TRIAD President Phone Interview in dKos Diary...

[EMunster]

by duke1983

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/14/192336/68

[texpatriot2004]

1. regardless of the outcome of the 3% test all cards are re-run ?

"The big question I have is this: Are we absolutely sure that regardless of the outcome of the 3% test, ALL cards are re-run through the machine counter. This is where the potential for fraud exists. Because if the central tabulator totals were hacked, then without a full recount to match up, we wouldn't know." KOS

I think that cards are not re-reun unless there is a difference in the 3% test.

Can anyone verify that? What is the procedure here?

[Verve]

3. I think the cards are re-run if there is no difference with the 3%.

However, if the 3% doesn't match the machine count then a full HAND recount of all ballots must be completed.

[texpatriot2004]

6. That's what I thought, now what do you understand the KOS

story to say. I get that it needs to be re-run REGARDLESS of the 3% issue. Is that how you understand it too?

According to the KOS story that is where the potential for fraud exists if it is not re-run no matter what. Right?

[Verve]

9. Does he mean there is the potential to "pretend" to run the ballots

through the machine and then just give the original certification total? If they just go through the motions of a recount, and just reitirate the original total they could pull off fraud.
However, I don't see how this could be possible if observers are watching election officials closely. Also, this would involve too many individuals that would be putting their butts on the line for fraud.

[texpatriot2004]

12. I don't know. I just got that is where the fraud was possible. n/t

[JBear]

35. Interesting point in the afidavit....

Why did the Triad employee in at least 2 cases ask for which precincts were to be recounted by hand???

If the process outlined on KOS is correct, there should be no need to know this ahead of the count. Remember that there are cards that set the punch order fed at the beginning of each precinct....

Just a thought - you connect the dots!

J.

[texpatriot2004]

2. This is an interesting paragraph from the KOS story.

"He did relate that for one county the process related above was performed on Friday, and indeed, when the employee got there, the battery had gone dead. As a result, certain info was lost. That info related to the TYPE of hard drive in the system (Help me here, I think he said something about CMOS). The employee had to update that info, and replace the battery. The Same hard drive is in the system."

[lizzieforkerry]

4. Is this what Cobb was talking about?

[texpatriot2004]

8. Yes, I think it is. n/t

[alpaca]

21. CMOS wouldn't hold information regarding HD

In my 7 years in IT I have replaced exactly 0 CMOS batteries Even if it did, it's just a battery. I find it very hard to believe that the guy that replaced it just happened to have one on him during his visit.

[jbond56]

26. I have replace a couple

but they were really old machines. I also would say that the battery is something the average person could recognize. The report from Cobb did not sound like a battery.

[Must_B_Free]

28. The battery looks like a watch battery

roughly the same size as a quarter

[roseBudd]

36. the CMOS battery holds the date and time, when it goes bad you

have to enter set up (CMOS) every time you reboot, sometimes even having to tell CMOS to autodetect the HD.

CMOS battery failure doe not cause data loss.

[TyObe]

37. Older DOS machines...

You'd have to manually select one of 46 pre-defined harddrives (they went up to something like 20 megs) or choose user defined and enter the number of cylinders/sectors or some other stuff.

I had an old PC that "lost" a harddrive and I had to track down and enter the drive parameters into the bios (it wasn't one of the 40 something pre-defined drives) before it would boot.


Ty

[Must_B_Free]

27. no - his statement is accurate

the CMOS is low power consuming technology of the the BIOS - the screens that show the memory test, devices, etc. If the battery is bad, then infact, the harddrive parameters are lost.

However, I haven't seen any motherboard that needed manual configuration of the harddrive parameters since about 1996. The industry has its stuff together so well, that most hardware is plug and play. The bios should recognize the drive. Maybe it did.

I think I may have replaced one battery in my time. I agree that in my experience, they last for years.

[Straight Shooter]

5. By itself, interview sounds reasonable. But then factor in Blackwell

and his stonewalling and obstacles and all the other mendacities and prevarications in Ohio, and the stench is still in the room. I'm sorry, I want a hand recount under the observation of professional, nonpartisan observers.

[pointsoflight]

7. By why suppress the other races?

Why would you care if the other races are counted by the tabulator? The votes for those other races aren't going to be handcounted and compared anyway, so why the effort to send people out to all of the tabulators to suppress those races?

This just doesn't pass the smell test for me. If everything is on the up and up and you want complete transparency, as Blackwell says, you don't have people messing around with the tabulators right before a recount for something that is not even important, like suppressing the other counts.

[IndyOp]

11. I agree -- why suppress other races?

This is bizzarre.

And I really, really need clarification about the 3% rule -- I thought that if they hand counted the 3% and found no discrepancies between hand count and machine then they left that precinct. If this is all they do then the recount is completely bogus -- just because the machine CAN correctly count 3% of the ballots on the recount day that doesn't tell us anything (much) about whether it counted correctly on election day.

