Reply #26: Well, as one of the biggest ranters at DU about Diebold and ES&S, I tend [View All]

to agree with some of your points, Husb2Sparkly, although not with your remark that alarm about Diebold/ES&S is "tripe." It ain't tripe. Diebold/ES&S really DO have a monopoly on our voting systems, all run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls, and they really ARE Bushite corporations.* And this really IS tyranny. Near textbook definition of it--vote tabulation that no one can see, and that no one can verify.

But I have NEVER said that this was cause for despair, reason not to vote, or excuse for lack of citizen political activism and vigilance. Far from it! I support all kinds of citizen activism in every way I can. I can't go to street protests myself, because I'm old, not in great health, and live in a remote rural area far from population centers--and I'm poor. But I do what I can. I even send money when I can--to good candidates and other good causes.

But I strongly believe that we MUST NOT put our head in the sand on this PRIORITY #1 ISSUE--the fundamental basis of our democracy, and the fundamental MECHANISM OF CHANGE: transparent elections.

We MUST face it--or they will keep stealing elections. These election theft corporations may back off in a race where the non-Bushite has a 25% lead. They would be smart to do so. They would also be smart to throw us a few bones in November--to take the heat off their NON-TRANSPARENT vote tabulation systems, to save them, say, for '08. But I can assure you they will not permit an anti-war, anti-Bush majority in Congress, even though this is the overwhelming opinion of the majority of Americans. Clever, hard-to-detect vote vote switching, in small percentages here and there, in all the close races would be their wisest course. (Easily done: one insider hacker, a couple of minutes, leaving no trace.)

However, I would like to point out an example of just such a situation as you describe, which occurred recently with regard to the election reform initiatives on the ballot in Ohio last year. These election reform initiatives were predicted to win by 60/40 margins--in highly reliable polls just before the election. On election day, however, all of them LOST--by 60/40 margins! The likely culprit: unverifiable e-voting systems. Bob Koehler writes about it: Title: "Poll Shock" 11/24/05) http://commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

"The story is about how America votes, and evidence that pandemic chaos and perhaps even centrally orchestrated malfeasance are accompanying the spread of electronic voting machines to the nation’s precincts. We know there’s cause to worry about the state of our democracy because of the historical accuracy of the Columbus Dispatch voter poll." --Koehler

Koehler rakes the corporate news monopolies over the coals for presuming that the the Columbus Dispatch voter poll--legendary for its reliability--was wrong, on the four election reform issues alone, and NOT on the other, unrelated issue--and failing to look to UNVERIFIABLE e-voting as the cause of this astounding flipover of public opinion).

This IS the situation, Husb2Sparkly. They CAN do this. They have total NON-TRANSPARENT control of voting results--AND a lapdog press that refuses to question private, SECRET, corporate vote counting. And we MUST do all our political work with this in mind. They have inflicted us--the citizens of this country, the voters, the great progressive MAJORITY--with a double-handicap. Nay, a triple- and even quadruple handicap. We have to overcome a routine 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists. This handicap is virtually undetectable in the high-speed, invisible, unaccountable environment of electronic vote tabulation. (Even the optiscan voting machines, which have a paper ballot, receive either NO auditing in some states, or very inadequate auditing--so the paper ballot is nearly useless for detection of fraud that may occur far away from the evidence of the vote--the ballot--in central tabulators located in the state capitol. If the paper ballot votes are not first counted by hand at the precinct level, with results posted at the precinct level, before any electronics are involved--which, of course, never occurs--then the "results" at the other end are entirely untrustworthy. And the touchscreens are even worse--entirely unrecountable, and unauditable--not even the slight deterrent effect of a possible (but rare) recount.)

The second handicap is the utter lack of vigilance of the lapdog press. The third is the utter lack of vigilance--indeed, mind-boggling lack of vigilance--of our Democratic Party leadership. And the fourth is corporate operatives who are trying to throw the spotlight off of optiscans, by knocking the touchscreens (paperless voting)--apparently in an effort to preserve the trade secret, corporate programming that pervades electronic voting systems (in all the voting machines--touchscreens and optiscans, and the central tabulators). (I put Common Cause and portions of the Democratic Party leadership in this category--and what I smell is corruption on big government electronics contracts.)

