http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0603/S00118.htm
Ernest Partridge: An Appearance of Guilt
Thursday, 9 March 2006, 11:15 am
Opinion: Ernest Partridge
An Appearance of Guilt
By Ernest Partridge
Co-Editor The Crisis Papers
March 7, 2006
The accumulated weight of evidence of election fraud - statistical, circumstantial, and anecdotal - has failed to move the mainstream media to report or investigate this evidence, or the Democratic party to acknowledge and protest the apparent Republican control of our elections.
This essay is not yet another account of that evidence, which I have spelled out extensively and which I firmly believe to be compelling.
Instead, I wish to deal with another indicator that our national elections no longer represent the will of the voters, but rather are manipulated to produce the outcome desired by the "winning" candidates and party. This indicator is the behavior of those who manufacture, program, and operate the paperless, unauditable machines (direct recording electronic: "DRE"), and those who benefit from this technology.
Perhaps this new electronic voting technology is as honest and reliable as the private election industry and the winning candidates tell us it is. However, they simply do not behave as if this were the case.
My contention might be illustrated by this parable:
Suppose that a drug-sniffing dog at an airport identifies a suspicious piece of luggage. The customs officer then locates the individual whose name is on the tag, and orders him to open it. Now suppose further that this person then proceeds to do one or more of the following:
a) He denies that the luggage is his.
b) He calls his lawyer who presents an injunction against further inspection of the luggage.
c) He claims that he is a diplomat, and thus not subject to luggage inspection.
d) He offers a bribe to the inspector if he will "forget the whole thing."
Might one not suspect that the traveler was trying to hide something?
The dog then gets back to work, and soon identifies another bag, and the owner of this parcel is identified and ordered to open the luggage for inspection. He does so willingly and without qualm, having packed the bag himself and thus knowing that there is no contraband therein. He is also aware that the dog has a record of 30% false positives.
Which of these two responses more closely resembles the behavior of the DRE manufacturers (Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia), of the Republican Congress, and of the Republican National Committee? Are the DRE manufacturers and the Republicans acting in a manner consistent with their claims that "e-voting" is both honest and accurate? Or are they behaving as if they have something to hide?
Here are a few indicators. Because there are so many, I will be brief. For details and documentation, follow the links:
First and foremost: DRE machines use secret software and produce no separate record of the voting to allow auditing and validation of the votes. Thus, by design, it is impossible either to prove or disprove directly the accuracy of the vote totals of a DRE machine or the neutrality of the software. (However, there is abundant indirect evidence of e-voting fraud: statistical, anecdotal and circumstantial evidence. But that's another topic).
The manufacturers and programmers of DREs (all of whom have close ties with the Republican Party) insist that their software ("source codes") must be kept secret - for no apparent and defensible reason. (They claim to be concerned about copyright infringement. But music, essays, fiction, drama, etc., all are public by nature, and yet all are protected by copyright).
The e-voting manufacturers also make ATM machines and automated gas pumps, both of which produce paper receipts. Yet they steadfastly resist demands that their "touch screen" voting machines produce printouts, which might then serve to validate the accuracy of the votes.
DRE manufacturers will not allow "test hacks" of randomly selected machines. (Unauthorized hacks have proven DREs
Your comment was so powerful to me that I forwarded it, to my mailing list and to a number of media. (Took out the "fuck". It was powerful enough without that.)
I loved your wisecrack. So much that I forwarded it with the article about the 2.6 measly million.
Here are 18 amazing facts that people need to know:
Did you know....?
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
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."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html
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.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html
8. Kenneth Blackwell co-chaired George Bush's Ohio election campaign. As Ohio secretary of state, he left no stone unturned to surpress the democratic vote.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/20 04/894
http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/141421 9
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.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election results. Reputable analyses could not find and explanation of the discrepancy between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential election.
