Ion Sancho (politician)
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Ion Voltaire Sancho (born December 6, 1950 in New York City) is an elected public official serving Leon County, Florida, USA as Supervisor of Elections. As the family moved around, first to The family later moved to Louisiana and then Columbus, Ohio.[1] Sancho as eldest cared for his younger siblings. He moved to Florida after high school.
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[edit] Background
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Sancho received his A.A. degree from Valencia Community College in 1973. He then received is B.A. in Social Science from Stetson University in 1978. Sancho completed his education with a J.D. from Florida State University College of Law in 1987.[2]
In 1984 Sancho, a Democrat, was the Leon County leader for Presidential candidate Gary Hart. Sancho is a State Certified Supervisor of Elections and nationally certified by the Elections Center as a Certified Elections/Registration Administrator (CERA). He's a former staff member of the Florida House of Representatives, Corrections, Probation & Parole Committee. He is a member of the Center for Policy Alternatives, Voter Participation Advisory Board and member of The Elections Center.[3]
[edit] Supervisor of Elections
After a bid as county commissioner in 1986 Sancho took courses in election machine management and became certified in their use. In November of 1988, Sancho was elected to his first term as the Supervisor of Elections for Leon County, Florida. He ran and was re-elected in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004, serving his fifth term as of January 2, 2005. He was unopposed in each election since 1992.
[edit] National recognition
In the 2000 presidential recount, Sancho (No Party Affiliation) was chosen to lead the Florida hand count of ballots in dispute in Miami-Dade County. The U.S. Supreme Court stopped the hand count in a 5-4 ruling just as it got underway.
(Most voters (99%) in Leon County use the opti-scan equipment, but federal law requires one electronic machine per precinct for visually impaired voters).
[edit] Hacking a Diebold machine
In a series of four tests conducted in Feb., May, and Dec. 2005, Ion Sancho invited Black Box Voting[4] to Tallahassee after an invitation to check the Diebold machines. Black Box Voting engaged the services of Dr. Herbert Hugh Thompson and Harri Hursti. [5] Dr. Thompson and Hursti believed they could change or hack vote totals without the system detecting entry. The first two projects targeted the computer program that adds up all the voting machine results and produces the final report. On Feb. 14 and again on May 2, Thompson successfully hacked the Diebold GEMS central tabulator and bypassed all passwords by using a Visual Basic script. This, however, would be detected in a vigilant environment if the supervisor of elections checks the poll tapes (voting machine results) against the central tabulator report.
For purposes of demonstration, an election was run using Leon High School as a model. The results of the first hack are shown below.
| Leon High School (pre-hack) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage | |
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| Bud Baker | 623 | 54.79% | |
| Thomas Guthrie | 192 | 16.89% | |
| Nadiyah Smith | 322 | 28.32% | |
| Leon High School (post-hack) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage | |||||
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|||||||
| Bud Baker | 623 | 10.71% | |||||
| Thomas Guthrie | 192 | 3.30% | |||||
| Nadiyah Smith | 5000 | 85.98% | |||||
To show that the both the results tapes and the central tabulator could be hacked, Black Box Voting then engaged the services of Hursti to hack the poll tapes. Black Box Voting purchased a card reader from the internet and Hursti used it to produce counterfeit memory cards, which successfully altered the voting machine results tapes on May 26, 2005.[6] [7]
[edit] One-Step hack
A fourth trip to Tallahassee was made on Dec. 13, 2005. Black Box Voting and the producers of the film Hacking Democracy[8] organized the test. Attending were Harris and Kathleen Wynne from Black Box Voting, Hursti, Thompson, along with Susan Pynchon of Florida Fair Elections Coalition from Volusia County, Florida, and Susan Bernecker, a former candidate for New Orleans city council who videotaped Sequoia-brand touch-screen voting machines in her district recording vote after vote for the wrong candidate.[9]. During his research, Hursti found that Diebold's cards allowed negative votes. Hursti successfully altered the votes using only a memory card, producing a one-step hack that simultaneously altered both the central tabulator results and the voting machine results tapes for matched (but rigged) results. "I would have had no way of knowing," said Sancho. "I would have certified this election."
