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Tag(s): 2004 Election; 2006 Election Investigations; California; Cuyahoga; Election Reform HR 550; Electronic Voting; Ohio; San Diego; Voting Integrity; Voting Laws State; (more...) Voting Machines (less...)
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April 13, 2007 at 14:17:18

Boo Who Vu?

by Rady Ananda

www.opednews.com

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San Diego County recently hired Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s 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 Cuyahoga’s 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 won’t read about these matters in corporate-controlled media, here’s more background to the cry against Vu.

Steve Hertzberg of Election Science Institute (ESI) reported serious problems with Cuyahoga’s 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 County’s May 06 primary election reports what went missing (p.110) during Michael Vu’s 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 Cuyahoga’s 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 Cuyahoga’s 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 Vu’s immediate replacement.

While we’re at it, given that Cuyahoga is probably not the exception but rather the rule, let’s reject Holt’s ill-conceived H.R. 811, and run hand-counted paper ballot systems. HCPBs are the easiest to secure and the least expensive. Stop HR 811 here: http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/Halt811

Sources and Further Reading:

Ananda, Rady. “Seizing the Polls,” April 6, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/23bvv6

-- “Electronic Voting & Fair Vote Counts: 15 Expert Reports, Jan 18, 2007, http://tinyurl.com/2gwlve

EMD - Electoral Management Design Handbook, by Alan Wall, et al. Stockholm, Sweden: International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2006. 392 p. (quote from Forward) http://www.idea.int Review of this book is posted at http://tinyurl.com/2cp6sb

ESI - Election Science Institute, “DRE Analysis for May 2006 Primary Cuyahoga County, Ohio,” 2006. See http://www.cuyahogacounty.us/bocc/GSC/pdf/esi_cuyahoga_final.pdf or see http://www.electionscience.org and click on Cuyahoga County Report tab.

Feldman, Ariel J., J.A. Halderman, and E.W. Felten, “Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine,” Center for Information Technology Policy and Dept. of Computer Science, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 2006. http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting

Paul Lehto, “Cuyahoga County Ohio Elections Official Condones Felony Presidential Recount Rigging,” April 13, 2007 at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_paul_leh_070413_cuyahoga_county_ohio.htm

Nancy Tobi, “What's Wrong with the New Holt Bill (HR 811)?” March 4, 2007, at http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/3572

In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Focused mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a legal investigator for private lawyers, and five years as an editor. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews. All material offered here is the property of Rady Ananda, copyright 2006, 2007, 2008. Permission is granted to repost, with proper attribution including the original link. In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Tell the truth anyway. Sign this petition: http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/ny_levers_petition

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In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Focused mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a legal investigator for private lawyers, and five years as an editor. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews.

All material offered here is the property of Rady A...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Rady AnandaIn 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Focused mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a legal investigator for private lawyers, and five years as an editor. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews.

All material offered here is the property of Rady A...

to see more of bio, click on member name

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.

Petition to remove machines from elections: http://tinyurl.com/37j438

San Diego Tribune article quoted above http://tinyurl.com/2h4tpv

by Rady Ananda (109 articles, 257 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 843 comments) on Sunday, April 15, 2007 at 1:49:32 PM