Kerry Won (1 Viewer)

[steve albino]

There are irregularities in any election - and yes, there will be those on both sides who try to perpetrate fraud or influence the vote by dirty tricks. No system is perfect, and unfortunately some of the partisans aren't either.

However, as I have shown, it seems most unlikely that there was any systematic organised fraud useing e-vote machines - the most likely method of rigging the vote as fraud w8ill generally follow the path of least resistance.

We'll wait and see...

Again, let's be clear on what we're talking about - not just irregularities but quite obvious cases of incompetence and ill-will which are overwhelmingly in Bush's favour - from the vote machine catastrophe, to the people who tried to deter others from voting/excercising the right to vote, to the remarkably early capitulation of Kerry, to the refusal of international observers etc. etc.
We're not talking about a perfect process with a couple of banal glitches, we're talking about a systematic privatisation (equals immune to public scutiny) for profit, of an electoral system by people who are part of the Bush administration's inner circle.
At least that's what I'm talking about.
As for the path of least resistance - what resistance? Who resisted? Kerry? No. The Democrats? No. Don't confuse complaining after the fact with resisting. If there had been any real "resistance" then the vote would still be undecided and we'd be waiting out the official minimum legal period of 11 days so all of the votes could be counted. That seems like a basic principle for elections - count the votes, recount them and don't take any dumb risks with something so important. A privatised voting system as fucked as the one now in place means you don't need systematic fraud, the ensuing chaos is so easily manipulated - with a little help from friends in the media (and before the cry of "conspiracy" starts -2 words: Fox News). Jesus, how much easier could it have been?
You want resistance? This is resistance - after the biggest Freedom of information act request ever made was filed by "Blackbox Voting" to have access to state records to investigate what happened they came back with this:
We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records.

 

[ElderLemon]

Again, let's be clear on what we're talking about - not just irregularities but quite obvious cases of incompetence and ill-will which are overwhelmingly in Bush's favour - from the vote machine catastrophe, to the people who tried to deter others from voting/excercising the right to vote, to the remarkably early capitulation of Kerry, to the refusal of international observers etc. etc.
We're not talking about a perfect process with a couple of banal glitches, we're talking about a systematic privatisation (equals immune to public scutiny) for profit, of an electoral system by people who are part of the Bush administration's inner circle.
At least that's what I'm talking about.
As for the path of least resistance - what resistance? Who resisted? Kerry? No. The Democrats? No. Don't confuse complaining after the fact with resisting. If there had been any real "resistance" then the vote would still be undecided and we'd be waiting out the official minimum legal period of 11 days so all of the votes could be counted. That seems like a basic principle for elections - count the votes, recount them and don't take any dumb risks with something so important. A privatised voting system as fucked as the one now in place means you don't need systematic fraud, the ensuing chaos is so easily manipulated - with a little help from friends in the media (and before the cry of "conspiracy" starts -2 words: Fox News). Jesus, how much easier could it have been?
You want resistance? This is resistance - after the biggest Freedom of information act request ever made was filed by "Blackbox Voting" to have access to state records to investigate what happened they came back with this:
We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records.

I think You misunderstood what I meant by resistance- I was useing it in a metaphorical sense (i.e. flowing water follows the path of least resistance). What I meant was that a non-accountable Electronic Voting System would theoretically be easier to rig than a punchcard, Optical Scanning or Paper system. As I demonstrated with the figures last night, this didn't happen this time (I've included the figures for the seven counties in Ohio - I forgot to post them last night.)

BUSH got 47.1% (down 0.6% on the same counties in 2000)
KERRY got 52.4% (up 3.7% on Gore's vote in the same counties)
OTHERS got 0.5% (down 3.1% on 2000)

The swing against Bush was 4.3% in the E-voting Counties, as against 1.1% statewide.

I'm just talking about the voting, the theory about the manipulation of the vote is a whole other argument - to be honest, it's not my area, so I'm not going to profess an opinion. The only thing I will say that Kerry would not have capitulated if either of these two conditions held true :

A. That he stood a mathematical chance of winning;
B. That his chances of winning had been or were actively stymied by Blackwell or someone else.

In te first case, he would have been enitled to hang on; in the second case, I'm sure he would have sought legal redress.

What's the story with that 11 day rule anyway?

