OpEdNews » Congress about to "Just say yes" to Permanent Secret Vote Counting

Support OEN
With Your
Tax-Deductible Donation

Tags for This Article:

Populum Tag Cloud Control Panel
	Fine tune your search to access content

Articles	Links
Diaries	Products
Events	All

All time
Last 6 mos
Last month
Last week
Last 24 hrs

From:
Month Day Year

To:
Month Day Year

Alphabet Popularity	Count ON Count OFF
This Level	Sub-levels

Tag(s): Election Reform; Election Reform HR 550; Election Theft; Election-Voting Issues; Electronic Voting; Vote Theft; Voting Integrity; Voting Laws Federal HAVA; Voting Machines; Voting Reform; (more...) Voting Technology (less...)
Add to My Group

June 29, 2007 at 22:20:50

Headlined on 6/29/07:
Congress about to "Just say yes" to Permanent Secret Vote Counting

by Nancy Tobi Page 2 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

SAVE FAVORITES

VIEW FAVORITES

View Ratings | Rate It

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.

1 | 2

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Vote No on HR811

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

Nancy believes in the principles embodied in our Constitution, and that groups like Election Defense Alliance and DFNH can play a unique role by empowering ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

	Contact Author
	Contact Editor
	View Other Articles by Author

Bookmark this page: (what's this?)

(More...)

4 comments

-Jason V. is a writer / web blogger with an agenda of uncovering corruption and elite modification of the financial / political realm.As the editor of several web sites, including a housing market web site (www.realestatedecline.com) and a political truth website (www.fight4Truth.com), he reaches over 8,000 visitors every week, who seek truthful insights and news that the mainstream media tends to shy away from or black-out.
J. Vorhees-Jason V. is a writer / web blogger with an agenda of uncovering corruption and elite modification of the financial / political realm.As the editor of several web sites, including a housing market web site (www.realestatedecline.com) and a political truth website (www.fight4Truth.com), he reaches over 8,000 visitors every week, who seek truthful insights and news that the mainstream media tends to shy away from or black-out.

scary stuff.

I want paper ballots! So it might take a week or two to count them all. I can wait a few days to find out who the REAL winner will be!

This secret vote counting is a scam and we cannot trust these liars and cheats with it.

great article!

by J. Vorhees (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 67 comments) on Sunday, July 1, 2007 at 12:56:59 PM

Director, Public Affairs, ChoicePoint
Chuck JonesDirector, Public Affairs, ChoicePoint

ChoicePoint responds to inaccurate comments

Nanci Tobi makes several inaccurate statements in this piece about ChoicePoint which we must correct.

First of all, ChoicePoint has no corporate interest in H.R. 811 -- nor have we engaged in any lobbying on it -- so it is inaccurate to imply that our company is a "champion" of this bill.

Secondly, Ms. Tobi has cited the oft-repeated -- but false -- myth about ChoicePoint's alleged role in the 2000 Florida election.

ChoicePoint was not involved in the 2000 election and has never been involved in any election in any country. The confusion arises from the fact that ChoicePoint bought Database Technologies (DBT), a company that was under a publicly bid contract to review Florida voter registration rolls from 1998 (before Katherine Harris took office) through 2000.

To be clear, ChoicePoint was not in the voter registration review business before the DBT acquisition and discontinued providing that service after the acquisition. These charges are seven years old and don't get any more legitimate with age.

As to the specifics of what DBT did for the State of Florida, the best source is clearly the U.S. Civil Rights Commission report on the 2000 president election:

www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch5.htm

Ms. Tobi seeks to further connect ChoicePoint with the Republican Party. Again, not true.

By checking the public record, she would have learned that the political contributions of ChoicePoint's executives and Board of Directors -- while diverse in their support of causes and candidates -- actually favor Democrats. We hope your readers will personally review the contributions rather than rely on old, inaccurate characterizations.

www.fec.gov/

For additional detail on this and other topics, please review two pages that are posted on the Company Statements page of ChoicePoint's Web site, including "ChoicePoint's Mythical Role in Elections, Past and Present" and "The Truth About ChoicePoint, DBT and the 2000 Elections in Florida."

www.choicepoint.com/news/statements.html

Finally, it is simply absurd to suggest that ChoicePoint could use our technology to "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."

It makes for an interesting column, so long as it is labeled as fiction.