A quadruple handicap GOING INTO the elections. ADD filthy campaign money, dirty tricks and all the rest, and we really have an uphill battle to put true representatives of the people in office. Almost like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the mountain.

To ridicule concern about these electronic voting systems is a disservice to voters and campaign workers. They deserve to know what they are up against. For one thing, it makes unfair defeats more bearable. It's better to know why, or at least where to look for the answer, than to flounder around wondering if your "message" wasn't just right. It MAY NOT BE the "message"--nor any fault of the candidate, nor any lack of hard work by the campaign. It may just be fraud. And I'm with Bob Koehler on that. If you have NON-TRANSPARENT vote tabulation, using SECRET CODE, with no verifiability, and you have reason to think you should have won, you'd best look there FIRST, at the NON-TRANSPARENT vote tabulation.

Our country is sick unto death with lies. It's time for the refreshment of truth and reality. Long past time. And this is the truth and the reality of our election system. It has been gravely compromised--a deliberate act, with malice aforethought*. It is wide open to fraud. And the people we are opposing have no scruples whatsoever at taking any dirty advantage they can gain--because their program of fascist rule--unjust war, mass murder, torture, massive thievery, lawlessness--is unacceptable to most Americans. They cannot get elected honestly. And they know it.

Husb2Sparkly, I do share your concern about the morale of voters, political workers and the American people in general. But I don't think that morale will be boosted by more inexplicable losses at the polls. My remedy, in the short term, is to support the ABSENTEE BALLOT PROTEST. If enough people vote AB (and it has been increasing rapidly--it's up to 50% in Los Angeles), we can create sufficient panic and crisis in the election theft industry to FORCE election officials to the table, and perhaps salvage the '08 primaries and general election. AB voting won't get us accurate vote counts this fall (AB votes are not particularly safe either), but massive AB voting CAN get us quicker reform. This is a BOYCOTT of the riggable machines, aimed to produce a large citizen "vote of no confidence" in trade secret, electronic voting counting. The goal is to FLOOD election officials with MOUNTAINS of paper AB votes, and let the machines sit idle. Don't vote on them. Don't touch them. Don't cooperate with this non-transparent electronic system. The AB voting protest also can help morale and turnout. It's easy. Everybody can do it. (Most states have some form of AB voting**.) Your AB vote becomes more than a vote--it becomes a PROTEST, and a way to spur reform.

Blacks in the American south had a lot of handicaps. That didn't stop them. Blacks in South Africa had a lot of handicaps. That didn't stop them. Indians in India had a lot of handicaps. That didn't stop them. The disenfranchised poor and brown voters in Mexico have a lot of handicaps. That's not stopping them.

It's time we stopped being such wimps--and stood up tall and brave, like the great and progressive people we are--and take back our country, despite every handicap this fascist regime can heap upon us. We don't need to be coddled, and fooled with a pretend democracy. We can take the truth. Indeed, I think Americans are hungering for the truth. You want to know why Bush is still in office, and is even now planning ANOTHER disastrous war, against Iran--despite EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT disapproval of any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war? You wonder how they can pass another tax cut for the rich, with a $10 TRILLION deficit? The answer is not hard to figure out. It's because they sneaked electronic voting, run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, right by us during the 9/11-Anthrax crisis.*

And if we want our country back, step one is to throw these election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor'! Bust the Machines--VOTE ABSENTEE THIS NOVEMBER!

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*(The fast-tracking of these highly insecure and insider hackable electronic voting systems occurred during the 2002-2004 period, as the result of a bill engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney--now indicted or resigned in bribery scandals--the so-called "Help America Vote Act"--which provided nearly $4 billion in boondoggle funding mainly to two electronic voting corporations with very close ties to the Bush junta. And they are:

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they are run by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich.

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy. Trust them at your peril. I think we've already lost a lot of lives to these jerks.)

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**(Ironically, one of the Ohio initiatives that the machines voted down was to make Absentee Ballot voting easier in Ohio. The machines and their masters are now dictating election policy!)