Exactly who is running the new voting machines?

[DoYouEverWonder]

October 30, 2006

Florida knows more about the clerk who sells lottery tickets at the corner store than it does about the technician who troubleshoots voting machines at the corner precinct.

That’s because lottery ticket retailers must undergo criminal background checks, but there are no such state requirements for the employees of the companies that manufacture and maintain voting equipment for Florida’s 67 counties.

A Florida felon can’t vote, but he or she can own, sell, program and fix the machines that nonfelons use to vote — unless counties prohibit that in their individual contracts.

That, and the worrisome possibility of vote tampering, has voting watchdog groups asking who, exactly, is behind the companies that make Florida elections equipment.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/30/State/Exactly_who_is_runnin.shtml


With the 2006 election already underway, now they ask these questions? Why weren't these questions asked when Katherine Harris was still Sec of State and her friends were stuffing these machines down everyone throats?

[NVMojo]

1. what a novel idea

[UpInArms]

2. no one even really understands who stopped the vote counting in Miami-Dade in 2000

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31074-2005Jan23.html

As we begin the second Bush administration, let's take a moment to reflect upon one of the most historic episodes of the 2000 battle for the White House -- the now-legendary "Brooks Brothers Riot" at the Miami-Dade County polling headquarters.

This was when dozens of "local protesters," actually mostly Republican House aides from Washington, chanted "Stop the fraud!" and "Let us in!" when the local election board tried to move the re-counting from an open conference room to a smaller space.

<snip>

Some of those pictured have gone on to other things, including stints at the White House. For example, Matt Schlapp, No. 6, a former House aide and then a Bush campaign aide, has risen to be White House political director. Garry Malphrus, No. 2 in the photo, a former staff director of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, is now deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. And Rory Cooper, No. 3, who was at the National Republican Congressional Committee, later worked at the White House Homeland Security Council and was seen last week working for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.



No. 1. Tom Pyle, who had worked for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), went private sector a few months later, getting a job as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.

No. 7. Roger Morse, another House aide, moved on to the law and lobbying firm Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds. "I was also privileged to lead a team of Republicans to Florida to help in the recount fight," he told a legal trade magazine in a 2003 interview.

No. 8. Duane Gibson, an aide on the House Resources Committee, was a solo lobbyist and formerly with the Greenberg Traurig lobby operation. He is now with the Livingston Group as a consultant.

...more...

hmmmm....

Preston Gates Ellis and Greenberg Traurig .... aren't those lobbying firms heavily associated with Jack Abramoff?

[fasttense]

3. "I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush"

This is what James Baker III said to a group of Russian oil industry businessmen. Baker came up with the strategy to maneuver the 2000 Florida vote count into a Supreme Court packed with black-robed politicos he helped appoint. It was not a confession it was a boast.

This is out of Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse.