It seems I'm not alone in my insanity. But many of you have already come by all of this. I put this together Wednesday but forgot to send....
Kerry WON?
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php
International observers:
http://tinyurl.com/4tgva http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/11/03/russianobserver.shtml
Nice graphic:
http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4526/exit_poll.gif
Votergate the movie:
http://snipurl.com/aevh
Look at page 23 on the voter returns for Franklin County, Ohio: http://www.franklincountyohio.gov/boe/04UnofficialResul...
Check out the presidential totals for precinct Gahana 1:
The Libertarian: 13
Bush/Cheney: 6253
Kerry/Edwards: 1916
Constitutional Party: 10
Now, check out the senatorial vote in that precinct:
Republican: 2848
Democrat: 1259
Did 4000 people vote for Bush/Cheney and just skip the senatorial vote?
No. Check out the precinct voter count: 4346.
An additional 4000 Bush/Cheney votes in box Gahana 1-B: go figure!
Beat up a journalist day: http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1702435.php
Oops! http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041104/ap_on_el_pr/voting_
problems
More:
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110304.htm
Hey, got a match? http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD411A.html
Patrick
.. . . . . . .
Patrick Herron
patrick@proximate.org
Author of _The American Godwar Complex_ (BlazeVOX),
now available @ http://proximate.org/tagc
Bio http://proximate.org/bio.htm
Works http://proximate.org/works.htm
Close Quarterly http://closequarterly.org
Carrboro Poetry Fest http://carrboropoetryfestival.org
.. . . . . . .
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Herron [mailto:patrick@proximate.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 11:11 PM
To: 'Linh Dinh'; 'Ed Lin'; 'Rachel Loden'; 'katz_nguyen@yahoo.com'; 'cmurray@uta.edu'; Kate Atkins (E-mail) (katkins@silverchair.com)
Subject: Votescam 2004
With 40 million actual votes unverifiable due to electronic voting with no paper trail, the 2004 presidential election is quite possibly a load of bullshit. Yes, 40 million of the total votes were from e-vote machines.
You can see the spread of electronic voting here: http://snipurl.com/aejb. And in my backyard of North Carolina: http://snipurl.com/aejd.
Sounds like a predictable response from me, I know. Slate has already dismissed arguments like mine as "conspiracy-minded." You know me, I'm so predictable. We *reasonable* people all know there's no such thing as a conspiracy. Right? But bear with me. And ask yourself, am I really being irrational? I fully realize I sound loony by merely suggesting any wrongdoing. But is my skepticism truly groundless?
The results in Florida weren't close as we all know. That gap (52% to 47% in favor of Bush) we are told is supposed to suggest there was not a sufficient amount of wrongdoing there to swing the election. I cannot help but wonder, however, about the validity of those results when 50% of votes passed through e-vote machines in that state. 50% of the Florida vote is completely unverifiable and run completely by Republican partisan interests who benefit from trade law protections. 50% of the votes might as well be imaginary votes. Ohio had unverifiable e-voting in a sufficient number of precincts representing a sufficient number of
votes to change the outcome. OK I'm speculating it seems, but do I
have any evidence to even make such a suggestion?
The first piece of evidence is prior probability. We know that there have been massive problems with the machines. We have a paper trail of documented problems. Those problems have been demonstrated over and over and over again, but the courts won't have any of it. The prior probability shows a fix is likely.
For example, we saw massive problems and wrongdoings by the Bushies in Florida in 2000, and that wrongdoing ultimately decided the election.
