Republicans are smarter than this.

We're smarter than this.

Here I am, a southern white Republican, suddenly finding myself amongst a sea of Liberals and minority activists who are screaming their lungs out about our voting systems, and the funny thing is that I’m here by choice. They’re fighting their hearts out because they know something that most of us Republican’s don’t know. They know that our voting systems are woefully inadequate and insecure, and cannot be trusted to count our votes. So why have I taken such an interest in the issue, even though our side won?

It may be more interesting to me because I’m also a professional computer Hacker.

I’m what the I.T. industry calls a “White Hat”. With permission (and a contract – also known as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card), companies pay me to break into their systems in order to find their security holes and make them more secure. I love it, and I’m good at it. So why would a lifelong Conservative NRA member throw my hat in the ring and volunteer to be lumped in with the tree-huggers? Why risk being labeled a “conspiracy theorist”? Well, one reason is because I work in computer security, and I see groups conspiring to steal your data every day, anytime there is money or power to be gained by doing it. The threats are real, and people like me are in high demand. But that’s just business. Want to know the other, more personal reason?

Because the Democrats, the Libertarians, and the Greens are right about this.

Seriously, we need to stop ignoring them and take a look. This isn’t a partisan issue, even if some of the people involved are.

Isn’t it ironic how I’ve been watching my fellow Republicans ignore, dismiss, and jeer Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians, mocking them as "sore losers", but when a recount (or a few) costs us a race in Washington state, we jump in to contest it? Hey, what ELSE are you supposed to do when election numbers don't add up and your candidate suddenly loses?

And truth be told, there aren’t many Libertarian and Green “sore losers”. They always lose! Face it; if you’re a sore loser, third party politics isn’t for you. I’ve been working with them personally, and all they want is a voting system with integrity. But we don’t have one, and they are fighting ongoing efforts from officials who are trying to make it worse.

While we watched our President and Secretary of State condemn the election results in the Ukraine, we said to each other, "Man, I'm glad that didn't happen here. I watch Fox News every night and I haven't heard anything about election problems here. Except for those 2 Democrats O’Reilly said registered more than once - we need to throw them in jail."

Some of us have heard the yelling about the election and decided that "Moral Values" trumped record turnouts, and marvel at how well we "got out the vote". I hear us say, "Man, did you see all those black people standing in the rain for 9 hours to vote? And it still wasn't enough to beat the Republican Machine!"

Republican Machine, indeed. You’re more right than you know.

Most of us don't even know about the recount in Ohio, or the staggering fraud and obstructionism at the behest of the Ohio Secretary of State, who just so happens to be the Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney campaign in Ohio. Ohio even managed to screw up the recount by pre-selecting the votes to be recounted, and the vote machine vendors made "cheat sheets" of the original numbers so that the recounters knew what numbers they were supposed to hit. Ever show up to a poker game and have your cards dealt already, with strangers sitting around the table waiting for you? That’s the Ohio recount.

Before it started, vote machine vendors dialed in remotely to voting machines to “get them ready” for the recount. What? Our voting machines were connected to phone lines and can be changed remotely? You bet.

According to observers of several different parties on the ground, the recount was conducted incorrectly in 86 out of 88 counties.

There has recently been testimony from a Florida computer programmer who testified under oath that Florida Congressman Tom Feeney asked him to create vote-switching software in 2000. And speaking of testimony, did you know that the Ohio Secretary of State/Bush Campaign Co-Chair has completely refused to answer ANY of Congress' 36 questions to him on the issue, and is actually seeking a protective order to prevent him from being forced to testify under oath? That doesn't sound like a man who ran an honest, open election to me. That sounds like somebody with something to hide.

As a result of the “numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law", Congressman Conyers and a number of other members of Congress are planning to formally object to the Ohio Electors on January 6th, and all they need is one Senator to throw the results of the entire 2004 election into question. This would be the first time this has been done since the Electoral Count Act was passed in 1887. John Conyers is a reasonable and honorable man, and he would not take this step if there were “nothing to see here”. Ohio’s Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, only had to do one thing to avoid this; Run an honest election. But he chose party allegiance instead, so we get four more years of mistrust and hatred instead of working together across party lines.

