Pinto
Nov 4, 2003, 09:58 PM
This story broke a few days ago...
link to first story (http://truthout.org/docs_03/110403E.shtml)
ĘDiebold Uses Copyright Law to Silence Critics
ĘĘBy John Schwartz
ĘĘThe New York Times
Monday 03 November 2003
File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech
ĘForbidden files are circulating on the Internet and threats of lawsuits are in the air. Music trading? No, it is the growing controversy over one company’s electronic voting systems, and the issues being raised, some legal scholars say, are as fundamental as the sanctity of elections and the right to free speech.
ĘDiebold Election Systems, which makes voting machines, is waging legal war against grass-roots advocates, including dozens of college students, who are posting on the Internet copies of the company’s internal communications about its electronic voting machines.
The students say that, by trying to spread the word about problems with the company’s software, they are performing a valuable form of electronic civil disobedience, one that has broad implications for American society. They also contend that they are protected by fair use exceptions in copyright law.
Now you to can read these emails which cast further doubt on the Florida election results.
Could this be the greatest US scandel of all time?
Visit the link for the mails in full.
link (http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm)
"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22
According to recently discovered internal Diebold Election Systems memos, Global Election Systems' (which was later purchased by Diebold) own technical staff were also stumped by the events in Volusia County/
(NOTE: The names below each extract link to the full text of the emails in the appendices below.)
I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb".
Lana Hires – Volusia County Florida - January 17, 2001 8:07 AM
My understanding is that the card was not corrupt after (or before) upload. They fixed the problem by clearing the precinct and re-uploading the same card. So neither of these explainations washes. That's not to say I have any idea what actually happened, its just not either of those…
The problem is its going to be very hard to collect enough data to really know what happened. The card isn't corrupt so we can't post-mortem it (its not mort).
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – January 18, 2001 1:41 PM
- the negative numbers on media display occurred when Lana attempted to reupload a card or duplicate card. Sophia and Tab may be able to shed some light here, keeping in mind that the boogie man may me reading our mail. Do we know how this could occur?
John McLaurin - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 15:44:50
The problem precinct had two memcory cards uploaded. The second one is the one I believe caused the problem. They were uploaded on the same port approx. 1 hour apart. As far as I know there should only have been one memory card uploaded. I asked you to check this out when the problem first occured but have not heard back as to whether this is true.
When the precinct was cleared and re-uploaded (only one memory card as far as I know) everything was fine.
…
Given that we transfer data in ascii form not binary and given the way the data was 'invalid' the error could not have occured during transmission. Therefore the error could only occur in one of four ways:
…
[4.] There is always the possiblity that the 'second memory card' or 'second upload' came from an un-authorised source.
Tab Iredale - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 13:31
If this problem is to be properly answered we need to determine where the 'second' memory card is or whether it even exists. Heh. Second shooter theory. All we need now is a grassy knoll.
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – 18 Jan 2001 16:42:50
I will be visiting with Lana on Monday and will ascertain the particulars related to the second memory card. One concern I’ve had all along is “if” we are getting the full story from Lana.
I’ll be back in touch and thanks for all of y’alls (that’s southern for all of you) help.
John McLaurin – Diebold ES - Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:56:06
**********
Unfortunately whether or not John McLaurin got to the bottom of the mystery of Volusia County is something the memos cannot tell us.
Searches of the Diebold memos database find a singlefollowup memo from McLaurin about the Checksum Errors experienced in Volusia, but nothing on the mysterious 16,022 negative vote count.
Which leaves us where exactly?
What we know from the memos can be summarised as follows:
- Two memory cards were uploaded from Volusia Couny's precinct 216, the second one was loaded sometime close to 2am in the morning. It automatically replaced the first card's results and reduced Gore's total by 16,022 votes and added several thousand votes to Bush plus a variety of minor candidates;
- Both memory cards loaded into the system clean and without errors, indicating (contrary to the official line) that they were not faulty;
- After the error was noticed the original card was reloaded and the mistake was rectified;
- The error was introduced in such a way that the total number of votes remained unchanged (again something that could not happen by chance.);
- According to the technical boffins, the chance of the memory card being corrupted and still passing the checksum error test are less than 60,000 to 1;
- The technical managers at Diebold Election Systems considered it a reasonable possibility that the second card was part of deliberate conspiracy to rig the election results.
link to first story (http://truthout.org/docs_03/110403E.shtml)
ĘDiebold Uses Copyright Law to Silence Critics
ĘĘBy John Schwartz
ĘĘThe New York Times
Monday 03 November 2003
File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech
ĘForbidden files are circulating on the Internet and threats of lawsuits are in the air. Music trading? No, it is the growing controversy over one company’s electronic voting systems, and the issues being raised, some legal scholars say, are as fundamental as the sanctity of elections and the right to free speech.
