You can't vote them out if....
You never voted them in.

The lack of any exit polling on November 5 has been oddly ignored by the media. Those pesky tracking polls leading up to the elections have been explained away by a ‘late surge to the Republicans’ caused by.... hmmmm, how about sun spot activity? With no exit polls, there was no other feedback to conflict with the "official" results, this allowed the Diebold touch screen machines to change the way election fraud is carried out.

Previously, election cheating was a complex matter of ballot tampering combined with sample skewing. That is to say, you screwed up ballots for your opponent with under or over votes, made sure that people likely to vote against you wouldn't even get that chance (the program of voter disenfranchisement in Florida) and padded your own vote total with such things as falsified absentee ballots.

In the much more high tech world of Diebold electronics we are seeing a wonderfully efficient vote rigging system, the long proposed 'black box' technology. Imagine a black box in which you cannot see the workings. The only things you can discern are an input and an output; in this case votes go in and collated totals come out. There is no paper record of each individual vote cast to enable any cross check of the collated output. The only information you can know for sure is the total number of votes cast on the machine. Each vote is stripped of any information as to who cast that ballot to guarantee anonymity for the voters. You now have a system in which you have no way to check vote recording, vote collation and transmission of the collated totals out of the black box.

The perfect crime?

Not quite. Let me suggest an experiment. We take two ‘markets’ with similar socioeconomic mixtures and a well established record of moving in the same political direction. We provide them with candidates from party X and party Y. We then expose them to similar news stories, we spill TV and radio ads over between the markets to make the effects less ‘local’ and give them identical weather on election day. The differences between the markets are 1. the candidates and 2. the method of casting and counting the votes. We then take a series of tracking polls on the gap between the candidates leading up to election day.

If we express the tracking poll data as the relative preference for the candidates (12 point lead by X, down one point from last week etc.), any substantial discrepancy between the forecast and actual election outcomes should arise from major news changes, the weather effects on turn out or a a social tendency to misrepresent voting intent. Since both groups get the same news, the same weather and have the same social tendencies, any difference between tracking poll and actual poll data should be in the same direction and of a similar magnitude.

Sooooo...... how come the South Carolina elections had the Democrats doing much better than the tracking poll data showed and the Georgia elections, in an area with the same weather, same news and same social values, had a massive swing in a single day after the last tracking poll, in the opposite direction? Could it be the Diebold touch screen machines in use across the entire state of Georgia but not used at all in SC?

Of course, such a perfect method of mischief has been attempted before,

http://www.votescam.com/frame.html -- Go to the link marked "Chapters" and read all about it. Watch how few lines pass before the names Bush and Sununu come up.

You can trim the wheels in mechanical voting machines but that is easier to spot than a computer program set up to be date sensitive so it causes only to ‘misfunction’ on November 5. The current problem with virtual ballot tampering was apparent as long ago as 1989. Jonathan Vankin made this warning in "Metro: Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper," of Sept. 28, 1989

“A single, Berkeley- based firm manufactures the software used in the machines that compile more than two-thirds of the nation's electronically-counted votes. Analysts describe the software as "spaghetti code," tangled strands of instructions indecipherable to outsiders. The experts say the code could be manipulated without detection. In fact, that may have happened already.”

http://www.conspire.com/vote-fraud.html

After systematic punch card fraud was revealed in the 2000 election, touch screens were proposed as a panacea and have been rapidly adopted against the warning of experts,

“Critics warn local election officials could be trading one set of problems for another potentially as bad, or worse, than last year's election debacle. They vigorously argue that fully electronic systems pose data-security problems and lack a paper trail. "There's no way to independently verify that the voter's ballot as cast was actually the ballot being recorded by the machine,'' said Rebecca Mercuri, a computer scientist and visiting lecturer at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.”

http://www.kioskcom.com/article_detail.php?ident=1021

It would be interesting to impound a few machines from the heaviest leaning Democratic areas in Georgia and reset the date in the machine to November 5, 2002. A hand counted series of inputs could be made to the machines. Note to James Baker: hand counting is the gold standard against which we check machine counting efficiency. An input of 500 or so ‘dummy’ votes could then be tabulated and the outcome checked against the inputs. Of course, you could just check the software code. Except for one problem; the company refuses to let anyone see their code on the grounds that is a trade secret.

Oddly enough, Diebold aren’t the only Republican partisans who “helped” select our candidates for office yesterday:

“According to his press office, in 1995 Chuck Hagel resigned as CEO of American Information Systems (AIS), the voting machine company that counted the votes in his first Senatorial election in 1996. In January 1996 Hagel resigned as president of McCarthy & Company, part of the McCarthy Group that are one of the current owners of Election Systems and Software (ES&S), which itself resulted from the merger of AIS and Business Records Corporation. According to publicist/writer Bev Harris, Hagel is still an investor in the McCarthy Group. ES&S is now the largest voting machine company in America. One of its largest owners is the ultra-conservative Omaha World-Herald Company.”

