A lot has been written about the electronic vote rigging in the presidential race in 2004. I mean, Tom Delay and Bob Ney--the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--didn't re-engineer America's election system (with the infamous "Help America Vote Act" of 2002) insuring that all the votes would be "counted" by two Bushite corporations, using TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code--just to do us all a favor, did they? --or to make democracy work better?
No, Bushite corporations "counting" all the votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code was not an altruistic act. It WAS the fascist coup that ensured more war, more torture, more crime, more theft, more imperial edicts, more unconstitutional government, and the maintenance of unlawful, illegitimate, ill-intentioned persons at the pinnacle of power in what once was our White House.
But little or nothing has been written about the composition of Congress, how its members were elected--or I should say (s)elected--and its function as a rubber stamp to the criminals in the White House.
So I'm going to say it here--and then get on with "What can we do about it?". The current U.S. Congress is no more legitimate than the Bush Junta is. They, too, achieved their offices and their power through non-transparent, unverifiable elections. Some few would have been elected anyway. Most (including some Democrats) would not have been. The function of the Diebold Democrats is to vote with the Bushites against the interests of the American people. This Bushite majority in the Diebold Congress was the second objective of controlling our elections by Bushite corporations using TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code to "count" all our votes.
Congress' recent endorsement of torture and suspension of habeas corpus should be evidence enough that this Congress does NOT represent the interests and opinions of the American people. 63% of the American people oppose torture "under any circumstances" (May '04). And I'm quite sure, if asked, that the vast majority would ALSO oppose giving George Bush the power to arrest anyone, without cause, and keep them in prison forever, without recourse. The disagreement between the American people and the Bush government, is very big--way up in the 60% to 70% range--on EVERY MAJOR ISSUE, foreign and domestic, stretching way back to before the Iraq invasion (Feb. '03), when 56% of the American people opposed that war, even before they knew the full story of lies and deceit. Opposition to the war is even bigger now, with 84% opposed to any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war. Finally, a recent Zogby poll shows that 92% of the American people want transparent elections (vote counting that everyone can SEE and understand).
Congress is not representative of these views. It is representative of a MINORITY of the people of this country, at best. And at its worst, it is representative of the Bush Junta--in other words, it is not a Congress at all. It is an arm of the White House.
And when you THEN consider how this Congress was elected--as George Bush was, with BUSHITE corporations "counting" all the votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code--code so secret that not even our Secretaries of State are permitted to review--and, furthermore, in both cases, with virtually no audit/recount controls, and with electronic voting systems that are extremely insecure and insider hackable, the total picture is a no-brainer: illegitimate president, illegitimate rubber stamp Congress, intended to echo each other in running this country off the cliff to outright fascism.
Congress is as bad as Bush. And they both owe their power to Diebold and ES&S, and not to us.
And even a cursory look at the facts about these electronic voting corporations--that benefited from the $3.9 billion HAVA boondoggle--tells you how strange this all is: Diebold, until recently headed by a Bush/Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser; ES&S, a spinoff of Diebold, initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things). These are the people who "counted" 80% the votes in the 2004 election, under a veil of corporate secrecy.
Is anyone still surprised that a U.S. Congress could endorse torture and suspension of habeas corpus? This IS WHY they are do bad. They were NOT elected by US.
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REMEDY
This fascist coup does not just involve Bushites. It also involves the war profiteering corporate news monopolies--which rigged their exit polls in 2004, to force them to fit the results of Diebold/ES&S secret vote tabulation formulae--and it involves many members of the Democratic Party leadership, among them, Christopher Dodd--directly involved--and DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, whose mind-boggling silence at the destruction of our election system was critically important to the American people remaining uninformed about it.* It is therefore not easy to remedy.
We have a slim window of opportunity to reverse the disaster of electronic voting quickly, and peacefully, by MASSIVE ABSENTEE VOTING THIS FALL. If everyone who despises the Bush Junta (60% to 70% of the American people) votes by Absentee Ballot, the reign of these diabolical machines will be OVER! Local/state election officials will not be able to defend this non-transparent and highly riggable system.
Getting rid of these e-voting machines won't solve all our problems. But is the essential first step in doing so. Without transparent elections, we cannot change the course of the country, or bring about any other reform. That was the purpose of this non-transparent vote counting system--to prevent change and to inflict tyranny.
So we MUST find the way to change this, while we still can. A massive rebellion against the machines, this fall, may be our last chance.
AB voting is not particularly safe, and will not likely give us accurate vote counts this fall. But that isn't the point. Accurate vote counts are NOT possible in the current system anyway. The point is to PROTEST. And AB voting is one of the few voting options available** that says: I DON'T TRUST THESE MACHINES! AND I WON'T VOTE ON THEM!
And if we say it loud enough, and big enough, and make it a massive BOYCOTT of these riggable machines, we CAN get rid of them. And that will be a start, and is the fundamental condition necessary, for all the reforms that are needed. We may thus, also, save the '08 primaries and general election from secret corporate vote tabulation. And we may, indeed, by this action, save our democracy and our beloved country.
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BUST THE MACHINES--VOTE BY ABSENTEE BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER! SPREAD THE WORD!
For further information on AB voting, and a GREAT RESOURCE LIST on e-voting and elections, see my post, "What do you expect from the Diebold Congress?", at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2851762&mesg_id=2851762---------------------
*(Note: When one Democrat cried foul on Diebold--Calif's Secretary of State Kevin Shelley--the new state Democratic Party legislative leaders colluded with the Bushites to remove him from office, and to replace him with Diebold shill--and Schwarz appointee--Republican Bruce McPherson. No event better illustrates how the Diebold/ES&S corruption works, and the searing damage it has done to the Democratic Party, and to our democracy. Democrats who wanted to defend Shelley were strongarmed into silence. Corrupt county election officials, through whose fingers some of that $3.9 billion HAVA boondoggle has passed, led the campaign against Shelley. These officials are much too powerful. They can make or break a politician, by how they count (or don't count) the votes. Diebold, ES&S and also Sequoia, cozen them with lavish lobbying and future "revolving door" jobs. The result is corruption, intimidation and fear throughout the political system. (A prime example is Connie McCormack, head of Los Angeles elections, and leader of the campaign against Shelley, who advocates for Diebold and paperless voting, who actually does brochures for Diebold, and whose best friend is the former chief salesperson for Diebold in Calif.) But I still think that our main hope for getting rid of these machines is at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence. We can force local/state officials to reform, or drive the corrupt ones out of office, more easily than we can do anything at the federal level, right now. But party leaders WON'T DO IT. We have to do it ourselves--by boycotting all of these extremely riggable electronic voting machines!)
**(Note: A few states--like California (thanks to Kevin Shelley)--provide voters with a paper ballot option at the polling place. But corrupt election officials have tried to subvert this right by substituting worthless "provisional" ballots for the real paper ballot. "Provisional" ballots are EASILY tossable (and many were in Ohio '04). Beware! Sign up now to vote AB! Do not count on getting a real paper ballot at the polls!)
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