Article about a lockdown in Riverside County, California

[eomer]

Sorry if this has been posted before.

This article matches up with Wayne Madsen's hint in Sunday Monitor interview that we should look in Riverside County, California for evidence of a lockdown.

<snip>
At around 8:50, Soubirous’s campaign manager, Brian Floyd, received a call from an election observer in Temecula informing him that the vote count had been stopped – apparently by Registrar Mischelle Townsend herself. The reason was not made clear. So Floyd and another Soubirous campaigner named Art Cassel jumped into a car and drove to Townsend’s office to investigate. Sure enough, the counting area appeared to be near-deserted. But then they noticed two men huddled at one of the vote tabulation computers.

One, according to their account, was typing away on the computer keyboard, while the other was standing just next to him.

The two men turned out to be employees of Sequoia Voting Systems, the private company which manufactures Riverside County’s AVC Edge touchscreen machinery. Their presence was unusual, to say the least, and even the possibility that they might be making changes to the vote tabulation software in the middle of an election was alarming to Cassel and Floyd. Sequoia insists the two men’s activities were entirely benign – merely generating lists of data to send to the Secretary of State’s office in Sacramento that had nothing to do with the tabulation software. Soubirous’s campaign staff has made no direct accusations, although it has strongly criticized the registrar’s office for allowing at least an appearance of impropriety at a time when the sanctity of the electoral process should have been paramount. Cassel and Floyd said the man at the keyboard, a Sequoia vice president called Mike Frontera, was wearing a county employees’ ID badge – something that has not been adequately explained by anyone. “What they were doing there we’ll never know,” Cassel said.

When Floyd confronted Registrar Townsend directly, she denied that the vote count had been halted. But at 9:10, according to Cassel’s account, something seemed to have changed because county employees piled back into the counting area, and results from the outstanding precincts began to be posted shortly afterward. As the night went on, Buster’s lead over Soubirous steadily lengthened until he finished up a slender 92 votes over the 50 percent threshold he needed to avoid a runoff.
<unsnip>

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1013&IssueNum=55

[myschkin]

1. Here you go!

[Jo March]

2. Kick for the shit that's about to hit the fan

kick!!

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. I'm getting angrier by the minute as this drip, drip is becoming

a torrential rain.

[txindy]

4. Pure coincidence, I'm sure

:eyes:

[eomer]

5. Here's a related article I just found.

By the way, this relates to a prior election, not November 2004, but we know that Madsen is alleging this has been going on since 2000.

<snip>
Riverside, CA - Former Riverside County Board of Supervisors candidate Linda Soubirous, national election integrity organization VerifiedVoting.org, and a bi-partisan pair of Riverside County voters today sued Riverside County and its Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend because the county refused to conduct a proper recount of a March 2004 election with a razor-thin margin. The Soubirous lawsuit could guarantee public access to security records stored inside electronic voting machines in future recounts.

The case arises from a very close March 2004 race for the Riverside County Board of Supervisors in which the declared winner avoided a runoff by a mere 45 votes. California election law permits any voter to request and review "all relevant election materials" pertaining to a recount. Second-place candidate Linda Soubirous requested the materials that the Registrar and machine vendor Sequoia Voting Systems tout as the fundamental security features of the electronic voting system -- namely the audit logs, the redundant memory stored in the machines, the results of "logic and accuracy" tests, and the chain-of-custody records for the system components. Despite the clear mandate of California law, Registrar Townsend refused to grant Ms. Soubirous access to any of this material, arguing that it was not "relevant" to a recount.

"I was shocked when Riverside County election officials told me that access to the internal memories of the voting machines was not 'relevant' to a recount," said plaintiff Linda Soubirous, who ran in the nonpartisan election. "Of course the internal information is relevant -- without it, there's no way to determine whether the votes were recorded and counted properly inside the machine." Ms. Soubirous has not sought to challenge the election results in this action, but only to gain access to the election data from March and for future recounts.

"VerifiedVoting.org joined the Soubirous e-voting recount case to make available all relevant information about whether e-voting machines have succeeded or failed in recording citizens' votes properly," said Will Doherty, Executive Director of VerifiedVoting.org. "This landmark case should improve election integrity and transparency by setting the requirements for recounts on e-voting machines and supplementing the voter-verified paper ballots already mandated by California Secretary of State Shelley." The Electronic Frontier Foundation is also supporting the case.
<unsnip>

http://verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=2514&printsafe=1

[bj2110]

6. Makes you wonder how many times...

a couple of guys got access to the machines without someone catching them in the act. Whether it was on election day or not, we know these machines aren't physically secured, and the likelihood of a county official, or anyone, accidentally walking in and catching them red-handed is pretty slim. The few cases we have that lead to this possibility make me think that there had to have been an exponentially larger number of instances that we don't know about.

[mirandapriestly]

7. I'm sure there is an innocent explanation

like ELECTION FRAUD!!

[ClintCooper2003]

8. Excellent article! I sent it to Madsen. n/t

[Menshevik]

9. Riverside county election officials are MORONS

I am a resident of Riverside Co and have usually voted absentee WHEN THEY ACTUALLY SEND ME MY BALLOT...sometimes it goes to my permanent address instead of my school address, sometimes they send me multiple ballots, and sometimes they send me no ballot at all. I HATE THEM.

None of this shit surprises me

</rant>

[trudyco]

10. love to get those "employees" on the stand

and find out if they are the same as the earlier one. What happened to the lawsuit? If they won, does it mean you can look at the computers in Riverside?

trudyco

[proudtobeadem]

11. Is someone sending this to Olbermann?

[caligirl]

12. How can I find this kind of info on Alameda county, my county?n/t

[IAMREALITY]

13. Holy Crap!

I was reading half way through thinking holy shit, this can't be for real. But then I read that Sequoia actually responded to it? They actually confirmed the 2 techs were there? Are you kidding me???

[Newsjock]

14. This appears to be from an earlier 2004 election, not the general election

Issue is dated June 24. Of course, that doesn't make it OK.

... But she didn’t mention anything about a controversial March 2 election for county supervisor that was still being contested, and the recount that had become entangled in problems attributable, in part, to the county’s electronic voting machines. Nor did she mention anything about potentially explosive new details regarding the possible manipulation of those machines.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

15. Wow--Great Work, Eomer

from your sister ;)

[eomer]

16. Eowyn,

What news from the Mark?

[eowyn_of_rohan]

18. It is peaceful here at Dunharrow

but I feel caged, and long to ride off to be a part of something much greater

[eomer]

20. Aragorn: What do you fear my lady?

Eowyn: A cage. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

21. I fear that all I am finding is dumb stuff, while

you heroes ride off and find all the dashing, smashing stuff!

[eomer]

22. Remember that the least amoung us

may have a great part to play in this story.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

23. Such profound words, Eomer

My hope has been awakened

[understandinglife]

17. Wonder if they visited Snohomish or Yakima Counties in WA State...

....hope the folk in WA State are checking the code in those e-vote machines before they simply print 'ballots' -- and, of course, hope someone is checking the code and logs in the central tabulating systems in each WA State county as part of the 'manual count'.

Every reason to believe that the very odd results you see by comparing Pres/VP to Senate to Gov are worthy of careful scrutiny of all software, computer 'service' and network activity.

Peace.

"Did Bush Know?"

[mountebank]

19. This was not the 2004 general election - but it's what we're looking for.

Lots of strangeness in Riverside Co. Madsen knows about it (I e-mailed him and got a response).

I haven't found any evidence of lockdowns during the general election in Nov. Seems there were observers. You can find Jerekiah Akin's report, which is disturbing enough, with google.

[goclark]

24. Kick!