Geffen Ignites Clinton-Obama Feud

[Warham]

After re-entering the political circles with a star-studded fund-raiser for Barack Obama this week, it didn't take long for David Geffen to join the political fray.

In fact, he became the central focus of the political news cycle on Wednesday. His sharp criticisms of Hillary Clinton and her husband in a New York Times column ignited a war of words between the campaigns of Obama and Clinton, bringing to a head long-simmering rivalries for donors between the two superstar presidential contenders. That's not to mention a longtime resentment Geffen has held against the Clintons since they left the White House in 2001.

It also raised issues of just how responsible a campaign should be for the words that come from its donors, with the Clinton camp calling on Obama to return the money he helped raised at the Beverly Hilton fundraiser on Tuesday, a hefty sum of $1.3 million. Obama's campaign refused, and Obama himself said, "It's not clear to me why I am apologizing for someone else's remark."

At issue is an interview that Geffen gave to Maureen Dowd, in which he characterized Hillary Clinton as a calculating figure who can't win and her husband as "a reckless guy."

"Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease it's troubling," Geffen said, among other comments. He also confirmed that Steven Spielberg raised the Clintons' hackles when he agreed to co-host the Obama fundraiser and not also raise money for Hillary. He now plans to raise money for her campaign as well.

And Geffen targeted Clinton for her 2002 vote to authorize President Bush to use force in Iraq.

"It's not a very big thing to say, 'I made a mistake' on the war and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't," Geffen told Dowd. "She's so advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms."

Throughout much of the 1990s, Geffen was among the Clintons' closest donors. The President stayed at his place when he was in town, and Geffen in turn was given the privilege of overnighting in the Lincoln bedroom.

But their close relationship soured by the end of Clinton's term, culminating in a fallout over Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich and denying one to Leonard Peltier, whom Geffen was pushing for release. Geffen has seldom spoke to the Clintons since, if at all, and largely removed himself from presidential politics until this year.

"Marc Rich getting pardoned?" Geffen said. "An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes of face justice? Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believed in."

Clinton's spokesman, Howard Wolfson, fought back by trying to link Geffen's comments to that of Obama's campaign, and called on them to remove Geffen as an Obama campaign chair and to refute his comments.

"By refusing to disavow the personal attacks from his biggest fundraiser against Senator Clinton and President Clinton, Senator Obama has called into serious question whether he really believes his own rhetoric. How can Senator Obama denounce the politics of slash and burn yesterday while his own campaign is espousing the politics of trash today?"

Obama's campaign, however, was seemingly caught in the middle of a matter that they characterized as being between Geffen and the Clintons.

"We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters," said Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs. "It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom."

In a statement, Geffen said later that, "Despite reports to the contrary, I am not the campaign finance chair and have no role in the Obama campaign, nor will I, other than to offer my strongest possible personal support for his candidacy."

Hillary Clinton tried to stay above the fray, and was asked about it at a candidates forum in Carson City, Nevada. "I sure don't want Democrats of supporters of Democrats to be engaging in the politics of personal destruction." Obama was in Iowa campaigning and declined to participate.

Clinton has long-standing ties to Hollywood, and a strong network of supporters and fund-raisers, but there has been much attention paid to the fact that she hasn't automatically won the backing of the vast majority of the industry. The irony is that the stinging comments came not from Republicans, but from a longtime, high-profile Democrat who knew her and her husband so well.

To little surprise, some of Clinton's Hollywood supporters expressed dismay over Geffen's comments, and characterized them as the resentments of a powerful mogul who didn't get his way.

But Obama's Hollywood supporters often cite their doubts about Hillary Clinton --- and whether she can come across as authentic --- as a reason they are backing Obama. As for the DreamWorks mogul's comments, one Obama Hollywood supporter called them "vintage" Geffen. He doesn't often grant on-the-record interviews, but when he does he is nothing short of outspoken.

It's doubtful that the entire affair will last much beyond a day --- or that it will play much of a factor in either side raising money in Hollywood. Clinton is scheduled to visit Los Angeles today for a series of receptions with high-dollar donors including events hosted by Haim Saban, Sim Farar, Ron Burkle and John Emerson and another gathering at CAA.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.forbes.com/digitalentertainment/2007/02/22/cx_tj_0222varietybiz.html

[FORD]

Mr. Geffen was wise to distance himself from Hillary. She is no Democrat, and is not worthy of my party's nomination.

