Why Did Georgia SoS Cathy Cox Support DREs and Diebold?

[minorjive]

I've been looking for a clear explanation of Cathy Cox's motivation to force DRE's into Georgia.

I know what her role was in bringing DREs in, and I know that she appeared in a Diebold brochure, and that her old boss, the former SoS, was the chief Diebold lobbyist in Georgia. But that doesn't really explain why she'd want paperless DRE's when it secured power for Repugs, against the interests of her own party and her own supposed progressive politics.

Can anyone help?

[Bill Bored]

1. kick for GA! nt

[Andy_Stephenson]

2. Easy...

she wants to be Governor. So she controls the machines.

[Wiley50]

6. Not to Mention Diebold's Infamous Payola Plan

and perhaps a little Neocon Ideaology.

The criminal mind is a complex creature

[rigel99]

3. Here's what we know about Cathy Cox

1. When there was stolen Diebold equipment in Bibb County (see http://www.countpaperballots.com/whatstolenequipment.htm for a copy of the police report) her office did nothing to investigate it and did not even have a copy of the police report

2. A few years back (this predates 2002) she wanted to switch her party to Republican, but ended up staying Democrat.. can you see how that conversation probably went:

Cathy: "Uh, I think I wanna be a RETHUG"

Rove: "No, Kathy, we're going to flip your state entirely republican after 132 of democrat leadership, we need at least one democrat to remain working for our side... we've already flipped 4 democrats in the GA congress, they might get suspicious"

Cathy: "Ok, I'll stay democat if you make me governor"

Rove: "Ok"

3. While she was lobbying heavily against the VOTER ID bill that recently reduced to 4 from 17 the forms of Identification voters can use, and this may indicate a 'nice side to Cathy' do not be fooled. She is shrewd and there has been ongoing efforts to investigate her in GA

4. Bill Stephens, the majority Republican leader, was caught defending Cathy Cox to local activist groups when they were lobbying for paper ballot legislation. Bill was elected a democrat in 2002 but the very day afterwards, converted to democrat after doing a deal with Sonny Perdue.

*** THE REAL FUNNY PART is that Cathy Cox will either realize that being in bed with the GOP may not be all its cracked up to be, because I think Sonny is the perfect kind of puppet idiot , my guess is they will keep him.

as for her approach to citizens, well she considers us "ENTERTAINMENT"... Go to bottom of this video page to hear an outraged Citizen after Cathy Cox walks out of a citizen forum in election reform where Richard Searcy a Cynthia McKinney aid grills her over Diebold and why she would not make paper printers happen in Georgia.... Cathy's perfect Diebold talking points answer "It's not as easy as plugging in an HP Printer"... ** AFter this meeing, Cox's staff people were caught hearing them say "that's it, she just lost the governors race.." the meeting was that bad and she looked that silly for just walking out on us....

http://www.countpaperballots.com/VIDEO/NashvilleVideo.htm
got to bottom and click on "an upset citizen' and "Cathy cox audio"

bottom line, WE CANNOT TRUST THIS WOMAN for one minute. She feels citizens are a nuisance to her. I also personally saw her office shut down my open records request by powerfaxing 159 counties in a period of 2 hours after I sent a request in December (see the letter from her office, ) she never signs anything herself cause she knows what she is doing is against Georgia Open Records law...

http://www.countpaperballots.com/whatstolenequipment.htm

BOTTOM LINE, really, it's like say, "but Hitler was kind to puppy dogs", let's not be fooled by some of her actions to the exclusion of the fact that she KNOWINGLY BROUGHT IN THE BORG to Georgia and has never once met with citizens concerned with what that means for losing our right to vote.

This particular citizen, regardless of all my Howard Dean friends smoking dope and being stupid, is not a fan of Cathy cox.....

[rigel99]

4. Here's the Picture / HERE'S THE FACE OF PRIVATIZING OUR VOTE

and the way Cathy Cox benefits from selling out Georgian's right to vote...

