TruthIsAll
08-25-2008, 09:52 AM
http://www.pubrecord.org/nationworld/279-uncounted-an-important-documentary-that-will-leave-audiences-angry-and-empowered.html
Last week, a major electronic voting machine manufacturer reported that a programming error caused votes to go uncounted in at least 34 states when memory cards designed to tally votes are uploaded to a separate computer.
The discovery was made in Columbus, Ohio, during a test of touch-screen voting machines supplied by Premier Election Solutions Inc., formerly Diebold Inc., and communicated to the company’s 1,750 jurisdictions via a product advisory alert. Remarkably, Premier claims, the programming glitch went undetected for years despite previous tests of its machines.
The damning report was relegated to the back pages of some mainstream news publications (The New York Times devoted one-paragraph to the issue and buried it deep inside the A section), a reminder of how the media regards issues related to election integrity at a time when the country is about to embark on the most historic presidential election in U.S. history.
The federal Election Assistance Commission said it won't be able to certify repairs made to some of the flawed voting machines because of a backlog. The commission assumed the responsibility of testing electronic voting machines in 2002 but to date the agency has not certified a single machine.
So Premier said jurisdictions that use its decade-old voting machines will have to take measures to deal with the problem in its tabulation software that affect all 19 of its machines because the problems cannot be fixed before Election Day. The company said poll workers will be responsible for checking vote-count servers to make sure all memory cards are shown as uploaded.
When Premier was known as Diebold the company denied that it was responsible for the programming errors found in its machines and blamed the snafus on a "user error" or on antivirus software developed by others.
That the report on the voting machine failures surfaced in the state of Ohio is fitting and filled with irony. Who can forget the now infamous statement uttered by Walden O’Dell, Diebold’s former chief executive, during a fundraiser his company sponsored for Bush in September 2003 when he promised that his company would "deliver" the votes needed to keep Bush in the White House for a second term.
Ohio was the battleground state where tens of thousands of votes intended for Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, were handed to George W. Bush. Thousands more went uncounted. Chalk that up to a well-funded Republican machine, which used every weapon in its arsenal, such as shredding voter registration rolls, to make sure Ohio, the state that would decide the outcome of the 2004 election, went to Bush.
In other words, the 2004 election was stolen and the evidence to back up this flat out assertion is overwhelming to say the least.
"The notion of stolen elections is something we assign to Third World countries, but not this beacon of freedom and democracy that we like to view ourselves as,” said Bernie Ellis, a prominent election integrity activist.
Although the mainstream media and even some of the more prominent progressive news outlets such as The Nation, Salon, and Daily Kos have refused to touch the story or have dismissed it as conspiracy theory does not change the fact that it happened--again.
Few people understand, or are even aware of what happened in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election. Even fewer people realize that history repeated itself during the November 2006 midterm elections.
That's where David Earnhardt comes in.
The Emmy award-winning director has made one of the most important films of the year; an urgent and convincing documentary chock full of disturbing factual data that by the time the final credits roll 90 minutes later you may find yourself firing off an angry email to your congressman/woman demanding they enact serious election reforms.
Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, goes well beyond the electronic voting debate to tell a much more complicated story about the threat to American Democracy. The news that surfaced in Ohio last week only serves to underscore that point.
The film tells the story of the 2004 election and focuses on whistleblowers such as computer programmer Clint Curtis, who describes how he was told to develop software that will “flip” votes from one candidate to another, and Steve Heller, who leaked secret documents about the alleged illegal activities committed by a major voting machine company and was convicted of a felony for doing so.
more...
Last week, a major electronic voting machine manufacturer reported that a programming error caused votes to go uncounted in at least 34 states when memory cards designed to tally votes are uploaded to a separate computer.
The discovery was made in Columbus, Ohio, during a test of touch-screen voting machines supplied by Premier Election Solutions Inc., formerly Diebold Inc., and communicated to the company’s 1,750 jurisdictions via a product advisory alert. Remarkably, Premier claims, the programming glitch went undetected for years despite previous tests of its machines.
The damning report was relegated to the back pages of some mainstream news publications (The New York Times devoted one-paragraph to the issue and buried it deep inside the A section), a reminder of how the media regards issues related to election integrity at a time when the country is about to embark on the most historic presidential election in U.S. history.
The federal Election Assistance Commission said it won't be able to certify repairs made to some of the flawed voting machines because of a backlog. The commission assumed the responsibility of testing electronic voting machines in 2002 but to date the agency has not certified a single machine.
So Premier said jurisdictions that use its decade-old voting machines will have to take measures to deal with the problem in its tabulation software that affect all 19 of its machines because the problems cannot be fixed before Election Day. The company said poll workers will be responsible for checking vote-count servers to make sure all memory cards are shown as uploaded.
When Premier was known as Diebold the company denied that it was responsible for the programming errors found in its machines and blamed the snafus on a "user error" or on antivirus software developed by others.
That the report on the voting machine failures surfaced in the state of Ohio is fitting and filled with irony. Who can forget the now infamous statement uttered by Walden O’Dell, Diebold’s former chief executive, during a fundraiser his company sponsored for Bush in September 2003 when he promised that his company would "deliver" the votes needed to keep Bush in the White House for a second term.
Ohio was the battleground state where tens of thousands of votes intended for Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, were handed to George W. Bush. Thousands more went uncounted. Chalk that up to a well-funded Republican machine, which used every weapon in its arsenal, such as shredding voter registration rolls, to make sure Ohio, the state that would decide the outcome of the 2004 election, went to Bush.
In other words, the 2004 election was stolen and the evidence to back up this flat out assertion is overwhelming to say the least.
"The notion of stolen elections is something we assign to Third World countries, but not this beacon of freedom and democracy that we like to view ourselves as,” said Bernie Ellis, a prominent election integrity activist.
Although the mainstream media and even some of the more prominent progressive news outlets such as The Nation, Salon, and Daily Kos have refused to touch the story or have dismissed it as conspiracy theory does not change the fact that it happened--again.
Few people understand, or are even aware of what happened in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election. Even fewer people realize that history repeated itself during the November 2006 midterm elections.
That's where David Earnhardt comes in.
The Emmy award-winning director has made one of the most important films of the year; an urgent and convincing documentary chock full of disturbing factual data that by the time the final credits roll 90 minutes later you may find yourself firing off an angry email to your congressman/woman demanding they enact serious election reforms.
Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, goes well beyond the electronic voting debate to tell a much more complicated story about the threat to American Democracy. The news that surfaced in Ohio last week only serves to underscore that point.
The film tells the story of the 2004 election and focuses on whistleblowers such as computer programmer Clint Curtis, who describes how he was told to develop software that will “flip” votes from one candidate to another, and Steve Heller, who leaked secret documents about the alleged illegal activities committed by a major voting machine company and was convicted of a felony for doing so.
more...