Newly Released Video: Spoonamore Confronts Maryland Board of Elections Over SAIC Report

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  • Posted on: 1 September 2008
  • By: luaptifer

Posted on behalf of and at the request of luaptifer by GreyHawk.

The following video was posted on the Velvet Revolution site on 27 August 2008.

It documents Stephen Spoonamore's confrontation of the Maryland Board of Elections with an unredacted version of the "Risk Assessment Report" of Diebold's electronic voting systems as commissioned by the state of Maryland from the Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in 2003." as reported on Brad Blog 11/5/06. Those who commissioned the report were provided only a 40 page redact and limited to 'borrowing' a copy of the full 200 page document, Diebold considered it such sensitive material.

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"Computer cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore got a copy of the 197-page unredacted report which listed hundreds of serious problems, and he released that report to us.

Well, Spoonamore did more than that – he took the report to the Maryland Board of Elections and confronted them with it at a public meeting. He told them that if he were handed such a report in the private sector, he would "shut down the system and open a fraud investigation." The elections officials expressed shock that they had not ever seen the same unredacted report. And when the meeting was over, Spoonamore, with a concealed microphone, personally confronted the officials. And what did one of them say to him –that him having the report was "a security risk." Following the confrontation, Spoonamore was contacted by law enforcement officials who demanded to know how he got the report. We can say now that the report came from a high official in the Executive Branch who wanted to expose Diebold."

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I'm catching up on some history of the electronic voting machine story and, as a result, coming to realize the potential for these machines to profoundly undermine the integrity of this November's election.

Take a read of Bradblog's 'THE PENTAGON PAPERS OF E-VOTING' while understanding that machines like this are found in most of these United States. This report doesn't touch upon the recently revealed defects found in all lines of Diebold / Premier systems since their production began.

Diebold
Elections
fraud
vote manipulation
Stephen Spoonamore
SAIC
cyber-security
Premier

Comments

rba

September 1, 2008 - 15:44

David Rosenfeld/Miller-McCune:
E-Vote Vendor Admits Decade of Flaws (29 Aug 2008):

The news came as a proud affirmation for those drawing attention to election integrity for nearly a decade. They claim that the company — Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) — may have known about its problems much earlier. For election integrity advocates such as Bev Harris at BlackBoxVoting.org, that Premier actually admitted to such widespread flaws is more shocking than the revelation itself.

Until now, the company dismissed many of the flaws discovered by computer scientists, which Miller-McCune reported in May, as theoretical risks and nothing more.

Via Election Law @ Moritz.
:: :: ::
Also see: Greg Gordon/McClatchy: Warning on voting machines reveals oversight failure (24 Aug '08).

luaptifer

September 1, 2008 - 17:09

which in part comes from your having pointed out that McClatchy article.

In my mind, that one's a real condemnation saying, as it does, that there was no real 'oversight' effectively of ANY of the machines that are now seeded in the hundreds of thousands all over the country.

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"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." - Thomas Jefferson

cho

September 1, 2008 - 21:25

A call to awareness ... one could say ... about all the dirty tricks to steal the election.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Protecting this election

Here’s the challenge: We have every reason to believe the Republicans are, at this moment, preparing a 2008 vote-suppression effort that will rival, or even exceed, the dirty tricks they pulled in 2004.

Unless DAF is equally active — unless they have the resources to monitor every vote, every precinct, every campaign, every court challenge — the Republicans may very well get away with it again.

hankjmatt

June 17, 2009 - 01:51

They claim that the company — Premier Election Solutions — may have known about its problems much earlier. For election integrity advocates such as Bev Harris at BlackBoxVoting.org, that Premier actually admitted to such widespread flaws is more shocking than the revelation itself. clubpenguincheats