Another step towards verifiable accurate elections nation-wide.

Ohio joins NM, FL, VA, CA, MD (and other states and jurisdictions) which scrapped or are phasing out the flawed touch-screen digital recording electronic (DRE) voting systems which use electronic ballots which voters cannot see, counted by trade-secret software (and joins the many jurisdictions whose leaders initially purchased more economical, trustworthy paper ballot systems).

On Friday, Dec. 14th the results of Ohio's Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's "Everest Voting System Review" were released:

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/info/everest.aspx
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/info/EVEREST/00-SecretarysEVERESTExecutiveReport.pdf


The Results of Ohio's Source Code Analysis and Red Team (Penetration) Testing Include:

Premier (Diebold Voting Systems):
* Failure To Effectively Protect Vote Integrity
* Failure to Effectively Protect Vote Privacy
* Failure to Protect Elections From Malicious Insiders
* Failure to Validate and Protect Software
* Failure to Follow Standard Software and Security Engineering Practices
* Failure to Provide Trustworthy Auditing

Hart Voting Systems:
* Failure To Effectively Protect Election Data Integrity
* Failure To Eliminate Or Document Unsafe Functionality
* Failure To Protect Election From "Malicious Insiders"
* Failure To Provide Trustworthy Auditing

ES&S Voting Systems:
* Failure to Protect Election Data and Software.
* Failure to Effectively Control Access to Election Operations
* Failure to Correctly Implement Security Mechanisms
* Failure to Follow Standard Software and Security Engineering Practices

Ohio's SOS Brunner is recommending removing all voting machines from the polls (even optical scan voting equipment) except for voting machines required by federal statute to allow voters with disabilities to vote privately and independently - and is recommending counting all ballots with a high-speed central count system at county election offices.

News articles (taken from the Daily Voting News) on the subject include:

OH: Study: Voting Systems Vulnerable
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/info/everest.aspx

OH: Brunner declares Ohio's voting systems vulnerable
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/12/14/vote.html

OH: Brunner: Ohio's vote vulnerable
http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2007/12/brunner_ohios_vote_vulnerable.html

OH: Report finds voting equipment flaws
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20071214/FREE/71214014/1008&Profile=1008

OH: Ohio's electronic voting system vulnerable, report says
http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/12505391.html

OH: Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2920

OH: Official: Ohio Vote Machines Vulnerable
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/12/14/ap4442329.html

OH: Statement of Premier Election Solutions in Response to Today's
Release of the Ohio EVEREST Voting System Review
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,242777.shtml

OH: 'Critical Security Failures' Leads Ohio Sec. Of State To Recommend
Ban of DRE (Touch-Screen) Voting Machines
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5443

OH: Cuyahoga County - Secretary of State wants new voting system in
Cleveland
http://www.ohio.com/news/ap?articleID=284686&c=y

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Please take a few minutes to call your US Representative and Senator to support Rep. Rush Holt and Senator Bill Nelson's election reform bills that would assist states to pay for replacing their flawed high-cost DRE voting systems with paper ballot voting systems that are less costly, more reliable, and fully auditable, and provide funding
for conducting manual counts (audits) of paper ballots to verify the accuracy of machine counts.

http://senate.gov and http://www.house.gov

Cheers,

Kathy Dopp

The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

P.O. Box 680192, Park City, UT 84068
phone 435-658-4657

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://electionarchive.org

History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of
Election Auditing Fundamentals
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf

Vote Yes on HR811 and S2295
http://electionmathematics.org/VoteYesHR811.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816