This article is part of the series: E-voting
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Stemfraude Verkiezingen VS 2000 - deel 7

Door Daan de Wit
De beste dieven zijn bescheiden. Steeds een klein beetje stelen, valt niet zo snel op. Ze vallen meestal door de mand als ze te inhalig worden. In Florida werden ze te inhalig. In vorige delen van onze serie over het stelen van de verkiezingen door W. Bush hebben we dat al verteld. In dit deel (en in het vorige en in volgende delen) komen we met aanwijzingen dat in Amerikaanse verkiezingen stelselmatig wordt gefaudeerd.

Uit het artikel Elections In America - Assume Crooks Are In Control: 'Sequoia is another voting systems company that sends a cold chill down my spine. "Mob ties, bribery, felony convictions, and threats of coercion are visible in the public record of the election services company," according to investigative journalist and filmmaker Daniel Hopsicker, and reported in Spotlight.com. Hopsicker says that Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci, a 65-year-old senior executive with Sequoia, and the firm's Louisiana representative, recently pled guilty to passing out as much as $10 million dollars in bribes over the course of almost an entire decade." According to American Law Education Rights & Taxation (ALERT), Ricci is the president of Sequoia International, which also manufactures casino slot machines. That's just great. Now, we could possibly have both the Russian mafia and the U.S. mafia involved in our elections.'

In zijn documentaire vertelt Hopsicker in wiens zakken de $10 miljoen omkoopgeld van Ricci/Sequoia verdwenen, in die van Jerry Fowler, inmiddels voormalig commisioner of elections van Louisiana. Hopsicker schrijft dat uit de rechtbankpapieren bij deze zaak blijkt dat Garden State Elections en Elec-tec van de tweeling Harold en Herb Webb 'were used to conceal transactions involving election services industry giant Sequoia Pacific', waar hun broer Hugh de General manager is. De tweeling was betrokken bij het doorsluizen van het omkoopgeld.

Stemfraude 1
'The world might never have learned of Pasquale "Rocco" Ricci, except for Woody Jenkins, the unsuccessful Republican Senate candidate in Louisiana in 1996, who lost the contested 1996 US Senate race by a hairsbreadth margin to Democrat Mary Landrieu. Allegations of voting irregularities by Republican Jenkins led to a year-long investigation; and though Jenkins was eventually adjudged to have lost by 5,000 votes after a fight that reached US Senate chambers, the probe quickly came across evidence of massive bribery.
This became the focus of the investigation that followed, leading to charges that Elections Commissioner Fowler had squandered $8.6 million in state money on worthless election equipment, and taken kickbacks from voting machine contractors working for Sequoia Pacific, all in a scheme engineered by that company's executives.
Rocco Ricci, we learned, was a "long-time" associate of the Commissioner of Elections. He was even married, we were startled to learn, to a woman,  Joy, who worked right in the Election  Commissioner's Office!', schrijft Hopsicker.

'Almost twenty assorted vendors and corrupted elections officials have been convicted so far, including two Florida businessmen we immediately dubbed "The Sunshine Boys."  Glenn Boord and Ralph Escudero owned a now-defunct voting-machine company, Uni-lect, associated with Sequoia Pacific. They pled guilty to conspiracy to compound a felony (public bribery)', aldus Hopsicker.

'Woody Jenkins, the unsuccessful Republican Senate candidate in Louisiana in 1996' (zie hierboven) was op de avond van de verkiezingen aan het winnen, maar werd op het laatse moment verslagen omdat laat op de avond opeens 100.000 stemmen binnenkwamen voor zijn tegenstander. Hij riep terplekke dat hij een onderzoek zou instellen. De volgende ochtend ontdekte hij tot zijn verbazing bij het binnenwandelen van een van de van fraude verdachte opslagruimtes van stemmachines dat alle machines ontzegeld en geopend waren.

Stemfraude 2
Ook in Louisiana en ook in 1996 was er nog een verkiezing, voor een lokale gemeentraad. Susan Bernecker deed mee, maar verloor. Ook zij ging eens kijken bij de electronische stemmachines. Ze nam een videocamera mee zodat we konden meekijken met haar onderzoekje, allemaal te zien in de video van Hopsicker. Een op de drie keer dat ze haar eigen naam intoetste op de stemmachines, verscheen onderaan het paneel met drukknoppen op een display de naam van haar tegenstander. Na deze opnamen vreesde ze voor haar leven en heeft ze als de donder een persconferentie belegd, zodat zij niet de enige was die dit nieuws wist. In een artikel over deze zaak staat: ' The Bernecker case Anderson refers to was an outrageous example of votefraud which Susan Bernecker proved on videotape, i.e. her opponent's name came up every third time that her name was pushed. The crooked judge in Louisiana looked at the evidence and promptly threw the case out of court. [...].'

Lees in dit artikel van Hopsicker meer over een van de redenen dat Fowler het omkoopgeld aannam en lees ook over een collega van hem in een andere staat die 'zelfmoord' pleegde, achter een afvalcontainer.

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