Another example--the Republican candidate for Georgia's governorship won the 2002 election when polls indicated that his Democratic opponent was likely to beat him by a margin of 9 to 11 points. In the same year, a Republican candidate for Senator defeated his Democratic opponent, even though the Dem was expected to win by a 2 to 5 point margin. The combination of these two results are, statistically speaking, astronomically unlikely. In 2002, Georgia became the first state in the U.S. to use computerized touch-screen voting machines in all of its election districts. Georgia's votes were not counted by state election officials but were instead counted by employees of the corporation that manufactured and programmed the computerized voting machines. Those machines produced no paper voting records or any other means to verify the vote. What happened in Georgia was not unique to the 2002 elections. Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, and New Hampshire also experienced unusual last-minute swings in some of their election districts, but only in the ones that used electronic voting machines. Interestingly, those sudden and unexpected swings only occurred in hotly contested districts, and in each case, the underdog who won was a Republican.
Sequoia Voting Systems software was discovered by hackers and found to be full of vulnerabilities. Those of you who are savvy enough can have a look at the code here: http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/~tarantul/WinEDS200.zip
The second piece of evidence is the combination of bias & motive. CEOs, founders and owners of Diebold and ES&S are either big shot Republican fundraisers (Diebold) or Republican Senators who have already won suspect elections from their very own machines (Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska). In August, 2003, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell wrote a letter to Ohio Republicans in which he said he was "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." He wrote this letter at the very time Diebold was bidding for a contract to sell its voting machines to the state of Ohio. What’s more, even after O'Dell's letter was exposed to the public, Ohio's Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell--who happens to be a Republican & who also attempted to deny delivery of provisional ballots across Ohio--had the audacity to put Diebold on Ohio's list of preferred voting machine vendors. Diebold's machines were used in Ohio's presidential election Tuesday. Chuck Hagel, the head of ES&S, sold his company's voting machines to the state of Nebraska. Shortly after that he became Nebraska's first Republican Senator in 24 years. Eighty percent of Hagel's votes were
counted by ES&S employees in complete corporate secrecy. ES&S machines
were used for Dade, Martin, Lake, Sumter, Pasco, Collier, Nassau, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Broward counties (Sequoia machines were used in Indian River, Pinellas, Hillsborough, in Palm Beach County).
Here's a bit of a run-down on Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S:
The Diebold Board of Directors
W.R. Timken, Jr., Timken Company, Ohio layoffs, 2004 Bush Ranger, Bush appointee to the Securities Investor Protection Corp. Walden O'Dell, Bush Pioneer in 2000 and 2004 who promised to deliver the election in 2003 Henry Wallace, Ford Motor Company--Ford is a heavy contributor to Bush campaign; bush Interior Secretary Gale Norton fmr Ford board member) John Lauer, Oglebay Norton--mining company; need I say more? Oh, right, Laurer also was responsible for an Enron-like scam that sunk the company and looted the investments of its shareholders; see http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2004-09-22/news/feature.html
Phillip Lassiter, Ambac--he recently appointed to Ambac board a Laura Unger, formerly appointed by Bush to serve as Acting Chairman of the SEC Richard Crandall, Aspen Partners--one of the managers of the hedge fund is a William Ware Bush, relation to the president unknown Louis Bockius, Bocko Corp.--Ohio layoff lover Christopher Connor, Sherwin-Williams--a company that has regularly fought environmental regulations against the use of lead (Diebold Documents here:
http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html)
Sequoia Voting Systems
subsidiary of De La Rue, acquired 2002; De La Rue won the contract to print Iraq's new Saddam Hussein-free banknotes. It's estimated this print job brought in about $20 million for Sequoia's parent company.
On ES&S, I borrow from "Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy," an article by Bob Fitrakis of Columbus Ohio's The Free Press: "In the early 1980s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS). California newspapers have long documented the Ahmanson family’s ties to right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles.
"According to Group Watch, in the 1980s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.
"Ahmanson is also a chief contributor to the Chalcedon Institute that supports the Christian reconstruction movement. The movement’s philosophy advocates, among other things, "mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards."
"The Ahmanson family sold their shares in American Information Systems to the McCarthy Group and the World Herald Company, Inc. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of American Information Systems and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. One of the BRC owners was Carolyn Hunt of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the Council on National Policy.
"In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a "stunning upset" by one Nebraska newspaper.
"Hagel’s official biography states, "Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel worked in the private sector as the President of McCarthy and Company, an investment banking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska and served as Chairman of the Board of American Information Systems." During the first Bush presidency, Hagel served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations (G-7 Summit).
"Bob Urosevich was the Programmer and CEO at AIS, before being replaced by Hagel. Bob now heads Diebold Election Systems and his brother Todd is a top executive at ES&S. Bob created Diebold’s original electronic voting machine software. Thus, the brothers Urosevich, originally funded by the far Right, figure in the counting of approximately 80% of electronic voting in the United States.
"Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system. SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board."
(http://snipurl.com/aequ)
The third piece of evidence: the exit poll results in Florida. The biggest problem is precision--something that cannot be verified. We can only look to exit polls to see if the election outcome was at least remotely reasonable. In Ohio the exit polls were not inconsistent with the final tally. However in Florida the outcome was HIGHLY unlikely given their exit polls (+/- 4 SEM, which means the actual vote given the exit polls had a likelihood of 0.0000634%, which is pretty damn close to zero; for statisticians, it IS zero) . (See http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/poll-discrepancy-z-scores.jpg for an illustration of the statistic in comparison to other states; if you're wondering about Missouri, read the following analysis from the Missouri
Bar: http://www.mobar.org/journal/2001/novdec/jarrett.htm) We cannot audit the Florida votes themselves, but another exit poll could be conducted.
Without a paper trail, a recount cannot be conducted. If official Florida results showed a close race, a recount would have been a legal
nightmare that would have eclipsed what happened in 2000. The margin
in Florida was too great for a recount. Was this a matter of convenience?
*The bigger the lie, the more people believe.*
The fourth piece of evidence: the demographics of increased voter turnout. Typically in a presidential election, lefty voters show a greater increase in turnout than Republican voters. It's as if, in this election, the majority of anti-Bush newly-turned-out voters across the nation voted for Bush. Hmm. This is a piece of evidence, admittedly, that has yet to materialize. The massive increase in voter registrations since 2000 were primarily Democrat, but Rove & Co. built an impressive 72-hour get-out-the-Bush-vote grassroots campaign, designed to contact all unlikely Republican voters three times in 72 hours, one interpersonal. In the coming says we should be able to get the statistics, however, and know whether there is something here in the increased turnout.
Finally, there is no evidence to the contrary, that electronic voting was not biased. There is no way that contrary evidence can be demonstrated. In fact, it's illegal to demonstrate such validity.
40 million electronic votes. Poof. Just like that. Out comes a president.
Let's face it. Many of us suspect the Republicans have formed a kleptocracy. We see again and again that they lie and deceive 24-7 in order to steal more. We can see they are looting the wealthiest nation in history if we only look. Ask yourself: given the slightest of evidence, do you put an election heist past them? When Bush says things like, "I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen . . . I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it." This election was in the bag for Kerry with a major *under*estimation of turnout. And when we see pictures and eyewitness accounts like this one in Ohio (http://tinyurl.com/3t3cr) you just have to wonder....
Coups typically use the power of the existing government for its own takeover. As renowned economist, historian, and leading military strategy consultant Edward Luttwak remarks in his book _Coup d'état: A practical handbook_, a book translated into 14 languages: "A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." Use of military or other organized force is not the defining feature of a coup d'état. Any seizure of the state apparatus by extra-legal tactics may be considered a coup, according to Luttwak.
Ultimately few in the government are fighting for your right to vote. Edwards reportedly encouraged Kerry to continue to count in Ohio, but Kerry opted for "unity." We can be sure Bush will not go centrist on us. Meanwhile, the media proliferate their claims that e-voting was a success--because, they say, no widespread problems were reported. Without a trail, what's there to report?
We on the left, we were gutless Tuesday night when things looked bad. Many of us stopped watching and gave up hope well before Ohio was settled. We threw up our hands, citing that America is on the whole homophobic, misogynist, stupid. Many of us are now wringing our hands, citing secession or leaving the country altogether. A lot of Americans may be stupid, homophobic, and misogynist, to be sure, but the election in no way proves that is the case with the majority.
