From Propaganda to News

The squirrelly little nonprofit called Election Science Institute (ESI), with perhaps one of the most Orwellian names in existence and whose director lacks any graduate background in statistical analysis, is at it again. ESI received nearly a quarter million dollar contract yesterday from the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Commissioners to reassure the public about the new wave of e-voting machines. In 2005, ESI received a contract from the Franklin County Commissioners, led by Mary Jo Kilroy, to come in and cover up the 2004 election fiasco. ESI’s director has long-standing ties to the military industrial complex and has no credentials to independently audit the machines.

The game that is now being played is for election officials to take out advertisements which say that the machines are federally certified or state certified or independently audited. In fact, Columbus’ daily monopoly (the Dispatch) ran a four page insert ad from the Franklin County Board of Elections on how wonderful, safe and secure the voting machines are, then a few days later, their “Insight” section ran an above-the-fold virtual word-for-word propaganda piece with pictures detailing how the voting machines are “designed for security and accuracy,” as if it was new news material.

Essentially the Dispatch plagiarized the Franklin County BOE propaganda. For example, the ad read: “Each machine stands alone and is not connected to the internet or any other electronic device, except its printer.” The Dispatch wrote: “Each machine stands alone with no wireless devices or modems. It can connect only to a printer.”