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Stealing the Election - Again

November 8, 2012

The CBS television station in Phoenix, KPHO, announced the results of the November 6 presidential election on October 19, more than two weeks before the election!  These are the weird things that happen when elections are run by the media and private voting machine companies.  Elections in the United States are not in the hands of the citizenry.  The fundamental problem with elections in the United States is that the votes are not counted by the citizens in each polling station as they should be.  We do not have transparent and open elections.  We have lost our democratic franchise.


Video Link - http://youtu.be/CgYTw06Te1Q


In a proper democratic election, like this one in France, the citizens count the votes openly in front of the public in each polling station.  Without this most essential aspect, an election is neither transparent nor authentic.  My article "Restoring Democracy in America" describes how proper democratic elections are conducted using the French presidential election of 2002, which I monitored, as an example.

“…to have the representation real, the election must be real; and that where the election is a fiction, the representation is a fiction also. Like will always produce like.”
- Thomas Paine to the Citizens of the United States, 29 January 1803

The U.S. presidential election on November 6 will be stolen, just like every election since 2000 has been, using electronic voting machines that are designed to steal elections.  Even The Christian Science Monitor has caught on to the systemic vote fraud in U.S. elections with its recent article titled, “Could e-voting machines in Election 2012 be hacked?  Yes.” 

The evil character in the new James Bond film says he can throw an election to the highest bidder using computers, but he oddly uses Uganda as his example target - not the United States.  Perhaps they don't want to be too obvious for the naive American voters who still believe their vote really counts.  Why is it so easy to accept that massive vote fraud happens in places like Uganda, but not the United States?  When was the last time you saw the votes being tallied by the citizens in a polling station in America?


YOU CALL THIS AN ELECTION? - The battered and chained eagle on the cover of Atlantic magazine represents the sad state of our elections - and our republic.

By now, it should be obvious that electronic voting machines are actually designed to steal elections.  There is no valid reason why citizens in a free republic should allow a machine to control the most crucial aspect of their elections:  the counting of the votes.  In an authentic democratic election the votes should be openly counted in front of the press and the public in every polling station across the nation.  It is very simple, inexpensive, and precise.  

Most importantly, the open and public counting of the votes is thesine qua non, the absolutely indispensable aspect of a democratic election because the citizens’ tally of the votes in every polling station is what authenticates a proper democratic election.  With the possible exception of a few rural counties, the vote counting and authentication process is no longer done by the citizens.  This is to say that the elections in the United States are neither transparent nor democratic.  In our American republic the representation is a fiction, as Thomas Paine said.  The election has been stolen before we even cast our votes.


The counting of the votes in each polling station in front of the public is what makes the tally authentic.  This is the most simple and transparent way to conduct a democratic election.  It is time for Americans to return to this simple and fool-proof method of voting.

I wrote my first article about the subject of electronic vote fraud, “The Death of Democracy or May the Best Hacker Win,” the week before the 2000 election.  I soon realized that the criminal network behind the electronic voting systems was stealing our elections in order to control our nation.  The installment of the un-elected Bush administration in the White House in 2001 and its subsequent failure to investigate the false-flag terror attacks of 9-11 confirmed the criminal nature of the regime that had been put in power through vote fraud.

Now it has been reported that there are connections between Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital and Hart InterCivic, one of the companies that manufactures the electronic voting machines used in Ohio.  Ohio is a “swing state” and the Hart voting machines are used in Hamilton County, the metropolitan area of Cincinnati.  If Hamilton County swings for Romney there will certainly be questions raised about these connections, but by then the election will be over and even the most blatant cases of vote fraud are seldom news for more than a day or two.

Ohio’s Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner commissioned the Project Everest Report in 2007.  The study was a “Risk Assessment Study of Ohio Voting Systems” to examine and evaluate the electronic voting systems used in Ohio.  About the Hart machines, the report found a list of failures:

• Failure to effectively protect election data integrity
• Failure to eliminate or document unsafe functionality 
• Failure to protect election from “Malicious Insiders”
• Failure to provide trustworthy auditing

The final evaluation for the Hart voting machines indicates that these machines were evidently designed to allow tampering with the results:  “The researchers concluded that virtually every ballot, vote, election result, and audit log is ‘forgeable or otherwise manipulatable by an attacker with even brief access to the voting systems.’

The report also evaluated the iVotronic voting machine manufactured by ES&S of Omaha.  Again the study found that the machine was designed to facilitate tampering with the tally:  The researchers found that access to administrative and voter functions are protected with “ineffective security mechanisms.”

The Ohio report concluded that the central server, software, and the precinct-based components for both DRE and optical scan voting machines “lack the fundamental technical controls necessary to guarantee a trustworthy election under operational conditions.”  This is intentional, of course. 

The ES&S machines also received a failing grade in security with vulnerabilities that were described as “pervasive, critical failures.”

• Failure to protect election data and software 
• Failure to effectively control access to election operations 
• Failure to correctly implement security mechanisms 
• Failure to follow standard software and security engineering practices

About the ES&S machines, which are used in many states across America, “the researchers concluded that many of the most serious vulnerabilities in the ES&S system arise from the incorrect use of security technologies such as cryptography.  This effectively neutralizes several basic security features, exposing the system and its data to misuse or manipulation.”

The report found that the ES&S voting machines were wide open to tampering:  “The researchers discovered ‘exploitable vulnerabilities’ that allowed even persons with limited access – such as voters or poll workers – to compromise voting machines and election results, or to inject and spread software viruses into the central election management system." 

Why is Ohio still using these seriously flawed voting machines in 2012?  Why are the citizens of Ohio, or any other state, still voting on machines in which “every ballot, vote, election result, and audit log is ‘forgeable or otherwise manipulatable by an attacker with even brief access to the voting systems?”  It just doesn’t make any sense unless one realizes that the system is designed for cheating on a massive scale.

Which raises the question, who is supposed to be overseeing the use of these machines at the federal level? 

As Ohio’s Project EVEREST (i.e. Evaluation and Validation of Election Related Equipment, Standards and Testing) study says:

In 2002, the United States Congress adopted the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which aimed to improve the administration of elections in the United States.  With the enactment of HAVA, new voting system requirements were established, and a national program was implemented to provide states with the funds necessary to replace punch card and lever voting systems with new, qualifying systems.  

HAVA also created the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and transferred the responsibility of developing voting system standards from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to the EAC.  Through HAVA, the EAC was also tasked with establishing the federal government’s first voting system certification program.

Well then, who is running the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which is responsible for voting system standards and certifying the voting machines we vote on?

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (vacant)

It is a sign of the times that during the year leading up to the 2012 election there has been no Executive Director of the EAC.  Thomas R. Wilkey submitted his resignation as executive director effective November 30, 2011.  As the EAC website says:  “HAVA states that if the executive director position becomes vacant, the general counsel of the commission serves as acting executive director until the commission appoints a replacement.

GENERAL COUNSEL (vacant)

“EAC’s general counsel, in accordance with HAVA, is appointed to a four-year term and may serve additional terms by a vote of the Commission.  The general counsel serves under the executive director and is responsible for reviewing all guidance, guidelines, best practices as well as overseeing compliance.” 

But there is no general counsel either at the EAC.  Mark A. Robbins submitted his resignation as general counsel effective May 15, 2012. 

How odd.  The federal commission responsible for voting systems has had no executive director or general counsel during the six months before a general election!  This is an agency that is clearly not working. So, who are the political appointees on “the commission” responsible for this utter failure to regulate the voting systems in the United States? 

The EAC Commissioners’ webpage is blank except for this one paragraph:

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) specifies that four commissioners are nominated by the President on recommendations from the majority and minority leadership in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. No more than two commissioners may belong to the same political party. Once confirmed by the full Senate, commissioners may serve two consecutive terms. HAVA states that members of the commission shall continue to serve past their expired term until a successor takes office. There are four vacancies on the commission.

