GEORGIA:

A CITIZEN’S EVIDENCE

THAT PRIVATIZED ELECTIONS

LEAD TO FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS
BASED ON RAW 2004 GA ELECTION DATA PURCHASED BY CITIZENS

 

 

         
source:  www.daveward.net

 

By:

Executive Director,

Count Paper Ballots: Citizens Working to Stop Privatized Elections

www.countpaperballots.com

info@countpaperballots.com

May 28, 2005 (latest revision V1.0)

 

 

 

 


Table of Contents

 

HISTORY. 3

THE FACE OF PRIVATIZED ELECTIONS. 3

THE TRAGEDY OF TODAY’S HAVA.. 3

HAVA Spells Election Disaster For States Feverishly Vying For The Golden Pot Of HAVA Cash. 4

WHY AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD ELECTRONIC VOTING. 5

PRIVATIZATED ELECTIONS. 5

How Privatized Elections Will Enslave Americans Worse Than Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 5

Enfranchisement Defined. 5

African American Heroes, Fighting for People of All Color’s Right To Vote. 5

The Story of 2 Grandmothers. 5

OH WHY OH, OHIO. 5

The Heroes of the Ohio Recount Challenge. 6

The Democratic Losers in the Ohio Recount Challenge. 6

WHY PRIVATIZED ELECTIONS WILL ENSLAVE AMERICANS WORSE THAN BEFORE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965. 7

How the Republican Chant of Voter Fraud is Already Enslaving Minorities and Ushering in a New Era of Jim Crow Racism.. 7

HOW CITIZENS ARE WINNING AGAINST DIEBOLD & OTHER DRE VENDORS. 7

DIEBOLD CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR. 8

Personal Threats by Bob Urosevich. 8

Programmers with Felony Convictions. 8

Follow the Money: How Diebold Pays People to Buy Their Equipment 8

Wallie O’Dell’s Stated Support For “Delivering the Ohio Election To Bush”. 8

Diebold’s Shady Family Tree. 8

CHOICEPOINT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR. 9

10 REASONS NOT TO BUY DRE MACHINES. 9

NASHVILLE CONFERENCE. 10

Nashville Sings the Blues As Election Activists Cry Foul At a National Conference on Election Reform   10

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY. 10

WHO ATTENDED. 10

CONFERENCE THEMES. 10

UNLIKELY HEROES. 11

COLUMBUS OHIO TEACH-IN. 12

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER’S PRIVATE ELECTION REFORM COMMISSION: Or New Ways to Ignore the Citizens 12

DNC REACTION TO ELECTION FRAUD: Or New Ways to Ignore the Citizens 12

ACLU REACTION TO GEORGIA’S ELECTION FRAUD: Or New Ways to Ignore the Citizens 14

BEV HARRIS: A One Woman Anti-Electronic Voting Machine Show. 14

GLOSSARY. 15

 

 


HISTORY

 

Georgia is the first state to purchase 100% of Diebold’s DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) machines, after signing a contract for $54 Million dollars paid for by taxpayers from the HAVA (Help America Vote Act) fund.[1]  Our former Governor and President Jimmy Carter along with Gerald Ford were the early backers of the HAVA Act designed in increase voter turnout, voter education and registrations, all very noble goals.   It’s a sad irony that President Carter would later have to step down from the Carter Center, his life’s dream, to fix the problems HAVA has created.

 

THE FACE OF PRIVATIZED ELECTIONS

 

Cathy Cox on the inside flap of a Diebold marketing folder along with 3 other elections officials.  Where in her job description does it say work as a marketing agent for election corporations?

Enter the villain, Cathy Cox, Georgia’s democratic Secretary of State and current gubernatorial candidate who single handedly ushered in the The Diebold Borg to Georgia by offering Diebold a $54M ‘No Bid’ contract.  This is against Georgia state law not to have a formal RFP process.  This is not the only reason activists have lovingly named Ms. Cox, Cathy “100% Diebold” Cox. There is also documented evidence of Cathy Cox walking out of a citizen forum focused on election reform after calling earnest citizen questions ‘entertainment.’[2]

 

Even this press release should have been a harbinger of privatized times to come to the most carefully discerning observer.

Georgia is First in the Nation to Acquire Uniform Electronic Voting System to Improve Accuracy, Convenience and Accessibility
$54 Million Voting Equipment Contract Award is Largest in U. S. History 
System Will Debut During November 5th 2002 General Election

 

First of all, how could the secretary of state’s office claim electronic voting improves accuracy, convenience and accessibility when no such voting system had ever been involved in Georgia elections?  Or how about the Freudian slip with the word “System will Debut”, could this be an accidental admission that the voting systems would Debut the way ACTORS act a role (not stay true to their real selves) on behalf of Georgia voters?  The list of ‘conflict of interest’ behavior by Ms. Cox includes giving Diebold permission to put the Georgia state seal on their website.  It took citizen activism to change that behavior.  According to Denis Wright, author of an article entitled “Meet Cathy Diebold” he believes “There are serious reasons to believe that the 2002 election in Georgia was not a legal election, for several important reasons”.[3]

 

THE TRAGEDY OF TODAY’S HAVA

Tragically, HAVA Help America Vote Act has become a tool for voting system vendors to twist county election officials into thinking they have to buy technology to solve age old disability and accuracy problems.  Today, HAVA has become a dangerous election money drain, a veritable black hole into which the US is pouring billions in hard earned taxpayer monies to supposedly ‘modernize’ antiquated election systems.   This while 95% of the world’s democracies use paper ballots and countries like Ireland after tying electronic voting, have gone back to paper ballots.[4]   Even Miami Dade county’s election supervisor Lestor Sola said in a memo dated Friday May 27, 2005 that after spending $24.5M on electronic voting is choosing to go back to paper ballots.[5]  The current Hava budget is over $3.9 Billion[6] and yet there appears to be no real analysis of how electronic voting systems in the past have lost entire precincts worth of data simply because of a computer problem.   What else could we do with spending, hundreds of millions on paper ballots and using the rest of that $3Billion on say education, or healthcare upgrades or even helping fix the problems with social security.

 

The cost of a paper ballot is roughly 83 Cents, the cost of a Diebold machine with printer (New York’s pricing) $8,000 and that does not include the $93/machine maintenance contract NOT paid for by HAVA and the $4500 per visit cost of a Diebold technician to step one foot in the door of a county election office[7].  The cost to run 1 precinct with roughly 1,000 voters on paper is roughly $?????? while it costs $24,000 to run on Diebold Touchscreens with Printers.  With the costs sometimes 6 time more expensive, what possible logic could be driving DRE machine purchases?  The secret again, keeps coming back to HAVA.

 

HAVA Spells Election Disaster For States Feverishly Vying For The Golden Pot Of HAVA Cash

How HAVA is really impacting states is that the money in the HAVA fund is ushering a new form of fascist control of our elections, and the pricetag for this enormous privatization and ‘dishonest’ rigging of our elections is paid for by taxpayers.  How it works is states have to apply for the HAVA money in a certain timeframe or lose access to it, for most states this is millions.  In Ohio over $100M is up for grabs.   HAVA money does not pay for paper ballots, although the HAVA legislation does provide for paper ballots (click here).   Nor does HAVA pay for maintenance costs in year 3 of the machines purchased. In Georgia in 2006, counties will have to pay the outrageous $2.6M maintenance bill at $93/machine. For most counties, this involves floating bonded debt to pay for the machine.  That’s the problem HAVA ushers in technology that counties cannot afford after the initial funding is exhausted.  But it’s a catch-22 for conscientious elections officials thinking they are doing good by getting rid of lever machines and the only money available to them is forcing them to choose between ES&S and Diebold (both companies with heavy Republican donor Executives and also brothers, and both owned by parent McCarthy Group, see Diebold Family Tree later in this document)

 

However, no one could have predicted President Jimmy Carter, even after creating the “Carter Center” respected worldwide for its help in monitoring elections all over the world, would end up being the grandfather of election fraud in the United States.  No one is more surprised than me, a woman who was taken by the had at age 18 by my father and told not only to register, not only to vote, not only that voting mattered, but most importantly, that Jimmy Carter was the greatest President ever elected and to vote proudly as a democrat as often as possible. 

 

No one was more shocked than myself, when Jimmy Carter invited James Baker III, President Bush’s legal counsel helping George W. Bush steal the 2000 election by forcing judges to declare victory before all the ballots were officially recounted.  In fact, this problem of recounts illegally stopped by partisan judges happened again in 2004 when Judge Thomas Moyer, an Ohio Supreme Court Judge, rather than recusing himself, decided that even though his judges race would have been affected by the recount’s outcome, rather than recuse himself, decided quite boldly to shut down the recount in Ohio even after the Greens and Libertarian parties paid $110,000 to have it completed.

 

Did President Jimmy Carter Really Have to Bring Us HAVA?

Thanks for HAVA Jimmy!  Maybe that’s why Jimmy Carter has started a private election commission to study the problems of the last few elections and officially stepped down from the Carter Center.  You wouldn’t guess President Carter is one bit remorseful in unleashing this illegal stealing of elections from citizens who legally own all aspects of elections (the ballots, the counting, it all belongs to citizens), because he has appointed as Co-Chair of the commission James A. Baker III, a man who was Bush’s legal counsel and helped Bush steal the 2000 election by forcing partisan judges in Florida to stop the recount and force the victory for Bush even though Al Gore won by over 3 Million popular votes and a final report showed he won the recount as well.

 

 

Reversing 132 Years of Georgia’s Democratic History

 

 

It All Began With A Single “No Bid” Contract with Diebold, Inc. in 2002

 

 

How Georgia’s Former SOS Lewis Massey Became a Diebold Lobbyist (and other failed endeavors)

 

 

How Cathy Cox’s Office has Been Negligent in Their Investigation of Stolen Diebold Equipment

 

WHY AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD ELECTRONIC VOTING

 

 

PRIVATIZATED ELECTIONS

How Privatized Elections Will Enslave Americans Worse Than Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965

 

Enfranchisement Defined

 

African American Heroes, Fighting for People of All Color’s Right To Vote

 

The Story of 2 Grandmothers

 

 

OH WHY OH, OHIO

When I first starting working on election fraud in Georgia, I kept saying “Oh Why Oh, Ohio?” It seemed everywhere I turned all the money and focus of fraud was on one state that clearly had Republican control of the state and judges by the GOP.  Strategically, my gut told me, Phyllis, stay away from Ohio, it’s a can of worms.  In fact, at the Nashville conference, I said as much to Lowell Finley, the attorney who fought the California Diebold suit and won.  I felt that it was not the result of poor attorney filings but rather, illegal activities and criminal republican wrangling that kept Ohio from ever being resolved.  But listening in on my conversation was a woman who begged me not to write Ohio off so quickly.  I began corresponding with her and found we both shared a hatred and a focus on Diebold.  I promised her I would attend the Ohio Teach-In in Columbus on May 7th and it was there that the importance of Ohio became philosophically and emotionally important to me.

