2000 All Over Again

The echoes of 2000 and 2004 are starting to ring out again. The elections are right around the corner and questions about the electronic voting systems are yet to be answered with any clarity. In a broadcast on WFLA Jeb Bush flat-out denies there are any problems with the Electronic voting machines. In fact he tries to paint those who are worried about them as conspiracy nuts stating, "It's yesterday's news." What he fails to mention are the slew of problems surrounding the machines. The list is long, ranging from votes cast for one candidate but given to the opposing candidate to the fact that these machines never seem to operate well in neighborhoods of color.  In those voting districts they crash constantly and cause interminable delays.

The story first broke in 2000 when Al Gore was beat by George Bush. While America was too busy worrying about hanging chads, they failed to look into the history of the two companies that make the voting machines used in more than thirty states. The companies in question are Diebold and ES&S eletronics, the two biggest contributors to the Bush campaign that year.  You can read more about them in some of my earlier blogs, "Kerry v/s The Machines," and "How The Voting Machines Can Decide The Elections '04."  However two people did uncover the story and went public with it, Greg Palast of the BBC and the  Guardian Of London and Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org. Palast did a one hour story on the machines a week after the elections along with the largest cover-up in Florida history on the suppression of minority voters by Jeb Bush and Katharine Harris. While the story never aired here in the U.S., he was able to release the story in his book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."   

But now HBO has taken up the story in their new documentary, "Hacking Democracy." The film follows the stories surrounding the stories, ranging from the 16,022 disappeared votes in Democratic strong hold Volusia County Florida, a county of color as it turned out, to questions surrounding Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections for Leon County, Fla.  The Film will air tonight at 9:00 Eastern time.

Until Next Time.

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1162414027543.wmv