Voting Machines - are they secure ?

    We have been in a lengthy discussion over the security of the Sequoia AVC machines that the County bought back in 1997 .   There have been problems that go largely to the possibility of being hacked or tampered with  --- and other issues, too.

Anyone who would like to work with us on following this issue and seeing that our votes are secure should  contact us.

This shows how votes are lost on our machines , both accidentally and maliciously  and how  simple it actually is to hack
     Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxM_QNGF1dE how poll workers alone can affect the vote count  accidentally or maliciously
     Part 2  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NHQHMXca9E ( skim thru this - he installs false program in under 7 mins)
     Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA3J9qlVuBM  how easy machines are to access & how little time it takes
 

TIMELINE sources include    Wikipedia on Sequoia   and on Smartmatic  among many others - this is a fraction of the information that exists  ….

1996 :   Montgomery County obtains Sequoia AVC machines - (

 2004:
In October 2004 a group of public-interest plaintiffs, sued the State of New Jersey (in NJ Superior Court) over the State’s use of direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines in New Jersey.  Currently 18 out of New Jersey’s 21 counties use this DRE - as does Montgomery Co Pa
2005 : Legislation was passed in New Jersey requiring electronic machines to be backed up with a paper trail for audit purposes .  This was never implemented as law because of cost . In 2005, Sequoia was acquired by Smartmatic ( which was foreign owned )

2006  Mark Banfield vs Carole Aichele is filed in Penna  challenging the fact that DRE machines ( like the Dominion Sequoia Machines that we use , do not meet Pa law as they do not provide a paper or physical record as required among other things   http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/Banfield-respondentmemo.pdf

 March 2006 electoral fiasco in Chicago where Sequoia provided technical assistance, some of it by Venezuelan nationals flown in It was further learned  software components  developed in Venezuela, for transmitting the voting results to a central computer were at issue.  It was questioned whether  an "international conspiracy" could be a possibility

Dec 2006  Smartmatic withdrew in December 2006 and sold Sequoia

2007: Princeton Professor Andrew Appel  bought the Sequoia machines for $86 The same ones NJ paid $40,000 for --- and showed how easy they were to hack. (Smartmatic tried to prevent their purchase and analysis )  Nov 2007 - Smartmatic had earlier taken over Sequoia - but 11-07  following a verdict by the CFIUS, ( the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US ) Smartmatic was ordered to sell Sequoia, which it did to its Sequoia managers having U.S. citizenship.

2008 :  In January :  the challenge in New Jersey continues -The plaintiffs charge that the  machines are  illegal, because they violate New Jersey election laws requiring that all votes be counted accurately and that voting machines be thoroughly  tested, accurate, and reliable; and unconstitutional, because they violate the New Jersey constitution’s requirement that all votes count. A judge ordered the issue to trial - the case is Gusciora et al. v. Corzine et al., Docket No.MER-L-2691-04, Superior Court of New Jersey.
In February : 37  counts in 8 counties seem to show anomalies. Until this point the State had maintained that these voting machines are 100% accurate.
Party turnout totals may have been affected by poll workers making errant button presses on the activation panel; this has been corrected in NJ in the firmware, and other places by use of a plastic shield over unused buttons. But while some things may have been fixed, it is not clear wheeeether any measures have been taken to prevent hacking

  Sept 2 - Andrew Appel, a Princeton professor delivers the report , which  listed the many problems with the machines  & a 90 minute  video  for the evidentiary hearing  . Here is another version of that report (a “back-up”  link )--and  here is another  and here is a summary that's easy to understand
We understand Sequoia has issued rebuttal points but cannot find them and have not been provided with them .

November :  many discrepancies in the poll results from this November election in  Montgomery County PA  are documented in a report that is not released until 2010 .

