Bald-Faced Lies About Black Box Voting Machines
and
The Truth About the Rob-Georgia File
By Bev Harris
*
* Bev Harris is the Author of the soon to be published book
" Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering In The 21st Century "
Pre
order at…
http://www.blackboxvoting.com
Scoop.co.nz has now
revealed for the first time the location of a complete online copy of
the original data set. As we anticipate attempts to prevent the
distribution of this information we encourage supporters of democracy to
make copies of these files and to make them available on websites and
file sharing networks.
http://users.actrix.co.nz/dolly/
Download
the Diebold files
(See also... http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm
Inside
A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program
and
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00064.htm
Sludge
Report #154 – Bigger Than Watergate!**)
A Diebold touchscreen voting
machine
Makers of the walk right in, sit right down,
replace ballot tallies with your own GEMS vote counting
program.
CONTENTS
LIES
TRUTH
ABOUT ROB-GEORGIA
Someone needs to get their story
straight.
Diebold voting machines are used in 37 states. The entire state of
Ohio is considering dumping its old system to buy Diebold. Georgia
already did.
The Diebold files, supposedly secret voting machine files left on an
unprotected web site for nearly six years, are unlocking the
truth.
Official stories about voting machine security, acceptance testing
and last-minute program changes are beginning to slide around like hot
grease on a Georgia griddle.
What was the program patch known as rob-georgia.zip used for? What
were they doing with that ftp site, anyway? Hang in for the first part
of this article, the finger-pointing and obfuscating part, because it
concludes with a straightforward explanation of what went on in Georgia
that has never been made public before.
**************
DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE TELL
THE TRUTH?
"We protect the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Declaration
of Independence. We protect the Hope Diamond," [Diebold CEO Wally]
O'Dell told The Plain Dealer in May 2002. "Now, we protect the
most sacred treasure we have, our secret ballot."
If they can't tell us the truth about simple things like "does it
connect to modems," can we really be confident that they are protecting
our vote?
CNBC asked Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell this question on election day,
Nov. 5, 2002: "How tamper proof are these voting machines? That seems to
be a concern of some who feel that it only takes one person, one hacker
who can screw up an entire election. How valid is that criticism Mr.
O`Dell?"
"Well, there`s always risks," replied O'Dell, "but, you know, these
things are not connected to the Internet. They`re individual precinct by
precinct, location by location. They`re double checked before they`re
sent out. We think the technology is fabulous and very bulletproof.
(Come back here after reading rob-georgia, ask him to repeat this.)
"The GEMS computers are not connected to any communication
system, including the Internet, and contain no software other than
the Windows operating system and the Global Election Management System
object code," wrote Dr. Brit Williams on Apr. 23, 2003. He is the
official voting machine certifier for the state of Georgia, and a key
member of the panel that chooses national Independent Testing Labs for
voting machines.
Lies.
"The central host system (GEMS Software) is generally a stand-alone
system so that no physical access via network is allowed...This computer
can download files for the Internet with dial-out only capability, but
is generally not allowed to be linked to the Internet for obvious
security concerns." This, in documents submitted during a purchasing
decision, answering questions from Santa Clara County, California on
Feb. 7, 2003.
If the GEMS computer isn't connected to anything, why is the
following diagram found in a file named GApresentation3-02.zip, found on
the Diebold ftp site? This diagram depicts the GEMS computer connecting
directly to the Internet on election night.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0307/22b4e4cd0e52315e48ae.jpeg
CLICK
IMAGE FOR BIG VERSION
Not connected to any communication system are they, Dr. Williams? I
spoke with James Rellinger, the technician who installed all 159 GEMS
host computers in Georgia.
Harris: "I understand that you worked for Diebold Election
Systems in Georgia. Can you tell me what you did?"
Rellinger: "They contracted us here in Georgia to basically
follow a recipe book and we ran down and built these things."
Harris: "By 'build these things' -- I think of build, like a
hammer and a screwdriver -- What do you mean by build, what were you
building?"
