Wisconsin recount observers discover five vote counting machines with tampered seals

[.99center]

http://www.palmerreport.com/news/wisconsin-recount-observers-discover-five-vote-counting-machines-with-tampered-seals/345/?v

"With the Wisconsin statewide recount now fully underway, designated election observers have been monitoring the hand recounts of the election officials. Many of the observers who have been designated on behalf of third party candidate Jill Stein are sharing their first hand recount experiences on her official website. Most notable among them: one observer who reports that five of the nine voting machines in her county had tampered seals – and she posted visual evidence to prove it.

The observer, named Wendy, has been observing the recount in St. Croix County. According to the state’s official election website, that county is currently doing both a hand recount and a machine recount. That’s what makes it notable that Wendy spotted the broken seals on five of the nine machines in question. Based on the photographs she posted to Stein’s official campaign website, the broken seals themselves come with the warning label that “Removal of seal voids warranty.” Take a look at one of her photos below:

There has as of yet been no explanation from Wisconsin officials or St. Croix County officials as to why the majority of vote counting machines in the county have been visibly tampered with, and no one noticed during the original vote tally. It’s possible that these seals could have been broken by a hacker who was reprogramming them to produce rigged or false vote totals, and it’s also possible that an election worker could have simply pried open the seals for some unknown reason that didn’t involve malicious intent. But in any case, the broken tamper seals stand out as alarming – and could serve as legal fodder for expanding the scope of the recount.

A judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to force every Wisconsin county to do a hand recount, and that each county could decide on its own whether to do hand recounts or machine recounts. Sixty of the seventy-two counties have voluntarily agreed to do hand recounts. However, of the twelve counties which refused, Donald Trump won nine of them. These tampered seals could be used to convince the judge to order the remaining twelve counties to do hand recounts. If you enjoy Palmer Report, consider making a contribution:"

[UCmeNdc]

1. Where are the lawyers?

[flamingdem]

2. More where that came from

[ffr]

3. No way. This can't be true.

[putitinD]

4. I predict that they will find tampered machines in WI MI and PA explains why the Trumpster didn't

want a recount.

[JonLP24]

8. A broken seal is a sign they were tampered with

This piece of news should be breaking on CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBS, etc

[putitinD]

9. or maybe Drumpf can just tweet it.

[lostnfound]

22. It's better if it's not on the news just yet

Keep Brooks brothers riots to a minimum until more evidence is obtained

[Raster]

26. Yep, that was their first tactic the last time they tried this shit and got caught.

RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA...
RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA...
RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA...
RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA...
RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA...
RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA... RECOUNT FLORIDA...

[AgadorSparticus]

29. You would think....but the media doesn't even bother with any pretense of being legitimate anymore

[putitinD]

5. Just recount every state, to make sure no one cheated.

[pangaia]

6. Postpone the EC vote... !!

Something is rotten in.......... Den.......the US of A.

[JonLP24]

7. Broken seals is a HUGE clue

They put those seals so you don't slip a memory card.

I don't know how anyone can not think machines were hacked with tampered seals.

I intend to kick this thread for as long as possible.

[Achilleaze]

23. Republican 'family values" in action, as usual

[Igel]

37. And void the warranty.

That's rather different from what election seals are intended to do.

That seal's breaking means that if the machine fails to work, the manufacturer's warranty is no good. It does mean that at some point somebody opened it up. Possibly last week. Possibly last year. Possibly two weeks after it arrived (however long ago that was).

[JonLP24]

38. Security concerns

Security Seals Ideally, the DS200’s exposed ports, memory card access areas, ballot box doors and case seams would be covered with tamper-evident security seals. The integrity of these seals should be maintained at all times, and only breached under controlled, explained circumstances. Seals should be logged to maintain chain of custody of sensitive materials.

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/ess/ds200/

[JonLP24]

10. St Croix county results

:

President/Vice President
Trump / Pence 26,123 - 55%
Clinton / Kaine 17,496 36%


United States Senator
Ron Johnson 27,411 - 58%
Russ Feingold 17,725 - 37%

Representative in Congress Dist 7
Sean Duffy 29,006 63%
Mary Hoeft 16,718 36%

http://patch.com/wisconsin/hudson-wi/election-2016-st-croix-county-voting-results

[KewlKat]

11. Ah, so this is Russ Feingold territory.....

Crossing fingers that they find the rotten apples in these voting machines and it's enough cause to push the remaining 12 precincts to recount by hand.