ĘDiebold Election Systems, which makes voting machines, is waging legal war against grass-roots advocates, including dozens of college students, who are posting on the Internet copies of the company’s internal communications about its electronic voting machines.
The students say that, by trying to spread the word about problems with the company’s software, they are performing a valuable form of electronic civil disobedience, one that has broad implications for American society. They also contend that they are protected by fair use exceptions in copyright law.
Now you to can read these emails which cast further doubt on the Florida election results.
Could this be the greatest US scandel of all time?
Visit the link for the mails in full.
link (http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm)
"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22
According to recently discovered internal Diebold Election Systems memos, Global Election Systems' (which was later purchased by Diebold) own technical staff were also stumped by the events in Volusia County/
(NOTE: The names below each extract link to the full text of the emails in the appendices below.)
I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb".
Lana Hires – Volusia County Florida - January 17, 2001 8:07 AM
My understanding is that the card was not corrupt after (or before) upload. They fixed the problem by clearing the precinct and re-uploading the same card. So neither of these explainations washes. That's not to say I have any idea what actually happened, its just not either of those…
The problem is its going to be very hard to collect enough data to really know what happened. The card isn't corrupt so we can't post-mortem it (its not mort).
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – January 18, 2001 1:41 PM
- the negative numbers on media display occurred when Lana attempted to reupload a card or duplicate card. Sophia and Tab may be able to shed some light here, keeping in mind that the boogie man may me reading our mail. Do we know how this could occur?
John McLaurin - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 15:44:50
The problem precinct had two memcory cards uploaded. The second one is the one I believe caused the problem. They were uploaded on the same port approx. 1 hour apart. As far as I know there should only have been one memory card uploaded. I asked you to check this out when the problem first occured but have not heard back as to whether this is true.
When the precinct was cleared and re-uploaded (only one memory card as far as I know) everything was fine.
…
Given that we transfer data in ascii form not binary and given the way the data was 'invalid' the error could not have occured during transmission. Therefore the error could only occur in one of four ways:
…
[4.] There is always the possiblity that the 'second memory card' or 'second upload' came from an un-authorised source.
Tab Iredale - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 13:31
If this problem is to be properly answered we need to determine where the 'second' memory card is or whether it even exists. Heh. Second shooter theory. All we need now is a grassy knoll.
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – 18 Jan 2001 16:42:50
I will be visiting with Lana on Monday and will ascertain the particulars related to the second memory card. One concern I’ve had all along is “if” we are getting the full story from Lana.
I’ll be back in touch and thanks for all of y’alls (that’s southern for all of you) help.
John McLaurin – Diebold ES - Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:56:06
**********
Unfortunately whether or not John McLaurin got to the bottom of the mystery of Volusia County is something the memos cannot tell us.
Searches of the Diebold memos database find a singlefollowup memo from McLaurin about the Checksum Errors experienced in Volusia, but nothing on the mysterious 16,022 negative vote count.
Which leaves us where exactly?
What we know from the memos can be summarised as follows:
- Two memory cards were uploaded from Volusia Couny's precinct 216, the second one was loaded sometime close to 2am in the morning. It automatically replaced the first card's results and reduced Gore's total by 16,022 votes and added several thousand votes to Bush plus a variety of minor candidates;
- Both memory cards loaded into the system clean and without errors, indicating (contrary to the official line) that they were not faulty;
- After the error was noticed the original card was reloaded and the mistake was rectified;
- The error was introduced in such a way that the total number of votes remained unchanged (again something that could not happen by chance.);
- According to the technical boffins, the chance of the memory card being corrupted and still passing the checksum error test are less than 60,000 to 1;
- The technical managers at Diebold Election Systems considered it a reasonable possibility that the second card was part of deliberate conspiracy to rig the election results.
