Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud

Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud
Friday, 24 October 2003, 11:18 am
Article: Alastair Thompson

The Diebold Memos'
Smoking Gun
Volusia County Memos Disclose Election 2000
Vote Fraud

By
Alastair Thompson

http://www.blackboxvoting.com
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"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very
strange
happened on election night to Deborah
Tannenbaum, a
Democratic Party official in Volusia
County. At 10 p.m.,
she called the county elections department
and learned that
Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000
votes to
62,000. But when she checked the county's
Web site for an
update half an hour later, she found a
startling
development: Gore's count had dropped by
16,000 votes,
while an obscure Socialist candidate had
picked up
10,000--all because of a single precinct
with only 600
voters."

- Washington Post Sunday , November 12,
2000 ; Page
A22

Yes. Something very strange happened in Volusia
County on election night
November 2000, the night that first Gore won Florida,
then Bush, and then as
everybody can so well remember there was a tie.

Something strange indeed. But what exactly? In the
above report ( click for full
version), written days after the election, hotshot
Washington Post reporter Dana
Milbank goes on to attribute the strange 16,022
negative vote tally from Volusia's
precinct 216 to an apparently innocent cause.

"�. faulty 'memory cards' in the machines caused the
16,000-vote disappearance
on election night. The glitch was soon fixed," he
wrote.

But thanks to recent investigations into Black Box
Voting by Washington State
writer Bev Harris we now know this explanation is not
correct. In fact it is not
even in the ballpark.

According to recently discovered internal Diebold
Election Systems memos,
Global Election Systems' (which was later purchased
by Diebold) own technical
staff were also stumped by the events in Volusia
County/

In Chapter 11 of her new book "Black Box Voting In
the 21st Century" released
early today in .PDF format at Blackboxvoting.com and
here at Scoop Ms Harris
observes.

"If you strip away the partisan rancor over
the 2000 election, you
are left with the undeniable fact that a
presidential candidate
conceded the election to his opponent based
on [results from] a
second card that mysteriously appears,
subtracts 16,022 votes,
then just as mysteriously disappears."

Working in parallel with Ms Harris Scoop has also
been inquiring into the events
on election night in Volusia county. Much of the
material that follows is similar to
that which appears in Chapter 11 of her book.

The starting point in this shocking discovery about
election 2000 came in a series
of internal Diebold ES technical support memos.

The following is an abbreviated version of the
exchange concerning the peculiar
events in Volusia county. For the purposes of
research the exchange is included in
full as an Appendix to this report (APPENDIX TWO).
The discussion took place
in early 2001 as an audit was underway in Volusia
county into the events.

**********

(NOTE: The names below each extract link to the full
text of the emails in the
appendices below.)

I need some answers! Our department is
being audited by
the County. I have been waiting for someone
to give me an
explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al
Gore a minus
16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone
please explain
this so that I have the information to give
the auditor
instead of standing here "looking dumb".

Lana Hires ? Volusia County Florida -
January 17, 2001 8:07
AM

My understanding is that the card was not
corrupt after (or
before) upload. They fixed the problem by
clearing the
precinct and re-uploading the same card. So
neither of
these explainations washes. That's not to
say I have any
idea what actually happened, its just not
either of those�

The problem is its going to be very hard to
collect enough
data to really know what happened. The card
isn't corrupt
so we can't post-mortem it (its not mort).

Ken Clark ? Diebold ES R&D Manager ?
January 18, 2001
1:41 PM

- the negative numbers on media display
occurred when
Lana attempted to reupload a card or
duplicate card.
Sophia and Tab may be able to shed some
light here,
keeping in mind that the boogie man may me
reading our
mail. Do we know how this could occur?

John McLaurin - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001
15:44:50

The problem precinct had two memcory cards
uploaded.
The second one is the one I believe caused
the problem.
They were uploaded on the same port approx.
1 hour apart.
As far as I know there should only have
been one memory
card uploaded. I asked you to check this
out when the
problem first occured but have not heard
back as to
whether this is true.

When the precinct was cleared and
re-uploaded (only one
memory card as far as I know) everything
was fine.
�
Given that we transfer data in ascii form
not binary and
given the way the data was 'invalid' the
error could not
have occured during transmission. Therefore
the error
could only occur in one of four ways:
�
[4.] There is always the possiblity that
the 'second memory
card' or 'second upload' came from an
un-authorised
source.

Tab Iredale - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001
13:31

If this problem is to be properly answered
we need to
determine where the 'second' memory card is
or whether it
even exists. Heh. Second shooter theory.
All we need now is
a grassy knoll.

