[ale] [OT] ACTION ALERT: Vote Fraud -- Legislation to Restore Legitimate Elections to Georgia

[Bob Toxen]

All,

I have evaluated the Diebold system from a computer security
perspective, including having studied the Johns Hopkins analysis.
In my professional opinion as a computer security professional,
it is far too insecure to be acceptable for a trusted application
such as voting.  Both the Federal government and state governments
that certified it demonstrated incompetence in so doing.

Any single entity -- from a politician to a terrorist -- with a
mere million dollars (far less than election budgets) easily could
completely change the outcome of an election.  While the "hanging
chad" and similar problems could allow an uncertainty of perhaps
0.5% of the votes, an easy compromise of the Diebold system could
alter 100% of the votes with no way even of detecting it!

It should be decertified immediately and replaced with something
known to be secure.

Please do write to Governor Perdue (address at bottom of this email)
and urge him to put critical VVPAT Voting System Upgrade legislation
of SB500 onto the Special 

Thanks for your consideration,
Bob Toxen

On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 08:43:36AM +0000, aaron wrote:
> (please distribute freely and generously)
> ================================

> For all receiving this who have been promoting democracy with phone calls and 
> faxes to the Georgia General Assembly in support of SB500 and Voter Verified 
> Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) legislation, Thank you! Your efforts have helped 
> immensely, and you should know that this campaign to restore legitimate 
> elections to Georgia and our Nation is continuing.

> Some very recent and related good news is that the California voting system 
> panel has unanimously recommended immediate de-certification of all Diebold 
> paperless electronic voting systems in that State. The panel is also 
> recommending that California consider taking criminal actions against Diebold 
> for violating certification requirement laws, just as the company did in 
> Georgia when they ran our entire 2002 Statewide General elections on 
> uncertified software.
> <http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63191,00.html?tw=wn_story_top5>

> The better news is that the persistent efforts of the Georgia Voter Choice 
> Coalition and supporters like you have succeeded in greatly raising awareness 
> of electronic voting issues throughout the 2004 Georgia General Assembly. 
> Many supportive allies were gained and  many disinformed elected 
> representatives were alerted to the massive threats to our election process 
> posed by the Diebold corporate carpetbaggers and privatized, paperless 
> electronic voting. We not only succeeded in having a version of our Voter 
> Verified Paper Audit Trail legislation passed by the State Senate, but a 
> restored version of our VVPAT legislation came very close to passage in the 
> House as well.

> The best news is that we may get to try again! Georgia's Governor has vetoed 
> the 2004 General Assembly budget and has scheduled a special session that 
> will commence on May 3rd! Our IMMEDIATE challenge is to inundate Georgia 
> Governor Sonny Perdue with LETTERS, FAXES, PHONE CALLS and EMAILS urging him 
> to put critical VVPAT Voting System Upgrade legislation of SB500 onto the 
> Special Session calendar!!

> The Honorable Sonny Perdue
> Governor, State of Georgia
> 203 State Capitol
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334

> Voice:  404-656-1776
> Fax:     404-657-7332

> Please express your support for Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail. Let the 
> Governor know your disappointment in the deceptive, secretive handling of our 
> voting systems by Secretary of State Cathy Cox and the 2004 Georgia General 
> Assembly.

> With your encouragement, the Georgia Voter Choice Coalition is fully prepared 
> to overcome the challenges of the legislative process, as evidenced by our 
> many accomplishments and successes to date. For the enlightening background 
> on our efforts in the Georgia General Assembly, I offer the complete details 
> of our battles in the following:

> ======

> Due to the efforts and experience of Hugh Esco of the Georgia Green Party,
> the Georgia Voter Coalition  and its ally citizen organizations, Senate 
> sponsors were enlisted to put forth two separate bills in the 2004 Georgia 
> General Assembly which mandated restoration of a Voter Verified Paper Audit 
> Trail (VVPAT) to our State elections.

> Nadine Thomas (D-S10) sponsored SB340, which not only mandated VVPAT 
> but Open Source election software. Senator Tom Price (R,56), sponsored SB500, 
> which added the critical VVPAT element, though limiting it's application to 
> cases of election challenges or recounts. 

> After a little back door prodding from the Secretray of State's office, Nadine 
> Thomas fully abandoned her marginal, lukewarm advocacy for SB340 [see the 
> article on Nadine Thomas at <http://www.countthevote.org> ].