 

[Latex lizzie]

o.k. can I sum this up for yiz, basically there was more of a bru-ha ha right after the last time and Bush stole the election then, ever since then people have been talking about it but nothing was done. In the eyes of most voting americans who have been brainwashed by the media he took it fair and square this time..so I dont think it matters now. He isn't going anywhere and protest from the left will just be called "sour grapes" and brushed under the carpet..I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss it or anything..just that nothing is gonna change that and the last four years have shown us whats in store. I reckon by the end of febuary we will see some pretty disturbing stuff starting to emerge..maybe sooner.

 

[steve albino]

o.k. can I sum this up for yiz, basically there was more of a bru-ha ha right after the last time and Bush stole the election then, ever since then people have been talking about it but nothing was done. In the eyes of most voting americans who have been brainwashed by the media he took it fair and square this time..so I dont think it matters now. He isn't going anywhere and protest from the left will just be called "sour grapes" and brushed under the carpet..I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss it or anything..just that nothing is gonna change that and the last four years have shown us whats in store. I reckon by the end of febuary we will see some pretty disturbing stuff starting to emerge..maybe sooner.

Yep, the immediate future looks bleak.
As for the irregularities not mattering, the thing that I keep hearing and seeing is that this "legitamate" victory now ends all of the criticism that has dogged bush since the Florida debacle. Now he has a real mandate from the people who voted. To let that pass when there is clear/unclear evidence that that's not as true as Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld would like us to think seems to be quite important, and who knows what other titbits the investigators will come accross. Even if it's only to show the very dangerous limits and consequences of a vote without the possibility of a recount then that seems a good enough reason to get stuck in.
Mr Chomsky seems to think otherwise:
As to fraud, etc. I don’t think it is a major issue, even if true. The election had about the significance of tossing a coin to pick a king. If the coin was slightly biased, that’s unfair, but not the main issue. The much more important point is that the opinions of the majority of the population were excluded from the political arena on major issues. People voted for the imagery concocted by the PR industry. Exit polls reveal that clearly. But to discover whether the imagery is accurate, we have to compare people’s attitudes and beliefs with the actual programs. There’s plenty of interesting and credible evidence on this, and when we investigate it, we discover that people were hopelessly misled. Voters for both candidates assumed, overwhelmingly, that the candidates held their views, which is demonstrably false. In fact, voters recognized that they could not vote on agenda/policies/programs/ideas—about 10% gave that as their reasons—but only on imagery. And in a society based crucially on deceit (what is advertising?), it is quite natural that the political managers and the PR industry will run elections the same way. To repeat, there is overwhelming evidence that the opinions of the majority of the population on major issues were simply off the agenda, either within the political parties or in mainstream discussion, with rare exceptions. That democratic deficit seems to me far more important than the possibility that the coin that was tossed was biased.
Bush won slightly more than 30% of the electorate, Kerry slightly under 30%. I doubt that fraud had much to do with it. That’s about what I personally predicted, if that matters; am collecting some symbolic bets from friends, and even wrote about it a bit, on Znet. It is meaningless. It tells us virtually nothing about the country, just as it would tell us nothing if there had been a slight shift in votes and Kerry had won with a meaningless slight plurality. The important issues are: the opinions of the majority of the population on major issues were off the agenda, people voted for one or another image
http://blog.zmag.org/index.php/weblog/entry/some_election_comments/

As for the 11 days figure - in some states the law says that provisional ballots can't be counted before a period of 10 days has passed.
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2001/electref0801.htm#_Toc522012610

 

[steve albino]

Ohio Presidential Results to be Challenged
by Steven Rosenfeld
November 20, 2004

Ohio’s 2004 presidential vote will be challenged as soon as next week in the state Supreme Court, a coalition of public-interest lawyers announced Friday.

The lawyers have taken sworn testimony from hundreds of people in hearings in Columbus and Cincinnati, and will use excerpts as well as documents obtained from county election officials and Election Day exit polls to make a case that thousands of votes were incorrectly counted or not counted on Election Day.

“The objective is to get to the truth,” said Columbus Ohio lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, coordinator of the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign. “What’s critically important, whether it’s President Bush or Sen. Kerry, whoever’s been elected actually elected, is to know you won by an honest election. So it’s in the interest of both sides as American citizens to know the truth and have this answered.”

