From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

Usually this award is meant to poke a sharp stick at government officials or media outlets. This month I’m spotlighting Vicki Gray’s important article detailing how newspeak affects the way we think about war. Instead of my usual sarcasm I praise her for her brilliant insight.

Click through and read the entire article to understand how language was and is used to de-sensitize us to reality. In order to fight the mind-numbing effects of newspeak, we first need to understand how it works.

The Militarization of the American Language
By Vicki Gray

Once was a time when we used to joke that military justice is to justice as military music is to music. You musicians get the point. Trouble is, military justice is no longer a joking matter. And we have moved apace in other regards. Now we must add: military language is to language as … well … Orwellian “newspeak” is to reality. And unfortunately for those in the “reality-based community,” military newspeak has replaced standard American English as the lingua franca of the United States, thanks to the spinmeisters in the White House and a pusillanimous press corps eager to lap up whatever Karl Rove, Tony Snow, and Ken Mehlman feed them.

What is military newspeak? It is a mumbling, numbing speech by an Al Haig or a George W. Bush. More subtly, it is a TV ad by Boeing - soft music and soothing voices over images of bombers gliding noiselessly through the clouds. Their mission? To defend our freedoms. How? We don’t need to ask. We know. They will soon be dropping bunker busters on un-shown apartment blocks, producing … well … “collateral damage” - all off-screen of course. Military newspeak is, in short, a mèlange of obfuscating euphemisms designed to hide the truth, desensitize our sense of morality, and re-image reality. Like that Boeing ad, it can manifest itself in non-verbal, sometimes subliminal, forms such as that little American flag that keeps flapping in the upper left hand corner of the Fox News screen or the steady drum beat (literally) that opens each CNN newscast, virtually shouting “War, War, War! Terror, Terror, Terror! Fear! Fear! Fear!” It’s all designed to jangle your nerves, disorient you, instill fear … and conflate fear with patriotism.

 

One danger of military newspeak is that it conditions the mental muscles in much the same way that video games do - to react instinctively, violently to perceived threats. Enemies are not to be understood or reasoned with. They are to be bombed - killed - as quickly as possible. No questions, no regrets. The worst danger of all, however, is how it creates obstacles to clear thinking. For clear thinking - critical thinking - is necessary to a well-functioning democracy. And, in the current circumstance, our democracy is crumbling under the weight of military newspeak just as surely as Lebanese democracy has been battered by American-made bombs. Our capacity to resist has been dangerously eroded by the rapidity and thoroughness with which the militarization of the American language has proceeded, and there is no Edward R. Morrow or Walter Cronkite out there to shout “Wake up, America! Before, it’s too late, wake up!”

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In the wake of last Friday’s decision by Judge Manzanares that Colorado’s voting machines were not properly secured and must be re-certified after the November 7 Election (see my post Vote By Mail 9/26), election officials and voters are stuck with ambiguity and uncertainty. Voters are advised to vote by mail. But that doesn’t address the problems with the voting machines.

The voter-advocate group, Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results (CAMBER) challenged Colorado Secretary of State candidates, Mike Coffman (R) and Ken Gordon (D) to cooperatively or individually appoint a person or persons to begin work immediately on a plan to comply with Judge Manzanares’ orders. CAMBER Executive Director Al Kolwicz said, “If they wait until election results are decided and they take office before they begin development of a compliance plan, it is highly unlikely that the 2008 elections will be improved. There just won’t be enough time.” CAMBER warned the Secretary of State, the Legislature, and the Governor of the problems with voting machines back in 2004, when Colorado adopted HB04-1227, a bill requiring voter verified paper trails. The bill was enacted, and resulted in most of the problems heard by the court in last week’s trial.

Read CAMBER’s Call for Action here.

After serious problems with card activators in the August primary Denver is scrapping their voting machines.

Denver Shelves Part Of Voting System After Problem

Denver city election officials say key components of an electronic voting system won’t be used in the November election because of problems they caused in the August primary.

The decision, announced Monday, intensified a battle within city hall over whether the second-hand parts were lemons that should be returned for a refund.

The city paid $35,000 to buy 50 of the devices, called card activators, from Chicago, which sold them after a trouble-filled election in March. The devices produce cards programmed to make sure voters get the correct ballot on electronic voting machines, but they were blamed for loading wrong ballots in Denver’s primary.

It’s important to remember that no state is exempt from election fraud. For my readers outside Colorado, Mother Jones has published a hit list of the worst places to vote. The article was published before Judge Manzanares’ decision, now we can add Colorado to the list.

