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Edited on Sun Sep-21-08 08:06 PM by Peace Patriot
done about it? Nothing. In fact, there is evidence that the leadership covered up the most blatantly stolen election I've ever seen accounts of--FL-13 in 2006. 18,000 Democratic votes for the Congressional election were 'disappeared' by ES&S voting machines (brethren to Diebold) in an election in which the Puke 'won' by only 350 or so votes. The Democrat, Christine Jennings, took it the Congress (the ultimate arbiter of who takes a seat in Congress), and they covered it up, buried it, deep-sixed it. The rot in the San Diego special election for Congress was also covered up. And the overall great whopping stinking mess of the 2004 (s)election, and the fascist coup of private Corpos--indeed, Bushwhack corpos--taking over and privatizing our vote counting system, with machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--remains unaddressed, un-talked of, and deep-sixed by our fully rotten national political establishment, including most our Democratic public officials.
I can only conclude that Pelosi & co. want all our votes to be 'counted' by Bushwhacks with 'TRADE SECRET' code--or, in some cases, are too fearful to challenge it. And when we look at Congress' approval rating (worse than Bush's) and their miserable, craven, cowardly inability to represent the interests of the American people, on almost every important issue, we need to remind ourselves that virtually all of them have been put into office by Diebold & brethren-run elections, and hardly a one of them can prove that he or she was actually chosen by the voters in the primaries and actually elected. They can't prove it. The proof--the transparency--of our elections has been 'disappeared.' The only exception is New York, which--for some reason--was spared the fast-track electronic voting boondoggle that hit every other state during the 2002 to 2004 period--but the Bushwhacks are on it now, and appear to be successfully pressuring New York (with a lawsuit) to abandon their old, reliable, entirely publicly owned and controlled, and virtually unriggable, lever voting machines.
Many citizens have tried--have devoted their lives to--correcting this horror. Many new groups have been formed. Great new citizen lobbying efforts have gone forward. Public education has gone forward. There are passionate election reform movements in many states. But we have only been able to peel back A FEW of the worst abuses, and only in SOME states. Currently, about half the country will be voting in systems that have no verification even possible. No paper ballot. No paper trail at all. You can't even have a recount. A ZERO PERCENT audit in half the country. The main culprit is the all-electronic touchscreens. The other half are using optiscans, which have a paper ballot, but no state counts those ballots in sufficient numbers to detect fraud. A ONE PERCENT audit in half the country--miserably inadequate. Also, recounts are expensive, hard to get, and are only partial recounts (generally 3%--still extremely inadequate).
In Venezuela, they use electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE code system--anyone may review the programming code by which the votes are tabulated--and they handcount a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud. Here--with our 'TRADE SECRET' code system--code that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review--we handcount 0.05% overall, with half the voting systems having no handcount capability at all. Some experts say 10% is the minimum necessary. We are not even close--and half the voting systems have no capability of a an audit.
And that is just the beginning of the problems--the basic non-transparency and unverifiability of the system. Then there are last-minute programming "patches," with private corporate personnel accessing vote counting areas; election officials not understanding the system; poll workers not understanding the system, and having almost no ways to monitor it; the use of uncertified programming code; the privatized system of certification, totally inadequate in the first place--and a host of other such problems, which add up to massive insecurity.
Then there are the use of electronics to target and purge Democratic voting groups--such as black neighborhoods--and the whole range of old-fashioned vote suppression methods, which we saw in Ohio (and other places) in 2004, in addition to the non-transparent vote counting everywhere else (--exposed, back in 2004, by the 3% discrepancy in the national exit polls, showing a Kerry win).
There is some good news:
1) public awareness is much, much higher than in 2004 (it is something of a deterrent);
2) by strong organization and exposure of this, the biggest scandal in our country's history, some citizen groups and insurgent groups within the Democratic Party have managed to elect better Secretaries of State (California and Ohio being notable examples)--but these better Secretaries of State, while they are being more vigilant, cannot attack the problem head on (or they will suffer the fate of CA's Sec of State Kevin Shelley, who sued Diebold just prior to the 2004 (s)election, and got railroaded out of office on entirely bogus corruption charges; he was replaced with a Schwarzenegger appointed Diebold shill; the grass roots got active, denied him election, and elected a reformer);
3) The fact that better Secs of State could be elected in this Diebold & brethren-run system means that, with sufficient get-out-the-vote, the people can win some elections; this may also be contingent on the candidate not challenging Corpo power very much--but it does tell you that we have a chance at least for modest reform (on this and other issues).
We have to ask: Why has our party not challenged Bushwhack corpos 'counting' all our votes with secret code? My parenthesis above tells you one reason. They will get whacked if they do--literally or by career ruination (and, of course, by getting Diebolded). Some of them are enthusiastic Corpos and warmongers. They understand the need to disenfranchise the American people--in order to loot us blind, as they are doing. I'm afraid Christopher Dodd is in this category. He was the chief e-voting architect on the Democratic side, working with Tom Delay and Bob Ney, to destroy our election system. Diane Feinstein is one of the big obstacles to election reform. Others are mixed bags--Corpo players but maybe with some good motives--Kerry, Edwards, Obama. Dean, I think, is aware of the situation, and has tried to work around it--by empowering the grass roots. The fear is palpable. If they can take out Spitzer, and put Siegelman in jail, and run Shelley out of office, and paint a three-limb paraplegic war veteran as a 'terrorist lover' (Max Cleland) and Diebold him out of a Senate seat; if they can get away with FL-13, with no consequences--they can take out anyone, elect or un-elect anyone, and send anthrax letters to the others, or make small planes fall out of the air on a clear day, for anyone with real courage like Paul Wellstone.
We are suffering a fascist coup. We really need to realize this--because the first rule of an effective strategy is to fully understand your position.
The key to it all is the transparency of our elections. As to that, we still have opportunity to fix it. The local/state jurisdictions still have control of voting systems. The person giving multi-millions of our tax dollars to Diebold, for machines by which to steal our elections, may live right down the street from you--your country registrar. We need to challenge the huge expense. We need to challenge the non-transparency. We need to muster public pressure to drive them out of office, if they won't reform. We need to--and can--take back our election system, county by county, in a very short time, if the movement gets big enough. And we need to not stop, and not go back to sleep, if they permit Obama to win. They can easily follow him up with Hitler II, after they destroy his administration (and they are already setting that up, saddling him with gazillions in federal debt).
Our window of opportunity to restore transparent elections may be a short one. With a Diebold-selected Congress, the danger is more federal control and centralization for yet another bad, evil reform, for instance, one that mandates privatized e-voting everywhere (say, with the sop of a paper ballot backup, which is useless if it is not counted). On this issue, I favor states' rights. Congress and the federal government are our enemy, and I believe that will be true no matter who is in charge. I would have to see one hell of a good bill to think otherwise--and I mean one that entirely rids our system of the Corpos. That is not going to happen. We have to do this ourselves--get our election system back into the PUBLIC VENUE.
No other reform is possible--and no significant reform on any other issue--is going to happen, until we do. You want to see this country get torn asunder like Germany in the 1930s? Ignore and neglect the election system. Hitler had Brownshirts beating up voters and stuffing ballot boxes. We have Dieobld, ES&S and co. Same goal--fascist/Corpo rule; slicker method.
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