Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News , Friday 8/25/05

[MelissaB]

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x390930

All previous daily threads are available here:

http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm




Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page after several posts have been added.

[MelissaB]

1. Opposing groups unite in effort to remove Taft

Opposing groups unite in effort to remove Taft

By STEVE EDER and JAMES DREW
BLADE STAFF WRITERS


COLUMBUS — A pair of grassroots activist organizations that rarely see eye to eye announced yesterday they have joined forces in a campaign to drive Gov. Bob Taft from office because of his conviction on ethics violations.

Two political polar opposites — the often-conservative Ohio Roundtable and liberal-leaning Ohio Citizen Action — yesterday launched MoveonTaft.org, the backbone of an effort to pressure lawmakers into removing the embattled governor, who failed to report dozens of golf outings, meals, and sports tickets from businessmen and lobbyists on his state-mandated ethics forms.

Mr. Taft, already burdened with calls for his resignation from the left and right, yesterday acknowledged that he failed to report eight additional gifts valued above $75 he received between 1999 and 2004 as required by state law. The list of undisclosed gifts is being forwarded to the Ohio Ethics Commission, which recently completed a two-month investigation of the governor’s ethical violations.

...snip

“If there were support in the conservative community for Bob Taft, you would be hearing about it, we would be hearing about it, but it is not there,” said Mr. Zanotti, who added that his organization has communicated with about 13,000 Ohioans and few disagree that the governor must resign or be impeached.

“The silence is deafening,” he said.


More: http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050826/NEWS24/50826006/-1/NEWS

[MelissaB]

2. Ohio GOP Continues Downward Slide

Ohio GOP Continues Downward Slide

by John Gizzi
Posted Aug 26, 2005


As scandals continue to swirl around Ohio Republicans, chances are increasing that next year Democrats will capture the governorship, a Senate seat, and at least one seat in the U.S. House.

Republican Gov. Bob Taft pleaded no contest this week to four misdemeanor charges that he failed to disclose, as legally mandated, 52 gifts of golf outings, meals and hockey tickets. Taft could have been sentenced to two years in jail, but a judge let him off with a $4,000 fine.

Taft’s crimes, however, are sure to haunt the three Republicans seeking the nomination to succeed him in 2006 and may destroy the GOP’s chances of retaining its hold on all Ohio statewide offices as well as their majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Democrats are also certain to focus fire on the GOP for the ongoing investigation of coin dealer Thomas Noe, a longtime Republican contributor into whose enterprises the state has invested millions of state employee pension funds. Noe is the subject of a probe for allegedly stealing state funds.

“All of the negative headlines about Taft and Noe are getting tied to Republicans in general,” says Brian Berry, former executive director of the Ohio Republican Party. “Rest assured, state and national Democrats will go all-out to win state offices next year, not just to help Hillary Clinton or whoever the Democratic nominee is in ’08, but to control the redistricting process by 2011.”


More: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=8734

[MelissaB]

3. The bombs in the basement

Opinion

The bombs in the basement

By Ernest Partridge
Online Journal Guest Writer


August 26, 2005 (crisispapers.org)—By all outward appearances, the Busheviks and the Republicans have it made. They are, as the late Red Barber used to say, "sitting in the catbird seat."

...snip

However, we, the public, need not sit silently, as helpless spectators, hoping for a reversal of fortune while our democracy is being taken from us. In fact, a significant and growing portion of the public is taking action, as the Bush administration and its bodyguard media lose credibility. The public is acquiring immunity to the official lies and Karl Rove's smear machine. They worked against Al Gore, Max Cleland and John Kerry, but against Joe Wilson and Cindy Sheehan, the slime appears not to be sticking. The mainstream media, having shed its sense of responsibility to the truth and to the public, is now losing circulation and ratings, while it remains answerable to its stockholders. That media might thus face the choice of either becoming irrelevant or, to avoid bankruptcy, practicing honest journalism again.

There is movement afoot and the public is beginning to stir. As gas prices and interest rates rise, the disastrous consequences of Bushnomics are coming into view. Some conservative pundits appear ready to wander off the GOP reservation. "The I-word"—impeachment—is heard more frequently. And yet, amazingly, and disgracefully, the Democratic Party establishment appears reluctant to play a significant role in this movement.

...snip

To my mind, the most vulnerable line of attack against the Bush/GOP machine is vote fraud. The evidence is compelling (see Dennis Loo's ﾓNo Paper Trail Left Behindﾔ and The Crisis Paper's ﾓElection Fraudﾔ page). The best that the GOP and the media can offer as rebuttal is (a) stonewall silence, (b) the laughable, unsupported and refuted hypothesis of "the reluctant Bush voters" at the exit polls, and (c) predictably, smearing the election critics by calling them "conspiracy theorists." Substantive proof that the paperless e-voting machines and central compiling were totally honest is nonexistent. That's the way the e-voting machines were designed.


More: http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/082605Partridge/082605partridge.html

[MelissaB]

4. AL: Officials split over voting machines

Officials split over voting machines
Debate centers on electronic devices vs. paper ballot optical scanners

Friday, August 26, 2005
By SALLIE OWEN
Capital Bureau

ORANGE BEACH -- Frustrated by delays at the state level, Mobile County Commission President Mike Dean said Thursday that the county should switch to paper ballots read by optical scanners at least for next year's elections.

...snip

"We'd be going backward," he said of a potential switch to paper ballots. "We have had a tremendous amount of success with electronic machines."

The existing system has produced no complaints, Jones said, adding that it is simple for voters to use. "I've never seen a complaint about whether the machines properly counted the votes," he said.

...snip


Numerous election reforms are under way in Alabama and across the country to comply with the 2002 Help America Vote Act nicknamed HAVA. Congress passed the act after voting irregularities in the 2000 presidential election. Alabama voters endured similar uncertainty in 2002, when changing Baldwin County vote tallies cast doubt on a tight governor's race.


More: http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1125067585152370.xml&coll=3


(BTW, just a few weeks ago Don Seigleman said again that he thinks the election was stolen from him.)

[FogerRox]

7. Montclair Times, NJ

Freeholders to cast votes for a ballot box: With technology evolving, county rushes to comply with regulations
Wednesday, August 24, 2005

By ERICA ZARRA
of The Montclair Times

With the September deadline fast approaching, a decision has not yet been made by Essex County in the battle of the ballot box builders, especially as the electronic voting machine once considered the frontrunner may not meet new state requirements in time for the 2006 elections. Montclair activists have alerted the N.J. Attorney General’s Office that the Sequoia machines, which currently account for 64 percent of electronic voting systems statewide and were openly favored by Essex County Superintendent of Elections Carmine P. Casciano, have not been retrofitted to comply with the latest government election standards.

>snip<

Ballot boxes must also comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which mandates that all electronic models have a paper recount, disability access, and multiple-language capabilities. A machine that lacks these functions could be disqualified from consideration.
“Given the new information that citizens have given us, we are working on this and are waiting to hear back from the attorney general,” Casciano told The Times. “I am open to what people have to say because this is an important decision.”

Montclair voting activist Katherine Joyce said the Sequoia Advantage is not in the 2002 National Association of State Election Directors’ catalog of certified machines, which was last updated in July.
Joyce and other activists assert the Sequoia lacks an upgraded voter-verifiable paper trail and certain handicapped accessibility features.

>snip<

Joyce said she worries that if next year’s federal elections are conducted on non-2002-certified equipment, then results could be vulnerable to challenges and disqualification.


rest of story:
http://www.montclairtimes.com/page.php?page=10334

[FogerRox]

9. more from DR Janow and the Essex County Task Force on Voting Rights

Montclair voting activist Katherine Joyce said the Sequoia Advantage is not in the 2002 National Association of State Election Directors’ catalog of certified machines, which was last updated in July.

Joyce said she worries that if next year’s federal elections are conducted on non-2002-certified equipment, then results could be vulnerable to challenges and disqualification. Sequoia manufactured more than half of all electronic ballot boxes in New Jersey. If the machines are not HAVA-compliant, this could set off a statewide scramble to find upgraded electronic models for approval next month and installation by January 2006.