 

OHIO is a state of extreme democratic activism. I can say this because of all the other states I’ve lived in, the folks in Ohio make the other activists look like armchair warriors.  The other philosophical importance of Ohio is one Mr. John Conyers and one Ms. Stephanie Tubbs Jones.  Yes, there have been other ‘heroes’ but these 2 stand out as the earliest and staunchest voice in support of labeling and fixing the gross abuses of election rigging that happened in Ohio.  This is significant, not only because of John Conyer’s role on the House Judiciary Committee, but also because he and Stephanie were already ardent ‘civil rights’ activists.  So when election fraud is boiled down, it results in ‘enslavement’ of the citizens who have to be governed by ‘unelected officials.’  This is a CORE CIVIL RIGHT in the sense that all other civil rights derive from this root CIVIL RIGHT, that being, one’s right to have ‘representative democracy.’

 

Remembering our American history lessons, it’s why the Boston tea party was so significant, why even that was early citizen activism fighting for ‘representative government’.  It meant the founding fathers and the early ‘citizen activists’ of 1776, decided wholeheartedly to reject a monarchy rule that robbed the country’s riches such as Tea back to England and that citizens would set up their own representative democracy.

 

So what’s at stake in Ohio and who have been the most ardent and vocal opponents of this CORE CIVIL RIGHT being forcibly removed are of paramount philosophical importance.  It’s clear that Jones-Tubbs and Conyers with their very personal history of civil rights struggle can understand better than anyone (and perhaps more poignantly) the years of heartache and suffering the African American population has endured to secure the right to vote.  For this reason alone, I finally understood the connection of this struggle to a larger civil rights movement, I understand the absolute power of Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Rep. John Conyers as the capable and only ‘QUALIFIED’ spokespersons and realized why Ohio needed to win its struggle against Election Fraud at ‘all costs’ or else suffer a democracy that parades as ‘representative’ but has replaced representative government with oligarchical corporate pawns for leaders and corporations as their masters.  With the military under corporate control as well, we truly have become a full fledged fascist state.

 

I felt similarly humbled when viewing footage of Stephanie Tubbs Jones for the first time encouraging young African American children to excel in sports, to excel in school.  Her very sacred place as a role model for Americans of all races, serves as the role model for a movement that had no other leaders of similar calibre.  The deafening silence of John Kerry in not joining the recount lawsuit for no ‘clear’ reason, and the relatively misunderstood ‘civil rights’ angle by recount challengers David Cobb and Michael Badnarik, have provided our nation with unlikely heroes in 2 Ohio statemen, Conyers and Tubbs-Jones.

 

It does however, give other nations looking in a heart wrenching and satirical example of the US white man, known his early years of exploiting African American labor thru slavery, is now all but dependent on a few African American leaders in Ohio to get his right to vote back as well.  The white man’s slavery will continue until the white men in power give power and truth to the spokesman who have fought so long and so hard for all of us.

 

People of all colors also, currently depend as if ‘for their life’ on these 2 very proud African American Civil Rights Liberty Fighters, and I wanted this book to take sufficient time to expose their role and their subsequent heroism in standing up so early and so often for the rest of us ‘nameless’ citizens fighting as well.

 

That Barbera Boxer stood up on January 6th was testimony to her ‘mojo’ and her standing up had in large part to do with the urgings of these 2 very powerful statesmen for the election fraud movement.

 

I do not leave out Jesse Jackson, as a slight, I merely point out his organized demonstration clearly accelerated a movement that was begun by Jones and Tubbs-Jones, and in this right, Jackson’s worldwide recognition for resolving matters of Civil Rights abuses, eventually legitimized this struggle, made it a nationwide ‘Civil Rights / Election Reform Movement’ and as a core civil rights struggle and one that it would take African American leaders such as Jesse Jackson (as well as his articulate and very handson son, Jesse Jackson Jr.) to propel.  Jesse Jackson Jr.’s speech at the PDA Summit in Washington DC in January rests as the most motivationally powerful speech I’ve ever heard a politician deliver and I will watch Jackson Jr.’s career like a hawk watches its prey.

 

 

Other Heroes of the Ohio Recount Challenge & National Election Activists

I could list the names alphabetically so as not to imply importance and will do so below. It’s important to note that each of these people have made huge sacrifices in fighting for this struggle.

Bob Fritrakis

 

Phil Fry

 

Marj Creech

 

Rady Ananda

 

Susan Truitt

 

Sheila Parks

 

Cliff Arnebeck

 

Jon Boniface

 

Don McTigue

 

David Cobb

 

Michael Badnarik

 

Bev Harris

 

Lynn Landis

 

Barbara Boxer

 

Stephanie Tubbs Jones

 

Cliff Arnebeck

 

Brad Friedman

 

Phyllis Huster

 

Paddy Shaeffer

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Democratic Losers in the Ohio Recount Challenge

 

WHY PRIVATIZED ELECTIONS WILL ENSLAVE AMERICANS WORSE THAN BEFORE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

 

 

How the Republican Chant of Voter Fraud is Already Enslaving Minorities and Ushering in a New Era of Jim Crow Racism

 

 

HOW CITIZENS ARE WINNING AGAINST DIEBOLD & OTHER DRE VENDORS

 

It is enlightening to read the 2004 Diebold annual report below, as a way to applaud dedicated activist successes in stopping the spread of Diebold nationwide.  From what I know Bev Harris of Black Box Voting has been a key player in bringing this success about.  But there is also internal election reform industry controversy over Bev Harris’ use of the work of many other valuable people such as Roxanne Jekot and Andy Stephenson without paying them a penny for their work.  Many have questioned the ethic of Bev Harris in her dealings with other activists.  She has also muddied her

 

The paragraph below  explains lower than expected voting equipment sales due to “challenges in the media”.