:shrug:

[pointsoflight]

13. Here's what they're supposed to do:

Handcount 3%. If there's a match, this is taken as a verification of the tabulator, then all 100% are machine counted.

[Terre]

14. My feelings exactly,

And that's what stood out like Rudolph's nose.

It's the most riduculous reason I EVER heard of.

Is this "standard" practice, and did they suppress the vote recount for offices other than the Governor's race in WA?

[mdb]

17. This is my first thought also.

Seems to be more work than is needed by sending out a crew to every county. Don't forget we are talking 88 counties here. Who cares if the other races are tallied as well?

[Igel]

22. Ohio law forbids it.

"Witnesses shall be permitted to see the ballots but they shall not be permitted to touch them, and the board shall not permit the counting or tabulation of votes shown on the ballots for any nomination, or for election to any office or position, or upon any question or issue, other than the votes shown on such ballots for the nomination, election, question or issue concerning which a recount of ballots was applied for."
http://onlinedocs.andersonpublishing.com/oh/lpExt.dll?f=templates&fn=main-h.htm&cp=PORC

[farmbo]

10. His response: "It wasn't us...but if it was, we didn't do nuthin' wrong"?

Kos was so overcome with the call-back he couldn't see through this guy's pitch.

:eyes:

[grasswire]

15. be careful

apparently that poster is a newbie over at Kos. Some there are questioning all this.

Just be careful.

[Straight Shooter]

23. Okay, a newbie posted. Maybe there was a call. Then there is a solution.

Someone from DU, an IT specialist with a good working knowledge of what has happened in Ohio, should call this guy at Triad and corroborate what is on dailykos.

Someone needs to ask harder-hitting questions, such as we're seeing here, and take good notes.

Volunteers?

[IndyOp]

16. WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!

There are several ways that Triad could try to cover its tracks here - by changing the setting on the punch card reader or by changing the labels on the Votomatics.

I emailed Douglas Jones at U of Iowa last week and he said that recounters must demand to see the actual ballot labels used on the votomatics in that precinct so that they can check the holes against the tabulation.

Here is how I understand it: If on election day I am expecting Kerry to get more votes than Bush I put labels on the machine that indicate that voters should punch the first hole for Bush and the second hole for Kerry. I set the card reader so that votes are swapped: Candidate 1 = Kerry and Candidate 2 = Bush. The results are Bush 55% and Kerry 45%.

By recount day I put a new label on the Votomatic that shows that voters should have punched the first for Kerry and the second for Bush or by recount day I have simply 'disappeared' the Votomatics from the precincts and you have to take my word for it that the Votomatics that were there were set up as I say they were.

Here is the email Doug Jones sent me last week:

With all physical ballot systems (punched card, for example), one possible rigging is to tamper with the ballots.

With Votomatics, installing the wrong ballot label for the precinct can make trouble. On the Votomatic, the ballot label puts names by holes in the card. If you tabulate hole one as a Bush hole, but your ballot label says hole one is a Kerry hole, of course, you'll switch votes. So, recounters should demand to see the actual ballot labels used on the votomatics in that precinct and check the holes against the tabulation.

Similar switches are possible in the printing of mark-sense ballots, but during a recount, they will be easy to check because the names are on the ballot instead of the ballot itself just having numbered holes.

I have written it all up, in boring detail, on my web pages. See the tutorials section in <http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/>

Doug Jones
[e-mail]

[KoKo]

18. I have probably a dumb question but what if they switched the machines

around after the recount to hide the fact that the ballots differed in the adjoining rooms? Could you really track down which machine counted which ballot with such a complicated set up..after the fact? :shrug:

[IndyOp]

29. Exactly - what if they did switch machines or labels that clip onto the

Votomatics? That is what Jones was warning about in his email and on his website.

:mad:

[Straight Shooter]

24. Are you willing to call Triad and engage them in a conversation?

Sounds like you know what you're talking about.

:thumbsup:

(edit: this is in response to IndyOp)

[farmbo]

25. No No No...don't call Triad!!

The New York Times is running this story tomorrow...don't show them how to cover their tracks!

Please!

[IndyOp]

30. Call Triad - me - no way! I've emailed Jones asking him to contact

Conyers/Arnebeck/Truitt. I will call him tomorrow morning if he doesn't answer my email promptly. I included part of the NYT article and part of what is in the article below - it is what Cobb said on Monday. If he can figure out what the person Cobb was quoting is saying it could be key!

“The Triad Systems representative suggested that since the hand recount had to match the machine count exactly and since it would hard to memorize the several numbers which would be needed to get the count exactly right, that they should post this series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers such as to make them look like employee information or something similar.

“The people doing the hand count could then he said just report those numbers no matter what the actually counted in the ballot. This would then ‘match’ the tabulator report for this precinct exactly.

