Chavez influences Chicago vote counts?
As you would imagine, Cook County Clerk David Orr is not using the word fix to describe his plan to ensure that electronic voting equipment works better six and a half months from tomorrow than it did in the primary. Clerk Orr used words such as plan and reforms to describe the fix that is needed for ballots to be counted accurately and quickly when Illinois voters select a governor in the fall.
More than a third of the 1,761 devices that were supposed to transmit Chicago results from precincts to a downtown computer broke down, delaying final tabulations for days. Election officials and executives of the equipment-maker blamed technology snafus and poorly trained (or untrained) precinct judges.
There were some claims that many ballot boxes were taken home. The next day Stroger had 40K more votes. There are counter claims that this is not true
Orr has promised to fix both, and other counties throughout the state will have to make similar changes. Otherwise, voters will face a repeat of the Illinois election night performance by Congressman Bobby Rush, a Chicago Democrat who leveled accusations of stolen votes and rigged equipment. This is Chicago. This is Cook County, Rep. Rush reminded reporters who may have forgotten where they were on election night. And then, in what was hopefully historical explanation, Rush said, We created vote fraud, vote scandal and stealing votes.
It is now clear that the knee-jerk allegations of Rep. Rush and others are not supported by subsequent investigations. Unless of course those investigations were a sham, as conspiracy nuts have enjoyed fantasizing on the Internet.
Among the election-conspiracy theorists is an unlikely name, Ed Burke, the longtime Chicago alderman, chairman of the city council finance committee and usually a level thinker. In an allegation that would have been overlooked had it come from eccentric Alderman Burt Natarus, Burke said he was worried that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was trying to infiltrate and subvert Chicagos elections. The company that supplied the election equipment, Sequoia Voting Systems, is owned by Venezuelan businessmen whom Burke said could be agents of Chavez, an avowed U.S. critic.
I dont know how anybody could hire a company thats ownership is hidden, and traces its roots to Venezuela, where theyve been involved with the dictator of Venezuela who Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld says is an enemy of the United States, said Burke. Election officials and Sequoia managers said thats ridiculous and that Burkes statements were fueled by a conspiracy-theory Web site known as the American Free Press which he actually quoted at one point.
According to the site, on election night one of its reporters watched votes being counted on the 5th floor of the Cook County clerks office. The so-called counting of the votes is managed by some two dozen employees of Sequoia Voting Systems, a privately held foreign company. These employees, many of whom are not even U.S. citizens, have full access to the back room area, a sealed-off section of the 5th floor of the county clerks office which is called the tally area.
Burke echoed the AFP article which stated, The person in charge of the tallying of the votes was a British employee of Sequoia named David Allen from London. Allen, who ran the Sequoia War Room
oversaw the tally room team, which included a dozen Venezuelan employees, who operated the hidden computer equipment that counts the votes.
Orr disputes that. Mr. Allen served as the project manager for the implementation of the new voting system in suburban Cook County, according to Orr spokesman Scott Burnham. I believe he is an engineer by trade who moved to Chicago shortly after the selection of Sequoia as the vendor. He is originally from England. He has been present during the implementation. He did not oversee the tally room. There were not a dozen Venezuelans in the room either, said Burnham.
Some still see a conspiracy. On Friday Republican official Maureen Murphy said, Elections in Baghdad are more accurate than Cook County. Some Democrats are planning lawsuits and calling for Orrs head.
After Sequoias top executive answered questions from Chicago City Council members, Alderman Leslie Hairston told him, I think that you belong to the secret brotherhood of I dont know. 
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