Election Deception - HR811- A "Must See & Heed"

I know these women. They are absolutely right - not because I know them, but because for years they have done all the homework, have read all the research with open minds - they have the facts, and they are not going to let themselves get distracted from getting this nation fair elections, that are transparent to citizen oversight, just because our elections belong to US! and as ours, to prevent insider election stealing, an endemic issue as old as human fear and greed, that even the founders of this nation knew to warn against.
WATCH AND LISTEN

For Some Interested in Checking Out Samples of Our "Official Ballots"

Some have approached me wanting to check out the "paper trail" from Diebold DREs. These, "our official ballots", each one possibly holding up to 300-500 voters' "official ballots" do not print in whole, or are otherwise illegible, approximately 10% of the time, as was proved by July's ESI Report, and re-demonstrated again recently.
We do not need a re-demonstration again but a method of assuring that each voter gets an official ballot, as long as we're forced into using these unreliable and completely non-transparent DREs, that have been proved riggable, also by ESI and many computer experts.
Also, Board of Elections workers in every county using these unreliable printers, need exact instructions of how to get an official ballot for every voter. According to law, and previous Attorney General opinions, the "official ballot" is "the "voter verfIED" "paper trail."
Once it is found that the machine has eaten it, crushed it, not printed it, etc., it is too late. What are citizens to do? Certainly not blanketly allow people inside a board to possibly pick out the wrong memory card, or the wrong data base, or even the wrong machine, to without the voters' supervision, supposedly "recreate" hundreds of official ballots at a time.

Voters, board workers, elections need a far clearer method of getting our official ballots. And this, just one of numerous problems with Diebold DREs, does not seem possible with them.

In fact, their lack of reliability, along with legs crashing, screens freezing, votes being switched by the machine, termed "a calibration problem," and the software that's counting never having been seen by any truly independent expert, let alone by us, all are just a few of the (more minor) reasons that these machines do not belong in any citizens' election. There are many others.

Some nationwide election integrity activists are studying some of these other reasons these machines do not belong in our elections.

I post a beginning sample of "official ballots" from one Beachwood (suburb) precinct. (There are other precincts in Beachwood.)

With a Public Information Request to the Cuyahoha elections board, and the truly wonderful cooperation of Interim Director, Jane Platten, working with a staff who now feels supported, and thus, free to cooperate well with citizens, I got hundreds of pages of such copies - each "ballot" from one precinct, and each taking two pages. I have not yet counted how many ballots I have.

Here are the first 25.
They are numbered 1a, 1b; 2a, 2b, etc. The number being the ballot number in order of my scanning, the a - the first page of that ballot; the b - the second page.
These are in jpeg format.

For those studying, I did not want to reduce, combine, omit, etc. for I know it might be important to see these ballots in their original form, with all original choices, and as copied.
I have absolutely NO reason believe that the copies are anything but accurate representations of the originals, with only the limits of copying machine capabilities, now scanner capabilities, intervening.
Hope this helps those of you in WA and NH, etc.
By right-clicking on each choice, you'll find the pages downloadable.


http://www.box.net/shared/va6liy
mh0s

Next 20 ballots


http://www.box.net/shared/h4ku3vabsh

Diebold Repairs? Another "Overlooked" Financial Hole.

At the August 23, 2006 CCBOE meeting, under Bob Bennett's "fiscal leadership," and Blackwell contract that also demanded no requirements for Diebold liability or responsibility for their failures, the Cuyahoga Board handed over complete control for Diebold alone to decide:

• which of our 5,000+ $27,000 each, machines had been broken during their one time use in the May election,
• which repairs were under "warranty" and which we had to pay to fix,
• how much each repair would cost,
• and via such "repairs", our $180/hour Diebold "Project Manager, Hiner, orally promised to make them all "fit for use" in November's election.

A really good arrangement for Diebold, and a pretty bad one for us, under Bennett's "management", I think most would say.

(This is also the meeting - though not on the agenda, as usual, when Bennett wanted to proffer a "surprise public attack" on anyone he saw to possibly negatively impact his power - at which Bennett attempted to discredit the Election Science Institute's then-recently completed audit, which has been since nationally used and referred to in attempts of other experts to set new and better voting standards. See Video: Board Attacks Election Science Institute)

While I disagree that these Diebold machines that "count" our votes with secret software, inside "black box" machines can, even when working correctly, ever be made "fit for use" in a citizens' election, the board , even after I asked about their demanding some Diebold warranty of Hiner's promise, neglected to do even that.

