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I HAVA
Dream… Or Is It a Nightmare?
by
Rustie Woods
Dissident
Voice
November 11, 2003
One of the
loudest, most important opportunities we have to voice our vision and
expectations for America is to vote on Election Day. Regardless of one’s race,
gender, religion, sexual orientation, economic position, or political
affiliations, on that day, for any given election, the opportunity to
participate in shaping our society is at our fingertips. Or is it?
For as far
back as I can remember, there seemed to exist the faction of folks whose credo
sorrowfully echoed the sentiment that their vote didn’t count and it wouldn’t
make a difference anyway. While their howling was always met with incantations
about having no right to complain if they don’t vote, there is something to be
said about the astuteness of their perceptions.
If we
wander into the recesses of our minds that hold dark memories of past
elections, we can find examples of this disheartening reality. Thirty-five
years ago the Democratic Presidential Primaries were running a close race
between Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. Vice President Hubert Humphrey
entered the race late, waiting until after the unpopular incumbent, Johnson,
officially withdrew. On June 4 Kennedy won the California primary and held 46%
of the vote. That evening he was assassinated.
With
Vietnam protestors in full force and the ensuing violent police response, the
bloody riots in the streets of Chicago served as a backdrop for the tumultuous
1968 Democratic National Convention. McCarthy arrived with at least 42% of the
popular vote. Unfortunately, the state party bosses, rather than the primary
election results, had the power to control the delegate selection process.
During those four days of convention, McCarthy and McGovern correctly, but
unsuccessfully, challenged at least 19 State delegations on the grounds of
being illegal, unconstitutional, or contrary to the rules of the party. When
the August convention concluded, Humphrey received the nomination with 67% of
the votes to McCarthy’s 23%. Also beaten by the delegates of the DNC was the
Vietnam Peace Plan. Did the votes cast by the people count? Did the public’s
voice make a difference? Obviously not. However, important reforms to the Democratic
nomination process ensued.
Thirty-two
years later we experienced the anguish of another election that dashed the
hopes of American voters. Lending credence to the wails of non-believers, the
disenfranchised and non-voters, the US Supreme Court overruled the recount of
the Florida votes in the dubious 2000 Presidential Election. An unprecedented 36 days after the election,
with Al Gore receiving over half a million popular votes more than his
Republican rival, George W. Bush was declared President. Did the public’s voice
on Election Day make a difference? No. But once again, we are attempting to
learn from our mistakes.
The
experience of the 2000 Presidential election fiasco and the subsequent exposure
of unmitigated election fraud contributed to the introduction and overwhelming
passage of bill HR 3295, the Help
America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). Mandating all 50 states to reform their
election procedures, the overview of the new Federal law includes upgrading
voting machines, improving registration processes and increasing poll worker
training.
The
primary goal of HAVA would appear to be to provide a more accessible,
accountable and fair election system to our current process. It includes a $3.9
billion price tag to accomplish its goals. HAVA contains many significant
mandates. However, there is nothing in it that addresses the problems
associated with informational bias in the mass media, party politics during
convention, or the archaic Electoral College.
That having
been said, it is important to note some of the law’s more meaningful
provisions. HAVA includes a mandate that allows
voters to correct mistakes in their ballots or be allowed to cast provisional
ballots if their names do not appear on the registration list, or if they do
not have IDs. It requires polling places to have a minimum of one accessible
private voting machine for disabled voters and allows for voting machines that
can perform in other languages. The law requires that each state create integrated,
computerized, statewide voter registration and provides funding for voter
outreach. These are all significant steps, necessary to provide society with an
equitable link to our election process. Should these goals be achieved in a
forthright fashion, much will have been accomplished.
Unfortunately
the specifics of how to implement the mandates of HAVA were left undefined.
Each state is free to interpret and implement at its discretion. Having failed
to establish uniform standards for any of its mandates, the Federal law is wide
open to either progressive or regressive reforms. Herein lies the rub,
particularly with respect to the mandate calling for the replacement of punch
card and lever voting machines. Without adequate
uniform standards for testing and certification of the new electronic voting
systems (EVS), also called direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines,
we are in danger of recreating the very problems we are trying to eliminate. While it may appear that virtual voting has the
potential to accomplish most of the HAVA reforms in one fell swoop, we must be
wary of any reform that does not include standards to safeguard against abuse
and misuse of the system.
