BBV: SAIC Gets The Sack In Ohio....

[althecat]

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1064914213164350.xml
Ohio replaces voting machine reviewer

09/30/03

Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau


Columbus - Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has replaced a firm slated to help conduct the security review of Ohio's newly certified voting machines - after his office discovered that the firm had a financial interest in one of the machine makers.

The decision followed his office's discovery that an arm of Science Applications International Corp. had promised to make a $5 million investment that would benefit Hart Intercivic.


***********

This week is starting to look like a goody for BBV...

There is also a nice report on an bit of direct community action here..
http://cornelldailysun.com/articles/9297/

Is it just me or is there a change of tone to all this... I really think Diebold may now be on the run. And if Ohio sacks SAIC for having a conflict of interest then what does that say about Maryland, not to mention GA which was planning on basing its whitewash on the MD report...

I can hear those walls a tumbling down :)

[punpirate]

1. The hack at Hart Intercivic may be...

... a means of clearing the way for Diebold.

The other pieces of news you mention are good, but I think GA is still not much affected as long as Cathy Cox is controlling the news from that state's SoS office.

The people in Ohio need to be asking their state reps why Diebold promised _temporary_ employment for Ohio workers to build the machines for Ohio. And, they need to be asking, why wasn't Diebold, an Ohio company, furthering Ohio jobs in the first place, instead of putting those jobs in North Carolina for the sake of a small improvement in profitability.... (???)

[DEMActivist]

2. GA won't be affected at all

Nope. These folks are in their own little make believe world of smoke and mirrors.

There's nothing wrong with these machines - it's just us paranoid, uninformed voters who are causing problems - ask any SoS employee in Georgia!!!!! They'll tell you!

As for the assembly of the computers in Ohio, let's understand that Diebold bought the plant when they bought Global. The ownership of that assembly plant goes back to pre-Diebold days. Not defending Diebold, just stating the facts.

on edit:
As for the original story, I'm not sure what to make of it. It appears to me that Diebold got the Ohio buddies to back off SAIC because SAIC didn't do them any favors and they're angry. I don't see that this is a positive - it just shows how much Diebold controls the puppet strings at the Ohio SoS.

And, oh yeah....were are those DU SAIC workers who were telling us how SAIC doesn't have it's tentacles into everything???? They are the good guys, right?

[shirlden]

4. Amen DA

We are on it here in Ohio.....have several signed on for the "election reform meetup" and will be getting more. Our first step needs to be putting the heat on SOS Blackwell. He wants to be Gov in 2006. The last thing he can afford is to be under constant attack from us on the electronic machines.
Ga. does have their fingers in the issue here in Ohio. Larry Singer is on the Ohio Advisory Board for this and chief counsel to SOS on the issue is from Ga. In meeting minutes they all mention that they have had many discussions with Cox. This is supposed to be a positive. I see it as a negative.


:argh:

[DEMActivist]

5. Beware Larry Singer

Larry Singer was responsbile for the "Diebold decision" in Georgia. An appointee of then-Governor Roy Barnes, Singer headed the Georgia Technology Authority. He was responsible for "bringing Georgia into the 21st Century" including a telecommunications strategy for the entire state.

Just prior to the 2002 election, there were howls of bid rigging and buddy contracts in relation to the phones, internet connections, connectivity contracts for the entire state.

4 days after the election, before he was sworn in, Sonny Perdue announced that the signed contract would be canceled and re-bid. Larry Singer resigned the same day and left the state. Couldn't get the hell out fast enough.

Singer went back to his company in Virginia (a company which taught computer use for welfare to work women) and I have not figured out how he ended up in Ohio!

[punpirate]

7. Is Singer working as a consultant?

How does he end up on an Ohio advisory board when he cleared out of GA shortly after the 2002 election and went back to VA?

Seems that some look into this weasel's background would be worthwhile, not just for Ohio's sake, but for everyone's. If he were taking consultancy fees from Diebold while on all these state boards, wouldn't that sort of be, well... illegal?

Cheers.

[DEMActivist]

9. Some real investigation of Larry Singer is in order

no doubt.

Singer is also the one who brought Dr. Britian Williams on board.

He seems to be the glue which binds them all together.

[shirlden]

12. Ok...

I will put Singer on my "chase him down" list.

Any interested Duers, jump in here and PM if you get anything.



:kick:

[shirlden]

13. Believe it or not

I can't find any improbity to run with over Larry Singer. He appears to be just a little guy who always wanted to play with the big boys. He is now a Sr. V-P with Sun Microsystems. The San Francisco Biz Journal questioned why Sun chose Larry Singer for the job, but figured that they just were looking for someone with a new outlook.
I would say it could have something to do with the fact that Singer promoted Sun in his job in Georgia and has solid connections in state govs. So look for Sun to be in your statehouse. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.
It is possible Singer made an honest mistake putting Diebold in Ga and then again payoffs are always possible. He may have been offered a job at Diebold and that is why he appeared in Ohio and then turns up in California after the Diebold mess breaks.

Just looking for answers.....

[DEMActivist]

16. Hmmm, does Singer sound like a Democrat to you?

(Note throughout this entire article, he neglects to mention ANYTHING about the voting machines - his only accomplishment in Georgia.)

snip....

