I wonder if diehold can use scala?

The Winning Ticket: Hillary and Diebold in 2008

By Mike Whitney

"Its not who votes that counts. Its who counts the votes." Joseph Stalin

11/01/08 "ICH" -- -- Something doesn't ring true about Hillary's
"upset" victory in the New Hampshire primary. It just doesn't pass the
smell test. All the exit polls showed Clinton trailing Obama by
significant margins. In fact, in the Gallup Poll taken just days
before the election, "Crocodile tears" Hillary was down by a whopping
13 points. Her "turnaround" was not only unexpected, but downright
shocking. The results for the rest of the candidates--excluding
Clinton and Obama---were all within the margin of error. Clinton was
the only anomaly. Surprise, surprise.

If this election had been conducted in any other country in the world,
the Bush administration would have immediately dispatched an
independent team of election observers and demanded a recount. But not
in the good old USA, where stealing elections is replacing baseball as
the national pastime. Would it surprise you to know that (according to
Black Box Voting) the Marketing and Sales Director of the company that
tallies the votes (LHS) "was arrested, indicted, and pleaded guilty to
"sale / CND" and sentenced to 12 months in the Rockingham County
Correctional facility, and fined $2000." That would be LHS Sales
Director Mr. Ken Hajjar. Here's an excerpt from Bev Harris's Black Box
Voting web site:

"The Diebold ballot printing plant at the time we got records on the
overages (that is, more ballots than needed for election; MW) was
being run by a convicted felon who had spent four years in prison on a
narcotics trafficking charge. No, not New Hampshire's voting machine
programming exec Ken Hajjar, who cut a plea deal in 1990 for his role
in cocaine distribution. This was another convicted felon, John Elder,
who ran the Diebold ballot printing plant; he's now an elections
consultant." (
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/71260.html
)

Still feel confident about the election results?

Then why not spend 5 minutes perusing this you-tube demonstration that
shows how anyone with a screwdriver and a brain the size of a walnut
can transform a 'humiliating defeat' into a miraculous Clintonesque
"comeback". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiiaBqwqkXs

The you-tube video also shows LHS's owner defending the dubious record
of his optical scanning hardware in court. The reader can decide for
himself whether we're dealing with a man of impeccable integrity or
another flannel-mouth opportunist who has enriched himself at the
expense of our basic democratic institutions.

Bradblog's Dori Smith reports that Sales Director "Hajjar totes memory
cards around in the trunk of his car and defends the practice of
swapping out memory cards during the middle of elections."
(http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5320) Nice touch, eh?

Smith also adds this revealing tidbit:

"Other LHS staff members we spoke with, including Mike Carlson and Tom
Burge, provided similar comments. They said they would open machines
up during an election and swap memory cards as needed. This is illegal
under Connecticut law and Deputy Secretary Mara told us she has since
informed LHS that such actions were in violation of Connecticut
election laws."

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5320

"So what's all the fuss? I'll just slip this little card in the slot
and---Lookee here---Hillary's a winner; just like I figured."

Activist Nancy Tobi provides a great summary of the back-room
machinations in her article "Democracy for New Hampshire" which came
out the day after the primary:

"81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private
corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier").
The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS
Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people
programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS
Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software
used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. People like to say "but we use
paper ballots! They can always be counted by hand!"

But they're not. They're counted by Diebold. Only a candidate can
request a hand recount, and most never do so. And a rigged election
can easily become a rigged recount, as we learned in Ohio 2004, where
two election officials were convicted of rigging their recount. (Is it
just a funny coincidence that Diebold spokesman is named Mr. Riggall?)

We need to get the count right on election night. Right now, nobody in
New Hampshire, except the programmers at LHS Associates and Diebold
Election Systems, knows if we are getting it right or wrong."

Good job, Nancy.

Does it seem to you, dear reader, that we could save the taxpayer a
lot of money and trouble by just returning to the "old system" of
letting 9 judges on the Supreme Court chose our leaders? Why do we
continue with this pointless sham?

Look, our elections are being run by corporations that have an obvious
stake in the outcome. There's a heap of money involved and nothing is
left to chance. The media's job is to make us feel like we have a
choice. We don't.

The only reason the farce continues is because the ruling elite
believe that perception management is the cheapest way to control the
bewildered herd. And, of course, they're right. Pulling a lever every
4 years is a type of political empowerment. It makes us feel like
we're part of the decision-making process, which makes it easier to
accept the "shittier and shittier paying jobs", the curtailed civil
liberties and the endless wars. (Thanks George Carlin)

This year we can choose from a slate of 8 candidates; all of whom are
members of the secretive Council on Foreign Relations; and all of whom
are wholly committed to the off-shoring of businesses, the outsourcing
of jobs, the expansion of police-state powers, and the obscene
enlargement the already over-bloated War Machine. The only exceptions
are Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich who are treated like pariahs by the
establishment media.

As for Hillary; she won nothing. The results are completely bogus. Her
weepy performance before the balloting was orchestrated to create a
credible narrative to explain the fraudulent shifting of votes away
from Obama. It was exactly the same trick that Karl Rove played in
2004, when he had the entire corporate media standing behind his
cockamamie story that 3 or 4 million fundamentalists---who had never
voted before in a general election---suddenly poured down from the
mountains to cast their ballot for their champion, George Bush. This
absurd narrative was spouted from every media-soapbox in the nation
until it was generally accepted as fact. The media then proceeded to
quash any investigation of the massive voter fraud which took place
across the country (particularly in Ohio) while discrediting critics
as conspiracy theorists.

"Conspiracy theorists?"

s it a conspiracy to think that the same guys who abduct foreign
nationals off the streets of cities around the world and take them to
black sites---where their eyes are gouged out and their finger nails
ripped off---would get squeamish over something as trivial as ballot
stuffing?

Get real!

Clinton's tearful antics were right out of Karl Rove's "Dirty Tricks
Playbook". Chapter one: Invent a believable storyline, run it through
the Propaganda Ministry (the media) and stick with it no matter how
ridiculous it sounds.

I carry no brief for Obama or Clinton and I don't see any substantial
difference between either of them. They are both water carriers for
their far-right constituents. It is the system that's important. And
the system is broken.

The primary was stolen. End of story. Now, it's our move.