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Diebold Sues Massachusetts for "Wrongful Purchase"
elBart0 writes "Diebold has decided to sue the commonwealth of Massachusetts for choosing a competitor to provide voting machines for the disabled. Diebold wants to force the state to stop using the machines immediately, despite the upcoming municipal elections in many towns. The commonwealth chose the competitor based on an open process that included disabled groups. Diebold executives appeared confused when encountering election officials who made an intelligent choice."
In Soviet Massachusetts, Diebold sues YOU!
Sorry, I cound't stop myself.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I know nothing will motivate me to use a company's products like having them SUE my ass. Is Diebold kidding or something, here? I want to see them get smacked down, and HARD.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Although I don't support Diebold either, please keep personal opinion out of the summaries. Quotes like "diebold executives appeared confused when encountering election officials who made an intelligent choice" don't belong in objective news reporting.
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
...for fraud and racketeering.
to sue your customers. Just ask the RIAA.
It's as if I'm reading the Onion when I read that article.
I'm speechless.
Why, I bet there are tons of people that decided to use some one else's software, even though it is 'worse', simply because it is cheaper.
I could sue them and live off the profit!
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
They had a flashing LED when a vote was cast. This caused Boston police to shut the city down while the bomb squad went to each polling place to blow up the machines.
It's about time some benevolent large corporation stood up to their customers. Customers left to their own decisions will frequently buy the wrong products. The manufacturer obviously knows far more about their product than the customer, so they are the only ones in a position to make a sensible decision about what other people should use.
Clearly the best product for any situation is the one that the biggest company is pushing. It's not like companies get to be big in the first place by overcharging for their products and using the courts to keep competition down.
And they didn't sue the producers of Man of the Year? Didn't they realize that the fictitious voting-machine company it portrayed was them? (I'm sure most of the American public didn't realize that, but I digress...)
Sent from my iPhone
You didn't buy our flawed, faulty and unsecured product. We've decided to sue you.
Sounds like something a few other choice companies might attempt.
but wasn't one of Diebold's main selling points on using computerized voting over paper ballots that computerized voting systems help disabled people vote?(I do believe at some point they invoked the Americans with Disabilities act as a rationale for deploying these systems). So now disabled people actually help pick out a system and Diebold sues? (I guess according to Diebold disabled people aren't able enough to choose a system wisely :P)
Words fail.
Monstar L
Area man Greg Norton was sued by multinational corporation PepsiCO for purchasing a competing product, Coca-Cola. Said attorney Mark Wiseguy, "We compete against Coke around the country all the time". "Based on the criteria set out by Mr. Norton, we had a fair degree of confidence we'd come out on top, and nothing we heard during the process dissuaded us of that confidence." Greg Norton is said to have replied, "Dude, where's my country?"
.. we could get them to partner with SCO, that way we could have both massively stupid and nonsensical lawsuits dismissed in the same day.
Diebold's lawyers went to school with SCO's lawyers.
Now, I wonder how many places around the country will start deciding not to give Diebold a shot at all by not inviting the company to showcase its products, to avoid the chance of getting sued. Good job Diebold! (And you would think that all the bad news the last years was justification enough not to pick Diebold.)
In other news, a Toyota dealer is suing a man who bought a Honda, because "based on the criteria set out by the purchaser, we had a fair degree of confidence we'd come out on top, and nothing we heard during the process dissuaded us of that confidence." Actually, Toyoto is a decent manufacturer, make it a Yugo dealer.
They voted for the diebold machine, but they cast that vote *on* a diebold machine.
It's easy to see how things got mixed up from there...
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
There isn't one. To save others the trouble, here's the closest thing to a reason they give:
I'm a little surprised they think they can sue just based on a gut feeling and expect to get away with it, but then again, it is Diebold. They seem to get away with just about anything.
Diebold was so confident they'd win, that they now suspect foul play. If AutoMARK machines were indeed picked not based on superiority but instead based on under-the-table transactions between AutoMARK and the State, then that's not cool. If Diebold wants to invest money into investigating that possibility, then I say let them.
This is win-win: either Diebold wastes a bunch of money, or some corrupt people are exposed. Yay.
I'd love it if someone would do this in every state where someone agreed to buy Diebold voting machines.
Wrong actor, right technique. Based on security issues alone, we know Diebold is always the wrong choice. Just by a knee jerk methodology, we could keep the machines out of people's hands for another few months each time. It would generate some press, if nothing else.
LBJ wanted his opponent accused of having sex with barnyard animals. It wasn't that he thought the charge would stick -- he wanted people to hear the candidate deny it. In this case, the response will be "well, your software is a joke -- completely insecure." We'll get to hear Diebold deny the charge. Any suit brought to force reopening analysis before purchase of Diebold's stuff would mean that, once again, they'd have to say "No, our software isn't laughably insecure. No the fact the our code showed up on the Internet isn't a problem. No, our keys are not from a hotel minibar and orderable over the Internet, and no, they're not all the same. No, we didn't miscount this race in this way or that race in that way." If they deny it enough, everyone will know that it's true. Oddly, though, in this case it actually WILL be true.
So I think we should also allege that they have sex with barnyard animals.
...for April Fools, isn't it? I mean, this isn't serious, is it? It's a joke, right?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Initially, I thought, "Oh, well they must be accusing Mass. of some impropriety, like taking a bribe or something."
But no. From TFA:
"Weisberg said the company is not alleging any improprieties by the secretary of state's office. Instead, it is saying the office acted in good faith but made a mistake in the selection."
If it's not an issue of impropriety, then what's the legal basis for the suit? Any lawyers out there who can shed some light on this?
why is it I suspect there may be a little more to the story? Massachusetts is a 1-party state with virtually *no* oversight (see Big Dig). Cronyism runs rampant and unchecked. I am not defending Diebold in any way, but frankly I find it hard to believe Diebold would waste time and money suing for a measly $9M contract unless they knew a little more about the "selection process". It would not surprise me in the least if it turned out somebody had connections. In fact, it *would* surprise me if the selection was indeed on the up-and-up.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
That's it! It's time to boycott Diebold by not using any of their products! Oh wait, then we can't vote... Nice "democracy" we have in place here, huh?
