RFK Jr. discusses Diebold, Hacking Elections on MSNBC’s HARDBALL 9-27-06
Posted in '06 Election, General, RFK Jr., Video on September 27th, 2006
Princeton researchers demonstrate security flaws in a Diebold electronic voting machine.
By Michael Parenti
The 2004 presidential contest between Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry and the Republican incumbent, President Bush Jr., amounted to another stolen election. This has been well documented by such investigators as Rep. John Conyers, Mark Crispin Miller, Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Bev Harris, and others. Here is an overview of what they have reported, along with observations of my own.
Some 105 million citizens voted in 2000, but in 2004 the turnout climbed to at least 122 million. Pre-election surveys indicated that among the record 16.8 million new voters Kerry was a heavy favorite, a fact that went largely unreported by the press. In addition, there were about two million progressives who had voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 who switched to Kerry in 2004.
Yet the official 2004 tallies showed Bush with 62 million votes, about 11.6 million more than he got in 2000. Meanwhile Kerry showed only eight million more votes than Gore received in 2000. To have achieved his remarkable 2004 tally, Bush would needed to have kept all his 50.4 million from 2000, plus a majority of the new voters, plus a large share of the very liberal Nader defectors.
Nothing in the campaign and in the opinion polls suggest such a mass crossover. The numbers simply do not add up.
In key states like Ohio, the Democrats achieved immense success at registering new voters, outdoing the Republicans by as much as five to one. Moreover the Democratic party was unusually united around its candidate-or certainly against the incumbent president. In contrast, prominent elements within the GOP displayed open disaffection, publicly voicing serious misgivings about the Bush administration’s huge budget deficits, reckless foreign policy, theocratic tendencies, and threats to individual liberties.
Sixty newspapers that had endorsed Bush in 2000 refused to do so in 2004; forty of them endorsed Kerry.
All through election day 2004, exit polls showed Kerry ahead by 53 to 47 percent, giving him a nationwide edge of about 1.5 million votes, and a solid victory in the electoral college. Yet strangely enough, the official tally gave Bush the election. Here are some examples of how the GOP “victory” was secured.
—In some places large numbers of Democratic registration forms disappeared, along with absentee ballots and provisional ballots. Sometimes absentee ballots were mailed out to voters just before election day, too late to be returned on time, or they were never mailed at all.
—Overseas ballots normally reliably distributed by the State Department were for some reason distributed by the Pentagon in 2004. Nearly half of the six million American voters living abroad—a noticeable number of whom formed anti-Bush organizations—never received their ballots or got them too late to vote. Military personnel, usually more inclined toward supporting the president, encountered no such problems with their overseas ballots.
—Voter Outreach of America, a company funded by the Republican National Committee, collected thousands of voter registration forms in Nevada, promising to turn them in to public officials, but then systematically destroyed the ones belonging to Democrats.
— Tens of thousands of Democratic voters were stricken from the rolls in several states because of “felonies” never committed, or committed by someone else, or for no given reason. Registration books in Democratic precincts were frequently out-of-date or incomplete. —Democratic precincts—enjoying record turnouts—were deprived of sufficient numbers of polling stations and voting machines, and many of the machines they had kept breaking down. After waiting long hours many people went home without voting. Pro-Bush precincts almost always had enough voting machines, all working well to make voting quick and convenient.
—A similar pattern was observed with student populations in several states: students at conservative Christian colleges had little or no wait at the polls, while students from liberal arts colleges were forced to line up for as long as ten hours, causing many to give up.
—In Lucas County, Ohio, one polling place never opened; the voting machines were locked in an office and no one could find the key. In Hamilton County many absentee voters could not cast a Democratic vote for president because John Kerry’s name had been “accidentally” removed when Ralph Nader was taken off the ballot.
—A polling station in a conservative evangelical church in Miami County, Ohio, recorded an impossibly high turnout of 98 percent, while a polling place in Democratic inner-city Cleveland recorded an impossibly low turnout of 7 percent.
—Latino, Native American, and African American voters in New Mexico who favored Kerry by two to one were five times more likely to have their ballots spoiled and discarded in districts supervised by Republican election officials. Many were given provisional ballots that subsequently were never counted. In these same Democratic areas Bush “won” an astonishing 68 to 31 percent upset victory. One Republican judge in New Mexico discarded hundreds of provisional ballots cast for Kerry, accepting only those that were for Bush.
—Cadres of rightwing activists, many of them religious fundamentalists, were financed by the Republican Party. Deployed to key Democratic precincts, they handed out flyers warning that voters who had unpaid parking tickets, an arrest record, or owed child support would be arrested at the polls—all untrue. They went door to door offering to “deliver” absentee ballots to the proper office, and announcing that Republicans were to vote on Tuesday (election day) and Democrats on Wednesday.
—Democratic poll watchers in Ohio, Arizona, and other states, who tried to monitor election night vote counting, were menaced and shut out by squads of GOP toughs. In Warren County, Ohio, immediately after the polls closed Republican officials announced a “terrorist attack” alert, and ordered the press to leave. They then moved all ballots to a warehouse where the counting was conducted in secret, producing an amazingly high tally for Bush, some 14,000 more votes than he had received in 2000. It wasn’t the terrorists who attacked Warren County.
—Bush did remarkably well with phantom populations. The number of his votes in Perry and Cuyahoga counties in Ohio, exceeded the number of registered voters, creating turnout rates as high as 124 percent. In Miami County nearly 19,000 additional votes eerily appeared in Bush’s column after all precincts had reported. In a small conservative suburban precinct of Columbus, where only 638 people were registered, the touchscreen machines tallied 4,258 votes for Bush.
—In almost half of New Mexico’s counties, more votes were reported than were recorded as being cast, and the tallies were consistently in Bush’s favor. These ghostly results were dismissed by New Mexico’s Republican Secretary of State as an “administrative lapse.”
Exit polls showed Kerry solidly ahead of Bush in both the popular vote and the electoral college. Exit polls are an exceptionally accurate measure of elections. In the last three elections in Germany, for example, exit polls were never off by more than three-tenths of one percent.
Unlike ordinary opinion polls, the exit sample is drawn from people who have actually just voted. It rules out those who say they will vote but never make it to the polls, those who cannot be sampled because they have no telephone or otherwise cannot be reached at home, those who are undecided or who change their minds about whom to support, and those who are turned away at the polls for one reason or another.
Exit polls have come to be considered so reliable that international organizations use them to validate election results in countries around the world.
Republicans argued that in 2004 the exit polls were inaccurate because they were taken only in the morning when Kerry voters came out in greater numbers. (Apparently Bush voters sleep late.) In fact, the polling was done at random intervals all through the day, and the evening results were as much favoring Kerry as the early results.
It was also argued that pollsters focused more on women (who favored Kerry) than men, or maybe large numbers of grumpy Republicans were less inclined than cheery Democrats to talk to pollsters. No evidence was put forth to substantiate these fanciful speculations.
Most revealing, the discrepancies between exit polls and official tallies were never random but worked to Bush’s advantage in ten of eleven swing states that were too close to call, sometimes by as much as 9.5 percent as in New Hampshire, an unheard of margin of error for an exit poll. In Nevada, Ohio, New Mexico, and Iowa exit polls registered solid victories for Kerry, yet the official tally in each case went to Bush, a mystifying outcome.
In states that were not hotly contested the exit polls proved quite accurate. Thus exit polls in Utah predicted a Bush victory of 70.8 to 26.4 percent; the actual result was 71.1 to 26.4 percent. In Missouri, where the exit polls predicted a Bush victory of 54 to 46 percent, the final result was 53 to 46 percent.
One explanation for the strange anomalies in vote tallies was found in the widespread use of touchscreen electronic voting machines. These machines produced results that consistently favored Bush over Kerry, often in chillingly consistent contradiction to exit polls.
In 2003 more than 900 computer professionals had signed a petition urging that all touchscreen systems include a verifiable audit trail. Touchscreen voting machines can be easily programmed to go dead on election day or throw votes to the wrong candidate or make votes disappear while leaving the impression that everything is working fine.
A tiny number of operatives can easily access the entire computer network through one machine and thereby change votes at will. The touchscreen machines use trade secret code, and are tested, reviewed, and certified in complete secrecy. Verified counts are impossible because the machines leave no reliable paper trail.
Since the introduction of touchscreen voting, mysterious congressional election results have been increasing. In 2000 and 2002, Senate and House contests and state legislative races in North Carolina, Nebraska, Alabama, Minnesota, Colorado, and elsewhere produced dramatic and puzzling upsets, always at the expense of Democrats who were ahead in the polls.
In some counties in Texas, Virginia, and Ohio, voters who pressed the Democrat’s name found that the Republican candidate was chosen. In Cormal County, Texas, three GOP candidates won by exactly 18,181 votes apiece, a near statistical impossibility.
