Date: December 15, 2005 11:06:09 PM PST
Subject: More Proof of Presidential VoteScam
Leon County, FL to Dump Diebold After
Undetectable Hack Reverses Test Election!
Results Completely Flipped Despite
Diebold Swearing That It Couldn't be Done!
Election Supervisor Requests Funds to Replace Diebold in County, Says 'We will never use Diebold in an election again'
Even as the beleaguered American Voting Machine company smarts from yesterday's filing of a securities fraud class action suit a test election was carried out on Diebold voting machinery in Leon County, Florida. Diebold's security measures failed miserably and were easily defeated by a hack performed by a computer security professional on a Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machine and Central Tabulator.
In a post yesterday about the test and its remarkable results, BBV's Jim March gave this stunning summary of what happened:
Due to security design issues and contractual non-performance, Leon County supervisor of elections Ion Sancho told Black Box Voting that he will never use Diebold in an election again. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. He will issue a formal announcement to this effect shortly.
Finnish security expert Harri Hursti proved that Diebold lied to Secretaries of State across the nation when it claimed votes could not be changed on the memory card.
A test election was run in Leon County today with a total of eight ballots - six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thomson and by Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked.
At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A "zero report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.
The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.
Correct results should have been: Yes:2 No:6
However the results tape read: Yes:7 No:1
The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the GEMS central tabulator. The central tabulator is the "mothership" that pulls in all votes from voting machines. The results in the central tabulator read: Yes:7 No:1
This proves that the votes themselves were changed in a one-step process that would not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure - using only a credit-card sized memory card.
Diebold Elections Systems head of research and development Pat Green specifically told the Cuyahoga County [OH] board of elections that votes could not be changed on the memory card.
According to Public Records responses obtained by Black Box Voting in response to our requests shows that Diebold promulgated this misrepresentation to as many as 800 state and local elections officials.
March added later, "this was all done without getting any passwords for any system. All we had was the same degree of physical access that any mid-to-high level elections staffer or official would have."
Case closed? One would think so! But remarkably, states and counties around the country are still entering into contracts with this company to count your votes in upcoming elections!
Be sure to let California's Sec. of State know about this latest knews, as well as your local Elections Board! Otherwise, these machines may well be coming to a hacked election near you!
UPDATE: John Cole points out that Leon County is one of "those" counties from FL 2000!
UPDATE 12/15/05: The Leon County hack story has now been reported by the actual mainstream media! Go figure! See coverage of the AP report here and a terrific article from Miami Herald here. A preview: Both Diebold and the state of Florida are now frantically scrambling to try and cover their asses over all of this!
(Thanks John Gideon for the assist!)