The challenge comes as the Green Party has plans to file for a recount of the state’s 2004 presidential vote. The Green Party and the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign both believe the unofficial results announced on Election Day were wrong. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has not yet certified the Nov. 2 vote. The state’s election law says an election challenge must show the wrong candidate was been declared the winner, or it can be dismissed without a hearing. The state Supreme Court’s chief justice hears the case.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/899

 

[steve albino]

APARTHEID BALLOT COUNTING IN AMERICA - GREG PALAST ON DEMOCRACY NOW!

As Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell certified President Bush's reelection on Monday, we hear an address by investigative reporter Greg Palast about the disenfranchisement of black votes in the Nov. 2nd election.

President Bush secured his reelection Monday after Ohio's Republican secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell certified the victory by a margin of 119,000 votes. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Monday that the presidential voting was widely perceived as "very free and fair."

But questions remain over the fairness of the Nov. 2nd election. At a forum on Capitol Hill yesterday, voting rights advocates reminded attendees of the more than 414,000 calls made to national hotlines monitoring complaints about the election. Among those calls, according to a new report from the Common Cause Education Fund, were many accounts from Ohio.

Yesterday at the New York Society for Ethical Culture investigative reporter Greg Palast spoke about the fairness of the election.

Greg Palast, investigative reporter speaking at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on December 7, 2004.

AMY GOODMAN: At the same forum that Richard Clarke spoke at last night at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, investigative reporter Greg Palast also spoke, who has investigated the 2000 election for the BBC and continues to do that work in Ohio. He spoke about the fairness of the 2004 election.

GREG PALAST: I came here tonight to warn you that there are cooks and cranks and crazies out there on the internet who think that John Kerry won. Now, I know because one of those articles on the internet called “John Kerry Won,” on Tompaine.com ... I wrote it.

Maybe you can explain this to me. See, I got the CNN exit polls, and it said that in Ohio, Kerry defeated Bush among women 53 to 47%, and among men, Kerry defeated Bush by 51 to 49%. So, who’s the third sex ...

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=403&row=0

 

[steve albino]

Congress Formally OKs Bush Election
(Jan 6, 2005)
Congress certified President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election Thursday but only after Democrats forced a challenge to the quadrennial count of electoral votes for just the second time since 1877

In a drama that was historic if not suspenseful, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (news, bio, voting record), D-Ohio, and Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., formally protested that the Ohio votes "were not, under all known circumstances, regularly given." That, by law, required the House and Senate to convene separately and debate the Ohio irregularities.

Boxer, Tubbs Jones and several other Democrats, including many black lawmakers, hoped the showdown would underscore the problems such as missing voting machines and unusually long lines that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods, on Nov. 2.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20050106/ap_on_go_co/electoral_vote

 

[steve albino]

The non - elections of 2004 By Noam Chomsky

The elections of November 2004 have received a great deal of discussion, with exultation in some quarters, despair in others, and general lamentation about a “divided nation.” They are likely to have policy consequences, particularly harmful to the public in the domestic arena, and to the world with regard to the “transformation of the military,” which has led some prominent strategic analysts to warn of “ultimate doom” and to hope that U.S. militarism and aggressiveness will be countered by a coalition of peace-loving states, led by—China (John Steinbruner and Nancy Gallagher, Daedalus). We have come to a pretty pass when such words are expressed in the most respectable and sober journals. It is also worth noting how deep is the despair of the authors over the state of U.S. democracy. Whether or not the assessment is merited is for activists to determine.

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jan2005/chomsky0105.html

 

[jane]

 

[steve albino]

Ohio Letter Seeks Illegal Contributions
Sat Jan 8, 3:02 PM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state's chief elections officer, accused of mishandling the presidential vote in Ohio, sent a fund-raising letter for his own 2006 gubernatorial campaign that was accompanied by a request for illegal contributions.

A pledge card with the letter from Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired the Bush-Cheney election campaign in Ohio, said "corporate & personal checks are welcome."
Corporate donations are illegal in Ohio.

His spokesman, Carlo LoParo, said Saturday that any corporate donations would be returned.
Blackwell said the request sent to GOP donors and activists was an oversight. His campaign's fund-raising coordinator, Jeff Ledbetter, blamed a printer for the mistake, saying it used a template for an issue committee, which is allowed to accept corporate donations.