All of Georgia’s voters used Diebold touchscreen machines in 2002, and Georgia’s incumbent Democratic governor and incumbent Democratic senator, who were both well ahead in the polls just before the election, lost in amazing double-digit voting shifts.
This may be the most telling datum of all: In New Mexico in 2004 Kerry lost all precincts equipped with touchscreen machines, irrespective of income levels, ethnicity, and past voting patterns. The only thing that consistently correlated with his defeat in those precincts was the presence of the touchscreen machine itself.
In Florida Bush registered inexplicably sharp jumps in his vote (compared to 2000) in counties that used touchscreen machines.
Companies like Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S that market the touchscreen machines are owned by militant supporters of the Republican party. These companies have consistently refused to implement a paper-trail to dispel suspicions and give instant validation to the results of electronic voting. They prefer to keep things secret, claiming proprietary rights, a claim that has been backed in court.
Election officials are not allowed to evaluate the secret software. Apparently corporate trade secrets are more important than voting rights. In effect, corporations have privatized the electoral system, leaving it easily susceptible to fixed outcomes. Given this situation, it is not likely that the GOP will lose control of Congress come November 2006. The two-party monopoly threatens to become an even worse one-party tyranny.
Michael Parenti’s recent books include The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), Superpatriotism (City Lights), and The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press). For more information visit: www.michaelparenti.org.
from ZNet
Don’t be a Sitting Duck for the Secret Ballot
Verify Election Results
Run Parallel Elections
Collect Voter Affidavits
CONGRESS! BAN Voting by Secret Ballot, Voting Machine, Internet, Absentee, Early, or Carrier Pigeon.
Others’ videos: GOT DEMOCRACY, Help America Vote On Paper, (from eon3), The Right To Count, Invisible Ballots(2004), VoterGate, The Big Fix 2000
another must watch: 911 Cover Up
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5946593973848835726&q=genre%3Adocumentary&hl=en
“...our elections are easy to rig because of how we vote. It wasn’t always this way. Prior to the Civil War, voting was a completely observable process. It was only after the Civil War, as the right to vote expanded to African Americans, that the voting process itself began to recede from public view and meaningful oversight. It started with absentee voting by the military in the 1870’s, the use of secret ballots in the 1880’s, and voting by machine in the 1890’s. Today, approximately 30% of all voting is conducted early or by absentee, 95% of all votes are processed by machines, and 100% of all ballots are secret and anonymous.” Lynn Landes
PARTIAL “The Fix Is In” TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
“The election is over. We won.” (Reporter’s voice – “How do you know that?”) “It’s all over, but the counting. And we’ll take care of the counting.”
That was Republican Congressman Peter King of New York. He made those remarks just BEFORE the 2004 presidential election.
Hi. I’m Lynn Landes. I’m a freelance journalist and publisher of the website, EcoTalk.org. I want to thank you for taking the time to watch this brief video.
Our elections are in deep trouble. Many Americans no longer believe that voting results are accurate. More and more voters are learning first-hand that voting machines are completely unreliable and that many of our election officials are untrustworthy. But what’s at the core of this crisis? The secret ballot.
Any ballot in America can be easily miscounted either by accident or design, regardless of whether it’s a paper ballot or electronic vote. That’s because modern Americans vote by secret ballot. A secret ballot is an anonymous ballot, which means it can’t be traced to the voter. We’ve been told that’s a good deal for us, that it protects us against harassment and vote selling. But, it’s a much better deal for those who want to rig elections and not get caught. It’s time we scrap the secrecy and go public with our votes.
In this video you’ll hear a startling admission from a voting company representative, I offer some practical advice on how to verify or challenge election returns through the collection of voter affidavits, And I make the case for a return to total transparency in voting, what I call “Open Votingâ€
The fact is our elections are easy to rig because of how we vote. It wasn’t always this way. Prior to the Civil War, voting was a completely observable process. It was only after the Civil War, as the right to vote expanded to African Americans, that the voting process itself began to recede from public view and meaningful oversight. It started with absentee voting by the military in the 1870’s, the use of secret ballots in the 1880’s, and voting by machine in the 1890’s. Today, approximately 30% of all voting is conducted early or by absentee, 95% of all votes are processed by machines, and 100% of all ballots are secret and anonymous.
Worse yet, most of the voting process in America has been privatized and outsourced to a handful of domestic companies and multi-national corporations. One company, Sequoia, is foreign-owned. And just two companies (ES&S and Diebold) process 80% of all votes in the United States. These companies make, sell, and service both ballot scanners and touchscreen machines.
Although most of the debate over security issues has been framed to target suspicion on outside hackers and backdoors, it is in fact company insiders who have the keys to the front door and complete access to the electronic ballot box. For all practical purposes, voting machine companies are self-regulating, and as such, their employees are in a perfect position to rig elections nationwide. But even if these companies were regulated, it is virtually impossible to guard against insider vote fraud, as you will see.
The following are video clips of an examination of the Danaher voting system by Pennsylvania state authorities in November of 2005.
(VIDEO CLIP)
Notice, the Danaher representative assured state officials that the company would not be able to rig elections because their programmers would have to know well in advance all the candidates names and their positions on the ballot. But that’s ludicrous. There’s nothing to stop programmers from using secret company code to manipulate votes for a particular candidate. This can be done while making a service call before, during, or after an election. It could be accomplished remotely via the Internet, modem, or through wireless technology. And it can be done without the knowledge of election officials.
But, setting that issue aside, what if it is not a specific candidate the company wants to rig an election for, but a particular party instead?
(VIDEO CLIP)
The Danaher representative just admitted that their computer program includes a party identifier next to each candidate’s name. Therefore, the company can easily write a program that shifts a certain percentage of votes from one party’s candidates to another party before the machines ever leave the factory floor. That shift could make the difference in tight races.
Most voting machine companies have close ties to the Republican Party and most voting machine irregularities appear to favor Republicans, but I must emphasize, that is not always the case. Even in Republican and Democratic primaries, where the race is between members of the same party, voting machines are exhibiting suspicious irregularities. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party and the Green Party’s measured response to the gravity of this situation makes one wonder.
Pending congressional legislation that would require ballot printers for paperless voting machines is a woefully inadequate response to the threat these machines represent, as a long history of equipment malfunctions and failures can attest. But, even more disturbing are the actions of some candidates, particularly Democratic candidates, who are conceding extremely close races without waiting for all the absentee and provisional ballots to be counted. It appears that the fix may be in across the political spectrum.
What’s the solution? Perhaps voters should support candidates that have no party affiliation. But, regarding the voting process itself, Congress should return to a policy of open and transparent elections and ban voting by machine, absentee, early, and by secret ballot. Until that day, we must go public with our votes. We must provide candidates with hard evidence of how we voted so that election results can be verified, or challenged, if necessary. Exit polls do not constitute hard evidence. Only voter affidavits can provide that. It’s time voters sign up and be counted.
Specifically, candidates or activists need to conduct a Parallel Election, of sorts. They need to collect affidavits from voters or, at the very least, get signed statements that include the voter’s name, signature, address, and for whom they voted. These can be collected in three ways: 1) on Election Day as voters leave the polls, 2) door to door after the election, or 3) by asking voters, particularly absentee voters, to mail-in affidavits or signed statements immediately after they mail in their ballot. If manpower is a problem, then target only a few polling places or precincts. Keep in mind that a list of those who voted is a matter of public record. Most precincts have about 500 voters and most voters don’t vote.
So, for many races we’re not talking about contacting a lot of people. Naturally, you want to first contact voters that belong to the same party as your candidate. Depending on your results, that may be sufficient to challenge election returns. You don’t need 100% participation from voters. Any number of signatures collected that exceeds the official vote count is an indicator of a miscount.
Something similar to this idea was put into practice last winter in North Carolina. A Republican candidate gathered more than 1400 affidavits from voters in precincts where voting machines malfunctioned and lost thousands of votes. On the basis of those affidavits his Democratic opponent conceded.
Last year I wrote my first article calling for Parallel Elections. See – http://www.ecotalk.org/ParallelElections.htm A few activists around the country did just that. On the basis of signed statements collected at 11 polling places in a California election, a recount was granted. Unfortunately by the time the recount was held, there was plenty of opportunity for election officials to minimize the miscount. So, be careful about asking for a recount when what’s actually needed is a new election that’s free from voting machines at the very least. And remember, even a new election needs a Parallel Election to serve as a check.
If no one is organizing a Parallel Election, then voters can on their on initiative send the candidate of their choice a card or letter indicating that they voted for them. That might spur more candidates to action. You may not win an election challenge in a court of law, but the court of public opinion is more important in the long run.
If we want a real democracy we must take our elections out of the corporate boardroom and back into the public square. We cannot continue to hide behind the secret ballot. Remember John Hancock’s large and flamboyant signature on the Declaration of Independence? He did that in the face of certain hardship and possible death. It’s now our turn to sign up and be counted.