The election systems business continued to be a challenge for the company, as lower revenue and the settlement of the civil action in California with the state of California and Alameda County had a significant negative impact on margin and earnings per share. The company continues to face a variety of challenges and opportunities in responding to customer needs within the election systems market. A number of individuals and groups have raised challenges in the media and elsewhere, including legal challenges, about the reliability and security of the company’s election systems products and services. The parties making these challenges oppose the use of technology in the electoral process generally and, specifically, have filed lawsuits and taken other actions to publicize what they view as significant flaws in the company’s election management software and firmware. These efforts have adversely affected some of the company’s customer relations with its election systems customers. Also, the election systems market continues to evolve. Funding is being provided by the federal government and utilized by the states; however, the guidelines and rules governing the election software and hardware have not yet been fully established. As a result, various states and industry experts are interpreting the election requirements differently. Recent changes in the laws under which election-related products must be certified by a number of states have lengthened the certification process and, in some cases, required changes to the company’s products. For example, some states are requiring paper receipt printers, and the state of Ohio has decided to adopt mostly optical scan rather than touch-screen technology.[8]

They are likely referring to the efforts of Black Box Voting a citizen group led by the nation’s leading expert in DRE Machine Voting, Bev Harris.

 

 

DIEBOLD CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR

Personal Threats by Bob Urosevich

Programmers with Felony Convictions

Follow the Money: How Diebold Pays People to Buy Their Equipment

Wallie O’Dell’s Stated Support For “Delivering the Ohio Election To Bush”

 

Diebold’s Shady Family Tree

 

 

Following the family tree of Diebold is akin to watching an episode of “The Sopranos”. I even lived in New Jersey, knew a few Ritchie’s in my time and find any Mafioso character to be infinitely ‘kinder and gentler’ than a Diebold family member.  Let’s start with Bob Urosevich.  In the next section you’ll hear that his favorite phrase was about sending out someone to go get you, if you said something he didn’t like.  Andy Stephenson’s reply in the movie VoterGate was, ‘who you gonna send Bob, the easter bunny?’  But it gets truly frightening the higher you climb.

 

Electronic Voting as a way to rig elections can be traced back as a great way to put Chuck Hagel in Office in Nebraska.  He faced a tough democratic opponent in 1996 and was lucky to have an investment stake in ES&S a firm he held thru his ownership in the McCarthy Group, ES&S key funder.  ES&S is also owned in part by the McCarthy Group and also by Omaha World-Herald Co., Nebraska’s biggest newspaper.  What’s more fishy is that 85% of the votes were tallied by ES&S a firm that McCarthy held a stake in.  Thom Hartmann pegged this Hagel connection early in January of 2003 in his Common Dreams Article "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

 

Back when Hagel first ran there for the U.S. Senate in 1996, his company's computer-controlled voting machines showed he'd won stunning upsets in both the primaries and the general election. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely Black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska. Six years later Hagel ran again, this time against Democrat Charlie Matulka in 2002, and won in a landslide. As his hagel.senate.gov website says, Hagel "was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate on November 5, 2002 with 83% of the vote. That represents the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska."[9]

 

The latest news on Chuck Hagel is even more ironic.  He is quoted as saying at a New Hampshire event where he is likely to eventually be campaigning as Presidential candidate in 2008 “More seriously, New Hampshire is important to the nation's political process because we have become such an electronic nation. We've lost the personal touch."[10]

 

According to an article in “The Hill” , “Hagel had reported a financial stake worth $1 million to $5 million in the privately held firm. But he did not report the company’s underlying assets, choosing instead to cite his holdings as an “excepted investment fund,” and therefore exempt from detailed disclosure rules

An official at Nebraska’s Election Administration estimated that ES&S machines tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in Hagel’s 2002 and 1996 election races.

In 1996, ES&S operated as American Information Systems Inc. (AIS). The company became ES&S after merging with Business Records Corp. in 1997.”[11]

 

 

CHOICEPOINT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR

Stealing Identities & Rigging Voter Registrations For a Living

We’re 100% Innocent, Email from Donna Curling, Wife of Doug Curling

Atlanta Journal and Constitution Response to Stock Selling from ChoicePoint Executives

California Voter Registration Database Now 100% ChoicePoint, Courtesy of Arnold’s No-Bid Contract Award

 

 

10 REASONS NOT TO BUY DRE MACHINES

 

 

 

NASHVILLE CONFERENCE

Nashville Sings the Blues As Election Activists Cry Foul At a National Conference on Election Reform

 

Every movement needs its critical mass, and such was the case weekend of April 8-10th in Nashville as the first formal gathering of Election Reform Advocates gained momentum, leadership and a mainstream media voice.  While hundreds of election reform activists gathered initially at the PDA Summit January 22nd through January 24th in Washington DC, and numerous cities such as San Diego have begun teach-ins, this was the first nationwide gathering solely dedicated to the issue of election reform.  Nashville presented itself a gracious backdrop for such an event, with the only perfect replica of the “Parthenon” in the world, located minutes from the event. The Parthenon, a historic reminder as the birthplace of democratic government and a towering remind of the power of the citizen voice in shaping a participatory, democratic government aptly symbolized the birth of this election reform movement. 

 

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY

Cynthia McKinney, a Democratic congresswoman from Georgia held the audience spellbound with her Saturday night keynote speech.  She started powerfully with the phrase, ‘we must not forget and we must not let this issue die, or else I shudder to think what America will become.”  She introduced herself further by saying “For those of you who don’t know who I am, I just happened to ask a little question about September 11th and that was what did the Bush administration know and when did it know it about the tragic events of September, and that was a most responsible question, so I thought, but for those who have something to hide, they don’t want those questions asked, they certainly don’t want the American people to have any answers so I suffered mightily for asking that question.  But then, why was it important for me to come here?  Because like you, I certainly feel victimized by a system that is slipping away from the grips of the American People.  I have seen electioneering in its worst and most cruel effects, from 1992 when I first ran for Congress….”

