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Banned
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Watch the HBO Documentary, "Hacking Democracy":
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...king+Democracy
Quote:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/p...o.html?s=widep
USA>Domestic Politics
from the May 05, 2004 edition
A state's troubled foray into electronic voting
By jettisoning its system because of reliability worries, California causes other states to reexamine voting methods.
By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
.......This California decision causes the average voter everywhere to wonder if they can trust their elections using electronic ballots wherever they are," <b>says DeForest Soaries, one of four members for the Elections Assistance Commission</b>, which is holding the hearings beginning Wednesday. The commission was created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. One of the law's goals has been to eliminate the problems with punch-card voting systems that were spotlighted in Florida, 2000.
"The development is unfortunate in one sense, but I commend the secretary of state for having the courage to really speak his mind," says Mr. Soaries. "This will really up the ante for us in getting to the bottom of both reliability of these machines as well as state and federal procedures for certifying them."........
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<b>now.....it's 2-1/2 years later:</b>
Quote:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...on-apnewjersey
All of New Jersey to vote electronically on Nov. 7
By ANGELA DELLI SANTI
Associated Press Writer
October 29, 2006, 11:47 AM EST
........"The average American today assumes that progress has been made," said DeForest Soaries, a former New Jersey cabinet official picked to chair a national election reform commission after the 2000 election debacle in Florida......
.....In a forum on voting this month, <b>Soaries and other national election experts expressed concerns over virtually every aspect of the voting process, from the accuracy of voter lists and whether provisional ballots get counted to long lines at the polls.......</b>
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<h3>It's 2-1/2 years later and electronic voting integrity is just as bad, if not worse, than in May, 2004....it's just like "progress in the war in Iraq!"</h3>
Deforest Soaries was "inside" the "process". He's been saying the same things, before he resigned, and after. What will it take for American voters, as voters did in the Ukraine....to take to the streets to force the end....by intimidating these fucking criminals.....to officially sanctioned electronic voting manipulation.
<h3>Can they make it any more obvious that they are fixing the elections? What information will it take to convince you.....or you? What is the greater danger.....overreacting to perceived election fixing, or doing nothing?</h3>
<b>...and watch this:</b>
Quote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-mhe_EqSmE&eurl= or here:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3656
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...23/ldt.01.html
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
Changing Tactics, Language in War in Iraq; Iraqi Government Trying to Stop Rising Sectarian Violence; Where's the Fence?
Aired October 23, 2006 - 18:00 ET
.....DOBBS: Looking forward to it. Wolf, thank you.
Joining me now, two former members of the Election Assistance Commission, an agency set up in response to the Florida debacle in the 2000 election, part of the Help America Vote Act.
First meet Deforest Soaries, he's a Republican, former chair of the Election Assistance Commission.
Good to have you here.
Ray Martinez, Democrat, former vice chair of the commission.
Ray, good to have you with us, all the way from Austin, Texas. Thank you.
Let's begin with a third of -- and if we can show these stats. It's sort of interesting, one third of voters this November will be using new voting equipment. Thirty-eight percent will be using electronic voting equipment.
Deforest, what do you think is going to happen?
DEFOREST SOARIES, FORMER ELECTION COMMISSIONER: Well, I think we're going to have frustration at the polls. Many poll workers will be inadequately prepared for the use of this equipment. And if there's a close race, there will be tremendous frustration because there will be difficulty confirming what the real results were, given the lack of any paper to verify what happened at the polls.
DOBBS: And Ray, looking at another statistic that everybody might as well start getting comfortable with, the 2000 voting machines, they malfunctioned in 25 states. I mean, are we going to see that -- something that widespread, do you think, in this election, or will it be even worse?
RAY MARTINEZ, FORMER ELECTION COMMISSIONER: Well, I certainly hope it's not anything to that magnitude, Lou. And I think the American public ought to demand that election officials around the country do their due diligence to ensure that we don't see problems like that. You know, election administration is comprised of three essential parts, Lou, the technology we use, the processes that we have in place and the people that run our elections. And we've seen a lot of problems when it comes to the technology, but we've also seen equal amounts of problems when it comes to the people aspect of election administration. We have to emphasize that as well.
DOBBS: Lots of wonderful people volunteer, Deforest, around this country to work in polling booths and work for the election offices all across this country. As part of the Help America Vote, billions of dollars put into play here, jurisdictions all over the country buying these machines. Are we better off, in your judgment today, than we were in 2000?
SOARIES: Well, I think we're worse off because in 2000, at least we knew what we didn't know. And the hanging chad became center stage in 2000. Today six years later after spending $2.5 billion, we don't know what we don't know. We don't know about security, we don't know enough because the EAC never got enough money for research. The Congress passed a law that authorized $30 billion for research. EAC to this date has received zero of those dollars. The Republican party...
DOBBS: Zero.
<h3>SOARIES: The Republican-led Congress and the Republican White House have failed. And what Ray and I were invited to do was really a charade.</h3> And I think the public, as Ray said, should be outraged and demand results from the local to the federal level.
DOBBS: Ray?
MARTINEZ: Well, I think that's right, Lou. I mean, I certainly agree with my friend and former colleague Buster Soaries, who was an outstanding leader for the EAC.
Look, I think that it's time for us to make our elections work in this country, Lou. I mean, that's the bottom line. And obviously we have a great deal of work to do to make that happen. It's time for us to bring together the best and brightest from the high-tech industry, Lou, the business industry, election officials, et cetera, for us to make things work. You know, Friday, this coming Friday, we'll celebrate -- or actually mark, I suppose some people might scorn the passage -- it's the four-year anniversary of the passage of the Help America Vote Act this coming Friday, of Congress passing that historic law.
