Should Diebold be excluded from voting machine bid?

[rjung]

Election machine firm blasted (http://www.thenews-messenger.com/news/stories/20030828/localnews/150004.html)
COLUMBUS -- Democratic leaders want a major Republican fund-raiser blocked from becoming the state's new voting machines supplier, saying his presence puts in doubt the fairness of all Ohio elections.

Wally O'Dell, CEO of Diebold Inc., this week sent out letters to central Ohio Republicans asking them to raise $10,000 in donations in time for a Sept. 26 Ohio Republican Party event at his home.

His company, which specializes in security and election machinery, is one of three under consideration to supply new, electronic voting machines to replace punch card machines still in use in 71 Ohio counties.

House Minority Leader Chris Redfern, D-Catawba Island, and Senate Minority Leader Greg DiDonato, D-New Philadelphia, on Tuesday petitioned Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to drop O'Dell's company from the list of potential suppliers, saying his presence could undermine Ohio's entire election system.

"The whole point of this upgrade is to ensure fairness," Redfern said. "The inevitable appearance here is of a pay-to-play system."

In his invitation, O'Dell states his support for the Republican Party and notes he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."
Does this constitute a conflict of interest? Should Diebold be allowed to continue in the bidding for Ohio's election upgrade program?

[Mullinator]

I'd be inclined to say that no matter what firm or individual is tapped to do something like this, they will have certain biases towards particular candidates or parties. Most probably wouldn't be this overt about it, but being worried about a conflict of interest is probably not too productive since it will occur in just about every case.

[Revtim]

I agree that no one is completely unbiased, but a major fund-raiser seems a little too biased for my taste. And yes, a major fund raiser for the democratic party would make me just as uncomfortable.

But, if I knew more about the machine, and how it might be overseen and its inner workings publicly demonstated (to the extent possible while still keeping voting confidential) I might change my mind.

[Roger_Mexico]

It is clear that there is widespread vote fraud happening with Republican-leaning voting machines; Hagel and Chambliss are good examples. To see someone so blatantly announcing that they plan to take part in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the voters of Ohio, well, you just have to admire the chutzpah of these Republican criminals.

Vote fraud is only a chip away:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16474

Back when Hagel first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996, his own
company's computer-controlled voting machines showed he'd won
stunning and unexpected victories in both the primaries and the general election. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris, author of "Black Box Voting," Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska.

Six years later Hagel ran again, this time against Democrat Charlie
Matulka in 2002, and won in a landslide. As his Website says, Hagel
"was re-elected to his second term in the United States Senate on
November 5, 2002 with 83% of the vote. That represents the biggest
political victory in the history of Nebraska." What the site fails to
disclose is that about 80 percent of those votes were counted by
computer-controlled voting machines put in place by the company
affiliated with Hagel: built by that company; programmed by that
company; chips supplied by that company.

"This is a big story, bigger than Watergate ever was," said Hagel's
Democratic opponent in the 2002 Senate race, Charlie Matulka
(www.lancastercountydemocrats.org/matulka.htm). "They say Hagel
shocked the world, but he didn't shock me."

[Reeder]

Call your congressman and ask for his support on HR 2239 which specifies that there will be a paper trail for your electronic vote.

With this law in place it won't matter who put the machines in.

SEC. 4. PROMOTING ACCURACY, INTEGRITY, AND SECURITY THROUGH VOTER-VERIFIED PERMANENT RECORD OR HARD COPY.

(a) IN GENERAL- Section 301(a)(2) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (42 U.S.C. 15481(a)(2)) is amended to read as follows:

`(2) VOTER-VERIFICATION AND AUDIT CAPACITY-

`(A) VOTER-VERIFICATION IN GENERAL- The voting system shall produce a voter-verified paper record suitable for a manual audit equivalent or superior to that of a paper ballot box system, as further specified in subparagraph (B).

`(B) MANUAL AUDIT CAPACITY-

`(i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record, each individual paper record of which shall be made available for inspection and verification by the voter at the time the vote is cast, and preserved within the polling place in the manner in which all other paper ballots are preserved within the polling place on Election Day for later use in any manual audit.

`(ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to correct any error made by the system before the permanent record is preserved for use in any manual audit.

