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TechnoratiExplosive New Vote Fraud Developments Continue To Rock Ohio and Florida
Breaking news in vote fraud cases in both Ohio and Florida are feeding a firestorm of controversy that is likely to continue escalating, with major implications for the 2008 election and the future of e-voting machines.
In Ohio, Jennifer Brunner, the newly elected Secretary of State, has received two of the four resignations she requested from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (BOE). The two Democrats on the Board, Edward Coaxum, Jr. and Loree Soggs, have complied with her call for their departures from Cleveland's scandal-ridden election authority.
However, Robert Bennett, who chairs both the Cuyahoga BOE and the Ohio Republican Party, has thus far refused Brunner's request. So has Sally Florkiewicz, Bennett's fellow Republican on the BOE. Should they continue with their refusal to resign, Brunner has threatened to hold public hearings, in the wake of which she could force the resignations.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that a criminal investigation is underway which centers on the Cuyahoga BOE's conduct of the November 2006 election. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason has turned again to Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter who recently won felony convictions of two BOE workers for rigging the 2004 presidential recount for another criminal investigation. Baxter will be investigating "possible criminal wrongdoings" related to ballot security and the scanning of absentee ballots.
A Cleveland State University Center for Election Integrity study has exposed various election irregularities in Cuyahoga County in the 2006 election. Among the most egregious were the BOE's failure to secure the dual keys (one for the Dems and one for the Republicans) required for the vote counting rooms; that they allowed shared computer passwords; and that they allowed an unexplained cable connection to the county's vote counting computer.
The Free Press also has viewed a video shot by Jeff Kirkby showing Cuyahoga County election workers downloading the county's election data onto portable laptops that were allegedly allowed to go home with BOE employees. These practices raise serious concerns over election data security.
Massive computer failures during the May 2006 primary led in February 2007 to the resignation of Michael Vu, who was the executive director of the Cuyahoga BOE at the time. Both Bennett and Vu pushed for the $20 million purchase of Diebold voting machines over strenuous objections from election protection activists, whose concerns were cablecast in the HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy" shown nationwide just prior to the November 2006 election.
On March 21, the Dayton Daily News reported that "After two days of tests, the results are in: About 2,500 people cast ballots in November on 56 malfunctioning electronic touch-screen voting machines in Montgomery County, said Steve Harsman, county board of elections director."
The Free Press has previously reported that there were nearly 30,000 undervotes in Montgomery County during the 2006 gubernatorial race, meaning an abnormally high 13.67% of all voters reportedly recorded no vote for the state's highest office. (See chart posted with this article at the Freepress.org web site courtesy of Pete Johnson and CASE-Ohio) Similar undervote problems exist in Adams, Darke, Highland, Mercer and Perry counties.
Meanwhile, Jonathon Simon has informed the Free Press that the Election Defense Alliance (EDA) is analyzing data from Adams County as part of a project to compare exit polls to actual votes. In the 2004 election, the exit polls showed John Kerry winning, while the actual machine and computer tabulated results gave the state to Bush by 118,000 votes.
Meanwhile, in Florida, internal memos from the ES&S voting machine company indicate an e-voting machine created an undervote problem, according to Wired News. In Sarasota County, 18,000 ballots recorded no votes in a hotly contested congressional race.
"But the memo, which the company sent to Florida election officials before the state's September primary, revealed that the iVotronic machines had a flaw that sometimes caused machines to respond slowly to a voter's touch 'beyond the normal time a voter would expect to have their selection highlighted.' The memo stated that a software upgrade was required but couldn't be certified before the September election. In its absence, ES&S sent election officials a warning sign to post at polls advising voters that they might need to press the screen for several seconds before their votes would register," wrote Wired News.
Reginald Mitchell, lawyer for People for the American Way, told Wired News that "this memo is the smoking gun…."
The six counties under investigation in Ohio all used Diebold machines suggesting that both major suppliers of e-voting machines have similar flaws that create undervotes.
These waves of breaking news about serious problems in the conduct of the 2004 and 2006 elections, and in the performance of electronic voting machines in the two states that have decided the last two presidential elections, make it a virtual certainty that we have barely begun to see the full extent of what has really been done to the American democratic system.
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of three books on the presidential election of 2004, and continue to cover breaking election protection issues at www.freepress.org.
