Reply #2: "...(ES&S) Our county elections administrator likes this system and I... [View All]

[Peace Patriot]

tend to agree with him."

ES&S, a spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), like Diebold is run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it. ES&S was initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the nutso "christian" Chalcedon Foundation (which, among other things, touts the death penalty for homosexuals). Diebold, as you may know, until a few months ago, was headed by CEO Wally O'Dell, who promised in writing to "deliver" Ohio's Electoral Votes to Bush/Cheney in 2004, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for them, as Bush/Cheney campaign chair in Ohio. ES&S and Diebold have an incestuous relationship--they are run by two brothers, Todd and Bob Urosevich.

These are the people who are "tabulating" our votes behind a veil of secrecy. Together, these two rightwing corporations "counted" 80% of the nation's vote in 2004.

This non-transparent, rightwing Bushite-controlled election system was brought to you by the two biggest Bushite crooks in Congress--Tom Delay and Bob Ney--who designed the so-called "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA) as a $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle to corrupt election officials on a bipartisan basis all over the country, with no controls on partisan vendors, no controls on lavish lobbying or "revolving door" employment, no controls on secret industry 'testing' of the machines, no paper trail requirement, and underfunded regulators. The result is that our election system was taken over, in a short period of time (2002-2004), by extremely hackable, insecure electronic voting machines and central tabulators whose programming is in private partisan control.

I don't see how you can say that you "like" this system. It is the most non-transparent election system ever devised. Non-transparent elections are not elections. They are tyranny.

The only way for the great American progressive majority--which is reflected overwhelmingly in issue and approval polls over the last several years--to take back Congress and restore democracy in this country is by a huge turnout, bigger even than 2004, which might overcome the fraud in some cases, if the percentage advantage that is given to Bushites and warmongers has to be pre-programmed, which I believe was the case in 2004. I would suggest planning for--and trying to generate--at least a 10% margin of victory, in order merely to win.

Long term, we must get rid of these machines--county by county, state by state--and return to TRANSPARENT elections. Private partisan control of the vote tabulation with secret programming is simply not acceptable. It is fundamentally undemocratic. Its results can never be trusted. Paper trails don't matter in secretly programmed voting machines that operate at the speed of light, in which thousands of votes can be changed in a split second, and with serious recounts almost never occurring (too expensive and difficult to obtain).

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

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Some resources:

www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.verfiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.UScountvotes.org (monitoring of '06 and '08 elections)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)
Sign the petition (Russ Holt, HR 550, great bill-has 169 sponsors). http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html
www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)
www.votepa.us (well-organized local group of citizen activists in Pennsylvania, where important legal issues are at stake, including state's rights over election systems)

Also of interest:

Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy!)
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05)
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340