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LOU DOBBS: The security of our elections and the integrity of our
democracy is in jeopardy.

Blogged by Brad on 6/7/2006 @ 10:59am PT...

CNN's Lou Dobbs Hammers Electronic Voting for Third Straight Night!
Says 'The security of our elections and the integrity of our democracy
is in jeopardy'

It appears that Election Integrity advocates have a staunch new ally
in their fight for clean, legitimate elections in the United States of
America. And he's hardly a "lefty," a "conspiracy theorist" or a "sour
grapes" guy.

Conservative CNN anchor Lou Dobbs hammered on Electronic Voting
machines and the company's that own them for the third straight day
yesterday on his show, Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Yesterday, his report led off with these clear words: "The security of
our elections and the integrity of our democracy is in jeopardy."

While Dobb's initial focus for his reports concerns the foreign
ownership of the Sequoia Voting Systems company (recently purchased by
Smartmatic, a Venezuelan firm said to be tied to Hugo Chavez), his
reports, and the guests he's interviewed, also focus on the broader
aspect of private ownership of all the voting machine company's
running our public elections, as well as the security vulnerabilities
of the hackable and unreliable electronic machines.

We're working on getting the video up (the video and transcript from
the report the day before is here), but in the meantime, here's the
transcript from last night's installment which featured Warren Stewart
from VoteTrustUSA.org and computer security expert Avi Rubin of Johns
Hopkins University...

Lou Dobbs Tonight - June 6, 2006

DOBBS: The security of our elections and the integrity of our
democracy is in jeopardy. Nationwide, there is concern and even alarm
that electronic voting machines are simply too easily compromised and
vulnerable to fraud. And as we've been reporting on this broadcast for
the past several evenings, there is a new threat, and that threat
originates in the Venezuelan ownership of one of the country's leading
electronic voting machine companies.

Kitty Pilgrim reports...

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: (voice over): In California, New
Jersey, and New Mexico, some jurisdictions are using Sequoia voting
machines. The voting machine company was bought in 2005 by Smartmatic,
which bills itself as a Florida company, but Smartmatic is a private
company owned by Venezuelan investors.

Election watchdog groups are alarmed by the fact that a foreign
company now has proprietary software that it can claim is a trade
secret for counting votes in a U.S. election.

WARREN STEWART, VOTETRUST USA: The broader issue of the fact that the
software that counts our votes is considered a trade secret and is
proprietary, and no one can review the source code or the ballot
programming, not even the election officials, the secretary of state,
that's all kept secret from the voters.

PILGRIM: Some e-voting experts and members of Congress dislike the
murky corporate structure of Smartmatic, a foreign-owned company, now
deeply connected with U.S. elections.

AVI RUBIN, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: The problem that we're in right
now is that we're using equipment to elect our president and our
Congress and our local officials that cannot be audited, that are
potentially under the control of foreign enties, and that are almost
an ideal platform for rigging an election.

PILGRIM: Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney recently wrote to Secretary
John Snow demanding the U.S. Treasury investigate the sale of the U.S.
company Sequoia to Smartmatic in 2005. "Having a foreign government
investing in or owning a company that supplies voting machines for
U.S. elections could raise concerns over the integrity of elections
conducted with these machines."

Smartmatic was also involved in the 2004 recall election of Venezuelan
president Hugo Chavez, an election in which Chavez clung to power but
the results have been questioned by some outside observers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: And because e-voting systems are not entirely tamper- proof,
some jurisdictions in the United States have opted to go back to paper
ballots until they are more able to be monitored fully. But many
election experts say it is right to question the fact that one of the
top voting machines company in this country is now foreign owned -- Lou.

DOBBS: Thank you very much, Kitty.

Electronic voting machines are a flagrant invitation to tailor the vote. So are many of the absentee voting options.
The hanging chad fiasco has prompted a lot of silly ideas about the voting process. If you are incapable of operating a stylus, whatever would make the powers that be think an electronic device would improve the intelligence of the voter?
The obvious answer is to have people move their bodies to the polls and vote. With assistance if necessary. There should be penalties for not voting too.
The key to winning an election, as portrayed in Washington State, is to own the counters in the highest population density counties. Who needs electronic machines?
Survey them all.

Sequoia has been disqualified as a bidder. They are no longer under consideration as a supplier of US voting machines.

HOWEVER:

What's left is the Machines made by Diebold, the company which "donated" zillions of dollars to Bush:

When a Republican get's his panties in a bunch and starts yelling and screaming and pointing with one hand at something, you best check what he's holding in the hand behind his back.