> Senator  Price, however, remained active in promoting SB500 throughout the  
> process, starting with work to make sure the bill cleared it's first process 
> hurdle and was heard in the Senate's  State and Local Government Operations 
> Committee, chaired by Rene? Unterman (R,45).

> Despite extensive, lop sided lobbying through lie and factual omission by the
> Cathy Cox consortium, an amended substitute of SB500 was unanimously approved 
> by a five member quorum of the SLOGO Committee. The disappointing amendment of 
> the approved substitute was that the required implementation date was pushed 
> back from October  2004 to July, 2006... though this was a problem that could 
> be repaired with subsequent amendment opportunities in the process.

> The next hurdle was to get on the Senate calendar, and time was becoming 
> critical. Fortunately, Tom Price, the enlisted SB500 sponsor, is also 
> co-chair of the Senate Rules committee. This position helped ensure that his 
> "controversial" SB500 legislation made it on to the Senate calendar for Day 
> 33, the last Assembly session day when bills passed by one arm of the 
> Assembly can cross over for consideration in the other.

> The VVPAT bill wound up about halfway down the over-subscribed crossover day 
> calendar and was called to the Senate Floor around 4pm. It sparked a lot of 
> "controversial" debate, including two Democrat sponsored motions to table the 
> bill among the many political maneuvers that spanned nearly 2 hours.

> Senator  George Hooks (D-S14) finally closed down discuission by successfully 
> attaching an extremely hostile amendment to SB500, one which shackled audit 
> trail implementation to the vague neverday schedule and highly uncertain 
> future of the Bush regime's unfunded Federal Election Assistance Commission. 
> Once hobbled by the hostile Hooks amendment, SB500 passed the Senate in a 52 
> to 3 vote.

> While the Hooks attachment was a notable hindrance, the Senate passage remains 
> a major victory, and the volunteer Voter Choice lobbyists proudly carried the 
> injured SB500 across to the House. We immediately began building on 
> possibilities for the bill's restoration and reconsideration through the rest 
> of the process. Unfortunately, the Dixie-crat controlled House proved MUCH 
> more politically stunted and inexcusably opposed to the restoration of our 
> democracy.

> Our Voter Choice coalition heavily lobbied the members of the Government 
> Affairs  Committee and its Elections sub-committee for a hearing of SB500. We 
> were highly certain that our lobbying and education efforts had gained the 
> committee votes needed to win approval of the bill, and we had additionally 
> secured sponsors in the House for removing the hostile amendments and 
> implementation delays.

> With an attitude that can only be described as ultimately arrogant and 
> ignorant, the Elections sub-committee Chair, Buddy DeLoach (D-H127) 
> refused to allow any kind of public hearing on the bill. Nor would he even sit 
> privately to hear the many facts refuting the Cathy Cox litany of lies which 
> he had been programmed to repeat. His rant was the same redundant, deceitful 
> Diebold marketing script  that we heard puked forth by almost every Democrat 
> we spoke with in the entire State (including U.S. Senator Denise Majette when 
> the issue was presented to her as an opening question for one her recent 
> public campaign meetings in March).

> But the Voter Choice Coalition wasn't about to a disinformed puppet like 
> DeLoach stop democracy, no matter how many meetings he cancelled (including 
> last minute cancellations of scheduled 4/1 and 4/2 committee meetings, which 
> effectively burned up days 37, 38 and 39 of the legislative session). Facing 
> the inexcusably obstinate DeLoach blockades and with day 40 approaching, 
> measures were also being taken to attach VVPAT to another legislative vehicle 
> pending before the House.

> Late in the morning of Tuesday, 4/6, the final "business" day before the day 
> 40 final session and a time when only some of the Assembly members are at  
> their Capitol offices, we learned that a meeting of the House Government 
> Affairs committee was scheduled for 3pm that afternoon.  We were present and 
> prepared, hoping the committee would call either the original SB500 _or_ 
> SB153 for consideration.

> SB153 (originally sponsored by SLOGO Chair Renee Unterman) was election 
> related legislation intended to restrict persons convicted of vote fraud from 
> serving as poll workers or election officials, and was the most promising and 
> appropriate vehicle for our VVPAT language.  In response to stonewalling of 
> DeLoach, we had enlisted a cooperative ally on the Elections sub-committee, 
> Douglas Dean  (D-H49), to put forth the original, restored VVPAT voting 
> system printer requirements (with Oct. 2004 dates) as an amendment to SB153.

