20 FACTS ABOUT U.S. VOTING

Thursday, July 13, 2006
20 FACTS ABOUT U.S. VOTING

Subject: 20 Facts about US Voting
-
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
by Angry Girl Nightweed.com
-
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
-
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
-
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
-
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
-
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
-
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26 http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
-
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html
-
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
-
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
-
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
-
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm
-
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
-
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
-
14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
-
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html
-
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here:

http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov. )
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
-
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
-
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950 http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
-
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html
-
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
-