Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.Org
In what may be the most revealing of all of the “Democracy At Risk” series Lou and Kitty discuss the broken system of certifying electronic voting systems for use by the voter. Lou correctly points out that the system represents a conflict of interest between the manufacturers and the Independent Test Authorities (ITA) who are paid by the manufacturers to test and approve the manufacturers products.
The text-transcript of Thursday’s segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full…
Note for the transcript: There are four unidentified males mentioned below. The four are representatives of the manufacturers and the ITAs.
Kitty Pilgrim reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With only 12 days before the November election, the Election Assistance Commission was begging manufacturers and testers of electronic voting machines to reassure them the election would work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is my vote going to count? Your comment, please?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you go to the polls, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 100 percent.
PILGRIM: But at this hearing in Washington, a clear demonstration of just how cozy manufacturers are with the labs who test their machines. Executives sat elbow to elbow on the same panel and testified together.
Electronic voting machines have proven reliability and security flaws. But the labs who test and certify those machines are actually hired and paid by the manufacturers themselves.
WARREN STEWART, VOTETRUSTUSA: The manufacturers contract directly with the laboratories and pay for the testing that is done. So the manufacturers essentially are the clients of the testing labs.
PILGRIM: Sure enough, testing labs at today’s hearing refer to the manufacturers as their clients.
FRANK PADILLA, WYLE LABORATORIES: Independent test labs normally do not release test report data to any other source but the client and who the client directs us to release them to.
PILGRIM: Shouldn’t the testing labs be more independent of the manufacturers? The government panel ducked the question.
BRIAN HANCOCK, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMM.: If there are other ways of trying to do that, we would be more than happy to hear from anyone out there that would like to talk to us. Virtually every other governmental program does it that way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM (on camera): Manufacturers say their electronic voting machines are proprietary and the labs can’t release the information publicly. But voters are demanding to know why the entire process is so secret, why the manufacturers and the testing labs are defending their relationship and most importantly, why voting machines are failing in elections all across this country — Lou.
DOBBS: These manufacturers — the entire government must think that the American people are the biggest fools on this planet. This is absolutely — there’s no other word for it. It is scurrilous, disgusting. It is ridiculous. Why in the world is anyone tolerating this relationship and this entire process?
PILGRIM: Well, many of the voters activists we’ve been talking to are delighted that some of this is coming to light, because the relationship has been so secret and so quiet that the public has not been aware.
DOBBS: Well, Kitty Pilgrim, thanks for making them so.
Kitty Pilgrim, reporting tonight from New York.
Thank you, Kitty.
THE SWIFTBOATING OF “EXIT POLLING”
Last night it started. CNN’s Jeff Greenfield was interviewed about the forthcoming elections, and his parting comment at the end of the segment was what would have appeared to be an off-handed disparaging remark about the reliability of Exit Polls.
Greenfield was/is shilling for Rove ““ and this was a TALKING POINT ordered up by Rove. “Exit Polling” had not been part of the prior discussion, but was something that he slipped in at the end of the segment ““ as if ordered to do so.
Rove has been interviewed in recent days proclaiming that HIS polling (which he proclaims nobody else has access to and is superior to all other polling data) portrays the key races to be very close, not nearly the blowouts that the REALITY BASED COMMUNITY is seeing.
THIS IS A SET UP.
If you are going to STEAL AN ELECTION VIA VOTE RIGGING ““ you need to lay the ground work ““ planting doubt in the minds of the electorate through the media shills.
Exit polling has been a reliable method by which to approximate the result of elections prior to the final votes being tallied. Exit polling has only been called into question in the last two election cycles ““ but ONLY because the Exit Polling data were not confirmed by the final “official” vote tally. As has now been proven, it was not the Exit Polling data that was inaccurate or unreliable, it was the reporting of the Official Total” that had been tampered with.
It’s time to TAKE THE OFFENSIVE where Exit Polling is concerned and reveal this Swiftboating of “Exit Polling” for what it is ““ a Rovian sham designed specifically to condition the electorate to disbelieve the exit poll results (which will portray the house and Senate going under Democratic Control), and rather to only believe the “Official” (FALSE) vote count.
The Mainstream Media is fully complicit in the Rovian Brainwashing campaign to discredit “Exit Polling” as unscientific hoohah, when in fact it is the smoking gun EVIDENCE of election fraud used throughout the world. Ask International Elections Observers about the value of Exit Polling.
The GOP has employed a firm called Penn, Schoen, & Berland to skew exit poll results in the past in order to achieve their own political ends. Watch out for this firm’s exit poll results in this years elections. They are on Rove’s payroll:
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=70727
Electoral Fraud Is the First Step on the Road to Tyranny
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=70456
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What I want to know is, what is so sacrosanct about Nov. 7th? How dare the true peoples voice in America be left to a mere deadline! Where is the common sense during this NATIONAL CRISIS! Every legislator and law-maker should join together in view of all the evidence throughout this country as to the irrefutable corruption of our election system and be forced back into emergency session to do the right thing. I don’t know about you but I’ll take patience over instant gradification any day. In 2-4 weeks the real solution for just this election, emergency paper ballots could be printed. Also a letter to each and every registered voter could be sent out letting them know if they are still registered, and where their precinct is. Hell, why not make Election Day a national holiday! Any law-maker who can’t admit to this CRISIS is a disgrace to AMERICAN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then when the balance of power shifts back to WE THE PEOPLE, true independent studies by qualified experts(that are not paid by the vending machine companies)should be done to allow us to get our money back from these ABOMINATIONS.
It just makes much more sense to stop these problems NOW instead of wasting more time and treasure in law suits after the fact or letting Congress or the Supreme Court step in to pick the winners.
Cool Bradblog video logo at the end!
Ancient, I think we all agree with you, but the reality, is, unless we document the coming (now happening in early voting) fraud and then take to the streets in massive protests, we’re doomed to an ever more tyrannical take-over of our once-free nation by the GOP…
Damn.
shw