Blackboxvoting.org Raises Vote-Audit FOIA Request

aacool writes "Blackboxvoting.org has raised the largest Freedom of Information request in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit. Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips."

Ohio and Florida

I understand made use of electronic voting machines manufactured by Diebold. Their CEO pledged to do whatever was in his power to swing the election towards George. Interesting... Plus the exit polls seemed to suggest a different winner.

Re:Ohio and Florida

Here's [newmediamusings.com] one of the articles which talks about this case of fraud.

I can't believe they didn't require a paper trail. Simply can't believe it.

Re:Ohio and Florida

Troll. The CEO made no such promises

Even Diebold acknowledges their Executive's mistake [diebold.com]

Re:They do?

Mentioning the gay marriage thing I find it amazing that a state like Mississippi which voted to ban gay marriage by huge majority still had a comparably close race for president. So it must be something else.

Concession speech in 3, 2, 1.....

We call on every candidate not to concede.

So much for that....

Re:Illegal!

A concession speech is not a legally binding construct - it is a political move, not a legal one. All the votes must still be counted, including the ones that haven't been counted a half-hour from now, when Kerry is in the middle of his speech. All Kerry is doing is signaling that he is not planning on pursuing recounts or legal strategies designed to bring about his victory - his campaign for president is ending as of 2:00 PM today.

If, however, it should turn out that he has won Ohio, for example, when all the ballots are counted, then he will still gain Ohio's electoral votes and, presumably, the presidency, in spite of the fact that he has conceded defeat. That is not going to happen, as a practical matter, but it is at least theoretically possible. Elections boards don't stop counting just because one candidate or the other admits defeat - they still have to have a final count for the records, if nothing else.

Re:Illegal!

If, however, it should turn out that he has won Ohio, for example, when all the ballots are counted, then he will still gain Ohio's electoral votes and, presumably, the presidency,

As a Red Sox fan, I'm entirely confident that it WILL HAPPEN.

Fortunately, as a Red Sox fan, I'm also used to dissapointment.

This is it, folks. Donate!

Blackboxvoting.org is a non-profit supported by donations. Screw the FSF and the EFF. Give your money now to these guys and shine the light on the roaches.

Do you call yourself a Geek!?

I just sent in my $100 donation. Put your money with your mouth is.

Re:Do you call yourself a Geek!?

I'm going to donate, and I'm not even a US citizen or live there.

What are the possible consequences?

Assuming that enough fraud is uncovered that it could have swung the election the other way, what recourse is there? Would we have to rehold the election? Or could the current winner be undone?

Re:What are the possible consequences?

The electors haven't voted yet, so there is nothing to be "undone".

Good

I'm glad someone's on this. The scariest thing about all these new voting technologies is the idea that if something were to go wrong, intentionally or otherwise, we wouldn't even find out about it.

The biggest can of worms in the world

A most... daring move, I have to say. The very perspective and magnitude of task such as doing independant audit of complete US presidential elections is... staggeringly humongous. I am afraid that the blackboxvoting.org does not posess facilities, technology and manpower to handle the avalanche of raw data that might hit them as the result of this request - obviously, to do a proper audit, they'd need to start from individual ballots... all 110+ million of them, plus all the disqualified ballots, duplicate ballots, questionable ballots?

In the aftermath, I am afraid that, if the audit indicates there are irregularities or foul play involved in the elections, reply might simply be 'It is counting error on your end, you don't have capacities for competently performing an audit of this size.' Besides, I just might think not enough of Americans will actually care.

Bottom line... I sure do hope the audit works out. I sure do hope it proves elections were rigged (being from a former communist eastern european state myself, I saw a number of those :). But I'm afraid it'll be a wasted effort.

Favourite quote

I R'd TFA this morning (UTC). My favourite quote is:

The central servers are installed on unpatched, open Windows computers and use RAS (Remote Access Server) to connect to the voting machines through telephone lines. Since RAS is not adequately protected, anyone in the world, even terrorists, who can figure out the server's phone number can change vote totals without being detected by observers.

and none of it will make a damn bit of difference

they could find all the evidence they need of record tampering... of votes being miscast... of these machines being totally unfit for the democratic process....

and you would never see anything about it in the mainstream media....

Touch Screen Voting

The election yesterday was my third experience with the new-improved voting machines. And for the third time, I walked out of the booth wondering if my vote would really be counted.

After tapping my choices with a stylus -not really that easy for a left-handed-choice-tapper on a right-handed machine, I had to re-do a lot of them- I pressed the vote button. And the screen flashed something like "vote recorded" and then it went blank.

There was nothing to drop in a ballot box, nothing to show me that the machine was really hooked to anything, and of course, nothing that anybody could re-count if there was a question of fraud.

The friendly octogenarian on duty assured my that the it was all run by computer and that we didn't need a paper trail, since they could recount the computer records if they needed to do a recount. And since it is impossible for hard drives to die and memory chips to fail...

Yeah, it probably worked this time but the empty feeling I had as I walked out of the polling station left me strangly envious of those days when I could look at my punch card to make sure that none of the chads were hanging.

national security

Don't be surprised when these requests are denied on the grounds that providing this information would compromise our ability to prevent vote fraud. (my head spins just typing that)

The radical right now control the White House, the Senate and the House. Some of the senators voted in last night make Barry Goldwater look like Ted Kennedy. This faction will not allow anyone to look behind the curtain.

What I don't get...

One thing I find worrying is the disparity between pre-election polling [electoral-vote.com] and exit polling [slate.com] compared to the actual results of the election. Pre-election polling had Kerry winning Florida but losing Ohio, and exit polling had Kerry winning Florida and Ohio both. (All the other exit polling predictions were accurate.)

