Pt. I: Convicted Felons, ‘Shadowy Financiers' Own Companies Counting Votes

An investigation into the surprisingly-sordid history of America’s “election services industry” has revealed that executives and owners of the two largest companies, E S & S and Sequoia Pacific, have been convicted of bribery and suborning public officials in more than a dozen states.

And while a felony conviction may be enough to prevent you from voting in Florida, convicted felons can take heart in the fact that the “blemish” on their record in no way disqualifies them from owning companies counting the votes.

In fact, the word ‘coverup’ itself was invented to describe the activities of the original owner of Sequoia Pacific, "shadowy financier" Lewis Wolfson, who got caught bribing no less a personage than a Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America.

While Abe Fortas was forced to resign in disgrace, no such harsh fate befell Wolfson.  When you own a company that counts the votes, politicians smile more kindly on you than they might otherwise… and for good reason.

"Somebody Blinked"

Continuing this dubious 'tradition,' the owner of Sequoia Pacific until recently was also accused of bribing public officials, in this case the Prime Minister of Ireland.

While the name Dr. Michael Smurfit is not well-known to Americans, his company manufactures the software used to compile more than two-thirds of the nation's electronically-counted votes.

Perhaps this may help explain why, for the second Presidential election in a row, a Democratic bandwagon was derailed early on Election Night by an unusual television appearance by the Bush Family, after exit polls showed them losing in key battleground states.

While what transpired remains closely guarded, whatever went on behind the scenes was clearly decisive: Bush took the lead in the election, and John Kerry suffered the same fate as Al Gore had four years earlier…perhaps even in the same way.

"A Spaghetti Western Would Have Been Better"
Prima facie evidence that this year’s American Presidential Election was fixed can be found in the recent statements by numerous computer security experts that it could have been. And if it could have been, it probably was…

“If you leave the door to the bank vault open, sooner or later you’re going to get robbed,” said one.  “Its just human  nature. And besides, fixing elections is far more lucrative than robbing banks.”

Analysts describe the software as "spaghetti code," tangled strands of instructions indecipherable to outsiders. Experts say the code can be manipulated without detection. In fact, many believe it may have happened already.

So it may be of interest to learn the Smurfit (the richest man in Ireland, though he’s not Irish) has a penchant for hanging out at Geneva racetracks with international gamblers and Zurich currency speculators. He must have a habit for picking winners, too: his company was successful in suborning the Louisiana Commissioner of Elections for over a decade…

Jerry Fowler had run up some big gambling debts at Harrah's in Atlantic City, we learned. So he found the chance to pay off by making his voting machines "pay off" irresistible. In all, 22 people were indicted, 9 pled guilty, and Fowler went to jail.

But the Sequoia Pacific "Southeast Sales Manager," a man named Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci of Marlton, New Jersey, barely even got a slap on the wrist. For the crime of suborning democracy in the state of Louisiana for over a decade, Mr. Ricci was sentenced to just a year…

A year of home detention.

Through multi-billion dollar federal subsidies, electronic voting has been pushed onto the American electorate. And its not hard to see why… the heady prospect of a sure thing.

But America may never again have an honest Presidential election.

Former Manhattan Commissioner of Elections Douglas Kellner told the MadCowMorningNews, “The problem is that, with an electronic voting system, you can never be sure that the vote is being recorded the same way it was cast. Because the only record is done electronically, there is no paper audit trail.

“And any good computer person can alter the electronic record.”

Most Americans, if they think about it at all, expect that the people standing behind the voting machines on which their votes are cast and tallied look like computer experts wearing white lab coats from IBM.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
 

"They Could Steal the Presidency!"

Investigating the ownership of the two companies that together dominate the American elections industry reveals evidence of routine and systemic bribery of public officials, not just here but overseas (the recent Prime Minister of Ireland, to give just one example.)

It is a world filled—not with guys in lab coats and pocket protectors—but with guys with links to the Mob, or international money launderers, Zurich currency manipulators, telecom scandals, off-shore Channel Islands accounts in the names of fictitious people, "untraceable shareholders," Bahamian resort owners, and supra-national financiers.

Tests performed and videotaped by candidate Susan Bernacker in New Orleans in 1994 demonstrated that votes she cast for herself were electronically recorded for her opponent. This test was repeated multiple times with the same result thus confirming that the machine had been fraudulently altered to influence the outcome of the election. In Louisiana there, was an election in 1996 , which was for local

After Susan Bernacker lost a New Orleans City Council race in 1994, she decided to exercise her legal right to inspect the voting machines three days after the election… and she took along a video camera.

(The shocking results can be seen in our documentary "The Big Fix 2000". )

Three times she keyed in her own name on the voting machines. and three times a vote for her opponent was registered. After these proceedings she perhaps justly feared for her life if she kept the secret to herself…She  convened a hastily-called press conference, and then retired from public life.
 

"A Nostradamus for our times"

"The next president of the United States may not be chosen by the voters of the United States. Instead, he or she may be the choice of whomever controls or manipulates the computer systems that tally the votes," wrote Ronnie Dugger in the New York Times a decade ago.

"With the entire system shrouded in mystery and absent of assurances that the voting process is tamper-proof, voters these days have more reason than ever to ask, "Does my vote count?" "The whole damn thing is mind-boggling," said someone who investigates computerized elections. "They could steal the presidency."

“I don’t believe in counting votes in secret,” Manhattan Commissioner Doug Kellner told us.  “I think the public has a right to see what’s happening at every step of the way.”

The problem is so manifestly obvious that even humor columnist Dave Barry was moved to offer a desperate solution, in the Miami Herald: "My suggestion – call me crazy – is that we print the ballot on paper, with a box next to each candidate's name. We instruct a voter to put an X in their candidate's box. Then we have human beings count the Xs."

Sounds easy, practical, and cheap.

In the coming weeks we’ll see why they’ll never let that happen.