There are some scary facts about the electronic voting systems in this country. This is perhaps the most important issue the American people need to act on. If our votes are not accurately counted then the corruption of our government becomes even more difficult deal with. Here are some statements about the companies and people involved in the business of electronic vote counting. This is something that all citizens should be concerned about
Distribute the following facts about voting in the United States.
Let your friends know, because their TV won't....
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold
and ES&S.
Online Journal Evoting article by Landes
Wikipedia entry on Diebold
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the
U.S. voting machine industry.
The link originally listed here didn't work and I couldn't find one that matched precisely, but I did find a different Common Dreams article, again by Landes, about electronic voting.
Another link to that Online Journal Evoting article by Landes.
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
American Free Press Private Company article
Here's that same Online Journal Evoting article by Landes, so read it already.
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."
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
Mother Jones commentary
Online Journal article by Fitrakis
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.
I couldn't find the original article referenced at BlackBoxVoting.org, so I'm including a different link reporting the same issue.
Hill News report
Article from On Lisa Rein's Radar
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's
vice-presidential candidates.
Business Week article
article in The Independent
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts
almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
About page from ESS company
Article from Online Journal
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.
Article from Common Dreams
Table of info about states using e-voting from IT World
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of
which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
Here's that Common Dreams article again.
Diebold Company page
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
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.
Article from Wired
article from the Portland Indy Media
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.
Article from The Scoop from New Zealand
A collection of Hack the Vote links
PDF file telling information about the companies making electronic voting machines from Black Box Voting
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.
That Hack the Vote FAQ page again
The Black Box Voting PDF file again
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls
in Ohio.
Article from Global Exchange
Article from Cincinnati's The Enquirer
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! (I have not been able to find the movie that was originally referenced here. I've left the link in case someone else can figure out what they were attempting to link to. http://blackboxvoti ng.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov)
Article from Wired
Article from MSNBC
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen
voting machines with no paper trail.
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and
reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
Wired article
Yurica Report
I couldn't find the Rise4News article, but I've left the link in case someone else can find the correct reference Rise4News Extra Votes
ILCA OnLine
Article from The Scoop
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's
brother.
The Tallahassee newspaper link was broken, but I haven't really tried to find the article they linked to, do we really need another verification that Jeb and George are brothers?
Washington Post article
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush --
have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further
investigation.
Yurica Report article
ComputerWorld article
American Free Press article
Common Dreams article
Consortium News article
US Count Votes website
NOTE: Please copy the above list and distribute freely!
LET THE FACTS BE KNOWN! Thank you!
Want a cheap, fair, reliable, and efficient alternative? It exists! Check
out the Swiss Voting System at Swiss Vote organization
DECEMBER 2004 GALLUP POLLS
1 in 5 Americans believe the elections were fraudulent. That's over 41
Million Americans. You are NOT alone!
WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
Get educated. Tell your friends what's going on.
Go visit Velvet Revolution
UPDATE: I initially just copied this in from a message posted elsewhere, but I have now taken a few minutes and turned the URLs into proper links, verifying links (including fixing typos in the links) and gave more descriptive text for the links. I couldn't find what the links were attempting to connect to for a few of the links, but I believe I have noted such links with appropriate comments.
Posted by JoKeR at December 23, 2005 02:53 AM | TrackBackWow!
peace,
Posted by: brotherterry on December 23, 2005 09:27 AMYou are such a good educator, JoKeR! I'm grateful that you post things such as this. I do a lot more political things in my personal life than I do on the blog, so I'm glad for those who do some degree of political blogs.
Although in reality, it's gone far beyond being a matter of politics now. This is a country in dire need of being saved from the big trouble it's stewing in.
Posted by: Wandering Willow on December 23, 2005 04:12 PM