`(iii) The voter verified paper record produced under subparagraph (A) and this subparagraph shall be available as an official record and shall be the official record used for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used.

http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/HR2239.htm


Randy

[elfkin477]

I'd ban him, and I'm a Republican. While I think that the odds of any company head actually tampering with an election are slim, why even allow such a thing to fuel distrust in the first place? Either he sells the machines or stays politically neutral. Anything else is going to leave a bad tastes in people's mouths.

However, I might be biased by the company's name as well - it sounds a lot like a company that would manufacture ballots with "chads" (given die sounds like a shortening of "die cut") and I really dislike those ballots for some reason...

[elfkin477]

Make that " either he fundraises and doesn't sell the machines, or sells the machines will staying policially netural."

[manhattan]

Dunno. Are employees of the Ohio Board of Elections unionized? Does that union engage in political activity?

Agree that a hard paper trail is a must for any electronic voting scheme. It works well in the securities industry, and will be an important component of elections, too.

[manhattan]

Oh, and those wishing to learn more about Diebold might benefit from a visit to the company's website (http://www.diebold.com/). A quick check shows that their voting solutions group was responsible for 5.7% of the company's 2002 revenue -- they're mostly an ATM company (though voting is growing more quickly, albeit at a lower margin). Scandal in the voting solutions division, which seems mostly to have grown from the ATM products, would emperil their main business, which relies on the software being clean.

[laigle]

As long as the machines can be audited, and people get a copy of their ballot they can personally review and call horsepuckey on, let him sell them. The problem with most of the newer, fancier voting machines is that they are extremely insecure, cannot be audited, and the elections board isn't even allowed to review the program code. No voting machine should be used under those circumstances, certainly not one being promoted by a political fundraiser. I'll take bickering over hanging chads over "Well, the machine says that a 98% Jewish district voted overwhelmingly for the Aryan Nation candidate, and we can't recount, so it must be true."

[Sterra]

Originally posted by manhattan
Oh, and those wishing to learn more about Diebold might benefit from a visit to the company's website (http://www.diebold.com/). A quick check shows that their voting solutions group was responsible for 5.7% of the company's 2002 revenue -- they're mostly an ATM company (though voting is growing more quickly, albeit at a lower margin). Scandal in the voting solutions division, which seems mostly to have grown from the ATM products, would emperil their main business, which relies on the software being clean.
So, you would argue that they wouldn't risk rigging elections because it might hurt their profits?

[Roger_Mexico]

Originally posted by manhattan
Dunno. Are employees of the Ohio Board of Elections unionized? Does that union engage in political activity?

Agree that a hard paper trail is a must for any electronic voting scheme. It works well in the securities industry, and will be an important component of elections, too.

It looks like the members of the County Boards of Directors are elected or appointed for fixed terms and the six members are evenly split among democrats and republicans.

http://www.electionohio.com/boe.asp

Compare that with the members of the board of Diebold, who gave political contributions exclusively to the Republican party:

Board of Directors
Louis V. Bockius III (2,4,5)
6/28/00 $15,000.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
11/3/00 $10,000.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
10/9/97 $1,000.00 — VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
10/9/97 $1,000.00 — VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
Christopher M. Connor Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Sherwin-Williams
Company
5/22/00 $1,000.00 — VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
3/30/00 $1,000.00 — DEWINE FOR US SENATE
Gale S. Fitzgerald (2, 6)
President and Chief Executive Officer , QP Group, Inc.
7/12/00 $500.00 — NEW YORK REPUBLICAN FEDERAL CAMPAIGN
COMM.
10/12/98 $200.00 — FRIENDS OF JOHN LAFALCE
10/18/99 $1,000.00 — BUSH FOR PRESIDENT INC
Donald R. Gant (1,3,5) Senior Director, The Goldman Sachs Group, L.P.
L. Lindsey Halstead (2,3,6) Retired Chairman of the Board, Ford of Europe
12/22/98 $500.00 — RNC REPUBLICAN NAT'L STATE ELECTIONS COMM.
1/23/97 $500.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
5/27/97 $200.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
10/31/97 $500.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
12/28/99 $500.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
3/7/01 $300.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
6/12/01 $200.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
11/27/01 $200.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
1/24/02 $500.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Phillip B. Lassiter (1,3,6) Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Ambac
Financial Group, Inc.
4/16/98 $250.00 — NAT'L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMM.
9/21/98 $250.00 — NAT'L REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMM.
John N. Lauer (1,4,5) Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Oglebay
Norton Co.
10/10/00 $1,000.00 — DEWINE FOR US SENATE
8/23/00 $250.00 — REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE - RNC
3/17/97 $1,000.00 — VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
Walden W. O'Dell Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Diebold
2/14/01 $2,015.00 — RNC REPUBLICAN NAT'L STATE ELECTIONS COMM.
12/17/97 $1,000.00 — VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
1/30/01 $3,950.00 — RNC REPUBLICAN NAT'L STATE ELECTIONS COMM.
8/16/01 $500.00 — VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
12/17/97 $1,000.00 — VOINOVICH FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
6/30/00 $1,000.00 — DEWINE FOR US SENATE
Eric J. RoordaFormer Chairman, Procomp Amazonia Industria Eletronica, S.A.
W.R. Timken Jr. (2,3,4) Chairman , The Timken Company
6/23/00 $50,000.00 — RNC REPUBLICAN NAT'L STATE ELECTIONS COMM.

6/8/01 $100,000.00 — 2001 PRESIDENT'S DINNER - NON-FEDERAL TRUST
3/14/01 $10,000.00 — RNC REPUBLICAN NAT'L STATE ELECTIONS COMM.

8/19/99 $15,000.00 — RNC REPUBLICAN NAT'L STATE ELECTIONS COMM.
11/3/00 $15,000.00 — RNC REPUBLICAN NAT'L STATE ELECTIONS COMM.

2/22/02 $1,000.00 — RELY ON YOUR BELIEFS FUND
6/12/02 $1,000.00 — OHIO'S REPUBLICAN SALUTE

http://www.cronus.com/electionfraud/

[Cheesesteak]

I don't think that the CEO's politics should be a problem at all. Diebold won't rig any voting machines because, if it got out, they'd be right behind Arthur Anderson in the wastebasket of untrustworthy companies. There are things you do, and things you don't do in business. This would be one of those big "don't do" items.

We'll start with lawsuits, move on to no more voting sales EVER, move on to a possible drop in ATM sales, it could affect their entire business. Would you, as a bank, entrust your customers money to a business that would screw with our voting system? Tough call, I'm not sure that I'd keep buying their products.

This would turn into a PR disaster for them, I can't imagine a multinational $2B company doing such a thing.

[rjung]

Originally posted by Cheesesteak
Diebold won't rig any voting machines because, if it got out, they'd be right behind Arthur Anderson in the wastebasket of untrustworthy companies.
But assuming Diebold was rigging the machines, or if the vote count was inaccurage, how would such information "get out"? It's not like you can take the results reported by Diebold and compare the results from a second source to check for discrepencies.

As far as I know, Diebold has not made their voting-machine code open source for everyone to inspect; and according to an analysis by John Hopkins, Diebold's code is riddled with security holes and could be easily exploited. (http://www.polizeros.com/2003/08/04.html) :eek:

This would turn into a PR disaster for them, I can't imagine a multinational $2B company doing such a thing.
And by the time these lawsuits get through the courts, how many flawed elections will have been run with Diebold machines? Will the candidates who were elected under questionable results be required to step down from office, or have a "do-over" election?

[Cheesesteak]

Diebold isn't a single person, there would have to be many people working on the 'fix' in order for it to get through to a final product. Wally O'Dell may love the pubbies, but he's not a programmer. This isn't exactly like having crappy code, it has to be designed specifically to benefit the GOP. That type of code would be obvious to anyone analyzing it, such as John Hopkins.

Just imagine what your cite would look like if JH found that the code was specifically designed to fix elections! :eek:

[manhattan]

Originally posted by rjung
But assuming Diebold was rigging the machines, or if the vote count was inaccurage, how would such information "get out"? It's not like you can take the results reported by Diebold and compare the results from a second source to check for discrepencies.A smart system, whether it uses electronic voting or not, has manual spot-checks, comparisons to historical voting patterns, comparisions to exit polls by third parties, etc. It would be (and with the benefit of hindsight, has been) insane to trust a single system of any sort.

As far as I know, Diebold has not made their voting-machine code open source for everyone to inspect; and according to an analysis by John Hopkins, Diebold's code is riddled with security holes and could be easily exploited. (http://www.polizeros.com/2003/08/04.html) :eek:Didn't read the webpage, did you? Or did you? A guy actually concerned about actual or perceived conflicts in voting system design instead of making a cheap partisan point would not in a million years have cited that study, despite its techinical merits. What's your real agenda here?

[manhattan]

Originally posted by Roger_Mexico
It looks like the members of the County Boards of Directors are elected or appointed for fixed terms and the six members are evenly split among democrats and republicans.

http://www.electionohio.com/boe.asp
By "employees" I was thinking more of the staff members involved in day-to-day work -- the folks who could (conceivably) influence elections or election systems. Are they AFSMCE members (strongly and partisanly Democratic in most areas) or members of other unions? I don't know the answer, BTW -- this isn't a trap or an argument. I'm curious. If you or others are proposing to disqualify a potential vendor simply because its management is dominated by members of one party (and good luck finding one that isn't!), then you would clearly be equally interested in eliminating any partisanship from the process by decertifying partisan unions or at least banning the partisanship, etc. Yes?

[Roger_Mexico]

Originally posted by Cheesesteak
Diebold isn't a single person, there would have to be many people working on the 'fix' in order for it to get through to a final product. Wally O'Dell may love the pubbies, but he's not a programmer. This isn't exactly like having crappy code, it has to be designed specifically to benefit the GOP. That type of code would be obvious to anyone analyzing it, such as John Hopkins.

Just imagine what your cite would look like if JH found that the code was specifically designed to fix elections! :eek:

The officers don't have to actually rig the election, they just leave the back door open for someone else to come in and alter the results:

"In the course of researching "Black Box Voting," Harris did a Google search on one of the voting machine companies, Diebold Election Systems, and found it maintained an open FTP site on the internet apparently through the 2002 election. In it, she located computer code used to tabulate elections and, apparently, actual vote count files that could be downloaded or even replaced by any visiting hacker."

And it looks like they let the RNC in thru the back door:

The Scoop also performed a statistical analysis comparing American polls and computer-controlled voting machine results. In many states there were no variations. In a few, however, they found that "the Republican Party experienced a pronounced last minute swing in its favour of between 4 and 16 points. Remarkably this last minute swing appears to have been concentrated in its effects in critical Senate races(Georgia and Minnesota) where [the Republican Party] secured its complete control of Congress."

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16474

You said in another post above that Diebold would not rig elections because it would be bad for business if they were found out. That is a specious argument. It is like saying, "Arthur Andersen would never cook the books for corporate clients, because if they did, they would lose billions of dollars of business worldwide." It was a bad risk to take, but they did it. It is like saying, people wouldn't rob banks because 95% of bank robbers get caught and spend a long time in jail. Yet people rob banks.

[Roger_Mexico]

Originally posted by manhattan
A smart system, whether it uses electronic voting or not, has manual spot-checks, comparisons to historical voting patterns, comparisions to exit polls by third parties, etc. It would be (and with the benefit of hindsight, has been) insane to trust a single system of any sort.


Exactly, and that is the problem with touchscreen voting machines.

There is no paper trail.
Exit polling has faded away, so there is no independent corroboration of election results.
The comparisons to historical voting patterns see Republicans winning surprising, last-minute upsets.

Anybody who is not suspicious of what is going on here is either brain-dead or should move to N. Korea where elections are a lot simpler. Kim Jong-Il just got re-elected! What a surprise.

[Roger_Mexico]

Originally posted by manhattan
By "employees" I was thinking more of the staff members involved in day-to-day work -- the folks who could (conceivably) influence elections or election systems. Are they AFSMCE members (strongly and partisanly Democratic in most areas) or members of other unions? I don't know the answer, BTW -- this isn't a trap or an argument. I'm curious. If you or others are proposing to disqualify a potential vendor simply because its management is dominated by members of one party (and good luck finding one that isn't!), then you would clearly be equally interested in eliminating any partisanship from the process by decertifying partisan unions or at least banning the partisanship, etc. Yes?

