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“It doesn’t matter how good the computers are, if the people running them are corrupt, then you have a corrupt system.”
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WHO’S GUARDING THE GUARDS?
GLITCHES, HITCHES, ANOMALIES AND IRREGULARITIES
BLIND TRUST Examination of transparency and security in elections worldwide WHY? A rhetorical musing in search of rationale
ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION (EAC) Numbers, Numbers, Numbers... THERE MUST BE 50 WAYS TO STEAL ELECTIONS PAPER TRAIL OF TEARS Pros, Cons and Tricks with Paper Dozens of Suggestions and Links to get on board in the Election Reform Movement HATE MAIL CONTACT US
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There are four Big Daddies in the manufacture of our Election equipment in America:
Diebold Election Systems, E.S.&S., Sequoia Voting Systems, and Triad.
Diebold and ES&S together count 80% of our electronic vote. ES&S is the number one with two-thirds of the vote counting software and the biggest supplier of touch screen machines. Sequoia - with one-third of the voting machines on the market - is usually regarded as number two. Or Diebold. Depends who you ask. There is cloaked secrecy surrounding ownership and details about the companies, but investigative research scraping the tip of the iceberg has discovered enough to set anyone’s hair on fire...
In December 2003, Ohio - of all places - conducted a comparative study of four electronic voting systems’ vendors. The figures were revealing; ES&S led the pack with a total of 17 general security risks found, but had the lowest number of “very high security risks”-- only one, and that was the feature that could add multiple votes to the final count without warning. Diebold and Sequoia tied for second worst, each with 15 reported general risks. Five of Diebold’s were rated “very high” and 3 of Sequoia’s. Ironically, Hart Intercivic, one of the lesser used systems, rated well with only 10 general risks, however 4 of those were identified as ”very high risk.”
You may be surprised to learn that there is currently NO Federal Agency that has regulatory authority or controls over the multi-billion dollar elections industry. There are NO government standards or restrictions on who can sell and service voting machines and voting systems. Virtually anybody with money and know-how can get into the business of counting our vote! This might help explain why we keep running into criminals, political candidates, defense contractors, and other odd bedfellows in the mix when we examine the rosters of our election companies.
They are privately owned companies, some by foreign nationals, with multi-million dollar contracts, haunted by the presence of convicted felons in high places, dummy front companies, even mob connections. Yes, the people involved in the Corporations counting our American vote could be cast members in any given episode of the Sopranos. Companies shuffling name changes, “shared” executives moving back and forth between them, sales representatives from New Jersey crime families bribing public officials, ex-felons writing computer code.... it’s anything but boring being in the electronic vote industry.
Republican Computer expert, IT Auditor Chuck Herrin proclaims, “I am by trade a professional white-hat Hacker.. .so I know how easily systems can be breached, especially by insiders. Roughly 80% of all computer crimes are perpetrated by insiders, so that’s the best place to look first. When the insiders also write the code and roll out the machines… there’s NO QUESTION that they have too much power and should not be trusted---whether they support my party or not. It’s called ‘segregation of duties’ and it’s vital for system integrity.” So, why is it that Karl Rove has predicted a Republican dynasty for the next 40 years? “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.” --H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
ELECTION SYSTEMS & SOFTWARE (ES&S)
ES&S - The number one company, located in Omaha, Nebraska. A veritable one-stop shopping outfit to the voting industry... Manages voter registration, ballot printing, voting machinery, programming, tabulation of vote counts, and final reporting of results for 61 million Americans in 48 states... They are also the number one provider of Touch Screen voting machines in America, and tabulated 56% of the U.S. vote for President.
Company Information—Top Secret!
Aldo Tesi occupies the seat of CEO and President of ES&S. Mr. Tesi comes from the Credit Card business, which is ironic, only in its being a business that relies on paper receipts to verify transactions.... something ES&S voting equipment in America has not been able to do—
VP Tom Eschberger came to ES&S from the former BRC Texas Company, after receiving immunity for his involvement in an Arkansas fraud case. Tom’s partner at BRC was indicted in the scandal that involved laundering money and voting machine sales. His partner went to Federal Prison and Tom went on to ES&S. In the same case, Arkansas Secretary of State Bill McCuen pled guilty to felony charges for taking bribes and kickbacks and also went to prison in 2002.
In 2000, Washington DC journalist Christopher Bollyn, was working on a piece entitled, “The Death of Democracy”, investigating two-way computer modems found in electronic voting machines. Bollyn had learned that the ES&S vote counting equipment, or tabulators – “Precinct Ballot Counters 2100” (PBC’s) - could be communicated with while the counting was underway by anyone with a modem-equipped computer. He also discovered that the PBC is run by a pre-programmed 512-K memory card that essentially “tells the tabulator what to do.”
Oddly, the programmed memory cards used in ES&S Tabulators are not supplied by IBM or Panasonic, but instead by the small firm of a Russian immigrant - Alex Kantarovich. His company is called Vikant. From the Vikant site, we see that this modest Illinois Company, founded in 1996, has only 3 employees. Again, ES&S was responsible for 61 million Americans’ votes.
Since 2002, Mr. Kantarovich is also Chief Strategist for Aton Capital, a Russian investment group, which provides him a platform to expound on Russian markets, blue chips, and theYukos Oil scandal wherein Russia’s wealthiest man, the head of Yukos, is arrested at gunpoint in 2003 and jailed indefinitely for tax fraud. Kantarovich however opines that the whole affair was a calculated political move “designed to keep the oligarchs on a short leash ahead of elections.” (Russian Presidential elections were in March, 2004) The Yukos owner is a known political opponent of Putin and speculations abound that he was being punished or muted. An interesting side note, this billionaire prisoner also once sat on the board of the infamous Carlyle Company as an energy advisor.
In another editorial piece, on behalf of Aton, Kantarovich even mentions Russia’s “clumsy involvement in the Ukraine election.”
So Bollyn tracked down Kantarovich to query him about the hidden internal modems and the Vikant memory cards for ES&S’s Central Tabulators.
Upon questioning as to the origin of the cards, Kantarovich responds to Bollyn, “I cannot disclose where the cards are made---they are not made in America.” And, when asked where he’d worked prior to the memory card business, he offers, “I don’t want to disclose that information.” Lastly, he was questioned how his product came to be chosen over others. And Kantarovich, ever the open book, regrets that this is,”-- inside information that I cannot disclose.” Aside from providing a tooth-pulling interview, the Soviet memory card man appears less than forthcoming regarding his particular piece of the ES&S puzzle.
The Sunday morning after the interview, Kantarovich phoned Bollyn to impart this not so thinly veiled threat to him: “I don’t want anything to happen to my company, to you, or to me,” he said in his thick Russian dialect. And then he repeated it again before hanging up. Bollyn immediately reported it to the local police as a death threat. Flashbacks to Boris and Natasha of The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show spring to mind...
ES&S former Vice President, Steve Bolton, told the Wireless News in January, 2002, “The iVotronic system uses CDMA (code division multiple access) and CDPD (cellular digital packet data) wireless technology to send the tabulations from ballots to an elections board or central election site.” Thus we have tabulations sent wireless...
The ES&S tabulators’ internal modems are manufactured by Novatel Wireless, a California company related to Novatel, Inc., a Canadian satellite communications company. A spokesman for Novatel Wireless, told Bollyn that the tabulators run the risk of being hacked into “anytime they’re plugged in”....if the hacker knows the computers IP address. When asked who owned Novatel, the spokesman replied, “I have no idea.”
So, after all this, it should come as no surprise, with a company policy of strict secrecy, that Election Systems & Software refuse to disclose publicly who actually owns ES&S. We know the Omaha World Herald plays a significant role. The World Herald Company, among other things, owns a communications network with databases containing personal information on nearly everyone in the U.S.--Including race, age, and political preferences.
Let’s examine ES&S’s origins for more.
Todd Urosevich, current Vice President of aftermarket sales at ES&S, along with his brother Bob, was originally staked into the election business (Data Mark) by wealthy Republican supporters, the Ahmanson family. Howard Ahmanson, who had major holdings in ES&S since its earlier incarnation, then called “AIS”, is a Christian Reconstructionist who has stated in the Orange County Register his goal of instilling Biblical Law throughout America in place of current Constitutional Law. His openly advocated and radical plan for the theocratic takeover of America includes --death penalty for homosexuals, stoning of sinners, banning women from public office, and citizenship excluded for all non-Christians in America. Again, more than half of the Urosevich’s startup capital was funneled from the Ahmansons. (ESS- Ahmanson link)
McCarthy Company bought the Ahmanson’s shares out in 1987.
Let’s back up a step and trace the convoluted outline of the company’s history. A Texas election company-- “Cronus Industries”-- morphed into “Business Records Corp” or BRC. A former BRC owner was Carolyn Hunt, of the Hunt oil family, which provided start up money for the Council for National Policy / CNP. Some CNP members include Oliver North, former Klu Klux Klan member Richard Shoff, Major General John Singlaub, and other Iran-Contra notables, along with Reverend Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott, Ralph Reed, Jeffrey and Joseph Coors, Tim LaHaye, Paul Weyrich and Grover Norquist. BRC and three other companies were later purchased by AIS (American Information Systems) in 1997 to form--- ES&S.
Now Todd Urosevich, bankrolled with Ahmanson money, had started in the election equipment business in the 1980’s at Data Mark with his brother, programmer Bob Urosevich. (For added irony, the Urosevich brothers happen to be second generation Ukrainians...) For some time, Bob ran Diebold Election Systems (see below), the company often quoted along with Sequoia, as the number two in the field. In fact, Bob is one of the characters credited with oversight of Diebold’s original software development. Stay with me, because this is where the plot begins to thicken! When Bob Urosevich departed from ES&S and headed over to Diebold, he was replaced by, none other than...Chuck Hagel.
Vote For Me
Senator Chuck Hagel, former ES&S Chairman, (AIS at the time- just prior to the 1997 buyout), was running the company in 1995 that would count his votes in his amazing surprise victory in 1996—the first Republican Senate winner in Nebraska in 24 years! Local papers called it a “stunning upset.” It was his first race for the Senate; he had been living out of state for 20 years, and was running against Nebraska’s popular former Governor, Ben Nelson. Nelson was leading in the polls by 65% to 18%, yet Hagel came from behind and won at 56%...
In both Hagel’s 1996 and 2002 elections, ES&S counted 85% of his winning votes. His opponent in the 2002 re-election, aware of the ES&S connections, requested a hand recount of the vote, but Election Officials refused. Senator Hagel retains a one to five million dollar stake in ES&S parent company, McCarthy Group... as he contemplates a run for the Presidency himself in 2008. Incidentally, Hagel’s campaign Treasurer for his successful run was none other than the founder of the McCarthy Group himself, Michael McCarthy—who also sits on the Board of ES&S. And did I forget to mention that Senator Hagel was also President of said McCarthy Group from 1992 to 1996?
All Congressional lawmakers are required to fill out annual personal financial disclosures—turns out Chuck Hagel fudged a bit in his in 1996 filing, declining to mention ES&S/ McCarthy holdings as well as his position as Chairman of the election company, then called AIS. It came down to an argument about “definitions” of types of excepted “investment funds.” …It depends on what the definition of “funds” is…
Well - the Senate Ethics Committee was troubled, and Victor Baird, its Director, sent the Senator a letter in 1997 requesting further clarification. It appears there was a back and forth of documentation and eventually a convenient redefinition. Suddenly, this seems to be becoming new policy in Washington DC...When the rules don’t suit you - redefine the rules. This same technique has ruined many a fine Monopoly game for me.
In 2003, after 16 years as Director, Baird resigned to be replaced by Robert Walker. After meeting with Hagel’s staff, Walker decided to loosen the disclosure restrictions, and redefine “excepted investment funds”-- thereby letting Hagel off the hook. According to The Hill, “…the newly weakened definition makes it virtually impossible to determine whether Hagel - or any other lawmaker - must report investments in non-traded private companies.”
D.C. reporter, Alexander Bolton, was about to file his story on the Hagel/ ES&S connection when, just before the article was to appear in The Hill, he received an unexpected visit from Hagel’s Chief of Staff and a “prominent GOP lawyer.” They warned him to change, soften, or kill the story. It was Mr. Bolton’s first experience with an intimidation tactic like this in his four years of reporting on Capitol Hill. He ran the story anyways.
So, we already have two journalists threatened by ES&S or their representatives and we’ve barely begun their story. Clearly, this is a company that does not welcome the scrutiny of the free press.
