A Campaign For US Electronic Election Integrity

Friday, 12 September 2008, 9:43 am
Article: Alastair Thompson

Scoop Independent News Launches
Pro-bono Advertising Campaign For US Electronic Election Integrity

From Alastair Thompson, Scoop Co-Editor & General Manager

Scoop Independent News - a news website based in Wellington New Zealand - has been instrumental in bringing the vulnerability of the electronic US election infrastructure to public notice over the past six years. (See background below & American Coup II - 1999 to 2008 )

For the 2008 US Election Scoop is launching a campaign to raise profile around past and present electronic voting machinery vulnerability issues which even after six years of reporting and investigation in independent online media remain trivialized in most mainstream publications.

Scoop has decided to run the campaign at its own cost through the US election season as a contribution to US Democracy. However it is seeking help and support from the voting public to help make the effort a success.

The Scoop campaign for US Election Integrity will have 2 components:

1. An expected 2 million advertising impressions in Scoop Independent News's Scoops/Comment and World News sections - both heavily read by a US based audience - will be devoted to increasing awareness in the issue through the month of October and November 2008. This advertising space - usually sold for around USD$15,000 a month - will be offered for free to election reform news websites, documentary makers, authors and activist groups to raise the profile of their activities and publications.

2. Meanwhile Scoop Independent News will devote editorial resources to acting as a clearing house for up-to-the minute news on election integrity efforts throughout the United States. Scoop provides a particularly good platform for performing this task as it is a) highly Google ranked b) well known to election integrity activist communities and c) overseas and therefore relatively invulnerable to interference.

The advertising inventory being made available for this effort will reach an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Americans over the period of the election campaign and its immediate aftermath when evidence of any vote rigging is likely to emerge and need exposure in the media.

While this campaign is going to proceed regardless, donations are being sought to offset the costs of Scoop's efforts to protect US democracy.

You can also wire money to Scoop Media Ltd. Email usacoup@scoop.co.nz for instructions.

CREATIVE HELP SOUGHT: We will also be needing assistance with devising and making adverts for worthy websites and activities - we are interested to hear from anyone who can assist with this aspect of the task. Email usacoup@scoop.co.nz

On 8 July 2003 (NZT) Scoop.co.nz published "Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program" by Seattle based Bev Harris. This was the first public expose of the now infamous hackability of Diebold's vote tabulation software system.

Simultaneously Scoop editor Alastair Thompson's "Sludge Report #154 – Bigger Than Watergate!" announced the release to the public of a cache of Diebold source code which had been left in public view on an unprotected FTP website. This cache of data was hosted and distributed from a server in New Zealand named Dolly. The cache of data has since been removed.

Within hours Slashdot.org linked to the software source release and a group of scientists at John Hopkins University downloaded the package and wrote a seminal paper "Analysis of an Electronic Voting System" which was then reported about by the New York Times on July 24th 2003.

The record shows that this is how the Pandora's Box of hackable electronic voting was opened - and one of the most important stories of the 21st century moved from being completely ignored into open discussion in US political circles.

Although operating from NZ, Scoop Independent News has remained at the forefront of reporting of election reform issues in the five years since. After the 2004 debacle Scoop Independent News was the first publication to publish the Complete US Exit Poll Data which showed an extraordinary pattern of Republican gains vs Exit Polls records.

Scoop was also the first (simultaneously with Bev Harris) to report on the Volusia County Florida incident in the 2000 election which shows prima facie evidence that the 2000 election was also hacked.

Scoop writer Michael Collins' analysis of the 2004 election results "The Urban Legend" published in June 2007 provides very disturbing evidence that the scale of vote stealing in the US may be a great deal larger and more widespread than many suspect.

As the 2008 election approaches, US election infrastructure is - if anything - even more vulnerable than ever to electronic vote rigging than it was in 2000 and 2004. Electronic machines are now more widespread - as is knowledge of the vulnerabilities. Anomalous results in many of the important democratic primary elections also provide a timely warning concerning what is ahead.

While there are numerous groups of activists all over the US working on the issue of electronic vote rigging and election integrity - the issue of hacking the vote remains an issue which most of the mainstream media are unable or unwilling to tackle. Call it willful blindness - like the monkey with his hands over his eyes.

The countless groups which are working on monitoring, protecting and investigating election affairs are not linked together yet in any meaningful manner. We would like to help change that.

For the past five years an increasing number of independent online news outlets, notably Bradblog, OpedNews, The Free Press, Buzzflash, Raw Story, Greg Palast, The Crisis Papers plus Scoop Independent News have been responsible for publishing ongoing reporting on the subject and keeping the story alive. Scoop Independent News is one of the largest of these news services and routinely aggregates material from many of the others. (It is also worth mentioning the Democratic Underground Election Reform Forum - which provides a clubhouse for discussion of these issues - and John Gideon's daily roundup of news links Daily Voting News. Scoop attends the forum and proudly re-publishes John Gideon's daily bulletins.)

Within the wider community of electronic election integrity activism Scoop Independent News has come to occupy an unusually central position.

Scoop's background and relationship to the story (detailed above) is well known and Scoop routinely publishes material from all the other main contributors to the debate. Scoop is in a sense already a unifying force in the election integrity community.

As an offshore media outlet Scoop also brings an interesting perspective to the debate, plus a certain amount of invulnerability to manipulation. As a media outlet with an audience in Australia, Great Britain and Canada as well as New Zealand, Scoop Independent News is able to bring an international spotlight onto the issue of the vulnerability of US democracy.

And finally - and most importantly - Scoop Independent News is ready and willing to serve. To stand up and do something. We hope that you can help us.

While this campaign is going to proceed regardless, donations are being sought to offset the costs of Scoop's efforts to protect US democracy.

You can also wire money to Scoop Media Ltd. Email usacoup@scoop.co.nz for instructions.

CREATIVE HELP SOUGHT: We will also be needing assistance with devising and making adverts for worthy websites and activities - we are interested to hear from anyone who can assist with this aspect of the task. Email usacoup@scoop.co.nz

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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