Electronic Voting Machine Problems Media Report Major Problems With Electronic Voting
Below are quotes from revealing major media articles and links to an excellent documentary exposing serious problems with electronic voting machines. These weaknesses allow any foreign power like Russia and even powerful domestic groups to easily manipulate vote tallies.
Though some of these articles are several years old, many electronic voting machines being used now are 10 years old or more. Below these quotes, excerpts from an excellent article describe vital problems that have existed within the elections system for many decades.
Though one party may benefit more than others, this is not a partisan issue. We invite all who care about democracy to work towards fair elections which truly reflect the will of the people. For how you can make a difference, see the “What you can do” section at the end.
Major Media Articles Reveal Major Electronic Voting Machine Problems
MSNBC – A 2011 article titled “It only takes $26 to hack a voting machine” states, “Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have developed a hack that, for about $26 and an 8th-grade science education, can remotely manipulate the electronic voting machines used by millions of voters all across the U.S. The electronic hacking tool consists of a $1.29 microprocessor and a circuit board that costs about $8. Together with the $15 remote control, which enabled the researchers to modify votes from up to a half-mile away, the whole hack runs about $26.”
Christian Science Monitor – A 2015 article states, “Computer security experts have warned for years that some voting machines are vulnerable to attack. In Virginia, the state Board of Elections decided to impose an immediate ban on touchscreen voting machines used in 20 percent of the state’s precincts. When state auditors investigated [they found that] while using their smartphones, they were able to connect to the voting machines’ wireless network, which is used to tally votes. Other state investigators easily guessed the system’s passwords — in one case, it was ‘abcde’ — and were then able to change the vote counts remotely without detection.”
Washington Post – An article titled “A Single Person Could Swing an Election” describes the test of a team of cybersecurity experts. The article states, “The experts … concluded in a report issued yesterday that it would take only one person, with a sophisticated technical knowledge and timely access to the software that runs the voting machines, to change the outcome.”
Christian Science Monitor – An 2012 article is titled “Could e-voting machines in Election 2012 be hacked? Yes.” It shows how easy it continues to be for voting machines to be manipulated. The article states, “Rapid advances in the development of cyberweapons and malicious software mean that electronic-voting machines used in the 2012 election could be hacked, potentially tipping the presidential election or a number of other races. For a savvy hacker, the time and access needed to infect a machine is so small that it could be done while in a voting booth.”
Miami Herald – An article titled “CIA expert: Electronic voting not secure” presents the troubling results of CIA cybersecurity expert Steve Stigall. “Computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results. Stigall said voting equipment connected to the Internet could be hacked, and machines that weren’t connected could be compromised wirelessly. The [Election Assistance] Commission has been criticized for giving states more than $1 billion to buy electronic equipment without first setting performance standards. Numerous computer-security experts have concluded that U.S. systems can be hacked.”
Note: The Herald strangely removed this article from their website, but it is still available here.
MSNBC – A 2009 MSNBC article describes five county officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers, who were accused of blatant election corruption. “These alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Clay County Circuit Court Judge Russell Cletus Maricle, 65, and school superintendent Douglas C. Adams, 57… caused election officers to commit acts of extortion, mail fraud, and bribery. Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 45, allegedly … instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29778909 – 3/21/2009
Note: MSNBC strangely removed this article from their website, but you can read how the defendants were all found guilty and convicted in a federal jury trial on the FBI website at this link.
Clay County Officials and Residents Convicted on Racketeering and Voter Fraud Charges
U.S. Attorney’s Office March 25, 2010
Eastern District of Kentucky (859) 233-2661
FRANKFORT, KY—After approximately seven weeks of trial, several Clay County officials and residents were convicted today by a federal jury sitting in Frankfort, Kentucky on all counts that include racketeering and voter fraud charges among others.
The jury returned the verdict after approximately nine hours of deliberation that transpired over the last two days.
The evidence at trial established that the defendants used the Clay County Board of Elections to perform corrupt tactics, such as vote buying, to gain power and authority within the county. According to testimony, the defendants’ criminal actions controlled the outcome of the federal, local, and state primary and general elections in Clay County in 2002, 2004, and 2006.
All eight defendants were convicted for a racketeering and money laundering conspiracy. In addition to those charges, the jury convicted the defendants on related charges.
Former Clay County Circuit Court Judge Russell Cletus Maricle, 66, was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice, one count of injuring voter’s rights, and one count of conspiracy to buy votes. He used his status in the county to influence the appointment of corrupt members to the Clay County Board of Elections and caused election officers to commit acts of extortion, mail fraud, and bribery. Maricle also instructed a witness to falsely testify before a federal grand jury about actions involving this case.
Former Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 46, was convicted of four counts of honest services mail fraud, one count of obstruction of justice, one count of injuring voter’s rights, and one count of conspiracy to buy votes. Thompson provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes and instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine. Thompson was also found to have provided false testimony to a federal grand jury in Lexington, Kentucky.
Former Democratic Election Commissioner, Charles Wayne Jones, 69, was convicted of four counts of honest services mail fraud, one count of attempted extortion, one count of injuring voter’s rights and one count of conspiracy to buy votes. Jones, along with co-defendant William E. Stivers, attempted to extort $1,000 from a city council candidate to buy votes during the general election in 2004.
Former Election officer William E. Stivers, 57, was convicted of one count of extortion, one count of obstruction of justice, one count of injuring voter’s rights and one count of conspiracy to buy votes. In addition to the extortion described above, Stivers marked voters or issued tickets to voters who had sold their votes and changed votes at the voting machine. Stivers also instructed a witness to testify falsely before a federal grand jury.
