OH SOS Brunner Investigating Franklin Co BOE (unmatched ballots/un-auditable machines)

[mod mom]

Ohio Secretary Of State Investigating Franklin County Board Of Elections

Wednesday, Jan 09, 2008 - 05:40 PM
"The announcement was made after Franklin County Elections Director Matthew Damschroder criticized Brunner for directing counties to print additional paper ballots for the March primary voters who don't trust electronic voting machines, NBC 4's Patrick Preston reported.

Brunner told NBC 4 on Wednesday that her office is looking into several issues within Franklin County, including ballots that did not match in the November election and voting machines that could not be audited for accuracy.

"In addition to that, we've found in our study that Franklin County doesn't follow basic security practices such as logic and accuracy testing every voting machine that they use. They simply test one machine per precinct and that's insufficient. It's substandard and it's a great disappointment," Brunner said.

. . . .

With the March 4 primary looming, Damschroder has criticized Brunner for the cost of printing additional paper ballots. . . . "

estimated those costs to be as high as $200,000 for Franklin County. But Damschroder bases his figure on a county prosecutor’s interpretation of law that would require the county to provide enough paper ballot for 100 percent of the number of voters who took part in the 2004 presidential primary, plus an additional one percent.

-snip

http://www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/news.apx.-content-articles-CMH-2008-01-09-0037.html

[mod mom]

1. Y'all remember Damschroeder for the attempted $10,000 Diebold bribe:

Sunday, July 17
 
Did Diebold Pay to Play?
The Columbus Dispatch reports that a representative of voting system vendor Diebold may have been spreading money around the State of Ohio, in order to influence the election officials' purchasing decisions. The Dispatch story is available only by subscription but the AP has this report. The story comes as the state is still reeling from an influence-peddling scandal by rare-coin dealer and GOP contributor Tom Noe.

The latest allegations concern the actions of Paschale Gallina, who's reportedly a consultant working for Diebold. Matt Damschroeder, the Director of Franklin County's Board of Elections, says that Pasquale approached him wanting to make a $10,000 contribution -- and asking whom the check should be made out to -- on the same day as the county started taking bids for voter-registration software. Damschroeder says he told Pasquale "you're certainly not going to make it out to me," but that Gallina instead wrote a check to the Franklin County Republican Party instead. Damschroeder (who is a Republican) says he took the check and sent it to the county party, something he now admits was a mistake: "I should have thrown Mr. Gallina out of the building." Diebold didn't get the contract, and Damschroeder says he never recommended the company, but he's now reportedly under investigation by the county prosecutor.

Even more disturbing are some of the statements that Gallina allegedly made to Damschroeder about his efforts to curry influence with Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's office. According to Damschroeder, Gallina bragged about $50,000 that he'd given to Blackwell's "political interests." The Secretary of State's spokesperson denied any such payment, but acknowledged that Gallina had contributed $8000 to Blackwell's campaigns since 1998. Gallina refused to tell the Dispatch whether he'd written a $50,000 check to any organization associated with Secretary Blackwell, but the AP reports that Gallina denied any such contribution.

The revelations apparently came to light as the result of a lawsuit that Diebold's rival voting machine vendor ES&S has pending against Secretary Blackwell, which I've previously discussed here. In related news, the Toledo Blade reports that the Ohio Supreme Court will consider whether ES&S's lawsuit should be transferred to the Ohio Court of Claims, which ordinarily hears matters involving monetary relief against state officials.

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2005/07/did-diebold-pay-to-play.html

[defendandprotect]

2. There's a lot of older info like this that isn't generally known --- thanks!

[mod mom]

3. and some here question why we doubted the Diebold machines in NH.

:hi: you're welcome, defendandprotect!

[defendandprotect]

6. Weren't they part of the HAVA packages ??? In other words, a demand

by government that more computers be brought in to the states?

[mod mom]

8. or another way of 1. funneling large sums of taxpayer $ to Bush cronies (remember

Wally O'Dell was a bushie who promised to deliver Ohio to bu$h and 2. a way to control the outcomes through proprietary source code. HAVA was written in (now imprisoned) Bob Ney's office while Abramoff's firm did lobbying for Diebold. A lot of big bucks funneled through this legislation.

[defendandprotect]

9. See head banging symbol --- !!!

[spag68]

4. ES&S v Diebold

Maybe if these two sue each other enough, they will both die. Oh happy day.

[madfloridian]

5. I have been so impressed with Brunner's tireless efforts.

She has her hands full with Ohio. Since Ohio was declared to be the battleground for Dominionism to take hold... anything might happen there.

There was some interesting stuff in So Goes the Nation about Ohio's evangelical turnout.

Yeh, I know, but I am not really changing the subject. Blackwell was shown in the movie as well.

Brunner is amazing.

[caligirl]

7. GOP voters use DRE's there. Dem voters vote with paper, really

should help show the repugs wouldn't it? You love the dre's you use them and live with the under and over votes and hacking.

[Wilms]

10. Kick n/t