June 20, 2006
I don't know how else to put
it, but every voting machine used in the June 6th special election
run-off for the U.S. House seat vacated by the disgraced Randy "Duke"
Cunningham in California's 50th congressional district has now been
shown to have been effectively illegal -- by federal
standards, rules and provisions and by California state rules, laws and
provisions. And now, by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters own
admission.
If you haven't been
following the story, the election was run on
highly hackable Diebold voting machines that were
sent home
overnight and unsecurely with poll workers for days and weeks
prior to the election. That outrageous disregard for security
requirements issued just prior to the election rendered the machines
both
illegal and uncertified for use under both federal and
state laws, requirements and statutes. In light of these revelations,
the GOP has since
rushed to
swear-in Bilbray, before the votes were even finished counting or
the election even certified by the state of California.
See any of the links above
for corroborated, sourced and detailed information.
It has recently been
revealed that Diebold voting machines can have their entire election
software, operating system, and even computer firmware ("BIOS")
overwritten in less than two minutes with no password necessary, should
anybody gain unsupervised physical access to the machines. Moreover,
it's possible that one machine contaminated can then infect all other
machines in the race.
Last week, on the PBS
News Hour, David Jefferson, a Livermore Labs computer scientist, and
a member of the CA Sec. of State's own team of independent analysts who
looked at the recently discovered massive security flaws in Diebold's
systems was quoted as saying:
"[This] is the most
serious vulnerability that we've ever seen in a voting system.
This particular vulnerability is serious enough that you can affect
multiple machines from a single attack. That's what makes it
so dangerous.
Given that every
common-sense (and legal) security mitigation procedure was tossed out
the window when these same Diebold voting machines were sent home with
poll workers, given that the machines were therefore uncertified for use
in the race, given that one tampered machine could affect every other
machine used in the election, given that American democracy is based on
confidence in our electoral system, and given that there is therefore,
no way to know that the reported results of the race are the actual
results of the race...Velvet Revolution demands that a manual
hand-count of all paper ballots and "paper trails" must be done
immediately.
PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION DECLARING "NO CONFIDENCE"
AND DEMAND A MANUAL HAND-COUNT OF ALL BALLOTS!
In case you hadn't heard, on
the very same day as California's election last week, at least
two elections in Iowa, in Republican Primaries, the reported results
showed that the popular incumbents had lost their race after the ballots
were optically scanned. Due to an election director who was clever
enough to realize something was amiss, the ballots were then
hand-counted,
revealing in both cases that the incumbents had actually won the
election!
Only a manual hand-count had
revealed it. In one case, the incumbent had come in tenth in
the race until the hand-count revealed the true results of the contest.
As to the Busby/Bilbray
election...In addition to
VR's declaration of "NO
CONFIDENCE", similar declarations of "NO CONFIDENCE" have also been
issued so far by:
So who actually won the
race? At this time, there is no way to know. Not until the ballots are
counted.
In the meantime, if
Americans roll over and allow our electoral system to be treated with
such callous disregard for the law, specific security procedures and
common-sense while there is just one national election of note in play
-- the signal has been sent to do whatever the hell you want come this
November when 435 U.S. House races and 30 something U.S. Senate races
will be up for grabs.
Is that the message we
should be sending to those entrusted with running our elections?
This is our
last chance prior to the November general elections to
insist on real election reform and accountability in our
electoral system!
It's time for Americans to
take their democracy back from the private companies who have usurped
our election system. San Diegans, it's time for you to "go Ukraine" on
that Registrar of Voters office! For the rest of America -- who paid for
this election with $3.8 billion in federal tax dollars, even
though it was carried out in defiance of the very law that allocated
those funds -- please sign the
VelvetRevolution.us petition demanding a 100% hand-count NOW!
Then please spread the word.
It's your democracy. Use it or lose it!
Thank you
for your help in supporting our work! We can't do this alone!
Please click here to DONATE to VR to support our efforts!
(http://www.VelveRevolution.us/donate.php)
If you
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well!
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VELVET REVOLUTION
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