The Weasel and The Lioness

[Kelvin Mace]

From AP

One of the nation's leading suppliers of electronic voting machines may decide against selling new equipment in North Carolina after a judge declined Monday to protect it from criminal prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by state law.

Diebold Inc., which makes automated teller machines and security and voting equipment, is worried it could be charged with a felony if officials determine the company failed to make all of its code some of which is owned by third-party software firms, including Microsoft Corp. available for examination by election officials in case of a voting mishap.

The requirement is part of the minimum voting equipment standards approved by state lawmakers earlier this year following the loss of more than 4,400 electronic ballots in Carteret County during the November 2004 election. The lost votes threw at least one close statewide race into uncertainty for more than two months.

"We will obviously have no alternative but withdraw from the process," said Doug Hanna, a Raleigh-based lawyer representing North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold.

To which we say, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." Other vendors were able to comply with the law, so I see no reason to make and exception for you.

To me, the real issue is that Diebold does not want anyone to look at its code again. Why should they oppose an examination of their code which currently resides on the internet for all to see? Because they do not want anyone to see that they STILL have not cleaned up their shoddy code.

Why are we even talking to Diebold? This company has been caught in lie after lie and refuses to deal openly with the voters. This is a company who had FIVE convicted felons working in management. Well, to be fair, they worked for GES, the company Diebold bought, but Diebold continued to emply two of them even AFTER their past was brought out.

These are people who actually WROTE the shoddy code Diebold doesn't want us to see. Drug dealers and embezzelers. People who are not permitted by law to vote, writing software which counts YOUR vote. Now there's a recipe for democracy.

Diebold continued its pattern of arrogance yesterday when its attorney had the gall to cast aspersions on Joyce McCloy for running a grass roots campaign against a multi-billion dollar corporation. The voters of the North Carolina had one advocate group, Joyce's www.ncvoter.net which has run with NO money other than what volunteers have taken from their own pocket. Unlike some people I could name, Joyce does not even ask for donations to cover her time and expense and never has.

Diebold, on the other hand, has spent millions fighting her group and many others like hers. They have hired ITAA, a multi-million dollar lobbying firm to attack her and anyone else that DARED oppose the industry's atempt to fob off crappy, insecure voting machines on the voters. Diebold has harassed dozens of activists with bogus legal attacks claiming copyright infringement because they dared expose Diebold's questionable, and arguably illegal, activities.

Despite all their lawyers, money, and political clout, they have been thwarted by people like Joyce McCloy who had nothing on their side except the certainty that their cause was Right and Just.

I don't mean to shortchange some of the officials in NC who helped in this fight, epecially Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, Rep. Verla Insko, Sen. Austin Allran, and Rep. Susan Adams who took up the challenge and sponsored the law that Diebold tried to sidestep. Other volunteers also came up to bat for the voters, dedicating hundreds of hours of their time, like Justin Moore, Andy Silver, Janice Sears, Chuck Herrin, Warren Murphy, Joseph Waymack, Chris Telesca, Dennis Burns, and Bob Giudici, and many others I am forgetting. But in North Carolina, this fight started with Joyce McCloy, and she desrves the lioness' share of the credit.

I would like to ask you to join me in thanking Joyce McCloy for all of her incredibly hard work over the last two years, she is a true hero.

[sam sarrha]

1. this is VERY revealing about what has been going on..

[Kelvin Mace]

2. Well, it proves that we CAN win

that's for sure.