 

WHO ATTENDED

Over 200 people attended from 30 states representing 15 red states and 15 blue states, and representatives from 9 political parties met from Friday at 1pm lasting well into Midnight on the first day of the conference.  A local journalist for Nashville’s main newspaper “The Tenneseean” Laura Luxors was asked cover the event for an hour.  She came Friday afternoon, stayed 11 hours and came back on Saturday.  Such was the kind of personal revelation many conference attendees experienced as they saw the scope of their personal view on fraud expand to a national scale and an even broader scope.  Her articleElection reform speaker: Electronic voting out of hand” was given full billing in Monday’s Nashville’s Main Newspaper “The Tenneseean” (article here) marking yet another election reform movement victory, mainstream media honestly covering an event that alleges election fraud.

 

CONFERENCE THEMES

The conference theme centered on the citizen’s right to vote, democracy’s great Achilles heel.  The historic timing includes a 2004 election that has never been fully completed, with many Ohio counties left uncounted due to complicated and legally challenged discontinuation of recounts.   Representatives from New Mexico, Florida, CA, OH, Georgia and other states came with their spreadsheets and their notebooks full of open records data, some captured by digital camera, some purchased and still others hand counted by volunteers in hours of onsite collection.  Their findings include phantom votes (more machine votes than humans at the polls), turnout rates higher than 100%, statistically impossible precincts with the exact same total across 5 precincts, etc.  The pivot point of this movement is the volume of lone citizens across many states, taking back their government with heroic personal sacrifices and efforts.   Any cry of conspiracy theorists was immediately dispelled by the volume and quality of the attendees, with professionals such as Judy, a college professor or David a physicist, or statisticians such as Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips.  This pedantic and professional crowd was not only defending the citizen’s right to vote but the equally important right of citizens to be ‘enfranchised’ without long lines when going to vote such as what happened in Franklin County Ohio (see video www.oneblockover.net).

 

Additional themes such as ‘hand counted paper ballots,” “in full citizen view:, “nonpartisan election officials”, “voter’s bill of rights”, “federal right to vote”, “disenfranchisement prevention measures, “be the media, “election day holiday” and other mantras resonated in many speaker’s presentations. The conference itself was held in a Baptist Church called “Freedom Mission ?? ??  and this stately cathedral gave both presence and importance to the words being said.

 

UNLIKELY HEROES

The most stunning accumulation of professions and an almost random gathering of ‘unlikely’ heroes came from lawyers such as Cliff Arnebeck, and independent media blogsters such as Bob Fritrakis of Freepress.org and Brad Friedman of bradblog.com.  Arnebeck, a normally sedate lawyer enlivened the audience with the words “Kerry Took a walk” and elevated his speech to the ranks of a great ‘all seeing’ leader such an odd movement has come to respect.  These leaders are now household names, added to an already growing movement led by grandmothers and computer experts such as Bev Harris (blackboxvoting.com), Roxanne (countthevote.org) and others.  Taking only 5 months to form a wealth of conclusions from the independent yet somehow oddly orchestrated citizen activities, this movement has already produced action such as getting Barber Boxer to speak out on January 6th and shifted the debate from paper trails to paper ballots as the ballot of record.  The one unifying theme of all participants is a desire to preserve the citizen’s fundamental right to vote and to know that their vote is counted accurately.  These attendees bore the marks of personal sacrifice, for example, one activist from Georgia, Sarah, a student at Georgia Tech, giving up valuable exam weekend study time to pursue a cause greater than her need to get good grades.

 

It was the kind of conference that the attendees did not want to leave, because even as the final workshops finished Sunday afternoon, a crowd of at least 30 activists were seen eating at Harper’s restaurant, nearby the Church where the conference took place, huddled into 4 disparate groups, continuing to passionately discuss election issues.  In a symbolic form of serendipity, the conference organizer, Bernie ??? was seen speaking with a local Nashville elected represented, a woman dressed in powder blue Sunday school best including a hat of dignified old south elegance, one could see that she was precisely the kind of everyday constituent such a conference was meant to address.  3 days were nowhere near enough time to satiate a starving group of people who have given time, money, careers and personal passion to demonstrating to the outside world that indeed there was something most peculiar about the November 2nd 2004 election. 

 

The conferenece credibility was certified by the participation of such notable organizations as Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), Velvet Revolution, Case Ohio, Common Cause, Libertarian Party, Greens Party, Alliance for Democracy, Case Ohio, FreePress.Org, and many other citizen groups representing every continuum of a nonpartisan movement, representing every wing of both a liberal and conservative political spectrum.  This is what made the conference so historic, never before has such a diverse coalition of people come to so much consensus on election reform.  There was less hashing out policy then there was defining strategy and action plans.

 

The event was covered by anywhere from 3-7 professional grade video cameras, including a professional crew from Earnhardt & Co., whose production company offered to capture live footage for what was considered historic citizen testimony on election fraud.    In fact if there was any trademark conference it was the recognition of this particular movement that they must ‘be the media’ and the volume of amateur and professional documentarians there to capture the event.  A simple discussion of the Baker-Carter commission by some Georgians ended up in cameras filming live the conversations and the usual handout of the ‘release form’ to allow usage of the footage in future productions.   This kind of sincerity of importance of the event is what made it self-defining.  That is, the footage of the event becomes the media of the event that is shared worldwide.  The power of the Internet merely facilitates the kind of instantaneous live participation in the event that others who could not attend, representatives for instance from over 70 Organizations on election reform could with the typing of a URL visit and participate as if being there in person.

