E-mail stolen from Diebold is a call to gouge Maryland

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.gazette.net/200350/montgomerycty/state/191617-1.html

ANNAPOLIS -- An e-mail found in a collection of files stolen from Diebold Elections Systems' internal database recommends charging Maryland "out the yin-yang" if the state requires Diebold to add paper printouts to the $73 million voting system it purchased.

The e-mail from "Ken," dated Jan. 3, 2003, discusses a (Baltimore) Sun article about a University of Maryland study of the Diebold system:

"There is an important point that seems to be missed by all these articles: they already bought the system. At this point they are just closing the barn door. Let's just hope that as a company we are smart enough to charge out the yin if they try to change the rules now and legislate voter receipts."

"Ken" later clarifies that he meant "out the yin-yang," adding, "any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive."

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[Cooley Hurd]

Continuous form, dot-matrix printers are cheap...

Why would they feel compelled to "charge out the yin-yang" for such an inexpensive, but essential option to their product - UNLESS they specifically want to fudge their results.

This is mighty fishy!!

[Systematic Chaos]

1. So, what more proof do you need...?

These people aren't just greedy, money-grubbing assholes. NOOOO! It's now as plain as the nose on your face that they have an agenda! Promising a bunch of fatcats the state of Ohio (IIRC) would go to shrub, and now this. God I'm gonna be sick.

[dusty64]

6. I certainly ought to make any

thinking person wonder why the rethug governor there wants to make sure these machines are placed despite ALL the questions and problems with them.

[FreakinDJ]

2. At least charge more then

At least charge more then what they are getting for the "back-door" access codes

[Robb]

3. LOL!

Oh wait, damn. Hey, that's not funny. Damn.

[cthrumatrix]

4. this whole issue needs a congressional investigation with serious

prison terms for all involved...this is nothing short of criminal.

[cosmicdot]

5. "any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive"

gee, "Ken", I bet Diebold didn't even offer a printout option ... what a poor business approach is that?

when I used to work on purchase order/contract agreements, we often had pricing attachments which would include such things as add-on, follow-on purchases ... and, vendors typically want add-on, additional business, and welcomed such option clauses

is it a wonder American busineses and the pseudo-leaders managing them aren't fairing well in the global economy???

[Kinkistyle]

7. Common business practice for software and hardware development.

As bad as it sounds, it is common business practice. Mainly because the farther on down the development process a project gets, the harder it is to make small basic changes. Its like building a house, and around 3/4th of the way through, deciding you wanted another bathroom next to the living room. Well, thats tougher than it sounds since the walls are up. Now you gotta tear stuff down, rewire and move pipes around, change the frame, then build everything back up. Same thing here. Basically its important to get this all settled and done and signed off at the planning stages before a single nail is hammered in. It pisses off the contractors and builders a ton (who is this might possibly the equivalent off).

[gun_toting_liberal]

15. you're right, but...

a. Houses aren't voting machines (I've worked on both).

b. I don't think that the Maryland machines have been added.

c. Maryland can go ahead and get any extra charges taken care of from the punitive damages that they get from Diebold.

[Occulus]

16. I believe

you're wrong in this case; although I agree in principle, the code that supports the printers was already built into the software. In fact, options to print abound in the Diebold software I've seen.

Internally, the capability is already there. These guys want to "charge out the yin-yang" for no reason at all, other than their own interests.

Aside from that, Diebold makes many of the ATMs I use. They all have printers built in. There's no excuse possible for them regarding the lack of a voter-verified paper ballot.

I wouldn't just "trust them" if the ATM they make doesn't provide a receipt, much less with my vote.

There's no excuse for this.

[bushisanidiot]

8. Sounds like "Ken" Wants to Discourage Maryland From Having A Paper Trail

it's the only explanation. I don't even think it's because they want the $$$.. it's purely to keep the voting tabulations secret.

[arlib]

9. kick

Diebold needs to be held accountable for this garbage. 'Nuff said!

[Dover]

10. Is this the news that Bev and the others were hinting about last

week? They were saying that something big was going to break in the news soon.

[Tippy]

11. Send them back

Really I think the best thing we could do is pack up all of Diabolds machines and send them back demanding a refund...see how they like that the machines and their system is faulty why should our tax dollars pay for lemons...we could then go back to paper ballots and if it takes a month to count all the votes than so be it...

[Eloriel]

12. The memos are rep;ete with Ken

asking those in the field "how much will the traffic bear?" when a customer wants something added.

[Occulus]

17. What could that mean?

[MrSoundAndVision]

13. Diebold discourages getting more business through upgrades

Gee, Diebold is a company, one that definitely wants to make money, yet it wishes to discourage the state of Maryland from upgrading it's systems. This would give Diebold more business. So:

Question: Why is Diebold discouraging business?

Answer: Because it is facilitating the theft of an election.

There is no other reason. They are discouraging business! Money is not the issue for them.

[eek]

14. which BBV co supplying Fla?

just curious.

I know they recently announced they're going with BBV machines (shock).

[whatelseisnew]

18. I feel sick