Fwd: GAO report confirms stolen election findings

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> Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004

> stolen election findings

> <http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/152>

> by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

> October 26, 2005

>

>

> See also: E-voting won't be verified until 2006

> By Anne Broache, CNET News.com

> Published on ZDNet News: October 21, 2005,

> <http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5907036.html>

> Electronic voting systems aren't likely to be sufficiently secure even

> by the 2006 elections, government auditors warned Friday. Existing

> systems are rife with problems, the Government Accountability Office

> said in a 107-page document

>

>

<http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Freform.house.gov%2FUploadedFiles%2\

FGAO-05-956.pdf & siteId=22 & oId=2100-1009-5907036 & ontId=1009 & lop=nl.ex>

 

>

> As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove

> inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under

> the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is

> crumbling.

>

> The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election

> of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating

> report from the General Accounting Office that has gotten virtually

> no mainstream media coverage.

>

> The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general

> incorruptibility and its through, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence

> with assertions widely dismissed as " conspiracy theories " adds

> crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate

> business being in the White House.

>

> Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers

> (D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as

> they were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election.

> The request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere

> that often shocking irregularities defined their performance.

>

> According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received " more

> than 57,000 complaints " following Bush's alleged re-election. Many

> such concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn

> statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations

> conducted in Ohio by the Free Press and other election protection

> organizations.

>

> The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, " some of [the]

> concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and

> have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss

> and miscount of votes. "

>

> The United States is the only major democracy that allows private

> partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with

> proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among

> others, has asserted that " public elections must not be conducted

> on privately-owned machines. " The CEO of one of the most crucial

> suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold,

> pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the

> presidency to George W. Bush.

>

> Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes

> out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates

> argue that O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an

> effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.

>

> Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

>

> 1. Some electronic voting machines " did not encrypt cast ballots

> or system audit logs, thus making it possible to alter them without

> detection. " In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic

> voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count.

> More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting

> machines, some seven times Bush's official margin of victory.

>

> 2. " It is easy to alter a file defining how a ballot appears, making

> it possible for someone to vote for one candidate and actually be

> recorded as voting for an entirely different candidate. " Numerous

> sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio

> 2004.

>

> 3. " Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of

> such an action by using altered memory cards " can easily be done,

> according to the GAO.

>

> 4. The GAO also confirms that " access to the voting network was

> easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic

> voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected,

> so access to one machine provided access to the whole network. "

> This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not

> require a " widespread conspiracy " but rather the cooperation of a

> very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the

> networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will.

> With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping

> the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just

> one programmer.

>

> 5. Access " to the voting network was also compromised by repeated

> use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords, "

> says the GAO. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained

> access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.

>

> 6. " The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked

> and keys were simple to copy, " says the GAO, meaning, again, getting

> into the system was an easy matter.

>

> 7. " One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a

> rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause

> the entire network to fail, " says the GAO, re-emphasizing the

> fragility of the system on which the Presidency of the United States

> was decided.

>

> 8. " GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and

> background screening practices for vendor personnel, " confirming

> still more easy access to the system.

>

> In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store

> or mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer

> system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which

> the 2004 election turned.

>

> The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context

> of an election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously

> working as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what

> election theft skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm

> that the electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast

> was vulnerable enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives --

> or less -- to turn the whole vote count using personal computers

> operating on relatively simple software.

>

> The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities

> surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example:

>

> # The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained

> last minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive

> shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual

> statistical impossibility.

>

> # A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES & S

> voting machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making

> machine in Auglaize County

>

> # Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least

> 18 machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who

> pushed Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all

> day long. Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but

> sworn statements and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar

> problems in Franklin County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both

> counties were suspiciously low.

>

> # A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million

> votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.

>

> # In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called

> " electronic transfer glitch " gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when

> only 638 people voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly

> corrected, but remains infamous as the " loaves and fishes " vote

> count.

>

> # In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their

> vote for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.

>

> # In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's

> central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes

> mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage

> as prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.

>

> # In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up

> for obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic

> African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed

> virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for

> Kerry.

>

> # Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate " show recounts, " technicians

> from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the

> Hocking County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard

> drive.

>

> # In response to official information requests, Shelby and other

> counties admit to having discarded key records and equipment before

> any recount could take place.

>

> # In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck,

> Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost

> every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine.

> The losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or

> traditional party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen

> machines were used.

>

> # In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that " by and large,

> when it comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a

> lemon - the Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better. "

>

> But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as

> deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very

> small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment

> to shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.

>

> Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear

> that's exactly what happened.

>

> --

> Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE

> AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available via

> <>http://freepress.org and <>http://harveywasserman.com. Their WHAT

> HAPPENED IN OHIO, with Steve Rosenfeld, will be published in Spring,

> 2006, by New Press.

>