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CLICK STATE TO SEE:
"WATCH LIST"
Marked with: 
"OPEN & HONEST"
Marked with: 
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| Diebold check stub to Abramoff's firm... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3091
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 1:09 pm: | 
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Appears to be a one-month payment. Recovered from McKinney Texas Diebold dumpster July 2004.
http://www.bbvdocs.org/moneytrail/greenberg.pdf
The corresponding payment, with the full words "Greenberg Traurig" is here:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/pre-check-register.pdf |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1428
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 1:26 pm: |
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Is there any particular reason you suspect a one-month payment rather than a one-off payment? |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3094
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - 1:36 pm: |
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I'll have to check; my brain tells me that. We have another document from months earlier, but that requires identifying the transaction number and cross-referencing it.
Greenberg Traurig should be reporting its payments, as should Diebold, so I think there will be corroborating information in the public record. However, this can be tricky -- as we found with Diebold lobbyist Rose & Kindel, not all payments were reported.
We were in a bit of a hurry today, because we're preparing for a meeting. I'll see if I can lock that down later. |
Pat A. Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely
Post Number: 2078
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 8, 2006 - 8:09 pm: |
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Catherine, check this out.
http://www.nyc.gov/lobbyistsearch/search?client=Diebold+Election+Systems%2C+Inc
2004
Target: NYC COUNCIL, BOARD OF ELECTIONS
Subject: PROCUREMENT OF VOTING MACHINES
______Compensation__Reimbursement
Q1_____$37,500.00___$0.00
Q2_____$25,000.00___$0.00
Q3_____$50,000.00___$0.00
Q4_____$25,000.00___$0.00
Total__$137,500.00___$0.00
2003
Target: NYC BOARD & ELECTIONS - MAYOR'S OFFICE -NYC COUNCIL - CITYWIDE ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
Subject: PROCUREMENT OF ELECTIONS MACHINES
_______Compensation__Reimbursement
Q1_____$37,500.00____$0.00
Q2_____$25,000.00____$0.00
Q3_____$50,000.00____$0.00
Q4_____$37,500.00____$0.00
Total__$150,000.00____$0.00
$287,500.00 over two years just for New York City.
Any questions? 
Pat A. Vesely ;-) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1482
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 2:51 am: |
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You sure do find the most amazing websites!
I wonder if other states/cities have this kind of info on their websites. Hmmmm. . . |
Pat A. Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely
Post Number: 2079
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 3:08 am: |
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If you like that one, here's two you'll really like! Try the 'search' box on the left.
These are projects of The Center for Media and Democracy
http://sourcewatch.org
http://prwatch.org
Happy hunting!
Pat A. Vesely ;-) |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3152
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 6:58 pm: |
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Thanks for the info, Pat. |
Vernon Reisenleiter
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Vern_reisenleiter
Post Number: 13
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 9:43 am: |
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Yesterday, after reading Pat's 9 January post and an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about new EAC Chairman Paul DeGregorio, I updated the list of EAC Commissioners at Sourcewatch.
I believe that these are their email addresses*.
| Paul DeGregorio | | pdegregorio @ eac.gov | | Raymundo Martinez | | rmartinez @ eac.gov | | Gracia Hillman | | ghillman @ eac.gov | | Donnetta Davidson | | ddavidson @ eac.gov |
* See article on Paul DeGregorio here.
Vern Reisenleiter
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1493
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 11:07 am: |
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Vern,
Thanks for these email addresses.
What would be the most effective point to make to these commissioners at this point in time?
Are there any specific decisions coming up we should know about?
Should this be more about general concerns or suggestions?
If we're going to contact these folks there should be consideration given to the focus. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1494
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 11:13 am: |
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quote from Paul DiGregorio (link as above):
"What the federal government is doing has implications beyond the United States, said DeGregorio. "I was in Moscow last week, and testing and guidelines have international implications. People are following what we are doing. India and Brazil are using e-voting, and European countries are moving toward it."
Wake up, world! This is not just about the USA! I doubt that electronic voting, in its conception and introduction, was ever "local" in scope. |
Vernon Reisenleiter
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Vern_reisenleiter
Post Number: 14
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 3:06 pm: |
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Catherine,
Good question. I didn't really have anything specific in mind--I just put up the email info for future reference. There are two things to bear in mind, if we/someone decide(s) to send material to the commissioners. (1) The organization can only provide guidance, and (2) two of the four, DeGregorio and Davis, are proponents of electronic voting.
Davis was SoS of Colorado, and, before that, held other elected and appointed offices. At one point she was an election commissioner for one of the Counties. Here is a quote from an article in Infoworld about a NIST symposium on electronic voting held in late in 2003.
"Those who are concerned with the security of DREs are calling for audit trails with the systems that allow a voter to verify that a vote has been properly recorded by the machine. How to implement those audit trails is a subject of controversy: A vocal group is demanding voter-verifiable paper audit trails, and recently succeeded in convincing the California secretary of state to mandate that approach. But many election officials seem strongly opposed to introducing that requirement, arguing that adding printers to systems will increase not only costs but the likelihood of mechanical failures as printers break down, jam or run out of paper. Colorado Secretary of State Donnetta Davidson also warned attendees that in recounts when the paper doesn't match the machine tally there will be no way to know which total to trust and "we'll end up in court.""
I'll ask around and see if anyone can come up with issues to raise with the EAC, now or future.
(Message edited by Vern_Reisenleiter on January 10, 2006)
Vern Reisenleiter
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Adele Eisner
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Eisnera
Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 12:18 am: |
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Re:diebold/pre-check-register.pdf - I'm curious about the $12,560.71 payment to Edward Howard & Co. "due" June, 18,'04. Edward Howard & Co. is mainly a Cleveland PR firm, or at least mainly an Ohio PR firm based firmly in Cleveland. (Though they have affiliates in other locales, none are in McKinney and others seem to go by affiliate names.) Two of their specialties are crisis communications and investor relations. Lord knows Diebold needs both.