[edit] Results of Sancho's actions
As a result, Diebold, Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems, the only 3 companies certified to do business in Florida would not sell Sancho voting machines. Automark was contacted by Sancho but the Secretary of State would not certify their voting equipment. ES&S said, "did not believe it could have a smooth working relationship with Sancho".[10]
In Florida, Volusia County joined Leon County in dumping Diebold. Elections officials in the states of Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, and California have called into question the security and accuracy of new voting machines.
"I'm very troubled by this, to be honest—I can't believe the way he's being treated. What kind of message is this sending to elections supervisors? "The federal certification process for voting machines is broken, sadly, when it comes to security. It was designed for the era of mechanical machines, and it hasn't kept up."
– David Wagner, computer scientist, the University of California [11]
[edit] Opposition
After the test election, Secretary of State Sue Cobb (R) appointed by Governor Jeb Bush (R) and previously appointed U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica under George W. Bush from 2001 through February 2005,[12] accused Sancho of "undermining voter confidence" and the Federal Government and demanded the return of a $564,000 in grant money given to Sancho through the state to purchase voting machines that would comply with ADA standards as mandated in the Help America Vote Act Pub.L. 107-252 (HAVA), a United States federal law passed on October 29, 2002. [13]
At Leon County Commission meetings on February 14 and February 28, 2006 the only two Republicans in the local governments of either the city of Tallahassee or Leon County government, Tony Grippa and Ed Depuy of Leon County's seven-member county commission blasted Sancho for failing to provide Leon County with accessible voting machines in attacks that Sancho believes were politically motivated. [14]
At a Leon County Commission meeting on February 28, 2006, county staff revealed that Chuck Owen, Division Counsel for Diebold Election Systems, met with county staff behind closed doors on February 27. According to staff, Owen stated that Diebold would sell its touch-screen voting machines to the county if, and only if, the county removed Supervisor Sancho from office. [15] That same day, Commissioner DePuy offered a motion, seconded by Commissioner Grippa to request the State Attorney to convene a grand jury to investigate why Leon County is not in compliance with the voting regulations. [16]
[edit] Legal action
On March 8, 2006 Sancho initiated legal proceedings against Diebold Election Systems for breach of contract. Attorney Lida Rodriguez Taseff with Duane Morris in Miami filed the suit. Diebold refused to return phone calls to Sancho and staff, refused to honor its existing contract with Leon County for the maintenance and upgrades of its voting system. Further, Diebold refused to sell Leon County touch-screen voting machines to meet state and federal requirements for disabled acessbility.[17]
[edit] Ending paperless voting
On May 21, 2007 recently elected Florida Governor Charlie Crist (R) signed a bill in West Palm Beach that bans nearly all paperless electronic voting in Florida and requiring paper optical-scan ballots with the exception of touch screens for the disabled who wish to vote in that specific way. [18]
"The foundation of our democracy is our cherished right to vote, and to have a cherished right to vote on a system that we know is trustworthy and that we can have confidence in," Crist said Monday. "That's why this is so important, to have a paper trail, to know that when we count our votes in Florida, every vote counts."
– Gov. Charlie Crist, May 21, 2007 [19]
[edit] In the media
Sancho has been on National Public Radio and is familiar to readers of the New York Times, the Washington Post, St. Petersburg Times and appears in the 2006 HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy."[20]
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- ^ Black Box Voting - Ion Sancho's early years
- ^ Leon County Supervisor of Elections
- ^ Leon County Supervisor of Elections
- ^ Black Box Voting nonprofit group
- ^ Washington Post - As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security
- ^ [http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf Black Box Voting Report: Critical Security Problems with Diebold Optical Scan Machine]
- ^ Voter Action - Computer Expert Harry Hursti’s “Exploits” Demonstrate Vulnerabilities In The Diebold Voting System And Expose Diebold Misrepresentations
- ^ Hacking Democracy documentary
- ^ Florida Fair Elections
- ^ The Daily Kos
- ^ Washington Post, March 25, 2006
- ^ Open Secrets - Sue Cobb
- ^ Florida Trend, Law and Government
- ^ Minutes of the Leon County Commission - February 14, 2006
- ^ Minutes of the Leon County Commission - February 28, 3006
- ^ Minutes of the Leon County Commission, February 28, 2006
- ^ Democratic Underground: story by Susan Pynchon, Florida Fair Elections Coalition
- ^ Palm Beach Post, Local News, May 21, 2006
- ^ Palm Beach Post, May 21, 2006
- ^ Internet Movie Database - Hacking Democracy
