Reply #38: Autorank inspired me to do this letter to my email chain

[linazelle]

I hope he won't mind some of the plagiarism:

Let me know what you think:




The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) was passed on the heels of the Florida 2000 presidential election and its “hanging chad” problem. Few thought the solution to the hanging chad, which was--at least--evidence of a voter’s intent, would be to completely eliminate the evidence. But that is exactly what has happened.

HAVA mandates that states buy computer-controlled direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines. The only people who have access to these votes in these machines are the computer companies themselves.

Our country's history and the Constitution and Bill of Rights are based on a government "of, by and for THE PEOPLE." That is why we have elections officials in every state and jurisdiction in this country--to protect the security of our votes. There is no such obligation for the owner of a computer company to protect our votes.

With the new machines, officials don't even know what software is being used, they are not trained to troubleshoot if the machines fail. Machine owners claim total ownership over the machines and forbid election officials to tamper with them. Thus, there is no way of knowing whether your votes are being counted or not.

Consider this:

An electronic voting machine added 3,893 votes to President Bush's tally in a suburban Columbus precinct, even though there are just 800 voters there.

Chuck Hagel first ran for the Senate in Nebraska in 1996. Electronic voting machines owned by the biggest voting machine company in the US--Election Systems & Software (ES&S) reported that he had won both the primaries and the general election--one of the biggest upsets ever. He was the first Republican to win a Nebraska senatorial campaign in 24 years and won in many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican. Six years later Hagel ran again against Democrat Charlie Matulka and won 83% of the vote: the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska. Again, the votes were counted by ES&S, now the largest voting machine company in America. While these victories could be dismissed simply as an upset, a January 2003 article in the independent Washington paper The Hill revealed Chuck Hagel was CEO of ES&S (then AIS) until 1995 and he is still a major stockholder of the parent company of ES&S, McCarthy & Company.

In Illinois, Populex is providing the computers for voting. Ronald Reagan's former Defense Secretary, Frank Carlucci, is on the 5-member Advisory Board of Populex. Carlucci is also the chairman emeritus of The Carlyle Group, often called the "Ex-President's Club" because of the high profile partners and advisors on its payroll—including the president’s father—George Herbert Walker Bush. Can you say hello to Illinois' next Republican governor and even mayor?

It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines according to and article in the Washington Post.

A report by the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University says "Common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected" based on an analysis of the software for voting machines made by Diebold.

Congressman John Conyers' website lists at least 125 incidents of this type of fraud from Ohio alone during the 2004 election--and remember Ohio was the state which decided the entire election. (You may have seen Conyers being smeared recently on television --ignore it, read his site and know that he is fighting for our voting rights and those in charge of the machines are threatened by that.)

HAVA is to voting what No Child Left Behind is to education. Instead of helping voting, it takes away our right to ensure our votes are counted just like No Child Left Behind leaves public schools behind by eliminating federal funding for them. (Do you see a pattern here between what the words say and what actually happens?)

HAVA mandates that states buy computer-controlled direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines. The only people who have access to these votes in these machines are the computer companies themselves.

Our country's history, the Constitution and Bill of Rights are based on a government "of, by and for THE PEOPLE." That is why we have elections officials in every state and jurisdiction in this country--to protect the security of our votes. There is no such obligation for the owner of a computer company to protect our votes.

With the new machines, officials don't even know what software is being used, they are not trained to troubleshoot if the machines fail. Machine owners claim total ownership over the machines and forbid election officials to tamper with them. Thus, there is no way of knowing whether your votes are being counted or not.

Some of these companies have hired known criminals. Others have alarming conflicts of interest as they contribute heavily to one particular political party and not to the other--the owner of one company, Diebold, pledged that Bush would win the election at a million dollar fundraiser.

Before HAVA, elections officials in all states had sole custody of our votes. Where these machines have been installed, there have been rampant reports of fraud by computer manufacturers. During and after elections, computer companies have sent their people in and removed the computer drives and replaced them claiming that there were computer problems when there was no evidence of any problems.

Now, the Bush Adminisration is dangling $3.8 billion of federal money under HAVA to "assist" with purchases of these machines. States who don't buy the machines are threatened by the Department of Justice for noncompliance. States are being told they must buy the machines because they make voting accessible to the handicapped--which is not true in all instances, depending upon the handicap. Furthermore, previous voting methods were available to the handicapped.

By the first federal election in 2006, this coming November, all states must buy these machines or risk being sued by the government. (Most states with repulican governors already have the machines). New York was the first major state to resist buying the machines and the Dept. of Justice filed suit to the state to buy the machines in March 2006. Local and state activists have filed complaints or are lobbying Congress, and some are suing including Washington, California, New Mexico, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Ohio.

On April 8, nearly 100 election integrity activists gathered in Washington DC. They heard attorney and Commissioner Ray Martinez of the Election Assistance Commission which oversees HAVA. At the beginning of the question-and-answer period business law and consumer fraud attorney Paul Lehto of Everett, Washington asked a simple but powerful question:

By what right or authority did my right to watch the counting of the vote get taken away?

This question could not be answered and it lies at the tip of an iceberg that is in clear view--the 2006 elections. The impact of the loss of our votes will grow enormously as HAVA is mandated in all states by this fall.

These dynamics will impact elections all over the United States this year and for generations to come.

For the past six years we have all been part of an experiment when it comes to voting. Those who would steal our votes have tried it first in senatorial elections, then in a presidential election--two of them as a matter of fact. Now, now they want to spread it nationwide because no one has stood up and called them on it. All the while, people have sat by quietly--many don't even know. Now you know.

Ask yourself this question. Do you feel that this country is being run by people who represent your interests--the interests that you had when you last went into a voting booth? Do the polls which show that only 35% of the public approve of the president match the votes that he got? Something is VERY VERY wrong in America.

Make no mistake about it, this is not about politics alone. It is about people who will keep stealing your vote so that they can steal your tax dollars to fund wars that they are making money from. This is about men who want to stay in charge as they accept money hand over fist from corporate lobbyists who pay them to look the other way as they pollute our air, water and food. This is about life and death for you, me and future generations. These people are supposed to represent you and me and they do not. And we will lose more and more of our rights and jobs, and way of life if people don't pay attention.

And it will only get worse unless you do something about it.

What can you do?

Tell your friends and family.
Send this email to any and everybody that you can.
Vote anyway--make them cheat until they are caught red handed.
Write to your senator or congressman and express your concern. Here's a link to find their address(es): http://www3.capwiz.com/usatoday/home/
Write to the media, here's a link to the national list of all media outlets: http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x1903
Go to your favorite search engine and type in election fraud,pop some corn and have a good read.
Sen. Barbara Boxer: http://ga4.org/campaign/counteveryvote?qp_source=countsearch
Info on John Conyers effort to get a hearing on vote fraud: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120404W.shtml
Voting Security info site: http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingSecurity.htm
Above all, don't believe the hype.

Know that as you begin to hear more and more about Congressman Conyers and the handicapped for whom these machines are allegedly for, that you are being duped.

Stay tuned...