Diebold Sues Massachusetts About Handicapped Voting Access
Voting Machine maker Diebold, the largest maker of touch-screen voting systems, is back in the limelight. After suffering accusations and complaints from many states regarding the poor reliability of their machines, lack of data security, a missing paper trail and the appearance of partisan loyalties, Diebold lowers the bar once again.
In seeking to comply with the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act, Massachusetts has given the voting machine contract to AutoMARK after going through “an exhaustive process consulting with the disabled community to find out what’s best for them,” Secretary of State William Galvin told The Associated Press. According to Gavin, handicapped users found the AutoMARK machines preferable to the Diebold machines.
Diebold is seeking to block distribution of the new machines for the disabled. So much for capitalism, market demands and fair business practices.
O’Dell, an elite Bush supporter, famously wrote a letter to Ohio Republicans stating his commitment to “helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president” in 2002. O’Dell sponsored a $600,000 fund raiser for Dick Cheney that same year. He eventually stopped raising money for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign only after John Kerry publicly complained.
Mixing politics with the vote counting process is a sure way to stomp the life out of democracy. Whether Democrat, Republican, or someone who actually thinks for themselves without blind party loyalty, it should be obvious that politics has no place in the vote tallying process. By the same token, business should always be a win/win situation and should be good for both sides. Massachusetts has chosen a plan where they not only get voting machines in place, it accommodates the handicapped - everyone wins. Stop whining, Diebold. It’s called competition.
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