Diebold Voting Machine Contractor Executive Has Criminal
Background
Company responsible for machines throughout New Hampshire
directed by convicted drug dealer
It has been revealed that a high ranking executive at the company
that was contracted to program all of New Hampshire's Diebold
voting machines has a criminal record and has previously defended
the illegal act of "swapping out" memory cards for the
machines during live elections.
The revelations, which were uncovered by investigative
journalist and vote fraud expert Bev Harris of Blackboxvoting.org and announced yesterday on the Alex Jones show, once
again plunge Diebold and the controversial electronic voting systems
into the spotlight.
Harris reports that Ken Hajjar, the Marketing and
Sales Director at LHS Associates was arrested, indicted, and pleaded
guilty to "sale / CND" (sale of controlled narcotic
drugs) and sentenced to 12 months in the Rockingham County Correctional
facility, and fined $2000. As things go for the politically connected,
he was then given a deferred sentence and $1000 of his fine was
suspended.
LHS Associates is a private company that counted
over four fifths of the New Hampshire vote with no oversight whatsoever
and also holds Diebold contracts for Connecticut, Massachusetts,
and Vermont.
Harris exclusively revealed some of the details
on the Alex Jones show yesterday as she was still awaiting triple
confirmation on the information and a
full copy of the criminal record from a source who
was investigating Hajjar regarding a separate matter.
"They program every single voting machine in New Hampshire,
Connecticut, almost all of Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine."
Harris comments. "But did state officials in five New England
states ever do a criminal background check on this company's executives?
Do the laws of these five states even ALLOW them to hire convicted
criminals for services paid for by the state? What about over
500 local towns and municipalities?"
The story becomes even more compelling given comments
made by Ken Hajjar himself in a recent
interview as he revealed that he totes memory cards
around in the trunk of his car and defends the concept of swapping
out memory cards during live elections!
Other LHS staff members we spoke with, including
Mike Carlson and Tom Burge, provided similar comments. They
said they would open machines up during an election and swap
memory cards as needed. This is illegal under Connecticut law
and Deputy Secretary Mara told us she has since informed LHS
that such actions were in violation of Connecticut election
laws.
"In 2006, as Hajjar argued in favor of their policy to
change cards during elections, I asked him about about the laws
which govern chain of custody issues. His response: "I
mean, I don't pay attention to every little law. It's just,
it's up to the Registrars. All we are is a support organization
on Election Day".
He said he had three memory cards in the trunk of his car and,
in the event they had to be used, the chain of custody issues
wouldn't matter since, "once you run the [pre-election]
test deck through, you're golden"."
(Article continues below)
Bev Harris has also asked for complaints filed on
a threat allegedly made in recent years to a New Hampshire woman,
and any other reports for Hajjar or LHS owner John Silvestro.
The pair grew up together in Lawrence, Massachusetts before moving
to Londonderry, New Hampshire.
As we detailed
in our report on Tuesday, John Silvestro has been
at the center of a long-running public dispute in trying to deflect
accusations made by hacker Harri Hursti that the voting machines
are wide open to tampering and can easily be rigged.
Video of John Silvestro as he tangles with Harri
Hursti recently surfaced on the web:
The new revelations concerning LHS may prove even
more explosive in the wake of Tuesday's New Hampshire results
vastly differing from the pre-election polls and
the emergence of clear
widespread evidence of vote fraud involving the machines.
If the allegations are accurate, it won't be the
first instance of Diebold employing a convicted felons to run
its ballot printing operations.
Harris previously
revealed that an embezzler named Jeffrey W. Dean,
who specialized in sophisticated alteration of records of computerized
systems, was a programmer of voting systems.
Dean was the senior vice president of Global Election
Systems and a director of the company previous to Diebold's takeover
in 2002. Despite Diebold's claim that Dean left the company when
they took over it was later revealed that they retained Dean as
a consultant.
Dean and his prison buddy John Elder, who did five
years for cocaine trafficking, ran a ballot plant on the West
coast and were also responsible for writing vote tallying software.
Harris' research has further shown that Global Election Systems/Diebold
vote machines were specifically built to allow tampering.
"It's weird, these guys are not even allowed
to vote because they are convicted felons!" Harris commented
yesterday.
It has been revealed that a high ranking executive at the company
that was contracted to program all of New Hampshire's Diebold
voting machines has a criminal record and has previously defended
the illegal act of "swapping out" memory cards for the
machines during live elections.
"They program every single voting machine in New Hampshire,
Connecticut, almost all of Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine."
Harris comments. "But did state officials in five New England
states ever do a criminal background check on this company's executives?
Do the laws of these five states even ALLOW them to hire convicted
criminals for services paid for by the state? What about over
500 local towns and municipalities?"
