It finally happened. We all wondered when this day would come
Blackboxvoting.org finally had its day to prove that the Leon County, Florida, Diebold voting systems were hackable, and read what happened.
[Reprinted with permission from http://blackboxvoting.org ]
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.
[Ready to fall off your chair? Read more below the fold. . . .]
NEWSBREAK: CALIFORNIANS PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION SO THAT WE CAN HAVE THIS TEST BEFORE CERTIFICATION IN OUR STATE:
Petition for CA Hack Test
Finnish security expert Harri Hursti proved that Diebold lied to
Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold 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 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.,
In other news, according to Bradblog a stockholder suit was filed today
against Diebold by the law offices of Scott and Scott:
http://www.bradblog.com/...
Permission to reprint granted with link to http://blackboxvoting.org
DEC. 15, 2005, UPDATE: I hope multitude of reports today in the mainstream media ends the conspiracy theory alleging this SECOND BBV test was a media ploy or an elaborate conspiracy theory to bring down the election integrity movement:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/13414791.htm
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/13413981.htm
The Miami Herald is reporting:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13410061.htm
...as is USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-15-opticalvoting_x.htm