Digital Ballots Recount Could Turn Kentucky Bevin Race Upside-Down, Save Gun Rights!

[James_Madison_Lives]

I'm not a big fan of Bevin but an election is an election, either fair or not. This truly is fishy as hell. Bevin was up 6 point in two recent polls and tied in a third. The state was a solid sweep for Republicans in almost every other statewide race. Hard to believe that Republicans unhappy with Bevin wouldn't just blank the top of the ticket rather than cross over for the gun-grabbing lib. Doesn't make sense.

GOP-Attorney General got --- 823k VOTES
GOP-Agriculture Commissioner got --- 821k VOTES
GOP - Treasurer got --- 855K VOTES

And then the
GOP Governor - ONLY GOT --- 704k VOTES
and the DEMOCRAT WON with 708k VOTES


But Bevin is not rolling over, is asking for a recanvas. If it's anything like past recounts, historically, election officials will just run paper ballots through the same scanner machines that might have been hacked in the first place, and say See? Nothing to see here.

This is the perfect time for the Bevin campaign and citizens to be demanding that the counties post the BALLOT IMAGES. These are the digital images automatically generated of each paper ballot as it is scanned by the types of machines used all across KY. Then it is stored in the machine's memory. Election integrity activists have been pushing for these images to be made public for two years now. Like all paper ballots in the US they are anonymous and cannot be traced to any individual voter.

"New Technology Allows Election Officials to Verify Votes Like Never Before"
https://www.alternet.org/2018/05/breakthrough-technology-will-count-election-results-never/


Kentucky Open Records requests have been filed with the clerks of Kenton County and Jefferson County, two areas of interest, by private citizens. The Kenton County clerk is Gabrielle Summe, Kenton County Chairman of the County Board of Elections & County Clerk. The Jefferson County clerk is Frank Friday, Government Affairs Executive.

At the end of this post is a FOIA request filed with Kenton County. The beauty of the ballot images is there is no need for expensive recounts of the paper ballots. The digital images for the whole state could fit on a thumb drive or a DVD. Better yet posted online. If discrepancies come up in one county, it opens the door for boxes of paper ballots to be cracked open, and other counties FOIA'ed.

Does everybody see where this could go?

The gun grabbers are perfecting their hacking and rigging techniques for 2020. Getting handy with the ballot images could stop them in their tracks. The two kinds of machines mostly in use in KY are the ES&S (formerly Diebold) DS200, and the Hart Intercivic eScan. Of the eScan the citizen watchdog VerifiedVoting.org reports:

"Network interfaces in the Hart system are not secured against direct attack. Poll workers can connect to JBCs or eScans over the management interfaces and perform back-office functions such as modifying the device software. The impact of this is that a malicious voter could potentially take over one or more units in a precinct and a malicious poll worker could potentially take over all the devices in a precinct. The subverted machines could then be used to produce any results of the attacker’s choice, regardless of voter input." https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/hart-intercivic/escan/

Bevin is right. He got robbed. But he'll never prove it, unless he makes them show the ballot images, which courts have declared public record.

A couple of heads up. The elections officials might try to say their machines didn't take ballot images, BS. The machine takes the picture of the ballot and then counts the votes from the picture, not the ballot. So they have to take images. That's the technology. If they say there are no images, they destroyed them, a public record.

Second they'll say they can't post them or release them because of privacy concerns. Also BS. Like paper ballots, the images are entirely anonymous. The more excuses they give for not showing the images, the more you know they are hiding something, which could turn the KY Democratic party upside down.

WANTED: anyone with a connection with the KY GOP, or Rand Paul, to get this drive to and get their undivided attention. The legal counsel for the Bevin "recanvas" as well. Also this booklet by Audit Elections USA has a do-it-yourself ballot images request form. Swamp them. Write letters to editors. The Rubicon for the gun-grabbers is here.

Gabrielle Summe
Kenton County Chairman of the County Board of Elections & County Clerk
P.O. Box 1109
Covington KY 41012

November 10, 2019

Subject: Public Records Request of 11-10-19 for Kenton County's Nov 5, 2019 General Election Records & Notice re Ballot Images & Associated Records & Data

Dear Gabrielle Summe,

I am requesting public records pursuant to Kentucky Open Records Act, KRS 61.870 to KRS 61.884, all ballot images for the November 5, 2019 General Election.* All requests are for electronic copies.

Background

Kenton County uses the Hart Intercivic eScan vote tabulation machine to tabulate the votes on paper ballots hand-marked by the voter, as its primary machine. *These machines automatically generate a digital image of each ballot as it is fed into the machine and then stores it in electronic media. *The Hart product catalog describes:

"The eScan is Hart’s fully integrated digital ballot-imaging unit for polling place voting. It uses paper ballots produced by the Hart Voting System Ballot Now software and stores votes on an election-specific flash memory card. Second Chance Voting, dual-sided scanning and jurisdiction-wide election reporting are all supported." *https://www.hartintercivic.com/wp-content/uploads/HartProductCatalog.pdf

This is a fortunate feature of the Hart eScan machine, given its known security concerns. *The citizens's non-profit group VerifiedVoting.org reports that:

"Network interfaces in the Hart system are not secured against direct attack. Poll workers can connect to JBCs
or eScans over the management interfaces and perform back-office functions such as modifying the device software. The impact of this is that a malicious voter could potentially take over one or more units in a precinct and a malicious poll worker could potentially take over all the devices in a precinct. The subverted machines could then be used to produce any results of the attacker’s choice, regardless of voter input." *https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/hart-intercivic/escan/

For more information on ballot images please see "Understanding Ballot Images and Related Documents": https://www.auditelectionsusa.org/sample-bia-spreadsheet/

and:

"New Technology Allows Election Officials to Verify Votes Like Never Before"
https://www.alternet.org/2018/05/breakthrough-technology-will-count-election-results-never/


Inclusions

• each and every electronic or digital Ballot Image file created, held or used by the County

• any and all metadata associated with each image

• provided in the format or formats in which they are:

a) generated by the voting system
b) used by the voting system, and
c) exported or exportable from the voting system (e.g., Election Management System), such as the .pbm file format

• Ballot Image files’ filenames unchanged from filenames:
a) generated by the voting system, and
b) linked to their corresponding Cast Vote Records’ filenames

Exclusions

This request does not seek to inspect or obtain copies of the paper ballots themselves, or to obtain hard copies of ballot images. It is limited to copies of electronic or digital files.

