BREAKING: ES&S (voting machine vendor) laid off 30% today...

[ReverendDeuce]

(I am going to meet some former ES&S people I know at their local watering hole in Omaha, NE. I'll post pics or an update later if possible as we have a snow-storm starting up here!)

(I am located in the same city as ES&S HQ and know folks who work there...)

ES&S = Election Systems & Software, a main competitor to Diebold.

They just shipped their new DS-200 optical scan systems to Florida and today they laid off 30% of their workforce including many in upper management.

This represents 48-60 jobs. Most in management who are keeping their employment were significantly demoted.

As I've been told, security teams are in force at the main ES&S campus armed with tasers and batons. They are escorting people out of the building in groups. People are being handed their final paychecks on the way out in the form of American Express travelers' cheques. Somebody has apparently tipped over the soda machines in the break room.

The beginning of the end?

[Vincardog]

1. WE can hope. Make them return the money and dissolve the corporation.

[Botany]

2. Diebold and EES are the same .... owned by brothers

Both benefited from HAVA.

[fascisthunter]

13. Was EES Up in NH?

or was that just Diebold?

[Botany]

19. Diebold Optiscan in N.H.

Now called Premier Election Solutions. In roughly 80% of the precincts.

Trying to remember the name but it something like Urosovich .... one has
Diebold the other has EES.

[Stevepol]

21. Urosevic I think, but they're not in charge now, not at both places anyway,

and probably not at either, but they were in charge when most of the real manipulation was taking place. I think ES&S was probably the reason we got Coleman instead of Mondale and a lot of other strange results in elections.

If this story is true, I'll bet there are some guys in there who cd quite a tale tell, esp for the right money. I'll bet there are some disgruntled programmers who know some stuff that would make Conyers' ears tingle.

I'll bet the main reason ES&S is reducing its work force (besides the strong possibility that somebody on the inside is getting uneasy about keeping secrets) is the growing movement toward required paper and audits for every election. Elections are no fun when you can't do anything but just program a computer to add 1+1 and get 2. About 5 or 6 years ago I think, the ES&S touchscreen had over a million lines of programming, evidently just to tell the machine to add 1+1, tho there's no telling what result the machine was programmed to get. 1+1 = 8? 1+1 = -16,000?

Who knows. One election official in AR who resigned said that ES&S was "mean spirited" and they couldn't "spell." That pretty much sums it up. They're pretty much strong-armed thugs I think.

[Botany]

27. EES has seemed to "help" in a few races

Hagel in Nebraska ..... African Americans came out and voted for him
in Ohama

Deb Pryce (R) v Mary Jo Kilroy (D) Ohio U.S. House 15th District 2006
Kilroy was 12 points up w/ 10 days to go .... Pryce never pulled above
44% but on election day she pulled a "miracle" 50.1 % to win re=election.

But in good news Ohio w/ our new Sec. of State we might be dumping
all touch screen voting ..... she ran a double blind test on them and they
all failed.

BTW So why do they need a million lines of programing?

:rofl:

A Diebold Precinct but always a good story.

"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22

[fascisthunter]

28. Thank You... (nt)

[peacetalksforall]

3. How much has Hagel profited to this day?

[CoffeeCat]

4. OMFG....

Wow.

This has the appearance of them anticipating VERY bad news, after that vote count is finished.

Holy buckets.

It's one thing to lay off people, after bad news hits and you know you won't need the workers. It's
another thing to usher most of them out the door as a recount is underway--just before the world will
discover (or not discover) if your machines are at the epicenter of a shitstorm.

If voter fraud is found in NH, on those machines, and it's clear that this is what has happened---they
probably want as many employees out the door. The media will immediately show up and want to interview
employees. Best to get the lower-levels out, before the shineola hits the fan.

They're probably try to weed it down to employees that they know are "company men" who will not give
away secrets. Plus, if you unexpectedly usher people out the door, they can't print off documents
or gather evidence.

Holy crikey! This is looking like we might have a clear-cut case of fraud exposed in the next few days.

This sure doesn't seem like a coincidence! ES&S knows what's coming down the pike!

Are they a public company? I'm going short, baby!

Holy maird.

(Edited to add: Darn, they're a private company).

[ReverendDeuce]

9. Yeah, I'd short this big-time... n/t

[Peace Patriot]

17. I agree with most of your points, but the machines in NH are Diebold.

The two corporations are closely related, however. ES&S was a spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture--Windows!), and they were, indeed, run by two brothers, Bob and Tod Urosevich. I think Bob left Diebold. But Tod may still be an ES&S. Diebold recently changed the name of its elections div. to "Premier," and started separating that div. from the rest of the company (which does ATMs, mostly), possibly in anticipation of lawsuits.

Diebold and ES&S also share political philosophy. Diebold's CEO was a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser. (He's gone now, too--Wally O'Dell). And ES&S has initial funder and major investor Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation (which touts the death penatly for homosexuals, among other things).

CA Sec of State Debra Bowen hit ES&S with a $15 mil lawsuit this fall, over lies they told about the security of their disabled voting machines, which they sold to SF and other CA counties. She also decertified their Los Angeles County voting system (ES&S designed and manufactured, called InkaVote), because, unlike every other voting machine corporation, they did not provide her with equipment/software by the deadline, for her top-to-bottom review of CA election systems this fall. Experts found many security flaws in their L.A. system, and they were given 35 conditions that they must meet, for the Feb. 5 election. (I haven't been able to find out yet if they have met the conditions.). Bowen is a VERY INTELLIGENT Sec of State, working closely with computer experts, and may have found something--which could precipitate a corporate crisis. She's really on their case.