Product Report Card
ES&S’s Central Tabulators counted around 29 Counties in Ohio in this last election. In Sandusky County, Ohio, some of the ballots in nine separate precincts were discovered to have been counted twice by ES&S Optical Scanners. Between 20 to 30 ES&S Touch Screen machines in Ohio’s Mahoning County needed to be recalibrated during the voting process due to the opposite candidate receiving the intended vote. Neighboring Pennsylvania experienced the same results. Voters testify that the machines seemed to be set with a “default to Bush,” regardless of the candidate chosen. (touch screen switches)
ES&S counted 2 of the 3 controversial Counties in Florida this year as well, (Broward and Miami-Dade), covered in the University of California Berkeley Study, whose findings claim “voting ‘irregularities’ resulted in a so-far inexplicable 130,000- 260,000 additional votes for President Bush.” The third County, Palm Beach, was counted by Sequoia (See more below). It appears the ES&S Touch Screens required more poll worker supervision and hands on operational skills than the Sequoia equipment, by all accounts. Florida election officials complained as far back as the 2002 elections that ES&S did not provide adequate training or logistical support.
ES&S had supplied Miami-Dade and Broward with their iVotronic Touch Screens in the 2002 September Primary elections with woeful results. It was declared, by ES&S, to be the largest single purchase of election equipment in the history of the U.S. Miami-Dade spent $24 million for four model 650 central count tabulation machines, and 7250 new touch screens, which they later debated scrapping entirely after encountering massive problems. Voters complained that Touch Screens defaulted to Jeb Bush.
According to local NBC reporter, Deborah Sherman, she witnessed workers at Miami election headquarters pulling votes off memory chips because of ballot cartridges that were blank. The previous April, one city’s machines (Medley), had tallied incorrect totals, resulting in a wrong winner being declared. Elections Supervisor David Leahy resigned after the pressure over the problems with ES&S grew too great.
Miami-Dade’s Inspector General Christopher Mazella, had numerous complaints and misgivings about the contract with ES&S and the system’s poor performance. He stated in 2003 that running an election with the iVotronic machines required so many poll workers and technical support that it cost five times what it used to cost them the old way.... punch cards. But of course punch card machines had been decertified by the Legislature in Florida in 2001, following the 2000 debacle.
Along with Miami-Dade, Broward County had ordered 5200 new iVotronicTouch Screens for a cool $17.2 million, despite the misgivings of its then Election Supervisor, Miriam Oliphant. Elected by an overwhelming majority in 2000, (70%), Oliphant was one of the few Florida officials to recommend against using ES&S. She was overruled by Broward county commissioners. During her time as Supervisor, Oliphant had aggressively registered over 300,000 new voters.... 80% of those being Democrats. She is an African American woman, a Democrat, who represented a largely Democratic county.
So why did Jeb Bush suspend her without pay in 2003? He and Glenda Hood accused her of neglect of duties, blaming the September, 2002 election problems on Oliphant, yet both failed to show up and testify when Oliphant took the case to court.
In the 2002 September Primary, some machines were taking up to four hours to boot up, causing long lines to form, and delaying poll openings. One post-election ACLU study showed that the votes of 8.2% of the voters in the Miami precincts studied were not counted. ES&S COO, the ever-chipper Mike Limas’s comment?
“Frankly, in the experience of both Miami-Dade and Broward, the equipment performed very well.”
The evening of the November 5, 2002 Governor’s election, Broward Election Officials proclaimed “The election went well---without a hitch.” But early the next morning it was discovered that a software error had caused over 103,200 votes to go uncounted. A significant hitch, indeed. Broward’s Deputy Election Supervisor attributed the error to “a minor software thing,” and, in spite of everything, the Secretary of State’s Office declared the elections to be “an unqualified success…”
For more intrigue and incest to thicken the plot—the Palm Beach Post reported that ES&S had a secret agreement to kickback a percentage of it profits to the Florida Association of Counties in order to secure contracts with the State. If that weren’t enough to guarantee their success, they also hired former Florida Secretary of State, Sandra Mortham as their Lobbyist. Ms. Mortham, who received commissions for her part on the substantial contract, also happened to be the former running mate of... Jeb Bush.
More on Mortham--- Mortham is the same one who had in 1998 ordered the first famous “purged” list of ineligible voters, rushing it through in a matter of weeks so that it would be in place to prevent 94,000 voters from casting ballots in Jeb Bush’s first successful Governor’s run. Florida paid DBT Company $4 million to compile the data of suspected felons that would be scrubbed from the voter rolls. --The only state to have done so at the time.
Despite the fact that DBT, the creators of the list, had themselves later admitted to gross inaccuracies, and claimed to be certain of only 3000 of those 94,000 named within - that same list was still in place and used for Jeb Bush’s re-election campaign in 2002… despite the victorious NAACP lawsuit and settlement over the list in 2000. The State said they were planning to correct the list and remove the 91,000 names placed in error... but they wouldn’t be able to get it done until after the election. A few weeks to compile the names, and a few years to remove them.
The Miami Herald polls had indicated that data showed black voters would vote against Jeb Bush by four to one. The majority on the scrubbed “suspected felon” list were African Americans. Most of the analysts predicted a tight race, a “squeaker” for Jeb and his opponent. The results, however, were... curiously - Jeb, in a surprise landslide... the first Republican Governor in the history of Florida to win re-election.
For the 2000 Presidential elections, that purged list would be narrowed down to a mere 58,000 names, compiled with the help of Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush. Ninety percent of those named on that list were Democrats.
One more interesting Florida-felon-Jeb Bush twist and I’ll move on. It was reported in the February 7, 2005 issue of Time Magazine, that former convicted Watergate felon Charles Colson - “the man who once advised Richard Nixon to firebomb the Brookings Institution” had gone from prisoner - to evangelist - to recently advising Karl Rove on the Sudan policy. Well, turns out that in 2000, while the NAACP was still in court fighting to get non-felons with-similar-sounding-names-to-felons the right to a vote, Governor Jeb Bush was, at that same time, busy reinstating actual ex-felon Charles Colson’s right to vote that had been stripped from him when he entered prison. And, at least in that case, it didn’t take so long after all......
November 2, 2004, Collier County, Florida had to delay reporting its election results. Their ES&S iVotronic Touch Screens performed well that night, but it was the central tabulator software that was the source of problems. This case helps illustrate what happens with these tabulator programs after the data comes into them from the polling stations. Gary Beauchamp, Collier deputy assistant Supervisor of Elections, stated that the information from the polling stations was “fine.” ...It was only after that data was fed into the Dell computer tabulating system that suspicious discrepancies showed up. The Final Report numbers were off. The cause of the tabulator glitch was not identified.
Company spokesman and current COO, Mike Limas, blamed the bulk of the problems on “human error.” By 2004, this shifting of responsibility for machine malfunctions - away from the ES&S and its products and on to the poll workers - seems to have become company policy de rigeur. And Mr. Limas, as the official ES&S apologist, keeps turning up in the darndest of places---from Venezuela to Iowa--- tacitly pointing fingers at election workers while defending his company’s equipment to the death.
And speaking of Iowa... According to the Wall Street Journal, in one Iowa County election in 2000, an ES&S Optical Scan machine was fed 300 ballots and read out a whopping 4 million votes! Giving new meaning to “Vote early and vote often.”
North Carolina and Florida both reported that once the magic number of 32,767 votes was reached—presto! The machines compensated and began subtracting votes in place of adding. The company admitted to North Carolina that they had been aware of the problem from earlier incidents in Florida, yet they had failed to advise Election Officials.
In 2004, ES&S had all 77 Counties in Oklahoma tied up. The local conservative paper “Tulsa World” reported on November 3, that with 70% of the vote count in, Kerry was winning in 57 of the 77 counties. The Final Results however showed Kerry losing in ALL 77 Counties. (Remember, the Finals come from that hidden, hackable second set of books.) Kerry had lost about 38,000 votes, while Bush had gained an ample 394,000 votes. Rural counties claimed that the machines were counting Kerry’s votes backwards. Seems that the ‘counting backwards’ problem rankled E S & S in more than a few states.
Moving next door to Arkansas, in this past election, we find one county where a code programming error generously offered one candidate running for Constable every single vote, which the opponent knew was wrong as he had voted for himself! Same thing in Lake City, Illinois, where ES&S tabulators reported ZERO votes for the Democratic candidate who, after voting for himself, had minimally incurred one vote. I’m working on one theory that somehow the Democratic votes are just too succulent for the famished tabulators to resist... And so they eat them all.
Another curious Arkansas phenomena - seems a lot of Arkansans weren’t interested in voting for President this past election. The ES&S Optical Scans missed 1 in 6 votes for President in Pike County, and 1 in 10 for the Senate. In Crittendon County, 1 in 8 voters had no choice for President show up on their ballots. The ES&S technician claimed it was due to a “scratch on the sensor.” This curiosity manifested itself in Lubbock, Texas as well, in the March, 2004 Primary election. Over 6900 of 26,000 ballots (more than 25%) accorded NO votes for President. ES&S cited computer tabulator malfunction in this case, and paid for a recount...
In a similar case to Oklahoma’s, in Alabama in 2002, the tabulators had elected the wrong Governor. At the end of Election Day, the Democrat was told he’d won by a small margin, only to wake up the next morning to find the Republican candidate had won by 6300 votes. ES&S’s General Manager blamed the “glitch” on a power surge, or “static electricity” - or perhaps “something else,” adding that 3 other counties had experienced similar problems. Again, notice the vote count changes in the middle of the night when the tabulators seem to ‘change their minds’ about who should be winning...
In the most recent election, in Alabama, again - a controversial Amendment was on the ballot - Amendment 2, which called for the removal of decades old segregation language from the State’s Constitution. ES&S Optical Scanners reportedly had difficulty reading some ballots, and Amendment 2 was narrowly defeated, thus leaving archaic 1901 segregation verbiage still alive in the Alabama Constitution.
And speaking of Amendments, we all remember the Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage added to some ballots last November. Well, it seems in Cass County, North Dakota, voters didn’t need to bother with deciding whether they were for or against it, as the 120,000 ballots - printed by ES&S - had already decided for them! Turns out a “yes” and a “no” vote would both end up approving the Amendment... That should help keep the burgeoning North Dakota gay population down for awhile anyway...
We’re not in Kansas anymore. In 2002, ES&S Tabulators surprised a few Kansas candidates by switching their votes, one for the other. A hand recount discovered that the loser was actually the winner - by a landslide. Similarly, in 2002, in Texas’ Scurry County, ES&S Optical Scanners gave two Republican Commissioners landslide victories. Suspicious poll workers requested a recount of both - it turned out the Democratic challengers had actually won both seats by wide margins.
Secretary of State in New Mexico, Democrat Vigil-Giron, awarded ES&S a multi-million dollar 5-year contract in her state in 2003. Some felt the deal may have been sweetened by the $2500 campaign contribution she received from Ken Carbullido, Sr. VP at ES&S.
Perhaps some of the stickiest ES&S incidents occurred in Indiana this past year (2004), where deceptions by the company resulted in hearings, the posting of a $10 million bond, and an ES&S employee or two resigning after allegedly being instructed to perpetrate fraud for the company. ES&S supplies 41 Counties in Indiana, but a few of them suffered serious injuries.
Johnson County, Indiana, maintains that ES&S misled County election officials on several occasions. ES&S unapproved firmware had already been used in a municipal election without the Board having been informed. Before the 2004 Primaries, the company claimed that they were performing ‘routine maintenance’ on their touch screens, when, in fact, they were actually switching software to replace the unapproved version with the certified version.
Marion County Clerk Anne Sadler, charged that the company lied to her personally about swapping out uncertified software on its Optical Scan machines. Other County clerks reported similar shenanigans - technicians said to be working on equipment to perform “routine maintenance checks,” that were in reality surreptitiously installing new software. ES&S employee Wendy Orange, in a pang of conscience, revealed that she was instructed to lie to Marion County officials about the purpose of technician’s visits to the Clerk’s offices. ES&S denied the claims and Ms. Orange resigned as a whistleblower in May 2004. ( ESS Illegal Software ) Twenty precincts in Marion ran out of ES&S ballots, resulting in an undetermined number of voters being deprived the right to a vote.
Indiana officials debated terminating the ES&S contract and suing the company for breach of contract, but decided it was too late in the year for a new vendor to be in place by the November, 2 election. As a compromise, the Indiana Election Commission instead ordered ES&S to post a $10 million bond for the May, 2004 Primaries, and to guarantee full certification of all equipment by the November National elections.
November, however, had its share of hitches as well. La Porte County, Indiana, with its 74 precincts lost approximately 50,000 votes due to a “software flaw.” ...The column listing each precinct’s voters read exactly 300 -- for every precinct. That would mean La Porte County had 22,200 voters, when in reality there were over 79,000. ES&S’s attempt to email a new program to the Clerk’s office Election Night proved unsuccessful as well.
Because of the ordeal, Indiana passed laws in 2004 making it illegal to sell any uncertified election systems in the state. In wrapping it up, an Indiana Election Commission official angrily stated to the ES&S representative, “I just think I was absolutely lied to by your CEO...”
[UPDATE] August 15, 2005- ES&S has agreed to pay Marion County Indiana the sum of over $1.2 million in cash, after having charged the County $11.1 million in 2003 for their election equipment, both Optical Scans and Touch Screens, both of which ended up not being fully certified by the State’s Election Commission. County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler stated in the Indianapolis Star,“—We’ve done the right thing”, and, “We’ve gotten money back for the taxpayers.”
In classic election company Public Relations framing, the ES&S spokesperson, Jill Friedman, refused to call the “action” a “settlement.” She has instead labeled it " a redefinition of the company’s contract with the County.” And while ES&S has redefined their relationship with Marion County by a million or so dollars, they are now waiting to see just how many other Indiana Counties would like to follow suit and redefine their contracts with ES&S as well. Johnson County, who shared similar lack of certification issues with Marion County, has representatives who are currently looking into the possibility of litigation....er....I mean, “redefinition of contract” for their county.
But the worst blow of all for ES&S must have been the 2002 and 2004 election debacles at home court in Nebraska where the company resides. Adams County was forced to wait for two days after their 2002 election before any votes could be counted. Software code problems that couldn’t be corrected were blamed for the delay. Even a backup machine brought in had failed to perform. Mike Limas claimed that some “difficult to scan” ballots had exacerbated the problem as well, specifying that they were not related to ES&S....
Then in 2004, Sarpy County Nebraska’s ES&S tabulators doubled half of the precincts’ vote counts - adding 10,000 “phantom votes” to the final tally.
ESS Voting machine problems reported
South American Flavor
ES&S has not confined its business to the United States. They are quite known in Venezuela as well. Venezuela - the third largest supplier of oil to the U.S., the fourth largest oil producing nation, and climbing with a bullet on the State Department’s Top Ten list of Countries We Really Don’t Like. May 2000 - the largest election in Venezuelan history - eleven million voters voting on 7350 ES&S machines, would decide in an historic moment whether Chavez should be reelected or not. When over 400 of the machines wouldn’t perform due to “technical glitches” and software problems... Venezuelans grew increasingly suspicious of the imported American election equipment.
Chavez went so far as to accuse the Americans and ES&S of attempting to destabilize and jeopardize the Venezuelan electoral process. Problems were so bad, the nation’s highest court finally decided to suspend the elections until they could they could be resolved.
A Venezuelan Air Force jet was commandeered to Omaha to pick up ES&S technicians and computers to come salvage the election, which they did. Since the United States had recommended ES&S to Venezuela, Chavez held them responsible. Local protestors shouted down the ES&S technicians-- with “Gringo go home” chants. Chavez ended up winning by a healthy margin (59.7%), but Venezuela decided not to renew their contract with ES&S. (See Sequoia Voting Systems chapter)
One other noteworthy event about these South American elections: Per Popular Science magazine, ES&S machines had paper trails for them… in the year 2000. Which makes their excuses about not being able to produce them for the U.S. 2004 elections seem disingenuous at best.
“A handful of errors is not bad...” -- Mike Limas, ES&S COO
Diebold, of North Canton, Ohio, has received the lion’s share of publicity in the election fraud story, but is hardly alone in the tangled web of complicity. The Election Systems Division President, until recently, Bob Urosevich, (Todd’s brother—see ES&S) is often credited with overseeing original software development for both ES&S and Diebold Election Systems.
Sometime after the multi-million dollar ‘mix up’ in California, Urosevich was replaced by Tom Swidarski. Even Diebold seems unclear about just when that was, as they can be found citing Urosevich as President in August 2003, then the following month referring to Swidarski as President, and in December 2003, it’s suddenly reversed to Urosevich again. In any case Urosevich did eventually yield to Swidarski who stepped up from a Senior VP position. Swidarski comes from the world of electronic wizardry himself, as a pioneer of biometrics and ATM video screens.
Unlike the parent company in Ohio, Diebold Election Systems, formerly known as “Global Election Systems”, is located in Texas. Global’s former Director, Michael K.Graye, spent four years in prison from 1996-2000 for stock fraud, then went back in again in 2003 for tax fraud and misappropriation of $18 million from four companies. Bob Urosevich got in on the ground floor when Diebold bought out Global as he was President of Global Election Systems at the time.
Yet another interesting but damning fact about the Diebold company-- Their main product is NOT election equipment, but rather ATM machines, of which they are the leading global suppliers. And ticket vending machines. Curiously, BOTH machines produce paper receipts to track transactions made on them... Only the voting machines have had this important tracking feature omitted from the tooling. Remember, Diebold is also the company responsible for providing us with the ubiquitous vote counting equipment—GEMS Tabulators.
*UPDATE: See "Paper Trail of Tears" Chapter for new reports on how Diebold is addressing the issue.
While we, the citizenry, were wringing our hands over the lack of verifiable voting paper records prior to our Presidential election, Diebold company was busily engaged in testing their IDMs (Intelligent Depository Modules) in Utah ATM’s. An IDM is a check imaging feature wherein customers can see the image of their to-be cashed checks displayed on their bank ATM screens. This serves as customer validation of the financial transaction. The check’s image is then printed as a customer receipt when the cash is delivered. Fairly sophisticated technology. Voter ballot verification should be a walk in the park by comparison....
In fact, Diebold’s name is so synonymous with security; they were the sole company entrusted to safeguard America’s Founding Documents. The U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights are now 100% under the watchful, protective eye of Diebold Company. And that’s not all—their website boasts that they protect everything from “countless amounts of currency, to securing the world’s most precious gem, the Hope Diamond....” You would think, with this level of dominance in the field, something as straightforward as protecting our votes would be a fait accompli. Think again.
Diebold is publicly traded and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as ‘DBD’. The Diebold Company itself earns more revenue as a Military Defense Contractor than in the manufacture and sales of voting equipment. But you have to scrutinize their website to learn this information. The more one familiarizes oneself with voting equipment vendors… the more defense contractors and intelligence connections seem to surface.
To get a flavor of what Diebold has been up to this past year in terms of trade show appearances for Governmental and Defense contracting, click here for the FPED (Force Protection Equipment Demonstration) show this past Spring, and then click on “Conduct of the Demonstration” in the bar on the left to see some of the actual demonstrations featured at the show (live ammo, explosions, unmanned aerial flights, etc). Another Diebold show was the GovSec show for Homeland Security and Intel types where you can attend workshops in How To Use Long Range Listening Devices...
Diebold Roll Call
Diebold Company CEO, Wally O’Dell, and longtime Diebold Director and Chairman “Tim” Timken, are steadfast Republican Loyalists and major contributors to Republican candidates, including George W. Bush. Both are members of Bush’s “Pioneers and Rangers” program, donating from $100,000 to over $350,000 respectively to President Bush’s reelection campaign, thereby being invited to the Crawford Ranch in appreciation. Timken’s company and family have contributed over a million dollars to the GOP.
As an aside, word has it from German Der Spiegel magazine, that Tim Timken is to be our newly appointed Ambassador to Germany... despite having zero diplomatic experience and not speaking any German. Diebold announced Timken’s retirement on June 30, 2005. Maybe the Germans will soon be enjoying the capricious temperament of Diebold’s GEMS tabulators as well.
It all got sticky about one year prior to the election, when Wally O’Dell - in a classic “oops” moment--- wrote his now famous letter pledging his commitment to “—help Ohio deliver its electoral votes to President Bush next year.” It didn’t look good... Along with all the lavish Bush Re-election Campaign fundraisers he held at his private 10,000 square foot mansion-- urging $10,000 contributions per guest.... O’Dell, Captain of our voting machinery ship, was having a hard time appearing to be non-partisan.
“The country had a crisis, it was instantly apparent to me that we could help” -- Wally O’Dell, CEO Diebold-- on doing his civic duty following the 2000 elections.
Now, Diebold also maintains a subsidiary in Brazil that manufactures that country’s voting equipment. In fact, Diebold’s initial entry into the election business took place in Carnivale country in October, 1999 when, as an ATM manufacturer, they purchased Brazilian technology company, “Procomp Amazonia Industria Electronica.” Procomp had already manufactured, installed and serviced over 160,000 electronic polling stations used by over 60 million voters in Brazil’s 1998 elections.
ProComp President, since 1997, was one Dr. Eric Jan Roorda, who currently sits on the board of Diebold with Timmy and Wally. A colorful Dutch academic, Dr. Roorda hails from Johns Hopkins and Bellarmine University where he is Professor of History and Political Science. He kept turning up in the oddest of places at the strangest of times... For example, he was in China—immediately after the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. And in May of 2000, in the crowded streets of the Dominican Republic, after the first democratic elections in 80 years-- celebrating their ousted Dictator amidst throngs of jubilant Dominicans. Or yet again in China, at the same time as the spy plane standoff of 2001. He has authored several books (including “The Dictator Next Door”), speaks fluent Chinese, is Co-Director of the Munson Institute, and is regarded as a foremost authority on American foreign policy. And yet - he winds up on the Board in the voting machine business out of Canton, Ohio...
By the year 2000, Diebold was up and running in Brazil with a $105.5 million dollar contract providing near 200,000 new voting terminals as well as tabulators for 100 million voters. Brazil blazed the trail going 100% digital for their 2000 election. But, it wouldn’t be until 2002, after the acquisition of Global Election Systems, that Diebold would get the chance to test their new voting systems out in America. The experiment proved extremely successful, increasing Global’s former profits by 100 fold. In our most recent election, Diebold’s GEMS tabulators counted approximately 50% of the votes in over 30 states. Their scanners and touch screens accounted for about 35% of the U.S. computerized vote in 2004.
Another person of interest on board at Diebold Elections is the Marketing Director Mark Radke – who also functions as the Diebold chief apologist. His background as a Washington, D.C. Attorney comes in handy when sidestepping the many legal hurdles and pitfalls of the election business. In 2001, he was the Chief of Staff at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Then in 2003, Radke joined the prestigious law firm of Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White to specialize in “corporate responsibility practice”... This same law firm, in January, 2004, was responsible for a big win in the state of Florida for Diebold Election Systems, when the Judge ordered all counties involved in the case to place their orders with Diebold for new voting systems.
It appears that Mark also does volunteer work for Missions Presentations (for Mission Central Church). According to their site, he makes Power Point presentations to Bible Study groups providing the latest news on “what God is doing.” He attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which states they seek students who are, “committed to Jesus Christ, endowed with necessary gifts for service, and in sympathy with our statements of faith and purpose.”
Cocaine, and Felons, and Prison—Oh my!
My personal favorite Diebold exec. biography is the one of its former Senior Vice President and Director (when it was “Global Election Systems”) ---and Senior Programmer in 2001 and 2002, just prior to the Diebold acquisition-- Jeff Dean. Dean is credited with the “upgrades” to the GEMS programs. According to Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting, besides his work on the tabulator systems, Dean was largely responsible for programming a version of the Optical Scan software that was widely used in our last election. And the Windows CE operating system used by the Touch Screens as well.
It is reported that no less than five of Diebold Election Systems developers are convicted felons, but Dean’s case takes the cake. Beginning in 1982, he was working at a Seattle law firm, Culp, Gunderson & Grader, in accounting systems. In 1988, the firm noticed some discrepancies in their books… Jeff Dean had altered the books and embezzled the money for himself over a two and a half year time frame at the firm. He eventually pled guilty to 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, which are enumerated in his case no. 89-1-04034-1. The record stated that:
"the crimes and their cover up involved a high degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized accounting system that defendant maintained for the victim, and the defendant used his position of trust and fiduciary responsibility as a computer systems and accounting consultant for the victim to facilitate the commission of the offenses—"
Dean was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to six years in prison. As part of his sentence, the Judge ordered Dean to inform any and all future employers of his felony conviction, and instructed him that under no circumstances would he be permitted to handle other people’s money after he was released. Unfortunately for Americans, the Judge’s reprimand fell short of prohibiting Dean from handling other people’s votes...
The GEMS computer tabulating system functions very similarly to the computerized accounting system. According to the report, Dean used his expertise by planting ‘back doors’ in his employer’s software, allowing him to steal nearly half a million dollars over the years all the while evading detection.
Is this starting to sound familiar? See "How GEMS works, Column 2 " chapter if not.
Does it make sense that convicted felons, who don’t even have the right to vote in many states in America, are programming the voting equipment and counting the votes of the rest of us “non-felons”? Do you trust computer voting systems designed by this man? Oh, but he had a good reason for resorting to massive embezzlement... According to Chuck Herrin, Dean needed money in order to pay out on blackmail over a fight he’d been involved in--- where another person died. Well, OK then.
In the summer of 1995, when he was released from prison, Dean went to work at Postal Services, (PSI), a bulk mail company in Washington State that sorts absentee ballots In 1997, Dean and his wife started up a printing company called Spectrum Print & Mail Services.... printing, what else-- Ballots... for Global Election Systems’ Optical Scanners, (soon to be bought out by Diebold).
Global contracted Dean, in 1999, to work on systems’ software and King County Voter registration. In 2000, Global decided to buy out Spectrum- Dean’s Ma & Pa ballot business- lavishing Dean with $1,600,000 in Global stock for the deal. He instantly busied himself with his assignment of ‘perfecting’ the Global Elections Management System---or GEMS central tabulators. And this is when it’s reputed that GEMS grew its additional sets of columns or books. Per Bev Harris, of BlackBoxVoting.org, the GEMS second set of books, felon-designed, and fraud-friendly, were added on and ready to roll immediately preceding the 2000 Presidential election. Timing... such an art.
They must have been exceedingly pleased with Dean’s performance, as he was promoted to Senior Programmer, Senior VP and placed on Global’s Board of Directors at a salary of @ $150,000 per year. Working on his third job since his release from prison, Dean is still not informing his employers of his prior fraud and embezzlement conviction, as the Judge had ordered him to. We don’t know whether or not he is complying with his directive to not handle other’s money.
Jeff & John---Oh, What a Pair!
Global Elections was not faring well financially, and by January 2002 they were acquired by Diebold, for whom they had already been developing systems. Shortly thereafter, word of Dean’s shady past began to surface, and Diebold, in avoidance of an awkward Public Relations moment, demoted Jeff Dean to a Consultant status, replacing him with John Elder—and stating to the AP that Dean was no longer with the company.
This is where the story gets really good! And cozy. Turns out Dean and Elder were old buddies, having met earlier... serving time at the same prison. Elder was sent away for 5 years for cocaine trafficking---across the street from a junior high school. Purportedly, he sold cocaine in order to support his own drug addiction. He was released in 1996 and, like Dean, went to work at Postal Services (PSI) after his release. And, like Dean again, after that, he went to work at Dean’s own company, Spectrum.
So what is this fine man doing for Diebold today? Managing a division, overseeing the printing of our ballots and punch cards. By the way, 68 of Ohio’s 88 Counties voted with punch cards.... and they were ALL counted with electronic tabulators. Jeff and John, the ex-cons, have their hands in oh-so-many voters’ votes.
From Steve Moreland of Diebold, February 4, 2002: “I am pleased to announce that effective today; John Elder will be assuming the role of General Manager of the Printed Products department of Diebold Election Systems, Inc. John brings a wealth of knowledge along with a passion for success to this role which will be essential as we strive to gain market share and improve profitability.”
Remember Diebold had announced to the Associated Press (AP) that Jeff Dean had left the company when they took over from Global in January of 2002. But look here, from the same Steve Moreland speech on February 4, 2002: “---Jeff Dean has elected to maintain his affiliation with the company in a consulting role, reporting to Pat Green. The Diebold Election Division management team greatly values Jeff’s contribution to this business and is looking forward to his continued expertise in this market place.”
All Across the U.S.A
“Diebold system is not only advanced, but 100% safe, and those questioning the systems are misguided...” -- Tom Swidarski, President Diebold
During the 2002 Midterm Elections, the state of Georgia was blanketed with Diebold Touch Screens and tabulators, much to the chagrin of the popular Democratic Governor and to Senator Max Cleland, who both lost their seats in what the media termed “amazing upsets.” It was the first time a Republican Governor had won the state of Georgia in 134 years! And the first Republican to win Cleland’s seat. Results showed up to 16% vote swings from the last pre-ballot poll numbers. According to Mitofsky/ Edison polling company, a 4% margin of error is normal for state elections, 3% for Nationals.
Senator Max Cleland had headed the Veterans Administration in 1975, was Georgia’s Secretary of State for many years, and was the incumbent Senator, originally elected in 1995. In the bitter 2002 race, opponent Saxby Chambliss made up for his lack of name recognition with negative campaign ads and by having both Bush and Cheney stumping for him on Georgia’s red soil. Cleland had received a Silver and a Bronze star for his heroics in Vietnam where he’d lost both legs and an arm. However, Chambliss challenged his patriotism in TV ads in which Cleland’s face would morph into an image of Saddam Hussein. Ann Coulter would later comment that Cleland should not be referred to as a war hero, because he had lost his limbs in a “routine mission.”
Chambliss was trailing in all the polls right up to the election. American Media Poll from the previous month had Cleland’s 47 to Chambliss’ 41. The Atlanta Journal Constitution - just days before the election - had Cleland 48 to Chambliss 45. Election Day showed Cleland leading consistently by 2-5 points. Yet... Chambliss won by 53 to 46. A 9 to 12 point shift… at the last minute.
And the Democratic Governor, that led by between 9 to 11 points on election day... lost to the Republican as well in another 16 point swing – 45 to 52.
Similarly, in Minnesota, when former VP Walter Mondale ran for the seat of the late Paul Wellstone, who had tragically died just days before the vote - he was defeated in a sweeping last minute vote swing...
Georgia, at least, couldn’t say they weren’t forewarned. Three months prior to the election, engineer and Product Deployment Manager, Ron Behler of ABSS (American Business Systems & Services) was hired by Diebold to check out the Touch Screen equipment. According to Behler, the typical failure rate in the machinery is about 3%. However, on this particular spot check, he encountered a near 25% to 30% failure rate. Each time he’d repair the machines - they’d break down again and again. Screen freezes, battery failures, and so on. After informing the Georgia state officials of the myriad of problems, he heard from Diebold... And they weren’t happy. Behler was told, in no uncertain terms, to shut up or he’d be fired.
On Election Day—Touch Screens froze up in 20 Counties. Sixty-seven memory cards in the Atlanta area just disappeared, but were later found. With no protection on the cards, Behler claims that he alone could have changed the vote totals using his laptop, in a matter of hours. Diebold’s trial run in America did not kick off so smoothly.
It’s not as if Georgia selected Diebold in any attempt at being thrifty either—the Diebold bid was the most expensive one in the state... One other interesting fact, Georgia election code required a paper trail on the DRE TouchScreens.... but ATM manufacturer Diebold did not supply them.
In California, the discovery of illegally installed, uncertified equipment in all 17 counties using Diebold resulted in not only the $2.6 million settlement but an historic ban and decertification of Diebold equipment in the state. Three of the 17 counties (Los Angeles being one) were found to be using equipment that was uncertified at both State and Federal levels. The most serious violations revolved around the GEMS software, as none of the versions being used had been qualified by the ITA’s (Independent Testing Authorities).
In Alameda County California, for the October, 2003 Governor Recall election, the machines switched thousands of Democratic absentee votes to a Socialist candidate. The Diebold equipment was ordered to be audited after the election, resulting in the above discoveries, and more -- 20 of the voting machines could not even be tested as they failed to boot up at all.
March, 2004 Primary Elections, were yet another Diebold disaster. San Diego County claimed thousands of absentee ballots assigned to the wrong candidates, and that the tabulators had awarded 2747 Kerry votes to Gephardt, who had already dropped out of the race. Malfunctioning machinery, due to “battery problems,” turned San Diego voters away from 55% of the voting sites and over half of the machines malfunctioned.
Both Counties’ problems were blamed on software flaws in GEMS tabulator programs. Diebold officials gave one explanation after another, citing anomalies in the GEMS database. Ironically, after spending $31 million on Diebold electronic systems, San Diego was forced to do a manual count of its absentee ballots to resolve the problem.
One month after the primaries, by an 8 to 0 vote, the state’s Voting Systems and Procedures Panel recommended that Secretary of State Kevin Shelley cease usage of the Diebold machines. Beyond that, they also requested the state Attorney General’s office to consider civil and criminal charges against Diebold.
At this writing, the new Secretary of State in California, Bruce McPherson is considering using Diebold election systems in the Golden State yet again, against the very vocal outcry of countless angry California voters and activists.
An ironic twist to the California story is what occurred just this spring in Ohio. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ordered all counties to use Diebold electronic voting equipment because, he said, they are the “only electronic machines to meet HAVA federal and state standards.” Consequently, ES&S is suing them. Kevin Shelley must be relishing a private smirk on that one.
In Gaston County, North Carolina, the November, 2004 election—ravenous GEMS tabulators chewed up and digested over 12,000 votes. The County’s GEMS database showed only ONE VOTE per machine throughout one entire precinct, thereby excluding the other thousands of voters’ votes from the Final Results tally. Diebold theorizes that the transmission of votes to the GEMS tabulator may have been “interrupted.” The votes were transmitted to the County office via laptop, and... A Diebold technician, paid by the County, was present on Election Day to operate their systems.
In Collin County, Texas, November, 2004, after their Touch Screens froze and locked, the memory cards from the machines had to be sent off to Diebold labs in order for technicians to retrieve the totals. In Canada... There’s something strange about Texans’ votes being sent to Canada to be “counted.”
“We are thrilled with the way our equipment performed during the past elections.” --Wally O’Dell, CEO Diebold, Barrons Online, January 10, 2005
Listen...ooh waah ooh...DO YOU WANNA KNOW A SECRET...SOFTWARE CODE...
In January of 2003, Bev Harris came upon the archived Global Election Systems website. The site contained 40,000 unprotected files including source code for Diebold’s AccuVote Touch Screens, GEMS tabulator software program files, 2002 California Primary vote data, proprietary software code and passwords. (Remember that Diebold had bought out Global Elections Systems in 2002.). It was a treasure chest of hitherto clandestine information for the tech world to mine.
The 2002 California election file was of particular interest in that it showed a 3:30 PM entry on the log when, by state law, no election data could be released until after poll closure at 8:00 PM. Who was going into the election data and why? Election workers said that a Diebold employee was at the County Elections office on the day of the election (where the GEMS tabulator program is located)—“to answer questions and help with problems.” The ever benevolent Diebold....”We never rest.”
Ms. Harris, author, auditor and voting rights activist, scurried the newly discovered files off to all the right people; including the esteemed Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, PhD, Computer Scientist, Radcliffe fellow, current research fellow at Harvard with over 15 years of research into electronic voting, and Dan Spillane, former senior test engineer and “whistleblower” of VoteHere, and a handful of others, so that they might examine the software contained therein.
Spillane was quickly able to identify the Diebold source code for Bev, who then provided that information to her other sources. They, along with Spillane, confirmed the momentous flaws inherent within the Diebold code. One of Bev Harris’s “sources”, a Pennsylvania computer programmer known only as “Cape Cod”, was the first person to discover what is now referred to as the “GEMS defect”....the infamous tabulators’ back door entry, its second data column. Additionally, “Cape Cod” identified other problems with the ABasic files, indicating memory card security defects.
Bev uncovered that not only could you enter the vote database with Microsoft Access - but that you could change the votes without leaving a trace. There was no password protection on the file or the audit log, so that any hacker (or Diebold employee) could alter the vote count and erase the evidence.
On June 16, 2003, Ms. Harris released the source code, until that time unknown to the public at large, on to two Internet sites where it was publicly analyzed and discussed in detail for two days straight. Meanwhile, she was emailing the code to yet another group of associates for their feedback and analysis—prudently checking and double-checking to confirm all suspicions beyond reasonable doubt.
A few weeks later, on July 8, now fully convinced that the Diebold software security flaws were in fact stunning, Bev Harris released the entire 40,000 Diebold files “into the wild” in New Zealand, via an arrangement with Alistair Thompson of Scoop.nz. At the same time, she also published the dramatic GEMS report, exposing publicly for the first time the tabulator systems’ double set of books; the treacherous GEMS defect.
David Dill, Stanford Computer Science professor, wasted no time in advising his colleague, Dr. Aviel Rubin-- Computer Science professor and Technical Director of Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University-- to download the voluminous Diebold files from the Scoop site to conduct his own analyses alongside teams culled from Hopkins and Rice Universities. See more on their late July 2003 report below.
Diebold, like E S & S, has had its share of disgruntled employees over the years, some of whom were suspected in the devastating leak of 13,000 internal company memos to the Internet in August, 2003-- directly on the heels of the ‘New Zealand files’ release by Harris. These widely read memos, dated from 1999 to 2003, confirmed the fact that the company and its work force were aware of the system’s software flaws and “bugs” at the same time that they were putting them out and into the machines.
