[MAGI]

May 2, 2007 at 18:58:08

"Help America Vote...on Paper - a citizen call for election integrity"

by Joan Brunwasser
http://www.opednews.com

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joan_bru_070502__22help_america_vote__.htm


Help America Vote... on Paper- a citizen call for election integrity
A powerful punch in a small package
Joan Brunwasser, Voting Integrity Editor, OpEdNews May 1, 2007

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Help America Vote...on Paper is a perfect illustration of my point. Pint-sized in length, it nevertheless covers many of the points that other films have taken far longer to make.

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The fact that it's a free download at http://www.archive.org/details/HelpAmericaVoteonPaper (also available for sale from EON, http://eon3.net/pages/main.html ) is icing on the cake.

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The film opens with the statement, "Honest elections are a non-partisan issue." I think we're all in agreement so far. It goes on to show how the passage of HAVA (the Help America Vote Act) in 2002 has made our elections less and less accessible to the voters. As California Representative Lynn Woolsey says, the system is an open invitation to manipulation by members of either party. "We need to know that nobody can fool around with your individual vote."

Electronic voting is yet another scheme to disenfranchise, labeled "sophisticated Jim Crow" or "high-tech Jim Crow" by various people interviewed in the film. The misallocation of voting machines in Ohio mysteriously left only blacks and students from liberal colleges standing in the rain for hours. There were no such delays in suburban, Republican bastions. The 300,000 legal voters illegally purged by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell in the days leading up to the 2004 election were from the predominantly black, Democratic wards of Toledo, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. Keep in mind that the margin of victory in Ohio was less than 118,000 votes. Doesn't this sound eerily like Katherine Harris's purging of over 90,000 legal voters in Florida prior to the 2000 election, where the margin of victory was a measly 537 votes?

While billions of dollars have been spent on this voting system, what exactly do we have to show for it?

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Governor Ehrlich (Republican, Maryland) states that the cost of maintaining these machines is 1,000% over the original estimates. If you had a car like this, you certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to throw more money at it. You'd ditch the lemon and try something else!

This film touches on the various studies and reports that confirm the numerous, serious flaws inherent in the electronic voting system. The ability for a single individual offsite (via a modem connection) to access and manipulate the data, thereby changing an entire election undetected, is particularly relevant in view of the recent revelations about the RNC and Karl Rove's ability, in 2004, to access the Ohio vote totals in real-time, while they were being counted. See "The GOP cyber election hit squad" by Steve Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2553 Given that so much was at stake in the election, and that Ohio was seen as the quintessential swing state necessary for a Republican victory, it is just plain fishy that there was a mysterious, 90-minute freeze of data, followed by a sudden, inexplicable turnaround when the system was again up and running. Can anyone be completely certain or confident that the results were free from manipulation? How could we be? The votes, which were cast and counted using secret, proprietary software and the process occurred without any citizen oversight. The voter has been effectively locked out of the system.

Lowell Finley, an election law attorney, asks "Is it tolerable to be using voting systems when it's possible for someone with relative ease to commit fraud with them?" He goes on to say, "Unless we fix this problem, nothing else matters." Without accountability, whom does the elected official represent? And how exactly does this resemble democracy?

In the past several days, a 50-second video clip has been circulating on the web. This piece is the combined effort of various local Florida groups who have been joined by other concerned citizens nationwide. The subject is the thousands of missing votes in Florida's congressional race last November. Ironically, the disputed race was the one to replace Katherine Harris, the former Secretary of State who delivered Florida's electoral votes and the election to W in 2000. The clip's closing punch is, "If your vote doesn't count, you don't count." http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/link.php?id=34736 That is the problem with electronic voting, in a nutshell.

Massive citizen action is necessary here. As Ohio Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones says, "Florida 2000, Ohio 2004...Who knows in 2008? Who knows?" Well, we do know one thing – if we don't make an awful lot of noise, 2008 will be just like 2000 and 2004.

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Elections are the bedrock of our democracy, and the film's opener also serves as a good closer here: "Honest elections are a non-partisan issue." We can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines, so I urge you to get in there and join the fight!




Joan Brunwasser of Citizens for Election Reform is a citizen activist working hard to restore and preserve free and fair elections.

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She welcomes your help in spreading the word. She has been the Voting Integrity Editor for Op Ed News since December 2005.

[Jane of Arc]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, dear :sunny:MAGI:sunny: for keeping this issue alive!



America is not divided by red states and blue states.

America is not divided by liberals and conservatives.

America is not divided by Christians and non-Christians.

America is not divided by the color of your skin.

America is not divided by pro-war and pro-peace.

America is not divided over global warming.

America is not divided by whether you're pro-life or pro-choice.

These are issues.


The real division is between an extremely small, extremely rich and extremely powerful ownership class and the rest of us.

And this ownership class wants us to fight over our issues. This ownership class will keep us busy, entertained and confused with their media. This ownership class wants nothing to do with a democracy in America. This ownership class wants the exact opposite. This ownership class wants to placate us, reassure us, confuse us, fatigue us, anything so we take our eyes off our elections and securing honest voting in America so the job of dismantling our democratic republic piece by piece can continue.


We need election reform. Now.

We need election oversight. Now.

We need paper ballots. Now.

We need a verifiable vote every step of the way to the final counting.

This is our only power.

And those of you well-meaning liberals who avoid dealing with, understanding and examining this paramount voting catastrophe render yourselves useless. You might as well vote Republican. Because your vote - your candidate - your election doesn't matter.

Jane of Arc

[Wafflepudding]

Some of these issues are divisive. Other than that I got here late.

I commend you both for stating something that NEEDED to be said for a long time now. Spreading democracy to Iraq!? How about spreading democracy to America!?

As a side note, I don't think effective votes would be enough, we should also have more referenda involved in important choices.

[Jane of Arc]

Thank you Puddin'. This is an old topic here, but like you said, you got here late. If you haven't researched the voting fiascos of 2000 and 2004, there's a lot of good links here at POL.

Those are divisive issues I listed, certainly. But in my humble opinion the biggest divide is economic. And enormous wealth = enormous power. I would venture to say that the economic divide is so vast it's a virtual chasm. All stratas of the poor and the middle class can't even see over that chasm. They believe in a system of government to collectively protect them that has been compromised to the point that it no longer exists on a national level.

[MAGI]

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/061

Greg Palast's interview with Buzzflash about his book which really investigates Rovian DirtyElection Tricks!

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

People ask me: Are they going to steal the 2008 election? No, they’ve already stolen the 2008 election. We still have a chance of swiping it back, but the reason I’ve expanded and put out the new edition of Armed Madhouse is to tell you how they will steal in 2008, and what to do about it. That’s one of the main new things. Plus a special chapter on New Orleans and my bust down there.

-- Greg Palast

You might say, since the 2000 election, BuzzFlash and Greg Palast have shared many a foxhole in the fight for democracy. He's a workaholic, like we are -- and he doesn't flinch one iota in investigating the powers that be.

One of the things that makes Palast such an incredible asset is that he is in the I.F. Stone tradition of his doing thorough research. As much as he's built up a Sam Spade sleuthing persona, it is grounded in his ability to shift through large piles of documents and data that most modern reporters would just look at and cry, "No way, I've got to meet someone for a daquiri."

Mainstream jounalism in D.C. is built on the "easy story," as in the one that is handed to you by the Executive Branch. Actually, Palast doesn't work in D.C. much at all. He is out traveling around the country -- and world -- doing actual investigations into what is really going on.

That's the reason he is the person whom BuzzFlash has interviewed the most times over our seven year history.

Besides, we just love that fedora hat he's always wearing. Just the right touch.

And Greg always has something controversial and eye-popping to share, whether you agree with him 100% or not.

So enjoy, another BuzzFlash interview with Greg Palast.

* * *

BuzzFlash: You’re having incredible success with the new expanded paperback edition of Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. Of course, the electronic voting machines and how they function is a very significant issue, but your specialty has really been how the Bush/Rove GOP political machine keeps persons who are likely to vote Democratic or Independent from voting.

Greg Palast: Yes. People ask me: Are they going to steal the 2008 election? No, they’ve already stolen the 2008 election. We still have a chance of swiping it back, but the reason I’ve expanded and put out the new edition of Armed Madhouse is to tell you how they will steal in 2008, and what to do about it. That’s one of the main new things. Plus a special chapter on New Orleans and my bust down there.

Of course, I was very flattered that the first review of the new edition of Armed Madhouse was written by Karl Rove and the Rove-bots -- it was subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee -- I can’t make this up. On February 7th, the Rove team, which had been writing several e-mails screaming about Armed Madhouse and "that British reporter," Greg Palast, were gloating that no U.S. media had picked up my stories. And they had a .pdf file attached. Of course, the reason my book was subpoenaed is that it has to do with the US prosecutor firings. The prosecutor firings were 100% about influencing elections -- not about loyalty to Bush, which is what The New York Times wrote. The administration team couldn’t tolerate appointees who wouldn’t go along with crime. In the book I present the evidence that Karl Rove directed a guy named Tim Griffin to target suppressing the votes of African American students, homeless men, and soldiers. Nice guy. They actually challenged the votes and successfully removed tens of thousands of legal voters from the voter rolls, same as they did in 2000. But instead of calling them felons, they said that they had suspect addresses.

BuzzFlash: In which election cycle?

Greg Palast: 2004. And in 2006 and 2004, they challenged tens of thousands of black soldiers. They stopped their votes from being counted when they were mailed in from Baghdad. Go to Baghdad and lose your vote -- mission accomplished.

BuzzFlash: How did they do that?

