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No Secret Ballot for Military Personnel?
belmolis writes "According to this editorial in today's New York Times, US military personnel for whom regular absentee ballot procedures are inconvenient are being provided with a questionable alternative, the Electronic Transmission Service, run by a private contractor, Omega Technologies. According to the NYT, the secrecy of ballots could be breached when they are faxed or emailed from the field, when they are in the hands of Omega Technologies, or when they are in the hands of local officials. The NYT was unable to obtain any information on security procedures from the company or from the Pentagon. A manual describing the system can be downloaded here [pdf document]. Like Diebold, Omega is far from non-partisan. Omega President and CEO Patricia Williams has donated $6,600 in this election cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee and is a member of its Business Advisory Council."
here
Thousands Registered to Vote in 2 States-Report
"But the newspaper found that between 400 and 1,000 registered voters voted twice in at least one election, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68 percent are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans and 16 percent didn't align themselves with a party, the newspaper reported on Sunday."
Feel any better?
Incidentally, the secret ballot wasn't developed by the US or the UK as you may expect, but Australia back when it was a colony.
Wikipedia has details.
Not sure what relevence this has to the thread, so mod me down if you want, but I find it kind of interesting that a mere convict colony developed this 'fundamental principle a democratic society is built on'.
Kerry never voted against flack jackets
Here's the data:
o &c ycle=04&criteria=OMEGA+TECNOLOGIES+INCORPORATED%2F PRES
.
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
.com for her for any other election or candidate. Note, too, that I had to do some hunting to find this - in the database, the company name is mis-spelled "TECNOLOGIES" each time (rather strange, that). Nothing listed for '00, even though the company was founded in '91. If you go to the website, you'll see that it is not a big company, but is officially a "minority, woman-owned, small disadvantaged business." http://www.omega-its.com/about.htm If you had read even the summary carefully, let alone the editorial, you would have noticed that she's part of an advisory board - one usually doesn't do that for opposing parties.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/finance.asp?type=i
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
OMEGA TECNOLOGIES INCORPORATED/PRES
VA
600
03/04/2003
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
OMEGA TECNOLOGIES INCORPORATED/PRES
VA
1,250
04/29/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,000
06/27/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,250
06/30/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,250
07/30/2003
NATIONA
Note that it's all soft money - none directly to the candidate. That's a sign of an insider. There is nothing listed at Campaign Finance
I can't in the 10 minutes I've chosen to dedicate to research this particular one manage to find evidence that Ms. Williams is on the Business Advisory Board, but here's a description of that board:
What is the Business Advisory Council?
The Business Advisory Council is a small, prestigious group of conservative businessmen and women, who have joined with the NRCC to advocate a progressive, conservative, pro-business agenda. The Business Advisory Council allows for these individuals to pool their expertise and know-how to to bring some common business sense to Washington.
(I have to admit that I find the use of the term "progressive, conservative" hilarious, as they are by both their dictionary definitions and their historical ideological meanings antonyms.)
I live overseas and inside the envelope there is a letter that says you have the option to fax in your ballot, but you must sign the waver about the secret ballot. BUT you can mail the thing in and you have the secret option.
It's quite obvious that it's not some crazy conspiracy, if you fax in you must also incude your voter card (or else someone will do a DoS attack) The mail in letter is unique and could be easly identified as a fourge.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast is one person who originally turned up the bogus use of military absentee ballots in Florida in the 2000 election.
You'd think they would have straightened it out, but as this story reports the absentee process in Florida if anything has gotten worse!
Now, four years later and the process is not fixed, and is arguably worse than ever. Accidental or planned?
As the poster above has pointed out, contributors to campaigns have to identify their employers. This doesn't mean the COMPANY is involved in any way.
In this case, it looks like an individual giving money, not the corporation. Ms. Williams certainly appears to have strong political interests, but so what? The MoveOn crowd's not upset that George Soros and dozens of celebrities are deliberately using their money or public standing to stump for a candidate. How's Bruce Springsteen's political tour any different from Patricia Williams?
We had for many years a party called the "Progressive Conservatives". (It just disappeared via a hostile takeover from itself, but I digress from my digression). It must have meant something to the people involved, since in the east their voters dropped them like a radioactive potato when they removed progressive from their name.