Just Try Voting Here: 11 of America’s worst places to cast a ballot (or try)
By Sasha Abramsky

News: Machines that count backward, slice-and-dice districts, felon baiting, phone jamming, and plenty of dirty tricks

We used to think the voting system was something like the traffic laws — a set of rules clear to everyone, enforced everywhere, with penalties for transgressions; we used to think, in other words, that we had a national election system. How wrong a notion this was has become painfully apparent since 2000: As it turns out, except for a rudimentary federal framework (which determines the voting age, channels money to states and counties, and enforces protections for minorities and the disabled), U.S. elections are shaped by a dizzying mélange of inconsistently enforced laws, conflicting court rulings, local traditions, various technology choices, and partisan trickery. In some places voters still fill in paper ballots or pull the levers of vintage machines; elsewhere, they touch screens or tap keys, with or without paper trails. Some states encourage voter registration; others go out of their way to limit it. Some allow prisoners to vote; others permanently bar ex-felons, no matter how long they’ve stayed clean. Who can vote, where people cast ballots, and how and whether their votes are counted all depends, to a large extent, on policies set in place by secretaries of state and county elections supervisors — officials who can be as partisan, as dubiously qualified, and as nakedly ambitious as people anywhere else in politics. Here is a list — partial, but emblematic — of American democracy’s more glaring weak spots …

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On Tuesday (9/26), Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced new legislation, co-sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), to address the ongoing problems with voting machines.

Senator Boxer said: “My Confidence in Voting Act is simple. It urges local jurisdictions to make paper ballots available at every polling place, so any voter who wants one can use one, and so there is a back-up in case electronic voting machines fail. What’s more, my legislation defrays the cost by reimbursing local jurisdictions up to $.75 for each of these contingency paper ballots produced.”

Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) has also introduced HR 6187, The “Confidence in Voting Act of 2006,” a companion to the measure introduced by Senators Boxer, Dodd and Feingold in the Senate. It would allow all States that do not already use optical scan or other paper ballot-based voting systems to opt in to a program for this November’s election whereby they would be reimbursed for giving voters the right to cast their votes on paper ballots at their request.

The “Confidence in Voting Act of 2006″ would:

• Reimburse States at the rate of 75 cents per printed ballot for offering voters, upon their request, the right to cast a vote by means of a contingency paper ballots, regardless of the voting equipment otherwise in use at the precinct;

• Mandate that the voter’s right to cast his or her vote by means of such a contingency paper ballot be conspicuously posted at polling places;

• Mandate that jurisdictions treat contingency paper ballots as regular ballots, and count them accordingly and not as provisional ballots (unless a voter is otherwise required to vote provisionally);

• Authorize such sums as are necessary to reimburse the States under the program.

I still recommend voting my mail. But this might have a better chance of passing than Brad Blog’s Let America Vote Act, since it originates from members of Congress. Because we all know Congress doesn’t give a damn what the people want.

You can take action through two websites:

Progressive Democrats of America

Senator Boxer’s Pac for Change

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Last Friday (9/23) Denver District Judge Lawrence Manzanares reached a decision in the Colorado lawsuit, brought by 13 voters, over voting machines. His ruling said essentially – to paraphrase an infamous quote from Donald Rumsfeld – you vote with the voting machines you have, not the voting machines you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Colo. Judge Grudgingly Approves Machine Vote
By Colleen Slevin

DENVER — A judge on Friday chastised state officials for botching efforts to ensure that electronic voting machines are tamper-proof, but he cleared them for use in the November election, saying it is too late now to change course.

Denver County District Judge Lawrence A. Manzanares said the secretary of state’s office had violated state law by failing to come up with minimum security standards for the machines. He added that the office had done an “abysmal” job documenting which tests were performed on the machines and should not have allowed computer manufacturers to vouch for the security of their own products.
 
The judge said, however, that he would not bar the machines with the election just six weeks away and county clerks warning that they might not have time to print enough paper ballots.

There you have it. Judge Manzanares says the voting machines in Colorado were not properly test for security, therefore the voting machines are not secure. But they will be in place on Election Day anyway. After the November 7 election the voting machines will be de-certified. Not before.

As a result many county officials across the state, not just the Denver area, are strongly recommending voters vote by mail – or absentee ballot. Garfield County Clerk Mildred Alsdorf recommended absentee ballots on September 13, because our ballot is so large this year. Now we have even more reason to vote by mail – the voting machines are not secure.

Officials urge Coloradans to vote by absentee ballot
Glitches take toll
By Ann Imse

Some Colorado counties stand ready to help voters cast their ballots by mail to alleviate concerns about potential tampering or other problems with computerized voting machines.

In fact, Denver and Arapahoe counties are urging citizens to vote absentee with mailed paper ballots, simply because November’s ballot is so long.

A Denver judge ruled Friday that the computerized machines had not been tested sufficiently for security vulnerabilities.

