Forum Post: Ohio Voting Machine Software Change Curiousity

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's office has contracted with Election Systems and Solutions (ES&S) workers to install "experimental" software patches on voting machines that will tabulate and report official election results for 4,041,056 registered voters in the crucial state of Ohio

The Background Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's office has contracted with Election Systems and Solutions (ES&S) workers to install "experimental" software patches on voting machines that will tabulate and report official election results for 4,041,056 registered voters in the crucial state of Ohio

The Contradiction There has to be a special contract for those ES&S workers to legally work on the voting machines, and one of the declarations of the contract they are working under states that "this software is fully developed" [referanced as "versions 2.0.7.0 and 3.0.1.0."]

However, Secretary of State Husted himself declared that this software is "experimental". His reasons for doing that are not known, and it doesn't really matter because "experimental" software, by law, is software that "does not require certification and testing".

The conspiracy theory only falls short on that one point - "does not require", but it "might have been" certified and tested.

Lets Review: Despite the fact that the Ohio Election Laws state that "all election systems hardware and software must be tested and certified by the state before being put into use" {see: Ohio Revised Code 3506.05.}

• and that an "experimental" designation does not require certification and testing
• and that Secretary of State Husted has designated this new software "experimental"

So it isn't a slam dunk, but golly it looks bad: These software patches are being installed on voting machines that will tabulate and report official election results. And, according to an article by The Christian Science Monitor, e-voting machines are hackable and can be easily manipulated and could potentially alter the outcome of who takes the White House; Retired NSA analyst Michael Duniho says “It is really easy to cheat using computers to count votes, because you can’t see what is going on in the machine.”

And Besides All That, the OWNER thing: What about the Election Systems and Solutions (ES&S) company? Who owns it? and should it be a secret? "Election Systems & Software (ES&S) does not reveal who its owners are"

Mark Miller, the U of NY professor who wrote the book "Fooled Again" makes a case for a red flag about voting machines: http://markcrispinmiller.com/2012/11/get-ready-for-another-stolen-race-in-colorado/

And, the fact that Mark Todd of MSNBC has bothered to declare that the voting machine software change in the days leading up to the election in the crucial state of Ohio is just "conspiracy garbage". When Mark Todd says it, it raises a red flag for me - a mainstream media minion smells no problem in any of this, hmmm, I am getting sleepy, so sleepy, best to just move on... [or so they hope]

Also, just for sentimental and historical [hysterical?] reasons, remember that the former CEO of Diebold Wally O’Dell, raised money for Bush while his company supplied voting machines and election management software in the 2004 election. Here is that story, in case you missed it in 2005: Monday December 12, 2005 "The chief executive officer of electronic voting company Diebold who once famously declared that he would “deliver” Ohio for President Bush has resigned effective immediately" Raw Story

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_CEO_resigns_after_reports_of_1212.html

----links:

Black Box Voting and Brad Blog [Brad Friedman] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vclCSczJIvY

http://markcrispinmiller.com/

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4766

http://whatreallyhappened.com/category/vote-fraud

Voting machines throughout history: http://myplayfulself.com/wordpress/archives/tag/hart-intercivic-voting-system

”Free press-Vote counting company tied to Romney" http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/

Atlantic Magazine says it is easy to hack voting machines [but not these, specifically] - http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/think-the-florida-recount-was-bad-just-wait-until-november-6/263901/

Vote Trust USA {is this the ES&S corporate webpage?} http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=3&id=77&Itemid=170&limit=25&limitstart=25

It might mean nothing that "A million voters were purged" from voter registration lists this summer.... because they might be dead people.... and dead people smell bad after 12 years http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4618