Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia & ChoicePoint: Electronic Voting Machines Manufactured & Owned By Right-Wing Evangelical Bush Supporters – RI10

Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia &

ChoicePoint: Electronic

Voting Machines

Manufactured & Owned By

Right-Wing Evangelical

Bush Supporters – RI10

 

DOBBS: Florida the scene of one of this country's worst election breakdowns ever. Already a series of e-voting glitches have plagued early voting in the state of Florida. It could be a debacle there all over again.

Kitty Pilgrim has the report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Voter activists are warning there have been problems with electronic machines in Florida in early voting. They are worried about Election Day.

Some of the most populous counties, Broward, Pinellas and Volusia counties, have reported serious problems. In Pinellas County the machines malfunctioned. In seven percent of precincts, the number of votes didn't match the tally of registered voters.

PAMELA HAENGEL, VOTING INTEGRITY ALLIANCE: In Pinellas County in the primaries we found over 150 calibration errors from precinct workers' logs. That's when a voter goes to touch the screen and it hops to a candidate that they didn't necessarily vote for.

PILGRIM: Today, Governor Jeb Bush gave his full vote of confidence to the machine.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: We're a model for the reset of the country and we're a model on how we certify equipment as well.

PILGRIM: The Florida hanging Chad debacle of 2000 is what really launched the Help America Vote Act and the funding for most of the country to switch to electronic voting. But even now, Florida does not have a voter-verified paper trail.

REGINALD MITCHELL, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: Despite all the problems that are going on all over the country and all of the reports and all the tests verifying that it's possible to rig a system, we have nothing in place for a paper trail in Florida.

PILGRIM: Volusia County has 300,000 registered voters. Last Saturday during early voting, seven churches mobilized buses to take voters to the polls.

SUSAN PYNCHON, FLORIDA ELECTION COALITION: The voting started at 8:00. At five minutes before 10:00, the power failed. It's probably coincidental, but one of the surefire ways to disenfranchise voters with electronic voting machines is a power failure.

PILGRIM: That power outage kept the electronic voting machines down for hours and hundreds of voters were turned away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: Another problem, in some places representatives of the voting machines company are in charge of running the software that tabulates the votes. And that's because not enough election officials could be trained in time -- Lou.

DOBBS: This is one troubling, concerning report on top of another. This country -- we are beginning to behave like a Banana Republic, this great superpower of ours.

PILGRIM: It's unbelievably shocking this close to the election we're dealing with this.

DOBBS: Idiotic. Idiotic. Unbelievable. It's just -- it's incredible.

Thank you very much.

Kitty Pilgrim.

And coming up here later, I'll be joined by a private citizen who's taken it upon herself to challenge the integrity of those e- voting machines, and joined with a computer security expert that she consulted. They have a new HBO documentary exposing why e-voting could well place our democracy at risk. They'll be joining me here later.

Time now for your thoughts.

Bill in California wrote in to say, "I think you're doing a great job on the fight for the middle class. We need to stop talking about how great this country is and start doing great things for this country. We are the greatest country in the world. We just need to show it."

You couldn't be more correct.

And James in North Carolina, "I cast my vote early this year. I voted American. I voted against (with the exception of your show) the national news media."

We appreciate the exemption.

Send us your thoughts at loudobbs.com. We'll have more of your thoughts later in the broadcast.

Each of you whose e-mail is read here receives a copy of my new book, "War on the Middle Class".

Up next, the battle for control of the Senate coming down to the wire. We'll update key races that could affect the balance of power in Washington.

Also tonight, we'll have White House reaction to remarks by Senator John Kerry, the controversy that could hurt Democrats at the polls.

We'll have a live report and analysis. A GOP fundraiser and Democratic strategists join me to give me their assessments.

And incumbent Virginia Senator George Allen taking on a heckler in the final days of this election. This is becoming a contact sport, campaigning in this country.

Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)



Tonight, just a week away from Election Day, the battle for the Senate is red hot. In Tennessee, John King reports now on the race between Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Harold Ford. Dana Bash tonight in Virginia on the tight race between incumbent George Allen, Democratic challenger, Jim Webb. We begin with John King reporting from Chattanooga, Tennessee. John?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Lou, this is one of the most hotly contested races in the country. Democrats know they need to win this seat if they are to reach their goal of achieving a Senate majority. A CNN poll out just today shows the Republican candidate, though, Bob Corker is leading the Congressman Harold Ford of Memphis.

Congressman Ford hoping to become the first African American to be elected to the Senate in the South since reconstruction. Our poll though shows that among likely voters, Mr. Corker, who is the former mayor of Chattanooga, has 52 percent support, Congressman Ford, at the moment 44 percent. Both campaigns say they think the race is actually a bit closer than that.

One of the issues, of course, as it is in so many races across the country, is the Iraq war. Throughout this campaign, Mr. Corker has been siding with the president, saying some mistakes were made but that the president is the one to lead the policy in Iraq. He's consistently said it's up to the president to decide who to secretary of defense should be.