With some two dozen decisions to make, “voters really need to consider absentee and early voting options,” said Denver Election Commission spokesman Alton Dillard. There are 14 state ballot issues, as well as races for Congress, the state legislature, governor, other statewide offices and other contests.

Arapahoe County Clerk Nancy Doty agreed that it’s more practical this year to take the time to vote at home.

“I’m encouraging people to use absentee ballots because of the length of the ballot,” Doty said. “I feel very good about our voting equipment, and that’s not the reason I’m suggesting people vote on absentee ballots.”

Jefferson County is recommending mail ballots to voters who are worried about security, said elections director Susan Miller.

If I lived in another state and read about this case in Colorado, and the judge’s decision that the voting machines were not properly secured, I would be mighty suspicious that the very same problem exists in my own state regarding voting machines and I would vote by mail. Therefore I recommend EVERYONE vote by mail.

Brad Blog’s Let America Vote Act is a great idea but let’s face it, this Congress will not enact emergency paper ballots before the election. With voting by mail we can take matters into our own hands. This is one way we can demonstrate “no confidence” in the voting machines.

Unfortunately voting by mail will not necessarily insure the safety of your vote. As detailed in my post Voting by Mail: Is it Safe? (9/15), problems with the optical scan voting machines – the machines that count mail-in ballots – have been documented. Optical scan voting machines can be pre-programmed to over count votes, under count votes, skip votes, double votes, you name it. It’s a computer. At least with paper mail-in ballots, if there is a discrepancy, the voters and candidates can ask for a re-count and there will be actual paper ballots to count. As opposed to the virtual ballots on electronic paper in the VVPAT voting machines, which may or may not be there when a re-count is requested.

Other advantages to voting by mail:

• You can vote at home, you don’t have to go anywhere, therefore no chance you might show up at the wrong precinct. Hey, it happens a lot! Changing precinct locations at the last minute has become more common since 2000.

• You can look up ballot initiatives, referendums, and candidates (including judges) on the internets while you vote, thereby allowing you to make more informed decisions – which is a big plus for us “ignorant” voters.

• You can take your time, none of the pressure from people standing in line behind you. You can even make a party out of it. My husband and I like to get drunk and vote. It’s scads of fun. Hey, there’s no law against it – yet.

How do you vote my mail? Google the name of your county. Go to the website and look up the elections section, where you will find an application for an absentee ballot. Print the application, fill it in and mail it. You will receive your ballot in the mail. Easy.

Go do it now before you forget.

Have you registered to vote? If not, you can register the same way. Go to your county’s website and print out the voter registration application form, fill it out and send it in.

Are you sure you’re registered to vote? I know of at least 6 people who were certain they had registered to vote in the 2004 election, but when they showed up to vote, their names were not on the registers. Better to be safe than sorry. Verify your voter registration here.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

The Federal Election Integrity Act (HR 4844) is in the Senate RIGHT NOW! Remember that’s the law that says you will have to provide a photo ID and proof of citizenship in order to vote. Call both of your senators NOW and urge them to:

1. Vote NO on HR 4844.

2. Do not allow HR 4844 to be attached to any appropriations conference report.

3. Remind them that citizens must provide their social security numbers when they register to vote, which is proof of ID and citizenship. Therefore there is no need for a law requiring photo ID or proof of citizenship.

4. Remind them that voting is right, not a privilege.

If you live in Colorado, here are the numbers to call:

Sen. Wayne Allard
Phone: (202) 224-5941

Sen. Ken Salazar
Phone: (202) 224-5852

For everyone else find your Senators here: Senators of the 109th Congress

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This comment from Johnny Upbeat popped up on Saturday in response to my 8/28 post: Voter Suppression.

“I really don’t see why people get so upset about having to show some form of picture ID at the polling facility. We have to have picture ID’s to get on a plane and soon to get on a train. I believe that voting should err on the side of difficult, not easy.”

At first I thought Mr. Upbeat was serious. You know, he slept through High School Civics and missed the whole thing about voting being a right – not a privilege. You see driving, flying, train travel, those are all privileges. Not rights. Voting is a right guaranteed in the US Constitution. The only proof required has always been and should continue to be proof of residence. Requiring people to show proof of identification at registration and also every time they vote is simply ridiculous. There are no studies or documentation showing that people try to vote illegally. It would be a huge hassle to try and vote illegally and there’s no profit in it. So illegal or ineligible voter fraud is a non-issue. Besides, anyone can challenge a voter, so the safeguard is already built into the system.

But saying all that is a big waste of time and space. I visited Johnny Upbeat’s shiny new blog. He believes voters should be disenfranchised for their ignorance. He doesn’t want people on welfare voting or ignorant people. He advocates a voter photo ID card that requires a voter eligibility test. He thinks voting is a privilege.

