Diebolding NC - the timeline,cronies, ties to NC corruption investigation

NC illegally certifies Diebold:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_12.php#004227

Diebolding of NC Timeline here:
http://www.ncvoter.net/dieboldtricks.html

Raleigh insiders' stacked deck against the verified voting law and it's application:

Voting Machine business in NC worth from $46 Million up to $135 Million in purchase contracts, never mind the service contracts
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2005/FiscalNotes/Senate/PDF/SFN0223v4n1.pdf

SBOE member Bob Cordle (Democrat) is a very vocal anti paper, pro voting machine company (with his 4 agreeing SBOE members)

Bob Cordle led the vote to unanimously certify Diebold yesterday.
He was first to speak up.

SBOE Cordle connections to Speaker of House (word is they are golfing buddies?) -
Cordle's law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP
( http://www.mayerbrown.com/lawyers/profile.asp?hubbardid=C286347748&lawyer_name=Cordle%2C+Robert+B%2E% )
received payment for legal services from Blacks campaign fund early this year, see bottum of page of the website http://www.jimblackmustgo.com/news.html

Democratic Speaker of the House, Jim Black - is being investigated by the FBI for NC's big lottery scandal.
"The Winston-Salem Journal said it right in a recent editorial: “the North Carolina General Assembly is a cauldron of sleaze.” We have two choices—either complain silently about the culture of corruption on Jones Street or take action and demand change. The first step in cleaning up our Legislature is demanding the immediate resignation of House Speaker Jim Black."
http://www.jimblackmustgo.com/WHY.html

The NC State Party chair did not renominate Bob Cordle to the State Board of Elections (at the request of democrats all over the state)
and the Governor didn't like that, so he changed the law!

Governor Easly put a provision in the budget bill to allow him to put anyone on the Board of Elections that he wanted to -
http://www.ncgop.org/home/080905sboe.asp

By the way, "shades of Black" NC's State Board of Elections also oversees Campaign Finance Reporting.
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/

The State Board of Elections hired Keith Long, former Diebold employee (2002-2005) to oversee the voting machine selection process,
this is the same man who installed 22,000 Diebold in Georgia in '02.
http://blackboxvoting.com/s9/index.php?/archives/2-More-on-Our-Man-from-Diebolds-tenure-in-Georgia.html

Former state senator Steve Metcalf serving as a lobbyist for Diebold -

Lobbyist Information...
Name: Steve Metcalf
Firm: The Policy Group, Inc.
Address: PO Box 1694
Asheville, NC 28802
Phone: (828) 258-6688
http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/lobbyists/Lobbyist.aspx?PId=5080

Search of "Steve Metcalf" at www.followthemoney.org shows that in '04
Metcalf donated about $2,000 total to the democratic party and or democrats -- about $200.00 to Rep Ray Rapp of Haywood, Madison, and Yancey Counties, $500 to Lt Governor Beverly Perdue, $250 to Wayne Coogwin's campaign for Labor Commissioner, and $900 to the NC Democratic Party. Not a big amount, but we don't know WHO his clients donated to yet.

His list of clients is:

The Policy Group also represents:

Images Term Principal
2005-2006 Appalachian Regional Healthcare Systems, Inc.
2005-2006 Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce (Resigned 6/13/2005)
2005-2006 Cherokee Tribal Gaming Commission
2005-2006 Dewey Square Group
2005-2006 Diebold Election Systems, Inc.
2005-2006 Energy United (Resigned 8/31/2005)
2005-2006 Festiva Resorts
2005-2006 Harrington Benefit Services
2005-2006 Hayes, Seay, Mathern & Mattern, Inc.
2005-2006 North Carolina Association of Electric Cooperatives Incorporated
2003-2004 Be Smart Kids
2003-2004 Festiva Resorts
2003-2004 Hayes, Seay, Mathern & Mattern, Inc.
2003-2004 Run Lightning 1956, LLC

Keith Long, who is advising the elections board with the voting equipment changes, said after talking this week with the three
winning bidders that "none of them have the source code for all of their software they use."
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/13304893.htm

"Election Systems and Software, another voting-machine maker,
has no problem with the law as written because the company
writes its own software for its touch-screen voting machines, a
spokeswoman said Monday."

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20051129/NEWSREC0101/511290320/1010/NEWSREC020107

So ... to recap:

1. Former Diebold employee is placed in charge of bidding process.

2. Diebold sues state, goes into court on Monday saying it can't provide the source code to all software running on its system.

3. Diebold loses case Monday, magically is able to cough up enough code by Wednesday -- which is then examined in record time by the state -- to be unconditionally certified by Thursday.

4. Former-Diebold-employee-now-state-employee claims that it's OK that Diebold didn't hand everything over "because everyone else is doing it".

5. ES&S rep says they can and did hand everything over.
http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20051129/NEWSREC0101/511290320/1010/NEWSREC020107

6. Board of Elections acts more as advocate for Diebold instead of for the public.

7. Profit (for Diebold)

North Carolina defends e-voting certifications

By Anne Broache, CNET News.com

Published on ZDNet News:

December 2, 2005

snip

"The Board of Elections is required to review all of this code for security purposes before they certify it," said Matt Zimmerman, an EFF attorney. "If by some miracle they've actually complied with the statute, sometime between Monday and Thursday they've reviewed millions of lines of code for security, accuracy and integrity purposes."

Keith Long, a North Carolina voting systems manager, insisted that there was "nothing tricky" going on. First of all, he said, the Board of Elections didn't need to review all of the code again on its own because it made use of reports by an independent testing authority authorized by the federal government to run tests on e-voting software.

And second, after polling the companies that had submitted bids and discovering that none of them could reasonably hand over third-party software code, the Board of Elections decided at the last minute that it would allow the companies to be certified as long as they provided the state with the outside escrow locations of all the codes. They have until Dec. 22 to do so.

snip

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5980671.html

He reports:

"An examination of the Windows CE license program reveals that the vendor MAY reveal the source code. In fact it EXPLICITLY states:

"Governments may read and reference the source code but may not modify it.""

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2287518

of bidding process" - what in the hell? Why?

:kick:

Thanks for putting this all together for us!