Jim March
Member
Please do NOT contact the agent in question on this. Let this cook on it's own.
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Attn: Agent David Schmidt, San Francisco Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation
8/29/06
Agent Schmidt,
Thank you for speaking with me by phone yesterday afternoon.
The files you need regarding Diebold Election Systems and their apparent "sidestepping" of the Federal voting system certification process are in a series of PDF documents I have created. Rather than attach them I'll provide weblinks, as your EMail server will probably strip attachments due to security concerns.
I am going to CC three additional activists in this field. The information contained herein has been generally broadcast on websites devoted to this issue. Please note that the latest hard evidence obtained by myself dates to 8/16/06 (page five, first link below).
Let me sketch out some background, as the document set was originally intended for agencies such as the California Secretary of State who would be familiar with the certification process.
* Voting systems are certified under a set of standards published by the Federal Election Commission. These "Voting Systems Standards" were last updated in 2002 so you'll see references to "certified to the 2002 standards" or similar.
* The FEC approves private test labs available for hire to voting systems vendors for system review. Currently there are three: Cyber (formerly Metamor) and Wyle, in voting system certification offices based in Huntsville AL and Systest in Colorado I believe.
* For many years the paperwork for certifications and the lab's recommendations "yay or nay" on a given system were reviewed by a quasi-private organization known as "NASED" - National Association of State Elections Directors. NASED is funded in part by the voting system industry and theoretically represents the interests of state-level election managers, either Secretaries of State (California, Florida, etc.), sometimes the Lt. Governor (Alaska, Utah, some others) and sometimes state elections boards. The final federal stamp of approval on a voting machine is known as a "NASED number".
* NASED's functions on election certification oversight are being taken over by the new EAC, Election Assistance Commission. The EAC hasn't fully come "up to speed" and is still largely a non-entity. NIST (National Institute for Science and Technology) is also getting involved, slowly, but again mostly isn't at the controls yet. Put simply, the improved election oversight processes mandated in the HAVA bill of 2002 (Help America Vote Act) have been under funded (or unfunded depending on who you ask) and are slow coming online.
* 37 states require Federal certification before the state considers a given voting system. These states mostly do either minimal or no analysis of the security and honesty of the voting systems themselves, relying on the "NASED number" as a stamp of approval. Only one state does full local source code review, North Carolina, and even they don't do it themselves - they mandate that political parties can hire up to five programmers each to do so. Shortly after passing this sole independent source code review law, Diebold abandoned all marketing efforts in North Carolina citing this law.
The core issue that we are complaining about regards misconduct by Diebold - to be blunt, they mislead the certification staff and process about their products and in so doing evaded oversight of much of their key code. The effect was to prevent anyone outside of the company reviewing large amounts of custom software written and maintained by Diebold and functioning in their touchscreen voting systems. This is a fundamental violation of both the certification and the fundamental reason for certification.
This core misconduct is outlined in the following two documents:
http://www.equalccw.com/wincefraudwalkthrough.pdf - an overview of Diebold's Windows CE-related fraud. Five pages.
http://www.equalccw.com/rrlee-wincedeclaration.pdf - the declaration of Dr. Richard Lee. This document must always be attached to the "Walkthrough" article above. Three pages.
Those documents represent an investigation occurring over a period of three years by numerous citizens concerned about the direction electronic voting is headed. I believe there is enough "probable cause" here (or available with a brief review of the public records pointed to) to warrant (pardon the pun) subpoenas and examination under oath.
Please understand that neither myself nor anyone else paying attention to this issue believes that this is Diebold's worst "sin" in terms of basic computer security violations. Rather, it is the most blatantly illegal and the aspect of their misconduct that you will have the strongest legal grounds to investigate.
In addition, some evidence points to persons unknown within NASED taking active steps to cover up this specific misconduct. It is not as solid or multi-layered an investigation to date but it's intriguing and if it holds, the implications are frightening. This same oversight process reviews all electronic voting systems in the US.
http://www.equalccw.com/thenasedblues.pdf
Those are the core documents.
In addition, I have prepared a 12-page broader overview of what else Diebold has been up to that may compromise electoral security:
http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldsinsandsecrecy.pdf
Some of the issues outlined are...horrifying, but not illegal. Some are illegal. It will be a quagmire sorting out some of this...run these docs past one of your more technically proficient agents/consultants and watch their face(s) go white. I recommend using this as background material, however if your agency starts by "digging deep" in the Windows CE issue (the core complaint) all sorts of other things will unravel.
Please understand that I am not the only one making complaints. This letter is from the head of the Alaska Democratic Party to his state's elections officials asking for an explanation of these issues:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1660&Itemi d=1155
This is a letter from a Wisconsin professional software tester to his state elections agency:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1648&Itemi d=51
However, as you can see from the level of interstate and Federal issues raised, ultimately this falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI and/or US Attorneys.
One final comment: the US Department of Justice has taken the position that at least some electronic voting machines are required in every state for "disability access" per HAVA. Lawsuits by that agency have been threatened against individual counties across America and the entire state of New York for one. This is not improper, so long as the Federal process to make sure those machines are reliable and honest is also enforced. The evidence available says it is not. If this is the case, for the United States federal government to use it's enormous powers to push systems that they themselves have failed to properly certify is, potentially, a hideous miscarriage of justice on a national scale.
I urge you, I beg you to take this complaint seriously.
Thank you for your kind attention,
Jim March
[email protected]
916-370-0347
CC:
Bev Harris, Executive Director, Black Box Voting
John Brakey, Founder, AuditAZ
Brent Turner, concerned citizen and activist, San Mateo County
------
Attn: Agent David Schmidt, San Francisco Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation
8/29/06
Agent Schmidt,
Thank you for speaking with me by phone yesterday afternoon.
