July 2009

 

 

 

Page 2

 

 

How independent are they when they are paid by the same vendors whose machine they test?

 

When Bev Harris of election watchdog group Black Box Voting paid a surprise visit to Ciber Labs to find out just who was testing these voting systems that we're told are so secure, she interviewed the lone employee, Shawn Southworth, who admitted that the machines were NOT tested for security, AT ALL!

 

And when Bev asked Shawn about what happens when they find something negative while testing the machines, his response amounted to, "Well, the vendors get mad when we report anything bad about the machines!" He wouldn't want to have endangered his paycheck, now, would he?

 

Convicted felons have been programming election software, another fact unearthed by Bev Harris. And the conflicts of interest among the corporate vendors are amazing. Some of the corporations who manufacture election equipment happen to have millions of dollars in the defense industry and other types of government operations.

 

Currently, many states are considering spending millions more of your tax dollars, on top of the $3.6 billion that was already spent since 2002 purchasing electronic voting equipment, to rush into purchasing either printers for the worthless "voter verified paper audit trail", or optical scan counters that count paper ballots, as alternatives to the paperless touch-screen machines.

 

VOTER BEWARE! Do not be fooled by these false solutions! It has been proven by computer experts that it is just as easy to tamper with elections that utilize either of these methods, and they are simply more taxpayer boondoggles.

 

You might wonder why we would oppose utilizing an optical scan counter that counts paper ballots which that conceivably can be used for a recount. Even many so-called election reform activists are furious that other election activists are opposed to the optical "scam" machines (as we have nicknamed them).

 

The reason? Optical scan machines can be easily tampered with and record votes internally differently than the ballot was marked by the voter. This was powerfully demonstrated in the Emmy-award nominated HBO documentary, "Hacking Democracy", which showed the actual hacking of a real optical scan counter, right under the eyes of the election official who invited the experts in to see if it could be done. Additionally, recounts, with their severe "chain of custody" problems with the ballots, which are stored in various places and handled by numerous people between Election Day and the recount, leave way too much room for fraud. The recount of the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio was rigged, for example - a little known fact that resulted in two election workers in Cuyahoga County receiving 18 month prison sentences. But mainstream media did not cover that one!

 

We say, "Get it right on election night!" Citizens need to come forward and hand-count their own hand marked paper ballot elections. We do not want nor need corporate involvement in our elections. Closed circuit TV can keep a watchful eye on the ballot box where hand marked paper ballots can be kept and counted ON ELECTION NIGHT by citizens.

 

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