FW: <nettime> Democracy divided by Corporations = US Elections

[Camille Baker <camib@telus.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Sara Dent <director@newformsfestival.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:31:18 -0700
To: Camille Baker <camib@telus.net>
Subject: FW: <nettime> Democracy divided by Corporations = US Elections

I suggest the below go out on list serves.  The balloting system in the
United States is indeed a terrifying and largely unresolved issue due to
private interest in a highly fallible computerized voting system.  The
'traditional' (and less fallible) balloting system has been replaced by a
largely fallible computerized system that has had a very low success rate in
many different areas.  It also costs millions to make the changeover leaving
many American States in a venerable and costly position as far as rectifying
the situation.  Private cooperation's are gaining millions through these
State won contracts.

Due to the Florida election scandal of 2000 during the Gore / Bush
elections, thousands of Gore supporters (literally a quarter of a million)
were disenfranchised from having their vote count.  A felon list was created
with 94,000 names on it.  The majority being poor and Black.  91,000 of
those voters were innocent.  Gore only needed something like 300 more votes
from Florida to receive majority in the US Electoral College and win 2000.
(Who knows if Gore would really have been much better than Bush but maybe he
wouldn't have been as complete of a fascist).  To boot, it is those tax
paying citizens of Florida that paid their State to hand over their voting
system to private interest and then turn them into felons.

I don't even think that American Democracy exists in this context.  Its an
interesting concept and a good rhetorical buzzword but largely bygone.

s
------ Forwarded Message
From: Camille Baker <camib@telus.net>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:18:13 -0700
To: Sara Dent <director@newformsfestival.com>
Subject: FW: <nettime> Democracy divided by Corporations = US Elections

This is very interesting and scary...

------ Forwarded Message
From: Are Flagan <areflagan@transcodex.net>
Reply-To: Are Flagan <areflagan@transcodex.net>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 12:47:29 +0200
To: <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
Subject: <nettime> Democracy divided by Corporations = US Elections


Anyone interested in expressions of democracy and computers may find this
thorough overview very interesting. The facts and figures have been bouncing
around for awhile in different features, but The Independent, today, finally
put many of them together on the front page online -- as the computerized
revolution of US democracy. One of the more astonishing facts is that the
voting systems and software solutions are protected by trade secrecy acts,
making independent review and checking, well, a felony. And there are, in
many cases, no paper trails or verifiable back ups. Anyone who has ever
written a single line of logical code to run on an insecure computer would
question the checks and balances -- and many computer scientists are doing
just that, loudly. One line of audited code, lifted from an open FTP site
used to distribute a patch for the deeply flawed Diebold (one of three major
players) software, included an inexplicable instruction to divide the number
of votes by 1. You do the math for 2004.

-af

+ + + + +

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=452972

All the President's votes?

A quiet revolution is taking place in US politics. By the time it's over,
the integrity of elections will be in the unchallenged, unscrutinised
control of a few large - and pro-Republican - corporations. Andrew Gumbel
wonders if democracy in America can survive.

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