Why Was Uncertified 'Experimental' Software Installed on ES&S Tabulation Systems in 39 OH Counties

I read this story a few days ago from a post on another website. I waited until someone like BradBlog verified the story and received more information. I think it is a BIG DEAL

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Last week, Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello at FreePress.org reported an important story concerning what they described as "uncertified 'experimental' software patches" being installed at the last minute on electronic vote tabulation systems in 39 Ohio counties.

The story included a copy of the contract [PDF] between Republican Ohio Sec. of State Jon Husted's office and ES&S, the nation's largest e-voting system manufacturer, for a new, last minute piece of software created to the custom specifications of the Sec. of State. The contract itself describes the software as "High-level enhancements to ES&S' election reporting software that extend beyond the current features and functionality of the software to facilitate a custom-developed State Election Results Reporting File."

A subsequent story at The Free Press the following day included text said to be from a November 1 memo sent from the OH SoS Election Counsel Brandi Laser Seske to a number of state election officials confirming the use of the new, uncertified software on Ohio's tabulator systems. The memo claims that "its function is to aid in the reporting of results" by converting them "into a format that can be read by the Secretary of State's election night reporting system."

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www.bradblog.com...

reply to post by GrantedBail


Why was it necessary to do this NOW right, and I mean right now, before a presidential election? Why all the last minute funny business with the patch and changing the rules for provisional ballots? It is widely know to those that have followed elections for years that these electronic voting machines have been tampered with and there are many instances of suspicious counts and results.

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"Their custom application...would have full contact with the central tabulator database on both a read and write basis, while running on the same computer as where the 'master vote records' (the central tabulator database - the 'crown jewels' of the whole process) are stored," he says.

"Under this structure a case of accidental damage to the 'crown jewels' of the election data is possible. A case of deliberate tampering of that data using uncertified, untested software would be child's play."

He describes the process as "criminally negligent just from a standpoint of data security."

State Sen. Turner was similarly suspicious: "They should not be experimenting in a Presidential Election. You know the Secretary of State had previous years to try to experiment."

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www.bradblog.com...

reply to post by GrantedBail

its function is to aid in the reporting of results" by converting them "into a format that can be read by the Secretary of State's election night reporting system

I don't get it. Can't they read the results already? Like it seems kind of pointless to even try and say something like this because they already have a way to view the results programmed in or they wouldn't have been able to see the final election results any time they used it.

This has been going on for a while now, and most people are ignorant of this fact. These machines are the death of democracy, and should be outlawed.



If you can't watch the video now, it's called "Stealing America: Vote By Vote". I encourage everybody to take the time to watch this video (in 10 parts on youtube) when you get the chance, preferably before you go to the polls tomorrow. You will never feel the same way about voting again.

Also, please see this Princeton University experiment which shows just how ridiculously easy it is to download malware onto the Diebold machines, which erases itself after altering the vote count, leaving no trace:

reply to post by GrantedBail
This how our election process has been subverted and made it so easy to tamper with elections. Not just national races, but important state races and propositions. Why anything can't get done about this after all this years speaks volumes.

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Jim March, a longtime Libertarian election integrity and software expert, as well as a member of the Pima County, AZ Election Integrity Commission (which serves as an official advisory body to the Pima County Board of Supervisors), and a founding and current board member of BlackBoxVoting.org, is highly suspicious of the last minute installation of software.

In an affidavit [PDF] submitted to Fitrakis and Arnebeck for their legal case, March says he believes "that this custom software is not necessary for the conduct of elections and is in fact highly dangerous."

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Link to 5 page affidavit:

BradBlog.com...

reply to post by FissionSurplus


These machines and how easy they are to manipulate makes me glad that canada still has ballot counting. Not that it helped us get an honest prime minister....

1. I would expect that there would be a change freeze on all software well in advance of the election.

2. Why on earth is any component of this written in COBOL \

It's probably just some benign changes to the reporting system. But leave it to the State government bureaucracies to look like bumbling fools right before a tight election.

