Diebold up to no good in North Carolina

[KatieB]

I wrote the following note to our Governor of North Carolina after reading on DU that our Board of Elections is hiring a former Diebold employee who worked on the Georgia implementation (!) The Governor forwarded it to the BOE, whose General Counsel answered - This is not a conflict of interest...he worked for both ES&S and Sequoia too. (Help!)

My email
I've have learned that the state board of elections has just hired an ex-Diebold employee named Keith Long to help decide which voting machines we will use in the future. Long also has a previous history with Hart-Intercivic and Sequoia. His main claim to fame though, is his involvement with deploying Diebold hardware in Georgia and Maryland.

Last Friday was the deadline for sealed bids for new voting equipment for the entire state. Diebold went to court and got a temporary restraining order to extend the deadline to this Monday and to wave any penalities for failing to comply with new disclosure laws recently imposed by the state.

This is a clear conflict of interest. What is wrong with our state board of elections? Ive been tracking Diebold e-voting machine performance, and e-voting period, and do not have any faith that this Company is above reproach, nor that our votes are safe. Is there any way to stop this or shine a brighter light on it?

BOE General Counsel's Response
The Governor's Office referred your e-mail to our agency. Other than appointing the State Board members, the Governor, nor any other elected official directly controls the State Board of Elections. Of course, the General Assembly makes the laws, such as SB 223, that we must enforce.

This agency shares your negative feelings about our being sued by Diebold. We were notified at 10:30 am on November 4, 2005 by Diebold of their intent to sue us. At 1:00 am that day we were in front of Judge Howard Manning. We are not cooperating with Diebold and would like the case dismissed. Judge Manning's rulings in the case have not favored Diebold by giving them what they wanted as to having provisions of SB 223 not apply. The order of Judge Manning further does not stop the process of reviewing and approving voting systems under the provisions of SB 223. That process is happening right now as I am writing this to you.

I want to assure you the State Board of Elections did not asked to be sued by Diebold. We have and will continue to fight the Diebold litigation.

As far as Mr. Long is concerned, he did work for Diebold for a few years ending in 2004. He has also worked for Sequoia Voting systems, and Computer Election systems, which was acquired and became part of ES&S. In addition, he has served as a county election director. He has over 30 years of experience in all aspects of elections both from the governmental employee viewpoint and a voting system vendor viewpoint. He owns no interest in any voting system vendor, and had performed very well for our agency in his temporary position with us in helping organize the effort to approve and purchase voting systems. The choice of what voting systems to approve for purchase is the sole choice of the State Board of Elections, and not any one person.

Don Wright
General Counsel
NC State Board of Elections