WILL YOUR VOTE COUNT?Dear Vermonter, In recent months, several independent tests have shown that there are serious security holes in the Diebold optical-scan voting systems that we use in Vermont.
As you may be aware, in 2004 Vermont passed a law requiring paper ballots on all votes cast. Members of our group were instumental in writing the bill and getting it passed into law. We thought that would help ensure our election system would be secure, but we have since found that the optical scan systems are just as vulnerable to errors and fraund, and we need to take further action. It has been determined that anyone with access to a memory card (a removable part of each optical-scan machine) can alter the election results without any trace. Even though town clerks run two separate tests on the memory cards, these tests would not detect such tampering. In just 5 minutes, a computer security expert was able to pre-program a memory card to change the results of a mock election. Election officials who observed the "hack" tried to detect any kind of problem but were unable to. It is true that election officials and town clerks have access to the memory cards, but this is not the real problem. The real problem is that the memory cards are sent back to Diebold and/or LHS before every election, and many of their employees have unfettered access to the cards there. They have the ability to control who wins and loses our elections, and if they were doing so, we wouldn't know it.It's important to understand, this revealed that the election results can be PRE-programmed by Diebold and LHS, before the election actually takes place. This could be done not only with the memory cards, but also on the firmware of the scanner itself. Nothing has to be done to the machines on election day, and no test on the machines could reveal a problem. As a result of these findings, several states and municipalities across the nation have taken action. The entire state of Pennsylvania decertified the machines. The California Secretary of State put certification on hold and ordered the system we use to be inspected by an independent testing agency, which found illegal software code written on the memory cards and confirmed the problem. Colorado has also put certification on hold. The state of Florida sent out an alert to all election officials, and two Florida counties banned the machines.
The reports all make strong recommendations to institute mandatory random audits on all election systems. With the random audit, a certain percentage of the paper ballots are hand counted and checked against the machine count. The reports state emphatically that hand counts are the only way to verify election accuracy and there is no test on the scanner or computer that can detect a potential problem. The most recent Brennan Report was conducted by a consortium of the most distinguished computer security experts in the world, including the head of security for Microsoft and Lawrence Livermore Labs, and professors from MIT, Berkeley, Yale, and Standford Universities. The report says there must be mandatory random audits on every election. This is not just about election fraud and rigging. As we all know, computers have all kinds of problems. Sometimes they crash. Sometimes software code has an unintentional bug and it doesn't work right. Hundreds of significant errors have been documented on all types of electronic voting systems, including one this Spring in Iowa where the wrong candidate was given the victory until a voting official decided on their own to count the ballots by hand. Vermont currently has no mandatory random audits as recommended. Our Secretary of State has recently announced that there will be an audit on this November's election, and we applaud her for making this decision. However, just having an audit on this election is not enough. As the reports state clearly, we need random audits on all elections. As well, the Secretary's office has not released any details of the audit. Citizens have a right to know the audit will be done on a statistically significant sample and that it is chosen in a truly random fashion, in public view. The hand count audit itself must also be done in public view and there must be a specific plan of action ahead of time, for what to do if a discrepancy is found. Thus far none of these details have been released.
Vermonters for Voting Integrity is a group of concerned citizens working to improve the transparency and accuracy of our election system. We call upon the Secretary of State to join the experts' call for mandatory audits on ALL elections in Vermont. We ask her to release details about the coming audit so we can evaluate the procedure and comment publicly on it.
Virtually every state has an organization fighting for the integrity of their elections, and against the problems of the electronic voting machines. There are many lawyers, teachers, doctors, politicians, candidates, computer security experts, and voting rights activists all over the country who recognize the seriousness of this situation. There are dozens of lawsuits and investigations underway. Now it's our turn. Vermont is small but that means each citizen has a louder voice. In order to take the necessary actions, we need more people like you to join with us and help make our election system secure once again. We're not asking for your money. We just want you to learn about this very important subject and help us raise attention with the public and our legislators. Whether the people want George Bush, John Kerry, Bernie Sanders or Jim Douglas to lead them, we have an inalienable right to make these choices. The right to vote and have fair elections was a failsafe that our forefathers gave us to save us from tyranny and supression. We have a right to a secure election system; one that does not invite election rigging by private companies. Our Democracy is at stake and we need your help. This web page will list some action items and news stories that pertain to the struggle to have secure elections in Vermont. Let your voice be heard! Here is what you can do:
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