Black Box Voting

The stolen election of 2004: welcome back to hell

By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor

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November 5, 2004�Using a variety of criminal methods that they have perfected over the past four years, the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney-Karl Rove syndicate stole another election, and extended their illegal occupation of the White House. Experienced, informed and unblinking observers were not fooled by any aspect of this utterly predictable goose-step towards full dictatorship.

But to those who are �shocked� as they watched the election night numbers mysteriously slip away amidst controversy; those who are struggling to understand �what happened� let this cold realization serve as bracing edification.

Welcome to hell. Welcome to the horrifying reality that whistleblowers have suffered and fought through every day, over lifetimes. No more illusions. This is reality.

It Is a Rigged Game

The US political and economic system, exemplified by Bush-Cheney, is deeply criminalized. It is designed to profit by killing things. It thrives on war and oppression. It is sustained by collusion, fraud, lies, and cover-up, and the indoctrination and manipulation of minds. It does not, and never has, represented its people. Its operatives heed no laws. They �make� law. These facts must be burned into the consciousness of every decent human being.

As Mike Ruppert writes in Crossing The Rubicon: �That profits of crime and war, which are destructive of human life, of labor, of happy, healthy neighborhoods (whether in the US or in Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq) are in effect a keystone of the global economy and a determinant of the success in a ruthless competition, is a compass needle for human civilization. One cannot expect to follow the recipe for roadkill stew and produce a cr�me brulee.�

Criminals do not obey laws. Criminals do not believe in �democracy.�

Criminals do not �permit� elections.

It is foolish, then, to expend one�s energies in �clean� election activities, and expect good results. To quote one of George W. Bush many recent Freudian non-slips, �we make elections.� The 2004 presidential election was just one more �manufacture.�

How John Kerry Unwon the Presidency

How Bush-Cheney stole the 2000 election was a matter of obvious historical fact, confirmed by post-facto mainstream media reports of a Gore win, and detailed by numerous investigators such as Greg Palast in his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Voters complained about old machines and paper ballots.

Then came the �black box voting� machines. (For detailed analysis of black box voting, read the work of Bev Harris.)

In the 2002 mid-term elections, the Republicans �shocked� Democrats by solidifying their power in Congress, using the same fraudulent methods, along with new and improved black box technology.

 �The technology had a trial run in the 2002 mid-term elections. In Georgia, serviced by new Diebold systems, a popular Democratic governor and senator were both unseated in what the media called �amazing� upsets, with results showing vote swings of up to 16 percent from the last pre-ballot polls. In computerized Minnesota, former Vice President Walter Mondale�a replacement for popular incumbent Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash days before the vote�was also defeated in a large last-second vote swing. Convenient �glitches� in Florida saw an untold number of votes intended for the Democratic candidate registering instead for Governor Jeb "L'il Brother" Bush. A Florida Democrat who lost a similarly �glitched� local election went to court to have the computers examined�but the case was thrown out by a judge who ruled that the innards of America's voting machines are the �trade secrets� of the private companies who make them.�

In 2003, black box voting also helped oust Governor Gray Davis and installed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Democratic stronghold of California.

The probability of a fix was obvious throughout the 2004 presidential campaign. Corporate media polls continued to predominantly favor Bush, never dipping his rating below 48 percent, despite his trouncing in three straight debates with Kerry, and despite mushrooming war scandals. This was in stark contrast to independent surveys that showed Kerry with commanding leads. Kerry momentum, and massive Kerry/anti-Bush voter turnout, was evident on election day, and confirmed by exit polls with dominant Kerry numbers.

Then what?

Greg Palast reveals in exhaustive detail that John Kerry won the 2004 election and had it stolen through such methods as �spoilage,� intimidation, polling place chicanery, ethnic cleansing of polls. (See Kerry Won. And here.)

Once again, criminals do not �permit� elections. They make them. This time, the Bush forces had years of unencumbered time to orchestrate it, from Ohio (where its notorious secretary of state is the head of the Bush re-election campaign), and, of course, Jeb Bush�s Florida.

The Triumph of the Bush Machines

But there is one overriding fact that has been left out most of the ridiculous post-election punditry that renders all other analyses completely irrelevant. It is also the reason why the smiles on the faces of Bush crime family members are so bright, as they watched the returns on election night.