Rellinger: "Oh, that's a good point. There were 159 of these
servers that went out. All we did was run through a series of tests to
make sure they could log on and communicate and make sure
everything jived with the touch screen.
"When you say build they were actually just a Dell server and we
added some hardware to it for instance CD burners, a tape came in them
already, but we'd add things to make them modem capable.
"When you say build a server it's not physically assembling a
hardware. We added a component or two to make it do what we needed to
do, modems, we load the Windows 2000, put the software in then we
test it against their touch-screen machines."
Let's look at just how big a whopper Dr. Williams told when he said
they aren't connected to anything: Sandy Baxter, Elections Supervisor
for San Juan County, Washington, also says she had modems and Internet
capability:
"I think it was about 1999 we bought a new server. They gave us
recommendations for servers, like Dell. They had Dell ship them to
McKinney, Texas and they loaded the systems on and various modems,
digiboards and stuff...The server can handle multiple PCs, but I
only have one at this time, so my PC is also my server...I have two
modems. I have a modem that is for going out and it is not connected to
the GEMS system. So I can go to the web. I have what's called a
digiboard on my server that allows multiple modem connections. I have a
second modem on the GEMS system but its only for the AccuVote systems.
My precincts modem me the results on that. The second modem is the only
one that goes to my GEMS system. It doesn't have the capability to go in
and out. I just plug it in when I use it."
The User Manuals are filled with references to modems, ports,
uploading, downloading, TCP/IP protocols, transmissions, and ways to use
"JResults" to upload to the web continuously on election night.
Technical specifications, including manufacturer's components lists,
show that not only are there modems, but wireless communications.
All right, so they lied to us about modem
hook-ups. Shall we let this cloud our trust in everything else they are
telling us?
Consider this:
Diebold's official spokesman, Joseph Richardson assures us that the
open ftp site was inactive. In interviews with Salon.com and the
Baltimore City Paper, he said the site was old and the files were out of
date. Was this the truth?
Not at all. The site was taken down on Jan. 29, 2003. The most recent
file on the ftp site is dated Jan. 23, 2003. How much information was in
the files? See for yourself by visiting the download site at the top of
this article.
Michael Barnes, of the elections division with the Georgia Secretary
of State's office, said "That ftp site did not affect us in any way
shape or form because we did not do any file transferring from it."
Let's have Dr. Brit Williams weigh in. In Feb. 2003, he said "I'm not
familiar with that site." On April 23, he wrote a letter that was a bit
more precise:
"Apparently, there was an FTP site that Diebold employees used to
store and transfer versions of the system that were under development.
The contents, or even existence, of the 'rob georgia' folder has not
been established. However, for the sake of this discussion, we will
assume that the FTP site existed...
This would have had absolutely
no effect on the election system as implemented in Georgia. The State
does not obtain its election system code from an FTP site or even from
Diebold."
Dr. Williams went on to outline an elaborate scheme whereby he
claimed that the program files are obtained solely from ITAs
(Independent Testing Labs).
What about the Secretary of State? A memo by Chris Riggall,
spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, stated that last
minute "patches" were installed on all 22,000 voting machines in
Georgia. Dr. Williams admitted to me that they were never examined --
not by a testing lab, not by him, not by anyone outside of Diebold.
Suddenly, no one could get their stories straight on the patches either.
The patch was from Microsoft and it was for Windows, said the
Secretary of State's office. But wait -- Dr. Williams says it came
directly from the ITA. What does Diebold say? Diebold says they have no
indication there ever was a patch.
We're going to meet one of the guys who
actually installed that patch in a minute, but first let us observe the
art of evasion from Diebold's Joe Richardson:
Harris: "Did you say, when interviewed by Salon.com, in
reference to whether patches were put on the machines in Georgia, "We
have analyzed that situation and have no indication of that happening at
all."
Richardson: "Well, that is what I said at the time, however,
we have continued to investigate the matter and … (very, very long
pause) Yes that is what I said to Salon.com."
Harris: "Do you stand by that now?"
Richardson: "We have continued to look into the matter."
Harris: "As you have continued to investigate this, do you
have any new information as to whether patches were put on in Georgia?"
