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I'm writing an article for the newspaper and decided to go a different route than usual, but am having a bit of a problem. I'm not sure I should use the real names in the article, maybe just the first names? Here what I have so far, any suggestions?
The stranger sat on the stool next to me, as drank my coffee and said “I’m going to tell you a story. A story about two men.” “Who are you?” I asked. “Just call me Duke.” He said, and continued with his story.
“There’s this guy named Jack Abramoff, a successful, crooked lobbyist on Capital Hill. Now Jack got this account from a corporation called Diebold.
Diebold had these machines made by wireless companies, costing them around a $100.oo each to produce and they needed a market.
So, they hired Jack to get the good folk on The Hill to buy these machines at around $2400.00 each, which was a fair price they believed.
Jack asked good buddy Bob Ney (R-Ohio) to help him make this happen.
Good ole Bob was happy to help and wrote the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). This act would make sure these Diebold machines were used and States given funds to buy them. But these machines didn’t work so well. Bob and Diebold had to make sure there would be no way to find this out and keep the nation's eyes off massive electile dysfunction. So the codes in these machines were declared proprietary (secret) and HAVA would have a provision that discourages verification by paper ballots. But both Republicans and Democrats said, “No we have to have a way of verifying votes”.
Bob fought tooth and nail against this, because Diebold did not provide paper ballots. He even went so far as to have blind people testify on The Hill at the HAVA hearings, that they did not want paper ballots.”
Duke, paused before continuing and shook his head,
“So, Bob got together with election officials from several states, to not allow counts of the paper ballots (most notably Ken Blackwell (Ohio) and Bruce McPherson (Calf.). Ohio and other states have made it impossible for any challenge to an election.” I asked, “Why would any state even suggest this kind of rule unless they felt the fix was in? Wouldn’t they want to challenge if they lost?” “You would think so”, he said.
“The states of Nebraska and Florida passed laws that prohibit counting paper ballots that were counted by Diebold Optic Scanners.” (of which Kenosha PROUDLY bought, I thought to myself). “So the states are going to just keep counting the votes using the same machines that miscounted them to begin with?” I asked. “Yeah, we all know the result will be the same each time on the same machine using the same software which is flawed. It’s a Catch-22 if you will. The other machines that were certified are no better, at least with the Optic Scanners there is a paper ballot” he said. (As long as we are permitted to count them, I thought.)
“Well, Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney were caught and will probably end up charged with bribery, but the machines and HAVA are still here. Law suits have been filed. Will the Attorney General join in the charges? I doubt it.” he continued.
“So where is the Press on this?” I asked. “They are there, with fingers in their ears, singing La, la, la, la can’t hear you. Nothing here, move on”, he replied. “Where are our Representatives, Republican and Democrat?” said I. “The Democrats keep conceding gracefully and the Republicans don’t care as long as they win”, he answered.
He stopped speaking, so I turned and asked, “How will this story end? Will our press decide that freedom is worth at least one investigative report? Will our Representatives on The Hill decide to join in the lawsuits, since they were swindled? Will we be sure our votes count? I did read recently the RNC put out the meme that if any one of them loses, they are to challenge, gee, weren’t they the ones making those laws against challenges and recounts?”
He said, “This is just a story after all; take from it what you will. I’m just sayin you really want to trust elections to corporations using secret code with no assurance of accuracy? The same corporations that want to privatize our public treasury and have a predatory agenda for liquidation of any asset?”
“Well, he said, I’m just sayin……”
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