I’m Lynn Landes. And thanks for watching.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
1989) Pandora’s Black Box & http://www.votefraud.org/expert_strunk_report.htm (contains case number)
security supervisors ordered wire-taps installed on county computers before elections in the late 1970s and early 1980s that could have allowed vote totals to be altered, a former employee says in a sworn court document. , a 23-year employee until he was fired in 1986, claims in a deposition filed Thursday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court to have installed the wire-taps. (The easiest way to rig elections nationwide is for voting machine company-insiders to program the firmware (permanently installed software in touchscreens and ballot scanners) to favor one political party over another. That way they don’t need to know the candidates’ names nor their position on the ballot. They can even rig the top of the ticket only, in which case the winning candidate can claim a crossover vote in a opposing party’s district, as may have happened in Florida 2004 – See Lynn’s data table
Lewis is possibly the most powerful man in the U.S., influencing election procedures and voting systems, yet he is vague about his credentials and no one seems to be quite sure who hired him or how he came to oversee such vast electoral functions. Lewis organized the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS, now heavily funded by voting machine vendors); he also organized the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) and, through them, Lewis told (author Bev) Harris he helps certify the certifiers.” “Wyle Laboratories is the most talked-about voting machine certifier, probably because it is the biggest, but in fact, Wyle quit certifying voting machine software in 1996. It does test hardware: Can you drop it off a truck? Does it stand up to rain? Software testing and certification is done by scoop.co.nz
. When Ciber quit certifying in 1996, it was taken over by Nichols Research, and was in charge of testing. Nichols Research stopped doing the testing, and it was taken over by PSInet, where did the testing. PSInet went under, and testing functions were taken over by Metamore, where did the testing. Metamore dumped it, and it was taken over by Ciber, where does the testing. Here is a photo of :”
WOULD YOU TRUST THIS MAN WITH YOUR VOTE?
meet Shawn Southworth
the industry guy who “certifies” America’s voting technology
17. But, wouldn’t it take a vast number of people to rig an election? Not with today’s technology. One programmer working at either ES&S or Diebold could write code that could manipulate votes across the country. If a voting machine has computer components, it can be rigged or accessed through the firmware, software, wireless, modem, telephone, and simple electricity. Main tabulating computers can be rigged in a similar fashion. Lever voting machine are also easily rigged, although it would be more labor intensive. Still, anyone with the keys to the county warehouse where the machines are stored could rig the machines. Labels can be switched, gears shaved, odometers preset, or printouts preprinted.
18. Can’t we detect vote fraud through exit polls? Exit polling is conducted by one organization that is hired by the major news networks and the Associated Press. Since they first started “projecting” election night winners in 1964, the major news networks have never provided any ‘hard’ evidence that they actually conducted any exit polls, at all. The late authors of the book, VoteScam: The Stealing of America, concluded that some of the major news networks, including the polling organization that they hire for election night reporting, have been complicit in vote fraud. see: exit polls
19. If someone wins by a large enough margin, isn’t that a sign that the election wasn’t rigged? No. It only stands to reason that if someone is going to rig an election, it will be done by a sufficient number of votes to avoid triggering a recount. Otherwise, this could happen: In August of 2002, in Clay county Kansas, Jerry Mayo lost a close race for county commissioner, garnering 48% of the vote, but a hand recount revealed May won by a landslide, earning 76% of the vote. http://www.ecotalk.org/BevHarrisBook2.pdf (page 45)
20. Aren’t you just a conspiracy theorist? No. In the words of Greg Palast, “I’m a conspiracy expert.” Election officials have outsourced and privatized a uniquely public function. Corporations have gained near total control over the process of voting. Corporations also control the process of reporting exit polls. Both processes are completely non-transparent.
by Lynn Landes for EcoTalk.org
An Exclusive Interview for The BRAD BLOG as Guest Blogged by Joy and Tom Williams…
“The Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, has been using old-fashioned, Jim Crow, apartheid-type maneuvers to steal the last two national elections.”
– Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., (bio) , wrote the article: “Was the 2004 Election Stolen” where he examined the election fraud in Ohio that took place during the last Presidential Election. He also has written a book “Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush & His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking our Democracy“. Mr. Kennedy, along with Mike Papantonio have filed a “qui tam” lawsuit against some of the voting machines companies, in an effort to save our Democracy.
I’ve long had a deep respect for Robert F. Kennedy for his dedicated work as an environmental advocate. Tom and I enjoyed interviewing him and were moved by his passion and dedication to our country and our Democracy. We spoke to him via phone at his office at Pace University’s Environmental Litigation Clinic in White Plains, New York, which he founded, about the election of 2004. This was an experience to remember…
BRAD BLOG: In your book, “Crimes Against Nature,” you said that Bush won the 2004 election because of an information deficit caused by a breakdown in our national media. You go on to say that “Bush was re-elected because of the negligence of-and deliberate deception by-the American press.” Your recent article in “Rolling Stone” seems to suggest that your opinion has changed, focusing more on the fraud and deception in Ohio with the computerized voting machines. What was the most important thing that made you suspect fraud and decide to investigate the 2004 election?
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Well, my opinion hasn’t changed, that the press has been negligent, and that the large amount of support for the President, and for the people that did vote for the President, that large numbers of them would not have done so, had they known the truth about his policies, and his record. You say my opinion changed, but it hasn’t changed.
You know I’ve known this for many years, because of my anecdotal experience. I give about 40 speeches a year, in red states to Republican audiences, and I get the same enthusiastic responses from those audiences as I get from Liberal college audiences. The only difference is, is that the Republicans often say to me, “How come we’ve never heard this before?” I made the conclusion many years ago that there’s not a huge values difference between Red State Republicans and Blue State Democrats. The distinction is really informational. 80% of Republicans are just Democrats who don’t know what’s going on. And my anecdotal conclusion was confirmed by a survey done immediately after the 2004 election called the PIPA report, which tested Bush supporters and Kerry supporters based upon their knowledge of current events. It found that among Bush supporters, they were widespread in its interpretations, or there were factual errors in the way that they viewed Bush’s major public policy initiatives.
For example, 75% of the Republican respondents believed that Saddam Hussein bombed the World Trade Center, and 72% believed that WMD had been found in Iraq. And most of them believed that the war in Iraq had strong support among Iraq’s Muslim neighbors and our traditional allies in Europe, which of course is wrong. The Democrats as a whole had a much more accurate view of those events. And then PIPA went back twice to these same people. The first time it went back to the people that had these misinterpretations, and asked them where they were getting their news, and invariably they said talk radio and FOX news. And PIPA went back a third time, and made inquiries about their fundamental values, and it did start with a string of hypotheticals:
“What if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? What if Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with bombing the World Trade Center? What if the U.S. Invasion of Iraq had little support among Iraq’s Muslim neighbors and was largely opposed by Iraq’s Muslim neighbors, and by our troops and allies in Europe? Should we have still gone in?” And roughly 80% of Dem and 80% of Rep said the same thing, “We should not.” And so the values were the same. It was the facts, the information, it was the access to information that was different.
BB: Are you then adding a layer of suspicion about the direct manipulation and fraudulent counting through computerized voting?
RFK JR.: That also happened, that was another factor. Our democracy is broken. Our democracy is broken because of our campaign finance system, which is just a system of legalized bribery, which has allowed corporations and the very wealthy to control the electoral results. Let me go back and say our electoral system is broken for three reasons, in three large respects: The first is our campaign finance system, which is a system of legalized bribery, and which has allowed corporations and the very rich to control the results of our electoral process. Number two is the failure of the American press and that is also a function and result of corporate control, as I showed in my book. Number three is the election system itself, which is broken. We’ve privatized it and allowed four large corporations to count our votes on machines that don’t work.
But also the Republican party has inculcated a culture of corruption. The Republican party has adopted a strategy of denying votes to blacks and other minorities, and to other people more traditionally Democratic, suppressing Democratic vote and fraudulently expanding Republican vote. And this is happening all over the country. I would urge you to read Greg Palast’s latest book, Armed Madhouse. He does for the national elections what I did for the Ohio election, which is to synthesize the information that’s out there into a readable document, in which he shows exactly how this election was stolen-not just in Ohio but in many other states as well.
BB: Have any of your expert witnesses or anyone referred to some of the stringent requirements in the gaming industry which uses computerized slot machines, poker machines and so forth involving the levels of certification and disclosure of the security requirements of its vendors?
RFK JR.: Well, you see this was just another corporate boondoggle that gave the most venal mendacious corporations charge of our most sacred public trust, which is the right to vote. These corporations were making hundreds of millions of dollars. The machines, as it turns out, were manufactured by wireless companies and were just a cheap piece of junk that cost less than $100 to manufacture, and they were selling them for $2400 apiece. And they were using Jack Abramoff and other corrupt lobbyists to persuade federal officials to pass the federal act to appropriate the money and then to persuade state and local officials to purchase the defective machines.
