Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering
by Faun Otter
You can't vote them out if....
You never voted them
in.
The lack of any exit polling on November 5 has been oddly ignored by the media. Those
pesky tracking polls
leading up to the elections have been explained away by a late surge to the Republicans caused by....
hmmmm,
how about sun spot activity? With no exit polls, there was no other feedback to conflict with the "official" results,
this allowed the Diebold touch screen machines to change the way election fraud is carried out.
Previously, election cheating was a complex matter of ballot tampering combined with
sample skewing.
That is to say, you screwed up ballots for your opponent with under or over votes, made sure that people
likely to
vote against you wouldn't even get that chance (the program of voter disenfranchisement in Florida) and padded
your own vote total with such things as falsified absentee ballots.
In the much more high tech world of Diebold electronics we are seeing a wonderfully
efficient vote rigging system,
the long proposed 'black box' technology. Imagine a black box in which you cannot see the
workings. The only things
you can discern are an input and an output; in this case votes go in and collated totals come
out. There is no paper
record of each individual vote cast to enable any cross check of the collated output. The only
information you can
know for sure is the total number of votes cast on the machine. Each vote is stripped of any information
as to who
cast that ballot to guarantee anonymity for the voters. You now have a system in which you have no way to check
vote recording, vote collation and transmission of the collated totals out of the black box.
The perfect crime?
Not quite.
Let me suggest an experiment. We take two markets with similar socioeconomic
mixtures and a well
established record of moving in the same political direction. We provide them with candidates from
party
X and party Y. We then expose them to similar news stories, we spill TV and radio ads over between the
markets
to make the effects less local and give them identical weather on election day. The differences
between the markets are
1. the candidates and 2. the method of casting and counting the votes.
We then take a series of tracking polls on the
gap between the candidates leading up to election day.
If we express the tracking poll data as the relative preference for the candidates (12
point lead by X, down one
point from last week etc.), any substantial discrepancy between the forecast and actual election
outcomes should
arise from major news changes, the weather effects on turn out or a a social tendency to misrepresent
voting intent.
Since both groups get the same news, the same weather and have the same social tendencies, any difference
between tracking poll and actual poll data should be in the same direction and of a similar magnitude.
Sooooo...... how come the South Carolina elections had the Democrats doing much better
than the tracking
poll data showed and the Georgia elections, in an area with the same weather, same news and same
social values,
had a massive swing in a single day after the last tracking poll, in the opposite direction?
Could
it be the Diebold touch screen machines in use across the entire state of Georgia but not used at all in SC?
Of course, such a perfect method of mischief has been attempted before,
http://www.votescam.com/frame.html
-- Go to the link marked "Chapters" and read all about it.
Watch how few lines
pass before the names Bush and Sununu come up.
You can trim the wheels in mechanical voting machines but that is easier to spot than
a computer program set
up to be date sensitive so it causes only to misfunction on November 5. The current problem with
virtual ballot
tampering was apparent as long ago as 1989. Jonathan Vankin made this warning in "Metro: Silicon
Valley's
Weekly Newspaper," of Sept. 28, 1989
A single, Berkeley- based firm manufactures the software used in the machines that compile
more than
two-thirds of the nation's electronically-counted votes. Analysts describe the software as "spaghetti code,"
tangled strands of instructions indecipherable to outsiders. The experts say the code could be manipulated
without
detection. In fact, that may have happened already.
http://www.conspire.com/vote-fraud.html
After systematic punch card fraud was revealed in the 2000 election, touch screens were
proposed as a
panacea and have been rapidly adopted against the warning of experts,
Critics warn local election officials could be trading one set of problems for another
potentially as
bad, or worse, than last year's election debacle. They vigorously argue that fully electronic systems
pose
data-security problems and lack a paper trail. "There's no way to independently verify that the
voter's ballot as cast
was actually the ballot being recorded by the machine,'' said Rebecca Mercuri, a
computer scientist and visiting lecturer
at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
http://www.kioskcom.com/article_detail.php?ident=1021
It would be interesting to impound a few machines from the heaviest leaning Democratic
areas in Georgia and
reset the date in the machine to November 5, 2002. A hand counted series of inputs could be made
to the
machines. Note to James Baker: hand counting is the gold standard against which we check machine counting
efficiency.
An input of 500 or so dummy votes could then be tabulated and the outcome checked against the
inputs. Of course,
you could just check the software code. Except for one problem; the company refuses to
let anyone see their code
on the grounds that is a trade secret.
Oddly enough, Diebold arent the only Republican partisans who helped select our candidates
for office yesterday:
According to his press office, in 1995 Chuck Hagel resigned as CEO of American Information
Systems (AIS),
the voting machine company that counted the votes in his first Senatorial election in 1996. In January
1996
Hagel resigned as president of McCarthy & Company, part of the McCarthy Group that are one of the current
owners
of Election Systems and Software (ES&S), which itself resulted from the merger of AIS and Business
Records Corporation.
