Need feedback on an election-related issue...

[Jim March]

Folks,

There's something going on in Florida right now that...well, I want to see what you guys think. I'll keep it brief as I can but I think it's important and it seems to be unprecedented.

Last year an elections official in Leon County FL became concerned about the controversy surrounding Diebold. His name is Ion Sancho. He was running an older-generation Diebold optical scan system and wanted to find out just how "hackable" it really is.

So in two separate sessions, he invited us at blackboxvoting.org to come and "test hack" the system between elections, under his supervision and permission. We brought along Dr. Herbert Thompson and Harri Hursti, a Finnish security expert.

By the time we were done...well it can be summed up with "it can be tampered with all right".

On Feb. 14th 2006 the California Secretary of State's office published a report written by a "state sponsored team of computer guys" validating all the issues Hursti in particular caught:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/voti...ysis_of_the_diebold_accubasic_interpreter.pdf

A highlight:

---
Harri Hursti's attack does work: Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS is defnitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server.
---

California's "solution" was to do a slew of required security procedures across all Diebold customers in California. Hmmm. At least it's something. It's definately proof that Ion Sancho did the responsible thing in having his system independently evaluated.

Understand that as an elected official (Leon County's top elections supervisor) Sancho has every right to have his gear checked out, as he's responsible for anything that goes wrong.

Diebold complained bitterly but couldn't do anything about this testing as Sancho broke no laws.

As of 1/1/06 Sancho's older Diebold gear has to be upgraded and supplemented to meet the disability access requirements in a Federal law known as "HAVA" - the "Help America Vote Act". There are all sorts of issues related to HAVA but the extreme short form is that it mandated new gear (or at least it's being read that way) while setting up improved test/oversight provisions for said gear - except the expanded oversight hasn't happened yet and the new gear is shipping with poor oversight at best.

Florida has approved only three new-fangled "disability friendly" voting systems, made by Sequoia, ES&S and Diebold. It's legal for a county like Leon to mostly use their old machines (optical scan requiring a "fill in the bubbles" ballot) while adding one "easy to use touchscreen" per precinct for the disabled. (He has 106 precincts.)

Sancho negotiated first with ES&S, who some say may have the best overall lineup of voting equipment, at least among the top four vendors. (We at BlackBoxVoting aren't saying that because...well, we haven't kicked the tires on them for ourselves.)

In the last week of December '05 ES&S management halted the purchase negotiations, making that 1/1/06 deadline a real problem. Diebold won't sell him the new touchscreens which he needs one-per-precinct to cover disability needs, and they won't even upgrade his server software (GEMS) contrary to his contract (which he's now threatening to sue over). And as of yesterday AM, Sequoia is saying they won't sell to him either.

So he's been blackballed by the only three vendors he can buy from per Florida law in apparant retaliation for running his own test.

Last week he gets a threat letter from the Florida Secretary of State's office (the top FL elections people) saying that if he doesn't have a HAVA-compliant voting system in place soon, they're going to take legal action against him.

Actual letter:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/sanchothreat-19504.pdf

A Diebold executive told the Leon County Board of Supervisors that they aren't going to sell Leon County any new gear until Ion Sancho (the elected official mind you) is gone. The appearance is that all three approved vendors are saying the same thing and possibly conspiring to get this guy thrown out of office via Florida state-level officials.

Does anybody else see something wrong with this picture?

 

[Jim March]

The Miami Herald has chimed in:

--------

Miami Herald
Posted on Tue, Mar. 07, 2006
IN MY OPINION

Election official hammered for telling the truth

BY FRED GRIMM
[email protected]

Ion Sancho may be a hero in California, where grateful election officials have verified the ''serious security vulnerabilities'' in Diebold voting machines that the Leon County election supervisor uncovered last year.

Sancho is regarded a little differently in Florida.

Florida's secretary of state's office disparaged Sancho's finding, demonstrating considerably more interest in propping up vendors than protecting elections.

California, alarmed by Sancho's report, dispatched its independent, expert-laden Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board to conduct its own investigation.

Florida, meanwhile, threatened to sue Sancho.

(snip) - the rest is at:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14034640.htm

 

[308win]

This same mess has been an ongoing issue in Ohio (Diebolds corp. home) on several levels (state and county) over issues ranging from bid tampering to influence peddling to allegations bordering on bribery to rigging test results to manipulating voting results. The previous CEO of Diebold under whose reign this all transpired resigned recently. They have documented problems with security and internal documents have been published that bear this out. Ohio's solution has been to require a paper trail of each vote but these machines could be rigged to print a screen image and record the vote differently so that is really no solution.

