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Election Electronics
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ChinaMovieMagic



Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 2102
Location: YangShuo

PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 2:10 pm    Post subject: Election Electronics Reply with quote

Here in China, many of my English students seem to have a NEED to (blindly) believe in (1)electronics and (2)Elections

Other countries also?===============================================
Diebold...LIEBOLD...DIE~Bold...[b]bold lie[/b]

Read these 20 amazing facts and you won't wonder why we need to do a
re-count in Ohio and why one is finally being done.

Allen L Roland
Voting in the USA - 20 Amazing Facts

Did you know....

1.. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two
companies:
Diebold and ES&S.

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

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

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
."

5.. 35% of ES&S is owned by Republican Senator Chuck
Hagel,
who
became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6.. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, a long-time friend of
the
Bush
family, was caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate
Ethics
Committee.

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

8.. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in
the
U.S.
and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

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.

10.. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and
ticket
machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper
trail.

11.. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12.. Diebold employs 5 convicted felons as developers.
These
are
the people who write the voting machine computer code.

13.. Diebold's Senior Vice-President, Jeff Dean, was
convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.

14.. Diebold Senior Vice-President Jeff Dean was
convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

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

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!

17.. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on
unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18.. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors
detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

19.. Florida's governor, Jeb is Bush's brother.

20.. Major voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and questioned by experts.


The odds of some of these amazing voting anomalies were the equivalent
of statistical miracles. Was it God? Or was it Diebold...?

Ilsa Bartlett
Institute for Rewiring the System
at: www.Hotlux.com
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ls650



Joined: 10 May 2003
Posts: 3484
Location: British Columbia

PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey folks, if you're going to cut & paste, can you please just post a link?
Rolling Eyes
Failing that, can you take a few minutes to at least format the pasted info so it is relatively easy to read..?
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Nagoyaguy



Joined: 15 May 2003
Posts: 425
Location: Aichi, Japan

PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 3:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Actually, you missed the most important 2 pieces of information;

1. Bush won.

2. Kerry conceded.
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moonraven



Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094

PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 6:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Everybody lost--here on the planet, that is. And THAT is the most important piece of information.
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Paul John



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 52

PostPosted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's a very interesting and very plausible set of facts, but I have one question. What's the source of your information? Forgive my skepticism, but it's wise not to accept anything that anybody claims on the Internet unless you can verify the claims.
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Nagoyaguy



Joined: 15 May 2003
Posts: 425
Location: Aichi, Japan

PostPosted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 3:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Everybody lost--here on the planet, that is. And THAT is the most important piece of information.


Wanna hankie? poor little lamb. Hurts when you dont get your own way, doesn't it? There, there.
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kev7161



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 5880
Location: Suzhou, China

PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Forgive my skepticism, but it's wise not to accept anything that anybody claims on the Internet unless you can verify the claims.


That's just rubbish, if you ask me. The internet is just like any other medium: newspapers, magazines, television news, even political debates. The observer/reader can choose to believe in what he reads or they can simply dismiss it and go on with their lives. The poster is not really obliged to "verify" anything. If the reader is going to be influenced by these statements, then he is the one who should take the time to investigate to settle his own mind. The goal of this poster (and any poster) is to strike up debate so people actually think about potential dicey subjects as opposed to continue burying their heads in the sand.

I take any information that I read with a grain of salt, but I'm not so naive and so BLIND to realize that statements such as the ones listed above may not be 100%, but probably have a lot of accuarcy. America of 2004 is vastly different than 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. Corruption and illegal maneauvering is commonplace and any intelligent person should know this. Who would be so naive to think that it doesn't happen in the political arena (and not just by the Republicans)?

Yes, there are going to be negative things like this against the Republicans for at least the next four years, but Republicans would be citing their own lists if Kerry had won. But I can easily believe what was posted above, 'cause I go through life WITHOUT blinders on!
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dmb



Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 8397

PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And Time magazine voted Bush person of the year!!
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moonraven



Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094

PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TIME is a rightwing publication. What would you expect?
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Paul John



Joined: 09 Jun 2003
Posts: 52

PostPosted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
That's just rubbish, if you ask me.


I'm afraid you completely misunderstood my point, although this is partly my fault. I could have explained my position a bit better.

