Voters in West Virginia continue to complain that their voting machines, made by Es&S are switching their votes from Obama to McCain. ES&S is riddled with corruption, has a proven inferior product and was initially funded and still is by wealthy individuals who belong to the Council for National Policy, a hard right wing organization.
Perhaps this is another chance to mobilize and show that netroots can do more than give money (although that's fabulous!) in the face of outrageous assaults on Democracy.
Here's an industry insider and McCain supporter Steven Spoonamore railing against the ease with which digital information can be changed. He seems shocked that people can't grasp that votes are being manipulated. I only posted video #1
Join me below the fold for more information/evidence and for a call to action.
As noted by Kula2316 his/her rec'd dairy this morning:
Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Bailey said 21,194 West Virginians had already cast early votes by Friday. "Early voting becomes more popular every year," she said. "All the voting systems [in West Virginia] are manufactured by ES&S."
Election Systems and Software, a company based in Omaha, Neb., has faced problems and controversies in other states. In California, for example, Secretary of State Debra Brown issued a legal order on Aug. 3, 2007, banning the use of ES&S machines in any future California election.
Reading his/her dairy got me thinking. I wondered whether there was a pattern of poor performance with ES&S beyond California. I was utterly dumb-founded by what I discovered with just a few clicks and searches.
Just the tiniest bit if research reveals an avalanche of concern, outright miscounting of votes, and even connections to groups who ardently support a theocratic state under fundamentalist Christian rule - I kid you not. But let me present my findings in an orderly way.
Exhibit #1: Faulkner County, Arkansas, May 2008
An article in Wired magazine's blog brings us this on ES&S's performance earlier this year:
The problem occurred with two touch-screen voting machines made by Election Systems & Software, which were the only machines used in Faulkner County's East Cadron B voting precinct.
Haggard says the night before the election, officials noticed that the electronic ballot on two machines slated to be used at East Cadron B was missing the State House District 45 race.
Can you imagine?? An entire race was missing from machines to be used Faulkner County's East Cadron B voting precinct. Even though election officials caught the problem and added a paper ballot just for that race the problem was not solved. It seems that someone had set up these machines to switch votes from other races and count them in the District 45 race, altering the outcome.
At the end of the day, Dr. Terry Fiddler (D) had beat Linda Tyler (D) for nomination to the House seat with 794 votes to Tyler's 770. But a post-election examination revealed that despite the fact that the electronic ballots on the two machines at the East Cadron B precinct didn't display the District 45 race, the machines recorded votes for that race anyway.
Only after tracking down the paper trail could election officials figure out what the real vote count should have been. They had to pull the memory cards from the devices to see what happened.
Those paper trails showed correctly that there was no District 45 race on the ballot and, thus, that there were no votes cast on the machines for the District 45 race. But memory cards taken from inside the machines, showed that the machines recorded votes in the District 45 race. Officials were able to determine that those District 45 votes actually belonged to the Cadron Township Constable race because the same number of votes that were allocated to the District 45 race in the memory cards matched the number of votes that voters had cast in the Cadron Township Constable race, which appeared on the voter-verifiable paper audit trail.
"Somehow the recording software had tabulated it into the wrong race," Haggard says. "Thank goodness for the paper trail. We went to the paper trail and could show how people actually voted."
...
Once the bogus votes in District 45 were subtracted from the totals, Fiddler lost 51 votes in the race, showing that Tyler had actually won the nomination for the House seat.
Who knows how many other votes were siphoned off in other ways or in other precincts. It is unimaginable to me that ES&S could be allowed to continue providing voting machines.
Exhibit #2: ES&S has problems with vote switching in Lawrence County, Ohio, November 2007.
Votes cast on e-voting machines made by ES&S went to the wrong candidates, according to officials in Lawrence County, Ohio.
This article also from Wired's blog shows a pattern of serious technical problems. In this case it was the end of day tally that was flipped.
Although a tally printed from the machines at the end of the day and posted on the door of a county precinct got the numbers correct -- 374 votes for Bill Robinson in the Hamilton Township trustee position and 170 votes for Allan Blankenship -- a tabulation machine at the county's headquarters flipped the numbers and gave 374 to Blankenship and 170 to Robinson. Officials noticed the problem when they compared the two tallies.
Exhibit #3 Our "friend" Chuck Hagel, former CEO of ES&S, beats Nebraska democrat in "surprise" landslide 1996 from this article at Scoops. (BTW, I was shocked to find Hagel in this mess...bruising my hope for decent Republicans).
Chuck Hagel first bid for U.S. Senate in Nebraska was in 1996. He had unprecedented victories against his opponents in the primary and general elections. What voting machines were being used? Machines owned by Election Systems & Software (ES&S), the company Hagel ran through 1995 and as of 2003 was still a major share holder in its parent company McCarthy & Company.
His 1996 victory was considered one of the biggest upsets of that election. He was the first Republican to win a Nebraska senatorial campaign in 24 years and won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican.
Six years later Hagel ran again against Democrat Charlie Matulka in 2002, and won in a landslide. He was re-elected to his second term with 83% of the vote: the biggest political victory in the history of Nebraska. Again, the votes were counted by ES&S, now the largest voting machine company in America.
While these victories could be dismissed simply as a Republican upset, a January 2003 article in the independent Washington paper The Hill revealed interesting details about Hagel's business investments and casts a different light on his election successes. Chuck Hagel was CEO of ES&S (then AIS) until 1995 and he is still a major stockholder of the parent company of ES&S, McCarthy & Company. Hagel resigned as CEO of ES&S to run for the Senate and resigned as president of the parent company McCarthy & Company following his election (where he remains a major investor).
Today, the McCarthy Group is run by Michael McCarthy, who happens to be Chuck Hagel's treasurer. Hagel's financials still list the McCarthy Group as an asset, with his investment valued at $1-$5 million. Campaign finance reports show that Michael McCarthy also served as treasurer for Hagel until December of 2002.
ES&S also has a connection to the Bush family. Jeb Bush's first choice as running mate in 1998 was Sandra Mortham who was a paid lobbyist for ES&S and received a commission for every county that bought its touch-screen machines.
It only gets more convoluted. Again from Scoops
If the connections between Hagel and ES&S seem suspect, the origins of America's largest electronic voting machine companies may be just as distressing, especially for those who venerate the separation of church and state. The convoluted system of renaming and buyouts of America's voting system companies is a complicated story. However, once the various corporate trails have been followed, a disturbing picture comes into focus.
Brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded American Information Systems. Bob is currently president of Diebold and Todd Urosevich is Vice President, Aftermarket Sales of ES&S. (In 1999, American Information Systems, purchased Business Records Corp to become ES&S.)
American Information Systems (AIS) was primarily funded with money from Ahmanson brothers, William and Robert, of the Howard F. Ahmanson Co. The majority stake in ES&S is still owned by Howard F. Ahmanson and the Ahmanson Foundation
Howard Ahmanson belongs to Council for National Policy, a hard right wing organization and also helps finance The Chalcedon Institute. As the institute's own site reports, Chalcedon is a "Christian educational organization devoted to research, publishing, and promoting Christian reconstruction in all areas of life... Our emphasis on the Cultural or Dominion Mandate (Genesis 1:28) and the necessity of a return to Biblical Law has been a crucial factor in the challenge to Humanism by Christians in this country and elsewhere..." Chalcedon promotes Christian Reconstructionism, which mandates Christ's dominion over the entire world. The organization's purpose is to establish Old Testament Biblical law as the standard for society.
Here's a gem from the article's closing...this article was written in July of 2003 BEFORE the 2004 elections:
The 2004 election will be the first to use nation-wide electronic voting. With the purging of voter lists, secrecy surrounding voting machines, the lack of a verifiable paper trail combined with voting machine companies with strong Republican ties and funding from the radical right, a Bush victory is all but inevitable. Welcome to the machines.
The press tries to speak about the story, but fails to get at the deeper truth. Dan Rather did a one-hour special on it on HD Network. Below he is talking with CNN on the problems with these voting machines. But he doesn't even ask if or why this could be purposeful.
Another disturbing video compiling problems with these machines:
Want more? Read this document detailing a (partial) history of problems going back to 1980 as reported in the press.
VOTER PURGES
This article connects the dots between voting machines and purging voter rolls - a bit off topic but relevant.
Palast's investigation revealed that at the heart of this ethnic cleansing of voter lists was the creation of a new centralized database for the state of Florida. In 1999, the state fired the company they were paying to compile their "scrub" lists and gave the job to Database Technologies (DBT, now ChoicePoint). DBT, a private firm known to have strong Republican ties was paid $2.3 million to do the same job that had previously been done for $5,700.
The first list of felons from DBT included 8,000 names of felons from Texas supplied by George Bush's state officials. The state government said they were all felons, and thus barred from voting under federal law. Local officials complained about the list and DBT issued a new one, this time naming 58,000 felons. Palast discovered that the one county that went through the process of checking the new list name by name found it was 95% wrong.
Because of the way DBT compiled its erroneous list, Florida voters whose names were similar to out-of-state felons were barred from voting. An Illinois felon named John Michaels could knock off Florida voters John, Johnny, Jonathan or Jon R. Michaels.
DBT didn't get names, birthdays or social security numbers right, but they were matched for race, so a felon named Joe Green only knocked off a black Joe Green, but not a white person with the same name. There was no need to guess about the race of the disenfranchised: a voter's race is listed next to his or her name in many Southern states including Florida because racial ID is required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
...
"Given the outcome of our work in Florida and with a new president in place, we think our services will expand across the country."
-- Martin L. Fagan, ChoicePoint Vice-President
I realize that it is hard for people to believe that this could really happen in an organized effort. I realize that many of you will think this is tinfoil territory. Perhaps these were honest mistakes by the datbase company. Perhaps there is nothing but innocent malfunctioning happening. But I ask you, what other consumer product has been released with such huge problems? We wouldn't stand for this type of malfunction from our I-pods and we are talking about voting here - the most sacred act in a democracy. Would we allow a University to drop our name off the list of people eligible for graduation without a fight?
Stop here if you simply want to be outraged at the poor execution of sound technology and scroll down to CALL TO ACTION.
Read on if you want a more comprehensive view of the voting machine industry's right-wing ties.
Remember that ES&S under its previous name American Information Systems was initially funded and is still owned primarily by Howard F. Ahmanson and the Ahmanson Foundation. Howard Ahmanson belongs to Council for National Policy (more on them below), a hard right wing organization and also helps finance The Chalcedon Institute. Here's a window into the soul of the the Chalcedon Insitute:
"The Christian worldview is the answer. We need Christian statesmen who press for the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ in all areas of life. This isn't political salvation or an overnight fix. It will take decades of mobilization and confrontation to undo a century of godless socialism. It must be a grassroots movement that starts in individual families and churches and then moves outward to take dominion. It must encompass every area of life and not just the political arena. Finally, it must start soon, for there isn't much time left. The Florida elections have taught us that the Democrats with their liberal/socialistic worldview will stop at nothing to seize control of the government."
-- Dr. Val Finnell, published by the Chalcedon Institute
The NNDB describes this organization this way:
Deriving its name from the ecclesiastical council of Chalcedon, which in 451 AD defined Jesus Christ as being both god and man, the Chalcedon Institute is dedicated to instituting biblical law as the main governing force in America.
And this quote from their website banner:
History has never been determined by majorities but only by dedicated minorities who stand unconditionally on their faith. RJ Rushdoony"
And icing on the cake from Rolling Stone's great article exposing why HAVA (Help America Vote Act) doesn't do what it claims - lest you think things have been taken care of by this legislation.
Passed in 2002, HAVA was hailed by leaders in both parties as a reform designed to avoid a repeat of the 2000 debacle in Florida that threw the presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court. The measure set standards for voting systems, created an independent commission to oversee elections, and ordered states to provide provisional ballots to voters whose eligibility is challenged at the polls.
