From Clare Maher via Mark Crispin Miller:

'MICROSOFT 811'

Holt: "It's no longer my bill."

In a town meeting in his New Jersey home district in July, Congressman Rush Holt made some disturbing statements which leave no doubt that H.R. 811 has become a bill that protects the interests of software corporations over the rights of citizens. In fact the Holt bill is NOT the Holt bill anymore! It has become 'Microsoft 811'!

Mr. Holt: "The bill has been changed since I introduced it. It's no longer my bill -- well, it's still my bill but it's been marked up in committee."

Further he added:

"Unfortunately, the committee that made this change heard from Microsoft. They heard that Voice. The point is Microsoft did lobby strongly. It wasn't just Microsoft. It was everybody who..."

Audience question: "Diebold?"

Holt: "No, it was software -- the software industry."

Yesterday, as a result of voting system reviews, Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified for state use the voting systems of Diebold Election Systems, Inc., and Sequoia Voting Systems. A third vendor, Election Systems and Software (ES&S), declined to participate in the review process mandated by law, and so Secretary Bowen withdrew approval of their Inkavote Plus Precinct Ballot Counting System for use in California. A fourth firm, Hart InterCivic, Inc. chose not to submit the voting system previously used by California voters for examination and certification, and voluntarily withdrew from the certification process. Instead, the company plans to upgrade their county customers to a newer version and submit that version for review and certification by the Secretary of State.

Diebold was in the center of 2004 election controversies pitting its tabulation results against exit polls. Sequoia Voting Systems offers a product called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail" (VVPAT) that was reported by the review team to have a series of serious and often undetectable flaws. Their voting software was also found publicly available online in 2003, raising questions about future vote tampering. In 2006, during a Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review, the company, owned then by 3 Venezuelans, was allowed to withdraw from that review on news of its pending sale.

When California's Secretary of State Bowen was inaugurated January 7, 2007, she announced her intention to conduct a "Top to Bottom" review of voting systems used in California. "The review was designed to restore the public's confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and to ensure that California voters are being asked to cast their ballots on machines that are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible." The review began two months later, in March, 2007.

Ask your Congress Member to contact Congressman Kucinich to sign onto this letter.

Speaker Pelosi:

We have been made aware of a growing concern with H.R. 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007.

Many constituencies important to the Democratic Caucus, including but not limited to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of Counties, VotersUnite.Org, and Election Defense Alliance, have expressed frustration with our offices about the process and current legislative text of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.

These constituencies represent a broad range of interests that reflect many of the core values of our party. H.R. 811 now finds opposition from organizations focused on upholding the integrity of our elections and local and states governments. For these constituencies, H.R. 811 falls short of its intended goals to ensure votes are cast and counted as intended by the voters.

So, the landslide was denied. I guess it's a matter of interpretation, but if accurate, these reports show the Democratic tsunami would have been even bigger than the thirty+ seat gain in the House. Would have been more like fifty-sixty seats... Landslide Denied: Exit Polls vs. Vote Count 2006 - Major Miscount of Vote in 2006 Election: Reported Results Skewed Toward Republicans by 4 percent, 3 million votes

Election Defense Alliance Calls for Investigation BOSTON, MA - November 16, 2006 Election Defense Alliance, a national election integrity organization, issued an urgent call for further investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic election equipment, after analysis of national exit polling data indicated a major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in U.S. House and Senate races across the country....

By Angry Girl
Nightweed.com

Did you know....
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold
and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the
U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html