Diebold TSx not responding to Touch a "Human Problem"

At the Sprague Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. . .

Hi. I followed up on an email by Heather Bennett, a local candidate, forwarded to me explaining that one of her constituents contacted her about voting at the Sprague Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the Diebold TSx was having a problem with recording votes on the lower left of the screen. When I saw that there was nothing with the key words on Google News, I reported it to CNN, which then forwards you to your local county officials.

At the office of the Salt Lake County Elections, I spoke to a young lady (at 2:51 pm MDT) who left the phone for a few minutes then came back to tell me that "The machines are working fine." She got this from someone she called Scott K, a technician regularly employed by the Salt Lake County Elections office, who had been sent to the Sprague Library and he told this young lady that the machines were working fine. She also said I could call him at his phone number, 801-468-3470.

So I did. Scott told me that he'd heard that a voter was having difficulty voting, so he stopped by to see if there was an issue, but that it turned out to be a human problem, not a machine problem.

I asked if the pollworkers had been aware of the problem, and at this point Scott wanted to know if I was calling as a citizen or was I part of a group. I said I was a citizen who will post what I find out online because activist organizations across the country were asking individual citizens to get involved in reporting. We continued.

Scott said that according to the pollworkers, when the voter's vote had not registered, one of them had tried, and failed, but that they solved the problem before the voter actually finally "cast" the vote.

Scott observed a demonstration of what had happened, and he told me that for the vote attempts that did not register, they were touching the screen in a way that he wouldn't expect the screen to be responsive. They were pressing it with a wide surface of their finger, then pressing very hard.

When he heard my typing, Scott asked about it, then said he should have been told that I was doing so, but I simply asked if there was a problem with it, and continued.

Scott reiterated that this was a human problem rather than a mechanical one, that people touch things differently, and that some machines are more responsive than others.

When I interrupted to question that, he said, "Let me rephrase that." Some touches, he tried to explain, "The way people touch the screen has something to do with a machine's responsiveness."

I questioned whether this was information that the voters knew or that the pollworkers knew? Scott's response was to point out the three "feedback mechanisms" in the system that give the voters a chance to check to see if their vote was properly recorded before voting. He insisted that this was a voter problem and not a pollworker training issue. He said that a voter is usually persistent enough to handle this.

Finally, he said that he had told the pollworker that if this should happen again, the voter should be given a pencil, because an eraser head is more precise than a digit.

Then, why don't the machines have a stylus? No response.

Scott's full name is Scott Konopasek, and his phone at the Salt Lake County Elections office is 801-468-3470.

Barbara Bellows-TerraNova




[Click title to go to thread at BlackBoxVoting.org where you can comment.]

Bruce Funk is an American Hero

Support Emery County Utah Clerk Bruce Funk. Click Here To Send an Email to the Emery County Commissioners.

Mr. Bruce Funk, Emery County Clerk, should be thanked, not attacked, and his story told accurately.

Bruce Funk is a responsible elected official who has paid attention to problems in other states, he recognized the danger to democracy if we depend on the accuracy of machines that break down easily or can be hacked into, altering votes. That is why he brought in the Finnish computer security specialist Harri Hursti, and an expert from Security Innovation, Inc., a company whose clients include McAffee Security, Symantec Security, the Department of Defense, and Microsoft to examine the Diebold TSx voting machines that his county had been required to purchase by the state of Utah.

Currently, there is an effort to strong-arm Mr. Funk out of office. Last week, following Mr. Funk's announcement that he would not use the Diebold machines, Lt. Governor Herbert's Chief of Staff Demma, Utah elections officer Cragun and legal counsel from Utah Attorney General's office flew into Emery, accompanied by a representative and a tech man from Diebold who threatened the county with punitive actions for testing their equipment.

No one seemed concerned that the integrity of Utah voting is at risk.
The Utah State officials, along with the County Sheriff, County Commissioners, and County Attorney - and Diebold representatives - met behind closed doors - especially closed to Funk - and then told him they were sticking with Diebold. When he told them he was not comfortable with this decision, he was told he should consider retiring. Exhausted and fed up, Funk agreed to think about it for May 1 or June 1, but they pushed for April 1, paid through June 1. Funk said he'd sleep on it. That's all.

The next morning the County claimed that Bruce Funk had resigned, which he immediately denied. When I called there on Friday, I was told, rather gruffly, that Bruce Funk resigned in a public meeting (I guess they call it that because after their private meeting they opened the doors to tell Funk their decisions), and that his resignation is in the minutes to be posted after the next meeting!

Bruce Funk is not the first victim of Diebold's punitive response to being hacked. In December, Ion Sanchez of Leon County, Florida also filmed a demonstration of a mock election in which 2 "yes" and 6 "no" votes on a Diebold were altered by Security Innovation hackers from a short distance to 7 "yes" and 1 "no". That same day the infamous Republican Ranger CEO and Chairman of Diebold promptly resigned.

Since then, Ion Sancho has been blacklisted by the voting machine companies which refused to furnish machines in time for upcoming elections. A rally of support and evidence of the companies' collaboration has resulted in the announcement this week of the Florida Attorney General's investigation into Diebold Election Systems, Inc., Election Systems & Software, Inc., and Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc., their marketing, and their joint refusal to sell to Leon County.

Meanwhile, Maryland and New Mexico are moving away from touchscreen voting machines, and primaries in Illinois and Texas have revealed lost tabulation memory cards and impossible totals. Evidence is building nationwide that these private corporate voting machines will lead to more questionable elections, false mandates, and leaders who do whatever they want.

That is not what this country is supposed to be.