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Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 1:25 PM
Subject: BBV ALERT: Massachusetts, New England memory card custody issue
An alert Massachusetts citizen named Lisa asked her town elections official today what will happen to the Diebold voting machine memory cards after the election. The clerk replied that she will give the memory cards back to a private vendor, LHS Associates, the day after the election! The memory cards are the ballot box, in all New England voting machine locations. This is a very serious matter.
LHS Associates, from Methuen Mass., programs ALL the memory cards for Diebold systems in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Maine. A member of the key management staff of LHS, Kenneth Hajjar, is a convicted narcotics trafficker. We have Hajjar’s criminal record documents posted on our Web site. He is in charge of "sales and marketing" for elections for all of New England. In a radio interview, he admitted he drives around with memory cards in the trunk of his car. It is an unacceptable practice to have LHS controlling voting machine programming in New England, but it is outrageous that LHS is trying to collect its memory cards before the election is even canvassed or certified, not to mention before recount and contest periods have expired.
REMINDER: The New England "Protect the Count" actions are contained in this 8-minute video:
The video above shows how to spot memory card tampering (when it is done clumsily; if done skillfully it leaves no trace). Capture the evidence.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT: Lisa called the Massachusetts Secretary of State, who informed her that it is ILLEGAL for towns to let LHS Associates take custody of the memory cards before 30 days has elapsed. Lisa’s town clerk has now agreed not to let LHS do that.
WHAT TO DO: If you live in Massachusetts, place a call to your town clerk and ask what they are planning to do with their memory cards. If they say give them back to LHS report this to Black Box Voting and to hotlines like 1-866-OURVOTE and to the secretary of state, and tell the election official this is illegal unless they wait 30 days. If you live in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine or Connecticut, you may want to make some phone calls to ask about this.
WHAT BLACK BOX VOTING IS DOING: In addition to issuing a general alert, we are faxing every town clerk in Massachusetts to remind them that it is illegal to give their memory cards to LHS before 30 days has elapsed. This will be more effective if local citizens also call, because they’ll know people are watching. No New England election official should give the memory cards back to LHS before canvassing, certification, recount and contest periods have expired!
LONG TERM: The situation with secret vote counting on computers programmed by LHS needs to be resolved. After Nov. 4.
Grab a buddy (because it’s more fun that way), don’t worry about blanketing every area or organizing the whole state. Just pick a place and do it. I guarantee it will be a fascinating and important experience and could provide crucial evidence.
Bev Harris
Founder – Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
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You can ask questions by posting them in your state and jurisdiction’s area at BlackBoxVoting.org, or by e-mail: crew@blackboxvoting.org
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26 Comments
GREAT THREAD AUDREY
I will link to this whenever I can
Thank you *g*
it is bizarre we are having these kinds of issues even though we know four years ago our vote was overturned with the fraud of these companies
thanx for this heads up again audrey and the updates
I don’t know what the problem with people publicly acknowledging who they vote for? I understand that maybe some people would have a problem, especially since they had the understanding that it was supposed to be private and that it was not supposed to happen like this. But we live in a free country. Why not be proud of who you vote for? This election aside I don’t see what the problem would be with standing up for your candidate, because aren’t they supposed to be standing up for us?
I’m not sure if you are suggesting that there is a problem with the whole concept of a secret ballot, but it was put in place to prevent corruption and intimidation. The same reason that we have curtains in our home, not because we have something to hide, but because we value our privacy. Part of the problem of giving people a receipt on touch-screen voter machines that prove they voted for a certain candidate is that it would encourage vote buying and selling – an exchange of money for a receipt that proved you voted a certain way.
There is a big problem when you have some people not giving out Halloween candy if the kids or there parents were not supporting one of the candidates.
What you need is a code that allows you to call in or enter on a website and obtain what the ballot voted for.
This needs to be up for a few weeks and have a checksum to ensure there are no changes (or additional mappings that would cause the true results to appear but the fake result to be tallied).
You would then need some exit poll people that can take down what the ID’s for people are and who they say they voted for to check, then a random 10% of the population checking – no fraud would get past that.
The Halloween candy Grinches were dickish to get kids involved (maybe O’Reilly could start a series about the War on Halloween!)- but still free speech in my book. I actually have real problems with the whole concept of computerized voting machines – in Canada, we manage to count millions of paper ballots marked by pencil in a few hours on election night – partly because we have national election standards monitored by an independent federal (or provincial) body. The patchwork of local ballot standards across the US seems to me to be a huge part of the problem and the lack of a trusted elections process in the US, with partisan County boards and Secretaries of State another huge issue, not the ability of voters to verify their votes after the fact. It goes to the lack of trust in the system, not the ballot itself.
always with the filthy dirty tricks
ok, need some help here. i’m in maine and poll watching today for dems. i was unaware that diebold machines are being used in maine. NO ONE i know working on the dem canpaigns is under the impression that we need to be aware of this issue. You vote on paper here and the ballot machine coutns your ballots (there are two per person, ). ANY help/ advice out there? are the paper ballot processing machines of concern to us?