Do you think Republicans would stand in the rain for nine hours and then just "get over it" if over 57,000 cases of voting "irregularities" were reported to the General Accountability Office? Hell no, we wouldn't! The GAO is currently investigating the criminal conduct, as is the FBI. But while Liza Minelli falling out of bed drunk makes the front-page, we hear almost nothing about this from the major networks. We hear all about the Scott Peterson case, but what we aren’t hearing is as important as what we are. Where are Woodward and Bernstein when you need them?

Well, I know where they aren’t - did you know that last week ONE spokesman speaking for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FOX flatly REFUSED to release the raw exit poll data to US Congressman John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee?

One person spoke for the entire mainstream media. And refused to release election data. To Congress. What? Why didn't we hear about that?! Oh, right, because we are depending on those who are refusing to cooperate with Congress. That is an awful lot of power in the hands of just a half-dozen CEOs. With our party in control of the House, Senate, and White House, you have to wonder who controls the Fourth Estate, the “Liberal” media.

They said they couldn’t release the data because they were still analyzing it – but how can showing Congress the data stop the networks from being able to conduct their analysis? Are they out of paper and there’s only one copy?

Is this really what’s happening in our beloved US of A?

Yup. I'm not making any of this up - go and see for yourself. Google "Vote Fraud 2004" and prepare to be shocked at what you're not hearing. Read the Washington Post article about the election “Bang for the buck”, and the lengths both sides will go to to win, and then try and convince yourself that either side wouldn’t cheat if given half a chance. Then look and see how easy it is to cheat, and decide if you believe your vote will always be counted.

Come on y’all - we’re smarter than this.

I challenge you to prove to the voters of NC that we had an honest, open, verifiable election when North Carolina still has 4 – yes, four – undecided races and is going to have to have another statewide election that's going to cost us - you and me - about $3,500,000. Our state is broke, and we have to shell out $3,500,000 because electronic voting machines are so poorly designed. We could pay the full annual salaries of 100 teachers for that, but instead we have to call a "do-over" and go vote again.

Prove our voting system is OK when a Diebold technician ran the machines in Gaston County on Election Day and the numbers for over half of the precincts didn’t match. Carteret County lost 4,438 votes. In Guilford County, the software hit 32,767 votes and then switched to negative numbers (16-bit counting, for computer people). This is not even a new problem – these machines lost NC votes in 2002, Wake County for example, and we’re still running them! Check out www.ncvoter.net for more, or better yet, come to the public meeting of the Joint Select Committee on E-Voting’s public meeting on January 7th in Raleigh. 10 am, be there or be square.

I'll be there, demonstrating for our State Representatives how easy the voting software we used in Gaston County is to hack, and I know that our elected officials want to hear from you, too. Come and see how easy it is to change tens of thousands of votes and leave no trace, and you will never trust a paperless voting system again.

My fellow Republicans, I have been working with Libertarians, Democrats, Greens, Independents, and other patriots who are NOT trying to install Kerry in the White House on some Anti-Bush agenda. They, and I, just want an electoral system they can trust. Without it, we will NEVER have a united country. Whoever wins using an untrustworthy system will never be trusted by the other side.

As for me, I want hand-counted paper ballots. No computers, no exceptions. And before you call me a Luddite or someone afraid of technology, remember that I’m the guy with a laptop and antenna mounted in his van who gets paid to legally break into corporate computer systems for a living.

One last word to the wise - don't believe the Whitewash and the spin. Once you take five minutes to see what computer scientists have been trying to tell us, you'll stop jeering the Patriots in other parties who love their country and are fighting for it with all their heart, and you will join them in making our electoral system worthy of our trust.

As it is right now, we're being lied to by the people who profit from a weak and corrupt voting system, who tell us “there’s nothing to see here” while tens of thousands of votes are getting lost and we have to have “do-over” elections.

Don’t believe it. We're smarter than that.