THE FRAUDSTER IN CHIEF

It seems that Alice P. Miller, the chief operating officer (COO), has assumed the executive responsibilities of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, including the most critical task of testing and certifying the voting systems being used.  When Miller was appointed to the COO position at the EAC in May 2008 there was a chorus of protest concerning her record of involvement in fraud at the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE), where she was Executive Director. 

The evidence indicates that Miller was involved in a criminal scheme to obtain $12,000 pay raises for herself and a colleague, and to collect $22,000 in back pay, each.  In order to do this, she drafted two memorandums that falsely claimed that the pay raises were authorized and legal - the day after the changes in their job classification and pay had been improperly entered into a computerized payroll system.  In 2003, the same year she was investigated for criminal fraud, Miller became the first African-American president of the National Association of State Election Directors.  

In May 2008, when Miller was appointed as COO, an EAC press release said: 

"Ms. Miller will oversee the day-to-day operations at the EAC in six program areas: Voting Systems Testing and Certification, HAVA Funding, Election Administration Improvement Programs, Research, Administration and Human Resources."

Instead of being prosecuted for her crimes, Miller was promoted to a higher federal position.  This is, of course, the way a crimocracy works and this is exactly the kind of regimes we are fostering in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the former republics of the Soviet Union.


ALICE P. MILLER - Without an executive director, general counsel, orany commissioners, the crucial responsibilities at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission have all devolved upon the chief operating officer, Alice Miller, who is currently running the agency that oversees U.S. elections.  Miller has a documented history ofunprosecuted criminal fraud.  She seems to have found the perfect federal job for herself certifying the fraudulent voting systems being used to steal our elections.

So we have a federal election agency, run by a known fraudster, certifying the fraudulent voting systems Americans vote on.  No wonder voting machines that are so easily tampered with are still being used across the nation.  The whole system is clearly designed to steal our elections, which is the real purpose of the voting machines in the first place.  It’s time to go back to hand-counted paper ballots counted in every polling station in America.  It’s time to take our republic back.

Sources and Recommended Reading: 

 

Alice P. Miller, Chief Operating Officer, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
http://democrats.cha.house.gov/sites/democrats.cha.house.gov/files/styles/detail_main_image/public/2011%20BIOS%20-%20Miller.pdf

"Could e-voting machines in Election 2012 be hacked? Yes." by Mark Clayton, Christian Science Monitor, October 26, 2012
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2012/1026/Could-e-voting-machines-in-Election-2012-be-hacked-Yes 

"Death of Democracy Or May the Best Hacker Win," by Christopher Bollyn, October 27, 2000
http://www.bollyn.com/death-of-democracy-or-may-the-best-hacker-win

"EAC Selects D.C. Elections Director for Chief Operating Officer Post,” www.eac.gov, May 9, 2008
http://www.eac.gov/eac_selects_d.c._elections_director_for_chief_operating_officer_post_/

“Inspector General Report of Investigation Concerning Inadequate Oversight and Misconduct at the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics and the Office of Campaign Finance,” OIG No. 2002-0252, May 22, 2003, DCWatch.com
http://www.dcwatch.com/govern/ig030522.htm

Project EVEREST, Evaluation and Validation of Election Related Equipment, Standards and Testing, Executive Report, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, December 14, 2007
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/everest/00-SecretarysEVERESTExecutiveReport.pdf

“Restoring Democracy in America,” by Christopher Bollyn, March 19, 2011
http://www.bollyn.com/restoring-democracy-in-america-2/

 

“The Dubious Integrity of Alice P. Miller and the Elections Assistance Commission,” CountedAsCast.com (cached), October 7, 2008
http://www.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=-1655788183&page_url=//www.countedascast.com/usa/alicemiller_boee.php&page_last_updated=2012-04-29T03:40:26&firstName=Alice&lastName=Miller

“The Reality of Electronic Vote Fraud in America,” by Christopher Bollyn, January 26, 2012
http://www.bollyn.com/13598/ 

U.S. Elections Assistance Commission website, November 4, 2012
http://www.eac.gov/about_the_eac/staff.aspx
http://www.eac.gov/about_the_eac/commissioners.aspx