Black Box Voting is the Tip of The Iceberg: The Undoing of Democracy

What has become commonly known as the "US attorney's scandal" is so big and cuts so close to everything we are and hold dear.  But you'd hardly know it from the reporting in the MSM. 

June 1, Bush administration plant and Karl Rove protege, US Attorney Tim Griffin, resigned when US Rep. John Conyers subpoenaed emails which Greg Palast obtained.  The emails, sent by an informant, show a White House linked plot to use the legal system to drive a mostly fraudulent claim of Democratic voter fraud.  Here's the story from Greg Palast

Finally, a few days later, NPR fessed up just a bit, with it's investigative piece.  Previously, we usually heard that the fired attorneys "wouldn't prosecute Democrats for election fraud."  This was the smallest morsel of the truth.  NPR finally admitted the allegations were "political." Hear about the partisan nature of the prosecutions related to voting here And they were timed to happen right before elections.  That's illegal and was bad enough.  But it is so much worse.

As NPR belatedly revealed, there's an White House linked effort to (falsely) accuse Democrats of registering illegally.  Hear the story hereFrom a phony "think-tank" (the American Center for Voting Rights) and a partisan Mark Hearne whose sole purpose is to ramp up the myth that Democrats are fraudulent voters, to the take-down of get-out-the vote drives, this administration and it's fronts are out to deny us the vote any way they can.  Note that the organization in question is among the missing, according to Slate magazine.  The American Center for Voting Rights' web site has suddenly been deep sixed!

This isn't really a shocker.  We've known how dirty the GOP plays because a Republican manual instructed Virginia GOP polling place volunteers on how to deny the vote to lawfully registered citizens.   And The night before our Senatorial election last November, Keith Olbermann covered the GOP efforts in Virginia to disempower Virginia voters by denying them the vote here.   But let's back up a bit...In the HBO documentary, "Hacking Democracy," we can see amazing footage and incredible detective work by volunteers for Black Box Voting.  It's a must see.  Here's  the link. Now our vote is essentially a leap of faith.  I say this not out of fear for technology which I have embraced since 1978 when I first used a computer, or the precursor for the Internet, which I also used for email in 1990 when I worked for a federal contractor.  I will let the video speak for itself.  You'll see how one Ohio registrar, and other employees, allegedly conspired to dump votes.  You'll see how authenticated tapes were illegally thrown out (but retrieved by Black Box Voting volunteers).  You'll see how Republican drones in Ohio rigged polling stations so Democrats didn't have enough machines, but Republican precincts had more than they needed.  The list goes on.  But the best part of this film, and the scariest, is the sleuthing by Bev Harris, which led her to find Diebold code on the internet.  Because of her, experts were able to show how penetrable the code underlying the tabulation of votes from across precincts really is.  The video shows, right before our eyes, how our vote is not only tamperable, but already tampered with.  The hair will stand up on the back of your neck as you watch.  But it's much worse than that.

Greg Palast reveals in the paperback edition of Armed Madhouse, and also on his website (his newsletters are a must), that there is a nifty bag of tricks in a very sophisticated and dastardly conspiracy to deny some Americans the votes (and they are NOT Republicans). 

Here are just a few of the dirty tricks (crimes, all)aimed at Democratic voters:

--Simply not submitting registrations for Democrats.  They throw them in the trash.
--"Verifying" registrations by intentionally sending forms to the wrong address.  When the forms bounce back, the voter is dropped.
--Arbitrary dropping of lawfully registered voters
--Phony databases falsely labeling Democrats as "felons," and then purging them by the tens of thousands. This was done in Florida in 2000 and it's coming to a state near you.
--Lopping off the roles those displaced by Katrina.
--"Lost" in the mail.
--Provisional ballots,a concoction of the so called Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which is another of Bush's willful double-speaks, are second-class votes.  Most provisional ballots are ultimately denied and NOT counted.
--Oops.  Ballots not counted in the first place (as Palast says, you can't recount what you don't count in the first place).
--Ever vote for fewer than the number of candidates for office hoping you won't give your second and third choice for a position votes?  You know, someone you really want to win is running.  Why give votes to the other guy?  Your ballot could be thrown out as part of the "undervote."

Here is the worst part:  Palast says we lost 2008 on Jan. 1st 2006.  That's the day a new provision of HAVA kicked in.  This codicil enjoins the secretaries of state of all fifty states to deny the vote to anyone who's exact name and identity papers (eg. driver's license, Social Security Number, Passport) don't match up against a state "verification list."  What's the chance the several states will get those "lists" right?  Indeed, California rolls in GOP controlled Arnold hell, lopped off 40% of new registrants because they didn't match up with such a verification list.

One unconstitutional act after another has denied Americans the country we know and love.  This administration continues to make a mockery of our Constitution and our system of laws.  What precedent are we setting here?  How do we explain to our grandchildren that we wanted to be practical, so we gave Bush a pass?  Even as it pretends to be sowing the seeds of democracy elsewhere, this administration denies  the most basic of human rights to its citizens.  With an illegal war in Iraq, the administration war on American citizens (via NSA spying and the so-called Patriot Act), and the myriad of other ways this administration is unraveling the accumulated progress of 200 years, our legacy is slipping away.   We must offset the incredible electoral abuses by redoubling our efforts to register voters, seek an auditable  paper trail (it's still important), monitor registrars and polling places, and produce monumental turnouts.

As Palast asks, "What are ya going to do about it?"

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