LOU DOBBS: The security of our elections and the integrity of our democracy is i

[Guest guest]

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LOU DOBBS: The security of our elections and the integrity of our

democracy is in jeopardy.

 

Blogged by Brad on 6/7/2006 @ 10:59am PT...

 

CNN's Lou Dobbs Hammers Electronic Voting for Third Straight Night!

Says 'The security of our elections and the integrity of our democracy

is in jeopardy'

 

It appears that Election Integrity advocates have a staunch new ally

in their fight for clean, legitimate elections in the United States of

America. And he's hardly a " lefty, " a " conspiracy theorist " or a " sour

grapes " guy.

 

Conservative CNN anchor Lou Dobbs hammered on Electronic Voting

machines and the company's that own them for the third straight day

yesterday on his show, Lou Dobbs Tonight.

 

Yesterday, his report led off with these clear words: " The security of

our elections and the integrity of our democracy is in jeopardy. "

 

While Dobb's initial focus for his reports concerns the foreign

ownership of the Sequoia Voting Systems company (recently purchased by

Smartmatic, a Venezuelan firm said to be tied to Hugo Chavez), his

reports, and the guests he's interviewed, also focus on the broader

aspect of private ownership of all the voting machine company's

running our public elections, as well as the security vulnerabilities

of the hackable and unreliable electronic machines.

 

We're working on getting the video up (the video and transcript from

the report the day before is here), but in the meantime, here's the

transcript from last night's installment which featured Warren Stewart

from VoteTrustUSA.org and computer security expert Avi Rubin of Johns

Hopkins University...

 

Lou Dobbs Tonight - June 6, 2006

 

DOBBS: The security of our elections and the integrity of our

democracy is in jeopardy. Nationwide, there is concern and even alarm

that electronic voting machines are simply too easily compromised and

vulnerable to fraud. And as we've been reporting on this broadcast for

the past several evenings, there is a new threat, and that threat

originates in the Venezuelan ownership of one of the country's leading

electronic voting machine companies.

 

Kitty Pilgrim reports...

 

 

 

 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

 

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: (voice over): In California, New

Jersey, and New Mexico, some jurisdictions are using Sequoia voting

machines. The voting machine company was bought in 2005 by Smartmatic,

which bills itself as a Florida company, but Smartmatic is a private

company owned by Venezuelan investors.

 

Election watchdog groups are alarmed by the fact that a foreign

company now has proprietary software that it can claim is a trade

secret for counting votes in a U.S. election.

 

WARREN STEWART, VOTETRUST USA: The broader issue of the fact that the

software that counts our votes is considered a trade secret and is

proprietary, and no one can review the source code or the ballot

programming, not even the election officials, the secretary of state,

that's all kept secret from the voters.

 

PILGRIM: Some e-voting experts and members of Congress dislike the

murky corporate structure of Smartmatic, a foreign-owned company, now

deeply connected with U.S. elections.

 

AVI RUBIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: The problem that we're in right

now is that we're using equipment to elect our president and our

Congress and our local officials that cannot be audited, that are

potentially under the control of foreign enties, and that are almost

an ideal platform for rigging an election.

 

PILGRIM: Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney recently wrote to Secretary

John Snow demanding the U.S. Treasury investigate the sale of the U.S.

company Sequoia to Smartmatic in 2005. " Having a foreign government

investing in or owning a company that supplies voting machines for

U.S. elections could raise concerns over the integrity of elections

conducted with these machines. "

 

Smartmatic was also involved in the 2004 recall election of Venezuelan

president Hugo Chavez, an election in which Chavez clung to power but

the results have been questioned by some outside observers.

 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

 

PILGRIM: And because e-voting systems are not entirely tamper- proof,

some jurisdictions in the United States have opted to go back to paper

ballots until they are more able to be monitored fully. But many

election experts say it is right to question the fact that one of the

top voting machines company in this country is now foreign owned -- Lou.

 

DOBBS: Thank you very much, Kitty.