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GOP CYBER-SECURITY EXPERT SUGGESTS DIEBOLD TAMPERED WITH 2002 ELECTION
GOP WHISTLE-BLOWER NAMES KARL ROVE IN OHIO'S '04 ELECTION THEFT
PHOTOS OF VOTERESCUE VOLUNTEERS helping Election Defense Alliance's Sally Castleman promote Dorothy Fadiman's film, "Stealing America, Vote by Vote," at the Austin Net Roots Nation conference, 7/17 through 7/19
VOTERESCUE RADIO 7/18, 6-8pm CDT:
STEVE ROSENFELD, SALLY CASTLEMAN
GOP CYBER-SECURITY EXPERT SUGGESTS DIEBOLD TAMPERED WITH 2002 ELECTION
July 18, 2008
Published on The Raw Story (rawstory.com)
Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.
Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies. At a little noticed press conference in Columbus, Ohio Thursday, he discussed his investigation of a computer patch that was applied to Diebold Election Systems voting machines in Georgia right before that state's November 2002 election.
Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs and ABC's World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.
In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.
Spoonamore received the Diebold patch from a whistleblower close to the office of Cathy Cox, Georgia’s then-Secretary of State. In discussions with RAW STORY, the whistleblower -- who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation -- said that he became suspicious of Diebold's actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.
The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.
Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.
Concerned by the electoral outcome, the whistleblower approached Spoonamore because of his qualifications and asked him to examine the Diebold patch.
McCain adviser reported patch to Justice Department
The Ohio press conference was organized by Cliff Arnebeck and three other attorneys, who had filed a challenge to the results of that the 2004 presidential election in Ohio in December, 2004. That challenge was withdrawn, but in August 2006 Arnebeck filed a new case, King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, alleging civil rights violations in the 2004 voting. The case was stayed in 2007. On Thursday, Arnebeck filed a motion to remove the stay and allow fresh investigation.
Individuals close to Arnebeck's office said Spoonamore confirmed that the patch included nothing to repair a clock problem. Instead, he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf. Spoonamore said he could not understand the need for a second copy of the exact same program -- and without access to the machine for which the patch was designed, he could not learn more. Instead, he said he took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.
Allegations surrounding Ohio in 2004
At the Ohio press conference yesterday, the former McCain adviser said Michael Connell, of the Republican Internet development firm New Media Communications, had designed a system that made possible the real-time "tuning" of election tabulators once Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell had outsourced the hosting of vote counting on the same server which hosted GOP campaign IT systems. He said he didn't believe Connell was behind the alleged fraud, but that he should be considered a key witness.
Spoonamore also confirmed he's working with Connell on overseas election issues and that Connell is now working as John McCain's IT developer.
Connell has a long history with the Republican Party's IT infrastructure. In 2001, for example, he set up MajorityWhip.gov for then House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. He also helped built georgewbush.com, as well as the Ohio GOP site Spoonamore referenced.
Sources close to Spoonamore said he was very concerned that he would lose his contracts as a result of coming forward and would take a "large financial hit." These sources added that, despite his concerns, Spoonamore felt obligated to reveal what he knows to the public. "He felt he had no choice as an American citizen but to come forward, and he also knows the likely consequences of him doing so," one source said.
An audio file of the press conference is available here.
GOP WHISTLE-BLOWER NAMES KARL ROVE IN OHIO'S '04 ELECTION THEFTJuly 17, 2008
Published on OpEdNews (www.opednews.com)
Submitted by Rady Ananda
Major lawsuit will expose Bush/Cheney's long conspiracy to steal their "victories" through election fraud. Republican Stephen Spoonamore, who worked for McCain's campaign until recently, is a respected expert on computer fraud, and has detailed high-tech sabotage over the past eight years, and is naming names. Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck announced in a press conference.
Below are a few quotes from the article written by Steve Heller:
"Expert advisor, Stephen Spoonamore, who among other things designs and runs computer programs to analyze and detect fraudulent financial activity for the world's leading credit card companies, said, "You cannot secure electronic voting. You set up a bunch of grandmothers to put together a bunch of computers once every two years, basically those machines are architected in such a manner to maximize their capacity [for] fraud."
