Thursday, December 16, 2004

20 amazing facts about voting in the us

20 Amazing Facts About
Voting in the USA


by Angry Girl


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 senior managers 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, Diebold's Senior Vice-President and senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.


http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how


http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf


 


14.  Diebold Senior Vice-President 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://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/