Sequoia gets new president - read their company press release.

[Amaryllis]

August 26, 2005 03:55 PM US Eastern Timezone

Senior Technology Company Executive Jack Blaine to Take the Helm at Sequoia Voting Systems; Tracey Graham to Conclude Successful Tenure as Sequoia President in September

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 26, 2005--Sequoia Voting Systems is pleased to announce that Mr. Jack Blaine will serve in the dual role as President of Sequoia Voting Systems and President of Sequoia's parent company, Smartmatic. Mr. Blaine's leadership will follow the successful presidency of Tracey Graham, who has accepted the position of Managing Director within Sequoia's former parent company, De La Rue, PLC, where she will also sit on the Operating Board.

"It was an honor and a privilege to serve as president of the nation's most respected and innovative election services company during a time of unprecedented reform and improvement to the infrastructure that supports American democracy," said Graham. "I am excited for the new challenges ahead, but I will miss the sense of accomplishment and pride that is associated with every vote that is cast and counted through the use of Sequoia products and services. And of course, I will miss the unlimited opportunities that await Sequoia."

Ms. Graham will depart Sequoia on September 8, 2005.

Mr. Blaine is the former Executive Vice President of Unisys Corporation, where he also served as President of Worldwide Sales and Services. Prior to his work with Unisys, Mr. Blaine served in management roles for the Ford Motor Company. In recent years, Blaine served as President of Smartmatic as the company became the global leader in the use of verifiable electronic voting.

"Sequoia is the U.S. election services industry leader in service, support and reputation," said Blaine. "We proudly employ the industry's most dedicated and knowledgeable support team who work with so many capable state and local election officials."

read the rest:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/moreover/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20050826005328&&newsLang=en&beanID=1868105982&viewID=news_view

[MadeinOhio]

1. What's the full story about Jack Blaine?

Where does he Blaine get his funding or what kind of background does he have?

Does anyone know specifically anything about his financial investments, it always tells the full story to follow the money.

[Amaryllis]

3. Funny, you think just like I do. Does that make us conspiracy nuts or

realists? :)
Land Shark says reasonable people question secret vote counting by for profit corporations with partisan political and financial conflicts of interests and unreasonable people call reasonable people conspiracy theorists!

[MadeinOhio]

5. Conflict of interest is the real problem,

And its a conflict of interest for america to not look at and litigate the conflict of interest ongoing here and improperiety.....

[FogerRox]

2. SO in other words -- Alfie Charles didnt get promoted

wouldnt be becuase they lost NJ?

>wink<

[Peace Patriot]

4. I have to laugh at this one...

"We proudly employ the industry's most dedicated and knowledgeable support team who work with so many capable state and local election officials." --Blaine

They don't just employ a dedicated "support team" who "work with" all those "capable" election officials. They employ a dedicated support team TO BUY those "capable" election officials--including our wandering former Republican Sec of State (and loser to Barbara Boxer) Bill Jones, who, after getting California elections good and wired, including authorizing Sequoia electronic voting systems, now works for Sequoia, along with his chief aide (Alfie Charles).*

And--busy little bees that they are--we also find those dedicated Sequoia folk down at the Beverly Hilton, this August, right along there with Diebold and ES&S, wining, dining and giving "graduation awards" to those "capable" election officials from around the country, lured there for a week of fun, sun and high-end shopping in Hollywad.

It's no wonder they got rid of poor, honest, not very "with it" Kevin Shelley, who tended to sue the makers of election theft machinery and demand their source codes. He banned "revolving door" employment in HIS office, and god knows what he's doing now--one of the few election professionals in the entire country who is fit for public service, trashed by the pigsty Democrats and their fascist overlords.

Ah, me.


-------


*P.S. They couldn't wire it against Barbara Boxer, though. She whomped him by a 20% margin--although they may have hacked some votes off of Kerry, who won the state by only a 10% margin--with the difference, between Boxer and Kerry, occurring only in the Republican counties. Figure THAT one out!)

[autorank]

6. Right Peace, who would vote for Boxer but not Kerry.

With all due respect to Boxer (I love her!) it's much more likely that you'd vote for Kerry and not boxer, particularly in a Republican County.

What a sad tale this is.

[drm604]

7. Here's an interesting article about Blaine and Smartmatic.

I'm not sure what to make of it.
http://www.smartmatic.com/news_057_2004-10.htm

Describing the importance of a Voter-Verified Paper Trail, Jack Blaine explained: "That's why I think it's so important to have a paper trail because ...the average person doesn't know what happens after they push the button. However, with a paper trail, they can see the result....And at the end of the day, a manual audit that used to be done can still be done and it can be compared with the electronic result. So you have the best of both worlds, again, if it's done correctly."

Jack Blaine went on to discuss the importance of security, auditability and ease of use in a voting system. But transparency is vital to ensure public confidence in the reliability of the electoral vote. "That's why I keep coming back to the paper vote, because they can actually see the result, they put it in their ballot box just like they always did and they know there's going to be an audit at the end of the day; they are going to test a certain number of those votes against the actual result that's been totaled in the electronic system."

The quotes sound like he's in favor of a voter verified paper trail. It also says that Smartmatic machines were used in Venezuela when Hugo Chavez won the recall vote. Is it possible that this guy is good news?

[MadeinOhio]

8. Its possible, howeer be careful.....

He also says it would be a paper trail with manual audits.

When the voter can't see the actual BALLOT, aka voter verified paper ballot electoral fraud is still doable. It just isn't common place like on a paperless machine.

Now, if it is VOTER VERIFIED paper ballots for each ballot cast, the voter can see it go into a locked box. No "conflict of interest" with that....

And manual audits do not guarantee security where independant audits do.....But sure, he is better for elections than Alfie Charles ever was.

[drm604]

9. Read the quotes again.

It sounds to me like he is talking about voter verified paper ballots where the voter can see the actual ballot; and an audit can be both manual and independent. In fact, as far as I can see, the audit has to be manual to be worth anything. A non-manual audit (I'm not even sure what that would consist of) wouldn't be any more convincing than voting on a black box is. Am I misunderstanding the terminology?

I'm not trying to defend the guy, I don't know anything about him. As you say, we have to be careful. But the quotes do seem encouraging.

[MadeinOhio]

10. Yeah I looked into it further....

I'm not sure what to make of it totally right now. It would be good to have debate on this and probably ask him, since it appeared to me to be a paper audit trail. But verified paper ballot trails are the only thing acceptable.

Again if its being used in venezuela than it probably isn't so bad, venezuela is more of a democracy than here that is for sure.