“There will be a potential catastrophe if an uncertified machine is chosen,” said South Orange resident Richard Janow, a New Jersey Institute of Technology professor who authored a Sequoia certification challenge that was sent to state officials on behalf of Essex County activists, including those from Montclair.

“It’s a national problem that, if not corrected, could lead to a gigantic number of lawsuits and disorder,” Janow said. He is also concerned that technologically upgrading the estimated 7,000 existing Sequoia machines is infeasible by January 2006.

[MelissaB]

5. Widespread ’04 vote tampering found

Widespread ’04 vote tampering found

POMONA, CA — New research has revealed extensive manipulation of non-paper-trail voting machines in several states during the 2004 presidential election. According to material compiled by California State Polytechnic University professor Dennis Loo, in 2004, George Bush far exceeded the 85 percent of registered Florida Republican votes that he got in 2000, receiving more than 100 percent in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200 percent in 15 counties, and more than 300 percent in four counties.

Bush “won” Ohio by 51-48 percent, but statewide results were not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46 percent of the vote. In Cuyahoga County, the number of recorded votes was more than 93,000 greater than the number of registered voters, the study notes.

National exit polls showed Kerry winning in 2004. Yet, in precincts where there were no paper trails on the voting machines — and only there — the exit polls ended up being different from the final count. According to Steve Freeman, a statistician at the University of Pennsylvania, the odds are 250 million to one that the exit polls were wrong by chance.

...snip

In fall 2001, after an eight-month review of 175,000 Florida ballots never counted in the 2000 election, an analysis by the National Opinion Research Center confirmed that Al Gore actually won Florida and should have been president. More recently, Black Box Voting has reported that in 2004, voting machines used by more than 30 million voters were easily hacked by relatively unsophisticated programs and audits would not show the changes.


More: http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/0904/0826.shtml

[MelissaB]

6. Ohioans in revolt against GOP sleaze

Ohioans in revolt against GOP sleaze

Half a million people in Ohio are so fed up with government corruption that they signed petitions to place four measures on the ballot in November aimed at curbing Republican one-party rule, which they blame for the pervasive sleaze.

...snip

Another would establish an independent State Elections Board, removing partisan politicians from control of Ohio’s voting procedures. The measure would also allow voters to vote by mail. During the 2004 election, voters in districts considered pro-John Kerry were forced to wait at the polls as long as 13 hours in driving rain while affluent Republican districts enjoyed plentiful voting machines to insure instant voting.

A third measure reduces to $2,000 the limit on contributions to statewide office and $1,000 for legislative candidates. It would ban corporate contributions and require full disclosure of contributions.

Currently, voting in Ohio is controlled by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who also served as chairman of the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, a brazen conflict of interest. Reform Ohio Now and Ohio Common Cause have launched an e-mail and letter-writing campaign to Blackwell, demanding that he put the four initiatives on this November’s ballot. (For details, visit www.reformohionow.org.)


More: http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7586/1/283/

[MelissaB]

8. Diebolder, California Style

Spin of the Week

Diebolder, California Style

“Diebold Election Systems (DES) has hired Ogilvy PR to burnish the company’s image and the benefits of electronic voting in California,” reports PR Week. The state decertified one of DES’ e-voting machines last year, and now the company wants to ensure that their “story is told” and that voters “understand the technology,” said Ogilvy’s Michael Law, who heads DES’ California work. Ogilvy is researching public perceptions of DES and developing messages “about the ease of electronic voting, particularly for voters who do not speak English, as well as for handicapped voters.” O’Dwyer’s reports that DES’ California PR is part of a national campaign headed by former Democratic National Committee chair Joe Andrew. Andrew has been praised for his “grassroots organizing” and “golden rolodex” of CEOs and labor leaders. Other PR firms DES has employed include Public Strategies and Compliance Research Group.

Source: PR Week (sub. req’d.), August 25, 2005


Link: http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1633/Spin_of_the_Week

[MelissaB]

10. To What Is Cindy a Threat?

To What Is Cindy a Threat?

by Butler Shaffer

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

--Pastor Martin Niemoller


What has Cindy Sheehan done to warrant the unfocused rage and vicious name-calling to which she has been subjected? What is the nature of her "offense" that has led conservative war-whoopers to heap untold abuse upon her for daring to exercise what they pretend to "defend"—even as they work to destroy its expression— namely, individual liberty?

