Headline, May08, 2013

'''TOUCH AND GO OF THE 

-ELECTRONI​C- VOTING MACHINES''​'

This is a story of good intentions gone awry, of Congress bamboozled into thinking that the machines were ready when they weren't, of county and state election officials softened over lavish dinners into endorsing one kind of machine over another, with some later induced to take jobs at voting machine companies. And like most American stories it was about money - big money, $ 3.9 billion, showered on the states to buy the machines, and buy them fast.

For more than a decade, a plucky band of entrepreneurs had been tinkering with touch-screen D.R.E's   -direct recording electronic voting systems   -that might replace various paper-ballot systems and those cumbersome lever machines. A few touch screen D.R.E's had even been used in local elections. Overnight, the election chaos of 2000 made them hot commodities.

Reformers and entrepreneurs pitched a future of chad-free elections, electronically perfect, and on their promises to Help America Vote Act  -HAVA- was passed on October 29, 2002,  with its glittering vision of an electronic voting machine in every polling place. All but ignored were the  misgivings of a few computer scientists in ivory towers that the vision might be a mirage.

What the scientists needed was a crusader who could translate their complex software concerns into sound bites. At about the time HAVA passed into law, they got one in an unlucky package: a 52 years old freelance writer, literary publicist, and grandmother from Seattle named Bev Harris.

Harris had been noodling online during a lunch break when she happened on an article by Lynn Landes, a freelance investigative reporter. Landes's findings about D.R.E's were alarming though encrusted with arcane connections and conspiracy theories.''When it comes to elections in America.'' Landes typically warned,'' assume crooks are in control........and then act accordingly.''

Early on, Harris did Web research on Diebold and found nothing of great interest. A year ago Diebold had acquired Global Election System  When she did a Google search for ''gesn'' she accessed a Web site. On it, she says, was an FTP link  -FTP is a File Transfer Protocol, a leading system for sharing information on the Internet.-  that led her to an amazing find; a trove of program files used by Diebold to make the machines do what they do. One folder strangely enough was called ''rob georgia''.  

''If you learned that a $54 million order had been placed by the state of Georgia for 22,000 new voting machines, the biggest single voting machine ever, and that these machines had been installed just prior to an election,'' Bev Harris's recounts 

But to help you all with a better perspective, let me just add this para before I proceed further with the story:

Voting machines, perhaps the single most important electronic devices in American democracy, are outsourced to private concerns. And the manufacturers are permitted to operate in virtual secrecy, their technology is kept secret, and they have little in the way of federal oversight. D.R.E's are now a part of over $4 billion business.

Harris hesitated, then downloaded the program files, burned them onto seven CDs, put the CDs in a safe-deposit box, and began to read.......!!

This remarkable post continues. Don't miss the startling next reads!!

With respectful dedication to President Jimmy Carter and for his great work in overseeing elections in developing countries.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless