Voter Registration Software-The Key to Destroying Free and Fair Elections

[riqster]

There is finally an awareness of the seriousness of Verified Voting initiatives, and I am grateful for that. However, if we learned one thing from the last election, it should have been that Reeps often change tactics, so while we watch for the crap they pulled in the last election, they have moved onto a new methodolgy, or at least a variant on the old.


The new game is Voter Registration. It seems rather innocuous; after all, who could object to keeping accurate records of voter information?

The kicker is, the new databases are to be linked to the master records in the State Capitol (Columbus, for we 'hians) and is linked from there to other state agencies such as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. There are holes galore throughout the process, and the election officials typically have no idea what is happening to their databases. It is very simple to tamper with the information, to render voters ineligible, usually likely Dem voters.

Add into that electronic voting, particularly if the same vendor is responsible for VR, balloting, and tabulation.

For instance, if a county uses Diebold's voter registration software, state interface software and voting systems, the entire voting process is behind a wall that even local officials cannot breach. A private company, loyal to the Republican Party, conducts a sham election and NO ONE CAN PROVE OTHERWISE.

We have to stop them now. NOW, godfuckingdamnit!

[Peace Patriot]

1. Yes, this is very ominous.

The farther away you get from people who know you (i.e., precincts, counties), the easier it is to wipe your name from the rolls without you knowing it, and there you are on election day, trying to prove that you exist.

I would like to get more information on this. I am very suspicious of Bush Cartel controlled databases of all kinds, and any government or corporate DB.

Thanks for this post!

[AtLiberty]

2. Riqster --

Do you have sources? More info?

This is big news...THANKS!

[Amaryllis]

3. kick

[Amaryllis]

4. We were alarmed when we found out about this in OR but they have

safeguards built in here, as they do with most aspects of elections.
But Diebold software! Nightmare...

[Wilms]

7. What kind of safeguards? n/t

[Amaryllis]

15. The counties elections people still maintain their own county within the

statewide database. So somebody in one county couldn't go in and make changes for another county.

[riqster]

16. That isn't the problem...

The State can modify the County database when they are online, which is 24/7/365 as soon as they go live, which they are required to do. Including, I might add, during the election. And since we KNOW Blackwell is corrupt...

[Amaryllis]

18. I was just talking about Oregon. That isn't the case here; the counties

still maintain control even in the statewide database.

[riqster]

20. Supposedly, that is true in Ohio as well

But the fact of the matter is, counties routinely discover 'errors' in their files after state updates are applied. And there is no way to quantify how many errors are not caught.

The comp/update process is automatic and is not understood by the officials who are in charge of it. That is a recipe for corruption.

[Wilms]

17. How about someone from the same county doing the purging. n/t

[Amaryllis]

19. HOw would that be any different from a county database? Going

statewide won't affect what someone from a county can do to a database. And, with vote by mail, we get our ballots 14 to 18 days before the election, and if our ballot doesn't show up, we can contact BOE and if we don't show up on the list, we can go fill out another reg form and get a ballot.

[riqster]

21. The difference is verifiabilty

County officials typically have a good handle on their voter records. Statewide officals would have no personal knowledge of neighborhoods, personalities, history and such, and are far less likely to catch a bad record.

Again, if the state elections office is corrupt, they can alter voter records without the knowledge or consent of local officials, and not all errors will be caught.

[Carolab]

5. Here's one--Unisys system used in Minnesota

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x373554#373558

I read that Accenture (formerly Arthur Andersen/Enron) is also involved in this voter database management. Anyone else want to search some links? I believe it "passed" in Wisconsin, and is being used in Florida, Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming...

Here's one story on it in Wisconsin (pretty informative):

http://www.wisdc.org/wdcaccenture.php

Here's one about how much Accenture's work is costing in Minnesota:

http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=tct:2005:03:02:405591:FRONT

[Lefta Dissenter]

23. Late to come in on this discussion,

but I work for a small municipality in Wisconsin that is part of the pilot program for SVRS with Accenture. Though I've only worked there since mid-January, part of my job has been maintaining the poll-list (through a Feb primary, the April Spring Election and a Special Meeting (similar to a referendum)), and it's my job to work on the registration compliance.

Let me just say already that this is going to be a disaster. We have about 4,260 registered voters in our town. The pollworkers know virtually everyone, and our election days (even November with over 95% turnout) have been run efficiently, with virtually no lines.

Our poll list has been a simple Excel spreadsheet, which is easy (and cheap) to update. There are improvements I would have made had I gotten there a few years ago, but all in all, the simple system has worked well for us. In February, we submitted our list to Accenture for the data conversion for SVRS compliance. We recently received our report, which had taken about 130 people off the rolls. Today is my day to deal with this, so I don't know all of the specifics, but just right off the bat, I see that about 30 names were dropped because the software simply deleted their names. The addresses are still there, with the names gone, so they are listed as invalid. I went back to my list, and the names are there, of course, but something in the conversion just made those people go poof.

It looks like most of the rest of the removals come with the code "unable to verify address with USPS or Census." I'll be sending out a mailing to those people to verify addresses, but my guess is that we're going to find that those were lost through conversion as well. Normally our pollworkers confirm addresses when people come to vote, so in November virtually our entire poll list would have been verified verbally.

I put a call in to our Accenture contact about a week and a half ago, with a question about one of the steps of the process, and I have yet to hear back from her. Yet they whine that they won't be able to complete their contract in a timely manner. :eyes: At the end of next week, I'm attending a Clerk's conference, and the main topic will be SVRS, so I definitely will speak up there. However, our County Clerk has been so enthused about this whole process that I fear my complaints will fall on deaf ears.

At any rate, rest assured that in our little town we are doing everything we can to keep all of our qualified voters on the rolls, but it is not going to be an easy process, and in the precincts in Milwaukee and other large (poor, of course) areas, I can't imagine they have the manpower to track this every step of the way.

[riqster]

26. Nice post!

This is a classic example of the new Reep strategy. If you're not registered, your vote won't count, regardless of the voting technology employed.

[autorank]

6. I have a very positive thought. Should happen.

With Taft at, what, 17% positive, I assume that the people of Ohio are sick and tired of Republicans.

If the next election can be monitored tightly enough and we get a reasonably fair vote there, they should be able to take the Governor's mansion and Secretary of State. Wouldn't that open up all sorts of investigative possibilities. If it did, then the Repulblicans are toast. They'll either destroy evidence (cannot dump it all) in which case they're guilty or they'll leave enough behind for empirical proof of guilt.

Sounds like they'd better steal the election...but with enough noise, watchers, and smarts that prospect can get greatly reduced. 17% positives for an Ohio Governor named Taft. Sounds like "landslide time"

That, of course, precludes any big breaks before then like Noe etc.

Question? Is Attorney General elected or appointed in Ohio?
That could be critical too. A real Democrat AG could wreak havock. Also, seems like the Supreme Court Judges out there (the ones who recused themselves recently) may be getting cold feet.

Just sayin'

NEW LEADERS FOR A NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY!

Contact the DNC and Give 'em Hell About NOT Acting on Election Fraud

[riqster]

8. The Ohio Dem Party is freakin' useless

I mean, they didn't even support our gubernatorial candidate last time.

We have great people here, but the party apparat sucks so bad I haven't even bothered to join. I put my money and effort into organizations that actually DO something.

Plus, Kenny Boy is determined to have Diebold running the show in '06, so we Buckeyes need to;

<1> STOP the Dieboldization of our elections
<2> Get a real Dem party.

[pgh_dem]

9. technically, they could just destroy the evidence before

they lose office (say between election and inauguration).

Supreme Court ruling on the Arthur Anderson case ruled that it's a-ok to destroy evidence that nobody is *officially* looking for yet.

So what could they be found guilty of?

[riqster]

10. That is why we have to move.

Fast.

[autorank]

12. Amen, and thank you for hanging in there in Ohio. You folks are awesome!

Ohio voting rights activists:yourock:

[pgh_dem]

13. No doubt...just saying you'll have to move faster than the next

election.

This evidence needs to be subpoenaed, obtained and locked down *before* they leave office, or the shredders will be running day and night from concession speech to inauguration.

[riqster]

14. You got that right

I have been working on verified voting since 2002, and have found that quick and aggressive action is the only way to go.

[autorank]

11. Well, you're right. The Court is our enemy. But the public still

knows what it means to destroy evidence and that perception is important. Plus, Enron was a corporate entity. Maybe Ohio actually has laws somewhere about preserving government documents (or maybe they repeased that too).

[riqster]

22. Weekend Kick

I shit you not, people, this is the 'Big One'.

[Kip Humphrey]

24. First, they decide who votes, then they decide how we vote!

[riqster]

25. Then, they count the votes

Just to make sure they get the numbers they want.:banghead:

[Melissa G]

27. Now We are FED up and Stop Them!!!!! n/t

[NoBushSpokenHere]

29. Triad controls voter registrations in several Ohio Counties

Triad purges registrations in Hocking County, Ohio (the famous Sherole Eaton county). Also, the Republican Director of Elections shredded voter records after the recount without going through the proper channels to do so. This was brought to the attention of the DINO Chairman of the Board, Gerald Robinette, but he did nothing to stop it or to reprimand.

[roseBudd]

43. Cheryl Bellucci AKA Cheryl Rapp (married Triad's founders daughter) has...

numerous posts on a Visual Fox Pro forum that Fox Pro programmers may want to peruse. Her queries seem to be related to their vote registration products. Cheryl also helped count votes in an Alaska election as she mentioned on a taxidermy forum.

This info should be in the demopedia

[riqster]

44. Link to the forum?

[roseBudd]

45. there are 361 results for Cheryl Bellucci on foxite.com

http://www.foxite.com/archives/search.aspx?q=bellucci

Cheryl's Alaska vote counting experience:

http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/IndustryArticles/9912B81EEB.html

Cheryl wrote:

"Hmmm... I've been reading this thread about numbers on ballots with interest. You see, I work for a company which counts ballots for county boards of elections in five different states. In fact, I got to count ballots in an election in Alaska last month... uh, maybe I shouldn't bring that up.
The problem with ballots is that they must be unique, that's where the numbers come into play. I agree with Michelle that in this day and age, it is very easy to reproduce colored items (observe the massive undertaking our government is going through with the redesign of our paper money). With the system we use, the ballots have unique stub numbers that are assigned to each voter. Those stubs are torn off and at that point the ballot is "disassociated" with the number... BUT, that is done at the polling place where someone has verified your identity. That is very hard to do when mailing comes in to play.

Absentee ballots are available, and they involve a series of requests and signatures... not quite the same as in this case.

My question would be... what happens to the ballots once the CPA has finished counting them? Are they returned to the NTA? If so, is it possible the CPA could tear off the number once tabulation is completed? (A ballot could be designed to fill that request.) If not, then there should not be a problem, right?

As for ballot-box-stuffing, when you have an organization with the amount of members of the NTA, stuffing the ballot box wouldn't be that hard to do, especially if there is a lot of apathy in the organization and people don't return their ballots."

BTW Dayton Legal Blank had the contract for all the ballots in the state of Ohio.

[msongs]

28. elected dems do not care about all this...unless you know any?

nobody in the california legislature cares. we have contacted all of them. they do not see any problem with evoting.the usual bullshit replies, we believe our voting system is secure bla bla bla.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[riqster]

30. The way to deal with ignorance is education.

Too many people believe in the Norman Rockwell image of America. Educate them.

[Piedras]

34. San Luis Obispo CA just voted in Diebold

The San Luis Obispo County (California) Board of Supervisors recently (6/14/05)voted to purchase Diebold voter registration software and servers.

http://www.co.slo.ca.us/Board_of_Supervisors_Inter.nsf/Agendas_ag061405.htm?OpenPage&charset=windows-1252

B-19 Request to approve: 1) a contract (Clerk’s File) with Diebold Election Systems, Inc. for purchase of voter registration system for County Clerk-Recorder; 2) a corresponding budget adjustment in the amount of $199,000 from unanticipated revenues; and 3) amend the fixed asset list by adding two file servers. (RECOMMEND APPROVAL AND INSTRUCT CHAIRPERSON TO SIGN.)

http://www.co.slo.ca.us/Board_of_Supervisors_Inter.nsf/ByDominoFilename/Agendas_061405_b-19.pdf/$FILE/b-19.pdf

[riqster]

35. Sounds fishy here in Franklin County, OH

Seat of the Reeps in Ohio
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/topstory.php?story=dispatch/2005/06/27/20050627-A1-00.html

County shrinks its pumped-up voter rolls
Standard housecleaning chops nearly 114,000
Monday, June 27, 2005
Robert Vitale
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH



Franklin County’s list of registered voters, pushed to a number oddly higher than the population of eligible voters during last year’s presidential election, is coming back down to size.

Nearly 114,000 people who moved away or haven’t voted since the 1990s have been erased from the rolls by the Franklin County Board of Elections. It’s a process ordered every two years under state and federal law.

The purge leaves 733,023 registered voters in Franklin County, where the U.S. Census Bureau estimates 800,657 residents are 18 or older.

Ohio’s place as a key 2004 battleground for President Bush and Democrat John Kerry drew unprecedented voter-registration efforts to Columbus last summer and swelled the number of voters in Franklin County to more than 845,000.

Elections officials explained the anomaly at the time as a result of inactive voters who remained on the rolls, but the statistic sparked preelection fraud allegations against a number of Democratic-leaning groups.

County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder said the proportion of registered voters is still high — 91.5 percent of the eligible population after the purge — but the clock is now ticking for 93,000 who haven’t voted since before 2002.

They could be purged from the voter rolls in 2009 if they don’t cast ballots or notify the elections board that they want to remain registered.

Damschroder said he doesn’t think the current number is artificially high. Although he said last year that about 200,000 would be removed from the rolls, interest in the election caused a number of former nonvoters to participate again, he says now.

