The Pits: Georgia's GOP Swipes the Peach State
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The Pits: Georgia's GOP Swipes the Peach State
by Greg Palast
for SuicideGirls.com - November 5, 2008
The evil little &*%$'s are doing it again.
Even as they drown in the anger of platoons of pissed-off voters, Republican operatives are swiping ballots with both hands.
Ground zero is Georgia. It's here where the sick little vulture named Saxby Chambliss won the US Senate seat six years ago by calling his Democratic opponent, a guy who'd lost three limbs in Vietnam, a friend of Osama bin Laden.
There's no way in hell that Chambliss can slime his way back into the Senate in the face of over half a million newly registered voters (Black and young - 69% for Obama) without jacking them out of their votes. That's what the Republicans are up to. Right now. As we speak.
Over 50,000 the new voters in Georgia have been blocked from voting by using a nasty little new law, the Help America Vote Act signed by George Bush. (Bush is helping us vote - look out!)
I just got this from Christina Rush in the Peach Pit state:
"They really have stolen my vote and I don't know what to do about it at this late stage. I just found out 2 days ago that I do not exist on the voters rolls in Georgia. I have disappeared. After calling 866-OUR VOTE and the Secretary of State (for GA), it has been determined that the last vote I was accounted for was the 1996 General Election. That's awfully strange to me, considering that I voted in the recent Primaries and that last two General Elections (2000 and 2004)."
"Everyone is 'very sorry' this is happening, but no one can tell what I can do to make my vote count for THIS election. The only advice I've been given is to fill out a new voters registration form and I'll be eligible for any future elections, just not THIS one."
"So, what can I do except tell anyone and everyone who will listen?"
And no one is going to listen to you or the other 50,000 dumped voters in Georgia.
But here's the good news: it won't save them. The GOP is toast. Paint the White House black and blue and Congress the same hue.
But the steal in Senate races may allow the GOP to savage, obstruct, sabotage President Obama's ability to repair the damage of eight years of looting by the unelected junta of the Bush regime. They begin with the theft of the Georgia Senate seat, now heading into a run-off.
* * *
I've been studying the purge of voters and the blockade of new registrants all year with my co-investigator, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Here's what we know is happening: While Obama is brushing his tux for his Inaugural, several million votes are getting disappeared. We're awaiting the count on provisional ballots, those bouncing baloney ballots they give to the purge, The raw data is ill-making. We predicted a six-million vote heist and we're looking grimly accurate. Visit our site, www.GregPalast.com, to get the full report as the numbers come in - the totals of the UNcounted you won't see on the CNN website.
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Sign up to receive the Greg Palast's investigative reports for BBC Television and Rolling Stone Magazine at www.GregPalast.com Palast is a Nation Institute/Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow in investigative reporting.
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This is exactly what I thought when I saw the Georgia Senate numbers. Shenanigans to save the margin for a filibuster. That's one more seat. Alaska is a question, and Oregon is looking blue. Minnesota? Any hanky panky there? That would be the 60th seat if my math is correct.
The Republicans would do anything to keep the Senate from going 60/40.
Hey,
Wasn't turnout supposed to exceed 130M? I saw some projections of 138M voters. But there are presently less than 119M votes cast, according to CNN.
And Georgia looks really screwy with the low number of votes counted thusfar.
Look at this (admittedly shallow pool of data) exit poll on CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#GAP00p1
White men and women each comprised 34% of the electorate in GA, with 20% of the electorate being black women and only 10% black males. 10%? So TWICE as many black women as men voted? The only rational explanation is that black male turnout is lower because of the insane percentage of black men in prison, on parole, on probation, etc. But, there's no way black men were only 10% of the electorate in GA.
For a comparison, in FLA, black women were 8%, and black men 5%. In SC, black women were 14% and black men were 11%. Nationally black women were 7% and black men 5%.
So - something ain't right there. Not at all...
Ok... so now there is going to be a runoff in GA... dosn't that give the 50,000 purged voters a chance to register TODAY, so they can vote in the runoff????
THE FIGHT IS ON!
I sat with friends here in Atlanta last night, watching the returns and getting more and more disturbed by what I was seeing. The turnout in GA, the surge of new voters, the lines, those really long lines for WEEKS, were not because we were all fired up to have more of the same that has been dumped on us for 8 years. I voted 2 weeks ahead, stood in line for just under 2 hours, and with everything else I've seen here, THERE IS NO WAY ON EARTH the Chambliss/Martin race should be anywhere near close. Nor, quite franky, should McCain/Obama have been close. I know where I live, I know the history of this state, but I also know what we were ALL feeling and seeing here. This upset me because this has been a consistent pattern since 2002, and I knew, I KNEW they would work to steal it. This an absolute slap in the face to all those who worked so very hard to get registered and to vote. I have never, ever seen anything to compare to the turnout we had here - what, 2 million votes cast before the 4th? Please. This is not right. We MUST get rid of these machines!
Thanks, Mr. Palast, for the work you do, I've been a fan for some time. Please help expose this fraud. Some of us in GA are aware, and we need a voice!
Not so fast.
They haven't succeeded in stealing this seat yet. It's going to a runoff in December. If you were denied the vote this time, be sure to re-register, and be sure to verify that your registration goes through. Here is the infdormation page, which doesn't have the runoff election listed yet.
http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/how_to_register.htm
and here is where you complain about that fact, and demand an effective process for new voters to register in time.
http://sos.georgia.gov/cgi-bin/emailElections.asp
Spread the word.
Where's the journalism here, Greg? Nobody writes about this issue, and you claim to specialize in it. Yet the election has come and gone, and you're barely updating.
What happened in Alaska? South Carolina? Do you have anything more on Georgia than the quote of a single purged voter? The Help America Vote Act? Yeah, we've known about it awhile. The rest of the piece is just hyperbole.
Do you have anything meatier on this, your life's work? Or is it all being saved for the next book?
No one in this area can believe Mitch Daniels was re-elected Gov.
Even the Farm Bureau did NOT endorse him this year.
How could he "win" a landslide when every Republican we know said they were going to vote against him?
Maybe it's the BIG MONEY behind the Interstate 69 project that he promised to connect the new Coal Gasification industry in southern Indiana to Chicago?
Or, maybe it's the non-US car manufacturers he has courted with "free trade zone" and "tax abatement" Handouts.....even though Honda is putting GM and FORD out of business, he gave Honda big tax breaks to build a new Honda plant.....and let the US car makers suck wind.
Or, maybe it's Lilly, where his pension and retirement funds were started.....they just bought Monsanto's cancer causing mBGH hormone to make cows produce more milk (even though the cows burn out from using it, and end up as hormone-burgers at McDonalds).
Or, maybe it's Dick Cheney, who is building his own personal pipeline from Wyoming to Ohio and needs support to continue destroying farms, rivers, streams, and rural roads--using 100 percent TEXAN contractors and illegal immigrant workers?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....or maybe it was to help make SURE the Democrats did NOT gain some key seats....seems like all the people the press and citizens said they were going to vote out, somehow managed to squeak by, and in some cases received a landslide???? (Reps Buyer, Souder, Pence)
Most of the people who claim they didn't like McCain said they just "did not vote" for Pres or Gov this year. So, who voted all these Republican Congressional and Gubernatorial votes???? and who flipped all those votes?
Hmmmmmmm
Dems must get the ground game together and register voters into tamperproof rolls. Then get them out in droves to rid the Senate of the slime Saxby Chambliss. After his deploreable campaign against Max Cleland and his election fraud tactics, he is undeserving of and unbecoming of the title of US Senator.
Meanwhile the local affiliate in Atlanta ran a voter fraud story, which I found out is nearly identical to the same one done here at this other Ohio, ABC affiliate. Is this a coincidence?
The Georgia affiliate
http://www.wsbtv.com/video/17815062/index.html
The Ohio affiliate
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/17859950/detail.html?rss=nn5&psp=news
The Republican operatives who are doing this need to be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible by law. They need to be charged with every even remotely applicable crime that a creative team of prosecutorial attorneys can dream up, including RICO charges and conspiracy. Wronged citizens then need to take those charges and swear out warrants against all offending parties. Even if they beat prosecution, it will serve notice that it'sgoing to be painful to play these kinds of criminal games. If convicted, they need to face maiximum punishments allowed under law. The prosecuted should include those public servants who were "only following orders". These acts must be severely punished, because they undermine our democracy.
In the meantime, disenfranchised voters can probably obtain emergency court orders allowing them to vote in the upcoming runoff election.
Everybody donate to the Democract candidate in this race and make sure all those troops in the surrounding areas that were out registering voters for Obama now focus their full attention on RE-registering the same damn voters for this run off. Lets not let these bastards get away with it.
This isn''t exactly a responce to Christina Rush but I want to take this time to thank RFK,Jr. & G.Palast for the many years of work on voter suppression and all the other vote stealing crimes. I saw Mr. Palast in Eugene, OR and can't believe how much you have accomplished.
Thank you thank you thank you. . . .
I'm sure the right ideologues will continue to upgrade their many tricks and I hope you don't give up the fight.
In Palast's Steal Back Your Vote he recommended people to check if they were in fact registered BEFORE you went to vote on the last day. You then have more time to secure your vote. Even Tim Robbins had to get a court order to get his vote on a real ballot and not a "provisional" ballot!
Christine, I hope you get another chance to vote again.
Mr Palast, Mr Kennedy
I have seen and shown your movie about the stealing of the election of 2008, and know that in many cases you have the names of the officials involved in the vote caging.
It is time to take legal action. Sue them each, (and add in the RNC) to the tune of some $4.6 billion. If even one of these scum is financially ruined (handed their cardboard box to live in), the rest of the cockroaches will come clean!
It is high time to make these people individually responsible for crimes. At least drag them and their reputations through the courts - and bring them into the public eye!
JB
By the way, Mr Kennedy should not do EPA, though that would be very nice. How 'bout Attorney General?
see: http://www.freepress.org/columns.php?strFunc=display&strID=834&strYear=2004&strAuthor=3
From Dr. Bob Fitrakis
Incestuous relationships
Increasingly, investigative writers seeking an explanation have looked to Diebold’s history for clues. The electronic voting industry is dominated by only a few corporations – Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Sequoia. Diebold and ES&S combined count an estimated 80% of U.S. black box electronic votes.
In the early 1980s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS). California newspapers have long documented the Ahmanson family’s ties to right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles.
In 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported, “. . . primarily funded by evangelical Christians – particularly the wealthy Ahmanson family of Irvine – the [Discovery] institute’s $1-million annual program has produced 25 books, a stream of conferences and more than 100 fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral research.” The chief philanthropists of the Discovery Institute, that pushes creationist science and education in California, are Howard and Roberta Ahmanson.
According to Group Watch, in the 1980s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.
“On the right, figures such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson have given hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades to political projects both high (setting up the Heritage Foundation think-tank, the driving engine of the Reagan presidency) and low (bankrolling investigations into President Clinton’s sexual indiscretions and the suicide of the White House insider Vincent Foster),” wrote The Independent last November.
The Sunday Mail described an individual as, “. . . a fundamentalist Christian more in the mould of U.S. multi-millionaire Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who uses his fortune to promote so-called traditional family values . . . by waving fortunes under their noses, Ahmanson has the ability to cajole candidates into backing his right-wing Christian agenda.
Ahmanson is also a chief contributor to the Chalcedon Institute that supports the Christian reconstruction movement. The movement’s philosophy advocates, among other things, “mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards.”
The Ahmanson family sold their shares in American Information Systems to the McCarthy Group and the World Herald Company, Inc. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of American Information Systems and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. One of the BRC owners was Carolyn Hunt of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the Council on National Policy.
In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a “stunning upset” by one Nebraska newspaper.
Hagel’s official biography states, “Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel worked in the private sector as the President of McCarthy and Company, an investment banking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska and served as Chairman of the Board of American Information Systems.” During the first Bush presidency, Hagel served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations (G-7 Summit).
Bob Urosevich was the Programmer and CEO at AIS, before being replaced by Hagel. Bob now heads Diebold Election Systems and his brother Todd is a top executive at ES&S. Bob created Diebold’s original electronic voting machine software. Thus, the brothers Urosevich, originally funded by the far Right, figure in the counting of approximately 80% of electronic voting in the United States.
Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system. SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board.
Diebold’s track record
Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow. Alastair Thompson, writing for scoop.co of New Zealand, explored whether or not the 2002 U.S. mid-term elections were “fixed by electronic voting machines supplied by Republican-affiliated companies.” The scoop investigation concluded that: “The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.” Those machines were supplied by Diebold.
Wired News reported that “. . . a former worker in Diebold’s Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machine before the state’s 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials.” Questions were raised in Texas when three Republican candidates in Comal County each received exactly the same number of votes – 18,181 – on ES&S machines.
Following the 2003 California election, an audit of the company revealed that Diebold Election Systems voting machines installed uncertified software in all 17 counties using its equipment.