It's time, four years later, Lou, six years removed from Florida in 2000, it's time for us to achieve a consensus on exactly what we have to do to really improve the process of election administration.
DOBBS: Deforest Soaries, thank you very being here. Ray Martinez, we thank you as well. I hope you will come back over the next couple of weeks because you make me want to cry. And we have to deal with this issue and come up with a solution as you gentlemen are suggesting. And even with just two weeks remaining before this election, we've got to focus on it. And we thank you for your part, gentlemen.
MARTINEZ: Thank you for having me.
SOARIES: Thank you.
DOBBS: Still ahead, the results of our poll tonight, more of your thoughts. Stay With us........
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<h3>In the preceding transcript, did you notice this:
SOARIES: "The Republican-led Congress and the Republican White House have failed. And what Ray and I were invited to do was really a charade. And I think the public, as Ray said, should be outraged and demand results from the local to the federal level.".......</h3> Isn't the man who was appointed to oversee "implementation" of the "Electronic Voting Assistance Act", hinting that it is past the time to consider expressing your outrage, in the streets....."Ukrainian style"?</h3>
<img src="http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20photo%20negatives/2004%20phot%20originals/November/ukrain24n.jpg">
Quote:
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html
April 28, 2004—Voters can run, but they can't hide from these guys. Meet the Urosevich brothers, Bob and Todd. Their respective companies, Diebold and ES&S, will count (using both computerized ballot scanners and touchscreen machines) about 80 percent of all votes cast in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Both ES&S and Diebold have been caught installing uncertified software in their machines. Although there is no known certification process that will protect against vote rigging or technical failure, it is a requirement of most, if not all, states.
And, according to author Bev Harris in her book, Black Box Voting, " . . . one of the founders of the original ES&S (software) system, Bob Urosevich, also oversaw development of the original software now used by Diebold Election Systems."
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Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200312050.../executive.htm
An Ohio voting-machine executive pummeled with national criticism for his close ties to the Bush re-election campaign said yesterday he wants to make amends.
Walden O'Dell, chief executive of North Canton-based Diebold Inc., confirmed in an interview with Plain Dealer editors that he has been a top fund-raiser for the Republican president, but said he intends to lower his political profile and "try to be more sensitive" in light of the national criticism he has faced.
"I'm not doing anything wrong or complicated, but it obviously did leave me open to the criticism I've received," he said.
"I've taken it personally; it's very painful, it may have injured our company, and I feel really badly about that."
In an invitation to a Republican fund-raiser at his suburban Columbus mansion, O'Dell said he was <b>"committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for the president next year."</b>
The letter closely followed a visit by O'Dell to a fund-raising powwow at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch for six-figure fund-raisers known as "Pioneers and Rangers."
He said he regrets the wording in the letter. ....
........O'Dell was quick to point out that he has done nothing illegal. He also said he has no daily involvement with Diebold's election-systems division, which is based in Texas - and run by a registered Democrat.
He said the elections business is responsible for just $100 million of Diebold's $2.1 billion operation.
<b>Despite his regrets, O'Dell said he will not stop supporting Bush's campaign. He said he went to Bush's fund-raising event at the invitation of the campaign.
</b>
"They had an event for Pioneers and Rangers, and I am one - and proud of it," O'Dell said. " . . . [But] if I have kind of overmixed that with my corporate entity, I feel badly about that."
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Quote:
http://www.thehill.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
Hagel’s ethics filings pose disclosure issue
By Alexander Bolton
On May 23, 1997, Victor Baird, who resigned Monday as director of the Senate Ethics Committee, sent a letter to Sen. Charles Hagel requesting “additional, clarifying information” for the personal financial disclosure report that all lawmakers are required to file annually.
Among other matters, Baird asked the Nebraska Republican to identify and estimate the value of the assets of the McCarthy Group Inc., a private merchant banking company based in Omaha, with which Hagel had a special relationship.
Hagel had reported a financial stake worth $1 million to $5 million in the privately held firm. But he did not report the company’s underlying assets, choosing instead to cite his holdings as an “excepted investment fund,” and therefore exempt from detailed disclosure rules.
Questioned by The Hill, several disclosure law experts said financial institutions set up in the same fashion as the McCarthy Group Inc. do not appear to meet the definition of an “excepted investment fund,” — at least as the committee had defined the category until Monday.
Hagel has not been accused of any legal or ethical violation and his staff denies that there has been any wrongdoing.
......One underlying issue is whether Hagel properly disclosed his financial ties to Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a company that makes nearly half the voting machines used in the United States, including all those used in his native Nebraska.
ES&S is a subsidiary of McCarthy Group Inc., which is jointly held by the holding firm and the Omaha World-Herald Co., which publishes the state’s largest newspaper. The voting machine company makes sophisticated optical scan and touch-screen vote-counting devices that many states have begun buying in recent years.
An official at Nebraska’s Election Administration estimated that ES&S machines tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in Hagel’s 2002 and 1996 election races.
In 1996, ES&S operated as American Information Systems Inc. (AIS). The company became ES&S after merging with Business Records Corp. in 1997.
<b>In a disclosure form filed in 1996, covering the previous year, Hagel, then a Senate candidate, did not report that he was still chairman of AIS for the first 10 weeks of the year, as he was required to do.</b>
Under the ethics panel’s regulations, an “excepted investment fund” is one that is: “publicly traded (or available) or widely diversified.”
Hagel’s compliance with prior Senate regulations hinges on whether the holding company is indeed publicly available and therefore may be properly listed as an excepted investment fund......
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I posted more about Hagel and ES&S here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...73&postcount=1
Last edited by host; 11-05-2006 at 10:36 AM..
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11-05-2006, 08:39 AM