But I interviewed Mr. Corker and you see him now and so many other Republicans around the country beginning to seek more room from the White House, if you will, Mr. Corker suggesting that if he's elected and he goes to Washington as the next Republican senator from Tennessee, he'll suggest to the president he might want a change at the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB CORKER, REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Maybe it's time to look at who leads that. I never felt in the first place that we went to Iraq with enough troops on the ground. I didn't feel like we listened as much as we should to the military commanders who were there, who were actually dealing with the issues in Iraq. And maybe with this change, hopefully a change in strategy that will fix our strategy and cause us to really move ahead in causing Iraq to be able to secure itself. Maybe it's time for someone else to lead that effort.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So I asked Congressman Ford today what he thought of that. Mr. Corker now saying perhaps it is time for someone else to lead the Pentagon. Harold Ford saying he views this as a conversion of convenience. He says in his view, more and more Tennesseans are upset with the president's war strategy even if they support the troops and support the war. They're upset with Secretary Rumsfeld. Harold Ford says the election is getting close, his opponent is getting worried.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. HAROLD FORD, (D) TN, SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: My opponent has been one of the staunchest admirers and defenders of Secretary Rumsfeld. And now with less than 200 hours left in the campaign, he has a different opinion on the secretary of defense. I've been saying for sometime not only does Rumsfeld need to go, we need a new strategy, we need a new approach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Iraq, just one of the many issues here, Lou. There's a gay marriage initiative on the ballots. Both candidates say they believe that the state constitution should be amended to outlaw same sex marriage. That is an issue likely to bring conservatives to the polls. Congressman Ford's challenge is to try to get enough votes, especially in the white rural areas of Tennessee to make history. He says he is confident he can do that, though our poll tonight shows perhaps an uphill challenge in the final few days. Lou?

DOBBS: John, the Senator Kerry remarks today, the demand for an apology from the president, from Senator John McCain, what impact is that having there, if any?

KING: Well, Lou, we're hearing from Democratic strategists and other Democrats around the country in these key races and they are furious about this. All are saying, yes, that people on live events like we are conversing right now make mistakes.

The Senator stumbles as he said, they accept his explanation but they say a national politician with Senator Kerry's experience should have been more careful so close to the election. Democrats are furious. They think the election is running their way. They think on Iraq they are winning the debate. The last thing they wanted was a diversion so close to the election.

As one Democrat put it to me tonight, he said, quote, "Didn't he already cost us one election?" Lou?

DOBBS: John, thank you very much. John King reporting from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In Virginia tonight, the race between incumbent George Allen, Democratic challenger Jim Webb took a new turn. Dana Bash reports from Alexandria, Virginia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): George Allen was preparing a 2008 run for the White House. He thought his re-election to the Senate was in the bag. He doesn't anymore.

SEN. GEORGE ALLEN, (R) VA: Reach out to people. Reach out and let them know where we stand on issues that matter.

BASH: Just a few months ago, the Virginia Republican held a double-digit lead. That has vanished. Now he's at 46 percent. Democrat Jim Webb, 50 percent. A statistical dead heat according to CNN's new poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation.

ALLEN: This fellow over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is.

BASH: Most trace Allen's plummet in the poll to this moment, what sounded like a racial slur aimed at a Webb aide. There are other reasons, especially Iraq. Allen's opponent Jim Webb is a Republican turned Democrat, Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan whose opposition to the war drove him to run.

JIM WEBB, DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: George Allen is wrong on foreign policy. He's one of the reasons that we are in this disaster in Iraq.

BASH: Now Allen is one of several Republicans in trouble, changing his tune on Iraq.

ALLEN: If we keep doing the same things we're going to get the same results. And the results and the progress in Iraq are insufficient.

BASH: But you have to listen hard for talk about issues.

ANNOUNCER: The same Jim Webb who declared the Naval Academy a "horny woman's dream."

ANNOUNCER: Isn't it time Virginia made George Allen history?

BASH: It's a campaign certainty, the tighter the race, the closer Election Day, the nastier it all gets.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And the key for George Allen is to hold on to, even energize the conservative base and also women. Last week, the Allen campaign highlighted some sexually explicit passages in some novels that Jim Webb wrote, military fiction and at stop after stop, Lou, George Allen tried to make the point explicitly that he thinks that Jim Webb is derogatory, demeaning towards women and it really has elicited something bizarre on the campaign trail, Lou.

Yesterday we were with Jim Webb and he has taken to reading his own book reviews in his stump speech, book reviews from 10 or 20 years ago to try to hit back at George Allen, make the point that he is a literary person, someone who writes fiction and that this should not be brought into the campaign -- Lou.

DOBBS: Quite a contest. You've got to love democracy. Thank you very much, Dana, thank you very much.

A rough day, we should point out for a man who wanted to confront Senator Allen today. The man was identified by the Associated Press as Mike Stark, a liberal blogger and first year law student. Stark tried to approach and speak to the senator at a campaign appearance today. And then you're seeing what's happened.

He was grabbed, wrestled away from the senator and slammed to the floor by Allen's staffers. He was then ejected from the building.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now you're getting personal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't touch anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: Personal indeed, that sounds about as personal and looks about as personal as it should get.

Coming up next here tonight, the campaign entering its final week, as if you couldn't tell. Control of Congress at stake, of course. I'll be talking with a top Democratic strategist and a top Republican fundraiser about what's happening and what will happen.