Sorry Johnny. You’re wrong. Voting is a right. If you want everyone to play by your rules, you’ll have to change the US Constitution. Oh, and also abolish the Voting Rights Act, which was just renewed last July.

Good luck with that.

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Yikes!

The light at the end of the Election Tunnel is the spark from the Voting Train Wreck.

Get your papers in order people. The Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006 passed the US House of Representatives today.

Since Rep Henry Hyde is an Illinois Representative (and Tod is right this very minute in Chi-town) I give you the news from the Chicago Tribune’s Washington Bureau: The Swamp. Read it and weep for democracy.

Want to vote? Passport, please.
Posted by Frank James

The House passed today by a largely partisan vote of 228 to 196 the Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006 which would require anyone wanting to vote in a federal election to present polling place officials with a government-issued photo ID.

But according to the legislation, it can’t be any old government-issued photo ID. It must be one that proves its holder is a U.S. citizen.

That rules out driver’s licenses since a legal, non-citizen U.S. resident can get those. And in many states illegal immigrants can still get drivers licenses though that is set to change in a couple of years when the federal REAL ID Act is scheduled to take effect.

So under the legislation whose sponsor is Illinois’ own Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, a lot of people may wind up needing to take their U.S. passports with them to vote on future election days if the FEIA is passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Bush.

That’s a big if, however, since there doesn’t appear to be a lot of support for the legislation in the other chamber.

It will be interesting to see what the Senate does with this turkey. We can only hope it dies in committee.

If you’re curious how your Representative voted, click on Final Vote Results for Roll Call 459

All this nonsense on the very same day a Judge throws out Georgia’s Voter ID law. Gah! Can it get any more nuts than this?

Georgia Law Requiring Voters to Show Photo ID Is Thrown Out
Judge Says Some Would Be Disenfranchised; State Plans Appeal

By Darryl Fears and Jonathan Weisman

A state judge yesterday rejected a Georgia law requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification, writing in his decision, “This cannot be.”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford Jr. said the law, pushed by Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) to fight voter fraud, violates the state constitution because it disenfranchises citizens who are otherwise qualified to vote.

State officials vowed to appeal Bedford’s ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court before the Nov. 7 general election. 

What can we do?

Join Brad Blog in calling on Congress to pass an emergency measure to require Emergency Paper Ballots be made available at the polls during this November’s general election. He’s calling it the Let America Vote Act (LAVA).

LET AMERICA VOTE ACT
(EMERGENCY PAPER BALLOT MANDATE OF 2006)

WHEREAS significant failures of electronic voting machines have occurred in various jurisdictions during primary elections held in Illinois, Texas, Georgia, Maryland and other states during 2006, and

WHEREAS such failures have forced legitimate, registered voters to have been turned away from the polls by the thousands so far in 2006 primary elections simply because neither voting machines nor paper ballots were available for use when the voters arrived at their polling place, and

WHEREAS the probability exists that such failures will continue and the adverse results of such failures will be multiplied and increased in magnitude by the additional number of voters participating in the November 7, 2006 General Election, and

WHEREAS the potential exists for massive disenfranchisement of American voters in the November 7, 2006 General Election, by such failures of electronic voting machines,

NOW THEREFORE be it enacted that:

A. For the November 7, 2006, General Election, each election jurisdiction shall be required to prepare and print Emergency Paper Ballots of the proper ballot style for all races and propositions which shall be contested in that jurisdiction.

B. Such Emergency Paper Ballots shall be printed in sufficient quantity to guarantee that every voter who may require one, either as requested or as a result of voting machine unavailability, shall be able to receive such an Emergency Paper Ballot.

C. As with all provisional ballots, such Emergency Paper Ballots shall be printed in all languages specified for ballots in that jurisdiction.

D. Any voter eligible to vote in the jurisdiction in which he or she requests an Emergency Paper Ballot shall be entitled to receive and cast such Emergency Paper Ballot, regardless of the type of ballot that shall have been specifiied in that jurisdiction through operation of law, without further qualification, request, proof or furnishing of reason for such request.

E. Such Emergency Paper Ballots shall be official ballots for purposes of casting, tabulating, audits, redundant counts and recounts, and shall not be considered provisional ballots.

F. Emergency Paper Ballots shall be cast and tabulated in the same manner as all other ballots cast on November 7, 2006.

G. The associated costs to states for this mandate will be reimbursed out of Help America Vote Act funding.

H. This Act shall terminate and cease to have effect on February 28, 2007.

Contact your Senators and Representatives today!

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Does your driver’s license state your citizenship? Mine doesn’t.

The Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006 (HR 4844) is hurtling through Congress right now which will require every voter to present a photo ID AND proof of citizenship in order to vote. The bill passed through committee on a strict party line vote last week and is scheduled for a vote on the House floor on Wednesday.

Call your US Representative!

Sparks Fly As Committee Sends Photo ID Bill To The House Floor       
By Warren Stewart

Outbursts And Accusations Presage Floor Battle To Come

In the face of disapproval from dozens of public interest groups including the American Assocaition of Retired People and the League of Women Voters, Republican members of the Committee on House Administration have used their majority to recommend a bill that would require all voters to present documentation of citizenship and a government-issued photo ID in order to vote in 2008. Amendments calling for expanded forms of identification and making the implementation of the bill contingent on the results of a study done to determine the effect of such a requirement were rejected by the majority members of the Committee.

Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL, pictured at right) introduced “The Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006″ (HR 4844) in March, and though it has only a handful of co-sponsors, it appears to be on the fast track to a floor vote as early as this week. HR 4844 would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require voters in every state to provide proof of citizenship and photo identification when registering to vote and when voting, has been recommended on a party line vote by the Committee on House Administration. The bill was substantially changed through an amendment in the form of a substitution by Committee Chairman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) The controversial proposal is certain to face immediate legal challenge should it become law.

Though Rep. Hyde has been a strong advocate of “states rights” throughout his tenure in the House, his bill would prohibit state and local election officials in every state from providing a ballot - even a provisional ballot - to any individual that did not present a current and valid photo identification to the official. The type of photo identification that would be accepted is not specified in the language of the bill. The bill would take effect in this November’s elections.

The highly-charged atmosphere reached a boiling point when Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) shouted “It’s outrageous to hear my colleagues sit there and say that the Republican Party is embarking on a move to suppress the vote of ethnic minorities throughout the country. That is blatantly false. I am not going to sit here and by my silence give any credence to that assertion. That’s ridiculous.” Ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald commented “Who is presenting the legislation here?”

The highly partisan battle over restrictive photo ID legislation is being fought in courtrooms in at least nine states. As the committee was meeting, federal courts in Missouri and Georgia were striking down similar state legislation requiring photo identification. In an article focusing on the nationwide debate, The Los Angeles Times reported that “hundreds of thousands of votes are potentially at stake in some of the most contested congressional races this year and the 2008 race for the White House”

You can read the full text of the letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights here: Oppose the So-Called “Federal Election Integrity Act”

The Federal Election Integrity Act (HR 4844) is unconstitutional under the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, Amendment 14, Section 1: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Also, it is in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (renewed by Congress in July), which prohibits discrimination against any eligible voter for any reason.

Rest assured, if HR 4844 passes it will be immediately challenged in court.

For links to the latest election news go to Daily Voting News at Vote Trust USA.

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Cele commented that she will stick to vote by mail. She votes in Oregon, which votes by mail only. None of those messy voting machines. Right? Not so, Cele. Your vote is counted by an optical scan voting machine.

Read on:

Election 2006: Are Oregon’s elections accurate?
By Jacob Fensten

… Oregon votes may be at risk too. Though Oregonians cast votes on paper, those paper ballots are tallied by machine — the same machines getting flack nationwide for their vulnerability to fraud or malfunction. Voter-rights groups say Oregon needs a mandatory audit, requiring a hand count of some portion of ballots to compare with the machine-tallied results.

Much of the national debate has recently focused around touch-screen voting terminals, also known as Direct Electronic Recording machines (DERs). Following the 2000 presidential election’s hanging-chad debacle, DERs were promoted as a more reliable way to tally votes. But computer experts warn that these machines are susceptible to hackers or programming errors. So far this year, lawsuits have been filed in four states to either ban or restrict the use of DERs. New Mexico has passed a law prohibiting their use.

In May, the organization Black Box Voting released a report by computer expert Harri Hursti, detailing weaknesses in Diebold touch screen terminals that could leave the door open to malicious election workers or others intent on altering the vote. Kathleen Wynne of Black Box Voting says that the security issues are so deeply imbedded in the system’s architecture it would be impossible for a diagnostic test to detect contamination. In 2005 the group reported that Diebold’s optical scan machines — similar to those used to tally Oregon’s paper ballots — could be hacked by anyone with “a few hundred dollars, mediocre technical skills [and] just a touch of inside access.”

“It’s not a matter of ‘did someone do it?’ It’s a matter that someone could,” Wynne says. In addition to potential vote fraud, DERs also threaten the complete loss of votes in case of malfunction. In one such instance during the 2004 election, more than 4,500 votes disappeared forever in North Carolina when a memory card was overloaded. According to the Election Incident Reporting System, 2,269 voting machine-related problems were reported on election day that year …

Of course that doesn’t even take into consideration the thousands of voters who may be disenfranchised through registration purges. Like every other state, Oregon has set up a new Central Voter Registration System (OCVR). ChoicePoint is the company that handles this task. They also do other databases for states such are marriage, birth and death certificates. 

ChoicePoint is unreliable and under fire. Below are several links to questions about ChoicePoint.

ChoicePoint, a corporation based near Atlanta, Georgia, USA, which claims to be the “nation’s leading supplier of identification and credential verification services,” is the company whose DBT subsidiary spoiled the electoral roll in Florida enabling George W. Bush to “win” the 2000 presidential election.

Oregon election fraud 2008
In an interview with Greg Palast, Greg mentions a potential election fraud in the 2008 election of Oregon 
 
The Spies Who Shag Us
by Greg Palast

I know you’re shocked — SHOCKED! — that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That’s nothing. And it’s not news.

This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration’s Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI — though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.

The leader in the field of what is called “data mining,” is a company, formed in 1997, called, “ChoicePoint, Inc,” which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.

ChoicePoint Under Pressure in Huge Consumer Data Breach
February 2005

Under significant pressure from 19 state attorneys general and an array of consumer activists, personal and financial data vendor ChoicePoint has agreed to notify 145,000 consumers whose information may have been obtained from the company by identity thieves in an elaborate fraud scheme.

Signatories to the letter included the attorneys general of Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Washington.

I vote by mail. That doesn’t mean I think it’s safe. I don’t like being required to show my driver’s license to obtain a ballot at the polling place. I’m a registered voter. My name is on the rolls. I already proved who I am. My signature should be the only requirement, as it always was before HAVA. But I also realize that the optical scan voting machines that count the absentee ballots can be programmed to over count or under count votes.

The Rocky Mountain News published this story today:

Suit: Ban computer voting
Attorney fears fraud, says state ‘headed for train wreck’ in Nov.
By Ann Imse

Voting on computer screens is so vulnerable to massive fraud that Colorado’s November election is “headed for a train wreck,” says an attorney who is seeking to have the equipment barred at trial next week.

An expert would need just 2 minutes to reprogram and distort votes on a Diebold, one of four brands of computerized voting systems attacked in the suit, says attorney Paul Hultin. His firm, Wheeler Trigg Kennedy, has taken on the case pro bono for a group of 13 citizens of various political stripes.

And he’s not the only one alarmed as details of the case spread this week.

The Colorado Democratic Party on Thursday urged all voters to cast absentee ballots for the November election to avoid potential fraud, after a key state official said in a deposition that he certified the computer voting equipment even though he has no college education in computer science and did little security testing.

But deputy attorney general Maurice Knaizer says Colorado is protected against tampering because state law now requires a printout of each computer ballot. The printout can be reviewed by the voter and is kept at the machine for post-election audits and recounts.

If the electronic and paper tallies don’t match, the paper ballot is used, said Knaizer, who is representing Secretary of State Gigi Dennis.

However, as I pointed out in my Black Box Voting post (8/25), the ballot is printed inside the machine attached to the voting machine. The paper doesn’t actually print out into the voter’s hand. The voter does not place the printed ballot in a ballot box like the pre-HAVA days. The voter receives a receipt that simply acknowledges the act of voting, not how the voter voted. If the printer malfunctions, if the special paper is not refilled, if the ballots are thrown away, there is no verifiable paper ballot to count.

The article also detailed concerns about optical scan voting machines.

Two elections reversed

Meanwhile, there are concerns about another form of voting machine that would be an alternative to the machines under attack in the lawsuit.

Last year, two Colorado elections were reversed when recounts in tight races found that an Optech III-P optical scanner misread paper ballots:

• In Salida, Hugh Young initially lost a city council election to Ron Stowell by three votes. After the recount, he won by three votes.

• In Clear Creek County, a school issue passed by six votes, according to the electronic count, and failed by 18 when the paper ballots were counted. The machines had failed to count more than 100 votes.

The secretary of state’s office ordered 10 races audited last year where the Optech III-P Eagle was used. It was found to have miscounted ballots where voters skipped some races.

The Optech was decertified and is no longer used in Colorado, said County Clerk Pam Phipps.

Okay, so getting rid of the Optech deals with that specific voting machine. It still doesn’t address the problems with optical scan voting machines in general. Like I said, I plan to vote by mail but that doesn’t mean my vote will be counted accurately by the optical scan voting machine.

Is there hope for 2006?

On CNN’s American Morning, Professor Edward Felten showed Miles O’Brien how to hack a voting machine. They covered his study released yesterday and covered here: Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine. But if you go to CNN’s website, the story is not featured anywhere on the main page.

How about MSNBC?

Nope.

Fox even scrubbed the story from their AP wire archive. You won’t find the story at ABC News.com or CBS News.com.

I went to Google News and entered the name of the study. 180 articles came up. The story is definitely all over the internets. But it’s not in the mainstream media.

As the Rocky Mountain News article pointed out there’s not enough time to print ballots by the October 6 deadline. Not in Colorado. Not in any state.

