Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Media Advisory: Humboldt Press Conference Challenging Election Results
June 5, 2006
MEDIA ADVISORY: Press conference
FROM: Voter Confidence Committee
CONTACT: Dave Berman, 707-845-3749, or info@voterconfidencecommittee.org
VOTER CONFIDENCE COMMITTEE TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE ON TUESDAY, JUNE 6, TO CHALLENGE VALIDITY OF ELECTION RESULTS
The Voter Confidence Committee, which has been calling for verifiable election results and objecting to the use of Diebold optical-scanning machines because they are illegal and unreliable, will hold a press conference on the steps of Eureka City Hall at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 6, to announce it will not accept as valid results from the Primary Election in Humboldt County.
Dave Berman, founder of the Committee, whose new book, We Do Not Consent (.pdf), grew out of his group's two-year campaign to ensure verifiable elections, will preside at the press conference and later address the Eureka City Council about the election conditions.
Berman also will announce that the Committee and supporters are planning to march from the City Hall to the county courthouse to protest the use of the secret vote counting machines, which deliver unverifiable results that could be manipulated or contain gross tabulation errors, though the voters would never know.
In addition, Berman will describe plans for further protests on Wednesday, June 7, to demand counting of the ballots by hand to verify the machine totals.
YOUR COVERAGE IS INVITED. Opportunities for interviews with Berman and Committee supporters also will be available after the march at the courthouse.
Background:
--Diebold optical scanners use secret, proprietary programming codes. Unless we hand count the ballots to verify the reported results, we all are accepting the outcome with blind faith that the machine-counted results are true and accurate.
--Diebold optical scanning machines (a) do not meet state and federal security standards and (b) are the subject of lawsuits filed on behalf of voters across the nation. The Diebold corporation itself is facing more than a half dozen class action suits filed by shareholders.
--Memory cards can be manipulated in a variety of ways (as happened in a Leon County, FL, "hacking" incident), both when the cards are separate from the machines and when they are "sealed" in to the machines. A stunning cross-country "train wreck" of state Primary Elections has shown hundreds of machines failing to power up or work continuously throughout the voting day.
--Precinct-based data from the scanners is transmitted via technologically unsecure modems to the "central tabulator," another Diebold program called GEMS. Media and government reports have shown the ease with which GEMS can be manipulated, changing election results without leaving a trace.
--Diebold spokesman David Baer, dismissing the disclosure of yet another newly discovered security flaw, said, "It's only a vulnerability to those who would commit a felony." The VCC agrees that tampering with an election is a felony, and the equipment that would allow it should never be used.
--The Committee's protest action is not based on the results, whatever they may or may not be, but because of the conditions that make it impossible to be certain of the true outcome.
--In order to verify the results reported as true and accurate, the VCC calls on the County to recruit citizen volunteers to conduct a full hand count of the ballots.
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