Notes from Election Fraud Teach-In in Santa Monica 2/27

[Helga Scow Stern]

Please feel free to ask more about anything or correct or add to what's here. It's late and I am feeling lazy, but I wanted to get this down before I forgot the details. I hope I did not leave out anything important.

The small meeting hall of the church was packed. Not sure how many. Two to three hundred?

The main impression I take from the weekend's events is that this is GETTING OUT THERE. The awareness of widescale election fraud since 11/2 has grown significantly. Many more are aware, and once you know, you are mad as hell, and dedicated to doing something about it.

Sheri Myers of citizensact and codepink was the organizer.

Ian Masters was the moderator for the first panel.

Maxine Waters was late coming from the airport, so
Bob Fritakis started with "What Really Happened in Ohio."
The attorney general of Ohio wants him sanctioned, so whatever he says can be used against him. So, he says, "They stole the election!" GW Bush is the son of the former CIA director who stole elections in the Third World for decades. (Fritakis listed a bunch.) Then when these operatives were cut from the CIA in the 70's, many went to work for elder Bush campaign.

Athan (sp?) Gibbs who gave Fritakis info on money trail was found dead a week later after Fritakis published the article in February. H. Ahmanson is a major monetary source.

Fritakis knew there would be trouble with 2004 election when in March Blackwell started bragging about how he'd achieved the 2-way transmission of data to and from his SoS office and every county in the state. More Blackwell shenanigans galore were detailed, including irrational precinct assignations, resulting in many disenfranchised intentionally in many ways. Matt Damschroeder complicit. Machines witheld, etc., nothing new, but specifics of that reiterated.

So called Dems in the election supervision process are not really Dems in Ohio, such as the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic party (?!)-- a lifelong Republican. (Did he really say this?)


Mighty Texas Strike Force, traced to White House and Rove, was caught calling and threatening voters.

Deliberate criminal voter suppression! This fraud MUST NOT STAND!

Fritakis gave a very impassioned, convincing speech.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters

"First, let's all applaud Senator Barbara Boxer!" (Thundering applause.)

Thanks us all for keeping this issue alive.

HAVA was supposed to solve problems by guaranteeing every voter the chance to cast a provisional ballot if necessary. This right was supposed to be protected by HAVA. BUT, somehow during the development of HAVA legislation under Bob Ney and the Dem leader on the commission, a clause was snuck in that specifically allowed Blackwell to opt out of the requirement of protecting provisional ballots. We need to investigate this!

Congresswoman Waters is VERY CONCERNED, aside from the election fraud, about what is going on with the seduction of the black clergy by right wing evangelicals, who are lying to them about the benefits their curches and programs will receive from the faith-based initiatives. There was a huge meeting in LA about "moral issues"--abortion, gay marriage, and SS commercialization--with 75 black ministers led by Fred Price. They voted on adopting a Newt Gingrich type agenda. She said that she's afraid that these ministers could easily be put in jail in the future as they mix collection plate funds with FB initiative money, "once the Republicans have used them up."


Blair Bobier of the Oregon Greens on the Ohio Recount. Proponent of Instant Run Off Voting. We need to start getting this implemented on a local level, as was done in San Francisco.

Good things have come out of 2004 election debacle, especially the
New Voter Rights movement.

We now see a pattern of fraud:
1) target swing states.
2) suppress African American vote.
3) Put campaign manager in charge of counting votes.

Absolute need for multiparty system.

Detailed problems with recount in Ohio. How recount laws were broken, both in Ohio and New Mexico.

Bev Harris
Big applause.

The 40,000 files Bev found on Diebold's website are still in use by election officials across the country.
Donated $2000 to Fritakis et al to fight sanctions motion. Bev knows what it's like. Has been interviewed by the Secret Service 5 times, had a gag order last spring, investigated for federal racketeering charges. Traced investigation to US Treasury Asset Investigation for Forfeiture of Terrorists. Creepy!

Fraud is not about Republicans. Both Dems and Repubs plus profiteers are involved. The profiteers draw from both parties. Need to trace who is the gatekeeper to HAVA funds in each county at the local level. That's where the fraud takes place. It's an asset grab, just like how fraud happens with any incoming money temptation.

There are some honest election officials, like the one in Tallahassee, Leon County, FL. Usually, the county supervisor is the one to check out.

Suggests CPAs and accountants clean up the vote counting.

Bev sees 3 root causes:
1) don't follow rules--quality management problem.
2) accounting -- votes are treated too sloppily.
3) Fraud! A taboo subject that begins at the county level.


Joan Quinn --a retired research attorney from California who volunteered for recount in Ohio. She said that many elections officials who call themselves Democrats in Ohio, clearly are not Democrats! Lying with impunity is part of the culture in this vote stealing mileu in Ohio.

She is also warning to be aware that you can be monitored. Last summer her mail was opened routinely before she received it.

QUESTIONS FROM AUDIENCE

What about Kevin Shelley?

Fritakis: Doesn't know enough about California, but knows that in Ohio a sworn affadavit was provided with testimony that Blackwell created an illegal HAVA slush fund. Fritakis got sanctioned for providing evidence like this.

Bev: Some indication Shelley gave HAVA money to friends for education provision. Also happened in South Carolina. (I wondered why she didn't say anything else about it. This seems so minor compared to Blackwell, etc.)

What about League of Women Voters?
Bev: Top down organization. Dangerous on the national level, but local chapters don't always support it. Blind Organization received $1 million grant from Diebold then came out against paper trail.

What about Wayne Masden allegations?
Bev: Not proven.

Fritakis thinks the fraud was improvised at the last minute. For instance, in Warren Co., they punched ballots late that night. Only three counties were for Bush.

Bev found memos from NASAD (natl. assn of election directors) trying to get around decision not to cancel election. Communications with Homeland Security, etc.

Paul Leto partnering with Jeff Hoffman as co-authors of report. Problem is there is no evidence, they say. Then when you present evidence, they say, but it doesn't change the result. And you say, well, yes it might, then they say it's partisan. Filing lawsuit in WA state. (landshark?)

What about Skull and Bones and why'd Kerry abandon us?

Fritakis talked, w/ Jesse Jackson, to Kerry on the phone. Kerry said, "wherever they used Optiscan, I lost" and mentioned New Mexico as well as Ohio. Fritakis thinks it's odd that the main Kerry attorney who was always badmouthing his legal team's efforts is employed by the Taft family. (was not casting aspersions on Kerry, just an observation.)

Bobier mentioned how NM SoS broke the law by giving ok to erase voting machine records while recount still pending.

What about Rush Limbaugh's comments that Dem precinct leaders in Ohio signed affadavits certifying no fraud?
Fritakis: These precinct leaders serve at the pleasure of Blackwell. It's a well-paying job, and hand picked by Blackwell. Being a Dem is no guarantee against fraud on that situation.
Joan Quinn: Lynn McCoy, head of Dem central committee, says she's a dem, But She's Not! She's no Democrat! They say they are, but They Are Not! Lying with impunity is part of the culture in this situation.

Question about certification of machines. They are certified by 1990 standards, not new ones from 2002.

Bev: Certification is a joke. Independent testing organizations don't test unless demanded by FEC. Interviewee said that they are paid by voting machine client, don't want to make them unhappy!

Can the election still be overturned?
Fritakis: Federal court won't overturn it. But using RICO charges, we may see some people IN JAIL!


Break


Next panel:
Brad Friedman, Bradblog.
Urges support of divestiture for democracy proposal on velvetrevolution.us website.
Brad told story of Clint Curtis, etc., encouraged us all to blog and that one person can make a difference, with the media and with people like Curtis coming forward. (By the way, I saw Curtis on one of the films last night for the first time. He looked like the real thing to me, very credible. He showed the goodbye card he was given at his going away party for the company, contrary to Olbermann's report that he was let go under unhappy circumstances.)

Brad spoke of Tom Zeller Jr. of NYT, and how letters to him from people who read bradblog made him pay more attention to fraud stories.

Dr. Mandeep Gill, on overview of election reform.
Support Rush Holt bill. Conyers' is a bad bill. Verified voting website has updated information on all bills. Much watch closely to see that they don't get changed by amendments!

Medea Benjamin. Wow! She was impressive, commanded awe and respect in her codepink t-shirt. Going to run as Greens candidate against Dianne Feinstein for Senate. Gave very rousing speech as if already a candidate, listing reforms needed.

Kevin Spidel, Progressive Democrats of/for America. Interesting bit of history, new to me...had Conyers' ear for any grassroots efforts. Before the election, the grassroots clamor was all about getting out of Iraq, so were scheduled to meet with Conyers about that. Then after 11/2, the Ohio grassroots scream was so lous about the fraud that happened there, they brought this to Conyers, and Conyers said he'd investigate.

Susan Clark--citizen lobbyist on the Hill in the 1990's. Stressed importance of being physically present with legislators, press, coroprate execs, etc. Don't beg, but urge. Don't express concerns, don't be emotional, but bring documents and facts. Don't talk about or present issues! Cite the specific problem and show how it can be solved.

Greg Akili, for PUSH.
Rousing sermon on voting rights amendment. Passed out petitions to get filled and send to Jackson Jr.
"This is not a glitch! A glitch is minor, and can be repaired. This is not a glitch, this is a FUCK UP. This is more than a glitch, this is a serious problem."

[Helga Scow Stern]

1. Here is another synopsis from Blue Tarheel:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=335578#335626

[emlev]

2. Great report. Thanks much! A couple things...

The Oakland one wasn't full, but it was a bigger venue, so maybe similar number of people.

Athan Gibbs was the developer of an electronic voting system designed to be *fair.* Google him. His work was important enough to make him a target.

[Wilms]

4. Interesting. Holt influenced by Gibbs.

http://cooper.house.gov/legislative/speeches/floor/032304_athan_gibbs.htm

[BlueTarheel]

3. great notes!

I wish I could've stuck around and met you and the other DUers.

[Helga Scow Stern]

7. Me too!

How many were there?

rumpel, and junkyard_dogg were the ones I met. But I heard others in the crowd say DU! and posting brings more to my awareness.

[Wilms]

5. Mandeep Gill, darkly, said he thought none of the bills would pass.

I thought his comment was more, watch the bills because they DO change.

In fact, in the ways that we don't like these bills we ought to tell the authors and our reps.

[tommcintyre]

6. Did they talk about the Clinton bill at all

"Support Rush Holt bill. Conyers' is a bad bill" Did they compare Holt to Clinton?

Thanks for all the hard work taking the notes and typing this up. It really is appreciated.

[Helga Scow Stern]

8. Yes, they did.

But very briefly, as I recall. It was lauded as a good effort, and he briefly touched on it, saying that the verified voting website has a table with checklists of which bills provide what.

The main thing at this point is to watch how the bills morph as they are amended, he said.

So much was crammed into one short afternoon--education about the fraud plus what to do about it. It would have been good to have a whole afternoon devoted to legislation, but 15 minutes was all that could be squeezed in, and the website reference given.

[mod mom]

14. Conyers bill's strength is in it's equal/civil rights component, it adds

this dimension that is not strong in the others. A big part of the election fraud (at least in Ohio) was in the suppression of voters (ie machine placement, challengers, intimidation) . Also, please note that Conyers team is willing to listen to suggestions. He was there for us, I believe we need to work with him!

[Wilms]

23. We don't do "equal/civil rights component" stuff around here, much.

Myself included.

I've been too wrapped up in VVPB to take the time to feature the "equal/civil rights component" of Conyers bill.

It might have been well enough for Conyers to push only those provisions, but, I fear, there is too much resistance to giving the vote to the inner-city minorities.

[bailey77]

9. Minor correction: There is no evidence of H. Ahmanson involvement

The Ahmanson involvement in voting machine companies was not Howard Ahmanson, a radical right winger.

It was William and Robert Ahmanson, who lived in Nebraska during their voting machine investment, but later moved to California. (Howard is a cousin of the family who lives in California). William and Robert Ahmanson invested in ES&S predecessor AIS in 1984 and sold their shares in 1987 to Omaha World Herald and McCarthy Group. William and Robert invested heavily in many things, including NPR and a center for the performing arts in Los Angeles. It is possible they could still own some portion of ES&S through a holding company, as undisclosed investors.

I am not aware of any actual evidence that Howard was involved in any voting machine company. If you have some -- not what an Internet writer claims, but sourced documentation -- I would be very interested in posting it.

There is one reference to a Robert Ahmanson in connection with Howard Ahmanson's right wing activities, but it turns out that was a typo -- that is really Roberta Ahmanson, Howard's wife.

Again, no evidence of Howard Ahmanson ownership in any voting system. We do ourselves no favors when we report sensational information that is slightly incorrect.

One more thing: Athan Gibbs was a great man. However, he did not "leak" the Ahmanson or other ownership information to anyone shortly before he was killed. That information was published on the Web a year and a half before Mr. Gibb's death, the first of several dozen major stories broken by Bev Harris.

And independent forensic investigator was brought in to look at the Athan Gibbs car crash, and the results of that report -- though the investigator was keenly interested in finding evidence of foul play -- were that there was not evidence of foul play.

Athan Gibbs died after his vehicle cut in front of a large truck on the freeway and crashed. It was terribly sad, and the voting integrity movement lost a great advocate for proper accounting and transparency.

We have to be very careful to avoid sensationalism and bending the facts to represent what we want to say, instead of what can be supported by the facts.

[Peace Patriot]

12. I don't know, bailey77. I'd say "follow the money...and the Urosevich's."

An excerpt from "Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy," by Bob Fitrakis (2/25/04)

"The electronic voting industry is dominated by only a few corporations – Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Sequoia. Diebold and ES&S combined count an estimated 80% of U.S. black box electronic votes.

"In the early 1980s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS). California newspapers have long documented the Ahmanson family’s ties to right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles.

"In 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported, '. . . primarily funded by evangelical Christians – particularly the wealthy Ahmanson family of Irvine – the institute’s $1-million annual program has produced 25 books, a stream of conferences and more than 100 fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral research.' The chief philanthropists of the Discovery Institute, that pushes creationist science and education in California, are Howard and Roberta Ahmanson.

"According to Group Watch, in the 1980s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.