I guess in this instance "progressive" was supposed to be a modifier of "conservative".You must have been out a while.
While there are still a large number of military who are pretty firmly GOP, I'd have to disagree with that "almost all" assessment. I'm active duty, and I've gotten into many a political conversation at my command, only to be surprised by just how many of my fellow servicemen are not Bush supporters at all. There are a surprising number (I'd estimate about 1/3 to 1/2 of those I've discussed it with) that are backing Kerry, mainly due to the Iraq war, which isn't supported as whole-hog in the military as some would think.
From my (admittedly anecdotal and unscientific) observations, the staunchly GOP ones in ranks are usually the older, more senior enlisteds and officers (I'm Navy, so for me that is the senior CPO's and Commanders/Captains/Admirals). But many "blueshirts" and junior officers, I'd hazard to say a majority, are against a second Bush term...even those who normally roger up Republican. The Iraq war is a big hot-button issue driving this.
It's interesting to me, in fact, to see how some reacted recently to the new "Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal" and "Global War on Terrorism Service Medal". These were awarded to those who served in units that were in certain actions listed as being under the GWOT. One of these was Operation Iraqi Freedom. I know several people who questioned the award of the GWOT medals for Operation Iraqi Freedom, as they didn't believe OIF was part of the GWOT. This started a rather heated debate recently (I managed to get right in the middle), with one officer telling people to jolly well not wear the medal if they didn't agree with it. I've not decided yet...I rate the medal since I served on a ship involved directly in OIF, but I question OIF being part of the GWOT myself. I don't wear the ribbon yet (though honestly I rarely wear a uniform that includes ribbons/medals...we don't wear ribbons/medals in our everyday working uniforms).
But to get back on topic, the military isn't as solidly GOP as people would think. Many junior soldiers/sailors won't come out and say it for fear of publicly disagreeing with the brass, but if you get a fly-on-the-wall perspective of deckplate discussions you'd see there is a lot of Kerry support in the ranks.
"Peace through superior firepower."
Ancient Athens had secret ballots. They placed either a white or black marble into a vase. The color of the ball could not be observed as they put their hand (holding the marble) into the vase.
The marbles being oftentimes spherical, this is where the name ball-ot derives from.
The things you learn in high-school..
Though IIRC there were earlier examples of secret ballots, going back to either ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia, I forget which.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
FWIW, the Time poll that showed a double digit lead had some serious issues. First it was taken during the convention. The one poll taken during the DNC gave Kerry a thirteen point lead, and was ignored as it should have been - polls taken during a convention are inherently misleading. Second Time changed their methodology. For this one poll - they pushed on undecideds during the convention. The poll was conducted entirely unprofessionally - pushing undecideds while a convention is heppening is ludicrous. It almost looks like they were trying to get a bandwagon effect to swing other polls to Bush, though Time is typically professional, so I doubt this and hope that they were just really off the ball.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
davejenkins is as wrong as wrong can be. The "Australian Ballot" system has remarkably strong checks on ballot integrity and trail. davejenkins has never taken a close look at a polling place, apparently.
At the beginning of the day, an elections worker opens a ballot box to make sure it is empty, under the watchful eyes of observers from contesting political parties (e.g. a Democrat and a Republican). Given their contrary desires about election outcome, no observer would consent to pre-stuffing the ballot (i.e. they might like fake ballot of their own party, but not of the other party).
Then the ballot box is sealed, and a lock is placed on it. The box is also watched by those mentioned observers during the course of the day, so stuffing becomes difficult.
At the end of the day, everyone watches the box being unlocked; watches the ballots being pulled out and shuffled (to increase anonymity for early- or late-voters by eliminating sequence).
Then under the watchful eye of all the observers (and of several elections workers), the ballots are counted and sorted. Totals recorded. Vote tallies posted at the polling place. Procedures signed off on by judges and observers. And the records sealed back up into envelopes or lock boxes.
NONE of these safeguards exist in Omega's secret system that lacks any observers.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Some rather entertaining quotes from the sites you linked: ...(The Abu Nidal Organization) relocated to Iraq in December 1998, where the group maintains a presence.
Has not staged a major attack against Western targets since the late 1980s.
Sounds like a definite clear and present danger to the security and welfare of the United States today. Oh yeah.
