...one, private, far rightwing-connected corporation, ES&S, which bought out Diebold. These e-voting systems are run on 'TRADE SECRET' programming code--code that the public is forbidden to review--with half the states doing NO AUDIT AT ALL of the machine vote counting totals and the other half doing a miserably inadequate 1% audit.
This system GUARANTEES vote counting fraud. There is NO OTHER REASON to have a system like this. The only question is, HOW is it being used?
And perhaps a further question, by WHOM? (Who is behind ES&S? We can start that investigation with the current Sec of Defense, Chuck Hagel, one of the founders of ES&S, which did the no-audit vote counting of his first Senate election.)
GUARANTEES vote counting fraud. Look at this Congress! Is it representative of the American people? It damn well ISN'T. Look at the nutball RW governor of Wisconsin--one of the most liberal states in the nation! Look around! The evidence is everywhere--yet there is "no evidence," because, guess what? The evidence--the ballots, the counting--has been REMOVED FROM THE PUBLIC VENUE.
The GOP terrorist attack on our government that we seeing today STARTED WITH the plague of 'TRADE SECRET' voting systems that were spread throughout the land during the 2002 to 2004 period.
What is most astonishing, and what still flabbergasts me to this day, is the SILENCE of our Democratic Party leadership--silence and complicity--on this 'TRADE SECRET' assault on our democracy.
The sad fact is that the nutball "crisis" of a shutdown of the federal government that we are witnessing today serves the corporate interests that our party leaders are beholden to. While THIS gets talked about by the political chattering class, single-payer health care does NOT get talked about; the dramatically widening income discrepancy in this country does NOT get talked about; the waste of lives and of billions of tax dollars on the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" does NOT get talked about; the Forever War does NOT get talked about; the multi-billion dollar maintenance of a standing army does NOT get talked about...nothing REAL gets talked about. Political discussion is so far skewed to the right that it's fallen down the "rabbit hole" into utter "Mad Tea Party" nonsense!
Easy enough for our party leaders to answer this nonsense, and huff and puff about it, and never answer to us about their corporate sponsors, or about anything else.
'TRADE SECRET' vote counting creates POLITICAL NONSENSE.
We can widen our view and consider the whole system--the filthy corporate campaign contributions and lobbying; the corporate monopoly of "the news"; the non-stop pro-Wall Street, pro-1%er propaganda; the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act, and so on. MANY things contribute to the political nonsense that our democracy has come to. But we need to understand this one thing--ES&S/Diebold's lock on the voting system--before we can understand the others. It is the LATEST and FINAL corpo-fascist method of PREVENTING REFORM. It is, literally, a coup d'etat.
It can be used any way that its controllers want to use it--subtlety in some places, blatancy in others; permitting a "liberal" president to be elected, so as to make us forget Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld, but shaving his mandate and saddling him with a "Mad Tea Party" Congress; s/electing the candidates in primaries; trending ever to the right, to fascism; empowering fascist governors and state legislatures, to pass laws to further limit voter participation and to bust unions, and so on and so forth.
ES&S, which has far rightwing connections that would make your hair stand on end, HAS THIS POWER.
It is not difficult. It is EASY. The system is wide open to insider tampering.
One hopeful thing about this LATEST and FINAL anti-reform method is that we CAN do something about this one. We can't do anything about the others until we fix this one. But fixing this one IS possible, because voting systems are still a LOCAL matter. Your local registrar of voters--who bought these horrendous, anti-democratic voting machines--may live right down the street from you. His or her office may be only a short drive away. A citizen movement to get rid of these machines IS possible! Not easy but possible.
Deconstructing the standing army is not possible in current circumstances. Impeaching the Supreme Court is not possible. Campaign finance reform is not possible. A new "Fairness Doctrine" to control the corporate media is not possible. NONE of the things that we need to do to restore our democracy are possible while we have 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting. 'TRADE SECRET' voting counting is the cap on this system--the FINAL method of fascist control.
What they are DOING with this EASY control of the vote counting will occupy us for the next several decades--undoing all the harm, digging out from under corporate/war profiteer rule. I believe that's part of "the Plan"--or rather, is a contingency plan. If we get onto them--and get rid of these machines--it could take half a century to fully restore democracy here and to start creating the decent country that we all would like to be living in. Meanwhile, the banksters, and the transglobal corporations, and the war profiteers are cleaning up. The looting and corruption are MIND-BOGGLING.
Getting rid of 'TRADE SECRET' voting systems is our ONLY chance, in my view, of starting the process of reform. It may take decades, but it's got to start with TRANSPARENT vote counting.
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The fact is I would like to know that my vote was recorded and counted the way I cast it and if I were able to look it up I could do that. No system I have seen proposed has address that glaring issue. I am not an advocate for electronic voting if that's the impression I gave. But I want to go one step further and if the system needs to be changed then why not change it for the better. Change seems to be a given. A small number of votes have decided many things lately and it seems to be getting worse.
