Database Technologies

Database Technologies was founded in 1992 by Hank Asher and "later merged" with ChoicePoint Asset Company. "In 1999, [Asher] founded Seisint, Inc. by merging two companies. DBT competes with Seisint, Asher's later creation. He is no longer on Seisint's board of directors." [1]

Database Technologies "administered the contract that stripped thousands of African Americans from the Florida voter rolls before the 2000 election, erroneously contending that they were felons."[2]

Hank Asher was no longer with the company during this time according to Vanity Fair: "When maverick cyber-pioneer Hank Asher invented MATRIX—a controversial personal-information database—he gave the government a powerful tool for tracking terrorists. So why isn't he a hero?" [3]

"His timing was impeccable. In the spring of 2000, soon after his departure, DBT went into high gear on a $4 million contract with the state of Florida that would mire it in controversy for years to come. Part of the assignment was to scan every relevant database to come up with the names of ex-felons who had registered to vote, then pass the list on to Florida's 67 counties so that the felons could be struck from the rolls, in accordance with Florida law. In the legal finger-pointing that followed, DBT would claim that Florida's Division of Elections, under Secretary of State Katherine Harris, encouraged it to cast as wide a net as possible. Of the more than 50,000 names it came up with as a result, some 20,000 would be registered voters who simply had the misfortune of sharing a name, part of a name, or an inverted name with an actual ex-felon. A disproportionate number of blacks would be barred from the polls in the presidential election, and civil-rights groups would accuse Governor Jeb Bush's administration of using the purge to disenfranchise blacks, who would have voted, in all likelihood, for Al Gore over George W. Bush."

DBT competes with Seisint, Asher's later creation. Seisint was sold to LexisNexis in 2004 for $775 million.

Also see Wikipedia: ChoicePoint.

Contact

ChoicePoint Inc.
4530 Conference Way South
Boca Raton, FL 33431
(800) 279-7710

Fax (561) 982-5363

SourceWatch Resources

• electoral fraud
• Voting machine
• Katherine Harris
• E-Voting: Digital Democracy or a Cash Cow for Consultants?
• Selling electronic voting
• A Short but Tragic History of E-voting Public Relations
• Diebold Election Systems
• Election Center
• E-voting
• E-voting PR
• Independent Testing Authority (ITA)
• National Association of State Election Directors (NASED)
• R. Doug Lewis

External links

• When maverick cyber-pioneer Hank Asher invented MATRIX, Vanity Fair 050131: "When maverick cyber-pioneer Hank Asher invented MATRIX—a controversial personal-information database—he gave the government a powerful tool for tracking terrorists. So why isn't he a hero?."

• Gregory Palast, A blacklist burning for Bush. The more you look the more disbarred and 'disappeared' Gore voters you find. You'd almost think it was deliberate, Guardian.UK, December 10, 2000.
• BBC Greg Palast video
• Florida Creates 'the Matrix', a Big Brother-Like Surveillance System with Help From Choicepoint-Related Firm, Democracy Now, August 7, 2003.