William B. Morris, 51, and Debra L. Morris, 50, were found guilty of one count of conspiracy to buy votes. Both distributed funds pooled by members of the scheme in order to buy votes. The couple owned and operated a sanitation transportation company and was active in the political affairs of Clay County.
Former school superintendent, Douglas C. Adams, 58, and Clay County Magistrate Stanley Bowling, 59, were only charged with and convicted of the racketeering conspiracy and the money launder conspiracy.
A board of election officials consists of the county clerk, the sheriff, and two members appointed by the state board of elections, selected from a list of names submitted by the Republican and Democratic parties in the county. In addition, the board is required to hire election officers, which includes two judges, one clerk and one sheriff for each precinct in each election of every year in which a primary and general election is held.
James A. Zerhusen, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Special Agent in Charge Elizabeth Fries with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Special Agent in Charge Christopher Pikelis with the Internal Revenue Service, jointly made the announcement today after the jury returned the verdict.
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service. The United States was represented in the trial by Assistant United States Attorney Stephen C. Smith.
The Defendants are currently scheduled to appear for sentencing before Judge Danny C. Reeves in London, Ky., on August 17, 18, 19, and 20, 2010.
The defendants face up to 20 years on the racketeering, money laundering, extortion and mail fraud offenses. The defendants face up to 10 years on the obstruction of justice and injuring of voter’s rights offenses and up to five years on the vote buying offense.
This content has been reproduced from its original source.
For a treasure trove of media articles revealing elections corruptions on a grand scale, click here.
Powerful Documentary on Electronic Voting Machine Problems
The above media articles reveal only a few of the many problems with electronic voting machines and elections corruption. How many millions of votes may have been changed or disappeared that we don’t know about? We may never know. And why isn’t this getting wide media coverage? For a likely answer, click here.
For additional powerful information on this, the excellent documentary Votergate takes viewers on a fact-finding mission across the US revealing stunning evidence of defects and outright fraud in electronic voting. Engaging interviews with whistleblowers and courageous Americans, including members of Congress and top elections officials, reveal critical information which the mass media has given very little coverage. Watch this powerful 30-minute documentary available at this link. A second highly revealing HBO documentary titled “Hacking Democracy” is available here.
Hacking Democracy
from Teale Productions PRO on August 18, 2016
Genres: Documentary
Duration: 1 hour 22 minutes
Availability: Worldwide
HACKING DEMOCRACY
Directed by Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels
Directed by Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels
Nominated for an Emmy award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.
The disturbingly shocking HBO documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY bravely tangles with our nation’s ills at the heart of democracy. The film the Diebold corporation doesn’t want you to see, this revelatory journey follows tenacious Seattle grandmother Bev Harris and her band of extraordinary citizen-activists as they set out to ask one simple question: How does America count its votes? From Florida and California to Ohio and Washington State, filmmakers Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels and Robert Cohen starkly reveal a broken system riddled with secrecy, incompetent election officials, and electronic voting machines that can be programmed to steal elections. Equipped only with a powerful sense of righteous outrage, the activists take on voting machine industry, exposing alarming security holes in America’s trusted voting machines. They even go dumpster diving at a county election official’s office in Florida, uncovering incendiary evidence of miscounted votes. But proving our votes can be stolen without a trace culminates in a duel between Diebold voting machines and a computer hacker from Finland – with America’s democracy at stake.
“Disturbing stuff. . . It’s not shocked-shocked you feel watching this; it’s genuine shock.’ – The New York Times
“It is hard to imagine a documentary that is more important to the civic life of the nation — let alone one that is so compelling and ultimately moving” – Baltimore Sun
After we filmed the ‘Hursti Hack’ California’s Secretary of State ordered an investigation. The best computer scientists at UC Berkeley analysed the Diebold voting machines’ computer source code.
The UC Berkeley Report can be found here: supportthevoter.gov/files/2013/09/VSTAAB-Security-Analysis-of-Diebold-AccuBasic-Interpreter-2006.pdf
Page 2 of the report states:
“Harri Hursti’s attack does work. Mr. Hursti’s attack on the AV-OS is definitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server.”
We hope that as many people as possible will vote because the bigger the turnout the harder it is for someone to rig the total national results.
Votescam: The Stealing of America Paperback – December 1, 1992
by James M. Collier (Author), Kenneth F. Collier (Author)
Even Deeper. Below are excerpts from a riveting article which goes to the very core of the problem. The author’s father and uncle uncovered serious elections fraud years ago and suffered severely for trying to reveal the truth. In 1992, they published the book Votescam which exposed major elections fraud, only to have it effectively banned. They both died young in the 1990s. Please pass on this powerful information which is so vital to the future of democracy. Invite all of your friends and colleagues to forward this message, and to join together in calling for election reform.
A Brief History of Computerized Election Fraud in America
By Victoria Collier
By Victoria Collier
Squadrons of shiny new touch screen Trojan horses are being rolled into precincts across America. Not, as we are told, to make voting easier or more accurate. The real reason America is being flooded with billions of dollars worth of paperless computerized voting machines is so that no one will be able to prove vote fraud. These machines are not just unverifiable, they are secretly programmed. Their software is not open to scrutiny by election officials or computer experts. They are also equipped with modems accessible by computer, telephone, and satellite.
We the People are responsible for taking back the control of our democratic process. No one else will do it for us. We cannot afford to be naive, or uneducated at this time in history. In order to fully understand the extent of the corruption we are dealing with, and to avoid making dangerous mistakes based on ignorance, we must understand the history, and the power structure, behind vote fraud in America.
I grew up with two men who spent twenty-five years investigating vote fraud in America: James and Kenneth Collier, my father and uncle. Their book, Votescam: The Stealing of America was published in 1992 and immediately banned by the major book chains, which listed the book as “out of print” and actively worked to prevent its sale. Votescam chronicles the Collier brother’s groundbreaking investigation into America’s multi-billion dollar election rigging industry, and the corporate government and media officials who control it. [First six chapters available free online]
The Votescam investigation began in 1970, in — surprise! — Dade County, Florida, where Ken ran for Congress (with Jim as his campaign manager). Ken was rigged out of the election through a vote scam, which the Colliers later discovered was used throughout the country for decades. It went like this: The local newscaster would announce during the broadcast of election returns that the election “computer has broken down.” Instead of giving official returns from the county courthouse, the networks would be running vote “projections” for the rest of the night.
Jim and Ken, who had garnered 30 percent of the vote, noticed that when the vote totals came back on the screen after the announcement, they had mysteriously lost 15 percentage points. They didn’t get another vote for the rest of the night. When they examined the “official” election results from for the September primary, October run-off and November final election in Dade County, the record listed a total of 141,000 votes cast for the governors race in each election. The exact same number of total votes were cast for three elections with a different number of candidates running each time. The same identical figures were listed for the Senate race in the primary, run-off and final election. This, of course, is a statistical impossibility.
When they compared the “official” vote results with a print-out of the vote “projections” broadcast by the TV networks on the final election night, they found that channel 4 had “projected” with near perfect accuracy the results of 40 races with 250 candidates only 4 minutes after the polls closed. Channel 7 came even closer; at 9:31 pm, they “projected” the final vote total for a race at 96,499 votes. When the Colliers checked the “official” number . . . it was also 96,499.
The networks then made the astonishing claim that the results from a single voting machine somewhere in Dade County were run through a computer program in order to get these vote projections. Elton Davis was the computer programmer responsible for the magic formula that could convert one machine’s vote results into near perfect projected vote totals for 40 races and 250 candidates. When Jim and Ken confronted Davis in his office at the University of Miami, he responded: “You’ll never prove it, now get out.”
Finally the networks claimed that members of the League of Women Voters were out in the field on election night, calling in vote totals to channels 4 and 7. When the Colliers confronted the head of the League, Joyce Deiffenderfer, she admitted that there were no LWV members out in the field that night. She broke down crying, saying “I don’t want to get caught up in this thing.”
When the TV networks claimed that the courthouse computer had broken down, and they would no longer be reporting actual vote totals, they were lying. They had never been reporting actual vote totals. The final shoe dropped months later when an official press release appeared from Dade data processing chief, Leonard White, which stated emphatically: The county computer at the courthouse was never down, and it was never slow.
This was the beginning. The Collier brothers had slammed their boat into the tip of a giant iceberg. As they continued to investigate, they were horrified to discover vote fraud collusion among key individuals in every branch and on every level of the American political system. Those who were not benefiting from the fraud were too afraid to fight it. Their search for justice led to dead-ends. Their lives were threatened. They were vilified as conspiracy theorists by the mainstream press . . . and yet they persevered.
The next quarter century was spent compiling a wealth of FBI documented evidence proving that elections in the United States have come under the tight control of a handful of powerful and corrupt people. Jim and Ken both died young during the 90’s, as heroes to many thousands who heard them speak on the radio and at political meetings across the country. They helped to guide individuals and groups working for clean elections in their communities. The Collier’s last hope was that Votescam would be used as evidence in a serious Congressional investigation into election fraud.
Many people still in power have yet to be held accountable for their role in aiding and abetting vote fraud. I’ll give you two important examples. Famous Miami lawyer Ellis Rubin brought the original Votescam evidence to the Florida assistant State Attorney at the time, Janet Reno. The evidence included the shaved wheels of lever voting machines, forged canvass sheets, and pre-printed vote tally sheets. Reno refused to prosecute, claiming falsely that the statue of limitations had run out on the crime. Years later, Rubin would tell my father that behind closed doors Reno had stated that she could not prosecute. Why? Because she would bring down many of the most powerful people in the state.
Another notable Votescam criminal can now be found sitting on the bench of the highest court in the nation. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, while still a Federal Appeals Judge, single handedly destroyed what would have been an historic lawsuit filed against Justice Department lawyer Craig Donsanto, who had refused to prosecute the extensive vote fraud evidence brought to him by the Colliers. The evidence included videotape of the League of Women voters tampering with ballots in a close door vote “counting” session. The women were illegally punching holes in already cast ballots.
I’d like to offer a brief list of important lessons learned from twenty-five years of fighting vote fraud in the trenches.
1. Secret vote counting is illegal. Counting faster is not a justification for counting secretly.
2. Lever machines were the first to appear, and they were riggable in a number of ways. One could rig the lever machine itself, or the electronic scanning machines that counted the ballots.
3. Computerized voting machines are the easiest to rig. Their software is not open to public scrutiny, or the scrutiny of Election Supervisors. There are nearly infinite ways to program the machines to count votes fraudulently. Since they are accessible by modem, they can be controlled from a remote, centralized location.
4. Voting machine companies operate with no federal oversight, certification process, standards or restrictions.
5. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have been complicit in vote rigging for decades, to their mutual benefit. Vote rigging is NOT a partisan issue.
6. The corporate major media networks play a vital role in perpetrating and covering up vote fraud.
7. Election Day media polls are untrustworthy at best.
The gravest error of judgment these days comes from those vote reformers who honestly believe that the answer to the butterfly ballot and hanging chad problems in the 2000 election is to embrace the ballot-less computerized voting machine. With the ballot-less computer, there is no way to recount, no way to prove any discrepancy, inaccuracy or fraud. Just the fact that companies like ES&S and Diebold would even make a ballot-less machine should be cause for a Congressional investigation.
A most grave error of judgment also comes from those who think that returning to a hand-counted paper ballot system is somehow impossible. An MIT/Cal Tech study done in 2001 shows that manually counted paper ballots are the most accurate system out of the 5 systems used in the last 4 presidential elections. They are totally verifiable, and first-world nations across the globe still use them, including Canada which counted their last presidential election in four hours.
The bottom line is that a computerized vote count is a secret vote count, and that’s illegal. Technology cannot supercede the constitutional and mandatory provisions of election law, which require open and verifiable elections. There is no way to do a public vote count with computers. The count must be done by hand, in public, video-taped, aired live on television, and the results posted on the precinct wall — just like they used to be. Ballots should be counted on the same day as the voting takes place, making it much more difficult to alter ballots. Hand counted paper ballots and eternal vigilance are the only hope left for us.
About the author: A long time writer and political activist, Victoria Collier continues to educate the public on the subject of vote fraud in place of her father and uncle.
Final Note
For reliable, verifiable information on other major cover-ups which directly affect our democracy, click here. The WantToKnow.info team is a group of dedicated researchers from around the world who are deeply committed to revealing critical information being hidden from the public, and to designing ways that we can work together to build a brighter future for us, for our children, and for our world. Together, we can and will make a difference. Please see below for what you can do and help to spread this important news by sending this to your friends and colleagues.
· Inform your media and political representatives of this important information on electronic voting machine problems and more. To contact those close to you, click here.
· For an abundance of reliable information on elections corruption and hopeful ideas on what we can do about it, click here.
· For an inspiring essay on how we can work together to build a brighter future, click here.
· Visit key websites dedicated to bringing positive reform to our voting systems, such as verifiedvoting.org, votescam.org/the_evidence, blackboxvoting.org, and freepress.net.
· Spread this news on electronic voting machine problems to your friends and colleagues, and bookmark this article on key news websites using the “Share” icon on this page, so that we can fill the role at which the major media is sadly failing. Together, we can make a difference.
The Myth of the Hacker-Proof Voting Machine
2018-02-21, New York Times
Many critical election systems in the United States are poorly secured and protected against malicious attacks. In the 15 years since electronic voting machines were first adopted by many states, numerous reports by computer scientists have shown nearly every make and model to be vulnerable to hacking. The systems were not initially designed with robust security in mind, and even where security features were included, experts have found them to be poorly implemented with glaring holes. But for as long as experts have warned about security problems, voting machine makers and election officials have denied that the machines can be remotely hacked. Election officials also assert that routine procedures they perform would detect if someone altered transmitted votes or machine software. Experts, however, say … that vendor claims about security can’t be trusted. “Vendors have absolutely fumbled every single attempt in security,” says Jacob D. Stauffer, vice president of operations for Coherent Cyber, who has conducted voting-machine security assessments for California’s secretary of state for a decade. Stauffer and colleagues … found the voting machines and election-management systems to be rife with security problems. Attackers could theoretically intercept unofficial results as they’re transmitted on election night — or, worse, use the modem connections to reach back into election machines at either end and install malware or alter election software and official results.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
Report: Election Vendors Are ‘Prime Targets,’ Need Oversight
2019-11-12, ABC News/Associated Press
The private companies that make voting equipment and build and maintain voter registration databases lack any meaningful federal oversight despite the crucial role they play in U.S. elections, leaving the nation’s electoral process vulnerable to attack, according to a new report. The Brennan Center for Justice on Tuesday issued the report, which calls on Congress to establish a framework for federal certification of election vendors. The authors say this could be established as a voluntary program similar to how voting machines are certified, with incentives for state and local election officials to use vendors that have completed the process. It would include the establishment of federal standards and the ability for federal officials to monitor compliance and address any violations. The report’s co-author Lawrence Norden acknowledged it was too late for any of this to happen in time for the 2020 presidential election. Although Congress sent $380 million to states last year for election security, Norden said it was a “drop in the bucket” of what is needed as state and local election officials look to fund the replacement of outdated and insecure voting systems, increase cybersecurity personnel and add security upgrades. Just three companies provide more than 80% of voting systems in the U.S.. Other systems like voter registration databases and electronic pollbooks are also supplied and, in some case, maintained by vendors.
Note: Why is it that the U.S. government is not allowed to have oversight over the companies that build and maintain voting machines and databases? What if one or more of them is bought off by a foreign or even domestic interest? Isn’t this crazy? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on elections corruption from reliable major media sources.
The 158 Families Who Are Buying American Democracy
2015-12-11, Newsweek
Half of all the money contributed so far to Democratic and Republican presidential candidates – $176 million – has come from just 158 families, along with the companies they own or control. Who are these people? According to the report, most of these big contributors live in exclusive neighborhoods where they have private security guards instead of public police officers, private health facilities rather than public parks and pools. Most send their kids and grand kids to elite private schools rather than public schools. They fly in private jets and get driven in private limousines rather than rely on public transportation. They don’t have to worry about whether Social Security or Medicare will be there for them in their retirement because they’ve put away huge fortunes. It’s doubtful that most of these 158 are contributing to these campaigns out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re largely making investments, just the way they make other investments. And the success of these investments depends on whether their candidates get elected, and will lower their taxes even further, expand tax loopholes, shred health and safety and environmental regulations so their companies can make even more money, and cut Social Security and Medicare and programs for the poor – and thereby allow these 158 and others like them to secede even more from the rest of our society. These people are, after all, are living in their own separate society. They want to elect people who will represent them, not the rest of us.
Note: As the Democrats and Republicans duke it out, the ultra-rich laugh all the way to the bank. What if instead of fighting each other, we worked together to expose the manipulations of the ultra-rich? This essay was written by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.
It only takes $26 to hack a voting machine
2011-09-28, NBC News
Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have developed a hack that, for about $26 and an 8th-grade science education, can remotely manipulate the electronic voting machines used by millions of voters all across the U.S. The researchers … performed their proof-of-concept hack on a Diebold Accuvote TS electronic voting machine, a type of touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting system that is widely used for government elections. Diebold’s voting-machine business is now owned by the Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, whose e-voting machines are used in about 22 states. Roger Johnston and Jon Warner from Argonne National Laboratory’s Vulnerability Assessment Team demonstrate three different ways an attacker could tamper with, and remotely take full control, of the e-voting machine simply by attaching what they call a piece of “alien electronics” into the machine’s circuit board. The electronic hacking tool consists of a $1.29 microprocessor and a circuit board that costs about $8. Together with the $15 remote control, which enabled the researchers to modify votes from up to a half-mile away, the whole hack runs about $26.
Note: Why isn’t this making news headlines? For more on this critical development, click here. For many other news articles on serious problems with elections, click here.
The Crisis of Election Security
2018-09-26, New York Times
As the 2018 elections approach, the American intelligence community is issuing increasingly dire warnings about potential interference from Russia and other countries. D.H.S. has now conducted remote-scanning and on-site assessments of state and county election systems. These [measures] don’t address core vulnerabilities in voting machines or the systems used to program them. And they ignore the fact that many voting machines that elections officials insist are disconnected from the internet – and therefore beyond the reach of hackers – are in fact accessible by way of the modems they use to transmit vote totals on election night. Add to this the fact that states don’t conduct robust postelection audits … and there’s a good chance we simply won’t know if someone has altered the digital votes in the next election. How did our election system get so vulnerable, and why haven’t officials tried harder to fix it? The answer, ultimately, comes down to politics and money: The voting machines are made by well-connected private companies that wield immense control over their proprietary software, often fighting vigorously in court to prevent anyone from examining it when things go awry. The stakes are high. But the focus on Russia, or any would-be election manipulators, ignores the underlying issue – the myriad vulnerabilities that riddle the system and the ill-considered decisions that got us here.
Note: Why is it that the U.S. government is not allowed to have oversight over the companies that build and maintain voting machines and databases? What if one or more of them is bought off by a foreign or event domestic interest? Isn’t this crazy? The major media have severely neglected reporting on elections manipulations that have been going on for many decades. For undeniable evidence of this, see our Elections Information Center.
The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries
2016-12-21, Los Angeles Times
The CIA has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election. But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar things. The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University. That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Levin defines intervention as “a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.” These acts, carried out in secret two-thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid. The U.S. hasn’t been the only one trying to interfere in other countries’ elections. Russia attempted to sway 36 foreign elections from the end of World War II to the turn of the century – meaning that, in total, at least one of the two great powers of the 20th century intervened in about 1 of every 9 competitive, national-level executive elections in that time period.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
The rich get richer, then buy elections
2010-10-24, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco’s leading newspaper)
It’s a perfect storm. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy. First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it has been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans. The top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us. Who are these people? They’re top executives of big corporations and Wall Street, hedge-fund managers and private equity managers. Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring into advertisements for and against candidates – without a trace of where the dollars are coming from. They’re laundered through a handful of groups. Most Americans are in trouble. Their jobs, incomes, savings and even homes are on the line. They need a government that’s working for them, not for the privileged and the powerful. Yet their state and local taxes are rising. And their services are being cut. There’s no jobs bill to speak of. Washington says nothing can be done. There’s no money left. No money? The marginal income tax rate on the very rich is the lowest it has been in more than 80 years. Under President Dwight Eisenhower … it was 91 percent. Now it’s 36 percent. We’re losing our democracy to a different system. It’s called plutocracy.
Note: As the Democrats and Republicans duke it out, the ultra-rich laugh all the way to the bank. What if instead of fighting each other, we worked together to expose the manipulations of the ultra-rich? Whether you are on the left or right of the political spectrum, this incisive article by former US Sect. of Labor Robert Reich is well worth reading in its entirety. For more in income inequality, click here.
The Results Are in and the Winner Is . . . or Maybe Not
2004-02-29, New York Times
Charlie Matulka, who lost to Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska [in 2002], does not trust the results in his election. Most of the votes were cast on paper ballots that were scanned into computerized vote-counting machines, which happen to have been manufactured by a company Mr. Hagel used to run. Mr. Matulka, suspicious of Senator Hagel’s ties to the voting machine company, demanded a hand recount of the paper ballots. Nebraska law did not allow it, he was informed. In his primary race in 1996, Mr. Hagel, who had lived in Virginia for 20 years, beat the state attorney general by nearly two to one. In the general election, he defeated the governor, who had been elected two years earlier in a landslide. In 2002, against Mr. Matulka, he won more than 80 percent of the vote. What gets conspiracy theorists excited is not just Mr. Hagel’s prodigious wins, but his job before jumping into the 1996 race: heading American Information Systems, the manufacturer of the machines that count 85 percent of Nebraska’s votes. Rob Behler … who helped prepare Georgia’s machines for the 2002 election, says secret computer codes were installed late in the process. Votes ”could have been manipulated,” he says, and the election thrown. Among the growing ranks of electronic-voting skeptics … Mr. Hagel’s wins in 1996 and 2002 have taken on mythic status. The problem is, there is no way to prove the right man was elected. A healthy democracy must avoid even the appearance of corruption. [The] Nebraska elections fail this test.
Note: For more clear evidence Hagel was directly involved in voting machine manipulation which lead to an illegal victory for him, click here and here.
Hackers find voting machines used throughout the US are vulnerable to attack
2019-09-26, CNN News
For the third straight year, elite hackers from around the world who spent a long weekend hacking into voting equipment have released a report detailing vulnerabilities in machines still in use across the country. Each of the more than 100 machines the researchers looked at were vulnerable to at least some kind of attack, said Georgetown professor Matt Blaze, one of the Def Con Voting Village’s organizers. As in previous years, the Voting Village collected versions of voting equipment used around the country, much of it ordered from eBay, and invited all of the more than 35,000 attendees of the Def Con hacker conference, which took place in Las Vegas in August, to see what kind of holes they could find. Some of machines were found to be vulnerable to remote attack and one electronic pollbook had a hidden ethernet cable to connect it to the internet. The issue is less that skilled hackers can break into election equipment, Blaze told CNN, and more that elections systems as a whole need to both minimize risk and double-check election results with paper ballots … and risk-limiting audits. Following accusations that he’d been blocking election security legislation, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week backed an amendment to give states an additional $250 million to distribute for election security. But experts have questioned whether that’s enough money to get the US to an acceptable level of election security.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on elections corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
Hackers were told to break into U.S. voting machines. They didn’t have much trouble.
2019-08-12, Washington Post
As Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) toured the Voting Village on Friday at Def Con, the world’s hacker conference extraordinaire, a roomful of hackers applied their skills to voting equipment. By laying siege to electronic poll books and ballot printers, the friendly hackers aimed to expose weaknesses that could be exploited by less friendly hands looking to interfere in elections. Almost all of the machines in the room were still used in elections across the United States, despite having well-known vulnerabilities that have been more or less ignored by the companies that sell them. In the three years since its inception, Def Con’s Voting Village … has become a destination not only for hackers but also for lawmakers and members of the intelligence community trying to understand the flaws in the election system that allowed Russian hackers to intervene in the 2016 election and that could be exploited again in 2020. Congregants spoke often of the need for thorough auditing of election results, increased funding and improved transparency from vendors. The call for paper ballots was a common refrain. At the time of the 2018 midterm elections, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina had no auditable paper trails. “Election officials across the country as we speak are buying election systems that will be out of date the moment they open the box,” Wyden said. “It’s the election security equivalent of putting our military out there to go up against superpowers with a peashooter.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on elections corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
Hackers Breach U.S. Voting Machines in 90 Minutes in DEF CON Competition
2017-07-30, Newsweek
Hackers were able to successfully breach the software of U.S. voting machines in less than two hours at a competition in Las Vegas. The event exposed glaring deficiencies in the security of U.S. voting infrastructure. According to the Register, the hackers at the DEF CON conference Friday were given voting machines, and competed to access them by physically breaking them open and hacking them remotely. Some devices had remote ports, which could be used to insert devices with malicious software, others insecure WiFi connections, or outdated software such as Windows XP, rendering them exposed to hacking attacks. The machines, manufactured by companies including Diebold, Sequoia and Winvote equipment, were purchased over eBay or at government auctions. In June, the Intercept published leaked NSA documents showing that Russian agents hacked a U.S. voting systems manufacturer in the weeks leading to last year’s presidential election. NSA contractor Reality Leigh Winner, 25, was subsequently charged with removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet. “Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributions of the hacker community today, we’ve uncovered even more about exactly how,” said Jake Braun, the Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Global Advisors and Managing Director of Cambridge Global Capital, who designed the hacking competition.
Note: Many who follow elections closely have known and spread the word for years about serious vulnerabilities in US electronic voting. Read an enlightening analysis of elections hacking in the US which raises many serious questions. And don’t miss the critically important information provided in our Elections Information Center.
11-year-old hacks replica of Florida’s election system in 10 minutes
2018-08-14, The Independent (One of the UK’s leading newspapers)
An 11-year-old has been able to hack into a replica of Florida’s election system in 10 minutes during a test ahead of upcoming US midterm elections this November. The boy was the fastest of 35 children who were able to hack into replicas of the websites of six swing states during the three-day Def Con security convention. The results of those efforts to test the strength of US election infrastructure will be passed onto the states, and the National Association of Secretaries of State – the officials responsible for tallying and confirming vote totals – said that they welcome the efforts. The results highlight potential security lapses amid heightened concern that American voter rolls will be tampered with in the upcoming midterm elections, and after President Donald Trump’s national security team warned that Russia had launched “pervasive” efforts to interfere in America’s 2018 elections. The convention indicated that the hackers were able to change party names in the systems, and added as many as 12 billion votes to candidates. “Candidates names were changed to ‘Bob Da Builder’ and ‘Richard Nixon’s head’,” the convention said in a tweet. The winning hacker was identified as Emmett Brewer, a boy whose Twitter account says he lives in Austin, Texas.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
Ex-CIA Director Says U.S. Meddles for a ‘Good Cause’
2018-03-15, Truth in Media
Ex-CIA Director James Woolsey said it himself. Yes, the U.S. meddles in other countries elections. But when we do it, it’s for the right reasons. “Only for a very good cause,” he says, because our government is ensuring foreign elections result in “democracy.” But doesn’t democracy demand that people decide for themselves? And how well has U.S. meddling actually worked out? According to Carnegie Mellon University researcher Dov Levin, the United States has attempted to sway elections in other countries more than 80 times worldwide between 1946 and 2000. But those 80+ instances of the U.S. interfering with other nations elections does not include regime change efforts. In the 1970s in Chile, the CIA conducted a botched kidnapping of General René Schneider, the Chilean Army’s commander-in-chief, that resulted in Schneider’s death. The plot was an effort to undermine the presidency of Salvador Allende, which may have fueled the violent coup that led to Allende’s overthrow. In 1974, Henry Kissinger was quoted in Newsweek, saying about Chile: “I don’t see why we have to let a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.” Levin’s tally also does not include covert coup d’etats where our government overthrows a foreign leader like the the U.S. did in Iran in 1953 or in Guatemala in 1954. In fact, Salon magazine documents 35 nations in which the United States has overthrown legitimate governments and or supported fascists, drug lords or terrorists. U.S. intervention is rarely about democracy.
Note: Truth in Media is one of the few media outlets speaking truth from a balanced place with reliable facts can be verified. Don’t miss the excellent video at the webpage above. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media
2017-02-26, The Guardian (One of the UK’s leading newspapers)
I Googled “mainstream media is…” And there it was. Google’s autocomplete suggestions: “mainstream media is… dead, dying, fake news, fake, finished”. Google’s first suggested link … leads to a website called CNSnews.com and an article: “The Mainstream media are dead.” How had it, an obscure site I’d never heard of, dominated Google’s search algorithm on the topic? In the “About us” tab, I learn CNSnews is owned by the Media Research Center. It receives a large bulk of its funding – more than $10m in the past decade – from a single source, the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. Robert Mercer is the money behind an awful lot of things. He was Trump’s single biggest donor. Since 2010, Mercer has donated $45m to different political campaigns – all Republican – and another $50m to non-profits – all rightwing, ultra-conservative. This is a billionaire who is … trying to reshape the world according to his personal beliefs. He is reported to have a $10m stake in the [Cambridge Analytica], which was spun out of a bigger British company called SCL Group. It specialises in “election management strategies” and “messaging and information operations”, refined over 25 years. In military circles this is known as “psyops” – psychological operations. Cambridge Analytica makes the astonishing boast that it has psychological profiles based on 5,000 separate pieces of data on 220 million American voters. With this, a computer … can predict and potentially control human behaviour. It’s incredibly dangerous.
Note: The above article provides a detailed look at how mass media is being combined with Big Data to produce powerful new forms of mind control.
Database Tracks History Of U.S. Meddling In Foreign Elections
2016-12-22, NPR
Carnegie Mellon University researcher Dov Levin [has compiled a] historical database that tracks U.S. involvement in meddling with foreign elections over the years. The U.S. has … tried to influence the outcome of another country’s election … more than 80 times worldwide between 1946 and 2000. One example of that was our intervention in Serbia, Yugoslavia in the 2000 election there. Slobodan Milosevic was running for re-election, and we didn’t want him to stay in power there. So we intervened in various ways for the opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica. And we gave funding to the opposition, and we gave them training and campaigning aide. That assistance was crucial in enabling the opposition to win. About one-third of [election interventions] are public, and two-third of them are covert. In other words, they’re not known to the voters in the target before the election. Covert coup d’etats like the United States did in Iran in 1953 or in Guatemala in 1954 [were not counted, only times] when the United States [tried] directly to influence an election for one of the sides. The United States is the most common user of this technique. Russia or the Soviet Union since 1945 has used it half as much. My estimate has been 36 cases between 1946 to 2000. We know also that the Chinese have used this technique and the Venezuelans when the late Hugo Chavez was still in power in Venezuela and other countries.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Yes, It’s Possible to Hack the Election
2016-08-19, ABC News
Could an American election’s outcome be altered by a malicious actor on a computer keyboard? I have had three jobs that, together, taught me at least one thing: If it’s a computer, it can be hacked. I served as the White House senior cybersecurity policy adviser. I served on [President Obama’s] five-person post–Edward Snowden investigative group on the National Security Agency, intelligence and technology. And for over a decade I have advised American corporations on cybersecurity. Those experiences confirm my belief that if sophisticated hackers want to get into any computer or electronic device, even one that is not connected to the internet, they can do so. Now consider that a majority of states use some kind of combination of electronic voting and a type of paper trail, but there is no standard nationwide. In most states the data that are used to determine who won an election are processed by networked, computerized devices. There are almost no locations that exclusively use paper ballots. Some states … employ electronic voting machines that produce no paper trail, therefore there is nothing to count or recount and no way to ensure that what a voter intended is what was recorded and transmitted. If someone makes the charge after this election that the results were altered by hackers, our country has almost no way of credibly refuting that claim. Thus American voters will have no way to know if they can trust the results of the election.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
Is it that Easy to Hack an Election?
