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Elections time is close.  How safe is your vote?
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This is the second in a series of articles addressing the security of software code that is used to administer, count, and report votes in elections across the USA.  It is used in all or most of the voting districts in Illinois.

This series is inspired and based off of the credible research done by Blackboxvoting.org which has obtained a legitimate copy of the GEMS application.  Bev Harris and Bennie Smith have conducted the investigation into voting system software.  Blackboxvoting.org has posted Fraction Magic, a 6-part series on the subject, with more EXPLOSIVE information yet to come! Defend the Vote is taking the questions raised in these articles to the election authorities in Illinois. 

Part 1 (Does Software Counting Your Vote Have Embedded "Weighted Vote" Capacity?) responds to the research by Black Box Voting which concluded software code running various election systems used across the USA permits weighted voting.  This code is a default setting used to change the value of a vote (1) to a fraction.  For instance, a vote for candidate X can be set at .75 while allocating the value 1.25 to candidate Z.  Last week we sent a letter to the Illinois State Board of Elections seeking to have questions answered about various software systems used to administer, process, count, and report the vote in Illinois. 

We have received a couple of responses from Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the ISBE and from the Executive Director, Steve Sandvoss.

Ken Menzel responded in an email and made the following statements:

 “As to the fractional voting capability in the Dominion system, it is (as I thought) a fairly common capability in voting systems in general. Staff was aware, right off the top of their heads, that it is present in the Dominion, GEMS and Hart systems (i.e. the vast majority of voters use a system capable of fractional vote counting).

 The only system it is approved to be used with (i.e. to have the feature enabled when running) is the Hart system. That is because the Hart system is used by Peoria County and there is a local district (if I recall correctly, it is a school district) that remains under an old federal court consent decree whereby cumulative voting is required (the type of voting that used to apply to the old 3 member district state representative system, which we discussed in our phone call).

The feature is not enabled in the Dominion or GEMS systems (and our staff can tell that from the reports generated when we do our system testing).

If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 Ken Menzel
General Counsel
Illinois State Board of Elections
100 W. Randolph Street, Suite 14-100
Chicago, Illinois 60601”

This is very important news.  Through the General Counsel, the Illinois State Board of Elections has acknowledged that they are aware of the ability for various election software systems to process votes in a fractionalized format.  Indeed, his statement is that it is common in voting software and that the fractionalized voting system is enabled in the HART voting system (the ESlate) which is used in both Peoria and Kane County.

Speaking with Bev Harris, she reports she is about to release further documentation that provides concrete examples demonstrating how fractional vote counting software code opens a back door permitting undetectable and systemic voter fraud.

Keep in mind many states that use electronic voting systems do not have a paper trail that records the vote on a paper scroll and is a duplicate record of votes cast electronically.

Illinois lawmakers require a paper trail of all ballots cast.  If an electronic machine is used to vote, theoretically, a paper copy of the ballot cast is reviewed by the voter before leaving the election booth. The paper copy is stored on a scroll in the machine and should be an exact copy of the votes cast in the election. 

Read the rest of this article discussing software related risks for voter fraud in Illinois and across the USA

News and Videos
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The true state of the voting system in Cook County

 

Testimony about hacking presidential elections
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