A new documentary tonight, exposing the threat that we have reported, on this broadcast for two years. E-voting machines posing a threat to our democracy. I'll be talking with two of the e-voting experts in the documentary. Bev Harris, the founder of Black Box Voting expects the public to be outraged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEV HARRIS, FOUNDER, BLACK BOX VOTER: When people see what's really going on, there's no way we will allow this to continue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: Stay with us for all that and a great deal more straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: The battle for the control of this Congress simply too close to call. The rhetoric is heating up. Polls showing races in key states are within the margin of error. For their political perspective, I'm joined now by Georgette Mosbacher, GOP fundraiser and good friend, Robert Zimmerman, Democratic strategist and good friend.

Welcome to you both.

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Thank you.

DOBBS: Let's start out, Georgette, this looks like a disaster for the Republicans as of two weeks ago. Now it looks like it's going to be a modest victory for the Democrats. What do you say?

GEORGETTE MOSBACHER, REPUBLICAN FUNDRAISER: A modest victory for the Democrats, I prefer that to the disaster line, Lou, to say the least. We have one week left, if we can get a few more John Kerrys in there and his losing it, we may do better than people expect.

DOBBS: Well now, Robert, you guys two weeks ago you had the world by the tail. And right now, you are trying to hold back that gloating. Is it going to be a victory, is it going to be a landslide or will you snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

ZIMMERMAN: Lou, I told you two weeks ago. One of the benefits of being a Democrat over these past six years, we don't exactly suffer from overconfidence. So bottom line is, we are well positioned, I think, to win the House. I think we're competitive for the Senate. I see us winning four to six seats. But the point simply is, we have got the most aggressive energized voter and I think very aggressive, energized candidates around the country. I think that is the issue ...

DOBBS: Georgette is nodding her head in agreement here. I think it's agreement.

MOSBACHER: I agree. Unless we can get our base out and our base has been known to sit on their hands in the past to show that they're not happy or they haven't been paid attention to. It will be ...

ZIMMERMAN: Look at the motivating issues this year. The bottom line is Democrats are running on raising the minimum wage. They're running on cleaning up Washington with lobbying and ethics reform. The Republican Congress has had six years, they have been in power for six years and what is the record they're running on. They're running against Michael J. Fox over his disease.

MOSBACHER: I can answer what the record is.

ZIMMERMAN: OK.

MOSBACHER: Low interest rates, basically very little inflation. Everyone in this country that wants a job has a job. A record number of people own homes. Low taxes. So basically people are -- what they're making, they're taking home. I would say that's a pretty good record.

ZIMMERMAN: But Georgette, while productivity is up, wages are not up to match productivity.

MOSBACHER: That's not true, Robert.

ZIMMERMAN: If you look at every poll over the last six months, this country trusts Democrats with the economy more than this president.

MOSBACHER: That's perception over reality. And as we know ...

ZIMMERMAN: That's people dealing with healthcare costs, dealing with tuition, dealing with the cost of college tuition.

DOBBS: Could I ask you both one more question and that is, the idea that John Kerry has chosen not to apologize, Robert, you're pretty good at this. What in the world could this -- do we have any idea -- he says he misspoke. What was he trying to say? Do we know?

ZIMMERMAN: What he was trying to say and what his staff put out was he was referring to President Bush in his comments, that if you don't focus and you don't do your homework, you mess up, you end up in the White House and you produce a fiasco like Iraq.

DOBBS: He left out a few elements there. You can't help but be struck by the irony that this election, this midterm election may be most strongly influenced by two men who aren't on the ballot, Kerry and Bush.

ZIMMERMAN: I don't agree. I think this election is going to be determined by the issues that really drive the middle class voter of our society. And I don't believe we're going to be distracted. I don't think the electorate are going to be distracted by the swift boat tactics. Whether it is this outrageous attack on John Kerry for misstating a vote or whether it's attacking Michael J. Fox because of his disease.

MOSBACHER: Misstating a joke - Robert?

ZIMMERMAN: Or whether it is attacking Harold Ford because he is a single man for dating women and going to football games.

DOBBS: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Harold Ford has the temerity to like women and go to football games.

ZIMMERMAN: As a single man. And that was the subject of a commercial attack or attacking Jim Webb because he's a fiction writer.

MOSBACHER: What about attacking -- look, if any one of us, when our child were out on a playfield and said -- called someone a doughboy. Here we have John Kerry lecturing us about gutter politics and then he insults Rush Limbaugh, he insults Tony Snow in ways that are really, really below the belt, I think.

DOBBS: The other issue here is the way that John King just reported from Chattanooga, Tennessee tonight that the Democratic field operatives are very upset with Kerry, period. Giving the very strong impression they just as soon the senator sit down, shut up and let the candidates run their elections.

ZIMMERMAN: Yes. I think Democrats who are out in the field better stop being defensive. That's not the way we're going to win elections. John Kerry still draws great crowds around the country. And I mean this sincerely, Lou. Democrats, if we are going to win and deserve to win, we've got to stop apologizing, being on the defensive. And I think we're seeing Democrats fight back.

