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Pt.
I: Convicted Felons, ‘Shadowy Financiers'
Own Companies Counting Votes
An
investigation into the surprisingly-sordid
history of America’s “election services
industry” has revealed that executives
and owners of the two largest companies,
E S & S and Sequoia Pacific, have
been convicted of bribery and suborning
public officials in more than a dozen
states.
And
while a felony conviction may be enough
to prevent you from voting in
Florida, convicted felons can take heart
in the fact that the “blemish” on their
record in no way disqualifies them from
owning companies counting the
votes.
In
fact, the word ‘coverup’ itself was
invented to describe the activities
of the original owner of Sequoia Pacific,
"shadowy financier" Lewis Wolfson, who
got caught bribing no less a personage
than a Supreme Court Justice of the
United States of America.
While
Abe Fortas was forced to resign in disgrace,
no such harsh fate befell Wolfson.
When you own a company that counts
the votes, politicians smile more
kindly on you than they might otherwise...
and for good reason.
"Somebody Blinked"
Continuing
this dubious 'tradition,' the owner
of Sequoia Pacific until recently was
also accused of bribing public officials,
in this case the Prime Minister of Ireland.
While
the name Dr. Michael Smurfit is not
well-known to Americans, his company
manufactures the software used to compile
more than two-thirds of the nation's
electronically-counted votes.
Perhaps
this may help explain why, for the second
Presidential election in a row, a Democratic
bandwagon was derailed early on Election
Night by an unusual television
appearance by the Bush Family, after
exit polls showed them losing in key
battleground states.
While
what transpired remains closely guarded,
whatever went on behind the scenes was
clearly decisive: Bush took the lead
in the election, and John Kerry suffered
the same fate as Al Gore had four years
earlier...perhaps even in the
same way.
"A
Spaghetti Western Would Have Been Better"
Prima
facie evidence that this year’s American
Presidential Election was fixed can
be found in the recent statements by
numerous computer security experts that
it could have been. And
if it could have been, it probably was...
“If
you leave the door to the bank vault
open, sooner or later you’re going to
get robbed,” said one. “Its just
human nature. And besides, fixing
elections is far more lucrative than
robbing banks.”
Analysts
describe the software as "spaghetti
code," tangled strands of instructions
indecipherable to outsiders. Experts
say the code can be manipulated without
detection. In fact, many believe it
may have happened already.
So
it may be of interest to learn the Smurfit
(the richest man in Ireland, though
he’s not Irish) has a penchant for hanging
out at Geneva racetracks with international
gamblers and Zurich currency speculators.
He must have a habit for picking winners,
too: his company was successful in suborning
the Louisiana Commissioner of Elections
for over a decade...
Jerry
Fowler had run up some big gambling
debts at Harrah's in Atlantic City,
we learned. So he found the chance to
pay off by making his voting machines
"pay off" irresistible. In all, 22 people
were indicted, 9 pled guilty, and Fowler
went to jail.
But
the Sequoia Pacific "Southeast Sales
Manager," a man named Pasquale "Rocco"
Ricci of Marlton, New Jersey, barely
even got a slap on the wrist. For the
crime of suborning democracy in the
state of Louisiana for over a decade,
Mr. Ricci was sentenced to just a year...
A
year of home detention.
Through
multi-billion dollar federal subsidies,
electronic voting has been pushed onto
the American electorate. And its not
hard to see why... the heady prospect
of a sure thing.
But
America may never again have an honest
Presidential election.
Former
Manhattan Commissioner of Elections
Douglas Kellner told the MadCowMorningNews, “The problem is
that, with an electronic voting system,
you can never be sure that the vote
is being recorded the same way it was
cast. Because the only record is done
electronically, there is no paper audit
trail.
“And
any good computer person can alter the
electronic record.”
Most
Americans, if they think about it at
all, expect that the people standing
behind the voting machines on which
their votes are cast and tallied look
like computer experts wearing white
lab coats from IBM.
Nothing
could be further from the truth.
"They
Could Steal the Presidency!"
Investigating
the ownership of the two companies that
together dominate the American elections
industry reveals evidence of routine
and systemic bribery of public officials,
not just here but overseas (the recent
Prime Minister of Ireland, to give just
one example.)
It
is a world filled—not with guys in lab
coats and pocket protectors—but with
guys with links to the Mob, or international
money launderers, Zurich currency manipulators,
telecom scandals, off-shore Channel
Islands accounts in the names of fictitious
people, "untraceable shareholders,"
Bahamian resort owners, and supra-national
financiers.
Tests
performed and videotaped by candidate
Susan Bernacker in New Orleans in 1994
demonstrated that votes she cast for
herself were electronically recorded
for her opponent. This test was repeated
multiple times with the same result
thus confirming that the machine had
been fraudulently altered to influence
the outcome of the election. In Louisiana
there, was an election in 1996 , which
was for local
After
Susan Bernacker lost a New Orleans City
Council race in 1994, she decided to
exercise her legal right to inspect
the voting machines three days after
the election... and she took along a
video camera.
(The
shocking results can be seen in our
documentary "The
Big Fix 2000". )
Three
times she keyed in her own name on the
voting machines. and three times a vote
for her opponent was registered. After
these proceedings she perhaps justly
feared for her life if she kept the
secret to herself...She convened
a hastily-called press conference, and
then retired from public life.
"A
Nostradamus for our times"
"The
next president of the United States
may not be chosen by the voters of the
United States. Instead, he or she may
be the choice of whomever controls or
manipulates the computer systems that
tally the votes," wrote Ronnie Dugger
in the New York Times a decade ago.
"With
the entire system shrouded in mystery
and absent of assurances that the voting
process is tamper-proof, voters these
days have more reason than ever to ask,
"Does my vote count?" "The whole damn
thing is mind-boggling," said someone
who investigates computerized elections.
"They could steal the presidency."
“I
don’t believe in counting votes in secret,”
Manhattan Commissioner Doug Kellner
told us. “I think the public has
a right to see what’s happening at every
step of the way.”
The
problem is so manifestly obvious that
even humor columnist Dave Barry was
moved to offer a desperate solution,
in the Miami Herald: "My suggestion
- call me crazy - is that we print the
ballot on paper, with a box next to
each candidate's name. We instruct a
voter to put an X in their candidate's
box. Then we have human beings count
the Xs."
Sounds
easy, practical, and cheap.
In
the coming weeks we’ll see why they’ll
never let that happen.
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