Bev's Infamous Air America Meltdown - Democratic Underground

proud2BlibKansan

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Wed May-24-06 04:43 PM
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Bev's Infamous Air America Meltdown

Last week Bev Harris of Black Box Voting published -- with great fanfare -- a report detailing what it characterized as a "new" and "critical" security vulnerability1 in touchscreen voting terminals manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. Shortly after the report was issued, however, BBV was exposed as merely attempting to pass off as their own work an issue that had been previously documented in a widely-publicized security evaluation by RABA Technologies some two full years earlier2. Therefore, it is in what we sincerely hope reflects a faithful tribute to the BBV-inspired spirit of re-hashing two year-old public information and posting it online as though it were "new", that Black Box Watchdog is pleased to present the following annotated transcript of Bev Harris' now infamous appearance on the Randi Rhodes show on December 14, 2004.

Background

In the days immediately after the 2004 election, Black Box Voting embarked on a massive fundraising spree. Election fraud was alleged by BBV Executive Director Bev Harris, and money was required to prove it in court. Recounts were needed in areas with "suspicious" results, and money was required to fund them4. BBV had filed what it claims was 3,000 public records requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and money was required to obtain the documents5. Does one detect a recurring theme? Given the election result and the consequent anger from progressives, much of BBV's solicitation of funds at that time was directed towards that community and the community responded. Exactly how much money was actually raised remains unknown: despite repeated requests, Ms. Harris has refused to divulge any financial details. What is known is this:

1. BBV was involved, along with the National Ballot Integrity Project with the setup of Help America Recount6,7 which ultimately raised at least $115,000 for recounts in Ohio and Florida8. No public accounting of the money has ever been made by any of those organizations. None of the money raised contributed to a single recount in Ohio or Florida or anywhere else. Those funds were eventually re-allocated to pursue a recount in New Mexico instead. That recount never occurred either. As of last week, none of those organizations has ever publicly released any financial records despite numerous requests.
2. Ms. Harris actively solicited additional funds -- initially $50,0009-- to pay for public records requests served to approximately 3,000 counties, stating that BBV would publish those records online for public inspection and analysis in the search for fraud or election problems. Pursuant to that end, Ms. Harris appeared on Randi Rhodes' Air America radio program in November, 2004 to solicit funds for this purpose. As of last week, BBV appears to have published selected voting machine audit logs from exactly four counties, all in Florida, representing roughly 0.1% of all the allegedly requested records.
3. Based on BBV's post-election goals as stated publicly by Ms. Harris, Randi Rhodes independently encouraged her audience to donate funds to BBV. The total number of those donations is unknown and will likely remain unknown. Ms. Harris has put the number at approximately $23,500 based primarily on annotations on specific donations10, but that number does not include donations without a specific tag or annotation. Ms. Harris' former book publisher suggests that over $176,000 was raised in a single 5-hour period on November 5, 2004 after Ms. Harris' original interview with Randi Rhodes, based on statements from her credit card processor11. A former BBV insider put the total amount collected closer to $1 million, but that insider has since died and thus cannot be reached for additional confirmation.
4. Despite Harris' post-election claims that "fraud took place", no incidents of actual election fraud in the 2004 election have ever been documented or published by Black Box Voting. It remains unknown how much money was actually spent on or raised for this purpose.

lots more . . .

http://blackboxwatchdog.com/node/13