Senator Barbara Boxer

112 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC  20510

 

Dear Barbara,

 

I'm writing to you about a situation of the greatest urgency. Last

year, I narrated a film called "Unprecedented" by American journalist

Greg Palast (currently writing for the London Guardian). This film

documents the illegal expunging of 54,000 black and overwhelmingly

Democratic voters from the  Florida rolls just before the

presidential election. We interviewed the computer  company that did

the work, filmed their explanations of the instructions they

received and their admissions that they knew that their instructions

would produce massive error. That figure has now been revised to

91,000.

 

Jeb Bush was sued, and was supposed to have returned these voters to

the rolls, and did not, which explains his last re-election. The

Republicans have something far worse in mind for the next

presidential election and Democrats  need to be prepared.

 

The recent elections of Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel, the loss in

Georgia of Max Cleland, wildly popular Vietnam vet, and the victory

of Alabama Governor Bob Riley, along with a handful of other

Republican victories, (all predicted to have been losers by straw

polls which our nation has refined to a high-art) points to an

ominous source: corporate-programmed, computer-controlled,

modem-capable voting machine, recording and tabulating ballots.

 

You'd think in an open democracy that the government - answerable to

all its citizens, rather than a handful of corporate officers and

stockholders -  would program, repair, and control the voting

machines. You'd think the computers that handle our cherished ballots

would be open and their software and  programming available for

public scrutiny. You'd think there would be a paper  trail of the

vote, which could be followed and audited if a there was evidence  of

voting fraud or if exit polls disagreed with computerized vote

counts. You'd  be wrong.

 

The Washington, DC publication The Hill

http://www.thehill.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

has confirmed that former conservative radio talk-show host and now

Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel was the head of, and continues to

own part interest in, the company that owns the company that

installed, programmed, and  largely ran the voting machines that were

used by most of the citizens of  Nebraska. When Democrat Charlie

Matulka requested a hand count of the vote in  the election he lost

to Hagel, his request was denied because Nebraska had a just-passed

law that prohibits government-employee election workers from looking

at the ballots, even in a recount. The only machines permitted to

count votes in  Nebraska, he said, are those made and programmed by

the corporation formerly run by Hagel.

 

When Bev Harris and The Hill's Alexander Bolton pressed the Chief

Counsel and Director of the Senate Ethics Committee, (the man

responsible for ensuring  that FEC disclosures are complete), asking

him why he'd not questioned Hagel's  1995, 1996, and 2001 failures to

disclose the details of his ownership in the  company that owned the

voting machine company when he ran for the Senate, the  Director

reportedly met with Hagel's office on Friday, January 25, 2003 and

Monday, January 27, 2003. After the second meeting, on the afternoon

of January  27th, the Director of the Senate Ethics Committee

resigned his job.

 

Hagel's surprise victory is a trial-run for the presidential

election. Election 'reform' laws are now prohibiting paper ballots

(no trail) and exit  polls, effectively removing all trace and record

of votes, making prosecution of  voter fraud virtually impossible.

For whatever reasons, the Democrats decided  not to pursue the issue

of fraudulence in the last Presidential election. The  three Supreme

Court Justices who should have recused themselves (Scalia, Thomas,

and O'Connor) were allowed to stand unchallenged and pass a bizarre

one-time  only ruling. That they were in place long before the

election, demonstrates how  clearly the end-game of  such moves was

thought out.

 

Unless the issue of voter fraud is elevated to an issue of national

importance, not only is it highly probably that Democrats will lose

again and  again, but eventually voters will "sense" even if they

cannot prove, that  elections are rigged, and the current 50% of

those boycotting elections will  swell to the majority. Privatization

of the vote is tantamount to turning over  the control of democracy

to the corporate sector. I urge you to use your  considerable powers

and influence to address this issue.