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Powerful Government Accountability Office Report confirms Key 2004 Stolen Election Findings

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 5 January 2006
4 comments

Elections-Elected Governments USA

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
October 26, 2005

As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.

The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the Government Accountability Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage. Click here for GAO Report

The government’s lead investigative agency is known for its general incorruptibility and its thorough, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being in the White House.

Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. The request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere that often shocking irregularities defined their performance.

According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received "more than 57,000 complaints" following Bush’s alleged re-election. Many such concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.

The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

The United States is the only major democracy that allows private partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O’Dell of Diebold, pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W. Bush.

Bush’s official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that O’Dell’s statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.

Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some seven times Bush’s official margin of victory.

2. "It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.

3. "Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level." 3. Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards can easily be done, according to the GAO.

4. The GAO also confirms that access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network. This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.

5. Access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.

6. The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy matter.

7. One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.

8. GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel, confirming still more easy access to the system.

In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004 election turned.

The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives — or less — to turn the whole vote count using personal computers operating on relatively simple software.

The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example:

# The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical impossibility.

# A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES&S voting machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in Auglaize County

# Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18 machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed Kerry’s name saw Bush’s name light up, again and again, all day long. Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems in Franklin County (Columbus). Kerry’s margins in both counties were suspiciously low.

# A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.

# In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only 638 people voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly corrected, but remains infamous as the "loaves and fishes" vote count.

# In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.

# In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county’s central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.

# In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for Kerry.

# Prior to one of Blackwell’s illegitimate "show recounts," technicians from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive.

# In response to official information requests, Shelby and other counties admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any recount could take place.

# In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were used.

# In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that "by and large, when it comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better."

But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.

Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear that’s exactly what happened.

GAO Report

Revised 10/27/05

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA’S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available via http://freepress.org and http://harveywasserman.com. Their WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO, with Steve Rosenfeld, will be published in Spring, 2006, by New Press.

 http://www.freepress.org/department...

Forum posts

  • Don’t expect this report to take anybody down. The damage has not been assessed, proof of a stolen election is not contained in this report. This report does little to substantiate the # claims listed in this article. Republicans and Democrats alike are paying little heed to this report. In their minds, there is a "possibility" of problems with these machines. A "possibility" that fraud "may" occur...but they are speaking in future tense. No body has yet to delve back into the past. The 57,000 or so claims are being refuted or ignored... All that is beind done is "recommendations" for future elections. I wish more was being done, because the damage caused by 2000, and again in 2004 may signal a very END to presidential elections in the future. Bush/Cheny 08? You betcha. So, who cares about "recommendations" for the future, if something is not done now, there will not be a future.

  • Bush and his illegal bunch had much too much at stake to lose the 2004 elections. The Republicans knew that if Kerry and/or more Congressional Democrats won office, investigations would start, sending Bush & his criminal cohorts to jail.

    It is no surprise that the Bush crooks used every means possible to ensure wins…wins with ‘political capital’ no less. I knew it was happening the night of the election, as Kerry’s domineering numbers seemed to slip away.

    In 2006, there will be even more at stake. Republicans know that if Democrats win a majority, impeachment proceedings and investigations from A-Z will begin. Shocking facts will become uncovered and scandalous information unclassified. This is a big threat to Bush & Company that cannot be allowed. If they can tamper with the system again, you can bet they will.

    There is no topic more important or more urgent than voting machine fraud. MSM, documentary film makers, politicians, talk show hosts, newspapers/magazines, the Internet and other means of mass communication need to publicize this issue without delay!!

    Otherwise, imagine a filibuster-proof Congress.

    • What we have, presently ensconced in the White House is a ROGUE REGIME which gained power through one of the greatest criminal acts in electoral history!

      Yet the BBC et al keep perpetuating this brazen illegitimacy by referring to Bush as "President". He is not. At best he is the incumbent or occupant or squatter.

      Even the ’alternate’ media and blogosphere appear to have missed their cue here by failing to spread the news far and wide of TWO Stolen Elections.

      Admittedly, this might not appear to have the same kind of cloak†dagger attraction of publishing secret government documents but the implications of what was carried out under the noses of the so-called ’free’ world are just incredible!

      Here we are, just weeks away from a possible nuclear war and practically nothing has been said about the huge crime that makes all of it possible!

      It’s not that the information isn’t there. It is and it has been growing in volume from the moment Kerry conceded defeat. It’s almost as if we were all been put under some kind of trance. Now that the trance is wearing off, I appeal to everyone to get this information out.

      The violent regime that seeks to subjugate us all through its deceitful "War on Terror" is an illegitimate regime of rogues. If any further proof is needed, this Government report of the 2004 Stolen Election should do.

      "The key similarities of all these issues facing all of these countries (and many more of course from the Western world, is a crumbling of human rights in the face of stronger and stronger central governments. We are living under the illusion of 2 party states (thinking, perhaps, that is bad enough), but in reality we are living under one party states, largely autocratic. Whatever illusion exists of that second party in each country (at present the democrats in the U.S., the Conservatives in the U.K. and Labour in Australia), we must be prepared to accept they don’t exist. Examine the politics, the influences, the opinions and policies of the opposition parties and you will see the illusion. We must continue to believe that there is a choice; once we become aware that there is not we will have to face the fact that the democracy and freedom the West promises to bring the rest - on the wings of bombs and bullets - is an illusion, and that what we really bring is that which we are facing - cruel dictatorships - differing only from the more conventional dictatorships in that ours keep us in a state of submission and reign terror on foreign nations, and theirs show truthfully what they are.

      Again, it is time the West looked to South America - Chavez and Venezuela, the people of Venezuela, for some real advice on how a democracy is run. One particularly useful tip is this; it is run by the people, for the people."

      http://urlsnip.com/623170

      Isn’t it amazing what, on the face of it, a few individuals like Bush, Blair and Howard can do to drag us all back into the dark ages?

      Yet, without the complicity of the media, the Kerry Packers, Rupert Murdochs &c none of it could happen. They dare to distract from reality by calling us conspiracy theorists when the biggest conspiracy against humanity & the planet is theirs and theirs alone!

      While the darkness spreads from Mordor we all seem to be like little hobbits, so immersed in the business of daily life that we are unable to look up at the darkening clouds. I don’t know what it will take to break this collective spell but break it we must.

      If bloggers could so effectively have helped Craig Murray in putting out some of the truth to the world then there must surely be more that we can do collectively?

      After the fall of the Soviet Union and the vanishing into thin air of the West’s ideological bogeyman I had thought the time had finally come for the West to face its own tyrants. That, of course, was before we were all doped-up on smoke’n’mirrors "Terrorism".

      Truly, a war of words and minds and STILL collectively we’re unbeatable ...

    • Unbeatable aside from nuclear wars and bird flu.