2016-08-05, MSN News/Politico
Princeton professor Andrew Appel decided to hack into a voting machine. He bought one online. Appel parted with $82 and became the owner of …the Sequoia AVC Advantage, one of the oldest and vulnerable, electronic voting machines in the United States. He summoned a graduate student named Alex Halderman, who could pick the machine’s lock in seven seconds. Clutching a screwdriver, [Appel then] deftly wedged out the four ROM chips – they weren’t soldered into the circuit board, as sense might dictate – making it simple to replace them with one of his own: A version of modified firmware that could throw off the machine’s results, subtly altering the tally of votes, never to betray a hint to the voter. The attack was concluded in minutes. Elections could be vulnerable at myriad strike points, among them the software that aggregates the precinct vote totals, and the voter registration rolls that are increasingly digitized. But the threat, the cyber experts say, starts with the machines that tally the votes and crucially keep a record of them – or, in some cases, don’t. It’s not just the voting machines themselves – it’s the desktop and laptop computers that election officials use. And the computers that aggregate the results together from all of the optical scans. If any of those get hacked, it could could significantly disrupt the election. Hackers this year have [already] targeted voter registration rolls in Illinois and possibly Arizona, another attack highlighted by the Princeton alums.
Note: For the text of the video at the above link and more, see this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines
2016-07-27, Washington Post
Russia was behind the hacks into the Democratic National Committee’s computer network that led to the release of thousands of internal emails just before the party’s convention began, U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded. The FBI is investigating. WikiLeaks promises there is more data to come. The political nature of this cyberattack means that Democrats and Republicans are trying to spin this as much as possible. Even so, we have to accept that someone is attacking our nation’s computer systems in an apparent attempt to influence a presidential election. This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. And it points to the possibility of an even worse problem in November. Over the years, more and more states have moved to electronic voting machines and have flirted with Internet voting. These systems are insecure and vulnerable to attack. But while computer security experts … have sounded the alarm for many years, states have largely ignored the threat, and the machine manufacturers have thrown up enough obfuscating babble that election officials are largely mollified. Government interference with foreign elections isn’t new, and in fact, that’s something the United States itself has repeatedly done in recent history. But what is new is a foreign government interfering with a U.S. national election on a large scale. Our democracy cannot tolerate it, and we as citizens cannot accept it.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.
Anonymous, Karl Rove and 2012 Election Fix?
2012-11-19, Truthout
At around 11:25 pm EST on election night, Karl Rove knew something had gone terribly wrong. Minutes earlier, Fox News called the key battleground state of Ohio for President Obama, sealing his re-election. But as the network took live shots of jubilant Obama supporters camped outside the Obama re-election headquarters in Chicago celebrating their victory, Karl Rove began building a case against the call his employer network had just made. Rove explained that when Fox called Ohio, only 74% of the vote was in, showing President Obama with a lead of roughly 30,000 votes. But, as Rove contended, with 77% reporting according to the Ohio Secretary of State office, the President’s lead had been slashed to just 991 votes. “We gotta be careful about calling the thing,” Rove said. Rove was supremely confident that the numbers coming in from Ohio throughout the night that favored President Obama weren’t indicative of who would win Ohio when all the votes were ultimately tabulated by the state’s computers. With a quarter of the vote still out there, Rove was anticipating a shift to the Right just after 11 pm, which, coincidentally, is exactly what happened in 2004. So the question is: on election night this year, when Karl Rove was protesting the call his network had just made in Ohio, was Rove anticipating a wave of unpredicted vote totals to swing the election back to Mitt Romney after a statewide server crash, just as had happened in 2004? Just two days after Election Day … Anonymous released a press statement claiming it did indeed prevent an attempt by Rove to steal the election for Mitt Romney.
Note: We don’t normally use Truthout as a source, but as no major media sources covered this most important news, we’ve included it here. We have independent, reliable sources confirming that it is very likely that Rove tried to swing this election, as he did in 2004, but was stymied by an anonymous group. For another inspiring article describing how Karl Rove may have been stopped from manipulating the US elections, click here. And for a well researched articled suggesting that it was not Anonymous who stopped Karl Rove, but another group called “the protectors,” click here.
Several Clay County Officials Arrested On Federal Charges
2009-03-21, MSNBC
Five Clay County [Kentucky] officials, including the circuit court judge, the county clerk, and election officers were arrested Thursday after they were indicted on federal charges accusing them of using corrupt tactics to obtain political power and personal gain. The 10-count indictment, unsealed Thursday, accused the defendants of a conspiracy from March 2002 until November 2006 that violated the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The defendants were also indicted for extortion, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to injure voters’ rights and conspiracy to commit voter fraud. According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Clay County Circuit Court Judge Russell Cletus Maricle, 65, and school superintendent Douglas C. Adams, 57, allegedly used their status in the county to influence the appointment of corrupt members to the Clay County Board of Election Officials. [They also] caused election officers to commit acts of extortion, mail fraud, and bribery. Clay County Clerk, Freddy Thompson, 45, allegedly provided money to election officers to be distributed by the officers to buy votes. He also instructed officers how to change votes at the voting machine. Paul E. Bishop, 60, … hosted alleged meetings at his home where money was pooled together by candidates and distributed to election officers, including himself. He was also accused of instructing the officers how to change votes at the voting machine. The investigation preceding the indictment was conducted by the FBI, Kentucky State Police, and Appalachia
Note: For some strange reason, the article is no longer available at the link above. To read it on an MSNBC affiliate website, click here. The media have almost always proclaimed that voting machine tampering has never been proven to affect election outcome. This article demonstrates that not only does it happen, but it may be much more prevalent than most would think. For more on this indictment, click here. For more reliable information on widespread election fraud, click here.
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