League of Women Voters & disability groups bought off, lobby for Diebold

[RandomUser]

"The NY Times has a great editorial today calling out the League of Women Voters for their counter-productive lobbying against verified voting. The article states that Diebold voting systems has given lots of dough to these opposition groups." There's an AP story about the issue as well.

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/06/11/171209.shtml?tid=103&tid=126&tid=...
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Apparently the leadership people of groups like LWV and disability rights groups are being bought off by Diebold monetary gifts and are lobbying in support of Diebold. From the text of the NYT article:

Last year, the American Association of People With Disabilities gave its Justice for All award to Senator Christopher Dodd, an author of the Help America Vote Act, a post-2000 election reform law. Mr. Dodd, who has actively opposed paper trails, then appointed Jim Dickson, an association official, to the Board of Advisors of the Election Assistance Commission, where he will be in a good position to oppose paper trails at the federal level. In California, a group of disabled voters recently sued to undo the secretary of state's order decertifying the electronic voting machines that his office had found to be unreliable.

Some supporters of voter-verifiable paper trails question whether disability-rights groups have gotten too close to voting machine manufacturers. Besides the donation by Diebold to the National Federation of the Blind, there have been other gifts. According to Mr. Dickson, the American Association of People with Disabilities has received $26,000 from voting machine companies this year.

[pennylane100]

1. That is really shocking

I always thought the LVW was a credible organization. It seems that
nothing is sacred anymore.

[RandomUser]

2. In all fairness, the problem is at the leadership level

Many of the local chapters of LVW are looking to overthrow the current leadership at the next elections.

[AP]

7. Don't trust any organization which relies on corporate donations.

Don't even trust NGOs in developing countries.

I read about one that gets money from Monsanto so they force any farmer they assist to accept Monsanto seeds.

[bleedingheart]

3. The League of Women Voters is desparate for cash

I used to belong to the organization until their non-partisan line started to make it almost impossible to do anything...in our chapter most of the members were active Democrats but all it took was a few republicans and any efforts to change or do anything constructive were squashed if the repukes thought it was too "liberal"...grrrr...

But I did go to a state wide meeting and found that they are dwindling in numbers and there aren't that many people involved and they were really worried about membership and money...so they are vulnerable.

[Trajan]

4. WTF is up with Dodd ? ...

HE is a Democrat: WTF is he doing ??? ...

Democrats SHOULD be barking up his tree for this treachery ...

[LittleApple81]

5. It looks like his name should be Dudd. or Mudd. n/t

[OneBlueSky]

6. interesting research project . . . did Dodd get Diebold $? . . . n/t

.

[AP]

8. Until there's real campaign finance reform...

...it's hard to figure out who to trust.