[StretchOnBass]

The latest poll:
Clinton 37.6%
Obama 19.4%
Edwards 10.2%
Gore 11.2


Obama is still unknown at this point.

[Warham]

Clinton's got the nomination in the bag.

What exactly has he done in his political career? Can anyone here name ONE piece of legislation he's authored since he's been a politician, even going back to his days in the Illinois senate?

[Warham]

FORD,

Will you be voting for Ralph Nader next year?

[FORD]

Originally posted by Warham
FORD,

Will you be voting for Ralph Nader next year?

If a proper nominee doesn't materialize, I'll write in Howard Dean.

[Warham]

Howard Dean???

Him again?

[FORD]

He's a better candidate than anyone officially running at the moment. Just as he turned around the Democratic party, he would turn this country around for the better.

[Warham]

He turned around the Democratic Party??? When did this happen?

Isn't anything less than winning the White House a disappointment?

[hideyoursheep]

Originally posted by Warham
He turned around the Democratic Party??? When did this happen?

Isn't anything less than winning the White House a disappointment?


Well, look who has it.....

and look at what they've done with it.

How's about turning that around?

Thank God for the 2-term limit.

[hideyoursheep]

Originally posted by Warham
What exactly has he done in his political career? Can anyone here name ONE piece of legislation he's authored since he's been a politician, even going back to his days in the Illinois senate?

Name for me 1 thing Dubyah has done successfully since 2000....

Or as Govenor of Texas....

What happened to that "political capital" he was going to spend?

Yes, he fucked that up,too.

Ought to be a short list.

Hell, I'll let you start from 1970.

[Warham]

You first.

[Guitar Shark]

It's a really sad state of affairs when the two "favored" Democratic nominees are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. America is not ready to vote for a woman president or a black president, and these are the two media darlings? SAD.

[hideyoursheep]

Originally posted by Warham
You first. :D

[hideyoursheep]

What's wrong with Chuck Hagle?

[FORD]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
America is not ready to vote for a woman president or a black president, and these are the two media darlings? SAD.

That's exactly WHY they are the whore media darlings. The corporatists want more of the same fascism, and should Hillary accidentally get nominated and win, they'll get it anyway.

[FORD]

Originally posted by hideyoursheep
What's wrong with Chuck Hagle?

Republicans won't vote for him because he opposes the PNAC warmongering agenda.

I won't vote for him because he was one of the people who started electro-fraud "voting".

[hideyoursheep]

Originally posted by FORD
Republicans won't vote for him because he opposes the PNAC warmongering agenda.

I won't vote for him because he was one of the people who started electro-fraud "voting".

Really?.....

I always thought it was a BushCo invention.

[hideyoursheep]

Originally posted by FORD
Republicans won't vote for him because he opposes the PNAC warmongering agenda.


This is WHY he should run for the GOP...

Not many repukes still hold said agenda in such high regard - he could provide an alternative.

[Oxford]

We are still a year away before we have our first caucus voting.So it just shows you this is going to be a mud slinging fight within the same party a first blackman and a first woman running for commader in chief.The damage will probably be so high if either one of them is to win the ticket to ask them to join them as a VP role.It still a long ways off but youre looking at alot of cash flow.

[FORD]

Originally posted by hideyoursheep
Really?.....

I always thought it was a BushCo invention.

No, they just benefit from it.....

Published on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 by the Free Press, Columbus, Ohiio
Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
by Bob Fitrakis


The Governor of Ohio, Bob Taft, and other prominent state officials, commute to their downtown Columbus offices on Broad Street. This is the so-called “Golden Finger,” the safe route through the majority black inner-city near east side. The Broad Street BP station, just east of downtown, is the place where affluent suburbanites from Bexley can stop, gas up, get their coffee and New York Times. Those in need of cash visit BP’s Diebold manufactured CashSource+ ATM machine which provides a paper receipt of the transaction to all customers upon request.