In a true democracy,
everyone of legal age and sound mind must have the opportunity and
accessibility to cast their vote. Unquestionably we understand that every vote
counts and every vote must be counted. Few would
disagree that our election system has been far from equitable for minorities,
low income and disabled citizens. Thus, we eagerly cling to the notion that
computerized voting is the panacea for our election woes.
Unfortunately
this 21st century voting technology has the potential to be far more
destructive to our democracy than empowering. Computer scientists from some of
the most prestigious universities in the country, John Hopkins, Rice and
Stanford, have carefully examined election software and have conclusively
determined that these programs have insufficient security safeguards to prevent
voter fraud. Diebold, one of the major manufacturers and suppliers of EVS in
the nation, mistakenly placed their software code on the Internet. This made it
available to computer security experts for in-depth evaluation. The
experts concurred that the software is riddled with back doors that can be
easily opened, an “open door” so to speak to voter fraud. Avi Rubin, technical director of the
Information Security Institute at John Hopkins, made this comment about the
“smart cards”, a component necessary in Diebold’s machines to cast a single
ballot; “A 15 year
old computer enthusiast could make these counterfeit cards in a garage and sell
them.”
The
security flaws do not exist solely at the user end. From the ability to easily counterfeit
administrator and ender cards, to unprotected PINs, improperly encoded data
storage, unauthorized accessibility to data during transmission, and unsafe,
incomplete and inaccurate software design, the experts found few safeguards
against fraud at the administration level. These problems are further
exacerbated by the fact that software is not subject to mandatory independent
inspection and review of source code.
While
these systems require thorough testing, the source code, the information that
conducts and controls what actually happens inside the computer, is off limits
to outside examination. This convenient veil of secrecy is obtained by
licensing the source code as “proprietary software” rather than “open source”
or “free software”. Open source or free
software is available to scrutiny by anyone at anytime. The source code of open
source software is not secret. Proprietary software, on the other hand, is
protected from “outside” perusal under the guise of “trade secrets”. In other
words, no outside agency, or independent expert may inspect and review the
source code without the express permission of the person or entity that holds
the software license.
There are
three major private corporations that are selling EVS, or DRE voting machines,
in the United States. They are Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia Voting Systems.
All of these corporations use proprietary software. They will not allow review
and inspection of their source code by the government, the public, security
experts or election officials, unless a nondisclosure agreement is signed
before auditing the code. An audit performed under the protection of a
nondisclosure agreement would prevent the inspector from disclosing any of
their findings to “outsiders”. This renders the inspection meaningless if the
purpose is to inform and protect the public.
If
independent experts do not regularly audit voting software, what is the
implication? Literally no one but the manufacturer will know exactly what the
computer you are using to cast your vote is actually doing with that vote.
In
addition to software problems, the touch screen systems are also subject to
error. For instance, if a touch screen is misaligned, a voter may choose
candidate C but the misalignment may cause the machine to register a choice for
candidate A. With no paper audit verification there is absolutely no way for a
voter to realize that their vote has been incorrectly cast. Obviously, the
absence of a paper audit trail compounds all of the aforementioned problems
that exist in computer voting technology.
If we confine our
reservations about DRE voting systems (a.k.a. EVS) to the ascertainable
security flaws, the inherent error risks, and the inability to conduct
independent inspections, we have plenty to be concerned about. For those whose
attention is focused on the potential theft of our elections, the current state
of electronic voting is a nightmare.
The
potential for fraud and the ease with which election results might be
manipulated is clear. As previously
detailed, several experts in the field of computer science and information
security corroborate this assertion. The secrecy that surrounds these systems
and their software is the veritable kiss of death to election security. Voting
software needs to be secure to prevent abuse of the election process. Experts
agree that without independent security researchers verifying source code there
are no safeguards against inevitable security flaws.
Add to
this nightmare two more glaring inconsistencies in our quest for improved,
secure elections and we find ourselves having replaced our ballot box with
Pandora’s box.
