User:Kizzle/smoke/collusion

Electronic Voting

 * Illustrate personalities behind Corporation
 * Illustrate ties to politicians (mostly Republican)
 * Point out differences between Diebold ATMs and Diebold Voting Machines
 * You MUST prove that Diebold was not merely incompetent but acted with purpose.
 * Is there a difference between Target, Phillip Morris, Time-Warner, etc. donating to the republican party as opposed to an electronic voting company donating to the republican party?

General: Compare ATMs to Diebold voting machines. Point out lack of quality in voting machines as compared to extremely similar product WITHIN SAME COMPANY. Only two possibilities, incompetence or fraud. Use motive section (political connections, prior irregularities, etc.) to prove incompetence unlikely, especially in the face of ATM quality.

Issues
About Diebold
 * What is Diebold?
 * Who is the president of Diebold?
 * What ties does Diebold share with politicians?
 * Walden O'Dell CEO of Diebold said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral voes to the President . O'Dell has defended his actions, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer "I'm not doing anything wrong or complicated." But he also promised to lower his political profile and "try to be more sensitive." But the Diebold boss' partisan cards are squarely on the table. And, when it comes to the Diebold board room, O'Dell is hardly alone in his generous support of the GOP.


 * One of the longest-serving Diebold directors is W.R. "Tim" Timken. Like O'Dell, Timken is a Republican loyalist and a major contributor to GOP candidates. Since 1991 the Timken Company and members of the Timken family have contributed more than a million dollars to the Republican Party and to GOP presidential candidates such as George W. Bush. Between 2000 and 2002 alone, Timken's Canton-based bearing and steel company gave more than $350,000 to Republican causes, while Timken himself gave more than $120,000. This year, he is one of George W. Bush's campaign Pioneers, and has already pulled in more than $350,000 for the president's reelection bid.


 * Does Diebold management have a criminal record?Court papers filed in Maryland, Wired news, 
 * Dec. 17 2003 - "At least five convicted felons secured management positions at a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, according to critics demanding more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine software.
 * "The programmer Jeffrey Dean wrote and maintained proprietary code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of Global Election Systems, or GES. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002. According to a public court document released before GES hired him, Dean served time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree of sophistication and planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized ... system that defendant maintained for the victim." (23 counts of First Degree Theft, case 89-1-04034-1)


 * "The other reported felons included a cocaine trafficker [John Elder] and a man convicted of engaging in fraudulent stock transactions."


 * Jeff Dean was specifically involved in the King County voting system, and is also mentioned specifically in the Diebold memos in connection with programming optical-scan software and the touch-screen Windows CE versions. King County provided him with a key to the computer room, the passcode to the GEMS computer and 24-hour access to the building. Diebold have indicated that he left when they took over GES, however internal records show he was retained, and continued to act as a "consultant".


 * King County WA. is the same county which Diebold internal memos say "are famous" for illicit access to voting systems and where a 3 hour section is missing from a security log during the September 2004 Primary.

About ES&S
 * What is ES&S and its history?
 * Who is the president of ES&S?
 * What happened when Hagel stepped down as head of the company?

"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"
 * In 1992, investment banker Chuck Hagel, president of McCarthy & Co, became chairman of AIS. Hagel, who had been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 1993, was again on the list of likely GOP contenders heading into the 1996 contest. In January of 1995, while still chairman of ES&S, Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald that he would likely make a decision by mid-March of 1995. On March 15, according to a letter provided by Hagel's Senate staff, he resigned from the AIS board, noting that he intended to announce his candidacy. A few days later, he did just that.


 * A little less than eight months after steppind down as director of AIS, Hagel surprised national pundits and defied early polls by defeating Benjamin Nelson, the state's popular former governor. It was Hagel's first try for public office. Nebraska elections officials told The Hill that machines made by AIS probably tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in the 1996 vote, although Nelson never drew attention to the connection. Hagel won again in 2002, by a far healthier margin. That vote is still angrily disputed by Hagel's Democratic opponent, Charlie Matulka, who did try to make Hagel's ties to ES&S an issue in the race and who asked that state elections officials conduct a hand recount of the vote. That request was rebuffed, because Hagel's margin of victory was so large.


 * As might be expected, Hagel has been generously supported by his investment partners at McCarthy & Co. -- since he first ran, Hagel has received about $15,000 in campaign contributions from McCarthy & Co. executives. And Hagel still owns more than $1 million in stock in McCarthy & Co., which still owns a quarter of ES&S.


 * What political ties does ESS&S have?


 * How did he know Bush?
 * What was he caught lying for?


 * Who was Jeb Bush's first choice as running mate in 1998?
 * What happened to the Hill when it tried to publish a story detailing Hagel's conflict of interest?

Sequoia
 * Is there really a connection between Sequoia Pacific and criminal activity?

Problems with Voting Machines
 * How secure are voting machines?
 * Describe the incident where an alert poll worker noticed Gore's votes going down. Why did it occur?  Why did Diebold say this occured?  Is there explanation plausible?
 * What kind of bugs are associated with voting machines?
 * Who verified these bugs?
 * Were these bugs fixed?
 * Why was there only one password (1111)?
 * Why did a programmer insert "This is just a hack for now"?
 * Have voting machines been cracked before?


 * Did Diebold know that its product was certified and tested? Did it present them as such?[http:/www.equalccw.com/lewisdeconstructed.pdf]


 * How verifiable are voting machines?
 * Why is there no paper trail?
 * What is the history in congress that deals with debate over paper trails?

Impact of Electronic Voting
 * How many votes were cast electronically in the 2004 Election?
 * In percentage of national votes
 * In percentage of votes in Ohio (and maybe Florida)