 

[unspellable]

voting

Let's keep ballot tampering honest!

 

[Standing Wolf]

Does anybody else see something wrong with this picture?

Can't say for sure, of course, but I've heard if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and makes messes all over everywhere like a duck, it's...

 

[roo_ster]

I want PAPER ballots. Counted by HUMANS.

If they're gonna tamper, at least make them do more work than a few keystrokes.

 

[tube_ee]

The only way to ensure the security of computerized vote-counting is for states to require all vendors to submit their code to a public, peer-reviewed source code inspection. All states have a public university system, and all of those universities have computer science and engineering departments. There should be plenty of propellerheads on state payrolls able to do this.

If you don't want to reveal your "trade secrets," you don't get to sell your products to us. (I find it dificult to believe that there's any innnovation possible in what is, basically, a glorified adder, so I don't by the trade secret arguments put forth by the vendors) Don't tell us to trust you, because we don't.

--Shannon

 

[CAnnoneer]

Paper votes, to be stored for ten years after the election. We all are required to store our IRS filings for 3 years. Why isn't the gov required to store votes for at least equal time?

 

[Car Knocker]

tube ee,

Who funds state universities? The state. This would be a source of pressure that the "propellerheads" may not be able to sufficiently resist.

 

[Mark in California]

Jim

I feel that all votes should be backed up on scanable paper records. That would allow a re-count to be performed starting with the source ballots. The game now is fast vote totals. This must not mean having to accept the totals reported because no source materal exist be it not efficent.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Jim, to focus on your question: yes, of course what you say that Diebold is doing strikes me as wrong. It's an exclusive source for an essential product that apparently is required by law, has apparently blackballed Mr. Sancho, and apparently is preventing other vendors dependent on its product from doing business with Leon County unless Mr. Sancho--an elected official--is replaced. All of that is based on what you say, of course, because I have no independent knowledge of the situation.

If true it seems to me, as an ignorant layman, that Diebold might be nudging itself toward the RICO Act. I don't know the company's history but I gather from what has been alluded to in messages here that it is troubled in ways that might apply to RICO. If Mr. Sancho hasn't already made friends with a good lawyer in this field perhaps it's time he did so, and perhaps the good lawyer might think it worthwhile to have Mr. Sancho request investigation by whatever federal agencies do such things. At least that way the truth might be determined.

 

[Jim March]

Robert, to clarify, Diebold isn't the one blocking the other vendors (ES&S and Sequoia). Sancho could switch to an all-Sequoia or all-ES&S shop with no problem except higher cost. He's perfectly willing to "go there" as he's not a big Diebold fan by now.

Literally 100% of the available voting system vendors won't sell to him.

Technical/legal clarification:

If he goes with Diebold he can recycle most of his older parts (the central tabulator with a software upgrade and his current optical scanners). He just adds 106 (plus spares) disability stations at around $5k a pop, one per precinct.

He's not allowed to run a mixed shop of his current Diebold gear and somebody else's disability gear. Florida law won't permit it and there are at least some good reasons not to do that - the federal-level testing process checks out "complete systems", although it's now basically proven fact they're not doing it very well.

 

[unspellable]

ballots

Why do we have to go with all this electronic crap any way? For over 200 years we made do with paper ballots. So it takes longer to count them. So much the better, we have too many examples of early counts influencing the final outcome of the election.

 

[Sawdust]

It's complete horse dung. :banghead:

I can't believe that the state of Florida is hanging Mr. Sancho out to dry.

Until electronic voting is proven to be infallible, paper ballots must continue to be the accepted method of recording votes.

Furthermore, even when electronic voting becomes "of age", it should be required that a paper ballot is printed and placed in a ballot box as usual so that if there is any smell of improprietary with the electronic count, then the paper count will serve as a back-up (and should be the final word).

Sawdust

 

[geekWithA.45]

Are they outright refusing to sell, or sandbagging him?

A) It's complete BS.
B) Sounds like our esteemed Mr. Sancho needs to document and verify his various activities as he goes about his job with all due dilligence and haste.
C) Given that Mr. Sancho is elected, it sounds to me as if this is a blatant attempt for Diebold and others to interfere with the electoral process.

Given that, I see no reason to trust them farther than we can throw them, particularly in the arena of matters electoral.

 

[Jim March]

All three have now formally stated that they won't sell to Leon County.

Diebold has said behind closed doors at the county gov't that they won't sell so long as Ion Sancho is running elections there. We have reports that at least one county employee heard this statement to members of the county board of supes.