Help me with these questions...How is SAIC connected to Diebold?

[Gin]

also does anyone have info on Virginia Information Technology Agency
VITA?

I received a response from Gov. Warner's office regarding my concerns for the Diebold machines and no paper audit trail. The woman who respoonded says..VITA is going to evaluate the SAIC independent review of Marylands voting machines.

Key member of the VA. State Board of Elections staff will be attending a conference in December sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology on voting system integrity.

Gin

[DBoon]

1. try these

http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/security/23092-1.html

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0308/S00145.htm

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/Landes_SAIC-VoteHere-Diebold.htm

[Gin]

2. thanks

gin

[DBoon]

3. More

http://www.gazette.net/200340/business/news/181127-1.html

[LunaC]

4. Conflicts of interest

Consider Maryland, for example. The state decided to spend more than $50 million to place Diebold machines in 19 counties. A few days later, researchers from Rice and Johns Hopkins universities announced that the machines' computer code was vulnerable to tampering. Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. ordered SAIC to review the allegations. After the review was completed, Gov. Ehrlich announced that the purchase would go forward as planned, and Diebold announced some additional security measures.


Then, this Monday, the Maryland General Assembly ordered its own review of the machines, and a "review of the review," conducted by SAIC, to look for "outside influence." Leading the campaign for the review are Democrats, Senator Paula C. Hollinger and Delegate Sheila E. Hixson.

Charges of bias have been made on each side. A university researcher in the original study was reported to have a conflict of interest - an un-exercised stock option in a competing voting machine company. SAIC and Diebold, according to an article in yesterday's Baltimore Sun, are both members of the Information Technology Association of America's Information Security Committee, and a former SAIC president sits on the board of a company that competes with Diebold.

http://www.govtech.net/news/news.phtml?docid=2003.10.22-74069


Gilbert J. Genn, who is registered to lobby on behalf of Diebold Election Systems, the manufacturer of the electronic voting machines, is also authorized to represent Science Applications International Corp. Genn claims there is no conflict of interest since he was not
involved in securing the contract to SAIC.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-voting0927,0,1771648.story?coll=bal-local-headlines


SAIC is talking about investing $5 million in voting machine vendor Hart InterCivic. Their
evaluation of Diebold's machines for Ohio just got cancelled because of it.

This conflict further explains SAIC's biased evaluation of Diebold's equipment in Maryland,
since they wouldn't want to raise problems that might apply to ALL electronic voting
machines. Why didn't SAIC reveal this conflict of interest to the State of Maryland? Or did
Maryland ignore it.

SAIC was being considered to help conduct the security review of Ohio's newly-certified
voting machines. But then the office of Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell discovered
that an arm of SAIC had promised to make a $5 million investment that would benefit Hart
Intercivic, one of four voting machine vendors qualified to sell voting machines to Ohio
counties.

Blackwell said his office's procedures for identifying potential conflicts "surfaced a potential
area of conflict that saved us from embarrassment and probably legal
entanglements."

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1064914213164350.xml

[Gin]

5. thanks..I will fax the information today...

gin