Senator Chuck Hagel, a true Republican
The Omaha World-Herald reported that on Monday, Chuck Hagel (R-NE) will announce his retirement from the U. S. Senate. After two terms, he will bring to an end a 12 year senatorial career in which he was a "frequently reliable Republican vote - but unafraid to show a maverick streak."
However, the article did not mention Senator Hagel's ethics problem involving Election Systems & Software (ES&S). ES&S is this country's largest distributor of voting machines, Direct Response Electronic (DRE) more commonly known as touch screen.
In October, 2002, Congress passed the Help Americans Vote Act (HAVA) in answer to the 2000 "hanging chads" election debacle. This act mandated that states improve their election procedures including voting machines. A Republican controlled Congress earmarked billions of dollars to assist states in implementing the HAVA mandate. Enter the mostly Republican owned voting machine companies like ES&S who wanted to feed greedily at this Congressional trough. These companies' representatives wined and dined secretaries of state, registrars and other state officials, who were not computer experts, and bamboozled them into purchasing their costly high tech time bombs.
Even in the mid and late 1990's, many computer scientists and experts were sounding the alarm in print and at conferences and elsewhere about these flawed, unsecure, hackable machines being sold by companies who seemed to be hijacking the voting process. Their warnings grew louder after the 2000 presidential election and when HAVA was being considered, but federal and states' officials apparently weren't listening.
DRE machines could have "back doors" or undetected entrances for vote tampering, be hacked into and votes changed without leaving a trail, and electronic functions taken control of as has been proven many times by computer experts most recently this year by University of California computer scientists.
DRE machines produced no paper trail, so there could be no recount or audit and voters could not verify that their votes were actually recorded. As Bradblog reports, in some places like Sarasota, Florida where printouts were added to DRE's last year, the printouts only reflected the same inexplicable undervote count. Voter verification of a printout is also impossible to determine and a miniscule 3% of those printouts will ever be counted.
ES&S, like other voting machine companies, claim that their software is proprietary, therefore secret, and will not allow independent computer experts to examine the code for flaws, security, etc. Ballot boxes can be visually checked and lever machines' counters checked by voting officials but not these machines. In our representative democracy, corporations, not the voters or their government representatives, control, without effective oversight, the voting process and the results.
So, where does Senator Hagel come in? Well, Chuck Hagel's company, ES&S, counted approximately 80% of the votes in his winning 1996 and 2002 elections, and the voters didn't know about it. According to an article by Bob Fitrakis published in the Columbus Free Press:
"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."
Now, Senator Hagel may have won on the up-and-up, but given the vote manipulation scandals that have emerged regarding voting systems distributed by companies such as his, it certainly casts doubt on Senator Hagel's ethics in not revealing his ownership in ES&S and also on the credibility of those vote counts in his 1996 and 2002 elections. In fact, it wasn't until 2003 that Chuck Hagel admitted ownership in ES&S after it was revealed in October, 2002 in a book by Bev Harris, Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering.
"Hagel’s campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy, now admits that Senator Hagel still owns a beneficial interest in the ES&S parent company, the McCarthy Group. ES&S counts approximately 60 percent of all votes cast in the United States. According to the Omaha World-Herald which is also a beneficial owner of ES&S, Hagel was CEO of American Information Systems, now called ES&S, from November 1993 through June 2, 1994. He was Chairman from July 1992 until March 15 1995. He was required to disclose these positions on his FEC Personal Disclosure statements, but he did not.
Last week, Hagel’s campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy (currently an owner and a director of ES&S) admitted to Alexander Bolton of The Hill that Hagel is still an owner of ES&S parent company, the McCarthy Group, and said that Hagel also had owned shares in AIS Investors Inc., a group of investors in ES&S itself. Yet Hagel did not disclose owning or selling shares in AIS Investors Inc. on his FEC documents, a required disclosure, nor did he disclose that ES&S is an underlying asset of McCarthy Group, in which he lists an investment of up to $5 million in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001."
When Chuck Hagel makes his expected retirement announcement on Monday, it is inevitable that praises will flow from his Senate club colleagues. However every Democrat should understand that Senator Hagel is always, first and last, a true Republican who embraces the modern Republican philosophy: corporations trump people and winning elections trumps ethics. If Chuck Hagel ran for re-election next year, would ES&S count the votes again?
However, the article did not mention Senator Hagel's ethics problem involving Election Systems & Software (ES&S). ES&S is this country's largest distributor of voting machines, Direct Response Electronic (DRE) more commonly known as touch screen.
In October, 2002, Congress passed the Help Americans Vote Act (HAVA) in answer to the 2000 "hanging chads" election debacle. This act mandated that states improve their election procedures including voting machines. A Republican controlled Congress earmarked billions of dollars to assist states in implementing the HAVA mandate. Enter the mostly Republican owned voting machine companies like ES&S who wanted to feed greedily at this Congressional trough. These companies' representatives wined and dined secretaries of state, registrars and other state officials, who were not computer experts, and bamboozled them into purchasing their costly high tech time bombs.
Even in the mid and late 1990's, many computer scientists and experts were sounding the alarm in print and at conferences and elsewhere about these flawed, unsecure, hackable machines being sold by companies who seemed to be hijacking the voting process. Their warnings grew louder after the 2000 presidential election and when HAVA was being considered, but federal and states' officials apparently weren't listening.
DRE machines could have "back doors" or undetected entrances for vote tampering, be hacked into and votes changed without leaving a trail, and electronic functions taken control of as has been proven many times by computer experts most recently this year by University of California computer scientists.
DRE machines produced no paper trail, so there could be no recount or audit and voters could not verify that their votes were actually recorded. As Bradblog reports, in some places like Sarasota, Florida where printouts were added to DRE's last year, the printouts only reflected the same inexplicable undervote count. Voter verification of a printout is also impossible to determine and a miniscule 3% of those printouts will ever be counted.
ES&S, like other voting machine companies, claim that their software is proprietary, therefore secret, and will not allow independent computer experts to examine the code for flaws, security, etc. Ballot boxes can be visually checked and lever machines' counters checked by voting officials but not these machines. In our representative democracy, corporations, not the voters or their government representatives, control, without effective oversight, the voting process and the results.
So, where does Senator Hagel come in? Well, Chuck Hagel's company, ES&S, counted approximately 80% of the votes in his winning 1996 and 2002 elections, and the voters didn't know about it. According to an article by Bob Fitrakis published in the Columbus Free Press:
"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."
Now, Senator Hagel may have won on the up-and-up, but given the vote manipulation scandals that have emerged regarding voting systems distributed by companies such as his, it certainly casts doubt on Senator Hagel's ethics in not revealing his ownership in ES&S and also on the credibility of those vote counts in his 1996 and 2002 elections. In fact, it wasn't until 2003 that Chuck Hagel admitted ownership in ES&S after it was revealed in October, 2002 in a book by Bev Harris, Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering.
"Hagel’s campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy, now admits that Senator Hagel still owns a beneficial interest in the ES&S parent company, the McCarthy Group. ES&S counts approximately 60 percent of all votes cast in the United States. According to the Omaha World-Herald which is also a beneficial owner of ES&S, Hagel was CEO of American Information Systems, now called ES&S, from November 1993 through June 2, 1994. He was Chairman from July 1992 until March 15 1995. He was required to disclose these positions on his FEC Personal Disclosure statements, but he did not.
Last week, Hagel’s campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy (currently an owner and a director of ES&S) admitted to Alexander Bolton of The Hill that Hagel is still an owner of ES&S parent company, the McCarthy Group, and said that Hagel also had owned shares in AIS Investors Inc., a group of investors in ES&S itself. Yet Hagel did not disclose owning or selling shares in AIS Investors Inc. on his FEC documents, a required disclosure, nor did he disclose that ES&S is an underlying asset of McCarthy Group, in which he lists an investment of up to $5 million in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001."
When Chuck Hagel makes his expected retirement announcement on Monday, it is inevitable that praises will flow from his Senate club colleagues. However every Democrat should understand that Senator Hagel is always, first and last, a true Republican who embraces the modern Republican philosophy: corporations trump people and winning elections trumps ethics. If Chuck Hagel ran for re-election next year, would ES&S count the votes again?
Posted by Kaz at 9/8/2007 1:22 PM 
Categories: HAVA, Republicans, Politics, elections, Ethics, Voting Problems, Senate
Categories: HAVA, Republicans, Politics, elections, Ethics, Voting Problems, Senate
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