I don't respond to AC's.
I was all for letting the market forces expose Diebold for the idiots they are. And the market forces were doing that. Now, Diebold is suing because Massachusetts chose a competing product, one built on well-considered design and usability principles.
Suing because the market has a better product?
EAT SHIT AND DIE, DIEBOLD!
Seriously, do us all a favor and just go away. It'll make the world a better place if you do.
See also RIAA, MPAA, BSA...
Here's a quote: "We compete against AutoMARK around the country all the time," Weisberg said. "Based on the criteria set out by the Commonwealth, we had a fair degree of confidence we'd come out on top, and nothing we heard during the process dissuaded us of that confidence." Oh, wait! This is
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Not only are their machines vulnerable (which is what gives them a bad name) they then exacerbate the situation with a ridiculous lawsuit like this? "We didn't win the contract and there is no evidence of wrongdoing but we either want the court to award us the contract or re-open the competition." It's even more absurd because the selection process in the public sector is very open and very documented. While 9 million is a lot of money, I don't think it's worth the rep hit they are going to take, yet again.
Anyone have the scoop on any key elections Diebold might have sold in Mass. that they can't deliver if they don't get their machines there in time for the vote?
Many slashdotters seem surprised this is happening, comparing it to any company that sues its customers. They are ignoring the fact that government purchasing is different from a private customer purchasing a product. Whereas, a private customer can make a decision based on any arbritary criteria (heh, that sales lady sure is cute...), government agencies are suppose to be neutral. They define the criteria, and pick the best alternative, i.e., the one that best satisfies the criteria. The criteria must be fully disclosed to all participants, and all participates must be given the same information. Any deviations from this process can lead to a lawsuit. Right or wrong, that is what Diebolt is claiming.
Rumor has it that the state voted twice - on AutoMARK machines the result was a unanimous win for AutoMARK. The second vote used Diebold machines and resulted in several votes for Pat Buchanan.
-- I might be stupid, but you have to be good at something.
When I heard this story on the morning news here in Boston, my first reaction was, "why are they suing over losing a measly $9 million contract?" My guess is their legal bill if they were to pursue this to the end would easily run to seven figures. According to the article, Diebold's attorney stated that "the company is not alleging any improprieties by the secretary of state's office. Instead, it is saying the office acted in good faith but made a mistake in the selection." MA Secretary of State Galvin doesn't think there's any reason to re-open this matter; I doubt the courts will either.
What's especially surprising is that this move comes after a recent Diebold SEC filing suggested that Diebold is considering leaving the voting machine business because the bad PR the company has received is starting to affect its much more important ATM business. Banks don't want to put a machine in front of its customers whose manufacturer gets accused of building shoddy voting equipment every time an election is held.
These voting machines can be opened by, and the contents tampered with, any voter who happens to have a certain type of minibar key. Other voting experts have also demonstrated a number of instances of weak security with Diebold voting machines. As a voter, that lack of security is completely unacceptable for my vote and the votes of others.
I bought a Prius, and now I'm being sued because I didn't buy a Hummer!
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Read the article, hopefully you get it there. /. is a glorified weblog where nerdy stuff gets compiled into one place. It does no research, has no reporters, etcetera.
Other than the motto after its name, it doesn't really pretend to be objective - so you at least know what the angle is (would you prefer it to be hidden?)
This lawsuit makes perfect sense. How can any Diebold executive promise to deliver the State to the Republican party if that State refuses to use Diebold voting machines? The fact that the machines are verifiably flawed be damned!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
If it's not an issue of impropriety, then what's the legal basis for the suit? Any lawyers out there who can shed some light on this?
I would imagine the rational goes something like this:
"The secretary of state's office set their requirments for a voting machine contract, and invited bids. We have looked at the bid they accepted, and looked at ours. We believe our bid meets the criteria far more closely than the bid that was accepted, and we think any objective observer would agree. We don't think anything improper went on, but we do believe that the state has not selected a vendor in line with the rules they laid out. There for, the process has not treated us fairly"
In a nutshell, they're saying the state did not fairly apply their own rules. If they had, Diebold believe they would have won.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Step 1: Establish a credit account with Oil Company A.
Step 2: Call them and ask the price of oil next time you need some.
Step 3: Get a load of oil from Oil Company B, who happens to have a better prioce that week.
Step 4: Get your credit account cancelled by Oil Company A because they know how often you should need oil and you didn't order form them.
No, it's not a lawsuit, but they're denying you credit for simply buying from their competition.
This is all perfectly legal in the State of Connecticut. It's like driving by a Mobil station to get cheaper gas at Shell, then Mobil cuts up your Mobil card.
Business today seems to run on the notion that if it's not specifically prohibited, we should try and do it, no matter how bad it looks. I get better ethics and learning curves from my third graders.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
That summary, was almost as poorly punctuated, as the People who Randomly Capitalize words, Are annoying.
...that could potentially be affected by this. Imagine Microsoft suing you because you bought a machine with Linux instead of Windows: "You made the wrong choice in your OS...please install Windows or we'll sue."
I suppose *that* particular situation is taken care of by the fact you get a machine with Windows whether you want to or not, for the most part, but if this were actually allowed, and actually went for Diebold (God forbid), then this litigenous society will have been taken to a whole new level:
"You made the wrong choice flying SouthWest. Buy a ticket on United now or we'll sue."
"You purchased Fords for your fleet vehicles when Chevy is the obviously better choice. Switch or we'll sue."
etc.
Now that I think about it, consider the NEW Pepsi challenge:
"I like the taste of cup A."
