Chuck Hagel & AIS (American Information Services) ES&S (Election Systems & Software)

[Earth_First]

While the 2008 rollout continues, I figured I'd rollout a little background reading...

...While Diebold has received the most attention, it actually isn't the biggest maker of computerized election machines. That honor goes to Omaha-based ES&S, and its Republican roots may be even stronger than Diebold's.

The firm, which is privately held, began as a company called Data Mark, which was founded in the early 1980s by Bob and Todd Urosevich. In 1984, brothers William and Robert Ahmanson bought a 68 percent stake in Data Mark, and changed the company's name to American Information Services (AIS). Then, in 1987, McCarthy & Co, an Omaha investment group, acquired a minority share in AIS.

In 1992, investment banker Chuck Hagel, president of McCarthy & Co, became chairman of AIS. Hagel, who had been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 1993, was again on the list of likely GOP contenders heading into the 1996 contest. In January of 1995, while still chairman of ES&S, Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald that he would likely make a decision by mid-March of 1995. On March 15, according to a letter provided by Hagel's Senate staff, he resigned from the AIS board, noting that he intended to announce his candidacy. A few days later, he did just that.

A little less than eight months after steppind down as director of AIS, Hagel surprised national pundits and defied early polls by defeating Benjamin Nelson, the state's popular former governor. It was Hagel's first try for public office. Nebraska elections officials told The Hill that machines made by AIS probably tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in the 1996 vote, although Nelson never drew attention to the connection. Hagel won again in 2002, by a far healthier margin. That vote is still angrily disputed by Hagel's Democratic opponent, Charlie Matulka, who did try to make Hagel's ties to ES&S an issue in the race and who asked that state elections officials conduct a hand recount of the vote. That request was rebuffed, because Hagel's margin of victory was so large.

As might be expected, Hagel has been generously supported by his investment partners at McCarthy & Co. -- since he first ran, Hagel has received about $15,000 in campaign contributions from McCarthy & Co. executives. And Hagel still owns more than $1 million in stock in McCarthy & Co., which still owns a quarter of ES&S.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

[Mnemosyne]

1. needs a

:kick:

Hagel may be a potential puke candidate in 2008. Info needs kept in view.

[Earth_First]

3. kick! n/t

[Mnemosyne]

5. again! n/t

[seemslikeadream]

2. Howard Ahmanson and the Urosevich brothers

. Theonomic Reconstructionism:One God, One Vote:
Edited on Tue Nov-09-04 08:59 AM by seemslikeadream



Theonomic Reconstructionism:
One God, One Vote:

"We protect the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Now, we protect the most sacred treasure we have, our secret ballot." -Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, May 2002.

"My purpose is total integration of biblical law into our lives." -Howard Ahmanson

How does a fervent belief in the End of the World and a conviction that the Bible (King James only, thank you ma'am) is the actual revealed word of God factor into one's long-term investment strategies? A strange question to be sure, but one that must have been posed by at least a few of the eclectic crowd who believe in Theonomic Reconstructionism.

Theonomic Reconstructionism is a belief that the only true authority is God's, that allegiance to biblical laws trumps that of civic law and that the Kingdom of Heaven needs to be built on Earth before Jesus will come again. In addition to that, homosexuals should be put to death, women should be banned from civic office, apostates and heretics should be stoned to death and there is a great need for more Christian politicians.

Not content to philosophize about such things, the TR movement sprang into action. Funded by billionaires such as Howard Ahmanson and the Coors and Hunt families, Reconstructionists formed think tanks such as the Chalcedon Institute and the Rutherford Institute (the friendly guys that funded Paula Jones' lawsuit against Clinton) to give the Christian Right a philosophical base to draw from, and political action committees to finance their elections.


According to the Reconstructionists, Jesus would do what Howard Ahmanson did. Ahmanson inherited his money from his father, owner of Home Savings & Loan (during the S&L scandal of the Reagan years, Home's investors, mostly small family investments, lost over $150 million dollars. No one went to jail). In addition to funding PACs and think tanks, Howard Jr. parlayed his fortune into the majority stock of a business called American Information Systems (AIS) started by two enterprising brothers, Todd and Bob Urosevich. AIS later merged with Business Records Corporation (BRC) and became Election Systems & Solutions (ES&S). ES&S is the number one provider of touch-screen voting machines. Their website claims that their products were used in collecting 56% of the national vote in the last presidential elections
more
http://www.tabletnewspaper.com/politics/73_tftgk.html



Voting in the USA: A Tale of Two Brothers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2648128

[Earth_First]

4. Senate Ethics Committee & FEC disclosure discrepencies;

Hagel's campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy, now admits that Senator Hagel still owns a beneficial interest in the ES&S parent company, the McCarthy Group. ES&S counts approximately 60 percent of all votes cast in the United States. According to the Omaha World-Herald which is also a beneficial owner of ES&S, Hagel was CEO of American Information Systems, now called ES&S, from November 1993 through June 2, 1994. He was Chairman from July 1992 until March 15 1995. He was required to disclose these positions on his FEC Personal Disclosure statements, but he did not.

Hagel still owns up to $5 million in the ES&S parent company, McCarthy Group. But Hagel's office, when interviewed by Channel 8 News in Lincoln, Nebraska for the evening news on October 22, 2002, said he had sold his shares before he was elected. His office issued a fact sheet claiming that he had made full disclosure.

Last week, Hagel's campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy (currently an owner and a director of ES&S) admitted to Alexander Bolton of The Hill that Hagel is still an owner of ES&S parent company, the McCarthy Group, and said that Hagel also had owned shares in AIS Investors Inc., a group of investors in ES&S itself. Yet Hagel did not disclose owning or selling shares in AIS Investors Inc. on his FEC documents, a required disclosure, nor did he disclose that ES&S is an underlying asset of McCarthy Group, in which he lists an investment of up to $5 million in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php