Diebold up to no good in North Carolina

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 saying 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

We must continue to hold their feet to the fire and never let them forget that we are aware, and watching them!

kick...

Who said I should contact the North Carolina Party State Chair and Party Chair. This local NC group is fighting the Diebold litigation.

which way he's going to vote. The voting method will be the highest cost, most software- and other technology intensive method which gives the most money to a private corporation for the longest term possible and with the fewest protections for the taxpayers and the voters in terms of rights of termination, saving money, and probably protecting votes.

What kind of response is "he's not biased because he didn't just work for Diebold, he's worked for ALL the e-voting companies"?

Where are the government officials who don't have conflicsts of opinion or start from the position of being skeptical of the products they're being asked to assess so that they pose the hard questions and demand the most protections for the citizens of the state?

When you're embeded with a group of people, you tend to sympathize with them and it's a little strange that the one guy they chose to make this decision was embeded with the companies and not with the voters.

as far as I can see. They are fighting the suit like BushCo fights on behalf civil rights law suits.

EFF has now entered the fray and has sued both Diebold and the SBoE.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5392032&mesg_id=5392032

apprised of this. Please let us know about any further developments that may arise.