“'On the right, figures such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson have given hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades to political projects both high (setting up the Heritage Foundation think-tank, the driving engine of the Reagan presidency) and low (bankrolling investigations into President Clinton’s sexual indiscretions and the suicide of the White House insider Vincent Foster),' wrote The Independent last November.

"The Sunday Mail described an individual as, '. . . a fundamentalist Christian more in the mould of U.S. multi-millionaire Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who uses his fortune to promote so-called traditional family values . . . by waving fortunes under their noses, Ahmanson has the ability to cajole candidates into backing his right-wing Christian agenda.

Ahmanson is also a chief contributor to the Chalcedon Institute that supports the Christian reconstruction movement. The movement’s philosophy advocates, among other things, 'mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards.'

"The Ahmanson family sold their shares in American Information Systems to the McCarthy Group and the World Herald Company, Inc. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of American Information Systems and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. One of the BRC owners was Carolyn Hunt of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the Council on National Policy.

"In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a 'stunning upset' by one Nebraska newspaper.

"Hagel’s official biography states, 'Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel worked in the private sector as the President of McCarthy and Company, an investment banking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska and served as Chairman of the Board of American Information Systems.' During the first Bush presidency, Hagel served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations (G-7 Summit).

"Bob Urosevich was the Programmer and CEO at AIS, before being replaced by Hagel. Bob now heads Diebold Election Systems and his brother Todd is a top executive at ES&S. Bob created Diebold’s original electronic voting machine software. Thus, the brothers Urosevich, originally funded by the far Right, figure in the counting of approximately 80% of electronic voting in the United States."

-----

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

[bailey77]

15. Common Dreams is not a document or a source. The facts remain...

(and by the way, almost all of what you quoted was material original broken by Bev Harris in Oct. 2002; She originally reported much more on "the Ahmanson family" involvement but backed off that story when her daughter, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, chided her for spinning the facts).

You are correct that Howard Ahmanson is a right-wing piece of work. You are correct that William and Robert Ahmanson invested in AIS. Many of us have right-wing relatives, but they don't speak for us politically. You have not provided any sources or documentation that William and Robert share Howard's views, nor that Howard has any connection with any voting machine company other than kinship with two (much older) cousins who lived in a different state at the time.

Harris originally reported using an inappropriate phrase "the Ahmanson family" and she reported the Bob and Will ownership along with the Howard extremism, as you just did. After researching more thoroughly, unable to come up with a factual, sourced, or documented nexis between Bob & Will's politics with those of Howard, or Howard's investments with any voting company, Harris pulled back her reporting on the Ahmansons. Others later regurgitated her original story, under their own bylines, which was not sufficiently precise, and therefore was more spin that facts.

No writer has documented what needs to be done: A Howard Ahmanson nexis with voting machines or a William and Robert Ahmanson nexis with right-wing politics. "The family" is not sufficiently specific.

Now, all of the Hagel material you mention is directly out of a story researched and broken by Harris.

She found the Hagel connection by entering the words "stock in American Information Systems" into the DJInteractive media search site.

She found the ES&S corporate documents proving the relationship by searching all 50 state secretary of state sites -- on the Arizona corporate site, she found photocopies of what was needed.

She found the campaign disclosure documents at OpenSecrets.org, but one key document was missing. She contacted the owners of OpenSecrets, who located the original document and re-scanned it.

After breaking the story in Oct. 2002 on her Web site, Harris pushed it into the mainstream media in Jan. 2003, working with Alexander Bolton of "The Hill."

Since then, the Hagel story (which you can find, with all footnotes and sources, in Chapter 3 of Black Box Voting -- http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-3.pdf -- has been repeated by several journalists, including Andrew Gumbel and Fitrakis, usually without crediting either Harris or Alexander Bolton, who did the original research and published the story a year earlier.

The Hagel story has held up. The Ahmanson story needs documentation to develop a factual nexis.

The Urosevich brothers story was also broken by Harris in Oct. 2002. However, they are not both still involved. In July 2004, Bob Urosevich was fired from Diebold Election Systems.

According to two inside sources at Diebold, he was fired after the last straw -- the dumpster at Diebold Election Systems headquarters was cleaned out by Black Box Voting investigators Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris, and Urosevich's personal garbage revealed sensitive documents, including a $144,000 payment to a company in Georgia investigated and reported in the past to have acted as a conduit for money laundering to public officials.

Urosevich had not shredded sensitive financial statements and also could not remember what had been thrown away, and was going around the office trying to get everyone to remember what they had discarded. Video cameras and security guards were then posted at all Diebold facility dumpsters and Bob was called up to Ohio for a terse meeting, where he was let go but paid to shut up.

[Andy_Stephenson]

21. Ummm here is a minor correction to this statement

"According to two inside sources at Diebold, he was fired after the last straw -- the dumpster at Diebold Election Systems headquarters was cleaned out by Black Box Voting investigators Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris, and Urosevich's personal garbage revealed sensitive documents, including a $144,000 payment to a company in Georgia investigated and reported in the past to have acted as a conduit for money laundering to public officials."

I was also intimately involved in this episode. As a matter of fact it was my hotel room where the stinking garbage was sorted through. I was also going in the dumpsters as well. I was the one who found the payment of 144k...just to keep Bev honest here "Erin".

Your not doing so well shilling for Bev.

[bailey77]

40. Checked on this. The other side of the story

Indeed, Stephenson was there on one of the dives, but not the main one. There were two dumpster dives at McKinney Texas, a small one where a few bags were pinched, and a large one where the dumpster was cleaned out, more than a dozen large bags. Stephenson participated in the first one, but was asleep in his room and it was Wynne and Harris alone who did the second one, which garnered the most important information.

Stephenson laid on his bed while Wynne and Harris, with plastic gloves, went through the bags (Urosevich favors Chinese food, which had lain in the Texas summer sun for three days before the pickup. Gack.)

Harris and Wynne pulled the interesting documents out of the mix, placing them in piles "high priority" "medium priority" "look at later" and "trash." Stephenson, lying on his bed, picked through the documents already tagged as high priority, which included an accounts payable statement. He found a $144,000 payment to Lottery Services of Georgia. It was Harris that researched and found what Lottery Services of Georgia is: a company which is not a lottery company but has been written up for laundering money to politicians.

Harris and Wynne found other documents, including handwritten documents about Diebold and VoteHere, and an important document called "Critical Issues" where Diebold discusses hiring temps and uncertainty that it can pull off the Nov. election. It was Wynne, however, who did the riskiest part, jumping inside a 30x15 foot dumpster while the police were driving by. It was the cleaning out of the dumpster, accomplished by Wynne and Harris under the noses of McKinney police, that caused Urosevich to get fired.

Diebold employees noticed on Monday morning that the dumpster had been cleaned out. Urosevich went around the office asking everyone if they could remember what they put in the dumpster, and when embarrassing documents popped up on the Internet, he was terminated.

[Andy_Stephenson]

46. Hmmmm...

I remember it differently...but whatever.

[Kelvin Mace]

49. Again, Bev's side of the story

requires something called PROOF. Her word is worthless as she has been caught in repeated lies.

[Andy_Stephenson]

57. When Ms Harris says

"Harris and Wynne found other documents, including handwritten documents about Diebold and VoteHere, and an important document called "Critical Issues" where Diebold discusses hiring temps and uncertainty that it can pull off the Nov. election."

It does not Jive with what she said at the VSPP in California

Beginning on page 6...line

14 MS. HARRIS: Yes. My name is Bev Harris. I'm
15 the Executive Director of Black Box Voting, which is a
16 nonpartisan publicly funded consumer protection
17 organization for elections.
18 I know Andy Stevenson was here to talk about it.
19 And he will be -- he's actually at -- we drove about 12
20 hours, so he's at the copy shop copying a document for
21 you.
22 He has uncovered some problems with quality
23 control that -- and the concern about quality control
24 problems is that when a company has them and they contend
25 to spill over to many different parts of the company, this
pg7
1 is very significant and it has the potential to affect 18
2 counties in the coming election.
3 What has happened is we've been interviewing
4 employees in Everett, Washington; Canton, Ohio; and
5 McKinney, Texas. And in doing so, we learned -- and they
6 gave us documentation also -- that all of the ballots for
7 the entire United States are going to be printed at one
8 facility. The problem is this facility is having extreme
9 labor difficulties, is in the process of organizing into
10 the Teamsters Union, and is planning a strike.
11 So we have 12 million ballots being printed in
12 one location with no real backup plan. The two backup
13 locations that they had selected, one of them it turns out
14 has legal problems and the other one doesn't have the
15 capacity.
16 So we're simply bringing this up because we
17 believe Diebold should be asked to provide a Plan C. If
18 they don't have a plan and their employees are going on
19 strike and all the ballots are going to be printed in one
20 place, they need to come up with another plan and show it
21 to us, because we don't want a meltdown.
22 That's Andy's. And he's going to provide you
23 with a document called "Critical issues," which is an
24 internal document from Diebold, given to us by a source
25 within Diebold.
pg8
1 The problems are extreme with that particular
2 plan. It happens to be up where we live, and so we've had
3 multiple employees contacting us saying they expect it to
4 melt down.

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/vsp_min_071904.pdf

[Kelvin Mace]

24. Bev Harris stole most of her "research"

from Steven Hertzberg (Yes, Bev, I talked to him) and did what little original research she did when she was being paid by Steven. She planned to do a book with him, then dumped him when I came along. (I was not aware of Steven's contribution until after Bev pulled a similar stunt with me in pursuit of qui tam money.)

Bev Harris has betrayed person after person in her pursuit of money and fame. She was banned from DU and now her shill is trying to rehabilitate her reputation here.

Ain't going to happen.

Folks this is a person who is cozy with Freepers and claims George Bush is on her side. It doesn't get much more deluded than that.

David Allen
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[bailey77]

41. The other side of the story

Again, we should be keeping our eyes on the target.

The real story on Hertzberg/VoteWatch (an excellent site)

Harris did her own original research, and after she posted 56 cases where the voting machines got it wrong (Oct 2002), Hertzberg contacted her to do a press release for him, because he had taken an interest in the issue after reading her site. He started a very good web site, which still exists, called VoteWatch.us -- it was the first live reporting format for election problems. Harris wrote and fax blasted a press release for him; at this time, she ran a publicity company. Her press releases garnered many radio shows, TV coverage, and news coverage for the "VoteWatch.us" site.

On election day (Nov 2002), Steven Hertzberg was out of town. Though not paid to do so, Harris arranged for two people to help moderate the site, a Republican and a Democrat. The site was trolled mercilessly, flooded with disruptive posts without (at first) a way to move them or delete them. This was making it useless for the purpose intended, and Hertzberg broke away from his meetings to set up a mechanism to ban the trolls. Then, the site crashed, due to hacking or, more likely, a DOS attack -- or, perhaps, the publicity garnered so much attention that it was overloaded with legitimate traffic. It did not come back online until late afternoon, East Coast time.

The news media, having been made aware of the site, were watching it for indications as to whether there were problems with the voting machines or not. After merciless trolling and a shutdown that lasted several hours, there were few reports on the site, and news media were starting to report that the election went smoothly with no problems.

Because Harris had already broken two major stories on voting machine problems (the Hagel story and the "56 miscounts" story) she dived into more research and dug out another few dozen miscounts from the new election, posting her research on VoteWatch.us under the moniker "newswatcher." She then added the new items into her "56 miscounts" story to make it "100 miscounts" and that, plus some other new research, eventually became Chapter 2 of the Black Box Voting book.

Hertzberg liked the new material so much that he asked Harris to make it into a press release and fax blast it out. Her publicity business charged $349 for a one-page press release and $500 to fax out to 2000 media outlets at the time; Harris wrote her own research into a 4-page press release and faxed it to 2000 news outlets, which would be $1000 for the 4-page release plus $500 for the fax blast. She charged Hertzberg only for the fax blast ($500) and wrote the press release for free. At no time did Hertzberg "do the research" and he never owned the research, but Harris provided it to help promote VoteWatch.us.

After the "newswatcher" posts, and after deleting the troll posts, VoteWatch showed a good representation of problems. During this past election, VoteWatch garnered funding and provided statistical analysis, and also marshalled volunteers around the country to go pick up polling place reports.

VoteWatch is doing important work. BlackBoxVoting.org is doing important work. So are VotersUnite.org, VerifiedVoting.org, and at least a hundred more groups and Web sites. It behooves none of us to keep driving wedges, as the voting integrity movement is not nearly large enough to achieve what needs to be done.

The importance of unity, why we should stop the turf wars

According to Harris, there are about 350,000 activists involved in the movement, through many different groups, right now. She compares the activism needed to achieve major changes to that needed for the civil rights movement, which had at least 10 million people working on it, spread across many groups appealing to several different constituencies (NAACP, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, black panthers). We need to appeal to more people and get the number of activists in the voting integrity movement up to 10 million also.

Therefore, indeed we must drop the turf wars. No good is served by tearing each other down.

A slight correction :)

what little original research she did
Harris broke 32 original stories between Oct. 2002 and now.

The status of the Qui Tam

Bev pulled a similar stunt with me in pursuit of qui tam money
Nothing to do with Qui Tam. Harris removed David Allen, who was a publisher, not an author, due to failure to send sales reports and failure to pay royalties as specified in the contract. She then turned her rights and revenues from the book over to the nonprofit group, Black Box Voting. Not many authors would do that.

Harris had been a vocal critic of any Qui Tam done for the bounty money, and which can caus activists to withhold evidence from the public in hopes of getting money. However, Harris's attorney, Lowell Finley, arranged for a Qui Tam test case in Alameda County, California, specifically WITHOUT sealing the evidence. Therefore Harris and March filed a test case. This important suit is the FIRST WINNING LAWSUIT against a voting machine company for selling shoddy equipment.

At this time, Diebold has paid $2.6 million to the state of California, and it is in escrow. A hearing will be held on March 11 to determine what money will be provided to compensate Harris and March for their work. The estimate is $76,000. Harris arranged from the outset, and has stated publicly here and in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, that such monies will be given to Black Box Voting as a restricted donation, tagged to be used only for additional voting rights litigation.

A second lawsuit is already in the works, with a hearing also on March 11, and this is a consumer protection lawsuit against Diebold, which seeks to get Diebold into discovery this spring.

Bev Harris's personal politics

Folks this is a person who is cozy with Freepers and claims George Bush is on her side.

Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan organization, with a board of directors that consists of seven people: four black civil rights advocates and three voting machine experts. The board includes a Republican gun lobbyist and a Libertarian, as well as greens, Democrats, and independents.

Harris's personal politics: She is an independent who usually votes a split ticket according to which specific candidates she prefers. Typically she votes at least 90 percent of the races for Dems or Greens, mostly Dem. Occasionally she votes for a specific Republican who seems the better alternative. She voted for John Kerry in Nov. 2002, but would have preferred Howard Dean.

She is a distant cousin of George Bush, with a common ancestor, Mary Preston. It is true that George Bush had his personal librarian order a copy of the book, and Harris was asked to overnight it. She sent the book, but did not prioritize it, and sent it two weeks later.

"Cozy with freepers" is stretching it. She did research on FreeRepublic last year and found that many there were equally concerned about computerized voting, and at one time, a sidebar in the book placed FreeRepublic.com quotes skeptical of electronic voting side by side with DemocraticUnderground.com quotes. The sentiments matched exactly, and the only way you could tell which site was the source was who they claimed would be stealing elections.

Currently, many Republicans and Libertarians who are genuinely concerned about the issue feel that it has been co-opted by the left, and they say they feel uncomfortable at citizen meetings. Harris has urged less partisan talk in the meetings, because she believes that more political diversity will benefit the movement.

[Kelvin Mace]

48. So many lies and distortions, so little time

Again we are given a choice of versions and asked "who do we believe". Since Bev's track record for telling the truth is quite bleak, the obvious conclusion is that we cannot trust a single word that comes out of her mouth without heavy corroboration from neutral parties or with documents.

Let's us recap Bev's lies, shall we?

1) Bev claimed she was never paid a dime for her book. This was a lie.

2) Bev claimed I interfered with her ability to get her book published by an outside publisher. This was a lie.

3) Bev claimed that David Dill, Rebecca Mercuri, Avi Rubin, Dough Jones, Roxanne Jekot, myself and MANY more were secretly filing a qui tam law suit. This was a lie.

4) Bev denied ever making the claim in #3. This was a lie.

5) Bev said she would never file a qui tam suit. This was a lie.

6) Bev claimed that her research was "confiscated". This was a lie.

7) Bev claimed EFF wanted to file a qui tam suit. This was a lie.

8) Bev claimed I had no idea what the files on the Diebold site meant. This was a lie.

9) Bev claimed George Bush ordered her book. This was a lie.

(Bev back-peddled on this and said it was the "White House librarian". She was then challenged to produce the documents proving a book had been sent to this person. She never did, but I see the lie has been updated to cover this with your claim that "She sent the book, but did not prioritize it, and sent it two weeks later." Riiiiight! The White House librarian asks for a book overnight and Bev doesn't send it until two weeks later. Actually, I could believe this, as it is consistent with Bev's usual incompetence, however the story is so preposterous that I reject it out of hand. Want me to believe? PROVIDE the evidence! The only possible explanation is that Bev is either a liar or mentally ill and imagines she talks to White House officials.)

10) Bev claimed she did not have an editor on her book. This was a lie.

Shall I go on? I confess to not having time at the moment to pull up the relevant links to ONCE AGAIN prove my statements but as I have done this numerous times in the past, you know I can do it.

I have challenged you (since you act for Bev) to provide copies of the court orders to substantiate that Bev was being investigated and was subject to a "gag" order. As this has not happened, I suspect Bev's claim about such to be a lie as well.

You offer NO evidence to bolster your (Bev's) argument because none exist. Offering us more of Bev's lies is NOT proof. You then call for unity once again completely ignoring that it was BEV HERSELF who attacked her fellow activists and the people that essentially wrote her book for her. You attack my "authorship" of Bev's book but the first person to refer to me as Bev's co-author was BEV HERSELF. I'm not publicly claiming "authorship", but I notice that she has been busy "re-writing" the book to play up her "investigation" while playing down my help.

How Orwellian.

The forums of this web site are full of her praise of me and my invaluable assistance. Let me guess. Agents of Diebold had a gun to her head and she had to write that?

If Bev TRULY wanted to rejoin this movement she could start by publicly taking responsibility for the damage she has done and the lies she has told. She could apologize to ALL of the people she has smeared. Yeah, that'll happen around the same time Bush admits he lost the 2000 election.

You are here because Bev desperately needs a forum like DU to keep the cash flowing. Her bizarre and vicious actions have alienated her from the activist community and the press. Without attention Bev loses the things she craves the most, fame and money.


David Allen
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Stephanie]

50. Hi Bailey!

You seem to have a lot of personal info about Bev Harris! Have you been in the voting booth with her a lot recently? How do you know what percentage of the ticket she votes Dem, etc? That's very strange info for anybody to have about anybody else. Also, how did you become aware of Bev's genealogy? You must be very close.

[Kelvin Mace]

54. She is simply parroting what Bev tells her.

This is very calculated.

I would like to point out to those who take anything Bev says as truthful, that for Bev to be right then all of the following people and groups *must* be wrong about Bev:

Keith Oberlmann (MSNBC)
Randi Rhodes (AAR)
Mike Malloy (AAR)
Skinner (DU)
BartCop.com
Democrats.com
Andy Stephenson
AltheCat (DU, Scoop New Zealand)
Eloriel (DU)
Roxanne Jekot (GA anti-BBV advocate)

This list is by no means exhaustive, I just picked the names off the top of my head that most DUers would be familiar with.

Bev has brought great discredit to this movement and if we expect to be taken seriously, we most distance ourselves from this crass opportunist.

David Allen
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Stephanie]

51. what makes you think this is a shill

and not a pseud?

[Kelvin Mace]

52. The tone of the woman's posts.

She is constantly over here spreading the Bev Harris gospel trying to rehabilitate Bev's quite deserved discredited reputation. She repeates the same lies we read over at Bev's site (when Bev doesn't erase them because they contradict an earlier lie) and perpetuates the lie that Bev is blameless in all that befalls her.

David Allen
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Stephanie]

53. I wasn't clear

I think the poster is Bev herself.

[Kelvin Mace]

55. Ah! Sorry!

Certainly a possibility, but only if someone is (like a lawyer) is standing behind her as she types. The repsonses are too restrained. If Bev was writing htem unsupervised, she would have went off on about a dozen vicious rants by now.

Just back from the dentist and still a tad fogged.

David Allen
www.blackboxvoting.com
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Peace Patriot]

25. Thanks for the info, Bailey77! It sounds like you know a lot more about..

...this than I do. I will amend my statements about it accordingly (as BBV did), out of caution. What was done on Nov. 2 was such a great crime, with such immense consequences, that I would not want to taint someone with it unfairly. But I also know that corporations and the super-rich have many ways to hide what they are doing, and I think the connection (i.e., the Ahmanson's, of whatever branch) is a suspicious one. (That the relatives were/are in a different state doesn't mean much when you're talking about the super-rich.)

You say that a "William and Robert Ahmanson nexis with right-wing politics" has not been documented. But how about looking at it the other way around? --that investment in ES&S (previously AIS), one of the two companies who count (or don't count) all our votes with secret, proprietary source code, who insisted on secrecy and on no paper trail, and whose software produced the most egregiously fraudulent election in our history-- amounting to a fascist coup--IS documentation of rightwing politics, in and of itself? Or is, at least, evidence in that direction?

And what about their selling it in such a way that Chuck Hagel ends up CEO and electing himself Senator?

We need to be accurate, yes. But we also need to understand how "smoking guns," at that level of income and power, find themselves in a private jet out over the Pacific falling into 2,000 feet of water.

Could be an innocent investment. COULD be. But considering who has benefited (on such a grand scale) from company policy on electronic voting--fascists, rightwing fanatics, the super-rich, global corporations--it seems to me a reasonable, working assumption that it was NOT innocent.

We may never be able to pin down who is guilty, specifically, of the great crime of 2004. Even so, it is important to learn as much as we can, for the purpose of understanding how things work in the Bush Cartel and among its satellite operations, and also for devising the best remedies, and for knowing where to put pressure and on whom.

Again, I take your point about accuracy. I agree. But I also see that we are dealing with a corporate state that doesn't play fair, to say the least--whose crimes include the mass murder and torture of innocents, massive, unprecedented theft, and the destruction of democracy everywhere, and whose hallmark is secrecy.

I think anyone with any connection whatsoever to ES&S and Diebold MUST be held in great suspicion until proven otherwise--and that includes all investors, executives, founders and employees, all SoS's who have purchased their systems, and all politicians who have promoted them (or benefited from them), including corrupt or collusive Democrats.

It may never have entered the minds of the Ahmanson brothers to use ES&S software to install the Bush Cartel (or Hagel), but they are key players in the corporation's development, and thus are at the top of the list of election fraud suspects (even apart from their family ties to extreme rightwing causes).

You can see I'm struggling with this. I am academic-trained myself, and I prefer precise, careful writing. But I sometimes think that this prevents me from saying ENOUGH. We are not dealing with precise, careful fascists here. We are dealing with a vicious bunch of bloodthirsty, super-rich, unbelievably greedy powermongers, and anyone connected with them, and anyone who even just tolerates them--who has the power to do something about it--is a criminal suspect, in my opinion.

Whew. Please don't take this personally. I appreciate your information, and the way you wrote it. I'm just feeling bloody-minded today--and wishing that all the promise of this great progressive country was being fulfilled, as it should be, and not being dashed to pieces.

[bailey77]

43. Good points. And there is a way they COULD still be involved

Note that paper is important for more than just ballots. Stories that can't be backed up with either paper documents for evidence, or video, should be identified as such.

According to a paper document, the sales questionnaire submitted to Santa Clara County in February 2003 when it was buying voting machines, each manufacturer had to answer some questions about its ownership.

On that document, a new entity emerged with ES&S. This documents lists, as one of the owners, "Normal Investments" -- and these investment companies, usually structured as LLCs, represent a real problem when trying to find out who really owns what. They have no obligation at all to disclose their shareholders, and we are finding them more and more as partners in sensitive companies like voting machine vendors.

There are at least two other such investment companies which could have the Ahmansons still as investors, and probably do have other questionable characters, but we may not be able to find out exactly who.

ES&S also had an entity called "AIS Investors Inc" which had, among others, Chuck Hagel as one of its investors. The paper that documents this is in Hagel's personal disclosure documents, I can't remember, but I think it was those filed in Nebraska rather than those filed in Washington D.C. Who knows who else was invested in AIS Investors Inc.

Also, a group of investors who had owned BRC, a company acquired by ES&S in 1997, included many Texas powerbrokers. BRC stood for Business Records Corp. Following that leads to some blind alleys, as it also had a division doing other types of government documents. However, some folks associated with the Bass Brothers, the Rothschilds, and others had interests in BRC and it's subsidiary, Cronus.

The paper documents (Omaha World-Herald, which would be considered a weaker source of documentation except that the Omaha World-Herald owned/owns majority stock in ES&S) also showed than when AIS became ES&S and acquired BRC, about one-third of the ES&S stock was retained by the BRC investors.

As Harris noted in her rebuttal to ES&S for its cease and desist letter, which said that Ahmansons had sold their stock in 1987, the letter said William and Robert Ahmanson sold their stock in AIS -- but did not say they didn't retain stock in AIS Investors Inc, or in the third held by former BRC investors, or in Normal Investments.

Harris tried to locate more information on Normal Investments, but the phrase comes up so frequently in SEC documents that it is difficult to search. She did find a company by that name in Chicago, Illinois. She looked on the secretary of state sites for corporate entities, but unlike ES&S, which must register as a corporation in every state it does business, "Normal Investments" only needs to register where IT does business, not all the places ES&S does business. Hard to find. If anyone gets solid info on who the principals are with Normal Investments, that would be of great interest.

[Helga Scow Stern]

19. For that sourced documentation,

you might want to contact Bob Fritakis himself. I may have misheard him.

[Helga Scow Stern]

10. Left out...

in re-reading this the morning after I see how I left out everything known to me from frequent reading of DU since 11/2. This includes details of Blackwell's many efforts to disenfranchise voters in a variety of ways, plus the ways in which the recounts were stymied and just a sham.

Green party sued by Delaware County because they didn't want to do a recount.

Joan Quinn's report of events in Greene County during the recount was very interesting, but I didn't report it here because I have seen it on DU in the past.

[Peace Patriot]

11. Profound thanks for this detailed report, Ojai Person, and for driving...

...all that way to BE THERE. (People who don't live here sometimes don't realize how BIG California is!).

One feeling I'm getting from the reports on the Teach-In's is that the emphasis was on Ohio and not on nationwide electronic fraud. There doesn't seem to have been a major presentation in Santa Monica on the Exit Polls and other statistical analysis--of which there is so much evidence now.

"Fritakis (sp. - Fitrakis) thinks the fraud was improvised at the last minute."

It may be that those in Ohio were so blown away by what they saw happen there, they don't quite realize the vastness of what happened. This coup was anything but "last minute." The perps SET UP this fraudulent election system deliberately and methodically--insisting that, unlike ATMs, voting doesn't require any verification, that the source code for recording and counting votes must be SECRET and proprietary, and putting electronic voting machine companies in place that were committed to a Bush win and that are reaping billions from HAVA.

This was all very deliberate, and insisted upon, by BushCon politicians and their pro-Bush voting machine companies--against all common sense, and any notion of good government. And they did all this to no purpose (with no goal in mind)? And they did it at the last minute? Unh-uh.

The system is so inherently, blatantly fraudulent that it's mind-boggling (and also it's a major puzzle how Dem leaders breathed hardly a word about it prior to the election).

And when you look at the stats going in--for instance, the Democrats' blowout success in new voter registration (Dems 57% vs. Repubs 41%), Bush's dismal approval numbers, and everything else--you can't avoid the hypothesis that the Bush Cartel was EXTREMELY concerned about not just a Kerry win but a Kerry landslide, and had to pull out all the stops to "win"--almost every fraud plan they had set up (save the "terrorist alert" plan)--including these egregious Voting Rights Act violations in Ohio. (I really think it was an "old pol" vs "new high techie" thing--the "old pols" didn't quite trust the tech fraud plan, and put all this other messy, high visibility stuff in place--and every bit of it was needed to beat the grass roots groundswell for Kerry.)