"You've made the wrong choice. Say you like what's in cup B or we'll sue."
"Um...I like the taste of cup B?"
"Great! Tell us why!"
If they can't force their product into polling places, how on earth do you expect them to be able to manipulate the election results?
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
You changed the results by measuring them!
Diebold would've helped deliver the disabled votes to the right candidate. Now it's gonna be a crapshoot between Douche and Turd. I'd be just as concerned.
Just this infinitely recurring zero floats into view.
To counter the editor's and the submitter's obvious bias against the company, here is their position as reported by a more professional journalist in TFA:
You, me, and any other private-sector entity do not have to explain our whims and caprices when (not) buying something (which may, actually, be unfortunate) to any one other than, perhaps, family members or stock-holders. The government, however, is legally obliged to pick the best — all of us are the stock-holders...
Knowing the policies and the corruption levels of Taxachusetts, Diebold may well be right suspecting something foul...
Diebold is, obviously, acting in its own best interests, but that's how life in this country is — we don't need people/companies to all be good and exemplary. Our system simply manages to pit the disagreeable qualities of some against such qualities of the others. In addition to the obvious free-market examples, we also rely on one (quite possibly crooked) politician to expose dishonesty of her opponent...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Idiot.
Diebold could have a case if, the state issued a set of criteria (all of which were quantifiable and accurately measured) in the RFQ. The state has an obligation to the people of Massachusetts to select the best product. But the state would have some wiggle room if any of those selection criteria were not quantifiable, (such as the lack of confidence in the electoral process associated with the Diebold name). Those sorts of criteria could outweigh all the others. It's unlikely the state didn't leave that wiggle room in its decision-making process. If Diebold wins this I'm going to have to consider suing all of the employers who didn't hire me.
Diebold's real complaint is that when the committee voted on which company to go with, Diebold wasn't allowed to count the votes.
The Voluntary Voting System Guidelines have a great deal to do with accessibility to people with disabilities. I am not convinced Diebold does a better job with this than their competitors, but I would appreciate having this very point discussed. Thanks!
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Corporate Headquarters: 1-330-490-4000
Here's what I just emailed to their PR department:
This kind of litigation is quite typical in public agency contracting.
./ whipping boy, doesn't mean this is new or different. This is one reason why gov't purchasing is so high-stakes. The litigation can be endless.
When the 600 lb. gorilla doesn't get the contract these are some of the tricks:
1. Back-room negotiating with the agency. (re: Microsoft/ODF in MA)
2. Negotiate with the contract winner to have _the contract winner_ become a sub-contractor to the 600 lb. gorilla "or else." Very common.
3. Arrange some campaign donations and kick the issue upstairs to have the contract awarded to the 600 lb. gorilla. (re: Microsoft/ODF in MA)
When those steps don't work, then the litigation flies.
Just because diebold the
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
While Diebold's claim sounds like BS, the term 'wrongful purchase' appears to have been pulled out of thin air (or perhaps another, less pleasant-smelling place). TFA doesn't mention 'wrongful purchase' and is not nearly as biased as the summary would suggest.
The relevant background here is that government purchasing decisions aren't like private ones. To avoid cronyism they are highly structured and have transparent selection criteria so that anyone can check the 'math' of these decisions. Diebold's claim is likely that, according to the selection criteria, they should have been awarded the contract and someone didn't follow the relevant regulations. It sounds like Diebold thought they had a lock on this contract and was surprised by the choice. The reasons given by MA government sound pretty legit and it seems likely to me that Diebold just wants to go on a fishing expedition hoping to find some sort of mistake in the process, but it's not as bizarre a claim as the summary makes it out to be.
and they might even have a workable basis for it if a public official refused to consider them without a good excuse.
I'm not sure that "fear of litigation" is an excuse a court would like, after all litigation is what gives them job security.
Prepare for the Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Well, obviously they can. How else would Starbucks have become so popular?
Since when has slashdot been about "objective news reporting"?
Uhhmm...when reporting on Objective-C?
Dear Election Official:
We are submitting this $9 million voting machine contract proposal. Please consider DIEBOLD.
PS- If you don't choose DIEBOLD, you better keep close watch your rear view mirror. We'll sue you in court, attempt to ruin your name, and have your dog killed.
Whatever happened to the right to choose? Irregardless of whether or not one product is better than the other or not. Aren't people/corporations/governments allowed to make choices based on preferences that don't necessarily need to be cold hard facts. I'm a Pepsi man, I like Pepsi, not because I think its better than Coke in taste, but just because I prefer it. If Coke finds out scientifically that it "tastes" better, are they going to sue me? Based on what Diebold is doing it would appear so. So long as there wasn't any unfair business practices taking place, which the article says that there appears to be no proof of, I don't understand what would possess Diebold to file this suit.
The moment the lawyer you DIDN'T hire sueed you for not hiring him. Oh and everyone who does NOT mod me up, I am sueing you!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I thought it was a violation of the Patriot Act to buy products from manufacturers other than Haliburton and Diebold. Buying competing products is supporting terrorism!
Someone please mod this or any one of the similar posts up. The article isn't clear, but apparently Diebold is suing because they don't think the State's selection process was followed. That would be legit. That option is open to competitors in government bidding because otherwise corruption runs rampant.
And yeah, I know: it's Diebold. I don't like them either. But let's have a couple of 'Plus 5 Informative' posts showing people what aspect of Law and Justice this all turns around.
Diebold hasn't done something wonderously bizarre here, ala SCO, but as the case goes forward I'm sure they'll manage to put their foot in it enough to be just as entertaining.
I work for an agency under DoD. I had some end of year fundage to spend so I decided to buy some printers and networkable scanners - about $100k worth of gadgets. I'd requested HP hardware because that's pretty much what the infrastructure here is geared to support.
Because of the size of the contract award the thing went out for open bid - and I was contacted by another printer manufacturer. I won't tell you their name, but their initials are L-e-x-m-a-r-k.