Ledbetter told The Columbus Dispatch that no corporate donations had been received in response to the letter.
Blackwell's letter also praises Republicans for helping deliver Ohio to President Bush (news - web sites).
U.S. Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., who prepared a report on election problems in Ohio, said the letter supports suspicions that Blackwell's actions as secretary of state during the election "stemmed from partisan political motivations" to help Bush.
Conyers said in a statement that the letter "evidences Secretary Blackwell's poor judgment at best, and the manipulation of election administration for partisan purposes, at worst."
A group of voters citing fraud has challenged Bush's 118,500-vote win in Ohio with the state Supreme Court, citing irregularities including long lines, a shortage of voting machines in minority precincts and problems with computer equipment.
Blackwell has maintained that he is permitted to campaign for Bush and that Ohio's election system has checks and balances to ensure fair elections.

"I have an obligation to follow the law," Blackwell said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=511&u=/ap/20050108/ap_on_el_gu/ohio_election_chief

 

[steve albino]

Noe decides to quit county GOP post, board of elections
Article published Thursday, December 23, 2004

Bernadette Noe, chairman of the Lucas County Board of Elections and the county Republican Party, said yesterday she will resign from both positions effective early next year to spend more time with her family, and to pursue other opportunities, probably in a bigger political pond.
Ms. Noe's resignation from the county elections board adds more uncertainty to an office that has experienced turmoil stretching back three years, when election irregularities triggered investigations that led to forced retirements and firings of staffers. The office has had three directors over the past three years, and will need a fourth to replace Democrat Paula Hicks-Hudson, who is resigning effective next month.

The office is bracing for the release of a report from yet another investigation into management of the office during elections this year. Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, said the probe likely will lead to more staff changes imposed from Columbus.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041223/NEWS09/412230417

 

[steve albino]

Sen. Boxer's Statement On Her Objection To The Certification Of Ohio's Electoral Votes
January 6th, 2005
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5489

 

[steve albino]

[font=Verdana,] [/font] [font=Verdana,]Press Release:[/font]

[font=Verdana,] [/font] [font=Verdana,]Monday, January 31, 2005[/font]

[font=Verdana,] [/font] [font=Verdana,]Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results[/font]

[font=Verdana,] [/font] [font=Verdana,]President Bush won November's election by 2.5% yet exit polls showed Kerry leading by 3%. Which was correct?[/font]

[font=Verdana,] [/font] [font=Verdana,]"There are statistical indications that a systematic, nationwide shift of 5.5% of the vote may have occurred, and that we'll never get to the bottom of this, unless we gather the data we need for mathematical analysis and open, robust scientific debate.", says Bruce O'Dell, USCountVotes' Vice President.[/font]

[font=Verdana,] [/font] [font=Verdana,]The study, "Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report," was co-authored by a diverse group of professors and academicians specializing in statistics and mathematics affiliated with University of Notre Dame, Unversity of Pennsylvania, University of Utah, Cornell University, University of Wisconsin, Southern Methodist University, Case Western Reserve University and Temple University. Their study does not support claims made by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International that exit poll errors were to blame for the unprecedented 5.5% discrepancy between exit polls and official 2004 election results.
[/font]

[font=Verdana,]According to this analysis by a group of senior statisticians, the new data just released by the exit-pollsters shows that the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously. "Now we have statistical evidence that these reports were the tip of a national iceberg. The hypothesis that the discrepancy between the exit polls and election results is due to errors in the official election tally is a coherent theory that must be explored," said statistician Josh Mitteldorf.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=7153
[/font]

 

[steve albino]

Franklin County Pinpoints Cause of Inflated Bush Numbers

Akron Beacon Journal (AP)
February 12th, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio The Illinois company that manufactured election machines for Franklin County in Ohio has identified the error that made a laptop computer give thousands of extra votes to President Bush.
The mistake was caught several days after the election. It had Bush receiving four-thousand-258 votes in a precinct in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna where only 638 voters cast ballots. The corrected official count showed 365 votes for Bush.

The director of the Franklin County elections board says a review showed no fraud or tampering.

Gurnee-based voting machine manufacturer -- Danaher Controls -- has inspected the counting system and concluded the laptop was busy completing another task just as numbers from that precinct were being fed into it.


http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5578

 

[steve albino]

TUESDAY MAR. 8, 2005: Investigation Update (Submitted to members of the House Judiciary Committee on Mar. 4 and Mar. 8.)

In mid-February, Black Box Voting, together with computer experts and videographers, under the supervision of appropriate officials, proved that a real Diebold system can be hacked.

This was not theoretical or a "potential" vulnerability. Votes were hacked on a real system in a real location using the actual setup used on Election Day, Nov. 2, 2004.

