Corporations control America's elections with secrecy and criminal fraud. Your vote means absolutely nothing! American Democracy is dead! It's nothing less than an insidious corporate revolution, an insidious subversion by corporatist vote snatchers. In less tolerant times, such culprits might hang. Perhaps, they should today.Once again there is an "unexplainable" and a highly improbable descrepancy between exit polling and balloting. According to New Hampshire exit polls, Barack Obama won the New Hampshire primary 39% to 35%. In every other count, the exit polls have been spot on! Once again, questions arise about the credibility of Diebold voting machine, indeed, the credibility of the electorial process itself. Here are the exit poll results at 8:01 PM when the polls closed and here is a chart with the final tabulation.
With voting over in New Hampshire, the big network exit poll is out and according to Fox News it shows:
Democratic candidates:
Obama 39%
Clinton 34%
Edwards 18%Republican candidates:
McCain 35%
Romney 30%
Huckabee 13%Both races are too close to call - and it looks like both Obama and McCain have only a slim lead based on these polls.
--Guardian Unlimited, Exit polls: Obama and McCain ahead
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008
Diebold has changed its name if not its stripes. It is now called "Premier". Premier what? Number one in criminal fraud!! How much longer are we going to put up with this before this gang of crooks is hauled before a Federal Grand Jury to testify under oath? If Antonin Scalia could get away with citing the Fourteenth Amendment as reasons to hear Bush v Gore, then a Federal Grand Jury should begin a Federal investigation of all national elections since Bush stole the White House.
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting)
81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. People like to say "but we use paper ballots! They can always be counted by hand!"But they're not. They're counted by Diebold. Only a candidate can request a hand recount, and most never do so. And a rigged election can easily become a rigged recount, as we learned in Ohio 2004, where two election officials were convicted of rigging their recount. (Is it just a funny coincidence that Diebold spokesman is named Mr. Riggall?)We need to get the count right on election night. Right now, nobody in New Hampshire, except the programmers at LHS Associates and Diebold Election Systems, knows if we are getting it right or wrong. Our state officials and representatives know this. They learned all about it when computer security specialists Harri Hursti and Bruce Odell testified before the legislative subcommittee on e-voting in September 2007 (Hursti's testimony is shown in this video). Scientific reports about the vulnerabilities and risks with Diebold optical scanners have been available since 2003.
--NH: "First in the nation" with corporate controlled secret vote counting
If nothing is done to stop venal corporations like Diebold/Premier, American Democracy is dead! The Republic died with Bush v Gore and nothing has been done to resurrect it. We are left with a corporate dictatorship. Americans, you had been free but now you are slaves to the corporate Moloch. A revolution won't happen --sadly --because no one has the courage or the stomach for it.
See also: If your money was in a bank which had the safe guards of a "voting machine", you would be dead broke in a week!
22 comments:
Excellent post, Cowboy.I might add..don't forget about the Sen. Hagel connection and that fact that Sequoia, Diebold/Premeir, and ES&S are all held under the same "holding company"...McCarthy Group. I believe it is based out of Nebraska, too. But Hagel sits/sat on the board of directors for McCarthy and I also believe was part of the the Diebold and ES&S start ups.
search Hagel on my site..or diebold
Thanks for the tip, news! I urge readers to mozy on over to the "Sophisticate" to get the rest of the story. In the meantime, one of us should summarize everything learned about Diebold since they rose to infamy. If you do it, please consider cross posting portions here...BTW --I continue to enjoy your posts. Keep up the great work.
I suggest a more likely reason for the pollsters having got it all wrong about Clinton and Obama is the much talked about "Bradley Effect" or "Wilder Effect". You may well have written about this - I haven't had time to check. My apologies for not having done so.
Since I did write about this on my own most recent blog posting, why don't I cheat a little, and quote myself via the process of cut and paste, since I'm feeling lazy:
"........was.....Barack Obama, a victim in New Hampshire of the "Bradley Effect" (or, if you like, "Wilder Effect")? - whereby, in contests involving a white and a black candidate, many white voters, when polled, will tell the pollster they intend to vote for the black candidate. But in the privacy of the polling booth they won't actually do so, because they have negative views about blacks generally.
Since they don't want this to get around - for no-one wants to be called a racist - they will tell the pollster they'll vote for the black candidate. Thus black candidates tend to do better in opinion polls than in the voting booth.
Most cognoscenti think that, while the 'Bradley' or 'Wilder Effect' did once have legs, it has them no longer, given that racism today isn't nearly what it once was. Besides, what about Iowa? where Obama came out top by the margin predicted by the pollsters.
But, could it be that, because voting in the Iowa caucuses wasn't done privately, but in the open, the fear of exposure deterred covert, or guilty racists from voting against Obama?
