Utah paid Diebold for new voting machines but the evidence clearly shows that Diebold delivered a combination of new and used voting machines, some of which had been rejected after use in other states; and others which were rejected in other states' acceptance testing.

::::::::

Press Release: Letter to Utah Governor Huntsman Re. Collusion to Commit Fraud in the Lt. Governor's Office

Date: Wed Mar 29 01:21:38 2006

Public Release: This is a copy of a letter to Utah Governor Jon Huntsman regarding the fraud committed against Utah by Diebold in collusion with the Utah Lt. Governor's Office. This letter has been faxed and emailed, and will be mailed, and publicly posted at http://utahcountvotes.org/ltr2governorhuntsman.html.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Utah State Capitol Complex
East Office Building, Suite E220
PO Box 142220
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-2220

03/28/06

Dear Governor Jon Huntsman:

I am writing to apprise your office of a breech of the public trust within the Utah Lt. Governor's Office. Election Director Michael Cragun and the Lt. Governor have been colluding with Diebold to commit fraud and to cover up fraud committed against the state of Utah.

Utah paid Diebold for new voting machines but the evidence clearly shows that Diebold delivered a combination of new and used voting machines, some of which had been rejected after use in other states; and others which were rejected in other states' acceptance testing.

Utah Election Director Michael Cragun appears to be colluding with Diebold against Utah's interests in several ways:

1.

Diebold has been given access to Utah's voting machines in several counties and other locations where the voting machines are stored to possibly cover up the evidence of the fraud that Diebold has committed against the state of Utah and its citizens.
2.

It appears that Michael Cragun approves of the fraudulent charge to Emery County of $40,000 by Diebold to “repair” the voting machines after a world prominent computer security firm, whose clients include Microsoft and the National Security Administration (NSA), examined two of Emery County's voting machines upon the diligent request of Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk. We think that this punitive charge is possibly meant to discourage expert examination of any voting machines in the future.
3.

Michael Cragun arranged a special commission meeting with an executive session, barring the public, on March 27, 2006. Present at that meeting were Emery County Commissioners, Emery County Attorney, Emery County Sheriff, Lt. Governor Chief of Staff Joe Demma, legal counsel from the Utah State Attorney General's Office, Diebold representative Dana LaTour, Diebold technician, Andrew Kahl, Emery County Commissioners, Utah Chief Election Official Michael Cragun. Arriving at the Huntington airport at the same time were Cragun, Demma, the two Diebold representatives, and the AG counsel. Did they use your private jet? Barred from the meeting, unbelievably, was Emery County's Elected Election Official, Bruce Funk!
4.

It appears that Michael Cragun had no problem with the changing of the locks on the Emery County storage room for its voting machines and the refusal to give a key to Emery County's Elected Election Official Bruce Funk.

The preliminary findings by Security Innovation, the world-renowned security firm that examined Utah's “new” Diebold voting machines included:

*

Printer jams –The paper audit roll printers have nonstandard design that lack any paper guides! It is no wonder that these printers have a 30% failure rate in prior tests in other states.
*

Differing memory amounts which could be caused by:
o

flash memory chips are fading – meaning we got used machines
o

old election data in there – requires codes from other states to get out – meaning we got used machines
o

different amounts of program code – a violation of certification rules
o

different fonts, but the memory differences range from 4 to 26 Mbs, a 22 MB difference – normal fonts aren't even 1 MB. A 22 MB font would mean Asian or Chinese fonts installed on these machines – meaning we got used machines. Solano County, CA dumped 600 to 700 machines two years ago and some of the voting machines may have come from there.
*

Loose power plugs – all power sockets pop loose with a simple jerk of the cord. Thus, the voting machines pose an electrocution hazard of exposed bare 110 volt wires that could possibly cause injury or death to voters and poll workers.
*

The full security report from Security Innovation and Hari Hursti is in progress. We expect significant new security vulnerabilities. It will be the third major security vulnerability uncovered in the Diebold voting machines since early 2003. This news follows reports of major security vulnerabilities which allow all Diebolds memory cards to be used to tamper undetectably with elections and the major security vulnerability on the Diebold central tabulator which any 12 year old could use to undetectably manipulate vote counts.

As the elected official responsible for the proper conduct of the election, having seen these issues with his own eyes before calling in experts, it would have been irresponsible for Bruce Funk not to check into those problems.

Utah's Lt. Governor's office seem uninterested in waiting until the nationally renowned security firm releases its full report before:

*

bringing reprisals on Bruce Funk,
*

helping Diebold to bring fraudulent punitive damages on Emery County to deter any future independent examination of its voting system,
*

helping Diebold to cover up the evidence of its fraud against the state of Utah and the flaws of its voting machines by giving Diebold access to the warehouses where all the Diebolds are housed before investigating and documenting the fraud first, and
*

propagating Diebold's lies to Utah's press to cover the fraud that Diebold has committed and is now committing.

Republican Governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich, with the unanimous vote of the Maryland State Legislature, has banned the use of Diebold DRE voting machines state-wide. Although Maryland's Diebolds have no paper rolls, the paper rolls of Utah's Diebolds are designed to jam during elections and, even if they did work, are virtually useless for independent audits or checks of accuracy, giving insiders complete freedom to tamper or make undetected innocent errors.

My communications with the Utah Election Office have not been answered, despite my being a dedicated expert on this issue. Thus, I have been forced by my conscience to devote myself as a full-time activist for almost two years. The irresponsibility of the Lt. Governor's Election Office, which rejected the written advice which Utah's PhD computer scientists from both Brigham Young University and University of Utah, has been outlandish.

Irrefutable photographic evidence of the flaws of Diebold voting machines are available on http://utahcountvotes.org I urge you to contact the professionals at Security Innovation through Black Box Voting at 425-793-1030. I am posting this letter publicly on the UtahCountVotes web site and releasing it to the press because we are a public interest group. I would be happy to publicly post your response to me as well.

Best Regards,

Kathy Dopp,

Founder of Utah Count Votes & President of the National Election Data Archive

P.O.Box 680192, Park City, UT 84068 435-658-4657

200.

cc: Utah State Attorney General's Office, Utah State Purchasing Office

Submitter: Joan Brunwasser

Submitters Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Submitters Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.