Executive Calls Vote-Machine Letter an Error

[Lori Price CLG]

Executive Calls Vote-Machine Letter an Error

Walden W. O'Dell, the chairman and chief executive of Diebold Inc., said on Monday that it had been a "huge mistake" for him, as the head of a voting machine company, to express support for President (sic) Bush's re-(s)election in a fund-raising letter last year. Mr. O'Dell also said the company was working to address computer security problems and build voter confidence in its wares.

In a meeting with reporters and editors from The New York Times, Mr. O'Dell by turns apologized for mistakes and stood up for what he said the company had done right. (?!?)

<snip>

Mr. O'Dell drew criticism of his company in August when he sent an invitation to a fund-raising party that said, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president (sic) next year." He said he had not written it himself, though he declined to say who had, and intended only to sign a "party invitation."

<snip>

[bluestateguy]

1. In other words "I'm sorry...that I got caught"

There is no apology for supporting Bush, no repudiation of his presidency, and no commitment to run the election fairly in his non-apology apology.

[AlCzervik]

19. bingo!

[President Jesus]

26. O'Dell's extremely one-sided list of campaign contributions (1993-2004)

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=OH&last=O%27Dell&first=Walden

[uhhuh]

2. Fantastic!

Wally, I'm going to send you a letter saying that your voting machines are worthless pieces of crap, and that anyone who uses one is out of their mind.
Would you just go ahead and sign it for me?

Oh, by the way, it's also a party invitation.

[Lori Price CLG]

3. What 'voting' machines?

...Diebold makes 'voting' machines?

:)-Lori

[benburch]

6. Obviously

A voting machine is a machine that votes!

You may fiddle with the screen, but the machine votes the way IT wants to.

[Virginian]

14. It may even pretend to register your vote. What could be inside.

The election boards are not able to review the code, Diebold could easily hide sneeky code like this:

A counter to give Bush every tenth vote.
If atomic_Clock_date = election_day
If Kerry_vote
Add 1 to Kerry_counter.

If Kerry_counter > 10
Add 1 to Total_Bush_votes.
Move 0 to Kerry_counter.
else
Add 1 to Total_Kerry_votes.
end_if. (Kerry_counter)

end_if. (Kerry_vote)
end_if. (Atomic_clock)

I have heard the Diabold machines are kept in sync with the atomic clock. I don't know if it is true, but it could hide devious code from detection during pre-election testing.

Sorry, the indents don't show up in my pseudo-code.

[Pab Sungenis]

17. It reminds me of "Pogo"

Back in 1951, Walt Kelly had Owl, one of the characters in "Pogo" invent a mechanical man out of an alarm clock. His idea? "We've got voting machines, so why not machine voters? No inconvenience. Just wind him up and send him out to vote for you."

He was just 53 years too early.

[Mountainman]

4. If there were voter fraud using Diebold machines and it was proved

what would it do for future sales of the company?

If the right plans to use the machines to steal the election I think they have to be very confident that it is not found out that Diebold was involved.

Or would Diebold just be an unwilling conspirator?

[Virginian]

15. You don't think that... ?

A Republican does not face the consequences of his actions.

Is Ken Lay in jail? Has he even been to trial?
(Martha Stewart contributed to a Democrat. She was convicted.)

Have they found the Anthrax mailer? Based on his targets, chances are that he is a Republican.

Can Dubya lie to us and get away with it? He has so far.

Can Cheney make deals with energy companies and let them help set our national policy? Sure looks like it.

Did Katherine Harris commit violations to the Civil Rights Voting Act by having people with similar names purged from the polls as felons? Was it a conflict of interest for her to do this as the head of the committee to elect GWBush in Florida? Did she violate the constitutional rights of the people of Florida? Did she pay for her crimes? She was elected to Congress.

Has Rush Limbaugh been arrested for the massive quantities of Schedule 2 drugs he possesed? Wouldn't anyone else be arrested, convicted and serve time for posession with intent to distribute?

I'm sure you can add your own examples of the special treatment Republicans get. Based on all this, what could possibly happen to the head of a company that attempted to rig an election? A cabinet position?

[tom_paine]

24. I'm afraid you are correct.

The Imperial Scum have thus far had NOTHING to fear about opposition to their depradations. We cannot take much more of this before Tyranny and Orwellian Lies become The Amerikan Way...if they aren;t already.

[TrogL]

20. How would you catch it?

We only know about the Diebold code because they left it on an anonymous ftp server.

[Bandit]

23. It would not matter because the election would be over

They will not overturn an election no matter how many laws get broken

[truthisfreedom]

5. the cost of these machines alone reveals what a ripoff they are.

[Kolesar]

8. That's an interesting angle

What do they cost compared to optically-scanned "pencil" type ballot machines and card readers?

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. And for all those billions of dollars

you can't even hook up a printer to the darn things?

What a bunch of crap. Especially after you find out that they write these crappy programs in MS Access.

Now tell me again, how much does Diebold charge for this unreliable, hackable garbage, that I can't do better and cheaper with something off the shelf from Office Max?

[Kukesa]

11. Diebold is a mess.

I worked for a company that wrote software for Diebold ATMs, a long time ago, when they were a relatively new concept.

We constantly had to deal with malfunctioning ATMs, poor management, and a general lack of ability to do anything correctly. We could never trust them to do anything they said they'd do.

To me, Diebold = incompetency.

I fear they haven't improved over the years.

[xchrom]

7. o'dell -- you are the mistake.

the rest of us have to make up for your lack of integrity.

[dryan]

10. Suggested reform

It should be a federal law that companies that manufacture, sell, or distribute any election equipment be precluded (and their management should be precluded) from being involved in elective politics.

[ithacan]

12. open source and non profit agency

this stuff should NOT be left to private corporations with strong financial incentives in the outcome.

It should be open source: I believe that is the requirement in Australis.

And it should be a nonprofit organization that runs the whole thing.

If this guy is sincere he'll withdraw his company from the voting machine industry.

[revcarol]

22. Just take a look at what Kucinich has to say!!

A man for our times, the times in which compnies like these want to steal/screw up votes.

Dennis, YOU'RE RIGHT, AS USUAL.:loveya:

[yellowcanine]

13. Uh oh - the evil Staff strikes again. Someone call Ken Starr.

Whenever a high ranking muckity muck screws up, somehow it is always the fault of "Staff" who drafted the letter, memo, report, speech, whatever. It's about time we had a formal government investigation led by Ken Starr into just who this guy Staff is and why he is always causing so many important people to fuck up.

[dryan]

25. Or else they blame it...

Onsome overworked and underpaid secretary.

[davidinalameda]

16. Ya think?

what a moran

[catzies]

18. Any bets that the "party invitation" was for a GOP fundraiser?

I mean even when these guys are being transparent they're still pretty stupid.

[progressivebydesign]

21. He's the guy that has photos of he and Bush all over his house!

A DUer was in the house for some reason, and saw the chummy photos displayed proudly. Geez.. such a scheme is so obvious, and so believable, that on one would believe that is how they'll steal the election this time. THAT'S why you keep seeing ALL indicators that Bush should get trounced in the election, yet we keep having those polls that show Bush ahead of Kerry... it doesn't add up. I want my fucking country back!!!!!!!!!!! :grr:

[yardwork]

27. Somebody posted the political contributions made by Diebold employees here

They had all maxed out on two grand to shrubbie as of last fall.

It's a disgrace that a private company is allowed to manufacture voting machines and simultaneously contribute to the incumbent's campaign.