Richardson: "No."
Harris: "Has anyone thought to just call them up and ask? The
Secretary of State's office?"
Richardson: "I can't say."
Harris: "What was the rob-georgia file? Who is responsible for
it?"
Richardson: "I'm not privy to that information."
Harris: "Who would be able to answer that question?"
Richardson: "I can't tell you. I can look into it."
Harris: "Yes, could you do that please? In two publications,
you are quoted as saying that the information on the open FTP site was
old and out of date. Yet, I can tell you the most recent file on it was
dated January 16, 2003. Did you do any checking to see whether the site
had been used recently when you made that statement?" (A more recent
file, dated Jan. 23, was later discovered.)
Richardson: "The site had already been taken down."
Harris: "Surely Diebold has access to its own site?"
Richardson: "I'm saying I didn't have access."
Harris: "Did you ask anybody?"
Richardson: (sound of shuffling papers) "Our ongoing
investigation has found no merit to the insinuations of security
breaches in our election solutions."
Harris: "So if there were up to 20,000 files including
hardware, software specs, testing protocols, source code, you do not
feel that is a security breach?" (more files have since been discovered
inside a mammoth zipped directory, bringing the estimated total up to
nearly 40,000 files)
Richardson: "Our ongoing investigation has found no merit
to the insinuations of security breaches in our election solutions."
And now, Dr. Brit Williams on the Georgia
patch:
Harris: What was the security around the creation
of the cards used to implement the patch?
Williams: "That's a real good question. Like I say, we were in
the heat of the election. Some of the things we did, we probably
compromised security a little bit -- Let me emphasize we've gone back
since the election and done extensive testing on all this." Dr.
Williams latest 180 degree reversal (This link leads you to a forum
discussing files from the ftp site, which contains several absurd
statements from Dr. Williams).
And now, Michael Barnes on the Georgia patch:
Barnes:
"Wyle said it did not affect the certification elements. So it did not
need to be certified." (at the above-referenced link, you can also find
information from a Freedom of Information Act request, in which
officials admitted they did not have any certifying documents on the
patch).
Harris: "Where's the written report from Wyle on that? Can I
have a copy?"
Barnes: "I'd have to look for it I don't know if there was
ever a written report by Wyle. It might have been by phone."
**************
The Truth About Rob-Georgia
Everyone assured me they knew of no one named Rob. Move along.
But I received an e-mail: "I think I may be the Rob in rob-georgia,"
it said. And now I know why they didn't want us to interview him. I
think you'll agree that his interview is worth the length, for the
picture you get of what was really going on. If you prefer to skim,
check the sections in italics. Citizens, meet Rob Behler,
straight talker:
Harris: What was the FTP site for?
Behler:One of problems we had was an issue with the GEMS
database. They had to do an update to it, so they just post the
update to the web site.
Harris: What was rob-georgia?
Behler: I believe what that file was for, I did a -- well,
there were a ton of holes with the programs on those machines. When they
all came into the warehouse, I did a quality check, this was something I
did on a Saturday. I found that 25% of the machines on the floor would
fail KSU testing --
Harris: "What is KSU testing?"
Behler: "Kennesaw State University. We knew basically what
they would be testing and the trick was to make sure the machines would
pass the testing. So I went and checked a pallet and found it was bad.
And I checked another, and another, and I knew we had a problem."
Harris: "Was that both you and James Rellinger?"
Behler: "James dealt with the network, but I was dealing with
the touchscreen machines themselves.
Harris: "What kind of problems were you seeing?"
Behler: "…One of the things we had wrong was the date wasn't
sticking in the Windows CE. The real time clock would go to check the
time on the motherboard, and it would have an invalid year in it, like
1974 or something, and basically the machine would continue to keep
checking. Every time it checked, it saw that the date was not right and
this put it into a loop.
"They had to do an update in CE to fix all those dates. So the way we
did that in the warehouse was, they would post whatever the update
was on the FTP site. James would go get the file and put it on the
[memory] cards. Because you load everything through the PCMCIA
cards. You boot it up using the card and it loads the new software.
"This was done in the warehouses -- once the machines were sent out
to the county, these updates were done just to make sure the machines
were running correctly. I went over to Dekalb [County]. We updated
1800 machines in basically a day and a half. I still remember ol' Rusty,
down at the warehouse, we ended up touching every single machine off the
pallet, booting 'em up, update it, we had a couple hundred machines done
when in comes a new update over the phone.
Harris: "You mean you used a modem or they called you on the
phone?"
Behler: "No. A phone call. They'd say 'Oh no no, the way we
had you do, that's not going to work, here's another thing to do. Okay,
we just did a few hundred machines, now we gotta do it this way -- But
we got it done.
Harris: "Did you personally ever download anything at all from
the FTP site?"
Behler: [it was] mostly James.
Harris: "Did you work for Diebold, or James Rellinger?"
Behler: "I worked for ABSS. So did James."
Harris: "What about the rob-georgia file?"
Behler: "I think they put it out there for me when we were
doing the Dekalb thing, but I was busy managing the whole crew so, I
had my laptop out, and one of the engineers used my laptop -- or maybe
it was James -- one of them had to go in and get it from the FTP, put it
on a card, make copies of the cards and then we used them to update the
machines."
Harris: "So one of the people downloaded the patch and then
made copies of it?"
Behler: "They use my laptop. It was not secure, either. They
just used the laptop to repro the cards. Diebold never gave us anything
with a PCMCIA slot, then they'd tell us, 'Go download this,' so we'd
have to get out our own laptop to do it."
Harris: "Who instructed you about the FTP site? Was it a
Diebold employee?"
Behler: "It was Diebold."
Harris: "Was it the people in Ohio or the people in Texas?"
Behler: "The people in McKinney [Texas]."
Harris: "Who were some of the Diebold people? Do you remember
any names?"
Behler: "Ian. I remember one of the guys, Ian, I can't
remember his last name. One of the main guys we dealt with was a guy
named Ian. He was actually involved in the design of the motherboard. He
was very much involved in trying to figure out how to fix the problems.
So they sent us upgrades, but then after we did it KSU still failed a
ton of machines."
Harris: "As I understand it, they send the system to Wyle labs
for certification, and also to Ciber to test the software. But from what
you are describing, I can't understand how the machines got through what
they are telling us is 'rigorous testing.'"
Behler: "From what I understand they ended up figuring out
that the cards that we were loading that fix that Diebold provided for
us, well they were never tested, they just said 'Oh here's the problem,
go ahead and fix it.'
Harris: "So what is your opinion about the
certification testing?"
Behler: "No, it's not just that. NOBODY even tested it! When I
found that out -- I mean you can't not test a fix -- I worked for a
billing company, and if I'd put a fix on that wasn't tested I'd have
gotten FIRED! You have to make sure whatever fix you did didn't break
something else. But they didn't even TEST the fixes before they told us
to install them.
"Look, we're doing this and 50-60 percent of the machines are still
freezing up! Turn it on, get one result. Turn it off and next time you
turn it on you get a different result. Six times, you'd get six
different results."
Harris: "Can you give me an example of different results?"
Behler: "Meaning the machine does something wrong different
each time you boot it up. One time and it would freeze on you, next time
it would load the GEMS program but have a completely different type of
error, like there'd be a gray box sitting in the middle of it, or you
couldn't use a field."
Harris: "Was this all due to the clock?"
Behler: "I don't know for sure. They [the machines] were not
originally doing it. Then they fixed the real time clock, and it was
supposed to make it work normal. It fixed the clock problem -- the clock
problem had caused it to come up and not show the battery at one point.
It was supposed to say either 'low battery,' 'high battery' or
'charging.' But when the real time clock was messed up, you'd boot
the machine and it would say 'No battery!' I mean, you don't have the
machine plugged in, you boot it up, and it starts, and says it 'has no
battery.' That's like saying, 'this morning I got out of bed and I stood
up and I had no brain.'
"And that's how they ended up finding it, the problem. What it was
doing was it was checking for the right time, and kept going back trying
to get a better time, and while it was doing that, it was supposed to
get the battery status but it was still busy trying to get the time.
"And then when we loaded the software to fix
that, the machines were still acting RIDICULOUS!
"I was saying, 'This is not good! We need some people that know what
this stuff is supposed to do, from McKinney, NOW! These machines, nobody
knows what they're doing but Diebold, you need some people to fix them
that know what's going on! They finally brought in guys, they ended up
bringing in about 4 people.
"When they left, they still did not know why it was still sporadic.
My understanding is, after I was dismissed, they came back the following
week. That's when they figured out what the real problem was. But they'd
already had us do their 'upgrade' on thousands of machines by then."
Harris: "How did this work? Did Dr. Brit Williams get the
machines first and do acceptance testing, or did you guys get them
first?"
Behler: "When the machines came in, they came to us first.
They were in the warehouse. We assembled them. They'd come in a box with
a touchscreen, and another box with the booth. We assembled the machine
and we ran it though series of tests. We'd check the power cord, boot up
the machine, check the printer, bar code it, update Windows CE, then
send it on to Brit. He did the KSU testing the L&A [Logic &
Accuracy] was done at the county level, right before the election."
Harris: "So…the L&A was not done at acceptance testing?"
Behler: "It got so there wasn't time. They did it before the
election."
Harris: "How long does it take to do a Logic & Accuracy
test? Doesn't it take like, 15 minutes per machine?"
Behler: "When we did the updates in Dekalb, they kept saying
it would take a really long time. But they don't think about the
different overlapping things. You can update a bunch of machines
simultaneously. Same thing with an L&A test. You have a whole group
of cards, they have to touch every machine. What we had done before, we
had 10 material handlers throw the machines up there, use the key to
open it up, stick 10 cards in, boot 'em all up which installs the
patch."
Harris: "But what about the L&A testing?"
Behler: "The L&A testing -- You would just enter, like,
one vote and -- you just choose one -- you don't need to be specific on
which one. When they did this L&A testing, that's when they did the
FINAL update to the software."
...
Harris: "So the touchscreens came and had to be
assembled?"
Behler: "Of course you have to have the touchscreens assembled
in the warehouse, and do some testing. It turned out that there were a
lot of problems that needed to be dealt with, and they simply weren't
dealing with them."
Harris: "How long did you work there?"
Behler: "They let me go only one month into it. The Project
Manager let me go. He didn't like my management style. I'm very matter
of fact. If this is wrong, fix it. I'm a simple person -- if something
is broke, do you stand around and talk about why its broke for a month,
or do you solve the problem?"
Harris: "After your experience with Diebold, how confident are
you that the machines count votes accurately?"
Behler: "If you were to ask me to tell you how accurate I
thought the vote count was, I'd have to say 'no comment' because after
what I saw, I have an inherent distrust of the machines.
"I was absolutely astounded that they functioned at all in the
election. Here's me, I'm at the polling place looking around, waiting
for someone to get frustrated...
"I took this because of James, who is my friend, and because I'm
A-plus certified. But when I came in there was a bunch of internal
bickering. They had no inventory control in the warehouse. I guarantee
you that the state of Georgia can't accurately reflect where each
machine is.
"Diebold was impressed with what I accomplished, and asked me if I
was available for some other states they'd be doing...
"The problem, what they were doing with the inventory on the machine
was this: Inside the case is the serial number. They would hand write
the serial number on a post-it, stick it to the front of the machine,
and there would be a sheet hand-written from that list. Now, you've got
20 machines sitting on a pallet. The guy making the list would look at
the post-its and he'd record all the post-it numbers on a list. Look, if
you're writing numbers by hand, twice, by two different people, there is
a real good chance you'll transpose some numbers.
Then, they used the list for bar codes, but I would say probably 1-2%
of the machines are incorrectly bar coded. They
couldn't track them in the Access database, because they'd punch in and
it would say 'that number's already been used.' Then they'd check the
machines, and they had the right number, so the wrong bar code was
sitting on some machine that had already been shipped out to the
counties.
"Ironically, they would send a spreadsheet of all the numbers of the
machines that they shipped straight from the factory. This was from the
same computer that generated the labels. They had copies of it all
along. I said, 'Hey guys, if you check these when they come in the door
you'll never miss a label.'"
"I was very down on Diebold, because they were very sluggish and
didn't move well. I worked there from mid-june to mid-july. The whole
time they were upgrading the software and doing some sort of fix to it.
This was supposed to be prior to KSU testing."
Harris: "What about the program patches begun in August?"
Behler: "Aug 20, they started to put these teams together and
go out and update the machines. You have to understand that the
patching all started when I did the first quality check that Saturday.
They'd never have done it. They had shipped us 6,000 machines and NO ONE
had ever done a quality check. I'd come in on a Saturday, I had two of
my sons with me, and I thought I'm going to just look. And it was bad.
"Then first thing Monday morning I raised the question, I said, 'Hey
guys, we've got a problem -- there's 20-25% of the machines that are
palletized that are failing, and then they had a new update come out and
I was doing an update, and then they sent a new one. I updated a whole
bunch of machines. Then they finished about the time I left. But later
they put in another one, I guess. In August.
"You've gotta go take care of this JS [junk shit] equipment, I told
them. Finally, I raised it as high as you go, I raised it to Bob
Urosevich, he's the head of it. I told him personally, 'This is bad,
I don't see us putting an election on with these machines!'
"That's where they finally assembeld the teams. They got some big ol'
vans we loaded up as many people as could fit in.
"They were actually swapping parts out of these machines that were on
site. They'd cannibalize a machine with a bad printer or whatever,
they'd grab the screen off of that to put on another machine with a
failing screen, they'd retest it. They were not just breaking them down,
they were taking pieces off and putting it back together.
"Even the machines that are updated, that had the right release of
the software, exactly like the company wanted it, you'd boot it up and
all kinds of crazy things would happen. That led to my belief that when
voting took place, there would be problems."
Harris: "Do you remember what release number it was? What
version of GEMS?"
Behler: "Release -- I don't remember the number because what
they did was it was always the date. I had to take it to the level of
these testers, they knew that the machine either did pass the test or
didn't. We'd check the date to make sure it was the right version.
"The date was…let me see…June 28. No, the last one, the date
that was supposed to be on there was July 5. (Note: a patch labeled
Georgia062802.zip is on the ftp site, and when you review it, you will
see that it contains much more than just the "Windows updates" claimed
by Georgia officials.)
"There was about three updates, the CE software,
the date that would come up would be the last. After that they came up
with another fix, that's the August one at that point.
"I told
Darryl Graves, the Project Manager, I told everyone at Diebold, 'I have
zero confidence in the ability of these machines to perform.'
Harris: "I understand that they go through Wyle testing labs
and so forth. How in the world do so many critical errors get through
certification?"
Behler: "When I was handling these machines, they were coming
straight from a factory in North Carolina. That's where the actual touch
screen was manufactured. Booths came out of California. We assembled the
booth with the machine. That's all I know."
Harris: "What do you know about the ROM chip, or whatever?"
Behler: "There's the eprom, or the flash as they call it. A
lot of the fixes they did they could do in the flash memory.
"If they said they tested it I'm going to tell you right now the
software that I installed on the machine myself, they found out that
that was NEVER tested. Okay, I don't want to get other people involved,
but you should talk to Rellinger.
"Anyway, that they had never tested it, that made complete sense to
me, watching what was going on.
"This is an example we did: We would plug it in, boot it 3 times,
unplug it, boot it three more times. I wrote a sheet on this. This guy
came in from McKinney, he was about the second in command. He's a good
friend of Bob Urosevich. About second to Bob, at least now, he got a
promotion. Greg? Something like that. He flew in and I went to Dekalb
and I tested and together we went through, and we wrote down every
single error, and he booted them himself, and was looking at the results
and seeing how sporadic they were. and we found out of the machines we
tested, about 75% of the machines had different sporadic things. He was
working with me and we were writing them down, we literally wrote
everything down."
Harris: "Do you have a copy of that?"
