Kucinich on voting rights
Taken from Kucinich's Congressional website
Congressman Kucinich is seeking to ensure that voting is a right secured for all Americans. During the 2000 elections, there were numerous and serious problems at the voting booth in Florida and across the nation. Congress’ response was the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2001. This legislation was designed to improve voting machines and voting processes. However, implementation of the Help America Vote Act, along with its funding and assistance to states, is far behind schedule. Additionally, recent analysis of voting machine software shows that these programs suffer serious internal flaws that threaten the security of votes case on such machines.
Privatized Voting, Private Interests
Under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the Election Assistance Commission is charged with establishing voluntary standards for voting machine software and creating an independent testing process for the software. However, this process is far behind schedule. Under HAVA, the Election Assistance Commission members should have been nominated by the President in February 2003. Unfortunately, these nominees have only recently been sent to the Senate for confirmation.
Without this federal review and testing of software, deeply flawed software has been marketed by companies and bought by states. An Analysis of an Electronic Voting System was recently authored by Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, Aviel Rubin, and Dan Wallach. This voting software, produced by Diebold, has already been purchased by two states. According to this study, some of the most serious of numerous flaws permit a person to:
-vote multiple times,
-view ballots already cast on a machine,
-modify party affiliation on ballots,
-cause votes to be miscounted,
-create, delete and modify votes on voting machine, and
-tamper with audit logs and election results.
States Purchase Insecure Software
As a result of this study, Maryland put on hold its purchase of Diebold voting machines. Later, an independent review confirmed the previous findings. It counted 328 security weaknesses, and concluded that: “The system, as implemented in policy, procedure and technology, is at high risk of compromise” (pg. 17).
Partisan Conflicts of Interest
The state of Ohio selected Diebold as one of four possible vendors for computerized voting machines. But in August 2003, the company’s partisan conflicts of interest prompted public suspicion that the voting machine manufacturer was partisan. In August 2003, after returning from President Bush’s Crawford, TX ranch, Diebold’s chief executive wrote a fundraising letter where he stated he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
Diebold Internal Memos Reveal Knowledge of Software Flaws
These findings of software flaws have been confirmed by internal memos from Diebold employees. Diebold has harassed internet service providers with legal action for posting links to these memos. Congressman Kucinich believes that these memos show why transparency and public oversight are essential in the development of voting machines.
From conversations between employees at Diebold, including upper management, it is evident that they knew of insecure programs and made insecure changes to programs. Among these activities, employees:
-Permitted easy access to vote audit logs. Without requiring so much as a password, anyone could access the tabulation of votes and change the contents. (Memo from Nel Finber to Ken Clark, and Ken Clark response)
-Sold uncertified software (GEMS 1.14) that was used in elections, while knowing that numerous problems existed with the software. (Memo from Ken Clark)
-Changed voting software by sending uncertified patches and upgrades to customers, along with possible bugs (memo Ken Clark, re: GEMS versions, 6/5/2000)
-Contracted to “provide products and services which do not exist and then attempting to build these items on an unreasonable timetable with no written plan, little to no time for testing, and minimal resources. It also seems to be an accepted practice to exaggerate our progress and functionality to our customers and ourselves then make excuses at delivery time when these products and services do not meet expectations.” (according to an employee upon resignation)
Stopping False Copyright Claims
Diebold has been using coercive legal claims to intimidate internet service providers and even universities to shut down websites with links to its memos and remove the memo content. Under copyright laws, however, universities are exempt, and posting links to the memos is not considered a violation of the law. By abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Diebold has intimidated numerous internet service providers to comply with its requests. The damage is two-fold: 1) limiting the public’s information about the security of its voting machines, and 2) expanding corporate control over our most free medium of expression, the Internet.
Congressman Kucinich is working to address these problems by providing some of Diebold’s internal memos on this site to increase public access, drafting legislation to address software security problems, and working to investigate Diebold’s legal abuses.
New Legislation
Congressman Kucinich is working with his Congressional colleagues to draft legislation that would create an open-source design process for voting machine software. This process would ensure public oversight and transparency, as well as establish the most secure voting software for citizens to cast their votes.
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