It’s a secure chain of custody issue. The “middle man” has to go away. Where a private company with the ability to alter the results is not accountable, that’s a problem. Hope this helps.
i get that, i’m wondering if anyone has info on which counties in maine are using the LHS serviced nmachines??? anybody?
Kay in MAINE, You out there, Kay? any idea if this is an issue for us??? will check back later. am in skow office.
Sorry, I had to leave for a while. It’s my one day a week trip to town to get supplies. (I voted 2 weeks ago.)
Here:
Kittykitty — ANY software dependent voting system, which includes optical scanners, amounts to secret vote counting (not to be confused with the privacy of your vote) in that the machine does whatever the software tells it to and detecting fraud, even if you suspect it, can be impossible to prove. Yes, with paper ballots you have the original evidence, but getting a hand recount, depending upon the state,is a complicated affair plus, once the ballots have left the public arena, that is, the polling place, their integrity becomes immediately suspect. In New York, the last state not to use software dependent voting systems, a coalition is working aggressively to retain out lever machines which were designed to be tamper resistant and to deter fraud, neither of which can be said about software based voting systems.
Oh and your point of pay for a vote is a good one. I did not think of that – ummm free market unregulated?
Oh, crap. Well, this was the logical conclusion to the touchscreen mess.
Actually, that is probably the logical origin to the touchscreen mess.
And now I’m serious: I want U.S. elections to be monitored by an international commission.
This crap has got to change. In fact, this should be on Congress’ to-do list within the first month of the 111th.
Oh, and one other thing: GAWD BLESS THE INTRATUBES!!!11!1etc.
The speed with which this stuff can be spread and, hopefully, fixed, really has changed our democracy for the better. Nicely done!
One other thing: Anyone know a way to find out who handles these cards in other areas of the country?
My precinct uses optical scan, so it’s not a personal issue, but just wondering if there’s a way to find out if this may crop up in other places.
“My precinct uses optical scan, so it’s not a personal issue”
Mark, please see my comments at 21. Op Scans also have memory cards.And they are all programmed from one central computer which is one way fraudulent code can penetrate an entire system.
Yep, just read that.
Thanks for making me all paranoid now.
More seriously, how do I find out who’s in charge of the ones in my area? Should I just call and ask?
We need an national election law that will make the penalties for voter fraud so onerous that nobody would even think of manipulating the vote in any way. This would include so called accidents or mistakes.
My suggestion:
• A minimum fine of $20,000 per vote and minimum of one year in jail for every vote blocked or disenfranchised for individuals participating in voter fraud. This would include caging and robocalls and other efforts that may cause a voter not to vote or be misinformed on the place or date of the vote. The rule would be if a strategy is in doubt, don’t do it.
• For companies (corporations and consulting firms) involved the fine would be 2,000,000 per vote and all executive level people or consultants would be subject to a 1 year prison term for each vote disenfranchised.
• An incentive to investigators that 50% of all fines to particular individuals and companies would be provided as a reward for all cases convicted. The disenfranchised voter(s) would also receive 50% of the fine. This makes everybody vigilant.
• There would also have to be some disincentive to frivolous claims of voter fraud.
• These penalties would also apply to local government officials responsible for administering the voting system. Even if the slept in an opened the polling station late they would be off to jail if it could be found that a voter was prevented from voting.
• If any government or contractor failed to maintain a clearly audited and verifiable trail of all votes, all individuals in the election process (including government executives up to cabinet level positions, note knowledge of the crime is not necessary) would be subject to a minimum of 5 years in jail for the first vote and 1 year for each subsequent vote. The consulting firms or manufacturers would forfeit any fees or payments and be subject to a $2,000,000 dollar fine for each vote obstructed. The municipality would be permanently be forbidden to manage elections of any kind with responsibility being passed to a federal, non partisan agency responsible for administering elections. Of course these penalties would also apply to members of this agency as well.
• Further a whistle blower incentive would be devised so that it would be highly rewarding to point out wron doing.
I feel much better now!
Whew!
This is excellent, Audrey. AND BADLY NEEDS TO BE DUGG!!!!
Get the work out on all the k-wrap! Everywhere it occurs.
Digg Puhleeeeeze.
GO NOW!
Dugg, Recommended, and thank you so much, Audrey! ((hugs))
MarkD: Go here: http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1395 or any of Jon Pincus’ excellent diaries about vote protection. Or try Elliott’s Election Resource Guide: http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1381
Thank you, siri and Margot.