Apparently a Democrat tried to bribe another Democrat while lobbying for Diebold machines. I swear Ohio is a HUGE mess!
The chair of the Athens County Democratic Party and a lobbyist who once worked indirectly for Diebold Election Systems are giving two very different versions of a meeting they had in October 2003. The meeting between party chair Susan Gwinn and long-time state Democratic Party figure William H. Chavanne provided the lead paragraphs for a story that ran on the front page of The Columbus Dispatch Sunday. The story detailed reports from various county elections boards around the state that Diebold representatives used pressure tactics and offers of money to try to induce the boards to choose Diebold to provide their new legally mandated voting systems. The state has gotten $116 million in funding to replace punch-card voting systems, making it a lucrative market to win these contracts.”
“Gwinn said Chavanne offered to make a $1,000 contribution, first to the Athens County Democratic Party, then to a party “operating fund” that would not have been legally required to identify contributors, and then finally to Gwinn herself.”
“I simply have no idea why she said what she said. It simply is not true,” Chavanne maintained Tuesday. “All I did was, after we were done talking about Diebold, I offered to help the Democratic Party, and basically she said she didn’t want my help.”
“Gwinn said that after she turned down the offer of a check for the party, at some point Chavanne suggested he could make the check out to Gwinn to use as she saw fit. Didn’t happen, Chavanne insisted.”
“Since the meeting with Chavanne, the Athens County Board of Elections has voted to go with an optical-scan system, not manufactured by Diebold. At the time of the meeting, however, it appeared the board was ready to buy Diebold electronic touch-screen machines. Its two Republican members were in favor of Diebold, as was one Democrat, with Gwinn the lone holdout.”
“I really, quite frankly, don’t know,” Gwinn said. “What happened is just what I said (in the Dispatch story). The thing of it is, he already had three votes. And if anybody knew me, they would probably know there was no way they would ever get me to change my vote.”
“She said she agreed to meet with Chavanne “just to be courteous.” After talking about the Diebold machines, she said, Chavanne asked about the prospects for Democrats in local elections, and she told him the party faced some challenging races. “I said, ‘Man, it’s going to be tough,’” she recalled.”
“At that point, according to Gwinn, Chavanne “said something to the effect that ‘That’s one of the reasons I came down,’” i.e. to help out the Democratic candidates.”
“After Gwinn refused Chavanne’s offer of a “personal contribution” to the party, believing it inappropriate, she said, Chavanne made the suggestion about giving cash to the party’s “operating fund.” “I said, ‘We don’t have such a thing, I don’t think it’s legal, and I can’t accept such a contribution,’” she claimed. It was then, she alleged, that Chavanne suggested making the check out to Gwinn.”
“He said, ‘I could just write a check out to you, personally,’ and I said, ‘Absolutely not,’” she contended.”
“In working on behalf of Diebold, he said, he was not directly employed by the North Canton company, but had been hired by a firm contracting with it. He said he was not even involved in selling Diebold’s machines, but had been asked merely to reassure nervous Democrats that the machines wouldn’t deliver the vote to the GOP by some computerized hanky-panky.”
“Concerns on this score were raised by reports that the machines’ vote tallies could be tampered with via the Internet, and perhaps even more so by comments from a top Diebold official who promised to “deliver Ohio” for the Bush presidential campaign.”
“The combination of those two (reports) created among many Democrats a very serious feeling that we were trying to sell machines that, no matter how we voted in Ohio, Bush was going to win,” he recalled. His job was to dispel this notion, which he said was baseless.”
“Can you take a Diebold machine, go home, or go to your laboratory, and alter it? I’m sure you can,” he said. “But who in the world is going to let you do that?”
http://www.ohiohonestelections.org/
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