In October, Black Box Voting published an article on this Web site about remote access into the Diebold system. After examining the Diebold software and related internal e-mails, local security professionals were able to demonstrate a hack into a simulated system. In February, we were allowed to try various hacking techniques into a real election system. To our surprise, the method used in our October simulation did not work.

However, another method did work. The hack that did work was unsophisticated enough that many high school students would be able to achieve it. This hack altered the election by 100,000 votes, leaving no trace at all in the central tabulator program. It did not appear in any audit log. The hack could have been executed in the November 2004 election by just one person. This hack stunned the officials who were observing the test. It calls into question the results of as many as 40 million votes in 30 states. We are awaiting the response of the House Judiciary Committee to this new development for their investigation.

In another real-world example, Black Box Voting obtained the actual files used in the Nov. 2 election in a specific county. In this situation, the local officials did not know how to run their Diebold system, so a Diebold tech ran the election in that county. Election officials remembered the Diebold tech's first name, but not his last name.

The Diebold tech had gone home after the election, and no one in the county was able to access their own voting system, leading to some consternation because they could not provide our public records request.

Because local officials could not access their logs, we were given permission to sit down and copy files. (We have since found that this is not an isolated problem -- many local officials are painfully unfamiliar with their own voting systems.)

Local officials did not know their password, so Bev Harris asked if they would like her to hack the password. They said "yes" (!)

Later, to our even greater surprise, Bev Harris found that the password set by the Diebold tech on this real election file, used in the Nov. 2004 election was ... drum roll please ... the diabolically clever password: "diebold." (This took only two tries to guess.)

The significance of these two reports is this: By hacking into the central tabulator so easily, we showed that Diebold has not told the truth about the security of its system. Indeed, the software being used in BOTH examples is still extremely vulnerable, with little or no effort made to correct its security flaws.

We have offered to meet with public officials at several different levels to provide more documentation on these problems.


http://www.blackboxvoting.org/#breaking

 

[steve albino]

[size=+1]Irish Times breaks silence about Bush fraud 2004[/size]
by Coilín ÓhAiseadha - Spider Force Saturday, Apr 16 2005, 5:21pm

O'Clery column breaks taboo, but persists in hints of excess scepticism

In a column entitled “Senator Frist in a fluster over Democrats filibuster” in The Irish Times (conservative/liberal Irish newspaper of record) today, the paper’s US correspondent Conor O’Clery addresses the renewed fuss brewing in the US about allegations of fraud in the presidential elections of last November.

However, there are signs that O'Clery is still somewhat sceptical.

A list of supplementary articles has now been sent to O’Clery and a long list of other Irish journalists, politicians and campaign organisations. Some of these articles come from traditional mainstream media, including CNN, Reuters, North County Times, The Tennessean and Baltimore Sun.​

Irish Times breaks silence about Bush fraud 2004


In a column entitled “Senator Frist in a fluster over Democrats filibuster” in The Irish Times (conservative/liberal Irish newspaper of record) today, the paper’s US correspondent Conor O’Clery addresses the renewed fuss brewing in the US about allegations of fraud in the presidential elections of last November.

See excerpt below.

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69427

 

[steve albino]

[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]The Ohio Players
By Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne

For a glimpse into local mechanics for money laundering and bribes, a good place to start is Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Diebold lobbyist Pat Gallina’s Republican Party friend, Robert E. Hughes was written up in the New York Times back in 1978, alleging a clumsy version of the cash transfers that have since evolved into an art form.

Who is Diebold’s Ohio lobbyist, Pasquale A. Gallina? (a.k.a. Patrick A. Gallina, Pat Gallina)

(Recap from Part I) ACG Group LLC was formed by Democrat Juan Andrade Jr., Democrat Anthony Celebrezze, and Republican Pat Gallina for the purpose of selling Diebold voting systems in Ohio and Illinois. (1) Gallina and Celebrezze were involved in the Ohio side of procurement, but Celebrezze died shortly after forming the company, leaving Gallina to handle Ohio. (2)

Pat Gallina has been operating behind the scenes in Ohio to promote the leading voting system vendor.

Gallina was the personnel director for the Ohio Lottery Commission during 1977 and 1978, when he resigned after being named in a lawsuit that prompted federal, state and local officials to investigate alleged contract kickback schemes at the commission. Gallina was granted immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony before a Cuyahoga County grand jury investigating Republican Chairman Robert E. Hughes over a lottery procurement issue. (3)

-----------------------

Gallina and Juan Andrade:

While Gallina was at the Ohio Lottery, Juan Andrade Jr. was also in Columbus, running the Ohio League of Hispanic Affairs. (4) Andrade is Gallina’s current partner in ACG Group. As you will see, Gallina seems to be a curious choice in business partners for someone of Andrade's impeccable reputation.

-------------------------------

Gallina and Mark Michalko, CEO of Los Angeles voting system parent company:

In 1977 and 1978, Gallina met another player, Mark Michalko, who now heads the parent company for InkaVote, the voting system used in Los Angeles. (5 ) Gallina hired Michalko as legal counsel for the Ohio Lottery in 1977. (6) Michalko became the first California Lottery Director at the age of 30, but stepped down suddenly two years later after investigators began digging into his vague contracts and sloppy accounting (yes, and that little matter of what happened to the millions from unclaimed tickets...).

California Lottery Director Michalko was chided by the Little Hoover Commission for his inadequate contract management. (7) But GTECH lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson, who was indicted on 10 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering, seemed to feel that Michalko was someone GTECH could count on. Jackson was secretly tape-recorded wistfully discussing Michalko: “He was our guy,” said Jackson “We had the first guy.” (8)

--------------------------------

Gallina’s Ohio connections:

For an excellent tutorial on the unsavory process of procuring systems in response to orchestrated legislation, you can’t do better than lottery systems. Take a close look at how they were legislated into being, state by state. It was a business plan. (9) Then look at how people like the Ohio Lottery Players cozied up to bribe-o-matic GTECH, through wheel-greaser Battelle, which anointed GTECH over and over (state lottery directors then explained to regulators that they bought GTECH due to Battelle’s “independent” recommendations.) (10,11,12,13,14,15)

Battelle later got the bright idea to do this for voting systems, but except for their brief and failed foray into exit polling with Voter News Service in 2002, we have not yet identified their fingerprints on elections. (16)

For a glimpse into local mechanics for money laundering and bribes, a good place to start is Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Gallina’s Republican Party friend, Robert E. Hughes was written up in the New York Times back in 1978 alleging a clumsy version of the cash transfers that have since evolved into an art form.

Anatomy of a bribe

Apparently an investigation over Ohio lottery contracts erupted after MCA Games Inc won a $2.2 million contract. This was investigated for its connection with a curious bank deposit by Hughes associate Terrence McCarthy. On the same day MCA was awarded the contract, McCarthy deposited $3,000 from MCA into a Cleveland bank account, the downpayment on a $30,000 fee from MCA. Among those withdrawing funds from that bank account were Hughes's executive assistant, Daniel J Lyon, Hughes's brother Donald, and a firm called Robert E Hughes Consultant Inc. The bank account was in the name of “DTD Co.” [Daniel-Terrence-Donald.] The DTD Co. bank account served as a depository for various partners, all of whom had direct ties to the Republican headquarters and GOP chairman Hughes. (17)

So here’s how it goes: Put somewhat legit “consulting” money into joint account and let your friends pull it out the other side. This triple-initialed joint checking account, acting as a conduit, was crude compared to some of the newer techniques – the “Dutch Sandwich,” for example, and the “Shipper’s Method” – but we’ll get to those in another installment of the Money Trail series.

Back to Gallina. During Hughes’ tenure as a Cuyahoga County Republican powerbroker, he helped several GOP candidates into political positions, including Mayor Ralph Perk, whose campaign manager was Pat Gallina. (18) While Hughes was commissioner of the Cuyahoga County School Board, one of Pat Gallina’s business partners, Joseph LoConti, helped himself to lucrative contracts providing school lunches (19) and captured profitable contracts to insure and bond county construction projects.(20)

LoConti and another troublesome character, Andy Shission were partners with Gallina in a venture called AllTech Inc. (21) Shission was accused of killing a member of a rival motorcycle gang over stealing his jacket. According to newspaper reports of the time, Shission was the national treasurer for the Hell’s Angels. He was indicted for two murders, but acquitted on both, and was instead convicted on tax charges.

LoConti, a part-owner of Gandalf’s Inn in South Euclid, hired Shission as a manager. Later, a Cuyahoga County judge, James McGettrick, was convicted of taking bribes for fixing a triple-murder Hell’s Angel case, and the bribes were laundered through Gandalf’s Inn. Charges against Shission for this bribery scheme were dismissed. (22) When Shissione was arrested, however, paperwork was found on him detailing a $2,000 wire transfer to Ohio Governor George Voinovich appointee Michael A. Fox.

