Lynne Landes of OpEdNews gives the scoop on how the vote is likely to go in the California recall election, considering the fact that the Republicans and their cronies run the machines, and therefore the count.

For those who are still living in the Valley of Denial, and think that the California count is a fair election, here is the breakdown. On a geographical basis, British-based Sequoia takes the lead in the vote count in California counties. Twenty-one counties use Sequoia voting technology, 15 counties use ES&S, 14 - Diebold, six - DMF Associates, and two counties use PollStar. On the basis of registered voters, ES&S takes the lead with 7,305,680 voters, Sequoia - 3,682,051, Diebold - 2,412,971, PollStar - 1,308,789, and DMF Associates - 593,978.

ES&S, the nation's largest voting system company, is owned by the Omaha World Herald Company and has solid ties to the Republican Party. ES&S claims on their website that they tabulated "56 percent of the U.S. national vote for the past four presidential elections." Diebold Election Systems, is the second largest company with 33–35 percent of the electronic vote, according to a Diebold spokesperson. Walden O'Dell, Diebold's chief executive, recently wrote a fund-raising letter for the election of President [sic] George Bush. Then there's Sequoia. It is owned by De La Rue, a British-based company and the world's largest commercial security printer and papermaker. They also own a 20 percent stake in Camelot, the operator of Great Britain's National Lottery. Want to take any bets on who wins the California recall, the U.S. presidency in the 2004 election, and maintains control of both houses of Congress?

Of course, not all of the counties will use company technicians to program their software for the upcoming election. They may, like Los Angeles County, use county employees or independent contractors to do the job. Even if "Ralph from the county," programs the software . . . who is this guy? Why should voters trust him to count their votes? What ever happened to public oversight of the vote count? With voting machines counting the vote, what do poll watchers watch? What do federal observers observe? How do they enforce the Voting Rights Act? The technicians who program these machines can be manipulating votes right, left, and center . . . and nobody would be the wiser.