Poll workers are hired on a temporary basis and probably don't belong to any union. Sometimes they are volunteers. Sometimes they are senior citizens, retirees, a real radical bunch, yeah? It varies from state to state, county to county and would be very difficult to organize any concerted effort to steal the election. How would they do it? Purposely spoil ballots that voted for Republican candidates? Not allow registered republicans to vote? OTOH, Diebold's corporate officers have a clear Republican bias, are involved in elections nationwide, and have a very simple security flaw which can be exploited to alter the results of an election. And you are worried about some radical granmas subverting democracy? Get a grip, dude.

[manhattan]

Wait. Are we arguing about the touchscreen system and what modifications (if any) are necessary to bring it up to snuff (if it can be) or are we arguing about disqualifying one potential touch-screen vendor because of the politics of its senior managment?

[Roger_Mexico]

Both.

[manhattan]

Originally posted by Roger_Mexico
Poll workers are hired on a temporary basis and probably don't belong to any union. The. Staff. The. Paid. Staff. The people who put together the RFPs, who evaluate the vendors, who collect the machines from the state police (or whoever) after the polls close.

And you are worried about some radical granmas subverting democracy? Get a grip, dude. I'll do that. Because you're right. Democrats have never engaged in a scheme in which poll workers used low-tech or no-tech means to move an election result.

Congratulations. You've now proven that you're not really Roger_Chicago and leveled a cheap shot to boot. One more for the hat trick.

[manhattan]

Originally posted by Roger_Mexico
Both. In that case:

I think the nation's election commissions are failing to realize how big a pickle they're in, that neither they nor the governors and legislatures who charge them with their missions understand how counting large numbers works and that touch-screen voting systems are exactly as flawed as all the other single-solution systems that have been proposed, and that in any event the electorate to which all of them answer understands even less. The Bush/Gore mess, which should have put a marvelous, illuminating spotlight on the problem instead confused things all the more.

This is one of the few areas where I think substantially more government money needs to be spent, but I doubt it will be because no one in power (or out, for that matter) directly benefits from the expenditure.

Don't have a good solution for you, unless it's making me the uber-election commissioner for a few years and giving me a big honkin' budget. I'll work cheap.

[Roger_Mexico]

Originally posted by manhattan
The. Staff. The. Paid. Staff. The people who put together the RFPs, who evaluate the vendors, who collect the machines from the state police (or whoever) after the polls close.

I'll do that. Because you're right. Democrats have never engaged in a scheme in which poll workers used low-tech or no-tech means to move an election result.

Congratulations. You've now proven that you're not really Roger_Chicago and leveled a cheap shot to boot. One more for the hat trick.

The paid staff are probably members of AFSCME, so what? Do you have any evidence that Democrats used low or no-tech means to rig elections, other than your innuendo that AFSCME is pro-democratic and therefore might stuff the ballot box? What the hell is your last comment supposed to mean? I am not Roger_Chicago, I am Roger_Mexico, who is a character from Gravity's Rainbow. I guess you are trying to make some veiled reference to the myth that Kennedy stole the 1960 election from Nixon. It wasn't all that close, the electoral vote was 303 to 219. Nixon did recounts in a number of states and only succeeded in getting Hawaii's 3 votes back into the Kennedy column. There were the 15 faithless electors who voted for Harry Byrd. There was some folks in Chicago who "cooked" the results but it wasn't enough to throw the election. Besides, that was 43 years ago and I think you should move on, like the rest of the nation.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/3851

[rjung]

Originally posted by manhattan
A smart system, whether it uses electronic voting or not, has manual spot-checks, comparisons to historical voting patterns, comparisions to exit polls by third parties, etc. It would be (and with the benefit of hindsight, has been) insane to trust a single system of any sort.
As far as I have been able to determine, the Diebold system offers none of these safeguards. And weren't exit polls banned after the 2000 Presidential Elections?