-- Chuck Jones, ChoicePoint

by Chuck Jones (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Tuesday, July 3, 2007 at 2:05:10 PM

Nancy Tobi is cofounder, former Chair, website editor for Democracy for New Hampshire (DFNH), and Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee. Nancy is the author of numerous articles on election integrity, including "The Gifts of HAVA: Time to Ask for a Refund," "What's Wrong with the Holt Bill," "We're Counting the Votes: An Election Preparedness Kit," and "Hands-on Elections: An Information Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People". Her article about...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Nancy TobiNancy Tobi is cofounder, former Chair, website editor for Democracy for New Hampshire (DFNH), and Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee. Nancy is the author of numerous articles on election integrity, including "The Gifts of HAVA: Time to Ask for a Refund," "What's Wrong with the Holt Bill," "We're Counting the Votes: An Election Preparedness Kit," and "Hands-on Elections: An Information Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People". Her article about...

to see more of bio, click on member name

My responses in ALL CAPS

First of all, ChoicePoint has no corporate interest in H.R. 811 -- nor have we engaged in any lobbying on it -- so it is inaccurate to imply that our company is a "champion" of this bill.

THE ARTICLE STATES THAT VOTETRUSTUSA IS A CHAMPION OF THE BILL. ARE YOU CONFUSING VTUSA WITH CHOICEPOINT? EASY TO UNDERSTAND. EVEN THEIR LIST SERVS GET CROSSED NOW AND THEN, WITH ALL KINDS OF CRAZY STUFF LIKE CHOICEPOINT EMPLOYEES IN GEORGIA SHOWING UP ON FLORIDA VOTING INTEGRITY GROUP LIST SERVS, AND WHAT NOT.

Secondly, Ms. Tobi has cited the oft-repeated -- but false -- myth about ChoicePoint's alleged role in the 2000 Florida election.

ANSWERED BY BEV HARRIS IN HER COMMENTS.

Ms. Tobi seeks to further connect ChoicePoint with the Republican Party. Again, not true.

IS THIS SOME SORT OF ROBO-RESPONSE YOU HAVE POSTED HERE? NOWHERE IN THE ARTICLE IS THE WORD REPUBLICAN EVEN MENTIONED.

THIS IS NOT SO ABSURD AT ALL. YOU HAVE BOATLOADS OF DATA. ELECTION FRAUD IS NOT PERPETRATED BY TAKING A BIG OLD HACK ACROSS THE NATION. IT IS PERPETRATED STRATEGICALLY BY KNOWING EXACTLY WHERE YOU HAVE "PEOPLE" TO DO YOUR BIDDING, WHERE THE DEMOGRAPHICS ARE THAT NEED TO BE SUPPRESSED ( A LA FLORIDA 2000 AND OHIO 2004), AND BY ASSOCIATING VOTER DATA WITH THE NECESSARY FIXES.

It makes for an interesting column, so long as it is labeled as fiction.

I THINK WE ALL WISH IT WAS FICTION. THEN WE COULD ALL GO BACK TO VOTING ON OUR HAND MARKED PAPER BALLOTS, HAND COUNTED IN PUBLIC VIEWING, AND RETIRE TO OUR GARDENS IN THE AFTERNOONS, INSTEAD OF TRACKING THIS KIND OF STUFF AND FIGHTING OUTRAGEOUS PATRIOT ACT FOR ELECTIONS-TYPE LEGISLATION BEING PUSHED FORWARD BY THE CONGRESS.

by Nancy Tobi (71 articles, 4 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 53 comments) on Thursday, July 5, 2007 at 10:44:09 PM

Bev Harris is executive director of Black Box Voting, Inc. an advocacy group committed to restoring citizen oversight to elections.
Bev HarrisBev Harris is executive director of Black Box Voting, Inc. an advocacy group committed to restoring citizen oversight to elections.

Choicepoint fact vs spin

It is a Choicepoint stakeholder who is providing financial support for HR 811. This article refers to Donna Curling, wife of Doug Curling, who is head of Choicepoint along with many of its subsidiaries. Doug Curling, head of Choicepoint, confirmed this to me.

It was Database Technologies that did the Florida felon purge in 2000; Choicepoint was already in the acquisition process during the felon purge, and during acquisition one action required of all public companies is due diligence. It was Choicepoint's fiduciary duty to know about the large contracts and activities of Database Technologies during the acquisition process. Choicepoint has a duty to its shareholders to be aware of controversial issues like this.

Even after the acquisition, Choicepoint never came clean about what Database Technologies did until investigative journalist Greg Palast exposed the story.

It is precisely accurate to say "Donna Curling, a Choicepoint stakeholder and wife of the head of Choicepoint, has been funding lobbying for HR 811 and has participated on listservs under a false name."

by Bev Harris (81 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 22 comments) on Tuesday, July 3, 2007 at 4:13:07 PM