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, Jul 1, 2007 at 12:56:59 PM

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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, Jul 3, 2007 at 2:05:10 PM

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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.

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."

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 (79 articles, 4 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments) on Thursday, Jul 5, 2007 at 10:44:09 PM

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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 (90 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 25 comments) on Tuesday, Jul 3, 2007 at 4:13:07 PM

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