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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Lobbyists Hack Your Elections: The OEJC Calls for Voting Systems Recall, Return, and Refund, Part I
Posted by Media Release
Photo courtesy of here.
In a press conference today, The Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) is calling for the recall, return, and refund of voting systems used in Ohio, the state that clinches presidential elections. Representatives from Boards of Elections (BOE) plagued by election irregularities, such as failing to preserve their 2004 ballots in violation of federal court order, are now sitting in review of the state’s electronic elections systems, courtesy of a lobbyist.
According to the Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s answers to the State Controlling Board, which approved $1.8 million in Help America Vote (HAVA) funds to review Ohio’s elections systems, the final recommendations will be the “responsibility of the Secretary of State’s Office working with a representative group of the state’s election officials.”
Brunner’s letter to this same board, dated Sept. 20, 2007, states, “The list (of election officials) was compiled with Aaron Ockerman who met with me this morning and suggested the names of those to be involved.”
Aaron Ockerman, of State Street Consultants, is a registered lobbyist for the Ohio Association of Election Officials (OAEO), a corporation that promotes the business interests of Ohio election officials. He was a registered lobbyist for Election Systems & Software, ES&S, (ESS) in 2003.
Neil S. Clark and Paul Tipps, founders of State Street Consultants, were registered lobbyists for ES&S, 2002-04, and for Diebold (DB), 2004 and 2005. Clark is currently a registered OAEO lobbyist.
Ockerman, also a registered lobbyist for ACS (ACS) State and Local Solutions, Inc., formerly Lockheed (LMT) Martin IMS, co-hosted a reception for the Ohio SOS and others during the winter 2007 OAEO conference.
Of the twelve election officials, nine come from BOEs that disposed of 2004 election records protected by court order in King Lincoln v. Blackwell (S.D. Ohio), http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/klbna.php, four of the nine serving as BOE Director in 2004. Two of the nine disposed of their records before certification of the 2004 election; and another three have not submitted the requested explanation to the SOS for their missing records.
As of this date, almost half come from counties with various alleged recount irregularities, and one from a county with alleged voter suppression, King Lincoln v. Blackwell (S.D.Ohio). Although Ohio does have many BOEs secure from these problems, only two are represented on the list.
HAVA earmarked $3.9 billion in tax payer money to implement electronic voting systems. Former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) co-authored HAVA, meeting with lobbyist Jack Abramoff during its drafting. Ney and Abramoff are now serving prison terms for convictions related to bribery and corruption of public officials, respectively.
The electronic elections systems have been widely documented as unreliable, inaccurate, and subject to manipulation. California decertified its electronic voting machines, Florida tossed them out, and New York has not even introduced them.
Lawsuits alleging breach of warranty, Lehto v. Sequoia (King County, Washington) and Axelrod v. Sequoia (Washoe County, Nevada), have been filed in state court. A complaint naming the Ohio SOS was filed in U.S. District Court, Schulz v. State of New York (N.D.N.Y.), seeking an injunction until elections are open, verifiable, and transparent.
To support the OEJC, donate at http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/OEJC. For background information on the failure to preserve the 2004 ballots, see http://www.prnewsnow.com/TextNews/168067.html.
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22 Nov 2007 at 08:26 am | #
It’s not the most clearly written press release (I think it tries to go in too many directions at once)—but it does indicate how there are many more people concerned about the integrity of vote counts on electronic voting machines than just us folks at The Beacon!
There are still unanswered questions about the vote count here in Hamilton County.
23 Nov 2007 at 03:40 pm | #
Many thanks to the Beacon for coverage on Ohio election issues that are still ongoing. Our press release covered a wide area of unfolding election stories, and reflecting on your comment… possibly too many at once for those not following these issues closely. We will take your comment into consideration for future press releases.
For those of us trying to resolve these issues… we only touched on a few items… just a few.
The stories of southwestern Ohio continue to need documented, and I encourage those of you with election stories to contact The Ohio Election Justice Campaign and allow us to add your story to our documentation of systematic election irregularities in Ohio, often times systematic violations of Ohio election laws. We encourage everyone to learn one or many of these stories, and to be one of the story tellers to make sure many know. For anyone interested, that we are able to provide documentation, public records, affidavits, etc. to support the stories, we will do that for individuals, groups, and for the media.
