In the previous article, I outlined a report from July 2003 that described how to steal an election in America in 2004. Virtually everything in that list was “done” in time for the 2004 election.
The items concerning the corporate privatization of the vast majority of our “public” balloting and counting systems by companies who are very closely tied to the Republican party are described in this new article yesterday by Thom Hartmann in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel. Read the whole thing if you can. Here’s just a few of the troubling highlights:
…
About two years ago, I wrote a story, “If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines,” that exposed how Senator Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the US Senate in Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now ES&S) that had just computerized Nebraska’s vote. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel’s “Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election.” According to Bev Harris, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on unauditable machines he had just sold the state. And in all probability, Hagel will run for President in 2008.
In another, later article I wrote at the request of MoveOn.org and which they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in –another state that went all-electronic– “USA Today reported on Nov. 3, 2002, ‘In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with a 49%-to-44% lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss.’ Cox News Service, based in Atlanta, reported just after the election (Nov. 7) that, “Pollsters may have goofed” because ‘Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53 to 46 percent. The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.'” Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no audit trail.
…
In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has published her book on the subject (Black Box Voting), including the revelation of her finding the notorious “Rob Georgia” folder on Diebold’s FTP site just after Cleland’s loss there…
…
Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting machines, and it’s been co-sponsored by a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, [insured] that there will be no possible audit of the votes of about a third of the 2004 electorate.
chicago boys?