GATES (not Bill)

GATES SERVED ON BOARD OF MYSTERIOUS COMPANY THAT HELPED PASS DISASTROUS
ELECTRONIC VOTING BILL

BEV HARRIS, BLACK BOX VOTING - Gates was on the board of directors of
Vote Here, a strange little company that was the biggest elections
industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act. Vote Here spent more
money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through.
And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal
Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic
voting on steroids.

Vote Here was a company shilling cryptographic solutions and filled with
NSA types (another director was Admiral Bill Owens, another crony of
Rummy, Perle and Wolfowitz. . .

For some reason, it was decided that I should be investigated in
connection with [a reported] "hack" of Vote Here -- never mind that I
can't remember how to change the password on my own laptop. Therefore I
was interviewed by the Secret Service several times about this.
Curiously, they never seemed to ask any questions about Vote Here, only
my role in finding the Diebold files and publishing the Diebold memos.

This nonsense eventually culminated in a gag order and a letter from the
U.S. Attorney to appear in front of a federal grand jury with
information on all the visitors to the Black Box Voting Web site. . .

Attorney Lowell Finley went to bat for me on this. A reporter named
George Howland from the Seattle Weekly also got wind of it. When it hit
the press, and with Lowell Finley's help, their harassment of me
stopped.

Vote Here never sold any voting machines that I can find, but apparently
did set up some deals to embed its cryptography into some voting
systems. We found memos in the Diebold trash about Vote Here's
crypto-crap, and Maryland Director of Elections Linda Lamone shows up in
Vote Here-related letters. Sequoia Voting Systems signed an agreement
with Vote Here, but it's not clear to me whether they ever did anything
about it. . .

I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a paper, pencil, and count by
hand at the polling place than have former CIA director Robert Gates
fooling around with my vote. But that's just me.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0611/S00178.htm

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||