Election Watcher Files Affidavit Saying He Saw Sequoia Employee Illegally Connect To E-Voting Tabulator

from the that-can't-be-good dept

lavi d points us to a report from Jim March, on the Tucson Free Unix Group email list, claiming that he witnessed potentially illegal activity in observing part of the Arizona mail-in vote scanning operation in Maricopa County. He summarizes the issue thusly:

Basically, we caught Maricopa County elections in a felony today – cross-wiring the central tabulator to a non-secure laptop owned by Sequoia Voting Systems, complete with cellular modem card in there and live. And I couldn’t get a picture. Need a micro-cam of some sort to get the proof. See also my affidavit filed with our attorney today.

Remember: by law, the central tabulator system on what’s supposed to be an isolated local network is completely unpatched – it’s not allowed to be modified in any way since the day it shipped in 2006 or 2007. Even if the Sequoia tech didn’t cross-connect the cellmodem to the Ethernet (and both appeared to be live), he could have easily “pwned” the “secure” systems with any number of ancient script-kiddy exploits.

He then includes the affidavit he filed. Basically, he spotted a Sequoia employee hooked into the central tabulator, via an ethernet cable from his own laptop, and he saw that the laptop had an EVDO card from Sprint — and that, apparently, is a big no-no, as explained. When he asked to take a photograph of this, he was denied and was told that he was being disruptive. Now, there’s no suggestion here that anything nefarious was going on, but that this central machine, which is supposed to be kept away from the internet, was exposed in a way that it should not have been. At the very least, this raises serious questions about the security of those machines.

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Companies: sequoia

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Comments on “Election Watcher Files Affidavit Saying He Saw Sequoia Employee Illegally Connect To E-Voting Tabulator”

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31 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

Funny, funny. I lived for 10 years in the 1990’s in Broward County Fl. You know the county that caused all the election issues with Bush’s election.

The one thing I know is that county consistently votes 90% Democrate and that the county election board was when I was there 100% Democrat.

And I am suppose to believe that a county that you could not elect a Republican to be dog catcher in stuffed baloit boxes to elect a Republican. BULL!

OMFG you Turd says:

Re: Re:

So already, knowing that you are going to lose the elections in November, you are starting with the lies. Is that the only way you can sleep at night is being telling yourself that the majority of people think like you and the only reason the vote doesn’t go your way is because the other guys cheated? Grow up. You and the left, with your hate, is what is really wrong with America.

Ron Rezendes (profile) says:

Re: Re: I smell a Faux News fanboi!

“You and the left, with your hate, is what is really wrong with America.”

“Hello kettle? This is the pot, you’re black!”

I’m still not sure when being “left” or “right” meant you were the cause of the problems in this country that has consistently been screwed by both sides of the aisles in Congress, but I can tell you you’d be wrong if you’re on either side pointing at the other. YOU are indeed what is really wrong with America because all you’re after is winning the “Blame game” and neither “side” has really offered any significant long term solutions.

Follow your own advice and grow up you sniveling right-wing nut bag!!

This message brought to you by an Independent voter that is an equal opportunity hater of both Dem and Reps who think the other side is the problem, rather than really addressing the issues.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

I am sad to say that I disagree. There are three groups: Those who know but don’t care, those who know and agree with you (you and I fall into this category), and the largest group are those that have no idea what an electoral college is (or if they do, they believe the popular vote gets electoral votes in 100% of cases).

Pure democracy will not work in many cases because the minority voice will be snuffed entirely, even if they’re right. Electoral college has been shown to be a failure because it can be a very corrupt system where few people wield the power to completely go against the will of the people. We need to go back to Divine Mandate. The Invisible Pink Unicorn endorses DH to be the leader of the US.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Except for the part about how those few people have never changed the outcome of any presidential election to date, by voting “faithlessly”. If you mean you believe that the electoral college is a failure that’s fine, but it has not been *shown* to be a failure for the reason you indicate. The only way that it could have is if an elector voted against the will of the people (google “faithless elector”) and impacted the outcome of the election.

Stuart says:

Re: Elections no longer in the hands of citizenry

What planet are you on? Oh the everything is Bushes fault planet.
Wake up. US elections have never been in our hands.
First there is the electoral college which almost always votes how we want them to but are under no obligation to do so.
Then we have election apathy, buses bring in union employees to vote, TV commercials that pander to the stupid paid for by big corporations and big unions.
Go ahead and pick a side. You are just to fucking dumb to realize that both sides are full of shit and you are just eating your shit sandwich while grinning from ear to ear telling everyone what kind of shit is in their sandwich.

Dark Helmet (profile) says:

Going easy on them Mike?

“Basically, we caught Maricopa County elections in a felony today”

“Now, there’s no suggestion here that anything nefarious was going on….”

Er, you mean BESIDES the committing of a felony involved in our most sacred of democratic principles taking place in one of the most volatile areas of our country right now? Come on, let’s not make the mistake of complacency here. We’re talking about a very important part of the country at the moment. Nation’s futures have been steered by debates of far less import than what’s going on in Arizona at the moment.

When it comes to elections, PARTICULARLY those that utilize relatively new technology, there is absolutely no room for, “whoops, sorry, I didn’t know we couldn’t do that. Innocent mistake, we promise”.

I mean, is there really one REASONABLE reason for this action to have taken place? What innocent justification could there possibly be for this?

Anonymous Coward says:

There has never been any question about the security of the voting machines. They are NOT SECURE. PERIOD. They have no paper trail, so no proof, so no security. It the biggest scam we have ever been asked to digest. Oh November is coming and incumbents can kiss ass. Arizona can go ahead and secede from the union and we can really have the great border war.

Anonymous Coward says:

funny its in maricopa county...

I find it strange that of all the counties its Maricopa where gee there sure arent any controversies going on and gee there hasnt been a ton of illegal activity by certain law enforcement personnel including a certain somebody that is also an elected official but I am sure this is all coincidence…

Derek Bredensteiner (profile) says:

Oy

Dude needs to work on his people skills, I can’t help but think a cooler hand here would of resulted a more expedited explanation of what was going on instead of resulting in an affidavit calling election officials “angry” and “sneering”.

What’s most unsettling to me about this is how much authority the Sequoia employee seems to command in that situation. Reading the affidavit, it seems “the lead Maricopa County elections tech (John Stewart)” was unwilling to even even monitor the alleged incident, that he “couldn’t get involved”. Alright, that’s fine, so who can get involved?

Fred Townes says:

voting

OK wake up people you are always going to have some one on both sides trying to rig the votes.
All we can do is hope we have a better system or do you really want to go back to hanging chads you can not be very smart !!!!

We still have the best and fairest elections in the world !!!
We do need to keep a eye on them but it looks like this guy did and noted it so we live with what we have and move on.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: voting

All we can do is hope we have a better system or do you really want to go back to hanging chads you can not be very smart !!!!

As if those were the only two choices.

…we live with what we have and move on.

Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Just shut up and live with it, huh? Sorry, bagger, ain’t gonna happen.

known coward says:

I like the electoral college

I think it works as advertised, and helps keep the presidential elections out of the hands of the big cities and states, and throws a modicum of balance to the smaller localities.

Now back to the article, these machines are open invatations to voter fraud. ANYTHING electronic can be hacked and altered. We need to go back to mechanical and paper systems that can be verified.

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