IMO, it's stretching things quite a bit to use this as a justification for the invasion of Iraq, given that the "War on Terror" doesn't seem to apply to most domestic/regional terrorists in the world, or about states which employ domestic terrorism as a means of control.
No, instead Bush deserted the military for over a year. He then went on to earn the recognition of a drunk driving conviction. Next he would found an oil company which did business with the Bin Laden family. In August of 2001 he would ignore a daily briefing pointing out that one of the Bin Ladens was planning to highjack airplanes and fly them into American building. When it finally happens, over a month later, upon being informed of most devestating attack by foreign forces on the U.S. mainland, Bush sits there for. He just sits there. For 7 and a half minutes. He just sits there. He doesn't call out the Air Force. He doesn't authorize shooting down the enemy. He just sits there. In recent times he has entered the United States of America into a war of choice against the nation of Iraq. This war of choice has a main beneficiary: Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corporation. Cheney's Halliburton Corp. has taken over $17 Billion dollars in no-bid contracts and counting. This is U.S. taxpayer money Bush is shuttling into a private corporation without any oversight. Speaking of taxes, I love a guy who can give the majority of his tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans (people who make over $250,000 every year) while cutting funding to schooling, healthcare, social security, the environment, scientific research, and military pay.
Did he have to go through basic training upon his inauguration? No.
Does he have to mutter that military oath that new recruits recite? No. Just some words about upholding the Constitution.
Does he get ribbons, medals or awards? Does he wear a uniform? Does he have a military rank? No.
Is he a subject of the military legal system? No.
Does he get a discharge when his office term is complete? No.
He is A CIVILIAN that just happens to get to tell the military what to do or not do. He is not part of or a subject of their regimented system. You're the idiot if you don't realize that.
Also, consider this: In the Michael Moore movie Fahrenheit 9/11, George W. Bush can be seen holding hands with a man known to his family as "Bandar Bush", and known in Saudi Arabia as "Prince Bandar". (In Saudi Arabia, it is common for men to hold hands. Doubters: Please, that scene in the movie is taken from network TV footage; no one has contested or questioned it.) Prince Bandar is one of the regime to which Osama bin Laden objects.
George W. Bush had a failing oil company, someone in the Saudi ruling regime bought the company, and Mr. Bush then made a profit. Ask yourself, why would a rich Saudi want to invest in a failing oil company in Texas? The answer is that the Saudis wanted access to top officials in the U.S. government.
So, in this point, Osama bin Laden is correct. I don't agree that violence is the way to resolve this problem, but the U.S. government is preventing needed political change in Saudi Arabia. Think about this. How would you feel if someone from another country was interfering with the U.S. political process?
2) Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda object to the support from the U.S. government for Israeli violence toward Palestinians. I once calculated that the support is about $910 for every Jewish man, woman, and child each year. When you see helicopters firing at Palestinians on the ground, those helicopters came from your tax dollars. Did you intend to get in the middle of a 3,200-year-old conflict (on and off) between the family of Abraham and the surrounding people? Open your billfold right now. What dollars do you see there that you would be willing to give to kill Palestinians you don't know? Yes, there is a serious problem there, but did you intend to get involved? Do you see any advantage for anyone in you getting involved? One famous Israeli government official said that the U.S. government money was like "gasoline on a fire".
So Osama bin Laden is correct in this second complaint, also. Again, I don't agree that violence is the way to resolve this problem, but the U.S. government is, in fact, giving money that Israelis use to buy U.S.-made weapons that are used to kill Arabs. Not surprisingly, Arabs don't like being killed. Not surprisingly, some of them object by becoming violent themselves.
This particular U.S. government corruption works through embezzling. The weapons companies could never arrange a deal to get your tax dollars directly from the U.S. government, the would risk prison; the U.S. government is not that corrupt. Instead, the money goes to the Israeli government first, and back to the weapons manufacturers, who make an easy profit, since the Israelis cannot spend the money elsewhere. If you read the books in the article, Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government, you will see that George W. Bush's family is invested in weapons makers. Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, another company that makes more profit when there is violence. This involvement may make them prefer violent means.
George W. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, attended a meeting of The Carlyle Group investors on the days around 9/11 that was also attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden. The Carlyle Group is a weapons manufacturer holding company.
That's unprecedented conflict of interest.