OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: "Fooled Again" Series: Exclusive Interview with "Diebold Whistleblower" Steve Heller

We've seen the infamous Georgia voter ID law, which Department of Justice lawyers said was unconstitutional and would disenfranchise African-American and elderly voters, pushed through by higher ranking officials at the DOJ. And why? Because it was part of the ongoing conspiracy to suppress minority and impoverished voters. When U.S. District Judge Harold L. Murphy issued an injunction against the law, he likened it to a Jim Crow-era poll tax that required residents, most of them black, to pay back taxes before voting.

We've seen the ReTHUGlican party ranting and raving about voter fraud, and how voter fraud is out of control. Yet the New York Times reported that the twice unelected "Bush administration's five-year crackdown on voter fraud has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections. The Justice Department has charged only 120 people, most of them Democrats, and gained only 86 convictions, with many of those charged having mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules." And according to the Times, "the push to prosecute voter fraud figured in removals of at least two United States attorneys whom Republican politicians or party officials criticized for failing to pursue cases. Within the Justice Department, career lawyers clashed with political appointees over protecting voters' rights, leading to the filing of some cases which baffled federal judges."

Then of course we've learned from Greg Palast about the vote caging emails, and the effort spearheaded by Tim Griffin to strip as many Democratic voters from the rolls as possible. These illegal activities disenfranchised scores of thousands of voters, including men and women who are serving in the armed forces. Way to support the troops!

We've learned about that tireless defender against voter fraud, Hans von Spakovsky, who, according to McClatchy News, "blocked career lawyers from filing at least three lawsuits charging local and county governments with violating the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities."

We've learned from Dan Rather Reports' "The Trouble with Touch Screens" that Election Systems and Software (ES&S) has been making shoddy, tenth rate voting machines under sweatshop conditions in the Philippines, and that these machines may have altered the outcome of multiple elections.

And we've learned from Brad Friedman of BradBlog... well, we've learned so much from Brad. He's one of the very greatest citizen journalists working in America today. Just recently, we can add to the very long list of vital information Brad has exposed with the revelation that "ES&S is in trouble, again, in California. They appear to have sold uncertified AutoMark voting systems to counties and those systems were used in recent elections."

Also from BradBlog, "on a recent Tuesday in August, several days after California Secretary of State Debra Bowen's pronouncement of decertification and then new, restrictive recertification of Diebold, Inc., voting systems, ten officers of the company simultaneously sold off some 10,379 shares of stock at a near 52-week high for the troubled company."

And again from BradBlog, "two Ohio activists have discovered that e-voting machines made by Election Systems and Software and used across the country produce time-stamped paper trails that permit the reconstruction of an election's results--including allowing voter names to be matched to their actual votes." So much for the secret ballot, huh?

These are things we've learned about more recently, in the past few months. And this information has confirmed the existence of the conspiracy that I've known about for years. And I saw that conspiracy in action in Columbus, Ohio, in November of 2004.

Q. You're referring, of course, to the last Presidential election. What were you doing in Ohio?

A. In October of 2004, a friend told me that he knew a guy who was planning to go to Ohio, rent a van and volunteer to drive people to the polls on election day. I was inspired by this and I thought I can do something like that. I had gone to college at Ohio State in Columbus, so I contacted the Ohio Democratic Party and volunteered to work in Columbus getting out the vote.

I arrived on Saturday evening before the election. Sunday morning I went to the campaign headquarters and I was given a list of registered Democratic voters, and on Sunday afternoon and all day Monday I went door to door, making sure people knew that the election was in fact on Tuesday (it sounds basic, but there was a lot of disinformation out there; I saw a flyer saying "Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats vote on Wednesday"), made sure they knew where their polling place was, and arranged rides to and from the polls for anyone who needed it.

On Election Day, I was assigned to "observation." I was given a city map and a list of 6 precincts they wanted me to visit, observe what was happening, and report back to Democratic headquarters.

I went to the one suburban precinct on the list, a wealthy suburb, mostly Republican, and I saw 8 voting machines at the precinct, 2 of which were in use, and the other 6 standing open, ready and waiting. No lines, no crowd, no confusion and clear signs. Even for someone like me who hadn't been in Columbus for decades, it was very easy to find the polling place.

Q. Then, what happened?

A. I went to the five other precincts on the list - all poor, inner-city, heavily Democratic precincts, with mostly African American residents. None of those five inner-city Democratic precincts had more than 2 voting machines. Lines were hours long at each of these precincts. Lines went out the door - and it was a cold and rainy November day. People stood out in the cold and rain for hours waiting to vote - and most of the faces had brown skin.

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