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Does Owning the Voting Machines Mean Owning the Vote?
The biggest news from Election Night 2014 was the GOP seizing control of the Senate and winning 246 (of 435) seats in the House of Representatives. The latter result gave Republicans their largest majority in the House since 1946. Democrats, particularly MSNBC host Chris Matthews, were visibly disgruntled, while Fox News repeatedly stated something to the effect “the people have spoken.” But the more accurate statement is the machines have spoken.
The Help America Vote Act was passed by an overwhelming bi-partisan majority in Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 29, 2002. The law gave nearly $4 billion in federal funds to the states so they could purchase electronic voting systems and scrap paper ballots.
Congress sold this idea to the public by highlighting the 2000 Election, and the 43,000 paper ballots in Florida that ultimately did not count toward the state’s final tallies due to alleged fraud. Identity theft protection firm Lifelock recently wrote about how unsavory individuals can easily steal personal data from others and cast votes on their behalf. Some say the Florida votes would have put Al Gore in office had they counted. But the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in Bush’s favor. Regardless, U.S. elections are now heavily influenced, positively or otherwise, by three corporations.
Diebold
Argonne National Laboratory’s Vulnerability Assessment Team evaluated the security capabilities of Diebold voting machines in 2011, and discovered what many considered the obvious. The Illinois-based firm found that for $10.50 and an eighth-grade science education, Diebold machines could be hacked and vote counts manipulated. Argonne demonstrated how easy it was to attack the Accuvote system developed by Diebold in a short video published on YouTube.
Diebold machines span 28 million voters, 466 jurisdictions and 19 states, according to Popular Mechanics. They are particularly influential in Ohio elections, a state every president since John F. Kennedy has needed in order to take the White House. No Republican candidate has ever won the Presidency without Ohio.
Several states have banned the machines from use in their jurisdictions. California stopped using them in 2007, while Maryland went back to paper ballots in 2008 after investigations revealed impropriety.
Hart InterCivic
Hawaii votes are 100 percent controlled by Hart InterCivic, while Idaho, Colorado, Washington and eight other states are heavily influenced by them. Controversy boiled over just before the 2012 elections when it was reported that investment firm H.I.G. Capital purchased a majority stake in the company.
It became a big deal because the company was listed as the sixth-largest contributor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign that year. Freepress.org went as far to say Romney bought the company to manipulate the election, which of course swung in President Barack Obama’s favor. But the only evidence of a conspiracy was the fact several H.I.G. executives contributed big money to the Romney campaign.
An anonymous whistleblower outlined all the flaws in Hart InterCivic’s voting machines in 2004, which caused many jurisdictions to abandoned them thereafter.
ES&S
The technology used by Election Systems and Software (ES&S) is similar to that of Diebold. The problems only start with the fact former U.S. Senator and current Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Republican working for a Democratic president, owns the company. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission found that the scanning devices constantly freeze up, misread data from ballots and are prone to severe logging failure.
Florida, a state tied for third for the most electoral votes in the country, is the largest state using ES&S voting equipment.
Source: http://truthisscary.com/2014/11/does-owning-the-voting-machines-mean-owning-the-vote/