The omission
of voter verifiable paper trails in these systems removes the option for a
manual audit or recount should computer error, human error, or intended fraud
be suspected. Paper printouts produced after the polls have closed merely
duplicate the information stored in the computer and do not address the
potential problems and concerns of computer malfunction or voter fraud.
Last but
not least, is the non-existence of disclosure regulations. When combined with
the inherent security flaws, the absence of outside software evaluation and the
lack of voter verification, it takes little more than common sense to realize
the stunning possibilities available to those of questionable character with
intentions to rob us blind at the polls. Let’s consider a few examples.
Diebold is probably the most
egregious spectacle in the computerized voting debate. Approximately 30 states
are currently using their virtual voting technology. When experts obtained
access to their source code, resulting in an extremely unfavorable evaluation,
the official response was that the software examined was outdated and never
used. Diebold insisted that their systems were accurate and secure. Yet in
February 2003 programmers for Diebold admitted that they put highly sensitive
company files on an unprotected web site. What was uncovered in those files was
a folder called “rob-georgia”.
Georgia state officials eventually admitted that just before the November 2002
election a program “patch” was administered to over 22,000 touch-screen voting
machines.
And so the stage was set for
Georgia’s unexpected mid-term election results. Incumbent Governor Democrat Roy
Barnes was leading in the polls by almost eleven points. The popular Senator,
Democrat Max Cleland, was also ahead. Cleland, a Vietnam war-hero was strong on
defense and national security. His opponent, Republican Saxby Chambliss, had
avoided serving in Vietnam and based his campaign on professing to be more
patriotic than Cleland. Both Senator Cleland and Governor Barnes were expected
to be re-elected. But when the Diebold voting machines finished the tally,
Barnes lost to Republican Sonny Perdue 46% to 51%, a 16% point swing, and
Cleland lost to Chambliss 46% to 53%. Could “rob-georgia” have had anything to
do with this?
On August 14, 2003,
continuing in the corporation’s brazen spirit, the CEO of Diebold Inc, Walden
O’Dell, sent a fundraising letter to Ohio Republicans. His request; raise
$10,000 each in donations for an Ohio Republican Party fundraiser, in
September, at his home. His message; he is “committed
to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year.” So
what’s wrong with a businessman getting personally involved in politics on his
own time? Nothing, unless his business is to supply the state of Ohio with
voting machines. On August 15 Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was prepared
to announce Diebold as one of the three firms eligible to sell EVS to Ohio for
the 2004 election.
Had it not been for O’Dell’s
untimely letter, Diebold might well have been the winner in the lucrative race
to outfit Ohio’s 71 counties still in need of HAVA mandated voting machine
upgrades. Neither O’Dell’s politics nor his audacious comment is enough to
incriminate him as scheming to steal the Ohio election for Bush. It is enough,
however, to raise reasonable doubt as to Diebold’s impartiality. It is still
uncertain if Diebold will be allowed to participate in the bid, but Blackwell
has stated that it might be best to remove them from the process. One can’t
help but wonder, had the Georgia scandal been disclosed, would Blackwell have
still considered Diebold as a contender?
Sequoia Voting Systems is
not without its problems due to disclosure, or rather lack thereof. Multiple
counties in Florida are outraged with SVS’s failure to reveal that one of its
top executives, Phil
Foster, is facing criminal charges in Louisiana. He is charged with two
counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of conspiracy to
commit malfeasance in office.
Florida’s Indian River
County is furious that they were not told about the charges against Foster when
they negotiated a $2 million contract with him on behalf of Sequoia. County
officials are terminating the contract on a legal technicality. Sequoia
however, is not eager to let them out of the deal.
Also pending is the $15.5
million contract with Pinellas County. And Hillsborough and Palm Beach Counties
are now reconsidering whom they will purchase their voting equipment upgrades
from. Disclosure requirements could have saved these counties a great deal of
time and the costs associated with such misadventures.
At this point we would be
remiss to not examine the Nebraska elections of 1996. This was a curious time
of first events for Nebraska. 1996 marked the first year Nebraska utilized the
services of vote counting machines in an election. This was the first time
Chuck Hagel ran for any political office. This was the first time in 24 years
that a Senate seat was won by a Republican. This was the first time Senator
Chuck Hagel took office in any elected government capacity.
Hagel’s upsets in both the
primaries and general election were astounding. The Washington Post
(01/13/1997) reported that his “Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic
governor was the major Republican upset in the November election.” Six years
later on November 05, 2002 Hagel won his second term in the U.S. Senate with an
unprecedented 83% of the vote.
In Nebraska 80% of the votes
are counted by ES&S, the only voting machine company certified to count
votes in the state. The remaining 20% of the votes are counted by hand. In 1987
the McCarthy Group and the Omaha World Herald Company purchased the controlling
interest in ES&S, previously called American Information Systems (AIS)
until its name change in 1997. From 1992 to 1995 the Chairman of the Board and
CEO of AIS was Mr. Chuck Hagel. Until 1996 Hagel was also the President of the
McCarthy Group.
In Hagel’s FEC disclosure
documents he included an investment with the McCarthy Group of up to $5 million
from 1996 to 2001. But he did not list McCarthy’s underlying assets, which
would have included ES&S. As
recently as January of this year, Michael McCarthy, Hagel’s campaign finance
director, admitted that Hagel continues
to own a beneficial interest in the ES&S parent company the McCarthy
Group.
At no time did Senator Hagel
disclose his affiliations or financial interests in ES&S. Though he was required to report in his
1996 FEC disclosure form that he was still chairman of AIS for the first ten
weeks of the previous year, he did not do so. His failure to include them
as an underlying asset of McCarthy Group is in review. In both of the Nebraska
Senate elections, which Hagel won with astonishing victories, ES&S counted
at least 80% of the votes. In short, the company that programmed, installed and
controlled Nebraska’s voting technology, had administrative and financial ties
to one of the candidates running, Senator Chuck Hagel. Hagel, indirectly,
continues to maintain financial interests in ES&S. The direct result of
this relationship means Senator Hagel’s net worth increases as ES&S
prospers in the election business.
Hagel’s failure to disclose
his past and present relationship with ES&S aptly fosters many questions
and concerns regarding his personal integrity. More importantly however, are
the concerns we should have and the questions we should be asking regarding
these obvious conflicts of interest. How do these improprieties affect the
sanctity of our election process? If politicians, partisan loyalists and
criminals have ties to the manufacturers of our voting systems, is it
reasonable to doubt the integrity of our elections? If so, is it not equally
reasonable to expect that the disclosure of this information be mandated?
Individuals seeking to enter
politics are required to file disclosure statements with the FEC. Why should
corporations, seeking to enter our election process, be exempt from similar
disclosure requirements? Furthermore, why should election technology and
equipment in consideration for purchase with taxpayer dollars be exempt from
scrutiny and review by independent experts?
Maryland’s Governor Robert
Ehrlich would tell us otherwise. After the John Hopkins report on Diebold
software became public, Ehrlich ordered an independent third-party review of
the Diebold systems for which Maryland had a $55.6 million contract pending.
Diebold agreed, non-disclosure agreements were signed and SAIC conducted the audit.
SAIC concluded; the system
is at high risk of compromise. A list of recommended mitigations to reduce the
risks was also included.
Reduce the high risk of
compromise? This does not inspire confidence, nor does it dispel the concerns
illuminated by the John Hopkins report that these systems, Diebold’s in
particular, are just short of an invitation to vote tampering. Nonetheless,
Ehrlich decided to go forward with the purchase. Why would he seemingly ignore
the results of his own audit?
Perhaps Ehrlich’s past
experience with Diebold voting machines was enough to satisfy his confidence
with the system’s ability to get the job done. In March 2002, Maryland upgraded
four counties with Diebold machines. In November 2002, Ehrlich was the first
Republican Governor elected in 36 years.
And who is the privileged
“outsider” that performed the audit? Science Application International Corp is
a giant military contractor, complete with alarming connections to the FBI, CIA
and a tarnished past. Here is a summary of what is an impressive list of
improprieties:
* 1990
SAIC indicted by the Justice Department on 10 felony counts for fraud in its
management of a Superfund toxic cleanup site. SAIC pleaded guilty.
* 1993
the Justice Department sued SAIC accusing it of civil fraud on an F15 fighter
contract.