Strongarm tactics ensue. First the local contracting office asked me to define printing and scanning requirements as the Other Printer Company believes they can meet my requirements at a lower cost - but we won't mention the fact that all the supplies I have in stock are from the Printer Company I Wanted To Use and adding another hardware vendor would be a logistical nightmare.
So - starting with the network scanners I start looking at hardware specs. The Other Printer Company says they can meet my requirements, but since a digital sender is an input device as opposed to an output device, I would have to get the new hardware certifiied by the network spies and I don't have time to do that, so for that part of the procurement I got the hardware I requested.
The printers were another matter. Once you've specified dpi, print speed and networking capabilities you've pretty much got to go with whoever brings the lowest bid - so the Other Printer Company won that.
During the acquisition process I felt like I was being strongarmed by the Other Printer Company and since I couldn't give a good reason not to use their hardware I have to use it. If I'd have had a week instead of a day to process the procurement I probably could have.
I have learned that I need to fine-tune my hardware requirements to keep it from happening again - but manufacturers can and will sue the government for buying from somebody else.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
For anyone that's spent any amount of time in government contracting, you'd know this isn't uncommon.
Government acquisition contracts are supposed to go to the best product. Determining "best" is supposed to be based on an objective vendor selection process where certain aspects of each product are given a score, and the aggregate makes the decision. These vendor selection processes are sometimes not written well, often by people who don't really understand what it is they are comparing.
Let me give you an example from one vendor selection I worked on, for Ethernet switches. One of the criteria was "Supported VLANs." The product with the most supported VLANs was given a 1, and anyone less was given a fraction thereof equivilant to how many it supported. In this case, vendor A supported 4096 VLANs, while Vendor B supported 1024 VLANs. In this one criteria, vendor A was four times better than Vendor B, even though we only needed support for, at most, a dozen VLANs, which both devices could easily support.
In this instance, our complaints were heard and the problems were corrected.
However, often, this doesn't happen, and bogus criteria is used to make a decision.
On rare occasions, though, you'll even see vendor selection criteria written by people who've made a decision on which vendor they want to purchase, and the criteria is skewed to ensure that a certain product is purchased. This is rarely corruption, usually it's someone who already "knows" that a given product is better, and is simply trying to "make sure the right decision is made." For example, a Linux zealot writing vendor selction criteria for deciding on whether to go with Linux or Microsoft servers.
The exact vendor selection criteria, often being secret, leaves vendors that had reasonable belief that they should have won completely baffled as to why they lost. Unlike commercial transactions, where there is no recourse, they can bring the case to court to see if there was any improper behavior in the vendor selection process.
This actually benefits the taxpayer, as it gives oversight to procurment which is paid for by your tax dollars.
Just because in this case it's a company nobody likes, everyone is crying foul. But, in reality, it's a Good Thing.
Music group pac at issue
Firm sues over snub by mcgrew
By Alice DeFrye, Glube Staff | March 26, 2007
Sony BMG music, one of the country's largest manufacturers of recorded CDs, is scheduled to argue in court today that mcgrew wrongly picked another record label to supply tens of CDs.
The CDs are at about $90 ($200 for the Sony BMG CDs).
William M. Whatdafuk, a lawyer representing Sony BMG's Van Zandt, said in an interview yesterday that the company wants a review of the internal records showing how mcgrew's office came to select the self-published "The Station" earlier this year.
"We compete against The Station around the country all the time," Whatdafuk said. "Based on the criteria set out by the customer, we had a fair degree of confidence we'd come out on top, and nothing we heard during the process dissuaded us of that confidence."
Whatdafuk said Sony was so stunned it did not get the contract that it now believes "it's worth the time and money" of going to court to challenge the contract's award, even though the company at this stage has no hard evidence of unfair treatment.
mcgrew yesterday called the Sony BMG suit "fucked up" and unlikely to succeed. "My office made a very reasonable selection after a long, open process of evaluating the CDs," mcgrew said. "Besides, Dave and the guys are friends of mine."
"We are entirely confident we will prevail," he said, "Provided those bloodsuckers don't find out I've been seeding Morpheus with The Station, Posamist, and Linux distros. They never lose when they find out you've been trading music by people who want it traded.
In court filings, Sony BMG has indicated it will ask a judge today to immediately halt further use or distribution of the The Station CDs to other fans throughout the state. If a judge issues that order, Van Zandt and BMG will then present arguments over the coming weeks on why the process was flawed, Whatdafuk said.
"We want a judge to either order the contract awarded to Sony BMG, based on his review of the proposals, but if he does not want to go that far, to at least order a reopening of the competition," he said.
Whatdafuk said the company is not alleging any improprieties by the mcgrew's office. Instead, it is saying the office acted in good faith but made a mistake in the selection. mcgrew's purchase of about 35 CDs from The Station, Posamist, Inspected By Twelve, and other local Springfield indie bands for use by stoners and other music lovers arises out of the Help Starving Indie Band America Act, passed by the Springfield City Council as a rider to the smoking ban in 2006. It mandates bands provide CDs for those disabled by the killer bud or the loss of vision, among other disabilities.
mcgrew said The Station CDs have already been shipped to some of the city's 17 million non-smoking bars and the five smoking OK bars outside Springfield.
"I want to get the CDs in use quickly in the municipal elections before larger statewide smoking bans kill the local bar scene completely," mcgrew said. "I see this suit as interfering in that."
mcgrew invited bids from numerous CD manufacturers before his daughter inadvertantly infected his computer with Sony's infamous rootkit, narrowing the field to indies-only, and then to three, mcgrew said. While price was a key consideration, other criteria were considered, such as the quality of the CD, security, (ESPECIALLY security!) and service.
mcgrew said his office surveyed stoner and crackwhore groups and during the evaluation process after letting those groups test the competing CDs.
He said there was a consensus in favor of the The Station.
mcgrew cited as an important factor in favor of The Station its use of one kind of paper "ballot" for brain-disabled stoners and "others".
He said that gave extra privacy to stoned listeners.
The challenge will be heard in the business litigation session of Madison County Superior Court in East St. Louis, rather in the more business-friendly facists in Sangamon county.
*gasp* My bank doesn't use Diebold ATM machines. And they actually work and give me the right amount of money for withdrawing!
It is relatively common for competitors who lose any substantial contract to sue over the award.
The phraseology usually used is "company filed a protest."
Since you're likely to get sued by A if you pick B and sued by B if you pick A, the fears of a lawsuit cancel out of your decision.
Well, mostly -- because you know you're likely to get sued by one or more of the companies you try to be careful and deliberate in your selection process. Which leads to slow and expensive government procurement procedures.
Next time, have the vote for the bid take place on Diebold machines!
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
that one cries for a summary judgement from the bench.
"Well, let's see here, Diebold... you have no permanent record, you have a litany of hacks, your top management has a strong candidate bias on record, you act like assholes and sue everybody you don't like. Case dismissed with prejudice, get out of my court and stay out of my state. Diebold to pay all legal bills, back to the founding fathers."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
..."Rackteering" mean anything to Diebod, or the State of Massachusets?
(Maybe "Protection Racket" would be better - "Buy our products, if you know what's good for you...")
I have experience with the federal contracting process, I suspect the states follow similar procedures. In the public solicitation or Request for Proposal, the Government will have laid out some evaluation factors (i.e. what matters when selecting the contractor or product). Those factors are more or less binding once announced. All proposals must be evaluated in accordance with the publicly stated evaluation factors and only the publicly stated evaluation factors. If Diebold reasonably believes that the state is not using its own rules for selecting a contractor, then Diebold can protest the award or sue. That's how public contracting works. If the State can reasonably and coherently relate their source selection decision in terms of the evaluation factors, then the State will probably win. If the State can not, or if the State used considerations outside of the announced evaluation factors, then the State will lose. That is the way the system works and it is designed to keep the process honest.
Clearly, by convincing stupid americans that burnt coffee isn't burnt at all, just stronger, and making them feel like connoisseurs. Off topic, I know. Can't resist the urge to bash Starbucks.
The future isn't here until I can type "car keys" into Google and have it say "You left them in your pants last night."
They apparently think the State did not evaluate the proposals in accordance with the publicly stated evaluation factors (i.e. the state didn't follow its own rules on fair contracting). That is enough to protest the award or sue (depending on how the state contracting system works).
Seriously. When I was in undergrad I had a couple of friends who were in the business school. One of them characterized the business ethics program as, "If it's not already illegal then it's your moral obligation to do it in order to encourage people to make it illegal, because if you don't someone else will and they'll out-compete you..." etc.
My friend was as flabbergasted as I was.
At the end of the article is this bit:
Galvin said his office surveyed disabled groups and municipal election officials during the evaluation process after letting those groups test the competing machines. He said there was a consensus in favor of the AutoMARK.
Galvin cited as an important factor in favor of AutoMARK its machine's use of one kind of paper ballot for disabled voters and others. He said that gave extra privacy to disabled voters.
"If you happened to have only one disabled voter in a precinct, that person's ballot is easily identifiable," he said.
Does Diebold's system use different (read: identifiable) methods depending on the person's disability? That would certainly be a vote against them....
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
Sounds like sour grapes on Diebold's part to me. Diebold did not allege that the state did anything wrong (and was quoted as such) but just want to sue to see if they can find a technicality.
Its a waste of the taxpayer's money.
When governments go to purchase a product they can't just say, "OK, I like this one the best. Let's get 1000 of them." They have to do an open competitive bid in which they lay out the detailed specifications of the item that they want to purchase. They also have to lay out in detail the criteria that will be used to choose the "best" product. Then every company in the country has a chance to bid for the sale. They then evaluate all of the bids they got and the one that best meets their criteria is the one that has to win. Of course there are other potential issues but that is the basic idea. If a company that bid for the contract, feels that the selection criteria were not followed as stated, they have a perfect right to complain just as Diebold is doing. It's not as juvenile as most of you think. It's just the way government purchases work.
As for those who hope to see Diebold die over this, I believe that in contract disputes like this, the government almost always loses.
Here is a video showing how easy it was to bypass Diabold :
voting machine security using a Home Made Key
Minibar keys seem to fit the locks just right.
I am not sure if the USA should trust democracy to people who can't figure out how to put a lock on...
But still, that's not a fair analogy here. What diebold seem to be claiming (although TFA is sketchy) is that the state have not appled the criteria they siad they were going to, because if they had they would have chosen diebold.
A better analogy would run like this:
A government contract to supply office software is up for grabs. The department in question states they will selecet the bidder with best use of open standards, lowest cost per license and support for the largest number of OSs. No other criteria will be evaluated. They invite bids, evaluate them all, and choose MS Office over OO.o.
Now, whether they have chosen the best office suit or not is a matter of opinion, but there is no way any objective observer could claim MS Office beats OO.o on those criteria . Clearly, choosing MS office would be going against their stated criteria. Therefor, be it due to malice or stupidity, the process has not trated everyone fairly. Maybe they actually tested startup time as well, but forgot to tell the OO'o people they were doing so. If they had, perhaps the OO team might have been able to optimise their start up times further. It might be an honest mistake, but it would still have unfairly handicapped one bidder. That's what Diebold are alleging. Not "no one could ever want to use any other voting machine", but rather "Your criteria are clearly better met by our machine than by the competitions".
Now, I happen to think that they are almost certainly wrong, and hope they lose the court case, but lets not panic about Billy G's lawyers taking up station outside the Apple store just yet.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
Maybe, just maybe, They think someone high up owes them one.
I'm just sayin.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Working for a computer and IT services vendor to the Fed. Govt. I was always mystified by the procurement procedures. As you put it so well, I did learn the key was in writing the specs. I also learned part of the key was helping my Govt. counterparts write the specs.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
"Must be 100% compatible with pre-existing stocks of printing consumables"
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
You know, to be honest I didn't think of that. The end-of-year feeding frenzy around here means they call you at noon and want you to spend a quarter of a million bucks before you go home for the day - with vendor sources and full justification as to why you need the hardware they wouldn't let you have all year long.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
I'm a little surprised they think they can sue just based on a gut feeling and expect to get away with it, but then again, it is Diebold. They seem to get away with just about anything.
I bid on local government contracts. They require financial statements from the companies, and they have the right to reject any bid because they don't "feel" that it will be in the best interest of the city. If they suspect that the bid is low because the company is going to deliver something substandard (despite any and all claims to the opposite), then they will reject it. If they feel the company isn't financially stable, they will reject the bid. They explicitly state they do not just take the lowest bid that meets the necessary criteria, and usually do not end up with the lowest bid. The reason being that lowest bidders are often troublesome when it comes to actually performing the work.
So, someone that gets rejected for some of these "soft" criteria might be upset and think that they were unfairly discounted, and I don't know of any way to see inside the decisions without a lawsuit.
Learn to love Alaska
That's a dangerous game if your company has any financial interest in the contract - but you're right, it's all in the statement of work or RFQ. I wrote a SOW for a cell phone contract once that required coverage in 35 little towns - about a third of them didn't even have post offices. My preferred provider lost the bid but so far the company that won the bid has provided pretty good service.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
I know how the locks work, we were locked in for the past three years.
This was on a will-call, no-lock, open account for credit.
I specifically did not lock in this year, for as predicted, prices went down, and I made out better than if I'd locked in.
Not only that, but I've had different people call the same company on the same afternoon as existing no-lock, prospective customer, (and against the current lock-in) and gotten two (three) different prices.
I've been up and down this with the heating oil division of the state consumer protection agency, and they allow that it looks anti-competitive, but there's no law against it, they can't say everyone does it, but they're pretty sure the big ones do.
I lucked out with two smaller dealers, one of which was willing to level with me on the outlook and believed their honest approach would be the better route. They got my business.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Diebold: We're suing because the Massachusetts decision makers obviously took bribes to pick AutoMark.
The Press: How do you know this?
Diebold: Because we bribed those same people for an outcome in our favor. The only way the state could have picked AutoMark is that AutoMark must have bribed more!
Quiet down there, N00b! ;)
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
You're making a good point, but it doesn't seem to apply in this situation. Perhaps that's what you meant by "off-topic?"
An article summary is not part of an informal discussion. I'm also not convinced that the comma is the best piece of punctuation to appropriate for this purpose. I usually use ellipses to indicate some sort of substantial pause. I think that commas help people quickly parse and comprehend any written text, and that they should be used correctly regardless of formality. Improper use of commas is usually jarring--I think there are only a few comma rules that can be broken without "sounding" awkward.
Great! I use words to mean whatever I feel like they should mean instead of the generally agreed upon conventions that have formed over time.
Flange Samson ton magnet flipper, lumberyard milquetoast tire iron?
If Deibold were a person, people would be screaming bloody murder that this person was tying up the court system with frivolous lawsuits and wasting tax payers dollars. They would be mad as hell that they didn't just suck it up, lick their wounds and move on.
Where are those people who always scream about the McDonald's lawsuit?
Given the timing of their lawsuit, wouldn't the Doctrine of Laches apply? They could have filed suit well in advance of an actual election day.
Laches
n. the legal doctrine that a legal right or claim will not be enforced or allowed if a long delay in asserting the right or claim has prejudiced the adverse party (hurt the opponent) as a sort of "legal ambush." Examples: a) knowing the correct property line, Oliver Owner fails to bring a lawsuit to establish title to a portion of real estate until Nat Neighbor has built a house which encroaches on the property in which Owner has title; b) Tommy Traveler learns that his father has died, but waits four years to come forward until the entire estate has been distributed on the belief that Tommy was dead; c) Susan Smart has a legitimate claim against her old firm for sexual harassment, but waits three years to come forward and file a lawsuit, after the employee who caused the problem has died, and the witnesses have all left the company and scattered around the country. The defense of laches is often raised in the list of "affirmative defenses" in answers filed by defendants, but is seldom applied by the courts. Laches is not to be confused with the "statute of limitations," which sets specific periods to file a lawsuit for types of claims (negligence, breach of contract, fraud, etc.).
The United States is, and has been, a capitalist country for the last 220 years now. Let's do a little economics review. In a capitalist system, competition is uninhibited by government, and in the United States as well as some other countries, corporations are not permitted to stifle competition. Therefore, on purely philosophical grounds, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SUE.
Next, I notice that you sued because you were "confident" you would win and didn't. Last time I looked, Massachusetts caused you no undue loss and in fact kept the selection process very open so as to avoid precisely this: a lawsuit. Had you investigated this further instead of wasting time on poor quality voting machines which are easier to hack than MS Windows, you might have attempted to sell your awful piece of crap to Massachusetts. So, from a legal point of view, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SUE.
I would go on but since I have already proven from the legal point of view that YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SUE it is obvious that you are just a bunch of sore losers.
Regards,
Byron
"All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." -- Mark Twain
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the role grammar to accurately reflect the tone and meaning of what one types? The proper use of punctuation should convey the tone. The problem is that everyone has started typing like they speak, when the written word is conveys emotion differently - i.e. not better, not worse - than spoken English.
:)
This is especially true of irony and sarcasm. Every day some slashdotter complains about leaving off the irony tags - as if they didn't exist pre-internet. The problem isn't that sarcasm translates badly to text, the problem is that the poster hasn't learned to properly write sarcastic statements.
We should really be learning how to write better, rather than forcing spoken English into text.
