspect. If true, with its 3 levels of independent (so-called) memory storage, the systems would be difficult to manipulate from the central tabulator. That said, voter manipulation through figuration is still eliminately possible with plenty of supporting evidence it occurs. They are still "Black Boxes" and in no way can be trusted.
In reference to scanner ballot marking, there was evidence in 2004 of configuration manipulation exactly by varying the "read" areas configured in the scanners, as well as the mark density sensitivity level being different between candidates on the same ballot and between Democratic and Republican precincts. Ban the Machine!
-----------------------------------

[Einsteinia]

5. THANKS! Now, these are great talking points:

Did I miss anything. This is what I gleaned from above.

In reference to scanner ballot marking:

1) there was evidence in 2004 of configuration manipulation that was specifically accomplished by varying the "read" areas configurations in the scanners

2) Also by adjusting the mark density sensitivity for different candidates and/or politcal parties on the same ballot.

3) Ban the Machine!

[Wilms]

6. They don't even meet the "woefully inadequate" VVSG Reliability spec.

Voting Systems Batch Test Results � Reliability

By John Gideon and Howard Stanislevic

March 15, 2006

In the recently released paper, "DRE Reliability: Failure by Design?" by Howard Stanislevic, we learn that the 2002 (and 1990) voting systems standards require all voting systems to have a reliability, or Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), of 163 hours, or a 9.2% failure rate in a 15-hour election day. We also learn that this is a woefully inadequate standard especially when compared to everyday items like an incandescent light bulb, which has an MTBF of 1,000 hours, a standard PC, which has an MTBF of 30,000 hours, and even New York City’s aged mechanical lever voting machines.

With this in mind we looked at the results from the recently completed "batch testing" of voting systems manufactured by Diebold, Hart Intercivic, and Sequoia Voting Systems, and put the information from those tests, provided by the California Secretary of State’s office, into the MTBF formulae.

snip

Here are the results of the batch tests when viewed from the perspective of the required reliability standards and our other metrics:

snip

Hart eScan -
(59 errors related to the machines)
MTBF = 5.1 hours
3 failures per 1,000 ballots cast
All machines expected to fail in an election

snip

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1054&Itemid=26

[Einsteinia]

7. Thanks Wilms!

This is helpful. I'll share with all.

#: )

[Einsteinia]

8. Report from today's (9/8) hearing

Sigh. We HAVE to have a good showing at this coming Tuesday's ES&S hearing.

Please post talking points on ES&S.



Hi Einsteinia,
 
Well, I got stuck in a back up on 37, and arrived about 10:40. By that time the whole thing was over. It seems that either no one or less than a hand full of people showed up. I asked, but the security person was none commital, but said that they kinda rushed through reading everything and adjourned. I went up to the 6th floor, and asked for a copy of any handouts. They did provide them to me and again said that it was short due to the "low" public turnout. The results are also on the website, but they approved the devices, big surprise.
 
Next Tuesday, I would hope that a bunch of people show up. I think that the SOS office thinks this is just a flash in the pan, and that we will go away. Wrong!
 
I had a set of the handouts. I will make a copy and give to you.
 
Later,

[rumpel]

9. bummer

:(