We thought you would like to know the 12 towns in Massachusetts that will be “testing” Diebold’s new AccuVote TSx touchscreen voting terminals in this coming election. According to the Secretary of State’s office, “the AccuVote TSx machine will be at polling places in Amesbury, Ashburnham, Bedford, Georgetown, Hamilton, Ipswich, Manchester-By-The-Sea, North Andover, Reading, Salisbury, Watertown, and Wenham.”

While Secretary Galvin’s press release avoided using the company’s name, and the Boston Globe similarly failed to pick up on the voting machine’s controversial manufacturer, we thought you would like to know the truth.

Yes, these machines will have a paper trail. The same paper trail that was found woefully inadequate in Ohio’s primary election in May. In a damning report prepared by the Election Science Institute for Ohio’s Cuyahoga County, nearly 10% of the paper trail was found to be “either destroyed, blank, illegible, missing, taped together or otherwise compromised”. This means that audits may themselves have errors that prevent verification of the machine tally.

Yes, these machines will be optional, and are meant largely to provide disability access. But Diebold has proven again and again and again that they cannot be trusted with our elections. Once we open the door to touch-screen electronic voting machines, it will be difficult to close, because it is difficult to ask election officials to maintain two completely separate systems. We really need to ask hard questions about why the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) has sprung these machines on states without adequate time to get it right. In this case, it seems like it’s influence-peddling on Capitol Hill that’s to blame (See our earlier post for more background on HAVA). Sadly, Beacon Hill is cut from the same cloth.

Voters, take heed. You may not know that Diebold’s optical scanners, the AccuVote OS, is the predominant mode of voting in Massachusetts cities and towns. While there is no compelling evidence - that we are aware of - at this point to show that there are problems with the integrity of the vote in Massachusetts, there is cause to be vigilant.

A brand new report from the University of Connecticut’s Voting Technology Research (VoTeR) Center finds serious vulnerabilities in the Diebold AccuVote Optical Scan system provided by LHS Associates.

“We identify a number of new vulnerabilities of this system which, if exploited maliciously, can invalidate the results of an election process utilizing the terminal. Furthermore, based on our findings an AV-OS can be compromised with off-the-shelf equipment in a matter of minutes even if the machine has its removable memory card sealed in place. The basic attack can be applied to effect a variety of results, including entirely neutralizing one candidate so that their votes are not counted, swapping the votes of two candidates, or biasing the results by shifting some votes from one candidate to another. Such vote tabulation corruptions can lay dormant until the election day, thus avoiding detection through pre-election tests.”

The team of researchers goes on to recommend a series of safeguards, and the Connecticut Secretary of State has adopted these safe use procedures, including random post-election audits. Despite recommendations from Common Cause and the Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security for routine, random audits, the Secretary’s office has said it is not necessary because there is a low threshold for pursuing a recount.

An earlier report on security issues with Diebold’s AccuVote Optical Scan system by computer programmer Harri Hursti and consumer protection group Black Box Voting found the system supports “the alteration of the produced results each time an election is prepared.”

The optical scanners which will be widely used in Massachusetts on November 7 are preferred by election integrity advocates because the ballots may easily be hand-counted. But a comprehensive security plan must be in place to ensure that the system is accurate and verifiable. Such a security plan must include random audits.

In 2004, the Massachusetts towns of Marblehead and Uxbridge had election results determined by optical scanners overturned when hand recounts were triggered by a close election. Without providing regular, random audits of our election systems, we are not providing the vigilance needed to safeguard the democratic process as we explore, for better or for worse, a brave new world of electronic voting.

It is clear that the citizens of the Commonwealth need to take action to ensure the integrity of our elections. Check out Black Box Voting’s Citizen’s Toolkit, and see what you can do before, during, and after Tuesday’s election to help safeguard this precious, fundamental process. Write to elections@jillstein.org if you would like to receive news and alerts in the days and weeks ahead, as we work to bring election-protection into place for Massachusetts, on November 7 and beyond.

In so doing, we are applying the wisdom of slavery abolitionist Wendell Phillips, who remarked in a speech to the Massachusetts Antislavery Society in 1852, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. We cannot afford to look the other way.

written by: Eli Beckerman

Secretary of Commonwealth: Although the well-qualified John Bonifaz made only small inroads in his primary race against a well-established William Galvin, Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein still offers us a credible choice on Nov. 7. Stein, who ran for governor in 2002, is a physician, an environmental health advocate and a watchdog over legislative initiatives that put special interests above the community’s voice. If not for her alerts, some really harmful bills would have sailed through this legislative session unseen by the public. Stein’s grassroots campaign won’t take donations from registered lobbyists or from officers of corporations who employ such lobbyists. Praised by the likes of Joan Venocchi and Mel King, Stein now brings us a “Got Democracy?” reform platform.

She would end the culture of secrecy on Beacon Hill by removing the exemption the legislature granted itself from the Open Meeting Law. “We can allow ordinary people to participate in an open process of government,” she says, “rather than having our laws written in secret by lobbyists and insiders.” As a plaintiff suing Boston City Council for Open Meeting Law violations, I know first-hand how important such transparency is to honest and accountable governance.

Stein would promote implementation of the Clean Elections Law to provide public financing for qualified candidates and give the voters officials that don’t take office indebted to big campaign donors. And she would support better disclosure of lobbying and campaign donors (look at the state’s internet lists of donors at www.efs2.cpf.state.ma.us and see how many don’t even give the required employer affiliation), to fight the insidious influence-peddling that controls our money, our environmental resources and our laws. She speaks of the “lobbying surtax” — the extra cost of transportation, energy and health care we end up paying because of the success of lobbyists in shifting hidden burdens to consumers and taxpayers.

