The REAL Terrorists: Conservative ‘CHRISTIAN’ Pastor Openly Calls For EXECUTING ALL GAY PEOPLE By Christmas Day

[Peace Patriot]

23. Guess who's 'counting' all our votes?

ES&S (which bought out Diebold) now controls about 75% of the electronic voting systems in the country, all run on 'TRADE SECRET' code--code that the public is forbidden to review--with half the states doing NO AUDIT AT ALL (all electronic, no paper ballot) and the rest doing only a miserably inadequate (1%) audit (comparison of ballots to electronic totals).

The initial and major investor in ES&S (now ES&S/Diebold) was Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the far rightwing, nutball religious Chalcedon foundation, which advocates the death penalty for homosexuals!

You wonder what's wrong with this country? THAT'S what's wrong! We've had our citizen duty to count our own votes ripped out of our hands and placed in the hands of far rightwing nutballs, like this 'pastor.' This occurred recently (circa 2002 to 2004 - result of the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" passed by the Anthrax Congress in 2002). This was not the first wrecking ball to U.S. democracy; it was the last, the final blow--and, until we fix it, nothing can or will change. E-voting locked in the power of transglobal corporations, the .01% and the "military-industrial-prison complex" by giving over the very counting of our votes to the far rightwing Urosovich brothers who run ES&S/Diebold (worse than the Koch brothers, believe me) who serve those interests.

Every political commentary discussing the political, economic or social ills plaguing our country needs to start with these facts; otherwise it's just air. FASCISTS AND NAZIS NOW CONTROL THE VERY COUNTING OF OUR VOTES.

It's so basic! Don't you wonder how a Congress with an 8% approval rating could be 'elected'? They WEREN'T elected. They were s/elected. Don't you wonder how one of the most progressive states in the U.S.--Wisconsin--could 'elect' a far rightwing, nutball governor? He WASN'T elected. He was s/elected. It's happening all over the country, wherever they think they can get away with it, which seems to be almost everywhere. And in the few places where they might not get away with it--say, California and New York--we get mostly pro-corporate, pro-war Democrats, not reformers.

It's quite deliberate, is my guess. It might even be a sort of secret 'market' for powerful political positions, with the reps of various forces bidding for s/elections. Hard to say, it's all been so SMOTHERED. But what is clear is that the far rightwing ES&S/Diebold HAS THIS POWER. Even paper ballots and mail-in ballots are run through their tabulators, and NOBODY is comparing 99% of those ballots to the electronic totals!

You worry about this 'pastor'? That's not who we should be worrying about. We've always had a tiny minority of dangerous nutballs like him. What we should be worrying about is who is s/electing nutball Congress persons and governors, and how they are doing it.

It is still possible to change this. States and local jurisdictions still have the power to chuck these 'TRADE SECRET' code machines into 'Boston Harbor' (so to speak) and go back to citizen-counted paper ballots (until we figure out foolproof electronics). It may not be easy but it is doable. THEN we can deal with corporate media, Citizens United, fascist police and everything else--when we have TRUE, actually elected, representatives in public office. Without taking back our voting system, we are fairly helpless to address any problem in a constructive way--in a way that the militarized police won't brutally shut down. Without taking back our voting system, there is almost NO REASON for those in public office to listen to us. They are NOT beholden to us--not only because of "money in politics," and not even primarily because of it. They are not beholden to us because they were NOT ELECTED.