The Time Has Come

The time has come, Democracy said, to talk of many things:
Of Diebold, Funk, Ohio’s Ney,
Of Abramoff buying kings–
And why HAVA cannot matter–
Since the warnings that Hursti brings.
Okay, no more beating around the Bush – now Utah’s Emery County Clerk, Bruce Funk, is redeemed.

Perhaps you’ve heard of him. His March 23rd announcement that he would not use the Diebold voting machines Lt. Governor Herbert sent him caused an emergency closed-door meeting on March 27th with Diebold, the Emery County Commissioners and Counsel, and Michael Cragun, Elections official from Lt. Governor Herbert’s office – but not Funk.

When the doors were finally opened, Funk was told to use the Diebold machines. Unwilling to accept responsibility for their security, he threw it back on the Commissioners, who later insisted that was his resignation.

This all happened after the March 18 posting at http://www.blackboxvoting.com/ of an initial independent evaluation of Diebold’s TSx by Harri Hursti, Finnish computer security expert, and Security Innovation (consultant to Symantec, McAfee and Microsoft), based on their examination of two of Funk’s 40 machines, at his request.

For that, Diebold punished Emery County with a $40,000 fine. Yet none of this was reported by Michael Cragun on April 19, before the State Government Operations Interim Committee, updating the legislature about the voting machines implementation, with Bruce Funk seated nearby.

But last week, the official report from Hursti/Security Innovation is out, again at http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf, detailing "multiple backdoors built into the system", and Bruce is mentioned, with great respect. (Additional concerns will be addressed in a second part to the report, expected to be out by May 16.)

The weekend before, Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, the uniquely diligent investigative blogger, reported that early word on Hursti’s report prompted Pennsylvania voting system examiner Dr. Michael Shamos to force acknowledgement of the problems out of Diebold. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortez then issued a Security Alert for the Diebold machines and a lock down of the equipment before this week’s primary.

The jig is up. Diebold machines, currently creating chaos in primaries, allow voting results to be altered – easily, quickly and undetectably, without passwords.

For several years, computer scientists have warned the technology isn’t ready yet, especially because the vendors’ work harder at securing large contracts than securing election integrity.
Those large contracts have been prompted by HAVA, the Help America Vote Act. Notice it isn’t called the Help America’s Votes Get Counted Act.

In fact, Congressman Bob Ney, of recent Abramoff infamy, was a co-sponsor and author of HAVA, just when Diebold paid $275,000 to Abramoff at Greenberg & Traurig, to push for electronic voting machines in HAVA – with no verifiable paper trail. Meanwhile, Diebold donated heavily to The National Federation of the Blind, pushing accessibility before security.
Compliance with HAVA may be impossible, requiring the disabled to have "the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters".

Ponder this: Can a voting system that serves individuals who are blind, also serve those who are deaf, as well as those in wheelchairs, and with dexterity issues? – And without assistance with no chance of someone seeing their votes.

So, HAVA was written with absurd standards by a corrupt Congressman, under the influence of cash from a corrupt lobbyist, paid by Diebold, a company that corruptly sold uncertified software to California for the 2004 election (and settled out of court for $2.6 million), whose machines are revealed to be corruptible – with Bush’s most important election, legacy-wise, only months away.

New York State has demanded and received postponement of its HAVA compliance from the Department of Justice. Utah needs to do the same.

(Barbara Bellows-TerraNova is a working mom whose side-mission it is to know more, and then share it – So, in October 2004 she performed her One Person Patriot Act, "Know Bush: Launching Facts That Shock and Awe" in Salt Lake City. )

"Democracy requires informed voters. Ultimately, it’s rude to not talk about politics."

Initial Hursti/Security Innovation Evaluation, dated March 18, 2006: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/19673.html?1144430968
Security Innovation clients: http://www.securityinnovation.com/pdf/credentials.pdf , page 11
News of Upcoming Hursti/Security Innovation Report, Pennsylvania, Shamos & Cortez: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002787.htm andhttp://www.mcall.com/news/local/lehighton/all-1schuylkillmay04,0,7235865.story?coll=all-newslocallehighton-hed
Hursti Diebold TSx Evaluation, May 11, 2006: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf
Abramoff/Ney/Diebold connection: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/20/2006/1702 andhttp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9519825/meet_mr_republican_jack_abramoff?rnd=1144952282375&has-player=true
HAVA Requirements: http://www.eac.gov/docs/HAVA%20Programs-HAVA%20Use%20Restrictionspdf
New York Delaying HAVA Implementation: http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1246&Itemid=113
Diebold settlement with California: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/11/11/news/state/19_50_1411_10_04.txt andhttp://www.diebold.com/news/newsdisp.asp?id=3118

P.S. So I took this article and the Hursti Report to the Utah Democratic Convention and handed out 100 copies. I encourage you to spread it around. . .

P.P.S.  Click on Title to go to PDF of article, as published by Catalyst Magazine, June, 2006.