American Revolutionaries rose in opposition to centralized power and wrote our Constitution to ensure dispersed power, checks and balances, and respect for the citizenry. The founders knew they needed to limit human inclinations to abuse power when a very few are given control over the many.
HR811 makes The Commission a permanent fixture in government: one president appointing four Commissioners with absolute control of our elections.
The American people need to think carefully about this.
HR811 gives the Commissioners broad reaching powers. They will be the "deciders" on selecting precincts for election audits. They will control and own all information related to our voting systems, election results, and audits. They will define all standards and e-voting equipment. The states, our state, will have to report to the Commission to have our election results certified. And our elections will become more complex and computerized, assuring citizens less and less access to the process.
The Money Trail
It's always instructive to follow the money in hard fought political battles, as NH Secretary Gardner recently reminded us.
One of the strongest champions of HR811 is an organization called VoteTrustUSA. This "grassroots" organization has ties to one of the nation's largest "data consolidation" companies, ChoicePoint. Remember them? They helped Katherine Harris purge the Florida 2000 voter registration rolls. Nearly 100,000 registered American voters were denied their right to vote for what journalist Greg Palast called the crime of "voting while black." Palast claims the denied vote – and not hanging chads – is what really cost Gore that election.
Last summer the Atlanta Progressive News reported that the wife of ChoicePoint's CEO Doug Curling has contributed money to VTUSA. Doug Curling confirmed to Bev Harris of Black Box Voting that his wife Donna is a VTUSA donor "and probably a board member". Donna Curling also had participated in leadership groups under an assumed name. She remains involved with this grassroots group, which now has a full time Washington lobbyist working for passage of the Holt bill.
Why would a grassroots election reform organization have these ties to ChoicePoint?
Absolute Power: The Marriage of Federal and Corporate Power
A corporation like ChoicePoint, combined with the Commission, would have one-stop shopping control over our elections. The Commission controls the voting systems and all information relating to elections everywhere in the country.
All the data consolidation company needs to do is overlay their vast demographic and other election data maps over a map of our nation, put together their game plan, and they'll own every election.
They succeeded in Florida. HR811, the Holt Bill, gives them the nation.
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