Did you know outfit in Houston "assists election officials " nationwide?

[EMunster]

And that's just a little tidbit from an article that came out between the conventions last summer. I feel both ashamed and enraged after rereading. It's just frighting how we could have let this happen. Read the whole thing and see how every dark prediction came true.

http://www.tennessean.com/elections/2004/archives/04/08/56295816.shtml


Voting machine test results 'off-limits' to the public

<snip>

More than a decade ago, the Federal Election Commission authorized the National Association of State Election Directors to choose the independent testers.

On its Web site, the association says the three testing outfits ''have neither the staff nor the time to explain the process to the public, the news media or jurisdictions.'' It directs inquiries to a Houston-based nonprofit organization, the Election Center, which assists election officials. The center's executive director, Doug Lewis, did not return telephone messages seeking comment.

The election directors' voting systems board chairman, former New York state elections director Thomas Wilkey, said the testers' secrecy stems from the FEC's refusal to take the lead in choosing them and the government's unwillingness to pay for it.

He said that left election officials no choice but to find technology companies willing to pay.

<snip>

''Suppose you had a situation where ballots were handed to a private company that counted them behind a closed door and burned the results,'' said Dill, founder of VerifiedVoting.org. ''Nobody but an idiot would accept a system like that. We've got something that is almost as bad with electronic voting.''

[rockedthevoteinMA]

1. Glad to know that they don't have the time to tell us

what goes on with our votes!
:wtf:

[For PaisAn]

2. This paragraph sums it up:

''Suppose you had a situation where ballots were handed to a private company that counted them behind a closed door and burned the results,'' said Dill, founder of VerifiedVoting.org. ''Nobody but an idiot would accept a system like that. We've got something that is almost as bad with electronic voting.''

I'm both ashamed and enraged also.

[Eloriel]

3. Yes, we know quite a bit about the Election Center

Strange thing about its Exec Dir -- he has no past, no history. The earliest thing we know about him is that he had a (failed, IIRC) computer parts biz or something like that. Then suddenly, woop, he's the head of this extremely important, and extremely pro-industry Election Center.

I personally got a little spooked by the no history thing (when Duers did a bunch of internet research on him and some of the other players, like Shawn Southworth who is or was the one person in the country doing national certification), and concluded (in my own mind, not suggesting others should necessarily believe this) that Lewis probably had a CIA or other hidden past. The intel folks are the ones that can disappear your past for you (or rather for their own) if they want to. That's my tinfoil hat theory on the subject.

There was also someone with a slightly different version of the name who showed up in some of the research as having administered a lie detector test to someone connected with the Kennedy assassination. Sorry I don't remember the details of that or have the link, but I will say that it sounds more plausible to me now that it's the same person than it did back then when we were focusing on all this. We ought to check on how old R. Doug Lewis is (don't remember if we tried to do that back then). I'm 56 and was a soph in h.s. (age 15) when Kennedy was shot, so he'd have to be at least 6 - 10 years older than I am, I'd think. I'm not sure he's that old -- we found a photo and he looked about mid to late 50s, not older. Of course some people age more gracefully than others.

[Ronbrynaert]

4. R. Doug Lewis

I found this on disinfopedia: http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=R._Doug_Lewis

Biography
1966-1980: According to a short biography in The Report of the National Symposium on Presidential Selection <2> (http://www.centerforpolitics.org/reform/nssreport_entire.pdf), during this period, R. Doug Lewis:
"managed campaigns for Congress, U.S. Senate, governor, and the U.S. presidency"
"served as Executive Director of the Democratic Party in Kansas and Texas"
"worked as Regional Political Director in the DNC"
"served as Assistant to the President at the White House"
"managed political affairs for former Texas Governor John Connally"
1986 - June 1993: Lewis ran a Texas used-computers business called Micro Trade Mart, Inc. (according to e-voting activist Bev Harris) <3> (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-6.pdf)
1994: Lewis was appointed to his position at the Election Center <4> (http://www.centerforpolitics.org/reform/nssreport_entire.pdf).
According to the records of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Micro Trade Mart, Inc. was registered on December 1st 1986, with R. Doug Lewis as the director <5> (http://ecpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/servlet/cpa.app.coa.CoaGetTp?Pg=tpid&Search_Nm=micro%20trade%20&Button=search&Search_ID=30010124714).

R. Doug Lewis's defense of his qualifications to run the Election Center
Bev Harris has said that, in a telephone conversation with her, Lewis defended his qualifications to run the Election Center as follows: "My background is that I owned a computer hardware and software business. I've never claimed to be an expert. That's the reason we have laboratories, nationally recognized laboratories." <6> (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-6.pdf)

Here's a link to his testimony at the Senate Government Affairs Committee May 9, 2001: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:oR00hDIJDtYJ:www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/050901_Lewis.htm+%22R.+Doug+Lewis%22&hl=en

[Ronbrynaert]

5. more

The Election Center, which trains election workers and advises Congress and government agencies on election process issues, has taken donations from manufacturers of electronic voting machines even as it has issued strong statements supporting the security of the machines.

http://www.wheresthepaper.org/MercuryNews03_25GroupGotMakersAid.htm


Bev Harris wrote that Mr. Lewis managed affairs for John Conally, and may have worked for Nixon.