Didn't read the webpage, did you? Or did you? A guy actually concerned about actual or perceived conflicts in voting system design instead of making a cheap partisan point would not in a million years have cited that study, despite its techinical merits.
Since you failed to specify why you felt the cite was improper, and had to resort to cheap name-calling instead, perhaps we should ask what your agenda is, and how much bias you're bringing to the table. :rolleyes:

[Cheesesteak]

Originally posted by Roger_Mexico
There was some folks in Chicago who "cooked" the results but it wasn't enough to throw the election. Besides, that was 43 years ago and I think you should move on, like the rest of the nation. I think all he's saying is that one can cook the books without a computerized voting machine. You can move on, but you should never forget that it can happen. That's how you get better returns, learn from the past.

WRT the election oddities, they happen all the time, that cite doesn't show any evidence that there was tampering. There was evidence of inaccuracies in the tally that affected BOTH parties. The Diebold machines may be crap, but that's not automatically some kind of consipiracy to elect Republicans.

[Roger_Mexico]

It's always useful to apply the Shoe on the Other Foot test. Imagine it's November, 2008 and Jeb Bush is leading Hillary Clinton by a comfortable margin in the polls. On election day, Hillary wins in a landslide. Investigations turn up the startling evidence that the Livebold touch screen voting machines used nationwide in the election are owned by a company whose officers are all Democrats and donated heavily to her campaign and the Rose Law Firm did pro bono legal work for them back in the 70s. Better put on your ear plugs.

[manhattan]

Originally posted by rjung
As far as I have been able to determine, the Diebold system offers none of these safeguards. Not in their standard product, but they can be upgraded to comply with an RFP. More worrisome (to me, at least) than the upgradability of the system is its security flaws; if I were the elections commissioner, I'd be inclined to eliminate Diebold simply because they use a Windows platform and the public internet. Let them adapt the proprietary frame relay stuff they use for the ATMs and then we'll talk. Tell them to be prepared to make some concessions on revealing their source code.

But, of course, that was not your OP, was it? Your OP was whether Diebold should be eliminated as a potential vendor because of the senior management's political activity. Go ahead, you can check it yourself with your scroll bar.

And weren't exit polls banned after the 2000 Presidential Elections?No.

Since you failed to specify why you felt the cite was improper, and had to resort to cheap name-calling instead, perhaps we should ask what your agenda is, and how much bias you're bringing to the table. :rolleyes: I'll take that as a "no," since the webpage has a direct link to a story with the tantalizing headline "Diebold Responds to Johns Hopkins Professor's Disclosure of Relationship With Voting Industry Competitor."

You see, the author of the study was on an advisory board for and had options to purchase the equity of a Diebold competitor. No one who really wanted to discuss "conflicts of interest" as you claim you did could possibly have resisted checking that one out.

So what's my "agenda?" It is to demonstrate, as I have just done, that you did not open this thread with an intent to debate whether political activity among managers is or should be a sufficient reason to disqualify a potential vendor of a voting system, which is what you claimed in the OP. Your intent was to republish some blog you found somewhere and take a cheap partisan shot. You are december.

As to my bias, I am biased in favor of doing a better job of counting in elections. None of the ~140 companies in which I or my affiliates has an investment is in the voting maching business. A few of them are competitors of Diebold's in their other lines of business, but none materially.

[rjung]

Originally posted by manhattan
You see, the author of the study was on an advisory board for and had options to purchase the equity of a Diebold competitor. No one who really wanted to discuss "conflicts of interest" as you claim you did could possibly have resisted checking that one out.
What, you're claiming that because the author had ties to a Diebold competitor, that automatically renders his findings invalid? Do we simply dismiss the analysis and the security loopholes magically disappear as a result? By your argument, if Linus Torvalds releases a white paper on a new, previously-undiscovered security exploit in Windows 2000, we can "fix" the problem by simply dismissing him as a competitor, yes?

So what's my "agenda?" It is to demonstrate, as I have just done, that you did not open this thread with an intent to debate whether political activity among managers is or should be a sufficient reason to disqualify a potential vendor of a voting system, which is what you claimed in the OP. Your intent was to republish some blog you found somewhere and take a cheap partisan shot. You are december.
Bullstuff. I have not expressed an opinion one way or another in this thread on whether or not Diebold should withdraw from the bidding, and have found arguments with merit on both sides of the issue. Considering the nationwide rush to modernize voting equiment in time for the 2004 Presidential election, I think this is something that deserves more scrutiny than it has received so far.

And besides, if I were trying to pull a december, my OP should have had a few snarky partisan potshots along the way, such as "Are there any honorable Republicans left with the integrity to denounce this blatant attempt at subverting the election process?" ;)

As to my bias, I am biased in favor of doing a better job of counting in elections.
Nice to know we agree on something, then. :)

[Cheesesteak]

Originally posted by rjung
What, you're claiming that because the author had ties to a Diebold competitor, that automatically renders his findings invalid? Heck, you're claiming that because a CEO has ties to the GOP, he will lead a massive voter fraud conspiracy. I find it a WHOLE lot easier to believe manhattan's claim than yours. One man trashing his competitor's product vs. massive, illegal voter fraud consipiracy lead by a respected, $2B multinational corporation.

[rjung]

Originally posted by Cheesesteak
Heck, you're claiming that because a CEO has ties to the GOP, he will lead a massive voter fraud conspiracy.
I am? From where?

"Does this constitute a conflict of interest? Should Diebold be allowed to continue in the bidding for Ohio's election upgrade program?"

Nope, don't see any accusations of massive voter fraud or conspiracy there. Maybe you need to lend me your secret decoder ring or something.

[Roger_Mexico]

Originally posted by Cheesesteak
Heck, you're claiming that because a CEO has ties to the GOP, he will lead a massive voter fraud conspiracy. I find it a WHOLE lot easier to believe manhattan's claim than yours. One man trashing his competitor's product vs. massive, illegal voter fraud consipiracy lead by a respected, $2B multinational corporation.

Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins has a clear conflict of interest and should have recused himself from evaluating voting machines. The CEO of Diebold has a clear conflict of interest and Diebold voting machines should be disallowed from the voting process. The great thing about conflicts of interest is that they are about perception, and do not necessarily have to lead to an actual bias or corruption of the process. The perception of bias is damaging enough.

[manhattan]

Originally posted by rjung
What, you're claiming that because the author had ties to a Diebold competitor, that automatically renders his findings invalid? No. I'm claming that a person who believes that a company should be excluded as a potential vendor because of its senior management's real or perceived conflict of interest would not then cite a study authored by person with an even more serious, direct conflict to bolster his case. At least not a fair-minded person actually interested in debate.

Bullstuff. I have not expressed an opinion one way or another in this thread on whether or not Diebold should withdraw from the bidding, and have found arguments with merit on both sides of the issue. Considering the nationwide rush to modernize voting equiment in time for the 2004 Presidential election, I think this is something that deserves more scrutiny than it has received so far.

And besides, if I were trying to pull a december, my OP should have had a few snarky partisan potshots along the way, such as "Are there any honorable Republicans left with the integrity to denounce this blatant attempt at subverting the election process?" ;)
You mean like this thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=205086), where december simply asked a question, as you did in the OP, and then said that both points of view he cited might be right and yet you accused him of "spinning?" Or do you mean like this one (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=193023) where december said that Dick Gephardt should not resign and you opined that "(Oh, wait, it's a december post. Figures. :rolleyes: )?"


Now, of course, when called on the very same behavior, you're claiming that you're just asking questions. Bullshit. You are december.

[Roger_Mexico]

More conflicts of interest with Diebold and other players in the electronic voting industry:

The Elections Systems Task Force was the major lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The ESTF's main purpose was to get congress to foot the bill for e-voting machines ($3.9 billion) and moving the country away from an auditable system, to a system that has no credible auditibility.

The ESTF was comprised of Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, EDS
and Accenture. These companies all have major government contracts, most with the Defense Department.

Accenture bought Election.com from Osan Ltd., a private Saudi Firm.
Election.com, described as a cash-starved company, has never made money, yet two different companies stepped in to rescue it. First the Saudis, then Accenture.

Accenture used to be Andersen Consulting, formally part of Arthur Andersen of Enron fame. According to the Canadian Polaris Institute, Accenture is heavily involved in projects to privatize public services, especially welfare programs in the US, Canada and the EU. The company's short history is rife with cost overruns and scandals, the most recent being a possible violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Accenture's political contributions (2000-2002) totaled $220,000, with the GOP getting 57%. Soft money contributions were $86,000, with the GOP enjoying a 3:1 advantage in contributions.

