Programmer Claims he was Paid to Rig Votes

Duke Machesne writes "In the year 2000, Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney hired programmer Clint Curtis, while he was working for NASA contractor Yang Enterprises, to write an undetectable vote flipping program which could 'control' the votes of electronic voting machines, according to Wayne Madsen's latest article for the Online Journal."

Comments

yes yes I'm sure..

[Beatbyte]

and Jesus built my hot rod.

how about some proof? good thing he's getting his 15 minutes of fame though.

Ok

[Apreche]

Like many others I would like to believe this. And if its true I would like to utilize this information in court to try to make something happen.

But is there really enough evidence to hold this up? I don't see this article citing any sources. And towards the end it starts to sound more like a crazy conspiracy theory than something real.

Re:Ok

[Just Some Guy]

Like many others I would like to believe this.

You, sir, are freakin' insane. You'd like to see the bloodbath that would probably ensue if it turned out to be true? You hate the results of the election so much that you'd like to find out that your republic had been destroyed?

I desperately want not to believe this. As long as most of us have reasonable faith in our electoral process, we can get through pretty much anything. The alternative is probably not far short of civil war.

Re:Ok

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

But you'd prefer to allow government officials to keep their positions even if they actually cheated in the elections?

Perhaps the alternative is indeed a civil war. In the long term, how is that worse than a government and nation cheated by the elite few?

Re:Ok

[jeif1k]

As long as most of us have reasonable faith in our electoral process, we can get through pretty much anything.

You mean like a plummeting dollar, a failing economy, a losing war, an unprecedented transfer of money to the wealthiest few, thousands of war deaths, and a dismantling of civil rights and our constitution?

Who we elect matters. And if people get into government by corrupt means, they are probably up to no good and can cause serious harm to everybody. The US was founded by people who did not want to have hereditary rulers. Do you want to bring that back? Is Jenna's husband automatically going to be the next president?

Re:Ok

[Creepy Crawler]

---You, sir, are freakin' insane. You'd like to see the bloodbath that would probably ensue if it turned out to be true? You hate the results of the election so much that you'd like to find out that your republic had been destroyed?

The republic stands if the people stands, not if the government can "live". If it means a bloody removal of the offenders, God bless them.

---I desperately want not to believe this. As long as most of us have reasonable faith in our electoral process, we can get through pretty much anything. The alternative is probably not far short of civil war.

I have faith that the same families will get in to political positions, leech our money for pork and other inane things, and then get us to go with the next big crisis like the "War On *".

And when our civil rights degrade enough, people will care. We will fight, and many of us will die. Then again, our country's faith will be renewed, albeit with much less of a population.

Long live Titor

Re:Ok

[reverius]

civil war is better than ignorant peace. if your solution to the problems with the electoral process is to ignore them, stick your head in the sand, and have faith (despite evidence to the contrary), you've already lost what you were trying to protect. you might have peace, but you have to admit, you have theoretically zero control over the electoral process.

i'd prefer civil war to faith in a broken electoral process. faith doesn't fix it. it just means we'll have false happiness while things get bad... really bad.

Re:Ok

[Darth_Burrito]

Political reasons aside, we are at the stage of the adoption of computer based voting technology where the discovery of fraud could be a good thing.

There are some classes of applications, more broadly of systems, where a very high value is placed on security. I think our current voting systems do not place nearly enough emphasis on the integrity of the system. Therefore, discovery of wide scale fraud would be a good thing because it will force people to place a stronger emphasis on security.

The worst thing that can happen would be for precincts all over the US to dish out big bucks for 1.0 level voting technology and then have to use it for the next 15 years to justify the costs. Better to expose the problems now than to commit to an unproven voting infrastructure.

If we don't identify voter fraud, then people will assume it doesn't exist. Ironically, most of the found cases of errors so far have been caught within the overall voting system. This particular allegation is interesting because it alleges an uncaught error. This is the kind of thing that really demonstrates system failure, and it's the kind of thing we need to come out now if we are going to have a trustworthy electronic voting infrastructure in the future.

Re:Ok

[goatan]

let the damn cheaters have office. There's precedent here that isn't worth challenging.

That's a very good way to start a war, when people know that there are cheaters in office they tend to want them out of office and are prepared to go to great lengths to get them out.

Witness Ukraine where a lot of people don't want a suspected cheater to take office they are threatening to become independent, something that would spark civil war. Yet you think letting the suspected cheater take office anyway would stop a civil war! Judging by the real world example your wrong.

