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Tag(s): 2008 Election Presidential Primary; 2008 Elections; Corporations Voting Machine; Election Recounts Protests; Election Systems And Software; Election Technology Reports; Electronic Voting; Ethics; Investigations; New Hampshire; (more...) New Hampshire; Optical Scan Voting Machines; Secrecy - Transparency; Voting Integrity; Voting Laws Federal HAVA; Voting Laws State; Voting Technology (less...)
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January 13, 2008 at 08:31:46

Headlined on 1/13/08:
Diebold Voting Machine Failures Found Across State During New Hampshire Primary

by Dori Smith Page 3 of 4 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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LHS Associates - A History of Following Their Own 'Laws'

Late last year, I reported on a recorded interview I'd had with LHS's director of Sales and Marketing, Ken Hajjar, who admitted that the company routinely replaces both voting machines, and vulnerable memory cards, during elections.

Despite such replacements against strict laws in Connecticut, Hajjar told me, "I mean, I don't pay attention to every little law. It's just, it's up to the Registrars. All we are is a support organization on Election Day."

He described keeping three memory cards in the trunk of his car during elections and, in the event they had to be used, he argued, the chain of custody issues wouldn't matter since, "once you run the [pre-election] test deck through, you're golden."

"We would have a whole bunch of machines in the trunk in the car and we hope the phone doesn't ring, but if it does somebody tells us where to go, we replace the machine and then we go on our merry way," he told me last year.

Hajjar was recently barred from working on elections in the state of Connecticut by the Secretary of State, after objectionable and profane remarks he had made publicly in the comments section of The BRAD BLOG.

More recently, a public records request made by BlackBoxVoting.org revealed that Hajjar had plead guilty to narcotics trafficking in the state of New Hampshire in 1990.

Another LHS official, Mike Carlson, similarly confirmed the company's practice of replacing voting systems during Election Day in Connecticut despite state laws that ban such practices, during an interview I had with him in late 2006. The audio and transcription of that interview are available here.

Confusion About the Law Among New Hampshire Officials

An investigation into New Hampshire's voting machines would likely reveal a lack of consistency in reporting on voting machine problems and Election Day voting machine repairs. Officials at the polls clearly have the impression that the vendor, LHS, is a legitimate source for official guidance on addressing mid-election problems. Yet, at the state level, officials with legal oversight over voting machines are not aware of the seriousness of the repairs, or in some cases that they are even occurring. Consider this exchange with Jim Kennedy, Deputy Attorney General of the State of New Hampshire, on January 11, 2008.

Smith: What about security?

Dep. Atty Gen. Kennedy: There is also security protocols...There are locks and seals that go on these machines during the day and actually our office conducted inspections throughout election day to insure that the seals were properly on the machines.

Smith: But what if, say, a memory card were to fail during the election and LHS were to come in and put in a different one?

Kennedy: That's not what's done in the State of New Hampshire. Actually by state and federal law we are required to retain the actual memory card that's used in the election. So to interchange a memory card I think would be odd.

Smith: I mean to replace it so the machine could be used.

Kennedy: I don't know of any circumstance that that's occurred here.

Smith: What about during set up if the card is tested and fails and so LHS is able to just send out a new one.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Dori Smith is on Talk Nation Radio.

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7 comments

Currently I'm a cartoonist and contributing writer for The New Orleans Levee. For those wishing to view my work you can see my latest at: nolevee.com
Mr MCurrently I'm a cartoonist and contributing writer for The New Orleans Levee. For those wishing to view my work you can see my latest at: nolevee.com

Oh,

So now that they discovered all these failures they'll be a massive effort to have fair, honest, publicly counted, verifiable, uniform paper ballots across the country with wide-spread media attention, along with the conviction of all those that perpetrated this massive election fraud, just like they did after the 2000 election debacle - right?

by Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 1682 comments) on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 11:49:20 AM

Jim Freeman's op-ed pieces and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, International Herald-Tribune, CNN, The New York Review, The Jon Stewart Daily Show and a number of magazines.
Jim FreemanJim Freeman's op-ed pieces and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, International Herald-Tribune, CNN, The New York Review, The Jon Stewart Daily Show and a number of magazines.

