Voting machine firm hires ex-elections director

[Cookie wookie]

By CARLOS CAMPOS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/23/06
The former head of elections for Georgia is going to work for the company that supplied the state's $75 million electronic voting machine system.

Kathy Rogers, director of the secretary of state's elections division, resigned Nov. 30 and has accepted a job with Diebold Election Systems, manufacturer of Georgia's voting machines, according to several state officials. Rogers apparently will serve as a liaison between elections officials throughout the United States and Diebold.

State Election Board member Tex McIver said Friday he is troubled by the move and will meet to discuss Rogers' plans to work for Diebold. Rogers, appointed in 2002 by Secretary of State Cathy Cox, a Democrat, sparred often with Republican members of the election board.

Incoming Secretary of State Karen Handel, elected in November to fill Cox's vacant seat, said she, too, is concerned about Rogers' employment with Diebold.

"When I am in office, I'll be able to address it directly with Diebold," Handel said Friday. "For me, as secretary of state, she will not be the liaison in Georgia. That's a nonstarter for me. I think it is a conflict of interest when you have someone who ran a department basically lobbying for that particular vendor without a cooling-off period."

Full article: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2006/12/22/1223metelect.html

Note how self-righteous the new Republican Secretary of State is over Kathy Rogers going to work for Diebold.

While, at the end of the article we find that she's hired a lobbyist to take Rogers job as No.2 position in the SOS's Election Division Office, Robert Simms, who comes from a firm that represents Diebold in GA.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. Diebold appreciates her help

and its pay back time.

How fitting.

And so crass.

[nicknameless]

2. So an election official is overtly continuing the work that

election officials have been doing covertly for years.