DeForest Soaries resigns from EAC--no government interest in reform

[Helga Scow Stern]

Chairman of Voting Reform Panel Resigns

By ERICA WERNER

WASHINGTON - The first chairman of the federal voting agency created after the 2000 election dispute is resigning, saying the government has not shown enough of a commitment to reform.

snip--

Soaries, 53, cited personal reasons for resigning and said he wants to spend more time with his family in New Jersey - but he added the decision was prompted in part by a lack of support for the commission from Congress and the federal government. "All four of us had to work without staff, without offices, without resources. I don't think our sense of personal obligation has been matched by a corresponding sense of commitment to real reform from the federal government," Soaries told The Associated Press.

Soaries is a Republican who was the White House's pick to join the Election Assistance Commission, which was created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to help states enact voting reforms.

snip--

Soaries and the other commissioners complained from the beginning that the commission was underfunded and neglected by the federal lawmakers who created it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9194-2005Apr22.html

[Helga Scow Stern]

1. Saw BradBlog posted in GDP:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1739259

[Melissa G]

2. DeForest Soaries...Here's a good repub Baker replacement! n/t

[Helga Scow Stern]

3. That's an idea. n/t

[berniew1]

4. Why should politicians who control election system want to reform it?

The only way to get meaningful reform is to develop initiative petitions and get them on the ballot; or demonstate overwhelmingly to the public the extent of the fraud and manipulation in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Though it happened, the public hasn't been educated on it to date. Not even of the 2000 manipulation that resulted in Bush being named Pres. when Gore won Florida by many thousands of "legal" votes. As documented by the Media "recount" in 2001.

www.flcv.com/2004plan.html

[Helga Scow Stern]

6. But how can we trust ballot initiatives when the system is already corrupt

[marions ghost]

5. Soaries interview about e-voting in 04:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/2004-06-08-evote-scrutiny_x.htm

Posted 6/8/2004 10:24 PM Updated 6/9/2004 2:01 PM

Commission head calls for more security for electronic voting
By Erica Werner, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The head of a federal voting commission called Tuesday for tougher security measures for electronic voting by the November elections, but said the issue of requiring paper receipts as backup needs further study.

DeForest B. Soaries, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, said he wants election officials to be able to analyze software source code in the electronic systems they pay for, which some vendors have resisted. "The increased use of electronic voting devices has created security concerns that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission must address," he said in remarks prepared for delivery at a Maryland conference of election officials.

In an interview before the speech, Soaries said the issue of paper ballots that voters can verify — perhaps the most-debated aspect of the controversy over electronic voting — requires more study and that calling for such receipts by November would be unrealistic. He said it was possible the panel would recommend paper ballots in the future.

(snip)
In his prepared remarks, Soaries said every jurisdiction using electronic voting devices should identify and implement new security measures, and consider options including paper verification, "parallel monitoring" in which the machines are randomly tested on Election Day, cryptography measures and chain of custody and management practices. He also said vendors of electronic-voting software should submit certified software to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which would allow election officials to compare software used in elections against an original version.

--For more on Soaries, go to www.eac.gov

[Peace Patriot]

7. I was struck by the phrase "the federal voting agency" in the Washington

...Post article. I think the Bush Cartel has big plans for this "federal voting agency," so maybe they're cleaning out anybody who has any shred of an attachment to their civic duty or to good government in the EAC ("the federal voting agency"). That's what "I want to spend more time with my family" usually means--a forced resignation.

This private "commission" that seemed to spring out of nowhere, stacked with pro-paperless electronic voting interests and co-chaired by James Baker (and Jimmy Carter)--the so-called "National Commission on Election Reform--in my opinion has the hidden goal of nationalizing elections--taking away the powers of state and local jurisdictions to determine election systems, procedures and rules, thus removing these decisions as far away from the people as possible. State/local venues are where the struggle for honest elections is currently taking place.

Federal control of elections will mean Bush Cartel control of elections, in the current circumstance--a circumstance that will never change if they gain central control over elections. Once they have the power to determine how we are going to vote, they can do anything they want to, and there will be no hope of reform.

It's very clever. They can use all the emerging evidence of '04 election fraud to bolster the case for nationalization.

I believe that the Constitution provides that the states control elections. It is part of the "balance of powers" that Jefferson & Co. built into the Constitution. So, to change this might have been deemed too brazen even for Bush's "pod people" in Congress. They would have a lot of states rightists and state/local election officials on their necks. This private "commission"--which has an official sounding name, and may appear non-partisan to the uninformed--may have the purpose of providing political cover for a federal (Bush Cartel) power grab over elections.

HAVA was step one. Blame the states for Florida '00. Reform (corrupt) them with $4 billion in bribes. Achieve sufficient non-transparency (secret source code in all the central vote tabulators, no paper trail in a third of the country) for the 2004 theft (to stay in power). Permit Republican election officials (Ohio, Florida) to commit a lot of egregious and highly visible violations of the Voting Rights Act to get minorities and other Democrats stirred up about election reform and calling for a federal solution (bills in Congress, Constitutional amendments). Form a private (controllable) "commission" (in which the public has no rights whatsoever) to issue "a report of Congress" (the Baker-Carter group's stated intention) that recommends a "national standard" for elections (Carter's words) that may or may not contain a recommendation for electronic voting with a paper trail (Carter's words--MAYBE a paper trail). Then (whatever this "commission" recommends--it doesn't really matter), take over this messy, corrupt, chaotic election system in the name of federal "reform."

And forever thereafter, dictate how the American people will vote--with the people having nowhere to appeal to, no venue for reform, given a "federal voting agency" stacked with Bush-Cheney appointees.

We could easily, easily end up with an all electronic, paperless, unrecountable, unauditable election system controlled by one push of a button in the White House. (Talk about a "nuclear option"!).

Give me variety; give me our messy, chaotic states; give me corrupt local/state officials any day, over this. Our variety is our strength--as is often the case in this country. It is the key difference (along with our vast size) between the U.S. and Nazi Germany.

This private Baker/Carter "commission" did not spring out of nowhere. It has been long in the planning. And I think it has a much more devious purpose than a pre-emptive strike on emerging election fraud evidence. In fact, I suspect that the "emergence" of election fraud evidence--the matter seems to be getting a little news monopoly press lately--may also be planned. It's a Catch-22 for us, of course--that they will use any such evidence to support a case for nationalization. But we can only go forward with informing people (they desperately need to know what happened in '04). I think we should just be aware of the probable game that is being played, and perhaps do everything we can to agitate local/state officials against a nationalization scheme.

I am not entirely sure that the Ohio-Florida violations of the Voting Rights Act were a deliberate ploy to create a call for "national standards." But they do have a "red herring" feel about them. They could have been meant to draw attention away from the broader electronic fraud. And they could also have been just a desperation measure ("plan B"). The evidence now points to a Kerry landslide victory, and the Rovians, seeing that coming--seeing the failure of their propaganda machine (control of the news monopolies)--maybe decided they had to use almost every plan they had in place to steal the election, including very overt, visible suppression of minority and other Democratic voters.

(I think "plan C" was a phony terrorist threat in key states, such as California. They laid all kinds of groundwork in the "news" prior to the election for that plan, but didn't have to use it. The tech plan, and the Kenneth Blackwell/Jeb Bush overt suppression plans, worked.) (Remember Dick Cheney taking a weird trip to Hawaii, of all places, two days before the election? And the strange news chat about Hawaii going "red"? I think that may have been part of "plan C"--some scheme maybe involving the V-P's plane over the Pacific--along with all the blatantly phony "terrorist alerts" dropped into the "news" in the weeks prior to the election.)

As for the Bush Cartel-controlled news monopolies permitting a bit of election fraud evidence into the news stream recently, this is very likely part of a nationalization plot (more likely even than the Ohio/Florida Voting Rights Act violations). We rarely get any exposure of Bush Cartel crimes until the Cartel has a plan in place to twist the truth around toward their totalitarian purposes. When Christopher Hitchens starts talking about election fraud, you know something's up. This is not to rule out individual conscience in individual news monopoly journalists (or even in editors)--I suppose that could happen--but if there is anything we've learned over the last 2 years or so, it's that the Bush Cartel has the power to smash any news organization that thwarts its purposes, and that the news monopolies are very much in collusion with the Cartel. (They are war profiteers, for one thing; and for another, they deliberately falsified the exit polls on election day, that showed a Kerry win--the worst journalistic crime ever, in my opinion.)

So, what are we to think of election fraud stories and columns receiving some limited publication? That we have a free press? That the Bush Cartel is finally going to be outed? That these criminals are going to permit real election reform? Uh-huh.

I think we should be prepared, sometime this fall (target date for this private "commission"'s "report to Congress"), for an overt proposal for the nationalization of elections, or something that could result in the BushCon Congress "taking the ball" and running with it (a scheme for "national standards" that disempowers the states and counties).

Do we want the Bush Cartel to have all the power to determine, and to enforce, a "national standard" for elections?

I think that's what's coming.

------

Some little bell in the back of my mind is going off about Soaries, the EAC and Kevin Shelley. Wasn't it the threat of an EAC investigation that was the final straw for Shelley (why he resigned--didn't have the legal funds to fight the Bush Cartel, which controls the EAC)? The EAC, Election Assistance Commission, was created by Congress to implement HAVA, the flood of federal bribery dollars to the states to get Diebold and ES&S in charge of all vote tabulation, with their secret programming code, etc. It's interesting that Soaries, in his swansong, says some of the same things Shelley was saying. The difference between them is that Shelley actually tried to achieve election integrity, by decertifying and suing Diebold, and providing Californians with a paper ballot option prior to the 2004 election, whereas Soaries thought it could wait. (Requiring a paper trail and other security measures for a voting machine company with major, known ties to Bush would seem to be a no-brainer, for anyone truly interested in honest elections. So I presume a lot of pressure was put on Soaries not to demand such measures prior to this election. Maybe he just got sick of the pressure, or frightened by threats.)

------

One value of "conspiracy theories"--such as the nationalization of election systems plot that I've laid out above--is to help us start ANTICIPATING Bush Cartel moves. What we saw in California (the destruction of Kevin Shelley)--and so many other events--sure looks like the Bush Cartel being hundreds of steps ahead of alert, intelligent citizens like us. They couldn't have a Secretary of State, especially of a huge state like California, actually doing his job and advocating and enforcing election integrity. They got rid of him. Simple as that. And the swiftness of it (and also the collusion of some Democrats) was very shocking.

Is everything that happens that favors the Bush Cartel's desire for power (i.e., all the touchscreens changing Kerry votes to Bush votes, or the loss of the best Sec of State in the country) a conspiracy to enhance their power? Probably not everything, no. But the coincidence of events and Bush Cartel power enhancement is sure piling up, on a number of key events.

If you are dealing with a conspiracy, you have to start thinking conspiratorially, or they will out-maneuver you every time. I'm not absolutely sure of the election nationalization conspiracy, but it fits the known facts, and, guess what?, it would entrench the Bush Cartel forevermore.

This is what happened in Germany, my friends--one shocking power grab after another, all with a veneer of legality. I never thought, in all my born days, that any U.S. federal regime would dare attack the power of U.S. Senators to filibuster a matter of conscience, or attempt to hijack the Social Security fund to prop up the stock market and enrich speculators, or openly grant no-bid, profit guaranteed military contracts to their closest friends after starting a wholly unjustified war, or create a policy of torturing prisoners and then reward the person who created it with the office of the Attorney General, or, with an hour's warning, permit a plane to crash into the Pentagon without opposition, and then fail to find out how that could have happened.

We, the people, are reacting like King Kong to each of these outrages--King Kong (in the old movie) clinging to the Empire State Building as the airplanes buzz around him, shooting at him--his "noble savage" heart broken, and his rage at each bullet helping to loosen his last grip on the building, and on his life. We react with rage at one bullet. Here comes another. But we can't ourselves see the whole arc of this tragedy. Why are they shooting at us?

We need to understand why we are in the position we are in--something King Kong could never do. These bullets that keep hitting us are not some stray laundry list of fascist desires, sitting round in some arbitrary fascist "think tank", suddenly getting an opportunity for fulfillment. They are part of a well thought out plan to destroy our democracy, and to loot every resource that democracy has created, including our pension plans, our military, our schools, our medical system, and all commonly held infrastructure, as well as every natural and human resource on earth.

Anyway, that's what it looks like to me. Call it a "conspiracy theory," if you wish.

One positive way to look at it is that they wouldn't need to control U.S. elections, for instance, if they weren't afraid of the American people. We have tremendous potential to smash the unrightful power of corporations, and help create justice and peace in the world. They wouldn't put so much effort into stealing our votes if our votes weren't worth stealing. Nor would they expend such effort in propagandizing us, if Americans were not, in essence, and in the majority, a progressive people.

I think we are in a dire circumstance, and I don't really know the way out. But I do think that anticipating the Bush Cartel's moves--rather than just reacting to them--and getting quite creative both in our own proposals, and in reaction to theirs, needs to be part of it. And I think their trying to take total control of the election system is next. (I was thinking of writing to this private Baker/Carter election "commission" and saying, "There's nothing wrong with our election system. Go away!"). (--haven't done it, though).