MOSBACHER: Robert, that's because you've got so much to apologize and be on the defensive for. Sorry.

ZIMMERMAN: Happy Halloween my dear.

MOSBACHER: Sorry.

DOBBS: Thank you both for being here. See you, Georgette, Robert. Thank you very much, we will talk soon.

A reminder now to vote in our poll. Do you believe John Kerry owes our troops in Iraq an apology? We'd love to hear from you. Yes or no. We'll be sharing those results with Ms. Mosbacher and Mr. Zimmerman. Stay with us.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/31/ldt.01.html





WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks Lou. And Paula is going to be joining us as well. The campaign to control Congress. One of the hottest races in the country now neck and neck. A dead heat. We're going to take you live to Missouri where voters could swing the balance of power in Washington.

Also John Kerry's war of words with the White House, more on that. We'll find out why he's trading insults with Tony Snow and the president, for that matter, over a comment he says he didn't even mean to make.

And dead men voting, thousands of people registered in New York State even after they passed away. We're going to have more on that story.

And eyeballs on the podium. A Halloween prank interrupts some serious talks about a nuclear North Korea.

Lou, all of that coming up, an expanded two-hour edition of THE SITUATION ROOM right here at CNN election headquarters. Back to you.

DOBBS: Thank you, Wolf. E-voting machines will count at least three out of every four votes cast in next week's election.

But the e-voting machines may not be reliable; they may not be safe from tampering. If the voting process is not secure, then our very democracy is at risk.

A new documentary, "Hacking Democracy" is set to air on HBO Thursday evening telling the story of writer turned voter activist, Bev Harris, she joins us now and along with Bev, Hugh Thompson, chief security strategist at the firm Security Innovations. Good to have you both here.

Bev, we have been reporting here - I know you've been working on this issue for years. How dire do you think the threat is come Tuesday?

HARRIS: I think Tuesday's going to be pretty rough. It may look okay on Tuesday, but in the 10 days following, I think we're going to find a lot of records that don't match up. And there's going to be a lot of confusion. DOBBS: A lot of confusion. Do you think -- we hear from our viewers all the time concerned in a partisan way about what will happen with these machines manufactured by four basic manufacturers. They view these machines not only suspiciously in terms of the software that they use, the way in which they're designed and operated, but they think there's true partisan influence. Do you agree?

HARRIS: Well, I think on both sides. The problem with the machines is whoever has custody of the machines has a tremendous advantage if they choose to manipulate the election.

DOBBS: I cannot imagine how we got to a situation where the federal government is spending billions of dollars to buy machines that can be opened with mini bar keys, that can be tampered with.

HUGH THOMPSON, SECURITY STRATEGIST: It's kind of scary when you take the analogy of electronic voting machines with other machines that have huge consequences of failure that people put their trust in. Like when I get in an elevator to come to this interview, right, or when I go on an airplane, I believe that somebody that knows a lot about airplanes and knows a lot about elevators has checked these things out for safety and security. But the kinds of flaws we've found show that that checking really isn't being done.

DOBBS: In the documentary, one example of the way these machines can fail is the case of Susan Bernecker, a Republican candidate from New Orleans as you well know, who ran for city council. Let's take a look at what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN BERNECKER, "HACKING DEMOCRACY": This is where I came the day that the warehouses opened to the candidates to inspect. So I came here with an old college buddy, he grabbed his camera and I asked them to show me how the machine worked. So I just started fooling around with the machine. And it's when I pressed the button next to my name and then I looked down and I see Mr. Gambaluca's (ph) name in the display when I pressed Susan Bernecker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: What do you think?

HARRIS: All too common, unfortunately.

DOBBS: She obviously wasn't too pleased about that. As I can imagine. Yes, as we all can imagine. This is already happening early voting down in Florida as Kitty Pilgrim reported here tonight. How do we get to the point that four basic manufacturers making these machines, using laboratories to test and verify their equipment, that the companies pay rather than independent federal agencies doing so or even state agencies, how did we get here, Hugh?

THOMPSON: It's interesting that the folks that are actually verifying the machines, it's kind of like asking me. So my Ph.D. is in mathematics and like asking me to verify the flight worthiness of a Boeing 737. And I don't know anything about planes or avionics but I can say, well it's got a couple of engines. It's got a big fin on the back. Looks like it's good to go. There's somebody sitting in the front seat.

That's what's happening with voting machines. You have people don't understand software security saying OK, it adds two votes together, let's push it off. So we really need new standards.

DOBBS: And the idea that these companies with their proprietary software -- this is the part I really love -- are basically in control of the election because no one can verify what they're doing, except their own employees. What are we going to do?

HARRIS: Well, one of the things -- it's too late for this election to really do any fundamental changes. So one of the things we need to do is really document the heck out of this situation. And in 2004, we had people telling stories, this time we need to be out there with video cameras and get public records so that we can really tell the story of what happens. Then we're going to need to solve it long term.

DOBBS: Well, the Diebold Corporation is not happy about this documentary.

HARRIS: Really.

DOBBS: And they issued this request to HBO. They said, "The material errors and the material misrepresentations are so egregious that HBO should pull the documentary. Failing that, a pre-airing rebuttal and disclaimer are not only appropriate but also in the best interests of HBO and its subscribers."

