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to protect us and the environment.
The problem with 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting is similar to the problem of corporate lobbyists writing our laws and government agencies being run to benefit the corporate powers, but it is much worse, in that it prevents us from electing leaders who serve the public interest on ALL issues and it permits ONE, PRIVATE, FAR RIGHTWING-CONNECTED CORPORATION--ES&S, which bought out Diebold and now controls 80% of the voting systems in the U.S.--to (s)elect utter scumbags for congress, governorships, state legislatures, and, yes, in the case of Bush Jr., the president.
This private corporate vote counting system is now complete, in every state--a total corporate lockdown of the vote counting--and, although it wasn't compete in 2004, it was one of two methods used to keep Bush-Cheney in power for 4 more years of war and mayhem, the other being purges and suppression of black voters. The system is now complete and there is NO vote count in the U.S. that is adequately verified on an automatic basis. Half the states do NO AUDIT AT ALL (comparison of ballots to machine totals). The other half do a miserably inadequate 1% audit. (99% of the actual votes are never seen by human eyes or counted by human hands.*).
This is OUTRAGEOUS!
As for Obama, this system allows the far rightwing to keep him in check, both with a scumbag congress and the threat of being dis-elected, should he cross the corporate powers and war profiteers too seriously. It also allows the far rightwing powers-that-be to shave his mandate (which I believe they did in 2008, by possibly as much as 10%)--another check on his power. The corporate 'news' monopolies began writing the narrative of his defeat in 2012 mere weeks after he was elected and will enlarge and enhance that narrative if he is slated for defeat. Hard to know what these corporate powers will do with their new direct control of the vote counting, but the point is that they can do WHATEVER THEY WANT TO. I believe that Obama was elected but he was also PERMITTED to be elected--probably to erase our memory of Bush/Cheney and their many crimes--and that IS the problem, that the vote is not being verified, and, in half the states, cannot be verified.
Lack of transparent vote counting--vote counting that everyone can see and understand--is not the only thing wrong with our system. But it is the biggest and most definitive blockade to reform that I have ever seen in an alleged democratic system. And I believe that it was intended to be just that--the final blockade to reform, most especially as to our war machine, but also--added on to that--to go forward with the contrived financial crisis that busted our government, to insure that the rich prospered while government services and regulation were destroyed. The bill that the Anthrax Congress passed, to spread these diabolical election theft machines all over the U.S., was passed in the SAME MONTH as the "Iraq War Resolution" and I believe was intended to prevent the American majority--which opposed that war by nearly 60%--from holding Bush-Cheney accountable for it and from insisting that it be stopped. 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting proved very effective on the matter of war and war budgets and is now being used for the latter purpose--for the rich to take everything while government is deconstructed.
The rightwing is talking about ENDING the EPA. ENDING it! And they have an illegitimate, rigged platform from which to do so--given them by ES&S and the corporate 'news' monopolies. This greatly constricts what any Democrat can do and it threatens environmental armageddon, should ES&S and its corporate pals decide to go all out next year and install Bush Junta II.
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*(By comparison, Venezuela has electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE code system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--and they do a whopping 55% audit--more than five times the minimum needed to detect fraud in an electronic voting system. We, on the other other hand, use 'TRADE SECRET' code--code that the public is forbidden by law to review--and do NO audit or only a 1% audit. Believe me, this is why Venezuelans now have free universal health care and we don't. They have worse corporate media than we do but are nevertheless able to elect leaders who serve the public interest and are beholden to the public for their actions.)
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