Ken Clark ? Diebold ES R&D Manager ? 18 Jan
2001
16:42:50

I will be visiting with Lana on Monday and
will ascertain
the particulars related to the second
memory card. One
concern I�ve had all along is �if� we are
getting the full
story from Lana.

I�ll be back in touch and thanks for all of
y�alls (that�s
southern for all of you) help.

John McLaurin ? Diebold ES - Thu, 18 Jan
2001 16:56:06

**********

Unfortunately whether or not John McLaurin got to the
bottom of the mystery of
Volusia County is something the memos cannot tell us.

Searches of the Diebold memos database find a single
followup memo from
McLaurin about the Checksum Errors experienced in
Volusia, but nothing on the
mysterious 16,022 negative vote count.

Which leaves us where exactly?

What we know from the memos can be summarised as
follows:

- Two memory cards were uploaded from Volusia Couny's
precinct 216, the
second one was loaded sometime close to 2am in the
morning. It automatically
replaced the first card's results and reduced Gore's
total by 16,022 votes and added
several thousand votes to Bush plus a variety of
minor candidates;
- Both memory cards loaded into the system clean and
without errors, indicating
(contrary to the official line) that they were not
faulty;
- After the error was noticed the original card was
reloaded and the mistake was
rectified;
- The error was introduced in such a way that the
total number of votes remained
unchanged (again something that could not happen by
chance.);
- According to the technical boffins, the chance of
the memory card being
corrupted and still passing the checksum error test
are less than 60,000 to 1;
- The technical managers at Diebold Election Systems
considered it a reasonable
possibility that the second card was part of
deliberate conspiracy to rig the election
results.

In her book Bev Harris explains the issue of whether
the card was a chance fault or
a deliberate example of tampering"

"A memory card is like floppy disk. If you
have worked with
computers for any length of time you will
know that a disk can go
bad. When it does, which of the following
is most likely? In an
Excel spreadsheet that you saved on a "bad
disk," might it read a
column of numbers correct the first time:
"1005, 2109, 3000,
450�" but the second time, replace the
numbers like this: "1005,
2109, -16022, 450�" Or is it more likely
that the "bad disk"
will�fail to read the file at all, crash
your computer, give you an
error message, or make weird humming and
whirring noises."

source: page 239, Chapter 11, "Black Box
Voting in the 21st
Century"

However officially, as we learned earlier, the
explanation given publicly - and
accepted without demur by the media - for the strange
events in Volusia county is
that there was simply a "faulty memory card".

The "faulty memory card" explanation is also included
in a CBS News Network
investigation into the Election 2000 debacle.

And it is here that we find a considerable amount of
information about just how
significant the Volusia County events were on
election night.

The first thing we learn from CBS's investigation
into the events of election night
is that according to the Voter News Service (VNS)
exit polls for Florida Al Gore
should have won comfortably.

7:00 PM: The vast majority of Florida polls
close. CBS News
decides not to project a winner in the
Florida Presidential race at
poll closing, even though the best
estimate, based upon exit-poll
interviews from the 45 survey precincts,
shows Gore leading
Bush by 6.6 points. The Decision Desk
decides to wait for some
actual votes from sample precincts to
confirm the exit-poll
results.

7:40 PM: The VNS computation shows a "call"
status in the
Florida Presidential race. This status
means that statistically Gore
is leading, but the Decision Team needs to
check more data.

Source

VNS eventually officially called the Florida race to
Gore at 7.52pm,
notwithstanding comments early in the vote count from
George Bush that he was
confident he would win both Florida and Pennsylvannia
(comments which were
never fully explained).

With the benefit of hindsight we think we now know
that the VNS data was
wrong. That is certainly what the CBS inquiry found.

In the report attached below there are a range of
explanations for this given [click
here to view], none of them adequately explain the
magnitude of the error
however.

Most of the news networks followed the VNS call
giving Florida to Gore. And by
8.02pm all networks had announced Gore as the winner
in Florida. And it wasn't
till 9pm that some doubts about this call started to
emerge.

First up a significant error - attributed to a typing
mistake - was found in the VNS
data at 9.07pm. This led to closer examination of the
rest of the data and the
incoming returns. By around 10pm the Florida calls to
Gore were all officially
withdrawn. This is recorded in the CBS report as
follows:

9:54 PM: The CBS News Decision Desk
recommends that the
call in Florida for Gore be withdrawn. CBS
is in a local cutaway
at 9:54 PM (the seven minutes at the end of
the hour when local
stations broadcast their own election
results), and so CBS does
not withdraw the call until 10:00 PM.

10:16 PM: VNS retracts its Florida call for
Gore.

- Source

The CBS timeline then jumps forward four hours to 2am
EST.

By now an apparently substantial lead of 29,000 votes
has opened up in favour of
George Bush.

2:09 AM: VNS adds Volusia County's
erroneous numbers to its
tabulated vote. With 171 out of 172
precincts in the county
reporting, Gore's vote drops by more than
10,000 while Bush's
rises by almost the same amount. This
20,000-vote change in
one county increases Bush's VNS statewide
lead to more than
51,000 votes.

- Source

What the news networks, and the Al Gore, camp do not
realise at this point in the
evening is that over 24,000 of votes that make up
this significant lead are
attributable to two Diebold Election Systems computer
errors.

First there are the 16,022 votes stolen from Gore in
Volusia county by the "faulty
memory card". Meanwhile over in Brevard County
another error - also involving
Global Elections System (the predecessor of Diebold)
equipment is responsible for
a further 4000 votes being lopped off the Gore total.

And it is also worth noting that nobody knows whether
the Brevard and Volusia
county errors were the only ones in play at this
time. These errors were both big
ones. They were noticed and corrected on the night.
How many smaller vote
subtractions could have taken place on the night?
Theoretically hundreds. As Dana
Milbank's Washington Post report shows it was only
because someone noticed the
error in Volusia that it was corrected and remarkably
the software itself contains
no automatic system for rejecting negative vote
totals being reported by precincts,
events which by definition can only be nefarious and
wrong.

At 2am another VNS error came into play. VNS's
estimates of the outstanding
votes underestimated those that remained to be
counted by half, around 180,000.
The two errors combined led news executives at CBS to
conclude that Bush's final
winning margin in Florida would be around 30,000
votes. At this stage Bush had a
lead of around 50,000 votes and late reporting
precincts were expected to pare this
back as many of them were in Democrat leaning
counties.

At 2.16am Fox and NBC called the race to Bush,
unaware that the Volusia error
had now been discovered. Over at Associated Press ?
the news service that
Network News controllers do not read - the margin to
Bush had by now fallen to
30,000 after correcting the Volusia error.

At 2.17am and 2.20am the remaining two major networks
CBS and ABC called
the race to Bush. Their decision continued to be
bolstered by the VNS data stream
- which even at 2.47am - was still recording a margin
to Bush of close to 50,000
votes.

Remarkably it was not till 2.51am that VNS fixed the
Volusia error in its data.

Meanwhile with all the networks showing the race for
the White House won by
Bush, the pressure is mounting on Gore to concede.

In the book, �Too Close to Call� by journalist
Jeffrey Toobin, the author gives a
behind-the-scenes account of how Gore reacted when
the television networks
concluded that Bush had taken Florida.

�Al Gore happened to be in the staff room on the
seventh floor when the votes
spiked up in Bush�s favor. Dressed casually, the vice
president was watching
television while lying on the floor, with his chin
propped up in his hands. As a
result of the Volusia votes, Fox News called
Florida�and the presidency�for
Bush at 2:16 a.m. CBS and NBC followed suit a minute
later and ABC came in at
2:20 a.m.,� Toobin wrote in his book.

"Following the news reports, Gore was
silent and absorbed the
news. A moment later he told members of his
campaign that he
was ready to concede the election to Bush,
which he did several
minutes later over the telephone.

"Unwilling to take the television networks
reports at face value,
one of Gore�s campaign staffers did a
little investigating and
discovered that the networks erred in
stating that 50,000 votes
from Volusia county were cast for Bush.
Turns out that Gore was
ahead by 13,000 votes in Volusia and
trailing Bush by 6,000
votes overall. Something was wrong in
Volusia it would be
revealed later.

One of Gore�s campaign advisers then
checked Florida�s law on
recounts. The nearly dead heat between Bush
and Gore in
Florida and the fact that Gore was ahead in
Volusia County
meant a mandatory recount. It was time to
rescind Gore�s
concession to Bush and scrutinize the
ballots. Gore was traveling
in a motorcade en route to deliver a
concession speech to his
supporters. His staff stopped him. At this
point, the margin
between Bush and Gore was down to 2,000
votes. A recount
was all but certain."

Gore called Bush and Gore�s staff surrounded the vice
president to listen in on
what would become a historic conversation at 2:30
a.m.

�Circumstances have changed dramatically since I
first called you,� Gore said to
Bush, Toobin wrote. �The state of Florida is too
close to call.�

�Are you saying what I think you�re saying?� Bush
asked according to Toobin.
�Let me make sure that I understand. You�re calling
back to retract that
concession?� Gore sensed an annoyance in Bush�s tone
and shot back �you don�t
have to be snippy about it."

Toobin says Bush then told Gore that his �little
brother�, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush,
had assured him that he won the state of Florida and
for that matter the presidency
of the United States.

�Let me explain something,� Toobin quoted Gore as
saying in his response to
Bush. �Your little brother is not the ultimate
authority on this.�

�You do what you have to do,� Bush said and hung up
the phone on Gore. When
Gore turned around to face his staff they exploded in
cheers.

It is not till 3.10am that the CBS news controllers
notice the huge difference
between their numbers and those of AP which by now
show the margin to Bush at
under 10,000.

We also know, thanks to the CBS inquiry report, that
by around 3.40am the Gore
camp had decided not to concede. Gore Campaign
Chairman William Daley rang
CBS News President Andrew Heyward in the control room
and asked him whether
CBS would be reversing its call soon.

CBS's Andrew Heyward waited another 15-20 minutes
after the phone call before
ordering CBS to officially withdraw the call to Bush.
And by 4.05am all the other
networks had also withdrawn the call.

By 4.10am the reported Bush lead in the race had
dropped to 1800 votes, and
thereabouts it remained until the first recount -
albeit the Florida Secretary of
State's office website reported the race to Gore on
the day after the vote.

And it is there that the narrative in this tale ends
and the analysis starts.

In its internal conclusions about these events the
CBS inquiry team found the two
Diebold County level errors, Volusia and Brevard,
were conclusive in their
networks decision to call the race to Bush.

" The mistakes, both of which originated
with the counties, were
critical, since there were only about 3
percent of the state's
precincts outstanding at this time. They
incorrectly increased
Bush's lead in the tabulated vote from
about 27,000 to more than
51,000. Had it not been for these errors,
the CBS News
call for Bush at 2:17:52 AM would not have
been made."

- source

You do not get much clearer than that.

The record already shows that events of election
night 2000 turned on the errors in
the Volusia and Brevard vote counts. Both of which
occurred on Global Election
Systems (now Diebold) equipment.

Of course we now know Al Gore did not concede.

But had he done so would that have altered what
followed? Would there have been
the hanging-chad phenomena, the lawsuits over
recounts and the recriminations?

Most of what is contained in the preceding analysis
is well trodden territory.
Everybody knows that the TV networks screwed up big
time on election night, and
the issue of bias at those networks has also been
well traversed.

What has not been discussed, or even conceived of
till now, is that the events that
occurred between around midnight and 4am might have
been the result not of
mistakes but of organised voting fraud.

Yet that is precisely what Talbot Iredale and Ken
Clark's memos confirm is a
distinct possibility, in fact, reading between the
lines they suggest it is the most
likely possibility.

Consider this:

How plausible is it that an error such as this - of
such magnitude, with no apparent
physical explanation, and in one of the few counties
still receiving incoming results
that late in the night ? was really the simple result
of a "faulty memory card"?

We also now know, again thanks to the work of Black
Box Voting investigators
like Washington State's Bev Harris and California's
Jim March, that the Diebold
vote tallying programme used in several Florida
counties, GEMS, is easily
hackable, both by outsiders and by insiders.

[See� Bev Harris's " Inside A U.S. Election
Vote Counting
Program " for details and Jim March's
"DIEBOLD'S
VOTE-TALLY SOFTWARE- Security Review
Instructions"for a kit
to demonstrate the hack on your own
computer.]

We do not know what would have happened had a full
state-wide recount been
undertaken as the efforts to have one were blocked in
the courts.

Would they have discovered other counties where
unusual events like those
discovered in Brevard and Volusia counties?

Is it possible that the original VNS exit polling
data was closer to correct than
conventional wisdom suggests?

Is it possible that less egregious vote stealing took
place in counties all over
Florida?

Add into the mix the blatant roll scrubbing in
Florida discovered by Greg Palast
and exposed in his best-selling book "The Best
Democracy Money can buy" and
you have a recipe of reasons to reopen a full scale
inquiry into the Florida debacle.

Perhaps more importantly. With paper-less touchscreen
voting systems in place in
many Florida counties come November 2004, should such
events occur again,
there will be no record with which to conduct a
recount.

And the other big mystery of course is this: if
someone did try to rig the election
returns in Florida in 2000, who was it?

******* STORY ENDS
*******

Alastair Thompson is an award winning New Zealand
investigative journalist and
the Co-Editor of Scoop.co.nz.
-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
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