> Five members of our coalition crowded into the office of Government Affairs 
> committee Chairman Allan Powell (D-H23 ), curiously just as Cathy Cox was 
> leaving. We were there to witness the (standing room only) meeting of a 
> minimal quorum of committee members. Representative Dean was conspicuously 
> absent and  later claimed that he had not been informed of the meeting; none 
> of our members had been able to locate and alert him, though it turned out he 
> was only 20 yards away in another office. As might be predicted, SB500 was 
> denied consideration again, but SB153 was heard so that another committee 
> member could tack on some less relevant amendments. Our Voter Choice 
> Coalition leader, Hugh Esco (Green Party coordinator), spoke up and asked 
> that the Dean VVPAT amendment also be considered, but the committee refused 
> to entertain such motions from the public. Still, the good news was that 
> SB153 was approved, passed on to House rules and was subsequently placed on  
> the day 40 calendar late in the afternoon of the final day; our VVPAT  
> amendment still had a rolling vehicle that it could ride on.

> Several members of Voter Choice coalition, plus several new allies we had 
> recruited at the capitol, worked tirelessly throughout day 40 gaining VVPAT 
> amendment support, informing the legislators with factual information about 
> the paper ballot printout options and (we believe) gaining majority support 
> for our legislation on the House floor.

> SB153 was indeed called to the House floor within the last few hours of the 
> final day, but when Senator Dean presented the VVPAT amendment to Speaker 
> Terry Coleman (D-H118), Coleman insanely declared that legislation to 
> prevent election fraud was "not germane" to a bill addressing election fraud!

> Without further adieu, the Machiavellian machinations of Secretary of State 
> Cathy Cox insured that issues critical to the very core of our democracy were 
> not to be allowed the democracy of an actual vote. (The Secretary wasted her 
> entire day's tax payer provided salary running back and forth between the 
> House and Senate lobbying against auditable, legitimate elections.)

> For reasons still unknown but easily  deduced, Senator Dean failed to 
> challenge the twisted and absurd ruling from Speaker Coleman, so the return 
> of legitimate, publicly audited elections to the State of Georgia was sadly 
> thwarted by Cathy Cox and her Dixiecrats shortly before the close of the 2004 
> Georgia Assembly session.

> ...though again...

> The good news is that the persistent efforts of the Georgia Voter Choice 
> Coalition and supporters like you have succeeded in greatly raising awareness 
> of electronic voting issues throughout the 2004 Georgia General Assembly. 
> Many supportive allies were gained and  many disinformed elected 
> representatives were alerted to the massive threat to our election process 
> being presented by the Diebold corporate carpetbaggers and privatized, 
> paperless electronic voting. We not only succeeded in having a version of our 
> Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail legislation passed by the State Senate, but 
> a restored version of our VVPAT legislation came very close to passage in the 
> House as well.

> The best news is that we may get to try again! Georgia's Governor has vetoed 
> the 2004 General Assembly budget and has scheduled a special session that 
> will commence on May 3rd! Our IMMEDIATE challenge is to inundate Georgia 
> Governor Sonny Perdue with LETTERS, FAXES and PHONE CALLS urging him to put 
> critical VVPAT Voting System Upgrade legislation of SB500 onto the Special 
> Session calendar!!

> The Honorable Sonny Perdue
> Governor, State of Georgia
> 203 State Capitol
> Atlanta, Georgia 30334

> Voice:  404-656-1776
> Fax:     404-657-7332

> ===========================================================
> This document was compiled and composed with the generous assistance
> of members of the League Opposed to Virtual Elections, Count The Vote, the 
> Georgia Green Party, Georgians Against Black Box Voting and the Voter 
> Independence Project.


> If you would like to learn more about this important issue and what you
> can do to restore the integrity and transparency of elections thoughout our 
> nation, please visit any of the following sites:  


>     http://www.voterchoice.org/auditableballots.php  
>     http://www.verifiedvoting.com/
>     http://www.countthevote.org/
>     http://www.blackboxvoting.com/
>     http://www.voteamericavote.com/krugman.html 
>     http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/hava/hava.html