First of all, definitions: I used the word 'skeptical' in the sense of 'skepticism: the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics' [Miriam-Webster online dictionary]. In other words, take everything you read with a grain of salt.

I also used the word 'plausible' to mean 'appearing worthy of belief' [Ibid.]. Due to the imprecision of the English language, this word can also mean 'superficially fair, reasonable, or valuable but often specious' [Ibid.]. I gather that you assume I used the word in the latter sense.

Quote:
The internet is just like any other medium: newspapers, magazines, television news, even political debates. The observer/reader can choose to believe in what he reads or they can simply dismiss it and go on with their lives. The poster is not really obliged to "verify" anything. If the reader is going to be influenced by these statements, then he is the one who should take the time to investigate to settle his own mind. The goal of this poster (and any poster) is to strike up debate so people actually think about potential dicey subjects as opposed to continue burying their heads in the sand.


Wrong. The Internet is NOT like any other medium. The Internet allows any person to say anything they like. This is both a strength and a weakness. The mass media, if it wishes to maintain credibility, must be prepared to stand behind anything it says. If it makes a mistake, it must take the consequences. Take, for example, the recent Dan Rather fiasco. We all know that anything Michael Moore says will be mercilessly dissected by the numerous people who disagree with him. For that reason, his credibility is high (for me, at least) because he is no doubt aware of this.

Although people who post on the Internet are not obliged to verify their statements, their credibility is much higher if they: a) use their real name; b) state which relevant organizations (if any) they are affiliated with; and c) include links to support their claims.

The problem I have with Ms Bartlett's post is not that I don't believe it. In fact, much of it is common knowledge. The lack of a paper trail in voting machines, for example, is well known. If there's anything history teaches us, it's that if an election can be rigged it WILL be rigged (remember Florida in 2000, anybody?). I completely agree with her concerns about electronic voting.

The information about the connection between the Republicans and the companies that produce these machines was what caught my eye. I was not aware of any of this, and if it's true I find it very disturbing. Unfortunately, Ms Bartlett's doesn't give her source for this information.

The issue for me is credibility. I don't know who Ms Bartlett is, and the link that gives to the 'Institute for Rewiring the System' only tells me that she is heavily involved in Buddhism and meditation (this is not a negative point, but it is completely irrelevant). For this reason, her credibility is not as high as it could be. One statement in her point #16 ('Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!') I found particularly hard to swallow. In her favor, she uses her real name (probably�), but if she had said where she got her facts from I would be much more likely to accept it at face value.

Quote:
I take any information that I read with a grain of salt, but I'm not so naive and so BLIND to realize that statements such as the ones listed above may not be 100%, but probably have a lot of accuarcy. America of 2004 is vastly different than 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. Corruption and illegal maneauvering is commonplace and any intelligent person should know this. Who would be so naive to think that it doesn't happen in the political arena (and not just by the Republicans)?


You've read a lot into my post that I didn't say. IMHO, the problem with the American political system is institutionalized corruption. A democracy? Not when it is perfectly legal and accepted for large multinational corporations and pressure groups to bribe the elected representatives of the people.

Quote:
Yes, there are going to be negative things like this against the Republicans for at least the next four years, but Republicans would be citing their own lists if Kerry had won. But I can easily believe what was posted above, 'cause I go through life WITHOUT blinders on!


I don't think I have blinders on. I try to keep an open mind... but not so open that my brains spill out onto the floor. Smile
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ChinaMovieMagic



Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 2102
Location: YangShuo

PostPosted: Sat Dec 25, 2004 6:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Title: Kerry Preparing Grounds to Unconcede
Source: breakfornews.com
URL Source: http://www.breakfornews.com/articles/KerryPreparingGroundsToUnconcede.htm
Published: Dec 25, 2004
Author: Fintan Dunne
Post Date: 2004-12-25 05:28:07 by RickyJ
16 Comments


If you haven't been following John Kerry closely, get ready to hear of surprising developments. The vote-defrauded, potential president-in-waiting has just indicated through his lawyer that the validity of George Bush's reelection is no longer a given.

On 23 December, 2004 Kerry's lawyer confirmed to MSNBC's 'Countdown' that John Kerry will be seeking (likely on Monday 27 Dec.) to expedite court proceedings in an ongoing recount suit by the Green and Libertarian parties. That might sound like just another "count every vote" exercise by the Kerry campaign, were it not for two important details.

