Private Company Still ‘Controls’ Election Outcome

CHICAGO, Illinois—The morning after Election Day, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the vice presidential candidate John Edwards promised the nation that the Democrats would make sure that every vote counts, and that every vote is counted. Later in the day, Kerry and Edwards, however, conceded defeat before some 170,000 to 250,000 provisional ballots from Ohio, which could have changed the outcome of the election, had been counted.

But how were the votes actually counted across the nation on Nov. 2? On Election Day, voters in Cook County, Ill., were among the 60 million Americans who voted with machines made by Election Systems & Software, a secretive company based in Omaha.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html

I'm listening to democracynow.org's Wednesday show with author Thom Hartman. He was great! Do we turn firefighting over to a private company, postoffice, county goverment, cops? No... so why the hell would we do that for elections!!!! Between you and your vote...and the government.... stand a private, profit driven Republican owner company. I wear my tin foil hat with pride. They will be gone if we have any sense!

:hi:
Glad to have you here with us and looking forward to reading more posts from you.

Keep your tinfoil handy, we may be using it for badges of honor before it all gets sorted out.

Glad you joined the ranks of the evilDUers :evilgrin:

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The opening screen read: ES&S Automatic Election Returns, Release 35, Under License to the City of Chicago, Serial No. 0004, Copyright 1987. Carl Zimmerman, technical supervisor for the clerk’s office, said that the computer that ran the system was in the back—“in the ES&S room,” he said.

At 7 p.m., Jonathan Lin, a worker on the county clerk’s computer staff, came out and turned on the monitors on the 6th floor, where the City of Chicago votes were tallied and displayed. Behind him was Rick Thurman, an ES&S technician, checking the first results.

Thurman seemed surprised when I asked him if he worked for ES&S. He said that the company had about six engineers running the computer in the back room. He then checked himself, saying he had said too much.

Later I asked Lin who was actually operating the computer that was generating the results being shown on the monitors. “ES&S is running the mainframe for all of this,” Lin said, pointing to the television displays.

In the press room in the back I noticed stacks of boxes containing “Votamatic” voting machines and “prepunched” ballots printed by ES&S of Addison, Texas, for the different precincts in Cook County. In the rear hallway behind the pressroom was the ES&S room. Only ES&S personnel were allowed into the room.

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lots more