When looking at some of the documents involved in what appears to be a cozy little arrangement that Diebold and others have going for themselves, the facts of financial responsibility to us, the taxpayers, become even more astounding.

• The "Diebold Tech Associate Attachment" that shows:

• "the analyzers" of unknown capability making $75/hour to determine "our costs"for fixing their failures
  
• "the fixers"- also unknown and unpromised at $135/hour
• and even our paying their travel costs, for shipping for stuff they didn't bring, or their need to send machines out because they couldn't fix them.
• And shows the "sole source" letter saying no one else but Diebold could possibly do such an assessment and repairs.

• The $268, 650 contract, that even says N/A, on the line that could have made Diebold financially liable for not finishing the "work" on time.

• One of the Diebold repair logs from September about what the above folks "found."

• Hiner's as usual, droll memo, dated 9/14/06, stating that yep, "Phase One", Diebold-talk for their "analyzing time" was on course with their estimated charges; and reminding that there still were many other unknown expenses involved that Cuyahoga would be paying.

Then unlike the behavior of most normal consumers under such circumstances, even during the November 7 election the CCBOE did NOT keep logs of Diebold failure rates!

To give some window of just how "fit for use" those hundreds of thousands of "analysis and repair" dollars gave to voters (and poll workers) of this county, however, I offer here a rather unintelligible report (as it came, as usual from the CCBOE,) which reflects some of the calls that came into the board for help at the polls.

Though the report is titled "all calls" it is apparent from reports made during the election day meeting that there were many other calls of varying kinds; and there may be various other types of reports at the board, "pink sheets" and "security log" reports from the polls, hundreds of sheets and not easy to post.

One does not need to be able to actually read, nor even to take this report as totality, to be able to immediately notice numerous reports of again broken printers (AVPM or other such permutations,) bent signature plates, broken legs and more.

Since November 7, nary has the board, including Bennett, said one word to Diebold about all the very potentially wasted money involved in purchase and "repairs." The only Diebold conversation that has been undertaken has been about their absolutely failing, $7,000 each EMP's. (See The Diebold EMP Folly)

Bennett said when this Diebold junk breakage issue started before November, that the fault lay, NOT with Diebold junk - but with his previously not being appropriated MORE $1/2 millions from Diebold, for their also junky roll carts.
He eventually got those, though Diebold was very late in their delivery of them (I guess their tin tube maker of legs, or rubber wagon wheel supplier was on vacation) - again to no financial loss to Diebold.

In early August, '06 Bennett also got more of what he wanted, ANOTHER $4-5 million from the County Commissioners, to buy 900 MORE of the junky, riggable Diebold machines, plus many of the supplies that Diebold also sells, and are needed to actually make the machines work.

The Commissioners did not voice much agreement with Bennett's stated need for the new machines, in fact they showed that he was using invalid voter numbers to show the need for the more millions. But they went along with the new appropriation that went from county taxpayer coffers almost all directly into Diebold's pockets, seemingly to just try to finally settle all the difficulties with the Board and with the already huge investment in May's election.
(After the July release of the CERP Report, about May's election, containing often scathing reports about top management behavior, (see Section 7) among other things, there had already been two 2-2 splits among the board, with the Dems trying to oust of Vu and Dillingham then, and the Republican members wanting them to stay. Eventually with Blackwell supposed to break the tie, and the influx of new money, and the appointment of former BOE director, Tom Hayes, at $4,000/week, to babysit Vu to get the county through an election and allow Vu and Dillingham to save face and some money, the Director and Deputy stayed for another few months until their March, '07 ouster )

At that Commissioners' 8/9 meeting, Florkiewicz's appeal for the additional county millions was different than Bennett's inflated numbers. She repeated more than once, that we needed MORE of Diebold machines, to act as back up to the 5,000+, used-one-time, and "repaired" junk, when they would break down AGAIN!

