Die, Die, Diebold...Die
Douglas Herman
Who backs these homegrown tyrannies? You might be surprised.
Ten years ago, Chuck Hagel ran for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska. Electronic voting machines owned by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) reported that he had won both the primaries and the general election in unprecedented victories. His 1996 victory was considered one of the biggest upsets of that election. He was the first Republican to win a Nebraska senatorial campaign in 24 years and won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican.
Not surprisingly, Hagel is mentioned as a 2008 presidential candidate. Even less surprising, Chuck Hagel was CEO of ES&S (then AIS) until 1995 and he was still a major stockholder of the parent company of ES&S, McCarthy & Company.
Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell (since resigned, probably with a golden parachute), resided in Columbus, Ohio at the time of the suspicious vote count. O'Dell went on record stating that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President." On September, 2003, he hosted an Ohio Republican Party fundraiser for Bush's re-election at his Cotswold Manor mansion. Tickets to the fundraiser cost $1000 per couple, with O'Dell's fundraising letter urged those attending to "Donate or raise $10,000 for the Ohio Republican Party." And---surprise, surprise---O'Dell's were the machines "objectively" counting the votes.
In 1999, two Sequoia executives, Phil Foster and Pasquale Ricci, were indicted for paying Louisiana Commissioner of Elections Jerry Fowler an $8 million bribe to buy their voting machines. Fowler was sentenced to five years in prison. Sequoia seems to be a minor player in the tri-axis of evil, the Syria of voting machine fraud.
Anybody happen to see HBO's fine documentary, "Hacking Democracy?" The film featured Bev Harris, of www.blackboxvoting.org standing up to the crooks and liars in Florida and Ohio, the same smalltime crooks across the land who knowingly, or unknowingly, helped the big time crooks in Washington steal millions of votes and thus steal a couple of elections, which resulted in the successful attack on 9-11 and then the illegal invasion of a couple of Middle Eastern countries.
If Hacking Democracy doesn't make you angry, then you've lost all hope in our dying republic altogether. If watching a handful of hardworking activists doesn't hearten you than you've grown too cynical by the machinations of our nascent fascism.
Watching Bev Harris, Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne confront the indignant, pompous bureaucrats of Florida was truly invigorating. The scum in Volusia County, Florida and the slimeballs in Cleveland tried to stonewall and snowball and hardball Harris and her crew but she kept on digging through the dumpsters and found the tallies they had thrown away. A federal offense, we were informed in the documentary, discarding vote tallies, but then the feds---surprise, surprise---chose to ignore the crime.
So, instead of sending the USS Eisenhower over to the Persian Gulf to try and start a costly and pointless shooting war with Iran, I suggest they send the US Navy to Lake Erie and start shelling the Cleveland warehouse where those newly purchased electronic machines are stored! Then pull the US Marines out of Fallujah and send them into Florida. We need them more here at home. Like I said, I would re-enlist in a minute if it meant the spread of democracy, and I'm nearly sixty!
Because, the true weapons of mass destruction are right here in our own backyard. The real WMDs are the electronic voting machines that steal votes, right here in America. They steal people's votes and thus they steal their hopes, thus stealing their trust.
So, instead of carpet-bombing Muslims who live faraway (at the suggestion of those who benefited by the stolen votes), I suggest we conduct a much more effective invasion closer to home. Wouldn't cost as much and fewer troops would be killed or poisoned by depleted uranium. I suggest a quick surgical strike---with embedded reporters----capturing and sending the executives of Diebold directly to Gitmo. Followed by those who accepted those stolen votes, of course.
Disclaimer. Unfortunately Paul Revere and Sam Adams are dead and so violent acts by American patriots against boxes of tea or black boxes are illegal. Wiser patriots will need to hack the black boxes by refusing to pay for them in their district. Cleveland, however, is beyond hope.
Useful link: Volusia County election records just got put on lockdown.
Bumper Sticker suggestion: Don't Blame Me-My Vote Was Stolen
www.blackboxvoting.org