Tue. March 21: Voter Action News Conference, 10:30 -11:30 AM, PST
Lowell Finley, the lawyer who cost Schwarzenegger $4 million on a campaign finance violation lawsuit, the attorney who cost Diebold $2.6 million for fraudulent claims in California, and the lawyer who handled the groundbreaking litigation for VoterAction.org in New Mexico (the first time a voting machine vendor has been successfully brought to discovery in a public case) -- will file suit on behalf of VoterAction again.
This time, the case will be filed against California for wrongfully certifying the Diebold TSx.
According to the VoterAction press release:
"Diebold's TSx touch screen voting system is a severe security risk, and does not accommodate all disabled voters as required by law. The Diebold system is difficult if not impossible to audit or recount, and has been proven vulnerable to malicious tampering in tests and studies. Diebold technology contains "interpreted" code, which is easily hacked, and illegal for voting systems in the State of California."
"Attorneys Lowell Finley and John Eichhorst, on behalf of more than 20 California voters including Dolores Huerta and Bernice Kandarian, will brief media on a legal action to be filed on Tuesday, March 21, in the Superior Court of the State of California, aimed at halting the use or purchase of Diebold electronic voting systems. Ms. Huerta and Ms. Kandarian will also speak and answer media questions."
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Voter Action, is one of my favorite groups.
It is a not for profit organization dedicated to providing legal, research and logistical support for grassroots efforts to ensure the integrity of elections by guaranteeing that every citizen's vote is recorded and counted as intended. Voter Action led successful litigation in New Mexico to block purchase and use of the types of voting machines that are most prone to error and most vulnerable to tampering, and is now supporting similar efforts in numerous states across the country.
The press conference will be held here:
Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin
Three Embarcadero Center, 10th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
Other news
Check out Brad Blog for more insights on this story, and also for an exclusive on the shoddy so-called "vvpat" on the Diebold TSx. (If you choose to accept this machine, you get to view the printout through a Crackerjack-box like distortion lens.) See the close-up photos of this printer-jamming, illegible device here: Diebold printer defect photos
IMPORTANT
Yesterday, a Kossack who goes by yorkst04 suggested sending letters of support to Bruce Funk, the elections official who recently authorized testing of the TSx.
Bruce Funk called me this morning to thank us profusely for sending the faxes and e-mails of support. He needs them -- there is a county commissioners meeting tomorrow evening, and he'll surely be called upon. Some are on the fence. Public support is crucial right now, if you want to see officials allowing testing of ES&S and Sequoia next.
The election official who has enabled the detailed study of the TSx touch-screen which has resulted in discovery of a series of major security holes would very much appreciate hearing from you if you support what he did and feel this is the kind of responsible public official you want in office.
Bruce C. Funk - Emery County Clerk/Auditor
Fax: (435) 381-5183
95 East Main
Castle Dale, Emery County
Utah 84513
funk@co.emery.ut.us
Fax is best, email good as well, or do both plus a snail mail.
Sample:
"I have read about the important findings in Emery County, Utah. I am writing to let you know that all over America there are citizens like me, who view Bruce Funk as a national hero for having the courage and vision to evaluate the voting system his voters will be using in upcoming elections.
His examination revealed problems with memory that are difficult to explain. Are these machines used? What is Diebold's reasoning?
These tests exposed severe security vulnerabilities in Emery County's Diebold voting system, and these defects will be reported to CERT, the computer emergency response team under the Dept. of Homeland Security, as a general security alert. Thus, the act of checking the unusual memory and the other numerous defects will have an effect on voting integrity in many states, not just Utah.
Our nation needs secure, accessible, auditable voting systems to ensure that our democracy may not only thrive, but survive. Mr. Funk's heroic actions are helping to accomplish that goal.
Sincerely,
Your name here
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From Utah election reform advocate Kathy Dopp
Anyone who wants to send an email to Bruce Funk AND all Emery County Commissioners and Utah Election Office please use the Click once link on
http://utahcountvotes.org
Thanks.
Kathy Dopp
http://electionarchive.org
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(Bev again) - I just spoke with Hursti, who was preparing to board a flight back to Finland. He is so concerned about what was found that he may turn around and come right back, after dealing with some priorities he has in Europe.
It is unfortunate that we cannot provide more details on the security holes until after the specifics are provided to authorities. Even that is not simple, in that the report provided to authorities must be sufficiently precise to demonstrate credibility and the appropriate urgency.
The nature of these holes is that they can be exploited relatively quickly (i.e. within a week) by people with a good working knowledge of Windows, which is quite a substantial pool. The exploit can take place in a matter of seconds at any time during the life of the machine and the exploit will be persistent in that it can survive from election to election, flexible so that it can trigger only when desired, will be extremely difficult to detect in the machines even for security professionals, and will be able to remain even if the system is "cleaned" or upgraded.
There is a recovery path, but because the security holes are in the architectural design put there by the vendor, the strong recommendation will be that a third party -- i.e. the state or a security company selected by the state -- perform the mitigation procedure.
This should be a busy week.