the Fix is still in

[donsu]

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050812/NEWS01/508120384/1002


Hinds: No new voting machines for us


-snip-

Thirty-six of Mississippi's 82 counties have signed onto the state's plan to conduct elections on Diebold machines — touch-screen voting machines that have been criticized in some states.

"We did so much research. We wanted to make sure our choice would be the best choice," Hinds County Election Commissioner Lelia Gaston Rhodes said about the county's machines from Texas-based Shoup Voting Solutions.

-snip-

Terry resident Terrell Wilson said the county's machine "was pretty fast. I didn't have any problems with it."

-snip-

Lee County Election Commissioner John Wages said he is concerned that hackers could change the vote totals and leave without a trace. Others claim that the machines are not user-friendly for disabled voters.

The state said the claims are baseless and released documents Thursday detailing the selection of Diebold, including a portion of the contract. Many of the contract's specifics, however, remain under court seal to protect the company's competitive information.
-snip-
--------------------------


Yeah, the fix is still in

[PurityOfEssence]

1. There should be no "competitive information" allowances on VOTING

Private enterprise for profit is not my god, and it should not be applied to the fundamental right of voting. Regardless what Scalia and others think, voting is a RIGHT, and its accessibility and fairness should be unquestioned. The very idea that a for-profit entity has more rights than our citizens is deeply wrong.

Voting machines should not be commercial ventures. Pay the motherfuckers off and dip into the treasury to give them a decent return, but the machines should have source code that everyone can see, and there should be a paper trail for every one of them.

There is absolutely no moral argument against this; any that's advanced is premised on the assumption that private business is vastly superior to the rights of the individual, and that kind of aristocracy is ugly to the marrow.

[wli]

2. I expected no better in the first place.

Whether it's Cheney's death squads, or Cheney's false flag attacks, or the serfdom economy, I'm not going to survive this anyway.

[snowbear]

3. This story out of Ohio makes me SICK.. Check it out........

Columbus Dispatch - Columbus, Ohio, July 16, 2005

On the VERY day that Franklin County in Ohio is set to bid on new voting machines:

......"A contractor who represents Diebold Election Systems arrived at the office of Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder with an open checkbook on the same day the county was opening bids for voter-registration software."

......"Pasquale "Pat" Gallina (of DIEBOLD) arrived unannounced, Damschroder said. "I’m here to give you $10,000," the elections director recalls Gallina saying. "Who do I make it payable to?"

Long story, short... Diebold tried to pay off the Franklin County Elections Director who would be reviewing bids and selecting new voting machines for his county later that day.
~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~

The elections director, Matthew Damschroder, told the Diebold Rep that he couldn't accept the $10,000.00 for the Elections Board, but said that their area Republican Party would love to have the money.

<--Matthew Damschroder, Elections Official, Republican, Dirtball

What makes me sick about the deal is that in this case, Diebold was caught red-handed trying to bribe elections officials to go with their corrupt systems.

Ken Blackwell seems to have saved their bacon though and they never got into trouble over the incident.

Also in the article, it mentions that Pat Gallina (same guy @ DIEBOLD) refused to say whether he had written Ken Blackwell a check for $50,000 the day before.

Makes you wonder how often Diebold goes around dispersing big bucks to areas that are about to bid for voting machines.

The elections official in this case was suspended according to a later article.. but he WASN'T FIRED!!

The only good news out of the whole corrupt deal is that Diebold wound up not winning the bid!

But you can tell from articles like this one how filthy-rotten CORRUPT they (and people like Ken Blackwell) are! :grr:

http://www.dispatch.com/election.php?story=dispatch/2005/07/16/20050716-A1-00.html&chck=t/

[donsu]

4. america is a crime scene

nt