40 million votes.
Vaporware.
Alas, there is absolutely nothing we can do to change this election. Nothing. We can't go back and count those votes--they are not there to be counted. Gone. Our legislature has failed to protect us, because we have failed to insist on it.
So we can't do much now. It's too late. But what can we do about the next election? Based on this election, we can anticipate that the fight to force states to make sure a paper trail is created from electronic voting machines will fade. But that fight must continue.
I will fully admit the entirety of my argument could be wrong. Unlike electronic votes my argument is verifiable. Don't some of these questions and issues make you wonder, not just a little bit? We don't have the 40 million votes needed to ultimately substantiate or reject my argument. That *should* make you very nervous, very concerned. If you're a freedom-loving American.
Be rest assured, no one can be sure that Bush has the mandate of the masses. The sound of confidence in such a claim is nothing but noise. Fear not.
So don’t give up on America. Protect your right to vote. Bush might be marching freedom out the door, but you can stop him. You can fight for election paper trails, and fight for validation of electronic voting regardless of the margin of outcome between candidates. You can start by fighting for H.R.2239 and S.1980, stalled bills which would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by requiring a voter-verified permanent record or hardcopy of all electronic votes. You can also educate yourself about the problems of electronic voting and educate others. You can support a movement to impeach Bush for his and his croneys' acts of sedition: http://www.votetoimpeach.org/. Or if you've the stomach for it, you can also practice civil disobedience: find those electronic machines, drag 'em out, pull 'em apart, and find out how they work.
Patrick
.. . . . . . .
Patrick Herron
patrick@proximate.org
Author of _The American Godwar Complex_ (BlazeVOX),
now available @ http://proximate.org/tagc
Bio http://proximate.org/bio.htm
Works http://proximate.org/works.htm
Close Quarterly http://closequarterly.org
Carrboro Poetry Fest http://carrboropoetryfestival.org
.. . . . . . .
Kerry WON?
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php
International observers:
http://tinyurl.com/4tgva http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/11/03/russianobserver.shtml
Nice graphic:
http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4526/exit_poll.gif
Votergate the movie:
http://snipurl.com/aevh
Look at page 23 on the voter returns for Franklin County, Ohio: http://www.franklincountyohio.gov/boe/04UnofficialResul...
Check out the presidential totals for precinct Gahana 1:
The Libertarian: 13
Bush/Cheney: 6253
Kerry/Edwards: 1916
Constitutional Party: 10
Now, check out the senatorial vote in that precinct:
Republican: 2848
Democrat: 1259
Did 4000 people vote for Bush/Cheney and just skip the senatorial vote?
No. Check out the precinct voter count: 4346.
An additional 4000 Bush/Cheney votes in box Gahana 1-B: go figure!
Beat up a journalist day: http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1702435.php
Oops! http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041104/ap_on_el_pr/voting_
problems
More:
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110304.htm
Hey, got a match? http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD411A.html
Patrick
.. . . . . . .
Patrick Herron
patrick@proximate.org
Author of _The American Godwar Complex_ (BlazeVOX),
now available @ http://proximate.org/tagc
Bio http://proximate.org/bio.htm
Works http://proximate.org/works.htm
Close Quarterly http://closequarterly.org
Carrboro Poetry Fest http://carrboropoetryfestival.org
.. . . . . . .
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Herron [mailto:patrick@proximate.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 11:11 PM
To: 'Linh Dinh'; 'Ed Lin'; 'Rachel Loden'; 'katz_nguyen@yahoo.com'; 'cmurray@uta.edu'; Kate Atkins (E-mail) (katkins@silverchair.com)
Subject: Votescam 2004
With 40 million actual votes unverifiable due to electronic voting with no paper trail, the 2004 presidential election is quite possibly a load of bullshit. Yes, 40 million of the total votes were from e-vote machines.
You can see the spread of electronic voting here: http://snipurl.com/aejb. And in my backyard of North Carolina: http://snipurl.com/aejd.
Sounds like a predictable response from me, I know. Slate has already dismissed arguments like mine as "conspiracy-minded." You know me, I'm so predictable. We *reasonable* people all know there's no such thing as a conspiracy. Right? But bear with me. And ask yourself, am I really being irrational? I fully realize I sound loony by merely suggesting any wrongdoing. But is my skepticism truly groundless?
The results in Florida weren't close as we all know. That gap (52% to 47% in favor of Bush) we are told is supposed to suggest there was not a sufficient amount of wrongdoing there to swing the election. I cannot help but wonder, however, about the validity of those results when 50% of votes passed through e-vote machines in that state. 50% of the Florida vote is completely unverifiable and run completely by Republican partisan interests who benefit from trade law protections. 50% of the votes might as well be imaginary votes. Ohio had unverifiable e-voting in a sufficient number of precincts representing a sufficient number of
votes to change the outcome. OK I'm speculating it seems, but do I
have any evidence to even make such a suggestion?
The first piece of evidence is prior probability. We know that there have been massive problems with the machines. We have a paper trail of documented problems. Those problems have been demonstrated over and over and over again, but the courts won't have any of it. The prior probability shows a fix is likely.
For example, we saw massive problems and wrongdoings by the Bushies in Florida in 2000, and that wrongdoing ultimately decided the election.
Another example--the Republican candidate for Georgia's governorship won the 2002 election when polls indicated that his Democratic opponent was likely to beat him by a margin of 9 to 11 points. In the same year, a Republican candidate for Senator defeated his Democratic opponent, even though the Dem was expected to win by a 2 to 5 point margin. The combination of these two results are, statistically speaking, astronomically unlikely. In 2002, Georgia became the first state in the U.S. to use computerized touch-screen voting machines in all of its election districts. Georgia's votes were not counted by state election officials but were instead counted by employees of the corporation that manufactured and programmed the computerized voting machines. Those machines produced no paper voting records or any other means to verify the vote. What happened in Georgia was not unique to the 2002 elections. Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, and New Hampshire also experienced unusual last-minute swings in some of their election districts, but only in the ones that used electronic voting machines. Interestingly, those sudden and unexpected swings only occurred in hotly contested districts, and in each case, the underdog who won was a Republican.
Sequoia Voting Systems software was discovered by hackers and found to be full of vulnerabilities. Those of you who are savvy enough can have a look at the code here: http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/~tarantul/WinEDS200.zip
The second piece of evidence is the combination of bias & motive. CEOs, founders and owners of Diebold and ES&S are either big shot Republican fundraisers (Diebold) or Republican Senators who have already won suspect elections from their very own machines (Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska). In August, 2003, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell wrote a letter to Ohio Republicans in which he said he was "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." He wrote this letter at the very time Diebold was bidding for a contract to sell its voting machines to the state of Ohio. What’s more, even after O'Dell's letter was exposed to the public, Ohio's Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell--who happens to be a Republican & who also attempted to deny delivery of provisional ballots across Ohio--had the audacity to put Diebold on Ohio's list of preferred voting machine vendors. Diebold's machines were used in Ohio's presidential election Tuesday. Chuck Hagel, the head of ES&S, sold his company's voting machines to the state of Nebraska. Shortly after that he became Nebraska's first Republican Senator in 24 years. Eighty percent of Hagel's votes were
counted by ES&S employees in complete corporate secrecy. ES&S machines
were used for Dade, Martin, Lake, Sumter, Pasco, Collier, Nassau, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Broward counties (Sequoia machines were used in Indian River, Pinellas, Hillsborough, in Palm Beach County).
