In Volusia County, Florida, in 2000, Lana Hires, a county employee involved in elections, gained some notoriety when her named turned up in a memo to Diebold, asking them for advice on how to explain the fact that their machines had recorded “-16,022” votes for Gore when a recount was demanded. Diebold’s advice, and the story they stuck to, was that it was a “bad disk.” This would never have been discovered if Gore had conceded rather than demanding a recount; those negative 16,022 votes for Gore would be part of the permanent record.
This year the Black Box Voting team showed up in Volusia County personally when the county refused to comply with Freedom of Information Requests for voting record tapes. They were presented with a record tape but noticed it was specially printed up for them the day before and not signed by anyone. They found this, well, how to put it, curious. Expecially with Volusia County’s history. They demanded the real tapes and were stonewalled and threatened.
They went through a garbage bag they found outside, destined for the shredder. and found the real tapes.
Lo and behold, there were discrepancies between the real tapes and the ones they were given, especially in African-American voting districts.
Lo and behold, the discrepancies favored Mr. Bush.
They’re demanding a hand recount.
Bev Harris is going to turn out to be one of the people who saved Democracy in America, I suspect.