Elections & Voting
Determining U.S. political leaders -- from Israel
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Aug 24, 2009, 00:18

(WMR) -- A high-level Democratic congressional source has told WMR that in 2004 the Democratic National Committee outsourced a contract to an Israeli-linked firm to count the votes in the critical Iowa caucus. The caucus, in which John Kerry placed first, John Edwards finished second, and Howard Dean came in third, effectively spelled the end of the Dean campaign.

Journalist Christopher Bollyn first reported the Iowa Democratic Party�s use of a vote counting system from Orlando-based Voxeo, linked by sinews of past corporate incarnations, including MedaGate and IRdg, to Elron Electronics, an Israeli defense and intelligence firm. The results of the caucuses were transmitted from some 2,000 caucus sites to a Voxeo call center in Atlanta. Georgia. Democratic Party sources confirmed to WMR the involvement of the Atlanta call center in counting the votes in Iowa. WMR was told that Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe authorized the outsourcing of the Iowa caucus vote count to Voxeo.

WMR has also learned from the Democratic congressional source that Athan Gibbs, president of Nashville, Tennessee-based TruVote International and inventor of the TruVote voter verified paper audit trail, which, unlike ES&S and Diebold, offered a more accurate voting system, was courted by an Israeli firm to sell his company to it. The Democratic source told WMR that phone calls were received from Israeli sources asking for ways to �make inroads to Athan Gibbs to work out a sale of his firm.�

In the months after the Iowa caucus, Gibbs�s TruVote system was being looked at by election officials across the country as a potential replacement for problem-plagued voting machines supplied by Diebold, ES&S, and other companies. Elections in 2000 and 2002 all pointed to major problems with the accuracy of the vote tally using the machines from firms all linked to top Republican Party donors and activists.

Gibbs, according to our source, rejected the Israeli overtures. In March 2004, as Gibbs�s TruVote system was being lauded by a number of Democratic leaders, he was killed in a suspicious crash when his Chevy Blazer was struck by a semi-trailer truck on Interstate 65 in Nashville as he was traveling from his home in north Nashville to his office downtown.

Charges that Israeli software companies have been involved in rigging the vote in other nations are nothing new. In 2008, the Israeli firm Cogniview, Ltd., a start-up data conversion software firm, was accused by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of rigging Zimbabwe�s vote to favor President Robert Mugabe�s party.

Another Israeli firm, Midgam Research and Consulting, has an affiliate relationship with Harris Interactive, which conducts the Harris Poll. Midgam has conducted election sampling and exit poll forecasting for Israeli elections. Harris conducts major polls in countries around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Japan, Germany, and France.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

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