In addition, it was clear that they knew they were selling improperly tested and uncertified software. The leak not only revealed that one could hack into GEMS tabulator systems, change votes, and erase all their activity on the audit log—it exposed for the first time that Diebold itself was aware of it.
Resignations have been turned in with complaints ranging from insufficient product testing, fraud, poor product development and company mismanagement, to internal politics. (Resignation letter here. )
The leaks also revealed the easy access to audit logs without passwords, allowing anyone to get into the tabulator’s vote count. At least two sets of memos mention using cell phones to intercept and to transmit vote data
“No one would risk manipulating votes in an election, because it’s against the law and carries a heavy penalty.” -- David Bear, Diebold spokesman
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” -- Oscar Wilde
1) July 2003 -- The Johns Hopkins/Avi Ruben Test
Stanford Professor David Dill got a hold of Dr. Aviel (Avi) Rubin, Computer Science Professor and Technical Director of Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University and commissioned Rubin and his team of computer scientists from Johns Hopkins and Rice University to perform a study of Diebold Touch Screens using the cache of Bev Harris’s material from the Scoop.nz site. Their report resulted in 23 pages of raw indictment of Diebold product.
“It only took us a couple of hours to find very serious problems” --Dr. Avi Ruben.
Some of the test findings-- Voters can easily program their own smart cards to simulate valid cards - with no existing safety mechanisms in the software to prevent it; unlimited numbers of votes can be cast, without leaving a trace. Not only voters, but poll workers, vendor representatives or even janitors could take advantage of the same feature to alter the vote count. The machines can record a different vote than that which the voter believed he had cast without the voters’ knowledge. This would be accomplished by someone changing the Ballot Definition File - a file that the Hopkins tests claim to be woefully unprotected and easily alterable.
Rubin and team found that Diebold programmers had written the ‘key’ to unscramble the system’s encryption right into the code... remember-- that source code was leaked on the public FTP site for all to see. That same ‘key’ could unlock the data on every machine. Not unlike a bank assigning each customer the exact same PIN number. By Rubin’s own account, “We were looking at code that would not get a C-minus grade in an under- graduate computer-programming course. It’s so full of mistakes, misunderstandings and improper use of cryptography that it was obvious to us that the person who wrote this code had no training.” He adds, “Every use of cryptology in the Diebold code is flawed.”
The team’s final verdict----“Far below the most minimal security standards.”
The Rubin/ Hopkins test offered hard evidence from recognized academic experts, using the actual code of the systems involved, and the ensuing bad publicity for Diebold did not go unnoticed.
At the time of this test, the summer of 2003, Georgia had already voted on 22,000 Diebold Touch Screens in its 2002 startling upset Gubernatorial election, the state of Maryland had just signed a $56 Million dollar contract with Diebold, and California was poised to purchase thousands more units for its state.
Diebold’s Response: A series of letters fired off to Johns Hopkins University requesting a retraction of their report, and threatening to take action against its authors.
“These arguments are a little goofy. It’s a theoretical thing, that’s what academics do. There’s a process of review.” -- Mike Limas, COO Diebold
2) September, 2003 -- SAIC test commissioned by state of Maryland
Following the Rubin/ Hopkins study, the Governor and Maryland General Assembly decided to order multiple independent assessments to probe further into the damning results. They contracted SAIC (Scientific Applications International Corporation) to test the AccuVote-TS touch screens’ software and the tabulating systems that count and print the final tally. Remember that GEMS tabulates the Accuvote Touch Screen DRE’s.
As a government contractor, SAIC’s main customer is the Federal Government of the United States. They contract with the Department of Energy, the Department of Treasury, but mostly the Department of Defense. They are involved in joint ventures with Bechtel, Northrop Grumman, and Rolls Royce. SAIC reported its most recent revenues at $7.2 Billion, but confesses they are aiming to reach the $12 Billion mark.
Their former President & COO is Admiral Bill Owens, who served as Senior Military aid to Dick Cheney and to Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, most recently at Carlyle Group with George H. W. Bush. Retired Army General Wayne Downing, who was recently Chief counter terrorism expert at NSC, sat on the Board. Master of Intelligence acronyms, Bobby Ray Inman - former CIA Director, NSA, and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) - was on board. And, as if that weren’t enough inside influence, Robert Gates, former CIA Director, veteran of Iran-Contra scandal, and Bush family friend, also served on the Board of SAIC.
Robert Gates was with the CIA for 27 years. Since 1999, he maintains a position on the board of TRW’s Cogent voting machine company, as well as holding the post as Dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University. Incidentally, both Gates and Admiral Owens moved from SAIC to VoteHere (see "Companies", "VoteHere" chapter), where Gates sat on the Board, and Owens was the Chairman, before his recent departure to Daimler-Chrysler.
SAIC Senior VP, at the time, Benjamin Haddad, was Cabinet Secretary and Chief of Staff to former Governor of California, Pete Wilson (R). Haddad also served as Chief of Staff to Republican California Congressman Bill Lowery.
Now, given their seeming... shall we say—“Republican-Bush leanings” as a company, one would imagine that SAIC would come down relatively easy on their equally “Republican-Bush leaning” brethren - Diebold. Prepare for surprise.
The SAIC Report found a total of 328 “security weaknesses” in Diebold’s Electronic Voting equipment, 26 of which they determined to be “critical.” These findings prompted them to conclude that the upcoming Maryland elections were at a “high risk of compromise.” SAIC also offered that many of the systems’ problems could be avoided by not connecting the machines to a network
Despite the scathing test reports - both California and Maryland went forward with their Diebold purchases and lived to rue the day. Angry Citizens litigated (pdf) against the state of Maryland for ignoring all three studies and purchasing the faulty equipment anyways, despite ample red flag warnings. And Diebold settled their lawsuit with California to the tune of $2.6 Million.
Diebold’s Response: – to this second condemnation of their systems.
Spokesman Mark Radke, as if speaking from Through the Looking Glass, simply says: "It’s obvious that the security of our system is very, very sound, and voters should feel comfortable using our terminals.”
I really hope they pay that guy well...
3) Jan. 29, 2004 -- RABA-Red Team test commissioned by Maryland
Maryland Officials, understandably jittery following the Rubin and SAIC findings, decided to give it one last stab before their March 2004 elections. They would commission a top team of eight professional computer security experts to attempt a “penetration,” or live hack, into Diebold’s systems at RABA Technologies’ headquarters in Maryland. Four of the eight selected were former NSA (National Security Agency) agents. Spurred on by the challenge, the “Red Team” staged their “attack” on a live simulation of an election with 16,000 Diebold Touch Screen machines wherein they succeeded in: (A) the interception of votes that were sent by Modem to the County server (GEMS), (B) the changing of those vote totals, and then (C) the instant transmission of the new ‘altered vote count’ off to the tabulators--- all without detection.
The Red Team was “shocked” at the lack of security they discovered in the Diebold code.
Computer Science Professor, William Arbaugh, one participant in the RABA test, had this to say about the systems, “We could’ve done anything we wanted to... change the ballots before the election, change the votes during the election, vote numerous times instead of once...” They even guessed the passwords of the smart cards correctly, gaining instant access to the card’s contents. The crack hack team estimated that these maneuvers could all be executed by someone with a pocket-sized PDA. They could “upload, download, alter and execute election files”-- all with great ease, and all in very little time.
As for their assessment of the GEMS program, they found Dell PC’s running Windows 2000 without Microsoft security upgrades (that even most home users of Microsoft OS would have known to install) - all of which left the servers susceptible to viruses, worms, or even remote attack by phone. In their attack, the Team was able to exploit the same vulnerability that the 2003 Blaster Worm had exploited, and thereby gain total control of the GEMS server. They found GEMS servers to be lacking in “even the most rudimentary security measures”-- firewalls, anti-virus programs, exposing it to malicious attack. They found incomplete implementation of the SSL security protocol that left GEMS exposed to “man in the middle” attacks.
The testers were able to change votes from a remote location, by using a modem and exploiting one of the now famous software flaws.
The former NSA scientists concluded, “A voter can be deceived into thinking he is voting for one candidate when, in fact, the software is recording the vote for another candidate.” This was indeed one of the anomalies voters encountered on November 2, 2004.
The RABA tests only further confirmed the Hopkins/ Rubin report and the SAIC tests, resulting in Diebold Election systems earning a failing grade of “F” from the Red Team.
“You are more secure buying a book from Amazon than you are uploading your results to a Diebold server.” -- Red Team technician.
They recommended 9 basic security fixes to Diebold, starting with a thorough rewrite of the systems source code. The Red Team insisted that the introduction of “voter verifiable paper receipts” was an absolute necessity prior to the November 2004 elections.
Diebold’s Response: President Bob Urosevich trumps them all with this hyperbolic shard of shameless promotion,
“The findings in the SAIC and RABA reports both confirm the accuracy and security of Maryland’s voting procedures and our voting systems as they exist today... Touch Screen voting from Diebold Election Systems has evolved to be the most secure and accurate election system in the history of our democracy.”
What is this man smoking?
The three little tests findings were unanimous. Diebold voting systems were not ready for prime time, much less for a historically close Presidential election.
Refresher: This is a good time to remember the chapter on Jeff Dean -- the felon who designed the back door entry into GEMS tabulators allowing such facile vote manipulation. Then, to consider the internal Diebold memos Harris discovered in 2003--showing us that Mr. Dean was not the ‘lone gunman,’ sneaking around behind the scenes unraveling democracy single-handedly... But, in fact, the memos revealed that the system’s security flaws were well known within the company, yet nothing was done.
Now, add on the three tests’ results, the Spillane and “Cape Cod” GEMS defect discoveries published by Harris, which only served to confirm to the tech world and election officials what was already known at Diebold - their systems were indeed “tamper friendly” if not entirely hackable.
Lastly, armed with all this information--we need to revisit the "Why?" Chapter and ponder the above questions more deeply...
“--Anytime people don’t understand a new technology, they question it until they get used to it.” -- David Bear, Diebold spokesperson, after the tests results were made known.
Hundreds of computer scientists, PhD’s, IT Auditors, Professors and programmers - and the problem is simply that they don’t “understand a new technology?”
In both February and May of 2005, a team of computer experts including Dr. Herb Thompson and Harri Hursti got together with Black Box Voting and, under the supervision of officials, were challenged to attempt a hack into a real Diebold system in Tallahassee, Florida - utilizing the same actual setup that was used on Election Day, November 2, 2004. Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho was bold enough to invite the savvy team to come down and sleuth the software for security holes.
By this time, CompuWare, IT services industry leader, had already confirmed Bev Harris’s previously published information on GEMS’ glaring defects in their own blistering report of August 18, 2004, ironically commissioned by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. In the report, CompuWare Corporation expressed grave concerns regarding Diebold software, and rated GEMS central tabulators as "high, high, high " security risks. So I wonder why Ohio’s Blackwell felt the need to hold this report so close to the vest for four long months? The August, 2004 report was not distributed by Blackwell until January, 2005-- Just after the 2004 Presidential election...Maybe he just got busy...
Meanwhile, back in sunny Florida, the ace attack teams were employing various “hacking” techniques in an effort to break into the real Diebold election system. And all of them proved successful....highly successful. Placing Diebold election systems, yet again, precariously near the tippy top of the ever-expanding “Not To Be Relied Upon” list.
Dr. Thompson initiated two different types of GEMS Virtual Basic Script attacks, while Hursti conducted three kinds of Diebold memory card attacks. Thompson’s methods resulted in altering the “election” by 100,000 votes in each of the two exploits, and starkly revealed to the team a 100% vulnerability of particularly absentee ballots to similar hacks. His attacks also exposed the Remote Access Server (RAS) usage with GEMS tabulation systems. These fatal flaws that Thompson exposed in GEMS central tabulators, were the very ones Blackwell of Ohio was informed of by the CompuWare report from the previous year.
In altering the poll tapes, Harri Hursti changed the “vote reports” in two of his hacks, while the actual vote data itself remained unchanged. Hursti’s third hack stuffed the ballot boxes with votes, thereby altering the actual vote data as well. It was determined that Hursti’s first hacks, when used in conjunction with a Thompson attack, could allow a malicious hacker to alter the votes right at the polling place, if he so desired.
The prevailing methods resulted in: altering the election, left no trace in the central tabulator program, or in the audit log, and took altogether less than five minutes to achieve. The software had made NO record of the entry or the data changes made to the vote totals. The software, in effect, had snuffed out the smoking gun.
Some of the systems hacks were reported to be “unsophisticated enough that many high school students would be able to achieve it.” The team declared that this same “exercise” in entirety could have been executed on November 2 -- by one single person.
Black Box Voting, the non-profit that ran the test and published a report on the Internet, pointed to the findings as proof of an elections system clearly vulnerable to corruption.
