20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the U.S.
Nov 14th, 2005 at 10:13 am by Susie
Via Falala in the Crooks and Liars comments:
Did you know….
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/ evo…2804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/view…iew…s02/0916- 04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/ evo…2804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http:// www.americanfreepress.net…te_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/ evo…2804landes.html
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2…ain632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/sto…y.asp? S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/comme…/03/ 03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/ evo…04fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/mo…=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012…2903/ hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/…ives/ 000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush’s vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000…28/ b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/ storie…ew_hagel27.html
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/abou…bout/ about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/ evo…2804landes.html
9. Diebold’s new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/view…iew…s04/0225- 05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987…es/ pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/view…iew…s04/0225- 05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions…ons/ default.htm
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/a…nce/ default.htm
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/ …5,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en…10/ 301469.shtml
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/sto…0312/ S00191.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/ Hackt…voteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bb…bb…v_chapter- 8.pdf
14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a “high degree of sophistication” to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/ Hackt…voteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bb…bb…v_chapter- 8.pdf
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/up…org/up…press/ 2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/ editions…loc_elexoh.html
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold’s claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter…baxterVPR.mov.)
http://wired.com/news/evote/ 0,26…5,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2…ain632436.shtml
18. All — not some — but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/ …5,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ Elec…esBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/module…article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/sto…0411/ S00227.htm
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President’s brother.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/t…cal/ 7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp…- 2004Oct29.html
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida — again always favoring Bush — have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ Elec…esBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/ gov…1,97614,00.html
http:// www.americanfreepress.net…_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/head…ead…s04/1106- 30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/20…004/ 110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
And just to keep things interesting, Salon deconstructs Mark Crispin Miller’s new book, “Fooled Again.”

Superb post. I’m sending my 25 readers here!
Mark Crispin Miller is reading at Robin’s Bookstore (13th and Sansom) in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Nov. 30th, at 7pm, btw.
it’s like i always say (or have started saying since the 2000 election):
who needs one big conspiracy when a bunch of smaller ones will do just as well and are harder to detect?
What is wrong with the citizens of the USA that we are just standing by and letting this happen? Where do we even start to make changes?
Things like this are always proven by the totality of facts, which are overwhelming, but the defenders of the system will focus narrowly on individual facts and claim that they are each ambiguous. That might even be true, but the overwhelming evidence looking at the totality of facts is what proves the case.