Seems like step 4 of the thread I started over the weekend:


5 Steps To Take Down a Country

reply to post by FissionSurplus


To me this is one of the biggest conspiracies there is in the US. So much monkey business has gone on with these machines. It truly has made me lose complete faith in the integrity of voting and was a precursor to me disengaging from the left/right paradigm. So many long sitting US Senators and Representatives have been offered proof that these machines and tabulators are hi-jacked consistently, yet not one of them does anything about it or even makes a peep. More proof there is a shadow government that controls all of their actions.

reply to post by Zarniwoop


Benign my backside. Accessing the central tabulators in that way is very dangerous. Let us not forget Ohio 2004.

I find it amazing that a binary answer ( O or R ) to a binary question ( O or R ) can get so complicated.

There reasonable answer is questionable procedures at the software company and state or fraud. Given the players, it is probably both.

It might makes for some entertainment on election night.

reply to post by GrantedBail


Just a reminder of what occurred in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio:


TWO OHIO ELECTION OFFICIALS CONVICTED FOR RIGGING 2004 PRESIDENTIAL RECOUNT!
Will be Questioned by Special Prosecutor Before Sentencing to Learn if Higher Ups Involved

AND

CLEVELAND (AP) - Two county election workers were sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount of 2004 presidential election ballots so they could avoid a longer, detailed review.
Jacqueline Maiden, 60, a Cuyahoga County election coordinator who was the board's third-highest ranking employee, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer, 40, each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan allowed the women to remain free on bail pending appeal, but indicated he thought there was a more widespread conspiracy among election officials.

"I can't help but feel there's more to this story," Corrigan said.

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www.bradblog.com...

reply to post by FissionSurplus


I decided to watch the Stealing American: Vote by Vote as you suggested and it was very informative from a Briton's point of view (as we vote by putting a cross on a paper ballot and having those votes hand counted), unfortunately part 9 was unavailable "This video contains content from Viacom, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.".

I must say that I found the 10th part (out of 10) of this to be my favourite one, as from 4minutes 4seconds to 4minutes 55seconds (approximately) there was a nice acoustic guitar playing God Save the Queen:

reply to post by GrantedBail


In what specific way do you refer?

I think the most dangerous aspect of this is the manual uploading of results, not the codes used for reporting.

reply to post by Zarniwoop


This is why it is dangerous. Here is a snippet from the affidavit I linked to above in one of my previous posts. Please read the whole declaration. It is only 5 pages double spaced.

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Declaration of James “Jim” March
Page 3 of 5

7) For a number of reasons, I believe that this custom software is not
necessary for the conduct of elections and is in fact highly dangerous – the
presence of this software significantly reduces the odds that the election
results (on a county or statewide level) will be illegally and/or
unconstitutionally incorrect. My analysis follows.
First, I have examined the election results created by the “normal” (or “built
in” election reporting tools included with the standard, certified ES&S
central tabulator application. The results reports so created are entirely
adequate to figure out who won and lost, on a precinct or jurisdiction-wide
level. The standard, certified ES&S system can also produce electronic data
file results that can be written from the central tabulator to a CD-ROM or
other such media for uploading to the Internet. Transcribing the results for
use by some other system might take a little bit of time but is a simple
enough affair.

8) Like any modern election management system the vote totals (along with
candidate/race names, precinct numbers and the like) are stored in a database.
ES&S uses a variant of SQL – Structured Query Language – which can be read to
and written from a number of different programs. The situation is the same
with world processing files – a Microsoft Word .DOC document file can also be
read by and worked with in WordPerfect, AbiWord, OpenOffice, LibreOffice and
others.

9) What ES&S has chosen to do here is extremely dangerous and exactly what
you'd want to do if you wanted to plant a “cheat” onto the central tabulator.
Their custom application written in a variant of the COBOL programming


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BradBlog.com...

lets see how stupid most americans are.
will the shout out for this to be investigated.
or just be fooled again & agin?

The reason is a load of bull.

If data is given to you in a format which your software can't handle, you simply re-arrange your software, not the external part.

So Ohio - being an all-powerful swing state - is setting itself up to be able to say "whoa, our votes were wrong, bad computer patch, please change our vote to this duckhead".

OK, just so I know what to expect.

We already know it's all rigged and both candidates are the same. So this is no surprise. Just don't waste your time voting.