DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR VOTE WENT DEPARTMENT

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Tue, 8 Nov 2005 01:32:13 -0500

G A O (Govt Accounting Office) Admits Computer Voting

Terminals RIGGED

 

 

 

G A O (Govt Accounting Office) Admits Computer Voting Terminals RIGGED

 

Read it and Weep !!

 

But Then You Knew it All Along !

 

 

 

 

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR VOTE WENT DEPARTMENT

 

See www.heartcom.org/22reasons.htm

 

General Accounting Office Report Confirms Key 2004 Stolen Election

Findings

 

As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove

inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the

legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.

 

The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of

2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from

the General Accounting Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream

media coverage.

 

The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general

incorruptibility and its through, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence

with assertions widely dismissed as " conspiracy theories " adds crucial

new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being

in the White House.

 

Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers

(D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they

were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election.

 

The request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere

that often shocking irregularities defined their performance.

 

According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received " more than

57,000 complaints " following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such

concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements

and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio

by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.

 

The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, " some of [the] concerns

about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused

problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of

votes. "

 

The United States is the only major democracy that allows private

partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with

proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others,

has asserted that " public elections must not be conducted on

privately-owned machines. " The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers

of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before

the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W.

Bush.

 

Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of

more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that

O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently

successful, to steal the White House.

Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

 

1. Some electronic voting machines " did not encrypt cast ballots or

system audit logs, thus making it possible to alter them without

detection. " In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting

machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than

800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some

seven times Bush's official margin of victory.

 

2. " It is easy to alter a file defining how a ballot appears, making it

possible for someone to vote for one candidate and actually be recorded

as voting for an entirely different candidate. " Numerous sworn

statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.

 

3. " Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an

action by using altered memory cards " can easily be done, according to

the GAO.

 

4. The GAO also confirms that " access to the voting network was easily

compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems

(DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one

machine provided access to the whole network.

 

" This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not

require a " widespread conspiracy "

but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the

power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers

of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in

Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily

done by just one programmer.

 

5. Access " to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of

the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords, " says the GAO.

So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and

altered the Ohio vote tallies.

 

6. " The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and

keys were simple to copy, " says the GAO, meaning, again, getting into

the system was an easy matter.

 

7. " One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary

fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire

network to fail, " says the GAO, re-emphasizing the fragility of the

system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.

 

8. " GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and

background screening practices for vendor personnel, " confirming still

more easy access to the system.

In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or

mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system

as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004

election turned.

The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an

election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as

co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft

skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the

electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable

enough to allow a tiny handful of operatives -- or less -

 

- to turn the whole vote count using personal computers operating on

relatively simple software.

The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities

surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example:

 

* The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last

minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also

occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical

impossibility.

 

* A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES & S voting

machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in

Auglaize County

* Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18

machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed

Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long.

Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements

and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems in Franklin

County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both counties were suspiciously

low.

 

* A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million

votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.

* In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called

" electronic transfer glitch " gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only

638 people voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly

corrected, but remains infamous as the " loaves and fishes " vote count.

 

* In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote

for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.

 

* In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's

central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes

mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as

prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.

 

* In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for

obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic African-

American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed virtually no

votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for Kerry.

 

* Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate " show recounts, " technicians

from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking

County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive.

 

* In response to official information requests, Shelby and other

counties admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any

recount could take place.

 

* In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck,

Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost

every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The

losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional

party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were

used.

 

* In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that " by and large, when

it comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the

Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better. "

But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as

deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small

number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift

enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.

Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear that's

exactly what happened.

 

Source: The Free Press

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1529

 

For specifics on voting machine fraud, read summary at

www.heartcom.org/22reasons.htm