Regarding Thom's show on 3/21/07 in mentioning Bob Bennett, the Chair of Ohio's Republican Party AND the chair of Cuyahoga County BOE:
I attended a 3-hour public hearing before the Cuyahoga County BOE last year where virtually all testifying were opposed to the choice of Diebold for the electronic voting machine vendor for the county. Just a few industry representatives and a shill or two testified in favor of Diebold. Dozens more were opposed. The hearing was just going through the motions for Bennett though, for he had long since made up his mind that no matter what anyone said Cuyhoga was GOING to go with Diebold. I could paraphrase here but this is precisely what he implied in statements made before all attending: "We have chosen Diebold." All that testimony in opposition to the move made not one iota of difference to Bennett. I would like to see what perks HE received from Wally O'Dell, the then chairman of Diebold, now resigned in disgrace. We testified for 3 hours just to hear Bennett say, "we're going with Diebold." The Diebold reps there were dressed like mobsters and had nothing to say for themselves. As they walked up the staired I followed them, looked up the stairs and shouted, "the jig is up boys!"

Yes, we diehard voting rights activists in Ohio have pulled the curtain back on that man behind the curtain who is telling us to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. The vendors just won't admit that they cannot stuff the genie back in the bottle and make this go away. Open source code will not save us. HAVA was a ruse to steal elections helped along by the likes of Bob Ney (convicted) Jack Abramoff (convicted), the then political Director of Greenberg Traurig, and Diebold Corp. (275 thousand dollars to Greenberg Traurig). This story won't go away either. Bennett isn't the only one culpable here. Our Matthew Damshroder, current Director of the Franklin Co. (Columbus) BOE took a 10 thousand dollar bribe from Diebold back in '05. Now, perhaps the most culpable of all, J. Kenneth Blackwell has been kicked upstairs into a right-wing think tank. The inmates have now truly taken over the asylum.

The ONLY good news here is that we HAVE pulled back the curtain on e-voting. Until We the People make election day a holiday and turn our election precincts into community events on election day where we count paper ballots in the precinct, we will not get rid of the scurge of electronic voting on democracy. Open source code will not save us! SO, plan an election day precicnt party in your community for '08.

Characters like Bennett and O'Dell would hate this because it would mean the END of privatized elections in Ohio. It's gotta happen!!! We also need Public Financing. Granny D is RIGHT! It's a good day to save democracy.
Victrola