Why does the American public continuously choose to dismiss the one of the paramount, and influential technological inventions ever created, which has rapidly become the primary cause of extensive inhumane destruction to innocent lives worldwide? Electronic touch screen voting machines have vastly contributed to the immense devastation to the infrastructure of this nation, including the continuous constant disregard for the health status of our planet Earth, by falsely allowing the electing of neo-conservative political figures. If Diebold can easily give us receipts for our cash ATM withdrawals on a daily basis, how difficult would it be for them to give us one for our presidential vote once every 4 years? The importance of retaining individual paper receipts from every voting machine, or completely abolishing the usage of these machines entirely, will vastly help aid America in preserving what minute amount of integrity that is still remaining in our current electoral process.

Election Systems and Software (ES&S) , Diebold Voting Systems, and a British-based company Sequoia, control roughly 80% of the votes counted in the US. (Landesreport 1) ES&S proclaims to customers that their voting machines are the "industry's only integrated, end-to-end election management suite of solutions, with the only proven election management team in the world capable of simultaneously supporting multiple, major election events".(ESSVote 2) ES&S also is highly proud that they can offer, "one-stop-shop, full service election coordination from start to finish, ES&S solutions support the management of Voter Registration, Ballot Production, Warehousing and Delivery, Election Programming, Voter Education/Outreach, Voting, Counting and Tabulation, and Election Results Reporting."(ESS 2) This technology sure has come a long way to simplify the process, enhancing voting management capabilities. You could easily say that ES&S is equivalent to an Election Wal-mart. A store that fulfills all of your voting needs or desires whatever they may be. What an innovative idea, monitoring and managing the entire election process, without any hassle or unnecessary entanglements.
"ES&S has a client base of more than 1,700 users, implemented more than 30,000 optical scan tabulators in 43 states"(ESS 2). If 86% of the country allows ES&S to regulate elections, why shouldn't it become a uniform standard? They appear to have become an obvious national favorite in the voting machine market.

ES&S has steadily been on the rise to become an industry leader, "In 2003, 3,136 elections,
representing more than 4,583 contests… In 2004, ES&S supported more than 7,300 elections in the U.S". (ESS 2) That is over a 100% increase in election management in just one year. ES&S has the proud and distinct honor of creating, "The iVotronic…the first touch screen voting device officially certified for use in the State of Florida, and its innovative technology enables all voters, especially those visually impaired, to easily and correctly cast their vote in complete privacy. Approximately 97,000 ES&S iVotronic Touch Screen Voting Systems are now installed in 20 states."(ESS 2) Privacy is a must when voting (damn cheaters), and aiding the visually impaired during the election process is a humanistic and respectful gesture, which should surely contribute to acceptance, and positive character image of a company. These voting machine companies aren't all that evil, are they? "In 2002 Diebold enters the US self-service elections industry through the acquisition of Global Election Systems, a leader in touch-screen voting technology...Georgia becomes the first state to implement a uniform, state-wide, computerized touch-screen voting system"(Diebold 3). That is extremely impressive, controlling an entire states' election process in just your first year of entering the voting technology business.

The voting technology business is predominantly controlled by republican favoring corporations. The US government oversight of these corrupt machines is extremely limited, and possibly non-existent: due to "not a single federal agency" devoted to regulatory authority and oversight presiding "over the elections industry." These comments were made by Brian Hancock who is a spokesperson for the FEC, and Jorge Martinez, a spokesperson for the DOJ. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was the former president of the company AIS which had the contract to count 80% of the votes in his first senatorial election, in which he won as the underdog opponent. The Washington Post reported, "Hagel's senate victory…was the major republican upset in the November election." (Washington Post) Hagel won practically every
single demographic group in Nebraska, especially in African-American regions, where republican candidates had never won previous to this race. Mr. Hagel was also a million dollar investor in the company ES&S (Nebraska based) that counted the votes in his second election, which he won with an astronomical 83% of the vote. That 83% of the vote represents the largest victory ever, for any politically governing race in Nebraska history.(Mother Jones 5)

In 2004 life long republican Clinton Curtis produced a sworn affidavit and testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, and then passed a rigorous polygraph test, in regards to a program that he designed while he was the lead programmer of Yang Enterprises (YEI). This project was created in early of 2000 by republican congressman Tom Feeney of FL, to write an "undetectable when compiled" vote altering program. (Federal Affidavit 6). Mr. Curtis worked for YEI in Oviedo, FL (same district of R-Tom Feeney) as their top computer programmer, and met with the CEO of the company Mrs. Li Woan Yang on a daily basis. Mr. Curtis created numerous information sensitive programs for NASA and the State of Florida while working at YEI. In 2000 R-Tom Feeney was serving as corporate counsel and a registered lobbyist for YEI, when he began meeting with Clinton Curtis on a regular basis. Mr. Curtis assumed that reasoning behind the creation of this vote altering program was to detect or prevent any attempts made by the democrats to steal the election. R-Tom Feeney requested the construction of a prototype that was "(a) touch screen capable, (b) user should be able to trigger program without any additional equiptment, (c) the programming to accomplish this remain hidden even if the source code was inspected." (FA 6) Clinton Curtis told Feeney that, "it would be virtually impossible to hide such code written to change the voting results if anyone were to review the uncompiled source code". However, "if the code was compiled before anyone was allowed to review it than any vote fraud would remain invisible to detection." (FA 6) The solution was to use a already compiled code, then eliminate the source code
entirely, and if "no paper receipts" are present, then the votes could be easily flipped from one candidate to another, without any possibility of detection by using a standard algorithm.. (FA 6)

Throughout time, Mr. Curtis began questioning the motives behind congressman Feeney's project, and wondering if there was an alternate agenda. Mr. Curtis was appalled after hearing multiple disturbing remarks made by his fellow republican elector at YEI meetings, regarding implementing "exclusion lists" to reduce the black vote, and "the proper positioning of police patrols" which could even "further reduce the black vote by 25%".(FA 6) Mrs. Li Woan Yang (CEO of YEI) made it clear in one meeting saying, "to get this contract…this program is needed to control the vote south Florida" (FA 6). After completing a fully functioning voter manipulation program, Clinton Curtis decided to resign from YEI in late 2000, due to an honest conscious. But now the capabilities for mass corruption in the electoral process was put in the hands of an ex-running mate of Jeb Bush (1st governor bid in FL), and also known protégé of Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff, current member of the US House Judiciary Committee, R-Tom Feeney. Unfortunately the damage had already been done. Additional charges were presented during Mr. Curtis's affidavit, including the unlawful usage of sensitive information and databases being
sent to Mrs. Yang's (CEO) brother in China, who had previously been deported for charges of being a spy. (FA 6) The southeastern states seem to be a breeding ground for electronic voting fraud.

Don Siegelman is the only person in the history of Alabama to be elected to serve in all four of the top statewide elected offices (Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Governor). Siegelman had been acting in Alabama politics for 26 years prior to his illegal removal. In 1998, he won his initial election for the governorship in AL despite a massive pro-Republican population, by obtaining 57% of the popular vote, including 90% of the African-American vote. (AL Archieves 7) In 2002 Seigelman emerged victorious once again on election night for governor, in a tight race with his republican opponent Bill Riley. He aquired only 3,000 (official) more votes than his opponent received. This was not good news for GW Bush , Karl Rove and friends, who had previously held a fundraiser raising $4.2 million in one afternoon, in Montgomery, AL for his opposition. Seigelman was the first governor to openly oppose GW Bush during the 2000 election, due to his evaluation of Mr. Bush while working with him as governor, which he stated him to be, "not exceedingly bright" (Take Back the Media 8)

In one single county, Baldwin County, an extremely republican community, subsequent poll closure on election night (after midnight), after all observers had gone home, (democrat and republican) and all representatives of the media had left, publicly reporting Don Seigelman emerging victorious, continuing his governorship in AL, something unexplained occurred. The election officals, all of them republican, recounted the votes, losing 6,700 votes for Seigelman in one county (Baldwin), which was ample ammunition to switch the outcome of the election. Nobody at ES&S can explain what caused the votes to be flipped in the opposite direction. "Something happened. I don't have enough intelligence to say exactly what." (Mark Kelly, of Election Systems & Software, .thelandesreport ) Votes were certified the next morning (Tuesday) by the republican Secretary of State, which is an illegal action in the state of
AL, which requires all vote certification to not transpire until 12PM Friday following an election, in case of a recount. Don Seigleman woke up the next morning and turned on the TV and saw his opponent Bill Riley overturning the results public election. William Pryor, the then AL Attorney General and political consultant for Karl Rove, stated that he would throw anyone in jail who demanded a hand counted recount. William Pryor was appointed by GW Bush to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2004 following his reign as Alabama Attorney General. (State of Alabama 9)

Don Siegelman is widely known in Alabama for accomplishments regarding improving education, children advocacy, and local economic development. Siegelman had transformed AL education system immensely as governor, beginning by eliminating portable classrooms, raising teachers salaries, and creating the nationally recognized "Alabama Reading Initiative", which led AL to be ranked in the top five states recognized by the Fordham Foundations for the highest academic standards. He fabricated a "Office of School Readiness" that provides early childhood education opportunities to all children in AL age 4. (AL Archives 7) He even went as far as appointing AL's first children's commissioner, and children's cabinet Siegelman also brought numerous businesses to AL (Honda, Navisar, Fiat, Boeing, and Mercedes) which produced economic expansion, accompanied by developing "the State's first long-term strategic plan for economic growth". (AL Archieves 7) Mr. Seigelman was a political prisoner orginally sentenced to 7 years in a federal prison. He attempted to run for governor once again and was convicted for appointing a businessman Richard Scrushy to a state hospital board in exchange for a contribution to a campaign to fund education. He was tried in May 2006, one month before the democratic primary. An abundance of elected officials "from the president down, appoint people who contribute directly to their campaigns without facing criminal charges".(New York Times 9)

Just a few weeks ago, "60 minutes" aired a segment regarding Karl Rove, and William Pryor's
influence and the intentional unfair destruction to the life of Don Seigelman, making him into a political prisoner. During the broadcast of this highly publicized (in AL) and advertised (in AL) controversial segment, an entirely vacant screen and utter silence appeared for the duration of this entire segment (I'm not kidding). The whole state of Alabama's television screens went black while attempting to watch the Don Seigelman segment (if you were watching 60 minutes), which then miraculously ended as soon as the piece was over. The main AL television station stated cause, "computer glitch" and that they, "don't know how it happened." (Variety, FCC 10). FCC chairman Kevin Martin is currently leading an investigation into this mysterious black out. He recently ordered WHNT TV of Alabama to respond to multiple complaints which the FCC had received subsequent this obvious intentional distortion, of vital news to Alabama citizens. (Variety, FCC 10)

The possibility for the continuation of corruption is inevitable, unless we as the voting public organize, and attempt to enforce stricter guidelines for our national, state, and local elections. Voting machine failures have been constant since their creation in the late 60's. Today's technology and computer literate culture has enabled a machine to become our supreme decider of our ruling class, without any safeguards to determine the possible detection of fraudulent play. Eliminate them, eradicate them, before it is too late. If we don't collectively act now to better humanity today, there might not be a tomorrow for us to mourn in opposition.

Peace and Love to all,

Alexander Krokus
Portland, Oregon

References:

1.) http://www.thelandesreport.com/VotingMachineCompanies.htm, "Election Fraud and Irregulaties" , 2007, ,http://www.thelandesreport.com/VotingMachineErrors.htm, Mark Kelly, of Election Systems & Software, pg 9, 2002

2.) "About ES&S: Did You Know?", http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/dyk.html, 2008.

3.) "The History of Diebold", http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/history/history05.htm , Media Contact: Joseph Richardson, +1(330) 490-5562, richarj2@diebold.com, 2008.

4.) "Hagel's Senate Victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset of the November election." Washington Post, 1/13/97.

5.) http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html, Bob Fitrakis is editor, and Harvey Wasserman is senior editor, of the Columbus Free Press, 2004.

6.) Federal Affidavit executed on 12/06/04 by "Clinton Curtis," in the State of MD, pgs (1-4)

7.) Alabama Department of Archives & History, "Don Seigelman", 624 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, AL 36130-0100, (334) 353-4636, contact: Mark.Palmer@archives.alabama.gov

8.) Take Back the Media, "Interview with Don Seigelman months prior to his arrest", Julie Sigwart, 11/13/04 http://youtube.com/watch?v=ymqcU5zOPSg

9.) 1998-2008 State of Alabama Attorney General's Office, "William Pryor", http://www.ago.alabama.gov, 11 South Union Street, Third Floor, Montgomery, AL 36130

10.) "The Strange Case of an Imprisoned Alabama Governor", Adam Cohen, New York Times, 9/10/2007.

11.) "FCC Questions '60 Minutes' blackout", Variety Magazine, William Triplett, 3/04/08.