none of this other would have been possible. (And so much more...)
They had to get rid of transparent, verifiable elections--and get Diebold and brethren in there, "counting" all the votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code.
That WAS the fascist coup. Oct. 29, 2002. A day that will live in infamy. (The day George Bush signed HAVA!) (--with all but two Dem Senators having voted FOR it--thanks to Sen. Christopher Dodd--who, with Terry McAuliffe and others, were then responsible for the MIND-BOGGLING SILENCE of the entire Dem Party leadership as to the end of democratic elections in the U.S. of A.)
Items on your list related to HAVA:
#4: Defrauded Indian Tribes. (--Tom Delay and Bob Ney engineered the HAVA coup--the bribes were passing over their desks at the same time)
#14: Delay (chief HAVA crook)
#15: Ney (other chief HAVA crook)
#26: Wally O'Dell and Diebold (nuff said...but*)
* Item missing from your list: ES&S, brethren to Diebold (Diebold run by Bob Urosevich, ES&S by his brother, Tod Urosevich); ES&S is 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). Together these two Bushite corporations "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004.
*Possible additional item: Sequoia (the third major election theft player) now employs Bill Jones (Repub) former Sec of State of Calif, and his chief aide, Alfie Charles, in one of the more outstanding examples of the highly corrupt practice of "revolving door" employment. Jones and Charles brought this election theft technology to Calif, while in public office, and now peddle the machines. (--stinks to high heaven.)
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If you're going to prosecute an unjust, illegal war--and rob the public blind--in a democracy, you have to rig the elections. That's what they did. It all goes back to HAVA.
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We need to stop lamenting the extent of the crime--and even the extent of the lives lost (tens of thousands)--and start addressing the MECHANISM of illegitimate power by which they have been able to do these things: rigged elections, now made EASY and virtually UNDETECTABLE, through "trade secret" vote tabulation.
We MUST restore transparent elections. No change is possible without them. The power of the vote IS our power, as a people. It has been stolen by thieves, with the complicity of many leaders of our own party.
How do we restore our right to vote, given such a comprehensive conspiracy to take it away (involving not just the Bush Junta, but also the war profiteering corporate news monopolies AND the Corporatists (and War) Democrats?
Well, we don't restore our right to vote by not voting. That's for sure. And we don't restore it by punishing bad Democrats at the polls this fall. We will have to hold them accountable later, because we really have no other vehicle for change but the Democratic Party, and I think we have to temporarily presume that most of the bad Democrats can be influenced in the right direction--on some things, anyway (torture? habeas corpus? impeaching Bush/Cheney?)--when there is a massive citizen revolt. And how will that happen?
I think it's already happening--with the great increase in Absent Ballot voting (--it's up to 50% in Los Angeles!). People DON'T TRUST these electronic voting machines. But it has to get bigger. We have to SWAMP election officials with MOUNTAINS of Absentee Ballot votes. And if enough people do it--if everyone who despises the Bush Junta (60% to 70% of the American people) votes by Absentee Ballot this fall, the reign of these diabolical machines will be OVER! They can't maintain this rigged system with such a revolt against it. Local/state election officials will be FORCED to reform, or will be driven from office. (Luckily, decisions about voting systems still reside at the state/local level, and electronic voting is not mandated by law--it was accomplished through corruption, the $3.9 billion HAVA boondoggle.)
The governor of Maryland (a Repub) and the Colorado Dem Party have both called for Absentee Ballot voting--due to the massive breakdowns and unreliability of this crapass voting technology. That's a start. Now we have to push AB voting as a PROTEST! --aimed at getting rid of the machines.
With transparent elections, everything--the entire political landscape--will change dramatically. It's amazing what accountability to the people of the country, through fair elections, will do! (Look at all of South America--Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela (and coming soon in Ecuador and Peru)--a huge, peaceful, democratic, leftist (majorityist) revolution, all based on TRANSPARENT elections.)
Step one, priority one, for democracy: transparent elections!
BUST THE MACHINES--VOTE BY ABSENTEE BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER! SPREAD THE WORD!
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See my further argumentation for this protest, "What do you expect from the Diebold Congress?", at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2851762&mesg_id=2851762
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