BB: Jack Abramoff was involved in this?
RFK JR.: Oh yes. Jack Abramoff, and Bob Ney (R-Oh), the principle figure in the Abramoff scandal and he’s the author of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). And Diebold contributed millions of dollars to these guys, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to Abramoff to lobby on behalf of HAVA, and to lobby states like New York and the other states, to adopt the Diebold machines.
BB: So HAVA was “created specifically to disenfranchise voters and verfication”?
RFK JR.: HAVA was written specifically to require the states to buy Diebold machines. I mean one company basically had control of the whole legislative process. That’s why HAVA has a provision in it that discourages vote verification by paper ballots. Both Republicans and Democrats tried to reform the HAVA, saying of course we should have paper verification of the vote. Paper verification would allow you to go in, make your vote on the electronic machine, and you get a receipt that is a copy of who you voted for and you are allowed to examine that receipt. You deposit it in a locked box in the voting area. That way, if there’s ever any question, if you need to count, you can count the papers, and see if it compares to what the machine says.
But Bob Ney fought tooth and nail against that provision because Diebold made a machine that does not provide a paper ballot. And he went so far, because Diebold contributed a million dollars to an organization that purportedly protects the rights of blind people. And in exchange for that, that organization got one of its officers to testify on Capitol Hill at the HAVA hearings, that blind people in America did not want paper ballots – voter verified ballots – because it would deprive someone of the right to vote secretly. Now the other organizations that support handicapped rights and rights of the blind, do not take that position. This was a position that that organization adopted after accepting a million dollars from Diebold. The whole operation was corrupt and now Bob Ney is going to jail for it.
BB: Also, speaking of those guys, election officials in several states, most notably Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Bruce McPherson here in the state of California, appear to be be deliberately flouting established law and procedures as well as direct court orders, and they seem to be just “getting away with it”. How can that be?
RFK JR.: Well, again, it’s because of the failure of the American press. This is the most important issue in American Democracy and the press isn’t covering it. So the politicians who want to fix the elections, and who want these fraudulent machines, can get away with it, don’t take a position because it gets no traction in the press.
BB:: But then why didn’t people like Kerry want to contest the results?
RFK JR.: You’d have to ask Kerry.
BB: Why hasn’t the DNC done anything about this?
RFK JR.: You’d have to ask the DNC.
BB: We watched Howard Dean on television having a hack demonstrated to him by Bev Harris, and he doesn’t seem to say anything… I guess we’ll have to ask them! But there seems to have been a pattern here in the leadership of the Democratic Party….What I was getting to in those questions was not for you to interpret the actions of the those in the DNC and so forth, but there seems to be a pattern in the leadership of the Dem Party that shies away from direct conflict in this….
RFK JR.: The Democratic leadership on this issue has been abysmal. And particularly since this is a civil rights issue and it’s a racial issue. The machines themselves are kind of a distraction because the machines are recent innovations. The Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, has been using, old-fashioned, Jim Crow, apartheid-type maneuvers to steal the last two national elections.
BB: Like in Georgia, who were trying to establish the Poll Tax again…
RFK JR.: And this has been happening all over the country. If you look at who’s being denied the right to vote, on absentee ballots, on provisional ballots, it’s Hispanics, it’s Blacks and it’s Native Americans, and the Democratic Party ought to be touting this as the biggest civil rights issue of our time. But they are ignoring it, and that really is shocking. It’s shocking that the Republicans are not up in arms about this too, because this should not be a partisan issue. This is a fundamental basis of our American value system, which is representative Democracy. For a party that claims to speak for “American Values” to ignore the fact that other members of the party, that the leadership of the party is involved in an active national campaign to stop black people from voting, and to steal elections, shows the moral bankruptcy of everybody in that party!
Why aren’t Republicans standing up and speaking on this issue? Why isn’t Republican leadership standing up and speaking on this issue?
BB: California [state recently re-certified] Diebold machines, all over the state. If California “goes” Republican, do you think we will be able to say, ok, there’s no doubt anymore?
RFK JR.: Listen: all I can say is that the Diebold machines are among the worst. They break down, they are easily hacked, Diebold uses fraudulent misrepresentations to sell the machines, and they should not be part of our voting system.
BB: Are there any plans on a national or state level to contest suspicious results this time around?
RFK JR.: They make it very difficult to contest crooked elections. Nebraska is one of several states that have now passed laws, and I believe Florida is one of those states, that prohibit counting paper ballots in votes that were originally counted by machines. The only way that you can count votes is the original way in which they were counted. And so, of course, that makes it easy to fix any election and make sure that nobody has the right to challenge it.
Many other states, including Ohio, have made it impossible for anybody to challenge an election, even if it was obviously fixed. And these kinds of initiatives are happening all over the country. Why would any state legislature vote for such a rule unless they were Republicans who felt that elections would be fixed in their favor? Why would any American vote for such a rule? It is completely anti-American and un-American. We should be encouraging Americans to vote and encouraging EVERY American to cast a vote and to make sure that every vote is counted. And both parties should be working toward that.
But instead you have a Republican party that is trying to suppress votes and trying to defraud the public. And you have a Democratic party that is like the deer in headlights. And the Democrats are never going to win another election if they don’t fix this issue because they are starting out every election with a 3 million vote deficit, and those are mainly the black voters in this country and who no longer have their votes counted.
And you know, this may sound shrill, but look at the facts. And I challenge anyone who says that this is shrill and inaccurate to read Greg Palast’s book, to read my article, to look at the facts, because the facts are infallible.
BB: Do you think we are going to need a reaction like they are having currently in Mexico?
RFK JR.: Well, I wish the Democratic Party had the cojones that the Mexican opposition party has! They’re saying “We’re not gonna stand for our elections being stolen anymore!” It’s great for these (our) political leaders to stand up and say “I will gracefully concede” but what does that mean for the rest of us? We are getting stuck with these governments that are absolutely running our country into the ground.
BB: You said in your recent interview with Charlie Rose, that this is the worst Presidency we’ve ever had, and they’ve ruined our reputation in the world. So if you had your ideal President, what kind of things would he or she need to do to restore our credibility?
RFK JR.: Well the first thing we need to do is to restore American Democracy.
Number One: Fix the campaign finance system to get corporate money out of the electoral process. Corporations are a great thing for our country. They drive our economy but they should NOT be running our government because they don’t want the same thing for America that Americans want. Corporations don’t want democracy, they want free markets, they want profits, and oftentimes the easiest path to profits is to use the campaign finance system to get their hooks into a public official and to use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them monopoly control and a competitive edge and to privatize the commons-to steal our air, our water, or our public treasury, and liquidate it for private profits.
Number Two: We have to fix the press: restore journalistic ethics in this country, and that is by bringing back the fairness doctrine and strengthening the FCC. The Fairness Doctrine was abolished by Ronald Reagan in 1988, and it recognized that the airwaves belong to the public; that the broadcasters can be licensed to use them to make a profit, but they use them with the proviso that their primary obligation is to advance democracy and promote the public interest. They have to inform the public because a democracy cannot survive an uninformed public. As Thomas Jefferson said, “An uninformed public will trade a hundred years of hard-fought civil rights for a half an hour of welfare.” And they will follow the first demagogue or religious fanatic that comes along and offers them a $300 tax break.
Number Three: We have to fix our electoral system so that every vote is counted. Those are the first three things that any President should do, Republican or Democrat, to restore American Democracy.
BB: Now all these state laws that are being put in place could be trumped by Congress…
RFK JR.: Of course, we should have a federal law that creates federal standards for elections. All federal elections have to be verified by paper ballots. Election officials, whose job is to ensure the integrity of federal elections, cannot simultaneously serve as campaign managers or candidates who are participating in that contest. Many states already have that rule, but Florida and Ohio do not. It’s a formula for corruption!
BB: In summary, how optimistic or pessimistic are you about our ability to get our country back?
RFK JR.: Well, you know, my attitude is that I don’t try to predict the future, I can only say that those of us who care about this country have to keep fighting, and whether you think you’re gonna win or lose, you gotta just keep slugging and you gotta be ready to die with your boots on, because that’s what our forefathers did, they started a revolution, and they put their fortunes and their lives at stake. And we need to summon the same kind of courage from our generation, and demand that kind of courage from our leadership.
BB: And we have to get that message out to the Democratic leadership as well.
RFK JR.: And that’s what you guys are doing….
By Michael Parenti
The 2004 presidential contest between Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry and the Republican incumbent, President Bush Jr., amounted to another stolen election. This has been well documented by such investigators as Rep. John Conyers, Mark Crispin Miller, Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Bev Harris, and others. Here is an overview of what they have reported, along with observations of my own.
