Rigging Elections

Stalin said, voters do not choose the winner of elections, the people who count the votes do.

[From article]
One would think (or hope) that a private industry entrusted with America’s votes would require the highest degree of personal integrity from its employees. As it happens, many of the key staffers behind our
major voting-machine companies have been accused or convicted of a dizzying array of white-collar crimes, including conspiracy, bribery, bid rigging, computer fraud, tax fraud, stock fraud, mail fraud,
extortion, and drug trafficking.
[. . .]
Although many felons (and prior felons) can’t cast a ballot in America—an estimated 6 million citizens will be disenfranchised in 2012 due to felony convictions—these particular felons are apparently free to design and manage our entire elections industry.
[. . .]
The corporate media was silent. But the left-wing press was hostile.”
[. . .]
the fear of being branded a conspiracy theorist inhibits many—that term having long served as a cudgel to suppress discussion of all sorts of crimes against democracy. As Miller puts it, “There is no more exquisite method of silencing dissent, or shutting down inconvenient inquiry, than to charge someone with conspiracy theory.”
[. . .]
Germany [. . .] In 2009, that nation’s constitutional court upheld the basic principle of the public nature of democratic elections. By ruling that the vote count must be something the public can authenticate—and without any specialized expertise—the decision directly challenged the use of computers in elections.
Ireland followed suit in June 2012, sending all its electronic voting machines to the scrap heap.

http://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/

From the November 2012 issue
Harper's
How to Rig an Election
The G.O.P. aims to paint the country red
By Victoria Collier