Especially when you add OTHER items just on the same 8/23/06 CCBOE meeting agenda mentioned above regarding repairs, the pattern becomes unmistakable. It contained a:

• Sole Source Agreement with Diebold for Level 2/3 Support Specialists to provide part time support to the County for GEMS related questions or issues. ($47,250.00)
• Sole Source Agreement for Diebold for Director and Product/Implementation Subject Matter Expert (Jessica Hiner.) ($61,200.00)
• Sole Source Agreement for Diebold for Co-Project Manager (Peggy Patton) $91,800.00)

All three were part time for a few months. Though reports about the tech made it consistently appear that he actually helped a great deal, the latter two women making $180/hr. were rarely seen at the CCBOE, were unable to offer many substantive answers if any, and were, however, great at finding new ways to get more Cuyahoga money.
Hiner who, it appears from other agreements may have double dipped on her time also as a "trainer", appeared at most CCBOE meetings. She mostly carried back and forth "answers" she herself didn't know - until November 7, when her contract was over. That's how much our "product specialist" cared about what she left in her wake at the CCBOE.

Given all of the above, do YOU consider the board's action under Bennett fiscally responsible, with YOUR taxpayer money?
Even the first approximate 5,000 "free" machines, as they are termed, were paid with federal taxpayer funds, as horribly routed often by friends of riggable voting machine makers, with HAVA, the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Or does the Cuyahoga board's behavior under Bennett, their non-accountable, continued piling on millions to Diebold, while demanding NO responsibility from the vendor - almost as if they were trying to keep up with some quota - bring other phrases to mind?

Does Mr. Bennett Even Perceive What ELECTION SECURITY IS, or Want To?

Outlined just in the two posts directly below are many examples of Mr. Bennett's:

• cover-ups and obfuscations instead of sound management and identifying and solving problems
• and his attacking "his opponents" who want fair, accurate elections, and in fact anyone who negatively impacts his public face of power

Here are some videos that show that:

• since February, 2004's board decision to buy 5,000 + Diebold touchscreen machines, in ways the public had little way of discovering, and while Bennett was an old friend of O'Dell, still then a Diebold head
• and despite the fact that interested citizens had brought mounds of factual support about the many Diebold equipment operational and security attack vectors, he allowed the purchase order to be signed on 11/11/05 with a non-publicly made decision -
  

Mr. Bennett STILL has no idea about critical factors of electronic election security that he was to be ultimately managing, nor did he ever care to.
1. Watch what we found before that 11/7/06 meeting even started, during the normal 20 - 60 minute wait - this one a 40 minute wait for the board to appear. (What WERE they doing all those times? Having illegal non-public sessions?)



2. Now watch what Bennett and the board had to say about that huge security danger when asked about it on 3/21/06. Just a "housekeeping item"?

3. And what the head of CCBOE election security had to say on 3/21/07 about just a few of the potential risks and huge electronic security problems, months-long, citizen-warned before the 11/7/06 mid-term election, but under Bennett's "management" he was permitted to not fix until after the election, in January.


Click here to download a copy of the Cuyahoga Security Plan (as usual for a CCBOE document, undated, but I saw in late September, and commented upon, as did others, at the 10/2 meeting after overnight input was requested.) This is what it was, until quickly actually added to, on 11/5/06, with bits of public input that many had sent to the Monitor, and were submitted on that date, the first BOE opportunity.
I still have not seen that version, because according Mr. Vu on 11/5, "it was a security document", inferring again the public's nefariousness, but I think it was because it was "a mess". In any case, the massive changes needed, could not have been made and implemented for an election 2 days hence.

For those familiar with computer security, and familiar with the reality of conditions at the CCBOE, the document becomes overwhelmingly incomplete, inaccurate, and even for those who don't know the above, highly confusing.

Mr. Bennett, however, has bragged about the excellence of the plan, very apparently without even reading it.
See this 3/19 post dealing with that 11/5 meeting for more details about his concerted lack of understanding and care about election law, rather than political patronage; and about election security.
(The first video there repeats the first one in this post.)

And MORE, Ultimately "Because MR. BENNETT PERMITS & ENCOURAGES..."

Adding to the post directly below, are my own 11/7/06 questions, (which needed to be answered then to do an effective job as an Observer,) in this video that also shows Mr. Bennett's:

• attacking or wanting to ignore or stop anyone or thing that might negatively impact his public face, and
  
• lack of understanding of the purpose and protocol with attorneys from the prosecutor's office

Once you watch, and hear Assistant Prosecutor Oradini's answer to my question about Observers being allowed to watch provisional ballot verification, then watch the reality of what happened - because Mr. Bennett permits.

The following Monday, the FreeTimes journalist, James Renner, who is also featured in the above video was told by Mr. Lambert, the Assistant County Prosecutor whom we were told ordered me, an officially registered observer of the entire process (and the rest of the public) to be kept out, had not said that at all. Lambert told Renner that the question the CCBOE posed to him was whether or not Observers could roam freely around the building, to which he said no.