[Takket]

39. 2012 results

Romney/Ryan
REP
25475

Obama/Biden
DEM
19874

[Lucinda]

12. KNR

[C Moon]

13. Ohio and Florida voting is probably ripe with these diseases as well.

[HuskyOffset]

17. I think the word you're looking for is . . .

rife.

[C Moon]

20. Thanks. I think both work, though. :)

[world wide wally]

14. So fucking predictable

[McCamy Taylor]

15. Someone paid these people to do this. And coordinated it. The NSA has it all.

What is the good of having warrant free spying if we don't use it?

[JudyM]

30. Multiple machines seems like too much of a coincidence to not be a pattern...

[Hekate]

16. KnR

[TreasonousBastard]

18. There are seals, and there are seals...

I've worked the polls with machines that have seals and dire warnings. Some of the seals are important, others not so much. Some, like the scanned ballot box, are irrelevant since the ballots are removed at closing and there's nothing in there but unused supplies. Not just the ballots are scooted out to a central location, the chip with the totals is out the door, too, so it's no big deal if the chip door doesn't have a seal either, after the polls close.

It may be a big deal if the ballot door or other seal is messed with while the polls are open.

But...

And this is a big "but"...

Poll workers are not always that well trained and/or don't always understand the seals. In NY, they are also dead tired after a 16-17 hour day and miss things.

The other big "but" is that the system is designed to allow for this without corrupting the vote.

[TheFrenchRazor]

19. i'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explaination... not. nt

[LovingA2andMI]

21. Folks Bookmark This Comment....

In Michigan, and specifically Detroit in 2009 and 2013 -- what has been described above is how elections results should be questioned and recounts allowed.

For proof, here is a comment from the Mayoral candidate that discovered the rigging that took place:

This is quite telling. I keep getting asked how it's possible to rig an election. This will be my last comment on it and here is what folks are going to discover as to how the fix was done:

1) use the pre-programmed memory computer card to alter the true election night vote mix allocation to candidates in certain limited areas but leaving total votes cast unchanged and;

2) if a recount is requested, stall a short time to get to the cases where the mix was altered and SIMPLY put on a new security seal on the cases altered to NOT match the seal number recorded by honest workers in the election night poll book. The case cannot be opened or the paper ballot looked at!

Vio-la, the previous but now altered (rigged) computer count stands and...the rigged election is accomplished! 200 of us saw it with our own eyes...

But....what he is doing suggests that they make not have confederates to change the local seals.....uh oh!

In the 2013 Recount Effort in Detroit, this commentator saw with THEIR OWN EYES what has described above, happen. Along with plenty of other highly questionable occurrences with "Write-In Ballots".

There is another way to rig an election with the older model Diebold machines.

Particularity, the ones running the older model 256K Floppy Disks or SD Cards. The cards can be programmed with a command like (-2 Candidate #1/+3 Candidate #2/+1 Candidate #3). The net effect would allow for every vote for Candidates 2 & 3 to effectively be deleted to Candidate 1 - resulting in a net loss for Candidate #1).

Now all of the machines do NOT have to contain the program 256K cards -- just enough to make the election results fit the favor of who is attempting to rig an election. A third party supplier normally handles these cards and floppy disks.

This COURT CASE DOCKET backs up what is alleged could have taken place to "Rig Elections" in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania -- depending on the machines and scanners used.

For what occurred in 2013, this article is the best point of reference:
Massive Fraud In Detroit Election A Big Deal For Michigan

Michigan's Presidential Election in 2016 was "decided" by 10,704 votes out of an estimated 4.5 million votes cast -- or just enough to change an outcome.

This is why at our option, a recount of Michigan, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is MORE THAN NECESSARY!

Thanks for reading...

[TheFrenchRazor]

41. these machines are hackable. end of story. nt

[blitzburgh55]

25. Interesting tweets and video from WI

https://twitter.com/NoMoreWarTY/status/804758817481388032

[CrispyQ]

27. Our electoral process is horribly compromised,

yet, during this election, there was bipartisan support for the claim that US elections are secure. I'll never believe that Ohio wasn't hacked in 2004 stealing the presidency from Kerry. Now, they've learned how to do it in less conspicuous ways.

[TheFrenchRazor]

42. keep in mind that the PTB are all "on the team," so of course they won't say anything to undermine

confidence in "the process."

