Blogged by Brad from Texas…
Meanwhile…Back in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, where Christine Jennings has already announced plans to run again in 2008 for the seat she almost certainly already won in 2006, but hasn’t been allowed to sit in it due to ES&S’s touch-screen voting machines standing in the way of democracy…
That, from Sarasota Herald-Tribune, despite Sarasota County’s still-unresigned Supervisor of Elections and democracy-hater-in-chief, Kathy Dent hiding shamelessly behind the skirts of the flawed and misrepresented state-convened “audit” of the voting systems used in her disastrously run election. The federal investigators from the GAO seems to be countering the state’s and Dent’s assertions that their own review proved that ‘there was nothing wrong with the voting systems.’
Our sources say that the GAO reports that “gaps” were found during their investigation. Though — as with nearly everything involving E-voting — the investigation into what happened last November is shrouded in secrecy for now. So it remains unclear to the lowly voters as to what those “gaps” are that the GAO has discovered and which may have aborted their preferred choice of representation in the U.S. House…
The GAO was tasked by Congress with investigating the race when Jennings filed a federal challenge after being announced the “loser” by 369 votes even as 18,000 votes completely disappeared on the crappy, hackable ES&S voting machines in Sarasota.
And with the ’08 campaign already under way, and the Republican who almost certainly lost in ’06 casting votes in the U.S. House, our E-Democracy in action brings us this ongoing perversion where…
…
The GAO said it has no timetable for when it will finish the investigation.
Gosh, we sure hope the private ES&S corporation sees fit to allow federal investigators to investigate what happened in a federal election for a U.S. House seat being challenged under the Federal Contested Elections Act.
That, of course, will be up to the corporate heads of ES&S, in whom Florida has entrusted their democracy.
Here in Ohio mean-Jean and ‘I love Foley’ Pryce won in Nov . Barbara Sykes-D for Auditor of State lost..49/51. Does that number ring a bell ? Our court still has only one D on it I believe, our congress is still majority R’s. I’de love to know who REALLY got elected last Nov. It’s not just Florida.
Unfriggingbelievble!
Welcome to BushWorld, in which private corporations (with close ties to far rightwing causes) tell you what they will and will not disclose about how they counted your votes.
This WAS the fascist coup. October 2002. The “Help America Vote Act,” by which both Democratic (most of them!) and Republican office holders sold away our right to vote. Same month as the Iraq War Resolution, and closely related to it. The latter insured unjust war. The former insured that we would never be able to stop it.
As the Iraq invasion approached, several months later, 56% of the American people opposed the war. It was to defeat that peace-minded, justice-minded American majority that HAVA was slipped “under the radar” at the same time as the war resolution. The War Party knew that, as the heinous, deceitful nature of this war became known, that already significant majority (56% would be landslide in a presidential election–and believe me, it was) would only grow. Today it’s 70%! And “trade secret” vote counting is still at work, preventing us from stopping the war by fiddling the elections, so that half the Democrats in Congress are pro-war.
And we, as a society–in the courts, in Congress, in some political circles, in blogs, and in some tiny bits of the corporate media–are debating the issue of whether “trade secret” vote counting is okay; whether a rightwing-connected corporation has the “right” to keep its vote counting code a secret from the rest of us.
It is corporatism gone mad that this is even an issue!
It is so blatantly, egregiously wrong that you have to wonder if our system of government is even salvageable, given the betrayal of our democracy by our entire political leadership in letting this happen–SECRET corporate control of election results!
Does this mean that DAs and police detectives will now be required to sign non-disclosure contracts before judges will provide search warrants in other criminal investigations?
If the GAO and ESS sign a confidentiality agreement and the GAO finds that the ESS software had a hack that threw votes to Buchanan, then does that contract prevent the GAO from prosecuting or publicizing the problem or the crime?
From: Sarasota Herald-Tribune – Sarasota,FL,USA
Will votes be counted correctly?
Red team, blue team. Does it matter if our votes don’t count?
In Florida, researchers just proved optical scan voting machines can be hacked by someone with only brief access to the machine. In California, researchers hacked through security of all models of California’s voting machines to change results or take control of electronic functions.
These studies were conducted at the request of Florida’s Secretary of State Kurt Browning and California’s Secretary of State Debra Bowen.
Sarasota’s 18,000 lost votes are still in dispute. And now, in Miami, a gutsy new novel reports a silent coup marching across the country in fictitious voting machines. “A Margin of Error: Ballots of Straw” asks, “How will we know it’s right?”
And so do I.
Hello, Brad/ All~! JUST POSTED RELEVANT VIDEO:
“Kathy Dent Denies Ties (to ES&S)/ REVISED w/ New Lies”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFEgYIHsM8w
In this stunning example of chutzpah, Kathy Dent claims there is “no evidence” of her blatant, shameless ties to Election Systems and Software.
NO EVIDENCE?…Well, here’s some.
(Editor’s note: It’s getting hard to keep up with Mrs. Dent’s misinformation. This one lie of hers took me two days to compile all the evidence disputing–so, ONE LIE DOWN…many more to come, coffee pending.)
Thanks for keeping me upped on the GAO info, Brad~! (Not at all surprising to hear.)
Keep it up! I think we may be winning this thing~!