Is, then, the 'Bradley' or 'Wilder Effect' still alive and kicking? So when pollsters periodically do their hypothetical presidential match-ups involving Barack Obama or Hillary, against a Republican opponent - whether Giuliani or Romney or whoever - they should in future, factor in the 'Bradley' or 'Wilder Effect' when Barack Obama is the hypothetical Democratic nominee?...................".
Since the pollsters got it right about all the other participants in the NH primary, why should they have got it wrong about Obama, and by extension, Hillary Clinton?
If you postulate that Diebold manipulated their voting machines to favour Hillary Clinton, why might they have done so, given that Obama is as much in thrall to the corporate establishment as is Hillary.
Using Occam's Razor, I suggest it's more likely that the NH result was due to the "Bradley" or "Wilder Effect".
Since the pollsters got it right about all the other participants in the NH primary, why should they have got it wrong about Obama, and by extension, Hillary Clinton?
Well, that's the point. I didn't make a case that --in this instance --Diebold, themselves, screwed the machines to favor Hilary. I see no reason why they would have. There is, however, probable cause for a Federal Grand Jury to investigate for a plethora of charges.
The Princeton video shows how the Diebold/Premier machines could be "hacked" by anyone with the knowledge. See: Princeton University Reveals How the GOP Steals Election
But --given the sycophantic kiss-ups to the GOP that is Diebold, they are not to be given a pass by whatever Federal Grand jury should be investigating this entire issue even as we post. Let a Grand Jury return the indictments where they will; let a jury decide upon the facts.
I am not surprised a bit about Die Bolt giving a hand to Hillary. I knew about the discrepancy between the vote count and the machine count since the day after Hillary’s “triumph”. But no one took me seriously. Thank you Len to put it into good words I can now use when debating folks on this issue.
Just like with Pervez Musharraf, the thing is all about motive, motive, motive.
What is the motive for Die Bolt to help Hillary? Very simple: Wall Street is doing its pants before the prospect of an Obama victory. Reuter, last week, made it very clear: ““Wall Street analysts worry that the election results could pave the way for higher taxes that would hurt a U.S. economy already in a slowdown.”
Furthermore, yesterday, Reuters confirmed this feeling by publishing another article saying that, relieved after Clinton’s victory in NH, Wall Street numbers went up.
Super-rich folks are the only ones who do not embrace the beautiful historical event of a brilliant young man ready to change things in Washington. I won’t be surprise if someone as we speak is getting paid to camp on a rooftop somewhere with a rifle , a scope, and a gold bullet….
According to Columbus' Ohio's Free Press, MANY counties in Ohio appear to have rigged the 2004 recount - in one case they apparently went so far as to use stickers to change Kerry votes to Bush votes.
Re. why Diebold would prefer Hillary to Obama, while both are establishmentarian, Hillary would appear to have MUCH deeper establishment ties than Obama.
There's not enough difference to make ME vote for Obama, but that's irrelevant ...
You're all right --Christopher, dante, workshop.
As for the Axis of Hilary and Obama --both speak in meaningless platitudes. One can read into that shit whatever you want. As Christopher asked: why would Diebold want Hilary over Obama? Workshop theorizes about Hilary's "establishment credentials". I concur. I've always thought of Hilary as a Republican.
The GOP, however, has often interfered to influence primaries toward a candidate they think they can beat. Is this what happened this time 'round. Who the hell knows? All I know is --I want Diebold behind bars and safely out of the "vote stealin' bidness".
Dante wrote..
I won’t be surprise if someone as we speak is getting paid to camp on a rooftop somewhere with a rifle , a scope, and a gold bullet….
You can always count on crooks, liars, and cheats to resort to intimidation, force, violence, murder. For them, that is "debate".
Bloomberg is likely to run as spoiler. He'll draw more votes from any Democratic candidate than from a Republican (recall Nader and his deadly effects on Al Gore in Florida). Hillary stands a very good chance of being the nominee and the Republicans would clearly prefer to face off against her rather than Obama.
David Boren and Sam Nunn are apparently fans of this idead and have got together and threatened that "unless the Democrats declare a 'unity government' and agree to appoint Republicans as senior cabinet members, they'll mount a third-party spolier campaign to prevent a Democratic victory. And they'll do it in the name of civility...The weapon of choice for these late-blooming gangsters is Michael Bloomberg."
mmm....Boren...quite! The guy from Oklahoma with a penchant for handsome male pages (where have we seen that before) and the disturbing connections to 9/11 (1 2 3* 4). A "unity government" indeed. Who the hell does he and Nunn actually represent?
len hart said: A revolution won't happen --sadly --because no one has the courage or the stomach for it.
I think it's possibly more that not enough people who would care and who are in a position to really change the situation even know about what's going on, because, of course, it's not in the interests of the corporate media to shed any light on this at all. Fortunately, more and more people are finding out about it and, hopefully, it can be repaired before November 2008 so that the final results of the elections will truly reflect the will of the people (and not Diebold/Premier/McCarthy Group).
