Where Justices Fail, Voters Can Step In

the integrity of our elections has been called into question quite a few times in recent years, and now a Spanish company known as Scytl will be involved in reporting election results for hundreds of jurisdictions across the United States this upcoming election day. Will those election results be accurate? M

It is absolutely amazing that a foreign company has been able to gain such control over the reporting of election results in the United States without it ever making a significant splash in the mainstream media.

The combination of SOE Software and Scytl is going to make it much more difficult for observers to independently verify the integrity of the voting results in many jurisdictions.
In a major step towards global centralization of election processes, the world’s dominant Internet voting company has purchased the USA’s dominant election results reporting company.
When you view your local or state election results on the Internet, on portals which often appear to be owned by the county elections division, in over 525 US jurisdictions you are actually redirected to a private corporate site controlled by SOE software, which operates under the name ClarityElections.com.

The good news is that this firm promptly reports precinct-level detail in downloadable spreadsheet format.
the bad news is that this centralizes one middleman access point for over 525 jurisdictions in AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, KY, MI, KS, IL, IN, NC, NM, MN, NY, SC, TX, UT, WA. And growing.
As local election results funnel through SOE’s servers (typically before they reach the public elsewhere), those who run the computer servers for SOE essentially get “first look” at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.

The American advocacy group Project Vote has concluded that SCYTL’s internet voting system is vulnerable to attack from the outside AND the inside, a situation which could result in '…an election that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters…' Talk about having a flair for understatement!
There have also been very serious questions about SOE Software. Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org says that there have been major problems with SOE Software election results in the past....
In Broward County FL, the results reported by Scytl-owned SOE Software in 2008 showed an entire candidate, who was winning, disappear into vapor in the middle of the count,

and in Hillsborough County FL and Dallas County TX, votes that had been reported began to disappear.

One day before the NY GOP Presidential primary, Vincent Reda, the First Vice Chairman of the NY Republican Party, made robo calls to voters declaring that all other candidates had dropped out of the race except Mitt Romney.
Doug Wead, Paul campaign advisor, notes that some GOP leaders have stooped pretty low trying to stop the Ron Paul campaign

On April 21, in King County Washington, Chairwoman Lori Sotelo tried to call off the caucus when Tamra Smilanich, a Ron Paul supporter, was fairly elected caucus chair. Sotelo accused Smilanich of being an “operative” of the Paul campaign and said that the King County GOP would not allow a Ron Paul "campaign event" to continue. Smilanich's election had taken place according to the Robert’s Rules of Order and was completely legitimate.

GOP "low blow" in Rockland County, New York may have succeeded in its attempt to undermine the Ron Paul vote. Rockland County is one of the most populated counties in New York State. Viincent Reda, First Vice Chairman of the New York Republican State Committee, made robo calls, to all registered Republican voters in Rockland County, saying that all the other candidates but Romney had dropped out of the race. Reda urged voters to come to the polls to vote for Romney anyway, to show "united" support.

Here is the call transcript:
...It is imperative that us [sic] Republicans get out to vote and support Mitt Romney for President. Even though the other candidates have dropped out of the race, it is imperative that we show we are united behind the one man that can beat Barrack Obama in November. So please get your familes and friends and fellow Republicans out to vote and support for Mitt Romney for President...

But although SKYTL’s self-proclaimed reputation for security had won the company the Congressionally approved task of handling internet voting for American citizens and members of the military overseas, upon opening the system for use in the District of Columbia, the University of Michigan fight song “The Victors” was suddenly heard after the casting of each ballot. The system had been hacked by U of M computer teachers and students in response to a challenge by SKYTL that anyone who wished to do so, might try!

Nevertheless, in spite of warnings by experts across the nation, American soldiers overseas will once again vote via the internet in 2012. And because SKYTL will control the method of voting and—thanks to the purchase of SOE–the method of counting the votes as well, there will be no ballots, no physical evidence, no way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes…or the count.

Voter Action, an advocacy group that seeks elections integrity in the U.S., sent a lengthy complaint to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 charging the integration of SCYTL systems “raises national security concerns.”
“Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security interests of the United States, either directly or through other organizations,” Voter Action charged.

Prior to 2012 much of the software being used for voting system upgrades came from a company called SOE. However, SCYTL acquired SOE in a purchase agreement in late 2011 and early 2012. The platform that SCYTL currently uses actually originated with SOE before the acquisition.
But herein lies yet another problem inherent with the software, according to critics. Elections and vote fraud expert Bev Harris of Black Box Voting says that the uniform system SCYTL now uses makes it nearly impossible to check for accuracy, given that it does not mandate a paper trail of votes. There is no proof, no written record, no documentation.

An internationally-headquartered company, SCYTL, is now taking over online U.S. voting systems.
Former Goldman veterans own and control Scytl. Scytl is owned and controlled by a venture capital firm, Balderton, a venture capital firm that is run by Goldman Sachs veterans Tim Bunting and Mark Evans.

Following documentation of widespread GOP caucus fraud in Missouri and a secret video of GOP leaders admitting to the fraud, the same scandals have now been documented in Georgia.
In the aftermath of the fraud a secret recording documented the GOP actually admitting to rigging the Missouri caucuses.
Alex Hayes, director of mainstream Republicans of Washington State, making the claim that the Romney-Santorum-Gingrich campaigns have united behind a common slate of candidates in Washington State to block the Ron Paul machine from winning the delegates. The apparent move on the part of the Romney-Santorum-Gingrich campaigns is to block citizens favoring Ron Paul from taking over the Washington State delegation to Tampa.

This happened at my Caucus in Shoreline. The King County Chairman herself handed out what looked like official ballots only they were pink. I went up and asked her what they were and she said, “these are the delegates that the GOP supports.” (everyone one of them were Romney delegates) I said, “I’m new at this but isn’t this a little baised? ”

Delegate Gary J. Warenfelt of 5C said, “This is the first time I have ever been actively involved in politics and to see illegal actions taking place in a major U.S. political party is very saddening. They cherry-picked the delegates that they wanted to go to the district and state conventions without following party rules. They did not listen to any voice of opposition and ended the meeting illegally.” Fellow delegate Shawn Lewis added, “I personally called for a count of the votes of the ayes versus the nays, and was refused.

Election Fraud: Why Did ABC-TV Post Illinois GOP Primary Results 24 Hours Early?!
On the eve before the GOP Illinois primary, one might ask:
How the hell does SGTreport have election results for a Republican primary in Illinois which has yet to take place?
We have long argued that the fix is in, but this… um… leaves us speechless.
Posted tonight – MONDAY, March 19th – on the web site of Chicago ABC News Affiliate WLS-TV are the following election results, clearly labeled as “Illinois Races, Federal Offices”.
(It is possible that this was a test site - hopefully it was!)

Alex Helwig, Chairman of the Rules Committee who made the motion to remove the chair, was arrested by Shreveport police and released. During his brief detainment, some of his fingers were broken and when he returned to the event he was walking with aid of a cane.” - he supported Ron Paul so they had him hurt.
Ron Paul supporters ended false arrests, detainment, broken bones and slander as they simply exercise their constitutional rights of voting and participating in party politics.
Louisiana GOP officials ignored the vast majority of duly elected delegates and attempted to use illegally adopted rules to deny Ron Paul supporters an opportunity to attend the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

CT, 2008 - The New York Post reported that ACORN submitted a voter registration card for a 7-year-old Bridgeport girl. Another 8,000 cards from the same city will be scrutinized for possible fraud.

FL, 2009 - In September, 11 ACORN workers were accused of forging voter registration applications in Miami-Dade County during the last election. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state attorney’s office scoured hundreds of suspicious applications provided by ACORN and found 197 of 260 contained personal ID information that did not match any living person.

IN, 2008 - Election officials in Indiana have thrown out more than 4,000 ACORN-submitted voter registrations after finding they had identical handwriting and included the names of many deceased Indianans, and even the name of a fast food restaurant.
As to the public records: the main thing we've found is the use of a USB memory stick repeatedly the night before election night, on election night and for five *hours* the next day (when provisions were being processed - and in one election provisionals made up 20% of the vote). Each time the USB memory stick is used, it's a violation of election laws: in Arizona voting systems have to be certified and remain un-connected to any other system.

The only real security is an "air gap" between that system and the outside world and the county repeatedly violated it. Worse, each time they used it they did multiple insertions and removals in a pattern that suggests not just "doing a backup" or "uploading results", but rather copying critical files back and forth and very possibly modifying them on other systems. The main vote database is in MS-Access format and anybody with a copy of MS-Access on another system could literally do anything they want to the outcome of the vote - especially in the all-mail-in elections in Flagstaff and elsewhere.

