1972: Marine le Pen’s father – Jean-Marie le Pen – co-founds the National Front, a new far-right party. In his first presidential run, he receives 0.75% of the vote. Le Pen fails to get the necessary signatures to run for president. ibid.
Jean-Marie le Pen declares ‘the gas chambers are a mere detail of history.’ ibid.
‘20 years from now France will be an Islamic state … ’ He receives 14% of the vote. ibid. Le Pen on tele with chart alleging proliferation of Mosques
2017 three days before the vote: ‘Ending immigration, and sending immigrants back to their countries.’ ibid.
Jean-Marie le Pen assaults a left-wing opponent. He is banned from politics for one year. His daughter acts as his defence-attorney. ibid.
2002: For the first time Jean-Marie le Pen qualifies for a second round of voting. ibid.
Massive protests prevent his election. ibid.
‘Three national front members faced trial.’ ibid. channel 2 news
Jean-Marie le Pen reiterates his statement on gas chambers. His daughter expels him from the national front. ibid. caption
In 2002, more than one million people demonstrate against the national front. In 2017, only 280,000 people show up. ibid.
From 1998 to 2010 Jean-Marie le Pen appears on TV 2,000 times. ibid.
1993: Marine le Pen starts her career in politics. ibid.
‘On top of that, they start to remove the wallpaper.’ ibid. Marine on talk show
‘Not all the ballots get counted.’ Stealing America: Vote by Vote, Greg Palast, 2008
It is critical that all qualified voters are able to vote, and all votes are counted as cast. There’s growing evidence that eligible citizens are being denied the right to vote, and that votes when cast may be lost or miscounted or even deleted. Until recently, most Americans had assumed that our elections are basically honest, but with each election more and more people are reporting incidents of vote suppression and irregular tallies. ibid.
New electronic voting machines were being installed across the country. ibid.
Election Day problems 2004: Long lines, machine shortages … some students waited more than twelve hours … Equipment malfunctions … Vote Switching in Florida was concentrated in certain areas … Vote Switching: At least thirteen states … ibid. observer
Kerry was ahead in the Exit Poll in ten of the twelve swing states. ibid.
‘Warren County [Ohio] officials … blocked anyone from observing the vote count’. ibid. Cincinnati Enquirer 5 November 2004
‘The Kerry campaign said leave it alone. Don’t talk about it. It’s not something we want to get out.’ ibid. disgruntled voter
Exit polls, before they were adjusted, had pointed toward a Kerry victory; the official vote tally reflected a Bush victory. A 3% decrease for Kerry and a 3% increase for Bush = 6% discrepancy in the margin of victory. ibid.
Who controls the software that tells the machines what to do? ibid.
Reports of voting difficulties have been increasing over the last decade. ibid.
The first well-publicised exit poll discrepancy in a US presidential race was in Florida 2000. ibid.
Florida 2000 Exit Poll results: Gore 53%, Bush 46%. ibid.
A clear loss of public trust in elections. ibid.
‘Diebold Added Secret Patch to Georgia E-Voting Systems in 2002, Whistleblowers Say’. ibid. Atlanta Progressive News 28 September 2006
309,000 purged voters in Ohio in 2004; George Bush’s winning margin in Ohio was almost 119,000 votes. ibid.
2006: Once again a range of computer malfunctions and discrepancies between votes cast and official totals. ibid.
Mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence ... The electoral process is a facade. Chris Hedges, lecture New York Sanctuary for Independent Media 2018, ‘American Anomie’, Youtube 2.01.07
In 2018, record numbers of women, people of colour and political outsiders set out to transform Congress. Many established Democrats face primary election challenges from other Democrats running for the first time. Knock Down the House, Netflix 2019
Cambridge Analytica: ‘An organisation that keeps pretty unsavoury company.’ The Great Hack, opening commentary, 2019
Your behaviour is being accurately predicted. So the ads that seem uncannily accurate that have to be eavesdropping on us are more likely to be evidence that they are targeting words. ibid. Professor David Caroll, Parsons School of Design
It began with a dream of a connected world. ibid.
These digital traces of ourselves are being mined into a trillion dollar a year industry. We are now the commodity. ibid.
Who was feeding us fear and how? ibid.
A company called Cambridge Analytica was also working on Project Alamo … claimed to have 5,000 data points on every American voter but it was invisible. ibid.
We turn now to the burgeoning scandal around voter profiling company Cambridge Analytica. ibid. Democracy Now
They wanted to discredit Trump, they wanted to discredit Brexit, and we were the vehicle for doing it. ibid. Cambridge Analytica dude
Early on, Corbyn and Johnson had to go on this sort of game show … Corbyn had these off-putting glasses and Johnson was like a failed reboot of the Honeymonster making a court appearance. Cunk & Other People on 2019 VI, BBC 2019
America: the world’s greatest democracy, and at its heart the vote, the will of the people. But how do you know if the vote is counted correctly? And if you don’t know then what have you got? Democracy? James Naughton, Hacking Democracy, HBO 2006
This is the story of a small group of citizens headed by a grandmother … How does American count its vote? What they found is secrecy, votes in the trash and how to change the course of history. ibid.
In 2000 Al Gore lost the presidential election in Florida amongst the chaos and arguments over how to recount the votes, but no-one thought to ask how the computers originally counted the results. ibid.
The origin of the negative votes was never proved. ibid.
‘… Dozens and dozens of elections that were miscounted by machines.’ ibid. activist
Computers count around 80% of America’s votes. ibid.
Why were there so many security flaws and why could they count votes backwards? ibid.
‘Why they [Diebold] are collecting receivables from the Republican committee?’ ibid. activist
Diebold was called to account by the state of California. ibid.
‘The source code in fact got out. The key is not published.’ ibid. inquiry dude
‘They did not fix any of the problems. ibid. activist
They malfunctioned leaving thousands without a vote. ibid.
‘We cannot win this [Ohio] election’ [John Kerry] … People were stunned. John Kerry had promised to challenge the machines … Kerry stopped any investigation by conceding. ibid.
Voting is about our capability to change the way the government works by changing the people who make the decisions. And have a peaceful transfer our power when the people have made their choice. Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, Harri Hursti, election security expert, Sky Documentaries 2020
You understand how fragile everything is … Everything is hackable, always. ibid.
Most 20th-century voting stations are little more than mechanical adding machines. Often, the only electronic component was the electric light. Today, computers are in charge – even in precincts that use paper ballots. ibid.
‘There’s no national election system. No agency. And all this is left up to the counties.’ ibid. Sue Halpern
In 2005, using only a memory card, Hursti demonstrated how easy it is to change votes on a digital voting machine. When Hacking Democracy was released, the manufacturer called the hack a sham and attempted to stop the film’s distribution. ibid. caption
After two years of negative publicity, Diebold Election Systems was sold, ultimately to a Canadian company called Dominion Voting Systems. The same machine that Hursti hacked in 2005 is slated for use in 20 states for the 2020 election. ibid.
If you don’t believe that there is this kind of room [Las Vegas hacking convention] in Russia running 24/7 you are kidding yourself. ibid. Hursti