One of the members of ITAA's (Information Technology Association of America) enterprise division board of directors is Ronald J. Knecht, who is also senior VP at Scientific Applications International, Corp. (SAIC). Why is this important? Because SAIC has been hired to assess the security of Diebold's voting software for the state of Maryland.

So, ITAA is trying to get hired by Diebold et al, to lobby congress and elections officials to buy into e-voting, plus launch a PR campaign to convince the public the machines are safe. At the same time, a member of ITAA is working for the company hired to assure the trustworthiness of the same machines.

Accenture is incorporated in Bermuda as a tax dodge, and as one of the top 100 federal contractors ($279 million in 2001), has been criticized for this. Half the partners in the firm are not U.S. citizens.

Accenture was recently awarded a contract to provide internet voting to the military. Internet voting is the least secure and the most prone to fraud. Accenture refused to reveal how much it was paid for the contract.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0308/S00174.htm

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/082603Harris/082603harris.html

[Cheesesteak]

Originally posted by rjung
Nope, don't see any accusations of massive voter fraud or conspiracy there. Maybe you need to lend me your secret decoder ring or something. Well, if you don't think that voter fraud is a problem here, then why would you want his company excluded? Conflict of interest only matters if there is a reasonable possibility of that conflict affecting the end result.

We all know that the CEO's of the various voting machine companies probably have some political affiliation. I don't think you could find one that didn't.

[Roger_Mexico]

Originally posted by Cheesesteak
Well, if you don't think that voter fraud is a problem here, then why would you want his company excluded? Conflict of interest only matters if there is a reasonable possibility of that conflict affecting the end result.

We all know that the CEO's of the various voting machine companies probably have some political affiliation. I don't think you could find one that didn't.

Sure, all CEOs will have a political affiliation and that is not a problem. The problem arises when the CEO has a political affiliation, his voting machines have huge security flaws, and he announces his intention in delivering the electoral votes of a state to the presidential candidate of his political affiliation. If his political affiliation was democratic, there would be a huge uproar, Oreilly and Hannity, Coulter and Rush would be screaming TREASON! But if his affiliation is Republican, apparently there is no problem, he is just exercising his freedom of speech.

[manhattan]

Is that how you set your standards? By how idiots, paranoids and whackos on the other side might reasonably be expected to react? I'll keep that in mind.

[Roger_Mexico]

Is that the best you can do? Don't be so disingenuous, you know those idiots paranoids and whackos set the tone for the political debate and influence a lot of people. Without all those idiots whackos and paranoids (like Richard Mellon Scaife), there would have been no Clinton impeachment.

[manhattan]

Forgive me for having entertained the now-disproven notion that you, as a member of this message board, would strive for a higher standard and actually care about the merits of an argument. If it's any consolation, I shan't make the mistake again, and I'll be sure to point out your preference in future debates.

[Roger_Mexico]

That is a long-winded way of acknowledging that you lost the argument.

[Roger_Mexico]

Here is a long detailed analysis of the Diebold voting machines, by Douglas Jones, Prof of Comp Sci at U of Iowa. Disclaimer: I am not aware of any conflicts of interest he may have with other voting machine companies, so beware...

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/dieboldftp.html

History of voting irregularities:

http://workersrighttovote.org/more.htm

[Leaper]

Update bump: a Slashdot link to a Salon story (http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/09/23/1235245.shtml?tid=103&tid=99) (with other stories linked to in the mod level 4 and 5 posts in the comments section) about just how incredibly easy it would be to tamper with election results the way the machines are set up now.

I guess in this case, the question becomes, if there were a way to mess with vote tallies with little fear of detection (which these machines seem to give), who exactly would take advantage of such a thing, and how? Would we ever know?

(Such issues also covered in threads like this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=143151) and this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=201743).)

[Reeder]

DIEBOLD ELECTION SYSTEMS has brandished lawyers' threats to take down that pesky citizens activist website blackboxvoting.org. It seems they charged copyright infringement regarding materials on other websites that blackboxvoting.org merely linked to, despite such links having been ruled legal by appellate courts in other instances.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11743

It gives one pause doesn't it?