Blackwell witholds Voting Machine Eval Info

[BillORightsMan]

10-28-05: Blackwell Blunders on Voting Machine Examination

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell claimed in 2003 that his office's procedures for identifying potential conflicts with voting machine evaluators have "saved us from embarrassment and probably legal entanglements."(1)

Citing conflict of interest by SAIC, the evaluator originally slated to examine Ohio's voting systems, Blackwell replaced SAIC with CompuWare.

What Blackwell failed to divulge to the public (and perhaps to the vendors as well) was that CompuWare was creating software for a competitor of the companies whose secret software it was evaluating.

(updated 1:10 PST 10/28/05)

After Blackwell assigned CompuWare the task of evaluating voting system vendors, CompuWare wrote a blistering report, citing all four major manufacturers for security defects, rating many as “high risk.”
~snip~
What was Blackwell's fiduciary duty?

It would appear that the ethical issues here will fall mostly on the shoulders of Ken Blackwell.

1) Did Blackwell ask CompuWare to provide conflict of interest information when he purchased their services?
2) If so, did CompuWare provide that information accurately?
3) If Blackwell did not ask this question of CompuWare, it was still Blackwell's responsibility to the state of Ohio to learn this information. He seems to agree: He terminated an evaluation with SAIC for precisely this reason, conflict of interest.
~snip~
While Blackwell's lack of disclosure (or due diligence) in selecting a voting machine evaluator may have exposed the state of Ohio to potential legal liability from vendors, his failure to disclose the contents of the August 18, 2004 CompuWare report to election officials may cause even greater legal issues.

Blackwell appears to have delayed distribution of the August 18, 2004 CompuWare report until Jan. 2005. The implications of this will be discussed in an upcoming article. Conflict of interest or not, the Aug. 18 CompuWare report contained very serious concerns about the Diebold voting software, along with specific directives to take three steps to mitigate the risks for the GEMS central tabulator, which it rated "high, high, high."
~snip~
The Diebold GEMS system cited in the Aug. 18 CompuWare report was used in hundreds of jurisdictions and dozens of states in the Nov. 2004 election, including Lucas and Hardin counties in Blackwell's own state. If Blackwell failed to implement the CompuWare risk mitigation procedures, and if he failed to disclose the information in the CompuWare report to the rest of the U.S., he may very well have put the entire 2004 election in jeopardy.

Blackwell on MSNBC's Countdown with Kieth Olbermann Nov 29 2004:
"We have a system that allows us to manage a free and fair election, free of fraud, free of intimidation, and that‘s what we delivered on Election Day."
"And we‘re very, very proud of it and we have the most scrutinized election system in the United States. And we are we have met every test. Every test, we have made. And I‘m very proud of the 50,000 co-workers and election officials who delivered a free and fair election."

I guess that would be........

A LIE? :grr: