HAVA and the Rush to Poor Judgment;; A Scam to Replace More Trustworthy, Older Technology Voting Machines with Hackable Computerized "Vote Theft" Machines

by Vickie Karp

8/20/05
If you liked the Orwellian-named ?Clear Skies Initiative?or the ?No Child Left Behind? Act, you should really love the ?Help America Vote Act?, another farce brought to you by our esteemed leaders in the White House and Congress.

How was HAVA created and what is its purpose? Here?s some history:

If someone took a poll today among average Americans on the street and asked them what was the most memorable snafu regarding the 2000 Presidential election, my bet is that overwhelmingly the response would be: the ?hanging chad? debacle in Florida.

The media?s coverage of hanging chads created one of the most widespread and effective smokescreens ever devised to fool the American people into believing that chads were the reason for all the hub-bub in Florida, which ultimately led to the Supreme Court ing our President rather than allowing the state to continue to count ballots and determine the real winner of that election.

But hanging chads and the problems that they caused pale in comparison to the REAL reason for the election screwup: intentional matching of over 50,000 minority voters? names with a list of convicted felons in such a way as to effectively (and illegally) disenfranchise them. The state gave specific instructions to the company executing the voter roll purge to assure that accuracy was not important. These non-felon voters? ballots would likely have gone to Gore, giving him a clear margin of victory. All this was spearheaded by then - Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who doubled as head of the state campaign to elect Bush. (No conflict of interests there.) The plan began implementation in 1999, a year before the election. While happy voters slept in their beds, Harris plotted to remove their most valued right as American citizens?and she succeeded.

Had it not been for the persistent and relentless research, investigations and reporting of BBC reporter Greg Palast, the truth on this pivotal moment in U.S. election history might still be unknown. Palast?s carefully researched and heavily documented story on this can be found in his book, ?The Best Democracy Money Can Buy?, concluding that the faulty ?fake felon purge? by itself could have easily flipped the election in Bush?s favor.

Even today, the only Americans who know this are those who seek their news elsewhere besides the mainstream media; the same media who successfully buried the true story until many months after the election was called for Bush and the story would have no meaningful impact, such as, reversing the election results and handing victory to the true winner, Gore.

In my opinion, the hanging chad debacle was planned specifically to lead to the later passing by Congress of the ?Help America Vote Act? (which does anything but?) in October 29, 2002. HAVA dangles the carrot of $3.86 billion in federal funds to the states, county by county, in exchange for upgrading old punchcard and lever voting machine systems for newer, improved voting systems, and for thereby insuring the disabled the right to a private vote.

How clever to use the politically correct and truly important issue of providing a private vote for the disabled as an impetus to create a mad rush of county officials all across the U.S. to purchase paperless electronic voting machines or optical scan counters whose vendors were standing by with their products waiting to provide the supposed solution to the HAVA requirements. Time is running out for the counties, many of whose officials have been misinformed on the real requirements of HAVA. But one thing is certain: the HAVA deadline is January 1st, 2006: upgrade your voting systems, or no federal funds. The race is on! And the race for HAVA funds is also a race to poor judgment on the part of many well-meaning, but often ill-informed, election officials.

Electronic voting is not new?it started creeping into our country during the ?90?s. In fact, there was enough evidence of election anomalies produced by the supposedly technologically superior machines that Bev Harris, an investigative journalist from Washington state, began researching them in 2003 for book, ?Black Box Voting ? Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century?.

Harris got a lucky break when she was surfing the net and googled up ?Diebold?, the second largest e-voting machine/software vendor in the U.S., and found their secret software on their website.

At first she wasn?t sure exactly what she had, but she downloaded it and shared it with computer scientists and programmers she knew. The ultimate conclusion they came to? This election software amounted to a ?virtual handbook on how to tamper with an election?. In July of 2003, Harris set up a ?mock election? on a laptop, using the Diebold election software, and was able to execute a ?back-door hack? that allowed her to flip election results in less than ten minutes, then exit out of the system totally undetected.

A Johns Hopkins-Rice University study also done in July of 2003 concluded that electronic voting, with its modems, secret software, and no paper trail, poses ?a threat to democracy?.