Why is it that the fake preplanned number 10 Homeland Security alert of Warren County has never been addressed with accountability for those that participated? During this, the media and observers were kicked out, the ballots were taken into an adjacent warehouse for hours, an unauthorized location for election records. Security was in place, we are told that even bomb sniffing dogs were there. In August of 2007, citizen investigator Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips called and asked Susan Johnson, the Deputy Director of the Warren County Board of Elections a question that I was curious about. My question, when the homeland security alert was called on election night, when did she find out about it, and was she scared? The answer she gave to Dr. Phillips was this, first she laughed, then she told him that no she wasn’t scared, she knew about it several days earlier. She also told Dr. Phillips that children unloaded the ballots from cars, ballots coming from the precincts, which were delivered for counting. These children did this during a number 10 Homeland Security Alert. Dr. Phillips and I question the use of children at such a time, and wondered if this is using the children as human shields or a form of child abuse. The Cincinnati Enquirer did report on the fact that the county commissioners were involved in the planning of this fake security alert 5 days in advance, down to planning what the signs on the doors would say.
Attorney General Marc Dann and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner… would you please investigate this, and so much more! It is not enough to just look forward to 2008… when we stand with our feet in lies and deceit, we must look at our feet and clean off our shoes to be able to step forward. There is a reason history repeats itself, and it will in this case.
Paddy Shaffer
Director, The Ohio Election Justice Campaign
(614) 761-0621
For more information and to donate:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/OEJC
For more information:
http://www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com/oejc.html
23 Nov 2007 at 06:31 pm | #
Dear Beacon,
Many thanks for posting this story! I hope you post a follow-up. Could you post more also about the vote count in Montogomery County?
Yeah, this press release does contain alot of detail, probably to back up the claims about lobbyists hacking our elections.
Dean of Cincinnati, what would you recommend here? On the one hand, I thought the details were convincing, on the other hand, maybe some people find it too long to read?
25 Nov 2007 at 09:46 am | #
I appreciate your paper printing this article. I think it is terrible that once the dems came into leadership all of the sudden everyone just assumed that the system was fixed, or perhaps chose to believe it was never broken. The reality is that the system is still very broken and needs to be worked on. This will only happen if the people and the media stand up and require it of our elected officials. The current officials made a big deal out of how they would investigate these problems but, as of today, they don’t seem to be very interested in keeping those promises. Anyhow, thanks again.
01 Dec 2007 at 01:41 pm | #
Cuyahoga Needs New Elections Systems and State to Initiate Recall, Return, and Refund Lawsuit
As reported by Jay Miller in Crain’s Cleveland Business, November 29, 2007, http://www.crainscleveland.com.
The Cuyahoga County commissioners want the state of Ohio to cover the county’s costs for swapping out its new, balky electronic voting machines for a system the commissioners believe is more reliable.
The commissioners are preparing a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner asking her to press the General Assembly to come up with the roughly $20 million it will cost to scrap the county’s touch-screen system and replace it with a new optical scanning system.
After this morning’s weekly commissioners’ meeting, president Tim Hagan said the county also is considering suing Diebold Inc., whose Premier Election Solutions business built the touch-screen machines and their computer software. But Mr. Hagan said a lawsuit would be a last resort because the county for the coming March 2008 primary is saddled with the Diebold equipment and must be able to work with the company.
Mr. Hagan also said it may make more sense for the state to initiate a lawsuit, if it comes to that, because other counties have the same system, though they have not had Cuyahoga’s problems.
Mr. Hagan said the state should pay because it was former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell who selected the Diebold system.
According to Jeffrey Kirkby, Voices of Cleveland and Beyond Video Productions <http://www.vocabvideo.com> and an Ohio Election Justice Campaign member, http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/OEJC, who was present during the interviews:
When the pens and microphones were dropped and reporters were finished, I couldn’t help but ask Tim Hagan if it is too late to go back to using paper ballots and counting them at the precincts.
Tim interrupted the scoffs and chuckles by the reporters by saying in a serious tone, “Hey don’t laugh, it may come to that. We all remember a time when we trusted that way of counting and were comfortable with it.”