Race to Replace Randy 'Duke' Cunningham in San Diego Was Run on Hackable Diebold Voting Machines, Kept Unsecured at Poll Worker Houses Overnight Before the Election!
To be clear, at this hour, we have no evidence to show that Democrat Francine Busby -- running in yesterday's special run-off election in San Diego against Republican Brian Bilbray to replace the disgraced Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham for the U.S. House (CA-50) race -- actually won it.
Neither do we have evidence to believe that Bilbray actually won it.
We do, however, have copious and documented evidence to suggest there is no reason in the world to have any faith that Bilbray won the race.
The fact that the thin margin between the two at this hour (with "100% of the votes counted", according to the CA Sec. of State's website) is a mere 4,732 votes -- in a race where 125,882 votes were reportedly cast in a county with more than 355,000 voters registered -- is not even the largest question. Neither is the so-far unclear question of how the race will be affected by the 68,500 absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted in San Diego County according to the SD Registrar of Voters website at this hour.
The biggest concern about the race, by far, is that San Diego County uses two types of Diebold voting systems -- optical-scan and touch-screen -- both of which have not only proven to be disastrously unreliable in San Diego County and California in the past, but have also been demonstrated over the last six months to feature dozens of exceedingly well-documented and remarkable security vulnerabilities, making them extremely accessible to tampering. Especially if anyone has unsupervised physical access for more than a minute or two with them.
The voting machines used in Tuesday's election were sent home with volunteer poll workers the night before the election, according to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office today. As well, The BRAD BLOG has received reports that in some cases, poll workers may have had the machines alone at their houses, unsupervised, for a week or even two prior to Tuesday's election....
Last February, California Sec. of State Bruce McPherson, himself, commissioned and released an independent security analysis [PDF] regarding just one aspect of both types of Diebold voting machines used in yesterday's San Diego race, after the memory cards used in those machines were found to have been extremely vulnerable to tampering. A mock election in Leon County, Florida last December revealed that tampering with the memory cards enabled the results of a mock election, run by Election Supervisor Ion Sancho, to be completely reversed.
McPherson's own report, completed by computer scientists at the University of California, looked at just that one aspect of the Diebold system's vulnerability -- the memory cards used to store vote totals and give other instructions to the voting machines -- and determined that "there is a serious flaw in the key management of the crypto code that otherwise should protect the AV-TSx from memory card attacks."
The report described a "number of security vulnerabilities" and found that the flaws on these systems could be exploited easily without the use of any passwords or cryptographic keys.
According to McPherson's report, "Anyone who has access to a memory card...and can tamper with it (i.e. modify its contents), and can have the modified cards used in a voting machine during election, can indeed modify the election results from that machine in a number of ways."
The tampering would be invisible, according to the report. "The fact that the results are incorrect cannot be detected except by a recount of the original paper ballots."
Beyond tampering with both of the Diebold AccuVote systems used in yesterday's election, McPherson's report continues to detail another family of "more serious vulnerabilities" that "go well beyond" the type of attack described above:
[T]here is another category of more serious vulnerabilities we discovered that go well beyond...and yet require no more access to the voting system [used in the attack described previously]. These vulnerabilities are consequences of bugs -- 16 in all -- in the implementation of the AccuBasic interpreter for the AV-OS. These bugs...would not be discovered by any amount of functionality testing; but they could allow an attacker to completely control the behavior of the AV-OS. An attacker could change vote totals, modify reports, change the names of candidates, change the races being voted on, or insert his own code into the running firmware of the machine."
Mind you, the vulnerabilities described so far in this article all came
prior to a new, even
more disturbing series of vulnerabilities discovered in March of this year in the same models of Diebold voting machines.
The BRAD BLOG broke the original details of this latest revelation just days before the same systems were to be used in Pennsylvania's primary election two weeks ago. This even more alarming series of vulnerabilities have been found to reveal systematic flaws that go far and above the previously mentioned problems.
Following our report, scores of mainstream media outlets
finally began to understand, and
finally began to report on this incredibly serious security breach in our nation's electoral systems.
The New York Times quoted three different computer scientists and security experts who reviewed the newly revealed flaws in San Diego's touch-screen voting systems as "astounding" and "the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system".
NEWSWEEK quoted Johns Hopkins computer sciences professor Avi Rubin a few days later as San Diego's machines thusly: "If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it."
Washington Post quoted yet another computer scientist this way just last week:
In California, David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who consults with the state on its elections, said he was "stunned when he found out" about the vulnerability identified in the Utah test and agreed with the "frequently expressed opinion that this is the worst vulnerability that we have ever seen."
The inspector of the same Diebold AccuVote TSx machines for the state of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Dr. Michael Shamos -- previously an ardent supporter of electronic voting -- said this about the machines used in San Diego yesterday:
"It's the most serious security breach that's ever been discovered in a voting system. On this one, the probability of success is extremely high because there's no residue.... Any kind of cursory inspection of the machine would not reveal it."