Some 105 million citizens voted in 2000, but in 2004 the turnout climbed to at least 122 million. Pre-election surveys indicated that among the record 16.8 million new voters Kerry was a heavy favorite, a fact that went largely unreported by the press. In addition, there were about two million progressives who had voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 who switched to Kerry in 2004.
Yet the official 2004 tallies showed Bush with 62 million votes, about 11.6 million more than he got in 2000. Meanwhile Kerry showed only eight million more votes than Gore received in 2000. To have achieved his remarkable 2004 tally, Bush would needed to have kept all his 50.4 million from 2000, plus a majority of the new voters, plus a large share of the very liberal Nader defectors.
Nothing in the campaign and in the opinion polls suggest such a mass crossover. The numbers simply do not add up.
In key states like Ohio, the Democrats achieved immense success at registering new voters, outdoing the Republicans by as much as five to one. Moreover the Democratic party was unusually united around its candidate-or certainly against the incumbent president. In contrast, prominent elements within the GOP displayed open disaffection, publicly voicing serious misgivings about the Bush administration’s huge budget deficits, reckless foreign policy, theocratic tendencies, and threats to individual liberties.
Sixty newspapers that had endorsed Bush in 2000 refused to do so in 2004; forty of them endorsed Kerry.
All through election day 2004, exit polls showed Kerry ahead by 53 to 47 percent, giving him a nationwide edge of about 1.5 million votes, and a solid victory in the electoral college. Yet strangely enough, the official tally gave Bush the election. Here are some examples of how the GOP “victory” was secured.
—In some places large numbers of Democratic registration forms disappeared, along with absentee ballots and provisional ballots. Sometimes absentee ballots were mailed out to voters just before election day, too late to be returned on time, or they were never mailed at all.
—Overseas ballots normally reliably distributed by the State Department were for some reason distributed by the Pentagon in 2004. Nearly half of the six million American voters living abroad—a noticeable number of whom formed anti-Bush organizations—never received their ballots or got them too late to vote. Military personnel, usually more inclined toward supporting the president, encountered no such problems with their overseas ballots.
—Voter Outreach of America, a company funded by the Republican National Committee, collected thousands of voter registration forms in Nevada, promising to turn them in to public officials, but then systematically destroyed the ones belonging to Democrats.
— Tens of thousands of Democratic voters were stricken from the rolls in several states because of “felonies” never committed, or committed by someone else, or for no given reason. Registration books in Democratic precincts were frequently out-of-date or incomplete. —Democratic precincts—enjoying record turnouts—were deprived of sufficient numbers of polling stations and voting machines, and many of the machines they had kept breaking down. After waiting long hours many people went home without voting. Pro-Bush precincts almost always had enough voting machines, all working well to make voting quick and convenient.
—A similar pattern was observed with student populations in several states: students at conservative Christian colleges had little or no wait at the polls, while students from liberal arts colleges were forced to line up for as long as ten hours, causing many to give up.
—In Lucas County, Ohio, one polling place never opened; the voting machines were locked in an office and no one could find the key. In Hamilton County many absentee voters could not cast a Democratic vote for president because John Kerry’s name had been “accidentally” removed when Ralph Nader was taken off the ballot.
—A polling station in a conservative evangelical church in Miami County, Ohio, recorded an impossibly high turnout of 98 percent, while a polling place in Democratic inner-city Cleveland recorded an impossibly low turnout of 7 percent.
—Latino, Native American, and African American voters in New Mexico who favored Kerry by two to one were five times more likely to have their ballots spoiled and discarded in districts supervised by Republican election officials. Many were given provisional ballots that subsequently were never counted. In these same Democratic areas Bush “won” an astonishing 68 to 31 percent upset victory. One Republican judge in New Mexico discarded hundreds of provisional ballots cast for Kerry, accepting only those that were for Bush.
—Cadres of rightwing activists, many of them religious fundamentalists, were financed by the Republican Party. Deployed to key Democratic precincts, they handed out flyers warning that voters who had unpaid parking tickets, an arrest record, or owed child support would be arrested at the polls—all untrue. They went door to door offering to “deliver” absentee ballots to the proper office, and announcing that Republicans were to vote on Tuesday (election day) and Democrats on Wednesday.
—Democratic poll watchers in Ohio, Arizona, and other states, who tried to monitor election night vote counting, were menaced and shut out by squads of GOP toughs. In Warren County, Ohio, immediately after the polls closed Republican officials announced a “terrorist attack” alert, and ordered the press to leave. They then moved all ballots to a warehouse where the counting was conducted in secret, producing an amazingly high tally for Bush, some 14,000 more votes than he had received in 2000. It wasn’t the terrorists who attacked Warren County.
—Bush did remarkably well with phantom populations. The number of his votes in Perry and Cuyahoga counties in Ohio, exceeded the number of registered voters, creating turnout rates as high as 124 percent. In Miami County nearly 19,000 additional votes eerily appeared in Bush’s column after all precincts had reported. In a small conservative suburban precinct of Columbus, where only 638 people were registered, the touchscreen machines tallied 4,258 votes for Bush.
—In almost half of New Mexico’s counties, more votes were reported than were recorded as being cast, and the tallies were consistently in Bush’s favor. These ghostly results were dismissed by New Mexico’s Republican Secretary of State as an “administrative lapse.”
Exit polls showed Kerry solidly ahead of Bush in both the popular vote and the electoral college. Exit polls are an exceptionally accurate measure of elections. In the last three elections in Germany, for example, exit polls were never off by more than three-tenths of one percent.
Unlike ordinary opinion polls, the exit sample is drawn from people who have actually just voted. It rules out those who say they will vote but never make it to the polls, those who cannot be sampled because they have no telephone or otherwise cannot be reached at home, those who are undecided or who change their minds about whom to support, and those who are turned away at the polls for one reason or another.
Exit polls have come to be considered so reliable that international organizations use them to validate election results in countries around the world.
Republicans argued that in 2004 the exit polls were inaccurate because they were taken only in the morning when Kerry voters came out in greater numbers. (Apparently Bush voters sleep late.) In fact, the polling was done at random intervals all through the day, and the evening results were as much favoring Kerry as the early results.
It was also argued that pollsters focused more on women (who favored Kerry) than men, or maybe large numbers of grumpy Republicans were less inclined than cheery Democrats to talk to pollsters. No evidence was put forth to substantiate these fanciful speculations.
Most revealing, the discrepancies between exit polls and official tallies were never random but worked to Bush’s advantage in ten of eleven swing states that were too close to call, sometimes by as much as 9.5 percent as in New Hampshire, an unheard of margin of error for an exit poll. In Nevada, Ohio, New Mexico, and Iowa exit polls registered solid victories for Kerry, yet the official tally in each case went to Bush, a mystifying outcome.
In states that were not hotly contested the exit polls proved quite accurate. Thus exit polls in Utah predicted a Bush victory of 70.8 to 26.4 percent; the actual result was 71.1 to 26.4 percent. In Missouri, where the exit polls predicted a Bush victory of 54 to 46 percent, the final result was 53 to 46 percent.
One explanation for the strange anomalies in vote tallies was found in the widespread use of touchscreen electronic voting machines. These machines produced results that consistently favored Bush over Kerry, often in chillingly consistent contradiction to exit polls.
In 2003 more than 900 computer professionals had signed a petition urging that all touchscreen systems include a verifiable audit trail. Touchscreen voting machines can be easily programmed to go dead on election day or throw votes to the wrong candidate or make votes disappear while leaving the impression that everything is working fine.
A tiny number of operatives can easily access the entire computer network through one machine and thereby change votes at will. The touchscreen machines use trade secret code, and are tested, reviewed, and certified in complete secrecy. Verified counts are impossible because the machines leave no reliable paper trail.
Since the introduction of touchscreen voting, mysterious congressional election results have been increasing. In 2000 and 2002, Senate and House contests and state legislative races in North Carolina, Nebraska, Alabama, Minnesota, Colorado, and elsewhere produced dramatic and puzzling upsets, always at the expense of Democrats who were ahead in the polls.
In some counties in Texas, Virginia, and Ohio, voters who pressed the Democrat’s name found that the Republican candidate was chosen. In Cormal County, Texas, three GOP candidates won by exactly 18,181 votes apiece, a near statistical impossibility.
All of Georgia’s voters used Diebold touchscreen machines in 2002, and Georgia’s incumbent Democratic governor and incumbent Democratic senator, who were both well ahead in the polls just before the election, lost in amazing double-digit voting shifts.
This may be the most telling datum of all: In New Mexico in 2004 Kerry lost all precincts equipped with touchscreen machines, irrespective of income levels, ethnicity, and past voting patterns. The only thing that consistently correlated with his defeat in those precincts was the presence of the touchscreen machine itself.
