SOURCE: www.blackboxvoting.org

My records show that YOUR elections district uses the Accuvote voting machine. This is the system hacked in the HBO "Hacking Democracy" film, being shown TODAY on HBO. It also goes by the names "Diebold", "Premier", "Global Election Systems" optical scan or OS. Your voting system uses both the Diebold /Premier machines and the GEMS program for BOTH mailed in votes and polling place votes. It is the Diebold/Premier Accuvote optical scansystem that you will see on HBO, altered in the blink of an eye to change election results without leaving a trace.

The film "Hacking Democracy", showing exactly how my organization, Black Box Voting, actually rigged a voting system like the one your votes are counted on. You'll understand this quite painlessly by viewing the detective story as it unfolds, on HBO or YouTube. The film will be shown on HBO on May 2, 4, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 23, 29, 25, 26 and June 16 -- mostly during daytime hours. Note that several of these showings are on weekends.

Scroll down for NEW INFORMATION on how this voting system may affect you personally in the Nov. 2008 election, and what to do about it.

If you don't have HBO, you can view HACKING DEMOCRACY for free in nine 10-minute segments at YouTube:
1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzPXer7946E
2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eopnvw7mh_8
3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxGSXYUkplA
4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ9UuXF1hkA
5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht7fqoGUfS0
6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3zp80H3pN0
7 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VoEVvR60Sg
8 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSvhnXtogQ4
9 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J36Jfkxd1vA

The DVD is available at http://www.hackingdemocracy.com

The Accuvote, which is the machine in "Hacking Democracy," is used in approximately one-third of the elections in America. If you are receiving this e-mail, the Diebold/Premier Accuvote machines counts BOTH your polling place votes and your mailed-in votes.

HOW THE ACCUVOTE AND GEMS MAY AFFECT YOU THIS FALL:

The producers of Hacking Democracy could not fit everything into an 80-minute film. Here is some aditional information you won't see in the film:

1. MAILED IN VOTES ARE AT HUGE RISK. Diebold, in its infinite wisdom, disabled the "results tape" feature for the AccuVote that counts mail-in votes. This is the check and balance you see in "Hacking Democracy" -- the first hack, Dr. Thompson's hack, could be discovered without the poll tapes. Guess what? mail in votes DON'T HAVE this check and balance, leaving them wide open for the GEMS votes switch. This fall, at least 25 million votes -- five times the margin needed to win an election that isn't even close -- are likely to come from mailed in ballots.

Also, all mailed-in votes in places that allow early scanning of the ballots (California, Arizona, many other places) are at great risk for "cheat peeks." Jim March, on the board of directors for Black Box Voting, found evidence that Pima County, Arizona was DOING cheat peeks.

Understand that opinion polls sample only a few hundred votes, yet candidates pay a lot of money for them. Cheat peeks can provide candidates with the REAL data for tens of thousands of votes -- in some locations, like San Diego and King County, Washington, hundreds of thousands. Cheat peeks are the Rolls Royce of pre-election polling, and if you think no election official wants to make a little money on the side, take a gander at some of the arrest records for election officials on all kinds of crimes, in this report: (PDF) http://www.blackboxvoting.org/moonshine3.pdf

But cheat-peeks aren't the only risk for GEMS and mail-in votes. The vote totals can be SWITCHED using GEMS, and in fact, GEMS can be set to alter ONLY the mail-in votes, because they are specially coded.

Now add this to the equation: The newer systems allow, and even encourage, the use of the little USB memory sticks. Using these, it's possible to "exchange" files, and Black Box Voting's Jim March found evidence of illicit use of memory sticks in Memphis.

2. NO ONE IS REALLY GOING TO DO AUDITS: Despite what you may hear, not a single state in America actually has "audits" of the votes. Some computer enthusiasts hijacked the term "audit" to craft spot-check legislation, but here's the difference: A spot check examines a sample by hand. But an AUDIT checks to make sure the sample being examined is actually the original ballots. Ballots are supposed to be protected by a "chain of custody", much like the evidence in a criminal trial. An AUDIT checks to see if there are adequate procedures to protect "chain of custody" and inside access. And if procedures exist, an AUDIT checks to see if they were followed.

Not a single place in America includes any evaluation of "chain of custody" in its spot check procedures, and therefore no one really knows whether these tiny samples that may be examined this fall are even the original ballots!

When Black Box Voting did a chain of custody audit this year, we found that procedures are NOT followed and no one ever checks whether anything matches, and if you show that the chain of custody is broken, nothing whatsoever is done about it. In short, there is no reason to believe that insiders have not altered the spot-check ballots. And by the way, most places don't even do spot checks.

3. YOUR LOCAL ELECTIONS OFFICIALS ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THE PROBLEMS. They're in denial mode. They have chosen to use the system anyway. We were shocked to learn that in New Hampshire, nothing whatever was done to mitigate the risks, except in one tiny town, Danville, where the moderator counted all the votes by hand after the AccuVote counted them. (Congrats! Well done Wally Fries!)

A few locations have tried to implement a few "fixes" to make it more difficult to hack the system, but this is very spotty and typically addresses only some of the problems. A burglar can get into the house from ANY open window, so closing one window while leaving five more open is not protecting the house -- yet many elections officials will pretend that it does.

4. NOW LOOK AT THE SUBCONTRACTORS: Black Box Voting has learned that many locations are farming out the programming of their election system to subcontractors, not always with the best of reputations. In Illinois and several other midwest states, a firm called Fidlar is involved, and in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut, a tiny firm called LHS Associates programs the memory cards. It gets worse: One of the key management team at LHS is a convicted narcotics trafficker. We have the police record for Ken Hajjar of LHS posted on our Web site, along with the Dept. of Corrections documents for Jeffrey Dean, an embezzler who spent 4 years in prison before taking over as a programmer for what is now the Diebold voting system, the GEMS system, and the Diebold mail-in voting system.

(Off-topic, but for those who are interested: Jeffrey Dean is no longer working for Diebold or Premier, but his programs are still being used. (He's been spotted recently dropping millions of dollars into development in a location near, ironically, "Riggins" Idaho.)

"DON'T WORRY. BE HAPPY." Your local election officials will tell you not to worry. What else can they do? They have bought the stuff, are dependent on vendors with checkered backgrounds who are also, in some cases, liars and ex-convicts. They are worried that people will not vote if they are not "confident" in the process, so they ask the vendor what to say, and sometimes ask the secretary of state or the firms that approved these systems in the first place.

TESTING, SCHMESTING, FAHGEDDABOUDIT. They'll tell you the systems are "tested" which "proves" nothing could happen. Watch the film. The testing they are talking about is usually the "zero test" at the beginning of the election, a test we PASSED in the film even though we rigged the election, and a "Logic & Accuracy" test. Well guess what? A very recent University of Connecticut study has shown that the AccuVote machines can be programmed to pass the pretesting, called L&A testing, but still rig the election. And it's obvious when you think about it: All computers have a time and date function, and the programming simply needs to tell the computer to report correctly except for the Election Day votes.

THIS IS REAL. Your local election officials will tell you the hack shown in the film was "not real" -- If so, be very skeptical of everything else you hear from that official. The hack was confirmed in a study by the state of California, and has also been confirmed by additional examinations.
Bottom line: It's probably a waste of time to "bring this to the attention" of local election officials. Avoid running on that particular hamster wheel, and instead focus on regaining citizen controls.

COMING SOON: TOOL KIT 2008 - Black Box Voting is now producing a special "2008 Citizens Tool Kit" containing emergency measures citizens can take to exert control over November 2008. I can tell you right now, it won't be enough! We are outmanned and outgunned by the elections manufacturing industry, and hobbled by obstructionist laws in many states, but as you surely know, this doesn't mean our efforts won't be noticed. Anyone who's had mosquitos in the sleeping bag knows that small things can produce action.

WHAT CAN YOU DO RIGHT NOW?

Unless you tell me not to, I'll notify you when Tool Kit 2008 is ready for download. For now, make sure to master the conceptual work. You can't argue effectively if you don't understand the issues, and you'll be pleased to know that the core issues do not require any computer expertise at all.

Here's the core, the bottom line, the underlying problem, the one issue that needs to rule them all:

We have not, and must not consent to any form of secret vote counting, administered and controlled by government insiders and their vendors. Yes, this is the situation we are faced with right now. The moment the citizenry of America comes to accept the idea that government insiders have a "right" to count our votes in secret we will have lost everything. So far, we have not consented, because no one asked us.

THE KEY CONCEPT: Any system that forces the citizenry to trust government insiders to count their votes in secret represents a change in the original design of this nation. The United States of America was designed to uphold the right of citizen sovereignty over the government. In addition to hiding the counting of votes from public view, current elections processes are hiding the chain of custody of the vote data. Citizens are never allowed to view the original input in order to compare it to the output, and are relegated to trusting circumstantial evidence controlled by insiders. Such a system is, in fact, a transfer of power.

The people were never asked to approve such a transfer of power, have never consented to it, and indeed cannot consent, because the right of sovereignty over the instruments of government which we have created is an inalienable right, one which cannot be given away, nor can this right be removed through legislation. It is, admittedly, possible for a government to decline to honor this right, but such an act would justify extreme measures by the people subjected to such abuse of power.

The core of elections was and again must return to the principle of citizen sovereignty over government. Elections can never be based on a requirement to trust government insiders and their vendors to count our votes, nor can elections be dependent on experts to tell the citizenry that the system is okay, nor should the detailed mechanics of elections be impossible for the average citizen to understand. Models which depend on experts and insiders create centralized control, and remove all control from government's rightful owners – the citizens. This represents a violation of the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence.

Not only does Black Box Voting refuse to participate in the design of such systems, but we will do our utmost to inform the populace that such systems must be revoked, by whatever means necessary.

"We do not consent."

Every action we take to protect the November 2008 election must remember this principle: Votes counted in secret by government officials represent a transfer of power. All meaningful actions must focus on returning control mechanisms to the citizenry. If we can't compare the input to the output, if we can't see our votes being counted, we've ceded control and -- if we come to accept this -- we will lose the nation we thought we had.

WATCH FOR TOOL KIT 2008.

All my best,

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
Please help us protect 2008, muster up the "Dream Teams" for field work, print the Tool Kits...
We are supported ENTIRELY through small citizen donations.

TO DONATE: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
to mail:
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057