We talked with the representatives of HBO earlier and they said they plan to stand by the documentary and they have no plans to withdraw it. I'm sure that pleases you and it does anyone interested in free speech and expanding the public's knowledge and the public's right to know.

They also say that the documentary Diebold refers to isn't the same one that HBO will air. What's going on?

HARRIS: Here's a good thing. If you're going to make a letter like that, it would be good to actually watch the documentary.

THOMPSON: That would be advisable.

HARRIS: That would be a start.

THOMPSON: But the interesting issue is the documentary really isn't about a particular company or a particular voting system. It's more about, we don't have standards to verify these things?

DOBBS: And we should point out we have been doing intensive reporting on this broadcast. We want to point out that Diebold has not ever accepted my invitation to join me here to talk about it, which we find remarkable. We thank you both. We wish you good luck. Bev, Hugh, thank you very much.

THOMPSON: Thanks so much for your coverage.

HARRIS: Yes.

DOBBS: Thank you.

Still ahead the results of our poll and more of your thoughts. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: Now the results of our poll. Seventy four percent of you say John Kerry does not owe our troops in Iraq an apology. We have time now to look at some of your other thoughts. Many of you writing in about a broken borders town hall meeting from San Antonio.

Rudy in Illinois said, "Someone should have mentioned to Rosa Rosales on your broken borders special that the undocumented would receive benefits if they were documented."

Bob in Idaho said, "Dear Lou, I think your friend Rosa had her hat on too tight last Wednesday night."

Dan in California. "I have never seen a town meeting like I witnessed in San Antonio. What politician would go into a meeting where the participants are 50 percent for and 50 percent against the issue to be discussed? If only our elected representatives would do the same, it would make politics real instead of staged."

We love hearing from you. Send us your thoughts to loudobbs.com. Each of you whose e-mail is read here receives a copy of my new book, "War on the Middle Class."

We thank you for being with us tonight. Please join us here tomorrow. For all of us, thanks for watching. Good night from New York. Now a special expanded edition of THE SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER and Paula Zahn in our New York election headquarters.

Wolf, Paula?
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/31/ldt.01.html



DOBBS: Well, let's take a look at some of your thoughts.

Chuck in Indiana wrote in to say, "Lou, I'm tired of trying to figure out what the correct term is for individuals who enter our country illegally. Is it immigrant, undocumented, illegal alien, or just trespasser? I know what it would be if someone entered my yard without an invitation."

And Larry in North Carolina, "Lou, I cannot believe anyone who claims to be middle class would vote for an incumbent. My wife and I barely make $50,000 a year. With drug costs and health insurance rising so fast, we are sinking fast." And Louis in Illinois, "My son just finished his English class assignment titled 'War on the Middle Class.' While reading it I thought I'm raising another Lou Dobbs, and he doesn't even watch your show. But he sure is listening."

Send us your thoughts to LouDobbs.com. We'll have more of your thoughts here later in the broadcast.

Each of you whose e-mail is read here receives a copy of my new book, "War on the Middle Class".

Tonight, voting activists, not our government, leading the battle for voting security. They have been calling for action to fix the problems while the government is remaining silent and in denial.

Chief among the correspondents working on this story, Kitty Pilgrim. She has the details for us tonight -- Kitty.

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, these citizens are really the real heroes. Now, across the country they are demanding audits, they have mobilized groups. They have insisted on paper records of electronic votes. They have sued state governments for tighter rules. They've called out lax election officials, and they are making a difference.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM (voice-over): Who makes sure that your vote counts? In this election it's most likely a citizen activist group. For example, the Chicago Office of People for the American Way Foundation is training 3,000 students to troubleshoot problems on electronic voting machines on Election Day.

JULIE SWEET, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: These kids are going to be there for us, just to kind of look over the election judges' shoulders. And if they have problems, then the kids step in and they figure out how to make it work.

PILGRIM: Groups that have spearheaded the effort include VoteTrust USA, Common Cause, Mainstreet Moms, Voter Action, verifiedvoting.org, Voting Integrity Alliance, Florida Fair Elections Coalition, Cleveland Center for Election Integrity, votersunite.org, saveourvote.org, Accurate, and academic researchers at Johns Hopkins and NYU's Brennan Center.

They inspire each other. One of the founders of Florida Fair Election Coalition talks about going to the polls with Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, one of the early critics of security flaws in electronic voting.

SUSAN PYNCHON, FLORIDA FAIR ELECTION COALITION: They were taking buckets of paper trash out the back door of the elections office as they were talking to Bev inside, telling her that they didn't have the records. So I rescued those with another woman from Broward County. We rescued all those records from the trash.

PILGRIM: Activists appear on Capitol Hill wearing "Got Paper?" T-shirts, demanding a voter-verified paper trail.

At Princeton, a computer science professor, Edward Felton (ph), and two graduate students demonstrated security flaws in Diebold's computers, becoming the unofficial gold standard of safety.

This week, owners of Sequoia voting machines were asked if they would submit their equipment to Princeton for a test.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you supply them with a machine and some software to look at?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we'll take it under advisement.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: Now, why do activists have to take action on their own? Many elections officials fell down on the job, they simply trusted the voting machine companies to fix any flaws. That leading to elections that are not sufficiently transparent.