In Florida Bush registered inexplicably sharp jumps in his vote (compared to 2000) in counties that used touchscreen machines.
Companies like Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S that market the touchscreen machines are owned by militant supporters of the Republican party. These companies have consistently refused to implement a paper-trail to dispel suspicions and give instant validation to the results of electronic voting. They prefer to keep things secret, claiming proprietary rights, a claim that has been backed in court.
Election officials are not allowed to evaluate the secret software. Apparently corporate trade secrets are more important than voting rights. In effect, corporations have privatized the electoral system, leaving it easily susceptible to fixed outcomes. Given this situation, it is not likely that the GOP will lose control of Congress come November 2006. The two-party monopoly threatens to become an even worse one-party tyranny.
Michael Parenti’s recent books include The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), Superpatriotism (City Lights), and The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press). For more information visit: www.michaelparenti.org.
Re-Posted from ZNet
The One-Two Punch: Disenfranchise Voters & Miscount the Votes
A. Disenfranchisement: Suppress the Vote!
B. E-Voting Problems: Many Different Systems, Different States, Different Elections
C. What You Can Do
D. Voting Systems: Election integrity requires openness & transparency.
E. The Elephant in the Room
F. Common Cause Recommends
G. Online Videos & Interactive
H. Books
I. The BEST Websites & Online Resources
Spoiled Ballots: About 1.4 million punch-card, optical scan, and e-vote ballots were cast but not counted. About ¾’s of a million African-American votes were not counted, about ¼ of a million Hispanic and Native American votes were not counted. Remaining 400,000+ uncounted votes belonged overwhelming to the poor.
In New Mexico the margin of victory for the Presidential race was 5,988 votes. E-voting machines in Kerry-leaning precincts failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.
Absentee Ballots Rejected: Over half a million in 2004. In swing states, absentee ballot shredding was pandemic. (Florida conveniently labels the voter’s party on the ballot envelope).
In Arapahoe County, Colorado, three times more absentee ballots mailed to Democrats “failed to return†as compared to Republican ballots. Voters from Kerry precincts were 265% more likely to have their absentee ballots tossed out when they did arrive at the clerk’s office.
Voters Barred from Voting: Incompetence and trickery that prevented people – primarily racial minorities, low-income voters, and Democratic voters – from voting included: Destroying voter registrations * Failing to process registrations in a timely manner * Illegally re-registering Democrats as Republicans
* Illegal purges of voter rolls * GOP challenges to voter registrations via ‘caging’ * Voter intimidation and misinformation campaigns * Forgot to mail absentee ballots in Florida, Ohio, and to nearly 3 million Americans living abroad * Phone-jamming Democratic candidate lines provided to help voters having problems on election day * Creating impossibly long lines at the polls as a result of GOP challenges to voters; too few functioning voting machines; changing polling station locations; merging polling stations to save money * GOP volunteers ‘picked up’ absentee ballots from Democratic voters.
In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, 1 in every 4 Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls. (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., “Did Bush Steal the 2004 Election?†Rolling Stone)
AVS WINVote computers at some polling places failed to start up, others overheated and broke down during the election in Mississippi (2003).1
2. “Phantom†Votes Added by Electronic Voting Machines.
After the 2004 General Election, phantom votes (more votes than voters) were reported in Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Washington. In North Carolina Microvote DREs showed nearly 3,000 more votes than voters; in New Mexico Sequoia AVC Edge DREs showed over 2,700 early voting phantom votes.1
Hart Intercivic machines in Tarrant County, Texas recorded an additional 100,000 votes that were never actually cast in 2006 Primary Election (Formal challenge to results has been filed).1
3. Bugs!
ES&S vote-tallying software counted to 32,767 and then counted backwards in November 2004 elections: 70,000 votes temporarily disappeared in Broward County, Florida; 8,400 votes in Orange County, Florida; and 22,000 votes in North Carolina.1
4. Votes Jump to the Opponent on the Screen
In the November 2004 hundreds of votes jumped from Bush to Kerry in New Mexico (Sequoia), Maryland (Diebold) and elsewhere. Some voters could correct the problem, some did not.1
5. DRE’s Present Incorrect Ballots to Voters
In March 2004, the US Senate contest in Maryland was omitted from ballots in three counties.1
6. Negative Votes Added to Tally
In Volusia County, Florida in 2000, Al Gore’s count dropped by 16,022 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate picked up 10,000 votes at 10:30 PM on election night. Global Election Systems explained that two memory cards had been uploaded; there should have only been one memory card uploaded; the second card caused the problem. (BlackBoxVoting.org).
7. DREs Pass Pre-Election Testing, Fail on Election Day
In Mercer County, Pennsylvania all 250 UniLect Patriot machines had been checked and rechecked. On election day some machines never operated, some offered only black screens.1
8. Programming Errors Give Votes to the Wrong Candidate (Vote Switching)
Ballot programming determines how a touch on a screen or marks on a ballot are translated into votes counted by the machine. In November 2000, 67,000 absentee and early-voting ballots were counted incorrectly by a Diebold optical scan machine in New Mexico. ES&S machines miscounted votes in North Carolina in 2004; in New Mexico in 2002; in Kansas in 2002.1
9. Voting Machines Present a Default Candidate (Electronic Version of a Pre-Marked Ballot).
Election officials in Travis County (Austin) Texas, set up Hart Intercivic eSlate DREs so that voters who voted straight party Democratic ticket and pressed ‘enter’ on the next screen – caused their Kerry/Edwards vote to be changed to the default candidate -> Bush/Cheney.1
10. Voting Machines Do Not Count Some Votes
Voters claimed that machines failed to register votes for incumbent school-board member, Rita S. Thompson ( R ), who lost an election in Fairfax, Virginia by 1,662 votes. Election officials observed that one of the questionable machines appeared to subtract a vote from Thompson for about one out of every 100 attempts to vote for her.2
1. VotersUnite.Org: “Facts About Electronic Electionsâ€
PDF File: http://www.votersunite.org/info/Electron…
2. Common Cause: “Election Reform: Malfunction and Malfeasanceâ€
3. Watch videos and/or read more about election malfunction and malfeasance (& how to ensure free and fair elections) on the excellent websites & books listed at the end of this document. Educate your family and friends. Print out the best material and take it to your local political party, candidates, and progressive groups and activate them!
4. Check for organizations that may already be active in your area and join them! In Indiana: NAACP, People for the American Way, Common Cause, and League of Women Voters should all be working to enfranchise eligible voters and make sure all votes are counted.
5. Contact your local political party and local progressive organizations to educate and activate them!
6. Help register eligible citizens to vote and educate them about their rights & responsibilities.
7. Participate in elections as a poll-worker or poll-monitor.
8. Conduct exit polls or parallel elections.
9. Learn about election laws and policies in your county and state. Then collaborate with/challenge election supervisors in your county/state to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised, and to ensure that votes are cast and counted accurately.
10. BE PREPARED TO TAKE ACTION AFTER ELECTIONS. If our government truly derives its power from the consent of the governed, then we the people must not allow the results of tainted elections to stand. Elections are not about profit and loss; they are not about which party or candidate wins or loses; they are about the essence of democracy. There are lives in the balance.
Paper Ballots, Hand Counted: The gold standard for openness and transparency! A 2001 CalTech/MIT study concluded that hand-counted paper ballots have the lowest average incidence of spoiled, uncounted, and unmarked ballots. While this sounds like going back to the dark ages – it may be the most realistic option for November 2006 for all counties that have electronic voting machines without paper trails.
Precinct-Count Optical Scan Systems: Once voters mark their paper ballots, they insert them into the optical scanner at their precinct. Ballots that cannot be read are rejected and the voter gets a fresh ballot, virtually eliminating spoiled ballots. Votes are counted in the scanner’s (computer) memory. Ballots are stored in an attached, locked metal box, available for automatic, random audits to check for programming and tallying accuracy and recounts.
Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Voting Machines with VVPB: A voter’s choice is captured both internally, in electronic form, and printed on a paper ballot. The ballot can be checked by the voter before being submitted. The paper ballots would count as the actual votes, taking precedence over any electronic counts and would be available for audits and recounts. (Warning: About 1/3 of voters do not check the printed ballots, assuming that they must be accurate. Not true!)
“Direct Recording Electronic” (DRE) Voting Machines without VVPB: The ballot appears on a display screen and votes are captured and stored electronically. An election without Voter-Verified Paper Ballots cannot be open and transparent. When election officials state that they are satisfied with the accuracy and reliability of DRE voting systems, they are able to do so only because there is virtually no way to detect errors or deliberate election-rigging without VVPBs.
Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation was taped while speaking in private, at a church, to Republican activists: “How many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome? Good government! They want everybody to vote! I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as voting populace goes down.†2
Mr. Weyrich sounds different in an article entitled “Easy Voting Brings Low Participationâ€: “Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter have come up with a series of recommendations aimed at increasing participation in national elections. Among the proposals the former presidents have put forth are (a) to hold elections on a national holiday, such as Veterans Day; (b) to make convicted felons eligible to vote after they have served time; (c) to permit people who aren’t on the voter rolls on Election Day to vote, sorting out their eligibility in the days after the election…. I am glad that Pres. Bush’s reaction has been lukewarm…. The truth is simply this: The easier we have made it to vote, the lower the voter participation.†3
Jeff Horwitz reports: “One recent Sunday, at Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute, a dozen students meet…. All are earnest, idealistic and as right wing as you can get. They take careful notes as instructor Paul Gourley teaches them how to rig a campus mock election. “Can anyone tell me,” asks Gourley, “why you don’t want the polling place in the cafeteria?” Stephen, a shy antiabortion activist sitting toward the rear of the class, raises his hand: “Because you want to suppress the vote?” The students, strait-laced kids from good colleges, seem unconvinced. The lesson — that with sufficient organization, the act of voting becomes less a basic right than a tactical maneuver — doesn’t sit easy with some students at first. Gourley, a charismatic senior from South Dakota and the treasurer of the College Republican National Committee, assures them: “This is not anti-democracy. This is not shady. Just put somewhere where you might have to put a little bit of effort into voting.” The rest, Gourley explains, is just a matter of turnout. Yet Blackwell’s foundation, the Leadership Institute, is not a Republican organization. It’s a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity… Despite its legally required “neutrality,” the institute is one of the best investments the conservative movement has ever made. Its walls are plastered with framed headshots of former students — hundreds of state and local legislators sprinkled with smiling members of the U.S. Congress…. Thirty-five years ago, Blackwell dispatched a particularly promising 17-year-old pupil named Karl Rove to run a youth campaign… Over the last 25 years, more than 40,000 young conservatives have been trained at the institute †4
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita: “It is difficult to say exactly why Americans are so apathetic about voting. Some suggest that the processes of registering and voting are too difficult or confusing. I disagree. In recent years, the acceptance of procedures such as early voting and voting by mail have made it even more accessible to Americans. But an increase in the promotion and use of these techniques has not been followed by an increase in voter turnout. Just the opposite is true.†5
1. Read a condensation of Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition 1742-2004. http://www.bloomingtonwilpf.org/agenda.h…
2. Audio played on The Thom Hartmann Radio Show, syndicated by Air America Radio
3. Easy Voting Brings Low Participation – http://www.freecongress.org/commentaries…
4. My Right-Wing Degree – http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/…
5. IN SoS Press Release 9/5/04 – http://www.in.gov/sos/press/old/09052004…
Reduce Partisanship and Conflict of Interest in Election Administration.
Enforce Laws Prohibiting Voter Suppression/Intimidation: State and local governments need to make strong statements about protecting the rights of voters and to enforce existing laws and prosecute illegal activities. Establish transparent, fair, statewide standards for challenges, including penalties for partisan or otherwise frivolous challenges.
Voter Education: Voters should receive written information about their voting rights and location of their polling place prior to Election Day or any early voting period. New registrants should receive timely notification of their registration status after registering to vote. Correction of errors in registration should be allowed up to and including Election Day. Poll-workers should be trained thoroughly so that they provide accurate information to voters.
ID Requirements and the Voter Databases: The process of establishing and maintaining the databases must be open to the public. A voter cannot be purged from voting rolls unless there is direct communication from the voter, the registrar of another state, or from the courts. Voters should easily be able to confirm their presence on the voter rolls by phone or on the Internet.
Develop Uniform Statewide Provisional Ballots Standards: Every provisional ballot cast by an eligible voter should be counted and the HAVA-required notification system should be implemented.
Fix, Replace, Test and Maintain Voting Machines Ballot definition files are not independently tested prior to the election. Extensive pre-testing could reduce the possibility of malfunction or malfeasance.
TO ENSURE SECURE AND RELIABLE VOTING MACHINES, Common Cause recommends:
The US Congress should immediately pass HR550, “The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005†and/or states should pass laws or adopt regulations that: (1) require all voting systems to produce a VVPB, (2) mandate that the VVPB is the ballot of record, (3) establish a requirement for mandatory manual audits in at least 2% of randomly-selected precincts, and (4) establish funding to implement VVPB voting systems. (5% to 10% precinct audits would be better!)
State election officials should, wherever possible: immediately retrofit DREs with printing systems to produce a VVPB, and use those ballots in audits – OR – decertify DREs that cannot provide VVPB and turn to other voting systems such as optical scan machines for the November elections.
Election officials should take necessary steps to safeguard machines prior to Election Day.
Voters should be encouraged to vote on paper whenever possible. If facing the prospect of voting on paperless DREs in November, they should advocate for change with local election officials well before the election. If that does not work, where possible, voters should vote by absentee ballot / early voting.
Regardless of the voting equipment in a jurisdiction, citizens should VOTE. While there is a chance that a vote won’t be counted if cast on a paperless DRE, not voting at all will assure that it is not.
Catherine Crier – CourtTV
Defending Our Democracy I
Defending Our Democracy II
Mark Crispin Miller speaks at U. Mass.
http://www.archive.org/details/mark_cris…
ACLU Freedom Files: Voting Rights
http://www.aclu.tv
ACLU Virtual Voting Booth
http://www.aclu.tv/votinggame
Democracy’s Ghosts
http://www.democracysghosts.org
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast
Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America by Andrew Gumbel
VerifiedVoting.org http://www.verifiedvoting.org
Resolution on Electronic Voting * Election Administration Project: Best Practices for Reliable Election Systems. * Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) * Election Protection Questionnaires: Local & State Election Officials, Pre-Election Testing
Common Cause http://www.commoncause.org
Excellent report: “Election Reform. Malfunction and Malfeasance – A report on the electronic voting machine debacle.†Vote for America, a non-partisan voter education and mobilization program.
People for the American Way: Civic Participation http://www.pfaw.org
Election Protection Program offers: volunteer poll monitors; civil rights lawyers and advocates who expose and prevent voter intimidation; work with election officials to identify and solve problems with voting machines, technology and ballot forms.
League of Women Voters: Election Reform http://www.lwv.org
American Democracy at Risk: Agenda for Renewal and Repair includes recommendations for election reform and advocates nonpartisan redistricting, safeguarding civil liberties.
Brennan Center for Justice http://www.brennancenter.org
Excellent reports: “The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World†& “Verification Processes for Voter Registrationâ€
Voter Action http://www.voteraction.org
Provides strategic and legal support to ensure verifiable, accurate and transparent voting systems. Has supported lawsuits in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania.
March 7, 2005
By Ernest Partridge, The Crisis Papers
The accumulated weight of evidence of election fraud – statistical, circumstantial, and anecdotal – has failed to move the mainstream media to report or investigate this evidence, or the Democratic party to acknowledge and protest the apparent Republican control of our elections.
This essay is not yet another account of that evidence, which I have spelled out extensively and which I firmly believe to be compelling.
Instead, I wish to deal with another indicator that our national elections no longer represent the will of the voters, but rather are manipulated to produce the outcome desired by the "winning" candidates and party. This indicator is the behavior of those who manufacture, program, and operate the paperless, unauditable machines (direct recording electronic: "DRE"), and those who benefit from this technology.
Perhaps this new electronic voting technology is as honest and reliable as the private election industry and the winning candidates tell us it is. However, they simply do not behave as if this were the case.
My contention might be illustrated by this parable:
Suppose that a drug-sniffing dog at an airport identifies a suspicious piece of luggage. The customs officer then locates the individual whose name is on the tag, and orders him to open it. Now suppose further that this person then proceeds to do one or more of the following:
a) He denies that the luggage is his.
b) He calls his lawyer who presents an injunction against further inspection of the luggage.
c) He claims that he is a diplomat, and thus not subject to luggage inspection.
d) He offers a bribe to the inspector if he will "forget the whole thing."
Might one not suspect that the traveler was trying to hide something?
The dog then gets back to work, and soon identifies another bag, and the owner of this parcel is identified and ordered to open the luggage for inspection. He does so willingly and without qualm, having packed the bag himself and thus knowing that there is no contraband therein. He is also aware that the dog has a record of 30% false positives.
Which of these two responses more closely resembles the behavior of the DRE manufacturers (Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia), of the Republican Congress, and of the Republican National Committee? Are the DRE manufacturers and the Republicans acting in a manner consistent with their claims that "e-voting" is both honest and accurate? Or are they behaving as if they have something to hide?
Here are a few indicators. Because there are so many, I will be brief. For details and documentation, follow the links:
There is much more, which you might find here and here. But this much suffices to make my point.
