Gaston County, NC-Diebold technician raises very serious questions

[NCvoter]

This is an email that is being fairly widely circulated. I know this because it came from an unexpected source. In any case, voting in Gaston County proved to be disaterous.

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Does anyone know whether the 12,000 uncounted votes in Gaston county CAN be counted? Also, have the 1,209 votes from the Dallas precinct been counted, or can they be counted? If these votes have been counted, what was the breakdown, who did the votes go for? Has anyone done a background or criminal check on the Diebold Technician hired to run the election software?
At which point were the 12,000 votes lost, and how will they be recovered and/or counted?

The answer to any or all of these questions could make a gigantic story.

Today the unofficial results in Gaston County per the SBOE website are:


Contest: PRESIDENT
Walt Brown / Mary Alice Herbert (Write-In)0 Votes
Michael Badnarik / Richard Campagna208 Votes
George W. Bush / Dick Cheney43,252 Votes
Ralph Nader (Write-In)40 Votes
David Cobb (Write-In)1 Votes
John F. Kerry / John Edwards20,254 Votes


11/13/2004 Machine malfunction NC Gaston County. About 12,000 votes cast in Gaston County have not yet been counted, elections director Sandra Page said Tuesday. Page said most early and absentee votes were not included in the county's unofficial election results because of a procedural error. The inclusion of the votes in the county's results, expected Tuesday afternoon, could change the outcome of several local and statewide races. The county pays a technician from Diebold to operate its systems on Election Day. That person was in charge of transferring early votes from electronic storage to the counting computer. Diebold believes the transmission was interrupted, said spokesman David Bear. Story Archive


Gaston's unofficial results excluded 1,209 votes cast at the Dallas Civic
Center:
11/13/2004 Machine malfunction NC After data was transmitted from the
precincts to the central station, it was discovered that there was of data for the Dallas precinct in the GEMS database. Office records from election night, kept by a staff member, showed that information was received, Gaston County Elections Director Sandra Page said. She believes the computer system recorded a successful transmission without receiving any data. http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?sort=date&selectstate=NC&selectproblemtype=ALL


Gaston County uses the Diebold Touchscreen with the infamous GEMS central tabulator that uses Microsoft Access.

According to Chuck Herrin, Winston Salem NC resident and a Professional IT
Auditor, (CISSP, CISA, MCSE, CEH)
http://www.chuckherrin.com
anyone can hack the Diebold Central Tabulator or simply just go in the program and type in the numbers they want, anderase any proof that they did so.

Chuck decided to:
"put together this shortened document that will show you exactly how easy it would be to break into Diebold’s GEMS software, which is the software used to tabulate regional voting results.

This software runs on regular Windows machines and counts the votes from multiple precincts that may
have used touch screens (which have their own problems) or optically
scanned punch cards,including absentee ballots." http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

On another page of his website, Chuck answers questions about North
Carolina election problems:
Q: Have you seen the recent happenings in NC, like the stuff happening in Gaston County?
A: Yes, I saw that. Guess who runs the machines in Gaston County, NC? A Diebold Employee! (Worst quote: "The county pays a technician from Diebold to operate its systems on Election Day. That person was in charge of transferring early votes from electronic storage to the counting computer.") http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10192340.htm
OK - 1) how bad does your product suck if you have to keep a technician on-site to work on it, and 2) with the tech on site, the number of recorded votes and voters from the 2004 Election don't match in more than half of the precincts in Gaston County!
(http://newsobserver.com/news/ncwire_news/story/1839095p-8157912c.html)
Either a) the machines are so poorly built that even having a Diebold technician on-site couldn't make them work right, or b).... <fill in the blanks yourself>. Either way, we lose.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

[goclark]

1. Kick for an answer

[NCvoter]

2. Vote totals fail tally in 29 Gaston precincts

http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1852104p-8179802c.html

"QUESTIONABLE PRACTICES

State elections officials will begin an investigation today of complaints in Gaston County involving a computer-company technician working on the elections without adequate supervision, a mismatch between ballots cast and the number of voters in some precincts, and the late reporting of early-voting ballots. About 12,000 early votes from Gaston were not reported for a week after the election."

http://rdu.news14.com/content/headlines/?ArID=59180&SecID=2

"The number of ballots doesn't match the number of voters in more than half of Gaston County's precincts and election officials say they didn't know about the problem.

The Charlotte Observer reviewed the election results and concluded that some voters may have voted twice or some voters' ballots weren't counted. Problems are found in 29 of the county's 46 precincts.

Gaston County Elections Director Sandra Page says she didn't know about the problems and blames them on poll workers who didn't follow instructions.

At one precinct, workers signed in 42 more people than the number of ballots recorded on electronic voting machines. At another precinct there were 81 more ballots collected than people who signed in with officials.

State elections officials say they'll look into the problem."

[peacetalksforall]

3. Then that means there was a Diebold technician at every precinct

where a Diebold machine was used...touch and optic both?

[Straight Shooter]

4. That begs the question: Where were DB techs stationed in the country?

That is something I would really like to know, and also, how much of a variance between exit polls and final tally at those precincts where DB techs were stationed?

Curiouser and curiouser.


Edit: "Gaston County Elections Director Sandra Page says she didn't know about the problems and blames them on poll workers who didn't follow instructions."

Typical bushie: Blame it on the underlings, rather than your failure to properly train them.

[Karenca]

5. kick n/t