albanyweblog.com
Updated
May 26, 2006
A weblog about the politics and affairs of the old and glorious City of Albany, New York, USA. Articles written and disseminated from Albany's beautiful and historic South End by Daniel Van Riper. If you wish to make a response, have anything to add or would like to make an empty threat, please contact me.
May 26, 2006
Those Fraudulent Voting Machines
An old letter that could have been written today
Rummaging around in my computer looking for a document, I found this letter that I'd written to the Altamont Enterprise back in November of 2004. This was written right after the fraudulent presidential election that established "four more years" for that pack of traitorous human waste product that currently controls the White House. The Enterprise printed the letter in their November 13 edition, taking up most of page three.
Sad to say, very little has changed. Currently, Albany County is seriously considering adopting these electronic voting machines, even though they don't have to. I keep hearing rumors that Frank Commisso, the Albany County Democratic Majority Leader, has been working closely with one of the three approved e-voting machine dealers, and that he is waiting for the right moment to sneak these evil things into our polling booths. If that is true, then Commisso must be expecting those fraud boxes to work the right way for him.
There are two inaccuracies in the letter. First, Diebold electronic voting machines most certainly were used in Florida. Second, my prediction that the fraud story would break wide open "in about a month or so." Hah! Boy, did I underestimate the power of political censorship in America today. After almost two years and literally piles of accumulated evidence of the fraudulent nature of these electronic voting machines, the Associated Press (AP) monopoly wire service has yet to carry one single story about how these machines are used to fix elections.
And it should not come as any surprise that the Hearst-owned Times Union has utterly and completely censored this story. This past Thursday, which is the day of the week that newpapers are most read, their front page lead headline story was about someone who is selling bobble-head dolls of State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. It didn't even occur to me to send a letter about e-fraud to that pathetic rag.
What shocked me the most at the time was that no one reacted to my letter. Despite being prominently displayed, the letter did not even generate one childish razz from a wingnut. It seems that then and now no one wants to think about how our electoral system has been hijacked electronically by the neocon traitors. Perhaps such a thing is too horrible to contemplate.
One good thing is that my friend Peter Henner still lives in Clarksville and practices law. This past January he won a rapid and sterling victory on behalf of Save the Pine Bush, filing suit against the City of Albany's attempt to expand the City Dump into the Fox Run trailer park.
Well here's the letter. Let's hope that this fraudulent electronic voting problem is resolved peacefully. I really do not want to live during a time of civil war.
The Altamont Enterprise
Altamont, NYTo the Editor:
Attorney Peter Henner of Clarksville deserves our gratitude for taking time out from his busy schedule to travel to Florida to help monitor the polling stations and watch for signs of electoral malfeasance. His selfless act of patriotism may seem like a small thing, but it is such acts throughout our history by concerned citizens that have so far kept our country from succumbing to internal enemies.
According to Peter’s report in the November 4, 2004 Enterprise, he saw and heard of little to be concerned about. Unfortunately, as Peter and others like him stood outside polling stations in Florida and all across the country, the real problems occured in the polling stations, inside the software governing the computerized electronic voting machines.
It is a sad shame that while Peter maintained his post outside as a legal witness, there was no computer expert inside examining the machines and their software watching for silent corruption of our right to vote.
Little by little, piece by piece, the evidence is gathering. This presidential election was not conducted cleanly, it is apparently the most overtly falsified election in our nation’s history. Here in Albany County and all across the country, more people than ever before came out in droves to recapture our country from the incompetent and treasonous Neocons who siezed power in 2000. Yet, it is becoming all too apparent that millions of votes against the Neocon Regime were quietly converted into votes in support of America’s enemies.
For example, the Friday, Nov. 5 edition of the Palm Beach Post printed an article about how an accidental event revealed that the Broward County, Florida electronic tallying machine had been programmed to reach a selected numerical limit for a certain candidate, and would then begin to subtract votes for that candidate.
Yes, you read that right. The voting software with this feature is widespread. Now, why would anyone program such a routine into election software, except to commit fraud? (The article can be accessed on the web either at the Palm Beach Post, or reposted at the reliable journalistic site truthout.org .)