 

The following are sample video/audio from the conference:

 

VIDEO/AUDIO:

www.countpaperballots.com/VIDEO/NashvilleVideo.htm

 

ONLINE PRESENTATIONS:
www.freepress.org

 

EVIDENCE SITES:

www.northnet.org/minstrel, the Web site of Dr. Richard Hays Phillips,

www.uscountvotes.org Kathy Dopp’s organization who recently released the Exit Poll Study alleging the impossibility of the shift to Bush

 

 

 

COLUMBUS OHIO TEACH-IN

 

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER’S PRIVATE ELECTION REFORM COMMISSION: Or New Ways to Ignore the Citizens

 

ELECTION FRAUD DEFINED:

Preventing “Access to the Ballot” and Preventing Counting of Ballots By Breaking Chain of Custody

Framing the Fraud (Intentional Vs. Unintentional Vs. Acceptable Level of Irregularities)

 

10 REASONS: 10 Reasons Not To Buy DRE Machines

 

CATHY “DIEBOLD” COX: The Source of All Georgia’s Election Problems in 2002 / 2004 Why Democrats are not always our friends regarding Election Fraud

 

Video / Audio Election Fraud Evidence

Citizen Efforts to Investigate Election Fraud Illegally STOPPED

Why Corporations Cannot Honestly Tabulate our Votes
Why DRE Machines HAVE & WILL NEVER Accurately Count Election Votes

          10 REASONS: 10 Reasons Not To Buy DRE Machines

Examples of Big Problems in Georgia with DRE Machines

Why Even Open Source Computers Owned By Nice Democrats Won’t Accurately Count Our Votes

 

High Level Georgia Presidential General Election Analysis 2000 vs. 2002

Full Georgia Audit of 15 Full Counties

Charts of Races Affected Per Count Paper Ballots Restatement of Votes Cast

History of 2002 Max Cleland / Roy Barnes Exit Poll Discrepancies and Final Tallies

Proof that DRE Machines Don’t Work Across the US

Proof that DRE Machines Don’t Work Across the World

SOLUTION: 100% Hand Counted Paper Ballots, In Full Citizen View, and With the Chain of Custody Unbroken InTransit but Citizen Secured at all Times

A Better Ballot and a Better Ballot Box to Eliminate Under/Over Votes and Prevent Corrupt Sheriff Ballot Box Stuffing

 

ACLU REACTION TO ELECTION FRAUD: Or New Ways to Ignore the Citizens

 

My Pink Slip Firing of the ACLU after 6 months of NO ACTION toward helping a very simple Open Records Violation is below.  The reason they could not help me after saying in April that my case passed legal committee?

 

At this point, my understanding is that we are the only ACLU looking at this issue ( I polled all ACLUs  to see if others were involved in accessing the records). We have a legislator who talked to Cathy Cox this week about the issue.  Playing phone tag. We are not finding any lawyers interested in litigating the issue yet, but continue our search. Our process, especially when no lawyers volunteer, can be slow.”

 

 

Gary:
What you wanted to do has been done..Florida hired a computer geek who created a trojan horse and it succeeded,

I will happily put you in touch with these folks..... (see below how a computer expert put a trojan horse very easily in a Diebold machine)

 

You can show Cathy Cox this all day long, you'll soon find out that her rhetoric and her lies are all about

saving her reputation which by now she realizes is tarnished by Diebold. She does not

give one IOTA to what the citizens have been showing her for over 2 years. She will soon find out what the word felony means.

 

I also found an attorney that has won a GA supreme court first amendment case.  I am also starting lawsuits with well funded

attorneys in Ohio around election fraud in 2 Diebold counties.

 

I also heard that the ACLU while giving me lip service that my case is important, has no attorneys because

they are fighting the VOTER ID legal battle, something that came many months after my open records problem.

I feel not only lied to, but I feel that the ACLU is clueless about the primacy of this Diebold CD open records struggle.

The latest word from Bev Harris, the industry expert who won legally against Diebold, is that the PCMCIA cards

DO HOLD THE VOTE RIGGING software we all suspected.  Getting a copy of that CD is tantamount to

finding BONAFIDE PROOF of election fraud, and even if it isn't it's the principle that all elections materials

in whatever form belong to the people.

 

That the ACLU would rather waste resources on VOTER ID which disenfranchises 30% of Georgians versus

Electronic voting which disenfranchises 100% of Georgians.

 

 It's a sad day when politics wins even at a citizen Civil Rights organization.

 

I've been offered a chance to write a book. I will include in there how the ACLU was the most ineffectual organization

when it came to the MOST FUNDAMENTAL CITIZEN RIGHT, the right to vote, a right that ensures representative democracy,

a right that is the ROOT of all other civil rights in that it helps shape the government that puts judges and legislators

and governors and Presidents into office, a right that ACLU in the end 'could not find an attorney for'.

 

I want you to now know, that figuratively, the ACLU's house is on fire, in that the US is in very big trouble, with Civil

Rights abuses growing exponential to all the unelected officials getting RIGGED into office, and you guys are busy

planting nice flowers at the mailbox..... turn around for heaven's sake and put the fire out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....

 

Phyllis

*********

 

 

DNC REACTION TO ELECTION FRAUD: Or New Ways to Ignore the Citizens

Let me start by showing you an email from Monica Marvin, a cog in the wheel of the DNC investigation of “election reform” (quotes are their words).

 

Hi Phyllis,

I remember our conversation. You will recall, the DNC investigation covers the Ohio 2004 election. I agree that it would be ideal to have a national study similar to the investigation that is being completed for Ohio. You have  invested a great deal of time and capital in your research. I personally want to thank you for your efforts towards election reform. While you may not agree with the scope of the DNC investigation or the identity of people who were interviewed, please do not jump to conclusions before you have read the final report. I am passing your message on to several members of our team. Thank you for taking the time to express your concerns.