But from the start, HAVA was corrupted by the involvement of Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, who worked to cram the bill with favors for his clients. (Both Abramoff and a primary author of HAVA, former Rep. Bob Ney, were imprisoned for their role in the conspiracy.) In practice, many of the "reforms" created by HAVA have actually made it harder for citizens to cast a ballot and have their vote counted. In case after case, Republican election officials at the local and state level have used the rules to give GOP candidates an edge on Election Day by creating new barriers to registration, purging legitimate names from voter rolls, challenging voters at the polls and discarding valid ballots.
Jack Abramhoff and Howard Ahmanson, Jr. appear on a list of past and present members of the Council for National Policy posted by an (admittedly tinfoilish) group of Christians who have organized against "change agents which have infiltrated the Christian community" for their own purposes. I am still looking for a more reputable source, but as wikipedia notes, the CNP's membership records are no longer available online. Wonder why?
Now let's pause for a moment and view all of this against the backdrop of an increasingly polarizing Republican message, Palin's announcement of her desire for a federal ban on gay marriage, the new anti-america meme complete with real and fake parts of the country, the attempt to paint Obama as a terrorist who kills babies born alive in failed abortions, and it seems quite suspiciously like the stirrings of something very, very ugly.
(all emphasis in quotes are mine)
NOW A CALL TO ACTION!
I put this shabby dairy together in just a couple of hours with Google and YouTube. I am no journalist. I just know when I smell something rotten.
It seems clear to me that ES&S (and Diebold) has shady connections, inferior products and apparently huge conflicts of interest. It seems clear it has failed to live up to it's obligation to provide a safe and secure election process. Since they work for US, the People, we must let our voice be heard. Let us prove these people WRONG! We can use our power to organize ourselves and demand better, just the way we organized to let Michele Bachman know her views are unacceptable.
I know this type of massive fraud seems overwhelming. What can we do in the face of this corruption? There must be some way the people can exercise their power. We are a creative bunch. Let's pool our thinking and see what we come up with. Perhaps other can research ES&S and see where they may be weak, what other parent/child entities rely on sales we could boycott.
What else can we do to expose the Chalcedon Institute and its connections to the companies that make our nations' voting machines?
My opening suggestion is a simple one: Let's flood ES&S with complaints and figure out other ways can we make life hard for these folks? Shall we picket in front of their headquarters in Omaha? Shall we jam their servers with complaint emails? What else can we do to be heard? I just love watching net roots in action. We have the power of millions of voices calling for change. Let's use it!
Please post other suggestions in the comments and I will update the dairy.
From their website:
For more information about ES&S and our products and services, please contact us at 1-800-247-8683. Or, send us an email through the following link info@essvote.com.
Headquarters:
Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S)
11208 John Galt Blvd.
Omaha, NE 68137 USA
Toll Free: 1-800-247-8683
Phone: 402-593-0101
Fax: 402-593-8107
ES&S U.S. Sales Department:
Voting System and Tabulation Sales — websystemsales@essvote.com
Voter Registration Sales — webvrsales@essvote.com
Election Customer Support:
Toll Free: 1-877-377-8683 (Monday - Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm CST)
Fax: 402-593-8107
technicalservices@essvote.com
Voter Registration Customer Support:
Toll Free: 1-800-353-2832 (8:30 am - 7:30 pm EST)
Fax: 402-970-8537
helpdesk@essvote.com
As brave new films likes to say, "Pssst...DO SOMETHING!"
PS - I voted on a Diebold machine this morning with my 4-year-old daughter in tow. We skipped back to the car as happy as could be to cast our vote for Obama. Let's hope it gets counted properly!
UPDATE I:
This amazing dairy just went up about Sarah Palin's role in a crusade to Christianize native peoples in Alaska. Seems right in line with the interesst of those described above. This is not tinfoil people!
UPDATE II: This dairy brilliantly outlays how Sarah Palin and John McCain, through their associations and endorsements are clearly pushing forward the Fundamental Christianizing agenda, including attacking Catholics with Spiritual Warfare - I kid you not!
UPDATE III: This great diarytells us about Bush's secret attempt to eliminate the separation of church and state altogether. A secret 2007 memo just appeared on the DoJ website this week.