18 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
(with verifiable references).

 Did you know... ?

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:
 Diebold and ES&S.
 http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
 http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the  U.S. voting machine industry.

 http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
 http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

 http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
 http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.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/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
 http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became  Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S machines.

 http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
 http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, has  recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
 
 http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php/name=News&file=article&sid=26
 http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
 http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's  vice-presidential candidates.

 http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
 http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html

8. Kenneth Blackwell co-chaired George Bush's Ohio election campaign. As  Ohio secretary of state, he left no stone unturned to suppress the  democratic vote.
 http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
 http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/894
 http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/1414219

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/views04/0225-05.htm
 http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/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/views04/0225-05.htm
 http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm

11. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election results.   Reputable analyses could not find an explanation of the discrepancy  between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential election.

http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/europe/23ukraine.html?ex=1102245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7e64fe49

12. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and  developers. These people helped write the central compiler computer  code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

 http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
 http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
 
13. Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code,  was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.

 http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
 http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

14. Jeff Dean was served jail time for planting back doors in his client's  accounting software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to  evade detection over a period of 2 years.

 http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
 http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the  polls in Ohio.

 http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/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 with the  chimp

http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov )
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

17. 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/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

18. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

 http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

 http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/
 0,10801,97614,00.html

 http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html

 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
 
 http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.htmlhttp://uscountvotes.org/

 Based on a list compiled by Angry Girl
 http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html

 ______________________________________________

 Were American's votes were deliberately miscounted?

If this was done, it means, quite literally, that we are no longer living in a democracy.

When I read the list a few days ago, some of the allegations just seemed too
 preposterous to believe. Like:

 "Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code... served  jail time for planting back doors in his client's accounting software and  using a 'high degree of sophistication' to evade detection over a period of  2 years."

 I tracked down the author of the list, who graciously responded with a  list of references for each allegation. I checked out this Jeff Dean  thing in particular. It didn't take long to get to this:

 According to the findings of fact in case no. 89-1-04034-1  (Washington State): "... Defendant's thefts occurred over a 2 1/2 year  period of time, there were multiple incidents, more than the standard range  can account for, the actual monetary loss was substantially greater than  typical for the offense, the crimes and their cover-up involved a high  degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records
 in the computerized accounting system that defendant maintained for the  victim, and the defendant used his position of trust and fiduciary responsibility as a computer systems and accounting consultant for the victim to facilitate the commission of the offenses."


 Another one of the references led to a detailed account of the double  database technique pioneered by Mr. Dean to enable electronically tabulated  votes give a false total while still presenting accurate details in case of  spot audits.

 In combination with the constellation of undisputed circumstantial evidence  and open conflicts of interest, these last details are just too damning to  ignore.

 A cloud over the validity of the American electoral process is not acceptable.

 Please join me in calling for:

 1) a full investigation of election irregularities

 2) measures to ensure that ballots cannot easily be miscounted, and can be
 recounted
 
Please -

 1) forward, or Copy & Paste, this list to everyone you know

 2) use it as grist for letters to the editor (in your own words) and requests to newspapers, radio and tv for election fraud investigation.

 http://www.democraticunderground.com/cu/cu.php?az=blaster

 3) write your congressional representatives calling for an investigation
 http://www.house.gov/writerep/