The contract dispute in question seems to center on the use of systems for accessibility, not the purchase of a complete set of new systems. According to The Verifier Massachusetts use a mixture of Central-Count and Precinct-Count optical scanners for their elections with accessible devices for the disabled. That being the case I doubt that Diebold has much of a case.
For those unfamiliar with the dispute AutoMARK is a ballot marking system that allows voters with disabilities to use a touchscreen, keypad, or "binary switch" (sip and puff or gell-pad for people with no hands or little control over said hands say due to parkinson's or stroke) to fill out a printed ballot. The voter's choices are marked on the ballot using an ink that makes them suitable for scanning by any standard optical scanner (including the Diebold and ES&S scanners used in Massachusetts. The advantage of this system is that it enables voters with disabilities to cast the same type of ballot as everyone else thus avoiding the second-class-voter problem.
Diebold has no such device. In juristictions that use Diebold systems for accessibility, voters with disabilities cast their vote on a Diebold AccuVote-TS or TSX, a touchscreen Direct-Recording-Electronic system. Such votes are saved to the machine's internal flash disk and tallied at the end of the night separately from the votes cast on the optical scanners by every other person.
This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, this means deploying two parallel voting systems on election day and tallying them separately. In effect this creates two classes of voters and subjects disabled voters to using a second-tier system. Similarly Diebold has yet to deploy the same range of accessibility features as are available on the AutoMark. For example they have yet to produce a usable "binary-switch" system.
For that reason I find it unlikely that Diebold will win this case because they are selling, quite simply, an inferior product.
you know, you can justify not sending some stuff out for open bid. Sounds like you could have had a chance at getting permission to do a sole source.
... I don't want to have to deal with support, or even the complaints department. I guess you have to file a complaint in person, and then the monster bits your head of :-)
Sue your customers. Where have we heard that before?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Because obviously they all use something ANTI-MS which isn't what they want you to do. For you windows users who read and post here, you are guilty by association.
Isn't it ironic that Diebold wants to investigate the paper trail for how certain goverments did things? Wouldn't it be great if having paper trails was the standard for all things governmental, including voting, so that people could check voting machines' accuracy after an election. And isn't is cool how Diebold opposes those paper trails for their voting machines? Maybe the good peeople of the Commonwealth can just go up to the judge and say their internal procedures were followed correctly, and Diebold doesn't need to see any evidence other than the word of the officials? What do you think that chances of that are?
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
What the fuck, are you another Republican stooge? "Bias" is code word for "fails to fall to knees and gobble neo-conservative Republican cock on command." Has been since about the time the Fairness In Media act was repealed by Reagan.
If you had a letter in your name twice, you'd win. Period.
/This isn't Man of the Year.
//You want to bet? Jon Stewart could win the presidential election even without broken voting machines.
This is not on the thread topic but I have to call this. People always have biases, but reporting can be objective--for example, "I let go of a hammer and it fell to the ground." There is nothing biased about that; it is an objective report of what happened.
Obviously the little snark in the summary does not fit anyone's definition of objective, but to jump from that to a blanket denial of objective reporting is not supported. Things are not so binary. If we can identify and acknowledge bias then we can compensate for it--either by providing "equal time" to differing view points or (better) sticking to reporting straight facts and clearly separating any analysis or opinion. The poster failed at that, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Let's change Diebold into Deadbold.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1 bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, pass it round... Oh, umm...
How many companies will consider doing business with Diebold now?
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
You missed the essential lesson.
It's not about fine-tuning the hardware specifications on a $100k tender. It's about breaking up your windfall purchases into smaller units, none of which are large enough to go to tender. One small purchase for scanners. One small purchase for 16ppm B&W laser printers. One small purchase for 12ppm color printers. One small purchase for extra consumables. One small purchase for the accessories for those scanners... and so the story continues.
It's easier to spend $10k 10 times than to spend $100k once.
Oh my god. If I owned shares in Diebold I would be asking for the directors heads on a platter. What they have done is the following.
1. If Diebold wins, no one will do business with them because they have a legal lock in within their contract.
2. If Diebold loses, no one will do business with them for fear of other similar lega tactics.
Surely any director should have seen this coming. Even if the charges are dropped, it will probably kill them unless they hush up the case. You can be sure that their compeditors will fight against that though.
In my next incarnation, I hope to come back as a code monkey.
Thank you. I keep telling people that Starbucks is nasty, burnt coffee, and they look at me like I'm crazy. I swear, I wouldn't pay diner rates for it, much less what they charge.
Yes.
We should really be learning how to write better, rather than forcing spoken English into text. :)
Yes.
qz
pretty decent idea.
we already did insulation back in 05 when the tax breaks were in place.
between that and smart buying, we've kept our annual heating total bill flat since 2003-04.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
"We compete against AutoMARK around the country all the time," Weisberg said. "Based on the criteria set out by the Commonwealth, we had a fair degree of confidence we'd come out on top, and nothing we heard during the process dissuaded us of that confidence."
Translation: it is the suxors! We lost!
Galvin cited as an important factor in favor of AutoMARK its machine's use of one kind of paper ballot for disabled voters and others.
He said that gave extra privacy to disabled voters.
"If you happened to have only one disabled voter in a precinct, that person's ballot is easily identifiable," he said.
Ouch! A voter is easily identified. I thought that was the whole reason for the paper ballot and punch holes.
And huh? How does this give extra privacy to disabled voters? Oh, I see. There has to be at least two.
I'm uncomfortable with both of them. I am not a Diebold fan by any means but identifying voters by vote is just as bad.
qz
Also, for a person who claims to overuse commas as a favorite method of indicating a verbal pause, why did you (incorrectly) use a semi-colon instead of a comma at the end of your third line?
