Defenders Of Democracy

DATE:    May 24, 2006

TO:     Georgia State Election Board

As representatives of the undersigned groups, we are calling today on the Georgia State Election Board to immediately decertify the state’s Diebold Election System (DES) and for the Elections Division to begin immediate preparations for the deployment of an alternative means of voting in time for the 2006 primaries and General Election.

A security vulnerability recently exposed in the architecture of the DES is being called a "major national security risk" by computer science and security experts. The effect of this vulnerability is that voting systems could be infected throughout an entire state, enabling an attacker to alter election results on a massive scale without detection. Once the vulnerability is exploited, the voting system could be under the control of the attacker, not only for the current election, but also for future elections.

"It's the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system," said Michael I. Shamos, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who is an examiner of electronic voting systems for Pennsylvania . . . .” [1]
 
The computer scientists who are knowledgeable of the technical details of this vulnerability state that the problem cannot be fixed or "cleaned up."  It represents an open backdoor that is part of the design of the Diebold TS-R6 and TSX voting systems.

"It is like the nuclear bomb for e-voting systems," said Avi Rubin, computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University. "It's the deal breaker. It really makes the security flaws that we found (in prior years) look trivial." [2]

Design Flaws in Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machines Leaves Elections Vulnerable to Undetectable Election Fraud.

For a non-technical review, check out this Newsweek/MSNBC report, or coverage from NPR.

An Interview with Amy Goodman of whistleblower County Clerk Bruce Funk, who noticed abnormalities in the Diebold Voting Machines, investigated the problems and was forced out of office for trying to protect the voters in his county, and Dr. David Dill, a computer science professor experienced in debunking the voting machine industry's propaganda. Watch or Listen to the interview, or read the transcript.

Detailed Coverage from the source, Black Box Voting: Read the story, and download the report.

The documentary Invisible Ballots provides a great overview of the problem of evidence-free voting.  Buy the DVD or video or view preview footage on the web.

A new documentary on our broken election system will be available soon.  Check back here for details on purchasing and screening the documentary in your neighborhood.

The short documentary Votergate is viewable online. 

Clint Curtis, Whistleblower,
Patriot, and an American Hero.
View online footage of computer programmer Clint Curtis testifying before the Conyers Commission on how he was asked by U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney to write a program to rig elections.   Clint is now attempting to turn the tables on Feeney by running against him.  Visit Clint's campaign website by clicking here.

Now that Georgia's Secretary of State Cathy Cox is campaigning for Governor, she doesn't want to be seen telling the big lies to legislative committees that effortlessly flowed from her mouth during the 2004 legislative session.  (We have them on videotape for anyone who wants to see them). So she sent her second-in-command, Georgia's Director of Elections, Kathy Rogers, to do her dirty work for her. 

Kathy Rogers has no problems transforming molehills into Himalayan peaks, using smoke and mirrors, and the old razzle-dazzle to baffle even seasoned legislators.  She was in fine form on Tuesday  March 7th when a bi-partisan group of brave legislators, led by Rep. Harry Geisinger, attempted to give a transfusion of transparency and accountability to the comotose body of Georgia's democracy in the form of HB 790.  Most Georgia citizens have been unaware that our the new Diebold Touch-Screen Voting machines produce no physical evidence for every vote cast upon them.  That leaves it up to the honesty of the voting machines programmers to report election results accurately.  And those programmers are honest folks, right? - Oh no, Jeffrey Dean is a convicted embezzler - And two other employees were convicted of fraud and spent time in prison in the US and in Canada.

Oh, so sorry, I digress, back to Kathy Rogers.  So in testimony before the Senate's SLoGO committee, Rogers told the tall tale about how voters, if given a paper ballot or record of their vote to cast in a ballot box, would take their ballots and, instead of casting them, run out the polling place as fast as can be with their ballots in hand.  Funny, in all the years I voted on punch cards I never did see anyone do that.  Rogers statement is just crazy, but it wasn't the first time she said it.