UPDATE: Screenshots from the paperless ES&S voting systems, showing the controversial placement of the Jennings/Buchanan race on the ballot in Sarasota County only, are now posted EXCLUSIVELY here.
In a press conference this morning, Vern Buchanan (R) called on Christine Jennings (D) to concede in the race for the U.S. House in Florida’s 13th Congressional district. In a process right out of the Bush/Cheney 2000 Florida Election debacle, the state of Florida certified the race today despite a 369 vote difference between the two and more than 18,000 still-unexplained “undervotes” registered on the paperless ES&S touch-screen voting machines used in Sarasota County.
A video of Buchanan’s press conference is here. A complete transcript of his obnoxious statement follows at the end of this article.
We’ve stayed out of the “politics” in this race up until now, arguing only that the voters of FL-13 should have their voice heard despite overwhelming evidence of voting machine malfunction. However, given Buchanan’s regrettable despicable attack on Jennings in his news conference this morning and, even more so, his attack on the non-partisan groups currently fighting for electoral integrity in the race, we’ve little choice but to point out the emergence of Buchanan as yet another democracy hater in Florida following the Bush/Cheney 2000 playbook almost to the reprehensible letter.
Putting his own self-interest before that of the public’s, Buchanan called on Jennings “to put the interest of the public before her own self-interest,” and called on his Democratic opponent — ironcially fighting for the old seat of outgoing Katherine Harris — to concede.
Buchanan characterized the contest filed today in court by Jennings (as we reported yesterday would be “coming soon”) as “baseless litigation” and said that it’s time for her to “stop listening to high-priced lawyers and out of town special interest groups who have hijacked the process to advance their own agenda.”
Hijacked the process to advance their own agenda?!
What “agenda” would that be, Mr. Buchanan? The agenda of having a democracy in America?!!
Never mind Buchanan’s own “high-priced” “out of town” attorneys (from Jack Abramoff’s Greenburg-Traurig no less!)…is this guy kidding? Apparently not. And he’s willing to say and do anything he can to undermine both voter confidence and respect for the electoral process in the bargain.
He went on to say that: “Before the polls closed on election day, the lawyers and special interest groups had mounted a deliberate and shameful attempt to erode voter confidence in the outcome of this election…Which shows the blatant disrespect for the voters and a disregard for the electorial process.”
Speaking of “blatant disrespect for the voters and a disregard for the electorial process,” the fact that Buchanan doesn’t seem to give a damn about the 18,000 voters who were not able to vote in this election, and for whom there is no “paper trail” in Florida to even confirm his claim that the intent of those 18,000+ voters (appx. 13%) was to purposely not vote in the election speaks to a “blatant disrespect of voters” and an appalling “disregard for the electorial process” in a way that only a Republican working directly from the discredited Bush/Cheney 2000 Democracy Haters Playbook could even dream of.
The undervote rate in Sarasota county was “nearly 6 times higher than the undervote rate in the other District 13 counties or in Sarasota’s paper absentee ballots,” according to a statement issued today from the Jennings camp. The undervote rate was only 2.6% for paper-based absentee ballots in the race, and elections both above the 13th district and below it on the same ballot had undervote rates of just 1 to 2%.
Buchanan’s invidious presser statement ended this way: “Regardless of whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or an independent, I will listen to your concerns and fight for your issues.”
Here’s an issue for you, Buchanan: Respect the will of the people and their right to exercise their choice at the ballot box through a free, fair, open, reliable, verifiable, and transparent process. We have a feeling that’s one “issue” you couldn’t give a rat’s ass about.
Buchanan’s press conference this morning (with a short Q&A afterwards) is available on video here. A transcript of his statement follows in full below…
Good afternoon. We’re excited to hear this morning at 9:30 the state certified us as the winner. It was a close election. This vote has been counted, re-counted and counted again.
I consider it an honor and a privilege and I’m humbled to be the lawfully elected congressman.
I regret that my opponent has brought in out of town attorneys to delay this process and challenge the validity of a lawful election.
It’s time for Christine Jennings to put the interest of the public before her own self-interest and concede this election.
It is time for me to focus on hiring the top-notch team to help service this district. We should be focus [sic] on setting up the office, which we have three, providing constituent services, setting a legislative agenda and a strategy to achieve our goals on behalf of the 13th district.
We need to stop partisan politics and focus on national issues and the need of the district without the distraction of baseless litigation.
I’m calling on Christine Jennings to stop listening to high priced lawyers and out of town special interest groups who have hijacked the process to advance their own agenda and to listen to the people of the 13th district.
The people have spoken and I have won this election. I won on election night, I won in the machine recount and I won in the manual recount.
Much has been made of the 18,000 undervotes. The machines were tested, re-tested and certified by the state. There’s no evidence for malfunction.
Before the polls closed on election day, the lawyers and special interest groups had mounted a deliberate and shameful attempt to erode voter confidence in the outcome of this election…Which shows the blatant disrespect for the voters and a disregard for the electorial process.
I want to thank the voters — and I’m very humble about that — for allowing me the opportunity to serve as their representative in Congress. Regardless of whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or an independent, I will listen to your concerns and fight for your issues.
Thank you, and now I’d like to open up to questions.
“The vote has been counted, re-counted and counted again.” That lie echoes from 2000. It was the bush teams constant chant, choice talking point printed and spoken over and over again. And then people began to believe it. It’s as big a lie today as it was in 2000. Ms Jennings must not concede.
No evidence of malfunction, he says.That would make the loss of over 18000 votes deliberate!
A first year computer tech/programer should be able to notice right away that the U.S. Representative Dist. 13 Race is the only one that is not highlighted on the ballot–that it would not be read as another office but the same as the one highlighted above (Senate Race) allowing only one entry, that of the vote for the Senate Race.
Trackback: Asking questions is good
A predictably, unbelievably blatant, corrupt decision. The thieves want Olive Branches. Maybe they consider this to be one.
Buchanan called on Jennings “to put the interest of the public before her own self-interest,”
After going through the “bullshit decoder”, it translates as Buchanon saying,
“I need to try to shame her into conceding, so I’ll falsely claim that if Jennings is interested in making every vote count, that somehow that means she is putting her self-interest ahead of the publics…when, in fact I am putting MY self-interest ahead of the public, because I DON’T WANT EVERYONE’S VOTE TO BE COUNTED…OR I WON’T WIN!!! AND I AM MORE IMPORTANT THAN A FAIR COUNT, WHERE EVERYONE’S VOTE IS COUNTED! Maybe my ploy will work, if I try to trick her into associating “shame” with “having everyone’s vote count”…it might work, it’s my only chance to win…”
“It’s obvious, something is awry with 18,000 undervotes, but it’s more important to win a sham election in which everyone’s vote wasn’t counted, and declare it over right now, only because I AM AHEAD…now, if in this same scenario, JENNINGS WAS AHEAD, I would definitely want this obvious sham investigated…but since I am ahead, fuck any investigations into accurate vote counting.”
Sometimes I walk around all day talking to people, and I forgot to shut off my “bullshit decoder”…it’s really scarey when you here what people are REALLY thinking all day!!!
If there’s no re-vote, it simply means that it’s “OK” to steal elections in America, even when there’s overwhelming statistical proof of fraud.
Simply put…that is exactly what it means, if nothing is done about this obvious fraudulent election.
Furthermore, instead of Buchanon agreeing with this, he wants Jennings to “concede”…
VOTERS OF FLA-13: WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT BUCHANON??? DO YOU WANT HIM TO REPRESENT YOU??? OR ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP LETTING E-VOTE MACHINES FUCK YOU UP THE ASS?
He forgot to say that if he wasn’t allowed to steal the office, it would cause him irreparable harm!
The first questioner sounded a little sarcastic when he called Buchanan a “success story” but I believe he was actually telling the truth when he said if the shoe was on the other foot, he would be conceding. As we know, the Republicans all over the country have been ordered to stay completely away from voting machine fraud, (think Rick Santorum).
How telling!
Quite aside from the definitely major issue of direct semi-hidden vote fraud, there is the much more blatant fraud, that is the horrendous Gerrymandering, that made the Buchanan vote fraud possible.
My single zipcode has been Salami’d up to 4 Congressional districts! In total more than half of those votes go to Democrats, but in one the Democrat can win by 95% without even showing up, and the others go to Republicans by (fraud enhanced?)55-60%.
By making it illegal to split up more than one zipcode, county, whatever, there could be a 100% increase in real congress critters, and even the Dems would have to pay more attention, as they would be in real races.
By all means we need to get rid of the fake voting machines, but we also need to make sure that honest districts are mandated, or the Dem takeover in congress will last only two years, as the Gerrymandered Repug seats go back to their designed winners.
Honest machines in honest districts needs to be the first order of business, or any other of the mountain of “to do’s” will simply be reversed in the next term.
Question for Paul Lehto (or whomever?):
Can Nancy simply refuse to swear him in?
It’s not a Special Election, right, so they can’t fly him to Washinton and swear him in now — there’s still a sitting congresswoman (of sorts), right?
This could be fun.
Jennings must wear a t-shirt for the next 10 weeks (OK, she could get a few in case one starts to get a bit “ripe”) that says simply:
“18,000 votes missing — that’s not Democracy”
And if she does concede, heaven help her and the Democratic Party.
Charlie L
Portland, OR
How long is the world’s leading democracy going to let elections be handled by one political party? Would election observers in a third-world country declare the elections to be free and fair if one of the political parties was in charge of the entire election apparatus and judging the honesty and accuracy of the outcome?
I think not.
To represent the interests of the voters in her district Ms. Jennings MUST fight to have all the votes counted and, if necessary, to have a new election. To do less is to fail, both as her district’s representative and as a citizen who pledges ‘allegiance to the flag…’.