Ah, the ever-present thirst of Americans for 'instant'

Instant coffee, instant gratification, instant results--

What was ever the matter with hand-marked ballots? No hanging chads, no confusion over candidates, no loss of the permanent record that indemnifies national elections.

Works great. Always worked great. Just takes a little longer and fails to feed the computerized voting-equipment industry.

(sigh)

by Jim Freeman (108 articles, 53 quicklinks, 224 diaries, 386 comments) on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 1:16:05 PM

Founder of "The Rev. Rob Times," (www.revrob.com) Rev. Robert A. Vinciguerra has been a longtime student of journalism. Currently, he holds a government job where is a technical writer, instructional designer, and an IT trainer. From Phoenix, Arizona.
Rev. Robert VinciguerraFounder of "The Rev. Rob Times," (www.revrob.com) Rev. Robert A. Vinciguerra has been a longtime student of journalism. Currently, he holds a government job where is a technical writer, instructional designer, and an IT trainer. From Phoenix, Arizona.

FYI

The machines count hand marked ballots. It's optical scantron, like what you used in college or high school.

by Rev. Robert Vinciguerra (32 articles, 5 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 50 comments) on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 4:22:51 PM

Kent State, Graduate work in philosophy of logic, of science, Ph.D. SIU neuroscientist, forensic neuropsychologist, PostDoc Medical College of Ohio, Preferred activities: Restoring British motorcycles, cars, Matchless, Austin Healey, Triumph, Jaguar, building an engine, programming a computer. Other stuff: SDS 1968, antiwar,911 truth advocate, anticorporatist, anti-classist, anti-neocon, pissed off. Best thing: Father. Blessed.
richardKent State, Graduate work in philosophy of logic, of science, Ph.D. SIU neuroscientist, forensic neuropsychologist, PostDoc Medical College of Ohio, Preferred activities: Restoring British motorcycles, cars, Matchless, Austin Healey, Triumph, Jaguar, building an engine, programming a computer. Other stuff: SDS 1968, antiwar,911 truth advocate, anticorporatist, anti-classist, anti-neocon, pissed off. Best thing: Father. Blessed.

we now know

that any electronic machine that either records a vote directly or optically reads a paper vote is subject to fraudulent manipulation. The only hope of avoiding election fraud is to HAND COUNT the votes. Period.

by richard (0 articles, 5 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 861 comments) on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 7:19:25 PM

USAF 1986 - 1991Disabled VetMensa Member 1992
RLAnchorsUSAF 1986 - 1991Disabled VetMensa Member 1992

Hi....

Hi I'm here from LHS to fix the vote...er...uh...machine.

by RLAnchors (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 39 comments) on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 2:02:49 PM

I've never claimed to have all of the answers, but refuse to sacrifice my right to ask all of the questions and expect answers in return. Faith and Confidence are at a low and continue to decline. Thinking ex-pat.
AngeloI've never claimed to have all of the answers, but refuse to sacrifice my right to ask all of the questions and expect answers in return. Faith and Confidence are at a low and continue to decline. Thinking ex-pat.

backup cards?

"LHS provides back-up memory cards. But if a memory card failure were to occur during the election...they bring you another one, you just put it in. There's no problem." - Exeter, NH, Town Clerk Linda Hartson

And exactly what do you do with the “failed” memory card, Ms Hartson? It does, after all, contain all of the votes cast before the failure. Sometimes, data can be retrieved from a card that’s failed. Sometimes, it can’t – oops! Sorry voters.

by Angelo (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 188 comments) on Monday, January 14, 2008 at 7:30:32 AM

Want fair elections?

Next time you go to vote bring a baseball bat with you and start by smashing every e-voting machine in sight.

I'm serious. The time has come for massive civil disobedience. Our government is infested with thugs who look upon our calls for election reform with scorn. Since the 2000 farce of an election things have only gotten worse and anyone that thinks things will change for the better through normal channels is a fool. Time is long over-due that we risk arrest, jail and physical harm.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.

by Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 1682 comments) on Monday, January 14, 2008 at 10:24:22 AM