Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Neither the recent claim made by anonymous hacker, Abhaxas, that he/she had hacked into Florida's e-voting database nor the efforts by FL election officials to minimize the breach of its system comes as a surprise to The BRAD BLOG.

In fact, minimization of the vulnerability following the reported hack calls to mind what Roger G. Johnston, Ph.D of the Argonne National Laboratory describes as the Arrogance Maxim:

One would think that Abhaxas had Johnson's Arrogance Maxim in mind. As reported by Doug Chapin of the University of MN, the anonymous hacktivist responded to the official denials by hacking into the FL voting system a second time; posting "a directory listing of the Florida database with the (sarcastic) observation 'Glad you cleaned up, pretty secure now guys'."

As an encore, Abhaxas then hacked into Montana's government website, where he/she exposed 16 databases.

While Chapin acknowledges the vulnerability exposed by the hack, once again, as is his habit over the years, Chapin draws the entirely wrong lessons in pointing to the need for better training and security procedures...

It is now a bit fun watching some previously silent news organizations fall all over themselves as they suddenly recognize that our election process is seriously flawed. Today CNN reported, and many smaller organizations picked up the report, that the GAO released a report this week on voting system testing that finds that the Election Assistance Commission [EAC] has not notified election officials across the country about electronic voting machine failures.

This has been no secret within the Election Integrity community and has been one of our main complaints about the EAC. Voting systems fail and the EAC does nothing about it. They argue instead that none of the voting systems were certified by the EAC so they have no right/mandate to do anything about them. The GAO recommends that congress step in with legislation to force this issue.

We agree but dislike the fact that we have to wait on a snail-slow congress to do anything. CNN also reports on the CommonCause/Century Foundation report that was also released this week and that points to 10 states that they believe will have problems in Nov. My guess is that the “ten states” will grow substantially to 40 or more by election day and on beyond.

Also in the news is that the re-re-recount of ballots in Palm Beach Co Florida is taking place today and tomorrow. One can only guess what they are going to find. Ballots from 2004? Punch cards with hanging chads?

And a member of the Washington DC council has subpoenaed Sequoia for records that may reveal what really happened in the recent primary. Could it be that the council will find that the Sequoia spokeswoman, Michelle Shafer’s, declaration that the company is not at fault; “No, no, no” is really “Yes, yes, yes”? ...

Whaddaya know? Yet another confirmation by the non-partisan GAO on Wednesday, in yet another sure-to-be-ignored report, that our voting systems across the country are a hellish patchwork of un-overseen technological mayhem and disaster. This latest is entitled "ELECTIONS: All Levels of Government Are Needed to Address Electronic Voting System Challenges" [PDF] and was presented at a Congressional oversight hearing yesterday on "Ensuring the Integrity of Elections."

But what are the chances that anyone will bother to notice either the report or the hearing? (We're talking to you, Mainstream Media!)

So far this article, and the one I've published over at ComputerWorld this morning, are the only ones to have done so.

My report opinion piece over there today offers details and analysis of that new report, and how it underscores --- yet again --- that our increasingly complicated system of voting in America would be immeasurably and immediately simplified by doing away with all dangerously disenfranchising, demonstrably unreliable, historically inaccurate, and easily hackable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems.

(Sidenote: If you haven't already, take action to demand that Rep. Rush Holt's new, but dangerous, Election Reform bill be amended to ban all DRE voting systems by emailing Congress here and calling your legislative members here!)

My CW article today also points to earlier ignored GAO reports --- covered only by The BRAD BLOG when they were released --- but again referred to in the latest GAO report and worth underscoring here again, since few noticed the first time. To wit:

Hello? [Thump-thump] Is this thing on?...

One last point to recommend my piece over there today: It offers fresh criticism of the EAC's latest woeful claim ("We can't decertify something we didn't certify"), and a related hint or two at an upcoming long-in-the-work investigative report we've been working on at The BRAD BLOG.

There's your tease. My full ComputerWorld article is here...

We've now been able to gather a great deal of additional information concerning details about the story we first posted yesterday on the official Pennsylvania state warning issued about the new "security vulnerability" discovered in all Diebold touch-screen electronic voting machines.

That warning, which has now brought a lock-down on all Diebold systems in PA, where early absentee (non-machine) voting is about to begin prior to their upcoming May 16th primary election, was reported by the Morning Call yesterday. The warning says the serious security vulnerability could allow ''unauthorized software to be loaded on to the system."

