Wednesday, January 09, 2008

End Of The Line For Republican Mitt Romney?

By David
Kaye

Hampered by back-to-back second place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mitt Romney is gradually inserting all attempts to secure a victory Tuesday in Michigan.

Viewed as a required state to emerge victorious in if he has any potential to contend with upstart candidates John McCain and Mike Huckabee, Romney has injected a plethora of his own fortune into ensuring that he wins the state that he grew up in and his father George governed from 1963 to 1969.

Methodical, tenacious,resourceful and polarized, Romney has struggled immensely in his ability to convince the Republican electorate that he's the authentic agent of change and optimism that voters are yearning for.

Continuous negative smear attacks and disheartening remarks about his competitors has drawn him decisively close to an abrupt exit as a viable contender and eventual nominee for his party.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson Ends Presendial Ambitions

All indications are that democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson has terminated his White House aspirations after registering a disappointing fourth in last Thursday's Iowa caucus and yesterday's New Hampshire primary.

Running on the platform of keen economic, foreign policy and leadership experience, Richardson's message was unable to resonate with voters across the Hawkeye and Granite state, despite his numerous attempts to stage himself as the one candidate on the democratic side who has the fundamental ability to lead the country based upon his performance as New Mexico Governor, member of Congress, the New Mexico Statehouse, and as the secretary of Energy for former Commander in Chief Bill Clinton.

While bolstered by an impressive resume, Richardson was consistently unable to gain the momentum and traction to compete with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Richardson will remain New Mexico Governor until his term limit runs out in 2010.

Upstart Jaguars and David Garrard Charge Into Foxboro For AFC Battle

By David
Kaye

Entrenched in a quarterback struggle at the beginning of the season with embattled signal caller Byron Leftwich, backup David Garrard was presented with a myriad of challenges when he was unexpectedly propelled to the starting position by head coach Jack Del Rio.

After being drafted out of East Carolina in the 2002 draft, Garrard was relegated to the status of bench warmer for the previous four seasons in which he played a mere 17games and connected for eight touchdowns. When first-round pick Byron Leftwich tragically endured another debilitating injury last season, Garrard steered the Jaguars to a 5-5 mark, including a resounding 44-17 thrashing of the eventual Super Bowl champion Colts.

Faced with a significant decision as to which individual he sensed was ready to guide his team in the necessary direction in the years to come, Del Rio chose Garrard over the proven commodity in Leftwich. Unbenounced to most, Garrard has not only directed the Jaguars on a pathway to success, but has advanced them to a Saturday night showdown against the quintessential darlings to hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy, the New England Patriots.

Furthermore, Garrard has displayed his unrelenting ability to perform at an optimal level without any spectrum of offensive targets to throw the ball to. While aided by the premier rushing attack in the AFC, Garrard has struggled to find consistency with such mediocre receivers as Dennis Northcutt, Reggie Williams and Matt Jones.

In his first full season as a starter, Garrard finished with a respectable 2,509 yards,an impressive 18 touchdowns thrown, a razor thin three interceptions and an improbable quarterback rating of 102.2.

Garrard's quarterback rating was third to MVP Tom Brady, All-Pro Ben Roethlisberger and ahead of future Hall of Famers Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb. For a player who has been restricted to holding the clip board and waiting five insurmountable years for his first prime opportunity, that is beyond remarkable and astounding.

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More On NH Primary Voting Machine Error

I just got this in an email.... There are many people in a number of campaigns who are outraged over this news that the NH Primary Election votes were miscounted. Real upset.

THE CAT THAT CONTROLS NEW HAMPSHIRE ELECTION PROGRAMMING


John Silvestro and his small private business, LHS Associates, has exclusive programming contracts for ALL New Hampshire voting machines, which combined will count about 81 percent of the vote in the primary. And as to Super Tuesday and beyond: Silvestro also has the programming contracts for the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.


Silvestro IS the New Hampshire chain of custody in New England -- Or at least, a very large component in it.



Last fall, with the help of citizens like you, Black Box Voting began working on "Chain of Custody" projects, in which we identified some of the areas of concern that might affect many jurisdictions at once. First on the list for the Northeast U.S. is LHS Associates, a vendor with inside access to every memory card, as well as to the chips containing the "brain" of the Diebold optical scan machines.



RARE VIDEO FOOTAGE



In an unusual confluence of available video, we obtained footage of Silvestro grappling with Harri Hursti, the master hacker who had his way with the Diebold optical scans in Leon County, Florida in the famous exploit that was showcased in the film Hacking Democracy.



The exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County is used throughout New Hampshire, where about 45 percent of elections administrators hand count paper ballots at the polling place, with the remaining locations all using the Diebold version 1.94w optical scan machine. Because the voting machine locations tend to be urban, this represents about 81 percent of the New Hampshire voters.



The video shows Harri Hursti testifying on Sept. 19 before the New Hampshire legislature, attempting to explain significant vulnerabilities requiring urgent mitigations; throughout his testimony, Silvestro inserted his own comments, opinions, misstatements and speculations.



VOTING MACHINE CHECKUP



One area of disagreement between Hursti and Silvestro was the amount of expertise needed to exploit the Diebold 1.94w optical scan system. Silvestro claimed (in a strange contortion of reasoning) that he doesn't hire very skilled programmers, implying that this makes New Hampshire elections more secure.



Hursti pointed out that hiring programmers with a lack of knowledge is generally not considered a security feature, and also that an average high schooler can learn to exploit the system in two days to two weeks.



