Nancy Tobi, co-founder of Democracy for New Hampshire, refers to the testing and certification system as a “Ponzi Scheme.” (6) It involves investment of taxpayer money into a system that never quite catches up to itself; by the time local governments buy a voting system it is already in violation of changed guidelines, which carry with them the obligation to make new voting systems that comply, making the system you just bought obsolete as of preordained dates (usually just 24-36 months later), which will require a repurchase most purchasers were unaware of.
This hidden repurchase cycle requirement is secreted in a Byzantine interconnecting set of guidelines generated by an assortment of federal and state bodies.
In what has to be the citizen homework assignment from hell, Tobi ventured into the belly of the beast. She decided to attend voting industry and politician-laden meetings and read all the obscure documents and regulations. When she put the whole picture together, what she found was a Ponzi Scheme.
Tobi wrote up her conclusions, annotated them with the evidence, and handed all this over in face-to-face meetings with various elections agency directors. They have never refuted or denied any of her findings.
“It might be a fraud,” one official confided to Tobi, “but please don’t call it a Ponzi Scheme.”
Well whatever it is, the election industry vendors know it; they are licking their chops over the next round of profits. But rarely are the local aware of the legally required but hidden repurchase cycles. Unreimbursed costs are forcing elections officials to close polling places, switch to forced mail-in voting, and dip into the county’s general fund.
ARE THE WINVOTE MACHINES REAL, OR ARE THEY MEMOREX?
Black Box Voting board member Jim March, aided by a nose for bulldroppings and a couple former WinVote employees who prefer to remain anonymous, traveled to Virginia to meet with the “Sabo the Hammer.” Black Box Voting got involved because Sabo’s story and its repercussions need to be made public. Jim March provided moral support at Sabo’s trial and interviewed various members of the Conga line trying to get answers.
Here’s what he found:
Per the one person now left at the Virginia State Board of Elections handling voting system certification (Barbara Cockrell), the state board approved WinVote changes after the changes had already been done.
What was involved in approving these changes? Well, not code review, according to Cockrell. So literally anything could have been inserted into the voting machine programming purporting to be something else – a hidden midday wireless results broadcast, the digital notes for a small Bach partita -- the point is, no one examined what the changes really were at all.
It’s voting rights blasphemy. WinVote is used in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Mississippi. Citizens living in these locations only get to exercise their Constitutional right to choose their representatives if AVS programmers allow it. No citizen oversight whatsoever is permitted, forcing citizens to trust the government and its private vendors.
At no time since has AVS obtained updated certifications at the federal level for any product.
ChaChaChaChaCha--KICK!
ENTER THE FINGER-POINTING CONGA LINE
With credible questions as to the certification validity of the WinVote in play, we attempted to determine at least whether or not officials could confirm whether the systems installed in Virginia are “fakes” or not.
* Virginia’s Barbara Cockrell admits that the changes were never checked. She kicked the responsibility for answers to the technicians.
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