Fresh Evidence of Election Fraud

As reported on Raw Story yesterday.

To continue the theme of corporate take-overs of everything from our energy policy to our democracy there is fresh evidence that the 2002 Georgia Senate and Governors election was stolen. To give a brief background, everyone knows the troubles and travails of the Florida election in 2000, sophisticated ways of blocking the vote and not counting the vote, but in 2002 Georgia became the test case that I believe set the stage for Ohio and 13 other states in 2004 that cost Kerry the election and gave us Roberts and Alito as well as four more years of the dreadful, illegal Bush policies.

But, this election (outside of the Nebraska Senate election which also drew ire) was the first election people woke up and said this is serious business, our elections can be stolen by a computer trip, never mind through voter purging. Set-up a machine, provide no paper trail for who one voted for and voila - election fraud - simple as 1-2.

In a press conference yesterday, barely paid attention to by the media (Why would they? They are part of the problem) a leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections. Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies.

Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs and ABC's World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.

In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.

A whistleblower that wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation spoke to Raw Story regarding the election in 2002 and gave Spoonamore the patch that was applied to the Diebold machines in two democratic strongholds in Fulton and DeKalb counties. The whistleblower, who is close to the office of the Secretary of State in Georgia, Cathy Cox said that he became suspicious of Diebold's actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Individuals close to Arnebeck's office said Spoonamore confirmed that the patch included nothing to repair a clock problem. Instead, he identified two parallel programs, both having the full software code and even the same audio instructions for the deaf. Spoonamore said he could not understand the need for a second copy of the exact same program -- and without access to the machine for which the patch was designed, he could not learn more. Instead, he said he took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.

This was the first large scale instance in which the corporatocracy tried to steal an election with no paper trail (the warm-up), the next was the 2004 election in which exit poll after exit poll had Kerry way up in 13 states and in nine that are nearly impossible to refute the evidence. Now, it is exit polls that are in dispute instead of our election system and our democracy taken over by corporations with a twist of militarism, the textbook definition of fascism.