8 Comments so far
Show AllA better way to run elections, combining paper ballots, VotePad for the disabled and appropriate use of optical scanners and the web for transparent counting:
http://www.marcbaber.com/ElectionReform.htm
Rigging has forever been the key word in American elections. I've listened a panel of experts from Harvard etc who admitted that historically the way US elections are administered (ie on a work day, in precisecly gerrymandered districts, by fox in henhouse boards, with literally hundreds of different rules by state/district) are tailored to suit the encumbents. There's little democratic about it.
What i don't understand is why US electoral authorities are in the hands of political parties. In most modern democracies, the electoral authorities are independent bodies (who guard their independence rigourously). The only downside is that, when you get the a government like the current Australian one (which is like a low fat version of the bush adminstration) you can't blame corruption.
BEYOND OBVIOUS
Any vote that can't be counted twice is not valid. How rediculous that "We the People" allowed such phony "sham-paigns" to intoxicate our political process. It is a shameful insult to our forefathers, the people of the world and future generations, that the village-idiot-grandson of Nazi co-conspirators was erected to the office of the president.
The US doesn't have a real president. Katrina proved that, in case anyone isn't already convinced. So what to do now?
"No honor without impeachment,
No justice without prosecution."
At this point in our evolution as a nation, the people of the USA must take full responsibility for allowing the moral fabric of our country to be shredded. As big a crime as it is to steal an election, it would be an even bigger crime to allow the petro-power-junkies to leave office without being marched out in handcuffs. The world has been raped and pillaged by bush, cheney, rummy, rice, and the other corrupted creatures that have used obscenely toxic wealth to buy world domination. Until the outlaws are held accountable for their crimes against humanity, the world will rightly blame the American people for the sins of miscreants we have armed and let run amok.
It is extremely important for Americans to admit that two elections occured in which the vote was rigged. We have known for years that the elections were stolen (see Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy"). We must recognize and admit that the leadership of our country has been usurped by an outlaw regime, and implement criminal proceedings accordingly. If this isn't done, then our system is broken beyond repair, and a new system of governance is necessary.
If the people who fought and died for our freedoms could see how we have allowed slimebags in the Bush regime to manipulate democracy so easily; violate the Geneva Conventions, making them obsolete; and wage shamelesss wars around the planet, they would wonder why we continue to pay taxes to the incumbent bunch of blatantly self-serving criminals. Coordinated tax revolt may be necessary to stop the destruction of the Earth by those who are riding the wave of economic inertia controlling our political system. I doubt that most Americans have the guts to stand up for what's right, rather than just go along with the continued rape of our sacred trust, but I honestly hope that I'm wrong.
Hello All,
If it is proven that Gore and Kerry did actually win, can we sue to have the Supreme Court Justices appointed by this gang removed? Probably will never happen, but I can dream.
Monte,
I don't know what the fallout will be of these fraud investigations. It is important though to find out how our system was manipulated and figure out how to fix the problems. There is a lot of work being done at the State level for election reform. Now that we are all awake, it's time to take action so that 2008 has some hope of electing candidates that actually represent the people of America.
I recommend that EVERYONE get active, make noise, and help the healing begin! Start by going to Common Cause (commoncause.org) where you can get directed to sites to take action in your State. Fairvote.org and nationalpopularvote.com are also excellent sites to take action. Without electoral reform we will continue to repeat the mistakes of 2000, 2004, and 2006.
Raise hell! Raise the volumn to a roar! And don't forget to have fun and a laugh while you're at it!
The 2000 Presidential Election is THE watershed event in 21st century American democracy. All our checks and balances failed, and we as citizens failed our Republic. The mainstream media failed to report the facts, the Senate failed to support the Black Caucus in the House (it was heartbreaking to watch as representative after representative begged for just one senator to stand with them to challenge the electoral vote -at least Barbara Boxer learned her lesson and did stand in 2004), the Supreme Court failed to act "judiciously" and we the people yawned and went back to sleep. We need a Truth and Reconciliation committee to deal with this event and set the record straight.
does anybody know what this means? i am serious. if the elections are proven to be fraudulent - no matter what the supreme court said in december 2000 - i mean is there anything that can be one or are we forced to consider that legal solutions have failed.
consider that some lunatic has stolen a gun and taken over a house and refuses to give up.
if the administration's power is held illegitimately, what do we do - is there any precedent - i dont know of one.
i mean we all know that it is - we all know that he has won no national election
gore won the 200 election and kerry won in 2004 - 2004 shouldnt even count because of 2000 right?