Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- Voting-machine maker Election Systems & Software sued Ohio's elections chief Monday, claiming he delivered a virtual monopoly to Diebold Inc. last month that breaches his deal with ES&S.
The lawsuit, filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, charges that Secretary of State Ken Blackwell held secret, closed-door negotiations with Diebold unbeknownst to ES&S and a third certified vendor, Hart Intercivic...
Many perceive Blackwell's deal with Diebold as giving the politically connected Ohio company a virtual lock on the state's $100 million voting-machine conversion.
Counties will be compelled to pick a single type of machine for all types of voters, for simplicity and price reasons, the argument goes, as federal deadlines for the conversion loom. A new state law requires voting machines to offer a paper record...
What Can We the People Do About Election Fraud?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/008_ep.htmlApril 26, 2005
By Ernest Partridge, The Crisis Papers
During the two and a half years that The Crisis Papers has been on the web, we have posted hundreds of articles and links on our Election 2004 Fraud and Electoral Integrity pages. In addition I have written and published numerous essays about the issue, most recently just two weeks ago. On each occasion, I have received numerous letters telling me "I'm convinced that the elections are fraudulent," then asking, "now what can I do about it?"
Here is a partial answer. Partial, because if honest and verifiable elections are ever to return to the United States it will be because this question will be asked relentlessly by an outraged public.
Electoral integrity is arguably the most important political issue to face the American people since the founding of our democracy, as it raises the question of whether, in fact, we still have a democracy. For if, as the skeptics contend, the outcome of our federal elections are decided before a single vote is cast, then the government of the United States no longer "
its just powers from the consent of the governed." Despite what we are told from Washington, or by the corporate media, this is not a government "of, by, and for the people."
The grounds for suspicion about the integrity of our elections are simple, straightforward, and undisputed. In federal elections, thirty percent of the votes are cast and eighty percent of the votes are regionally compiled in machines (a) utilizing secret software, (b) producing no independent record of the votes (e.g. paper trails), and (c) manufactured by active members and supporters of the Republican Party. In sum, the system in place is effectively designed, either deliberately or accidentally, to facilitate fraud...