It seems that with Mr. Bennett's permission and possibly encouragement, not only was there Observer harassment, (see last November's post, "Observers Treated Like Suspected Criminals") but the CCBOE may have been obstructing ORC 3505.21, the statute allowing Observers to observe the process from election day through election certification.

Thinking More Globally - Urge "NO" on Holt 811

Federal legislative threats to citizen-oversighted, transparent, verifiable elections continue, while locally election instability still shakes.
Back when only a relative few saw the huge dangers to democracy, of privatized, corporate-controlled, riggable electronic voting systems, Rep. Rush Holt's bill, HB550 seemed like a huge improvement over the electronics and their unethical vendors, that were being "legally" spread nationwide into democracy's elections by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. HB550's demands for paper trails on machines, election results audits and more then at least seemed like moves toward some sort of solutions.

Since then however, so many more ugly facts have been found about these machines, and the top-down political cronyism who've basically handed over our billions of our tax monies, to their friends/corporate vendors, via pushing their sales into to the majority of counties in the nation, paid for with "free"( ie. our federal tax )money - while also allowing those inside and at the top the easy ability to rig our elections- it's become patently clear. Holt's 1/4 solution, now morphed into HB811, is NO solution at all.

It's a danger for many reasons, the largest one is that it:

• leaves the secret software machines in place
• demands sales of more of this riggable, junk that just add more opaque layers to the process of what should be transparent, easily verifiable election results to anyone's human perceptions, without need for a unseen computer code intervening, and
• proliferates the notion and law that those already somehow "elected" into power, will even more tightly control future election laws and processes that determine who gets in next - helping a big show of "selections" only look like "elections."

The ONLY solution to citizens' elections are PAPER BALLOTS, which can, as the National Institute of Standards and Technology has recommended determine election results completely INDEPENDENTLY of any software, the most inherent vulnerability point.

The two biggest factors against Holt's HB811 mentioned by Nacy Tobi of New Hampshire are:

• Holt demands a software driven text conversion device for electronic election results to again be read by the human eye. Besides adding a ridiculous completely insecure, back and forth opaque layer, to what printers, paper and pencils could provide originally, these are also devices that don't even exist yet, and won't in any thoroughly tested or certifiable form for the bill's also mandated 2008 timeline. Then the vendors can also again charge whatever they want, producing a huge unfunded mandate for counties.
Tobi states:"That's why the National Association of Counties and National Conference of State Legislatures, and NASS all oppose the bill. They know a 4 BIL dollar unfunded mandate when they see one."

• Also HB811 gives more unopposable power to the Election Assistance Commision who, by HAVA's entitlement sets "standards" for these machines, and some nationwide election processes. The EAC can be made up of four presidential cronies, left alone to decide what kind of and which companies' voting equipment are authorized for use in our elections.
I agree.

Holt's demanded audits, paper trails (which every well-known, national computer expert calls nothing more than "fools' gold",) and supposedly the (EAC-decided) better certification and testing standards, is only another sham, making the first one, HAVA WORSE, not better.

A big fear on the part of pro-HB 811'ers is one of the fear of lack propounded daily by this country's administration in every way - here, that if we don't get this bill through, we'll be stuck with the mess of HAVA: ie. this or nothing. Which is absolutely wrong.
And, two huge, official wrongs certainly don't make things right for us and our elections - they make it HARDER for us to make things right.

And when it comes to the cornerstone of our democratic freedoms, the ability of US to chose who and what we want - we urgently need RIGHT elections.

Call your representative now, and tell him/her to OPPOSE the passage of HB 811. There could be a vote as early as this week or right after Easter.

We deserve and can do much better. We need elections on paper ballots, that we can count and truly can watch being counted ourselves.

Also see:http://citizensboe.blogspot.com/2007/03/1106-election-cuyahoga-independent.html

Dangerous Irony: Proofing Paper Ballots in an Electronic World

Yesterday, I posted the CCBOE media release inviting citizens, by Ohio law, for today's 24 hour proofing period of the ballots for the next, May's election. Late this afternoon I went.

I, like most board employees and managers I observed during the chaos of scanning the absentee ballots last November, got dazed by the enormity of the poorly set out task and the confusion and forgot the ultimate purpose of why I was there - to PROOF ballots that are to be used in the next election to make sure they are correct.

