California AG Says He'll Sue Diebold 394
moby11 points to this Reuters story carried by Yahooo!; it begins "California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said on Tuesday he would sue electronic voting machine maker Diebold Inc. on charges it defrauded the state with false claims about its products."
Just hope he doesn't have the case in Florida... (Score:5, Funny)
Or the jury will have to count their votes ten times.
What He Really Oughta Said (Score:4, Interesting)
You misunderstand...
"Lockyer determined sufficient evidence existed to go forward with a false claims lawsuit against Diebold," the statement said. The state's top lawyer earlier had dropped a criminal investigation of Diebold.
It's an electon year, right? Even if he's not up for re-election, it's the natural behavior of a politician.
To whit:
Diebold Vice President Thomas Swidarski said in a statement that the company was pleased Lockyer dropped the probe. Despite Lockyer's decision to sue, the company is "confident that the state's decision to intervene will aid in a fair and dispassionate examination of the issues raised in the case," Swidarski said.
What Swidarski really oughta said, "[the company] is confident that this is a political ploy and will amount to nothing."
Re:What He Really Oughta Said (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't think it has anything to do with the false claims made by diebold, or their failure to place certified machines in the voting districts?
Or the wild insecurities in the system?
Re:What He Really Oughta Said (Score:4, Informative)
Not that the governor of California has anything to do with California's AG. California, like most states, chooses its attorney general by direct popular vote, in accordance with Article 5, Section 11 of the California Constitution. [ca.gov]
If you're going to criticize a government, it helps to know a little about how it works.
Re:Just hope he doesn't have the case in Florida.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just hope he doesn't have the case in Florida.. (Score:3, Funny)
(Couldn't think of any retarded references to Junior, Predator, etc.)
Re:Just hope he doesn't have the case in Florida.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Except it's California. If Kerry doesn't take the state easily, that's a red flag to investigate.
Re:Just hope he doesn't have the case in Florida.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Both federal legislative houses are fairly evenly divided and the Senate in particular is completely up for grabs. But a few closely contested House seats that get swung the wrong way while everyone's eye is on the big show could have a huge effect, too..
I don't believe the tinfoil hats are called for just yet, but please try to remember that there's more than one election taking place this fall.
Re:Just hope he doesn't have the case in Florida.. (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, CA as a state in Federal elections leans quite heavily towards Democratic candidates.
A YRO topic?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A YRO topic?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A YRO topic?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A YRO topic?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A YRO topic?? (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, while most of the problems with Diebold software can easily be explained by total incompetence and lack of regard for the importance of correct behavior (as opposed to the appearance of correct behavior), some thing are very hard to see as anything except a deliberate creation of a way to manipulate votes.
Re:A YRO topic?? (Score:2)
There are 3 topic icons above: United States, YRO and Politics.
Re:A YRO topic?? (Score:3, Insightful)
And then what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Have they considered vendor lock-in?
Re:And then what? (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be similiar to when governments began sueing Ford Motor company because their Crown Victoria police cars would explode after being hit in the rear by vehicles traveling at highway speeds. When the state filed charges, Ford stopped selling them cars.
So, this begs the question,...is California still buying diebold machines? Because if they are, then this lawsuit is nothing about ensuring voting integrity.
Re:And then what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And then what? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Actually, that's the funny part about police cars. They are very careful about which cars are allowed to do pursuit. It's the Crown Vic and one other.
The problem is that, until very recently, a police car *must* be rear wheel drive. To change that requires a lot of retraining of police officers because all of the RWD stunts don't work anymore.
And, of course, all of the newer cars are front wheel drive, so it's awfully hard in general to convince a car company to make a hotrod RWD seda
From TFA... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the sounds of it, the person(s) involved with authorizing the installation gave in to Diebold's hype without bothering to give system a thourough inspection/review prior to making the decision. In addition to suing Diebold, maybe the AG should be looking for some heads to chop for making a bad situation[company pushing false claims] even worse[installation and failure of product]?
Re:From TFA... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From TFA... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:From TFA... (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the website, http://caag.state.ca.us/ag/index.htm
Under the state Constitution, the Attorney General is elected to a four-year term in the same statewide election as the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Controller, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Insurance Commissioner. In 1990, voters imposed a two-term limit on these statewide offices.
Meaning you can't draw a conclusion about the Governator's integrity, since he very likely wasn't involved in this decision at all.
Re:From TFA... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mayber caveat emptor doesn't apply to the gov'ment?
Re:From TFA... (Score:4, Informative)
To reply:
I've always used "guv'mint".
Re:From TFA... (Score:5, Informative)
The purchasor has no legal obligation to verify that claims made by the vendor are true. The obligation is entirely on the vendor. And if the vendor makes untrue claims, a court may award damages, or even find the vendor guilty of fraud.
Caveat emptor is common sense, but it is not a legal principle.Caveat emptor says that if I buy second hand car, I would be wise to get an independent mechanic to check its condition. After all, everyone expects used care salesmen to be a bit shonky. But it I buy a brand new car, I shouldn't have to do this. I should be able to trust Ford / General Motors to design and build cars that are mechanically sound when they leave the showroom.
In this particular case, it is not clear to me whether the State of California or individual voting districts (?) purchased the machines. Either way, the purchaser was entitled to believe Diebold's assertions about the products' fitness for use at face value. Given that Diebold does not disclose its source-code, the purchasors have little choice wrt voting integrity issues.
Re:From TFA... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it is legal principle.
If you buy a house with major defects in plain view, and then decide six months later to sue to get your money back, you'll probably have trouble. On the toher hand, if the house has hidden major defects that the prior owner knew about, you might be able to get your money back.
Caveat emptor basically says that you can't back out of a deal simply because you kept your eyes tightly shut when going into the dea
more than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Problems? Whoooo Booooey! & LINKS! (Score:3, Interesting)
Politicians [infowars.com]
Halfway down, see ctrl-f rigging [infowars.com]
convicted fellons working for them! [infowars.com]
i don't have an account
Backdoor vote rigging? [alternet.org]
That is a starter list, I'll post more later, just mod the parent up(this one!)
Mo' LINKS! (Score:3, Informative)
Washington Post, answers critics [washingtonpost.com]
Might be redundant cache [infowars.com]
Dems want aditing [washingtonpost.com] Where have we heard this b4?Hmmmm...
F-L-O-R-I-DeU-H wants papertrail [bradenton.com]
Re:From TFA... (Score:3, Informative)
What really surprises me is the last half of what you quoted: "that were not tested or approved nationally or in California."
Who could authorize the move to Diebold's system, the Sec of State? And how the hell did he manage to let a fact like not being approved in his own state slip by? How did the people funding the change not realize it?
Somebody's head should be chopped for that alone, nevermind Diebold's other faults. That is just incompetence as far as I'm concerned, and a basic lack of fact-chec
Recoup some of our money (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad about the criminal case though, it may not be fair, but Diebold sure seem like a bunch of crooks to me!
Upset? (Score:5, Informative)
Sued "Out the Ying-Yang" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the damages in this case may be "Out the Ying-Yang". That's a phrase that really grows on you when the shoe is on the other foot. Come on say it with me Diebold, "Out the Ying-Yang".
Price on Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
For as much as modern pundits seem to throw around the term "treason" these days, I'm surprised the term hasn't been applied to Diebold.
Re:Price on Democracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, I'm not one of the hysterical anti-Diebold mob, but there are a number of troubling things about this company and these systems. That said there will always be issues with any system and people crying that the sky is falling, but in this case there's enough substance and evasion by Diebold to cause some serious concerns. The case for code auditing and an open software model seems to have a great deal of appeal. I can't help but think we're rushing into this in a compressed timeframe and installing expensive systems early that will leave a technological legacy for future elections and systems to deal with. You'd have hoped that someone with a clue would have sat down and started some reasonable standards process and a software engineering effort to go along with it. OK this has happened to a limited degree but it has been steamrollered by a drive to do this in haste with intense lobbying in some areas, now what was this lawsuit about again?.
Re:Price on Democracy (Score:2, Funny)
Like most big lawsuits... (Score:3, Insightful)
Like most big lawsuits, especially between the government and a big country, this will probably go through dozens of twists and turns, and motions and objections and requests for odd evidence, and it will probably end up out of court or perhaps just be dropped.
However, since this is getting covered very widely, on Y! news, for example, it will at least people start asking questions about why people want electronic voting, and how secure it really is.
California (Score:2, Insightful)
Backdoor (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/78 [blackboxvoting.org]
Diebold needs to be bankrupted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Diebold needs to be bankrupted (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Diebold needs to be bankrupted (Score:2)
And now for the finger-pointing! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And now for the finger-pointing! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not one.
Do you even understand how government, especially local government, works?? You get the money once. It's a set sum, with an additional budget for maintenance and support. If you don't spend the money, it's gone. So you have to buy when you have it. You can't wait. You can't hope or wish. You have to pick a vendor and pay them and hope they do a good job, because the money won't be coming back if you wait too long.
Diebold had machines. People bought them because Diebold made big promises and nobody else had a decent machine for a fair price. Meanwhile, Open Source lost yet another battle due to a complete lack of understanding of how things work. If an OSS solution had been ready when the evoting money came in, and that solution was cheaper and backed by a solid company with a reputation and support staff, it would have won.
That didn't happen. Not because local government is stupid and doesn't understand open source, but because open source is nearsighted and reactionary and was not ready.
It's all about accounting (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely right. If there is one thing ordinary citizens fail to understand about how government works, it is that in government accounting, recipients of funds do not get to "roll it over" the following fiscal period. Not only do you have to spend what you have, if you don't spend what you have, you don't get more money later.
With large government IT projects (as voting machines are), the projects that get funded get funded again only if they use the money they
UK Elections (Score:4, Informative)
[OT] Florida...? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how things are going to go in Florida this time around, between Diebold machines, institutionalized electoral mismanagement ('00 was neither their first "00", nor their last), and 2-3 hurricanes wiping the state's infrastructure flat during the run-up to the election.
Hip Hip, Hurray! (Score:2)
Twelve Angry Men (Score:2, Funny)
Good Plan (Score:3, Funny)
2) Find out machines suck
3) SUE for Much More than the original cost
4) PROFIT!!
First to market: Corporate natural selection (Score:4, Insightful)
Only after this first wave of a new kind of product do companies "learn from the mistakes of the past" (translation: we can do it right this time because customers finally expect to wait on a proper product).
Capitalism is wonderful, but as with anything run by humans, it has its challenges.
Diebold is the sacrificial lamb in this case. There's no way that history could have turned out any other way. If it hadn't been Diebold, it would have been someone else doing the same crap job and then getting sued by CA. They were the lucky ones who got to market first and the unlucky ones who got caught at doing what they and all of their competitors were doing. As usual, some other company will soon come along and produce a slightly better machine, etc.
Re:First to market: Corporate natural selection (Score:2)
But even then, there's bound to be some jackass who tries to take the shortcut and ruins things for themselves and everyone else. The only way to deal with THAT is to have stricter testing.
Not to troll but... (Score:2)
But back to what I was saying, California knows that if Diebold violates the contract, they can sue. If this was done by
Guess... (Score:4, Funny)
Not Approved? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not approved? WTF, why would any vendor, save a car mechanic, do anything without the customer's approval? Especially in the case of a multi-million dollar rollout of such a large product. I call bullshiat, I bet Diebold has many signed approvals by authorized members of the government
Re:Not Approved? (Score:3, Insightful)
I call bullshit too, but on Diebold. This isn't the start of it; this was reported and investigated months ago. Diebold *did* install untested software on many of their voting machines. They had a specific list of build numbers that were authorized. They ignored this list.
This is well-known, and well-documented. Diebold tried to pull a fast one, fucked up the engine of democracy, and tried
who needs a brain when you have lawsuits? (Score:2)
what's up with the apologists? (Score:3)
Several things wrong with that statement. The first thing wrong is simple: you can't scrutinize the product, because the source code was hidden. Second, the product that Diebold deployed was not always the same product that the elections commission in CA had vetted.
The problem is simple: Diebold promised one thing, and delivered another.
Diebold's job was to sell their product. It was the customers job to decide if they needed it, and
Finally (Score:3, Insightful)
Well well well... (Score:2, Informative)
(okay, so I'm a little biased.)
In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
How can we tell people about electronic voting? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is quite possibly the most important US domestic issue this year, and feel that the word needs to get out about this, so we can try to fix what we can before it's too late [blackboxvoting.org]. Unfortunately, I haven't been successful thus far. Has anybody else had better luck?
Problems with Explaining eVoting to Non-techies (Score:3, Insightful)
To be more blunt here, I think I understand her issues more than she understan
Re:How can we tell people about electronic voting? (Score:5, Insightful)
See "The boy who cried wolf".
See "The Y2K bug will destroy civilisation so you better stock up on cans of food and bottled water and shotgun ammunition, and a bunker in the middle of nowhere would be good too..."
Of course you personally probably didn't do the wolf crying but the media did and people know nothing happened (and don't believe that the people working to fix problems might have had something to do with that).
Also the "fear of computers" has been reduced by the wide acceptance of ATMs. After all if the banks trust them with huge amounts of money, why shouldn't I with voting]?[*]
* Of course banks don't want to lose money and don't gain anything from ATM fraud. The makers of the machines could steal lots of money but the banks would notice... Whereas with voting the machine makers and the election runners (or a section of them) can be working together to rig the vote - a very different, and much harder to secure situation.
Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how much longer... (Score:3, Insightful)
someone please correct me if i am wrong but...
this suit and the carnage over it began some time back with diebold's documents being leaked onto the net and posted just about everywhere.
the following articles will jar some memories...
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/29/0
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/17/2
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/22/0
and there are many more on this topic, http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=103&query=diebo
basically...the new features prposed in the upcoming versions of windows and ms-office, plus the pending legislation before congress would protect the company and will kill this kind of information from being leaked.
once those leaks are sealed and only authorized eyes see these documents, you can bet that whistleblowing on nefarious activities will come to a halt.
Let the AG know! (Score:3, Informative)
What about conspiracy to commit election fraud? (Score:5, Informative)
Why isn't the attorney general taking them to court over that?
Re:What about conspiracy to commit election fraud? (Score:3, Informative)
Totally untrue. "Conspiracy to commit crime X" is a crime in its own right, totally seperate from crime X.
Conspiracy is the crime of "conspiring" or agreeing with someone to do something which, if actually carried out, would constitute another crime or offense. Since the crime of conspiracy is merely the plan or agreement to commit crime X, it is not necessary for
Screenshots showing how to hack election (Score:3, Informative)
If we can't get remove these systems (or give them paper trails) by November, perhaps we can instead follow the steps ourselves? Actually, we wouldn't even need to click through MS Access as shown above -- a quick little Visual Basic script would do the trick. It'd be neat if the US had Michael Badnarik [wikipedia.org] and Ralph Nader [wikipedia.org] as President and Vice President for the next four years.
Download the election software to try at home! (Score:4, Informative)
Also on the page is Election Support Guide [equalccw.com] for Diebold staff pulling support duties at the elections. It includes such gems as:
The AccuFeed is often sensitive to the orientation, size, and print quality of the ballot.. AccuFeed units tend to reflect varying behavior in terms of speed and quality of processing. Familiarize yourself with the functioning of the AccuFeed before the election if it will be used in the election. Do not offer information as to the AccuFeed's shortcomings to the jurisdiction, even where obvious.
Re:Download the election software - author's reply (Score:5, Informative)
The information therein should be supplemented with this later data:
http://www.equalccw.com/deandemo.html
That's a "walkthrough" of the "hack demo" Bev Harris did with Howard Dean on CNBC a bit over a month ago. Complete with screenshots. It can be replicated with pieces downloaded from the "Dieboldtestnotes" page.
Putting the actual code and sample data online REALLY pissed Diebold off something fierce; they filed a cease'n'desist notice against my ISP.
Which did NOT succeed in taking my site down; on the contrary, mine is the only site to have completely survived a Diebold C&D with no downtime.
To see how I pulled that trick off:
http://www.equalccw.com/liebold.html
My main "Diebold page" is at:
http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.html - the "Dean Demo" page will be linked from there soon (prolly tomorrow).
Jim March
Wider implications ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of the story: the OTHER plaintiffs (Score:4, Informative)
This is the March/Harris lawsuit. Lockyer has decided to "join in", bringing the government in as a co-plaintiff.
At around 10:30am today, Lowell Finley (our lawyer) calls me with the news that Lockyer and the AG's office have decided to join the suit Bev Harris and I filed all the way back in October. Lockyer and company have taken this long to decide whether or not to jump in.
Their decision to do so is VERY welcome by myself, Bev and our lawyer.
Here's the repercussions:
* Bev, Lowell and myself will be splitting 15% of any winnings, versus 30% if we had to prosecute this on our own.
* We ain't complaining, first because we were never in this for the money and second because Diebold is much more likely to settle early, confronted with Lockyer's legal staff instead of just Lowell. MAYBE they'll cave in before the November election, which would be great.
* Second, our odds of any sort of win is now better.
* Third, Lockyer has sent notice to the REST of the Diebold customer counties in California that they can "join in the fun". So this could spread beyond Alameda County, the original gov't entity that Bev, Lowell and I filed on behalf of.
* This idea of suing Diebold for fraud becomes the alternative to what Solano County decided to do: pay $415,000 in their case to get out of their Diebold contract! (Note: Solano's settlement means it's TOO LATE to join in the March/Harris/Lockyer lawsuit and solution. There's a fair chance Lockyer announced all this today to prevent any more "Solano-style" mistakes.)
Other bits:
The AG's staff are promising Lowell that they are NOT getting into this in order to "sabotage the case and settle early for peanuts". They *could* do that but I believe them that they aren't.
The fact that this is being done as a "whistleblower suit" by two private citizens strongly HELPS the government versus a situation where they did it themselves, even when you factor in the small "bounty" to Bev, Lowell and myself. This is because the whistleblower laws include a triple damages provision if we can prove fraud. This becomes a "big stick" to threaten Diebold into settlement with (for less than triple damages; we'll be OK with actual costs returned plus 15% so that the gov't agencies get "made whole" despite the 15% cut.)
Without whistleblowers, first off the gov't wouldn't have had the data to do this at all and even if we just gave them the data "for free", the gov't wouldn't have the damage tripler "stick".
Finally, the question WILL come up (and already has among these replies): "Is all this legit? Did Diebold REALLY screw up here in a fashion worth suing over?"
My answer to that is at this new page showing the actual vote fraud rigged into Diebold's central tabulator software via screenshots of actual Diebold code and database structures:
http://www.equalccw.com/deandemo.html
That is all I need to say about the basic morality of this lawsuit.
Jim March / jmarch@prodigy.net
Jesus Christ (Score:5, Informative)
But, let's all yammer about California suing them while ignoring the huge revelations that have happened in the last two weeks WRT Diebold.
Re:Jesus Christ - the BlackBoxVoting connection (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
Yup - Lockyer didn't FILE suit, he joined in the one by Bev Harris (Executive Director of BlackBoxVoting.org) and myself (Member of the Board of Directors, same org).
AP keeps reporting that I'm a "programmer". Not true, I've tried to correct that several times now (I'm a former LAN sysadmin/tech support type).
You can see an alternate version of Bev's "cheat code problem" described with screenshots here:
http://www.equalccw.com/deandemo.html
See also my other posts in this thread for more of the background by one of the OTHER plaintiffs - Bill Lockyer is only the newest
NOTE: Bev and I demoed the same stuff as described in the link above to the California SecState's staff on August 18th of this year. Also present was an attorney from Lockyer's office. That may have been the final "tilt" Lockyer needed to join in; that or he saw how Solano County hosed themselves by paying Diebold $415,000 to go away less than two weeks ago.