What we find, then, is an industry and a political party which, on the one hand, insists that the totals from electronic voting machines are entirely accurate and honest, though these same machines are so designed that they preclude any independent evidence to support these claims. On the other hand, this same industry and party steadfastly resist any and all attempts to introduce reliable methods of validation, much less the most reliable system of all: hand counted paper ballots.
Persistent suspicion and charges of fraud are damaging to the industry and the GOP. If they are as innocent as they claim to be, why don’t they just eliminate these damaging suspicions by offering proof, and then allowing, and even encouraging, paper records, independent audits, and exit polls?
Despite a near-total embargo by the mainstream media of news, analysis, investigation and commentary on ballot security and allegations of fraud, combined with an astonishing indifference to the issue on the part of the Democrats and their allies, public doubts about the security and accuracy of elections and hence of the legitimacy of the Republican control of the White House and the Congress, simply will not go away. In fact, these concerns appear to be increasing and will likely continue to increase, as the credibility and public approval of the Bush regime continues to drop.
Here’s a thought experiment for those who insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the past three elections were above reproach and doubt. Put this confidence aside for a moment and just imagine, hypothetically, that the elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004 were all fixed, and that the coming election of 2006 will be fixed. Then ask yourself: if this were so, how would the behavior of the industry and the GOP be in any way different from what it is now?
Then ask, if the elections are honest and accurate, why don’t the industry and the Republicans act like it? In short, if they are innocent, why do they willingly persist in appearing guilty?
These questions must be asked by the Democrats, loudly and persistently, for as Karl Rove and the GOP propaganda machine knows so well, repetition is the key to successful persuasion of the public. Satire and ridicule are also very much in order. We must "pile it on" until continuing silence by the GOP and by the compliant mainstream media becomes unendurable.
And if the e-voting establishment – party and industry – are ever forced, however reluctantly, to enact reforms consistent with their protestations of innocence, what might they do?
Here is a list of proposals that any honest voting machine industry and political party should be willing to endorse:
a) Publish the source codes. (The copyrights can be fully protected.)
b) Include printers with all machines. Stipulate by law that in case of recounts, the paper receipts are to be the official ballots of record.
c) Require independent audits – of local balloting, and of regional compiling of election returns.
d) Allow examination and "test hacks" of machines, selected randomly.
e) Outlaw all data inputs (by direct line, wireless, or UV) to voting machines and compilers with the exception, of course, of the "inputs" by the voters.
f) Rigorously enforce and prosecute election fraud laws.
If the industry and the Republicans won’t agree to these assurances, then they must present a plausible explanation as to why they decline to do so. Absent that explanation, we citizens of this alleged democracy under an alleged rule of law must demand that every vote be counted and verified, and we must be supplied with proof that this has been accomplished. Furthermore, every individual who has engaged in election fraud must be tracked down and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We are entitled to no less than this.
Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy. He publishes the website, The Online Gadfly and co-edits the progressive website, The Crisis Papers. He is at work on a book, Conscience of a Progressive, which can be seen in-progress here. Send comments to: crisispapers@hotmail.com.
Re-posted from Democratic Underground
by Buzzflash.com columnist Maureen Farrell
Extracted from Top 10 ‘Conspiracy Theories’ about George W. Bush, Part 2.
See also… Top 10 ‘Conspiracy Theories’ about George W. Bush, Part 1
"There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying — and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida. It was Nonsense, said the Candidate, Utter nonsense. . .Anybody who believed Bush had lost Florida was a Fool. The Media, all of them, were Liars & Dunces or treacherous whores trying to sabotage his victory . . Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV. The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep’s fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore’s."
— Hunter S. Thompson, ESPN, Nov. 27, 2000"[The Bush Family’s] sense of how to win elections comes out of a CIA manual, not out of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution."
— Former GOP strategist Kevin Phillips, BuzzFlash, Jan. 7. 2004
While some believe a coup began on Sept. 11, others will tell you it began with the 2000 election. Even though George Bush’s first cousin declared him the winner and his brother Jeb assured him he’d won Florida, many Americans remained unconvinced.
First there was the surreal sight of the Bush family on national TV, as staged and phony as Susan Smith’s tearful plea to return her "kidnapped" children. Then came the well-groomed thugs, sent on Enron and Halliburton planes to stop the Florida recount. But it wasn’t just James Baker’s ploys or the Supreme Court’s ruling that signaled something was amiss — it was the attitude of ordinary citizens who were more concerned about their "team" winning than about democracy itself.
Unless you rely solely on FOX news (the modern equivalent to "living under a rock"), the shenanigans that occurred in pre-election Florida are now old news, and have been dissected at length in documentaries, magazines and to some degree, in the mainstream press. A St . Petersburg Times op-ed later deemed the election "stolen," the Associated Press reported that Florida had "quietly" admitted "election fraud," and Vanity Fair devoted a sizable portion of its Oct. 2004 issue to exactly how Team Bush pulled it off. By the time CNN sued the state of Florida for its ineligible voters list in 2004, the underbelly of the beast was plainly visible.
But in Nov. 2001, when Greg Palast uncovered then Secretary of State Katherine Harris’ role in the shameful voter roll purge in Florida, the news was explosive. The New York Times — the paper that would later print front page disinformation to sell the war in Iraq — took a pass, however, until three years later, when it was too late to do anything about it.
At first, election irregularities were featured as anomalies, like when the Washington Post covered computer glitches that literally subtracted thousands of votes from Al Gore and gave them to a Socialist candidate. By the time similar problems were reported during the 2002 midterm and 2004 primary elections, people were understandably skittish, with e-voting failures having "shaken confidence in the technology installed at thousands of precincts" — with as many as 20 states introducing legislation calling for paper receipts on voting machines.
In early 2004, Mother Jones predicted that "Ohio could become as decisive this year as Florida was four years ago" and sure enough, Americans awoke the day after the election without a decisive winner. And though John Kerry later conceded, questions have since been raised by computer programmers, mathematicians, journalists and others. "Was the election of 2004 stolen?" columnist Robert Koehler asked, before addressing the many "numbers-savvy scientists are saying that the numbers don’t make sense."
There were warnings before the election, of course, with red flags being raised by researchers at prestigious Stanford and John Hopkins Universities. But despite Diebold’s CEO’s promise to deliver Ohio’s electoral votes to George W. Bush, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell’s prominent role in the Bush/Cheney campaign, and the suspicious election night lock-down in Warren County, Ohio, many still believed election angst could be attributed to a super-sized case of "sour grapes."
When Christopher Hitchens, who is admittedly not a Kerry fan, also weighed in, however, that excuse flew out the window. "Whichever way you shake it, or hold it to the light, there is something about the Ohio election that refuses to add up. . . ," he wrote.
Rep. John Conyers and the Government Accountability Office also found widespread irregularities, and when statisticians picked apart the election results, Bush was not the legitimate winner. Pollster John Zogby compared the 2004 election to 1960’s suspicious contest, and University of Pennsylvania professor Steven F. Freeman put the odds that exit polls were that wrong, in that many states, at 250 million to one.
The evidence was so compelling, in fact, that NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller took it upon himself to tackle the proverbial suggestion "somebody should write a book." His extensively-researched yet largely ignored Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) shines a crucial light on the "stealthy combination of computerized vote theft, bureaucratic monkey business, systematic shortages of viable equipment and old-fashioned dirty tricks. . . " that led to democracy’s last debacle, and will most likely lead to the next.
Ohio’s 2005 election also failed the smell test, and by late Jan. 2006, the Washington Post looked into allegations of election tampering — without the dismissive, lazy reporting usually afforded the subject. Describing tests conducted by Florida’s Leon County supervisor of elections Ion Sancho, using "relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques," the paper quickly uncovered how easy it is to steal an election. "Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?" election officials asked test participants, and though two marked their ballots "yes" and six said "no," by the time they went through Diebold’s optical scan machine, the results read seven "yes" votes and one "no."
"More troubling than the test itself was the manner in which Diebold simply failed to respond to my concerns or the concerns of citizens who believe in American elections," Sancho said. "I really think they’re not engaged in this discussion of how to make elections safer."
Hmmm. You don’t say.
There is a reason, you see, that "None Dare Call It Stolen," and that reasons extends beyond the preponderance of evidence. "If electronic voting machines programmed by private Republican firms remain in our future, dissent will become pointless unless it boils over into revolution," former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts wrote. "Power-mad Republicans need to consider the result when democracy loses its legitimacy and only the rich have anything to lose."
James Madison predicted a similar scenario. "The day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility," he reportedly told the New York Post. "It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few."
Those would be the "one percenters." And chances are, you aren’t one of them.
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© Copyright 2004, Maureen Farrell
Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.
Extracted from Top 10 ‘Conspiracy Theories’ about George W. Bush, Part 2. See also… Top 10 ‘Conspiracy Theories’ about George W. Bush, Part 1