Tuesday, February 28, 2006

20 Crazy Facts About Voting

by Angry Girl of Nightweed.com

Did you know....
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland,indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
NOTE: Please copy the above list and distribute freely! LET THE FACTS BE KNOWN! Thank you!

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12 comments:

Hellpig said...

OK Rev here we go again,only mine only took 2 minutes.
Election 2004's Myths and Mysteries

Reverend X said...

Only thing is, negative campaigning can not account for counties with 600% voter turn out. Or 1.41 million votes appearing 4 hours after polls close.
It could have something to do with GOP agents dressed as police, turning away minority voters and machine distribution causing 4-6 hour waits in heavily democratic voter areas.

Oh, if you ever wondered what I was I was like when I am actually pissed, got over to Revenge. HEHEHE

Hellpig said...

never heard any of that? only thing I heard was the dems vandalizing voting vans.

Bird said...

Rev,
Love the links. I have some students discussing voting rights in the US and these links are useful. I'll will have to direct them to a few to kickstart them (they do need to do their research).

Hellpig - your link is interesting. But what I'm most struck by is ...the message seems to be that the way to win is indeed to engage in ad hominem attacks - this implies that the American voting population doesn't care about the issues nor does the Republican party if that's their major tactic.

This only reaffirms to me that the best way I can be a patriot and support my country is to continue to encourage my students to read, read, read, and question, question, question, and THINK.

Of course, with the repubs continually slashing education budgets and leaving child after child behind ...well, clearly, it's to the republicans' advantage to NOT have an educated, critically-thinking population.

of course, i am stereotyping. not all republicans are like that. or are they?

where's K9 - we need some steamin' hot browns (regardless of what side they're on).

Hellpig said...

Bird,Thats funny you say that the Author is a DEM/LIB

Imagine that,stereotyping me to be a republican.

And the Democrates run the Dept. of Education,so bitch at them about the budget.

And if children are being left behind,isn't that partially the teachers fault?...No?

Reverend X said...

Hellpig,
You aren't a Republican?
The Dems run nothing but good ideas into the ground.
It is hard to place blame on a volunteer pay grade workers for not giving it their all.

Bird,
Thanx.

Pete,
Yep!

Hellpig said...

Reverend X said...
Hellpig,
You aren't a Republican?
NOPE

It is hard to place blame on a volunteer pay grade workers for not giving it their all.

I clearly made that statemnet in the form of a question

I would never blame someone for not being able to do thier job, regardless of thier pay grade.

Reverend X said...

"I clearly made that statemnet in the form of a question"

And I answered it.


"And if children are being left behind,isn't that partially the teachers fault?...No? "


"It is hard to place blame on a volunteer pay grade workers for not giving it their all."

hahahaha, course maybe not clearly.

Bird said...

Hellpig,
Reread my comment. I never said the author (did you mean you, as in the author of the comment, or did you mean the author of the article of the link you included) was a dem/lib. In fact, I never said anything about an author. I interpreted what I read at the link you provided.

nor did i say i was stereotyping YOU as a republican (from your comments, i am really not quite sure what you are,some sort of hybrid pig?).

Bush's No Child Left Behind Act cuts funding to schools. Bush has cut funding for Pell Grants. Last I understood it, Bush is a republican. And please don't tell me that Bush increased money for the Pell Grants. He increased the amount that an individual grant can be, but he actually REDUCED the total amount available to disburse.

Of course teachers bear some responsibility - but pay scale and working conditions affect the caliber of teachers hired and the effectiveness of those teachers in the classroom - not to mention how long those teachers last. The education and training a teacher goes thorugh is quite rigorous, and the hours we work (regardless of what level we teach) are exhausting. Idiotic bureaucratic guidelines interfer with teaching, as do budget cuts. An insistence on standardized tests(which are culturally and economoically biased) do not test learning - they test test-taking strategies -which is not at all the same thing.

Hellpig said...

ok,well you said slashing the budget what do pell grants have to do with the budget? pell grants don't effect the the caliber of education being taught.Democrates run the Dept. is it not thier responsibitity to lobby for the grants/budget?

On one point I agree the WASL tests are idiotic

Hellpig said...

Bird sorry I'm been a little acidic today

although I ran across interesting link about a Teacher today check it out.

UNHINGED TEACHER CAUGHT ON TAPE


REV NEW ART AT D.T.'s

Bird said...

hellpig,
I have listened to the tape and commented on your blog.

Rev, I'd be interested in your take on this "unhinged" teacher.