Fox insisted that he thought it was Gallina who wired him the money. It was actually LoConti. No matter, says Fox, it was consulting money for work he did for a third party. The third party, he says, was Gallina. Fox was having his own problems, trying to explain to investigators why he'd been receiving payments from a concrete company awarded $8.5 million in state contracts. He explained that the cement firm needed a political consultant.(23)

Ohio's troubles with organized crime, Hell’s Angel murders, and politician indictments weren’t as bad as they could have been. Indictments more often end up dismissed for politicians, businessmen and lobbyists.

LoConti has been particularly lucky with witnesses changing their minds about testifying. Shission's lawyer, quoted in court documents, takes umbrage at the idea that juries should be allowed to be anonymous in certain Ohio cases -- and he denies allegations about defendants "staring intently at jurists" and cars driving ominously up and down streets where jury members live. (24) We found only one witness who turned up dead at a fortuitous moment. Just days after John D. Sorine's decision to turn state's evidence on a bid-rigging probe, he was found dead in a motel room. The beneficiary listed on Sorine's $500,000 life insurance policy was one of LoConti's companies. However, LoConti never got the money because the insurer refused to pay.(25)

Ohio isn’t alone in its frequent reprieves for indicted officials; former Los Angeles County Elections registrar Ray Ortiz beat a number of raps, and Lance Gough, while shilling for voting machines through ES&S predecessor Business Records Corp, was acquitted of charges including theft and allegations that he participated in payment of inappropriate expenses for two San Diego County election officials. (26)

The players have become more respectable, or at least smoother, in their recent activities. And, like Tinker-toys, the politicians, vendors, businessmen and lobbyists all seem to be interchangeable, if they survive.

Word to voting integrity activists: If you aren't a Tinker-toy, you aren't in the club; this should help to explain some of the blank looks you receive as you try, with sincerity and reason, to improve the system.

Voting machine salesman Lance Gough is now Executive Director of the Chicago Elections Board. Judge McGettrick died shortly after arriving in prison. LoConti is now running an insurance conglomerate. Robert E. Hughes left the Cuyahoga County political scene in 1991, when he was found asphyxiated in his garage from carbon monoxide poisoning, ruled an accident -- (albeit a strange one, since he was in the midst of a construction-related dispute and was reportedly found in pajamas covered by a business suit).(27) Michael A. Fox is now a Butler County Commissioner.(28) Gallina is now a lobbyist for NEC and Diebold in Ohio, in addition to handling the paperwork for the Diebold money machine, ACG Group LLC.

What can we do about this? http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/72/72.html

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[steve albino]

Massive review of voting laws under way


By Michael Conlon Thu May 26, 8:38 AM ET


CHICAGO (Reuters) - Long lines, challenged ballots and two of the closest presidential elections in the country's history have touched off a landslide of proposed voting law changes across the United States.


Some are hailed as much-needed upgrades that will assure everyone of a vote with no fraud; others are alarming civil libertarians who fear new restrictions could disenfranchise the poor and others at society's margins.

The National Council of State Legislatures, which tracks law-making developments, has compiled a list of sometimes competing proposals that have surfaced this year in 26 states, covering 21 pages of fine print.

Many deal with a central issue -- proof of identity for valid voters. But other proposals being debated include stiffer training for poll workers, allowing voters to register on or closer to election day, making it illegal to pay someone to register voters, harsher penalties for voter registration fraud, guidelines for casting provisional ballots and upgrades to election equipment.

The changes generally require approval by both the legislature and governor in any given state.

A new Nebraska law, for instance, allows heavily populated precincts to split in two on election day to eliminate lines, and establishes special satellite voting centers at hospitals and other institutions 20 days in advance of an election to give more people a chance to cast ballots.

PHOTO IDS DEBATED

Voter identification issues have been among the most hotly debated, evidenced recently when the Democratic governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle, vetoed a bill that would have required photo identification for all voters -- one day after his Republican counterpart in nearby Indiana, Mitch Daniels, signed a photo ID measure into law.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/rights_voting_dc

 

[steve albino]

Two Plead Guilty to Voting Twice in 2004


By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 2,11:40 PM ET


SEATTLE - As the results of 2004's general election are being contested in court halfway across the state, two people pleaded guilty Thursday to voting twice in the election.


