The past few days have brought "democracy" to the Ukraine. Election-fraud, corruption, and voter-intimidation have produced a "fixed" election; and brought millions of citizens into the streets. So far, demonstrations have been peaceful; but Ukranians have threatened to "bring-the -nation -to it's knees"..... disrupting factories, railroads, airports, and public utilites. American-voters , however, seem far more apathetic. Their own election has been HIGHLY suspect; one Ohio precinct had 3500 voters "for Bush".... when only 800 people were registered to vote in that precinct!! Journalists, also in Ohio, found "signed" vote tallies.. with numbers that differed from their "declared" totals.... AND THESE DOCUMENTS WERE BAGGED, AND DESTINED TO BE SHREDDED, BEFORE THEY WERE SEIZED!!! These vote tallies, had been signed and certified by no-less than EIGHT precinct officials, and saved from being destroyed when they were resucued from precinct trash-bins!!! THESE ARE OFFICIAL, LEGAL-DOCUMENTS!!! DESTRUCTION OF THEM IS A CRIME!!!! The most troubling aspect of America's recent election is the lack of documented "paper-trails" of "touch-screen" votes. A programer who formerly worked for DIEBOLD, (The largest manufacturer of electronic voting machines) recently disclosed that "servers" which compile vote-totals could be EASILY hacked using "off-the-shelf" software that also LEAVES NO TRACE!!!! Remember, nearly ALL "touch-screen" voting systems rely on Microsoft Windows opperating systems....... AND WE KNOW HOW OFTEN THOSE ARE HACKED, INFECTED, OR "CRASH"!!!!! When these flaws were disclosed, months before the election, Diebold took NO corrective action.... after all, the C.E.O. of Diebold is a close friend of "Dubyuh", and a major Republican-Party contributor!!! Ask any "hacker", and they'll tell you the Microsoft O.S. "is a joke". I, personally, have had to abandon Microsoft Explorer as my default web-browser. It was constantly "infected", "locked-up", "Hacked", "wormed", or otherwise "crashed". These "touch-screen" voting systems have NO paper-trail documentation. One cannot so-much-as buy a pack of gum, without getting a"paper" receipt; yet our most- precious- votes are disappearing into cyberspace without a trace. You cannot get ten bucks from an A.T.M. without a P.I.N., and getting a paper-receipt! Why, three years after "9-11"are Americans not required to have a "National-Identity-Card"??Voters in New Mexico ARE NOT EVEN REQUIRED TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES WHEN THEY VOTE!! Many New Mexican voters stood in line, only to find that someone-else had already voted in their name!!! We carry a "hodge-podge" of identification... Social Security cards, driver's licenses, school I.D.s, passports, "Green-cards", library cards, bank-cards, shopper-discount-cards, etc..... Yet there is NO "STANDARDIZED" FEDERAL IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED TO VOTE!!!Such a high-tech I.D. is cheap, and easily administered by the existing Federal agencies. One can only suspect resistance to such identification, as it would prevent tampering and election-fraud, and "the powers-that-be" have "other-agendas". Today, Colin Powell declared the elections in the Ukraine "did not meet legal criterion of international law"..... Odd; since the Republican-controlled Congress and White House WOULD NOT ALLOW U.N. SCRUTINY OF AMERICA'S ELECTIONS!!! I can hardly-wait for the up-coming "elections" in Iraq!!!! If we're teaching them "Democracy"; we can expect ONLY fraud, corruption, and illegitimacy...... such as the examples we have set. Dave
- posted by Dave @ 2:38 AM