Leon Country, FL bans Diebold for life.

[Mugsy]

12-13-05: Devastating hack proven - Leon County dumps Diebold
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/15595.html

Wed. December 14, 2005: Due to contractual non-performance and security design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho has announced that he will never again use Diebold in an election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. On Tuesday, the most serious “hack” demonstration to date took place in Leon County. The Diebold machines succumbed quickly to alteration of the votes. This comes on the heels of the resignation of Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, and the announcement that a stockholder's class action suit has been filed against Diebold by Scott & Scott. Further “hack” testing on additional vulnerabilities is tentatively scheduled before Christmas in the state of California.

Finnish security expert Harri Hursti, together with Black Box Voting, demonstrated that Diebold made misrepresentations to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the “memory card” (the credit-card-sized ballot box used by computerized voting machines.

<snip>

The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.

Correct results should have been: Yes: 2 ; No: 6

However, just as Hursti had planned, the results tape read: Yes: 7 ; No: 1

The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the GEMS central tabulator, a step cited by Diebold as a protection against memory card hacking. The central tabulator is the "mother ship" that pulls in all votes from voting machines. However, the GEMS central tabulator failed to notice that the voting machines had been hacked.

The results in the central tabulator read:

Yes: 7 ; No: 1

Of course, as noted in the story, this comes just one day after the resignation of Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell and a class action suit is filed against the company. I find it hillarious that the "test vote" was whether or not they thought the vote could be hacked or not. 6 voted No and only 2 voted YES, then they bumped the YES votes up to 7. :)

[dapper]

1. Cool Vote

That Smiley guy is sure a good hacker :P

Dap

[uppityperson]

2. Good.

Thanks :7

[electropop]

3. In the original story, no smileys.

I think the smileys are an artifact of the DU forum software. Should read

Yes: 7 No: 1

[Mugsy]

5. Fixed

Oops, sorry. Fixed.

[dapper]

15. Come on Mugsy!

...I liked the original better :7

Dap

[Botany]

4. Guess the wizard has been outed

[Beetwasher]

6. For the Sake Of The Future Of This Country, I Hope These Dominoes Keep

Falling.

[superconnected]

7. run wally run.

We are certianly getting a lot of good news this Christmas :)

[democrat in Tallahassee]

8. He's the best election supervisor in the country! He's a hero round

these parts.

[tallydem]

11. Absolutely

Makes me proud to be in Tally

[chknltl]

23. Welcome to the big DU tallydem

A welcome :toast: from someone on the diagonal from Florida

[Lochloosa]

20. Hooray for my hometown. God I miss Tally

and Poor Pauls...:evilgrin:

[OregonBlue]

9. Report is on Leon County Elections site today-Send to EVERY news org.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Ion Sancho, Superivor of Elections

Special Report: Black Box Voting Attempts to Penetrate The Leon County Florida Optical Scan Voting System.

In January of this year Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho was contacted by representatives of Black Box Voting .org, a non-partisan elections advocacy group, to see if their computer experts could successfully circumvent the security of the Leon County voting system. Supervisor Sancho agreed to this proposal and in three separate attempts over a four month period, computer experts Dr. Herbert Thompson and Harri Hursti visited the Leon County Elections Office in their efforts to penetrate the county voting tabulation equipment and alter election data.

The tests focused on two areas: outside or external hacks, specifically examining the modem and any lines going to the vote tabulation computer, and simulated inside or internal penetrations. The results were clear. No outside hack was accomplished. This was not the case however when the hacker was physically present at the vote tabulation computer terminal.
Granted the same access as an employee of our office, it was possible to enter the computer, alter election results, and exit the system without leaving any physical record of this action. It was also demonstrated that false information or instructions could be placed on a memory card (the device used to program the individual voting machines and record the voter’s votes) and create false results or election reports.
What conclusions can be drawn from this exercise? First, the optical scan voting system was resistant to external penetration, including using the modems which transmit election results from the precincts to the central vote accumulator. Outside hacking is seen as one of the greatest potential threats to undermining citizen confidence in the election process. The Leon County Supervisor of Elections is tremendously relieved that such penetration was not accomplished.
Secondly, the potential for internal sabotage does exist. It is imperative that security protocols be developed which limit access to the central voting computer and memory cards in election offices. Limited access, video surveillance, and tight controls on the use and distribution of memory cards, all practices currently in place in the Leon County Election Office, are vital to ensure unauthorized actions do not compromise the integrity of the elections process.
Finally, the ultimate insurance that Leon County’s votes are counted correctly resides in the paper ballots of the voters themselves. If the public or election official has any question over the results of an election, a hand count of the optical paper ballot provides the truth. No internal manipulation of any computer or memory card can alter the votes on these paper ballots.

Based upon the data developed out of this exercise it is the opinion of the Leon County Supervisor of Elections that any effort to limit or remove the manual examination of paper ballots to confirm the correctness of election results is not in the public interest.

http://www.leonfl.org/elect/SpecialReport.asp

[shenmue]

10. Yeah Leon County!

:party: :patriot: :applause: :thumbsup:

Let's hope more people are brave enough to follow suit.

[Mugsy]

13. Leon County recorded 85 "phantom votes" in 2004 election.

Will Pitt found some interesting irregularities in Florida in 2004.

While they recorded a turnout of 136,229 people casting votes, they recorded 136,314 votes cast.

And they weren't the worst.
http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm">LINK

[Lochloosa]

21. dead link

[Mugsy]

22. Oops, extra http://

My bad.

DU's link system automatically inserts "http://" before the link, and I failed to trim it off.

Simply copy and past the link, then trim off the redundant prefix by hand.

Sorry.

[bonito]

12. Kick n/t

[CanOfWhoopAss]

14. This is great if he can stick to it like NC did not! nt

[Wordie]

16. I hope jurisdictions using Diebold or other similar machines take note.

This is important. Will other counties even see this, though?

[stop the bleeding]

17. Ion Sancho is about the only level headed person in politics in

Florida, I wish this guy would run for higher office he actually knows what public office is all about, I think he is an independent.

Great story BTW

[oregonindy]

18. Repeat after me. The 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections were STOLEN

by the culture of corruption!!!

[Mugsy]

19. Oops, make that "county" not "country"

How did I miss that?

I just realized I mistyped "Leon Country" instead of "Leon County".

If this story makes it to the homepage, can you please correct that? :)

[chknltl]

24. Bookmarked and reccomended....

...A nice Xmas gift to Democracy indeed.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

25. Pinch me

Can this be true? A Christmas Miracle?

[Judi Lynn]

26. This story needs all the publicity possible. What a great bit of news.

I remember watching tv coverage on how much trouble Leon County had in 2000. It was unbearable. We are learning the hard way how important clean elections really are.

[lovuian]

27. And now we know why the polls we off

where this were they were stolen...

[PittPoliSci]

28. nice!