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Landes_Ambush.htm

For more background reading on who gets to play with your ballot, see:

http://www.talion.com/election-machines.html

Who are Diebold? The corporate officers are as thick as thieves with the Republican hard right religious nut division. For those who have been lucky enough to forget, Senator Faircloth was the protege of Jesse Helms in NC. It looks like the board and the directors were all putting up money for a Faircloth victory when Edwards took that senate seat. I wonder if they conspired to put things right.....?

http://www.diebold.com/

Board of Directors
Louis V. Bockius III (2,4,5)
6/28/00 $15,000.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
11/3/00 $10,000.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
10/9/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
10/9/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE

Christopher M. Connor
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The
Sherwin-Williams Company
5/22/00 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
3/30/00 $1,000.00
DEWINE FOR US SENATE
Gale S. Fitzgerald (2, 6)
President and Chief Executive Officer , QP Group, Inc.
7/12/00 $500.00
NEW YORK REPUBLICAN FEDERAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
10/12/98 $200.00
FRIENDS OF JOHN LAFALCE
10/18/99 $1,000.00
BUSH FOR PRESIDENT INC
Donald R. Gant (1,3,5)
Senior Director, The Goldman Sachs Group, L.P.
L. Lindsey Halstead (2,3,6)
Retired Chairman of the Board, Ford of Europe
12/22/98 $500.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
1/23/97 $500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
5/27/97 $200.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
10/31/97 $500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
12/28/99 $500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
3/7/01 $300.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
6/12/01 $200.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
11/27/01 $200.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
1/24/02 $500.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Phillip B. Lassiter (1,3,6)
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Ambac Financial Group, Inc.
4/16/98 $250.00
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE
CONTRIBUTIONS
9/21/98 $250.00
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE
CONTRIBUTIONS
John N. Lauer (1,4,5)
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Oglebay Norton Co.
10/10/00 $1,000.00
DEWINE FOR US SENATE
8/23/00 $250.00
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
3/17/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
Walden W. O'Dell
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Diebold
2/14/01 $2,015.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
12/17/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
1/30/01 $3,950.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
8/16/01 $500.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
12/17/97 $1,000.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
6/30/00 $1,000.00
DEWINE FOR US SENATE
Eric J. Roorda
Former Chairman, Procomp Amazonia Industria Eletronica, S.A.
W.R. Timken Jr. (2,3,4)
Chairman , The Timken Company
6/23/00 $50,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
6/8/01 $100,000.00
2001 PRESIDENT'S DINNER - NON-FEDERAL TRUST
3/14/01 $10,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
8/19/99 $15,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
11/3/00 $15,000.00
RNC REPUBLICAN NATIONAL STATE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
2/22/02 $1,000.00
RELY ON YOUR BELIEFS FUND
6/12/02 $1,000.00
OHIO'S REPUBLICAN SALUTE
Corporate Officers
Walden W. O'Dell
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Diebold (See above)
Wesley B. Vance
Chief Operating Officer
8/16/01 $500.00
VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
Michael J. Hillock
President, Diebold International
11/18/97 $500.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
David Bucci
Senior Vice President, Customer Solutions Group
11/18/97 $500.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
James L.M. Chen
Vice President and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific
Warren W. Dettinger
Vice President, General Counsel and Assistant
Secretary
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
1/30/97 $250.00
DEWINE FOR U S SENATE (2000)
Donald E. Eagon, Jr.
Vice President, Global Communications & Investor
Relations
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
Charee Francis-Vogelsang
Vice President and Secretary
Larry D. Ingram
Vice President, Procurement and Services
1/30/97 $250.00
DEWINE FOR U S SENATE (2000)
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998

Dennis M. Moriarty
Vice President, Customer Business Solutions
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998

Anthony J. Rusciano
Vice President, National Accounts
11/18/97 $300.00
FAIRCLOTH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE 1998
--- Hey Tony! Listing yourself as “retired” and using
your vacation home address to avoid campaign donation
limits is a tad naughty don’t you think?

Despite repeatedly stating that a key demand was an end to administrative detention, and that no partial offer would be accepted, an Israeli offer was yesterday accepted by the Higher Committee for the Hunger Strikers on behalf of the prisoners. Although Israel has agreed to release 19 prisoners from solitary confinement - several of whom have been in isolation for more than ten years - and to lift the ban on family visits for prisoners from Gaza, the agreement states only that administrative detention will not be ‘renewed’ automatically and that after six months, the prisoner must be released, or charged. Current administrative detainees will be released, or charged, at the end of their current sentence. (video by Julie Webb-Pullman - Nakba Vox-pops with Gazans)More>>

REPORTS ON THE STRIKE END:

• Prisoner Interview - Julie Webb-Pullman: Jalal Saker’s Story
• Government Media Office - Victory of the prisoners in the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
• Palestinian Information Center - Palestinian prisoners win battle of empty stomachs
• International News Links - Palestinian prisoners, Israel make deal to end hunger strike
• Israel Security Agency - Terrorist Activity by Security Prisoners
• Israel Prison Service - End of the Hunger Strike

Julie Webb-Pullman: Gaza.Scoop.ps – Real Time News From Gaza

• Photo Essay: Al Jundy on Day 25 of the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
• Palestinians Favour A Diplomatic Solution, Says Haniyeh
• Hundreds Of Gaza Women March To Join Hunger Strikers Rally
Photo essay – 20th day of the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
• May Day In Gaza
• Protest Tent in Support of Hunger Striking Prisoners Relocates in Gaza City