Diebold execs gave to GOP despite ban

[cmd]

http://www.cleveland.com/ohio/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/113403461250230.xml&coll=2
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus
-- Money from three Diebold executives began trickling into two Republican campaigns last August, just two months after the voting-machine maker banned political giving by a handful of its top brass.

(snip)
Mike Jacobsen, a spokesman for the manufacturer based in Green, Ohio, expressed regret over the donations, which totaled $1,400 to U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine and state Sen. Kirk Schuring of Canton, according to campaign finance reports. But he said the three officials who gave were not subject to the 2004 ethics policy changes, which applied only to the chief executive, Walden O'Dell; president; chief financial officer; and vice president in charge of Diebold Election Systems.

(snip)
News of the donations came as a voluminous election-reform bill was set to clear a key Ohio Senate committee late Wednesday,.............
Republican lawmakers, indignant over suggestions that President Bush's victories are somehow suspect, used the measure to crack down on potential abuse of the election system. The proposal - likely to win Senate approval soon - mandates that all voters show identification to vote, makes it tougher to get a constitutional amendment on Ohio's ballot, and severely limits the scope of voter registration drives.

Democrats left the room still insisting the biggest problems in the past two national elections were voter disenfranchisement and unreliable technology, for which they see Diebold as a poster child.

[Al-CIAda]

1. R&K

[Beetwasher]

2. Sooprise, Sooprise

How is it that it's not illegal for voting machine company execs to do this and that they only violoated an internal policy? It's fucking insane...

[Horse with no Name]

3. What a stoopid policy

Of course they don't have to give to them monetarily anymore, they give to them electronically.
It's the gift that keeps on giving.

[Ezlivin]

4. Pedro For President

Imagine if Napoleon Dynamite had simply rigged the school's voting so that Pedro would win.

How many in the audience would have identified with and cheered him on?

It's our nature to not trust the bastards who "fund" this sort of shit. We don't stand and applaud them.

We abhor them.

[pdurod1]

8. Pedro went alittle "swift-boat" (smear champain)

with the pinjata with Summer Wheatly's face on it. haha "Pedro offers you his protection...", the boys in the convertable (the ACLU, maybe) haha Interesting movie.

[fshrink]

5. Wrong argument.

The technology is perfectly reliable. It is the accesss to it which is "unreliable." Because it is uncontrolled. By emphasizing the technology as unreliable, one dramatically dilutes responsibility and therefore accountability. Hand-counted ballots are not better because they are a more reliable technology but because they make *tampering* impossible on a large scale. Delicately beating around the bush again.

[superconnected]

7. Unless you know the technology, you do not know it is reliable.

The code is not released yet. They are not using paper reciepts.

No technology is completely reliable. I'm a systems engineer with several hundred servers I watch daily.

And no Microsoft program is reliable. That's why updates come out. They are patches and fixes. Each time one security hole closes, 1 or 2 more holes open. Microsoft helped code the Diebold program.

[Orsino]

12. Even if you know the technology, it is not reliable.

Even counting paper ballots is hit-or-miss, as mistakes will happen. The difference is, fake electronic ballots cannot meaningfully be recounted--since they never really exist.

[AzDar]

6. k&r... All corrupt roads lead to Diebold. n/t

[xchrom]

9. k & r

[Hyernel]

10. Every time I go to my ATM for cash, I see the Diebold logo...

....and throw up in my mouth a little.

Historians of the future will wonder how these companies were able to defraud American elections so easily. The answer is simply: gall.

They neutralize anyone who would expose them, and ignore all the rest of us, who don't have any real power in the process.

Republicans will never say a word because it's their crime, and they know that it's the only way an extremist minority will ever "win" in an increasingly more informed electorate. (Thank's to the InterWebs)

--Hyernel :evilgrin:

[badgervan]

11. Raise Some Hell...

We need a loud grassroots movement to ban all Diebold machines from voting places. Half the country doesn't believe we can have an honest election, so how can our "leaders" allow this crap to continue? Yeah, I know why. One word: republicans.

[darkism]

20. Your Diebold ATM gives you a paper receipt...

...so why the hell can't a Diebold voting machine?

[Thom Little]

13. Diebold execs gave to GOP despite ban

Money from three Diebold executives began trickling into two Republican campaigns last August, just two months after the voting-machine maker banned political giving by a handful of its top brass.

Mike Jacobsen, a spokesman for the manufacturer based in Green, Ohio, expressed regret over the donations, which totaled $1,400 to U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine and state Sen. Kirk Schuring of Canton, according to campaign finance reports.

But he said the three officials who gave were not subject to the 2004 ethics policy changes, which applied only to the chief executive, Walden O'Dell; president; chief financial officer; and vice president in charge of Diebold Election Systems.

News of the donations came as a voluminous election-reform bill was set to clear a key Ohio Senate committee late Wednesday, bearing evidence of continued political strife over what constituted the worst problems in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004


http://www.cleveland.com/ohio/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/113403461250230.xml&coll=2

[texpatriot2004]

14. GOP Culture of Corruption and the Cover-up Congress nm

[Peace Patriot]

15. It is UN-FRIGGING-BELIEVABLE that our laws do not ban political

campaign contributions by the people running companies that count our votes (or don't count them, as the case may be), with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY software, and virtually no audit/recount capability.

This is INSANE!

Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

[EFerrari]

16. Kick, nominate and let DU see this.

:kick:

[Marie26]

17. Were Diebold machines used in Ohio in 2004?

Does anybody know? If they were, these blantant contributions/lobbying for Bush would be pretty good evidence that they were hoping to steal the election. If they weren't, well, Diebold was just a lobby, but probably not in a position to change the election results in Ohio. I was just wondering cause I haven't seen any info on which voting machines were used. Thanks!

[Zan_of_Texas]

19. Most of the equipment used in Ohio in 2004 was not Diebold DREs.

Only because Ohio activists raised hell for months beforehand, and made the authorities postpone implementation of DREs statewide.

However, even though Diebold is the poster child of everything that's wrong with letting partisan corporations run elections with secret software, the other companies may not be much better -- they're better at staying out of the limelight, but we don't know that their equipment is better.

We do know that of the biggest four companies -- ES&S, Diebold, Sequoia, and Hart InterCivic -- three have strong partisan Republican ties, through ownership, partnership, donations, and actions.

[Marie26]

21. Thanks

Diebold is pretty awful, but if they weren't directly involved in the 2004 Ohio election, that's reassuring. At this point, I think election fraud is more a possiblity than something that actually gave Bush the election; but given the numerous Republican ties you mention, these companies bear watching.

[Zan_of_Texas]

22. Fraud, intimidation, error DID HAPPEN. In 2000. 2002, 2004.

Diebold has been the poster child. But, Diebold is NOT the only problem, not by a long shot.

The problem is a lack of oversight, and too much secrecy, and too much at stake, in our election systems. The power and money that can be won are too tempting for certain types, and citizens have been too naive to believe that people would steal elections. All kinds of people -- election officials, candidates, thugs, interest groups -- you name it.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. "DeWine and Schuring Win In Landslides!"

[mitchum]

23. The christian dominionists at Diebold consider this to be tithing