As for saying there is precedent that's a pathetic excuse, what happened to Americas "moral" majority.

Re:Ok

[Khazunga]

If the choice was between going to war or letting some cheating officials have office, let the damn cheaters have office. There's precedent here that isn't worth challenging.

Americans never cease to surprise me. You mean you prefer living in a dictatorship (albeit masqueraded) than fight for your rights? I'd fight for the rights myself.

Re:Ok

[Pig Hogger]

As for saying there is precedent that's a pathetic excuse, what happened to Americas "moral" majority.

The "moral" "majority" "won".

Re:Ok

[Twirlip of the Mists]

You deny the rich are getting richer based on percentage of yearly income?

Yup. The Current Population Survey says that real earning for male members of the population has remained unchanged since 2002, and for female members of society the median has actually gone down very slightly as demographics shift. The rich are not getting richer. The earnings figures are pretty stable.

Based on total accumulation?

I don't understand. Are you trying to say that there are some rich people with a big pile of money somewhere in, like, a cave or something? I'd love to hear how you measure that.

Based on percentage of the wealth in this country?

According to the latest figures, the middle class expanded slightly last year because the stock market underperformed. So by percentage of investment assets, no, the rich are not getting any richer. The total wealth held by the rich declined in the 2003-2004 fiscal year.

You deny thousands of people are dead because of the war in Iraq?

That's many thousands fewer than would have been dead if not for the war in Iraq. Saddam was murdering 30,000 people a year on average, and the terrorists about 7,000 more on average. According to ICRC estimates, the total dead in the war in Iraq since March 2003, military and civilian, is between 9,400 and 11,800. So we've saved the lives of over 62,000 people.

Get pissed already.

No, thank you. I prefer to save my uppity indignation for stuff that's actually related in some way to reality. But if you want to keep chanting the same old tired lines without bothering to look at the actual data, that's fine. It's a free country. Knock yourself out.

Re:Ok

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The founding fathers seriously considered installing a King. They also considered the common rabble to be too stupid to effectively govern themselves, thus the Republic instead of a purer form of democracy.

OK, I stated that a little harshly, but the idea that the founding fathers were true liberal idealists is not quite true. They were a flawed bunch, some of them very very flawed. Thankfully, what they came up with worked OK, and has been able to change with the times.

Republicans? Criminal?

[revscat]

Noooo! They're the party of law and justice, morality, and ethics! Why, it is completely CRAZY to think that a Republican congressmen would do such a thing! And even if it IS true (which, of course, it isn't) it's just an isolated incident and says nothing about the character of the party itself. Why, I myself would NEVER support such a thing, and I'm a conservative! (More of a libertarian, really, which increases my credibility.)

Besides, you know that both sides do the same thing, so whatcha gonna do LOL! That's the way the world works, doncha know! No need to get upset!

Remember: It's a republic, NOT a "democracy." Calling America a "democracy" is just liberal propaganda.

Look, over there! Two guys who want to get married, and they're both abortionists! We're winning the war! Propaganda is king!

wow, is this the next Oliver Stone screenplay?

[imsmith]

The problem with this story is that it is too fantastic. Even if it were true, the depth of the corruption is so widespread, among so many high-profile characters and big power families, that it requires a suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. Security through incredulity, anyone?

Conspiracy theorists of the world unite.

Re:wow, is this the next Oliver Stone screenplay?

[krymsin01]

You know, I thought the same thing about how the Catholic church gave safe passage to Nazis when the war was ending...

Dubious

[MBCook]

I'm with the other people in this thread. I think this fake. There is no real evidence and it just sounds fishy.

I know there are many here at /. who would like to see a story like this be true (both for political reasons and for anti-e-voting reasons (I'm in this second group)). But if this has ANY truth to it, here is my guess:

It's a half-truth. The guy was paid to write a program to do it as an exercise to see how simple it would be to do. For all we know it was requested as part of a security review to be turned over to the company that made the e-voting equiptment to show them security holes that people were concerned about.

Now I have no proof, but if this is true at all, that would be my guess. And, of course, there is nothing wrong or illegal about writing such a program unless you intend to use or distribute it, which we also don't know about.

[Comment Template]

[Zarf]

[tautological argument]

[straw-man]

[beat with stick]

[close with soviet russia joke]

Re:Strange Bedfellows? Or Not?

[revscat]

What does that say about Slashdot?

