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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."
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'.
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?
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."
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
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.