Many of Taft’s and President George W. Bush’s major donors, like Diebold’s current CEO Walden “Wally” O’Dell, reside in Columbus’ northwest suburb Upper Arlington. O’Dell is on record stating that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President” this year. On September 26, 2003, he hosted an Ohio Republican Party fundraiser for Bush’s re-election at his Cotswold Manor mansion. Tickets to the fundraiser cost $1000 per couple, but O’Dell’s fundraising letter urged those attending to “Donate or raise $10,000 for the Ohio Republican Party.”

According to the Columbus Dispatch: “Last year, O’Dell and his wife Patricia, campaigned for passage of two liquor options that made their portion of Tremont Road wet.

On November 5, Upper Arlington residents narrowly passed measures that allowed fundraising parties to offer more than beer, even though his 10,800-square-foot home is a residence, a permit is required because alcohol is included in the price of fundraising tickets. O’Dell is also allowed to serve “beer, wine and mixed drinks” at Sunday fundraisers.

O’Dell’s fund-raising letter followed on the heels of a visit to President Bush’s Crawford Texas ranch by “Pioneers and Rangers,” the designation for people who had raised $100,000 or more for Bush’s re-election.

If Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has his way, Diebold will receive a contract to supply touch screen electronic voting machines for much of the state. None of these Diebold machines will provide a paper receipt of the vote.

Diebold, located in North Canton, Ohio, does its primary business in ATM and ticket-vending machines. Critics of Diebold point out that virtually every other machine the company makes provides a paper trail to verify the machine’s calculations. Oddly, only the voting machines lack this essential function.

State Senator Teresa Fedor of Toledo introduced Senate Bill 167 late last year mandating that every voting machine in Ohio generate a “voter verified paper audit trail.” Secretary of State Blackwell has denounced any attempt to require a paper trail as an effort to “derail” election reform. Blackwell’s political career is an interesting one: he emerged as a black activist in Cincinnati supporting municipal charter reform, became an elected Democrat, then an Independent, and now is a prominent Republican with his eyes on the Governor’s mansion.

Voter fraud

A joint study by the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology following the 2000 election determined that between 1.5 and 2 million votes were not counted due to confusing paper ballots or faulty equipment. The federal government’s solution to the problem was to pass the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

One of the law’s stated goals was “Replacement of punch card and lever voting machines.” The new voting machines would be high-tech touch screen computers, but if there’s no paper trail, how do you know if there’s been a computer glitch? How can the results be trusted? And how do you recount to see if the actual votes match the computer’s tally?

Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century, argues that without a paper trail, these machines are open to massive voter fraud. Diebold has already placed some 50,000 machines in 37 states and their track record is causing Harris, Johns Hopkins University professors and others great concern.

Johns Hopkins researchers at the Information Security Institute issued a report declaring that Diebold’s electronic voting software contained “stunning flaws.” The researchers concluded that vote totals could be altered at the voting machines and by remote access. Diebold vigorously refuted the Johns Hopkins report, claiming the researchers came to “a multitude of false conclusions.”

Perhaps to settle the issue, someone illegally hacked into the Diebold Election Systems website in March 2003 and stole internal documents from the company and posted them online. Diebold went to court to stop, according to court records, the “wholesale reproduction” of some 13,000 pages of company material.

The Associated Press reported in November 2003 that: “Computer programmers, ISPs and students at [at] least 20 universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology received cease and desist letters” from Diebold. A group of Swarthmore College students launched an “electronic civil disobedience” campaign to keep the hacked documents permanently posted on the Internet.

Harris writes that the hacked documents expose how the mainstream media reversed their call projecting Al Gore as winner of Florida after someone “subtracted 16,022 votes from Al Gore, and in still some undefined way, added 4000 erroneous votes to George W. Bush.” Hours later, the votes were returned. One memo from Lana Hires of Global Election Systems, now Diebold, reads: “I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16,022 [votes] when it was uploaded.” Another hacked internal memo, written by Talbot Iredale, Senior VP of Research and Development for Diebold Election Systems, documents “unauthorized” replacement votes in Volusia County.

Harris also uncovered a revealing 87-page CBS news report and noted, “According to CBS documents, the erroneous 20,000 votes in Volusia was directly responsible to calling the election for Bush.” The first person to call the election for Bush was Fox election analyst John Ellis, who had the advantage of conferring with his prominent cousins George W. Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Incestuous relationships

Increasingly, investigative writers seeking an explanation have looked to Diebold’s history for clues. 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 [Discovery] 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.

Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system. SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board.

Diebold’s track record

Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow. Alastair Thompson, writing for scoop.co of New Zealand, explored whether or not the 2002 U.S. mid-term elections were “fixed by electronic voting machines supplied by Republican-affiliated companies.” The scoop investigation concluded that: “The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.” Those machines were supplied by Diebold.

Wired News reported that “. . . a former worker in Diebold’s Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machine before the state’s 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials.” Questions were raised in Texas when three Republican candidates in Comal County each received exactly the same number of votes – 18,181.

Following the 2003 California election, an audit of the company revealed that Diebold Election Systems voting machines installed uncertified software in all 17 counties using its equipment.

Former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell writes that one of the favorite tactics of the CIA during the Reagan-Bush administration in the 1980s was to control countries by manipulating the election process. “CIA apologists leap up and say, ‘Well, most of these things are not so bloody.’ And that’s true. You’re giving politicians some money so he’ll throw his party in this direction or that one, or make false speeches on your behalf, or something like that. It may be non-violent, but it’s still illegal intervention in other country’s affairs, raising the question of whether or not we’re going to have a world in which laws, rules of behavior are respected,” Stockwell wrote. Documents illustrate that the Reagan and Bush administration supported computer manipulation in both Noriega’s rise to power in Panama and in Marcos’ attempt to retain power in the Philippines. Many of the Reagan administration’s staunchest supporters were members of the Council on National Policy.

The perfect solution

Ohio Senator Fedor continues to fight valiantly for Senate Bill 167 and the Holy Grail of the “voter verified paper audit trail.” Proponents of a paper trail were emboldened when Athan Gibbs, President and CEO of TruVote International, demonstrated a voting machine at a vendor’s fair in Columbus that provides two separate voting receipts.

The first paper receipt displays the voter’s touch screen selection under plexiglass that falls into a lockbox after the voter approves. Also, the TruVote system provides the voter with a receipt that includes a unique voter ID and pin number which can be used to call in to a voter audit internet connection to make sure the vote cast was actually counted.

Brooks Thomas, Coordinator of Elections in Tennessee, stated, “I’ve not seen anything that compares to the Gibbs’ TruVote validation system. . . .” The Assistant Secretary of State of Georgia, Terrel L. Slayton, Jr., claimed Gibbs had come up with the “perfect solution.”

Still, there remains opposition from Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell. His spokesperson Carlo LoParo recently pointed out that federal mandates under HAVA do not require a paper trail: “. . . if Congress changes the federal law to require it [a paper trail], we’ll certainly make that a requirement of our efforts.” LoParo went on to accuse advocates of a paper trail of attempting to “derail” voting reform.

U.S. Representative Rush Holt introduced HR 2239, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, that would require electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail so that voters may verify that their screen touches match their actual vote. Election officials would also have a paper trail for recounts.

As Blackwell pressures the Ohio legislature to adopt electronic voting machines without a paper trail, Athan Gibbs wonders, “Why would you buy a voting machine from a company like Diebold which provides a paper trail for every single machine it makes except its voting machines? And then, when you ask it to verify its numbers, it hides behind ‘trade secrets.’”

Maybe the Diebold decision makes sense, if you believe, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger, that democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.

Dr. Bob Fitrakis is Senior Editor of The Free Press , a political science professor, and author of numerous articles and books.

© 2004 The Columbus Free Press

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

[Nitro Express]

Hillary is a carpet bagger opportunist who became a New York senator so she could have a trampoline to run for the presidency from. After 8 years of the Bush family, I'm not exactly excited to see another family political business trying to grab the white house. Even if Bill Clinton was the best president in US history (which he of course wasn't), I have a problem putting a former president back into the white house again even if their spouse is president.

I would much rather see new blood in the executive branch. New blood that never had anything to do with getting us in Iraq.

[FORD]

...and won't have anything to do with getting us in Iran.

[scamper]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
America is not ready to vote for a woman president or a black president

If they were the right candidates I think America would vote for them, but I'm usually wrong...

[hideyoursheep]

Originally posted by FORD
No, they just benefit from it.....

Published on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 by the Free Press, Columbus, Ohiio
Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
by Bob Fitrakis


The Governor of Ohio, Bob Taft, and other prominent state officials, commute to their downtown Columbus offices on Broad Street. This is the so-called “Golden Finger,” the safe route through the majority black inner-city near east side. The Broad Street BP station, just east of downtown, is the place where affluent suburbanites from Bexley can stop, gas up, get their coffee and New York Times. Those in need of cash visit BP’s Diebold manufactured CashSource+ ATM machine which provides a paper receipt of the transaction to all customers upon request.

Many of Taft’s and President George W. Bush’s major donors, like Diebold’s current CEO Walden “Wally” O’Dell, reside in Columbus’ northwest suburb Upper Arlington. O’Dell is on record stating that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President” this year. On September 26, 2003, he hosted an Ohio Republican Party fundraiser for Bush’s re-election at his Cotswold Manor mansion. Tickets to the fundraiser cost $1000 per couple, but O’Dell’s fundraising letter urged those attending to “Donate or raise $10,000 for the Ohio Republican Party.”

According to the Columbus Dispatch: “Last year, O’Dell and his wife Patricia, campaigned for passage of two liquor options that made their portion of Tremont Road wet.

On November 5, Upper Arlington residents narrowly passed measures that allowed fundraising parties to offer more than beer, even though his 10,800-square-foot home is a residence, a permit is required because alcohol is included in the price of fundraising tickets. O’Dell is also allowed to serve “beer, wine and mixed drinks” at Sunday fundraisers.

O’Dell’s fund-raising letter followed on the heels of a visit to President Bush’s Crawford Texas ranch by “Pioneers and Rangers,” the designation for people who had raised $100,000 or more for Bush’s re-election.

If Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has his way, Diebold will receive a contract to supply touch screen electronic voting machines for much of the state. None of these Diebold machines will provide a paper receipt of the vote.

Diebold, located in North Canton, Ohio, does its primary business in ATM and ticket-vending machines. Critics of Diebold point out that virtually every other machine the company makes provides a paper trail to verify the machine’s calculations. Oddly, only the voting machines lack this essential function.

State Senator Teresa Fedor of Toledo introduced Senate Bill 167 late last year mandating that every voting machine in Ohio generate a “voter verified paper audit trail.” Secretary of State Blackwell has denounced any attempt to require a paper trail as an effort to “derail” election reform. Blackwell’s political career is an interesting one: he emerged as a black activist in Cincinnati supporting municipal charter reform, became an elected Democrat, then an Independent, and now is a prominent Republican with his eyes on the Governor’s mansion.

Voter fraud

A joint study by the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology following the 2000 election determined that between 1.5 and 2 million votes were not counted due to confusing paper ballots or faulty equipment. The federal government’s solution to the problem was to pass the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

One of the law’s stated goals was “Replacement of punch card and lever voting machines.” The new voting machines would be high-tech touch screen computers, but if there’s no paper trail, how do you know if there’s been a computer glitch? How can the results be trusted? And how do you recount to see if the actual votes match the computer’s tally?

Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century, argues that without a paper trail, these machines are open to massive voter fraud. Diebold has already placed some 50,000 machines in 37 states and their track record is causing Harris, Johns Hopkins University professors and others great concern.

Johns Hopkins researchers at the Information Security Institute issued a report declaring that Diebold’s electronic voting software contained “stunning flaws.” The researchers concluded that vote totals could be altered at the voting machines and by remote access. Diebold vigorously refuted the Johns Hopkins report, claiming the researchers came to “a multitude of false conclusions.”

Perhaps to settle the issue, someone illegally hacked into the Diebold Election Systems website in March 2003 and stole internal documents from the company and posted them online. Diebold went to court to stop, according to court records, the “wholesale reproduction” of some 13,000 pages of company material.

The Associated Press reported in November 2003 that: “Computer programmers, ISPs and students at [at] least 20 universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology received cease and desist letters” from Diebold. A group of Swarthmore College students launched an “electronic civil disobedience” campaign to keep the hacked documents permanently posted on the Internet.

Harris writes that the hacked documents expose how the mainstream media reversed their call projecting Al Gore as winner of Florida after someone “subtracted 16,022 votes from Al Gore, and in still some undefined way, added 4000 erroneous votes to George W. Bush.” Hours later, the votes were returned. One memo from Lana Hires of Global Election Systems, now Diebold, reads: “I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16,022 [votes] when it was uploaded.” Another hacked internal memo, written by Talbot Iredale, Senior VP of Research and Development for Diebold Election Systems, documents “unauthorized” replacement votes in Volusia County.

