[OT] [ale] Diebold may face criminal charges

[aaron]

On Thursday 29 April 2004 17:17, Charles Shapiro wrote:
> Ho hum. Cathy ("advancing the e-government revolution") Cox is their
> friend. They can do no wrong in Georgia.
> 
> -- CHS

Legal actions addressing Diebold's election law violations don't necessarily 
have to originate with the Secretary of State's office. Especially when the 
SoS is named in the complaints.

The thing I find most nauseating in all this is that the original RFP adopted 
by the Georgia Assembly required the touch screen voting devices to provide 
Voter Verified Ballot Printouts. Several representatives from the election 
systems committee with whom our Voter Choice coalition has spoken have 
confirmed that they expected the systems to include the ballot printers we've 
been having to fight for ever since. The committee records show that even 
Cathy Cox promised that paper ballot printouts would be part of the systems, 
at least until she pulled a last minute bait and switch maneuver for the 
Diebold carpetbaggers, using fabricated "certification" issues as the excuse.

The final kicker is that Diebold took 54 million dollars from Georgia (under a 
secret contract which, in violation of State open records laws, has never 
been made available for public inspection) based on the uncertain gamble that 
the money would eventually be paid through our Federal taxes under the Help 
America Vote Act. Though HAVA was indeed passed by Congress and signed into 
law by Bush a few months later [Oct., 2002],  his regime has yet to allocate 
anything resembling adequate funding for its provisions and only a fraction 
of the HAVA voting machine funding has trickled into Georgia. More to the 
point, the voting machines must meet the HAVA specifications to legally 
qualify for the Federal tax reimbursements, and the HAVA voting system 
specifications very clearly mandate a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail.

If the Governor doesn't act immediately to upgrade Georgia's Diebold systems 
so that they provide the HAVA required paper audit trail, then the State's 
tax payers will get stuck for the whole $54 million dollar carpetbagger 
contract (not that having these criminals take our Federal taxes changes 
where the money comes from all that much).

That's why I was suggesting that it's a REALLY good time to inundate Georgia 
Governor Sonny Perdue with LETTERS, FAXES and PHONE CALLS urging him to put 
the critical VVPAT Voting System Upgrade legislation of SB500 onto the  
Special Session calendar. After all, Cathy Cox is technically his 
subordinate.

The Honorable Sonny Perdue
Governor, State of Georgia
203 State Capitol
Atlanta, Georgia 30334


Voice:  404-656-1776
Fax:     404-657-7332

======
peace
aaron




> On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 11:37, Stephen Turner wrote:
> > sounds to me like they should be banned from making gov products since
> > they cant conform to their rules. but then what do i know.
> > 
> > =====
> > ::: common sense? does it come with a manual?:::
> > 
> <<snip>>
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