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The 2000 election:
186 million citizens were 18 or older.
130 million of those were registered to vote (70%).
105 million of those voted in 2000 (79%).


Current vote counting problems:
1)Alleged voter fraud as there is no public oversight over the vote counting process.
2)Possible ballot box stuffing (casting extra votes).
3)It's a logistic impossibility to count the votes and relay results from all voting precints on election night.
4)A paper-trail for electronic machines only validates what you selected, not what was counted.



HonestVoting.Com's vote counting solutions:
1)A detailed database of all voting results (names and ID numbers removed for privacy) should be made available to the public for downloading.
2)If fee-based or rebate methods are used to encourage everyone to vote, ballet box stuffing would be reduced significantly.
3)Voting machines should be available at post offices for at least 30 days prior to election night.
4)Voters should be able to modify their vote on-line up until the polls close on election night.



The Electoral College:
The Electoral College selects the President and VP in mid-December in order to give the states enough time to count the votes and settle disputes.  If it takes over a month to validate the vote, how is it possible to determine the election results before west coast polls have closed?  The election is solely decided by exit polling.


Media Influence?
In the first round of the 1988 primaries, George H.W. Bush (senior) lost the Iowa Republican Caucus to Bob Dole.  The New Hampshire primary placed Bush behind Dole in that state too.  Shockingly, Bush ended up winning a 9 percent victory in the New Hampshire primary.  The media claimed it was because of Dole's "mean" public image.

During the 2004 primaries, Howard Dean had a 25-point lead, cementing his front-runner status, while John Kerry and John Edwards were barely in the running.  Kerry rose to the top due to the media's assault on the #1 ranked "unelectable" Howard Dean. 


Enter the NES/VNS:
In 1964, after the John F. Kennedy assasination, television networks projected Barry Goldwater as the California Republican primary winner while newspapers reported Nelson Rockefeller in the morning editions.  The election management company called Network Election Service (NES) was created so the media wouldn't be embarrassed by publishing conflicting results in the rush to be first.

In 1968, when Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey, NES became quite suspicious.  NES turned off their "erroneous" computer and switched on the "slower" backup system.  After much waiting, the new machine put Nixon ahead by roughly 40,000 votes, with just 6 percent of the votes left to be counted.  Independent news reporters found over 53,000 Humphrey votes cast by a Democratic splinter party in Alabama, putting Humphrey in the lead.  The Associated Press (co-owner of NES) conducted their own state-by-state survey of "the best available sources of election data" and decided that Nixon won.

Later NES renamed itself to be the "News Election Service".  This New York City based company changed their name again to be the Voters News Service (VNS).  NES/VNS has been privately owned by ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, The Associated Press, United Press International (dropped out after being bought-out by Saudis), The New York Times and The Washington Post.  Chase Manhattan Bank, which is mainly owned by the Rockefellers, owns controlling interest of several of the media corporations that own VNS.

Voters News Service (VNS), has been responsible for providing "exit polling" to the networks for decades.  The unbelievable accuracy of VNS election predictions is either a marvel of technology, the genius of statisticians, or a mind-boggling stroke of luck.


Influential Organizations:
During the 2000 election, VNS hired the controversial Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI) to revamp their system.  Battelle is a major military defense and government intelligence contractor, leading one to believe there's a connection between the CIA and VNS. 

Allegedly VNS went "out of business" after the 2000 election.  Perhaps (Warren) Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research (Mitofsky sits on their board of directors) will provide election results to the networks for the 2004 election.

ES&S, the nation's largest vote counting company, is owned by the Omaha World Herald Company.  ES&S claims on their website that they tabulated "56% of the U.S. national vote for the past four presidential elections".  ES&S is owned by Michael McCarthy's "McCarthy Group" which is also the Campaign Treasurer for Senator Chuck Hagel.

Diebold Election Systems, is the second largest vote counting company with 33-35% of the electronic vote, according to a Diebold spokesperson.  Walden O'Dell, Diebold's chief executive, recently wrote a fund-raising letter for the re-election of President Bush.

Accenture, formerly known as Andersen Consulting, is currently located in Bermuda and is slated to count the military online vote in 2004.

Business Records Corporation (BRC) was formerly known as Votomatic, the maker of Computer Election Services.  They emerged unscathed from a Justice Department antitrust investigation in 1981.

Sequoia Pacific, based in Jamestown, New York, is the supplier of both optical scanning and direct-record computer vote-counting equipment and goes head-to-head with BRC, the largest supplier of vote-counting software in the country.  Sequoia Pacific is owned by Jefferson Smurfit Group, p.l.c., which is the largest paper-based packaging company in the world, with over 8 billion dollars per year in revenue.  Jefferson Smurfit is an Irish firm based in Dublin, and is the 4th largest supplier of newsprint in the United States.