Air America Radio�s Mike Malloy gave the most succinct and passionate explanation in his Wednesday, November 3, 2004, program [my links included-LC]:

 �The American vote count is controlled by three major corporate players, Diebold, ESS, Sequoia, and a fourth, SAIC, Science Applications International. All four are hard-wired into the Bush power structure, the Bush crime family.

They have been given millions of dollars by the Bush regime to complete a sweeping computerization of voting machines that were just used in the 2004 election. The technology involved had a trial run during the 2002 mid-term elections. Georgia had Diebold machines in every precinct. As a result, a popular Democratic governor and senator were both unseated in what the media called an �amazing� 16 percent swing.

Diebold�s Walden O�Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, publicly committed himself to delivering his home state Ohio�s votes to Bush. At Diebold, the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob�s brother, Todd, is a top executive at �rival� ES&S. The brothers were originally staked by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council For National Policy, a right-wing steering group stacked with Bush true believers. Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist Christian Reconstruction Movement, which advocates the theocratic takeover of American democracy.

The four companies are interconnected; they are not four �competitors.� Ahmanson has large stakes in ES&S, whose former CEO was Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. When Hagel ran for office, his own company counted the votes, and his victory was considered �an amazing upset.� Hagel still has a million dollar stake in ES&S.

Sequoia is the corporate parent of a private equity firm, Madison Dearborn, which is partner in the Carlyle Group. (Also see here.)

Meanwhile, SAIC is referred to a �shadowy defense contractor.� They have gotten into the vote count game both directly and through spinoffs by its top brass, including Admiral Bill Owens, former military aide to Dick Cheney, and Carlyle Group honcho Frank Carlucci and ex-CIA chief Robert Gates. SAIC�s history of fraud charges and security �lapses� haven�t prevented it from becoming one of the largest Pentagon and CIA contractors, and will doubtless encounter few obstacles in its entrance into the vote counting business.

The mad rush to install these unverifiable computers is driven by the Help America Vote Act, signed by Bush! The chief lobbying group pushing for the act (while we dumb asses sat out here and thought, �That sounds like a good idea!�) was a consortium of arms dealers including Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin.

When you hear people saying, �take a deep breath, we will pull through this,� �we need to work harder,� �we need to organize��no. We will not. It�s over.

Unless electronic vote tabulation is history, and these companies are driven out of business, it�s their country. Not ours.

Nobody knows, and no one will ever know, what the actual vote count was.

There are no checks and balances left. The US Senate now has 55 of these Republicans. When they hit 60, which is what will happen in 2006 mid-term elections�trust me�that means that no matter what Bush and the crime family want to do, they can do it. The House (of Representatives) is gone for the next two to five generations. It�s gone.

The last thing rational people in this country need right now is this whistling-past-the-graveyard horse hockey. Nothing is going to happen; it�s going to get worse. There will never again be a legitimate election in this county.

Until we get rid of the machines.

The people who put the software together�do you think that they are in this business to promote democracy? To promote representative government? Then you are a fool, and you don�t deserve anything other than the lash.

Kerry did not lose the election. The vote was stolen. Get that through your head.�

The Bush syndicate owns and runs the machines that make the votes. They control all branches of the federal government.

There is nothing more painful than witnessing the Kerry voters, liberals and progressives as they agonize over �what went wrong,� second guessing their Herculean efforts, grasping for solutions in outdated ideas, and vowing how �next time, we�ll work harder, and we�ll really get out the vote!,� and that �we�ll nominate even better candidates!�

Still others are asking reasonable questions. Why aren�t Walden O�Dell, Jeb Bush, and J. Kenneth Blackwell under arrest, or in jail? Exactly how did Associated Press pull it off on election night? Will any of the Bush administration criminals ever be punished for their war crimes? Then one must ask, who is going to prosecute? Who is going to hear the cases? The Bush Justice Department? The Bush FBI? The Supreme Court?

When you play fair in a rigged game, it doesn�t matter how hard you work, or even what you do. Insanity is repeating the same mistake, expecting a different result.

Kerry Welcomes Fascism with Open Arms

John Kerry�s pitiful and immediate capitulation, surrendering with even less of a fight than Al Gore in 2000, despite clear, overt and gross vote fraud across the country, including Ohio�Diebold�s home state�was sickening.

