By Bev Harris, founder of Blackboxvoting.org

Whoever controls chain of custody for voting computers can control elections. That is, until more transparent election procedures are enacted (see end of this article). Until that time, election integrity in Niagara, falls. (Groan.)

But for bad puns, I'm afraid the company that owns the voting machine warehouse in Niagara County has me beat. That firm is aptly named "Clear Opportunity."

(See more here, including documentation on this: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/82452.html)

NIAGARA'S PROBLEM

Niagara County, New York Republicans, in a no-bid contract with a company owned by one of their largest contributors, has offered up a crucial link in voting machine chain of custody. Niagara signed a lease to house its voting computers in a warehouse owned by Clear Opportunity Properties, LLC, owned by GOP supporter David Ulrich.

Niagara County Democrats are apparently uncomfortable enough with the sweetheart deal to try to get that contract opened up to competitive bidding.

"Sweetheart deal" may be a gentle term. "Rapaciously gainful" or perhaps "copiously creative" might be more accurate ways to describe it.

by Bev Harris, founder of Blackboxvoting.com

More than one in ten voters who shows up at the polls in California is being given a provisional ballot. While you might think this is due to voters missing from the list, only 10% of rejected provisionals in California are because the voter is not registered. Ninety percent are rejected for other reasons -- calling into question why provisional ballots were issued in the first place.

I did a spreadsheet analysis using a pile of U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) data(1) and found that voters who show up to vote in California are getting hit hard with provisional ballots, making it more difficult to vote and expanding disenfranchisement.

In Riverside County, a whopping 14.4 percent of all polling place voters were given a provisional ballot in 2010, and 17 percent of the provisionals were rejected.

By Bev Harris, Founder of Blackboxvoting.org

Next time you hear that voting machines are reliable and safe "because they have been tested and certified," think of this important article, which reveals proven corruption, payoffs and bid-rigging connected to Ciber, Inc., a firm that signed off on our voting machines. Ciber's okay was the foundation for federal acceptance of voting machines all over the USA.

A few weeks ago, I decided to examine electoral fraud from the other end. What happens if we start with known public corruption cases and work backwards to the intersection with elections?

What I found were kickbacks and bid-rigging schemes in New Orleans and Pennsylvania which both connect back to Ciber, the firm that supposedly tested and then signed off on most of the U.S. voting machines currently in use in all fifty states, on behalf of the federal government.

By Bev Harris, Founder of BlackBoxVoting.com

New insights on one of the most interesting election fraud stories of 2012...

THIS REALLY HAPPENED.

It's a documented computerized voting system hack; it's been in front of a grand jury; it shows a political pattern. It appears to have targeted three specific and interconnected candidates. It is being declared thwarted and they say it wouldn't have worked. Officials claim the hack is untraceable.

Now here's the truth: It could easily have worked, and I'll describe how below, and by the way, Rocky and Bullwinkle could have caught these guys. The reason they weren't apprehended is that crucial IP addresses were withheld from investigators during the period while trace routing logs were intact.

Two questions still need a real investigation: (1) Which persons did the actual handoff (and omission) of the IPs to state/federal investigators; and (2) Where was the Miami-Dade absentee database to be sent during the print & mail phase of this election?

by Bev Harris, Founder Blackboxvoting.org

It's been a while since we've done this, maybe too long for people to jump in and roll up their sleeves again for one of these "open source" public investigations, but let's see about that. I'm requesting a little help chasing down some names. If you like doing a little online research or know the terrain in Pennsylvania, and can supply any further information on the situation I outline below, I would appreciate it very much!

You can e-mail me directly ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or you can share anything you find publicly here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/166/82399.html

I am interested in finding out who the vendor was for the system that produced the problem below. I have learned that CIBER, a company with connections to the electronic voting industry, also had some deep involvement with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation's technology.

by Bev Harris, founder of Blackboxvoting.org

California Assemblyman Phil Ting has proposed AB 19, a bill to require the California Secretary of State to implement an Internet voting pilot project.

They tell us Internet voting is secure. It's not. It's not secure, and can't be made secure, but that's not even the point.

The point is it's not transparent. The whole premise in our Constitution is that we self-govern. To do that, the public must be able to see and authenticate essential processes, like who actually voted and the vote count, and that is not possible with Internet voting.

Internet voting transfers all control to whoever runs the server. (The server is just a computer that sits in a room -- and one Internet voting company, Scytl, has its server physically sitting in Spain.)

Internet voting gives the administrator complete control over the front end (who put the votes into the system) and the back end (the counting of the votes).

Internet voting is trying to come on with a vengeance, and not just in California. It is now imminent. Unless we are vigilant, many of us will be forced to vote online in 2014 and 2016. Lobbyists are at work to persuade your legislators to install Internet voting.

Political support has been secured from officials in several states. The governor of Hawaii has announced he wants Internet voting. Secretaries of State from Connecticut, West Virginia, Washington, and Oregon are already pushing online voting, and soon you'll hear about it near you. Federal bills promise cash to states that "expedite" their voting systems, with vague language as to what that means.

Because Americans are skeptical about Internet voting, politicians and reporters describe it as "smart phone voting" and "iPad voting." They also call it "convenience voting" but what they don't tell us is that, in exchange for convenience, we will lose the ability to self-govern.