It was not until I got home that I realized the irony - the really dangerous irony - of having citizens review and proof paper ballots in an effort to facilitate transparency, when in Cuyahoga voting is done on a $20+ million electronic system.

Just as with any Microsoft Word document we create, we all know that there is lots of computer code that exists within the document - codes that create the formatting styles, the fonts, the colors, the tab widths, paragraphs, etc. - but this code is not revealed on a print out of the document.

There is the same kind of code inside the electronic ballots {Ballot Definition File (BDF)}, that we use when we vote on a touchscreen voting system. And that code inside the BDF, if improperly configured - negligently, incompetently, or purposefully - could possibly affect election results, as was investigated in Florida's 2006 HR13 election (Congressional race) where an unusually high number of undervotes were discovered.

In addition to all the other major factors that demand we must get rid of electronics in citizen elections, such as soaring costs; multi-vector security holes that also easily allow insider riggability and anyone's hackability; the operational unreliability; and counting secrecy - now to truly be able to proof our ballots, we need to get digital copies of all the ballot styles, which in Cuyahoga countywide elections can number up to 1400, and which show the underneath codes. Then we need independent computer experts, along with regular English text proofreaders, and those familiar with the candidates and issues to do the proofing together.

As long as we have DRE's, which I hope is not long at all, no less is sufficient.

Director Vu's Next Gig?

Is Michael Vu taking a position at Diebold? After Director Vu's recent dismal performance in the May 2006 primary election, and subsequent unsuccessful attempts of Dems to fire him, it has been widely rumored that Vu had cut a deal to leave the Cuyahoga BOE soon after the general election. But who would be willing to take such damaged goods? Perhaps Diebold, as Vu just directed approximately $10M of Cuyahoga's tax dollars to Diebold in the last 3-months. Sounds like a win-win for both Vu and Diebold, with both getting nice payoffs - all at the expense of Cuyahoga County.

Please stay tuned. But remember, you heard it here first.

Video: Board attacks Election Science Institute

Here is what happens when you conduct an audit of a Cuyahoga-Diebold Election and the results are not favorable. In short, you get attacked. In this August 2006 video, Steven Hertzberg presents ESI's findings to Chairman Bennett, who obviously is more interested in attacking the messenger than in fixing the problem with Diebold machines.





Viewers should note that the questions (see below) asked by ESI have yet to be answered by the Cuyahoga BOE:

1. After 8-weeks of repeated requests to the Board of Elections to provide ESI with data that did not include 17 year old and curb side voters, why did ESI still receive data contaminated with this information? How will the BOE provide accurate data to partisan election lawyers in a timely way during a future hotly contested election result.

2. Why does the Diebold TSX machine not provide an error message when data from a machine does not copy on to a memory card? ESI observed approximately 4% of the machines that did not copy election results from the machine to a memory card without repeated attempts by operators.

3. Did booth officials switch memory cards on Election Day, and what impact does that have on transparency and auditability?

4. Can we confirm why 24 TSX units in the warehouse, used on Election Day, do not have any election data on them at all?

5. Why do over 50% of the VVPAT summaries not match the election archive results, even when all missing VVPATs are eliminated from our analysis?

Update on Provisional Ballots from 2006 General Election

I'm in the midst of getting the provisional info, but right now running down to observe absentee scanning, and to check some provisional rejects. Our provisional department, after my own reasonable meetings with reasonable managers , (certainly not because of a cooperative or informing director) have been wonderful in the list they supplied me. They even broke down rejected because of "missing info" into what was missing.

The managers understand, however, that even just having that list is not sufficient to find if these votes should havebeen counted, and if it may have been lack of poll worker understnading that prevent them from counting. There are often interesting little notes also written on the outer envelopes which shed more light on why some information may be missing, but there has been no OK for me to review the envelopes themselves. Right now, though I've asked to see them,and the department manager checked for me, this has been denied in writing by Prosecutor due to HAVA "privacy"conditions - ability to see whose vote was whose, he infers.

My report on Monday morning to the board at their meeting to, in part, accept or reject the provisionals as put forth, (though they have NOT been there observing the process of validation so are likely to just blindly accept the suggestions of the department under current limitations) will be to reserve the right to check provisional ballot envelopes - after certification, and for me to seek to ammend certified results within the 80 day window allowed for such changes.

Will check some rejects today as they've put up public registration check computers for me - also arranged in manager meetings - again, not director cooperation - though this probably still will not get me the info I still need.