I also find it surprising that Florida was so clearly for Bush given how tight it was last time. (Maybe retirees care more about terrorism and Iraq than I thought?)

Much of Ohio uses Diebold voting machines, which leave no paper trail. Early in the campaign, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, a GOP fundraiser, promised [commondreams.org] to deliver [newshounds.us] Ohio to Bush. :(

Question: If someone committed fraud, would it be better to make it a decisive victory in order to avoid scrutiny?

These guys should start with the big counties in states such as Florida and Ohio that seemed to turn out contrary to prediction.

Consistent Voting

Well, this may be regarded as flaimbait (or redundant, as it's all been said before), but hey, I've got some karma to burn...

If America is the greatest country in the world, with it's freedoms and the right to vote, why can't they decide on a consistent form of voting? It seems to be, watching from the outside, there were so many different ways to vote, depending on where you were, whether it was electronic voting machines (and each of those were from different vendors)or paper ballots. In addition, the whole confusion and legal challenges to "provisional" and "absentee" ballots just muddied the waters even further. I also find it scary that something so important as voting can be done using hap-hazard machinery which is unauditable and unreliable. Hearing some of the stories coming from the different news agencies (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.), it almost sounds like the voting system is a 3rd world style system.

What's needed is a voting system that's consistent across the country with checks and balances to ensure audit trails. I know that Americans take pride in the fact they vote for their government. Their system needs to be first class to ensure their vote doesn't become a circus. The American government need to ensure validity of the vote by ensuring voting is done in a consistent manner across the country, and if that is electronic voting, then they need to ensure the voting results are NOT subject to fraud or manipulation.

Please note this is not a "bashing America" rant, but the zaniness about electronic voting has to stop!

Before it's slashdotted, here is the request:

Public Records Request - November 2, 2004
From: Black Box Voting
To: Elections division

Pursuant to public records law and the spirit of fair, trustworthy, transparent elections, we request the following documents.

We are requesting these as a nonprofit, noncommercial group acting in the capacity of a news and consumer interest organization, and ask that if possible, the fees be waived for this request. If this is not possible, please let us know which records will be provided and the cost. Please provide records in electronic form, by e-mail, if possible - [e-mail].

We realize you are very, very busy with the elections canvass. To the extent possible, we do ask that you expedite this request, since we are conducting consumer audits and time is of the essence.

We request the following records.

Item 1. All notes, emails, memos, and other communications pertaining to any and all problems experienced with the voting system, ballots, voter registration, or any component of your elections process, beginning October 12, through November 3, 2004.

Item 2. Copies of the results slips from all polling places for the Nov. 2, 2004 election. If you have more than one copy, we would like the copy that is signed by your poll workers and/or election judges.

Item 3: The internal audit log for each of your Unity, GEMS, WinEds, Hart Intercivic or other central tabulating machine. Because different manufacturers call this program by different names, for purposes of clarification we mean the programs that tally the composite of votes from all locations.

Item 4: If you are in the special category of having Diebold equipment, or the VTS or GEMS tabulator, we request the following additional audit logs:

a. The transmission logs for all votes, whether sent by modem or uploaded directly. You will find these logs in the GEMS menu under "Accuvote OS Server" and/or "Accuvote TS Server"

b. The "audit log" referred to in Item 3 for Diebold is found in the GEMS menu and is called "Audit Log"

c. All "Poster logs". These can be found in the GEMS menu under "poster" and also in the GEMS directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, as a text file. Simply print this out and provide it.

d. Also in the Data file directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, please provide any and all logs titled "CCLog," "PosterLog", and Pserver Log, and any logs found within the "Download," "Log," "Poster" or "Results" directories.

e. We are also requesting the Election Night Statement of Votes Cast, as of the time you stopped uploading polling place memory cards for Nov. 2, 2004 election.

Item 5: We are requesting every iteration of every interim results report, from the time the polls close until 5 p.m. November 3.

Item 6: If you are in the special category of counties who have modems attached, whether or not they were used and whether or not they were turned on, we are requesting the following:

a. internal logs showing transmission times from each voting machine used in a polling place

b. The Windows Event Viewer log. You will find this in administrative tools, Event Viewer, and within that, print a copy of each log beginning October 12, 2004 through Nov. 3, 2004.

Item 7: All e-mails, letters, notes, and other correspondence between any employee of your elections division and any other person, pertaining to your voting system, any anomalies or problems with any component of the voting system, any written communications with vendors for any component of your voting system, and any records pertaining to upgrades, improvements, performance enhancement or any other changes to your voting system, between Oct. 12, 2004 and Nov. 3, 2004.

Item 8: So that we may efficiently clarify any questions pertaining to your specific county, please provide letterhead for the most recent non-confidential correspondence between your office and your county counsel, or, in lieu of this, just e-mail us the contact information for y

Re:great...

WTF. Sarcasm?? You're upset that someone is trying to independently validate the election?

What will your response be when their request is denied?

-1, Who Needs Facts

Speaking as a Kerry supporter...

#1, The election results were statistically similar to the exit polls in Ohio and Florida.

#2, only 20 out of 88 counties in Ohio (IIRC, I may be fudgy on the exact number) used Diebold machines, the rest were punch card ballots.

Re:We failed America

They were polled entirely by Diebold machines.

What makes you think that? I live in a suburb of Cleveland and we had the same old paper ballots as previous years.

Re:And so it begins...

Really, really poor taste? Yep. Probably a fucking stupid thing to say when you're CEO of a company that makes electronic voting machines?

I'd go farther than that. I'd say that having made such a comment should either make Diebold ineligible for the election, or should make him lose his job. That's the kind of thing you don't joke about when you're in a position of power.

It would be like the Supreme Court justices joking that they would make sure that Bush got elected before rendering their 2000 decision.