Kerry's court filing will conjoin him to existing allegations that Triad Systems, a Republican-linked supplier of voting machines to around half of Ohio counties --"orchestrated" a covert campaign to thwart a legitimate recount in Ohio. If the allegation proves well founded, it could invalidate the Ohio recount and eventually even hand the presidency to John Kerry.

Which probably explains the second critical detail: a quiet, on the record bombshell statement to 'Countdown' by Daniel Hoffheimer, the Cincinnati lawyer representing the Kerry campaign in Ohio.

Previously, the Kerry Campaign's intent in Ohio seemed to be merely an exercise of American civic spiritedness.

Two weeks ago, when Kerry wrote to Ohio's 88 county boards of election asking to visually inspect some ballots, Donald McTigue, the lawyer handling the recount for the Kerry campaign said: "We're trying to increase the transparency of the election process."

In early December, when the Kerry Campaign joined a suit by Green and Libertarian party candidates seeking a recount in Delaware County, Daniel Hoffheimer said Kerry wasn't disputing President Bush's victory in Ohio. The aim was to make sure any recount was "done accurately and completely," Hoffheimer said.

Now MSNBC 'Countdown' reports the same Hoffheimer, in comments on their imminent filing in the Ohio recount, concluding their call for a scrupulous recount with this caveat:

"...Only then can the integrity of the entire electoral process and the election of Bush/Cheney warrant the public trust."

That's the first time the Kerry Campaign has impugned the legitimacy of Bush's reelection.


RECOUNT CHEAT SHEETS

It's a signal move, likely driven by emerging evidence of suspicious activity by representatives of Triad Systems during the recount in Ohio. Evidence which has led a senior Democrat, ranking House Judiciary Cmtee. member, John Conyers Jr. to accuse the boss of Triad Systems of "orchestrating" a criminal conspiracy to pervert the outcome of the Ohio recount.
The allegations first surfaced before an Ohio hearing convened by Conyers on behalf of Democratic Minority members of the House Judiciary Committee. An affidavit filed by Sherole Eaton, Hocking County deputy director of elections, stated that a Triad representative had told her "how to post a 'cheat sheet' on the wall so the ...count would come out perfect and we wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county."

That account has been corroborated by other officials and by extracts from a video documentary in which a Triad technician admits that the company was in possession of computer "backup" copies of the official election data.

SIGNAL, THEN MANEUVER

If the recount was fraudulent, does that have implications for the validity of the first count in Ohio? The Kerry campaign knows full well that it does. That's why their latest statement questions the "integrity" of the "entire" electoral process. And the election of Bush/Cheney.

For Kerry, a fraudulent recount in Ohio could be an open door into to the Oval Office. Already, John Conyers is confident that a few U.S. Senators will join House members on January 6 to question the November 2 election.
But don't expect Kerry to quickly rush to a microphone in order to unconcede. He doesn't have to. His unconcession will take effect by default.


If the Ohio recount is shown fraudulent, the domino effect could carry him through that door without claiming victory or even unconceding.

Simply by allowing Bush's claim on the Office of President to fall --piece by fraudulent piece. Nudging the dominoes to topple in the right way.

Thus leaving Kerry, poised to step into office over the Bush debris.


Click for Full Text!
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Spinoza



Joined: 17 Oct 2004
Posts: 194
Location: Saudi Arabia

PostPosted: Sat Dec 25, 2004 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Laughing

Last edited by Spinoza on Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:56 am; edited 1 time in total
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Cardinal Synn



Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 586

PostPosted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah good, it's not just me who spells "Sceptic" that way.

I don't think that dictionary definition is saying take everything with a grain of salt at all. It's defining a word not giving an opinion.

TRIAD systems? What kind of name is that? Next we'll have MAFIA systems and maybe YARDY systems too. Fills you with confidence.
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ChinaMovieMagic



Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 2102
Location: YangShuo

PostPosted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 5:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Texas to Florida:

White House-linked clandestine Operation

Paid for "Vote switching" Software
by Wayne Madsen

<http://www.onlinejournal.com/>Online Journal , 6 December 2004
<http://globalresearch.ca>www.globalresearch.ca 7 December 2004

The URL of this article is:
<http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD412A.html>http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD412A.html


The manipulation of computer voting machines in the recent
presidential election and the funding of programmers who were
involved in the operation are tied to an intricate web of shady
off-shore financial trusts and companies, shady espionage operatives,
Republican Party politicians close to the Bush family, and National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract vehicles.