My goal at Monday's meeting will also be to emphasize the need for better poll worker training re: provisionals - with some additional specifics gleaned from overwhelmed and trying hard provisional department - with which I heartily agree , or getting rid of provisionals altogether.
I will emphasize same day registration too - no need for current 30 day wait. It causes disenfranchised voters, and MUCH more work for BOE's.

I have some specifics to demo from own observation - though I could not touch envelopes to see enough notes on them on my own.

Our Candidate and Voter Services department manager, even gave me the provisional report as of yesterday - which is pretty well done, just possibly a very few off here and there - on disc, broken out by precinct, and failure reason. It's BIG file.

Right now we have a total of 15,872 provisionals

12,374 are OK'd.

3,497 failed - a 22% failure rate.

1,335 were determined "not registered"
1,665 - "voted in wrong precinct"
116 - a number which may have changed since
44 - "no signature"
301 - missing ID - no anything, including birthdate nor "10T affidavit"
25 - bad address, but good could not be found
11 were labeled VAV - had already voted an absentee ballot

I feel pretty good that given the remaining mess of our registration system, the workers checked a few different ways to see if they could find people not registered- and did - about 60 - by cross checking birthdates.

BOE's Election Data Archival Process

In late July/August, 2006, in the midst of election data retention concerns, with the federal 22 month deadline approaching while the Richard Hayes Phillips investigation of 2004 punch card ballots was still proceeding and showing many "anomalies", I asked and became aware of SoS Blackwell's Advisory 2005-04. It supposedly allows BOE's to "transfer" (undefined) electronic election data to CD-ROM (in an undefined process) for non-federal races, after only 60 days after an election - wiping off memory cards, presumably for (vendors' ridiculously high) cost reasons.

Further alarmed, I began to question if the Cuyahoga BOE was going to "transfer", and if so, what and how they would do that - the latter of which, my answerers did not know. I also asked for notice to be posted on their website so the public could witness the process.

Very late Friday 9/22/06/early Saturday a notice popped up on their site for transferring on Sunday 9/24 at 8:30am, a time when many are in church and also a Jewish High Holy Day. Unable to attend because of the latter, I called a videographer to ask if he would go and film for me.

Though he then originally would not share the film, he did tell me about it. After I shared the news with some others, the videographer has been persuaded to release some of it the internet.

The clip here is a portion of the 10/2/06 Cuyahoga board meeting, where I asked them about that "transferring" process. The other video clip shows what really happened on 9/24. This press release issued by ESI and Ed Felton discusses the implications of the BOE's actions.

Compare for yourself - and be shocked by both the process and response.

Video: BOE's "Defense" of Laptop "Archival" Process

Video Clips of Cuyahoga BOE 10-2-06 Meeting
About their new "SecurityPlan.



...To hear their "version" when I asked about their "transfer"process,
go to just short of halfway, after stream comes in.

The entire stream is "interesting" though - their constant avoidance of, and many alternate versions of truth...as well as of "security"


What's in this clip:

1. Chris Nance, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones Executive Administrator- being put off by Bob Bennett. Of course, there was no additional meeting to discuss the ridiculous "security plan", and there never was planned to be one.

2. Dan and my tamper tape question. I have not been informed of any test as promised.

3. My questions - Notice:

-the completely circular reasoning about tamper tape- What if the tamper tape does not show true security?

- the avoidance of answering about ESI


- Mr. Vu DID answer me in earlier at the City Club. He said they were BOE laptops, period. And he smiled about it, as if he were, as usual, daring me to find out differently.

- Mr. Vu upqoted the memory cards - he quoted the retail price - which was not the price paid. The price paid to Diebold was bad enough $135/each. A PCMCIA card is normally between $18-25 each retail.

-it was not the public's perception that the laptops were for personal use. That was the employees' perception, demonstrating wide unchecked at-home use. And actual personal laptops were used!

- and they circled back to relying on the non-matching archive memory. Also the vote they "certified" as official, as they announced at that certification meeting in May, was hardly accurate. In at least 7% of the total, either they had more ballots than voters, or voters who signed but with no vote cast.

- and the EMP's have not been certified. Diebold has showed no specs for this new hardware showing all their capabilities- which the public needs to see.

4. Vicki's question - The BOE definitely called those 3 professors their "security team" for months throughout 2005 as the BOE "stayed the course toward Diebold, touting that they were taking care of "security."