According to publicist/writer Bev Harris, Hagel is still an investor in the McCarthy
Group. ES&S is now the largest
voting machine company in America. One of its largest owners is the
ultra-conservative Omaha World-Herald Company.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Landes_Ambush.htm
For more background reading on who gets to play with your ballot, see:
http://www.talion.com/election-machines.html
Who are Diebold?
The corporate officers are as thick as thieves with the Republican
hard right religious nut division.
For those who have been lucky enough to forget, Senator Faircloth was the protege of
Jesse Helms in NC.
It looks like the board and the directors were all putting up money for a Faircloth victory when Edwards
took that senate seat. I wonder if they conspired to put things right.....?
http://www.diebold.com/
Board of Directors
Louis V. Bockius III (2,4,5)
6/28/00 $15,000.00
REPUBLICAN
NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
11/3/00 $10,000.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
10/9/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH
FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
10/9/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
Christopher M. Connor
Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer, The
Sherwin-Williams Company
5/22/00 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
3/30/00
$1,000.00
DEWINE FOR US SENATE
Gale S. Fitzgerald (2, 6)
President and Chief Executive Officer , QP Group, Inc.
7/12/00 $500.00
NEW YORK REPUBLICAN FEDERAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
10/12/98 $200.00
FRIENDS OF JOHN LAFALCE
10/18/99
$1,000.00
BUSH FOR PRESIDENT INC
Donald R. Gant (1,3,5)
Senior Director, The Goldman Sachs Group, L.P.
L. Lindsey Halstead (2,3,6)
Retired Chairman of the Board, Ford of Europe
12/22/98
$500.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
1/23/97 $500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
5/27/97 $200.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
10/31/97 $500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
12/28/99
$500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
3/7/01 $300.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
6/12/01 $200.00
REPUBLICAN
NATIONAL COMMITTEE
11/27/01 $200.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
1/24/02 $500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Phillip B. Lassiter (1,3,6)
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Ambac
Financial Group, Inc.
4/16/98 $250.00
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE
CONTRIBUTIONS
9/21/98 $250.00
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE
CONTRIBUTIONS
John N. Lauer (1,4,5)
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Oglebay
Norton Co.
10/10/00 $1,000.00
DEWINE FOR US SENATE
8/23/00 $250.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
3/17/97
$1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
Walden W. O'Dell
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Diebold
2/14/01 $2,015.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
12/17/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE
COMMITTEE
1/30/01 $3,950.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
8/16/01 $500.00
VOINOVICH FOR
SENATE COMMITTEE
12/17/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
6/30/00 $1,000.00
DEWINE FOR US SENATE
Eric J. Roorda
Former Chairman, Procomp Amazonia Industria Eletronica, S.A.
W.R.
Timken Jr. (2,3,4)
Chairman , The Timken Company
6/23/00 $50,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
6/8/01 $100,000.00
2001 PRESIDENT'S DINNER - NON-FEDERAL TRUST
3/14/01 $10,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL
STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
8/19/99 $15,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
11/3/00 $15,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
2/22/02 $1,000.00
RELY ON YOUR BELIEFS FUND
6/12/02 $1,000.00
OHIO'S REPUBLICAN SALUTE
Corporate Officers
Walden W. O'Dell
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Diebold
(See above)
Wesley B. Vance
Chief Operating Officer
8/16/01 $500.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE
COMMITTEE
Michael J. Hillock
President, Diebold International
11/18/97 $500.00
FAIRCLOTH
FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
David Bucci
Senior Vice President, Customer Solutions Group
11/18/97 $500.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
James L.M. Chen
Vice President and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific
Warren W. Dettinger
Vice President, General Counsel and Assistant
Secretary
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
1/30/97 $250.00
DEWINE FOR U S SENATE (2000)
Donald E. Eagon, Jr.
Vice President, Global Communications & Investor
Relations
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Charee Francis-Vogelsang
Vice President and Secretary
Larry D. Ingram
Vice President, Procurement and Services
1/30/97 $250.00
DEWINE
FOR U S SENATE (2000)
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Dennis M. Moriarty
Vice
President, Customer Business Solutions
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Anthony
J. Rusciano
Vice President, National Accounts
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
--- Hey
Tony! Listing yourself as retired and using
your vacation home address to avoid campaign donation
limits is a tad
naughty dont you think?
Charles B. Scheurer
Vice President, Corporate Human Resources
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Ernesto R. Unanue
Vice President and Managing Director, Latin America
Robert J. Warren
Vice President and Treasurer
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998