An exhaustive investigation has turned up a link between current
Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney, a customized
Windows-based program to suppress Democratic votes on touch screen
voting machines, a Florida computer services company with whom Feeney
worked as a general counsel and registered lobbyist while he was
Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and top level
officials of the Bush administration.

According to a notarized affidavit signed by Clint Curtis, while he
was employed by the NASA Kennedy Space Center contractor, Yang
Enterprises, Inc., during 2000, Feeney solicited him to write a
program to "control the vote." At the time, Curtis was of the opinion
that the program was to be used for preventing fraud in the in the
2002 election in Palm Beach County, Florida. His mind was changed,
however, when the true intentions of Feeney became clear: the
computer program was going to be used to suppress the Democratic vote
in counties with large Democratic registrations.

According to Curtis, Feeney and other top brass at Yang Enterprises,
a company located in a three-story building in Oviedo, Florida,
wanted the prototype written in Visual Basic 5 (VB.5) in Microsoft
Windows and the end-product designed to be portable across different
Unix-based vote tabulation systems and to be "undetectable" to voters
and election supervisors.

Yang, an engineering and computer services company subcontracted to
NASA prime contractors like Lockheed Martin, was founded in 1986 by
Dr. Tyng-Lin (Tim) Yang. Granted minority-owned "Section 8A" and
woman-owned preferential status by the U.S. government, Yang's
clients also include the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT).
Yang's President, Li-Woan (Lee) Yang, is Tim Yang's wife. Feeney was
the registered agent for another Yang company, Y & H Greens, Inc., a
company that was dissolved in 1988 and operated from the Yangs'
residence on Merritt Island. The Yangs also serve as co-trustees for
an entity called Yang of Merritt Island, Ltd., founded on January 31,
2000, and also run from their residence.

In the autumn of 1999, Curtis, who served as a sort of technology
adviser for Yang, first became aware of Feeney's interest in election
rigging. Curtis said at one meeting, Feeney "bragged that he could
reduce the minority vote and deliver the election to 'George.'" At
the same meeting, according to Curtis, Feeney said he had
"implemented a list that would eliminate thousands of voters that
would vote for Democratic candidates" and that "a proper placement of
police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25
percent."

Feeney's desire to manipulate the vote would be manifested in his
home base of Volusia County in the 2000 presidential election.
According to The Washington Post, at 10 p.m. on election night, Al
Gore was leading Bush in Volusia County by 83,000 to 62,000 votes.
One-half hour later, Gore's vote total had been reduced by 16,000 to
67,000 and an obscure Socialist candidate saw a sudden surge to
10,000 votes in a precinct with only 600 voters.
The information on
the Volusia optical scanner voting anomalies came from a leaked
internal Diebold memorandum. In the end, Bush won Florida and the
White House by a mere 537 votes in the most controversial U.S.
presidential election in history.

Feeney had long been a voice in Florida GOP politics. He was
gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush's running mate in 1994, a race in
which Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles defeated Bush. Chiles once
referred to Feeney as "the David Duke of Florida politics."

In 2002, Feeney asked Curtis if he could develop a touch screen
voting machine "flip flop" program. According to Curtis, Feeney asked
him, "Can you write a program to flip votes around on touch screen
machines?"
Curtis said Feeney wanted the program to merely reduce
votes in heavily Democratic areas and flip Republican votes to 51
percent and keep Democrat votes to 49 percent. Curtis added that
Feeney "did not want to win by a lot." In return, Curtis said Feeney
offered him "big jobs." Curtis's main tasks at Yang were to develop
the Florida DOT's Electronic Document Management System. He also
worked on the Project Pipeline Information System at another one of
Yang's major clients, Exxon Mobil's Coral Gables facility.