Jim March
The BIGGER issue... (Score:3, Informative)
Hacking democracy [baltimoresun.com]
No security, or even backdoors? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're assuming that there is a company with a good voting machine package available and the ability to ramp up production quickly. From what I've read, the only reason most states are even looking at these machines are because they're being forced to do so by a stupid, reactionary federal law inspired by the 2000 FL problems. Here in Washington state, our government has been aggressively attacking the voting machine manufacturers because none of them make a good product but we have to buy at least one electronic voting machine per county by either 2006 or 2008 (I forget) or break federal law.
This is a clear case of reactionary legislation mandating solutions worse than the problems.
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:5, Informative)
Only the Federally approved "Independent Testing Authorities" (ITAs) are allowed to see voting product source code. In the case of Diebold, this was Wyle Labs and Ciber Inc. (formerly "Metamor"), both in Huntsville Alabama and often relying on the same pool of employees. These agencies are approved for this "certification" process by the Federal Elections Commission.
These two acted as the "Arthur Andersons" to Diebold's "Enron".
We know that in at least two cases Diebold specifically decieved the testing labs. We have Diebold's internal memos in which managers instructed lower-level people to lie to the labs; in one case Ken Clark (Sr. Engineer and head of the tech support group) didn't think that the BS they were to pass off would fly, but the report came back from the underling that it did.
For detailed quotes of all this and technical analysis, see also my first two letters to the California Secretary of State, archived in the yellow table, right column:
http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.html
Without the ability to even see source code, it's rather hard to blame anybody in California for this fiasco.
Diebold on the other hand had a contractual duty to provide software that obeys the Federal certification process sans fraud AND California's election laws (which require high-security products). They blew off both contractual elements, so this isn't "tort law", it's "contract law", a much more cast-in-stone (and legitimate) area of law.
Jim March / jmarch@prodigy.net
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:3, Funny)
Having some software knowledge among decision makers helps. For example, my state legislator used to work at Microsoft. He was the program manager for Access. His reaction to the idea of using Access to count votes is, umm, direct and to the point.
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for not dragging a corporation through the courts because youy have a beef with their practices- thats THE FUCKING PURPOSE OF A COURT SYSTEM. If you think someone is breaking the law, you bring them to court and see if the judge agrees. You think when someone lies about there product and commits fraud, we shouldn't sue their asses for our money back? We sure as hell should.
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but when you are dealing with the government, and you have been given the task of designing something that is secure and does not have security flaws, then you either better:
A) Damn well do it
B) Don't even bother trying and tell them that
Otherwise you have now said you are doing something, and you are not. That is fraud. Mandrake, Suse, Windows, et al, have never claimed that their products are secure. They are claiming that they are increasing security, but they
Re:Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows XP is another kettle of fish, but I think they should be responsible for their flaws as well. Its not secure and its a
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:5, Informative)
How would you know? It's closed-source, trade-secret code.
> and it's only because of relentless pounding that a periodic vulnerability is found.
If you actually bother to read the sordid history of Diebold's voting products, you'll see they've been bug-ridden and insecure from the get-go. Yay for our MS Access-backed product!
"For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the last AT/AV demo."
Read the memos at any number of sites, like http://www.hacksonville.org/diebold/ [hacksonville.org]
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a voting machine any different than a pacemaker? If a pacemaker fails, you die. Consider that every election features some real whacko candidates. What if voting machines conspired to elect a whacko to presidental office? Do you really want to think how many people would be killed if we a madman in the Whitehouse?
The problem is that Diebold assured the technically inept California voting folks that they were perfectly able to build a good system. And then lied. And have been knowingly breaking the law. And are trying to still profit from this by charging as much as possible for printers so that there is a verifiable paper record of the votes, to fix *their* decided security holes.
I mean, really, do you *know* that they haven't been inserting loopholes? Of course not. There's a variety of ways that they can mess with the machines. We just don't know and, since each voter has neither the ability nor the knowlege to dissassemble their voting machine to ensure that it is properly recording votes, we *can't* know.