Harris and her non-profit consumer organization, Black Box Voting (.org) has continued to research Diebold as well as the other top four vendors of electronic voting systems: ES&S (Electronic Systems and Software); Sequoia; and Hart InterCivic. She now has the Diebold hack down to less than 60 seconds with the help of her world-class computer expert team, stating that the election software is ?elegantly designed for multiple, sophisticated hacks?; and her team has discovered the ability to manipulate results at the central tabulator (where the final vote totals are stored) even when printers are added to the machines. This startling and recent discovery should alert well-meaning election reform activists that a legislative effort toward ?paper trails? on electronic voting systems is a waste of time. The vendors are way ahead of our efforts to catch up with them. (see http://www.blackboxvoting.org, report from 7/4/05)

BBV and team has also discovered a ?live program? which resides in the ?memory cards? of Diebold optical scan counters (used with paper ballots) which can give instructions to the central tabulator upon being downloaded that will cause a manipulation of the final vote totals at the central tabulator - yet another way that perpetrators can ?flip? election results?even in a paper ballot election?when optical scan counters are used! Harri Hursti, computer programmer and security engineer, said that hacking into the machines ?is an exceptionally flexible, one-man exploit requiring only a few hundred dollars, mediocre technical ability and modest persuasive skills (or, in lieu of persuasive skills, inside access.)?

Another computer expert, Jeremiah Aiken of Riverside California, happened upon the Sequoia software on the internet, downloaded and researched it, and found other easily hackable features about that vendor?s software.

The unmistakable bottom line conclusion of this research is that these election systems were designed to be hacked. AND THESE ARE THE VERY SYSTEMS THAT COUNTY ELECTION OFFICIALS ARE RUSHING TO PURCHASE BEFORE JANUARY 1ST, 2006?to make sure they get the HAVA federal funds!

Together, Harris, Aiken, and other computer experts demonstrated six simple hacks that could flip an election in less than 60 seconds at two press conferences held in Washington D.C. in September 2004. All the media were there, but their later reports made the event sound like some kind of circus sideshow. I was there. This was the real deal. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney even volunteered as a ?guest hacker? and successfully hacked a mock election in less than a minute.

Many other journalists, researchers, computer programmers and security engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, and citizens? groups have taken on vote fraud as their passion in recent years and a lot of great information is out there on the subject. True to form, the controlled media either will not report the issue, or will heavily distort the truth. We wouldn?t want the American people to find out that 80% of the voting systems they used in 2004 were highly suspect and in some cases, proven fraudulent systems?would we?

The examples of questionable election results and suspicious, unexplained problems with electronic voting (all the major vendors? machines) in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections would likely circle the earth several times if all the reports were put together end-to-end.

Ironically, the solution many experts are promoting is this: paper ballots, hand-counted in public view. This simple voting method, though not perfect, has been identified by Lynn Landes, Harris, other journalists and researchers, and the leaders of many other election reform groups as the best solution to fraudulent voting systems. As Harris says, a paper ballot, hand-counted election has about five or six ?attack vectors?; with electronic voting, there are 50 or 60. Electronic voting simply offers NO transparency. The voter will never know if their vote has been accurately recorded or not.

Another election reform group, ?VotersUnite? (www.votersunite.org), headed by Ellen Theisen, has recently executed a practical and important action. They identified 2000 counties that have not yet purchased electronic voting machines?counties that still hold elections with paper ballots, hand-counted. They have sent letters to the county election officials explaining that they do NOT have to purchase electronic voting machines. They do NOT need HAVA money to continue to execute elections with paper ballots, hand-counted.

Ironically, many of the e-voting systems themselves do not meet HAVA requirements for the disabled! There are other ways to provide a private vote to the disabled without purchasing electronic voting equipment?the very reason many hear from their Secretaries of State as to why they must make this purchase. There are links to information on some of these simple and inexpensive alternative voting systems for the disabled on Theisen?s VotersUnite website. She and others are developing a prototype that will allow the physically impaired (as opposed to the blind or the deaf) to vote privately on non-electronic equipment?something that even the HAVA mandated rules do not provide for.

As a spokesperson on this issue for over two years, and as a personal follow-up to VotersUnite?s campaign, I am offering my services to county election officials to come and speak to them about this critical issue in hopes of convincing them NOT to buy electronic voting machines if they are currently using paper ballots, hand-counted for their elections. If scheduling and travel costs permit, I am at the service of county election officials for this purpose.

My message to all decision makers who are about to purchase these machines: Your electorate is counting on you to provide them with the safest, most honest voting system possible?the one you may be using right now~! DON?T LET ?HAVA? CREATE A RUSH TO POOR JUDGMENT!

Vickie Karp is a speaker and writer from Austin, Texas. She is on the Board of Directors of Black Box Voting; and is the National Chairperson of the Coalition for Visible Ballots. You can contact Vickie at karp@mail.com.