Curtis said he developed the voting program and eventually handed off
his prototype to Feeney. The program was also reviewed by Curtis's
senior coder, Hai Lin (Henry) Nee, who according to Florida
Department of Transportation sources, was an illegal alien working in
the United States. According Curtis, not only did Nee review the vote
switching program code but he constantly downloaded sensitive data to
his computer from NASA's computers. Nee, according to Curtis,
moonlighted at an Orlando company called Azure Systems, described by
The Orlando Sentinel as a "three person engineering firm" and one of
a number of companies linked to Ting Ih-Hsu, a former Lockheed Martin
employee. At the same time Nee was reviewing Yang's vote switching
program, he was also being investigated by U.S. federal investigators
for illegally shipping Hellfire missile parts to China. Oddly,
although U.S. law enforcement agents had put Nee and his associates
under surveillance for illegal exports of technology to China in
1999, he and his colleagues were not arrested until March of this
year.

Curtis claimed that Yang's corporate bosses stressed that the company
had "unlimited" sources of money that came "mostly" from China.
According to Florida DOT employees, House Speaker Feeney pressured
their agency to give money to Yang for nonexistent software. The
sources also revealed that Feeney was aware that Yang was employing a
number of illegal aliens on State of Florida and federal contracts.
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moonraven



Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094

PostPosted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A bit of follow up to ChinaMovieMagic's post:

Published on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 by the Columbus Free Press (Ohio)
Ohio GOP Election Officials Ducking Subpoenas as Kerry Enters Stolen Vote Fray
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman

COLUMBUS -- Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell refused to appear at a deposition on Monday, December 27. The deposition was part of an election challenge lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court. Meanwhile John Kerry is reported to have filed a federal legal action aimed at preserving crucial recount evidence, which has been under GOP assault throughout the state.


Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell presides over Ohio's delegation to the Electoral College during the voting ceremony at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, Dec. 13, 2004. Blackwell has requested a protective order to prevent him from being interviewed as part of an unusual court challenge of the presidential vote. Blackwell, in a court filing, says he's not required to be interviewed as a high-ranking public official, and accused the voters challenging the results of 'frivolous conduct' and abusive and unnecessary requests of elections officials around the state. (AP Photo/Will Shilling)

Richard Conglianese, Ohio Assistant Attorney General, is seeking a court order to protect Blackwell from testifying under oath about how the election was run. Blackwell, who administered Ohio's November 2 balloting, served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

James R. Dicks, Miami County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, filed a motion to block a subpoena in his county while Conglianese filed to block subpoenas in ten key Ohio counties.

President George Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney and White House Political Advisor Karl Rove received notice that they will be deposed Tuesday and Wednesday, December 28 and 29. The trio�s Ohio attorney, Kurt Tunnell, so far claims his clients have not been properly served. Under Ohio law, the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court is responsible for serving the three with subpoenas.

Meanwhile, the Election Protection legal team has collected new statements under oath describing more voting and vote-counting problems on November 2.

Voters in Trumbull County have testified that on Election Day they received punch-card ballots where holes were already punched for Bush. Meanwhile, a notarized affidavit signed by Angela Greene, who voted at Whitehall Yearling High School in central Ohio's Franklin County, stated that one of the malfunctioning electronic voting machines at her polling place was delivered without a cartridge � meaning votes cast might have gone uncounted.

In Miami County, Blackwell certified a 98.6% turnout in the Concord Southwest precinct, comprised of 520 votes for Bush and 157 for Kerry. This statistically improbable turnout has all but 10 of the 689 registered voters casting their ballots on Election Day. A preliminary canvas by The Free Press of less than half the precinct found 25 registered voters admitting they had not voted, meaning the official tally was almost certainly fraudulent.

The nearby Concord South precinct certified a 94.27% voter turnout, with 468 alleged votes for Bush versus 182 for Kerry. Miami County is included in the election challenge since it somehow reported nearly 19,000 additional votes after 100% of the precincts had reported on Election Day.

In Madison County, where public records requests were filed to obtain voting records, the voting results provided by the Madison County Board of Elections came directly from a private company, Triad Governmental Systems, Inc. An email dated November 29, 2004 from Brandon Sandlin of Triad reads as follows: �Hello to all in Madison County! Attached you will find the cumulative report (oh49unov.pdf) with over and under votes reported as well as the official abstract (oh49abs.pdf). These reports may be printed for your records and then mailed to the state along with your other certification reports.� Coming from a private corporation, Triad's letter underscores the barriers to making a reliable independent public assessment and recount of Ohio's presidential tally.

In Mahoning County, the Washington Post reported new affidavits documenting electronic "vote hopping" from Kerry to Bush. This means voting machines highlighted the choice for Bush before the voter recorded a choice of his or her own. The legal team has been told by a computer expert that this may mean the machines were pre-set on a Bush vote as a default. The Free Press has obtained dozens such sworn statements of vote hopping.

