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Diebold Goes 0 For 3 In Massachusetts Case
beetle496 writes "ComputerWorld reports that last week a judge denied Diebold's request to block ES&S pact with Massachusetts. This is a follow-up to the earlier discussion here after Diebold contended that the state had erred in selecting the machines of its rival, citing accessibility provisions of the HAVA law. Quoting: 'Diebold's request for an injunction to block the execution of the contract with ES&S was rejected... The judge also denied Diebold's request to have an accelerated discovery process and to keep the state's legal team from viewing internal Diebold documents... "The suit is still there, but they went zero for three yesterday," the spokesman said.' The actual accessibility concerns have been discussed over at the TEITAC listserv, including a few telling observations from experts familiar with accessible voting and at least one state insider."
stick to ATMs.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
one for the good guys. It's a start. Just amazes me how in some countries the mere thought of voter fraud creates giant revolutions, while in America you have blatant evidence of fraud, and very few people care.
In Soviet Russia, YOU defraud the Government!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
ES&S is the corporation which made the machines used to steal^H^H^H^H^H carry out the Presidential election in Ohio in 2004.
I don't know why we're congratulating ES&S on its victory over Diebold. Why is one black box maker any better than another? Let's use a sensible system instead.
Supreme Court: 5-4, ES&S wins! Diebold: 9-0, we win lol!
Ya, it's off-topic flame-bait but it's tragically funny.
"Also they don't speak or write good English"
Holy fuck what an idiot. Can't stop laughing.
Diebold is the SCO of politics
For what it's worth, snopes.com says the legend of the boiling frog is false. But I do wonder sometimes if we should just get it over with and start fucking things up ASAP. :)
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
It is truly a pleasure to watch common sense take its proper seat in our judiciary. It's all too rare in this American life these days to see the government actually assert itself over a corporation.
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Why do I get the feeling that according to Diebold things went more like 4:1 in their favor?
Oh...right... well, *ahem* let's just hope their court case continues to..uhhh... die boldly?
"The Clue State"
Or maybe just call it "Massa-clue-setts"
First OpenDocument. Now this. Love it.
It's important to save the frog.
There are several open source voting machine projects on SourceForge. WTF is our problem for not getting our governments to use the auditable machines?
c e
Or what about open source governance? Isn't it time to get rid of the institutions that are based on those of our pre-human ancestors? How about a little technology in our government?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governan
http://www.metagovernment.org/
We have everything we need.
So, a company can sue over the selection of a compeditors items/services?
"Go ahead and buy a Mac. We'll see you in court"
Diebold takes the mystery out of elections. It might be a more efficent use of campaign funds to stop wasting the money on political ads and just use it to bribe Diebold.
the computerized system that orders posts shows that no sir, you are somewhere closer to 2nd or third post.
/. to outsource some parts of slashcode to Diebold.
I wonder if it was wise for
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Who ever wins, we lose. Pure and simple. Wake up folks.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
I don't know, maybe Diebold has some kind of Braille plugin or voice prompts, but how is a guy without arms and legs supposed to vote, unless he is a truly great lower. I would hope disabled people can get a special poll assistant, who ideally sends the voter back with a videotape documenting the transaction.
If nobody on the ballot seems acceptable, write in someone who is. That could be yourself, if you are eligible to hold that office. Or arrange with a small group of like-minded people to use the same write-in protest candidate.
/.
There's your CowboyNeal vote. Too bad it won't win, unlike on
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
From what one has heard, Diebold machines were not really forthcoming with registering the intended votes of people without disabilities.
So how about making them accessible for 99% of the populace first, _then_ bother about the rest?
Oh! Look! Colorado State Rep. (and presidential hopeful) Tom Tancredo is posting to slashdot!
How weird is that?
I'm guessing this has something to do with MIT.
Although, of course, it hasn't gone very far -- but no other state has even considered this kind of thing.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
1) I find it highly offensive and irresponsible that the discussion on /. for this case (both this story and the one before) has automatically presumed that the disabled community is being used as a witless proxy for larger battles.
2) Having read and digested the entire nuanced thread, particularly posts like this and that, I have come to the reasoned conclusion that disability access is being used as a proxy for larger battles. I also duly note the similarly with the Massachusetts fight over ODF, but disavow that this is a pattern. Even if Peter Korn of Sun thinks differently. <*sighs deeply* />
I would like to quote a well connected individual who this all into perspective for me a week ago:
And I initially thought he was just being cynical!
Not that anyone at /. cares, but here is a link to Voluntary Voting System Guidelines which both the ES&S and Diebold products fail to completely satisfy.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
or do the words "hanging chads" and "ohio vote count" mean anything to you?
paper ballots. the past is the secure future.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
And like SCO, maybe this suit is set to backfire on them?
They tried to get an injunction to stop the contract going through so as to damage their opponent, but they also tried to keep the feds from being able to view their internal documents in the process. Well they didn't get their injunction, and now the feds are going to have access to those documents during discovery. Do these documents contain things they really don't want anyone to know? It's happened before, but are they afraid that even more documented examples of willfull malfeasance be aired in court?
I know, wishful thinking, and it's not like the ones the state went with are any better. But I'm a hopeful guy! The SCO case might even end this decade!
The enemies of Democracy are
I once saw a proposal for "None of the above". It would be always present on votes. It would be treated as a candidate. A vote for "None of the above" would disqualify any of those candidates from ever running for that office again, and force a re-election for that position.
Right now, people end up voting for the candidate that sucks the least. A "None of the above" vote would put the power back to the people, by giving them a safe "Cowboy Neal" option that actually might have some teeth.
Which is why the Republicrats would never go for it.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
See, the irony of Diebold suing Massachussetts for not buying their defective vote rigging/eating machines is that Diebold markets the machine that Mass is buying from ES&S. Thats hipocritical to the max. Diebold - News ReleasesALLEN, Texas -- Diebold Election Systems and AutoMARK Technical Systems have ... The AutoMARK(TM) accessible device can be used with Diebold's optical scan ...
www.diebold.com/news/newsdisp.asp?id=3292
Then they'd be sure to get it right.
Strange, their ftp server doesn't seem to be up.