The drama in Emery County, Utah has been heating up ever since elections offical Bruce Funk discovered memory problems with 40 of his "new" Diebold voting machines. For a little background, please refer to my previous diary on the topic
here.
Because Mr. Funk was doing his job to provide his constituents with dependable voting machines, he was offered his own resignation! After he declined the county commissioners request for him to resign, he has now been locked out of his office!
More below the fold including some excellent background info from
Black Box Voting on how the hack on a Diebold machine was demonstrated in Florida and California and how Wyle is lying about it.
UtahCountVotes has posted
this page which shows photographic evidence of the flaws in the Diebold machines delivered to Emery County. Here are some interesting findings:
Diebold claimed that "...the divergent memory capability found in the different machines was the result of different font versions." (The 22 MB difference in memory could only be explained by a Chinese or Asian font that was not requested or needed in Utah, but was ordered for machines that were used and then dumped by California, but there are other reasons for the memory shortages in some machines - all pointing to used, not new machines.) Unbelievably, Diebold IS being allowed access to the voting machine storage facilities to cover up the evidence of its fraudulent sale of used, rejected, flawed, falling apart voting machines to Utah, with the apparent collusion of the Utah Lt. Governor whose office has been grossly misinforming Utah press on the facts.
Also on
UtahCountVotes is the following tidbit about Diebold listing fake offices in Utah:
Thanks to Bruce Funk and his diligent effort to protect election integrity, this is the first time that independent computer experts and computer security experts have been invited to evaluate voting equipment in Utah. Diebold formerly defrauded Utah decision-makers by claiming to have "about 20" office locations in Utah, when in truth it has only two.(and only ONE Utah office that has anything to do with its voting equipment) This hoax appears to be replicated in over 20 states where Diebold has listed phony office locations in the White Pages. which are really Walmart store locations having nothing to do with Diebold.
OneUtah.org writes:
In every county in the US, the people elect their county clerks. There is no precedent for the hostile obstruction of an elected official from performing his duties. It is illegal; plain and simple. Who made the decision, and under what authority can anyone physically prevent Bruce Funk entering his office? No crime has been committed.
This is an utter outrage, and it's time for the attorney general to take action, as I know he will. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has consistently proven to be a man of integrity, and a defender of the rule of law.
Emery County Commissioner Ira Hatch appears to have bent to the will of Diebold executives and should understand that it is he, not Diebold who may be acting illegally.
Since the media has decided this gross violation of law and due process in not worthy of thorough reporting, we must look to other sources.
The lengths to which the voting companies will go to hide their errors is troubling to say the least.
Update:
UtahCountVotes.org has a link where you can email the governor to stand with Bruce Funk.
Update 2:
Black Box Voting has a great post today that puts many of the pieces to the election machine debacle together. It is an introduction to a segment of an hearing by the California Senate Elections Committee where Senator Debra Bowen interviews a representative from Wyle, an Independent Testing Authority (ITA) for electronic voting machines. The intro starts at how the problem with the memory cards in Diebold machines was discovered:
1. A memory card in Volusia County, Florida in Nov. 2000 registered minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore. Just minutes after the minus votes appeared, every TV network in America erroneously called the 2000 presidential election for Bush. Timeline and excerpts from CBS report: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-13.pdf
The intro goes on to explain how the hack occurs using the interpreted code. It is then followed by a transcript of the hearing where Wyle is caught in a lie:
The interpreter that Wyle said they were never asked to review is listed in Wyle's own report as source code that they reviewed.
[...]
Apparently ignoring the firmware source code for the interpreter, Wyle passed the system for several successive qualifications. You can only read this two ways: They either didn't understand what the source code module does (And to believe this, you have to explain why they never noticed a file that is NAMED as the interpreter.) Or, Wyle passed a system without having any understanding of one whole section of the source code does.
And how the situation in Utah fits into the equation?
8. Now, let's look at the upcoming security report for the TSx machines in Emery County, Utah. That is going to blow a hole in the theory that the Windows CE system used in the touch-screens is "COTS [Commercial Off-The-Shelf]." It isn't.
Just like the memory card, this unexamined program was used to penetrate the system. Just like the memory card, Wyle claims it didn't know it was supposed to evaluate it, a claim that is implausible.
There seems to be quite a bit that is being discovered about the vunerabilities of electronic voting machines. Whether there is an underlying agenda or if they are trying to cover each other's asses for their poor coding and inspection practices, what is required is more openness and review.