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_ exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/eu rope/23ukraine.html?ex=1102245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7 e64fe49
12. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers. These people helped write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.ht ml
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.sh tml
13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted
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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0603/S00118.htm Ernest Partridge: An Appearance of Guilt Thursday, 9 March 2006, 11:15 am Opinion: Ernest Partridge An Appearance of Guilt By Ernest Partridge Co-Editor The Crisis Papers March 7, 2006 The accumulated weight of evidence of election fraud - statistical, circumstantial, and anecdotal - has failed to move the mainstream media to report or investigate this evidence, or the Democratic party to acknowledge and protest the apparent Republican control of our elections. This essay is not yet another account of that evidence, which I have spelled out extensively and which I firmly believe to be compelling. Instead, I wish to deal with another indicator that our national elections no longer represent the will of the voters, but rather are manipulated to produce the outcome desired by the "winning" candidates and party. This indicator is the behavior of those who manufacture, program, and operate the paperless, unauditable machines (direct recording electronic: "DRE"), and those who benefit from this technology. Perhaps this new electronic voting technology is as honest and reliable as the private election industry and the winning candidates tell us it is. However, they simply do not behave as if this were the case. My contention might be illustrated by this parable: Suppose that a drug-sniffing dog at an airport identifies a suspicious piece of luggage. The customs officer then locates the individual whose name is on the tag, and orders him to open it. Now suppose further that this person then proceeds to do one or more of the following: a) He denies that the luggage is his. b) He calls his lawyer who presents an injunction against further inspection of the luggage. c) He claims that he is a diplomat, and thus not subject to luggage inspection. d) He offers a bribe to the inspector if he will "forget the whole thing." Might one not suspect that the traveler was trying to hide something? The dog then gets back to work, and soon identifies another bag, and the owner of this parcel is identified and ordered to open the luggage for inspection. He does so willingly and without qualm, having packed the bag himself and thus knowing that there is no contraband therein. He is also aware that the dog has a record of 30% false positives. Which of these two responses more closely resembles the behavior of the DRE manufacturers (Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia), of the Republican Congress, and of the Republican National Committee? Are the DRE manufacturers and the Republicans acting in a manner consistent with their claims that "e-voting" is both honest and accurate? Or are they behaving as if they have something to hide? Here are a few indicators. Because there are so many, I will be brief. For details and documentation, follow the links: First and foremost: DRE machines use secret software and produce no separate record of the voting to allow auditing and validation of the votes. Thus, by design, it is impossible either to prove or disprove directly the accuracy of the vote totals of a DRE machine or the neutrality of the software. (However, there is abundant indirect evidence of e-voting fraud: statistical, anecdotal and circumstantial evidence. But that's another topic). The manufacturers and programmers of DREs (all of whom have close ties with the Republican Party) insist that their software ("source codes") must be kept secret - for no apparent and defensible reason. (They claim to be concerned about copyright infringement. But music, essays, fiction, drama, etc., all are public by nature, and yet all are protected by copyright). The e-voting manufacturers also make ATM machines and automated gas pumps, both of which produce paper receipts. Yet they steadfastly resist demands that their "touch screen" voting machines produce printouts, which might then serve to validate the accuracy of the votes. DRE manufacturers will not allow "test hacks" of randomly selected machines. (Unauthorized hacks have proven DREs
Your comment was so powerful to me that I forwarded it, to my mailing list and to a number of media. (Took out the "fuck". It was powerful enough without that.)
I loved your wisecrack. So much that I forwarded it with the article about the 2.6 measly million. Here are 18 amazing facts that people need to know: Did you know....? 1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S. http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html 2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 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." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886 5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S machines. http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html
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.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html
8. Kenneth Blackwell co-chaired George Bush's Ohio election campaign. As Ohio secretary of state, he left no stone unturned to surpress the democratic vote.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/20 04/894
http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/141421 9
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.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates /pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election results. Reputable analyses could not find and explanation of the discrepancy between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential election.
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_ exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/eu rope/23ukraine.html?ex=1102245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7 e64fe49
12. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers. These people helped write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.ht ml
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.sh tml
13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted