NationStates Jolt Archive

20 Amazing Facts About U.S. Voting

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

note: to check the sources which back's up every fact above, please click on the link below.

source (http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html)

DECEMBER 2004 GALLUP POLLS
1 in 5 Americans believe the elections were fraudulent.
That's over 41 Million Americans.

Right. And the NAACP is just a bunch of conspiracy-theorists.

A nice heaping helping of the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY,anyone?

If people want their votes to be heard they should shout them out really loudly. It wouldn't really help get rid of vote fraud, but it would be funny.

20 Amazing Facts About U.S. Voting

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

Even assuming all of these points are true - I'm too busy to check right now - there's some things that need noting.

- Point 10 is merely saying 'They could do better' to point 9.

-To point 11: Everything is based somewhere.

-Points 4, 5 and 6 are all to do with one man.

-Point 8 is merely a reiteration of point 1, but focussing on one company instead of two.

-To point 12: What were those felons convicted of? If it's any form of computer hacking, I'd say that's a wise move.

-Point 16: I sincerely doubt this. If the chimpanzee was able to do it without assistance, it wasn't through any logical processes, but blind luck. Any idea how many attempts it took to make the video? (The link to the video didn't work for me, so I don't know how it's set up)

-Points 18-20: We all know that Florida made a mess of things. It didn't need three points.

-Point 19: I thought the two companies from point 1 were running things, not the governor?

- Point 10 is merely saying 'They could do better' to point 9.
...Which asks what motivation they have for not keeping a paper trail?

-To point 11: Everything is based somewhere.
I agree with you on that one.


-Points 4, 5 and 6 are all to do with one man.
But it was an important, influential man, and it points to corruption.


-Point 8 is merely a reiteration of point 1, but focussing on one company instead of two.
True. So, it's interesting, but not supportive of the argument, except in that it explains that ES&S counts 60% and Diebold counts 20% of all votes in the U.S.. That's important to know, though, for the argument because otherwise you could put forth two companies, one that measures 79% and one that measures 1%, and say, "COMBINED", that they equal 80%. It's important to make that distinction clear.


-To point 12: What were those felons convicted of? If it's any form of computer hacking, I'd say that's a wise move.
Good point.

-Point 16: I sincerely doubt this. If the chimpanzee was able to do it without assistance, it wasn't through any logical processes, but blind luck. Any idea how many attempts it took to make the video? (The link to the video didn't work for me, so I don't know how it's set up)
Actually, this was true!! The Washington Post covered BlackBoxVoting's video, although the video isn't on Washington Post, they mention the experiment that BlackBox did.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46816-2004Sep24?language=printer


-Points 18-20: We all know that Florida made a mess of things. It didn't need three points.
Oh, it certainly did. It's absolutely bizarre that [b]all[/i] of the voting anomalies in such a large area went in favor of Bush. That is unexplainable. Aside from all the other evidence, Florida alone warranted an independent criminal investigation.

What the hell is it with people not believeing in conspiracies? They have existed since the first time more than three people got together. They have existed in politics since politics itself existed. History is full of consipracies - assasinations, regicide, stealing a throne, acts of political sabotage, secret societies, event coverups, historical tampering, voting conspiracies, disenfranchisement, the list goes on and on.

And yet, with the evidence stacked for those who are suspicious of conspiracies... you are insane if you believe they could be happening to us. This list, while not a smoking hot gun proving BUSH IS EV1LL!!!111, is certainly a list of extremely suspicious things, that if there are greedy, powerhungry people out there - and there are - the things on the list could be used to form a consipracy undermining the democratic process.

Raise your hand if you have ever said - Freedom isn't free, or the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Well, in this instance, you couldn't be more correct. One must be vigilant - especially of those in your own country. As many if not more democracies have fallen because of internal usurpers, conspiritors if you will, than from military action. Be aware of the actions of those around and above you, and do NOT rule out the possibilty of consipracies, because the moment you do, you lose any possibility of detecting one, or stopping one should it occur.

With reference to the original topic:

It just proves what I've always said - democracy, when not being mob rule in a suit, is a suit screwing over the mob. Just choose an Imperial Family and get it over with.

And with reference to the current hijack:

oooh.... :eek: *dribble*

I think there is a difference of philosophies between the Reps and the Dems when it comes to cheating in elections.

*prepares the American thug impression* "Sooo... whacha gonna do about it, huh? Huh?"

Bush is not going to be impeached. He knows too many too important people for that.

Also, America is going to put up with this. Don't nurture dreams about a public investigation because a significant population cares about this. It's still undeniable that many people voted for Bush, and approve of his neocon, religion-based ideas.