[CrispyQ]

46. Love your screen name.

[TheFrenchRazor]

53. thanks... it may be time to oil it up... and kicking... nt

[triron]

54. knr

[jodymarie aimee]

28. not so fast Palmer

Here in Wisconsin, seals are broken on voting machines on election night to remove programming cards and open the ballot bin if the machine has one. Seals are put on the machine before the election after the programming card is inserted and tested, and after the ballot bins are verified to be empty - to prevent tampering during the election. The seals have numbers and are recorded on the inspector statements. I'm guessing (although I am unfamiliar with this type of machine and seal) that you are looking at the normal "seal breaking" from after the polls closed.

Just my guess. If they are hand counting, I don't know why the machines are present. And this may be another example of the observer simply not knowing what she was looking at.

[Ellipsis]

31. St Croix uses DS200 and Expressvote - there are procedures to follow as far as seals are concerned.

The ES&S DS200 is a precinct-based, voter-activated paper ballot counter and vote tabulator. The DS200 possesses a 12” LCD touch screen, which is used to provide voters with feedback, such as an overvote warning. When the polls close, the ES&S DS200 prints out the voter logs so election officials can have a paper tally. Like the Hart Intercivic eScan, the Dominion ImageCast and the Premier/Diebold OSX, the DS200 captures digitized images of all ballots scanned. This allows write-in votes and problematic ballot markings to be processed using the digitized images, so that once the ballots are scanned, they need not be handled except in the event of a recount or audit.

DS200The DS200 is a jurisdiction-wide election tabulation system. The DS200 scanners process single or dual-sided paper ballots for up to 18 Election Day precincts and 1639 Early Voting precincts, permit programming of separate election groups for the procedural processing and storage of provisional ballots separately from Election Day totals for inclusion, after determination of voter validity, automatically prints a Zero report when the polls open, can be configured to automatically print one or more reports (Status, Race Results, Certification or Audit Log,) have a public counter that displays the number of ballots cast, store paper ballots in attached ballot storage bins (key locked ballot boxes), and do not store any ballot data; all ballot data, election totals and optional ballot images are stored on an external USB flash drive which can be transported to a central count location. The Ds200 prevents access to the USB election flash drive via a key locked compartment. It prints reports including: Election Startup, Poll Closing, Diagnostic, Initial State, Audit Log, Zero and Certification and audit logging and reporting; The Ds200 operates on standard or two hour back-up battery power.

DS200 source code consists of C/C++ components. The ESSUNITY3200 baseline was modified during the Unity 3.2.1.0 EAC test effort. A total of 651 functions were changed. Each of the changed functions was reviewed by the EAC for conformance to the VVSG 2005. There were 42 instances of non-conformance reported to ES&S. ES&S submitted fixes and they were validated as resolved. All source code discrepancies were comment related. None of the discrepancies were against any of the software related VVSG 2005 requirements. The file function line count results identified no files or functions exceeded 240 eLOCs, 3.47% were between 60 and 120 lines, .23% were between 120 and 240 lines, the remaining 96.30% were less than 60 lines.

[Aimee in OKC]

32. Known Security Concerns

For the ES&S DS200:

*Security Seals = Ideally, the DS200’s exposed ports, memory card access areas, ballot box doors and case seams would be covered with tamper-evident security seals. The integrity of these seals should be maintained at all times, and only breached under controlled, explained circumstances. Seals should be logged to maintain chain of custody of sensitive materials.

*Ballot Box Access = Optical scan systems have at least one and possible more ballot boxes. Each ballot box should be inspected by a voter at the beginning of voting to make sure that they are empty. These ballot boxes should locked and/or be sealed with tamper-evident tape.

*The Memory Card is Sensitive = Corrupt memory cards may be able to introduce viruses, cause the main election server to crash and falsify votes. Access to the memory card should be controlled, monitored and logged at all times.

*Correct Inks = Some Optical Scan systems have trouble reading red inks or inks with red in them. Voters should use the writing instrument provided at the polling place or, if voting at home, black ballpoint pen that does not bleed through paper.

