Election Stealing May Become The Norm in America: Will the 2016 Primaries Be Electronically Rigged?

Photo by Ville Oksanen.

By Victoria Collier and Ben Ptashnik

"You've heard the old adage 'follow the money.' I follow the vote, and wherever the vote becomes an electron and touches a computer, that's an opportunity for a malicious actor potentially to ... make bad things happen." — Steve Stigall, CIA cyber-security expert, in remarks to the US Election Assistance Commission

Primary election rigging in the coming weeks and months is all but assured if American voters and candidates don't take steps to prevent it now. Evidence that US voting systems are wide open to fraud and manipulation should be taken seriously in light of the unprecedented high-stakes elections we're facing.

Not in recent history have American voters been presented with such radically polarized candidates, forcing a crucial choice for the direction of our future, and possibly upending long-established centers of power.

It's no secret that US primaries have been tightly controlled by the two ruling parties, usually to the benefit of their favored candidates. If this internal manipulation (some might call it rigging) is not publicly condoned, neither is it loudly condemned.

This year, however, the primary season is shaping up to be a battle royal between the political establishment and outsider insurgencies who are challenging the party elites and defying their usual filters, money and manipulations. And it seems all bets are off.

As a brazen Donald Trump kicks down the door of the GOP, tens of millions in super PAC dark cash has (so far) failed to buy the candidacy for a lackluster Jeb Bush. Accusations abound that Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has stacked the deck for Hillary Clinton. Yet nothing - not even corporate media's censorship or outright hostility toward Bernie Sanders - has blunted his skyrocketing grassroots campaign.

You might ask: What is left, then, for the party powerful to ensure outcomes in 2016? Would any of them be so desperate as to actually rig the final vote count? Could they?

Indeed, they could.

But to be fair, so could a lot of other people. Local fixers, insider operatives, rogue hackers and even foreign countries could all rig US elections - in whole or part, in 50 states and most of the United States' 3,143 counties - electronically, and without detection.

The potential for this vote-rigging cyberwar is the result of an ongoing crisis in US democracy - a silent coup of sorts. Over many decades, US elections have been quietly outsourced to a small group of private voting machine companies, some with extreme partisan ties and criminal records. They have now almost entirely replaced our publicly counted paper ballots with their secretly programmed, easily hacked electronic voting technology.

For example, the Diebold AccuVote-TS Touchscreen voting machine was recently analyzed by Princeton computer security professors. They found that malicious software running on a single voting machine can be installed in as little as one minute, spreading invisibly from machine to machine through a virus, while stealing votes with little risk of detection.

While recent laws have limited essential hand-counting audits - in some cases making them actually illegal - in 18 states voting machines are used that produce no paper ballot at all, making verification of the results impossible.

Threats to the 2016 Elections

In 2016, Americans will once again cast their votes into this lawless electronic void, and no, we can't solve the problem before these game-changing primary elections. But shining a light on our voting systems does make a difference - as does getting out to vote: Voter apathy and ignorance create the ideal conditions for election rigging. Huge turnout makes election rigging less feasible, particularly when the pre-election polls or exit polls diverge more than 10 percent from actual vote returns. Manipulations usually happen when the spread between candidates is smaller than 10 percent.

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Republicans Have Been Stealing Elections Since 2000 — Via Electronic Voting Machines Controlled by Pro-GOP Corporations (Videos and Audio)

The Republican Party stole the presidential election in 2000 and 2004, congressional elections, governorships, and state legislature elections with the help of companies like Diebold, Premier Election Solutions, Election Systems & Software and other Republican-backing corporations that supply electronic voting machines to municipalities.
This is how the Republican Party has managed to take over the House of Representatives, the Senate, and state legislatures — Even though the percentage of the electorate that the Republican Party represents has been steadily and significantly shrinking over the past twenty years. Big media won't tell Americans that this has been extremely well documented because that would call the entire "democratic" voting system into question.
—Ronald David Jackson

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 Compiled by Ronald David Jackson

Republicans Will Take The White House and Keep Congress in 2016 — Via Electronic Vote Stealing

When official exit poll data keep showing Democrats winning yet Democrats keep losing — You know something sinister is afoot.

FAULKNER: How does the party of "no" and the one percent, nakedly obstructionist and grossly unpopular, as you pointed out their congressional approval rating is in single digits with shrinking demographics to boot — How do they wind up rewarded rather than punished when the voters finally get the chance to weigh in?

SIMON: ...It is still verboten in public discourse in America [to discuss] the distinct possibility, in fact the probability, that in the darkness of cyberspace where these computers are recording and tallying our votes by the millions, there are electronic program manipulations taking place that alter the vote counts and with them alter the results of the elections and alter them in a distinct unidirectional pattern towards the right.