Anyway, I'm wondering if it was your impression that the widespread tech fraud--and all the evidence for it--was not emphasized, not well presented, not given sufficient attention???

Jonathan Simon spoke in Oakland (but apparently had some problems with his PowerPoint presentation, and didn't do that well as a presenter--brilliant guy, though--and one of the first whistleblowers on the exit polls).

I thought Kathy Dopp was presenting in Santa Monica. Was USCountvotes represented? Was there anything on the Exit Polls, or any of the Ph.D.'s reports on the astronomical odds against a Bush win (or other statistics, like the paper vs. electronic results skewed to Bush in the electronic)?

-----

The black church leaders' thing is certainly ominous--even diabolical. That was my gut feeling on reading this. The Bush Cartel hypocrisy and capacity for corrupting others seems boundless.

-----

I'm surprised that, after someone said that many SoS's may have misused HAVA funds--i.e., Kevin Shelley--no one remarked that ONLY ONE OF THEM has been ridden out of town on a rail, the one who sued Diebold!

-----

So many great details and new information (to me) in your report. (The $1 million grant from Diebold to the blind group--aha!). That Kerry thinks it was the optiscans (at least he's thinking in the right direction--electronic fraud). (What the hell was the DNC telling him?!!)

I know there is a lot of controversy around Bev, but she sure is right about a number of things--that electronic fraud involves Repubs, Dems and profiteers, that we should look at the county level HAVA gatekeepers (Connie McCormack comes to mind), that the nat'l League of Women voters is not to be trusted (I was astonished that they bought electronic voting--though grass roots rebelled.)

Was the corrupt Dem leader on the HAVA commission (i.e., the failure of the provisional ballot guarantee) Christopher Dodd? (I suspect so--although my list of Dem suspects on this whole thing is growing long.)

I'm still pouring over your report--and I'm going to go check out the ones on Oakland, to compare.

AND AGAIN: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

[rumpel]

13. Several points. Yes, there was not much mentioned on the nationwide

exit polls, and I have not seen Kathy Dopp or heard she was there.

My impression was that because the third parties concentrated on the investigation in Ohio, and therefore have the vast amount of "circumstantial" evidence in Ohio, which in fact led to the historical objection on Jan 6, it is being presented as the entry point to the issues.

Fitrakis "improvised at the last minute" comment may have referred to one county, and was an answer to a specific question on an incident from someone in the audience. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The widespread problem, I felt was presented in the form of the discussions and comments about the SOS's, the flawed HAVA Act, the incredibly tamper friendly machines and incompetence and or ill-intent of the people involved in the elections top to bottom.

What was stressed by Congresswoman Waters and others is that it is neither Dem or repub it is the profiteering (including favors) that drives this.

On the church leaders, it was appaling to hear this, although I was not surprised. The bush people use the tactic of luring people into believing one thing with a carrot, and then use that carrot as a threat if they ever should find out that they were mislead and decide to go against them. Out of fear, they will stay.

On Bev, they taught a Chimp to tamper and have it on tape. That, should be aired everywhere.

:)

[bailey77]

16. Here is the link for the chimp video

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/2367.html

The chimp video was shown in a press conference in Washington D.C. in September 2004. It was covered by the New York Times, MSNBC, Fox News, and the Atlanta Journal Consitution.

It was shown again by local Fox news affiliate Channel 6 in San Diego, last Friday.

Though Diebold responded that what the chimp did (delete entries from the audit log of their central tabulator), Black Box Voting investigator Bev Harris found that King County Washington had deleted three hours from its GEMS audit log from the Sept 2004 primary election, and Kathleen Wynne caught Logan lying about this on video -- which also can be found at the above web address.

[rumpel]

17. thanks for the info.

[Andy_Stephenson]

26. Bev and I were at the elections office on Sept 14th...

"Black Box Voting investigator Bev Harris found that King County Washington had deleted three hours from its GEMS audit log from the Sept 2004 primary election, and Kathleen Wynne caught Logan lying about this on video."

Through my contacts...the information came that Dean was holding a press conference. Had it not been for me...Kathleen nor Bev either one would have even known to have been at that meeting.

[Wilms]

22. Not sure, but "improvised at the last minute" comment

may have referred to the pending Faluja (sp?) assault.

Also, the "Blind Foundation" that took the Diebold million may be referring to Jim Dickson of the AAPD. That would be more than the blind, but other disabilities as well.

For their part, LightHouse, in NYC, a very old institute for the blind, has stated that they see no contradiction between the needs of the blind and the need for VVPB.

From Dickson's writing, I get that he does a great job of describing real problems. He also does a great job detailing fake problems, and ignoring potential solutions. But I can't say much better of the reform movement.

[bailey77]

42. The contribution by Diebold to the blind was to the NFB

A story broken by Bev Harris and Black Box Voting, with an important angle also added by Andy Stephenson, and amazing work by blind activist Kelly Gutensohn, last June. Harris pitched the story to New York Times reporter Adam Cohen, and it made its way into the NYT in mid-June.

Diebold was on a shakedown tour with the banks a few years back. The NFB would sue the banks for non-accessible ATMs, and then say Diebold was the only manufacturer that had the right kind of ATMs. This caused the banks to switch to Diebold, and gave Diebold huge market share. However, it turns out that Diebold gave a $1 million donation to the National Federation of the Blind during all this, and it may have given more that has not been publicly disclosed.

Harris noted the strange nexis with the blind when she was traveling around Ohio meeting with election officials while they were deciding what voting systems to buy. They were told by Blackwell to buy Diebold touch-screens, for the most part. Harris and Susan Truitt, of CASE-Ohio, another excellent voting integrity group, went to Mercer County, Ohio.

In Mercer County, the county attorney, Andy Hinders, came down and read a letter from the NFB. The NFB had sued every county in Ohio who was considering NOT buying Diebold touch-screens. Note that they were not suing every county that didn't have touch screens. They were only suing counties who were thinking about dropping the idea of buying new Diebold touch-screens. The letter read by Hinders basically said, "if you buy Diebold touch-screens, we'll make our lawsuit go away."

Harris became very interested in financial dealings between Diebold and the NFB. She began researching, and soon found that the NFB had done a similar thing with banks -- suing many banks that did not have the right ATMs. Harris and Stephenson spoke on the phone, and he suggested finding out if Diebold came in as the cleanup vendor after the NFB sued. Further research showed that not only did Diebold benefit by providing the "solution" immediately after each NFB lawsuit, but that Diebold had made a $1 million contribution to the NFB earlier.

Enter Kelly Gutensohn, a blind mother of eight who single-handedly launched a racketeering lawsuit against Diebold and the NFB alleging collusion on the ATMs. Gutensohn's lawsuit is still alive, but struggling. Her work, and a photo she submitted to Black Box Voting showing Diebold execs penning a deal with the National Federation for the Blind, was posted on BlackBoxVoting.org along with a passionate letter from her talking about the bogus nature of the whole touch-screen thing.

There are better options than touch-screens for the blind, and now studies have shown that visually impaired voters actually do not find the machines to be user friendly.

Harris called Adam Cohen from the New York Times; almost immediately after the NYT story, the National Federation for the Blind piped down.