[rigel99]

5. I guess VOTERS & DIEBOLD

deserve praise for 'preparedness" , wow, thanks for the Compliment Cathy, we'd rather you just drive all those AccuVote Touchscreens off a cliff...!!

[rigel99]

7. For a Good write up on Cathy "100% Diebold" Cox

Here is a good write up on her...
http://www.countthevote.org/cathy_diebold.htm

Meet Cathy Diebold
by Denis Wright
May 23, 2004 -- Georgia's Secretary of State, Cathy Cox, could easily be considered the official Poster Girl for Diebold Election Systems, Inc.

Her photo appears on their website alongside a glowing quotation praising them to the skies. She also loaned them the Georgia State Seal, for that "official" look. And she is defending the implementation of Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines, more commonly known as touch screen voting, in the face of overwhelming evidence of security flaws and unreliable performance.

There have now been at least five major studies regarding problems with DRE devices, all of them are severely critical of Diebold. Maryland even hired an independent group to investigate; they hacked into the system and were changing votes within ten minutes. Thousands of computer experts have signed a petition, sponsored by Dr. David Dill of Stanford University, demanding a voter verified paper ballot. There is currently legislation winding its way through Capitol Hill that will mandate back-up paper ballots on every DRE machine. And California's Secretary of State recently decertified Diebold's DRE machines in that state, noting that the company was "banned, decertified, fraudulent, despicable, and deceitful" in their dealings with the state.

What has been the response from Cathy Cox?

We don't know.

She and her office have remained virtually silent on the subject -- except for actively lobbying the State Houses in opposition to a voter-verified paper ballot.

After the 2000 election debacle, Georgia invited vendors to submit proposals to take over the state's voting system -- but those bids, and the deliberations and decisions of the committee in charge of recommendations, were intentianally exempt from Georgia's "Open Records" laws.

So how do we as citizens of Georgia know how Diebold was selected from the eight bidders?

We don't. What we do know is that Diebold's chief lobbyist in Georgia just happened to be Lewis Massey, former Secretary of State -- and the former boss of Cathy Cox.

Governor Sonny Purdue was asked about the issue on live television via C-SPAN and said that he was concerned about the reports and would support a review of the Georgia voting machines.

So what were the results of the inquiry?

There were no results. Kathy Rogers, Director of the Elections Division, claims that they never received an official demand from Purdue's office, therefore no comprehensive review was required. Instead they promised to hold a series of "Public Forums" on the issue. When concerns were raised about the security of the machines attendees were told that the Secretary of State was "remaining neutral" on the scandal, and would not be addressing any of the concerns. After two such "Forums" the remainder were promptly cancelled.

There are serious reasons to believe that the 2002 election in Georgia was not legal, for several important reasons. First of all, according to SB 213, which was state law prior to November 2002, any election system purchased and used by the state of Georgia "shall be required to have an independent audit trail for each vote cast."

The Diebold machines provide none.

Secondly, there's the issue of mandatory certification and the mysterious software updates (dubbed "patches") that were installed just prior to the 2002 election.

When I first heard that a folder called "rob-georgia" was found on an unsecure FTP site run by Diebold, I was intrigued. I wrote to Cathy Cox's office and was told by staffer Kara Sinkule that "We were aware of the Diebold FTP site, but Georgia never used it." Later, after Rob Behler (of "rob-georgia" fame) was located and confirmed the fact that he had indeed downloaded and installed software patches from the FTP site, patches which he believed to be uncertified, Ms. Sinkule wrote me that "The patch prior to being installed was examined by the state's certification experts at KSU and discussed with the national testing labs." Later still, when asked, Cathy Cox claimed that the patch was only examined after the election due to time constraints.

Further, I requested copies of any and all certification documents for the soft and firmware on Georgia's voting machines and was told by SoS lawyer Clifford Datum that "no records exist in the Secretary of State's office regarding a certification letter from the lab certifying the version of software used on Election Day." That certification is required by state and federal law.