2010 :   http://www.state.nj.us/localmandates/recent/Atlantic.html
March 8 , 2010 In her final opinion on the New Jersy case, the trial judge held that plaintiffs' claims of security risks were unsupported in that the machines did collect and tabulate votes, but further found, however, that "the State does not have an adequate inspection protocol" with respect to the machines' seals and locks and that "the State must take steps to require election officials to: (1) check and record the serial numbers; (2) adopt a uniform seal-use inspection protocol; and (3) provide inspectors with adequate training."  Gusciora v. Corzine, 2010 WL 444173 (2010), at page 94.

May  A REPORT was ISSUED May 2010 by The Election Reform Network  which shows a wide range of discrepancies  between machine counts and voter sign-ins in 2008 Montgomery County voting results  with our own machines .

June 4 2010 Sequoia Machines were taken over by Dominion, a Canadian company

November 16, 2010 - the Division of Elections in the New Jersey Department of State issued the directives  of the Judge
 requiring the extra training & security measures      

 November 18, 2010, Atlantic County reported  they had  13 part-time technicians whom he would need to pay $125 each to attend the mandated training .He was told the State would not provide the training .

December 3, 2010 The Atlantic County Superintendent filed the complaint saying the  operative facts are not in dispute but besides training costs, unsalaried part-time workers are entitled to be paid for that day and the  State offers no resources to offset those costs; if the memorandum is implemented, those additional expenditures must be paid through county property taxes. So it is an " unfunded mandate "     The Attorney General urged, to the contrary, that the memorandum is not a "rule or regulation" and that it accordingly lies beyond the Council's jurisdiction.      The State has broad responsibility to oversee the use of electronic voting devices (N.J.S.A. 19:53A-1 to 15) to assure, among other things, that they "record correctly and count accurately every vote cast".  N.J.S.A. 19:53A-3(h). Yet having examined all aspects the  Council held  that the November 16, 2010 memorandum constituted an unfunded mandate and should cease to be mandatory in its effect and expire. N.J.Const. Art. VIII, sec.5(a); N.J.S.A. 52:13H-2. 

 2012  The 2012 US elections are to a great degree  in the hands of foreigners :    investment firm (McCarthy Capital), a Canadian voting corporation (Dominion Voting Systems) and a Spanish voting corporation (Scytl)  . Locally our Director feels confident that once purchased, this should not matter though some of us would ask why would we not want to have particularly the manufacture of our voting machines under our own control- nd openly supervised in America by Americans. In 2007 CFIUS, ( the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US seemed to recognize the issue at hand when they ruled against Smartmatics foreign ownership.

2013: 
5-23-13     Sequoia AVC  machines still in use in Montco Pa . Perhaps a few measures have been taken since the 2010 report .   Verified Voting site's description of them along with a list of their faults  seems to indicate that these faults are still known problems.Here is a rundown on the Sequoia machines from Bev Harris, who did the Diebold exposee. ((( Diebold machines were still bought and in use long after  Americans knew that the company had misrepresented their reliability and  told
them that problems were fixed when they weren’t .See video Hacking Democracy ) or  try here if that doesn't work or search youtube . It is an eye-opener. ))))  
10-1-13  A decision was rendered on the case challenging the machines  has been litigated since 2006  in PA  . Despite that they do not meet the law requiring they provide a physical record, despite irregularities at many polls  and other issues, the machines were given the AOK by  Judge Leadbetter  http://www.law360.com/articles/477601/electronic-voting-machines-survive-pa-legal-challenge  .

    More links or info

 The Verified Voting site's 2013 description of them comes with  a list of their faults
 A rundown on the Sequoia machines from Bev Harris who did the film "Hacking Democracy"
Dominion  will own 50% of our machines used nationwide in recent  elections 
The 2012 US elections are to a great degree  in the hands of foreigners  
Expert says : An eighth grade science education is all you need to hack these machines

This site is a forum for information sharing, idea sharing and opinions.  Please feel free to send your  view  and please be sure to  tell us about any information you believe to be incorrect - write  lel@abingtoncitizens.com
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