<p>By Bev Harris <br /><a href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/">http://www.blackboxvoting.org</a><br /><br /><img src="images/stories/drudge.png" border="0" alt="Drudge Report" align="left" /></p>
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<p>In a major step towards global centralization of election processes, the world's dominant Internet voting company has purchased the USA's dominant election results reporting company. <br /><br />When you view your local or state election results on the Internet, on portals which often appear to be owned by the county elections division, in over 525 US jurisdictions you are actually redirected to a private corporate site controlled by SOE software, which operates under the name ClarityElections.com. <br /><br />The good news is that this firm promptly reports precinct-level detail in downloadable spreadsheet format. As reported by BlackBoxVoting.org in 2008, the bad news is that this centralizes one middleman access point for over 525 jurisdictions in AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, KY, MI, KS, IL, IN, NC, NM, MN, NY, SC, TX, UT, WA. And growing. <br /><br />As local election results funnel through SOE's servers (typically before they reach the public elsewhere), those who run the computer servers for SOE essentially get "first look" at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA. <br /><br />In 2004, many Americans were justifiably concerned when, days before the presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell redirected Ohio election night results through the Tennessee-based server for several national Republican Party operations. <br /><br />This is worse: This redirects results reporting to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm">Continue reading on Drudge &gt;&gt;&gt;</a></p>