Thank you for writing so much about this, Len!
It seems that we only closely examine election results when the outcome is close or there are enough OBSERVABLE anomolies to raise questions. Shouldn't we just, as a matter of course, do some auditing to ensure accurate results. And do this BEFORE the results are certified. it seems like a no-brainer.
Way back about 1980 I did an election system for a very large corporation to handle corporate annual meeting shareholder elections. It was impressed upon me that the system had to be transparent and auditable in case the SEC asked questions.
it just seems so obvious.
The Fox News' story referes to "Early exit polling" which indicates the results listed are not complete. CNN's final exit polls are very much in line with the reported result; if this were not the case I think this story would have traction. Anyone willing to face the facts should recognize there is no indication of vote rigging in this particular case. That said it is true that the use of private firms to provide voting machines which contain proprietary code which cannot be vetted is contrary to the principals of open and fair voting.
New Hampshire - "Live Free or Diebold!"
HARHARHARHAR!!!!
CNN's final exit polls are very much in line with the reported result;
You know, it would make sense that people who are wanting to fiddle with results in November would be fiddling with results now, just to refine the process so that the fiddling can go on with less chance of detection when the stakes are so much higher. Is it beyond possibility that agreement/coordination could exist between the people fiddling and the people polling? There must be polls other than those of CNN that do NOT agree with the results. Kucinich is challenging the outcome in NH, BTW, on the basis of polls not agreeing with the outcome. It's a 7 point shift from Obama to Clinton - about what shifted from Kerry to Bush in 2004.
Ratchet ...that's a GREAT logline for a movie. Check the new graphic.
Hey EC (aka Len)...
Thanks for the analysis... I have not seen the numbers posted side by side and they are VERRRRY interesting...
It wouldn't surprise me if Clinton supporters/campaign officials learned how to rig the machines for their "leader."
Also, I didn't watch the Princeton video, but I know from analyses of voting irregularities in NM where I live, that sometimes local voting officials have to program the software for all issues being voted on (may not apply to a primary, but does in the general)... and they discovered that the local staff did not know how to program the software properly... sometimes resulting in huge undercounts or overcounts for some officials.
Greg Palast has report on these irregularities if you care to google him and NM voting, you could probably find it.
So if local programming or input was required, there is the opportunity for purposeful or accidental manipulation of the software.
thanks again... I'll check out your website again, I clicked on a link from buzzflash.
ps... poking around buzzflash again and there's a link to a good David Lindorff article on this issue on counterpunch.org..
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01112008.html
I like this quote in the last two paragraphs:
"Jonathan Simon, an attorney and co-founder of the group Election Defense Alliance, says that the vote discrepancies between machine and hand counts in New Hampshire's Democratic primary are troubling, and defy easy explanation.
"The trouble is, whenever you have a surprise result in an election, and it runs counter to the polls, the media always say the problem is the polling, not the counting." But he adds, "The thing is, these things always work in one direction-in favor of the more conservative candidate, and that defies the law of quantum mechanics." "
And... the article mentions that Kucinich has called for a hand recount and ponied up the $2K that NH requires. Doesn't say how long it will take to do that, but I'm glad someone is doing something (the request has to come from a candidate).
cheers... Carol
cece, you'll find the Princeton video and my comments at Princeton University Reveals How the GOP Steals Election. The problem is clearly not merely incompetence. Princeton duplicated the kinds of "errors" that appear to have sunk Obama.
An excerpt:
Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal
votes with little if any risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss. We have constructed demonstration software that carries out this vote-stealing attack.
My husband and I watched the 2004 remake of "The Manchurian Candidate" last night in which a global corporation (sounded like Blackwater and Halliburton combined) is behind the diabolical plot to get one of their own into the presidency. In the movie they resorted to brain implants to control the people. Obviously that isn't even necessary. Vote rigging would accomplish the same thing, wouldn't it? And lots of money.
If Diebold can make bank transfer machines, with paper trails, why do they not make voting machines the same way??? Because it is easier to hack them and change vote counts, Dummy! And along with threatening and bribing poll workers,which happened in 2006 -- remembe the polls opening late and the poll workers who went missing from their jobs...
/ makes it easier to steal elections. This was largely prevented in the 2006 elections, but the masters of voting fraud were at it again in New Hampshire. (Sorry about the gap, above. I don't yet know how to undo it.) Regards, Anne G.
Nice work again, Len.
Remember that Rove wanted it to be Hillary for the Dems in '08.
If the Democratic primary was $tolen, don't be so sure the 'thugs didn't have a hand in it too.
google cache of the contact page from LHS Associates:
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:lRwPfh5QNGYJ:www.lhsassociates.com/employeedirectory.htm+LHS+associates+metheun+employee+directory&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
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