* 1994 SAIC
admitted to having falsified test results from a toxic waste dump at DOE’s
PORTS and paid $1.3 million in penalties.
* 1995 SAIC settles a suit with a
Treasury Department currency plant in Fort Worth, TX. SAIC was charged with
lying about security system tests.
* 1996 the GAO filed a
report entitled “Department of Energy, Unethical Conduct at DOE’s Yucca
Mountain”, citing SAIC’s involvement.
* 2002
Yucca Mountain Project, under the management of Bechtel SAIC Co, fired quality
assurance specialist Jim Mattimoe after he cited flaws in the process
scientists were using to determine the site’s suitability for nuclear waste disposal.
Director of quality assurance Robert Clark was transferred after raising
similar concerns about the project’s safety.
* 2003
Yucca Mountain Project reassigned three of their four review team auditors
after they cited flaws in Bechtel SAIC’s work procedure revisions.
These are interesting
qualifications for a company that is auditing the reliability and security of
software to be used in our election process. It might be instructive to note
that SAIC is also in the election business with ties to VoteHere. In addition,
they are the parent company of Network Solutions Inc. That’s right, the only
company authorized to register Internet domain names was purchased by SAIC in
May 1995. One can only speculate about SAIC’s agenda.
The business of EVS is
extremely lucrative, astonishingly powerful and frighteningly connected to our
Republican friends. All of the major players in line to infiltrate our election
process are military defense contractors and/or information technology firms.
They are heavy contributors to the Republican Party. Most of their clients are
state governments and federal agencies. These corporations and their affiliates
are the same gang that came out strong in support of HAVA and its mandate to
replace those nasty paper ballots. Bush barely blinked an eye before he signed
the legislation. And now, many state officials and private well-respected
organizations, such as the League of Women Voters and the ACLU, can’t wait to
close the deal.
Those leaping like lemmings
to virtual voting insist that the systems are secure. Their mantra: until
proven otherwise, there is nothing to worry about. With nothing in hand to
“prove otherwise”, how would anyone know if there was something to worry about?
Some, like the Women League of Voters, insist that requiring a voter verifiable
paper trail would impede the process to replace old systems that are inadequate
for disabled voters. They prefer instead to rely on the integrity and security
of computer systems that are designed, and implemented into our election
process, by corporations whose top administrators are of dubious distinction,
are fraught with conflicts of interest, and who are busily engaged in clandestine
business practices. Not my idea of fixing our election problems.
HAVA is a
federal law and the nation is now required to replace punch card and lever
voting machines. We are not however required to replace them with EVS. Some
states have returned to written ballots that are hand counted. Upgrading to EVS
is a very expensive proposition. We will not find ourselves in the near future
with additional funding to correct hasty purchases. How can we expect to secure
the reliability, security and integrity of these systems if they exist within a
dark cloud of secrecy, where all traces of our elections dwell only in
cyberspace?
One positive step would be
to require voter verified paper trails, unannounced hand recounts of those
paper ballots and software source code disclosure. Representative Rush Holt has
done just that with HR
2239, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. Since May 2003
this bill has been in the Committee on House Administration. Conveniently, it
has not been brought to action on the floor. Perhaps Congress needs to hear
from us about this seemingly lost amendment to HAVA.
Ultimately
HAVA will do very little to accomplish genuine election reform. Nonetheless,
our prudence and vigilance in the implementation of its mandates is all that
will ensure that it is not used to further corrupt our election process and
government. Genuine election reform will not come until we abolish the
Electoral College, implement Instant Voter Run-off, and absolutely remove
private corporations from the playing field.
Concern and suspicion about fraud, and attempts to safeguard our sacred
right to vote, are not wild-eyed conspiracy theories emanating from unpatriotic
Americans. As citizens of a democratic society it is our responsibility to
ensure the security and integrity of our election process to the best of our
ability. Election fraud has always existed in this country. From buying votes,
to stealing votes, there is nothing new going on here: not even our choice to
pretend that these problems don’t exist.
Rustie
Woods is an activist and lead singer of Blusion (www.blusion.com). She lives in Sebastopol,
CA and can be reached at blusion@blusion.com.
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