Just in case you thought Diebold was the only American voting machine company worthy of public mistrust…This just in on ES&S, the nation’s largest supplier of electronic voting systems (and the one with the most disastrous record of failing in elections so far this year!)…
Minneapolis, MN —Mark Ritchie, the DFL endorsed candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State, released details today of a break-in and burglary of Election Systems and Software’s (ES&S) Waite Park, Minnesota office that occurred on August 19, 2003. ES&S is the world’s largest producer of ballot counting machines. Their vote-counting machines are used in all but four counties in Minnesota. Along with these details, Ritchie released the following statement:
To my knowledge ES&S has not notified any election officials about this crime which was a serious incident of personal information theft and may be a significant breach in the security of elections conducted on ES&S machines.
Waite Park eh ?
Right by Cold Spring where the worlds worst beer of the same name is brewed
When we were broke, we’d drink that stuff, two cases for $4
They could hardly give it away 🙂
Ritchie looks great compared to Kiffmeyer
Link
Maybe a good time for (circa 2005) reminders:
http://www.rense.com/general167/voting.htm
Amazing Facts About Voting In America
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 election systems and the vice president of aftermarket sales at 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. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently 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 employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
What a disgrace. Yesterday we took my grandchildren to apply for a voter registration.As my 17 year old grandaughter was filling out the form to pre-register(she will be 18 in Jan),her mother prompted her to choose a party.She thought for a few seconds,and asked,”What party does Bush belong to?” Her mother replied,”Republican” She rolled her beautiful spanish eyes and with an attitude said “I’m a Democrat, fer real!” I could hear some laughter from the people in line behind us, and the clerks behind the counter could hardly contain a chuckle or two.
When we got home, I wanted to talk with them some more, about what it means to be able to vote, but I couldn’t. I became overwhelmed by what I have not explained to them. They are poor and Mexican American,and this will greatly raise the odds for them to be disenfranchised, and that our election system is not even functional and the Republican controlled congress will not allow it to be fixed.The party they so proudly choose to “distance” themselves from the president, is not worthy.It should have been a happy time, a time to celebrate.