"Spoonamore on vote counting: "What happens at the end of the day, all those votes are thrown into a magic box with one troll inside, the troll jumps out and says 'Here are your results! Ta-Da!!' That's it. There's no validation of the code, there's no authentication."
"Spoonamore again: "None of us [the American people] really want to confront the fact that there appears to be an extremely coordinated effort by a very small group of people to rig elections and take control of the executive branch."
"When asked by a reporter to respond to the fact that both Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State and elected officials will say that our elections are run on a bi-partisan system, Spoonamore responded, "No it's not. It's not a bi-partisan system. This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody. In my opinion, both sides [Democrats and Republicans] have no friggin' clue what they're talking about...The person who programs the code inside the machine will decide the results."
PHOTOS OF VOTERESCUE VOLUNTEERS helping Election Defense Alliance's Sally Castleman promote Dorothy Fadiman's film, "Stealing America, Vote by Vote," at the Austin Net Roots Nation conference, 7/17 through 7/19
Laura Killins, Jenny Clark (wo)manning the table
Jenny Clark, Sally Castleman, Abbe Waldman DeLozier
visiting with some bloggers
Sally Castleman next to poster for the movie
Vickie Karp giving California Secretary
of State Debra Bowen a copy of "HACKED!"
Larry Nelson, Debbie, and Mel Mason "taking the
load off" after hours of volunteering
Jenny Clark &
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen
1
Sally Castleman, Abbe Waldman DeLozier, and
Zach Roberts (of Greg Palast investigations)
Crowd of 75 to 100 people who attended the
"sneak preview" of the Dorothy Fadiman's film,
"Stealing America, Vote by Vote"
Larry Nelson schmoozing with another exhibitor
Vickie, Zach Roberts (of Greg Palast investigations)
and Abbe Waldman DeLozier
VOTERESCUE RADIO 7/18, 6-8pm CDT:
STEVE ROSENFELD, SALLY CASTLEMAN
This evening, Friday, July 18, from 6 until 8pm CST, we have several special guests: STEVE ROSENFELD of Alternet and newly published author, will be joining us, as well as SALLY CASTLEMAN, MIKE CONWELL, and JENNY CLARK!
STEVEN ROSENFELD has been journalist for 25 years. He currently is a Senior Fellow at AlterNet.org, where he covers elections from a voting rights perspective. Previously, he was Executive Producer of RadioNation with Laura Flanders, heard nationally on more than 100 Air America Radio and public radio stations. Prior to that, he was senior editor at TomPaine.com, where he wrote and edited commentaries, and researched their New York Times op-ads.
In the late 1990s, he was one of two 'Money, Power and Influence" reporters at National Public Radio. Prior to NPR, he covered the money and politics beat for Monitor Radio, the broadcast arm of The Christian Science Monitor, and for public radio’s Marketplace. His reporting for Monitor won the 1996 Society of Professional Journalists Investigative Radio Award.
He has written or co-authored several books, including Count My Vote (AlterNet Books 2008), What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, (The New Press, 2006) and Making History in Vermont, The Election of a Socialist to Congress, (Hollowbrook Publishing, 1992). He lives in San Francisco.
Steve will be joined by return guest MIKE CONWELL who has previously reported on the thousands of Travis County (Austin) voters who have been wrongly purged from the voter rolls.
Special guest SALLY CASTLEMAN, founding Board member of the Election Defense Alliance, will be on with us the first hour to promote DOROTHY FADIMAN's amazing film, "Stealing America, Vote by Vote", which will be screened here in Austin at the "Net Roots" Convention (of bloggers) this Saturday, July 19 at 6pm CDT; and JENNY CLARK of VoteRescue will be with us also for additional commentary on the Net Roots conference; all guest will be joining us live in the We the People Radio Network studio here in Austin, Texas!
Karen and I will also be covering during the first hour the blockbuster, breaking news on BradBlog today: "GOP Whistleblower names Karl Rove in Ohio's '04 Election Theft"
VoteRescue Radio can be heard on the radio in the Austin area at 90.1 FM; is streaming live on www.wtprn.com (for "We the People Radio Network"), AND, can be heard OVER THE PHONE at 512-485-9010! All shows are archived at the above web site, usually within a couple of hours after 8pm CDT.
The call-in number for the show is: 512-646-1984.
With thanks for your support,
Vickie and Karen