Behler: "I don't think I have it. I have some email. I'd have
to look. I know we came back and he copied it and he -- Greg Lowe
(spelling?) is his name. I drove him out there. Brit was there, KSU was
doing their testing. They were bombing these machines out left and
right."
"I'm telling him, 'They're all like this.' At this time I was working
150 hours in 2 weeks I was there all the time with these machines,
that's the reality of it. The techs were working overtime trying to fix
them. We couldn't get enough from the factory because so many were bad.
You'd get a shipment of 300, but 75 were bad, they couldn't put them out
fast enough to replace all the defects.
"It was the software, not the hardware, that's where the problem was.
"If they're telling you they tested that, well they did NOT test the
fixes that they did to the windows CE software.
Harris: "Do you know who was writing the fixes?"
Behler: "He had a weird name. He came out of Canada."
Harris: "Guy Lancaster? Josh …Talbot Iredale?"
Behler: "That's it! Talbot Iredale would actually fix it and
say, 'Oh, here's the problem,' and stick it on the FTP site we'd grab it
stick it on the card and make a bunch of copies and use it." (NOTE:
You'll see the initials "tri" in the source code files. Talbot R.
Iredale is one of the main programmers, and has been a stockholder.)
Harris: "So you took the patches right off the FTP site and
installed them on the machines?"
Behler: "That's what we did, he'd FTP it, and tell us to grab
it, we'd put it on a laptop, copy it and when you boot the machine --
it's just like a computer that looks at the "A" drive -- these machines
look at the card and then erase the flash, reprogram with whatever they
said needed to be fixed -- I say, erase it and reprogram it with crap --
and then the whole thing would start all over again.
"My understanding was that they figured out what was conflicting and
James told me that Tab, well the team that came out after I left, they
figured out what was going on, they figured out that when they fixed the
real time clock problem they had never tested their fix.
"The only people that that cost was Diebold, who had to pay all kinds
of extra expenses. The rumor around the office was that Diebold lost
maybe $10 million on the Georgia thing. I mean, they only sold the
machines for what, $2,000, or $2,500, and then you have to build them
and then you're paying people $30 an hour and you are out touching
22,000 machines FOUR TIMES -- there's no way they didn't lose money on
this deal.
Behler: "You know one of the main things
that really just made me so upset, they were just like, 'This Brit guy,
don't even speak to him, it's a political game, you've gotta play the
politics.' Well, he walks in and says 'What are you guys doing?'
I said, 'We're putting in an update.' He said, 'Will it change what
it does?'
We said, 'Just do your normal test, we're supposed to get
the machines ready for you.'
He tells someone at the office and they freaked out. They were like,
'What the heck are you doing???'
"I wasn't supposed to talk to him at all, I guess. The guy had a
flannel shirt on, he was kicking it and he was very genuine and open and
there we are in the same room together, but because I actually spoke to
him I got reprimanded. They said, 'If they ask you any question, you
gotta say 'Talk to Norma, to one of us.''
"And then you know, ironically, later on right before I exited, they
were scrambling for a date, they were trying to get us, the teams, into
Fulton County to do Fulton County's 1,900 machines.
"They were in the most horrific spot. The place they warehoused them
was like 1900 machines in a little office space, there was no way we
could get at them. The machines are like 58 pounds, and they had to
bring them in unstack them off the pallet, restack on the pallet, talk
about labor, talk about wasted money! It's like a warehouse and offices
off 75, in Atlanta, I'm talking to this guy he's a great guy, he's from
Fulton County. Him and I were scheduling this, figuring it out how to
get to these machines and do the update before KSU has to test them. We
cannot be doing this at same time as KSU because there was NO ROOM for
that.
Brit had been down there, he knew this. I'm talking to the Fulton
County guy. He opens this one last door and here's this huge giant empty
warehouse. Why didn't they put the machines out here?
He says, 'Well you see over there's these boxes of county material,
you can't be out here because there may be some sensitive stuff in these
files. They don't want anybody near 'em. His name was Barney, the only
Barney I've met who's black. He said, "Yeah, they were talking about
putting a fence out here."
