Ghosts in the Machines
The Business of Counting Votes

By JASON LEOPOLD
Counterpunch.org

It seems fitting that a president who was brought into office because of a scandalous election would enact a law to overhaul the electoral process to make it easier for people to choose their leaders the second time around.

But that's not what the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, signed into law by President Bush in October 2002, will do. Instead, the law will force most states to switch from paper balloting to a fully computerized system---one that is currently rife with programming flaws and is incapable of being audited_that could call into question the legitimacy of future local and national elections and put the wrong candidates into office.

--snip

Peter Coyote, who narrated a documentary film last year on the disasters surrounding the 2000 presidential election, has launched a grassroots letter writing campaign urging federal lawmakers to take a second look at how the Help America Vote Act can put the wrong candidates in office.

In his letter to California's Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, Coyote writes: "Last year, I narrated a film called "Unprecedented" by American journalist Greg Palast. This film documents the illegal expunging of 54,000 black and overwhelmingly Democratic voters from the Florida rolls just before the presidential election. We interviewed the computer company that did the work, filmed their explanations of the instructions they received and their admissions that they knew that their instructions would produce massive error. That figure has now been revised to 91,000. Jeb Bush was sued, and was supposed to have returned these voters to the rolls, and did not, which explains his last re-election. The Republicans have something far worse in mind for the next presidential election and Democrats need to be prepared."

"Unless the issue of voter fraud is elevated to an issue of national importance, not only is it highly probable that Democrats will lose again and again, but eventually voters will "sense" even if they cannot prove, that elections are rigged, and the current 50% of those boycotting elections will swell to the majority. Privatization of the vote is tantamount to turning over the control of democracy to the corporate sector. I urge you to use your considerable powers and influence to address this issue."

Editor's Note: This is a LONG article that summarizes various articles, many of which I have linked in this blog, detailing problems with various different electronic voting machine companies and incidents that have occurred in many different states.

Read Article

Unprecedented - The 2000 Presidential Election