Shamos went on to say that the systems could have their entire set of election software, system software and even computer firmware ("BIOS") completely overwritten to do anything the malicious user wanted, in less than two minutes time, with physical access to the machines.
In
an NPR report, Rubin described the machines used in yesterday's election this way:
"I believe that this is not only the most serious security problem that I've seen in a voting machine, but I can't think of a security problem that I've seen in any kind of system that is severe as this."
He added that all one needs to exploit the security hole is "a few seconds of physical access to the machines."
Well, guess what? Poll workers in San Diego County had much more than just "a few seconds of physical access to the machines" when
they stored the voting machines at their own homes on the night prior to yesterday's election!You read that correctly. The most vulnerable voting machines ever created and used in an American election were given to random, volunteer poll workers in San Diego to keep in their houses
overnight to do with as they please. The systems were "guarded" by little more than a thin strip of plastic "tamper tape" over some, but not all, of each machines' dozens of vulnerable physical access points.
A spokesperson this morning from the San Diego Registrar of Voters office confirmed to
The BRAD BLOG that "Yes, the machines were sent home with poll workers the night before the election."
Given the severe security vulnerabilities described above, and given that the number of votes recorded for the two "third-party" candidates alone (6,367 out of more than 355,000 registered voters in San Diego) could have easily swung the announced "victory" from Bilbray to Busby in one of the most important, expensive and closely-watched elections in the country -- an election regarded by both major political parties as well as political analysts and observers as an important bell-weather for the upcoming '06 general elections --
The BRAD BLOG finds no reason to have confidence in the California Secretary of State's announced results in the race.
Who actually won it? Busby or Bilbray? We cannot tell you. Neither can the California state or San Diego County election officials. Even
with a full, manual hand-count of
all the paper ballots used with the optical-scan systems, and a full, manual hand-count of the so-called "paper trails" created by the touch-screen machines, there will still be questions about the accuracy of the results.
As we documented in an
exclusive photo-essay of Diebold's AccuVote TSx machine after a security analysis by the non-partisan e-voting watchdog group
BlackBoxVoting.org in March, the printer for the so-called "voter verified paper trail" on the TSx machines is installed behind a plastic door that may be closed by the voter -- or a poll worker -- thus obscuring the printed results and disallowing the voter from confirming that the printed "paper trail" accurately reflects their intended vote.
Therefore, depending on the number of votes cast on the Diebold touch-screen system's so-called "voter verified paper trail" printer there is no way to know if the results are valid.
If state, county or Diebold officials tell you otherwise, if they say that they can prove with certainty which of the two candidates actually won yesterday without a full, manual hand-recount of all paper ballots and paper "trails", they are lying. Plain and simple. They cannot do so.
A complete, manual hand-count of
all such paper ballots and "paper trail" records is the only way to know for certain. And then,
only if the number of votes cast on the touch-screen systems is smaller than the number of votes separating the two candidates after all of the optical-scan paper
ballots have been counted manually. If the margin separating the two after the op-scan ballots are counted is smaller than the number of votes cast on the touch-screens, there is
no way of knowing who the winner of the race truly is.
That is all thanks to Diebold's purposely horrendous design of both the hardware and software used in these machines, and Sec. of State Bruce McPherson's willingness to certify the machines for use anyway in this state even
after the results of his
own report confirmed the vulnerabilities described.
Ultimately, this is precisely what is wrong with using electronic voting machines of these types, tested in secret (barely), by testing labs which are selected and paid for by the voting machines vendors themselves, which employ secret software to both record and count the votes, as written and run by those same private companies for use in our
public elections.
As long as our public officials continue to defy the will and best interests of the citizenry and our democracy by allowing private, partisan -- and
even foreign-run -- companies who are accountable to no one, to hijack our electoral system, American democracy will be lost. Period.
The Busby campaign has already issued a concession, and we have so far been unable to reach anyone who can speak for the campaign to comment on this matter. A concession, however, is just a nicety with no official meaning. Busby should
not concede anything until
all of the ballots and "paper trails" in the race are counted by hand in the 50th district.
Yesterday,
Lou Dobbs reported on CNN that, "The security of our elections and the integrity of our democracy is in jeopardy."
The day before
he told CNN viewers that elections officials have "no concept" of "whether or not they can assure us that this election in mid-terms in nearly every state is accurate and verifiable."
The conservative Dobbs, certainly no "moonbat leftie" or "sour grapes conspiracy theorist", described the electoral crisis we are now facing in this country as an "outright threat to our democracy, to the integrity of our voting system, and to our elections process."
He's exactly right. And the integrity of that system has been violated nearly beyond repair as exemplified by last night's important election in San Diego.
Here we go again? You betcha. Is this what we want in our American elections? Questions about the validity of
every single race from here on out? Because that is
precisely where we are now at.
So now who is going to do
anything about it?
Thursday, June 8th, 2006
Busby/Bilbray Election in Doubt: The Silence is Deafening...AP, ABC, et al Run Unverifiable Reports on Results of Tuesday's Special Election
There is NO BASIS for Confidence in the Reported Election Results. Period.
ABC News is featuring this AP story on their website:
Republican Wins Bellwether House Race
Ex-GOP Congressman Wins California Race for Scandal-Rocked House Seat As 8 States Hold Votes
By ROBERT TANNER - The Associated Press
- A former Republican congressman narrowly beat his Democratic rival early Wednesday for the right to fill the House seat once held by jailed Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a race closely watched as a possible early barometer of next fall's vote.
Republican Brian Bilbray emerged victorious after a costly and contentious special election race against Democrat Francine Busby, a local school board member who ran against Cunningham in 2004. |
Okay, AP. Prove it. I dare you. You can't.
 Not without a 100% manual, hand-count of all the optically-scanned paper ballots and touch-screen "paper trails" from Tuesday's CA 50th Congressional district race for the U.S. House of representatives. And even then, depending on the margin of difference after the op-scan ballots are hand-counted, you will be unable to prove that the race was decided correctly if it should turn out the number of votes cast on touch-screen machines was more than the margin of difference after the op-scan ballots are actually counted (by hand!)
The deafening, dumbstruck silence after I posted my article yesterday, headlined Results of Close Busby/Bilbray U.S. House Special Election in Doubt!," is deafening.
Yes, I know the headline is unsettling. As are the implications of the piece. I will hope, however, that most of you who know what I report at The BRAD BLOG also know that what I report, I source with independently verifiable information. So you don't need to trust me. And you shouldn't. No more than you should trust the words of San Diego County's Registrar of Voters.
The arguments presented in yesterday's article are airtight. The have been vetted by a number of election experts and computer scientists. So far, not a single human being has presented me with a flaw in my logic or contentions.
Mind you, I have never reported that any election was "stolen." Not even the 2000 Presidential (which wasn't stolen, as much as given away by the Supreme Court), nor the 2004 Presidential Election, which evidence shows would most likely have gone to Kerry had the votes actually been counted. But I have never claimed that election was "stolen" either, because we simply do not know. Until there is evidence, I do not report it as such.
I am not saying, in my article yesterday, that the Busby/Bilbray election was "stolen" either.
Nor have I charged there has been any fraud. This is (for now) about confidence in verifiable results in an American election. So far, there is no basis to have any.
Nor am I one of those who believes that legitimate elections can only be carried out on 100% hand-counted paper ballots.
This one, however, given the specific machines in use, which have been proven to be easilly tamperable and hackable, without a trace being left behind, (and admitted as such by even the company who makes them!) is a different matter. Add to that, security measures were completely compromised by sending the machines home with poll workers, in some cases, for weeks at a time, prior to the election and we've got a no confidence case on our hands.
The burden is now on elections officials -- who we pay to run accurate elections -- to prove the race was counted accurately. Let's see them do it.
I do not champion, nor traffic in, "conspiracy theories," as those of you who know my work likely already understand. What I reported in yesterday's story was not editorial or "conspiracy theory," but plain scientific fact, resting on an enormous body of peer-reviewed, undisputed, scientific evidence. The contention offered in the piece then is summarized thusly -- presuming the integrity of the chain of custody for the paper ballots and the "paper trails" is still demonstrably secured:
Unless every optically-scanned ballot is counted by hand -- and only if the resultant margin after that count is larger than the number of votes cast on the touch-screen systems -- can there be any confidence that the results of the U.S. House race for CA's 50th congressional district are accurate.
I challenge anybody to prove otherwise. Anybody. It cannot be done. I welcome any and all questions about the logic or accuracy of my contentions. So far, I have received none.
If, after reading yesterday's article in full -- and asking any questions of me concerning the logic or evidence (I will try to keep an eye on comments left here) -- you still do not understand what's going on here, and what's at stake in your elections, then you are simply heading into November while whistling past democracy's graveyard.
That goes for you, AP. (And ABC, since you're running the article on your site and yet have failed to run extremely important stories on American election integrity issues which, unlike AP's story, are demonstrably provable and feature actual evidence.)
Do you both, AP and ABC, stand behind this report? If so, I dare you to prove the contentions made in your article are backed up with any verifiable evidence. You can't. And you won't. The contentions made in my article, however, certainly are. I feel it's my responsibility to be sure of that when I file a report. Why don't you?
Elections should be verifiable and provable. This one, at least as of now, is most decidedly not.
| 
In California, Democratic candidate Francine Busby is refusing to support voters outraged at how the California special election in the 50th congressional district was rigged when election officials allowed poll workers to take voting machines home with them for weeks at a time. On July 31, 2006 two voters filed suit in San Diego Superior Court declaring that the June 6 primary was conducted illegally and demanding that election officials recount the 150,000 ballots cast in the congressional election that pitted Republican Brian Bilbray against Democrat Francine Busby.