Public details about the warning are still sketchy as those in the know have acknowledged that the problem is so serious, they are hoping to keep the info under wraps until mitigation steps can be taken to safeguard systems.

The BRAD BLOG has been told on the record, however, by one person involved in the matter, that the vulnerability is a "major national security risk."

We've been speaking to many sources today, and we've been able to get several first hand comments on the problem from top officials and analysts directly involved in both state and federal certification of the Diebold systems, as well as from those involved in the initial discovery of the problem.

What's clear is that Morning Call's reporting that it was Diebold who found the "glitch" are flat wrong. The discovery of the "glitch" (which is anything but) emanated from the examination of Diebold AccuVote TSx (touch-screen) machines recently in Emery County, UT.

A source has told The BRAD BLOG that Diebold was "cornered" into admitting to the problem, a far cry from them having "found" it, as the Morning Call characterized it.

What's also clear is that neither Diebold themselves, nor federal officials at the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) have been notifying states about the serious problem which apparently affects all Diebold AccuVote touch-screen systems, including both their newer TSx models, and the older TS and TS6 models.

The Diebold TSx models, with the security vulnerability still intact, were apparently used in the primary election last Tuesday in Ohio.

A document at Diebold's website describes [PDF] the TSx models as featuring "Industry Leading Security."

In Utah's Emery County, state officials are attempting to force Bruce Funk, the 23-year elected County Clerk out of his job in the wake of his having allowed a security evaluation of the county's new Diebold touch-screen systems by both computer security firm Security Innovation and Finnish computer security expert Harri Hursti. According to several sources, that analysis revealed many new vulnerabilities and problems in the Diebold touch-screen systems, including the one that seems to be at the heart of the problem now being warned about by Pennsylvania officials.

Funk --- who has since been "vilified," as one source told us, by both Diebold and Utah state officials as high as the Lt. Governor --- was forced to implement the new Diebold touch-screen systems for the first time this year against his own objections. His prudent subsequent security evaluation of the systems was arranged by electronic voting watchdog organization, BlackBoxVoting.org. (We recently interviewed Funk on the radio concerning that evaluation, and his subsequent removal from office in its wake. Listen to that interview here [MP3].)

Here's some of what we've so far been able to learn from a number of officials, both on the record and off, in Pennsylvania, elsewhere around the country and at the federal level, as well as those involved in the initial Emery County discoveries...

Folks are beginning to pay attention, guys!

Wired Magazine is now reporting that three Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee are now calling for an investigation of the troubling incidents that we've been reporting concerning irregularities in Tuesday's vote counting!:

Click for complete story...

Keep up the noise, guys! They're starting to listen! I've had other unconfirmed reports about both Dems and the Kerry campaign beginning to take notice of all of this as well!

UPDATE: House Judiciary Committee Letter to GAO, as mentioned above, available here in PDF format. (Hat tip "Shari H-D" for the link!)

...That the proposed changes in FCC fines for "indecent speech" currently moving through Congress and chilling broadcasters will change the penalty for individual performers (not the stations owners!) from the current $11,000 after a first-warning to a whopping $500,000 per incident with no warning whatsoever? Read about it here, since MSNBC hasn't gone out of their way to tell you about it.

...That, according to an audit by the US Governmental Accounting Office (GAO), the vast majority of companies in America didn't pay any federal income taxes at all from 1996 to 2000? Read about it here, since Dubya keeps forgetting to mention it.

...That despite what you may have heard from the majority of the Media (controlled almost exclusively by Conservatives) about George W. Bush still being ahead of John Kerry, that Kerry actually leads Bush in the two most recently released polls? Read about it here, since Sean Hannity forgot to announce it.

...That Great Britain's conservative newspaper, The Independent, reports that a former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance testified to the 9/11 Commission that she "saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes" and that she gave the Commission "details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation....everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily." Which, of course, makes Condi Rice's claims that "we could never have foreseen planes being used as missiles" even more incredible than they already were? Read about it here, since Scott McClellan keeps leaving these things out of his morning briefings.

...That if Donald Trump is as good a businessman as he would like us to believe, he will see to it that hot couple Amy and Nick will be the final two contestants left on The Apprentice? No need to read about it anywhere else, cuz I just told you, and you've got other reading to do!