"It’s a good thing we have so many registered," Damschroder said. "I feel more confident this is a more realistic number."

Of the 113,827 people taken off the voter rolls, 78,724 were registered in Columbus. The city now has 469,883 registered voters.

It’s impossible to get a breakdown of purged voters’ party affiliations, but nearly two of three were registered in precincts won by Kerry in November.

None of them voted, however. Voters are taken off the rolls when they don’t cast a ballot in two consecutive federal elections and don’t respond to notices sent by mail the year after. Even then, they’re given four more years to vote, verify their address or register from a new home.

It’s not their inactivity that gets them bounced; federal and state law prohibit rescinding someone’s voter registration simply for not voting. It’s their failure to verify to the elections board that they still live at the address from which they registered.

Voters purged now haven’t voted since before 1998.

More than 40,000 Franklin County residents who registered last year but skipped the 2004 presidential election would have to sit out 2006, 2008 and 2010 elections and ignore notices sent in the mail as well before they would be purged in 2011.

In addition to the alternateyear purges, Damschroder said the Board of Elections regularly removes the names of voters who die, register somewhere else or get sent to prison on a felony conviction.

The state and county health departments regularly notify the agency of deaths. County and federal courts supply lists of felons, who can register to vote again when they finish their sentences.

A new Ohio voter-registration database links Franklin County and 83 others so people who move within the state can be removed from the rolls of their former homes. Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, said the last four counties will be hooked up soon.

[Amaryllis]

37. What is WRONG with these people???

[glitch]

31. I wondered why voter registration was their new big deal here in WA.

Thanks for posting.

[riqster]

32. It is even worse elsewhere-

For instance, the ENTIRE state of Alabama will be using Diebold's VR software package. All linked to the central SOS database.

[AtLiberty]

38. ???

Got any perky news, Riqster?

[riqster]

39. Hardly perky, Lady Liberty

Georgia, which already uses Diebold voting machinery, is moving to install their Voter Registration software package. Diebold will soon control the election outcomes for the entire state.

[riqster]

33. Bedfellows

Turns out that Fidlar, who posed as competitors to Diebold during the VR bidding process in Ohio last year, are partnering with Diebold in Indiana.

[riqster]

36. A new wrinkle-

Fidlar is planning to use Pocket PCs to update Voter Registration data in their system. Goodbye to the last pretense of security...

[adolfo]

40. Florida has suspicious patterns within the election results….

…and part of the formula used to find it requires registration data.

When you calculate the ratio of Registered Democratic voters to Kerry votes (precinct level) or vice versa there are some interesting patterns. Maybe it’s all coincidence?

Examples:

http://www.recountflorida.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=getit&lid=5

[Land Shark]

41. Washington state law already says that keeping a paper backup

on voter registration is "optional"

ONCE YOU START MESSING WITH VOTER REGISTRATION, IT KNOCKS LOTS OF ELECtION DAy VOTERS INTO PROVISIONAL VOTING STATUS WHICH IS USUALLY PAPER-BASED AND COUNTED SEPARATELY FROM ELECTION DAY BALLOTS, AND MUCH LATER, (IF COUNTED AT ALL). THE FACT ThAt THIS PROVISIONAL STATUS DISPROPORTIONATELY HITS DEMS IS THEN RATIONALIZED BY DEMS "BEING" MORE TRANSIENT, POORER, sTUDENTS, etc. RESULTING IN THE INACCURACY OF THE ADDRESS DATABASE.

THUS, INACCURACIES IN ELECTRONIC VOTING CAN BE SEEMINGLY "EXPLAINED" BY GLITCHES IN THE VOTER REGISTRATION DATABASE PULLING MORE DEMOCRATS THAN REPUBLICANS OUT OF ELECTRONIC VOTING, MAKING BUSY JOURNALISTS 'MOVE ON' TO OTHER BUSINESS. OF COURSE THE PROVISIONALS ARE MOSTLY DISALLOWED AS REGISTRATION RULES GET TIGHTER AND TIGHTER FOR 'SECURITY' REASONS.

[riqster]

42. That's classic

The whole 'paperless office' scenario. Free up space by eliminating dusty old papers, reduce fire risk, blahblahblah...of course, no business in their right mind does anything of the sort, since they are required to keep backups.

[riqster]

46. Time to start looking forward

Ohio is soon to be a Diebold fiefdom. They have a lock on the voting machine market and have the SOS Voter Registration database under their control.

Georgia, which uses Diebold voting technology, is now adpoting their voter registration product as well.

If this is not stopped, America will be DEAD!

[riqster]

47. Diebold is planning to sneak back into CA.

Any left coast DUers can look into it?