What does it say about your dependence upon straw man arguments? This may or may not be true, but what sites reference it or do not reference says nothing about the same. Given the history of the Republicans to engage in and condone rampant criminality it certainly passes the smell test.

Re:zerg

[finkployd]

How do we know this isn't Karl Rove setting us up, the way he set up Dan Rather?

I hadn't heard this one before... Rove forced Rather to not check sources or even get competent document experts to validate the memos?

Finkployd

Link to the affadavit

[menscher]

Obviously the .pdf of an affadavit could be faked, but it still makes interesting reading. Especially since it describes how his program worked. ;)

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/images/CC_Af fidavit_120604.pdf

What you want to believe is irrelevant.

[Pyromage]

Why the concern about "want to believe this, want to believe that"? Why don't you consider the facts that are there. Fact 1: This guy could be lying. Fact 2: regardless of his thoughts, the election results do not make much sense. Take a look at my roomate's page. He's compiled a bit of data, from official sources (linked to from the page), that brings into question the results of the election. Real numbers. Scary, isn't it?

Re:What you want to believe is irrelevant.

[Grym]

Fact 2: regardless of his thoughts, the election results do not make much sense.

No, they don't make sense if you're wrapped-up in the message the democratic party developed this election--"Anybody but Bush!"

I'm not saying that there wasn't fraud. There may have been. We simply don't know, and I hope the authorities thoroughly and publicly investigate every accusation. However, what I am saying is that this notion that fraud must have occurred because John Kerry lost HAS TO STOP.

Like the linked parent's roommate's page, for instance is ridiculous. SO WHAT if the proportion of democratic votes don't match the proportion of registered democrats? Since when is everyone required or even expected to vote along party lines? What if, rather than a national conspiracy of unparalleled magnitude to disenfranchise democrats, people simply voted Republican? What if it turns out that all or at least a disproportionate (>50%) amount of the independent voters (or even conservative democrats), turned off by the Democratic Party's embracement of extremists like Michael Moore (I, a registered Independent, distinctly remember him being ON-STAGE at the national convention), voted Republican?

If the liberal democrats in this country can't accept that their candidate lost without--or at least before--any definitive evidence (and I would hardly classify this guy's nonsensical accusations as that) to prove otherwise, they're only going to marginalize themselves in the minds of reasonable Americans more than they already have. And, even though I voted for Bush, I really hope that doesn't happen. We need a healthy, viable opposition for our system to work.

-Grym

Possibly a troll article?

[nuxx]

Please note this article from the article:

People may wonder why a group of intelligence insiders would come forward to a non-major media outlet with such tantalizing information at this time. The corporate-beholden media cannot be trusted to report such a news story. A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The "agency," which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush's election.

That's practically a tell-tale sign of a fake article...

While the article is interesting, the connections run all the way to 419-ers...

I want more info. After all, extraordinary claims (like these) demand extraordinary proof.

Re:Corrections

[hondo77]

War deaths - deaths in a volunteer military, fighting for our freedom and security.

Damn straight. Just think of how many lives would have been saved if we had invaded Iraq before 9/11 and taken Saddam out. Oh, wait a second...that would be zero.

Feel more secure yet?

Re:Corrections

[jeif1k]

The dollar is falling; it will rise again.

Eventually, perhaps, when it has been devalued to the point to eliminate the trade deficit and when a fiscally responsible president comes into power again (Republicans need not apply--they love running up big deficits).

The economy is not failing. We are winning the war.

Geez. I thought people like you didn't believe in taking drugs.

Here's a lesson on tax cuts.

Not only is the "lesson" utter nonsense, its attribution to Kamerschen is as phony as your other "facts".

Some links I found for Clint Curtis

[juggleme]

So I Googled around for Clint Curtis, the guy who is making these claims, and found the affidavit mentioned in the story. If anyone else is interested in reading more information on an article they didn't read... ;)

Non-linkified because I'm going home from work soon and I want to go there sooner.

the affidavit:
http://www.rawstory.com/images/pdfs/CC _Affidavit_1 20604.pdf

his website (basically a big rant with a link):
http://www.justaflyonthewall.com/

his vote changing program:
http://www.justaflyonthewall.com/votefra udprogram. htm

code:
http://www.justaflyonthewall.com/VoteFrau dCode.zip

Unbelievable

[joelt49]

OK, this probably won't get read this far down. However, I have my own $.02 to add.

