Watch the New Hampshire Primary results to see how legitimate the results are....
this article is timely!
An election worker resets a voting machine as a voter waits in 2008. Many of the country's
machines were replaced after the 2000 election, but are now reaching the end of their useful
New Hampshire: The Birthplace of Electronic Election Theft
By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
08 February 16
s the New Hampshire primary lurches toward the finish line, the reality of electronic election theft looms over the vote count.
The actual computer voting machines were introduced on a grand scale in New Hampshire’s 1988 primary. The godfather was George H.W. Bush, then the vice president. As former boss of the CIA, Bush was thoroughly familiar with the methods of changing election outcomes. The Agency had been doing it for decades in client states throughout the world.
In the Granite State, Bush was up against Bob Dole, long-time senator from Kansas. Dole was much loved in hard-core Republican circles. But Bush had an ace-in-the-hole. For the first time, the votes would be cast and counted on electronic voting machines, in this case from Shoup Electronics.
Governor John Sununu, later Bush’s White House Chief of Staff, brought the highly-suspect computer voting machines into New Hampshire’s most populous city, Manchester.
The results were predictable. Former CIA director George H.W. Bush won a huge upset over Dole and the mainstream for-profit corporate media refused to consider election rigging.
Here’s the Washington Post’s account of the bizarre and unexplainable election results when touchscreens were first used: In 1988, H.W. Bush was trailing Dole by 8 points in the last Gallup poll before the New Hampshire primary. Bush won by 9 points. The Washington Post covered the Bush upset with the following headline: “Voters Were a Step Ahead of Tracking Measurements.”
Was it a late surge of Bush devotees who reversed all reasonable expectation? Or was it the kind of electoral manipulation that had been perfected by the Agency over the decades, this time with an electronic assist?
While the mainstream for-profit media tried to explain it away, the Manchester Union Leader had been suspicious of the former CIA director going back to his first presidential bid in 1980.
“The Bush operation has all the smell of a CIA covert operation … strange aspects of the Iowa operation [include] a long, slow count and then the computers broke down at a very convenient point, with Bush having a six percent bulge over Reagan,” according to the Union Leader.
In the next presidential election, in 1984, Bush’s rival, President Reagan, signed National Security Directive Decision NSDD245. A year later, the New York Times explained the details of Reagan’s secret directive: “A branch of the National Security Agency is investigating whether a computer program that counted more than one-third of all the votes cast in the United States in 1984 is vulnerable to fraudulent manipulation.
In 1987, Gary Greenhalgh resigned as director of the Election Center to become vice-president of operations for the R.F. Shoup Company. The company’s founder, Ransom Shoup, had been convicted in 1979 for conspiring to defraud the federal government in connection with a bribe attempt to obtain voting machine business, according to the Memphis newspaper Commercial Appeal. His machines were known as Shouptronics. Under the name Danaher they were used in the disputed 2004 election in Columbus, Ohio, where numerous voters complained that their vote for Kerry “faded away” on the screen.
Computerized voting machines, with software programmed by partisan for-profit corporations, make election fraud even easier. We have known about this for four decades. Roy G. Saltman’s work at the National Bureau of Standards has documented the vulnerability of computer voting since the 1970s.
Saltman issued a report for the Bureau numbered NBSIR-75-687 documenting the lack of computer security in vote tallying and the potential for election tampering. He traced the use of computers to tally vote results from September 1964 through his 1975 report. He found that in 1971, Bob’s junior year in high school, “an error in programming” had caused a levy to pass by 1000 votes in Bob’s hometown, Redford Township, Michigan, rather than failing by 100.
A follow-up report by Saltman in 1988 pointed out other problems with computer voting. In 1986 in Stark County, Ohio, a recount programming error reversed the correct election results. There’s a question on whether this was a real error, since a special programmer was brought in to write the code for the recount.
The ultimate implication for this year's primary has yet to be played out. This year in New Hampshire, we have Bernie Sanders rolling into Election Day with a very strong lead. Barack Obama did much the same (though with far smaller margins) in 2008, and emerged the loser. Could a similar outcome follow for Bernie?
On the Republican side, it's anyone's guess.
But whatever happens, remember that for decades the Granite State has set the tone for the general election, and could do so again on Tuesday. It remains to be seen whether we get a legitimate outcome, or another strip and flip selection, with ultimate control of the government still at stake. But the whole world had better be watching.
Harvey Wasserman’s “Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, AD 2030” is atwww.solartopia.org. Wasserman is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org. He and Bob Fitrakis have co-authored four books on election protection, including “Did George W. Bush Steal America’s 2004 Election?,” “As Goes Ohio: Election Theft Since 2004,” “How the GOP Stole America’s 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008,” and “What Happened in Ohio?”
