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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 4 declined, 4 accepted (8 total, 50.00% accepted)

Submission + - Bev Harris of Black Box Voting has released a dowload to Accenture's software (bbvforums.org)

Gottesser writes: "Permission to republish granted

I have found and posted the actual voter list software used widely throughout the USA (TN, WI, PA, CO, KS...) for Accenture voter registration and voter histories. I located the files on a magnetic backup tape of the hard drive of a county elections IT employee, part of a 120-gig set of discovery files.

The Accenture voter registration / voter history software is highly problematic, and has been reported switching voter parties in Colorado, and losing voter histories in Tennessee. Although it is now widely known that Accenture voter list software gets it wrong, just WHY the program misreports voter information so often has never been explained. I am hoping that by releasing this software to the public, it may shed light on what's really going on with our voter registration systems.

I also posted a Tennessee file with work orders and release notes which shows the Accenture software has a history of tripling votes in certain ("random") voter histories, going back to 2004. Except it is not random: Other files I discovered prove it is with primarily suburban Republican precincts that votes are somehow being recorded twice and sometimes three times for certain voters in the voter history report, and this didn't just happen in 2004; it also happened in the 2008 presidential primary and in May and August 2010, and according to election commission notes in Shelby County, also in the 2012 presidential primary.

Computer buffs, have at it. Much source code exists within the structure because it is built on MS Access. I do not read source code, though I can see some structural problems with the software (for example, it allows political party ID to be set differently from one precinct to another).

Here's the download link — http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/7659/82111.html

As a followup on our last story: The issue of 11,000 disappearing voter histories in Tennessee has now been assigned to a special master for investigation, and the state of Tennessee has officially announced that it has halted further voter purges.

To support the absolutely unique and highly effective investigative reporting by Black Box Voting, please consider making a generous donation, or (even better!) a monthly sponsorship:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
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Government

Submission + - ES&S to buy Diebold, Blackbox Voting to sue (blackboxvoting.org)

Gottesser writes: Long time elections rights activist, Bev Harris (She had an HBO special a while back where she hired Hari Hursti to hack an optical scan voting machine.) just sent this out... "Diebold/Premier Election Systems is being purchased by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). According to a Black Box Voting source within the companies, there will be a conference call among key people at the companies within the next couple hours. An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most U.S. voting under one privately held manufacturer. And it's not just the concealed vote-counting; these companies now also produce polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software and vote-by-mail authentication software." Our voting system is heading toward a server centric model with our vote being delivered to us by computers under lock and key far away from public oversight. Here's ES&S's press release Wikipedia's got something on the ongoing string of ES&S controversies as well:
Government

Submission + - Black Box Voting 2008 Election Protection Toolkit (blackboxvoting.org)

Gottesser writes: "Bev Harris over at Black Box Voting has done everyone a solid and released her 2008 Election Protection toolkit. For those interested the toolkit is like cliffs notes of Bev's 8+ years of experience on the front lines of the modern voting rights movement. The ebook gives short sweet information to get individuals actively involved in the full contact sport of democracy. The targeted audience: Those who believe that the political process requires more than just showing up once every four years to vote and what to roll their sleeves up and pitch in. Those who know that something's up with those voting machines. You may remember Bev Harris from her Emmy nominated HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy". I've been working on Election Integrity issues in Ohio for some time now and have met Bev several time. Her work is nothing less than groundbreaking. Please check it out."
Security

Submission + - Black Box Voting gets hands on ES&S software

Gottesser writes: "Bev Harris of Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org) has asked that someone post this on Slahdot. She would like people to take a look at ES&S's central tabulator software and start reporting on their impressions of it. This is a past release of the software but it is similar to the applications in production. Sorry no source code.

From Bev...

>ES&S "Unity" central tabulator software.

> software stash:
> three zip files -
> http://www.blackbox1.org/ems.zip
> http://www.blackbox1.org/un5.zip
> http://www.blackbox1.org/Unity.zip

> > User Manuals for ES&S software can be found here:
> http://www.bbvforum s.org/forums/messages/2197/2864.html

>This is the ES&S central tabulator software, the ES&S counterpart to the Diebold
>GEMS central tabulator software. No source code, sorry, and no software for the
>precinct machines. This is reportedly one generation back, but from what I'm
>told has significant similarities to the new stuff. I would appreciate it if
>you can provide me with feedback on your impressions after looking at it. You
>may want to Slashdot it or whatever.

>Best,

>Bev Harris
>Founder
>Black Box Voting"

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