The Story of Voter Fraud in America

By definition, a Democracy is a government of the people. As Senator Barbara Boxer argues, “Every citizen of this country who is registered to vote should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth of their community, their vote has as much weight as the vote of any senator, any congressperson, any president, any cabinet member, or any CEO of any Fortune 500 Corporation.” And on inauguration day of any leader Americans, even losers, “Accept the outcome, knowing that, although disappointed, they can rest assured that they had their chance, and that will soon have another. The process allows the victors to govern legitimately,” says Steven Freeman.

In years past, the number of citizens actually casting votes have dwindled, as many feel the controlling parties are “too similar” and that casting a vote is “a waste of time.” In these cases, voters argue that their vote is unimportant because their options are limited. This, however, undesireable a scenario, is not necessarily unfair. After all, to a large extent, evaluations of politicians in this country are far from objective, often based on misinformation, ignorance, or apathy. However, implicit in this complaint, is that their vote, if cast, could possibly make a difference. It would seem a moot point to argue about the quality of options if it is obvious your vote would not even be counted.

As difficult as it might be to imagine, our government has been completely hijacked by voter fraud. The evidence is now overwhelming and down-right terrifying. This is not conspiracy theory or some other sinister, unsubstantiated claim made by crack-pots hidden behind usernames in shadowy chatrooms. The evidence is very public, and very real. Take for example a few questions asked by Senator Barabar Boxer last year defending her objection to the verification of Ohio voter results in the 2004 election:

• Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote? Why were voters at Kenyon College, for example, made to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because there were only two machines for 1,300 voters?
• Why did poor and predominantly African-American communities have disproportionately long waits?
• Why in Franklin County did election officials only use 2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were 42 of those machines in predominantly African-American districts?
• Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 voters leave polling places, out of frustration, without having voted? How many more never bothered to vote after they heard about this?
• Why is it when 638 people voted at a precinct in Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra votes to George Bush? Thankfully, they fixed it – but how many other votes did the computers get wrong?
• Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of electronic voting machines in downtown precincts, while adding them in the suburbs? This also led to long lines.
• In Cleveland, why were there thousands of provisional ballots disqualified after poll workers gave faulty instructions to voters?

And Steven Freeman, in his article entitled, “Democracy’s End,” asserts that, “An investigation limited to Ohio by members of the House Judiciary Committee has substantiated:

• The vote was suppressed. Absentee ballots were unmailed or lost. Citizens registering to vote faced obstacles such as rejection of forms not “printed on white, uncoated paper of not less than 80 lb. text weight.” A scarcity of voting machines in Democratic strongholds resulted in waits of more than eight hours while Republican areas had surplus machines. Misinformation was circulated about polling place locations. Provisional ballots were wrongly disqualified.
• There was apparent vote fraud. In some Democratic precincts 25 percent of voters reportedly did not vote for president. In Cleveland votes were switched. In three contiguous counties Kerry mysteriously ran far behind both Gore in 2000 and unfunded Democratic candidates for lower offices. Appalachian Ohio experienced extraordinarily high voter registration and turnout that was inconsistent with precinct records.
• The vote was counted and recounted in secret. Warren County locked out count observers because the FBI allegedly said there was a terrorist threat, a fact that the FBI has denied. Recounts violated state law in that in pre-selected precincts they were conducted in the absence of observers. Representatives of a voting system manufacturers improperly manipulated the recount.”

These revelations have prompted observers like Margaret Kimberely of Black Commentators, to argue that, “a defining issue for any banana republic is a non-existent or corrupt electoral system. For the second presidential election in a row thousands of Americans were denied their right to vote or voted without the certainty of knowing that their ballots would be counted.”

The first thing I asked myself, was how was this really possible? After all, it is one thing to assert that there were irregularities, but to substantiate how such irregularities could occur is quite another. However, Old American Century provides a few helpful facts with which to dispel some doubts. I have organized the facts to make three specific arguments: There is no oversight in our voting system; there is blatant fraud and bias in our current voting system; and finally, that this fraud and bias, with the aid of non-existent transparency, caused a fraudulent result in 2004.

No Oversight

• There is no federal agency to oversee the voting machine industry, despite how necessary voting machines are to maintaining Democracy.
• 80% of all votes in the United States are counted by two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
• ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
• Diebold touch screen voting machines have no paper trail for any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify data coming out of the machine is the same as was legitimately put in by voters.
• 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
• California banned the use of Diebold voting machines because the security was faulty.
• The vice president of Diebold and the President of ES&S are brothers.

Fraud & Bias

• Diebold employed five convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
• Jeff Dean, convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, was the VP of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. He was retained as a consultant for Diebold and responsible for the optical scanner software now used in most of the U.S.
• Software programmer Clinton Curtis admitted in a notarized affidavit that he was directed by (future Republican Congressman) Tom Feeney to develop a “vote stealing” program to “flip” votes from a winning candidate to a losing candidate.
• Tom Feeney also had “exclusion lists” for reducing or blocking the “black vote.”
• The Chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush organizer who wrote in 2003, that he was “Committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
• Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairmen of ES&S and was elected as Nebraska Senator based on ES&S counted votes.
• Hagel, long-time associated with the Bush family, was caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

2004 “Problems”

• Diebold is based in Ohio
• None of the International election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
• Local News Media was barred from their Ballot count in Warren County due to a terrorist threat, later found to be bogus by the FBI.
• Bush received 4,258 votes in Ohio’s Franklin County. Only 638 voters cast ballots.
• ALL voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush and republican candidates.
• Serious voting anomalies in Florida which favored Bush have been mathematically demonstrated and experts ask for further investigation.
• ALL exit polls matched in the 2004 election except for Florida and Ohio.

It is certainly not easy to believe that Democracy is ending in America. After all, the very fabric of our society implies that voters have power. There are plenty of reasons to doubt initially, to reproach this information as faulty, biased, or simply erroneous. Nevertheless, this is largely certified information, available in the public domain. And I would certainly hope that there is information out there that proves this data to be either false or largely irrelevant. I haven’t found it.

If we really think about it, is this really so hard to believe? These voting machines exist. Fraud has existed before, long before voting machines even existed. After the 2000 election, were there not enough doubts in our minds? The issue is not believing me, Freeman, Boxer, OAC, or anyone else. The issue is finding for yourself if this is true, and if so, doing something about it. Before it is too late.