[ale] VOTE for VERIFIABLE ELECTIONS TODAY!

[dude-aaron-omy]

On 2010/08/11, at 11:12 , Robbie Honerkamp wrote:

> On 8/11/2010 10:54 AM, Bob Toxen wrote:
>
>> It amazes me how many folks continue to blame Bush for things that
>> happened after he no longer was President and in some cases after he
>> was even a Governor.  It's OK if you don't like the guy but why tell
>> lies about him?  I don't like Obama but when he does something  
>> right I
>> will say so.
>>
>> The voting system we have now in Georgia came as a direct result of  
>> the
>> corruption (in my opinion) of Karen Handle, now running for Governor.
>> Aaron is our hero in working tirelessly to try to change it.
>
> It amazes me how many folks continue to blame Karen Handel for things
> that happened before she was Secretary of State. It's OK if you don't
> like the lady, but why tell lies about her?

> The voting system we have now in Georgia came from Cathy Cox, who was
> the Secretary of State who directed the computerization of our voting
> system in Georgia, and who didn't think that any sort of vote
> verification system was needed.

Robbie is basically  correct here, as I was about to point out myself.

SoS Cathy Cox, her Election Director Kathy Rogers,  a Democratic  
Majority
Georgia Assembly and Democratic Governor Roy Barnes were the government
representatives who instigated the installation of the Diebold Zero  
Evidence
machines.  Still, it might not be fair to say that they didn't think  
that any sort of
verification was needed, since it appears to many of the voting rights  
activists
working on this issue that Diebold was fraudulent in representing  
their election
systems to our State representatives, claiming that they met the paper  
verification
requirements of the system recommendations that came out of the (multi- 
partisan)
21st Century Voting commission in 2001.  In my view, the whole thing was
as bait and switch scheme and the legislators didn't have the facts on  
what
they were voting for.    <http://sos.georgia.gov/vote_comm/meetings.htm>

The big carrot Diebold was grabbing for was tens of millions of our  
Federal tax
dollars  earmarked for updating State voting equipment through the  
(Republican
sponsored)  2001 Help America Vote Act (which, BTW, also mandated paper
audit capabilities for machines purchased with the funds).  Important  
note here
is that Diebold didn't actually have any voting systems to sell until  
they acquired
a Texas company, Global Elections Systems, just 30 days before they were
awarded the largest voting system contract in history (around May,  
2002).

Most of the sales job to the Commission and the State officials came  
through
the Diebold contracted lobbying firm of Massey and Bowers - Massey being
the (D) SoS predecessor and former boss of Cathy Cox, Bowers being a
former (R) Attorney General.  Together with the sole "expert" PAID  
witness
they arranged from Kennisaw State Computer Department, Dr. Brit  
Williams,
they convinced the legislators that Diebold should be handed a monopoly
contract with guaranteed profit margins (that the public wasn't allowed
to see for 3 years despite numerous open records requests because
Diebold claimed their contract contained "trade secrets").

Kennisaw State, Brit Williams and Merle King were rewarded for their
deceptions with the contract for the "Elections Center" where they
receive some $500,000 every year to re-certify the zero evidence
Diebold election systems (? as cerfifiably insane ?).  Mostly, though,
the Election Center has served as a massive, publicly funded PR
platform for the Diebold corporation, where they can brainwash the
public and election workers into thinking that insane is the new normal.

It took a couple years, but the State was eventually reimbursed $73  
million
from our Federal tax dollars for the Diebold machine purchases.  In  
2004,
our coalition estimated the transition had actually cost the State  
about $130
million in payments to Diebold and Kennisaw.  Actual costs of all the  
training
and maintenance contracts and machine transporting and system storage
and expensive Diebold technicians running around running our elections
on election days and keeping the Kennisaw propaganda factory going
has probably brought the cost of our last 5 elections to somewhere over
$200 million by now, especially after adding in the 3x market price  
laptops
Diebold sold us as "poll books" in 2004.

In 2006 Cathy Cox ran for Governor, though Cox didn't abandon her SoS
duties mid term the way Karen Handel did for this 2010 election cycle.
This corrupt act of incompetence opened the door for Purdue to appoint
a non-incumbent (R) incumbent for the SoS office that didn't have as
many liabilities in conflicts of interests, abandoned promises and
corruption.

Karen Handel was installed as Secretary of State back in 2006 (over Gail
Buckner) at least partly on a promise to put paper audit trails on the  
systems.
However, once in office, Handel abandoned all paper trail commitments,
probably thanks to some $25,000 in campaign contributions from Massey
and Bowers. It's my understanding that Massey and Bowers generously
thanked Karen again in her (thankfully) failed run for Governor this  
year.

Kathy Rogers continued as State Election Director through 2006 and
served as the frontline committee blockade to all legislative attempts  
to
bring legitimate election systems to Georgia. She resigned when Karen
Handel took office and immediately went to work for the Diebold  
corporation
as a high priced glamour girl spokesperson.

In Fall, 2009 a case challenging the constitutionality of the machines  
came
before the State Supreme court.  Faced with perjury, the expert  
witnesses
from Kennisaw testified under oath that there is no way to audit or  
verify
election results [no matter how many years they get paid our tax dollars
to fraudulently re-certify the machines].  Still, the Supreme Court  
punted,
claimed GA voters don't have standing to challenge the State's choices
of election systems regardless of how clearly incompetent or fraudulent
they may be, and then threw the hot potato back to the State Capital.

So I think you can see from the above that quibbling about which half
of the (Dem)/(Rep) duopoly is more responsible for the corruption of
our election systems is rather pointless.   As we see time and time  
again
with most all government corruption, the source of the problems is the
Corporate Welfare State piratization of our essential public services
and Corporate lobbyist influence over our representative lawmakers
and laws.  So long as we allow ourselves to buy into the the mythical
and fraudulent formula that { (Cost + Profit)  <  Cost }, then we will  
suffer
the kind of obscene corporate fraud and systemic failures we find
in the Diebold monopoly profiteering control over an insane, Zero
Evidence voting system.

peace
aaron

[snip]