Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il GAO sulle "elezioni" USA del 2004.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1529
Powerful Government Accounting Office (GAO) report confirms key 2004
stolen election findings, by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman,
October 26, 2005
As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove
inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the
legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.
The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of
2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from
the General Accounting Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream
media coverage.
The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general
incorruptibility and its through, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence
with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial
new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being
in the White House.
Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers
(D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they
were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. The
request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere that
often shocking irregularities defined their performance.
According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received "more
than 57,000 complaints" following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such
concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements
and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio
by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.
The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns
about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused
problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of
votes."
The United States is the only major democracy that allows private
partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with
proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others,
has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on
privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers
of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before
the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W.
Bush.
Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of
more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that
O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort,
apparently successful, to steal the White House.
Among other things, the GAO confirms that:
1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or
system audit logs, thus making it possible to alter them without
detection." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting
machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than
800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some
seven times Bush's official margin of victory.
2. "It is easy to alter a file defining how a ballot appears, making it
possible for someone to vote for one candidate and actually be recorded
as voting for an entirely different candidate." Numerous sworn
statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.
3. "Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an
action by using altered memory cards" can easily be done, according to
the GAO.
4. The GAO also confirms that "access to the voting network was easily
compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems
(DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one
machine provided access to the whole network." This critical finding
confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread
conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of
operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus
change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on
electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush
118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.
5. Access "to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use
of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords," says the
GAO. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and
altered the Ohio vote tallies.
6. "The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and
keys were simple to copy," says the GAO, meaning, again, getting into
the system was an easy matter.
7. "One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a
rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the
entire network to fail," says the GAO, re-emphasizing the fragility of
the system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.
8. "GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and
background screening practices for vendor personnel," confirming still
more easy access to the system.
In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or
mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer
system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which
the 2004 election turned.
The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an
election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as
co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft
skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the
electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable
enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives -- or less -- to turn
the whole vote count using personal computers operating on relatively
simple software.
The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities
surrounding the 2004 vote count.
For example:
The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last
minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also
occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical
impossibility.
A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES&S voting
machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in
Auglaize County
Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18
machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed
Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long.
Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements
and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems in Franklin
County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both counties were suspiciously
low.
A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million
votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.
In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic
transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only 638 people
voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly corrected, but
remains infamous as the "loaves and fishes" vote count.
In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote
for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.
In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's
central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes
mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as
prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.
In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for
obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic
African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed
virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for
Kerry.
Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate "show recounts," technicians
from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking
County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive.
In response to official information requests, Shelby and other counties
admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any recount
could take place.
In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck,
Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost
every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The
losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional
party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were
used.
In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that "by and large, when it
comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the
Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better."
But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as
deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very
small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to
shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.
Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear
that's exactly what happened.
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1529

the 2004 election turned.
Altra puttanata indimostrata e indimostrabile.
-Stefano