Bush�s Skull & Bones fraternity brother then spoke of �healing� and uniting behind Bush, a speech grotesquely reminiscent of Al Gore�s sickening 2000 declaration that Bush was �mah president.�

Twice now, with Gore and Kerry, Democrats have won the White House, and then refused to speak the truth about the crime, and fight for the people who bled for them. Twice, America has been sold out.

Could it be that this time, Kerry played the American people in just another game of bait-and-switch?

Will those who supported Kerry actually heed his command, and obediently march in step, �without anger or rancor,� and follow George W. Bush, the strutting tyrant, and the most dangerous and irrational collection of mass-murdering war criminals in modern history?

In a cynical view, and one that is likely accurate, the election of 2004 may have been nothing more than an elaborate trial balloon, a �good cop-bad cop� theater that is mandated every few years to uphold the appearance of legitimacy. Our candidates lie, all the while gauging the effectiveness of long-term manipulation programs. They think, are the people still gullible and uninformed? What slogans and illusions can we fool them with? Is the �war on terrorism� mindset still unwavering? How far can we push them? Will they accept the baseball bat in the face, or the velvet glove to the nose?

How many beatings will this republic take, before its people wake up? When will the people realize what is really happening, and �chase us down the street and lynch us� (as George H.W. Bush said to reporter Sarah McClendon)?

To hell with Bush. To hell with Kerry. Wait, We�re All Already Here.

As sadistic Bush slurred in his �acceptance� speech, �a new term is a new opportunit.� If the last four years brought the world to its knees, imagine what is to come as Bush-Cheney giddily pry open a new set of larger Pandora�s Boxes.

Webster Tarpley, author of the Unauthorized Biography of George Bush writes: �If Bush retains control of the White House, we can expect a neocon fascist dictatorship or martial law emergency regime in 2005 or 2006, possibly as the result of synthetic terrorism. The neocons are in a desperate flight forward mentality which seeks to avoid the penal consequences of what they have already done with Valerie Plame, the Niger yellowcake forgeries, the Israeli mole scandal, and the Chalabi betrayal of state secrets. The neocon preference is for early war with Iran. War with Russia and China cannot be excluded somewhat further down the road.�

Add to that the relentless horror that will be inflicted when the effects of Peak Oil (also see From The Wilderness and Richard Heinberg) crash home in earnest, the body bags pile higher with new wars, and the lives of Americans (including Bush drones) and people all over the world continue to be destroyed.

Some members of the current Bush crime organization may leave or retire, and the possibilities include Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft (possibly replaced with Marc Racicot, a long-time friend of George W. Bush, and W�s first choice for attorney general in 2000). Expect their replacements to be less well known criminals who, if anything, may be more toxic.

Robert Lederman wrote of Racicot: �Numerous members of the Bush family, including his father and brothers and at least one of GW's prospective cabinet appointees�potential GW Bush Attorney General Marc Racicot�have a history of alleged involvement in drug running at the highest levels. We're not talking about buying drugs for personal use here but massive importations of heroin and cocaine with the full involvement of foreign dictators like George Bush pal Manuel Noriega and the Mafia.� (See Murder and Drug Running in Montana)

In Robert Payne�s biography The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, he writes of Hitler (whose Third Reich was, in fact, financed by the Bush family): �For all the foreseeable future, he will remain to haunt us, more alive than ever although he is dead. He hides in shadowy places and at the pinnacle of power, always urging men to commit the ultimate crime, the perfect atrocity, the most ferocious massacres. Into the ears of generals and politicians he whispers: �Be merciless. It is very easy now because I have lived. I have reduced the value of man to a fraction of what it was before. You will find, if you continue along the path I have opened for you, the value of man will decline still further. Remember, mankind is always valueless and its only use is to serve our interests. We alone are transmitters of civilization, and the people are nothing but cattle. Napalm is good for them.�

Hitler himself wrote: �The victor will not be asked, later on, whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war, it is not right that matters, but victory. Have no pity.�

Hitler had nothing on the George W. Bush administration.

What, if any, silver lining can be found in the wake of this new goose-step into the abyss? Perhaps only that the same bellicose, predictable and clumsy villains remain right where they have been for the last four years: right in front of us. Better that than a crafty and likeable neoliberal John Kerry administration that lulls the world to sleep before poison is administered.

We cannot be fooled.

Larry Chin is a freelance journalist and an Online Journal Associate Editor.