Harris also uncovered a revealing 87-page CBS news report and noted, “According to CBS documents, the erroneous 20,000 votes in Volusia was directly responsible to calling the election for Bush.” The first person to call the election for Bush was Fox election analyst John Ellis, who had the advantage of conferring with his prominent cousins George W. Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Incestuous relationships

Increasingly, investigative writers seeking an explanation have looked to Diebold’s history for clues. 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 [Discovery] 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.

Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system. SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board.

Diebold’s track record

Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow. Alastair Thompson, writing for scoop.co of New Zealand, explored whether or not the 2002 U.S. mid-term elections were “fixed by electronic voting machines supplied by Republican-affiliated companies.” The scoop investigation concluded that: “The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.” Those machines were supplied by Diebold.

Wired News reported that “. . . a former worker in Diebold’s Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machine before the state’s 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials.” Questions were raised in Texas when three Republican candidates in Comal County each received exactly the same number of votes – 18,181.

Following the 2003 California election, an audit of the company revealed that Diebold Election Systems voting machines installed uncertified software in all 17 counties using its equipment.

Former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell writes that one of the favorite tactics of the CIA during the Reagan-Bush administration in the 1980s was to control countries by manipulating the election process. “CIA apologists leap up and say, ‘Well, most of these things are not so bloody.’ And that’s true. You’re giving politicians some money so he’ll throw his party in this direction or that one, or make false speeches on your behalf, or something like that. It may be non-violent, but it’s still illegal intervention in other country’s affairs, raising the question of whether or not we’re going to have a world in which laws, rules of behavior are respected,” Stockwell wrote. Documents illustrate that the Reagan and Bush administration supported computer manipulation in both Noriega’s rise to power in Panama and in Marcos’ attempt to retain power in the Philippines. Many of the Reagan administration’s staunchest supporters were members of the Council on National Policy.

The perfect solution

Ohio Senator Fedor continues to fight valiantly for Senate Bill 167 and the Holy Grail of the “voter verified paper audit trail.” Proponents of a paper trail were emboldened when Athan Gibbs, President and CEO of TruVote International, demonstrated a voting machine at a vendor’s fair in Columbus that provides two separate voting receipts.

The first paper receipt displays the voter’s touch screen selection under plexiglass that falls into a lockbox after the voter approves. Also, the TruVote system provides the voter with a receipt that includes a unique voter ID and pin number which can be used to call in to a voter audit internet connection to make sure the vote cast was actually counted.

Brooks Thomas, Coordinator of Elections in Tennessee, stated, “I’ve not seen anything that compares to the Gibbs’ TruVote validation system. . . .” The Assistant Secretary of State of Georgia, Terrel L. Slayton, Jr., claimed Gibbs had come up with the “perfect solution.”

Still, there remains opposition from Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell. His spokesperson Carlo LoParo recently pointed out that federal mandates under HAVA do not require a paper trail: “. . . if Congress changes the federal law to require it [a paper trail], we’ll certainly make that a requirement of our efforts.” LoParo went on to accuse advocates of a paper trail of attempting to “derail” voting reform.

U.S. Representative Rush Holt introduced HR 2239, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, that would require electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail so that voters may verify that their screen touches match their actual vote. Election officials would also have a paper trail for recounts.

As Blackwell pressures the Ohio legislature to adopt electronic voting machines without a paper trail, Athan Gibbs wonders, “Why would you buy a voting machine from a company like Diebold which provides a paper trail for every single machine it makes except its voting machines? And then, when you ask it to verify its numbers, it hides behind ‘trade secrets.’”

Maybe the Diebold decision makes sense, if you believe, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger, that democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.

Dr. Bob Fitrakis is Senior Editor of The Free Press , a political science professor, and author of numerous articles and books.

© 2004 The Columbus Free Press

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


FORD.... "coming through"like Chrysler - Plymouth.:baaa:

I lived in Upper Arlington before it was overrun by NeoCunt Yuppies.

[Nitro Express]

The whole Iran/Iraq deal was sold and pushed by the Zionist Jews because they are buddies with the neocons and have powerful international banking ties.

This might sound anti-semantic and almost Nazi like, but it's the truth.

Israel does not have the resources to keep it's enemies at bay, so they are using their powerful Jewish political/financial influence in the US to use our military, treasury, and equipment to fight their war for them.

They would love us to level every major enemy of Israel in the middle east.

People need to wake up to this and people need to wake up to the fact that Israel is not our friend. Israel attacked one of our ships (USS Liberty) and shot it up killing and wounding the crew while it flew the US Flag and it's name and registry were clearly visiable in broad daylight.

Israel is not our friend.

[Warham]

I'm putting my early money on Giuliani winning the presidency next year.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
I'm putting my early money on Giuliani winning the presidency next year.

LOL The guy who would be nothing if terrorists hadn't attacked his city...

He's a joke, and you'll see why...

BTW, the evangelicals think he's a Machiavellian scumbag, and they're right (but for the wrong reasons).

[Warham]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
LOL The guy who would ne nothing if terrorists hadn't attacked his city...

He's a joke, and you'll see why...

BTW, the evangelicals think he's a Machiavellian scumbag, and thy';re right (but for the wrong reasons).

He'd smoke Hillary if they were running against each other, and it'll happen.

Believe me, he doesn't thrill me, but my money is on the man from New York City.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
He'd smoke Hillary if they were running against each other, and it'll happen.

Making predictions two years away?

Funny, some iin the GOP think Hillary's 'unbeatable'...

And the fact that Rudolph Ghoulinani is a cunt that any religious person will think is a gutter whore is a pretty good indication that there are many fireworks yet to fly in the GOP nominating process...

[Warham]

There's only three people that could get the GOP nomination. You know the names.

Giuliani has the best chance in my mind of winning the battle.

Besides, since you're a Republican, you'll be voting for one of them in two years.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
There's only three people that could get the GOP nomination. You know the names.

Giuliani has the best chance in my mind of winning the battle.

Besides, since you're a Republican, you'll be voting for one of them in two years.

LMFAO!

If your "best chance" is a guy that told his ex-wife that he was divorcing her --on TV (while she was dying of cancer)...

Well, good fucking luck!

And why do I have to vote for anybody because of party affiliation?

[Nickdfresh]

BTW, his mayoral approval ratings were in the shitter before 9/11...

[Warham]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
And why do I have to vote for anybody because of party affiliation?

You're about as affiliated with the Republican party as Joe Biden is affiliated with the NAACP.

[Warham]

I actually kind of like Huckabee, but there's not a chance in hell he's going to win the nomination.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
You're about as affiliated with the Republican party as Joe Biden is affiliated with the NAACP.

Much like you're about as affiliated with the "Christian" church as Anton Levey is the Pope...

[FORD]

Originally posted by Warham
I actually kind of like Huckabee, but there's not a chance in hell he's going to win the nomination.

You believe that this guy......

http://www.newyorkslime.com/giuliani-drag.jpg

..... will be the nominee of the Unchristian Coalition???

Huckabee might have a ridiculous last name, but at least he fits the extreme right platform. Rudy doesn't. Pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-transvestite, pro-divorce. Hell, if he wasn't up to his eyeballs in the 911 coverup, he'd have nothing for the fascists to admire at all.

I don't see how he could win, unless the Repukes DIEBOLD their own primaries.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Warham
There's only three people that could get the GOP nomination. You know the names.

Giuliani has the best chance in my mind of winning the battle.

Besides, since you're a Republican, you'll be voting for one of them in two years.

So now your 'BEST CHANCE' is a pro-choicer?

Is that how far your Grand Old Party has declined, you cannot even find an electable pro-lifer?

Most of your possible candidates are now serving time, or have resigned in disgrace....

The GOP is dead for the next 10 years.

How's your boys George Allen, or Rick Santorum these days?

LMMFAO

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Warham
I actually kind of like Huckabee, but there's not a chance in hell he's going to win the nomination.

Certainly not if YOU pick him :D

[Nickdfresh]

BTW, I may agree with Giuliani with more issues than I disagree with him on as he is a "liberal" Republican (actually, he's a moderate, but the kooks have moved the party's/nation's political discourse and ideological descriptions so far to the extreme right). But I find him to be a detestable cunt for reasons described above.