Sincerely,

Monica Marvin

 

Wow.  Because I’m from Georgia the one state that has 100% Diebold, and they are investigating only Ohio, they have no reason to speak with me.  Wow…. This is totally incredible the level of arrogance and myopia these folks have.  What’s worse is that my email to her mentioned several times I’m investigating election fraud and she changed the wording to say she was pleased with my efforts toward election reform.  This rewording of the problem by the very Democratic party who loses the most by fraud is part of the biggest problem facing us now, no leadership whatsoever in fighting what has been the most silent coup d’etat in the history of governments all over the world.

 

Another Monica quote as heard from by someone in a Democratic Underground (DU) post.

"I am very proud of the diligence, tenacity and professionalism with which our team has sought, procured and analyzed information for this worthy project."

Wow, this sounds pretty self-aggrandizing.  But when I first spoke with Monica I asked “wasn’t it wrong to put all your eggs in the same basket, by spending 500K in Ohio and not a single penny anywhere else?”  She agreed it was risky but that this was their decision.  Even in the email above she blindly supports a losing strategy.  This is like putting all your money on buying Enron stock, and not diversifying one iota.  What’s more sad is that she gave me the name of the guy who was the head of the DRE Committee, Vincent Fry.  Emails to him went unanswered and lately have bounced.  It could be they just don’t get what DRE Machines mean in terms of vote stealing, that 1/3 of the vote is being rigged and they don’t see the raw numbers because they’re busy looking for a needle in a very ‘muddied’ Ohio haystack.  With the Tom NoeCoinGate’ scandal blowing up in the DNC’s face, Ohio will be a hard place to conclude any litigation that isn’t focused and higher priority than $10M in lost coins. Otherwise the FBI will tie up records requests in a mire of blocked access as has already happened in the recount.

 

I remember when my friend Clay who went to work for Dean in Vermont for his presidential campaign said Howard Dean refused to meet with corporations.  So clear was Dean that corporations had to be weeded out from the fray of

 

 

PhD Computer Professional Testimony Against DRE Machines

 

Dr. Britt Williams / KSU

 

Dr. Charles Steward of MIT

 

A study of Georgia’s deployment of electronic voting and its impact on the 2002 election, released last month by Dr. Charles Stewart of MIT, one of the nation’s foremost experts on voting system accuracy, noted,

Following the 2000 presidential election, the state of Georgia instituted the most comprehensive overhaul of voting technology in the country…Although the Nation’s eyes were on Florida, a case could be made that it was Georgia that deserved the scrutiny.  Georgia’s “residual vote rate,” a measure of “lost votes” that has come to be used widely to measure voting technology reliability, was 3.5% -- the second worst in the country, behind only Illinois…This paper shows that the implementation of the Diebold system produced a significant reduction in the residual vote rate throughout the state of Georgia.  Just as important, the implementation of the new machines removed gaping disparities in voting machine reliability that could have raised serious questions about the fairness of Georgia’s electoral system.  DREs are more reliable, their performance varies less across the state, and the least advantaged areas of the state have experienced the greatest gain in reliability.”

 

 

ACLU REACTION TO GEORGIA’S ELECTION FRAUD: Or New Ways to Ignore the Citizens

 

 

BEV HARRIS: A One Woman Anti-Electronic Voting Machine Show

 

 

FRAMING THE FRAUD

I'd like to start framing the terms we use in the Diebold world to explain the data we've collected from our open records request..

 

Let's frame that Diebold creates 2 kinds of fraud:

 

INTENTIONAL

and

UNINTENTIONAL

 

These fall into these kinds of categories:

 

INTENTIONAL:

1. Vote rigging by changing the software Setup files to default to certain candidates (This causes the vote to change to Bush even when voters choose a straight Democratic ticket- documented well in their Georgia EIRS system)

2. Diebold software changing the intent of the voter from touchscreen enroute to PCMCIA card

3. Changes in data 'after' PCMCIA cards dumped to CD

4. Shaving of votes (percentage creep by literally placing the voter data in the wrong database fields)

5. Modification of election totals enroute (or at the SOS office, or at KSU center for elections)

6. Same person certifying multiple precincts or other 'fishy' activities

7. denying provisionals or absentee voters to have their votes count for minor technical reasons versus substantive ones (i.e. showed up at wrong precinct, etc.)

8. Using stolen Diebold equipment or hacking into the servers where Diebold data is stored using networking protocols of Diebold to modify/manipulate the totals and outcomes.

 

UNINTENTIONAL:

1. A Diebold technician or worse yet, a technical consultant, makes a mistake like forgets to reset the database to 0 before an election (such as Cobb County where they had to 'recertify' their election because of this very problem.... what's so hard to believe is that this database tweaking is all we have left of our votes.. how do we know their fix of the mistake did not also create MORE mistakes?  Where is the citizen counting in all of this?

http://www.cobbelections.org/results/pdf/nov05-02/nov05-02Explanation.pdf

2. User Fills out wrong #'s from DRE screens to Ballot Recap sheets (DRE, Absentee or provisional)

3. Accidental 'resetting' of the system counter by a novice user

4. Mistyping the total registered voters (we have evidence of this in Clinch county), making it unclear which is correct # of registered voters

5. Corruption of database files from viruses or other network problems

6. Error in computer (Faulty memory, etc.)

7. Persistent problems with Cards being cast with no results (making those votes in 'limbo' with no idea if they are partial votes , representing a voter's intent or just a computer glitch )

8. No Votes/Undervotes not properly characterized by the computer (this is a whole new theory I have that what Diebold calls a novote or undervote is not same as what SOS calls one), and how these get created, etc.