Elections Systems & Software
Toward the end of the twentieth century, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), which now supplies election equipment to 39 states, was born into a world enamored of technology “” a perfect opportunity in the wide-open business of making and selling computerized election equipment. Voting integrity activists were few and far between, and election officials had no reason to resist the digitizing of election results.
But from the beginning, whatever opportunity ES&S touched turned into a disaster. When their M100 ballot scanners debuted in Hawaii in 1998, the machines failed so badly, ES&S had to pay over half a million dollars to settle contract disputes and recount the ballots. Simultaneously in Dallas, software bugs in their ES&S election equipment lost 41,015 ballots “” one out of every eight.
Two years later, flaws in the ES&S tabulating equipment caused Venezuela to postpone “the biggest election in Venezuelan history.”
Undaunted, ES&S continued selling its wares and leaving a trail of election problems in its wake “” flipping votes on the screens in Arkansas; counting more votes than voters in San Francisco; giving votes to the wrong candidates in Florida, Kansas, Texas; and irretrievably losing entire ballots. In September 2002, Miami’s new paperless touch screen machines, the ES&S iVotronics, lost 8.2% of the ballots in the 31 precincts that the ACLU examined “” losing as many as 21% in some precincts.
Two months later, in the mid-term elections in Raleigh, North Carolina, the election director stopped using the iVotronics for early voting when they failed to record 436 ballots cast on the machines “” in a single day.
So two years later, ES&S took their iVotronic software to Indiana and had it certified, but instead of installing it there, they illegally installed an uncertified version because, according to ES&S, the certified version “might not tabulate votes.”
http://www.votetrustusa.org/ind...#038;Itemid=51
Waldenburg, Ark., Mayor William Wood and challenger Ronnie Chatman both got 18 votes. A third challenger, Randy Wooten, didn’t get any votes, not even his own.
The little town of Waldenburg, you see, had gone high-tech on Election Day and used electronic voting for its 80 citizens. Perhaps we wouldn’t normally care about the results of such a minor election, but Wooten would.
He insists he voted for himself, and his wife says she loyally cast her vote for Wooten, too.
Makes sense, but their votes didn’t show up when the results on the touch-screen voting machine were tabulated that night with software supplied by Election Systems and Software. According to ES&S, it was an 18-18 tie with no votes for Wooten.
So do we either believe ES&S or we believe the Wootens?
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/a.../opinion01.txt
Flathead County, Montana, County Election Director Monica Eisenzimer said her department had conducted successful test runs on the software system provided by Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software.
But shortly after the polls closed Tuesday, tabulators discovered the vote information on computer memory cards for each precinct didn’t coincide with the manually tabulated reports.
“All the ballots were being cast to one person” on the memory cards, Eisenzimer explained. That forced officials to manually tabulate results for each precinct, a tedious process that took until 4 a.m. Wednesday.
GLITCHES STATEWIDE put Montana and Flathead County in the national spotlight while the country waited for results from the pivotal Senate race between incumbent Republican Conrad Burns and Democratic challenger Jon Tester. Tester didn’t emerge as the winner until midday Wednesday.
http://www.votetrustusa.org/ind...038;Itemid=113
Williamson County, TX, Elections officials are again having voting problems, and they’re blaming the computer software that they say has caused hiccups in the past.
Williamson County spokeswoman Connie Watson said that computer software counted each electronic vote three times, making the initial reported vote total about 6,500 more than the actual total. Most of the votes in the county were cast on paper ballots.
Amanda Brown, a spokeswoman for Elections Systems & Software, the company that made the software, said the company thinks that the problem was a human error, not the software.
http://www.statesman.com/news/c...elections.html
Sarasota County, Florida, The machines, critics say, may have lost more than 18,000 votes cast in Sarasota County last week for a congressional seat that Republican candidate Vern Buchanan seized by a margin of fewer than 400 votes.
That’s because 18,382 ballots recorded no vote for either Buchanan or his Democratic opponent, Christine Jennings, in the 13th Congressional District — a House seat that previously belonged to Katherine Harris, the former Florida secretary of state who played a pivotal role in the 2000 presidential recount.
Critics are calling this new recount a sham, since the touch-screen machines have no paper trail and questions about the missing votes remain unanswered.
The iVotronic machines, made by Election Systems & Software, are not new to such controversy. The same brand of machine was responsible for losing 436 ballots in a North Carolina election in 2002. The iVotronic was also used in another Florida election in 2004 in which 134 ballots were recorded as blank.
The problems in Florida are being seized upon by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-New Jersey) and others as a reason to support a bill pending in Congress that would require voter-verified paper trails to be used on all electronic voting machines in the country. Currently only about 17 states that use touch-screen machines have laws requiring such auditing trails.
http://www.wired.com/news/polit...?tw=wn_index_2
Is there any reason to believe the iVotronic machines and software from ES&S may have miscounted the votes? Duh!
Jennings can’t concede. We have to fight these fights in every state, every county, every precinct. The thugs can’t think they are going to win.
If this vote stands, it means we don’t have a democracy.