We’re not just heading for a train wreck on November 7 in Colorado. It’s happening everywhere. Even Oregon.

To learn more about HAVA and voting machines download and read this ebook: Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections

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With less than 2 months to go before the National Mid-term Election on November 7, all is not well.

Researchers reveal ‘extremely serious’ vulnerabilities in e-voting machines
by Teresa Riordan

In a paper published on the Web today, a group of Princeton computer scientists said they created demonstration vote-stealing software that can be installed within a minute on a common electronic voting machine. The software can fraudulently change vote counts without being detected.

“We have created and analyzed the code in the spirit of helping to guide public officials so that they can make wise decisions about how to secure elections,” said Edward Felten, the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, a new center at Princeton University that addresses crucial issues at the intersection of society and computer technology.

The paper appears on the Web site for the Center for Information Technology Policy.

The researchers obtained the machine, a Diebold AccuVote-TS, from a private party in May. They spent the summer analyzing the machine and developing the vote-stealing demonstration.

“We found that the machine is vulnerable to a number of extremely serious attacks that undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts it produces,” wrote Felten and his co-authors, graduate students Ariel Feldman and Alex Halderman. 

In a 10-minute video on their Web site, the researchers demonstrate how the vote-stealing software works. The video shows the software sabotaging a mock presidential election between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Arnold is reported as the winner even though Washington gets more votes. (The video is edited from a longer continuously shot video; the long single-shot version will be available for downloading from the center’s site as well.)

The researchers also demonstrate how the machines “are susceptible to computer viruses that can spread themselves automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre- and post-election activity.”

Felten said that policy-makers should be concerned about malicious software infecting the Diebold AccuVote-TS and machines like it, from Diebold and other companies. “We studied these machines because they were available to us,” the researchers wrote in their Web posting. “If we had gotten access to another kind of machine, we probably would have studied it instead.”

Felten said, “There is reason for concern about other machines as well, even though our paper doesn’t directly evaluate them. Jurisdictions using these machines should think seriously about finding a backup system in time for the November elections.”

Felten, a professor of computer science and public affairs who is known for his groundbreaking work in computer security, said that some of the problems discussed in the paper cannot be fixed without completely redesigning the machine.

Other problems can be fixed by addressing software or electronic procedures. “But time is short before the next election,” he said.

According to the researchers’ paper, the Diebold machine they examined and another newer version are scheduled to be used in 357 U.S. counties representing nearly 10 percent of all registered voters. About half those counties, including all Maryland and Georgia, will use the exact machine examined by Felten’s group.

Felten said that, out of security concerns, the Diebold machine infected with the vote-stealing software has been kept under lock and key in a secret location.

“Unfortunately election fraud has a rich history from ballot stuffing to dead people voting,” he said. “We want to make sure this doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. We also want to make sure that policy-makers stay a step ahead of those who might create similar software with ill intent.”

Below is the link to the Princeton University Study. Be sure to watch the Demonstration Video showing how to steal votes in a simulated election.

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

USA Today reported on voting problems in primary elections across the country.

Voting glitches continue to worry election officials
By Richard Wolf

WASHINGTON — Primary day turned chaotic in Maryland’s two largest population centers Tuesday, and not because of the candidates or the issues. In Baltimore, poll workers didn’t show up. In the suburbs of Washington, cards needed to operate voting equipment were missing.

The situation was similar in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County in May, when poll workers had difficulty operating new voting machines. The results of the election were delayed six days while officials counted absentee ballots by hand.

Chicago primary races went without winners and losers for several days in March because of the shaky mix of new equipment and poorly trained poll workers. States from Florida to California also experienced problems.

The glitches in this year’s primaries come as nearly one in three counties wrestle with new equipment — upgrades mandated by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The law was intended to fix the type of problems that plagued the 2000 presidential election.

That new equipment will be tested in November, when control of Congress is up for grabs. Less than eight weeks away, election officials are worried.

<Sigh>

I feel like Chicken Little. The sky is falling.

I’m afraid it’s too late. We can’t fix these problems before the election. On November 7, millions of voters will be turned away at the polls, millions of votes will be stolen. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.

The PBS series NOW aired an excellent program, Block the Vote. At the web site you can view the video and read more about voter disenfranchisement. Well worth watching.

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Raindrops spattered as I rode my bike into Silt today. The sky was partly cloudy, except for the Roan Plateau where storm clouds gathered. The rain touched me from clouds 7 miles away. A storm on the Roan Plateau today is both telling and appropriate.

The BLM released their plan for gas well drilling on the Roan on Thursday and no one is happy about it.

