Wednesday, July 11, 2012

And That's Why It's Called Walkersha County

Un-freaking-believable:
Sometime after final testing of Waukesha County's election software - but before the April election - County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus mysteriously changed something in her office's computer programming, according to a consulting firm's report released Tuesday.

Only Nickolaus knows what she did. The consultants can't figure it out, and she's not talking.

But whatever she did, it caused a breakdown in reporting election results that will cost county taxpayers $256,300 to fix, the report says.

And that's not the only money that Waukesha County will have to spend to get its election systems operating properly, County Executive Dan Vrakas said Tuesday.

Aging hardware is out of compliance with federal standards and nearing the end of its useful life, the report says. That equipment was supposed to be replaced in 2009, but Nickolaus killed the project because county purchasing officials wouldn't let her award a no-bid contract, said Norm Cummings, county director of administration.

Now Vrakas and the County Board will need to spend unknown amounts of money in the 2013 and 2014 budgets to replace that equipment before the 2014 gubernatorial election, Cummings said.
The whole report, all 93 pages of it, is here.

So while Van Wanggaard and the Koch Media has been spreading their lies insinuating massive vote fraud in Racine, even though they have no substantiated proof, and whining and mewling about the expense of democracy, they apparently have no issues whatsoever with a Republican County Clerk tampering with voting machines in some way only she knows and it's going to cost them a fortune to fix it.

This has gone beyond being solved with her losing her position. There needs to be a full federal investigation (because who can trust J.B. Van Hollen to do anything honestly either?).

And I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that Scott Walker finds her a comfy, high-paying job somewhere in his administration. After all, he's renowned for rewarding people that helped him when his two elections and he's also well known for associating with people who have no regard for the law or democracy.

22 comments:

  1. As a Dem living in this stupid red county, I need to know: What is the next step? Who do I file a complaint with? I knew she did this, we work with that same system every day at my job. Anyone who works with it knows the data is malleable.

    I want that bitch indicted. Any advice anyone has on how to go about recommending her for a DOJ investigation, let me know, I am all ears.

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    1. I suppose one could write to the United Nations and as for election observers....

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  2. I am wondering what the rules are for county clerks. There must be some ethics or some sort of procedures that they have to follow. Could it be that the rules haven't caught up with technology yet? I can't see her being able to get away without saying what she did.
    Will there be an investigation?

    Looks like the recount in Racine was to distract from this information, or to undermine it.

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    1. After reading the report, maybe not. Who knows?

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  3. Is it too much to ask that a forensic computer analyst be brought in to figure out exactly how Nickolaus sabotaged the voting system? There must be someone out there who is capable of figuring this out. This concept of "We can't figure it out, case closed" doesn't exactly instill confidence.

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    1. Regardless of the programming language that is being used by the voting system, there are tools out there that can do compares of the actual program code, and it will "highlight" the differences in the program code. If the programming language is something fairly popular, there are numerous tools that compare two sets of code. If it's not, then an analyst could just as easily do a visual comparison to find the answers. Bottom line, comparing the original source code to what the code looks like post-nickolaus debauchery would take less than a week at most to find what she did.

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    2. I think the deep forensic analysis is only used when CRG thinks an an employee is doing too much web browsing at work.

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    3. Sorry, that's kindergarten level stuff. Anyone on your IT staff can do it blindfolded, and, some housewives could too.

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    4. Assuming the original code base is available. Sure, it should have been backed up somewhere, but does anyone really doubt Nickolaus is incompetent enough to not have backed it up (especially given her well documented reluctance to cooperate with IT) or corrupt enough to make sure those backups no longer exist?

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  4. Send a complaint to your local office of the FBI and label it "vote tampering." Also send the same complaint to the Public Integrity section of the U.S. Department of Justice - here is their webpage: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/pin/

    I'm sure they have received numerous complaints, but more complaints won't hurt. Also send a letter to Sen. Kohl (Johnson is probably cheering the witch on).

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  5. This whole scenario is ridiculous. Republicans, who got what they wanted from Kathy's "ineptitude" (or is hacking the better term), contract a study so they can look like they're trying to save face and solve the problem. The study then isolates the problem to just what's going on in her mind, not any broader problem. Problem solved! Appropriate Stalin quote: "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes."

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  6. Forget the money look at Sequoia.

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  7. As time-consuming and screwy as it may sound, I for one, am all for electronic voting machines for a preliminary count, but I would like to see them also counted by hand. I think there are enough people who feel strongly about democracy to volunteer their time toward something as important as an honest outcome. Shouldn't there be a system of checks and balances...or is there one and I'm blind to it?

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  8. The John Doe just keeps growing in other directions like cancer searching out healthy tissue. How do we know that the count in the recall with her machines was correct and how do we know it hasn't been done to other machines?

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  9. ENOUGH ALREADY!!! WE VOTED TWICE!! WALKER WON BOTH TIMES. WANT TO TALK ABOUT TAXPAYERS MONEY WASTED!! I FOR ONE AM SICK OF IT ALL. GET A LIFE AND GET A JOB!!

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    1. Oh yes, how ridiculous to demand that our votes actually matter. It's irrelevant whether or not Walker won, she still broke the law.

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    2. that has never been proven or does "innocent until proven guilty" only apply to Democrats

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    3. This *is* a discussion about taxpayers' money wasted. Did you not read the post?

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  10. The Journal-Sentinel article follows the "only Kathy knows" about her unfortunate "mistakes" ploy, which closes the case with Kathy's "no comment." Having read the report, Command Central (CC), Waukesha County's software and servicing vendor, is written out of the picture.
    Any programming Kathy may have done is based on training received from CC. This programming information--changed for each election--is knowledge restricted to CC and the individuals it trains. In fact, a CC telephone hotline is maintained on election days if any problems should arise with a county clerk's programming and resultant vote tallies. Command Central has been identified with many instances of voting irregularities elsewhere in Wisconsin, and the trend has obviously played out in Waukesha.

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  11. Todd's correct- Sequoia is the real issue, and why did Kathy want to go around Waukesha County procurement rules to give them the contract for voting machines?

    And then think about those voting machines installed up North, and the fact that a lot of them had a surprising shift toward Walker. We need the UN inspectors here in November, because this things reeks more than a Herr Environmental dumping ground.

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    1. Why would Sequoia be the real issue? Sequoia is a hardware vender, owned by hardware titans Dominion Voting Systems, for which Command Central is its Wisconsin distributer. At issue here is software and its programming. Command Central is Waukesha County's software and servicing vender, an arrangement made by Kathy Nickolaus. Kathy has served as president of the Wisconsin County Clerks Association, where she presided over its June 2011 Ladysmith conference. Command Central and Dominion were the sole vendors there. Remember, software and its programming caused the Kathy Nickolaus problems. Kathy was working with Command Central programming whenever any problems arose.

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  12. And Kathy wanted to work out a deal behind the back of the Waukesha County Board to buy Sequoia equipment, and Sequoia works with Command Central,so it all interconnects. Nickolaus interestingly pulled back the offer when she was told was going to have to bid it out.

    Oh, and Command Central just happens to get all of the voter count records from the places that have their equipment, and have been receiving those records from counties before they legally are supposed to (because they can be retrieved as an Open Records request in Wisconin up to 3 weeks after an election, and have to stay with the county).

    And given Kathy's history, don't you kind of wonder why she was all hot to give Sequoia and Command Central this extra business in Walkershaw? I sure do.

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