Vote flipping is happening already in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Funny little thing is that the machines are flipping Democratic votes into GOP votes. Not a peep heard from Bush Team about such voter fraud, which many see as the only November Surprise that the GOP can use to win the midterms. Not a peep until the possibility arises that Bush Team may not have control over all electronic voting machines. Now, we have a national security interest to be investigated by the feds and possibly laying the groundwork for a post-election challenge filed by the GOP.
The 2000 election showed that every vote truly does count, except when technical “glitches” and fraud strip voters of their rights. The MSM has reported a few stories about vote flipping used to steal Democratic votes from early voters. But, on election day, “more than 80 million Americans will go to the polls, and a record number of them – 90% – will either cast their vote on a computer or have it tabulated that way.”
Bush Team is unconcerned about such vote flipping fraud even though for many counties there is no way to determine how widespread the vote flipping is because there is no process in place for poll workers to report such “minor issues” and many poll sites do not have a “central database of machine problems” so that problem machines can be shut down.
No precautions, remedies or investigations because it’s a minor issue when we actually have Democratic votes being recorded in the GOP tally box.
But, the possibility that such vote flipping could transform GOP or independent party votes into Democratic votes is now a national security issue worthy of a federal investigation before election day. The Bush Team is actually digging for links between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and vote machine company Smartmatic.
The Treasury’s CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) is probing whether the Smartmatic voting machines compromise national security. Federal officials are investigating whether Smartmatic, which is a South Florida parent company of California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, is “secretly controlled” by President Chávez. The probe was triggered when Democrat Rep. Carolyn Maloney wrote a letter to the Treasury last May stating concerns that Smartmatic purchased Sequoia last year. Rep. Maloney was concerned about a newspaper report that the Venezuelan government owned 28% of Bizta, which is a company operated by 2 of the same people who own Smartmatic. However, Bizta bought back those shares.
Why would a Chávez link to an electronic voting company be a matter of a national security interest? There is a concern that “if the Venezuelan government is involved, Smartmatic could be a ‘Trojan horse’ designed to advance Chavez’s anti-American agenda.”
How could Chávez advance any “anti-American agenda” if he is in fact linked to the voting machine company? After all, it is Americans who will be casting the votes for American candidates and initiatives written by Americans. The true concern of Bush Team is that Bizta and Smartmatic worked with a Venezuelan telephone company to supply electronic voting machines for Venezuelan elections, including the controversial win by Chávez in 2004. So, Bush Team is assuming that Chávez won by manipulating the vote count. Therefore, the concern is that Chávez, given that he hates Bush, may choose to rig the midterm elections so that the GOP lose control of DC by flipping votes to Democrats in the 17 states where the machines operate, including 4 counties in Florida: Palm Beach, Indian River, Pinellas and Hillsborough.
But vote flipping has not been elevated to a national security interest when the head of a major voting machine company is linked to the GOP. The chief executive of Diebold told Republicans in pre-2004 fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
Still, how can Chávez implement an “anti-American agenda” just by rigging machines to produce a victory for Democrats? Answer is that Bush Team sees Democrats as “anti-American,” unpatriotic wimps who don’t support his war and his policies for the US or the world.
However, Bush’s definition of “anti-American” is not likely to pass any CFIUS smell test for what constitutes a national security interest. It is one thing when CFIUS is investigating a transaction when a foreign government wants to buy control over US ports and security. The question then is whether a foreign government would have access permitting enemies or bombs to enter this country. It is quite another when CFIUS is used to attach the national security interest label to voting equipment unless there is some evidence that foreign operatives will then have access to placing bombs in the machines.
It’s all quite fishy and sounds like Bush Team is laying the groundwork for a post-election challenge based on “anti-American” vote flipping that will be based on secret evidence withheld from the public on grounds of national security.