If the voting machine manufacturer declares the results and election officials blindly accept them, someone has to -- has to cast a critical eye on this entire process -- Lou.

DOBBS: Citizen activists, thank god for them, because this is another case where government is just simply failing, failing the people and putting the integrity of the election at risk.

And terrific job as always. One of the principal people covering this story.

Kitty Pilgrim, thank you very much.

And this Thursday night at 9:00 p.m., tomorrow evening, the documentary "Hacking Democracy" premieres on HBO. The documentary exposes the vulnerability of our country's electronic voting systems. It's certainly important to watch, Thursday night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, on HBO.

Coming up next, Democrats believe they can take back the House this year. We'll have a special report on what the Democrats will do if they win control of the Congress, at least in estimation of some.

And Congressional candidates have been asked to put the voters' interests before their own. We'll tell you why some candidates, well, they are balking. Can you imagine?

And Iraq on the verge of chaos. U.S. strategy, on the verge of failure. Three former military commanders join us for some straight talk on this war and its conduct.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)


KOPPEL (voice-over): They're among the most liberal politicians in America. Nancy Pelosi, Alcee Hastings, John Conyers, Henry Waxman and Charlie Rangel. And if Democrats win back the House next week, they're set to rocket to the top positions in Congress. Republicans have seized on the prospect of liberal lawmakers running the House as a way to fire up their base on the campaign trail. The president singled out New York's Charlie Rangel, though not by name.

BUSH: I think it is interesting to note that the person who wants to be to be the head of the Ways and Means Committee for the Democrats said that he can't think of one tax cut that he would extend. He said that's code word for get ready, if the Democrats take the House, your taxes are going up.

KOPPEL: Embattled Indiana Republican John Hostettler's campaign is using this radio ad to scare voters away from his Democratic opponent.

ANNOUNCER: Speaker Pelosi will reauthorize the Clinton gun ban. Give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens with Detroit liberal John Conyers, and raise taxes with New York liberal Charlie Rangel.

KOPPEL: In a recent interview with CNN, Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are for tax cuts but only for the middle class.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: We want to do things that are positive rather than tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country, which is only taking us deeper in debt at the expense of the middle class.

KOPPEL: But a member of the House Republican leadership, Eric Cantor, told CNN, he doesn't buy it.

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), VIRGINIA: We've already heard from the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee that there is not one of the Bush tax cuts that he would support for renewal, which to me means a tax increase for many Americans to the tune of maybe $2,100 for each family.

KOPPEL: Republicans also point to other Democrats who will be in charge, like Florida's Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge impeached by the House in 1989 in an alleged bribery scheme, who could be the next chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Hastings says he did nothing wrong.

And Michigan's John Conyers, who has called for President Bush to be impeached, and until recently on his congressional Web site, demanded an investigation into what he called "administration abuses of power." And if the Democrats take power, the 21-term Michigan lawmaker would likely become the next chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL: And even though these lawmakers would become their party's public face, their clout may be limited, due to a significant number of more moderate, rank and file Democrats, Lou, who often find themselves at odds with their more liberal leadership -- Lou.

DOBBS: Andrea, always amused by this liberal/conservative thing, the idea that they would be liberal, being Democrat, and being liberal would not be exactly untoward or unexpected. I guess we could describe all of the current leaders of those committees as conservative, correct?

KOPPEL: Conservative Republicans, not necessarily. I mean, there are some Republican lawmakers, as we all know, who have more moderate voting records. But certainly, the Democrats that they're looking for these chairmanships are all extremely to the left of their party, Lou.

DOBBS: OK. Andrea, thank you very much.

Andrea Koppel from Washington.

Common Cause and other leading public interest groups tonight are demanding Congress fix this nation's broken campaign finance system. They are asking Congressional candidates to support comprehensive, public financing of election campaigns. They say it's finally time to put the public interest ahead of corporate interests.

Lisa Sylvester reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The disgraced former members of Congress, the lobbyists who bought them, the lawmakers who remain under a cloud of suspicion. They show a political system in Washington out of control. And Congress refuses to reign in the influence pedaling.

MARY BOYLE, COMMON CAUSE: Right now we have special interests that are controlling the agenda. It's their voices that are being heard, because they are giving all the campaign contributions. We think it should be the public's voice.

SYLVESTER: A group of watchdog organizations has launched a campaign to convince candidates to put voters first, ahead of special interest groups. Three hundred and fifty-nine candidates so far have signed a pledge to clean up Congress by supporting spending limits and public funding for campaigns, setting new restrictions on gifts by lobbyists and fully disclosing lobbyist contributions.

John Sarbanes is running for Maryland's third district. He has signed on. So has his opponent, John White, who has not taken a dime from political action committees.

JOHN WHITE (R), MARYLAND CONG, CANDIDATE: At least people in my district will know I'm not beholden to anyone. No ones hand is in my pocket. And I don't have a black book of people that I owe money to.

SYLVESTER: The pledge list includes Democrats and Republicans. But challengers far outnumber incumbents, by at least three to one.

BOYLE: It's a hard sell for elected officials because they are comfortable and they trust in the system that brought them there.

SYLVESTER: But it's a system that has served the few and not the many.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SYLVESTER: Common Cause is singling out and candidates who are running on a reform Washington platform but have not signed the pledge. One example, Michael Steele. He's running for a Maryland Senate seat. His campaign has featured several anti-lobbyist ads, but he has not signed the pledge after repeated invitations. And his campaign office did not return our calls -- Lou.

DOBBS: Yes, I have to say, in my opinion, Common Cause is taking on this issue at a critical time when the public interest does need to be served. The entire country has to look at the idea of clean elections, public financing, because it is the only money available that would be a countervailing influence in a political system that is now absolutely dominated by corporate America.

Lisa Sylvester, thank you very much.

Coming up next here, for weeks many Republicans, keeping their distance from President Bush. This week, Democrats keeping their distance from Senator Kerry. Who are they to turn to? I'll be talking with our distinguished panel tonight about just whom the candidates in both parties can turn to for national help.

Also tonight, the rising chaos in Iraq, a major issue in this election. Three retired military commanders join me for some straight talk on this war, its conduct and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's future. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0611/01/ldt.01.html




 

Voter Suppression in Midterm Elections: Robocalls, ID Confusion, Voter Roll Purges

Monday, November 6th, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/06/1450228

In Virginia, Democratic Senatorial candidate James Webb's last name does not appear on the voting summary sheet. In Indiana, African American congresswoman Julia Carson was told her congressional ID was not sufficient to vote. In Broward County, Florida early voting, a vote for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate registered as a vote for the Republican candidate. Adam Cohen, editorial writer for The New York Times, joins us to discuss voter disenfranchisement. [includes rush transcript - partial]

On Tuesday, millions of voters will cast their vote in the mid- term elections. Many are calling this the most high-stakes election in recent years with the possibility of a Democratic takeover of Congress. But some are warning that voters could be subject to intimidation and a variety of suppressive tactics meant to keep them from casting a ballot. Some of these tactics have been mandated by the government like new rules requiring government-issued voter identification cards. Others have been perpetrated by unofficial sources such as the bogus letters sent to thousands of Latino voters in California telling them it was illegal to vote.

    * Adam Cohen, an editorial writer for the New York Times. His piece in today's paper is titled, "Protecting the Right to Vote"

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

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AMY GOODMAN: Adam Cohen is an editorial writer with the New York Times. His piece in today's paper is called "Protecting the Right to Vote.” We welcome you to Democracy Now!

ADAM COHEN: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Adam, you’ve been following the whole issue of voting for quite a long time now. What are the issues, the key issues you see right now?

ADAM COHEN: Well, the first issue is electronic voting. About 80% of Americans will be voting on electronic voting machines on Tuesday, and we don't really have a lot of confidence that those votes will necessarily be accurately recorded. We’ve already seen some problems in the early voting. In Montgomery County, Maryland, in the primary, there was absolute chaos when they failed to include a necessary part for the electronic voting machines, so people were literally casting ballots that they wrote on scraps of paper. Poll workers were reading the candidates’ names, and voters were just writing names literally on pieces of paper. The machines weren’t working.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait. So, the machines, they had to put them aside.

ADAM COHEN: They weren’t working. They were missing a key part. So there was actually -- the word “chaos” was used. That’s Montgomery County, Maryland. In Virginia, we already know that on the summary sheet in some Virginia electronic voting machines, Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate for Senate, his full name will not appear. It cuts off after his middle name. So, “Webb” does not appear on the summary page?

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean by “summary page”?

ADAM COHEN: Well, when you vote on an electronic voting machine, often you make your choices by hitting various buttons, and then at the end you get a summary of all the choices you’ve made, and you confirm that that’s correct. So that summary page should have all the candidates you chose.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s not actually a piece of paper; it’s the screen.

ADAM COHEN: It’s the screen, but for some reason the electronic voting machine manufacturer that made a lot of machines for Virginia was unable to fit Jim Webb's entire name on there. They admit that it was a mistake. They say they’ll do better next year, but people are actually going to be voting with this flawed technology that has the full Republican name and only half of the Democrat's name.

AMY GOODMAN: Isn't there a law against this?

ADAM COHEN: Well, everyone says, “We’re going to try better next year,” but those are not even the worst problems. I would say the worst problem we’ve seen so far in early voting is in Broward County, Florida, where people are reporting that when they’ve chosen the Democratic candidate for governor -- they’ve made that choice -- when they get to the summary page and need to confirm that their choices were, you know, correctly recorded, they see that they’ve actually voted for the Republican. The name has flipped. And that’s something that people have brought to the attention of the election officials, and they say that they have a way of re-jiggering the machine. They actually admit that when the machines are heavily used, they get out of sync, and sometimes they do flip the vote from, in this case, Democrat to Republican.

AMY GOODMAN: But explain how this is happening. This goes to the issue of early voting.

ADAM COHEN: Yeah, well, people are voting now in many states. More than 20% of all votes have already been cast around the country. They're voting on electronic voting machines. And you would think that an electronic voting machine would have to absolutely accurately reflect the choices a voter made, before it could be used in an election. That’s not true. It’s a very, very imprecise science. These electronic voting machine companies are really not very good at making these machines.