Kenton County Elections’ digital scanners scan the front and back of each individual paper ballot to create a digital copy. The scanner (or separate voting system component) then captures votes from the scanned copy, NOT the paper ballot. In this scenario, the digital scan is the election material actually counted.

All Cast Vote Records (CVRs) for the November 5 General Election.

“Cast Vote Record” carries its common election administration meaning, here designating a digital file containing the information captured off a single voted ballot.

Inclusions

• each and every electronic Cast Vote Record file created, held or used by the County

• any and all metadata associated with each Cast Vote Record

• CVR files’ filenames unchanged from filenames:
a) generated by the voting system, and
b) linked to their corresponding Ballot Images’ filenames

• provided in the format or formats in which they are:
a) maintained by the voting system (e.g., native format), and
b) exported or exportable from the voting system (e.g., EMS), such as the .pbm
file format

The List of Vote Records (LVR) for the November 5 General Election.

• this record or set of records goes by a variety of names, such as Cast Ballot Log
or Cast Vote Record(s)

• typically consists of a spreadsheet, with each row displaying contents of one
Cast Vote Record

• provided in the format or formats in which it is:
a) maintained by the voting system (e.g., native format), and
b) exported or exportable from the voting system (e.g., EMS)

• may consist of more than one file

In event of denial

If any documents are withheld from production in whole or in part, please provide me an exemption log index of each record or category of records that have been withheld or redacted, the explicit statutory citation exempting the records, and a brief explanation of how the statutory exemption applies to the records.

Method of delivery

My first choice is for production of all records online by posting on your official website or official publicly accessible portal.

Only if that is not available, my backup choice is by digital media secured against undetectable post-production alteration of the media containing the records (e.g., by hash, by write-once read-only media).

Please use only the email address below for all communications. *Please communicate from a single email address. *Please maintain this subject line intact, in one continuous string to include all correspondence concerning this request.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this request.
Respectfully,

Machine vote hacking demonstration, from HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy"



Hart eScan

 

[Swordsmyth]

[MENTION=2]Bryan[/MENTION]
Can you contact Rand about this?

 

[eleganz]

Hard to believe that Republicans unhappy with Bevin wouldn't just blank the top of the ticket rather than cross over for the gun-grabbing lib. Doesn't make sense.

Coincides with this

More analysis from Kentucky's election. Bevin was cheated!

I looked at the republican vote percentages as well as republic vote totals by the 6 major races at a county level. I computed the average of the races excluding the governors race. I then took that average to get a "projected" vote for Bevin. My projected vote total for Bevin showed that he should have received 100k more votes based on the percentages in the other races. On average, at a county level, Bevin should have received 8% more of the vote. I then did a regression equation on total votes by race. When I used the projected bevin total with the actual totals, I got a nice statistical model that makes logical sense. When I used actual totals, Bevin theoretically lost votes each time a voter who voted republican, voted for the treasurer or argriculutral position. Also, the actual results show that republican votes for the auditor, treasurer and agr position are not statistically meaningful for Bevin's total.

and this

 

[Anti Globalist]

Hopefully we get to the bottom of this very soon.

 

[Zippyjuan]

But Bevin is not rolling over, is asking for a recanvas. If it's anything like past recounts, historically, election officials will just run paper ballots through the same scanner machines that might have been hacked in the first place, and say See? Nothing to see here.

"Re-canvas" is not a re-count. All it does is double check the final figures reported from all the precincts- that the final tallies for each precinct matches what was reported. That rarely changes anything. It does not look at an individual ballots.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/us/kentucky-governor-election.html

The election can be recanvassed.

The simplest step is to recanvass the election, which basically means double-checking that county election boards across the state correctly added up the totals from voting machines before reporting them to the county clerk. The process can be completed in a day.

Candidates have a week after an election to ask for a recanvass, but Mr. Bevin did not wait that long; he put in his request on Wednesday. It will be conducted next Thursday.

Is the recanvass likely to change the outcome?

Probably not. Past recanvasses have usually yielded only very modest revisions. “In every instance, the vote totals change by a very small amount,” said Joshua A. Douglas, a professor of law at the University of Kentucky. He added that any revisions would probably come “nowhere near” closing the gap between Mr. Bevin and Mr. Beshear.

What about a recount?
State law appears to rule out a full ballot-by-ballot recount. There is a provision for candidates to petition a state district court to order a recount for certain races, but the law specifically excludes elections for governor and lieutenant governor, among others.

If there is an actual re-count, the candidate requesting it must pay all the costs associated with it.

 

[James_Madison_Lives]

Interesting. So a recanvas is essentially nothing, just election officials reading off the hacked totals to each other and saying "Yup, that's right."

It is nothing as long as neither the votes on the paper ballots nor on the ballot images are recounted to verify the precinct totals.

Now we'll see if Bevin is in this to win or if he just wants to make a little noise before conceding.