...snip

Being aware that the human soul can never be wholly repressed, the political establishment has never been without a laundry list of "noble causes" with which to rouse men into battle. Ridding the holy lands of infidels, freeing the slaves, making the world safe for democracy, and halting the spread of communism, are just a few of the better-known excuses for war. Unlike previous regimes—which did not have to contend with the Internet and its widespread, instantaneous flow of information—the Bush administration has had to tap-dance around lies in an effort to find a "cause" that might stick. In desperation, it exhumed Wilson’s excuse for America’s participation in World War I: to foster "democracy." But in today’s political climate, I wonder if Bush’s campaign on behalf of "democracy" is designed for any higher purpose than to allow one of his most ardent supporters, Diebold Election Systems, to sell more of its voting machines!

Increasing numbers of Americans are beginning to grasp the wholesale fraud underlying Bush’s foreign policies. His administration has been dominated almost exclusively by the worldwide pursuit of power. Not power as a means for the accomplishment of some end, but power for its own sake; not power "to," but power "because."


More: http://baltimorechronicle.com/2005/082305Shaffer.shtml

[MelissaB]

11. Chicago Mayor Daley Answers Questions in Federal Corruption Investigation

Chicago Mayor Daley Answers Questions in Federal Corruption Investigation

A U.S. attorney questioned Chicago Mayor Richard Daley for more than two hours Friday in an investigation of corruption at City Hall.

The parallels are almost eerie and for what it's worth it's typical Chicago politics. The fact that Chicago's Mayor Daley is being questioned in a corruption case is a headline that could just as easily been written in the 1960s or 1970's as it could be in 2005. The only difference is that 30 years ago, it would be the present Mayor Daley's father who would have been under investigation.

The investigation has been continuing for the past 18 months and centers on alleged bribes given in return for jobs in a city trucking program. Earlier this year, that probe was expanded to investigate alleged fraud in the city's hiring practices — which strikes deeper into City Hall's political heart.

Historically, Chicago is known for having one of the most corrupt political machines of any city in the United States. Slogans like 'vote early and vote often' and rumors that hundreds of dead people had their votes counted on election day pervaded Chicago politics for years.


More: http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2005/Aug/EEN430f818133825.html

[MelissaB]

12. CA:Bowen's Measure to Ensure Voting System Integrity Clears Assembly; Sect

Bowen's Measure to Ensure Voting System Integrity Clears Assembly; Sect. of State McPherson Objects

By Political Desk
August 25, 2005
A bill by Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) designed to catch electronic voting machine tabulation errors and ensure the integrity of California’s electoral system cleared the full Assembly today on a 57-19 vote.


“Using the electronic machines to do the 1% manual tally to verify the accuracy of the vote is ridiculous, because the machine is only going to recount the votes the same way it counted them in the first place,” said Bowen, the chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee. “California’s manual count law is designed to verify the results of an election, but since you can’t manually count electronic ballots, the only logical way to comply with the 1% manual tally required by law is to use the paper trail connected to each ballot.”


Under current law, elections officials are required to conduct a public manual tally of the ballots cast in at least 1% of the precincts chosen at random. The manual tally is designed to check the accuracy of votes tabulated by an electronic or mechanical voting system. SB 370 requires elections officials to use the accessible voter verified paper audit trail (AVVPAT) – which is a ballot printout the voter checks for accuracy before they cast their vote – instead of just using a printout of the machine’s own tally. Direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems are required to produce an AVVPAT for every ballot as of January 1, 2006.


“What’s the point of requiring DREs to produce a paper trail if you’re not going to use it to verify the accuracy of the electronic vote?,” continued Bowen. “I’m a lot more concerned about the accuracy and the integrity of the election results than I am with how quickly the ballots are counted.”

[Wilms]

13. CA: County looks at 'blended' voting

County looks at 'blended' voting

November special election may be Diebold system's last in Alameda County

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

8/25/05

Alameda County — the first large West Coast county to gamble on Diebold Election Systems Inc. and its electronic voting machines — is weighing whether to end that experiment, going with a more paper-based voting system and perhaps another supplier.