The NYT also found contributions, though smaller, for the American Association for Persons with Disabilities (AAPD) which rowdy activist Jim Dickson represents.

[Andy_Stephenson]

44. Not only did I suggest this....

"Harris and Stephenson spoke on the phone, and he suggested finding out if Diebold came in as the cleanup vendor after the NFB sued. Further research showed that not only did Diebold benefit by providing the "solution" immediately after each NFB lawsuit, but that Diebold had made a $1 million contribution to the NFB earlier."

I did the research and found MANY large money center banks were settling with the NFB and were then purchasing Diebold accessible ATM machines.

[Andy_Stephenson]

58. Hmmm truth is stranger than fiction.

1. The NFB sued Diebold and NCR over ATMs that weren't accessible. They
settled with NCR and Diebold, and the two firms retrofitted -- but only
Diebold paid money to the National Federation of the Blind. Diebold paid $1
million.

2. Then the NFB went on a lawsuit spree, suing a whole string of banks to
get them to buy retrofitted ATMs.

At this point, I called my co-researcher, Andy Stephenson. "Seems weird that
only Diebold paid cash in addition to retrofitting. Wonder if there have
been more payments from Diebold."

Instantly, he said, "The banks the NFB sued -- did they then buy Diebold?"

He went looking for that while I went looking for more.

I found:

3. The National Federation for the Blind announced a formal partnership with
Diebold on the ATMs. This was announced by NFB president Betsy Zabrowski on
Dec. 7, 2000 in an interview with the Daily Record, of Baltimore, MD. The
NFB embarked on a partnership -- or a shakedown cruise, depending on how you
look at it. NFB sues -- then says "We make this go away if you buy Diebold."

Andy found:

4. Yup. The banks that got sued then bought Diebold.

I found:

5. Inside source at Diebold: At least six banks are now considering dropping
Diebold ATMs. When Diebold did the redesign, quality problems arose and the
banks are unhappy. These banks include the biggies, reportedly Wells Fargo
and U.S. Bank.

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.ballistichelmet.heads/1494

[rumpel]

18. Ojai Person, thanks for taking the notes. I am amazed you had the

energy to post it last night.

I thought it was overall a great meeting, albeit my tailbone suffered somewhat at the end.

By the time the second panel came on I felt everyone in the room was already tired, even the video camera guys were sitting. It was a great idea to put Mr. Akili at the end, who would not even need a microphone, a very animatic and effective speaker, woke everyone up, the camera guys jumped up, energized everyone one more last time, to take that energy home.

[Helga Scow Stern]

20. Yes. It was quite draining.

But well worth it.

I just now woke up!

[Peace Patriot]

27. Ojai Person, I asked BlueTarheel this, and I want to ask you...

WHAT DO YOU FEEL NOW ABOUT WHAT OUR NEXT ACTIONS SHOULD BE?

In California?

Nationally?

What feels most urgent to you? What would be most effective?

What sense did you get from these speakers, about "what next"?

[FogerRox]

29. I've spent the last month trying to rebuild the Ahmanson connections

I've gotten pretty much nowhere

[Helga Scow Stern]

31. I hear you....

I'd have to say there were several main things I take from the event:

Watch what is happening with elections supervisor locally.

Continue educating others.

Continue reaching out to elected officials, pressuring them and letting them know we are watching and that we care.

Foremost now in California would be the redistricting, I would think, plus local level, plus nationally applying pressure to investigate Blackwell--that is a good start. We have damned good standing to ask for that since they are investigating Shelley for far, far less.

[AtLiberty]

28. Any media at this event?

[Wilms]

30. No Local TV. Don't know what journalists were there.

But it was MCed by a KPFK host.

Perhaps they've reported, or will even air some of it.

I understand that KPFK announced the event. That may have contributed to the SRO. I heard quite a few gasps in the audiece suggesting many there hadn't realized much of what is up with elections issues in general, let alone Ohio, NM.

NV got mentioned as a suspicious * win.

[Peace Patriot]

32. Kick for more reports and discussion. n/t

[roseBudd]

33. I put Ahmanson on BushCheated04.com!

Not quite finished but very close, still on it's staging server:


Shallow Throat: Fortunately the ultimate Plan B was in place. Thank God the companies that count votes are all owned by republicans


BushCheated04.com

[Peace Patriot]

36. Rosebud57, that is one great poster! n/t

[roseBudd]

38. It is a whole parody web site with an entire cast of "villians"

It is almost ready for fark.com.

Check it out on its staging server:

http://edwardsdavid.com/uploader/indexx.html

It would be really cool if someone did a parody of Loser by Beck

I'm a cheater, so why not impeach me.

[Helga Scow Stern]

34. Meet-up to communicate with Dem leaders in California

This looks promising. I will try to go to the meeting in SB and see what Nunez says. He is one of those who has been more supportive of Shelley.

************************************

Here's an opportunity for you to ask questions of our State's Democratic leaders:



Jon mentioned a statewide conference call at this Wednesday's Progressive Coalition Meetup. California for Democracy has arranged for the new Speaker of the CA State Assembly, Fabian Nunez, to address all DFA meet-ups statewide on a conference call March 2nd. The Speaker will talk about the Governor and ways the grassroots can fight the Bush/Schwarzenegger agenda in their own backyards. Fabian has been coordinating specific anti-Arnold legislation and actions for the grassroots to take with folks like documentarian Robert Greenwald and Arianna Huffington. In Santa Barbara, we'll also be hearing live from Hannah-Beth Jackson about her new statewide organization, and we'll connect these ideas for activism with our local progressive groups.



So far there are 23 Meetups in California participating in the conference call, including:



Santa Barbara Progressive Coalition
San Luis Obispo
DFA-LA
Fresno
Oakland DFA
Palm Springs / Coachella
San Francisco 4 Democracy
Santa Cruz
San Mateo County
LA / South Bay
DFA Temecula
Walnut Creek
Silicon Valley
Valley for Democracy
Sacramento
Thousand Oaks
San Jose



The Speaker will answer 3 or 4 pre-selected questions from Meetups across the State. If you have a question, please submit it to me ([e-mail] ) by Tuesday at 9pm, and I'll submit all the questions from our Meetup to the hosts of the conference call.



Thank you,

Susan

[Wilms]

35. Hey OP. This looks like new thread material to me...

:shrug:

[Peace Patriot]

37. GO HERE for discussion of the Calif. meetup...

...and help us out with formulating questions for the new CA Assembly Speaker. Help needed today:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x336394

[msongs]

56. Pls read our proposal for a paper ballot here in California -->

its at www.msongs.com/vvpb.htm

responses welcome. copy it, pass it around, whatever you like.

we want to hear from a coalition like greens, libertarians, dems and repubs who want open elections.

hey, what happened to dems in the east could also happen to repubs somewhere else.


Msongs
www.msongs.com/liberaltshirts.htm

[JunkYardDogg]

39. Carl Rove Booked "GREAT WHITE" to play there

But they never showed up
Rove is really Pissed

[Stevepol]

45. Great posts all!!! This should be kicked black & blue n/t

[sacxtra]

47. Electronic Fraud is INVISIBLE. Don't you get it?

If they didn't cover this, then the meeting was a WASTE OF TIME.