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VoteHere Whistleblower Suit
astar writes "VoteHere is a DRM electronic voting machine vendor.
Dan Spillane is sueing them for wrongfull termination in a whistleblowers suit."
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> "I didn't feel that just shutting up was, in my opinion, the American thing to do," he said.
I can totally understand this point of view. I've experienced similar events in my career. But not exactly the same, in that my former employer was just a bully, not distributing defective products.
I'm always surprised when I hear of terminated employees suing their bosses. Most of us don't have the resources to pull off successful termination suits in Canada, because we have to put our lawyers on retainer, and the whole process seems hardly worth the effort.
I was recently terminated by my employer after filing several grievances for harassment, and I looked into a lawsuit. What I found was not impressive at all; it could take years for me to successfully sue my former employer and the onus for proof was on me. There were witnesses to the events, but for obvious reasons, they weren't taking my side, as they were all afraid to lose their jobs. I wore a hat in the office, a company hat, and the boss handed them out only a few days prior to the final straw. When I wore it to work, the boss told me to take it off and I said that I had hat-head, and that I would not wear it the following day, but that I had to wear it that day. FYI, the employer did not tell us never to wear these company hats in the office, prior to the event. The boss caused a huge scene and started swearing at me in front of the whole office, calling me names and carrying on like a total madman. As a result of the disturbance, I had a meeting with HR and we agreed that I would have two-weeks "come as you please" time, where I could work from home or work late at night instead of working regular hours. The boss informed me that this was not acceptable, and he insisted that I be present while some important clients were there. I gave in, not wanting to further confront this boss. Finally, on the last day of the so-called free-time, I informed the HR manager that I would not be present, and that I would be working from home. I was fired by my boss the same day.
So, after being wrongfully dismissed, I looked into suing my employer, and the cost is extremely prohibitive. I may not even win, I was informed, because I broke some office policy by refusing to remove the company hat, even though it was given to me a few days prior, and even though I was told to wear it. The fact that I was insubordinate, or it could be implied that I was insubordinate, is the reason I would have no grounds, or it would be totally hard to prove my case, even though I was verbally abused on several times prior to this event. Even though I was on HR leave, I could still be fired, because I guess the manager somehow trumps HR?
All in all, my case was too complicated to be profitable in court. I would end up losing money or merely breaking even. The fact that I'm a white male in his mid-thirties, also has an impact on the possible success of such a case.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Maybe all of these people who want to shove electronic voting on us should consider that something very similar to an automated paper voting system--Scantron sheets and readers--works pretty well in the enormous educational system. It has proven its ability to scale and be relatively free of cheating, at least at the schools I attended. :-)
See, he's concerened about voting fraud, and you wore a hat to work and refused to take it off.
I totally agree. The reason I posted this was because I wanted to illustrate how difficult it can be to sue a former employer in Canada. The details are pretty irrelevant because most companies can dance around them. I'm quite pleased this fellow is trying to shine a light on voter fraud, but I wanted to emphasize how much he's risking doing so. It ain't easy!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Actually, in your case the HR department covered the companiy's butt pretty well. By adding the cool down time, they could at least claim they "made an effort" and that you "just didn't work out" rather than being shouted out of the office.
The lawyer, Stan Lippmann, is an "interesting" character as well. Lots of efforts, all in vain, to get elected in Seattle, as well as some trenchant comments on life, the universe and...vaccination.
http://www.cityofseattle.net/ethics/el99a/repor
(cityofseattle.net)
Ahem.
You know, it's been a while since I used it.
I seem to remember that there was some sort of cover with the key; that way your ballot just has a lot of bubbles on it.
Same sort of security as the 'use my blood' sticker when you donate blood - if the person can read the bar code, they can tell, but otherwise it's secure.
I think I need a new sig here.
Incorrectly, as in voting for two presidential candidates.
More likely where it is city commissioners, and you get a pick 5 from 15 situation.
I agree that you have the right to have a 0 vote counted.
I think I need a new sig here.
I guess you didn't read the court complaint list.
On many accounts, a software engineer said, we are not in compliance... we should fix this.
All the while, management ignores the issue and tells the compliance folks they are in the clear.
Among other things, sounds like they directly foobarred him for not pushing the product through.
In a situation like this, where you are a code author for a criticl piece of software, do you really want to risk being brought up to discuss why things failed later... in a court of law.
Sounds like he did the best he could to cover his ass over a product that was being pushed through the door to meet a deadline.
Provided his complaints are well documented it should be an easy win for him and a nice exposure for some crap software.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra