Thom Hartmann: The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy. Privatizing the Vote Count

[Guest guest]

Thom Hartmann: The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy. " Privatizing "

the Vote Counters.

 

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy

by Thom Hartmann

 

 

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the " erroneous " exit polls

that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states)

weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless

voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and

more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive

election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical

that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are

We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable

only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to

agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to

handle our votes?

 

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through

the efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may

well find out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what

may be the largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in

history), and bloggers and investigative reporters are discovering an

odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot

states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states

Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in

touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that

news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to

coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

 

But in all the discussion about voting machines, let's never forget

the concept of the commons, because this usurpation is the ultimate

felony committed by conservatives this year.

 

At the founding of this nation, we decided that there were important

places to invest our tax (then tariff) dollars, and those were the

things that had to do with the overall " life, liberty, and the pursuit

of happiness " of all of us. Over time, these commons - in which we all

make tax investments and for which we all hold ultimate responsibility

- have come to include our police and fire services; our military and

defense; our roads and skyways; our air, waters and national parks;

and the safety of our food and drugs.

 

But the most important of all the commons in which we've invested our

hard-earned tax dollars is our government itself. It's owned by us,

run by us (through our elected representatives), answerable to us, and

most directly responsible for stewardship of our commons.

 

And the commons through which we regulate the commons of our

government is our vote.

 

About two years ago, I wrote a story for these pages, " If You Want To

Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines, " that exposed how

Senator Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the U.S.

Senate in Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now

ES & S) that had just computerized Nebraska's vote. The Washington Post

(1/13/1997) said Hagel's " Senate victory against an incumbent

Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November

election. " According to Bev Harris, Hagel won virtually every

demographic group, including many largely black communities that had

never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24

years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on unauditable

machines he had just sold the state. And in all probability, Hagel run

for President in 2008.

 

In another, later article I wrote at the request of MoveOn.org and

which they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in

Georgia - another state that went all-electronic - " USA Today reported

on Nov. 3, 2002, 'In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll

shows Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with a 49%-to-44% lead over

Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss. 'Cox News Service, based in Atlanta,

reported just after the election (Nov. 7) that, " Pollsters may have

goofed " because 'Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent

Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53 to 46 percent. The

Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of polls

Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.' "

Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no

audit trail.

 

In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has

published her book on the subject ( " Black Box Voting " ), including the

revelation of her finding the notorious " Rob Georgia " folder on

Diebold's FTP site just after Cleland's loss there; Lynn Landes has

done some groundbreaking research, particularly her new investigation

of the Associated Press, as have Rebecca Mercuri and David Dill.

There's a new video out on the topic, Votergate, available at

www.votergate.tv.

 

Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a

voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting

machines, and it's been co-sponsored by a majority of the members of

the House of Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis

Hastert and Tom DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, thus insuring

that there will be no possible audit of the votes of about a third of

the 2004 electorate, has fueled the flames of conspiracy theorists

convinced Republican ideologues - now known to be willing to lie in

television advertising - would extend their " ends justifies the means "

morality to stealing the vote " for the better good of the country "

they think single-party Republican rule will bring.

 

Most important, though, the rallying cry of the emerging " honest vote "

movement must become: Get Corporations Out Of Our Vote!

 

Why have we let corporations into our polling places, locations so

sacred to democracy that in many states even international election

monitors and reporters are banned? Why are we allowing corporations to

exclusively handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way?

Particularly a private corporation founded, in one case, by a family

that believes the Bible should replace the Constitution; in another

case run by one of Ohio's top Republicans; and in another case partly

owned by Saudi investors?

 

Of all the violations of the commons - all of the crimes against We

The People and against democracy in our great and historic republic -

this is the greatest. Our vote is too important to outsource to

private corporations.

 

It's time that the USA - like most of the rest of the world - returns

to paper ballots, counted by hand by civil servants (our employees)

under the watchful eye of the party faithful. Even if it takes two

weeks to count the vote, and we have to just go, until then, with the

exit polls of the news agencies. It worked just fine for nearly 200

years in the USA, and it can work again.

 

When I lived in Germany, they took the vote the same way most of the

world does - people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are

hand-counted by civil servants taking a week off from their regular

jobs, watched over by volunteer representatives of the political

parties. It's totally clean, and easily audited. And even though it

takes a week or more to count the vote (and costs nothing more than a

bit of overtime pay for civil servants), the German people know the

election results the night the polls close because the news media's

exit polls, for two generations, have never been more than a tenth of

a percent off.

 

We could have saved billions that have instead been handed over to

ES & S, Diebold, and other private corporations.

 

Or, if we must have machines, let's have them owned by local

governments, maintained and programmed by civil servants answerable to

We The People, using open-source code and disconnected from modems,

that produce a voter-verified printed ballot, with all results

published on a precinct-by-precinct basis.

 

As Thomas Paine wrote at this nation's founding, " The right of voting

for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are

protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery. "

 

Only when We The People reclaim the commons of our vote can we again

be confident in the integrity of our electoral process in the world's

oldest and most powerful democratic republic.

 

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored

Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated

daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann .com His most recent

books are " The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, " " Unequal Protection:

The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights, " " We

The People: A Call To Take Back America, " and " What Would Jefferson

Do?: A Return To Democracy. "