It's like people assume North Koreans would want to dethrone their dictator Kim. No, they don't. They absolutely worship him. Those whose opinion matters, especially.

Soo, basically america is getting a taste of what chicago goes through every day of every month of every year? Big fucking deal.

Oh, it certainly did. It's absolutely bizarre that [b]all[/i] of the voting anomalies in such a large area went in favor of Bush. That is unexplainable.
Then what about all those pregnant and hanging chads in Florida that Democrat recounters said went to Gore (by way of the recounters magically gleaning the intent of the voters)? Or how about the MASSIVE voter fraud (dead people and felons voting, people voting multiple times, etc) by Democrats in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial race? Where's your call for investigations in either of those?

You're just pissed that the Republicans are better and slicker at vote fraud than the Democrats are. :p

In fact, here's a piece of satire I wrote on March 10 of this year dealing with this exact subject.Democrats Behind In Election-Stealing Technology

WASHINGTON, DC–As stories and rumors of election irregularities emerge in states such as Washington and Ohio, a DNC insider has revealed the truth behind these repeated claims of voter fraud.

“We’re behind in our efforts to steal elections. Republicans have the edge now that they’re in league with the voting machine corporations,” an anonymous source inside the DNC confided to The Armageddon Project on Thursday. “We Democrats are left to doing things the hard, old-fashioned way: getting felons and dead people to vote. In trying to keep up, we’ve had to resort to suppressing the military vote. It’s just not fair!”

“Teresa only told half the story,” the source stated, referring to Teresa Heinz Kerry’s comments reported in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on Monday. “She talked about the two brothers who, in essence, own 80% of the computerized voting machines in the US. What she didn’t talk about was our efforts to bring the brothers into the Democrat party. Without access to the voting machines, how will we win in 2006 and 2008?”

The future does indeed look bleak for the Democrat party. In the 2004 election, they were reduced to stealing only the Washington governor’s race. “We narrowly eeked that one out,” the source elaborated. “Since we couldn’t rig the voting machines, we had to stack the voting rolls with dead people, felons and multiple voters. We even had to go back to the ‘multiple recount’ method that we used in the 2000 presidential election. But we have another plan to tip the scales back in our favor.”

The plan that the source refers to is the Clinton and Kerry-sponsored ‘Count Every Vote Act’. “With the Count Every Vote Act in place, it will be much easier, not to mention legal, for Democrats to rake in the felon vote,” the source said, rubbing hands together gleefully. It would also make the software for voting machines openly accessible. “This will allow us to easily hack the voting machines, tipping the balance back in our favor.”

“The Republicans thought they had the electon-stealing market cornered, but never count the Democrats out,” the source concluded. “Where there’s a vote to be stolen, we’ll figure out how to steal it.” http://armageddonproject.com/?p=49

C'mon... doesn't anyone want to take a further shot at this? :p

If people want their votes to be heard they should shout them out really loudly. It wouldn't really help get rid of vote fraud, but it would be funny.

I think that's what exit polls are. Acknowledged world wide to be so accurate that they're how we make sure that foreign elections are legitimate and it turned out that our exit polls turned out to be the exact opposite of the eventual election result. Funny, huh?

C'mon... doesn't anyone want to take a further shot at this? :p

Sure. These two companies are going to be under more scrutiny when George Bush is out of office. Let's call that a hunch. Their days are numbered. Their suspicious days, at least.

I think there is a difference of philosophies between the Reps and the Dems when it comes to cheating in elections.

Yes, Republicans think that Democrats pointing out ways in which George W. Bush is a bad president is an underhanded attempt by Democrats to decrease Bush's voter turnout by resorting to facts and reality, whereas Democrats think that robbing people of the right to vote is probably a bad thing.

-Point 16: I sincerely doubt this. If the chimpanzee was able to do it without assistance, it wasn't through any logical processes, but blind luck. Any idea how many attempts it took to make the video? (The link to the video didn't work for me, so I don't know how it's set up)

The link didn't work for me either. But I have no trouble believing that even a Chimp can see that Bush is not a legitimate president.

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.


Every single source listed on the source page discusses discrepencies between exit polls and actual votes or differences in the absentee vs day of votes. All 'mysteriously unexplained', and doesn't offer up that the exit polls were done in a fashion that happened to favor women (who as a demographic tend to vote more democrat than the entire population) and that differences between absentee and day of votes isn't much to be concerned about.

In fact none of the sources discuss 'machine errors', but rather say 'unexplained discrepency, there for there must have been 'machine errors' and they ONLY gave Bush votes." If that is the kind of 'evidence' they have to try and make a claim like that.. LOL. The whole list isn't even worth looking at.

