Guess Who's Going to Dinner with Diebold, Sequoia, and Electronic ES&S?

[Wilms]

(Note: This article is not recent, though showed up in a google news search of recent items.)

Guess Who's Going to Dinner with Diebold, Sequoia, and Electronic ES&S? The Groups Responsible for Insuring Electronic Votes Are Secure.

by Amanda Lang

OpEdNews.Com

When speakers from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) attend the August 24-28, 2004, Election Center's conference for federal and state election employees in Washington, DC, they will be participating in a huge conflict of interest as they eat, drink, and make-merry at the Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S (voting machine vendors) sponsored events. Sequoia Voting Systems is co-sponsor for a dinner cruise on the Potomac and a monuments by night tour. A welcome reception compliments of Diebold with ES&S throwing in a graduation luncheon and awards ceremonies. It being Washington , members of the House and Senate are also invited.

The EAC, supposedly an independent bipartisan agency, was appointed by President George W. Bush following the Election Fiasco of 2000, and is authorized by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to serve as "...a national clearinghouse and resource for the comparison of information" on various matters involving the administration of Federal elections. The EAC wants to be more than a clearinghouse apparently -- EAC Chairman, DeForest Soaries**, recently authored a letter to Homeland Security czar, Tom Ridge, requesting his agency be "the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election" if a terrorist attack is launched in the U.S. As a result, Ridge's office has requested that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place. **Soaries, a Bush appointee, two years ago was an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress.

The Election Center is a nonprofit organization, which trains election workers and advises Congress and government agencies on election process issues. The Election Center also provides staff services to the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) for the voting systems program. NASED is responsible for the testing and certification (through independent laboratories) of voting systems hardware and software manufactured by Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S Disturbing -- It could not be more inappropriate for this non-profit, non-partisan organization to accept money and funding from Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S whose machines they are tasked to monitor. The Election Center executive director, R. Doug Lewis, confirmed in March that the Center has taken donations from all three vendors. The Sequoia donations surfaced on the Center’s latest 990 IRS filing. It revealed donations of $10,000 per year from 1997 through 2000.

According to the conference schedule, one of the big topics of the day is "The Media: Fighting Back--Getting the Story Straight." Is the Election Center suggesting that it is now the responsibility or duty of election officials to influence media coverage and reporting that has in the past, been highly critical of the many documented failures and flaws of these companies voting machines? (One analysis reveals that votes were not recorded for one out of 100 votes using the new ATM-style machines -- eight times more than pencil marks on paper ballots in the same election!)?

snip

http://www.opednews.com/lang_071304_voting_dinner.htm

[stepnw1f]

1. No Electronic Voting...

How's that for negotiating our Democracy with corporations.

[niyad]

may not be recent, but everyone needs to know about it, not that the

sheeples are going to care one whit.

[Wilms]

3. I realized and edited the post to note.

Thanks.

[niyad]

2. may not be recent, but everyone needs to know about it, not that the

sheeples are going to care one whit.

[EFerrari]

4. Geeze, could it be any more blatant.

Booking marking for the next time someone asks, "What about HAVA?"


Thank you, Wilms.

[FogerRox]

5. I got a google alert with this in it too-- for some reason

it was incuded in the recent articles---

K N R

[stellanoir]

6. Bend over and kiss your

democracy goodbye. . .

> "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all
> other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to
> slavery." Thomas Paine

Without "Voter Verified Paper Ballots" we are all reduced eternally to corporate slavery.

[kster]

7. K&R...nt

[Clara T]

8. A banquet

of gravy spills and business deals. Beltway pro forma as usual.

Rec'd

[nicknameless]

9. DU Action Alert about a similar event -- this one from 2005:

"ACTION! Election officials for sale to the highest bidder. Speak out!"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=380340&mesg_id=380340

Election officials were wined and dined in Hollywood and Beverly Hills by the e-vote-stealing companies.

[autorank]

10. RECOMMENDED. Please someone, go take pictures!!!

What pigs, they are just so low it isn't even believable. Don't they read the regular press about Diebold alone? What swine. They should all be dismissed.

I want a list of our party members who went published on DU. That would be great.

[gracie76]

11. the EAC and terrorist attacks....

Nothing new about vendors dining and wining people who are the decision-makers in regard to the equipment that the vendors are trying to sell...although I don't like this one bit, because what they are selling is our elections! HOWEVER, the most frightening thought is the request of the EAC Chairman that his agency be "the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election" if a terrorist attack is launched in the U.S. Are you ready for martial law, and the end of democratic elections ? That looks like the plan, man.

[Clara T]

12. kick for info