*** the list goes on....

 

When talking about DRE results.. let's talk about the 3 forms of data.

 

PRIMARY data (REAL and Computerized) (is the vote as registered on the touchscreens) as primary.  The REAL version is the vote as shown on the touchscreen before hitting cast ballot.  Nowhere is this data, the actual screen contents captured.  The Computerized version is a capture of the fields entered, and a "ballot image" is stored on the PCMCIA cards, but this is not guaranteed to accurately capture the voter's intent.  This computerized version is never released to the public and requests to access this data have been denied.

 

SECONDARY Data (this is the DRE Tape and all associated 'Election Summary' , SOVC Statement of Votes Cast, etc.) this is the database data (the fields voters chose on the touchscreen) reformulated by a software program into a 2nd form of the data.  This requires you trust the software program to tabulate the data accurately.  Incidentally, in the Diebold system, there are about 10 forms of Secondary Data...

1. GEMS REPORT -Election Summary (Totals)

2. GEMS REPORT - Election Summary (precincy by precinct)

3. GEMS REPORT - SOVC Statement of Votes Cast

4. DRE Tapes - Election Summary

5. DRE Tapes - Accumulation Totals

6. Write-In Report - (one includes only Valid Write-Ins, and the other includes Valid and Invalid write-ins)

7. County Website - Election Summary as listed on the website (this may be different than #1 depending on when you asked for a certain report and how intelligent they were in giving you the proper certified report)

8. SOS Website - This is yet another tally of the software (in 2 basic forms, for each race a statewide total, and for each county a race by race total)

9. BALLOT RECAP Sheets - (For DRE , Absentee and Provisional)

10. Voter Registration Databases (which may or may not match the registered voter totals entered into the DRE systems)

 

If I forgot something, please holler.....

 

My challenge is to create a master AUDIT spreadsheet cross checking numbers all across the spectrum, highlighting the forms of FRAUD it indicates....  wish me luck, ideas welcome!

 

 

 

GLOSSARY

 

DRE          Direct Recording Electronic, refers to an electronic voting machine.

 

DRE Tape  A Direct Recording Electronic Printed Document that often comes out in tape form similar to cash register thin long tapes and printed on similar rolls inside the Touchscreen.

 

SOVC        Statement of Votes Cast, a report Diebold GEMS Servers provide that details all early/absentee/provisional and election day results for entire county BY PRECINCT.

 

Election Total Report (Also called DRE Tape) The Election summary is a report printed either from the AccuVote Touchscreens or the Diebold GEMS Server.  It provides the final tallies by county for all races.

EXAMPLE ELECTION TOTAL REPORT

 

Accumulated Total Report The Accumulation total report is another Diebold GEMS Server Report that provides the final tallies by county for all races.

EXAMPLE ELECTION TOTAL REPORT

 

DRE Tape   The cash register sized long thin sheet of paper that is printed on

                election day after polls close to capture the voting tallies summarized by race for all races. 2 Types, Election Summary and Accumulation Total, the accumulations totals will give race summaries by precinct.

 

HAVA         The Help America Vote Act is a Bill sponsored by Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford aimed at helping solve common problems such as low voter turnout, low voter registration, etc.  In the years since they created this Act, HAVA has been used by Voting Machine vendors as a way to force states to purchase equipment.  Many vendors bend the truth about HAVA requirements for example, by saying states must have a computer to help disabled voters vote.  Many states too lazy to look up the actual language believe these marketing lies, but more importantly, HAVA money only covers the purchase of computerized voting systems, thereby biasing elections officials against using paper ballots, something for which HAVA funding is NOT AVAILABLE.  To see the actual HAVA language supporting paper ballots click Here><??>

HAVA Statement On Paper Ballots:

HAVA SPECIFICALLY APPROVES THE USE OF PAPER BALLOTS.

HAVA specifically approves the use of a paper ballot voting system by Sec. 301(a)(1)(B) specifiying that,: 

 

"A state or jurisdiction that uses a paper ballot voting system, may meet the requirements of subparagraph (A)(iii) by

    (1) establishing a voter education program specific to that voting system that notifies each voter of the effect of casting multiple votes for an office; and

    (ii) providing that voter with instructions on how to correct the ballot, before it is cast and counted (including instructions on how to correct the error through the issuance of a replacement ballot if the voter was otherwise unable to change the ballot or correct any error).

HAVA also authorizes paper ballot voting systems as follows, word for word

 

"Sec. 301(c)(2) PROTECTION OF PAPER BALLOT SYSTEMS--For purposes of subsection (a)(1)(A)(i), the term "verify" may not be defined in a manner that makes it impossible for a paper ballot voting system to meet the requirements of such subsection or to be modified to meet such requirements."

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/hava/HAVA_2002.html

 

 

Audit         For purposes of this discussion, a citizen based count of all the Diebold data that comprises our Georgia election with goal of determining accuracy.

 

Fraud        For purposes of this discussion intention to defraud others.

 

Cathy Cox  Georgia’s Secretary of State

 

 

 



[1] Source: http://www.sos.state.ga.us/pressrel/050302.htm

[2] Source: http://www.countpaperballots.com/VIDEO/NashvilleVideo.htm

[3] http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/06/p/11_diebold.html

[4] Source: www.ecotalk.org

[5] source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050528/ap_on_el_ge/florida_voting

[6] http://www.house.gov/cha/minority/floor_stmts-040325_budget.htm

[7] Source: www.countpaperballots.com/realcost.htm

[8] http://www6.diebold.com/financial/2004ar/site/19%5Fmda.htm

[9] http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm

[10] http://www.unionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=54283

[11]