Former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell writes that one of the favorite tactics of the CIA during the Reagan-Bush administration in the 1980s was to control countries by manipulating the election process. “CIA apologists leap up and say, ‘Well, most of these things are not so bloody.’ And that’s true. You’re giving politicians some money so he’ll throw his party in this direction or that one, or make false speeches on your behalf, or something like that. It may be non-violent, but it’s still illegal intervention in other country’s affairs, raising the question of whether or not we’re going to have a world in which laws, rules of behavior are respected,” Stockwell wrote. Documents illustrate that the Reagan and Bush administration supported computer manipulation in both Noriega’s rise to power in Panama and in Marcos’ attempt to retain power in the Philippines. Many of the Reagan administration’s staunchest supporters were members of the Council on National Policy.
force a paper recount
Greg Palast,
Keep it up the good work. Chambliss is, indeed, scum. He badly needs to be thrashed.
George Kuhn
Christine,
After you re-register go buy a copy of one of Greg's books, I recommend "Armed Madhouse" but "Best Democracy" is the real eye opener. When you're through, leave it with a friend to read.
$0.02
Coil
Georgia was one of the first states to go 100% Diebold just before Chambliss's election. I believe most of the vote flipping software only works on close margins; 49 to 51% so they had to block new voters in order to put Chambliss back in the Senate.
Meanwhile, you need a muckraker. You need to ruin Chambliss's brand and vote on paper ballots, hand counted.
In my very Blue state I was knocked off the rolls as a Republican and as an Independent. Next, I will register as a Democrat, I bet I won't get knocked off then.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
give up the search for truth
stop trying to show people
how the world really works
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
Bush was worse than Hitler
and Stalin and Mao
and Castro combined
.
Thank you for telling my story.
I actually *did* vote on Election Day. I filled out a provisional ballot, though I knew it was likely to not be counted. Honestly, I thought my existence on the rolls during the Primary was reason enough to believe I would still be there come Nov. 4. Little did I know that the great state of Georgia had some purging plans up its sleeve.
In the aftermath of Obama's landslide victory, I have not lost sight of the fact that there is a HUGE problem with voter suppression in this state. I have sent certified letters to both the Secretary of State and the Board of Elections. I have been an active voter since 1994. There is no justifiable explanation for the erroneous erasure that occurred some time between June 2008 and October 27.
I am beyond thankful for Mr. Palast's diligence and passion. I am also inspired. And I thank those of you with offers of support and suggestion. This is not the last of it for me, I assure you.
I won't go quietly, that's for sure.
And I will be voting in the run-off election in December.
This is UNCONSCIONABLE & Must NOT BE TOLERATED!! As I see it, the ONLY way to stop this is to put the Perps in JAIL, NOW, wait NO more!! Then when the hellhounds are safely behind bars, go to the Remaining "authorities" & DEMAND THEY COUNT THE VOTE OR PUT THEM IN JAIL TOO, ON & ON TIL THEY COUNT THE VOTES OR ROT IN JAIL!!
Do it & we will help u! they stole at least 2 elections! It's time to steal our votes back!!! We've SUFFERED THRU WARS & 2 ILLEGAL PREZ & CONGRESS: WE CANNOT SUFFER THRU MORE CONGRESSIONAL SHENANIGANS DUE TO THIS... TY AND PLS ADVICE ASAP!
Hey Greg,
Did you just hear about VelvetUnderground's $100,000 Reward for information and/or evidence related to Georgia's 2002 alleged rigged election ?
Oh, just loved the Tim Robbins open letter. Nothing like a bunch of corrupt GOP criminal minded corporatists to infiltrate, subjegate, and usurp democracy. Jail time, for a long time, for those NY BOE members that engaged in "supposed" lawful behaviour of a hijacked Party. Maybe those workcamp, detention centers can be filled with the huge numbers of criminals occupying GOP positions. Maybe....nice vision at least. But then, I become what I hate. And then they really have won.
Update to above Posting.
$100K Reward For Information About Rigging Of 2002 Saxby Chambliss Senate Race In Georgia
Sorry,that's the Velvet Revolution's website that the Reward is offered. (My 70's era names got mixed in there.)
Thank you for your great work on this issue. I find it very troubling.
Between no-paper-trail voting machines here in Texas and a sudden interest in "voter fraud" by Republican election officials in Harris County after the Democratic Primary showed a great number of Democrats registered and voting, I fear that our Republican controlled state is in great danger of election theft in the future.
After the presidential election of 2000 I will never trust Republicans in charge of voting procedures.
Where are you on the Minnesota race?! We're nearing the end of a recount for someone who lived and worked for years/decades in NYC where you're based and yes the GA race is key. But what about all those challenged ballots in MN?? If the dems want their so-called filibuster proof majority, this race is pivotal. And I'm curious as to your take on this race.