Blowing the Whistle On Voting Machine Fraud

By TChris, Section Elections
Posted on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:17:59 PM EST
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Remember Diebold?

A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.

RawStory reports that a whistleblower became suspicious of this:

The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. ... The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Are these election results a coincidence? [more ...]

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.

Cyber-security expert Stephen Spoonamore took a look at the patch that the whistleblower provided.

Individuals close to [Attorney Cliff] Arnebeck's office said Spoonamore confirmed that the patch included nothing to repair a clock problem. Instead, he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf. Spoonamore said he could not understand the need for a second copy of the exact same program -- and without access to the machine for which the patch was designed, he could not learn more. Instead, he said he took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.

This apparently isn't the kind of election fraud that excites the Justice Department. The Department loves to chase after people who vote twice, but investigating the rigging of voting machines? They must have better things to do.

Spoonamore has credentials.

In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.

Spoonamore figures he'll lose his government contract as a result of making this information public.

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Blowing the Whistle On Voting Machine Fraud | 32 comments (32 topical)

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Voting Machines (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by womanwarrior on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:01:50 PM EST

I am concerned that the democrats have not done more to clean up this voting machine baloney. Do they hope to use it themselves?
Do we have a two party system or a one party system?

: Me too (5.00 / 2) (#25)
by Lora on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 11:43:00 PM EST

I am concerned that the democrats have not done more to clean up this voting machine baloney.
Me too. Seems to me either they just don't want to look at the massive implications or they think they can somehow benefit from it.

Nothing to worry about in San Diego County, (5.00 / 2) (#13)
by oculus on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:18:08 PM EST

as the elected registrar of voters used to work for Diebold. But the Secretary of State shut down the voting machines. It's a draw.

So if Chuck Hagel is Obama's V P (5.00 / 2) (#15)
by sallywally on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:22:08 PM EST

Will he bring his own Sequoia voting machines to the nation?

I believe that is what we are using in Ohio. In 2004 John Kerry was well ahead in the exit polls (which do work everywhere except where Bush is falling behind in them but is still "close") until our Repub Sec of State, also Bush's campaign cochair, began messing with the results.....

He did all he could to prevent minorities and college kids from voting, etc., and was still able to do more after it looked like Kerry would take the state.

At least we have a Dem this time.

I remember reading and hearing about all this... (5.00 / 1) (#27)
by weltec2 on Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 12:33:46 AM EST

but then it ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Why is that?


: Great Question (5.00 / 1) (#28)
by cpa1 on Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 06:11:13 AM EST

Do you know those 60s and 70s that Obama doesn't think to be very relevant, where people settled things at Love-Ins; well if this Diebold scandal and the buying of unauditable election machines happened then, there would be rioting like you cannot believe and it would be justified. I am sure there would have been so much more legislation and action back then, unlike the disgrace that has happened here since 2000.
The kids of today are useless "would be entrepreneurs" who have no idea how the Republicans and the old boys club corporate management of this country take away their rights and lie to them. Ironically, the children of the 60s begat the millennium kids with no sense of history and no real sense of values.

: This issue doesn't matter.... (5.00 / 1) (#31)
by Shainzona on Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 08:35:20 AM EST

The DNC will just assign votes to whichever candidate it's in the tank with. The Repugs just don't know this yet.

So I'm pretty open to the idea of vote fraud thru (5.00 / 2) (#16)
by sallywally on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:23:31 PM EST

voting machines.

ah diebold, the gift (5.00 / 2) (#17)
by cpinva on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:26:37 PM EST

that keeps on giving!

boy, at the rate things are going, bush is going to have to stop working on anything else, in order to have sufficient time available for all the pardons he's going to be making, between now and the next inauguration.

Ohio is where it's at (5.00 / 1) (#18)
by Lora on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:43:59 PM EST

Check out this recent post on the Brad Blog:

Ohio Attorney Files to Lift Stay on '04 Election Case, Cites Allegations, Evidence of Massive Fraud by a Number of GOP Operatives

There is a lively discussion below the post by some of the heavy hitters in election integrity. Among other things they are discussing the Georgia patches, the Raw Story article, and Spoonamore's credentials and possible agenda.

Is anyone surprised (5.00 / 1) (#19)
by weltec2 on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:58:31 PM EST

by this news?

Diebold is no doubt most grateful to Diane Feinstein and Chuck Schumer for helping the Repugs vote down a paper trail last fall because as DiFi argued, it would cause chaos trying to set it up so close to the next election.

DiFi... reaching across the isle once again to help $+!3w the Democratic Party.

