by Robert Lockwood Mills
January 11, 2006
Dear Friends: It took the downfall of a lobbyist who dresses like a Hasidic rabbi one day and a baseball coach the next to make it happen. But if looks as if our 14-month-long effort to expose the fraud in Ohio that gave the 2004 to Bush is bearing fruit at last.
Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) was one of the architects of HAVA (Help America Vote Act). In that role he worked with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and others to reform certain election procedures that had arisen from the controversial 2000 election. But where electronic voting machines were concerned, the HAVA architects neglected accusations that they were "hackable" and focused instead on lesser issues, in particular making it easier for blind people to vote.
Diebold, Inc., from Ney's home state of Ohio, is the leading company in electronic voting machines. In response to public demand dating back to 2000 for verifiable paper trails to accompany its machines (similar to their ATM machines' transaction receipts), Diebold argued that it wasn't practical. Ney, using his Congressional clout, blocked every piece of legislation that would have mandated such paper trails, even after the 2004 election and reports from Ohio and elsewhere that hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of votes had been flipped from Kerry to Bush. As many of you know, I witnessed this very thing in Florida as a pollwatcher.
When Jack Abramoff began to spill his guts in connection with the charges against him as a crooked lobbyist, Ney's name surfaced immediately as one who received money and favors from him. One of Ney's more recent free trips abroad, financed by Abramoff, he struck it rich, winning $34,000 on a single $100 bet...quite convenient, because his credit card bills at that point had risen to over $30,000.
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/20/2006/1702