Sunday, July 09, 2006
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the U.S. Today
Interesting facts about the results of our shift to paperless electronic voting machines in America. Have we become a banana republic--possibly headed for more disputed elections on a par with what is going on in Mexico right now?
We are fortunate to have in our midst a true political analyst who sends us further insight into the challenge of our voting system. The original message is printed below for your objective consideration. BCC is being sent out to original list. ~dl
There is a tendency to say "Yes, but ..." to much of this "evidence."
For example, "Yes, Jeb Bush is the president's brother and governor of Florida and a Republican, but elections in Florida (as in most places) are administered by county government elected and appointed officials who are in many counties Democrats."
The Dems, at least in Florida, are not all squeaky clean either. A year or two before the 2000 fiasco in Florida a court threw out the results of the last election for mayor in one of the Dade County cities because the vote count had been tampered with.
OTOH, I never hear a mention of Shoup voting machines based in Philadelphia in these roundups. Their push button and flashing light "Shouptronic" macines are used here in Berks Co., PA. Several years ago, the head of the Shoup company entered a guilty plea when charged with rigging an election conducted on his company's machines.
My position is that, so long as we value a secret ballot, we must use paper ballots and hand counting open to public view. I would prefer to abandon the secret ballot and have votes announced in public and recorded on paper in view of the voter and public. Any machine system, even the old electromechanical ones with levers, can be tampered with.
I have examined some of the "evidence" of tampering in Ohio and found it less than convincing. In one county cited in a "study" proving the 2004 count was fraudulent they pointed to Bush getting something over 70% of the votes as "proof." But I looked up the full 2004 results for that county and found that Bush trailed the average Republican candidate (state legislature, county commissioner, etc.) by about three points. I looked at the three prior elections in that county and GOP votes in contested races ranged from about 60-90%. In every election I reviewed, several offices failed to attract any Democrat candidate at all. Conculsion - that is just a very heavily GOP county, just as you could find wards in Cleveland where no Democrat ever gets less than 70% of the vote and many offices are not even contested by the GOP.
I once made a fair case that Wisconsin was stolen for the Dems in a recent election. Unfortunately, this sort of thing cuts both ways. The important point is to avoid making this a partisan issue and stress the fact that we are moving toward a system of black box voting which will destroy what little public confidence is left in the electoral system. To keep harping on the themes of "Gore won" or "Kerry won" is to assure that most of the half of the electorate that is Republican (not all of whom are Bush fans) will see the whole business as a Democratic plot and not pay attention to the larger issue.
Keen
http://whatreallyhappened.com/usa_vote_facts.html
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold
and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the
U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and
donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became
Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was
recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics
Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's
vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts
almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any
votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of
the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of
which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to
help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes
in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it
was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of
felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by
Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning
software now used in most of the United States.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his
software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over
a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls
in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was
so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a
chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here:
http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen
voting machines with no paper trail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and
reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's
brother.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush --
have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further
investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
We are fortunate to have in our midst a true political analyst who sends us further insight into the challenge of our voting system. The original message is printed below for your objective consideration. BCC is being sent out to original list. ~dl
There is a tendency to say "Yes, but ..." to much of this "evidence."
For example, "Yes, Jeb Bush is the president's brother and governor of Florida and a Republican, but elections in Florida (as in most places) are administered by county government elected and appointed officials who are in many counties Democrats."
The Dems, at least in Florida, are not all squeaky clean either. A year or two before the 2000 fiasco in Florida a court threw out the results of the last election for mayor in one of the Dade County cities because the vote count had been tampered with.
OTOH, I never hear a mention of Shoup voting machines based in Philadelphia in these roundups. Their push button and flashing light "Shouptronic" macines are used here in Berks Co., PA. Several years ago, the head of the Shoup company entered a guilty plea when charged with rigging an election conducted on his company's machines.
My position is that, so long as we value a secret ballot, we must use paper ballots and hand counting open to public view. I would prefer to abandon the secret ballot and have votes announced in public and recorded on paper in view of the voter and public. Any machine system, even the old electromechanical ones with levers, can be tampered with.
I have examined some of the "evidence" of tampering in Ohio and found it less than convincing. In one county cited in a "study" proving the 2004 count was fraudulent they pointed to Bush getting something over 70% of the votes as "proof." But I looked up the full 2004 results for that county and found that Bush trailed the average Republican candidate (state legislature, county commissioner, etc.) by about three points. I looked at the three prior elections in that county and GOP votes in contested races ranged from about 60-90%. In every election I reviewed, several offices failed to attract any Democrat candidate at all. Conculsion - that is just a very heavily GOP county, just as you could find wards in Cleveland where no Democrat ever gets less than 70% of the vote and many offices are not even contested by the GOP.
I once made a fair case that Wisconsin was stolen for the Dems in a recent election. Unfortunately, this sort of thing cuts both ways. The important point is to avoid making this a partisan issue and stress the fact that we are moving toward a system of black box voting which will destroy what little public confidence is left in the electoral system. To keep harping on the themes of "Gore won" or "Kerry won" is to assure that most of the half of the electorate that is Republican (not all of whom are Bush fans) will see the whole business as a Democratic plot and not pay attention to the larger issue.
Keen
http://whatreallyhappened.com/usa_vote_facts.html
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold
and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the
U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and
donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became
Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was
recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics
Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's
vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts
almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any
votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of
the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of
which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to
help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes
in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it
was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of
felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by
Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning
software now used in most of the United States.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his
software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over
a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls
in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was
so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a
chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here:
http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen
voting machines with no paper trail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and
reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's
brother.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush --
have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further
investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
