VOTERGATE: Media Silence continues - more info on Diebold and ES&S

Within the last 24 hours, the few web sites and blogs covering the VOTERGATE scandal have been hacked or knocked out of service by DDoS attacks. Hopefully they are back up now. Web sites with recent info here: BradBlog, blackboxvoting and nightweed.

Catching up? Start with the VOTERGATE video and then watch the MSNBC video, and read Thom Hartmann's article "Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked"

MSNBC Countdown video. This clip is from November 8 and the transcript is here. After receiving 7,500 emails and hundreds of phone calls overnight, Olbermann decided to run a follow-up last night. The Nov 9 transcript is here - anyone have the video clip?? Let me know. One of the more interesting updates from Olbermann is the following:

"And a new state with a new voting nightmare, Nebraska, home of Election System and Software company (ES&S). Sarpy County—that‘s where Offutt Air Force Base is—has at least 10,000 extra votes in its returns; 32 of the 80 precincts there still do not have their numbers figured out.  That‘s thanks to election equipment borrowed from Election Systems and Software.  One candidate for Papillion City Council said he was stunned to see that 3,342 people had voted in his ward, when less than 3,000 people were registered there."

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DID YOU KNOW? More information on voting machines available here:

• 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S

• The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers

• Walden O'Dell, the chairman and CEO of Diebold wrote in a letter in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." O'Dell is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor

• 35% of ES&S is owned by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who lied about his stake in ES&S and became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines

• ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes

• Diebold is based in Ohio and supplies almost all the voting machines there

• None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio

• Exit polls for the 2004 elections were accurate within 1% or less in areas where ballot machines were used

• Major exit poll data discrepancies were noted in counties where touch screen machines were used, especially in Ohio and Florida

• There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry

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MORE ABOUT DIEBOLD:

"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."
- Walden O'Dell, Chairman and CEO, Diebold (fundraising letter to 100 wealthy friends).  O'Dell is a member of the “Pioneers,” the elite group of Bush fundraisers. In July 2003, O'Dell sponsored a $500,000 fundraiser for Dick Cheney and recently helped raise over $250,000 for the 2004 re-election campaign.

Most of Ohio uses Diebold voting machines. A few among the litany of abuses that we know of:

* 2000: Diebold makes 16,000 presidential votes "vanish" in one Florida county

* 2002: Diebold supplies Georgia with new electronic voting machines. Republican Sonny Perdue beat incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes to become Georgia's first Republican Governor in 135 years, while Rep Saxby Chambliss upset Vietnam vet Senator Max Cleland. The poll results showed an amazing 12-point shift that took place int he last 48 hours! Voters recall being helpless as they tried to pick their choice, but saw only the republican candidate receiving the vote.

* 2003: Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (a republican) qualified Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election - even after security concerns were raised over their equipment.

* 2004: Touch screen voting booths are eerily familiar to California voters - they were used throughout the state in the Gray Davis/Governor Terminator October 7 Recall Election. Interestingly, the people of California and Secretary of State Kevin Shelly sued Diebold for fraud, and successfully de-certified Diebold's voting machines in this state. But we are still stuck with the Governator.

Oh and did I mention that Diebold software is really, really bad?!
"High-Tech votes can be hacked, scientists say," by Andy Sullivan, Reuters. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Rice University uncovered hundreds of bugs with 26 "high-risk" security flaws in Diebold software that allowed poll workers to cast multiple ballots, switch others votes, or shut down an election terminal.

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MORE ABOUT ES&S:

See "Voting in the USA: A Tale of Two Brothers" In the 1980's brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded American Information Systems (AIS) with the financial backing of right-wing extremist Christian billionaire Howard Ahmanson. In 1992, conservative Nebraskan Chuck Hagel became chairman of AIS, renamed to ES&S. ES&S is now the largest voting machine company in the US and Todd Urosevich is its Vice President. His brother, Bob Urosevich, is President of Diebold - the company that makes the 45,000 touch-screen voting machines used in Ohio and other states (see above).

"In 1996 Chuck Hagel became the first republican to ever win a Nebraska senatorial campaign in 24 years, carrying virtually every demographic group, including african american precincts that had never voted republican. In 2003 the Senate Ethics Committee forced Chuck Hagel to reveal the fact that he had $1 million to $5 million invested in the McCarthy Group, which is a major owner of ES&S."