Former GOP-Repub Party Chairman-Contracted to Deliver*DIEBOLD*E-Voting Machines in Maryland (WIRED)

GOP Figure Contracted to Deliver E-Voting Machines in Maryland
By Kim Zetter 01.16.08 | 8:00 PM


A family-owned trucking firm that has a contract to deliver Diebold electronic voting machines to 14 voting districts in Maryland is headed by the former chairman of Maryland's Republican party, Wired News has learned.

Office Movers, which is owned by The Kane Company in Elkridge, Maryland, received the contract from Diebold Election Systems to transport the company's machines from warehouses to the polls for the state's Feb. 12 primary and November general election.

John M. Kane, president and CEO of The Kane Company, was chairman of the Maryland Republican Party from the end of 2002 until December 2006. He is also a member of the statewide steering committee for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. According to one news report, Kane has been tasked since last month with raising money for Romney in Maryland, a Democratic stronghold. His wife is a delegate on the Republican primary ballot for Romney rival Rudy Giuliani.

Even in this tumultuous election season, the company's political affiliations might not raise conflict-of-interest questions were it delivering old-fashioned voting machines. But the Diebold touch-screen voting machines used in Maryland produce no paper trail and have experienced glitches that have invited close scrutiny after previous elections. A report compiled by the elections office in Montgomery County, Maryland, (immediately northwest of the District of Columbia) after the 2004 presidential election revealed that 189 machines (7 percent) there failed on election day. Of these machines, 58 wouldn't boot up and were taken out of service, and another 106 experienced frozen screens. Other counties have experienced problems with the machines as well.

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2008/01/john_kane
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2710288&mesg_id=2710288

You can't make this stuff up.