But, much to everyone's surprise, Florida state election officials, where the tests were conducted, pooh-poohed the test process and dismissed the group's report which was subsequently published on the Black Box Voting blog. The same election officials we have covered extensively in this report. From Jenny Nash, the mouthpiece of Secretary of State Glenda Hood (as in Katherine Harris’ replacement and friend of Jeb Bush), here we have a priceless absolutist stance that covers a lot of ground:
"Information on a blog site is not viable or credible," said Nash, a spokeswoman for the Department of State. Well, then... I guess that clears that up. Good to know. Meanwhile, Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections, posted the summary of the test results on the county website at http://www.leonfl.org/elect/SpecialReport.htm -- obviously unaware that he had thus rendered it incredible and unviable in so doing...
In another recent case, one group of County election officials was unable to cooperate with Bev Harris of Black Box Voting in meeting her request for information, because they couldn’t access the logs in their own systems. Why? They didn’t know the password. Bev asked if they would like for her to hack their password to find it. Sure! It didn’t take long at all. Reason being, the password was… “diebold”.
Why does this suddenly make me fear for the safety of our Country’s founding documents?
The Old Bottom Line
Some analysts estimate Diebold controls about 50% of the electronic voting machine market, which could generate from 1 to 2 billion dollars revenue over the next few years. Presently, the Elections Division only accounts for approximately 3% of Diebold’s entire business, or just under $100 million. However, in their most recent year over year financial summary, the Election Systems Division is showing an over 60% decline in revenues from 2004. Every other product and service the company offers showed robust percentage increases over the same period. 2004 revenues for the entire company were $2.4 billion. See their most recent NASDAQ 3 month chart... freefallin’.
With 67% of the American ATM market locked up by Diebold, a May, 2004 article details the company’s first ATM orders streaming in from the Middle East, Russia, and China. Diebold recently purchased an ATM plant in Goa, India, and they currently have their own manufacturing facility in Shanghai as well.
It’s said they are seeking to greatly expand their Election systems markets in 2005 over and above the 37 states they serviced in November, 2004, and they are presently bidding aggressively for voting machine orders in Illinois, Ohio and Utah among others. As of this writing, Butler County, Ohio has just selected Diebold Accuvote TSx touch screens with voter verifiable paper audit trails for its 240,000 registered voters. Mississippi has also gone Diebold, contracting with the company July 12, 2005 for 5000 glowing AccuVote Touch Screens, soon to be dappled across the Delta country. And, amazingly, California is even teetering on the brink of reordering Diebold back to their state...
Diebold’s ”Chief optimist”-- Mark Radke said attacks on electronic voting - which focused for many months on his Ohio-based company - were proven wrong, “---because of the terrific success we had in November.” -- The Plain Dealer on-line
“I’ve come up with a new ice cream flavor: Fudged Election Confection.” -- Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
Sequoia Voting Systems is responsible for counting one in three American votes, and has an intriguing history of ownership. For our most recent National elections, its equipment was present in Nevada (the only state to provide paper trails in 2004), Washington D.C., Washington State, some of California and counting four Counties in Florida, including Palm Beach, with ES&S counting the bulk of the State. Per Popular Mechanics, your votes on Sequoia Systems are not encrypted and their servers can be hacked. Per Attorney Paul Leto’s Snohomish report, Sequoia requires that its machines be plugged in, which permits outside manipulation of the vote. The central tabulators are said to use a Windows based systems as well, but not Microsoft Access. The Sequoia Pacific 400C also known as the IV_C Central Optical Scan is a PC based unit that serves as the tabulator as well and can be networked. Their Precinct Optical Scanner (Sequoia Pacific Eagle POS) has an optional modem.
Until recently, owned by London based “De La Rue Cash Systems” which is ironically-- the world’s largest commercial security printer and papermaker; printing 150 currencies and checks internationally, including American Express Traveler’s Checks. Again, where are our paper trail verifications from these top three companies - each of them certainly bearing ample credentials to produce receipts?: Credit Card company executives running one, ATM manufacturers run another, and now, actual paper printers own the third! To be fair, Sequoia was the ONLY company to provide any type of paper trail in November, and that benefit went solely to the Silver State of Nevada. Credit given where credit’s due. De La Rue’s parent company, Madison Dearborn, is a partner of the Carlyle Group—an investment firm which until very recently employed former President George H. W. Bush... In the interest of being fair and balanced, a 2001 study reported that, for that year at least, Sequoia was the one company whose executives contributed slightly more money to Democrats than to Republicans.
From a Sequoia press release dated March 9, 2005, it appears that De La Rue has quietly just pulled out of the election business altogether, and that Sequoia has been acquired by another company—out of Boca Raton, Florida, Smartmatic Automated Election Systems (SAES)—described as involved in “device networking.” Smartmatic boasts that in 2004 they “recorded 16 million votes in Latin America” with their election systems, including the Venezuela Presidential Recall referendum of August 2004. Their claim is that they transmitted all the votes in one minute- “one-way data transmission using public phone, cellular or satellite” and the tally was instant. This was the Chavez replacement for ES&S, and they used DRE machines with a paper trail! With offices located in Venezuela, Mexico, Taiwan and Barbados, per their website, this newly formed team hopes to provide global election assistance to “emerging democracies” as well as established ones. (Wonder if Chavez studies mergers and acquisitions?)
Sequoia is a NASDAQ public company, and it looks like some creative bookkeeping in 1995 earned the company a Securities and Exchange Commission visit, replete with a complaint filed against them. The case states that three employees were engaged in a fraudulent scheme over a two-year period to inflate revenues and income in reports filed with the SEC.
Shadowy History
“As one of the world’s most respected and reliable manufacturers, Sequoia backs its solutions with the comprehensive election experience and unmatched service ethic of its industry-leading professionals.” -- Sequoia Website
Per Daniel Hopsicker, Sequoia began as American Voting Machine under control of stockholders in Rockwell, a Defense contractor in the 1960’s. Founder and CEO Lloyd Dixon resigned in 1973, and later went to prison after being indicted by NY Federal Grand Jury for bribing Buffalo Election Officials. The early years of the company saw them fined for bribery of both Texas & Arkansas Election Officials as well. This might perhaps come under the category of “unmatched service ethic” touted in their above quote...
Sequoia’s Touch Screen equipment had been rejected by New York in the 1990’s - reason given was a lack of security protection against fraud. The Manhattan Commissioner of Elections who fought hard and won against procuring Sequoia, Douglas Kellner, ended up purchasing instead-- Georgia’s older lever machines discarded after Diebold had moved in and blanketed that state. An efficient example of recycling.
The 1990’s were a wild and wooly time in the election world. New methods of not only voting --- but of counting were surfacing and revolutionizing the industry. And with that, new methods of vote fraud were cropping up faster than a white hat hacker could keep tabs on them. One of the hotbeds of election mischief seems to be the Big Easy-- New Orleans, Louisiana. During the 1990’s, five separate candidates in Louisiana filed lawsuits following their elections, alleging wrongdoing.
In 1994, New Orleans got a sneak peek at the havoc that would later be wreaked upon multitudes of voters by the fickle new DRE/ Touch Screen machines. Susan Barnecker was running for a local City Council seat against the reputedly mob-connected Nick Gambalucca. There was a Gambling Proposition on the ballot. This seems to repeatedly be the case in instances of suspected vote fraud. It’s the apparent red flag of election “irregularities.” In this case, Harrah’s was seeking to build a new Casino in downtown New Orleans, and all Susan Barnecker wanted was a City Council position.
She was pegged to win, and did not. But, Ms. Barnecker knew there was a law that every candidate may avail themselves of within three days following an election, if they distrusted the outcome. They can inspect the machines for themselves.
And she did just that, accompanied by a videographer for backup. Sure enough - three out of four times when she pressed her name on the Touch Screen, the other candidate, Gambalucca, electronically received her vote. On multiple machines. And she got it all on tape. But the exercise did not serve to help Ms. Barnecker in her career or in her life. Her life was threatened daily after the incident. “60 Minutes” filmed an interview with her, chronicling her story – but inexplicably never ran the piece.
One other curiosity about this 1994 election. About two weeks prior to the vote, again-- according to investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker-- the Supervisor of Elections in New Orleans was discovered dead, behind a garbage dumpster—his death declared to be a suicide. His name was Tony Giambelluca, and he was the one entrusted with the keys to the warehouse containing the voting machines. Now, that’s enough to make anyone a conspiracy theorist...
The US Senate race of 1996 in Louisiana was hotter than a Bogue Chitto Bayou on a July afternoon. Democrat Mary Landrieu was running against Republican Woody Jenkins in a fiercely contested battle. Jenkins lost by about 5000 votes, but he believed he lost by election fraud. Oh, and did I mention there was also a Gambling Referendum on this ballot with about $12 million behind it?
They inspected 898 voting machines and discovered the machines had been ‘opened’. Access to 790 machines was denied to Jenkins. His request to see the voter registration list was also denied. Some maintain there were some 30,000 illegal votes discovered.... An extensive, in-depth, one-year long investigation followed which resulted in uncovering an even bigger fish---the story that would put Louisiana on the map for election scandals. The Jerry Fowler case.
Former Pro Football player, Jerry Fowler was the Louisiana Commissioner of Elections, and as such, he was responsible for procuring the State’s election equipment for twenty years. During the mid 1990’s --when Barnecker and Jenkins were busy contesting their respective elections-- Fowler was busy spending a lot of time at Atlantic City’s Harrah’s Casino... and a lot of money. The ex-athlete was in the Superbowl of gambling debt.
Turns out Sequoia’s South East Representative, Pasquale “Rocco” Ricci of New Jersey, had just the solution to Fowler’s money problems. A deal was struck wherein Fowler would order Sequoia election systems for Louisiana from Ricci, paying for it, with the state’s money—at a far higher price than the actual cost-- by as much as 8 million dollars.. Rocco Ricci would then kickback the overage to Fowler. And Fowler would then assure Ricci and Sequoia that their voting machines would “pay off” in the elections.
It was a Byzantine scheme in which front companies were buying and selling election equipment amongst themselves with appropriate markups. Ricci also happened to own Independent Voting Machine Services of New Jersey. Election Services, Uni-lect and Electec Inc. all joined in to help ‘launder’ the kickbacks.
This arrangement went on for 10 years... It wouldn’t be until 1999 when the story broke, and 2000 when it hit the courts, but Woody Jenkins, all the same, had to feel at least partially vindicated by the outcome. With some deft public relations maneuvering, Sequoia managed, by and large, to keep its name out of the press; with the “dummy front companies” being named instead.
Sequoia’s Regional Manager, Phil Foster and “Rocco” Ricci were indicted for bribing Fowler to the tune of around $8-10 million over a decade. And that was taxpayer’s money. Ricci pled guilty to “suborning Democracy in the state of Louisiana” and received a surprisingly lenient sentence... the Martha Stewart style rap of a one year “home detention.” Not so lucky, Phil Foster got over four years in prison for “conspiracy to commit money laundering and malfeasance.” In all, 22 people were indicted – nine of whom pleaded guilty.
To complicate matters, Jerry Fowler seemed to have forgotten to pay his taxes during his whirlwind gambling spree. He pled guilty to nine counts, including tax evasion, and is currently serving a five year sentence in Federal Prison.
Ricci—no worse for the wear after home detention, and evidently missing the Big Easy—bought himself a second home. The Jimmy Swaggart estate in Louisiana.
“Sequoia Snafus“
“Our tamperproof products, including the AVC Edge® and the AVC Advantage®, are sought after from coast to coast for their accuracy and reliability. And our installation team is second to none, having managed thousands of electronic elections for 14 years in 16 states.”
2002 Palm Beach County, Florida - Two losing candidates were prompted to sue after Sequoia Touch Screens, Pacific AVC’s, experienced significant glitches.
California former Secretary of State Bill Jones (R), praised Touch Screens in 2001 and sponsored a $200 million bond measure for the state to purchase e-voting machinery from Sequoia as well as ES&S. When he left office in 2003, to be replaced by Kevin Shelley, his professional life took a curious turn. He became a consultant for Sequoia Systems and a GOP Senate candidate at the same time.
October 2003 - Sequoia software is found online, like Diebold’s had been only a matter of months previously. From the Wired News site:
“The security breach means that anyone with a minimal amount of technical knowledge could see how the code works and potentially exploit it.”
“Peter Neumann, lead computer scientist at the Stanford Research Institute, said the exposed code could allow someone to plant a Trojan Horse in the system's compiler -- the program that translates the code for use by the computer -- that would be undetectable to anyone reading the code.”
“The files on the server also revealed that the Sequoia system relies heavily on Microsoft software components, a fact the company often has been coy about discussing since Microsoft software is a frequent target of hackers.”
The source who discovered the unprotected server with the Sequoia code said that the files included Visual Basic script, a script that reputedly can be altered with great speed and ease.
In June 2004, New Jersey elections, tabulators couldn’t read Sequoia’s AVC Edge machine’s smart cards. They showed only zero’s...
Louisiana, November, 2004 - Despite rampant machine malfunctions (200 complaints of machinery problems) and not enough ballots available - Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office reports “minimal problems.”
Nevada, 2004 - Used Sequoia AVC Touch Screens in many Counties. In two of them it seems that residents weren’t much interested in voting for President this year. Ten thousand voters went to the polls to vote locally and left the Presidential vote blank, according to the software. Just like the ES&S cases cited earlier. Citizens contested but the Secretary of State refused to consider the complaint.
Washington, November 2004 - Voters in Snohomish County, in at least four polling precincts encounter problems with Touch Screens showing opposite candidate from whom they had voted for.
“So while the national media focuses on problems involving companies that have only recently entered the touch screen arena, Sequoia's customers from Palm Beach County, Florida to the suburban Seattle county of Snohomish, Washington continue to enjoy the accolades that result from having carefree, accurate, electronic elections in partnership with our seasoned team of dedicated technicians and former election administrators.” -- From Sequoia’s website.
April 2005 - The Raw Story, on-air radio program invites guests - Attorneys Paul R. Leto and Randy Gordon, who are suing Sequoia in Snohomish County, Washington.
The story began with attorney Leto and Jeffrey Hoffman, PhD, conducting a careful, systematic study of counties using electronic versus paper voting systems. To avoid the cross-county, cross-party discrepancies of previous studies, they conducted their studies from within the same counties. The results were alarming. Across the board, the voters using electronic systems - in this case Sequoia systems - favored Republicans by a large margin. The partisan differences discovered were noteworthy.
They then researched the contract between Sequoia and Snohomish and found paragraph #34 of interest. It states that should any 3rd party (i.e. voter, public citizen) subpoena Sequoia or the County Election officials, both parties then agree to “cooperate with each other----“ In other words, they are agreeing in advance to fight together against any voter or citizen that should come up against them legally, for any reason.
As in most of the Country now, the votes in Snohomish are counted in secret using proprietary code owned by private corporations claiming them to be “trade secrets.” The attorneys felt it to be unconstitutional to outsource the handling and counting of our votes to private companies – outside the government- who refuse to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Armed with the evidence, they delivered their report to State Election Officials with hopes of discussing improved election integrity and reform for the area. They received no response. The County did nothing. Leto decided to file suit against Sequoia based on the Constitution, arguing that the Sequoia contract alters the right of the citizens to an open and transparent election. Mr. Gordon iterates, “The right to vote is fundamental. Why? Because it is protective of all other rights provided by a government.” People of the State do not yield their sovereignty to those that serve them (as in “Public Servants”). The case is ongoing...
Triad Systems equipment was one of the most important to the state of Ohio in 2004, with its Tabulators counting 41 of its 88 Counties, and its voting machines representing 40% of Ohio’s equipment, followed by ES& S. Together, they counted 80% of Ohio’s votes. Triad also manufactures the punch-card voting systems and computer tallying for them, largely used in Ohio this past November.
By now, if you’ve been following along, it probably won’t come as any shocking revelation that the owner of Triad, Todd Rapp, is a generous donor to.... the Republican Party, as well as to President Bush’s campaign. Todd is also the software writer for Triad’s widely used central tabulators. Like Diebold, Triad also has their very own company technicians present on Election Day to run their Tabulators... their vote counting programs. Another in-house operation.
Triad received a flurry of bad press when Sherole Eaton, Deputy Director of Elections for Hocking County, Ohio, testified to the tampering of the tabulators by a Triad employed technician, who visited their offices unexpected on December 10, 2004-- after the election, but before the recount effort. Eaton expressed initial hesitation to tell her story as she feared she would lose her job. She eventually was replaced and is now seeking reinstatement based upon whistleblower protections.
Per the affidavit, the Triad representative popped in uninvited. He claimed to be there ostensibly to answer any legal questions regarding the upcoming recount. No one had reported any equipment service needs to the company or any legal queries they might have for the ...ahem...’technician’. The man, Michael Barbian Jr, then headed to the Tabulator in the back room, took a peek and cited that a bad battery had caused a loss of data. He began disassembling the computer and replacing its parts. It appears the technician was unprepared, as he borrowed a screwdriver from the clerk. Then he asked which of the County’s precincts was going to be recounted - and they told him, at which point he went back and performed more modifications to the Tabulation computer.
The Triad representative advised that they post a “cheat sheet” on the wall - something that wouldn’t call attention to itself - he suggested it be made to look like everyday employee information, but it would be in fact a series of numbers that would have been otherwise too difficult to memorize. These would be the numbers that they needed to arrive at-- so that the preliminary hand recount would perfectly match the Tabulator count, after which point they then “wouldn’t have to do a full hand recount.” The people involved in the hand count would then only need to report these numbers from the “cheat sheet,” regardless of what the actual count ended up being. Why would Mr. Barbian, Jr. care whether or not the election officials had to do a full recount or not in order to verify the votes?
The Triad computer/ legal specialist/ technician/ helper announced that there would be “no charge” for the visit. Just another friendly election vendor offering a free service call.
Conyers the Tireless, has taken this on as well, claiming that Triad Rep. Barbian has violated both State and Federal laws, requesting that the machinery be immediately impounded to prevent further tampering. He also stated he had heard that Triad officials had been intervening similarly in other counties as well; minimally Greene and Monroe for starters. It is a felony in Ohio to tamper with or destroy election records or machines. Barbian, Jr. may have just joined the ranks of fellow felons in the dizzying world of the election industry.
From their website, Hart InterCivic’s eSlate Electronic Voting System is “one of the most widely used electronic voting systems in America”… But then, it seems all the companies are claiming that. Again, per the website, since the system’s introduction to the market in 2000, they have sold units to jurisdictions representing over 5 million registered voters, claiming that 9 states used eSlate in the November 2, 2004 election. (Jurisdictions in Texas, Colorado, California, North Carolina, Washington, Hawaii, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.) They also boast that they print “millions of ballots.”
Neil McClure is VP and Strategic Technology Officer of Hart’s Election Solutions Group, Founder of Worldwide Election Systems, which was acquired by Hart InterCivic in 1999. McClure is responsible for the development of eSlate DRE “voting solution.”
Yet another Texas election firm, this one in Austin. One of the principal investors was Stratford Capital Partners, LP - Limited Partners include Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Equity Fund II. The Hicks portion being Tom Hicks – the man who purchased the Texas Rangers from.... well, yes-- George Bush again-- in 1999 for $250 million, representing about three times more than Bush had paid for them 10 years earlier. Stratford Capital Partners are also heavily invested in Clear Channel.
Initial funding for Hart, when they acquired Worldwide Election Systems ($3.5 million in 1999), came from Triton Ventures, a subsidiary of Triton Energy which is a subsidiary of Amerada Hess oil firm. The second tier of funding was provided by Richard Salwen’s RES Partners. Salwen, former Dell Computers VP is a major contributor to....well, look at that—George Bush and the Republican party.... again! He is popular in the election industry...
Hart, like Diebold and ES&S, has also experienced the whistleblower employee phenomenon according to the BlackBox Voting site. One of their own computer programmers wrote Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in July 2004, stating that the equipment Hart sent Ohio for security testing was NOT programmed the same as the one that the voters would be using. The employee’s three page letter accused the company of illegalities from fraud to negligence and misleading conduct.
VoteHere, a newer player in the election industry arena, began with start-up money of double-digit millions from both Cisco and Compaq, giving them an early nod from the technology community. They offer technology and software for electronic and online / Internet voting, and have run elections from Sweden and England all the way to Alaska and beyond.
I really wanted to like this relatively smaller election company situated in Bellevue, Washington. First, because they did the unprecedented—they published their source code openly. No proprietary code, which is a step in the right direction. Secondly, they provide what is an attractive sounding package of e-voting with an encrypted paper trail that can be taken home - along the lines of an ATM receipt. Thirdly, because Information Technology Voting maven Dr. Aviel Rubin was at one point involved with them.
So far so good. Now for the real test...are they closely related or affiliated with any one political party?
Let’s take a look at the leadership team. They appear to be a company in flux, as the leadership from the past two years doesn’t match up with the current roster. For background, the previous Chairman of the Board was Admiral Bill Owens, again whom, you may remember, was also President of SAIC, and Senior Military Assistant to both Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney when they were Secretaries of Again-- Defense. Intelligence. Owens has since resigned from VoteHere and moved over to join Daimler Chrysler’s Board of Directors, to the sound of collective sighs from election reform activists everywhere.
In a December 2003 press release, VoteHere announced the change of Chairman of the Board and an addition to their executive team: Ralph Munro, longtime Washington Secretary of State was chosen to replace Admiral Bill Owens.
Munro was a key supporter of Republican (sore loser) Dino Rossi during the recounts in the Governor’s race against Christine Gregoire. His suggestion at the time of Gregoire’s pronounced win was that it may be time to “toss out all the votes” and redo the election. Sounds like a little whining to me? He is currently serving on the Carter/ Baker Commission as well.
Former CIA Director (Defense, Intelligence) and current Dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M, Robert Gates was also reputed to be on the VoteHere Board from the 2004 documents. And Republican Senator Slade Gordon’s former Press Secretary, Deborah Brunton, was listed in 2004 as a VoteHere VP of Public Affairs--- she seems absent from the new group as well.
So far... It’s leaning markedly to the right and mirroring the political profiles of the other companies.
Moving to the present-- the 2005 incarnation of VoteHere Leadership Team per the company website—where even the name of this young company is changed to Dategrity. They are branching out beyond electronic voting and have taken on a new, former Microsoft associate to help guide the diversification.
Today’s VoteHere/ Dategrity founder and President Jim Adler is a cryptography expert who came from an engineering background, where he worked at General Dynamics Space Systems; currently a division of Lockheed Martin. Again, Defense.... Intelligence. Defense...Intelligence.
Their chief scientist, Andrew Neff hails from IBM Research Department and appears to have an extremely impressive mathematics resume, in that he is listed as having solved the problem of “determining the optimal complexity of solving non-linear univariate equations”, which I, for one, was relieved to hear about, as that one has been bugging me for years...
Next in line is Brian O’Connor, the VP of Sales. His previous positions were at Sequoia Voting Systems, and Diebold (when it was Global), and Danaher election companies. OK then.... There’s one more guy left ...maybe there’s still hope.
As VP of Finance and Administration, we find K.C. Watkins, who came toVoteHere from a seventeen year stint at Accenture.
Oh well.
Last year VoteHere announced its partnership with Advanced Voting Solutions of Frisco Texas, run by Howard Van Pelt, who used to run Global Elections, which was bought out by Diebold, and who used to be CEO of Diebold, and who used to be President of the scandal ridden Shoup Voting Solutions which, as all good election companies do when bad press visits them, changed its name to Advanced Voting Solutions. Officers of Shoup Voting were indicted for allegedly bribing politicians in—of all places-- Florida, according to the San Francisco Business Times. In 1979, Ransom Shoup himself was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to an FBI inquiry into a lever machine-counted election in Philadelphia. Shoup got a three-year suspended sentence.
The election industry is oh so cozy...
Van Pelt had previously spoken out against paper trail verification citing that the printers could “break down” and therefore it was not a viable idea. This argument has gained a good deal of traction in the status quo crowd.
Some problems were reported in 2003 by voters using Advanced’s WINvote TouchScreens in Fairfax County. Problems where the voter would press the X by the candidate’s name to vote, and the X would just disappear making it impossible to vote for that particular candidate. Repeatedly. Along with that glitch, there was the classic overload of the main server...the Tabulator, when the polls closed in the evening and the precincts were transmitting their votes into the County. The Witching Hour. More than half of precincts resorted to using the telephone to post results. Here we go again
What did Mr. Van Pelt have to say about it? "In every single election in the world that has ever been run, none has run perfectly," he said. Ah yes, the favorite ‘imperfection’ argument.
And no election equipment company’s story would be complete without its token whistleblower coming forth to tell all. VoteHere is no exception to the rule. Their former test engineer, Dan Spillane, had identified over 250 security flaws in theVoteHere system and was subsequently fired. He must have missed the memo that flaws and substandard test results are supposed to be held in utmost secrecy in the election industry.... He filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the company in 2001.