The whole list isn't even worth looking at.

Yet so many people are willing to and believe at face value everything that it says. I have a good friend in science who told me that good investigatin/experimentation doesn't ever really tell you the whole truth. It only eliminates falsehood until only the truth could possible remain.

So, read it for yourself, read our rebuttals and then choose for yourself. Just choose something and take a stand. I get tired of people standing on the fence being wishy-washy.

More facts about the voting system in the US:

1. Remember that "butterfly ballot" in the 2000 election that Democrats pointed to as a sign that Republicans had deliberately confused the voters? Well, it was designed by a Democrat, and it was approved by a committee of Democrats.

2. For the 2004 election, the Democratic Party hired the Ohio chapter of the NAACP to register people to vote in Ohio.

The NAACP thought it best to motivate both the voter and the person doing the registration by paying each of them with crack cocaine.

They were caught only at the last minute, and the local director of the NAACP admitted the scheme on the evening news in Columbus.

20 Amazing Facts About U.S. Voting
....
There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail...


Thank heavens some things are still left to the states to regulate for themselves!

Everything we do creates a paper trail - it is too late to turn back the clock on that one, unfortunately.

Yes, Republicans think that Democrats pointing out ways in which George W. Bush is a bad president is an underhanded attempt by Democrats to decrease Bush's voter turnout by resorting to facts and reality, whereas Democrats think that robbing people of the right to vote is probably a bad thing.

hmmm do i sense a slight hint of bias ;)

he he he.

Land of the free?

Have you ever tried to keep something this big a secret? Massive conspiracy theories like this one always have one fatal flaw; No one can keep a secret this big for very long, and it's been too long for no one to have come out about it.

Have you ever tried to keep something this big a secret? Massive conspiracy theories like this one always have one fatal flaw; No one can keep a secret this big for very long, and it's been too long for no one to have come out about it.

Shooting of JFK, that is much bigger than this and we still don't know what happened there

wow wow wow

wow wow wow
what is this other than a +1 to your post count?

20 Amazing Facts About U.S. Voting

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

note: to check the sources which back's up every fact above, please click on the link below.

source (http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html)

DECEMBER 2004 GALLUP POLLS
1 in 5 Americans believe the elections were fraudulent.
That's over 41 Million Americans.

Right. And the NAACP is just a bunch of conspiracy-theorists.
You ROCK Prez.
*bows*

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.


Yep, just a mile down the road from my house, I could go take a picture of their headquarters for you if you want!

But seriously, what does that have to do with anything.

In fact, all I see here is a bunch of insinuations and "ooooh! look big bad Diebold fascist types!" I see evidence that Diebold made mistakes, but nothing even remotely resembling evidence that any election fraud occured.

And as for the last statistic about 1/5 of Americans believing there was election fraud...

How many Americans believe in ghosts, horoscopes, UFOs and the like? Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it credible.

whereas Democrats think that robbing people of the right to vote is probably a bad thing.
Suuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre. That's why Democrats have worked so hard to have military votes invalidated in the last two elections. It's mere coincidence that the vast majority of military members vote Republican. :rolleyes:

Yep, just a mile down the road from my house, I could go take a picture of their headquarters for you if you want!

But seriously, what does that have to do with anything.

Didn't you know? Ohio is a hotbed of republican hackers!

Now, regarding paper trails there is a very obvious problem that everyone overlooks. The government has to pay for these machines. The government uses these things because a network of voting computers is cheaper to run than the old paper ballots. If you're using paper ballots you have to pay for:

ballots
transportation of the ballots
machines to count the ballots
people to watch overthe machine

With computers all you have to pay for are:

voting computers with modems
computer server with modem

Not only that but the final vote tally can be known literally minutes after the polls close. So if you had a system that was cheaper and faster than the old one what makes you think the government would shell out the money to buy printers for all the machines and basically run both a paper and computer voting system side by side??


Edit:
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

The validity of these arguments really depends on how the ex-cons voted, don't you think?

I'm under the impression President Shrub has an agenda... Am I right, O Great and Wise All-Knowing Uber Liberal Who Shalt Fight To Thy Death For Thy Destructive Social Policies And A Communistic, Liberal, Pandering, Pro-U.N., Pro-No-American-Sovereignty, Corrupt Government!

I don't really want to waste my time dealing with you, or those of like mind, because I know you are too hard-set in your brainwashed neural pathways. And if you don't understand that, it's because of low-education standards implemented and maintained by Liberals seeking to keep their constituencies uninformed and unintelligent enough to believe all their bull.

Thats just wrong! I mean any way you look at it is horrible