• Phone line voting shouldn’t happenr • I spy a functionary Phone line voting shouldn’t happen I was a Maui election observer during the elections of 2006. The voters of Maui should know that 100 percent of all votes cast
• Phone line voting shouldn’t happenr
• I spy a functionary
Phone line voting shouldn’t happen
I was a Maui election observer during the elections of 2006.
The voters of Maui should know that 100 percent of all votes cast on Maui were transmitted over telephone lines to the state count center at the Capitol. Since voting machines which are connected to telephone lines can have a dialup modem in them, it is possible they can dial an 800 number and get onto the Internet and transmit Maui’s precious votes to a remote Web site where they can be “flipped.”
The election vendor’s voting machine at the state count center can then dial the same 800 number and get onto the same Web site and download the flipped votes to be used in the final vote count for the state of Hawai‘i.
The State of Hawai‘i has once again authorized the vendor, Hart InterCivic, to use telephone lines and a Local Area Network (LAN) to transmit votes from Maui, Kaua‘i and the Big Island to the state count center during the 2008 elections. I have filed a legal petition under Hawaii Administrative Rules, Title 2, Chapter 50, requesting the chief election officer to ban the use of telephone lines and LANs and instead fly the memory cards to Honolulu to be directly read into the vendor computer using his emergency rule making powers.
If you are as concerned as I am about open and honest elections, please call the governor and both your senator and representative and ask them to support my petition which they have a copy of.
Bob Babson
Kihei, Maui
I spy a functionary
It is remarkable that the Democrats continue to swallow the Grade A hogwash peddled by Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson (“Ex-spy captivates Dems on Kaua‘i,” A1, March 31).
A Senate Select Intelligence Committee report, issued almost four years ago (July 2004), put the lie to their pathetic brush with celebrity.
First of all, Plame was not a spy. She was a functionary at CIA headquarters engaged in research (paper-shuffling mainly, not derring-do). According to a CIA operative quoted in Kenneth Timmerman’s indispensable “Shadow Warriors,” she was under “official cover” during her tour in Athens, Greece. This classification is distinct from “under cover” or “covert” and CIA employees can never move from “official cover” to covert officer. In other words, she can’t be a spy. This is why prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was unable to issue any indictments for “outing” non-spy Valerie Plame. Scooter Libby was charged with perjury long after Fitzgerald knew that no crimes had been committed against the couple.
In addition, the couple agreed to a January 2004 Vanity Fair spread, mentioning her employer and including a photo of the two in their Jaguar. Hardly the way to protect your status as a latter-day Mata Hari.
Joe Wilson got famous by traveling to Niger in an effort to discredit U.S. and British (well-founded) concerns regarding Saddam’s nuclear ambitions. Wilson leaked to the Washington Post that the “Niger Uranium documents” had been doctored and forged by the Bush administration. The 2004 Senate report proved that Wilson had never seen the reports and Wilson was forced to admit he had “misspoken” to the Post reporter. Three years later the Post had to agree with Wilson’s critics that he (Wilson) was “the one who had twisted the truth” not the Bush administration.
Plame/Wilson have made a comfortable living shilling for the left. It’s a testament to the out-of-control left-wing media bias that they can continue to get away with it with ample public information to the contrary.
John Burns
Princeville
