Guest Blogged by John Gideon
Today Oneonta, NY’s The Daily Star reported that Chris Zachmeyer, executive director of the Catskill Center For Independence, said Tuesday that voting-machine manufacturers have tried to contribute money to her organization, which has given testimony on which voting machines Otsego County should buy.
“I told them, ’I’d love to take your money, but I can’t,”’ Zachmeyer said. “Those were my words exactly, and I would love to take their money because they’ve got deep pockets and we’re a small agency.”
“But to what end?” Zachmeyer asked. “We would lose any credibility that we ever had, and no amount of money is worth it.
“We exist totally on our credibility,” she said. “If people don’t trust what we have to say, we might as well lock our doors and go home.”
But with “millions of dollars at stake” it may well be that “back-door deals” may have been made as Voting Machine companies may be paying disabilities groups to testify on their behalf. It wouldn’t be the first time.
As the article goes on to report…
The issue of manufacturers using their money to influence agencies arose at a public hearing held by the Otsego County Board of Elections on Friday. For that hearing, Zachmeyer wrote a letter asking the county’s elections commissioners to consider buying direct recording electronic machines made by Sequoia Voting Machines.
After Zachmeyer’s letter was read, Hank Nicols, the county’s Democratic elections commissioner, said the BOE had received a letter from Adrian Kuzminski, of Fly Creek, saying that some agencies purporting to represent disabled people have been paid surreptitiously to lobby for DREs.
WiredNews reporter Kim Zetter reported on October 12, 2004 the following:
When asked in April, Jim Dickson, vice president of government affairs for the AAPD, told Wired News his organization had never received money from voting companies. But in June, he told The New York Times the organization had gotten money.
Dickson didn’t disclose the gifts at hearings in California this year, where he tried to convince officials not to decertify touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold and other companies. Nor did he disclose the information in Washington in May when he participated in hearings with the federal Election Assistance Commission.
In the same article she reported:
Clearly there was money changing hands and there probably still is.
John……..This is what I was talking about in my post in the daily voting news. A bunch of corrupt MOFOS trying to buy themselves an election. You know there a not a lot of ethical people that would walk away from a bribe. I hope Chris Zachmeyer continues to be one of the good guys!
That’s not the only money that is being spent to manipulate the process. Here’s one reason why Accupoll wasn’t able to succeed in the market as well as the deep pocket competitors.
The only voting machine company exhibiting machines here that had good quality paper paper ballots from the beginning was Accupoll. They couldn’t afford the “pay to play” scheme here in Utah.
Voting officials came up with a requirement for voting machine companies to pay one million dollars up front in August 2004, or be excluded from consideration.
Doug Richins, the state’s director of purchasing at the time said “It’s so bidders don’t offer frivolous bids”.
By all means, let’s not let frivolous bids get in the way of Democracy Doug!
This puts a whole new meaning on the phrase “Hire The Handicapped”.
Disgusting!
Women Seize TV Station in Oaxaca, Mexico
– By REBECA ROMERO, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
“About 500 women banging spoons against pots and pans seized a state-run television station and broadcast a homemade video Wednesday that showed police kicking protesters out of Oaxaca’s main square last month.
The women took control of Oaxaca’s Channel 9 station Tuesday and held employees for about six hours before releasing them. It was unclear how long the siege would last and police were nowhere to be seen near the station Wednesday.
The standoff is the latest by demonstrators who accuse Gov. Ulises Ruiz of rigging his 2004 election victory and violently repressing opposition groups…”
Can we please send a delegation to Mexico so they can teach us a few things?!
link
At My local city college [wiki:sacramento city college] i saw tubes going into mouths to control laptops. (This was back in the NT4 days, although I don’t recall the OS that was running, nobody at that college KNEW what NT4 was.) We have come a long way since then (1990’s.)
My point is, the disabled no matter how badly disabled can control a device to print a ballot.
IF the true spirit of HAVA is to help voters, then they should be hell of aware of the security issues now. With the current knowledge they should really take a step back and consider, how dangerous allowing electronic binary into our elections is.
They can’t possibly watch all spectrums and all networks, and validate all electronics on election day.
Not even GOD can.