Paper trails (5.00 / 3) (#20)
by Lora on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 10:09:13 PM EST

So-called "Paper trails" are far from foolproof. Computer experts have been able to hack voting machines so that the paper trail and the vote were both changed.

Receipts are problematic because unless every receipt holder checks off his or her vote, there is no way of knowing whether or not some votes were changed or even if "ballot stuffing" was going on. There is also the threat of coercion or vote-buying with a receipt that shows your vote.

A printed ballot of your electronic vote that the voter verifies is also not helpful. Many voters don't bother to check. Of those that do, many will miss mistakes or changes. Then you have printer jams and breakdowns and a voter logjam.

There is no way to fully verify electronic votes or electronic vote counting. It's a faith-based system.

low tech is best (5.00 / 2) (#23)
by diogenes on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 11:04:51 PM EST

Either paper ballots on election day or by mail in vote, with one ballot issued per registered voter with positive picture ID, would solve all of this.

Paper Trail Backup Is Best System (5.00 / 3) (#30)
by john horse on Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 07:03:30 AM EST

I can't believe some of the comments to this. The integrity of the voting system is essential to our democracy. While no system is foolproof, a voting system that has a paper trail backup is clearly better than one that doesn't.

For example, in Leon county we fill in the ovals on the paper ballot and then send it through the optical scanning machine which counts the votes. While a computer expert may be able to somehow tamper with the results on the black box or the optical scanner, we still have the original ballots as backup.

If there is some question about the election results you go back and do a manual recount of the ballots and compare the paper ballots to the electronic tabulation of those ballots.

What is so difficult about this?

Well (none / 0) (#32)
by Lora on Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 05:05:28 PM EST

When have you had a full manual recount? What does it take to get a full manual recount? If the opscan machines and/or tabulators were successfully hacked, what would tip you off that there was "some question?"


Those are very good questions (none / 0) (#33)
by splashy on Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 06:17:02 PM EST

Ones that should be figured out for sure!

It's not how the votes are cast, it's who counts the votes that matters.


Paper Trail Is The Answer (5.00 / 1) (#34)
by john horse on Sun Jul 20, 2008 at 11:06:58 PM EST

Lora and Splashly,
Here are some of my responses to some of the issues you raise.

If the opscan machines and/or tabulators were successfully hacked, what would tip you off that there was "some question?"

One thing that I would look for would be statistical anomolies. For example, you can have a district where they usually vote two to one for one party but the results show a two to one vote for the other party. Now the results may be legit. That is why having the paper ballot backup is essential. Because it helps to confirm the results from the machine. On the other hand under a system in which you don't have a paper backup, you just never know, do you.

There is less likelihood of hacking into voting machines or black boxes if the hacker also knows that there will be a paper trail that can expose his/her crime.

It's not how the votes are cast, it's who counts the votes that matters.

That is why you allow observers for the candidates and/or the political parties for the manual recount.


: In case you're still reading (5.00 / 1) (#35)
by Lora on Mon Jul 21, 2008 at 08:01:04 PM EST

John,
Perhaps you have an exceptional county in terms of vote integrity. That may well be the case.
However, there were plenty of statistical anomalies in recent elections and almost impossible to get a manual recount, in areas where you even could get a manual recount. Ohio 2004's recount was a joke. NH's recount this past primary was fraught with ballot chain-of-custody issues.
You might still flip an election without raising the statistical alarm bell, so to speak. For example, a mere 6 flipped votes per machine in Ohio could have given the 2004 election to Kerry.
Trouble is, we should not have to rely on a statistical anomaly to trigger a recount. And it would be very hard to prove the need for a recount before the election was accepted as valid. With electronic voting and/or counting, only the programmers (and/or hackers) know for sure.
If you have paper ballots, I say have an impeccable chain of custody, citizen oversight, and count the paper. Do away with the electronic middle man and save a huge pile of money.

Oy, here we go with this stuff again (none / 0) (#1)
by Jim J on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:33:07 PM EST

Folks, come down to Georgia where I live for awhile before indulging in this junk. As reprehensible as Saxby Chambliss is, he was correct when he said Max Cleland was too far left for Georgia. Sorry, but it's true.

As for Sonny Perdue, he was a Democrat not so long ago, and made enough deals with big business to be the one to usher in the "new Republican era" -- which is really the same fetid, corrupt Democratic era except with more Jesus and more blatant corruption.

Please educate yourselves about Georgia politics before jumping off the deep end with the Diebold conspiracy theory yet again.

There is no excuse (5.00 / 2) (#2)
by madamab on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:42:58 PM EST

to have black-box voting. Diebold makes ATM's that produce receipts. That software is not hackable. Why not use the same software in the voting machines?

I don't know what happened in Georgia, but what happened in other states, like Ohio and Florida, is undisputable.


A receipt doesn't solve the problem (5.00 / 1) (#21)
by denise on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 10:25:51 PM EST

You still have a black box. You still don't know how your vote was actually recorded and processed.

The only way to really know what a computer is doing is to have access to everything, including the source code. The whole idea of proprietary voting machines is absurd.


: We have the source code in our SOS's office (5.00 / 1) (#22)
by hairspray on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 10:33:48 PM EST

in CA. Her goal is to someday have open source codes. She is one hell of a good secretary of state.

Here's (none / 0) (#12)
by Ga6thDem on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:18:01 PM EST

the problem with a lot of diebold theories in GA:
The systems was instated by a democrat Cathy Cox who was secretary of state at the time. The whole diebold conspiracy theory garbage possibly cost Dems the Governorship of GA because too many activists were buying into this stuff and nominated Mark Taylor who lost in a landslide to Perdue.

Are there potential problems? Yes. Should it be handing out receipts? Possibly. Should there be paper backup? Yes. However, it's gotten to the point that Diebold is being blamed for losses that probably would have occurred anyway. It keeps people from really doing what needs to be done and focused on things that we really don't have much proof of at this point.


The situation stank to high heaven (5.00 / 3) (#3)
by dianem on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:45:29 PM EST

Polls that close to an election are not usually that far off. Heads of corporations do not fly out to install patches. Reliable voting systems keep records, and there is no reason not to put receipts in. Numerous people have pointed out how easily the machines results could be altered. There were people in the Republican party who had motive, method, and opportunity to cheat - and we KNOW they cheated in a lot of very public ways (voter list purges, legal challenges to voters, too few machines, misinformation to voters, discarded voter Democratic voter registrations, phone jamming).

Nothing is going to convince me that there was not some kind of shenanigans during the 2004 election cycle. We don't want to accept that it could have happened. We want to maintain some faith in "the system". But ... there is a hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence to indicate cheating.


Well. . . (none / 0) (#4)
by LarryInNYC on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:48:48 PM EST

Nothing is going to convince me that there was not some kind of shenanigans during the 2004 election cycle.

there you go!


: Where is Dadler? (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by oculus on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:04:16 PM EST

: I'm not pulling this out of thin air (5.00 / 4) (#8)
by dianem on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:09:01 PM EST

I'm not some wingnut looking for evidence to support a crazy theory. There is a time when I doubted that the right had cheated in this way. I argued that they would never be audacious enough to actually do it. This kind of theft is risky. But the evidence mounted and is now, imo, too strong to believe that they didn't do it. We have not only a strong circumstantial case, but witnesses to inexplicable modifications made to the voting machines just before the 2002 and 2004 elections. I know that the idea of a stolen election was a crackpot theory supported by many exaggerated claims and misunderstandings. But when you peel off the fake claims, there is a lot of substance left. I believe this because everything fits.

Sorry (5.00 / 2) (#7)
by cal1942 on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:04:40 PM EST

but I don't see why Chambliss' contention that Cleland (a moderate Democrat who voted FOR the Bush tax cuts in 2001) was 'too far left for Georgia' has anything at all to do with the charge that suspicious changes were applied to programs in Diebold voting machines.

None of the other statements you've made regarding the nature of Georgia politics have any relevance in this matter.


: The theory (none / 0) (#14)
by Ga6thDem on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:20:13 PM EST

has been that Cleland lost because of Diebold. If most Diebold activists would separate the issues then they could maybe start getting people to listen to them.

Georgia politics have (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by rooge04 on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 09:11:40 PM EST

nothing to do with voter fraud. A whistleblower Republican who was disturbed by what he saw isn't "jumping off the deep end" or "conspiracy theories"...it's um FACTS. So educate yourself about the article before you start ripping into a whistleblower that saw something shady going on (and was apparently RIGHT).


C'mon (none / 0) (#24)
by bocajeff on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 11:10:31 PM EST

After reading all the posts here over the years regarding 2000, 2004 and then the primaries of Obama vs. Clinton I have come to the conclusion that if you don't win it's because the other side stole, cheated, played dirty, rigged, or otherwise did everything but win legitimately. And if you do win it's because people came to their senses.

Yeah, right

Diebold Delivers (none / 0) (#26)
by squeaky on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 11:52:05 PM EST

Memory lane

Diebold's chief executive Walden O'Dell said he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to Walden O'Dell said he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president ...