Finally, let's not even get into your mistaken use of the word "where" in lines three and four.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Actually, it's not perverse at all. The original use of the comma was to indicate pause in speech. As it turns out, using commas "naturally" is one of the best ways to approximate using them in a "grammatically correct" fashion. It just so happens that good speakers generally insert pauses setting off: asides, appositives, free modifiers, adverbial phrases, independent clauses, list items, etc.
The first thing I think when I read a badly punctuated sentence is, "Did this person even read that?"
You know what you're talking about, What're you posting on Slashdot for? :)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
That's why it's properly referred to as Charbucks and real coffee connoisseurs drink Peet's.
Short answer: None. for Both ATM and voting machines.
Long Answer: I pity diebold. They used to make the world's most secure ATMs. Better than NCR.
Unfortunately the joke of a new CEO, thought that they could follow the success into election voting machines since congress mandated e-voting after the election-stealer Bush won due to hanging chads because hurricane-shocked floridans did not have enough IQ to vote paper votes better and instead spent time spray-painting walls "Go Away Isabel", as if that would make the hurricane go away by magic (the result of living near DisneyLand).
Seeing the "heck of a job" to be done by Diebold in e-voting, the CEO went about buying AccuVote even though internal auditors of Diebold pointed out issues in AccuVote, Inc. The problems of AccuVote did not go away magically when Deibold bought it (IT problems do not go away like financial problems magically). Add to that the "foot-in-mouth" Diebold joker who claimed to "Deliver Florida" to bush since he donated to Bush campaign.
End Result: Non working machines, MS Access using machines (AccuVote was in process of moving to SQL Server when Diebold bought it and scuttled the money donation to MSFT [all ye MSFT haters rejoice]), lotsa smoke due to the chairman's "foot-in-mouth" disease, etc., all conspired to bring Diebold down as a company in both sales and reputation.
What to do: Sell the AccuVote to Carlyle and watch them do an LBO. Concentrate on ATMs and get that oldie Rep. chairman to go hunting quails with Cheney and give Cheney a shotgun filled with steel pellets (not birdshot).
Enjoy Deibold.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Yup. That would have ended lex's career.
Make it a point to do that next time.
That's what my boss used to do everytime he wanted a truthful bid which did not junk old machines.
I remember the higher-ups cribbing since Eps*n or others could not make a crack, since they would end up being sued by Xer*x.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
During the acquisition process I felt like I was being strongarmed by the Other Printer Company and since I couldn't give a good reason not to use their hardware I have to use it. If I'd have had a week instead of a day to process the procurement I probably could have.
I have learned that I need to fine-tune my hardware requirements to keep it from happening again - but manufacturers can and will sue the government for buying from somebody else.
Uhm. Yes. And that's because you are spending somebody elses money (namely, the taxpayers money) which is why there are rules for buying from the lowest bidder as long as they meet the requirements.
For some reason, this got me thinking about the psychic studies institute at Princeton that closed. (I think it was Princeton. OTOH, I'm having a real brownout on that. Some realtime pre-cog would help a lot)
I suspect that the real reason for their closure was their falure to use Diebold testing machines. If they'd used Diebold, they could have had a much higher postive correlation count. (Or not, depending on service plan.)
Looks like the paranoiacs were right -- when Diebold feels the wrong candidate has been picked, it will stop at nothing to "correct" that vote.
"Very clever, young man. But it's Republicans all the way down."
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
Now let me guess how this works out in America, land of the Free...
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Words of wisdom. Making ordinary, stupid people feel like connoisseurs is the basis for at least 90% of all sales in pretty much every industry, from high-end CPUs to fast cars to indie music to Venezuelan beaver cheese.
butter the donkey
It's hard these days to do a sole source procurement - and I think it should be. Doesn't always make things go the way I want them to, but I think the rule is a good one.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Cheapest is not always least expensive and I'm fully aware of my fiscal responsibility to the taxpayer. My job is to keep this particular government agency from doing stupid shite and I save the taxpayer several times my annual compensation by doing sanity checks on IT procurements - it's what I do. This was a tough call and I understand the need for catchall rules but in most organizations this size hardware costs are insignificant - what *is* significant is the support infrastructure.
The off-brand printers were cheaper; the infrastructure to support them - acquring/making space for and cataloging a new line of consumables, training technicians and so on really makes one question whether there was any cost savings.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
It certainly is ;-)
The feeding frenzy that is end-of-year procurement generally doesn't allow for that, though. What's more likely is someone will come up to you after lunch and tell you you have to spend a quarter of a million bucks by the end of the day and that it all has to be stuff that we really need - and the contracting office needs quotes to pull the thing together.
I digress, but in my mind the problem is there really isn't any incentive to save money - if you don't spend the money you lose it - and if you didn't need it this year we won't give it to you next year, so everybody scrambles to spend every dime to keep from getting their budget cut.
I think what needs to happen is if you don't spend all your money you get to keep part of it - or that turning money back in at the end of the year doesn't result in an automatic budget cut. Some years you need more money than others.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
And there you have in a nutshell why surplus funds should be cached rather than spent. But there's always that fear of "if we don't spend it, thus demonstrating that we needed it, we won't get *enough* money =next= year."
I have to wonder what percentage of taxpayer dollars is purely wasted that way.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Billions. Of. Dollars.
I'd like to see some financial incentive for *not* blowing out your budget at the end of the year - like maybe an assurance that you wouldn't lose funds you didn't spend - or at least that you wouldn't lose all of them.
Unfortunately the budget people don't understand that your requirements can rise and fall from year to year - so they decide if you don't spend it one year you never need the money again.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Just as I suspected :(
:/ Kindof like how California does things :(
That's why I suggested some sort of caching or pooling system, where unspent funds would remain unspent, so they'd be available against future shortfalls. I suppose to prevent the perception of "you don't need that money ever again" there'd need to be some sort of accounting system where such surpluses remain part of your department's budget, even tho they're temporarily in the general pool.
Of course knowing how gov't works, everyone would mysteriously need more funds every time the pool showed a surplus
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?