Congratulations, Bev Harris. You beat them.

[TruthIsAll]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/209250_diebold25.html

Renton elections activist Bev Harris has been called a fruitcake and a muckraker. Her book and Web site about the hidden evils of modern election equipment have drawn the ire of a number of officials around the country, who say there is nothing to Harris' claims that elections systems are profoundly vulnerable to hackers and other tampering.

"Dean Logan is not fond of me," Harris says of King County's director of elections.

But not everyone thinks all of Harris' claims are "a bunch of poppycock," as she puts it: The attorney general of California recently took up a whistle-blower claim filed by Harris against Diebold Election Systems and settled with the company for $2.6 million in December.

Diebold provides the systems used to tally votes and register voters in King County and in many other counties around the country

more...

[Canuckistanian]

1. Forget about settlements, change the laws!

Make it illegal to use a voting machine with no voter-verifiable paper trail.
And while you're at it, make all source code used in the machines open source and publicly available for scrutiny.
Until that time, you're just re-arranging the furniture.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Yeah, but with BushCons, there is no chance of election reform...

...except by citizen initiative--because BushCon officials do not believe in democracy, and they love their BushCon owned and controlled election system--but with someone like Kevin Shelley, we have an SoS who will listen and act. Much more hope there. And he is under attack by the Forces of Evil in California. We need to strongly defend him.

[Nictuku]

3. Why did she settle?

Isn't the idea here to bring information about Election Fraud into the main stream media?

I don't get it.

What did she have to agree to do, to get a $$ settlement? (Not talk about it?)

This bugs me.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zan_of_Texas]

5. I'm not 100% clear, but some say

that once the CA AG and Alameda County folks joined into the suit, the citizen litigants (Bev Harris and Jim March) lost the ability to control the course of the suit.

I'm not sure about that, but I've heard that.

[dbDESIGN]

6. Bev Harris and Jim March were left out

of the decision to settle. From reading posts by Jim March to a BBV.org forum my understanding is that he and Bev found out about the settlement from the news media. They had wanted to pursue the matter but were sidelined when California and Diebold reached a settlement. California got $2.6 million and Diebold got out of having to answer any questions.

Too bad.

I believe Jim and Bev are to receive a settlement between $75,000 and $250,000 but I don't think the amount has been disclosed (or perhaps not even set yet).

I would post the links to the BBV forum but they completely rebuilt their site end of December and I don't know if the threads are still findable.

[Kelvin Mace]

15. This was known from the start

If the state joins, they run the show. This is the main reason to not file this kind of suit. Once the state gets involved you have ZERO say. The state settled the suit, dismissed Bev complaint WITH PREJUDICE and did basically NOTHING about the problem. Diebold still in California, Bev $75K richer. Voters no better off.

The site on bbv.org keeps getting rebuilt to delete embarrassing statements and critical remarks.

[BeFree]

10. Democracy in America? Yes, but...

...not in Congress.

B*** today, was going on about how people should be able to speak their minds. Ya know, freedom and democracy, worldwide.

Well, on Jan. 6, it was a struggle to speak, and once those historic words were finally allowed, the partisan republicans called us bad, bad names, and practically threatened us for excersicing our freedom of speech and democracy.

Is b*** just using the pulpit for his own purposes, or is he really for freedom and democracy? You decide.

[Joanne98]

7. Somebody said on another thread she's using her money to

file more lawsuits?

[Andy_Stephenson]

8. That's what I heard...

unfortunately the evidence used in the Quitam...cannot be used again.

[sepia_steel]

9. This stinks, in a fishy sort of way.

I'll reserve judgement for now, I guess.

[BeFree]

11. Good thinking, sepia...eom

[GetTheRightVote]

12. One more battle won against Repubs and *

:kick:

More to come.

[Nederland]

13. Bullshit

If you knew anything about this issue you'd know that this is Bev screwing us once again, just as she has done time and time again. The net result of this lawsuit is that the evidence that was so painstakingly collected can never be used again and Diebold walks away with no criminal charges. For them 2.6 million is merely a write off and the price of doing business.

[Stevepol]

16. From what I've read, this isn't quite right. The stuff can be used again,

just not with respect to the contestants in the case. This is usual in an out-of-court settlement isn't it? You keep quiet about the results FOR THIS CASE so they don't have to admit to something or other. That may be a mistake (to accept an out-of-court settlement. But if another case comes up in another venue, the evidence can surely be used if relevant. Also, I think Harris claims, and I believe her, that the money received will be used to further the work of the BBV org.

I personally don't know what more could be expected or asked for here. It seems to me Harris has done a lot to further reform. In this as in all cases, it's better not to hold grudges. If anybody is doing things conducive of electoral reform, more power to him/her. If other groups can succeed as well as BBV, we'll all be happy I think.

[Melissa G]

14. Kick for unraveling repubLIEcan Theft!