I can no longer refer to it as an election. Too much has been demonstrated to my satisfaction, and that of others, that makes it necessary seriously question the legitimacy of the current occupancy of the White House.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s article in Rolling Stone leaves too many unanswered questions. There have been subsequent events that are cause for serious concern.
continued
In addition, there is the litigation that was filed by the League of Women Voters that was filed. The litigation challenges raises serious challenges to the events in Ohio in 2004. One of the objectives, as stated is “looking toward the future” of elections.
Cliff Arnebeck, a lawyer who was active in the litigation re: 2004,
“The framing I have in mind for litigation is to look at what is being set up for ’06 and say we’re not speculating that people are willing to suppress the vote, we have the proof. It’s a positive view of the evidence of fraud in ’04.
However, a serious question needs to be asked: Is it possible that an effort to supress the vote may be ongoing? Consider the following:
In Colorado, it has been discovered previously that records consisting of personal information of over 150,000 people are missing. Officials are unsure if the files have been lost, moved or stolen.
The commission admitted, earlier this month, that approximately 150,000 voter records were missing since February, after moving to a new office. Roughly 87,000 of the records were “found” last week. The remainder are missing.
After the move, someone noticed a file cabinet was still in the former office. The contracted mover, Prestige Corporate Relocation, said the cabinet was gone when movers went to retrieve it, the commission said in a news release.
However, an earlier report claimed,
According to the Denver Election Commission, officials didn’t know of the records were missing until June 1, but, it is thought they disappeared four months previously. Lisa Jones, a former temporary worker at the election commission, wrote that the files were missing on a weblog. Jones believes that commission officials knew of the lost files in April.
In addition to the lack of security re: citizens personal information, voting rights activists and prominent computer scientists argues that some of the machines are not sufficiently secure against tampering and could result in disputed elections.
One such flaw was previously discovered in Diebold voting machines that resulted in David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who consults with the state on its elections, being
“stunned when he found out” about the vulnerability identified in [a] Utah test and agreed with the “frequently expressed opinion that this is the worst vulnerability that we have ever seen.”
This security flaw was described as being serious enough to allow
someone with a reasonable knowledge of computer code could gain access to and tamper with the system software on a popular brand of voting machine manufactured by Diebold Election Systems.
Another factor to consider is costs for electronic voting machines, in the purchase, maintainance, and upgrades that are necessary for electronic voting machines to be used.
In Florida, after the purchase of electonic voting machines, there was an increase of over $1,100,000 per year in the three year average annual expenses of Sarasota County Elections Office. It costs Sarasota Office of Elections an extra million dollars each year to maintain and operate them in years without any major election.
The fiscal year ends on September 30th and the 2004 presidential election was in November. As a result, the costs will be included in the fiscal 2005 budget. Additionally, the costs of Sarasota’s voting machines are approximately $90,000 per year and is steadily increasing. And, these figures cited are just for Sarasota, FL–multiply that amount by the number of areas in which voting machines are/will be used in the states that have/plan to purchase them!
Another figure that should be mentioned are the costs involved in training poll workers on how to istruct voters on how to use them. In addition, it must be pointed out that there are many in this country who are computer-phobic, namely, senior citizens, who traditionally vote Democratic.
Questions Worth Asking
- Is it possible this change in technology will have an impact on their voting behavior?
- If so, how?
- What will be the consequences?
One final note: one of the unanticipated costs re: the defense and continued/increasing use of electronic voting machines has been overlooked, namely, the cost of the litigation surrounding the use of them and election practices that are questionable/fraudulent. Can we, as a society, place blind trust in process that resulted in an administration that justifies spying on the citizens of this country and demonstrates an a total lack of concern for the health and welfare of the same citizens?
We all know the answer.