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:5, Funny)
Do you really want to think how many people would be killed if we a madman in the Whitehouse?
I know some might answer that question "Over a thousand and still counting...." ;) *innocent whistle*
Re:Is this the right way to go about it? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would agree except for the slam technically inept California voting folks.
The California Secretary of State, and the local county
How about simply... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about simply that the product was supposed to work correctly as it was claimed to do before the sale.
All technology vendors need to be foreced to quit hiding behind some software EULA that allows them to escape being held liable when their stuff don't work right. If it takes charging them with fraud, then so be it.
Re:How about simply... (Score:3, Interesting)
If they want to "hide" behind the EULA then so be it. The customer should read it. If you don't agree to the EULA, then don't buy the product, simple as that.
This whole thing is just a bunch of socialists using the liberal biased court system to attack a tax-paying company. A company that actually does something for this country i
Re:How about simply... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why there are libel laws. And slander. And disparagement.
This is why there are perjury laws.
This is why there are laws against speech that is intended and does result in violence.
This is why there are laws against fraud, and deceit.
This is why there are invasion of privacy laws.
And this is why there are laws against false advertising.
(To clarify, so no one tries to jump on me, almost all of these are civil rather than
Re:California / Business -- Not a good combo (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. Just do not try to pull a scam. They will nail you. There were a number of real reasons why Enron was located in Texas and not all of them had to do with Oil.
Re:In other news . . . (Score:2)
Re:Logical fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
How could anyone have bought a system with poor security and no accountabilty for voting?
Re:4 more years of Dubya guaranteed? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK.
Everybody is looking at how Diebold "Corporate" in Canton OH (the parent company) is riddled with Bush/GOP links. And that's true.
But it's NOT true of Global Election Systems, the Canadian company that Diebold bought in 2002 and renamed "Diebold Election Systems" (still based in Vancouver BC to this day). Diebold corp of Ohio had been investing slightly before buying them outright but the investments do NOT go all the way back to Oct. of 2000.
Late Oct. 2000, GEMS version 1.17.5 was released. Per Bev Harris, this was the earliest version she could find that had the "double set of books" hack in it apparantly designed for election fraud. See also:
http://www.equalccw.com/deandemo.html
Early Oct. of 2000, Global hired a new head programmer for GEMS: Jeffrey Dean.
During the mid to late '80s, Dean embezzled more than $400,000 from a Seattle law firm he was doing computer consulting for. Dean was convicted in the early '90s of 23 counts of computer-aided accounting fraud in what the court called a "sophisticated scheme".
How did he end up hooked up with Global?
He shared a jail cell with another of the founders during the '90s.
Upshot: Global appears to have been run by a genuine bunch of crooks. *Not* political crooks, just plain ol' crooks. Diebold corporate didn't do enough background checks at the time of the buyout and I doubt they understood what sort of pirates they'd swallowed.
I can't be sure of course, 'cuz maybe the Canton boys DID know what they were getting involved in. But if they didn't, then the whole "Bush/GOP connection thing" that the Diebold Corporate people in Ohio are now famous for was a deeply unfortunate coincidence and God only *knows* what's going to happen in November!
Keeerist.
Think this is unlikely?
The big MONEY in election fraud involves rigging *local* elections, esp. building projects, construction bonds and the like. And people don't pay near the attention to that like they do national races.
I suspect that's what Global was really after. And I suspect keeping a secret all the way up to the Bush White House would be...unmanagable and dangerous as hell.
Am I certain Bush is "clean" (of this, at any rate)? Hell no. I *do* know that a heck of a lot of Democrats in various places have pushed for Diebold (starting with Georgia) and I know that county election officials can use the "cheats" Diebold built in very damned easily. Guys, I've personally seen MS-Access loaded onto GEMS boxes within counties - Fresno County's elections staff let me peek at their systems some months back (but the MS-Access was an older version (97) not compatible with the more recent GEMS databases so any ill with it happened some time ago, not recent).
Anyways. I don't want to end up betting on whether or not Diebold will "win out" in "hacking contests" with county elections officials
Jim March