Hell just listen to all the latest 911 tapes, people were scrambled in chaos trying to figure out what 5000+ aircraft were doing on that day.
If they keep pushing their agenda it is clear that they are corrupt.
Elections are something that does not need to be RUSHED.
Who was it Jessie Jackson said it ought to be a week!
I say remove the
ELECTRONICS
DIGITIZED DATA
NETWORKS
count on paper and physically deliver an accurate result.
What is it 96 days left now?
Hell I could print ballots for my precint by then!
I don’t know why they would go under the table … their legacy is to do it right out in the open.
John,
You are Mr. Eagle Eyes! Good work.
Let’s remind the folks too, that Diebold and the National Federation of the Blind have what Diebold termed (on the Diebold website) “a strategic partnership.”
After Diebold wrote NFB a $1 million check for its building fund, NFB endorsed not only electronic voting machines, but specifically Diebold machines, on the NFB website.
And, in the general realm of money changing hands, there was this:
Vendor’s donation questioned
Diebold rep gave $10,000 to county GOP
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Doug Caruso , Joe Hallett and Robert Vitale
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://www.dispatch.com/electio...l&chck=t/
A contractor who represents Diebold Election Systems arrived at the office of Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder with an open checkbook on the same day the county was opening bids for voter-registration software.
Pasquale “Pat” Gallina arrived unannounced, Damschroder said.
“I’m here to give you $10,000,” the elections director recalls Gallina saying. “Who do I make it payable to?”
“Well, you’re certainly not going to make it out to me,” Damschroder says he told Gallina. “But I’m sure the Franklin County Republican Party would appreciate a donation.”
Gallina wrote the check, and Damschroder says he took it on Jan. 9, 2004. That weekend, Damschroder said, he mailed the check to the county party. Damschroder had been executive director of the party until June 2003, when he was appointed director of the elections board.
Diebold, the highest of four bidders, didn’t get the software contract, and Damschroder says he never recommended the company.
Gallina said yesterday that the $10,000 was his money and had nothing to do with Diebold. He said he’s always supported county Republican parties in areas where he lives.
“I donate to Licking and to Franklin,” he said.
The check incident remained between Gallina and Damschroder until late last month when an assistant county prosecutor called Damschroder. Election Systems & Software, a company that is suing Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell over the state’s policies for buying electronic voting machines, wanted to talk with Damschroder about allegations that Diebold was paying to play, the prosecutor told him.
Damschroder told him about the $10,000 check and had another story to tell.
In May, he said, Gallina called him and bragged about a $50,000 check he had written to Blackwell’s “political interests.”
“Isn’t it great that Diebold and the county are going to do business?” he says Gallina asked him.
Damschroder said Gallina went on to tell him that he had met with Norm Cummings, a Blackwell campaign consultant, in Washington, D.C., to work out a deal: Diebold would cut the price of its electronic voting machines to $2,700 each if the company had a guarantee that it would receive all of the state’s business.
“Then Gallina tells me that he then wrote a check for $50,000 to Blackwell’s political interests.”
Carlo LoParo, Blackwell’s spokesman, called Damschroder’s assertions “wild accusations” and said, “You can’t point me to anything that substantiates what he says.”
LoParo acknowledged that Gallina had contributed to Blackwell’s campaigns since 1998 – Blackwell received $8,000 from Gallina during that period – but denied that any of Blackwell’s campaign interests received $50,000 from Diebold or Gallina. Blackwell is running for governor.
“I have no idea why he (Damschroder) would say anything like that other than that every encounter we’ve had with Matt Damschroder has shown a little bit about his character,” LoParo said.
Gallina would not say yesterday whether he wrote a $50,000 check to any organization associated with Blackwell. He would say only that all of his donations are public record. He would not say whether he wrote a $50,000 check to a 527 organization, which does not have to report donations, or to a political fund that has not yet been required to disclose its financial statements this year.
He blamed rival election machine vendor ES&S and racism for the allegations. He is of Italian descent, and Blackwell is black.
“A lot of this has been racially driven, a lot of it is vendordriven,” he said. …
Joan #4
I hope they made a video of the takeover of that TV station. I would kill to see that.
V for Vendetta with spoons and pans! It just doesn’t get any better then that!