What is Diebold's history of breaches and corruption in the voting industry?

[loseyourname]

(I wonder why he hasn't done that yet? Maybe he's still reading the PDF that was provided.)

The forum has been down for the last twelve hours or so. Plus, he could be doing other things, like moderating the engineering forum or moving into the house he just bought.

Either way, it might be nice to steer this thread away from the question of whether or not BBV hosts conspiracy theories and is to be trusted and back to the matter of Diebold breaching contract, which seemed to be the original point. A breach of contract is purely a factual matter and not exactly source-dependent. It either happened or it didn't, regardless of who reports it.

 

[pattylou]

You prompted me to look at today's news on this item.

Sancho (the election supervisor who facilitated the demonstration of the most recent hack into Diebold) was in the very hard position of needing to provide voting machines for the disabled ... and the three main vendors that the state had contracts with refused to work with him (breach of contract) because of what he revealed about the memory card hack.

He had found another vendor (IVS) but it wasn't clear if FL would allow him to go that route or not.

With a sigh of relief today's news reports that he can get the machines he needs from IVS.

Sancho gets OK to seek a deal

He came in prepared for a grilling, but embattled Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho left the Leon County Commission chambers Tuesday with a unanimous vote of confidence.

The commissioners gave Sancho a green light to pursue a deal with a Louisville, Ky.-based company to provide voting equipment for disabled people. The company, IVS, was the last option on the table that would make Leon County compliant with federal elections law come the September primaries.

The motion drew sighs of relief from more than a dozen Sancho supporters who had come to the workshop worried that Sancho would come under attack from certain commissioners for his failure to sign a contract for voting equipment for the disabled, a delay that has already cost the county about $500,000 in withheld state funding.

<snip>

Sancho received a similar vote of confidence from the commissioners, despite politically charged remarks and brinkmanship by several of them: County Commission Chairman Bill Proctor suggested the commissioners should be making its own contacts with elections systems companies; Commissioner Cliff Thaell, a Democrat, wanted to have the commissioners recognize Sancho as a hero for liberty - an idea that had many members of the public clapping thunderously; Commissioner Tony Grippa, a Republican, drew hisses from the audience when he called Thaell's comments "grandstanding" and asked the audience how many of them were Republicans.

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060315/NEWS01/603150336/1010

 

[pattylou]

(p.s. I know I sound harsh, and I do apologise for that element of the discussion. I hold certain members of this forum to a high ethical and behavioral standard because they have good qualities - if someone is capable of making certain distinctions and/or concessions, then that is not a bad thing! It sounds trite, but these requests are actually a compliment of sorts. :) Also, as everyone knows, I feel very strongly about this issue, and I don't think that *anyone* could argue that ignoring it would make anything safer or better. Staying informed and being thorough and honest with ourselves is a better way to go.)