"We could just get all the testing done at once, I thought. Whatever.
Maybe someone could just get a security guard to watch us and make sure
we don't get into the boxes. I go back to the office. Brit was there,
and he says 'What's it look like for Fulton?'
I said 'There's no way were going to able to get to Fulton County by
Thursday.' I said we could probably be out there by Friday or Saturday.
He said 'There's no way we can do it at the same time, you know that.'
Behler: "I think a lot of the problems they had ---- I've
worked in billing software, and it's common to have this little thing
wrong -- a simple little hardware change, you have to put some little
line of code in Windows CE to make it work better. But the thing that
blew me away was when I'm told me they'd NEVER TESTED THE FIX.
"They produced it and got it to us in 24-48 hours. If I'd known they
hadn't tested it I simply wouldn't have installed it! My background
tells me that's a no-no.
"I went into this Diebold thing with no real knowledge of the voting
industry. When I left, I not only had a complete grasp, but I had a
complete disrespect for these machines.
"And with the folks in the office who were so -- you know, 'I'm the
political person, you have to know how the system works' -- they were so
much more concerned about their own self importance, they were losing
track of DO THE MACHINES COUNT THE VOTE PROPERLY!
"Because that's what the people in Georgia need. And I'm one of
them!"
Harris: "Who are some of the names working in that office?"
Behler: "Norma Lyons and Wes Craven -- they're from Diebold,
and Keith Long. Norma and Wes live in George, Keith was in Maryland
before, then here, I think.
"They sat in the weekly meetings on Monday. Norma had been a county
worker doing voting for 10 years. She knew all these people in several
counties. She was the liason between Diebold and the counties. They
[Diebold] would tell you something important, and she may or may not
tell you because she wouldn't know how important it was.
"Wes was the kind of guy who needs to work for Sprint or a big
company..."
Harris: "How secure were the machines, from what you saw?"
Behler: "I'll tell you something else -- we didn't have badges
-- people could just walk right in and get to the machines."
Harris: "And that FTP site, anybody could walk right into it
also. Even Diebold's competitors."
Behler: "Anybody who's in voting, you leave one company you go
over there. Ooh yeah, we'll take you on. Someone comes in and says, 'By
the way, I uploaded the source code, want to grab it?'"
Harris: "Were there any protections to keep you from
duplicating memory cards, or to have them serial numbered or whatever?"
Behler: "The memory cards, you can just duplicate them. You
have to have the proper info on the card, for the machine to boot up,
but you can just make copies of the cards."
Harris: "Were there any passwords on those FTP files?"
Behler: "No."
Harris: "Any passwords on the files themselves? Or the site?"
Behler: "What we got never had passwords. You just pick it up
and use it."
Harris: "Do you still have any records?"
Behler: "Emails. And James downloaded to his personal laptop,
it's probably still on his. And probably still on mine too. Diebold
didn't provide us with anything with a PCMCIA slot so we had to use our
own laptops to transfer the files when they told us to.
Harris: "When I asked Diebold if there was anyone named Rob in
Georgia, they said no. Did they know about you?"
Behler: "They knew me and they knew me
well. I met Bob Urosevich a couple different times, and Ian, and then
Greg Lowe, he got promoted to like almost the DFO, he was basically
Bob's right hand man."
"If you would have realized the scolding I got for actually speaking
to Brit. The whole quality control issue, I kept having to remind them,
I'm the one that pointed this out -- we want this to be right -- my goal
is to just get it fixed and move on.
...
Harris: "Do you think anybody could have tampered with
a machine, if they wanted to?"
Behler: "Well, when we did the quality control check we'd open
it up, they have a little box for the printer. We would find the key
still in the printer. Someone could literally take that. We found cards
left in the machine. I wondered what would happen if the wrong person
got it."
Harris: "I understand they did a big demonstration during the
summer, with the machines."
Behler: "I was there when they told me I needed 1100 machines
for a demo. I thought, 'The trick is coming up with 1100 machines that
actually work.
# # ENDS # #
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/
** The email version of this report was distributed on Scoop's Sludge
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