From: "capcomx" pft314@worldnet.att.net
THE AMERICAN VOTE SCAM: WHO IS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT?
ASK THE COMPUTER!
Washington -- Susan Bernecker doesn't
believe in grand conspiracies. She's a fitness
instructor and local political activist in Jefferson
Parish, La. But the events of Oct. 24, 1995 have
shaken her faith in one of the basic tenets of
democracy: one person, one vote.
As a candidate for parish council, Bernecker
stood an outside chance of beating incumbent
Nick Giambelluca. But when the votes rolled in
after the Oct. 21 election, she wound up with
only 33 percent of the total.
Three days later, on a Tuesday, Bernecker
and the other candidates were invited to
inspect the new, state-of-the-art voting machines
that the parish had bought from a New York
company, Sequoia Pacific Voting Equipment Inc.
A "direct-recording" machine, it uses a computer
to directly tabulate votes, which are cast by
the press of a button.
With a cameraman in tow to record the
event, Bernecker tested one of the machines by
pressing the button next to her name. To her
astonishment, however, the name of her
opponent appeared on a display at the bottom.
She repeated the process several times, with
mixed results.
Bernecker filed suit to challenge the
results of the election. But the judge wasn't
convinced and threw the whole thing out
after a one-day hearing.
Nonetheless, the Bernecker case helps
illustrate a chilling -- if very remote --
downside to the increased use of computers
to tabulate election results: There is no paper
trail, and no way to tell if an election has
been tampered with.
The stealing of elections is nothing new in
American politics -- and every system has its
flaws and vulnerabilities. But mechanical
systems allow for a recount. In
direct-recording systems, recounts are
virtually impossible.
Phil Foster, a salesman for Sequoia
Pacific, explains that the wrong name
appeared only because Bernecker
"rolled her finger" as she was pressing
the button, causing her to push two
buttons at once. He adds that it would
be virtually "impossible" to tamper
with the machines without someone
finding out. Bernecker insists that she
didn't roll her finger, and some of those
who've seen the videotape back her up.
There is no evidence that Sequoia
Pacific is guilty of any wrongdoing, or
that anyone tampered with the machines.
Even those who are opposed to computerized
voting machines say that Sequoia Pacific's
machines are some of the most
tamper-resistant models on the market.
Most likely, experts say, election
tampering would have to come from
the inside -- someone who knows and
has access to the sophisticated
computer code that is the "brains"
behind computerized voting systems.
If someone were to tamper with a
computerized voting machine in this
way, it would be practically impossible
to detect -- and even harder to find the
culprit.
Eva Waskell of Reston, Va., has studied
this problem for more than a decade. She
says one major problem is that the computer
codes that run the machines are protected
as trade secrets, which makes it very had to
have an election independently audited.
"The election industry is virtually
unregulated," Waskell complains, referring
to the companies that provide election
supplies and other hardware.
The chances of a local election
being rigged through computer tampering
are indeed remote, and the risk that a
presidential election could be rigged
is virtually nonexistent. But by
casting our votes via computer, are
we opening the door to a day when
our most vital right can be tampered
with at the touch of a keystroke?
God help save our country
contributed by David Icke
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