WE THINK IT DOESN'T TAKE THAT LONG



Black Box Voting purchased a Diebold optical scan with 1.94w firmware, and chose a computer repair shop out of the phone book, took it in, grabbed the first available technician. It took him less than 10 minutes to zero in on the memory card as a point of critical vulnerability -- and oh my, did he point out some other intersting things!



NEW HAMPSHIRE HASN'T UPGRADED SYSTEM SECURITY



Silvestro tries to claim that the security problems have been fixed in newer editions. Whether or not they have been, it's a moot point in New Hampshire where the upgrade is not made unless the Ballot Law Commission meets, and they have not met for ages.



Silvestro then points to extraordinary measures taken by other states to enact special procedural safeguards, but of course none of those were implemented in New Hampshire either, because the Ballot Law Commission has not bothered to meet since March 2006.



IN FACT, NEW HAMPSHIRE HAS NOT IMPLEMENTED MITIGATIONS FOR KNOWN RISKS



Not only that, they have turned all the programming over to a sole source private company, taking vote counting for 81 percent of New Hampshire citizens out of the public domain.



LHS is not subject to public records requirements, as the government is, at least, not in New Hampshire. The control over memory card contents is absolute; when cards malfunction or get lost, LHS brings the replacements.



CONTROL OVER THE "BRAINS" OF THE MACHINE: ACCESS TO THE CHIP



Since LHS maintains the machines, repairs the machines, and replaces the machines -- often on Election Day -- when they malfunction, they have intimate access to the chips, sockets, ports, communications devices and other electronic components.



Silvestro stated that the chip has "read only memory" and cannot be reprogrammed without frying it under ultraviolet light overnight.



Hursti never had a chance to examine the hardware, nor have most of the recent university studies had access. But our friendly neighborhood computer repair guy differed with Silvestro on the point of plug & play reprogramming of the guts of the machine.



After I push the button to send this message out to the media and the citizenry, I'll work on getting a short YouTube video of the Accuvote checkup by our local computer repairman. And before you say, "But wait! He's not a world class expert!" -- That's just the point.



Our local computer repairman may hit or miss on some of his analyses. You'll all be able to try your hand at second guessing him as soon as the next video is up. But if he hits even one of his ideas for how to exploit the machine to steal votes, that's all it takes. From someone who is not, certainly, a world class hacker or even a hacker at all.



I'll post the link to that in a follow up here: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/71200.html?1199744175 , and invite you techs to weigh in.



Please feel free to distribute, reprint or excerpt, with link to Black Box Voting and the video link above.



Bev Harris

Black Box Voting

New Hampshire Primary Votes Miscounted According To Citizens for Legitimate Government

UPDATE Dennis Kucinich asks for recount of NH Primary votes Click here for more info and video

New News. New email I received asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! This news is all over the Internet. See below and see my video ..

News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008

http://www.legitgov.org/

http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008

2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008

Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)

2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008

Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)

NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]

Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.

Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.

CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.

UPDATE: My video on this matter:

Clinton Cries, Buys New Hampshire Votes - Obama Fights On

First congratulations to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on her New Hampshire Primary win. Second, congratulations to Senator Barack Obama for the best speech of the night.

In this video, I assert that Senator Clinton's crying peformance was just that, a performance.



And I say this is so because the Clinton Campaign has a track record of staging people in place at events to ask pre-determined questions. This was done - for example -- in Newton, Iowa, where according to the Grinnell College newspaper...

On Tuesday Nov. 6, the Clinton campaign stopped at a biodiesel plant in Newton as part of a weeklong series of events to introduce her new energy plan. The event was clearly intended to be as much about the press as the Iowa voters in attendance, as a large press core helped fill the small venue. Reporters from many major national news outlets came to the small Iowa town, from such media giants as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and CNN.

After her speech, Clinton accepted questions. But according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.


In my video and here, I contend that the person who asked Hillary Clinton the question of how she was doing was a plant, and that the whole deal was planned. And my second reason for why Clinton ran is even more interesting.

This is a developing story, but I believe that Senator Clinton's campaign trucked in volunteers to vote for her in New Hampshire. The NH primary has a very loose system where a person can just come in and on the day of the primary vote declare an intention to move into New Hampshire.

If one checks the NH Secretary of State's office, they will see this:

January 8, 2008 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION DAY - Unregistered voters may register
and vote on this day.


And this...

WHO CAN REGISTER
New Hampshire residents who will be 18 years of age or older on election day, and a United States Citizen, may register with the town or city clerk where they live up to 10 days before any election. You may also register on election day at the polling place. The town clerk's office can inform voters of what proof of qualification they should bring to register.

There is no minimum period of time you are required to have lived in the state before being allowed to register. You may register as soon as you move into your new community.


I also have it from a good New Hampshire-based source that a person can walk in and tell the town hall representative that they intend to move to New Hampshire, and still be allowed to vote.

It's also known and documented that the Clinton campaign called and paid for volunteers to show up at rallies. That's right, paid for them.

By contrast, the Obama campaign volunteers that did come in did so on their own dime.

The open question I ask is how many New Hampshire Primary voters actually live in New Hampshire? The margin of difference between Senator Clinton's voters and Senator Obama's voters is so small that this question becomes an important one. Especially since the Clinton Campaign was facing a cash crunch. Where did that money go? Some of it went to paid people living in nearby states to come into New Hampshire.

Meanwhile, Senator Barack Obama fights on and has just picked up the endorsement of the largest union in Nevada.

New News. New email asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! See below..

News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008

http://www.legitgov.org/

http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008

2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008

Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)

2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008

Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)

NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]

Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.

Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.

CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.