Blogged by Brad Friedman on 11/16/2004 4:22PM  
Stunning reports of illegally installed software from April of 2004 add to already-horrific mess!
Still waiting for the

A series of investigative stories (here, here, and here) by WISHTV.com in Indianapolis from April of this year, have just come to my attention (sent by several different readers).

They concern yet more troubling reports about the Election Systems & Software (ES&S) company, who's software and tabulating machines, along with Diebold's, are responsible for tabulating about 80% of the votes in America. Both companies were founded by the same man, who just happens, along with the rest of their Boards of Directors to be big donor/supporters of the Republican Party.

The series of reports from WISH-TV earlier this year tell of ES&S employees surreptitiously installing illegal, uncertified software, into the voting and tabulating machines in Marion County, Indiana. They then ordered their regional ES&S project manager to lie about it to county officials. She refused. As had her husband in a previous ES&S incident, where he was also a project manager, in a different Indiana county. He was fired for his refusal.

In one of the reports, the Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler is quoted as saying that ES&S "has willfully and purposely deceived me and the Marion County election board...[W]ith complete disregard for business ethics and with intent to deceive, [ES&S] deliberately worked to keep their actions from the Marion County election board and its employees."

The county's election board vice chair added, "Throughout the process, there have been missteps and outright fabrications and mistruths given to us by the vendor implementing the election process."

The assiduous BRAD BLOG readers will note that ES&S has popped up time and time again in so many of these stories of "irregularities" related to electronic voting and tabulating machines. Amongst the many troubling incidents so far reported here:

Additionally, DailyKos reported late last night on yet another Indiana county where the U.S. Congressional results are now in doubt and a recount may be coming shortly due to revelations from nearby Franklin County where a recount was already held after it was discovered that the optical-scan tabulating machine was counting straight Democratic ticket votes as Libertarian votes!

I've been hearing more and more drumbeating lately for either an entire national audit of all the votes in this year's election, or even more drastically, a re-vote of the whole damn thing. The more I learn about what an ungodly mess we have on our hands, the more I am beginning to think such ideas may not be crazy after all.

And along with all of these continuing reports I'm still left to ask, where the hell is the mainstream media who should be all over these stories that rock the very core of our democracy?! This is about our voting system for christsake! Clearly we can't count --- for now --- on the Republican cronies at the Justice Department to look into these matters. This time, it's up to the citizenry it seems, and we sure as hell could use an assist from that supposedly "Liberal" Media right about now!

Buzz this story! C2NN: Submit it!


READER COMMENTS ON
"Indiana, ES&S and One Ungodly Mess!"
(4 Responses so far...)

COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
... understandinglife said on 11/16/2004 @ 5:03 pm PT...


It's our franchise; it must be us who defend it.

Nothing 'crazy' about it; we must mobilize the Nation to demand an audit of all the votes and after several weeks of everyone seeing what is already being uncovered all over the Nation, we will need to re-vote.

Tough times call for tougher citizens. We're about to find out just how much each of us cares about Democracy and about each other's rights to express their vote and know that their vote is fairly counted.

"It's about America" [the one on life support and in need of immediate, comprehensive and heroic treatment]


COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
... herenow said on 11/16/2004 @ 9:07 pm PT...


You brought up a good point... just where is the media right now???

If they are not on this as a storey... and it is obvious that they are not then they in the storey... are part of the storey. Period.

I think if this thing does actually play out... if enough sites like yours become focal points for FACTUAL info on what actually happened Nov.2... and something is actually done... then the media should be as guilty as the party for aiding in the fraud.

Period.


COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
... winter patriot said on 11/16/2004 @ 9:57 pm PT...


"I've been hearing more and more drumbeating lately for either an entire national audit of all the votes in this year's election, or even more drastically, a re-vote of the whole damn thing. The more I learn about what an ungodly mess we have on our hands, the more I am beginning to think such ideas may not be crazy after all."

Hear hear!


COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
... Brad said on 11/19/2004 @ 11:20 pm PT...


herenow, I believe they are already. The media, I mean. Guilty as charged.


-=- Comments on this item are now closed. -=-


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VotersUnite.org's Daily Voting News 'Daily Voting News' For September 07, 2008
by John Gideon

Today’s featured article is, again, from Palm Beach Co Florida. The quotes in this article make it clear that failing elections supervisors are going to blame the transition from DRE voting systems to optical-scan voting systems for any failures they encounter this election season.

“It was extremely challenging to make the transition" from touch screens to optical scanning of paper ballots in just three months, Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said”. Yes, I’m sure it was a challenge. Just as much a challenge as the successful move from DRE to Optical-Scan accomplished by the state of New Mexico a couple years ago or the same change made by Cuyahoga Co. Ohio prior to this year’s presidential primary. New Mexico and Cuyahoga Co didn’t seem to have anywhere near the problems that Palm Beach Co had.

“[County Judge Barry] Cohen said there were no numbers on the documents he signed to certify the judicial race on Tuesday. County Commissioner Addie Greene said she didn't notice whether vote totals were listed.” This judge has now admitted to signing legal documents without having all of the numbers filled-in. Now, I’m not an attorney but this seems to me to be an admission of misfeasance on the part of a county election official and probably the whole canvassing board on which Mr. Cohen serves.

And then there is this gem; "I decided whatever system (Palm Beach County) buys next time, I'm not buying it," joked Kay Clem, elections supervisor for Indian River County, the only other county in the state with Sequoia equipment. "I feel bad for them, it's tough. I can't imagine dealing with all those paper ballots. It must be a nightmare." This quote from an elections supervisor who allowed an experiment to be done with real votes in a real election and that resulted in over 10,000 votes being mis-reported....

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