Accenture has 75,000 employees in 47 countries. Their 2002 revenues were recorded to be $12 billion. They hold $1 billion is US Government contracts. Steve Ballmer- AKA “Bad Boy Ballmer” of Microsoft- is listed on the Board of Directors
After a fiasco attempt at internet voting for the Military absentee vote in 2000, the Pentagon needed to find some new faces for 2004—a company capable of delivering within a reasonable budget. Let’s back up a few years. In 2000 the Pentagon initiated its Pilot Program-- VOI; Voting over the Internet, ostensibly for the troops overseas. The project was carried out by private contractor, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Inc. and the cost to the Pentagon was a mere $6.2 million. Problem was... it was only used by 84 service members. That came to a whopping $74,000 per voter. Not terribly cost effective by any accounting measures.
Around the same time, in 2000, a group called Anderson Consulting had branched off from the infamous Arthur Anderson (who had destroyed the evidence from the renowned “cooking of the books” for Enron.) The Anderson Consulting firm already had a lengthy and sordid history of contracting as a computer systems and network creation management company, primarily involved with governments’ welfare and social services departments.
Just a few eye opening examples of Anderson’s bidding processes over the years:
Texas: Contract went $63 million over the estimate New York: Bid of $100 million ends up costing $362 million and comes in 3 years late Nebraska: Job came in costing $24 million over estimate Virginia: 150% cost overrun New Brunswick: $60 million contract balloons to $144 million Ontario: Bid of $50-$70 million to overhaul the Province’s welfare system ends up at $180 million and then finalizes at $246 million. In order to pay Anderson’s inflated price, Ontario was forced to cut welfare payments to $355/ per child in poverty, and to fire many of its Social Service workers
Go here to see more on Anderson/ Accenture contract abuses
In January 2001, Anderson Consulting became Accenture, incorporating offshore in Bermuda. When asked why they had chosen Bermuda (a tax free haven) for their company, the answer was because they felt it was a “neutral” location, given that they conduct business with so many different foreign nations.
And speaking of neutral, Election.Com, a software firm out of New York, had a former Republican Vice Presidential candidate on its Board of Directors—Jack Kemp, and was also a business partner with Halliburton. In February 2001, the newly incorporated Accenture joined with Election.Com forging a partnership together with their stated goal being to, “deliver election solutions to governments worldwide.”
About 8 months later, Accenture and Landmark (a company owned by Halliburton) signed a business alliance. Landmark is the “world’s leading supplier of software and services for the upstream oil and gas industry”.
Now, back to the guys at the Pentagon seeking the new company to award the overseas Military vote to for the 2004 national election. The selection was obvious... Accenture and all its new friends and partners filled the bill nicely, and in 2002 they were given the absentee on-line Military voting contract.
Somewhere along the line Accenture (formerly Anderson) and their partner Election.Com ran into some financial difficulties. They were approached by Osan LTD in early 2003, prior to the Iraq War—who made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Osan quietly acquired 20 million preferred shares of Election.Com for $1.2 million, giving them 51.6% of the voting power and 3 out of 5 seats on the Board. Really quietly...
The investment group was comprised of what were described as “Saudi businessmen” whose identities would be protected by their remaining anonymous—unnamed or identified to anyone outside the company. Just another shining example of the transparency we’ve come to know and cherish in our democratic election processes ....especially for our troops about to deploy in massive numbers to the Middle East.
I won’t even comment on the whiz bang idea of on-line Internet voting for our service members overseas. One can only imagine the panoply of problems inherent therein without expounding further.
Within a matter of months after the Saudi purchase, the word leaked out that the voting company now had majority ownership by a small group of mystery Saudi nationals. Conflicting documentation placed Osan’s headquarters in Yemen, the Bin Laden home country, and not in Saudi Arabia.
A Press Release in summer of 2003 stated that “Accenture may have violated the U. S. Foreign Corruption Practices Act in the Middle East,” which prohibits bribery of foreign Government officials by Americans. Following the leak, there was some quick shuffling behind the scenes and in a matter of little to no time--- Accenture/ Election.com had performed its magic and made the cloaked Saudis or Yemenis disappear...Accenture/Election.com retained their contract to the Military overseas vote, which was, for the 2004 election, entirely digital and ballotless.
Anderson/ Accenture did leave one interesting legacy in their path. An invention created for the Ontario workers in the Social Services department. They fitted the Government workers with experimental tracking devices to monitor and record their activities during the day. The devices would beep several times per hour, at which point the worker was required to punch in a code indicating their activities at the time....reporting in. It didn’t go over so well in the Canadian province’s Social Services department, but I can foresee some future usage for it right here at home.
How about a tracking device attached to the vendors and their “technicians” or representatives who are working on and operating election equipment on Election Day?
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire (1694 - 1778)
The last minute decision to add this chapter was partially as a tribute to Mr. Athan Gibbs and his company—one of the few who really strove to inject total integrity into electronic voting systems, and partially to balance the tone of the previous company profiles. Not everyone in the election equipment business is criminal or corrupt. And lastly to show that it can be done.
Athan Gibbs grew up in Memphis in the ‘50s and ‘60s when the Civil Rights movement was reaching a critical peak. As a young man---seeing minorities struggle to exercise their right to vote, and at times be brutally beaten for doing so, his eyes were opened to the treachery of racism . As a young black man---the sights and sounds of that era would be profoundly etched on his memory forever. Later, married with a family of his own, Gibbs would show his daughter Angela pictures of the violence that blacks had faced in the South, so that she might be better educated about their own hard-won Civil Rights.
Athan had a self-described “passion for democracy”-- and for life. His work as an accountant and auditor for 30 years may have paid the bills, but it was his work as a Baptist Minister that filled his spirit. The walls of his office were filled with quotes:
“If you have faith, you have power.”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge”.
Bush V. Gore
Gibbs entire life would change with the 2000 election and ensuing recount effort in Florida. Glued to the TV for over one month... he would have his kids taping the recount for him while he worked, so as not to miss a minute. The kids said they’d be buying 20-tape packs in bulk at the local discount store to keep up with Dad’s requirements. And then one day-- it was halted. And the Supreme Court ruled, in favor of a Bush win. Gibbs had voted for Gore, but he was heartbroken because they’d stopped the vote counting in Florida. When he learned that the Florida black vote was ten times more likely to have been rejected, he became even more discouraged. The memories of Memphis flooded back and he knew that he had to do something. Later, he’d heard the Carnegie/Cal-Tech/ MIT study that determined that untold millions of votes were simply lost in that election. The accounting part of his brain kicked into gear. Gibbs set out to create an electronic voting system that would be foolproof, tamperproof and that would give every voter a paper record of their vote for verification of accuracy. He sought to invent one system that would effectively eliminate undervotes, overvotes and votes that go uncounted, and put an end to voter disenfranchisement. Friends and co-workers recount that he was driven with this dream, this burning passion to create an Election Solution.
And he would call that solution-- “TruVote”.
“The Perfect Solution”
This was no pie in the sky dream. Gibbs put up over $500,000 of his own money and got investors to pony up around $1,600,000 more. He began in 2001, worked feverishly, and by 2002 already had his first machine up and running and being marketed to Election Officials. With HAVA passing in October, 2002, his timing could not have been more propitious, because initially there was talk of mandatory paper trails for all electronic equipment funded by HAVA. Gibbs new TruVote machine had not one, but two paper verifications—One, under plexiglass in the machine that dropped into a lockbox after the voter approved the vote. And the other, a unique receipt, bearing a voter ID and PIN number that went home with the voter and could be used in case of audit. There was even an interactive Website where the individual voter could validate their vote when they got home and verify that it was recorded. And if they didn’t have a computer, they could use their touch-tone phone. Gibbs was on a roll—traveling the country demonstrating his equipment to enthusiastic crowds. The turning point came in 2003 when software giant Microsoft came on board and formed a strategic alliance with TruVote to assure its success. It seemed as if the hard work was finally going to pay off. In a surprise gesture of generosity, Microsoft waived all their testing fees for lab usage for Gibbs, which would normally run thousands of dollars per person. It was rumored that the new software developers on the TruVote project had addressed and corrected all the security issues raised that summer by the troubling Johns Hopkins University report on Diebold’s electronic systems. Winston Smith of Microsoft – “One of the very exciting aspects of TruVote is it was developed by an African-American male, and African-Americans were the most disenfranchised in the 2000 election. So for him to have a solution that meets the goals of democracy in American society is just an amazing story.” The story had legs. Microsoft representatives then hit the road with Athan Gibbs, helping to demonstrate the system to Election Officials. That was when the praise for TruVote grew to proportions not commonly found in the election industry (unless it’s coming from within the company’s own PR Department). TruVote, this feisty young upstart of a company, had become a real player in the shark-infested waters of the election industry giants-- Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, and Hart-- and was quietly nibbling away at the competition’s marketplace, one state at a time. New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt spoke with Gibbs about his new venture and felt it would complement the legislation he was introducing. About Gibbs he remarked, “He has an accountant’s mind and has thought about this in a very smart way.” Florida State Senator, Tony Hill exclaimed “TruVote System is head and shoulders above all other systems that I’ve seen....and I’ve seen them all!” Election Commissioners called it “the best, most comprehensive auditing system ever built to cast any vote in this world.” The Assistant Secretary of State of Georgia dubbed it-- “The perfect solution” and others simply said-- “I’ve never seen anything like it.” And it went uphill from there. In December, 2003 the Democratic National Convention was held in Orlando, Florida. TruVote Systems had already been State certified and approved for sale in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Ohio, while waiting to hear back from the states of California and Florida. They’d also just received their Federal certification, and entered into contract with NCR (National Cash Register) to manufacture for them. Gibbs’ demonstration of the system at the DNC in Orlando, again--met with rave reviews. Alabama State Senator, Charles Steel said, “Once American voters from any and all political persuasions know that a system like this exists, they’ll demand nothing less than a TruVote. We need to get this voting system before the ‘court’ of the American Public Opinion as soon as possible.” John Siegenthaler, of the National Commission on Election Reform (headed by Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford) stated, “You guys could set the standards for voting in America.” Nashville’s U. S. Representative Jim Cooper called TruVote, “--one of the most promising technologies in the world for fixing democracies.” --“This could be one of the greatest American Dream stories ever told. If this technology hits....it’s gonna hit big.”
None of these people were on the TruVote payroll...or even lobbyists for the company.
“If something should happen to me....”
In early 2004, the updated version of the two VVPAT model software was about to be fully tested and certified, and after that it looked like they’d be home free, just in time to fill States orders for the upcoming November Presidential elections. That February, in a moment of adrenaline induced anxiety, not unlike a mother’s fear for her newborn should something happen to herself, Gibbs asked his CFO, Adrienne Brandon, “If something should happen to me.... would you carry this on?” With his dream on the brink of realization... he needed to know. She assured him she would. A few weeks later, on March 12, 2004-- Athan Gibbs’ car was struck from behind on the Interstate 65 by an 18-wheel truck. His vehicle rolled over, landed on its roof-- killing Athan Gibbs at the age of 57, only weeks away from achieving a lifelong dream.
The day before his tragic accident, Athan Gibbs had called journalist Hazel Trice Edney, of the Wilmington Journal, and left a voice mail telling her, “The paper audit trail we pioneered is really hitting the forefront of the news right now. Many states are looking at requiring it“. He left a closing plea for her to call him about running the story. After an apparent flurry of calls to the press to continue to spread the word, not more than 10 minutes later, he redialed Ms. Edney again, who had returned and answered this time. Athan called to tell her he had just scheduled a very important conference call with National Newspaper Publishers Association’s (NNPA) News Service Editor-in-Chief, George E. Curry, and columnist Jim Clingman. Shortly thereafter, the conference call took place. An energized Gibbs told the press, “Jim, this thing is about to break! We’re right at the breakthrough now, but we need some national publicity on this system.”
The following morning, he would be dead.
Democracy’s Mr. Fix-It
At the memorial, held at the TruVote offices, Former U.S. Representative Bob Clement of Tennessee called Athan Gibbs “one of the finest people I’ve met in my life.” Others comments about his fierce tenacity and tireless energy abounded – some said they didn’t think that he ever slept. With noble sincerity, his 25 year old son Jonathan vowed to carry on his Dad’s business. But in the end, it appeared nobody could fill Gibbs’ shoes-- not even his well-intentioned CFO who’d assured him so much just weeks earlier. The promising new company created to ‘fix democracy’ would not survive the loss of its founder and key man, Athan Gibbs. And even those of us who never met him lost something of immeasurable value on March 12, 2004.
Gibbs business partner sums it up—“I can honestly say I have never in my life worked with a person on a project who was more dedicated. He was a visionary. He had a fantastic idea. It was the right idea for the right time. It was a genuine concern for fixing what was broken with our democracy.”
Forward to Election Assistance Commission
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