Posted on 04/05/2006 5:48:15 AM PDT by Space Wrangler
APRIL 04, 2006 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist wants to know why three of the leading vendors of electronic voting machines have refused to do business with the controversial elections supervisor of Leon County.
Crist announced last Wednesday that his office had issued subpoenas to the three companies certified to sell e-voting machines in Florida. Crist alleges that Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S), Diebold Election Systems Inc. and Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. won’t do business with Leon County, a refusal that indirectly caused the county to be in violation of both Florida and federal election laws.
Crist wants to know if the trio, which has sold voting machines to every Florida county for the past three years, privately reached an agreement to withhold their gear from Leon County. That’s what prompted Crist to seek copies of documents related to the sales of e-voting machines in Florida since 2003.
Both the Civil Rights Division and the Antitrust Division of Crist’s office are taking part in the probe, which began in February. “It is critical for our democratic process to work efficiently and effectively, but of most importance, fairly,” said Crist in a statement. “These subpoenas are to ensure that the rights of our voters with disabilities, as well as all Florida voters, are secured.”
The relationship between Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho and voting-machine vendor Diebold has been rocky in recent months. Sancho has been an outspoken critic of touch-screen voting systems and even sponsored multiple hacks of the county’s own optical scan AccuVote devices. The issue came to a head in December, when the Leon County Commission -- at Sancho’s urging -- voted to replace its Diebold AccuVote optical scan gear (see ”Diebold machines voted out by Florida county”). Sancho cited concerns about the security of the systems along with the need to adhere to federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and Florida election laws. HAVA dictates that every voting precinct have a touch-screen or specially-equipped optical scan device to allow the blind and other handicapped citizens to vote unaided.
Sancho later reached an informal agreement to buy $1.8 million in equipment from ES&S, but that deal fell through, leaving the county in violation of HAVA (see ”ES&S Backs Out of $1.8M E-voting Deal“). Because the county failed to have HAVA-required equipment in place in time, it was ordered to repay a half-million-dollar grant that had been earmarked for the machines ”Florida county loses $564,000 federal elections grant”).
Sancho said that the three vendors refused to sell to him “because they could. The laws of Florida offer no protection to elections officials. There’s no requirement that companies sell to the counties, which I think is a serious oversight in our laws. And quite frankly, the voting machine vendors have driven the [creation and passage of the] HAVA legislation from the beginning.”
The vendors offered varying responses to Crist’s subpoenas. Diebold said it is reviewing the issue and declined to comment on the subpoenas for now. However, a spokesman said that Diebold did not refuse to sell equipment to Leon County; instead, the relationship was terminated by Sancho. “Mr. Sancho notified us that he would prefer to work with another vendor,” the spokesman said. “We have and will continue to respond to the County Board of Elections and the Secretary of State’s office.”
ES&S also said it is reviewing the questions and document requests. While declining to offer more detailed comments, a spokesman said: “After evaluating all of the information available to us, we reluctantly determined that we could not expect to have an effective partnership with [Leon] county.”
A spokeswoman for Sequoia said her company regards any allegations of wrongdoing as without merit and stands ready to fully cooperate with any government investigation.
Ion Sancho doesn't think people are capable enough to vote by screen touch. I suppose he wants all the voters in his county to have a democrat "help" them.
I figured it had to be a situation where the elections supervisor was being difficult to result in THREE companies boycotting him. Interesting.
When I want to "fire" a troublesome client, I respond to new RFQ's with pricing at 50 times my current markup. If it is government, I respond likewise with pricing and return their cumbersome terms of sale with numerous corrections.
"Maybe they know that these freaking idiots in Florida are scummy Communists who will be unhappy with any voting result."
NO, I'm more inclined to think that after this guy decided to show how the voting machines could tampered with, none of the companies involved wanted to end up in court when the election was over. Regardless of how much of a weasel he is, the truth is that these machines need to be kicking out hard copies of each vote in triplicate - one for the voter, one for the election board, and one as a back-up. Election fraud is still a bomb with a short fuse on it every other November; we are America - we've got to get this thing right.
I do the same, but in this situation charging exorbitant prices to one county while charging much lower prices to all the other counties may have had them in even more hot water with the AG than they are in now. A simple refusal was probably the safest play.
It would open the door to union stewards, as just one example, demanding a copy of who their 'people' voted for.
A person's vote will ALWAYS remain between him and God (and anyone else he choses to tell.)
Hard copies of votes cast create FAR more problems than solutions...
By being non-responsive, the companies might be eliminated from the bid list. Oh what a sad day that might be. ;-)
You forgot one copy for the democrat operative who paid for the vote.
And i'm sure Mr.Sancho is a republican/sac.
A hard copy doesn't mean it can't be anonymous. It just means there is a back up record of the actual vote that can be audited. You look at your copy, confirm it is accurate, and go on your way. Later, the electronic count can be compared to the hard copy count, both of number of votes and the number of voters. Double-entry bookkeeping is a good thing.
You're missing the point so bad, I'm beginning to think you're a liberal
They're the masters of missing the point (either as a result of insufficient IQ or a deliberate attempt at obfuscation.)
It may not mean it CAN'T be anonymous, but it certainly assures that it no longer HAS to be.
That, Mr. I-think-you-are-a-liberal, IS the point.
And, if someone wants you to vote a certain way, and asks you to prove it, there's nothing they can do right now.
But there sure is if there's a hard copy available...
Don't strain your thinking there, LD. I've certainly got a longer track record here than you do.
And, if someone wants you to vote a certain way, and asks you to prove it, there's nothing they can do right now.
But there sure is if there's a hard copy available...
And if they try to do so, then you tell them to f.o. and report them for vote tampering.
Without a hard copy, all that needs to happen to have electronic vote fraud is to type a few lines of code. An algorerithm that switches one in fifty votes to the RAT party could swing an election faster than you can say "hanging chad". One thing the digital age has taught us is that counterfeit electronic files are perfect forgeries, and with no other record of the actual vote cast, the results are unauditable.
The procedure could be this: you vote on screen. A paper ballot is printed. You double check for accuracy right there. Confirm the screen, which files an electronic tally. You then drop the paper ballot backup into a ballot box at the polling site, which is then handled like a punch ballot. Then, if hanky-panky happens, the electronic record and the paper records can be x-checked. If they don't agree, then that is evidence of tampering.
I'm cool with this idea since there's no 'receipt' for you to take out of the voting booth.
But I GUARANTEE you it won't stop deranged liberals from claiming election fraud.
LoveDoc
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