Here's a bit of a run-down on Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S:
The Diebold Board of Directors
W.R. Timken, Jr., Timken Company, Ohio layoffs, 2004 Bush Ranger, Bush appointee to the Securities Investor Protection Corp. Walden O'Dell, Bush Pioneer in 2000 and 2004 who promised to deliver the election in 2003 Henry Wallace, Ford Motor Company--Ford is a heavy contributor to Bush campaign; bush Interior Secretary Gale Norton fmr Ford board member) John Lauer, Oglebay Norton--mining company; need I say more? Oh, right, Laurer also was responsible for an Enron-like scam that sunk the company and looted the investments of its shareholders; see http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2004-09-22/news/feature.html
Phillip Lassiter, Ambac--he recently appointed to Ambac board a Laura Unger, formerly appointed by Bush to serve as Acting Chairman of the SEC Richard Crandall, Aspen Partners--one of the managers of the hedge fund is a William Ware Bush, relation to the president unknown Louis Bockius, Bocko Corp.--Ohio layoff lover Christopher Connor, Sherwin-Williams--a company that has regularly fought environmental regulations against the use of lead (Diebold Documents here:
http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html)
Sequoia Voting Systems
subsidiary of De La Rue, acquired 2002; De La Rue won the contract to print Iraq's new Saddam Hussein-free banknotes. It's estimated this print job brought in about $20 million for Sequoia's parent company.
On ES&S, I borrow from "Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy," an article by Bob Fitrakis of Columbus Ohio's The Free Press: "In the early 1980s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS). California newspapers have long documented the Ahmanson family’s ties to right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles.
"According to Group Watch, in the 1980s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.
"Ahmanson is also a chief contributor to the Chalcedon Institute that supports the Christian reconstruction movement. The movement’s philosophy advocates, among other things, "mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards."
"The Ahmanson family sold their shares in American Information Systems to the McCarthy Group and the World Herald Company, Inc. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of American Information Systems and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. One of the BRC owners was Carolyn Hunt of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the Council on National Policy.
"In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a "stunning upset" by one Nebraska newspaper.
"Hagel’s official biography states, "Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel worked in the private sector as the President of McCarthy and Company, an investment banking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska and served as Chairman of the Board of American Information Systems." During the first Bush presidency, Hagel served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations (G-7 Summit).
"Bob Urosevich was the Programmer and CEO at AIS, before being replaced by Hagel. Bob now heads Diebold Election Systems and his brother Todd is a top executive at ES&S. Bob created Diebold’s original electronic voting machine software. Thus, the brothers Urosevich, originally funded by the far Right, figure in the counting of approximately 80% of electronic voting in the United States.
"Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system. SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board."
(http://snipurl.com/aequ)
The third piece of evidence: the exit poll results in Florida. The biggest problem is precision--something that cannot be verified. We can only look to exit polls to see if the election outcome was at least remotely reasonable. In Ohio the exit polls were not inconsistent with the final tally. However in Florida the outcome was HIGHLY unlikely given their exit polls (+/- 4 SEM, which means the actual vote given the exit polls had a likelihood of 0.0000634%, which is pretty damn close to zero; for statisticians, it IS zero) . (See http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/poll-discrepancy-z-scores.jpg for an illustration of the statistic in comparison to other states; if you're wondering about Missouri, read the following analysis from the Missouri
Bar: http://www.mobar.org/journal/2001/novdec/jarrett.htm) We cannot audit the Florida votes themselves, but another exit poll could be conducted.
Without a paper trail, a recount cannot be conducted. If official Florida results showed a close race, a recount would have been a legal
nightmare that would have eclipsed what happened in 2000. The margin
in Florida was too great for a recount. Was this a matter of convenience?
*The bigger the lie, the more people believe.*
The fourth piece of evidence: the demographics of increased voter turnout. Typically in a presidential election, lefty voters show a greater increase in turnout than Republican voters. It's as if, in this election, the majority of anti-Bush newly-turned-out voters across the nation voted for Bush. Hmm. This is a piece of evidence, admittedly, that has yet to materialize. The massive increase in voter registrations since 2000 were primarily Democrat, but Rove & Co. built an impressive 72-hour get-out-the-Bush-vote grassroots campaign, designed to contact all unlikely Republican voters three times in 72 hours, one interpersonal. In the coming says we should be able to get the statistics, however, and know whether there is something here in the increased turnout.
Finally, there is no evidence to the contrary, that electronic voting was not biased. There is no way that contrary evidence can be demonstrated. In fact, it's illegal to demonstrate such validity.
40 million electronic votes. Poof. Just like that. Out comes a president.
Let's face it. Many of us suspect the Republicans have formed a kleptocracy. We see again and again that they lie and deceive 24-7 in order to steal more. We can see they are looting the wealthiest nation in history if we only look. Ask yourself: given the slightest of evidence, do you put an election heist past them? When Bush says things like, "I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen . . . I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it." This election was in the bag for Kerry with a major *under*estimation of turnout. And when we see pictures and eyewitness accounts like this one in Ohio (http://tinyurl.com/3t3cr) you just have to wonder....
Coups typically use the power of the existing government for its own takeover. As renowned economist, historian, and leading military strategy consultant Edward Luttwak remarks in his book _Coup d'état: A practical handbook_, a book translated into 14 languages: "A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." Use of military or other organized force is not the defining feature of a coup d'état. Any seizure of the state apparatus by extra-legal tactics may be considered a coup, according to Luttwak.
Ultimately few in the government are fighting for your right to vote. Edwards reportedly encouraged Kerry to continue to count in Ohio, but Kerry opted for "unity." We can be sure Bush will not go centrist on us. Meanwhile, the media proliferate their claims that e-voting was a success--because, they say, no widespread problems were reported. Without a trail, what's there to report?
We on the left, we were gutless Tuesday night when things looked bad. Many of us stopped watching and gave up hope well before Ohio was settled. We threw up our hands, citing that America is on the whole homophobic, misogynist, stupid. Many of us are now wringing our hands, citing secession or leaving the country altogether. A lot of Americans may be stupid, homophobic, and misogynist, to be sure, but the election in no way proves that is the case with the majority.
40 million votes.
Vaporware.
Alas, there is absolutely nothing we can do to change this election. Nothing. We can't go back and count those votes--they are not there to be counted. Gone. Our legislature has failed to protect us, because we have failed to insist on it.
So we can't do much now. It's too late. But what can we do about the next election? Based on this election, we can anticipate that the fight to force states to make sure a paper trail is created from electronic voting machines will fade. But that fight must continue.
I will fully admit the entirety of my argument could be wrong. Unlike electronic votes my argument is verifiable. Don't some of these questions and issues make you wonder, not just a little bit? We don't have the 40 million votes needed to ultimately substantiate or reject my argument. That *should* make you very nervous, very concerned. If you're a freedom-loving American.
Be rest assured, no one can be sure that Bush has the mandate of the masses. The sound of confidence in such a claim is nothing but noise. Fear not.
So don’t give up on America. Protect your right to vote. Bush might be marching freedom out the door, but you can stop him. You can fight for election paper trails, and fight for validation of electronic voting regardless of the margin of outcome between candidates. You can start by fighting for H.R.2239 and S.1980, stalled bills which would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by requiring a voter-verified permanent record or hardcopy of all electronic votes. You can also educate yourself about the problems of electronic voting and educate others. You can support a movement to impeach Bush for his and his croneys' acts of sedition: http://www.votetoimpeach.org/. Or if you've the stomach for it, you can also practice civil disobedience: find those electronic machines, drag 'em out, pull 'em apart, and find out how they work.
Patrick
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Patrick Herron
patrick@proximate.org
Author of _The American Godwar Complex_ (BlazeVOX),
now available @ http://proximate.org/tagc
Bio http://proximate.org/bio.htm
Works http://proximate.org/works.htm
Close Quarterly http://closequarterly.org
Carrboro Poetry Fest http://carrboropoetryfestival.org
.. . . . . . .
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