BLM unveils Roan management plan
DNR director calls it balanced, detractors say it ‘falls short’
By Donna Gray

BATTLEMENT MESA - The Bureau of Land Management unveiled a benchmark plan for tightly restricted natural gas development on top of the Roan Plateau Thursday.

The plan will guide resource management of 73,000 acres of public land above Rifle and Parachute for the next 20 years.

BLM took over management of the Roan Plateau in 1997 after the Naval Oil Shale Reserves 1 and 2 that straddle the plateau were transferred from the Department of Energy.

The enabling legislation that triggered the transfer also mandated that BLM lease the area for oil and gas development.

Historically, the plateau has attracted hunters and served as summer range for area cattle ranchers.

BLM’s innovative approach calls for clustered development of the gas-rich area based on a proposal by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources (DNR) during meetings between BLM and cooperating local governments last summer.

Although many oil and gas companies will be able to lease the mineral rights on the plateau, only one operator, chosen by the group of lease holders, will be allowed to drill and develop the gas. One-operator drilling wells and the installation of processing plants and pipelines will limit surface disturbance. The BLM hopes that it will also protect wildlife habitat and the spectacular views of the plateau from Interstate 70.

“It’s all about balance,” said DNR director Russell George. “I think we’ve done that (with this plan).”

Development will be limited to the ridge tops of the plateau and about 23,000 aces will be set aside to protect wildlife habitat and sensitive plants and fish.

Development will be limited to 350 acres at a time, about 1 percent of the total acreage. Well pads will be spaced at least a half mile apart. Traffic will be restricted to existing roads, and pipelines will be placed alongside them.

The operator will have to reclaim a 350-acre area “and prove to us the vegetation is taking hold before additional acres will be released,” said Jamie Connell, field office manager for BLM in Glenwood Springs, which prepared the plan …

… However, the plan will not satisfy the thousands of people who wrote letters calling on BLM to prohibit gas development on top of the plateau.

“Whatever their good intentions, (the plan) falls short with the great majority of citizens and towns that asked that they not develop the top of the plateau” until technology is developed that will minimize surface disturbance, said Steve Smith, assistant regional director of the Wilderness Society. The restrictions laid out in the plan “have been described as guidelines. We have to do better than that. We have to be thorough in enforcing them and unflinching in implementing them.”

Garfield County Commissioner Trési Houpt said she was also somewhat disappointed in the plan. “I do commend BLM for working with the cooperators and going through the process. That hasn’t happened before. … I believe if we are trying a new process (of development) we should have a pilot project below the plateau top that puts it to the test to show us what it would truly look like and would give us the opportunity to refine it” …

From my point of view there’s little more to be said. The Roan Plateau is true wilderness and those of us “detractors” – which amounts to the majority of people who LIVE here – believe wilderness should be sacred and exempt from gas well drilling. The proponents talk about balance. The only true balance in this equation is no drilling at all. The gas companies have drilled and pipelined every square inch of this county. Why do they get the last remaining wilderness area too?

Because they’re greedy.

Today’s announcement that the gas drillers are unhappy with the plan comes as no surprise.

Roan plan discouraging to drillers
By Bobby Magill

The Roan Plateau may soon be open to drilling rigs and frac trucks, but some members of the energy industry worry natural gas extraction there may not be a good business plan …

… The Colorado Oil and Gas Association claims the BLM’s development restrictions on the Roan pushes environmental protections “to extremes,” possibly rendering gas drilling on the Roan unattractive to gas producers, particularly on the 51 percent of the planning area that may be placed under “no surface occupancy” restrictions.

The proposed Roan Plateau management plan requires the plateau to be drilled in phases over two decades, restricting drilling rigs and well pads to the tops of high ridges.

That means “those leases will be worth less than if you can develop them in a quicker time frame,” Colorado Oil and Gas Association General Counsel Ken Wonstolen said Friday.

The association claims that phased development will reduce gas companies’ return on investment in lease bonuses, which could be decreased by 50 percent or more.

“This could cost the nation as much as $1 billion,” Wonstolen and COGA Executive Vice President Greg Schnacke said in a statement Thursday. “Colorado’s 50 percent state and local share will decrease accordingly. This negative fiscal impact is not necessary to achieve the high level of protection desired by all parties for the unique environmental values of the Roan Plateau.”

Those environmental values will suffer if gas development is required to continue slowly over 20 years, they said.

“It makes more sense to shorten the duration of drilling activity,” they said.

That’s just a load of crap. Studies conducted during 1997 by the Rocky Mountain Institute showed that slow gas development, broad spacing of wells (40 acres apart), and leaving wilderness areas alone had the LEAST impact on the environment. In fact, slow gas development had minimal impact on the environment.

As we’ve seen in recent years with global warming, nature has her own way of rebelling against environmental abuse. Today nature is making her feelings known. She’s not happy.

The storm is just beginning.

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