The FL-13 case--which involves ES&S 'disappearing' 18,000 votes for Congress in Democratic areas (in an 06 election that ES&S awarded to the Bushite (Vern Buchanan), by a margin of only 350 or so votes) went to the GAO in November for investigation (GAO, Congress' investigative agency, is one of the few agencies of our gov't from whom we can expect honesty). They might have found something. That case is highly, highly suspicious. It involves ES&S's outrageous assertion that their "right" to profit from our elections, with their "trade secret" code, trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes are counted, even in a stinko case like FL-13. They refused to disclose their software to Democrat Christine Jennings' lawyers, and the Jeb judge agreed with ES&S. My jaw dropped when I read about that.

More bad news for ES&S: They got exposed by Dan Rather in his hot documentary "The Trouble With Touchscreens" (www.HD.net). One revelation: ES&S touchscreens are manufactured in sweatshops in the Philippines, under highly insecure and onerous conditions. Great documentary! It's got some fascinating stuff on FL-2000, too.

The machines in question in NH are Diebold optiscans. And although they do have a paper ballot backup, NH has NO audit! ZERO automatic hand-count to check for errors or fraud. I was floored when I learned that. But even the best states do only a 1% audit. And recounts are generally not full recounts, but, say, 3% of selected precincts.

Nobody is counting our ballots! Even where we manage to get a paper trail, it is not being utilized at all--or not sufficiently--to verify elections.

Kathy Dobbs (stats expert) recommends 5% to 10% audit - needed to detect fraud. This is especially needed in a TRADE SECRET CODE system. In Venezuela, they hand-count a whopping 55% of the votes--and they have an OPEN SOURCE CODE system (anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated).

In sum: The entire country is extremely vulnerable to election fraud. And ES&s and Diebold are the two election theft corporations who pushed hardest for this fascist coup, and profited tidily from it. (Also Sequoia--the third big election theft industry player--also has ties to the Republican Party.)

[BuyingThyme]

5. Voting is so yesterday.

[Robbien]

6. ES&S is the vendor of choice for Illinois

Our early voting started this week. Many counties still don't have ballots. ES&S of course is pointing blame to some other guy.

So now there are fewer people available to help out with elections. Probably the only ones left are the ones who know how to rig the vote totals.

[Ravy]

7. The original memo from the board said they would lay off 60 percent,

but they ran it through one of the machines to get a more "accurate" count.

[Birthmark]

8. Fraud!

The polls said they'd layoff 38%!!

Sorry. It had to be said.

[CoffeeCat]

10. About those soda machines...

I heard that an employee put in their money and pushed "Diet Pepsi", and then
their selection changed to "Coke". Right in front of their damn eyes.

(We could go on all night, couldn't we?)

[Ian David]

11. I have ZERO sympathy. n/t

[MasonJar]

12. When you go down, please take Cheney and Bush with you, Pretty please.

[kster]

14. I know where they could pick up a few bucks

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30092

[FreepFryer]

15. Blow whistle blow! The kind of asshole who'd rig votes is the kind of person who'd revenge-testify!

[Binka]

18. A Man Or Woman Of So Dubious Character Is The First To Squeal

They'll do it to save their own ass because anyone involved in something as unscrupulous as voter fraud is a fucking bully and a COWARD. This is karma for all the election fraud from the Pukes for the past decade. Oh baby the Dem's are gonna sweep the House and Senate if this comes to fruition!

[vanboggie]

16. I do believe we have ES&S here in Michigan

At least in my area ...and probably those 20 counties that "reprogrammed" during the election yesterday. :rofl:

[EFerrari]

23. You have ES&S and Diebold. It was Diebold machines that

were "reprogrammed" in some counties yesterday.

[leftofthedial]

20. the big boom era in rigged elections is over

now the oligarchy owns the entire process and all the major candidates outright.

they don't really care which one of their stooges "wins," so they don't need the machines to cheat.

[vanboggie]

26. I'm afraid you're right n/t

[mod mom]

22. Maybe they're aware we're on to them and realize we won't be needing any more

of those faulty machines. Time to wrap up shop-mission accomplished.

[Stephanie]

24. Let the Whistle Blowing Begin!

This could get good. They just pissed off way too many people.

[lonestarnot]

25. I hope they all rot and die.

[ReverendDeuce]

29. UPDATES: 1/17/2008 --- THE LATEST FROM THE INSIDE ---

Okay, not much new to report...

Apparently some of the people who were let go have been with the company for quite some time (up to fifteen years)! Nobody saw this coming and it was a complete and total shock to everybody who was canned.

Nobody can figure out why this was done so close to the start of the election season. Typically, these companies apparently let staff go AFTER the elections as the long sales cycle begins.

More as it happens...

[ReverendDeuce]

30. MORE UPDATES...

Apparently these people were fired because the HAVA money ran out and the ES&S board has decided to do a wholesale exit of the HARDWARE market.

That's right, ES&S will no longer be manufacturing or selling hardware of any kind!

More as it breaks...

[dorkulon]

31. That's good news... I guess... /nt