Doris McFarland, 83, and Robert Holmgren, 59, each admitted in King County District Court that they forged the signatures of and cast ballots for their recently deceased spouses.

Each will have to pay $490 in fines and court fees but they won't spend any time in jail. Multiple voting is a gross misdemeanor that can carry up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

"My wife died just before this election," Holmgren told Judge Eileen Kato. "My judgment was clouded by the grief. I'm really sorry for what I did."

McFarland's lawyer, John Price, told the judge that she simply didn't know what to do with the extra absentee ballot after her husband of 63 years, Earl, passed away last October.

The judge told each client the court was sorry for their losses and wished them luck.

The King County prosecutor's office is investigating five additional cases of multiple voting in the county, but no charges have been filed.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng said the pleas sent a message that "our system is dependent on the honor of its participants, and those who cheat may wind up in court explaining it to a judge."

"At the same time, today's disposition recognizes that these people made a very human mistake during a time of grieving. ... Their motivation in these cases was not to throw an election, but to remember a loved one," Maleng said.

In Chelan County Superior Court in Wenatchee, Republican candidate Dino Rossi and the state GOP have challenged the 129-vote victory of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, alleging that election officials' errors, illegal voters and fraud stole the election from Rossi.

The case has focused particularly on King County, which has a third of the state's total votes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050603/ap_on_re_us/double_voting

 

[steve albino]

High-Tech Voting Accessory: Paper
by Jim Drinkard, USA Today
August 9th, 2005


WASHINGTON — Three years into a national debate over the security and reliability of computerized voting machines, the skeptics are winning.
In the past month, legislatures in five states — Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Oregon — have passed laws requiring computer-based voting machines to produce a paper backup that can be verified by the voter, according to Electionline.org, which monitors voting systems. That brings to 25 the number of states that require a paper trail.
Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia are considering similar legislation. (Graphic: States' paper trails)
Paper printouts could be used to verify the electronic count, or as a fail-safe measure in case a recount is needed.
Advocates of requiring a paper trail say it is a response to voters' concerns about whether their ballots are being accurately tallied. Those concerns, they say, stem from the nation's traumatic experience with the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida and a continuing close split in the nation's politics.
"We're not getting many landslides these days, so it's crucial that the votes be counted accurately," says Will Doherty, director of VerifiedVoting.org, which lobbies for paper trails on voting machines.
Some election experts fear that paper backup records will add a layer of complexity to an already delicate system. That could lead to even worse problems in the 2006 elections, such as jammed printers and long voting lines, they say.
"The unintended consequence of a (paper trail) mandate could diminish, rather than enhance, voter confidence," says Conny McCormack, who runs elections in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction, Los Angeles County.
"When we start using paper trails in a live election, all of these problems are going to become apparent," says Linda Lamone, administrator of the Maryland Board of Elections. "Problems with paper ballots are going to cause a whole new cloud over the system."
One example already has cropped up. In a California test July 20 of touch-screen voting machines with add-on printers, nearly 20% of the machines experienced problems, including paper jams and computer crashes. The machines were made by Diebold, a leading manufacturer of touch-screen computer voting equipment.
California has since banned the machines, and the test sent qualms through states such as Mississippi and Utah, which had decided to buy machines like those California rejected.
"That just threw holy hell into everybody's bonnet," says Kimball Brace of Election Data Services, a firm that monitors the kinds of voting systems in use across the nation.
Maryland was among the first states to go to all-electronic voting after the problems of the 2000 election, and its experience has been good, Lamone says. "If the proper security measures and procedures are put into place, it's the best system that there is," she says.
The state is lining up studies by two universities to look into the reliability of Maryland's Diebold machines and help decide whether a paper trail needs to be added. So far, Lamone says, the debate "has been based on assumptions, and not facts. We want to know what the facts are."
Only one state, Nevada, has used touch-screen voting with a paper backup in a statewide election, and that was last year. McCormack, who observed the Nevada voting, says most voters she saw didn't bother to check the printout.
If a close election goes to a recount, disputes could arise over whether the electronic vote or the paper version is the official record. Paper could be lost, and recounts could take weeks, Lamone says.
More and more states are making decisions about voting technology to meet a Jan. 1 deadline in the Help America Vote Act, which provides federal money to replace outmoded voting machines.
Brace notes that whenever localities adopt new voting technology, the first year it is used holds the greatest risk of problems.
"There's still the potential for a train wreck coming next year," he says.