Diebold execs gave to GOP despite ban

[kpete]

Diebold execs gave to GOP despite ban
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus

-- Money from three Diebold executives began trickling into two Republican campaigns last August, just two months after the voting-machine maker banned political giving by a handful of its top brass.

News of the donations came as a voluminous election-reform bill was set to clear a key Ohio Senate committee late Wednesday, bearing evidence of continued political strife over what constituted the worst problems in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.

Republican lawmakers, indignant over suggestions that President Bush's victories are somehow suspect, used the measure to crack down on potential abuse of the election system.

The proposal - likely to win Senate approval soon - mandates that all voters show identification to vote, makes it tougher to get a constitutional amendment on Ohio's ballot, and severely limits the scope of voter registration drives.

Democrats left the room still insisting the biggest problems in the past two national elections were voter disenfranchisement and unreliable technology, for which they see Diebold as a poster child.

http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/ispol/113404509095010.xml?ispol&coll=2

[acmavm]

1. Republican lawmakers have NO BUSINESS being indignant over

anything resembling corruption. They have turned corruption into an art form.

[acmejack]

2. False outrage is their biggest tool!

They are always outraged over something, giving them the opportunity to ignore issues that really merit righteous anger.