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Here's the press release I'm going to send out
Annapolis, Maryland. A successful mock election hack in Leon
County, Florida in December 2005 caused election officials across the nation to
suspend, review or withhold certification of Diebold Elections Systems voting
equipment, designating Diebold as unacceptable for use.
Maryland Elections Administrator Linda Lamone also responded with a strongly
worded letter to Diebold demanding immediate and daily briefings.
This letter recently came into the hands of TrueVoteMD and is attached.
In a letter (below) to Linda Lamone, TrueVoteMD.org urged de-certification of
the Diebold system as required by law and that all information be made public.
“Since December 23, 2005 Ms. Lamone has known that the legality and
certifiability of our state’s entire voting system is in question.
Policymakers and the public must be immediately informed on whether we are
prepared for the September, 2006 primary election or must we go into over-drive
to procure a new system,” said Linda Schade, Executive Director of TrueVoteMD.
“Election officials in other states such as California regularly post press
releases and all technical reports on their public websites. The Maryland
State Administrator’s policy of secretive, back-room administration of our
state’s elections must come to an end NOW no matter how embarrassing recent
events have become. Openness is not negotiable in a democratic society,”
Linda Schade, Executive Director of TrueVoteMD.org.
Elections Administrator Linda Lamone
State Board of Elections
P.O. Box 6486
Annapolis, MD 21401-0486
Ms. Lamone,
Given the crisis implied by the proven security breaches of Diebold Election
System memory cards, and your acknowledgment of this situation in your letter
to Diebold dated December 23, 2005, TrueVoteMD, a public interest project
working for election integrity in Maryland, respectfully requests that you:
1) immediately make public all your correspondence to Diebold and their
responses available on the SBE’s website – as other state election
officials consistently do – to inform Maryland voters, public officials and the
press about this critical and quickly evolving situation.
2) that you de-certify the Diebold System as required by
Maryland law under COMAR.
In your December 23, 2005 letter to Diebold Elections Systems, you correctly
express ‘great concern’ regarding the breached security of the memory cards
used for Diebold’s touchscreen and optical scan voting systems, since these are
used across the State of Maryland.
You correctly demanded a full briefing on December 27, 2005 and ‘daily telephone
briefings’ from Diebold as well as detailed information about the status of
independent reviews, Diebold’s response, as well as its contractual obligations
to the state.
De-certification is required by Maryland law because:
Maryland COMAR requires compliance with federal standards. You are likely
aware that the 1990 and 2002 FEC technical standards ban the use of interpreted
code on memory cards as it creates a serious security vulnerability. (See
Section 4.2.2 http://www.eac.gov/election_resources/vss.html) The
recent mock election/hack in Leon County, Florida demonstrated that Diebold
optical scanners can be hacked in this manner, causing California to stop
Diebold certification and call for special re-testing of the memory cards
on December 20, 2005. Maryland uses these Diebold optical scanners to
count absentee ballots.
As you know, Maryland uses the TS machines across our state except Baltimore
where the TSX machines were recently deployed against the wishes of the
City. On January 5, 2006, Diebold Elections Systems admitted in their
“Response to Pennsylvania Request for Clarification on ABasic Issues (memory
card interpreter software) that their OS, TS and TSX voting equipment uses the
interpreted code.
Thus it appears that the legality of all Diebold election equipment nationally
and in Maryland is in question. As you know Maryland law (COMAR) requires
compliance with federal standards which we now know Diebold does not
meet. It seems appropriate then to urge you to immediately de-certify the
OS, TS and TSX Diebold voting systems Maryland intended to use in the upcoming
2006 elections - or to provide extensive documentation showing why this should
not occur.
Maryland voters and public officials urgently need to know if a new voting
system must be procured by the State of Maryland in time for the 2006
elections.
Please respond to TrueVoteMD and or issue a press release as soon as possible
on these matters.
Sincerely,
Linda Schade
Robert Ferraro
Shelley Fudge
Kevin Zeese
Nancy Wallace
Co-Founders
TrueVoteMD.org
301-270-6150 |