*Unresponsive Touchscreens = During EAC testing on the Unity 3.2.1.0 voting system, some DS200s stopped responding to interactions with the user interface. The anomaly presented itself at random times during the testing process. ES&S informed the EAC that the root cause of touch screen unresponsiveness is linked to an improperly implemented internal system log. This log is only accessible to ES&S technicians when troubleshooting errors with the fielded system.
. One specific event tracked by this log is the presence of the election media USB memory stick. If the unit is powered on without a memory stick inserted, the system records an event eight (8) times per second to the log. When the log reaches capacity, it causes a section of the internal compact flash (CF) card to become inaccessible. This same section of the CF card contains the calibration settings for the DS200’s touch screen interface. When this section of the CF card is inaccessible the calibration settings are no longer available to the system so the screen becomes unresponsive.

*Skewed Ballots = During testing on the Unity 3.2.1.0, a DS200 did not count a valid mark for a race. The anomaly was discovered when county testers reviewed the printed election summary report for the DS200 unit. The count for a single contest did not match the expected results. The test was performed to verify that ES&S had corrected a previous anomaly with similar symptoms. The county testers were using a 17” ballot with contests concentrated in the lower sections of the ballot.
. In discussion with the EAC, ES&S stated that they have only been able to replicate this issue in testing by removing the plastic guides and physically altering the ballot (cutting of a corner). In an effort to understand the issue the EAC focused on reviewing ballot images from several states and previous test campaigns. The review included 11”, 14”, 17” and 19” ballots. In the course of the review, the EAC found various degrees of ballot image distortion; with the 17” ballot having the largest degree of skew. The EAC is working with jurisdictions, VSTLs and the manufacturer to understand and resolve this issue.

During the EAC Certification process it was revealed that a DS200 coded for Election Day counting will not support more than 18 precincts ... .

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/ess/ds200/

[Ellipsis]

33. Yes indeed. Lot of vulnerabilities... but the setup routine has a sign off as far as "seals"

So it should be recorded and I'd guess it was. I'd guess this happened upstream from the 2016 election.

[Aimee in OKC]

35. Tracking of machines' history vs. simply ballot counting

These sort of situations are probably where a true audit would be more useful than restricting discovery to just a recount.

[TheFrenchRazor]

43. so wouldn't *all* the seals be broken? nt

[Ellipsis]

48. No

[Tracyjo]

50. If this is true

why aren't the seals broken on all of the machines?

[ProudProgressiveNow]

34. K&R nt

[True_Blue]

36. K&R

[DFW]

40. One part of that stands out to me

"....no explanation from Wisconsin officials or St. Croix County officials as to why the majority of vote counting machines in the county have been visibly tampered with, and no one noticed during the original vote tally"

I find the first part of that statement odd and the second downright suspicious.

If these machines aren't examined by a totally impartial someone trained in forensic computer crime, I'll find it hard to believe anyone who claims the results are 100% unmanipulated.

[TheFrenchRazor]

44. fact is, the PTB don't care, and decent, honest poll workers are to uninformed to realize what

is going on. it's an uphill battle, for sure.

[RoccoR2]

45. Snopes claims "Unproven"

http://www.snopes.com/wisconsin-recount-observers-find-voting-machines-broken-seals/

[.99center]

47. Yes, Unproven.

The article doesn't claim this proves anything.

"There has as of yet been no explanation from Wisconsin officials or St. Croix County officials as to why the majority of vote counting machines in the county have been visibly tampered with, and no one noticed during the original vote tally. It’s possible that these seals could have been broken by a hacker who was reprogramming them to produce rigged or false vote totals, and it’s also possible that an election worker could have simply pried open the seals for some unknown reason that didn’t involve malicious intent. But in any case, the broken tamper seals stand out as alarming – and could serve as legal fodder for expanding the scope of the recount."

Do the labels look worn as Snopes is reporting? It's obvious that a screw was removed and the machine was opened from the broken seal.

[toddwv]

49. This is troubling. I expect the House to launch an investigation into the matter immediately.

Just kidding. It's not like they're going to do anything to ensure that America's election process integrity isn't violated...

[PoliticAverse]

51. Actually, the laws are enforced by the Department of Justice, who work for the person pictured. n/t

[stevebreeze]

52. Jesus f'in Christ! stop with the conspiracy theory's!

Assume for the moment that those machines were tampered with and the votes changed. How many votes we talking about? a few hundred? maybe at most a few thousand. SO WHAT? when you can find actual evidence of a plot so big as to change the outcome get back to us. Otherwise figure out real things we can do to (a mitigate the cluster f we are in and (b) stop this form happening in the future.

[triron]

55. latest on this?