Question to lawyers

If the spokesman for a voting machine company makes a public statement:

"it is not possible to affect multiple machines"

but says David Jenkins, Livermore Labs:
"You can affect multiple machines from a single attack."


Does not this amount to a false claim? I think we can prove they made this statement when they knew it was false.

And would not this be the perfect issue to sue them on, because it would focus attention on the most important problem?

Could someone sue these liars please?

Or at least can't we get a restraining order against them from making public false claims such as these?

He has the ability to throw the case out on any reasoning he sees fit. In the event that an appeal goes to the Supreme Court... well... you know how that will end.

several cases have had positive effects. look what Paul Lehto has accomplished in Washington State.

i guess you're saying no one should ever try to sue them just because the courts are stacked? is that a tiny bit defeatest?

I guess we shouldn't vote then, because the voting machines are rigged?

We've already seen what the courts will do when (s)electing a (p)resident.

Decisions that have an effect on one state is one thing... Whenever a court decision will have national impact, such as suing the makers of the voting machines, you can be sure that the deck will be stacked against us.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't go ahead and try it. I'm just saying that there's a snowball's chance in hell of winning it :D

The only party who has standing to sue the voting machine company is the party who signed the contract with the voting machine company. This is the problem. You and I do not have a direct relationship with the company (called "privity of contract") even though we pay the election commissioner to act on our behalf and despite the fact that we rely to our detriment on the election results produced by those machines that tend to "err to the right" constantly. This is why Kennedy & company must approach their suit carefully and, when they are ready, they must use the "sledge hammer" approach if they want any attention. Unfortunately, if it goes all the way to the Supremes, forget about it. They (we) will lose.

In April, the Supreme Court held that Lynn Landes had no standing to challenge the constitutionality of election laws which Landes claimed deny direct access to a tangible ballot and meaningful transparency to the election process. (see: http://www.ecotalk.org/LandesRuling.htm) Remember who bought the most recent members of the Supremes...

The Supremes no longer respect the concept of "protecting the little guy." They are corporatists. You and I mean precious little to them.

as a citizen, he sued Sequoia AND the elections board. couldn't the same principles be used here?

or do we just need to find an election official willing to take this to court?

species than private contracts, in which zelduh's comments would be much closer to the mark. The government can not insulate important matters from review by making them the subject of a private agreement with somebody. Taxpayer standing, for example, exists in many states, other types of standing like voter standing should exist in many states based on the fact that while the taxpayer is the obvious person to copmlain about a govt contract that is wasteful of tax dollars, where waste of tax dollars is not the issue then it doesn't make sense to have a "taxpayer" challenge the contract, it would rather be voter or citizen standing. The voter or citizen however must usually be able to show that they are damaged a little more or different than usual for other citizens, to show, in a way, that they will be able litigants.

Regarding the OP above, such a suit can be a focused lawsuit that could win. But you can't get broad "prior restraints" against speech via restraining orders. You allow the speech to occur and then sue under deceptive practices statutes and litigate the issues from there. If you sue under state law exclusively, you should never reach "the Supremes"

pleadings in my case are located at www.votersunite.org/info/lehtolawsuit.asp

suppose the speech has in fact already occurred, and we have it on video tape. then what?

From what I've been reading, his lawsuit is just what I've been proposing here. When a company makes a false claim to promote their products, it is illegal. Doesn't matter if it's toothpaste or voting machines.

they have known for a long time that their machines are vulnarable and they have been making false claims to the contrary.

GO RFK!

but says David Jenkins, Livermore Labs:
"You can affect multiple machines from a single attack."

It's David JEFFERSON of Livermore Labs.

And, if you're talking about Diebold machines in McKinney's district, the only thing which can affect MULTIPLE DIEBOLD MACHINES is a power outage or a breaker going out. The machines in Georgia are completely independent of each other.