Or how about the electronic voting machine in Gahanna, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, which tallied 4,258 votes for Bush, although only 638 voters cast ballots. (Numerous Ohio media outlets reported this story.) This particular problem also appears to have been widespread. One can only think of the “election” in the West African country Liberia, where the ruler “won” by more than twice the population of the country. Is this where we are headed? Have we become the New Liberia?
Here’s one more example of these electronic machines in action. According to figures posted on the web by the Florida Department of State, some 12 Florida counties reported vote totals cast for president higher than the number of voters who turned out to vote, and I calculate a total of 192,327 voters in these 12 counties who did not exist! (Go to http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm#FL for a list of the 12 counties and access to the Forida DOS site.)
Here in the City of Albany, which has a deserved reputation for electoral irregularities, I’ve been working at the polls for over 12 years, and have occasionally clashed with persons intent on committing fraud. I have never seen one single example of a phantom vote being recorded on a mechanical voting machine at our neighborhood polling station or the two adjacent to it, and I have never heard of a single phantom vote on a machine being allowed to let stand anywhere in the City during that time. These Florida electronic machines do not simply “have a few glitches,” they are nothing more than fraud generators.
As for the infamous Diebald machines, it has been generally known for many months that anyone can access these little beauties with a two digit code and change the results. That is bad enough, but please consider that with two digits there are only 100 possible security codes. It would take maybe ten minutes at most to run through all the possibilities. Anyone who can operate an answering machine with a two digit remote access code can tamper with the recorded results. While Diebald machines were not used in Florida, they are in widespread use across the country.
The majority of electronic voting machines, including the ones used in Ohio, were hooked up to the web with telephone modems while in use. A few weeks ago, our local daily newspapers printed AP stories about how as many as 80 per cent of home and business desktop computers are being secretly accessed for content. According to these articles, this is mostly being done by privateers without any serious computer knowledge, such as spammers, using readily available software. A casual hacker, or someone who had minimal clearance, could remotely access these voting machines via modem without the slightest problem. What is wrong with disconnecting the modems and carrying the results down to the Board of Elections the old fashioned way?
And of course, why is there no verification system for these electronic machines, such as the paper receipt printed by ATM machines? What possible reason could there be to deny confirmation to the voters, yet at the same time allow easy access to results by the candidates and party hacks?
The reported stories appear to be the tip of the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on, but we will all be hearing about this soon enough. Electoral watchdog Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org has filed the largest Freedom of Information request in history, it is now up to the “winners” of the “election” to honor this request for what should be readily available public information. It will be interesting to hear their excuses for denying this information.
How can we explain the bland acceptance of these crooked voting boxes by the public? Perhaps it is because most people are amazed and awed by computers, that these wonder boxes are beyond understanding and thus beyond question. But computers are nothing more than fancy machines, they are not gods. Computers only do what they are told to do by the persons who program them and operate them, and if they are designed for fraud, by golly, they will be used to commit fraud.
The entire corporate media, from Fox News to National Public Radio, has so far censored the story of this fraudulent “election.” I believe that in about a month or so, these corporate media outlets will be forced to do damage control reports that will start with, “There seem to be rumors on the internet of electoral fraud...” Perhaps even the Democratic Party, which couldn’t seem to roll over fast enough and concede, will make a few peeps of protest.
Finally, there are those who say that we should unquestioningly accept these fraudulent results and “get over it.” To these America haters I say, I will never get over America. I will never get over the Constitution. and especially, I will never get over the heart and soul of our nation, the Bill of Rights. I will never “get over” our right to a fair election, and I will never accept as legitimate any traitor who seizes public office through fraudulent means.
Because of this “election,” all of us are facing a grim future of economic depression and personal insecurity. Our only hope is to figure out exactly what happened, and to channel our disappointment into rage. We need to inform our Congressional representatives that we expect them to fight ceaselessly to re-establish electoral integrity, and that if they don’t, then they will have to learn to live with our contempt.
But more importantly, we need to take matters into our own hands, and do whatever it takes to re-establish our governmental integrity and our national pride. We need to begin now.
Sincerely,
Daniel W. Van Riper
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