County officials are contacting voting-system vendors this week and asking whether they can provide a so-called "blended" voting system, with a winning bidder to be chosen in November.

Alameda is headed the way of many large counties — toward a hybrid of optical scanners for paper ballots and either electronic touchscreens or computerized ballot-marking devices for handicapped voters.

If vendors can supply such a system, this November's special election will be the county's last with Diebold touchscreens as the only voting equipment in the polling place.

-snip/more-

http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_2971599

[Wilms]

14. MS: New voting machines

New voting machines

The Grenada County Circuit Clerk and County Election Commissioners are giving Grenada's Shouptronic voting machines the old heave-ho.

By REGGIE ROSS - Staff Writer August 26, 2005

Instead of continuing with the current machines, Grenada County will accept the state's offer of 44 new Diebold voting machines.
Grenada County is one of 76 counties in Mississippi that opted into statewide touch-screen voting machines recommended by the Secretary of State Eric Clark.

-snip-

Aubrey Carter, a 40-year veteran of voter polls in Grenada, said his trust was in the Shouptronic voting machines because every vote was counted the way it was placed.

"I simply don't know much about these machines," Carter said, "the Shouptronic voting machines protected each voter and the way that they voted."

The counties that opted out of the states plan were: Desoto, Hinds, Jackson, Lee, Rankin and Yalobusha.

-snip/more-

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1433&dept_id=170174&newsid=15106390&PAG=461&rfi=9

[Melissa G]

15. Decertify a DRE today. Episode two.

Thanks to FogerRox for the Great Work and Post!
DU thread here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x391261

Decertify a DRE today. Episode two.

In Episode one, when we last heard from our Hero...... Joe Democarcy...... he was in a jam. But Joe aint no quitter. Joe looked around for anything to use as a weapon-- federal & state laws anythig to use as a tool, a weapon. And Joe thought if he could get rid of most touchscreen voting machines then public officals would have to at least consider the options--- you know maybe things like..... Paper ballots--- that get scanned by opscans.

So What is this NASED? The National Association of State Election Directors, they have a NASED web site. SO lets go there and look at what Joe found.

All right enuf of the BS---

Here is episode one if you missed it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x390084


In episode 2 we will look at the NASED list of qualifying systems. I am going to deal with just the big 3 at this point, Diebold, ES&S & Sequoia.
Here is the link to the current pdf:
http://www.nased.org/ITA%20Information/NASEDQualifiedVotingSystems12.03to7.05.pdf
Here is the link to an older list:
http://www.nased.org/ITA%20Information/NASEDApprovedSystems1.03.pdf

Lets look at the new NASED list. Starting with the left hand side we see the company name, in the second column we see voting system/system component. On page 3 we find some Diebold entrys starting with GEMS 1-18-18. We know that GEMS is the Diebold tabulation software, and it is entered in the second column which is marked voting system/system component. And GEMS is also entered into the 3rd column marked Software. There are multiple entries which look like repeated attempts to get GEMS certified to the 2002 standards, since the earlier entries are all certified to the 1990 standards. It appears that Diebold tried 10 times to upgrade GEMS. It also appears they failed 10 times from July 8th, 2003 to May 16th, 2005. Though on May 16th, 2005 Diebold received a 2002 certification for Firmware version 4.6.2.

This is the Diebold DRE, apparently an older unit, not a modern touchscreen: http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/default.htm . This is the newer touchscreen, most likely using galvanic response for selecting ballot positions: http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/accuvote_tsx.htm . Neither unit has received the coveted 2002 certification.

Now on page 5 we look at the ES&S entries. ES&S has 2 DREs, (Maybe 3, the V-2000 may still be around) the iVotronic: http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/ivotronic.html , and the LS model, which is a full face iVotronic: http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/ivotronicLS.html . In the 2nd column, voting system/system component, we see the entry for Unity 2.4.2, which would indicate the testing was done on this Unity 2.4.2, not a DRE. Otherwise the name of the DRE would be stated. Also note that Unity 2.4.2 is certified to the 1990 standards. It appears that from Febuary 19th 2004 to January 9th, 2005, ES&S tried 5 times to get the upgrades certified to 2002 standards, in which they succeeded with Unity version 2.5.