Minority leader of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) replied, “David Cobb, I need to you to arrange a meeting with our staff immediately.”

more <http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=490>

[Straight Shooter]

32. I mentioned you to contact Jones in another post.

I thought you were Jones, and then made the connection in another thread. My bad.

Thanks for contacting him on our behalf. We need someone who is smart and capable and can understand the intricacies.

This entire situation just gets curiouser and curiouser :freak:

[IndyOp]

33. If you were the person who suggested that I contact Jones last week, I did

and, of course, he got back to me with an academic/thoughtful response because in my email I asked him a very general question -- I had not understood that you were asking him to GO to Ohio.

:scared:

:kick:

[roseBudd]

38. We definitely need Doug Jones in OH. I emailed lawyer Ray Beckerman

about contacting Jones, mainly because I don't want to flood Arnebeck with email. He said he would pass it on.

Computer science majors are definitely needed for recount volunteers.

[mdb]

19. We have talked about locked doors.

And keeping a secure watch on ballots. Yet a technician can go to every county in Ohio and make adjustments on these machines.

Where the hell was everyone while this was happening?

[k8conant]

20. It was Hocking County and Triad does have that....

see this thread about the NYT mentioning Hocking County:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x159478


I got this off the cached GlobalFreePress site (it's down since Monday)
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Ro4yTS1B_UAJ:inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php%3Fstoryid%3D973+%22Hocking+County%22+TRIAD+voting&hl=en
Hocking County Detail: Election Official Contact

Voting Technology: Punch Card
Vendor: Triad Governmental Systems, Inc.
Data Source: CASE-ohio.org; electionline.org
Last Verified: 4-Sep
Bush, George W. Republican 6,821 52.58%
Kerry, John F. Democratic 6,065 46.75%

[rainbow4321]

31. Sequoia Pacific and E S & S article

This article may have already been posted and thrown out there but wanted to share it just it case it hasn't. I know there are some posts and that have linked these two companies with Triad.

Very LONG, but has lots of info:

http://okimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=379


More dummy front companies

Study of this case revealed some interesting details about the way the 'election services' industry works...First, the scheme showed that there was collusion, rather than competition, between the two major election services firms, Sequoia Pacific and E S & S. Court documents revealed the two sold voting machines back and forth to each other until they had arrived at the figure they wanted the client, the state of Louisiana, to pay.

<snip>

Tony Giambelluca, who held the keys to the warehouse where the election machines were kept, turned up an apparent suicide. He had chosen to take his life behind a garbage dumpster, which seems an odd decision. Given the choice, we figure most people would choose to end their existence in a slightly more scenic locale.

The discovery that the election scandal had already consumed lives certainly quickened our interest. The sad fact is that nothing becomes a true scandal in America anymore until after the bodies begin to pile up. Voting machine tests performed and videotaped by a suspicious local candidate immediately after this election demonstrated that votes Susan Barnecker cast for herself during the test were electronically recorded for her opponent.


<snip>
Sequoia Pacific operates through a number of dummy front companies. For example, two Florida election execs, Glenn Boord and Ralph Escudero, pled guilty to conspiracy to compound a felony (public bribery), who had owned a paper voting-machine company called Uni-lect, which was just a front for Sequoia Pacific. Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci's company, International Voting Machines, was also really Sequoia Pacific. So too was Harold Webb's Garden State Elections. (And also Herb Webb's Elec-tec.) Webb, a New Jersey elections equipment executive who participated in the bribery and kickback scheme that resulted in the conviction of Fowler, also played a key role in the infamous Martin County, Florida drama over Republican absentee ballots in the 2000 election. New Jersey election services companies controlled by Webb were key suppliers to Martin County, Florida, which calls into question the version of events surrounding the tampering with absentee ballot applications testified to by Republican Party operatives in court in 2000.

[BushSpeak]

34. Anybody else worried that they only checked the votes for president

It seems to me that the best way to assure that ballots didn't change piles or different labels/machines were used, would be to control the entire election. If the other races showed differences, we would would know that something of the above had been changed.

Does anybody know if the ballot order is different in different precincts as in Cuyahoga county?
If there is one central tabulator for the county, how do they count the different precincts?
Do they reset the tabulator for each precinct or does it just read out the number of votes for hole n°1, n°2 ... and the supervisor assigns the votes to the corresponding candidate?

[roseBudd]

39. Good place to get questions answered on card sorters, card punchers

& card readers. I'm at work and can't call.

http://www.cardamation.com/

We Want to Be Your Source for
Card Scanners Readers Punches Sorters
Sales Rentals Repairs
Economical Scanning, Reading, Sorting Services

Talk to us about your Imaging and Micrographics needs.

CALL

1-800-848-1718
1-800-305-6261
1-610-935-9700


CARDAMATION has been manufacturing and maintaining punched card equipment since 1978 and aperture card equipment since 1985.

[roseBudd]

40. Bloggers should not be calling anyone! Leave it to the lawyers!