Nothing is more hypocritical than to hear that the US government is going to send "election observers" to other countries. For nowhere on the planet are elections more easily rigged than in the United States of America.
In "Votescam: The Stealing of America" (1992) the late Collier brothers summarized the alarming state of affairs, which still prevails today. In Chapter one, "Electronic Hoodwink", they begin by quoting the first words spoken by President-elect, George Bush in his Nov. 8, 1988 victory speech in Houston, Texas. Bush said: "We can now speak the most majestic words a democracy can offer: "The people have spoken . . . "
The Colliers comment in the following brilliantly written passage:
"It was not "the People" of the United States who did 'the speaking' on that election day, although most of them believed it was, and still believe it. In fact, the People did not speak at all. The voices most of us really heard that day were the voices of computers strong, loud, authoritative, unquestioned in their electronic finality . . .
It only makes common sense that every gear, every mechanism, every nook and cranny of every part of the voting process ought to be in the sunlight, wide open to public view. How else can the public be reasonably assured that they are participating in an unrigged election where their vote actually means something? Yet one of the most mysterious, low-profile, covert, shadowy, questionable mechanisms of American democracy is the American vote count . . .
Computers in voting machines are effectively immune from checking and rechecking. If they are fixed, you cannot know it, and you cannot be sure at all of an honest tally."
In fact, according to the Nation Magazine article published in August, 2005, "How They Could Steal the Election This Time," by veteran reporter Ronnie Dugger, only four mega-election vendors, ES &S (Election Systems & Software), Hart, Diebold and Sequoia processed 96% of the USA vote on election night. Circa 2013, a company named Dominion acquired Diebold and Sequoia.
Privately owned computer software
And the processing of the nation's ballots are done, in 1988, in 2004, and in 2016, on secret, privately owned computer software which election officials in the USA agree by contract not to inspect. In other words, the vote in America is utterly unverifiable on these machines.
America processes over eighty percent of the presidential vote on secret computer programs owned by only three mega-election vendors. This is at the very least an unholy concentration of power. If the three mega-vendors are working together behind the scenes, then it is the few that own this election software that selects the President. As Joseph Stalin said, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything."
This issue of computerized election fraud simmered sub rosa from 1988 until August 1, 2016, when Donald Trump stated at a Columbus, Ohio Rally that he was afraid the "November election is going to be rigged against me."
The nation's national press went into a frenzy. Jonathan Chait screeched in his headline for nymag.com, "Donald Trump, Discovering New Way to Undermine Democracy, Calls Election Rigged." In fact, it was NOT the raising of healthy questions by Trump that was undermining democracy. It was so-called reporters like Chait who didn't like anyone raising any concerns at all.
On C-Span on August 21, 2016, best-selling author Roger Stone asserted that is was dangerous NOT to ask questions about how the vote was counted. After all, the Founding Fathers did encourage a healthy skepticism of government, including the part of the government that runs the elections. The situation in the United States is absurd. The fact that the public has no guarantee that the vote is actually that of the people is insane, and tears at the very fabric of democracy.
Press concern is so grave about Trump's charge of a possibly rigged election, that in the last two of the three Presidential debates, NBC's Lester Holt and FOX's Chris Wallace both asked Trump if he would accept the election results. In the third debate, Trump stunned Wallace by saying he'd wait and see after he looked at the evidence, and that he was going to keep everyone in suspense.
No way votes can be verified
Three Supreme Court cases stated that the US voter's right to vote consisted of two parts: 1) the right to cast a ballot; and 2) the right to KNOW that one's ballot is counted accurately. With secret computer counts, there is simply no way to verify the vote. None.
This is the first major election in America where the people are learning just how compromised the computer based vote has become.
On October 18, 2016, computer expert Ethan Pepper appeared on the Sean Hannity radio show and noted that any election computer can be hacked; that if you get in you can switch a million votes as easy as switching one vote; and he also raised the question of WHO owns the election computer software by noting that George Soros was closely associated with those who provided 16 states with the Smartamatic voting machines.
This highlights the greatest danger: that the election vendors themselves OWN the election software and that THEY are the prime suspects for rigging elections. After all, they don't have to hack in, they ARE in as the programmers of the software. And with local election officials signing contracts not to inspect the source code of the computer software, these same election vendors know that no one is looking over their shoulder.
On October 26th, FOX Cable News discussed the computer voting machines in Texas that were caught by numerous voters switching their Trump vote to a Hillary vote in early election voting. This phenomenon also surfaced in Maryland.
Trump has tweeted and facebooked his 21 million followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram about the computerized "vote-flipping" from Trump to Hillary in Texas.
The issue of computerized election fraud was now planted in the public mind as a serious issue for the first time since election computers were introduced into the USA circa 1973.
On October 31, 2016, the Drudge Report led with two links on how election computers were hacked. He linked to the new video by Bev Harris on youtube and on blackboxvoting.org entitled, "Fraction Magic."
The Big TV Networks have been playing defense ever since.
Rigging the election
Every few hours one of the big Networks are running a story about how it would be almost "impossible" to rig a national election. But the networks had to report between airing these stories about a week ago that Ebay, Twitter, and the New York Times websites had been hacked, thus totally undermining their stories about the safety of election computers.
The situation can be fixed in the USA, or prevented in other countries, by throwing the computer systems out altogether, and counting the paper ballots by hand, in public with all invited to observe, BEFORE the ballots leave the public sight.
On November 5, 2016, FOX news carried commentary that whichever side wins in the Presidential race, the other will cry "computer votefraud." So the issue has finally become front and center in the Presidential campaign.
Dr. David Dill of Stanford University is quoted in a 2004 Nation Magazine article, "How They Could Steal the Election This Time":
"Why am I always being asked to prove these systems aren't secure? The burden of proof ought to be on the vendor. You ask about the hardware. 'Secret.' The software? 'Secret.' What's the cryptography? 'Can't tell you because that'll compromise the secrecy of the machines.'... Federal testing procedures? 'Secret'! Results of the tests? 'Secret'! Basically we are required to have blind faith."
People of the USA act like citizens of Banana Republic
Blind faith? That's what the subjects and slaves of Banana Republics and tin-horn dictatorships are reduced to. And that's what the people of the United States have now been reduced to since at least as far back as 1988, even though most Americans don't know it.
2016 has been a year of awakening on the election fraud issue. Will that awakening continue to grow in the United States of America and all other nations? Will the United states and other nations replace easily-rigged election computers, and restore transparent, honest elections with hand-counted paper ballots at the neighborhood polling place once again?
As it stands, there is absolutely no way to know who really won the upcoming presidential election in America. The power elite can rig their voting machines to whatever outcome they want. One of the ways the cabal in the United States can be stopped is by a verifiable vote where the America people can be assured they live in a democracy where their vote actually counts and that the will of the people is carried out in the elections.
Nancy O'Brien Simpson
Ms. Simpson was a radio personality in New York. She was a staff writer for The Liberty Report. A PBS documentary was done on her activism for human rights. She is a psychotherapist and political commentator.