Greg Palast: By sending letters to the homes of soldiers, marked "do not forward." When they came back undelivered, they said: Aha! Illegal voter registered from a false address. And when their ballot came in from Fallujah, it was challenged. The soldier didn’t know it. Their vote was lost. Over half a million votes were challenged and lost by the Republicans -- absentee ballots. Three million voters who went to the polls found themselves challenged by the Republicans. This was not a small operation. It was a multi-million dollar, wholesale theft operation.

They’re right that I’m a British reporter, because I put this story on British TV, not on American TV, which won’t touch it. [BuzzFlash note: Palast writes for British papers and reports on the BBC, but he is a product of the San Fernando Valley and the University of Chicago, 100% American.] But our election was a complete, total fraud. This is grand theft -- no question. It’s not a dirty trick; it’s a felony crime.

I’m working with Bobby Kennedy, who is a voting rights attorney. He said, “This is not just an icky, horrible thing that people do wearing white sheets. This is a felony crime.” [paraphrase] And the guy they put in charge of this criminal ring to knock out voters is a guy named Tim Griffin. Today, Tim Griffin is -- badda-bing -- U.S. Attorney for Arkansas. When they fired the honest guys, they put in the Rove-bots to fix the 2008 election. That’s what I’m saying -- it’s already being stolen, as we speak. Tim Griffin is the perpetrator who’s become the prosecutor, and that’s what’s going down right now.

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http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/061

[MAGI]

:thumbup:
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=39773

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 8/4/2007 12:13AM
PAPER BALLOTS FOR CALIFORNIA! - SECRETARY OF STATE ANNOUNCES DE-CERTIFICATION/RE-CERTIFICATION PLANS FOR E-VOTING SYSTEMS
Debra Bowen Announces DRE (Touch-Screen) Machines to be Used Only One Per Polling Place for Disabled Voters with 100% Manual Count of Paper Trails
Dramatic Late Night Press Conference Held at 11:45pm in Sacramento...
By Brad Friedman from Plano, TX, with help from Emily Levy of VelvetRevolution.us and Tom Courbat of SAVE R VOTE...

In a dramatic late-night press conference, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified, and then recertified with conditions, all but one voting system used in the state. Her decisions, following her unprecedented, independent "Top-to-Bottom Review" of all certified electronic voting systems, came just under the wire to meet state requirements for changes in voting system certification.

Bowen announced that she will be disallowing the use of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems made by the Diebold and Sequoia companies on Election Day, but for one DRE machine per polling place which may be used for disabled voters. The paper trails from votes cast on DREs manufactured by those two companies must be 100% manually counted after Election Day. DREs made by Hart-Intercivic are used in only one California county and will be allowed for use pending security upgrades.

The InkaVote Plus system, distributed by ES&S and used only in Los Angeles County has been decertified and not recertified for use after the company failed to submit the system source code in a timely manner to Bowen's office. LA County is larger than many states, and questions remain at this time as to what voting system they will use in the next election.

As The BRAD BLOG has been reporting in great detail for the past week since the reports were released, the "Top-to-Bottom Review" had found that all Electronic Voting Systems certified in California were easily accessible to hacking. A single machine, the testers discovered, could be easily tampered with by an Election Insider, Voting Machine Company Employee, or other individual in such a way that an entire election could be effected without detection.

In Bowen's conditional recertification she re-iterated that "expert reviewers demonstrated that the physical and technological security mechanisms" for the electronic voting systems "were inadequate to ensure accuracy and integrity of the elections results and of the systems that provide those results."

The Certification/Recertification documents for each of California's voting systems, including security mitigation procedures and other requirements for use, are now posted on the CA SoS website. The documents, in and of themselves, offer devastating indictments against the security and usability of each of the systems as revealed during Bowen's independent University of California "Top-to-Bottom Review."

Bowen, a Democrat, was elected last November largely on her promise to re-examine the state's voting systems. In an upset victory, she defeated Republican Bruce McPherson who had been appointed as Secretary of State by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger. McPherson had been very friendly to the voting machine vendors, allowing for the continued use of virtually every e-voting system submitted for state certification. Several of those systems had been previously revealed to have had grave vulnerabilities and included source code which was in violations of federal voting systems standards and in violation of state law.

The late-night press conference, following Bowen's decisions, was held at the SoS's office in Sacramento at 11:45pm PT, just in time to meet the state law requiring a six-month notification, prior to an election, for changes to certification of voting systems. California's Presidential Election Primary was recently moved up several months by the state legislature to February of '08.

The BRAD BLOG was able to listen in to the presser via a poor cell phone connection out of Bowen's office. As best as we were able to transcribe, these are our notes from Bowen's announcement and the questions from the media which followed...

Direct Recording Electronic (DRE/touch-screen) voting systems decertified and recertified for use by disabled only.
100% manual count for Diebold and Sequoia DREs.
One machine per polling place.

skip,


Moore...........
;)