Reply #21: Have you seen this pamphlet, "The Business of Elections"?

[Peace Patriot]

available in pdf, at

http://electionline.org/Publications/tabid/86/Default.aspx

The Business of Elections
electionline.org's eighth election reform briefing provides the first nonpartisan and non-advocacy look at the political activities of election machine companies.
Released August 2004

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I'm just giving it a review. It's about the companies and the money. It appears to be a whitewash. This is from p. 5.

" Previously dominated by a handful of companies, the market for electronic voting machines has expanded to 19 known vendors competing for multi-million dollar state and local contracts. 3 electionline.org’s analysis suggests that as the manufacturers joust for market share around the country, there is no industry-wide partisan trend to political contributions. And, in fact, these contributions might not have been that significant in the burgeoning election machine market that has developed in the last three years."

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They even whitewash Diebold, after admitting its huge contribution to Republicans. They say it's distributed over all their business sectors, not focused on voting machines (--but what does THAT tell us about Diebold, that all their business in dependent on Republican good will?)

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In their charts of voting machine company contributions to political campaigns, they have ES&S about 50/50 Dem/Repub, overall.

Jeez. Will dig further to see if they any useful info.

But my server is very, ve-e-e-e-ry slow today, and I also have probs with incomplete pdf downloads. Will scan what I can, and see if it's helpful.

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Still working through that Google list... Found this:

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sb_11_cfa_20050315_111606_sen_comm.html

(In Calif, ES&S contributed $10,000 to state office campaigs in 2001-2002)

2.Are Voting Equipment Vendors Making Campaign
Contributions? According to a report from
electionline.org in August 2004, the main electronic
voting equipment manufacturers (Diebold, ES&S, Hart
InterCivic, and Sequoia) contributed $656,120 between
2001 and 2003 to candidates running for office across the
country, including four candidates for Secretary of
State. In California, Sequoia donated $8,000 to
candidates for state office in 2001-02, while ES&S made
$10,000 in contributions to candidates for state office
in 2001-02.

and this...

http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=News&storyid=136981

Arkansas Sec of State Charlie Daniels awarded ES&S a $15 million contract, even though Diebold's scored higher on the bid, and even though the Daniels-appointed committee could not decide between the companies, then it turns out ES&S contributed $712 in-kind food to Daniels campaign, and ES&S hired a friend of Daniels’, lobbyist Andy Crawford of Little Rock, to work on its behalf.

Daniels opponent said, "“When it comes to decisions made by the secretary of state and the management of the off ice, there are definite questions of trust and ethics.”

From the article:

"Crawford registered as a lobbyist for ES&S on Oct. 15, 2003, and removed the firm from his list of clients on his lobbyist registration on July 21 of this year, according to the secretary of state’s office. The office issued a request for proposals for new voting machines on July 11 of this year, according to the committee’s report. But Ken Fields, a spokesman for ES&S, said the firm hired Crawford under an agreement that expired in March of this year. Crawford 'has not been subsequently engaged,' he said. Crawford said ES&S hired him to learn who the decisionmakers are in Arkansas and about the process. He introduced the firm’s officials to Daniels and Daniels’ aide Harris. 'I worked with them through the voter registration
"In January, Daniels decided to award a separate $ 4. 9 million contract for a new statewide voter registration system to ES&S...."

--even though the competing bid was lower. The Daniels-appointed committee agreed with this decision.

Daniels admits to being friends with both the ES&S and Diebold lobbyists. All in all, it's a picture of over-coziness between public employee purchasers and the corporations, with a bad smell to it--like we've seen elsewhere. (--in Los Angeles, for instance; boy, does that situation smell!)