Look her up at www.jillstein.org. In this incumbent-bound state, we’re lucky people like Stein still run for office.

written by: Shirley Kressel

STEIN CRITICIZES SECRETARY’S DECISION TO USE FLAWED DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES IMPLICATED IN SECURITY LAPSES

Reacting to the recent report that the Massachusetts Secretary of State is introducing Diebold TSx touch screen voting machines for use in the November election, Jill Stein, Green-Rainbow candidate for Secretary of State, had the following comments.

“The decision to use the insecure, unreliable Diebold TSx touch screen voting machines – even for optional use – in several Massachusetts towns on November 7 is misguided. Voters are being offered an untrustworthy voting machine, and already overburdened poll workers are being asked to master a notoriously unfriendly technology at the 11th hour.

The use of the machines is part of an evaluation of two voting devices to assist the disabled. This is a belated attempt to fulfill Help America Vote Act requirements to provide for the neglected voting rights of the disabled. It is a sad commentary on the current Secretary’s office that this effort in Massachusetts is first getting off the ground in the final weeks before the general election, well after the Sept. 19 deadline for having technology in place to assist the disabled, and four years after the deadline was established. Flawed technology with a track record of security failures is not the solution to meeting the voting needs of the disabled.

It is unfortunate that the Secretary of State - the Commonwealth’s chief public information officer - has been neither public nor informative about this timely issue. Despite the many questions that are being asked, Secretary Galvin has refused to participate in numerous election forums for the Secretary of State race at which this and other critical problems are being discussed.”

Stein pledged to block introduction of touch screen electronic voting machines into the Commonwealth until they have been proven to be reliable, cost effective, verifiable and tamper proof. She called for a system of hand-counted audits to ensure detection of voting machine problems. “The integrity of our elections is central to the democratic process, and we must have a Secretary who will safeguard both our right to vote and the integrity of our voting system.”

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES

Diebold machines were barred from use in California, and the company paid a $2.6 million settlement after being sued for making false claims about the security and certification status of its machines. In Maryland, following problems during September’s primary, the state is rushing to print 1.6 million paper ballots for the Nov. 7 election amid calls from Governor Ehrlich that voters should avoid casting their vote on the electronic voting systems. A report last week in the Washington Post raised new security concerns, as a disk with secret Diebold election software was leaked. And the Baltimore Sun reported this week that “Diebold Election Systems shipped Maryland flawed electronic voting machines that were used in the 2004 election, then quietly replaced the malfunctioning components last year”.

There are numerous other reports of security vulnerabilities in touch screen voting machines in general, and the TSx model in particular, including major studies from the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, the GAO, the Carter Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, and Black Box Voting.

Provisions in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), pushed many states into the uncharted territory of electronic voting. HAVA was engineered by convicted Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, whose chief of staff, David DiStefano, left to become a Diebold lobbyist. Ney is also known to have accepted favors – including a golfing trip to Scotland – from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose firm, Greenberg Traurig, received $275,000 from Diebold.

According to a study by ElectionOnline.org, approximately one-third of voters nationwide will be casting their ballots this year on voting systems never before used in a general election. “The report notes that election administration has undergone more changes – from machines to
databases to ID and provisional voting procedures – in the past two years than perhaps any other time in the nation’s history. And that is a likely cause of trouble at the polls in some parts of the country.”

campaign press release

To tell you the truth, we don’t really know.

As Secretary of the Commonwealth, Bill Galvin has sat silently by as the very foundations of our democracy have been crumbling. Unlike the activist Secretaries of State Katherine Harris (Florida 2000) and Kenneth Blackwell (Ohio 2004) — Mr. Galvin has remained nearly invisible. So invisible that other than his prominently placed picture in the official Massachusetts voter information guide the Secretary’s office is completely under the radar. While many people don’t know what the Secretary of the Commonwealth does, the responsibilites of that office are central to the health of our democracy.

At taxpayer’s expense, this fine image of Secretary of State Galvin has been distributed far and wide in the official Massachusetts voter guide.

The Secretary oversees the critical underpinnings of our democracy, and most urgently, the apparatus of influence peddling in state government — money in elections, public information, and lobbying. Over the past 12 years under Bill Galvin, virtually all the basic indicators of civic health –the vital signs of our democracy — have been in a steep decline.

Money in politics is breaking all records, and more than 80% of the money funding elections comes from less than 1% of the voters. Competition in elections has declined by more than half, with incumbents running unopposed in 75% of legislative races. Voting rights violations are frequent. And the same insiders return to office year after year — with a Soviet-style re-election rate of 98%! Influence peddling has become a way of life on Beacon Hill — there are now seven lobbyists for every legislator. Legislators are writing multi-million dollar bills behind closed doors and ramming them into law without meaningful public review. As a result, our tax dollars are wasted in poorly managed projects like the Big Dig that benefit big campaign donors, create major new tax burdens, and fail to meet the needs of the residents of the Commonwealth.

It is time that the people of Massachusetts had a Secretary of State that was independent of the Beacon Hill influence-peddling machines. It is time that the person who oversees our elections felt a responsibility to participate in public debates on the issues facing the voters. It is time that we had a Secretary of State who would use the authority of that office as chief public information officer to be the watchdog that our democracy desperately needs.

written by: Eli Beckerman