The files you need regarding Diebold Election Systems and their apparent "sidestepping" of the Federal voting system certification process are in a series of PDF documents I have created. Rather than attach them I'll provide weblinks, as your EMail server will probably strip attachments due to security concerns.
I am going to CC three additional activists in this field. The information contained herein has been generally broadcast on websites devoted to this issue. Please note that the latest hard evidence obtained by myself dates to 8/16/06 (page five, first link below).
Let me sketch out some background, as the document set was originally intended for agencies such as the California Secretary of State who would be familiar with the certification process.
* Voting systems are certified under a set of standards published by the Federal Election Commission. These "Voting Systems Standards" were last updated in 2002 so you'll see references to "certified to the 2002 standards" or similar.
* The FEC approves private test labs available for hire to voting systems vendors for system review. Currently there are three: Cyber (formerly Metamor) and Wyle, in voting system certification offices based in Huntsville AL and Systest in Colorado I believe.
* For many years the paperwork for certifications and the lab's recommendations "yay or nay" on a given system were reviewed by a quasi-private organization known as "NASED" - National Association of State Elections Directors. NASED is funded in part by the voting system industry and theoretically represents the interests of state-level election managers, either Secretaries of State (California, Florida, etc.), sometimes the Lt. Governor (Alaska, Utah, some others) and sometimes state elections boards. The final federal stamp of approval on a voting machine is known as a "NASED number".
* NASED's functions on election certification oversight are being taken over by the new EAC, Election Assistance Commission. The EAC hasn't fully come "up to speed" and is still largely a non-entity. NIST (National Institute for Science and Technology) is also getting involved, slowly, but again mostly isn't at the controls yet. Put simply, the improved election oversight processes mandated in the HAVA bill of 2002 (Help America Vote Act) have been under funded (or unfunded depending on who you ask) and are slow coming online.
* 37 states require Federal certification before the state considers a given voting system. These states mostly do either minimal or no analysis of the security and honesty of the voting systems themselves, relying on the "NASED number" as a stamp of approval. Only one state does full local source code review, North Carolina, and even they don't do it themselves - they mandate that political parties can hire up to five programmers each to do so. Shortly after passing this sole independent source code review law, Diebold abandoned all marketing efforts in North Carolina citing this law.
The core issue that we are complaining about regards misconduct by Diebold - to be blunt, they mislead the certification staff and process about their products and in so doing evaded oversight of much of their key code. The effect was to prevent anyone outside of the company reviewing large amounts of custom software written and maintained by Diebold and functioning in their touchscreen voting systems. This is a fundamental violation of both the certification and the fundamental reason for certification.
This core misconduct is outlined in the following two documents:
http://www.equalccw.com/wincefraudwalkthrough.pdf - an overview of Diebold's Windows CE-related fraud. Five pages.
http://www.equalccw.com/rrlee-wincedeclaration.pdf - the declaration of Dr. Richard Lee. This document must always be attached to the "Walkthrough" article above. Three pages.
Those documents represent an investigation occurring over a period of three years by numerous citizens concerned about the direction electronic voting is headed. I believe there is enough "probable cause" here (or available with a brief review of the public records pointed to) to warrant (pardon the pun) subpoenas and examination under oath.
Please understand that neither myself nor anyone else paying attention to this issue believes that this is Diebold's worst "sin" in terms of basic computer security violations. Rather, it is the most blatantly illegal and the aspect of their misconduct that you will have the strongest legal grounds to investigate.
In addition, some evidence points to persons unknown within NASED taking active steps to cover up this specific misconduct. It is not as solid or multi-layered an investigation to date but it's intriguing and if it holds, the implications are frightening. This same oversight process reviews all electronic voting systems in the US.
http://www.equalccw.com/thenasedblues.pdf
Those are the core documents.
In addition, I have prepared a 12-page broader overview of what else Diebold has been up to that may compromise electoral security:
http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldsinsandsecrecy.pdf
Some of the issues outlined are...horrifying, but not illegal. Some are illegal. It will be a quagmire sorting out some of this...run these docs past one of your more technically proficient agents/consultants and watch their face(s) go white. I recommend using this as background material, however if your agency starts by "digging deep" in the Windows CE issue (the core complaint) all sorts of other things will unravel.
Please understand that I am not the only one making complaints. This letter is from the head of the Alaska Democratic Party to his state's elections officials asking for an explanation of these issues:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1660&Itemi d=1155
This is a letter from a Wisconsin professional software tester to his state elections agency:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1648&Itemi d=51
However, as you can see from the level of interstate and Federal issues raised, ultimately this falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI and/or US Attorneys.
One final comment: the US Department of Justice has taken the position that at least some electronic voting machines are required in every state for "disability access" per HAVA. Lawsuits by that agency have been threatened against individual counties across America and the entire state of New York for one. This is not improper, so long as the Federal process to make sure those machines are reliable and honest is also enforced. The evidence available says it is not. If this is the case, for the United States federal government to use it's enormous powers to push systems that they themselves have failed to properly certify is, potentially, a hideous miscarriage of justice on a national scale.
I urge you, I beg you to take this complaint seriously.
Thank you for your kind attention,
Jim March
[email protected]
916-370-0347
CC:
Bev Harris, Executive Director, Black Box Voting
John Brakey, Founder, AuditAZ
Brent Turner, concerned citizen and activist, San Mateo County
. I resigned to take a full-time job there from Nov. '05 through June, on long-term sabattical now because I need to do some political things that aren't compatible with BBV's 501c(3) charter, but since that's going to be a while I'm back on the board.