Moving to page 8 we find the Sequoia entries. First is the Advantage DRE certified to the 1990 standards in 1997. This is strange because the Advantage was introduced in 1986, and certified for use in NJ in 1987. Next is the Sequoia WinEDS version 2.6. This is Sequoias tabulation software, which was certified to the 1990 standards in August 2002.
Next we see the EMS/AERO version 3.54 certified to 1990 standards in October of 2002, which I’m guessing is the software for the Optical scan systems, since it is listed only in entries of optical Scan equipment. Continuing, we see what appears to be multiple attempts at upgrades. Some of which were to the 2002 standards. But, the Sequoia Edge & Advantage DREs are not listed as 2002 certified.

I believe what we have seen is repeated attempts to upgrade Software & Firmware to the 2002 standards by the big 3. While vendors such as Accupoll: http://www.accupoll.com / & Liberty: http://www.libertyelectionsystems.com/LibertyVote.htm, with newer products, seem to breeze thru the 2002 certification process. Apparently these older DREs cannot cut the mustard. And without 2002 certification there is no way these DREs can be considered remotely HAVA Compliant. And thusly none of the Diebold, ES&S or Sequoia DREs can be used in the next federal election in 2006 as per section 301 of HAVA.

And no Jurisdiction can receive HAVA moneys for the purchase of these DREs.


States cant just grandfather these DREs, so they can be used in 2006. That would still leave open the very real possibility of massive court challemges by sore losers and such, all over the country. The potential for a massive crisis is in the making. SInce Federal law put us there, it is the feds -- sort to speak -- that have to fix it.

The Election Assistamce issued its EAC Advisory on Section 301 of HAVA, and then all the experts @ the EAC went on vacation. There are rumbling acroos the country -- after a summer conferences of county and state election officials, we may be able to enterain the very real possibilty of seeing the Jan 2006 DEAD LINE in HAVA, being postponed until 2007.

Mant county election officials have spoken to members of congress about HAVA. When Congress gets back in September --- this will be our chance to pressure them to push HAVA back at least one year. ANd a chance to spend another year trying to dismantle HAVA, piece by peice.

If you dont see your voting machine on this list with 2002 certification

http://www.nased.org/ITA%20Information/NASEDQualifiedVotingSystems12.03to7.05.pdf

Then it cant be used in 2006. Unless we do nothing.

[tommcintyre]

16. kick for the "real" news nt

[Joanne98]

17. Diebold Offers REMOTE KEY SOLUTION......

I don't know what this means but it doesn't sound good. I don't like this part....

the solution eliminates many of the costs and inefficiencies related to the manual process, including the use of noncompliant global keys, the need for manual audit logs

Diebold, Trusted Security offer remote key solution
http://atmmarketplace.com/news_story_23855.htm

• 23 August 2005
NORTH CANTON, Ohio — As the financial services marketplace continues to move toward Triple DES compliance, Diebold Inc. and Trusted Security Solutions have entered an agreement to offer an end-to-end solution for deploying cryptographic keys to ATMs, according to a news release.

Diebold and Trusted Security together will offer a manual unique initial key deployment solution and a remote key transport solution that will assist in meeting the requirements of ANSI Standard X9.24 for retail key management. According to the agreement, Diebold will market Trusted Security’s A98 Key Management System in its solution set for Triple DES. Trusted Security will provide training and support for Diebold’s sales effort.

The solution provides financial institutions with a process to deploy cryptographic keys and ensures that the initial key and the unique key assigned to an ATM are secret and untraceable. Compliant with all current key encryption standards, the solution eliminates many of the costs and inefficiencies related to the manual process, including the use of noncompliant global keys, the need for manual audit logs, the time-consuming generation of key components, the wait time associated with the delivery of key packages to ATM sites and the costs and inefficiencies imposed by traditional processes.

"Our goal is to provide the most comprehensive solutions for Diebold customers," said David Bucci, senior vice president of Diebold’s Customer Solutions group. "Our customers asked for a remote-key option, and our collaboration with Trusted Security Solutions delivers it to them."