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Sequoia Voting Systems site hacked
Part of the Sequoia Voting Systems Web site was defaced and subsequently taken down on Thursday, according to a report in InfoWorld. As CNET prepared this blog, the entire Sequoia Voting System site was frequently inaccessible.
The defacement and subsequent takedown occurred Thursday morning on the company's Ballot Blog page. Sequoia is one of a handful of electronic voting companies used in the United States. It has in recent days come under fire for apparent discrepancies in voter tallies in last month's New Jersey primary election.
The Ballot Blog page on SequoiaVote.com had contained information from Sequoia regarding the Super Tuesday New Jersey election, but as of Thursday afternoon the blog site was available only on and off.
Last week an independent group representing New Jersey county clerks asked Princeton University computer science professor Ed Felten to investigate the discrepancies in the New Jersey vote tallies. Felten and his team have examined Sequoia and other voting systems in the past. Most recently, Felten's team of graduate students helped the California Secretary of State Debra Bowen conduct a survey of her state's electronic voting systems. One of those graduate students, J. Alex Halderman, recently gave a talk at Shmoocon 4 suggesting that with improvements, electronic voting systems could work well in a future election.
Last Friday, Sequoia systems contacted Felten and threatened legal action if he or his students conducted an investigation of a working New Jersey voting machine. On Monday, Felten posted the e-mail on his blog . It reads:
Dear Professors Felten and Appel:
As you have likely read in the news media, certain New Jersey election officials have stated that they plan to send to you one or more Sequoia Advantage voting machines for analysis. I want to make you aware that if the County does so, it violates their established Sequoia licensing Agreement for use of the voting system. Sequoia has also retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis. We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property.
Very truly yours,
Edwin Smith
VP, Compliance/Quality/Certification
Sequoia Voting Systems
On the resurrected Ballot Blog site on Thursday, Sequoia Voting Systems announced that it had initiated its own external review of the New Jersey voting systems. The external review, the company said, would be conducted by independent parties including Kwaidan Consulting of Houston, Texas; an Election Assistance Commission (EAC)-accredited Voting System Test Lab (VSTL)--Wyle Laboratories of Huntsville, Ala., and possibly another VSTL; and an academic institution.
As CNET's resident security expert, Robert Vamosi has been interviewed on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets to share his knowledge about the latest online threats and to offer advice on personal and corporate security. Listen to his podcast at securitybites.cnet.com or e-mail Robert with your questions and comments. 
We cannot trust their technology & we cannot independently check
it. All of this due to the pain of counting chads in a close race???
No wonder Bush will win a third term.
Sorry, but if THEY are hiring the companies to perform the review, it's already a conflict of interest.
- Who Sequoia wants to audit their systems
- by Hope2012 April 1, 2008 4:01 AM PDT
- Check out who Sequoia Voting Systems chose for an external audit - as opposed to Princeton, whom they've threatened to sue (below). This is better than the 22 yr old getting the $300 Million Pentagon contract to be the top ammunition supplier to Afghanistan, with WWII era weaponry!
- Reply to this comment
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(4 Comments)http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5839 (BradBlog 3/25/08)
EXCERPT: "But, as if the constant predilections of Sequoia VPs Michelle Shafer and Edwin Smith to slap "kick me" signs on their own backs wasn't enough, they then went on to release another statement last Thursday announcing they were commissioning their own "external review" of their own voting systems "that includes review by an independent company," which nobody has ever heard of. So who is this "Kwaidan Consulting of Houston, Texas," whom the geniuses at Sequoia have selected to carry out their independent, third-party review? You're not gonna be believe this one... Kwaidan appears to be little more than one guy by the name of Mike Gibbons, whose MySpace page, until last week (cached version here), boasted of wanting most to meet "A well endowed blonde nymphomaniac (half my age or take the difference of her bustline and waistline added to her current age) that likes to be under the influence of Jim Beam whiskey in a dimly lit room at least 3 times a week."
BradBlog's always on top of the latest in election fraud news.