First, this story is essentially one guy's word against a bunch of other people's. How do we know he's not lying? The fact of the matter is, we have no objective (yes, objective) standard for weighing the truth value of this story, and so it's inappropriate to go and believe it.

Second, has anyone seen the vote-switching program? It requires access to not just the voting machine software, but the voting official who set it up! As a Diebold programmer pointed out, they program the code to accept _generic_ ballots, to be made by voting officials. Think about it. Although they can switch a vote from person A to person B, how do you know who person A is in the first place? Also, person A can change from time to time. Furthermore, do you know how many people you'd have to keep quiet about this in order to pull it off? It just isn't logistically possible.

Furthermore, as has been pointed out, this software could be created to just see how easy it would be to do. However, this guy just sets up a VB interface, and he makes basic assumptions about how the interface would work. In practice, you'd need to know the internal structure of the vote tally file, and that can change, as I said. And who the HELL would write this in VB?

Also, I'd like to point out that having a president win due to voter fraud won't cause the fall of the country. JFK did it in 1960, and we survived him (and his successor, and the Vietnam War, which Nixon got us out of).

I didn't get the time to read the whole article, as it's getting late; however, it's simply an amalgation of unsubstantiated rumors on an anti-Bush, anti-Repubican conspiracy site. Bias, anyone?

Lastly, I'd just like to point out that I'm tired of these baseless allegations coming out about voter fraud by the Republicans. Every single time an error with voting comes up, it's blown up by the media, but only if it somehow helps Republicans, and the facts are distorted to make a story seem more plausible. When it's shown that no conspiracy existed, it isn't reported. For example, the whole felon mess in FL in 2000? You hear the claims that more blacks were removed from the rolls than whites? Well, as a matter of fact, while that may be true in absolute terms, an investigation by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that, in fact, whites were actually disproportionately wrongly disenfranchised (because there are more black felons than white ones, probably because more black people live in poverty than white people). Did you hear about this in any sort of major way? Of course not, because the mainstream media is largely biased towards the liberal side (doubt me? I think the Dan Rather/forged memo scandal, the ABC memo saying that Bush should be held to a higher standard than Kerry, the editor of Newsweek saying that the media's positive coverage of Kerry would be worth 15%, later revised downward to 5%, in the polls, and the economy being spun as constantly bad, while the '96 economy was spun as good, despite the fact that they were comparable, shows that most of the media, except Fox and talk radio, were out to defeat Bush).

Oh, and to those who ask why more stories about republican voter fraud is coming out that democrat fraud, I say the answer is simple. The republicans don't care; they won. The democrats are trying to soil the republican victory, trying to find even the most improbable thread of illogic to convince themselves that the U.S. really wants someone like Kerry to be president. The republicans aren't turning over every stone looking for votes, the democrats are, and every time they see a situation where Kerry might have lost a vote due to simple mistakes, they cry wolf.

Re:Unbelievable

[An Onerous Coward]

While I don't think this story has any merit, your disbelief in the ability to program vote fraud is unwarranted.

You say that it's logistically impossible because there is no way of knowing which candidate will be which. Even if this was true, a corrupted voting machine in the right precinct could still swing an election.

Assume the existence of a corrupt machine that randomly (and I mean completely randomly) swapped one vote in ten from one candidate to another. Now, say that we place the machine in a heavily Bush-leaning county, where he is expected to get 80% of the vote.

Ten thousand votes are cast. Of the ten thousand, 8000 should be for Bush, 1000 should go to Kerry, and 1000 should go to Nader (just to make the math easy). But 800 Bush votes are randomly given to Kerry and Nader, while 100 Kerry votes and 100 Nader votes are divided between the other two candidates.

Grand total: Bush 7200 + 50 + 50 = 7300. Kerry 1000 + 400 + 50 = 1450. Nader 1000 + 400 + 50.

Conclusion: If you know that a precinct leans heavily in favor of the candidate you despise, you can program a machine "generically".

Further complaints: The VB script was just to demonstrate an example, and wasn't intended to run on the end systems. According to the claim, the end program was supposed to be portable (which I find odd, since I was under the impression that all the voting machines were Windows boxen).

Regarding your claims of "liberal media bias", I would point out that it was perfectly obvious that Fox News was out to defeat Kerry. Just one of the litany of examples: in the runup to the first debate, no other news organization was interested in the fact that John Kerry got a manicure prior to the debate. But Fox News managed to mention it on five separate occasions in their run-up to the debate itself.

You can disagree, but I see the ABC memo as not comparable to the FOX memos that were prominently displayed in "Outfoxed." The difference is, the memo is right. If Kerry distorts his record in Vietnam, and Bush distorts his reasons for dragging us into a new Vietnam, the latter should be much more relevant to the way we vote, and artificially making the two sides look equal in their distortions gives Bush an unfair advantage.

Say you're reporting on some scientific controversy. 99% of scientists studying the issue (say, evolution) say evolution is sound science, while 1% (all of whom graduated from Bob Jones University) discount the idea. There is no "balance" in giving equal time to both sides.

Not the same situation, but I think anyone should agree that there are times when a misguided sense of fairness only distorts news coverage.

Re:Corrections

[Jahf]

Oh come on ... a mural found in Iraq -after- 9/11 is supposed to make one "think"? I am assuming by "think about this" you are inferring "look at this and you'll see a connection".

Bogus.

Yes, once 9/11 happened there were people all OVER the Muslim world that were radical and embraced the death and destruction.

That doesn't mean they were guilty of committing the act.

Think about this: if we had been able to prevent 9/11 that mural wouldn't have existed ... though I think in the end we would have invaded Iraq anyway. It is obvious (to me, I'm not claiming to be able to know what you see) that there was twisted intel and intent fashioned before 9/11. 9/11 just made it that much easier.

Does having a Nazi swastika in a militia HQ of some radical fascist group at some point after WWII mean that the people there are Nazis and committed murders during the Holocaust? No, the "neo" in "neo-Nazi" is added for a reason. Are they twisted and possibly evil jerks? Yes. Do they represent everyone in their culture or mean that they are guilty of war crimes? No.

Do I think there are Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Sure ... but FAR FAR more with far more popular support because we invaded, not because of 9/11.

Re:Corrections

[tsm_sf]

The dollar is falling; it will rise again

Like the South?

How do you know?

[fmaxwell]

never had my privacy invaded by government or non-government individuals or organizations.

How do you know? Under the PATRIOT Act, warrantless searches can be conducted against you and you might never know it. In fact, the FBI can go to your local library to ask what books you've checked out or for records of what web sites you visited while there -- and the librarians are prohibited from even telling you of the inquiry. How do you know if your phone has been tapped, your Internet connection monitored, or your e-mail traffic examined?

never felt that my rights have been diminshed even in the least possible way, in fact I have more ways to express myself, more ways to share my views and absolutely no hint of having my freedom of speech oppressed or my freedom to life, liberty and property... I have more of each now than 2000.

Yes, your rights have been diminished -- whether you choose to exercise them or not. Show up at George W. Bush's inauguration carrying a sign protesting the war, his handling of the economy, or anything related to his Presidency. You will find yourself cordoned off in a "free speech zone" -- a euphamism for a remote, fenced-in area that's outside of the public's view.

Here's a link to a December 15, 2003 article in "The American Conservative" entitled "Free-Speech Zone": The administration quarantines dissent.. Notice how I chose a conservative publication to prevent you from whining about it being a liberal source.

Re:Opinion Journal investigation on same

[fenris_23]

Tip: Don't write posts on the Internet that advocate lining people up and shooting them when one of those people happen to be the U.S. President (Unless you live in the U.K. and write for the Guardian of course).

Yeah, it DOES look fishy & Bev Harris's critiq

[JimMarch(equalccw)]

I did some googling. This guy Clinton has a serious beef with Yang Enterprises...him and some lady name of Mavis Georgalis.

Some of it does look kinda fishy "in his favor".

Example: the FL dept. of transportation's inspector general's report on the Georgalis case:

http://www.dot.state.fl.us/inspectorgeneral/Report s/AnnualReport2003.pdf

---
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
ANNUAL REPORT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002-2003
EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT - REPRESENTATIVE CASE EXAMPLES

Georgalis - This investigation was initiated based on a complaint against Mavis R. Georgalis by Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), a Florida corporation.

YEI provides information technology services and support under an eight-year (January 20, 1999 to January 20, 2007) and approximately eight million dollar contract for the Department, known as the Electronic Document Management System contract.

The investigation established that Georgalis received travel reimbursements from the Department based on false claims for lodging and meals already paid by YEI. It also disclosed Georgalis engaged in a pattern of misconduct, over several years, by accepting gifts and other gratuities from YEI. These gratuities included trips with YEI officials to Biloxi, Mississippi and Las Vegas, Nevada. Georgalis further created a conflict of interest by accepting gifts from another contractor whom she regulated. Lastly, it has been documented that Georgalis used her position and Department resources to seek other employment opportunities.

Summary of Findings/Resulting Actions

Mavis Georgalis resigned her position with the Florida Department of Transportation on April 1, 2002.

On March 6, 2003 Georgalis was charged with receipt of unlawful compensation (Section 838.016 F.S.) Georgalis surrendered to the Columbia County Sheriff's Office on March 12, 2003 and is awaiting a court date.
---

So wait...Yang doesn't like a particular gov't official, so THEY admit to having bribed said official, official gets fired and charged (based on paperwork Yang submits?) and nothing happens to Yang which has connections to Jeb Bush and an FL congressman?

OK, that's...kinda funky. Doesn't mean Clinton isn't full of it of course.

If there is ANYTHING to this story, it looks like this guy Clinton got royally pissed at Yang, enough so to blow the secrecy off a Qui Tam action? Or did the secrecy period on the Qui Tam action already expire? "Qui Tam" whistleblower suits start out "in secret"...I oughta know, Bev and I filed one on Diebold back in Nov. of '03, secrecy wasn't lifted until just a couple months ago.

Damned if I know what's up here. I'm going to wait for more data.

Bev Harris is even more skeptical and has published this:

~~~

Why the Feeney vote-rigging story sounds like disinformation

ABOUT DISINFORMATION: Like a good lie, it has elements of truth. Trouble is, the truth doesn't relate to the nuts and bolts of the story. For example in the Tom Feeney vote-manipulation story, people are documenting relationships between Tom Feeney and Yang, and between the writer of the story and other scandals, but so far the evidence presented does not back up the vote manipulation story itself.

DISINFORMATION IS DANGEROUS TO THE CLEAN VOTING MOVEMENT: Black Box Voting is finding real evidence consistent with fraud. We are even finding, in one of our investigations, evidence consistent with a systemic, or widespread breakdown in security, possibly exploited. Getting the facts is tedious, unexciting work, consisting of auditing and personal interviews, and it takes time. Many Americans want a magic bullet, a single shot that will blow the lid off everything at once.

That's risky. If the mainstream media continues to be bombarded with stories that sound credible, but aren't, when the real thing comes down the pike it will be ignored.

Whil

Basic fact checking, thanks to the Internet

[mike_lynn]

Well, reading through his deposition, he mentions on item 12 a full name: Raymond Lemme. He calls Raymond the Inspector General of the Florida Department of Transportation.

According to the FDOT website (http://www.dot.state.fl.us/inspectorgeneral/) and archive.org, Cecil T. Bragg, Jr., CPA has been the IG since at least 2001 up until the present.

The only place that I could see Lemme's name mentioned anywhere was in http://www.dot.state.fl.us/businessmodel/pdf/Augus t%202003.pdf, where he was mentioned as part of the fraud investigation squad.

Wayne Leaders, mentioned as an investigator for NASA, shows up as a 'Special Agent' in Jan 2003 in www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html, complete with a phone number you can reach him at (poor guy).

More details here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030831121943/h ttp://w ww.n-jcenter.com/special/feeney.htm

Which eventually leads to the real story:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021030045304/ www.n-jc enter.com/2002/Jun/9/STAT001.htm

Curtis is one fcked up little dude.

Red herring

[MarkusQ]

It's a red herring.

The real trick was much simpler: they didn't send enough voting machines or polling booths to predominantly Democratic precincts. Bingo--the number of votes for the opposition is limited to something you can beat.

--MarkusQ

Proof, or disproof will come. Patience, folks.

[skids]

Curtis will be interviewed and information about what he says in front of the House Judicial Committee will be blogged at:

http://www.truthout.org/cblog.shtml

Re:Hoping that something isn't so...

[jonadab]

> Can be very close to keeping one's head buried in the sand.

If you go RTFA, you won't think so anymore. That article is one of the most
humorously pathetically bad pieces I've read in quite a significant while. It
tries to pass itself off as investigative journalism, but the style is all
totally wrong for that. (The word "alleged" doesn't occur once in the whole
thing, for example, a dead giveaway that it's not the mainstream press article
it wants to be.) The most hilarious thing, though, the thing that had me
rolling on the floor, was when the article stated flatly that VB5 was used
to prototype a program that would run undetectably on unix-based systems.

And THEY have all the guns!

[alizard]

So go buy one and learn how to use it. So much the better if you're in one of the states where the Federal "assault rifle" ban expired.