- "Potentially, 6 million U.S. military and civilian
voters could soon be using the military's new online voting system."
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- Last year, while President Bush marshaled U.S. forces
for the invasion of Iraq, the patriots at the Department of Defense
awarded the contract for a new online voting system for the military...
to an offshore company.
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- It gets worse.
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- Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment
(SERVE) is the system and Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting of Enron
bankruptcy fame) is the company. And although Accenture has not been
officially implicated in the Enron scandal, they have created a reputation
of their own that is already raising eyebrows.
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- This is hot off the newswire -- 7/15/03 "NEW YORK
(CBS.MW) -- Accenture Ltd., the former Andersen Consulting, disclosed Tuesday
that it might have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Chairman
and CEO Joe Forehand, on an earnings call with analysts and reporters Tuesday,
said the consulting firm's Middle East operations could be in non-compliance
with the Act, which prohibits the bribery of foreign government officials
by U.S. persons."
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- The Canada-based Polaris Institute published a scathing
report on Accenture, saying, "Accenture's efforts in government outsourcing
have often been very expensive and/or of poor quality. There is good
reason to question Accenture's track record in outsourcing of government
services."
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- Accenture is the leading offshore beneficiary of government
contracts whose main business is the privatization of government
services, according to Lee Drutman of Citizen Works, a non-profit founded
by Ralph Nader. Accenture has a troubling track record, a close
business relationship with Dick Cheney's Halliburton, and 2500 partners
- more than half are not U.S. citizens.
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- Since 2001 Accenture and Election.com have been strategic
partners "to jointly deliver comprehensive election solutions
to governments worldwide," according to their press release.
Last month Accenture bought the public-sector election assets of Election.com,
which suffered its own scandal this year when it was discovered that Osan
Ltd, a firm of Saudi and other foreign investors, bought controlling interest
in it. According to Mark Harrington of NewsDay.com, "Several
shareholders of the company said they were surprised by the recent buyout
and have asked for securities regulators to investigate."
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- Election.com has had other problems. In January 2003,
during Canada's New Democratic Party leadership convention, the Canadian
Broadcasting System reported, ãEarl Hurd of Election.com said he
believes someone used a "denial of service" program to disrupt
the voting ö paralyzing the central computer by bombarding it with
a stream of dataä·service was restored, then· "Toronto
city councilor Jack Layton's victory on the first ballot surprised many,
who had expected a second or even third round of voting before a leader
was chosen from the pack of six candidates."
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- For election security experts, a strong and growing suspicion
is that computer glitches or disruptions are actually vote rigging.
A surprise election result should raise a red flag.
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- Accenture is big. It has more than 75,000 employees in
47 countries, and generated net revenues of $11.6 billion for the fiscal
year ended Aug. 31, 2002. On their Board of Directors is Steve Ballmer,
Microsoft's CEO and known to many as Bad Boy Ballmer for his ruthless,
if not illegal, business practices. Microsoft has been sued by
the federal government and several states for monopolistic business
practices which were designed to destroy their competition. Massachusettsâs
Attorney General is still pursuing Microsoft. In March 13, 2000 Andersen
Consulting (now Accenture) and Microsoft signed a "$1
Billion Pact To Form Joint Venture and Expand Global Alliance." What's
the alliance? To control voting systems around the world?
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- A sense of civic duty isn't high on Accenture's
list of priorities. According to an article last year in TheDailyEnron.com,
"Accenture is lobbying furiously on Capitol Hill to defeat a measure
that would deny federal contracts to US companies that move offshore to
escape US taxes. Accenture, you see, has incorporated in Bermuda. But,
Accenture also holds nearly $1 billion in government contracts in the US.
The company earned nearly $700 million last year working for Uncle Sam
and - ironically - is currently under contract with the Internal Revenue
Service itself to redesign its online and Internet operations."
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- Then there's the Accenture connection to Halliburton,
vice president Dick Cheney's former employer. Halliburton is widely criticized
for doing business with brutal regimes and was the subject of
a SEC investigation and several lawsuits surrounding their accounting practices during
and after Cheneyâs tenure at the helm. The Polaris Institute
says that in July 2000 David Lesar succeeded Dick Cheney as Chairman
and CEO of Halliburton Company. Before joining Halliburton, Lesar
was employed by the Arthur Andersen, Accenture's former parent company.
Polaris says, "·while defending Halliburton's accounting practices,
David Lesar publicly acknowledged that Cheney knew about the firm's accounting
practices..."
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- In an October 2001 press release, Halliburton and Accenture
announced a major expansion of their longstanding relationship with the
signing of an alliance between Accenture and Landmark Graphics Corporation,
a wholly owned business unit of Halliburton.
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- And unlike the words of the U.S. military's anthem,
"I'm proud to be an Americanä, Accenture owes its allegiance
to "partners" outside of the USA.
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- In a letter to the editor of the Austin Chronicle
last year, Accenture's Director of Corporate Communications, Roxanne Taylor
wrote, "When Accenture's parent company, Accenture Ltd., was first
incorporated last year, the organization's 2,500 partners, more than half
of whom are non-U.S. citizens, decided to incorporate in Bermuda. With
thousands of partners and employees of many nationalities, it was important
commercially and culturally for the organization to select a neutral location
such as Bermuda for its parent company."
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- How very global of them.
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- Potentially, 6 million U.S. military and civilian
voters could soon be using the military's new online voting system. According
to computer voting security experts, any online system will be easy to
rig by company insiders and vulnerable to attack by outsiders. Apart from
that reality, does the U.S. military really want a company owned
by non-U.S. citizens in charge of their vote?
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- Can anyone at the Pentagon spell "national security"?
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- Lynn Landes is a freelance journalist at <http://www.ecotalk.org/>EcoTalk.org.
Formerly Lynn was a radio show host, a regular commentator for a BBC radio
program, and environmental news reporter for DUTV in Philadelphia, PA. (215)
629-3553 / <mailto:lynnlandes@earthlink.net>lynnlandes@earthlink.net
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