When I start talking about stolen elections — about someone, somewhere, deliberately altering the outcome of the 2004 election — you people think I’m the worst sort of tin-foil hat wearing, “aliens killed JFK” type of conspiracy nut.
I want to believe we live in a democracy. I want to believe our votes count. I want to believe that our elections are legitimate.
But an increasing body of evidence leads me to believe this is not the case.
The folks at BlackBoxVoting.org (“Consumer Protection for Elections”) were determined to examine the internal logs of the voting machines used in the controversial 2004 Dade County, FL, elections. After investing nine months and $7000 to get those records, here’s what they found:
– The logs contain 100,000 obvious errors.
– The election was held on November 2, 2004. Several dozen machines registered votes cast between October 15 and 28th, often in the middle of the night. Records confirm these machines were not assigned to early voting locations.
– One machine tallied votes stamped with dates in 2010.
– More than 70,000 unlikely “Card Insertion Errors” were recorded. Hundreds of “election info bad” errors occurred.
– “Hundreds of records were simply missing, not provided at all, making it impossible to complete a formal audit.”
– Evidence indicates “someone accessed the computers after [accuracy checks were completed, causing] a change in the machine’s reporting functions.” Such changes would require “a high degree of inside access.”
– Palm Beach officials decline to identify the names of staff who had access to the machines, and claim the “votes were normal.”
Dade County officials claim, on the one hand, “Votes cast before election day didn’t happen [1],” and, on the other, “In any event, it didn’t change the outcome of any race [2].”
Meantime, you can see the records for yourself. It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to read ’em.
If you’re still with me, take just a moment to consider what these findings imply:
– At best, electronic voting machines are unreliable. At worst, their records are all too easy to manipulate.
– If auditors found this many errors in logs from one location, how many errors might have occurred in the hundreds of locations where these machines have been deployed?
This is not a Republican issue. This is not a Democratic issue. This is an American issue. This issue strikes at the very heart of what America claims to be: a democracy, with a transparent election process designed to allow the people to choose their own leaders.
Without that … what kind of nation are we?
I would refer readers to your top un-reported stories. It is painfully obvious– now that I am looking in from the outside–America has gone into some kind of coma.
An interesting NPR story (although it’s really about selling his books) tells the story I do hear from my Republican Grandparents and their friends. So why is it that even though most people are outraged, nobody says anything. Read this book excerpt and you will start to see why. Off with your head!http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5227215
Cheers,Todd