The legal team is also exploring new evidence that in Coshocton, Ohio, write-in votes wrongly defaulted to Bush when run through the voting machine.

On December 23, U.S. Representative John Conyers, Jr. of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Triad President Brett A. Rapp inquiring whether or not Triad possessed remote access capabilities for any of the 41 counties where its election tabulation software or computers are in use.

Attorneys for the election challenge team are also exploring ties between Triad and the Tennessee-based company Datamaxx. Ohio public safety and police agencies use the Datamaxx DMPP2020 software for its LEADS computer systems. Datamaxx makes numerous remote access products that law enforcement can access with mobile and handheld computers.

The Free Press has also obtained a list of all voting machines assigned in Franklin County, including serial numbers. The list contains at least 42 machines originally assigned to predominantly African-American and inner city wards that voted 80% for Kerry, and where voters waited in line for three hours and more on Election Day. These 42 machines were blacked out on the list, raising the question of whether these were among the 68 machines the Franklin County Board of Elections has admitted holding back in the warehouse despite obvious shortages at certain polling places. Affidavits from poll workers confirm that numerous requests for more machines were made through election day, but that few if any were delivered.

Franklin County Board of Elections Chair Bill Anthony claims that low-level poll workers refused to accept the machines assigned by high-ranking election officials. But he has yet to provide specific details. Anthony has repeatedly claimed that he was a watchdog for Democratic interests in the election, but he was a political appointee of the Republican Secretary of State.

Under Ohio election law, the members, directors and deputy directors of all boards of elections are assigned by the Secretary of State. They hold these paying jobs at his discretion regardless of whether they are Democrat or Republican. A major argument of those who claim Ohio�s 2004 presidential election was fraud-free centers on the myth that local precincts are run as bipartisan operations, deflecting charges of partisan interference while failing to account for the fact that the principles all owe their jobs to the Secretary of State, who in this case served as co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign.

These problems add to the established pattern of problems that favored Bush at Kerry�s expense.

Despite the legal stonewalling, lawyers directing the election challenge case are still pursuing evidence-gathering efforts. Three expert witnesses are scheduled to be deposed on Thursday and Friday, including specialists in statistics and vote counting irregularities.

The challengers are seeking a January 4th hearing before the Ohio Supreme Court. Members of Congress meet in Washington on January 6 to evaluate the Electoral College vote. Led by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), it is virtually certain numerous members of the Congressional Black Caucus will challenge that vote. But the assent of a Senator is required for the challenge to go forward, and thus far none has definitively confirmed.

Despite ducking depositions, Blackwell is escalating his public appearances in hopes of becoming Ohio�s next governor. On January 12, 2005, Blackwell is scheduled to speak at the exclusive Scioto Country Club on the topic of �Ethics in Leadership.� Blackwell became nationally known after disenfranchising voters who had not registered on 80-pound bond paper stock under an archaic Ohio law. He reversed longstanding Ohio tradition that allowed voters to cast provisional votes by county by ruling that none of these votes would be counted unless the voter was in the right precinct. He also was recently censured for running a �get out the vote� campaign for Issue One, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and spousal benefits.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) was reported to be filing a brief in federal court in relation to the activities of Triad and events in Hocking County, where serious questions have arisen as to the integrity of the recount. Kerry previously circulated a letter to all 88 counties requesting information on how the vote was conducted. The Kerry campaign raised millions of dollars from grassroots supporters with the promise that "all votes would be counted." But the Democrats are not known to have helped fund the legal work of the Green and Libertarian Parties and their grassroots Election Protection supporters, who have raised the money for the shoestring campaign that has kept the legal challenges alive thus far.

An Election Protection rally in downtown Columbus has been set by Rev. Jesse Jackson for 2pm Monday, January 3. It will be followed by a national gathering in Washington January 6, to take place as Congress evaluates the Electoral College and the Ohio votes, which have allegedly given George W. Bush another term in the White House.

Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of the upcoming OHIO'S STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004, a book and film project from http://freepress.org. Support is welcome via http://freepress.org/store.php#don_pub or by sending a check to The �Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism�, 1240 Bryden Rd., Columbus, Ohio 43205.
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