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/35069-focusnew-hampshire-the-birthplace-of-electronic-election-theft
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
By George Donnelly (@geodonnelly) and Keith Regan
Today: There's talk of a record primary turnout
Despite snowy conditions, New Hampshire is expected to break its voter turnout record today. "New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner projected that 282,000 ballots would be cast in the Republican primary and 268,000 in the Democratic primary. The combined turnout of 550,000 voters would represent participation by nearly two of every three Granite State voters," reports Andrew Ryan of the Boston Globe. http://bit.ly/23Uk2gp
First ballots cast at Dixville Notch
The tiny town of Dixville historically kicks off the voting in the primary, opening at midnight and closing as soon as all registered voters have cast their ballots. Early voting has Sanders in the lead among the four Democrats and Kasich ahead among the five Republicans. Other small town also reported votes, which provide no discernable trends. http://bit.ly/20lEn9P
Rubio's script flub remain in primary day media script
Republican candidate Sen. Marco Rubio's oddly repetitious, "robotic" answers at Saturday night's debate remain a focus of the media yesterday as the Rubio campaign tried to turn around the miscue on the media itself. Matt Stout of the Herald reports Rubio emailed a fundraising pitch saying the media has pounced on Rubio because they are "desperate to defend Obama's legacy." Globe columnist Scot Lehigh notes of Rubio's rhetorical tendencies: "...When the various provisions of that speech aren't immediately applicable, his mental GPS quickly maps the shortest route back to comfort of those oft-uttered lines." Lehigh predicts establishment candidates Kasich and Bush will do better than predicted. http://bit.ly/1nZSpSN
Rubio is not without his Massachusetts supporters, including state Sen. Ryan Fattman, who makes a cameo in this ABC World News report: http://abcn.ws/1TalOpQ
Also today: Redevelopment announcement; Logan minimum wage bill
Gov. Charlie Baker, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack make an announcement regarding strategic redevelopment of a downtown Boston facility and a partnership to expedite housing and other economic development on state owned land. 10:00 am at 185 Kneeland Street, Boston.
The Committee on Labor and Workforce Development hears testimony on bills including (S 2125 /H 3923) filed by Sen. Sal DiDomenico and Rep. Adrian Madaro to require minimum of $15-per-hour wages for Logan Airport employees. The committee could meet in an executive session where bills can be reported out. Room B-2, 1:00 pm.
The MBTA holds a public meeting to receive comments on proposed fare increases, Chelsea High School Auditorium, 299 Everett Ave., Chelsea, 6:00 pm.
The downside to cheap gas
A gallon of gas is at something like $1.77 -- hard to believe that gas was about $3.70 a gallon in July 2014. What's not to like about the oil glut? It's a bonus for consumers. But there cannot be a commodity collapse with plenty of pain on the other side of the economic equation. Plummeting oil prices are causing widespread layoffs in oil states, especially Texas. Then there are the banks that lent to the energy industry. Cheap oil and gas don't provide enough revenue for energy producers to keep up with their loans. Chesapeake Energy Corp., a debt-laden oil and natural gas producer, saw its shares drop by 50 percent at one point yesterday after a report surfaced that it has hired restructuring attorneys. The company's stock trades at about $2. Bank stocks are getting creamed, in part because of fears of energy loan exposure. So, enjoy the rock-bottom prices while they last: The pleasure at the pump will end when there aren't enough energy producers left standing to keep up with demand.
DiMasi to seek back pension payments
Lawyers Former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi will argue before the Supreme Judicial Court today $127,000 in pension payments, Shira Schoenberg of MassLive reports. "DiMasi is asking to be retroactively paid his pension, with interest, for the years between his sentencing and the Appeals Court ruling," Schoenberg reports. http://bit.ly/23UsqfS
Warren's war chest grows
She may be staying to the sidelines of the Democratic presidential primary, but U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren continues to raise plenty of campaign cash. According to Steve LeBlanc of the Associated Press, Warren raised $2.7 million in 2015 from donors across the country and ended the year with $3.1 million in cash in her campaign coffers. http://bit.ly/23Umt2x
Walsh proposes 'Ray Flynn Industrial Park'
Mayor Marty Walsh plans to ask the Boston Redevelopment Authority to rename the Marine Industrial Park after former Mayor Ray Flynn, who once toiled in the shipyard as a longshoreman, the Globe's Travis Andersen reports. http://bit.ly/1onM7MH
City promises space-saver crackdown
Boston plans to strictly enforce its ban on parking space savers this winter, Mayor Walsh said during Monday's storm, the Herald's Owen Boss and O'Ryan Johnson report. DPW crews picked up and discarded hundreds of such items from city streets over the weekend. http://bit.ly/1T2ZME4
Hockey returns to Worcester
Worcester will host minor-league hockey against beginning in 2017, the Telegram's Bill Ballou reports. The yet-to-be-named team will play athlete DCU Center and compete in the ECHL, replacing the Worcester Sharks AHL franchise that decamped for California last spring. http://bit.ly/1QoVxhk
IndyCar critics want environmental review
South Boston residents and others opposed to the IndyCar race planned for Labor Day are asking the administration of Gov. Charlie Baker to order a full-blown environmental review of the proposed event, the Globe's Mark Arsenault reports. http://bit.ly/1K9qfi3
Former Assistant AG leads legalization charge
Commonwealth Magazine's Jack Sullivan sits down with Will Luzier -- the former assistant attorney general who is now leading the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol -- to discuss the prospects for the legalization of recreational marijuana and the origins of his passion on the issue. http://bit.ly/20SUGNv
Bill would let addicts turn in drugs without fear of prosecution
Inspired by action of her hometown police department, Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante of Gloucester has filed a bill to allow addicts to turn in heroin and other drugs at local police departments without fear of prosecution. "We're not talking about somebody who comes in with a wheelbarrow full of narcotics," Ferrante told Katie Lannan of the State House News Service. Ferrante "described the legislation as an expansion of the Good Samaritan law, which protects an overdose victim or witnesses from possession charges if they call 911 for medical help," Lannan reports. http://bit.ly/1LdKwOf
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TODAY'S TOP STORIES
National headlines
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State headlines
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Mayor Marty Walsh cracks down on space-savers
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Walsh asks BRA to rename Marine Industrial Park after Ray Flynn - The Boston Globe