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April 13, 2007 at 14:17:18
by Rady Ananda Page 1 of 1 page(s) |
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San Diego County recently hired Cuyahoga County, Ohios disgraced elections official, Michael Vu, who resigned under a storm of controversy stemming from the rigged recount in 2004 and a 2006 scientific study condemning Cuyahogas elections. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner recently fired the entire Board of Elections. Every Electoral Management Body should be certain that it can ensure the legitimacy and credibility of the processes for which it is responsible. (Electoral Management Design Handbook, p.22) If integrity is a best management practice, no electoral management body should hire someone whose employees are being imprisoned for rigging the 2004 recount in Ohio in the most populous county in the state. Nor should it hire someone who oversaw an election that lost hundreds of memory cards and voting machines. Since you probably wont read about these matters in corporate-controlled media, heres more background to the cry against Vu. 
Steve Hertzberg of Election Science Institute (ESI) reported serious problems with Cuyahogas May 2006 primary to Cuyahoga County Commissioners:
I believe it is important to say directly to you that the election system, in its entirety, exhibits shortcomings with extremely serious consequences, especially in the event of a close election. These shortcomings merit your urgent attention. (Emphasis in original)
One table in the ESI report on Cuyahoga Countys May 06 primary election reports what went missing (p.110) during Michael Vus watch:
- 13 VVPAT Summaries (voter verifiable paper audit trails)
- 86 VVPAT Cartridges
- 29 DREs (touch screen voting machines; one was later found)
- 24 DRE Election Archives (the archives displayed no data)
- 3 DRE memory cards.
The scary part of this investigation is that ESI only studied 10% of Cuyahogas 1434 precincts. Since these precincts were randomly selected, statisticians advise we can extrapolate for the entire county. When multiplying these losses by 10, then Cuyahoga most likely lost 280 voting machines and 890 memory cards and cartridges.
This puts any Diebold AccuVote TSx machine at risk, since less than a minute is needed to switch out memory cards. (Feldman, et al. 2006) When studying security issues with electronic voting systems, few experts considered the vulnerabilities exposed should any voting machines go missing, but they are not hard for anyone to imagine.
Election law specialist, Paul Lehto, writes, Given that presidential elections involve the question of control of trillions of federal dollars, the world's sole military superpower, and the world's richest country I am unable to blind myself to the fact that there could hardly be any higher material incentive to cheat in elections than this.
In the Electoral Management Design Handbook, Brigalia Bam (Chairperson, Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa and Member of the Board of Directors of IDEA) asserts that: Election managers currently face the formidable challenge of ensuring that stakeholders have trust in the electoral process and perceive electoral administrations as credible institutions.
Given Cuyahogas rigged Recount in 2004 in the swing state that awarded previously unelected Bush with another stolen election, and the 2006 ESI study of Cuyahoga, voters continue to have no basis for confidence in reported election results.
Election integrity demands Vus immediate replacement.
While were at it, given that Cuyahoga is probably not the exception but rather the rule, lets reject Holts ill-conceived H.R. 811, and run hand-counted paper ballot systems
In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of (more...)
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UPDATE: SD Tribune Responds
The San Diego Tribune reported that “(Mikel) Haas, the county's former registrar of voters, said he's not worried about the voting-machine problems in Vu's past. “‘The story is always the same. When you're installing a new system . . . and replacing something you've used for three decades, you're going to have those things happen. We saw it here in San Diego,’ he said.” What? San Diego lost voting machines? How do you lose a $3,000 piece of equipment? How do you lose 28 of them from just 145 precincts? How do you lose hundreds of voting machines in a countywide election? Technocrats keep trying to assure election integrity activists that a random audit can give us an accurate vote count. (See the ill-conceived Holt bill, HR 811.) But a ten percent audit in Cuyahoga’s “disastrous 2006” primary revealed it potentially lost 280 voting machines and 890 memory cards and cartridges. Is that what Haas is admitting happened in San Diego County, also? Does that mean most counties that implemented new voting systems under HAVA lost voting machines and hundreds of memory cards? The Trib reported, “Vu will be paid $130,000 annually in his new job – a $10,000 increase from his salary in Ohio.” Maybe Vu got a huge raise after December 31, 2006 for his “flawless” execution of the November 2006 election. The Ohio Secretary of State provided an expense report that indicates Vu earned $107,056. So, for the year that he loses at least $84,000 in mission critical assets, the county commissioners gave Vu a $13,000 raise? How much of a raise did other county Deputy Drectors get for NOT LOSING voting machines and memory cards? It’s possible the Trib got the $120,000 figure wrong, or Secretary of State sent a flawed spreadsheet in response to my request for the 2006 expense report for all counties. It’s possible Vu didn’t get a raise after 06, but is hiring on for $23,000 increase in pay elsewhere. Still, it shocks the conscience that any electoral management body would hire him. San Diego Tribune article quoted above http://tinyurl.com/2h4tpv by Rady Ananda (182 articles, 374 quicklinks, 49 diaries, 1718 comments [201 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 15, 2007 at 1:49:32 PM  (0+)
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