Most of the folks I knew in government IT positions were lifers. They lived in the state capital, liked living there and didn't want to move even for a "better job." I had always been willing to do whatever it took to move my career forward, and CIO often stands for career is over.

snip....

(discussing Roy Barnes)
The public wasn't going to pay much attention to how the state operates, especially how we operate IT governance. It was not Y2K anymore, and moreover, with the IT sector hurting badly, it was no longer sexy to be the "technology" governor. IT had come and gone as an appealing issue for public discussion. So despite the governor's original intentions when he created the GTA, he did not have time to focus on the sort of transformational changes that the GTA was created to undertake. Barnes was approaching re-election, and every minute he spent on the GTA was time he could not spend on more urgent political activities that would affect his re-election.

snip....

In general, the CIO's role is to inject the potential that technology has for enhancing a CEO's vision, for enhancing the COO's responsibility for operational improvements and for supporting the CFO's focus on return on investment. In the corporate world, CIOs fulfill their mission by creating a common infrastructure based on the needs of the enterprise.

http://www.public-cio.com/story.php?id=2003.04.28-49014

[shirlden]

18. I found that one this morning

I was a bit surprised when I read this. No, he did not mention the voting machines and yes, he did sound to me as maybe more of a Dem.
He sure was not happy with his experience in Ga. I am beginning to think that Ga is all Cox and maybe Singer would like to distance himself from what is happening there re the voting machines. Are you sure he set up Britt Williams and the Kennesaw project??

Found several bio's for him and he really sounds harmless....

Singer is becoming a bit of a mystery. Can't figure him out and maybe there is nothing here for us to see, except a guy just trying to make it in this world. There are some of those.
Will keep him on my list of suspects for now.

:kick:

[shirlden]

6. Diebold plant question

I read that Liebod makes these machines at their NC plant. Forget the city without looking it up. From various info on Global I was under the impression that the plant in Texas was just an assembly plant where they were put together out of mostly off the shelf hardware from other vendors.
Diebold has closed several of their operations in Ohio over the years. The one in NC used to be here. They maintain their status by investing heavily in Ohio Repugs.
Wonder who those vendors were?
At the time, mid 2001, Diebold and Global reached an understanding on the buy-out, Diebold agreed to manufacture 500 machines right away to fulfill orders on the Global books. Causes a big HMMMMMMMMMMMM from me. How could they tool up that quickly to produce these? Were they all ready a vendor for Global?? The package deal for buying Global was pretty sweet. Diebold, as the saying goes, stole it.

:kick:

[DEMActivist]

8. I had the same questions

and did some extensive work looking up the NC plant. It was registered as a foreign corporation (HQ in McKinney, TX) with NC authorities in 1999. The paperwork includes a statement from the State of Maryland attesting to Global's registration there as a corporation in good standing.

2002 shows a corporate name change to Diebold, signed by the folks in Canton, Ohio.

Financial filings with the state of NC indicate no real info on who the suppliers were.

I had the same question which stemmed from the basic question of "Diebold had many voting machine companies to choose from - why Global?" I have been unable to answer that question.

What I do know is this....the computing box for the Touchscreens come from this NC plant. The screens come from a California plant.

DU researchers might have some fun with this one.

[punpirate]

10. There's so little real assembly to the TSs...

... that I'm wondering who's doing the vacuum molding of the shell. They're obviously having someone offshore doing the circuit boards (even if it's a GES or Diebold design). The shells are too bulky to be made elsewhere, given packaging and shipping costs.

From what I can see, there's not much assembly involved. Given the advertised costs (~$2500 ea.), it's an A-1 rip-off in terms of purchased parts + manufactured parts + assembly.

But, if I had to guess about who's doing the shells, you might poke around in whoever is running Aeroquip TriNova in North Carolina now....

Cheers.

[LunaC]

20. The SAIC cheerleaders are over here......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php

[dusty64]

3. Interesting.

:kick:

[never cry wolf]

11. Gotta get working here so keep this kicked

so i can read later. :kick:

[BQueen]

19. A kick for you steviet_2003, n/t

[Bushfire]

14. CT Republicans fighting BBV purchases

Connecticut has used mechanical lever voting machines for more than 50 years. Some Republican legislative leaders dislike the idea of possibly replacing all the older machines with electronic ones.

"This costly initiative will waste millions of dollars and put our elections infrastructure at risk for fraud and computer error," said state Senate Minority Leader Louis DeLuca, R-Woodbury.

more...

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/hc-29190444.apds.m0324.bc-ct--votisep29,0,5326756.story?coll=hc-headlines-local-wire

This state was known to be looking to purchase either Avante or AccuVote if I recal from a post by Bev recently. These are the machines that have a voter verified paper ballot too. I just hope this is not the real reason for the Republicans to fight this issue. Saving money is a legitimate argument, but I never trust a republican.

on edit-

A must see shockwave movie posted in GD by snooper2:

http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/votingmachines.htm

[donsu]

15. kick

nt

[MGKrebs]

17. I think this is a great story.

I hope it gets wider circulation.

The general public probably would get glazed eyes trying to sort out the technical details of the security problems, but it is easy to see that if the company testing these machines is related to one of the companies that MAKES the machines, something is definitely wrong.

Then, with the tie- in to the lobbyist working both sides of the street, those who might say that this is all much ado about nothing will have to admit (at least to themselves) that

SOMETHING STINKS!