AMY GOODMAN: But in the case of Broward County, if you cast your vote for the Democratic governor and it shows up as a Republican governor on the computer screen, what do you do? You then have to walk out to one of the poll workers and say, “Can you come in and look at my computer?” And then they also see what are you choice is.

ADAM COHEN: Yeah, and you say, you know, “I chose the Democrat, but actually on the summary page it's showing me that I’m voting for the Republican. Could you please do something about that?” And then they will recalibrate the machine. They may take the machine out of service. I actually talked with someone from the Broward County Elections Office last week, and I said, “I hear you’re having some problems with electronic voting down there.” And she said, “No, there are no problems, because if the voters tell us that there’s a mistake on the summary page, we can fix it.” Now, to my mind, that’s a problem, if the voter needs to catch that. Otherwise, their Democratic vote will become a Republican vote. But apparently, they don't consider that a problem.

AMY GOODMAN: Aren't there issues about privacy in voting?

ADAM COHEN: There are issues about -- I mean --

AMY GOODMAN: Aside from aren’t there issues of casting your vote and having it not counted?

ADAM COHEN: You should absolutely not have to bring an elections official to say, “I’ve chosen a Democrat, and it’s coming up as a Republican,” because you’re telling them your vote. You also shouldn't have to be voting on a scrap of paper in Montgomery County. You know, in San Diego, actually, we just learned that they ran out of absentee ballots, so the official ballots that they mailed to some people in San Diego are Xeroxes, which you vote on this Xerox, and then when you send it in, election workers will transfer your choice onto a proper ballot, which will then be scanned properly. That’s crazy, but they’ve just run out of proper ballots.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, in Maryland, the governor said they will not use electronic voting machines tomorrow, is that right?

ADAM COHEN: No, they are using them. He’s discouraging people from using them, and you have the choice not to, but they’re -- no, I mean, they were one of the states that went earliest to all Diebold voting machines. They and Georgia, they hopped on the bandwagon very early, and now there’s a lot of buyer’s remorse, because people realize that these Diebold voting machines, which do not have paper trails, are not reliable. Even if they have all the parts on Election Day, you’re not sure that they’re working properly.

AMY GOODMAN: In the case of Virginia, can Webb simply challenge the vote, because his name will not appear?

ADAM COHEN: I think the theory is that at least his name is fully represented on the first page, where you make the choice, and that maybe it’s not so important that it be correct on the summary ballot, although since we know that sometimes the votes are flipping in Broward, you would like to be sure that your full name is there on the summary so that people can catch it. You know, these are the imperfections that someone could try to challenge. I don't know if a judge would set aside an election because of it.

AMY GOODMAN: What about what’s coming out of Memphis: the early memory cards being lost? There was some rumor of this.

ADAM COHEN: Yeah, the “Drudge Report” online made a big deal last week about some voter cards going missing, and I think that we still don't know exactly what is going on there and who took them, or whether -- how many votes can be voted with these, I believe, twelve cards that are missing.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean by cards?

ADAM COHEN: These are cards that a voter uses to actually -- you have a card when you go to vote that you put into the machine, and some of these are missing. It doesn't appear to be a large number. It doesn't seem like it’s a number that would really change the election, but it’s definitely feeding into people's anxieties.

AMY GOODMAN: And you're saying 20% of the votes will be cast by tomorrow already, people who are in states where there is early voting.

ADAM COHEN: At least that many have already been cast, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the issue of voter suppression?

ADAM COHEN: Well, it’s an issue every year. And it’s -- we saw it this year with 14,000 letters that were sent out in Southern California in Loretta Sanchez’s district to voters with Latino names, saying that if you're an immigrant, you're not allowed to vote, which is absolutely untrue, of course. If you're an immigrant and you’re naturalized and you’re registered to vote, you can vote, but that was false information that was systematically sent out.

But we're seeing it in many other places in many other ways. Some small ways, there were reports of radio commercials in black neighborhoods in Baltimore earlier this year saying that Martin Luther King was a Republican -- not true -- but designed to suppress the black vote, which is going to be very important in Maryland this year. And then, we're seeing government forms of suppression with voter ID laws that are designed not just to ensure that only people who are registered to vote can vote, but actually to stop a lot of people from voting.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ll talk about the issue of voter ID laws after break. We're talking to Adam Cohen, editorial writer for the New York Times, tracking the votes.

FOR COMPLETION OF THIS ARTICLE, GO TO:

Dubya Bush: “We’ll Win The Senate And We’ll Win The House” – How Can He Be So Sure? I Will Tell You Why - SEX, LIES & EVMs! – RI10
http://tabacco.blog-city.com/dubya_bush_well_win_the_senate_and_well_win_the_house__how_c.htm
Published today, November 6, 2006




Tabacco: I consider myself both a funnel and a filter. I funnel information, not readily available on the Mass Media, which is ignored and/or suppressed. I filter out the irrelevancies and trivialities to save both the time and effort of my Readers and bring consternation to the enemies of Truth & Fairness!

In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".



T.A.B.A.C.C.O.  (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization)

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