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Republicans
and Brits Will Count California's Recall Votes
by
Lynn Landes
October
4, 2003
When
will the Democrats wake up and smell the fix? There is a reason why George Bush
and his cronies wear a perpetual smirk on their faces. There's a reason for their cocksure
confidence. They may not win every election, but if they don't, it will because
they chose not to. For nothing is clearer than this, Republicans dominate
voting technology companies in America. And they have foreign partners.
A
handful of Republican corporations and British-owned companies control the vote
count in California and across the nation. Britain and it's offshore
territories not only shelter corporate America from taxes due to the U.S.
Treasury, the Brits are also providing a haven for vote-counting companies like
Accenture, the former Andersen Consulting, currently located in Bermuda and
slated to count the military online vote in 2004. It's all enough to make one
wonder who won the Revolutionary War... American patriots or the British and
American Tories?
And
as California Governor Davis goes, so may go other elected officials, maybe
even some Republicans. Any elected official from either party who has crossed
President Bush should start worrying.
For
those who are still living in the Valley of Denial, and think that the
California recount is a fair election, here is the breakdown. On a geographical basis, British-based
Sequoia takes the lead in the vote count in California counties. Twenty-one
counties use Sequoia voting technology, 15 counties use ES&S, 14 - Diebold,
6 - DMF Associates, and 2 counties use PollStar. On the basis of registered
voters, ES&S takes the lead with 7,305,680 voters, Sequoia - 3,682,051,
Diebold - 2,412,971, PollStar - 1,308,789, and DMF Associates - 593,978.
ES&S,
the nation's largest voting company, is owned by the Omaha World Herald Company
and has solid ties to the Republican Party. ES&S claims on their website
that they tabulated "56% of the U.S. national vote for the past four
presidential elections." Diebold Election Systems, is the second largest
company with 33-35% of the electronic vote, according to a Diebold
spokesperson. Walden O'Dell, Diebold's chief executive, recently wrote a
fund-raising letter for the re-election of President George Bush. Then there's
Sequoia. It is owned by De La Rue, a British-based company and the world's
largest commercial security printer and papermaker. They also own a 20% stake
in Camelot, the operator of the Great Britain's National Lottery. Want to take
any bets on who wins the California recall, the U.S. presidency in the 2004
election, and maintains control of both houses of Congress?
Of
course, not all of the counties will use company technicians to program their
software for the upcoming election. They may, like Los Angeles County, use
county employees or independent contractors to do the job. Even if "Ralph
from the county," programs the software... who is this guy? Why should voters trust him to count their
votes? What ever happened to public
oversight of the vote count? With voting machines counting the vote, what do
poll watchers watch? What do Federal Observers observe? How do they enforce the
Voting Rights Act? The technicians who program these machines can be
manipulating votes right, left, and center...and nobody would be the wiser.
All
the studies that show how well or poorly different voting systems work, such as
the 2001 CalTech/MIT Report, do not take into account deliberate vote fraud.
The researchers study "residual" or lost votes, meaning undervotes
and overvotes. Even the October 2001 GAO report says, "...FEC generally
agrees with most of our observations and recommendations, including that human
factors are not being addressed in the revised voting equipment standards and
that FEC needs to accelerate their development in future iterations of the
standards."
A
"human factor" is the accidental or deliberate manipulation of votes
by humans.
The
technological take over of the vote began over 100 years ago with the
introduction of lever machines. Today, we're facing a paperless electronic and
Internet voting process controlled by Republicans and the British and only god
knows who else. It is making a mockery of our elections. A paper ballot, a pen,
a ballot box, and a local hand-count is the simple technology that most nations
use to elect their leaders. Our use of complex technology has taken public
oversight completely out of the process, making our elections completely
vulnerable.
And
it doesn't really matter whether private corporations or public servants
control the technology. Any use of mechanical or electronic voting technology
is an open invitation to vote fraud and technical failure. Any use of
sophisticated voting technology concentrates the risk of fraud or failure into
the hands of those who control it.
If
we're going to fix this mess, we need to fix it right. The machines must go.
And so must the Brits, the Republicans, and anyone else who seeks to control
American elections.
Lynn Landes is a freelance
journalist. She publishes her articles at EcoTalk.org.
Formerly Lynn was a radio show host, a regular commentator for a BBC radio
program, and environmental news reporter for DUTV in Philadelphia, PA. She can
be contacted at (215)
629-3553, or by email at: lynnlandes@earthlink.net
* Other Related Articles by Lynn
Landes
* How We Lost The
Vote - How To Get It Back
* Internet
Voting – The End of Democracy?
* Voting
Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold
* Offshore
Company Captures Online Military Vote
* Suspicion
Surrounds Voter News Service
* Mission
Impossible: Federal Observers & Voting Machines
* 2002
Elections: Republican Voting Machines, Election Irregularities, and
"Way-Off" Polling Results
* Voting
Machines - A High Tech Ambush
* Election
Night Projections: Cover For Vote Rigging Since 1964?
* Elections In
America: Assume Crooks Are In Control