"If voting could change the system, it would be illegal." - Theodore Adorno
I originally thought that quote was soooo cynic (yes I once was an yank idealist ;) But as Greg Palast proved eons ago, the violation of voting rights is a sad American reality. This Karl Rove precursor explains... ;)
"It's quite enough that people know that an election was held. People who vote decide of nothing. People who count the vote decide everything ! - Joseph Staline
This travesty of democracy promted the production the Lynching by Laptop video clip, just to help along Greg with the 50% functional analphabets that now constitute the american electorate.
Now, before you all go up in arms with the perenial "Best Country in the World" routine, let me lay a few disturbing facts…
20 Amazing Facts About Voting In The United States
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the US voting machine industry.
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
5. 35% of ES&S is owned by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, a long-time friend of the Bush family, was caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice- presidential candidates.
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the US and counts almost 60% of all US votes.
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
12. Diebold employs 5 convicted felons as developers. These are the people who write the voting machine computer code.
13. Diebold's Senior Vice-President, Jeff Dean, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.
14. Diebold Senior Vice-President Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie at 17. 30% of all US votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail. 18. Bush's Help America Vote Act of 2002 has as its goal to replace all machines with the new electronic touch screen systems with no paper trail.
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
20. Major statistical voting oddities (odds on the order of 250 million to 1!) -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated by experts. Such amazing odds, the equivalent of statistical miracles these were. Was it God? Or was it Diebold...?
So, what’s up Doc Democracy ?
As usual, I’m afraid Gore Vidal sized the whole scene in a few migthy words…
"Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. 'We have a single system,' he wrote, and 'in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses." - Gore Vidal - The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Meanwhile… NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE 2000 !In fact its getting worst…
LOSER TAKE ALL : ELECTION FRAUD & THE SUBVERSION OF DEMOCRACY 2000-2008 is covering the vast election fraud that has been perpetrated by the GOP—with the Democratic Party's acquiescence—since 2000. Among the subjects treated here are: the myth of George Bush's victory in Florida in 2000, and FOX News's key role in propagating it; Senator Max Cleland's dubious defeat in Georgia in 2002.
Author and journalist Mark Cripsin Miller lays it down with RKJ…
Hard to believe that all it took to bring this country down was Rove, Choice Point & a few GOP cronies !!!???
HOW REPUBLICAINS QUIETLY HIJACKED THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO SWING ELECTIONS By Steven Rosenfeld * Republican legislators, and even the Supreme Court -- in a largely unnoticed ruling in 2006 -- have been aggressively regulating most aspects of the voting process. Collectively, these efforts are undoing the gains of the civil rights era that brought voting rights to minorities and the poor, groups that tend to support Democrats.
This is an all bars down attack on everything this nation was build upon by a lunatic fringe proto fascist elite pushed along by Mindfuck Inc.
A Gang of High-Testosterene, Arrogant Fools Who Strong-Armed America Into a Catastrophe.
Again… The Military is Nowhere; the Press is Nowhere; the Congress is Nowhere... Where is everybody indeed !
"It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people" - Gore Vidal
Here's just a few sources for each of the 20 Amazing Facts About Voting In The United States…
1.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
2.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html
3.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/htm...e_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html
4.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentar...03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...4fitrakis.html
6.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/module...article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/05...w_hagel27.html
8.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting...804landes.html
9.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041...s/pfindex.html
10.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm
12.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
13.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
14.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
15.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...oc_elexoh.html
16.
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
17.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in632436.shtml
18.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/Election...sBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.ph...icle&sid= 950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
19.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/talla...al/7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Oct29.html
20.
http://www.yuricareport.com/Election...sBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governm...,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/htm...thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