Cathy Cox is widely known to be the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for the Gubernatorial race in 2006 and, as such, is being sheltered and protected by state Democrats. Jay Bookman, a progressive Associate Editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has refused to acknowledge the problem, and goes out of his way to ridicule concerned citizens via email. Martha Ezzard, another longtime AJ-C Op/Ed staple, wrote an opinion piece that could have easily been written by Diebold's PR staff. When confronted with the glaring errors in her article Ezzard said she was "just poking some fun at California" over their chaotic recall election and casually dismissed concerns about spreading misinformation.

Inexplicably, the use of unreliable, unsecure voting machines is being defended by the very people who should be defending our right to have our votes counted. According to a statement on the SoS website, "The mission of the Elections Division is to implement and ensure fair and legal voter registration and elections in accordance with state laws." But clearly our recent elections have NOT been conducted according to state law, nor is there any way whatsoever to determine that the elections have been "fair".

Here in Georgia, we will be voting under a cloud of suspicion and unease that grows with each additional study of the Diebold equipment. Nearly every computer security expert in the country says voting electronically without a voter verified paper trail, and without a meaningful way to recount votes, is a terribly flawed method just begging for trouble.

Citizens have fought and died for democracy and the right to vote. Cathy Cox owes the citizens of Georgia a duty. She must immediately stop stonewalling the citizens, and correct the flawed voting mechanism she purchased with our money. A method for obtaining a voter verified paper ballot must be added to the equipment before the next election, so that every vote counts, and every vote is counted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Land Shark]

8. another factor: more powerful than partisanship

is the desire of elections officials, who can from time to time be under almost unparalleled scrutiny if there's a screwup, to have a technology that offers the perfect shield against the nightmares of accountability.

even elections officials of opposite party really tend to bond on the subject of "avoiding accountability" even though they wouldn't think of it exactly that way. their meetings are often literally termed group therapy, and amount to commiseration sessions.

When elections officials see an opportunity to avoid the scrutiny, and to blame everything on voters or "glitches" so that the press and the public will simply move on, they are going to seize that opportunity like a fucking drowning person clings to a life preserver.

Instead, we need to select for elections officials who revel in accountability and really want to be open with the public and are willing to fall on their sword if need be.

[Wilms]

10. Thanks for that, JAWS.

May I add that some BoE's perceive, if not enjoy, an easier time administering elections with the e-voting equipment.

[Bill Bored]

9. And what's her connection to the Cox media empire? nt

[stirringstill]

11. Context

Though I was not following the story very closely at the time, my personal impression was that Cox wanted to demonstrate to the voters in GA that she was not going to allow a repeat in GA of the fiasco everyone withnessed during the FLA 2000 election. Given the proximity of the Diebold lobby to the levers of power in the state, Diebold was an obvious choice for the contract to modernize and standardize voting technologies in the state. My guess is that Cox thought this was a perfect way to get good press and to shape the perception that Cox was a take charge SOS worthy perhaps one day to be Gov. While others think she is a closet Republican, I simply think she was naive or perhaps an idiot. Remember in 2000 people were fixed on hanging chads, not the dangers of the black box, and having every Georgia vote on a new fancy machine likely seemed a great way to run for re-election or for a higher state office. Diebold would not have gotten millions from Georgia without then Gov. Barnes' approval, yet he was defeated. I imagine that Cox is now trapped since her political career would be over if she had to admit that in her zeal to win points with voters, she instead pissed away millions of dollars on machines that rob election day of meaning turning it into little more than a ritual memoralizing Democracy.

[minorjive]

12. Thanks Bill--and everyone else

Thanks for kicking this back to the top and getting this discussion going. I appreciate all the documentation, rigel 99, and the discussion of the political context, stirringstill.

Occurs to me that the record of campaign contributions to Cathy Cox could be quite informative.

I think LandShark's point about elections administration is also very important. There is A LOT about what goes wrong in elections because this states rights system is designed to sanction local corruption and avoid broad accountability for democratic elections.

I hope we can keep this discussion going and figure out how all these strands of the situation come together.