Canton, OH is close which may explain an Edward Howard choice. I'm trying to conjecture, however, what was going on in these Ohio parts in the first half of '04 to warrant this particular PR relationship. Any conjectures? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3218
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 4:58 am: |
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Spread this one around to more researchers - PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting
Great catch, Adele! That's why it's so important to make these things public -- because you're "on the ground" in Ohio and familiar with local situations. I really appreciate your flagging this.
Diebold has been using Public Strategies Inc. for crisis control. It may help to look at the names of the Edward Howard & Co. people, see if they show up anywhere in the public record.
The guy who handles the Diebold account for Edward Howard & Co. appears to be Wayne R. Hill: http://www.edwardhoward.com/tab.aspx?tabid=568. He's the president of the company and very politically connected.
Here are some tips that may uncover important information
I received a tip that Diebold has told Summit County Republican candidates that they don't need to worry about fund raising, because Diebold will take care of it. That seemed farfetched to me. However, it came from a very good source.
If Diebold is actively involved in fundraising, they wouldn't do much of it by direct contributions through employees (although they once did that). Instead they'd be in the biz of hosting fund raisers like the July 2003 shindig in Wally O'Dell's back yard where he raised $600,000 for Dick Cheney -- but it won't show up as Wally O'Dell on campaign disclosure documents because he organized it, hosted it, invited people he knew would donate, but wasn't the donor.
BBV investigator Jim March has experience uncovering the powers behind campaign fundraising, and he made the excellent suggestion to look for donations that all come on the same day, indicating someone was hosting an event. Then see if you can find out who organized it.
I started doing that, selecting Summit County Republicans, and found that it's very obvious which dates had fund raisers. On these dates, I found some firms listed on Diebold's accounts payables were ponying up large payments -- Jones Day (Diebold's law firm) gives a lot of campaign cash to Summit County Republicans, also Andy Futey (Diebold lobbyist) was giving out campaign contributions and so was Dix & Eaton (see the $100,000 "security expense" on Diebold ledger here: http://www.bbvdocs.org/moneytrail/2003GL.pdf, which has a transaction number the same as their transaction number with Dix & Eaton). As I recall, the Dix & Eaton transactions were misspelled, something Pat Vesely noticed quite a while back with other contributions by Diebold employees. Some Dix & Eaton contributions were listed as "Dixon and Eaton." That could be a fluke if it happened once, but it happened repeatedly, which functions to hide it when you do a search for it.
It's interesting that the Diebold law firm, the Diebold lobbyist, and a Diebold PR firm were giving substantial donations to Summit County Republicans. I started to wonder about conduits, but there isn't enough information for that. But this would be consistent with fund raisers organized by Diebold people.
It may be of interest to look at whether people from Edward Howard & Co. made contributions to politicians, and if so, check the dates when there were a whole bunch of contributions.
The tip I got was that Diebold is lining up campaign funding for state-level and federal-level political offices. It seemed like a long shot, but I was surprised to see that there are some indications it could be true. If so, that would be blockbuster.
Note that it would't be a story unless there was a search to see if there was parallel activity with Democrats.
Suggestions for areas to research:
1) Fund raising dates for politicians -- trace back to who facilitated which fund raisers
2) Donations from firms that are accounts on Diebold Election Systems ledgers. You can find many Diebold financial documents here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/4466.html
3) Local inside scoop from candidates who ran against the better-funded ones, see if they know who organized the fund raisers.
Note that the PR firm also could have been lobbying for purchase of Diebold machines -- if so, they are required to register as a lobbyist at either the state level or at the county. The county lobbyists are harder to find because they aren't online in the state lobbyist database.
If it can be determined that a PR firm was helping persuade officials to purchase but did NOT register as a lobbyist, that's a violation both by the firm and by Diebold, if it's done on Diebold's behalf.
Thanks for the tips!
Bev Harris
Founder
Black Box Voting
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) All American Paper Chase
(2) Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
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Don Nanney
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Donaldnanney
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, November 13, 2006 - 6:51 pm: |
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Bev,
How much money has been contriubted by the big voting machine folks to those that picked the machines?
Don |
Bev Harris
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Site_admin
Post Number: 195
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 4:14 pm: |
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If they'd open their books, and if the books were honest, we'd know. As it stands right now the only place you'll get even a smidgen of information is in the dumpster. The documents we found in the dumpster indicate that they are not disclosing the payments they are making to lobbyists accurately (they are paying more than they disclose, and/or people doing the lobbying are not filing their returns.) |
Alan Brau
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Alan_brau
Post Number: 70
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 6:22 pm: |
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Where there is smoke, there is fire.
We need to find the source of the smoke, before it turns into a huge conflagration.
Thank goodness for subpoena power. Thank goodness for Democratic control of subpoena power. One hopes that Democrats wielding that power, may themselves be trustworthy. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5823
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 8:43 pm: |
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Well, not only must they be trustworthy, they must be nonpartisan and fearless. I have seen way too many dog and pony shows to get excited about a congressional hearing ... yet.
The model for having a hearing that is actually effective at eliciting real information can be found with recently elected Calif. Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who, as chair of the Calif. Senate Elections Committee held the best hearing yet on the voting machine issue, taking on the test labs. You can find the transcript of this outstanding effort here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/27280.html
And you can find a synopsis and "crib notes", tools citizens can use, here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/27598.html
# # # # #
...
GET BEHIND HB 6200! Requires public hand-counting of ballots for the 2008 presidential race, at the precinct, before the ballots leave the polling place.
(Say no to HR 550. It's dangerous.)
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