Larry BerganHacking Democracy
Before convicted criminal, Republican congressman, Bob Ney went to prison, he pushed the “Help America Vote Act (HAVA)” through congress under the false premise that it would help standardize the way America votes and come into compliance with the Federal Supreme court decision to break precedence and overrule states rights in the 2000 election contest between Gore and Bush. What Ney’s bill actually did was to introduce something into our elections that sent the Federal court’s decision, (to stop counting the votes in Florida because there were no “uniform voting standards”), running for it’s life!
Money!
Even when it was known that congressman Ney would likely be going to prison, he showed up at the only hearings* the Republicans had held, up to that time (July 19, 2006), on the contentious matter of the new machines. Tom Delay had previously prevented any debate coming to the floor even after both parties had voted to do so. At this hearing, Ney had the audacity to request 900 million more dollars for the voting machine vendors.
Here are a couple of paragraphs from a 2006 Rolling Stone magazine editorial calling for an investigation shortly before the hearings were held:
After the Florida fiasco in 2000, Diebold saw an opportunity. To persuade Rep. Bob Ney to promote its machines in a package of election reforms he was drafting called the Help America Vote Act, the company hired two lobbyists with close ties to the Ohio congressman. Diebold paid at least $180,000 to David DiStefano, Ney’s former chief of staff. And it shelled out as much as $275,000 to the lobbying firm of the best-connected man on Capitol Hill: Jack Abramoff.
Abramoff has now been convicted of bribing Ney, but Americans will be paying for the results of Diebold’s influence for years. As part of the Help America Vote Act, every precinct in America is now required to install at least one machine accessible to disabled voters — a mandate that has already fueled the spread of touch-screen technology and cost taxpayers almost $3 billion. ”These vendors have a Halliburton-like hold on the Republican leadership,” says Rep. John Conyers.
If this is all news to you, don’t feel bad. It’s probably not known to anybody but music magazines and the most seasoned voting rights activists in America due to an intentional nationwide blackout on the issue of electronic voting problems. They only come up sporadically and then disappear for months at a time.
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Now, as to the heading of this post, Hacking Democracy, HBO is re-airing it’s well researched, Emmy nominated documentary starting May 2nd through the end of May. If you want to see how real grass roots activism works, follow the uncomfortable adventures of a women named Beverly Harris as she starts a new kind of voting rights movement in America which is yet to be acknowledged by the media or even Democratic politicians.
*Voting Machines: Will New Standards and Guidelines Prevent Future Problems?
May 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
If you find a TV guide you can trust, be sure to watch tomorrow!
My online schedule is showing a broadcast starting at 3:00 pm and lasting 90 minutes.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Bev Harris discovered, among other things, the problem with machines that count paper ballots in Florida. The exact same thing happened again in the New Hampshire primary. Precincts counted by hand matched the exit poll results. Precincts counted by machine flipped Obama’s vote totals to Hillary.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 am
I think it’s important for dem voters to remember: Given the puppet nature of republican nominees and often actual presidents, they need be neither eloquent, smart, particularly well informed, truthful or in any other way qualified for the tasks at hand (I do suppose thier record should have sufficient levels of plausible deniability, or at the minimum, a kerning lapse). They need only be someone with whom a small number of ill informed voters would care to share a beer with. The important thing for the powers that are behind this scam is that the ‘election’ be close enough to fudge in the true puppets favor. This is another reason for republican gleefulness about the racial / gender cutting edge that the dems feel a need to promote at this time. (Enter hackable voting machines)!
It’s all very entertaining. And costly.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Here’s another HBO film I’m excited to see. Hope it doesn’t try to give both sides of the story as opposed to the truth.
I hate to even write posts about election fraud, because it is so vast, I don’t even know where to start. I wanted this one to show the deep corruption at the core of the HAVA law that has cost Utah millions and millions of dollars already. The sad part is, we only needed enough of them to handle handicapped people. The really sad part is that they don’t even help the handicapped people. I poll-watched in 2006 and the two handicapped people that came in had to be assisted anyway.
By the way, here is yet another story about the type of people that are hired to mess up our system. There are literally hundreds of stories like this.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I got a chance to see “Hacking Democracy” again today, and it is a great film with undeniable importance concerning Utah’s elections. HBO took a big risk by airing a documentary which attacks a giant, well established corporation. Diebold never tried to sue HBO, because they had no case.
Please Utah, watch the film! The voting process is supposed to be transparent, not secret.