Something stinks to high heaven about these people and their new report. And not simply because they’re based in Houston, TX, (though it certainly doesn’t help their case) but the fact that they are directly funded by Voting Machine companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia immediately destroys any credibility they might have otherwise had when it comes to making decisions about our Electoral System in desperate need of reform.
ElectionCenter.org claims to be a non-profit, non-partisan, professional organization of Elections Workers. Today, they have released a new report [large PDF] with recommendations on how to improve America’s Electoral System.
The AP covered the new report in a story yesterday which shines a fairly positive light on it yet manages to include a couple of paragraphs which jump out as huge red flags. Here’s a couple of them from the AP story [emphasis added]…
…
The report also urges state legislators to consider an “independently verifiable” record of each voter’s ballot from ATM-style touchscreen voting machines that could be electronic, video or some other form — pointedly downplaying a widespread push for paper receipts from touchscreens.
…
The Election Center has come in for criticism after reports that the nonprofit, nonpartisan group accepts contributions from voting machine manufacturers. Two members of the task force are former local election administrators who’ve formed their own election-related businesses.
So here we have yet another “nonprofit, nonpartisan” organization dedicated to Election issues, who have a clear conflict of interest due to their financial alliance with the Voting Machine Companies instead of the American Citizens whose interests they claim to represent.
Unlike the now-discredited “American Center for Voting Rights”, a phony front group founded by GOP operatives as a smokescreen for real Election Reform issues, Election Center has been around for a number of years. But their claims that their mission is to “improve service to voters, the public, the taxpayers and to government” is completely belied by the companies they keep…or that keep them…
Here’s a screenshot of the agenda from their upcoming August “National Conference” in Beverly Hills/Hollywood. It will likely tell you all you need to know about this group:
A few Googles of the various election officials associated with this organization and their new report should answer any other questions you may have. These people (folks like Palm Beach’s Theresa LePore and Los Angeles’ Conny McCormack to name just a few) are certainly not in the business of fighting for the voters’ best interests.
Suffice to say, if Election Center expects any recognition for their recommendations for Electoral Reform from the Election Reform community, perhaps they should have thought of that before selling that option off to Diebold and friends.
One thing neocons cannot grasp, evidently, is the concept of conflict of interest.
Perhaps they are so self-righteous that they think people should realize how un-biased they are?
You got it correct Brad … its stinkin thinkin.
They are filled with total confidence that the Mainstream Media won’t take a second look (and rightly so) thus concealing their chicanery from public view.
Bah!!! Booooo!!! Hisssss!!!
A good article this would make for Mr. Calame.
Chickens are missing from a farmer’s coop. He asks the fox who had been guarding the coop, "What happened to my chickens?" The fox replies, "They got away."
The farmer says, "I thought you were guarding them. Did you eat them?" The fox replies, "That sounds like a conspiracy theory from the Internet."
How depressing that there will still be electronic voting machines with no papertrail in the next presidential election. That means the next election will be fixed again. And, for now on we will have Republican presidents. I have to laugh everytime I see an article about how Bush’s poll numbers are down and how it might effect the Republican majority in Congress, etc. The Republicans are safe in the White House, Congress and Senate as long as we have Diebold and company. There will never be a Democratic president again if the MSM doesn’t catch on to the illegality of the vote-flipping software in these machines. I’m still waiting for an explosive "Deep Throat" reporter to expose to the MSM the vote rigging that went on in the last election…and how Karl Rove was the mastermind….and that Bush knew and approved of everything that went on.
"Hey," Karl sez, "they’re all momentarily distracted by the Downing Street Memo, let’s fix the electoral system."
Unbefuckinglievable. Actually, I wish it was unbelievable. It’s just sad. It’s sad that the "news" media are ignoring all these stories for the sake of Michael Jackson, the Runaway Bride, and the missing blonde of the week.
I suspect that one of the reasons the "Deep Throat" story came out was so that some ‘true blue’ Repubs, like Buchanan, could say loud and clear, ‘that anybody like that should be found dead in a ditch somewhere’, just to make it clear to anyone today who is considering ‘ratting’ that it wouldn’t be worth it.
On the voting machines scandal the elected Dems don’t seem to have figured it out or at least they haven’t gotten the ‘deep throat’ whistleblower they’re looking for. Getting the Mitovsky exit polls information would certainly help. Is there no way to force that out in the open?
Maybe it just takes some long hard slogging through the courts to get raw information and to charge individuals with a multitude of crimes before it will become a story the MSM might cover.
Still, for it to be tied back to Repubs would probably take a couple of whistleblowers yelling loudly.
Then…if only Sibel Edmonds could be given immunity from prosecution…
Thanks to Constant #103 at Conyers’ blog for this link:
Your Worst Nightmare
Emergency Preparedness against the "Universal Adversary"
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research Canada
7 June 2005
Orwellian "Scenarios"
A recent Report of the Homeland Security Council entitled Planning Scenarios describes in minute detail, the Bush administration’s preparations in the case of a terrorist attack by an outside enemy called the Universal Adversary (UA).
The Universal Adversary, is identified in the scenarios as an abstract entity used for the purposes of simulation. Yet upon more careful examination, this Universal Adversary is by no means illusory. It includes the following categories of potential "conspirators":
"foreign [Islamic] terrorists" ,
"domestic radical groups", [antiwar and civil rights groups]
"state sponsored adversaries" ["rogue states", "unstable nations"]
"disgruntled employees" [labor and union activists].
**MORE**
re #7 If this looks too scary to be true, then your Truth Meter needs an adjustment, but your Scare Meter is working just fine.
We can’t have public source code for voting machines because of Diebold’s privacy rights, but the government can look deeply into our health and financial records without a court order and without probable cause.
That is if several congressmen have their way (link here).
This great neocon onslaught is out in the open fascism and we need to continue to expose it. But they are moving on the blogs that do not support their propaganda, and the neocon blogs will be cheering them on.
Two things:
I hope you’ll attend the conference, Brad.
Also, the report itself specifically states the following, which would seem impossible without access to code:
Issue: Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail
21. That guidelines be developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), through the EAC, for a scientifically sound, independently verifiable audit trail for direct record
electronic (DRE) voting systems and that such guidelines not restricted to contemporaneous paper replica but also include guidelines for electronic, audio, video or other media to provide verification of the integrity of recording and tabulating votes.
I don’t understand why anyone would be against a paper trail. Diebold wants money, and they’d get it to fix their dumbass original machines. What’s the problem?
Jami – they couldn’t cheat so blatantly if we had a receipt. LOL. What other reason could there possibly be?
Connie McCormick is so out of her job. :angry: :angry:
How do we remove the Elections Commissioner in Los Angeles County anyway?
It is absolutely useless to have such a crony of the election machine companies in charge of our elections. The people of LA County have let this gone on long enough and she needs to leave, NOW.
Note, the City of LA has their own election commissioner and in the last Mayoral election we didn’t us any machines at all, not even the ink-a-vote system. You simply took a ballot and marked circles next to candidates.
What a concept? The name of the candidate right next to the checkbox for that candidate. No need for a machine of anykind to mark your ballot.
Seriously, why the hell do we need those scantron type ballots anyway? After you vote how do you know that the marks on the scantron correspond to the candidate you want?!?!?!?!
Connie McCormick has got to go. The City of LA knew how to have a clear, straightforward ballot. That is what we need countywide. :hehe:
Simply change the title of the report to "How to Fix Elections" and it’s correct.