The 2004 Election Has Already Been Rigged
Posted September 2, 2003 thepeoplesvoice.org
By Schuyler Ebbets
The pollsters have recently been forced to admit that the majority of
Americans are against the re-election of George Bush. Two wars, thousands of dead
human beings, and nine million lost jobs later and people are beginning to
realize that something is very wrong. In spite of this gradual awakening most
registered voters continue to depend on TV for their news and they are kept woefully
in the dark about issues like election reform and touch screen voting. The
media has gone to great lengths to foster an illusion of legitimacy and normalcy
surrounding the electoral process. People have been intentionally lead to
believe that their vote counts and Bush could actually be booted out of office on
Election Day. No way is Bush going to lose, it just can't happen. The 2004
election has already been rigged. The corporations and the military industrial
complex have bought them selves a government and they aren't going to let some
silly little presidential election jeopardize their investment.
On February 23, 2001 Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris suggested
that Florida rent rather than buy touch screen voting machines in time for the
2002 midterm election. She said, "I think it would be wrong-headed and
precipitous to purchase any equipment now. If you buy now, you're buying antiquated
technology". According to her twisted logic, it was acceptable to use faulty
voting systems in the election, it just wasn't a good idea to purchase them.
Prior to Florida's outrageous September 10, 2002 primary election, poll data
showed heavy support for Janet Reno in Broward County, but election results
from one Broward precinct alone revealed an impossible 0% turnout among more
than 800 registered voters. Reno requested a recount of eighty precincts
containing 31,375 registered Democrats because they reported only 1,952 votes. Her
request was immediately turned down by the State Elections Board. According to an
AP analysis, if those precincts matched the average county turnout, they
should have produced 10,260 votes, more than five times the number recorded by the
Election Systems & Software (ES&S), iVotronic touch-screen voting machines.
Almost two months later on election night, November 5th, 2002, tens of
thousands of Floridians experienced difficulties using the iVotronic machines.
Voters called in to Neil Rogers AM radio talk show the day after the election and
complained of "broken" voting machines, and machines that voted multiple times
for Bush when McBride was selected. Electronic voting expert, Rebecca Mercuri
told American Free Press, "Numerous severe voting system problems occurred
throughout Florida electronic voting on November 5th, but none of the major news
networks are covering these problems," On November 6th, David Host, spokesman
for the Florida Secretary of State, declared the elections, "an unqualified
success", and the Associated Press reported, "The closely watched contest for
governor in Florida was decided without a hitch." This propaganda might have
been believed if 103,222 ballots in Broward County alone had not been
"misplaced".
Katherine Harris is infamous for using her position as Florida's Secretary of
State during the 2000 election to unjustly purge over 90,000 predominantly
black and Hispanic Democratic voters from the rolls. People remembered how
Harris had taken away their civil rights when she prevented them from voting. On
November 5th, 2002, most of the Democratic electorate of 3.7 million people
turned out to vote for Jan Schneider who ran against Harris. Although registered
Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 340,000, it was too late, the new ES&S
iVotronic machines had already been installed in eleven key Florida counties. On
November 5, 2002 Jeb Bush became governor of Florida again, and Katherine
Harris was given a seat in the House of Representatives with only 138,940 votes,
defeating Democratic opponent Jan Schneider's oddly low 114,618 votes.
This wasn't the first Republican victory involving "Election Systems &
Software" (ES&S). Former right wing radio talk-show host and CEO of ES&S, Chuck
Hagel, decided he would run for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska with his own ES&S
machines counting the votes. Hagel failed to mention that he had been both CEO and
Chairman of ES&S on his disclosure documents, or that he was an owner in the
company that installed, programmed, and operated the voting machines used by
most of the citizens of Nebraska. In 1996, Republican Hagel won the race in
Democratic Nebraska for the U.S. Senate easily carrying both the primary and
general elections. According to Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.com, Hagel scored
lopsided victories in almost every demographic group, including Black communities
that had never voted for a Republican. With the widest margin of victory in
state history Hagel became the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate
seat in Nebraska. On November 5, 2002 Hagel ran against Democrat Charlie Matulka
and was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate by an unreal
83% of the vote. Again, the votes were counted by computer-controlled voting
machines built programmed and installed by Hagel's company Election Systems &
Software.
In Georgia, Republican Saxby Chambliss repeatedly questioned the patriotism
of Democratic incumbent and triple amputee war hero Max Cleland during his
campaign. Chambliss made the absurd claim that he was more patriotic than Cleland
even though he had avoided service in the Vietnam war with a "medical
deferment". A Poll taken by the Atlanta Journal Constitution published on November
1st, just five days before the election, showed support for Georgia Democratic
Senator Max Cleland at 49%, clearly 5% ahead of Republican Saxby Chambliss at
44%. Many People in Georgia, particularly veterans, had been angered by the
crude remarks made by Chambliss and they turned out in record numbers to vote for
Cleland. When the 'Diebold' Electronic Voting tally was made public it stunned
and confused the Georgia voters. Saxby Chambliss had won with 53% of the vote
compared to Max Cleland's 46%. It represented a 13% pro-Republican swing that
seemed to materialize out of cyberspace. The victories of Chambliss and
Hagel, along with the tragic October 25, 2002 plane crash that killed Democratic
Senator Paul Wellstone, virtually guaranteed Republican control of the Senate.
The Neocon election rigging juggernaut lurches forward unstoppable in the
guise of so-called election reform. Two Republican dominated corporations,
Election Systems & Software (ES&S), and Diebold Voting Systems, now control 80% of
the vote count in the United States. As this transition has moved forward, a
pattern of election upsets which overwhelmingly favor Republican candidates is
emerging. These are test runs in preparation for the 2004 presidential
selection. The Neocons have determined that elections can be manipulated easily with
the new touch screen voting systems and when accompanied by a media pounding of
lies the public will accept the rigged election results as fact. The greatest
advantage of the new touch screen voting scam is the removal of a paper trail
and the blockage of access to the inner workings of the software. When a
voter touches the screen to select a candidate there is no confirmation that the
machine has actually registered the correct selection. In the old punch-card
and fill-in-the-circle paper systems, voters could see their choice marked on
the ballot. In the event of any confusion or question, a record of the vote
existed and a recount was possible. Since the new electronic systems leave no
paper trail there can be no recount and the results must be accepted as fact.
Attempts to examine the code used by the machines in Florida were blocked in the
courts by the GOP citing, "proprietary/trade secrecy" protections under a law,
which made it impossible for the DNC to ascertain how the machines tabulated
votes.
It would be admirable if the American people could resist the next rigged
presidential election as they did the scam of 2000. Of course the 'Supreme Court
five' would uphold the "proprietary/trade secrecy" protections and the bogus
election results would be ruled as legitimate. The coming election fraud has
been so well planned that it probably won't make it into the courts. With the
help of the media, the Neocons will deliver the deathblow to democracy at the
touch screen voting terminals. |