Republicans and their media outlets have muddied the waters on election fraud issues by criticizing the DOJ for not taking stronger actions against two Philadelphia members of the New Black Panther Party (a Nation of Islam offshoot), one of whom is alleged to have menaced voters by carrying a police-type billy club outside a polling site in 2008. A party official says the two overdid their attempt to project an image of community strength in the face of what they regarded as potential official efforts to dampen turnout by black and poor voters.

former DOJ attorney wrote in a Washington Times column republished by Newsmax. "To the contrary, the Black Panthers in October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. In any event, the law clearly prohibits even isolated incidents of voter intimidation."

There are many forms of electoral fraud that don’t merit a full article because there isn’t much to say. For instance, the abuse of proxy votes. A proxy vote is when someone casts a vote for another person because they’re unable to do so for a variety of reasons. The most common form of electoral fraud using proxy votes involves old people, typically those in retirement homes. The residents in the homes will be asked to fill out an absentee vote form because they can’t leave to go to the polls. Either the forms are actually applications for proxy votes or they’re rewritten to be such.

In the US every candidate engages in such things with almost every ad they run. Laws were recently enacted that require the candidate to essentially swear to the truth of what’s said in every ad, but that doesn’t stop his support groups from running ads that are full of lies. Voters can also be lied to about the time and place of polling, leaving them unable to cast their choice when the time comes. They’re not overtly illegal but still immoral. When it comes to gaining political power people are willing to do anything.

Electronic voting machines make it impossible to carry out certain types of electoral fraud but they open up new types of fraud at the same time so they’re far from perfect. Some of you might think that such thoughts are paranoid fantasies but the machines have actually been tampered by people looking to prove it’s possible, including Princeton University

A simple way of enacting electronic voting machine fraud is to mess with the software on the machine. You can do any number of things but the primary use would be to alter votes or vote totals to tip the scales in favor of your candidate. Several demonstrations of this technique have been conducted and they’ve always been successful. It’s easier than you might think but of course it’s still a complicated operation that requires a skilled computer operator and access to the machines.
One of the biggest issues with these machines is that they’re not produced by the government, which leaves them open to all sorts of corruption issues. The facility is not inspected by the government and the production procedures aren’t vetted

. It’s certainly possible that someone to enact large scale voting fraud could change things on the production level and break the machines as they see fit. It’s also possible to pull the memory cards out of the machines and replace them with one of your own. If at any point in the process someone had unfettered access to them they could do some serious damage.

More than three dozen people have been charged with election fraud in Virginia in connection with the 2008 election, in some cases for registering to vote despite disqualifying felony convictions, state police said. in the years since Virginia helped put Barack Obama in the White House, 38 people in the Commonwealth have been arrested on either felony or misdemeanor election fraud charges.

Virginia State Police for individual investigation.
"We believe these complaints ran the gamut from voter registration fraud issues through potential fraud at the polling place on Election Day," said Donald Palmer, secretary of the Virginia Board of Elections, who was appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell in February 2011. "We do not have specific numbers on how the complaints broke down. However, (the state board of elections) is aware that arrests have been made over the past few years for individuals engaging in voter registration fraud."
Palmer added that recent indictments obtained by the Richmond commonwealth's attorney's office for voter fraud and the results of the state police investigation "remind us that unfortunately, fraud does exist

sworn testimony that SMARTech, in Chattanooga, merely acted as a backup site for election data.
The contracts, signed in March 2004, show that SMARTech was specifically tasked with creating a “mirror site” to manage election night results.“What this means is that Connell’s company was on both sides of the mirror,” explains Stephen Spoonamore. “And that the votes of the people of Ohio were in the control of a fiercely partisan IT company (SMARTech) and operating out of another state.”

Election Fraud is Rampant! But the most votes can be stolen by the machines. Go LOW TECH. Put large black boxes by each selection, and make the wording LARGE enough almost everyone can read it. Each voter marks selections in private, but all VOTES are counted

counted in public as is required by our legitimate government, surrounded by citizens who want to be there!

Voting is good, as long as WE KNOW our votes will actually be counted correctly!