It is offensive and irresponsible to believe the American people don't care who runs our country. Talk to most Americans and you'll find they love America, and have respect for the military, our countless accomplishments and the many contributions we gave the world. Often to a fault.

Bush Jr. was re-elected after the worst mass killing on US soil in history. Did anyone notice that most people about 10 years ago often said they didn't vote for him when asked?

Obama promised jobs and prosperity four years ago. Instead all we got was more war - all this from a man who immediately won the coveted Nobel Peace Prize when becoming president without ever earning it.

When digital voting machines first came out, there were numerous accusations of fraud, useless voting machine security and crooked software. Hard examples of these problems were brought to light at the time. One dirt cheap, low-security key could be used to open the memory card slot on any number of voting machines. A few years ago, a university demonstrated in a video that in less then 3 minutes they could hack a voting machine and take total control of it. They simply put their own start-up software on a memory card and inserted it into the memory card slot. When the machine is powered up, the machines read the memory card like a hard disk drive, allowing malicious software to be loaded in and run. Instead, it should handle the card slot strictly as a data drive. Most likely this was done to allow easy software update installation - without any regard for hacker attacks.

Besides the insecure voting machines which sport a memory card slot barn door for hacker convenience, there's even more going on in the county clerk's computer. A software programmer (apparently his conscious got to him) testified on capitol hill more than ten years ago that he worked for Diebold. Diebold is, and has been, the biggest and most popular digital voting machine manufacturer dating back to the first days of digital voting machines. I watched this programmer testify live and under oath on CSPAN in front of a subcommittee investigating voting fraud. He stated county clerk software used with digital voting machines has two databases. One database was the one the clerk knew about, but the other one was kept hidden.

According to the programmer, from any remote location anywhere in the world recorded votes could be freely moved from one database to the other. Yet no company was ever charged with fraud, no re-counts were made and the entire issue of criminal vote-tampering software quietly faded away. Even though tampering with the voting system is a serious felony, clearly some people feel they are above the law.

We heard from people in Florida, Ohio and other states during the 2012 election that when someone voted for Romney, the machine told them they had voted for Obama. Voting officials answered complaints  with rhetoric such as "the machine just needs re-calibrating."

It's also noteworthy that Florida and Ohio are often considered swing states.

So, exactly what is calibrating and re-calibrating? Calibrating or re-calibrating are terms usually used to describe a procedure which confirms the accuracy of a measuring instrument. Adjustment of the instrument is made to match it to a known standard. For example, calibrating thermometers to 32F often uses a stirred ice-water bath. A precision heat source is used to check the thermometer can accurately read 212F. Gas stations are periodically checked for pumping accuracy and water content by inspectors. What is a voting machine calibrated to, and to what standard? Note that a voting machine is a machine, not a instrument. Why wasn't voting accuracy confirmed in every county by manually testing each machine BEFORE polls were opened?

In 2012 saw a close popular vote count, not a land-slide victory. But the electoral vote suddenly shifted from a perfect tie to a landslide victory. We saw the president start his campaigning late, and even fail miserably during the first debate. Critical answers to questions during debates often produced regurgitated rhetoric from the first time in 2008. In his 2012 victory speech, some news networks showed him repeating many of the same phrases regarding fixing the economy, unemployment, etc... that he stated back in 2008.

Did late campaigning and defending himself miserably in the first debate indicate he didn't care about being re-elected? It's more likely the same power people who told him to run for president 4 years ago and assured him he could win, also told him he would be re-elected this time around no matter what. And he was.

At a salary of $400,000/year, the president's pay pales in comparison to CEOs of the largest American corporations. Corporate CEOs often have salaries measured in tens of millions of dollars. $400k/year is a paltry sum to manage the federal government - the biggest employer in America and by far, the largest corporation in America. But when the power brokers tell a puppet to jump, puppets ask "How high?" no matter what the pay is.

Can you guess the percentage of presidents who have been re-elected? It may surprise you. Over the past 232 years, only 10 presidents served one term. [1]

With vote tampering issues, crooked software, easily hacked voting machines and hidden power brokers in control - are the American people solely responsible for voting him back in?

I wonder.

Ted Twietmeyer
tedtw@frontiernet.net

[1] http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepresidentandcabinet/tp/One-Term-Presidents.htm