the Sugar Conspiracy

Friday, November 05, 2004

Why are corporations counting your vote?

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

-clip-

Why have we let corporations into our polling places, locations so sacred to democracy that in many states even international election monitors and reporters are banned? Why are we allowing corporations to exclusively handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way? Particularly a private corporation founded, in one case, by a family that believes the Bible should replace the Constitution; in another case run by one of Ohio's top Republicans; and in another case partly owned by Saudi investors?

Of all the violations of the commons - all of the crimes against We The People and against democracy in our great and historic republic - this is the greatest. Our vote is too important to outsource to private corporations.

Story here and more on the voter analysis at Bob's site, at Kos' site, Wired magazine, and Salon.

I'm not saying that there was a grand conspiracy to elect Bush, although the more I think about it, the more the whole thing kinda played out like a well-rehearsed drama. Early expectations for Kerry based on exit polls, the TV pundits blathering on all night, FOX News again calling it first for Bush, calling the election in Ohio before the state had even finished counting all its ballots, Andrew Card bluffing that Bush had won at 6am Wednesday morning, Kerry's concession, Bush's win and then instant dialogue in the media that the Republicans turned out the evangelical vote and that people voted on "moral values," conveniently drawing the attention and discussion away from electronic voting or any kind of voter fraud.

Still, the point bears repeating: why are for-profit corporations controlling our voting system; corporations who have a definate interest in electing a pro-business Republican administration?

posted by chris at 4:15 PM
------------------

Blog - Info - Archive - Contact - Links
2005 © Designed by Chris. Take what you want.