VIEWING THE DIEBOLD VOTE-TALLYING SCREEN PROHIBITED

Jim March, a member of the Black Box Voting board of directors,

was arrested Tuesday evening for trying to observe the Diebold

central tabulator (vote tallying machine) as the votes were being

counted in 

San Diego

's mayoral election (July 26).

(- online discussion: http:/www.blackboxvoting.org -)

According to Jim Hamilton, an elections integrity advocate from

San Diego

, he and March visited the office of the registrar

of elections earlier in the day. During this visit, March made

two requests, which were refused by Mikel Haas, the 

San Diego

Registrar of elections.

1) March asked that the central tabulator, the computer that

tallies up the votes from all the precincts, be positioned so

that citizens could observe it. According to 

Hamilton

, this

would have required simply moving a table a few feet.

2) March also asked for a copy of the ".gbf" files -- the vote

tally files collected during the course of tabulation - to be

provided for examination after the election.

During the tallying of the election, the Diebold computer

was positioned too far away for citizens to read the screen.

Citizens could not watch error messages, or even perceive

significant anomalies or malfunctions.

Unable to see the screen, March went into the office where the

tabulator was housed. Two deputies followed him and escorted

him out.

According to 

Hamilton

: "He was not belligerent, not at all.

After he went inside the tabulator room he came [was escorted]

out and he said clearly 'I'm not resisting.' They handcuffed

him, took him out of the building. They put him in a squad car.

They're going to take him to the police station, book him and

take him to jail," said 

Hamilton

. "He's getting charged with a

felony, 'interfering with an election official.'"

March's actions are the culmination of two years of increasing

frustration with the refusal of election officials to respond to

security deficiencies in the voting machines. The software that

tallies the votes in 

San Diego

 is made by Diebold Election Systems,

a company that has already paid the state of 

California

 $2.8 million

for making false claims, due to a lawsuit filed by March and Black

Box Voting founder Bev Harris.

On July 4, a report was released by European computer security

expert Harri Hursti, revealing that the Diebold voting system

contains profound architectural flaws. "It is open for business,"

says Hursti, who demonstrated the flaws on Leon County, Florida

Diebold machines. He penetrated the voting system in less than

five minutes, manipulating vote reports in a way that was

undetectable.

Despite the critical security alert issued by Hursti, 

San Diego

County sent 713 voting machines home with poll workers, increasing

the risk that the "memory cards" housed in the machines could be

hacked, and removing the argument that "inside access" was carefully

safeguarded.

The arrest of Jim March underlines a fundamental problem facing

Americans today as, increasingly, they lose the ability to monitor,

verify, or watch any part of the counting process.

The 

San Diego

 registrar of elections knew of the security flaws in

the voting system. Diebold has never denied the vulnerability

identified in Hursti's report, found at

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf.

Despite knowledge of the increased risks, Haas made the decision

to create additional vulnerability by sending the machines home

with hundreds of poll workers.

While 

San Diego

 officials will no doubt point to a small seal on

the compartment housing the memory card (the component exploited

in Hursti's study), Black Box Voting has interviewed a former

San Diego

 poll worker, who reported that all that is necessary

to dislodge and then reaffix the seal is a small pair of pliers.

IN A NUTSHELL:

- The machines have been demonstrated to be vulnerable to

undetected tampering

- The 

San Diego

 registrar of voters chose not to take

appropriate precautions

- The main tally machine was placed in a location that was

impossible for citizens to observe

- Many voting integrity advocates have come to believe that

  voting machine reform now rivals the urgency of the Civil

Rights movement in the 1960s.

Jim March acted on those beliefs.

* * * * *

If you share the feelings that Jim March has expressed

about voting system secrecy, please forward this message to

your lists and to online blogs as appropriate. Permission

granted to reprint, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org.

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