Listen To the Entire Interview:

Voting Machines: Computerized Election Theft
Dr. Jonathan Simon explains how Republicans, working with companies that provide electronic
voting machines, have been stealing elections whenever the vote is close.

Bonnie Faulkner of Guns & Butter (left) interviews Dr. Jonathan Simon.

RELATED STORY: Computerized Election Theft and the New American Century


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Uncounted:
The New Math of American Elections

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Hacking Democracy:
An In Depth Analysis of the ES&S Voting Systems 

 

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Programmer Testifies Under Oath and Admits
Computers Rig Elections

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RELATED STORIES:

Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control

How To Steal an Election With a Diebold Machine

Voting Machine Manufacturer Diebold Charged Over Bribery, Fraud, And “Worldwide Pattern Of Criminal Conduct”

Electronic Voting Machines Still Widely Used Despite Security Concerns

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Man Who Helped George Bush Steal the 2000 Presidential Election Prepares for Run for President — Jeb Bush

How Jeb Bush Stole the 2000 Election for His Brother: Ex-con game — How Florida's "Felon" Voter-Purge Was Itself Felonious

Jeb Bush - Political Criminal: He helped his brother, George Bush, steal the 2000 presidential election,
thus changing the course of American history for the worse. (Illustration by DonkeyHotey)

By Greg Palast
In November the U.S. media, lost in patriotic reverie, dressed up the Florida recount as a victory for President Bush. But however one reads the ballots, Bush's win would certainly have been jeopardized had not some Floridians been barred from casting ballots at all. Between May 1999 and Election Day 2000, two Florida secretaries of state--Sandra Mortham and Katherine Harris, both protegees of Governor Jeb Bush--ordered 57,700 "exfelons," who are prohibited from voting by state law, to be removed from voter rolls. (In the thirty-five states where former felons can vote, roughly 90 percent vote Democratic.) A portion of the list, which was compiled for Florida by DBT Online, can be seen for the first time here; DBT, a company now owned by ChoicePoint of Atlanta, was paid $ 4.3 million for its work, replacing a finn that charged $ 5,700 per year for the same service.

Voter Suppression: Greg Palast Explains how Jeb Bush, Kathleen Harris and the Supreme Court Helped George Bush Steal the 2000 Presidential Election

If the hope was that DBT would enable Florida to exclude more voters, then the state appears to have spent its money wisely. Two of these "scrub lists," as officials called them, were distributed to counties in the months before the election with orders to remove the voters named. Together the lists comprised nearly 1 percent of Florida's electorate and nearly 3 percent of its African-American voters. Most of the voters (such as "David Butler," a name that appears 77 times in Florida phone books) were selected because their name, gender, birthdate, and race matched--or nearly matched--one of the tens of millions of ex-felons in the United States.

Neither DBT nor the state conducted any further research to verify the matches. DBT, which frequently is hired by the F.B.I. to conduct manhunts, originally proposed using address histories and financial records to confirm the names, but the state declined,the cross-checks. In Harris's elections-office files, next to DBT's sophisticated verification plan, there is a handwritten note: "DON'T NEED."

Thomas Alvin Cooper, twenty-eight, was flagged because of a crime for which he was convicted in the year 2007. Apparently this time traveler will cover his tracks by moving to Ohio, shedding his middle name, and changing his race. At least 300 "felons" on these lists were convicted in the future, a fact that did not escape state elections workers, who, in June 2000 e-mails headed "Future Conviction Dates," termed the discovery "bad news." Rather than release such perplexing data to the counties, Janet Modrow, the state's liaison to DBT, suggested that "blanks would be preferable in these cases." (The future felonies I found on these lists may simply be those the state neglected to erase; 4,918 other names have blank conviction dates.) The one county that checked each of the 694 names on its local list could verify only thirty-four as former felons. Some counties defied Harris's directive: Madison County elections supervisor Linda Howell refused the purge list after she found her own name on it.

Rev. Willie Dixon, seventy, was convicted of a crime in his youth, but one phone call would have told the state that it had already pardoned Dixon and restored his right to vote. On behalf of Dixon and other excluded voters, the NAACP in January 2001 sued Florida and Harris, after finding that African Americans--who account for 13 percent of Florida's electorate and 44 percent of U.S. felony convictions--were four times as likely as whites to be incorrectly singled out under the state's methodology.

After the election, Harris and her elections chief, Clay Roberts, testified under oath that verifying the lists was the job of county supervisors. But the Florida-DBT contract (marked "Secret" and "Confidential") holds DBT responsible for "manual verification using telephone calls." In fact, with the state's blessing, DBT did not call a single felon. When I asked Roberts about the contract-during an interview for BBC television, Roberts ripped off his microphone, ran into his office, locked the door, and called in state troopers to remove us.

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Republicans Didn't 'Win' The House or State Legislatures - They Stole Them

Voter Suppression. (Illustration by DonkeyHotey)

Amid America’s demographic changes, Republicans have exploited every trick they can think of to stave off actual democracy, where every vote is respected and equal. One scheme has been to modernize the old practice of “gerrymandering,” as Beverly Bandler explains.

By Beverly Bandler
In Election 2012, Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the U.S. House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234-to-201 margin. Thus, the second-biggest GOP majority in 60 years was not the will of American voters. It was gerrymandered.

Or, as Republican strategist Karl Rove has said, “He who controls redistricting can control Congress.”

Gerrymandering has become the preferred way for Republicans to defy the principle of majority rule – or democracy – in an era in which whites are declining as a percentage of the electorate. In other words, it’s a way to reduce the political influence of people of color as well as that of white demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic.

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Presidential Candidates Controlled by Shadow Puppets: Outside Groups Pulling the Strings in 2016 Election

Ostensibly independent groups reported to have close ties to a candidate account for 96 percent of total outside fundraising

This explosion of outside money, the vast majority of it not subject to contribution limits, is a consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, says the Brennan Center. (Photo: Alexander Harbich/flickr/cc)

By Deirdre Fulton
Representing a "fundamental shift in how presidential campaigns are funded in the United States," so-called shadow campaigns are already dominating the 2016 election cycle, according to a new study issued Tuesday by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The report, Shadow Campaigns: The Shift in Presidential Campaign Funding to Outside Groups, reveals that ostensibly independent groups—many of which in reality enjoy close ties to individual candidates—have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, greatly outpacing the candidates' own campaign committees.

Furthermore, the study finds, 95 percent of the outside money, or $270 million, has been collected by groups not subject to contribution limits, raising questions "about whether big donors are attempting an end-run around the strict limits on contributions to candidates' formal campaign committees."

"The advantage of funds raised through unlimited-contribution groups is obvious," the report explains. "One wealthy donor can write a check for millions. Campaign committees, on the other hand, are limited to donations of $2,700 for the primary election. In theory, candidates are not permitted to 'coordinate' with groups that can raise unlimited funds. But with flawed coordination rules that go almost entirely unenforced, in reality the path is open for candidates to work closely with, and even exert control over, supportive outside groups—even to the point of assigning close advisers to run them."

This explosion of outside money, the vast majority of it not subject to contribution limits, is a consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, says the Brennan Center.

"In Citizens United, the Supreme Court argued we don’t need to worry about outside spending because it’s independent—it can’t corrupt candidates because they don’t control it," said Ian Vandewalker, author of the report and counsel in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program.

"But the biggest money in this election is going to the outside groups that seem to be the least independent, by any common-sense understanding of that word," he continued. "When candidates fundraise for outside groups, give up former staff to run those groups, or count the groups' money in their own fundraising announcements, everyone knows what’s going on."

While the report shows Republicans generally benefiting more than Democrats from shadow campaigns, the candidate who benefited the most from this trend is clearly former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is running for the Republican nomination. Shadow campaign groups supporting Bush and benefiting from his fundraising efforts—namely the Right to Rise Super PAC—took in $108.5 million, a record-breaking amount that is almost 10 times the $11.4 million raised by his campaign.

What's more, the report points out, "despite the massive sums reported here, we know that our analysis underestimates the true extent of fundraising by outside groups, including those that are not subject to contribution limits and may have ties to their favored candidate, because 'dark money' organizations have not yet been required to report their revenue."

At least one presidential candidate has shunned help from such shadow campaigns. Over the weekend, Democratic White House hopeful Bernie Sanders called for public funding of elections as a way to "allow people to run for office without having to beg money from the wealthy and the powerful."

Referring to Citizens United, Sanders said: "We must overturn that decision before it's too late. We are increasingly living in an oligarchy where big money is buying politicians."

Reprinted with permission from Common Dreams.

Corporate Media Agrees To Censor All Info About How The Koch Brothers Purchase Elections

Photo by .donna.dark.

By Sarah Lazare
In a rare move, journalists from a handful of major media outlets were granted access this weekend to a private and well-heeled gathering of Republican benefactors, sponsored by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, on one condition: that they do not name any of the 450 donors attending, unless given explicit permission.

The three-day event, hosted by the Koch brothers-backed nonprofit organization Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, is being held at at the St. Regis Monarch Beach luxury resort in California.

A small number of reporters confirmed they are attending the events on the condition that they keep mum.

"The Washington Post is one of nine news organizations allowed in to cover the traditionally private confab, on the condition that the donors present not be named without their permission," wrote Post reporter Matea Gold on Saturday.

Politico reporter Kenneth P. Vogel also confirmed on Saturday that his outlet was one of the select few invited "on the condition that the donors present not be named without their permission."

The journalists agreed to these conditions despite the fact that the big donors in attendance are major players in the 2016 presidential election cycle. As Vogel noted: "The network of political and public policy groups backed by the Kochs and their allied donors intends to spend $889 million in the run-up to the 2016 election boosting policies and candidates that adhere to principles like those Koch laid out Saturday."

While the Koch brothers have sought to portray themselves as embracing of transparency, critics charge that the conditions imposed on media coverage of this weekend's seminar raise serious ethical concerns.

"The problem is that the ground rules could restrict journalists from reporting what's right in front of their eyes," reporter Michael Calderone noted Sunday in the Huffington Post. "If, say, Rupert Murdoch, or even a lesser-known billionaire, walked by, they couldn't report the person's attendance without permission."

Calderone continued: "So it’s possible journalists end up reporting largely what the event sponsors want, such as fiery speeches and candidate remarks criticizing Democrats, but less on the power brokers attending who play key behind-the-scenes roles in the 2016 election."

However, there were some people who sought to shine light on the summit. Vogel notes that "a small group of protestors stood outside the entrance to the St. Regis on Saturday, holding signs that read 'Koch kills democracy,' and photographing arriving donors, operatives and members of the press."

Reprinted with permission from Common Dreams.

ROBBING AMERICA: Republicans Plan On Stealing the 2016 Presidential Election — Via Electronic Voting Machines

A single strategic IT manipulator virtually anywhere could swing the 2016 election with just a few keystrokes perpetrated in less than a minute. And Republicans have been using this strategy to steal elections (see second story - audio and videos).

Photo by brian kusler

By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
The way our electoral process now stands, electronic voting machines guarantee a Republican victory in 2016.

No matter what she does, Hillary Clinton - or any other Democratic nominee - cannot be elected without a fundamental change in the basic mechanics of how our votes are cast and counted.

It is a profoundly disturbing reality that casts a long shadow over all that's wrong with our electoral system, no matter who one favors for public office.

Just 15 years after the theft of the 2000 election, the Democrats have finally begun to talk about voter rights and various methods to guarantee public access to the polls.

But for a non-Republican to win the White House in 2016, one of two virtually impossible things must happen: The Democrat must win by absolutely indisputable margins far beyond simple majorities - 10 percent or more - in the key states whose electronic tallies will swing the Electoral College.

Or the nation must find and accept a way to guarantee a reliable vote count immune to electronic manipulation by those who control the voting apparatus in each state, meaning the governors and secretaries of state.

At this point, it's hard to see either happening.

Today, there are 24 states where both the governor and secretary of state are Republicans. These include Florida and Ohio, where rigged vote counts put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000 and 2004. In both states, the presidential election was decided by governors and secretaries of state in control of the voting process and final vote count. In Florida in 2000, that was Bush's brother Jeb; in Ohio in 2004, it was Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, co-chair of the Buckeye committee to re-elect Bush and Cheney.

In 2016, additional key swing states with both governors and secretaries of state from the GOP include Michigan, Iowa, Nevada and Arizona, among many others.

No significant reforms have been put in place to prevent the theft of another presidential election. Quite the opposite. Since the 2000 Bush-Gore fiasco and the Help America Vote Act that followed, electronic voting machines have spread throughout the country. Election results in a wide range of federal, state and local contests have been extremely suspect, and there's no reason to believe 2016 will be any different - except to get worse.

Read More

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Republicans Have Been Stealing Elections From Right Under Our Noses

When official exit poll data keep showing Democrats winning yet Democrats keep losing — You know something sinister is afoot.

FAULKNER: How does the party of "no" and the one percent, nakedly obstructionist and grossly unpopular, as you pointed out their congressional approval rating is in single digits with shrinking demographics to boot — How do they wind up rewarded rather than punished when the voters finally get the chance to weigh in?

SIMON: ...It is still verboten in public discourse in America [to discuss] the distinct possibility, in fact the probability, that in the darkness of cyberspace where these computers are recording and tallying our votes by the millions, there are electronic program manipulations taking place that alter the vote counts and with them alter the results of the elections and alter them in a distinct unidirectional pattern towards the right.

Listen To the Entire Interview:

Voting Machines: Computerized Election Theft
Dr. Jonathan Simon explains how Republicans, working with companies that provide electronic
voting machines, have been stealing elections whenever the vote is close.

Bonnie Faulkner of Guns & Butter (left) interviews Dr. Jonathan Simon.

RELATED STORY: Computerized Election Theft and the New American Century

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Stealing America Vote by Vote

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Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections