Life as a Spectator Sport

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Sunday, March 26, 2006

Criticize us and you'll be sorr-eee ....

Leon County, Florida, is unable to purchase voting machines for its disabled citizens because its elections supervisor, Ion Sancho, wanted to be sure the machines weren't susceptible to tampering.
The maverick elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla., last year helped show that electronic voting machines from one of the major manufacturers are vulnerable, according to experts, and would allow election workers to alter vote counts without detection.

Now, however, Sancho may be paying an unexpected price for his whistle-blowing: None of the state-approved companies here will sell him the voting machines the county needs.

"I've essentially embarrassed the current companies for the way they do business, and now I believe I'm being singled out for punishment by the vendors," he said.

There are three vendors approved to sell voting equipment in Florida, and each has indicated it cannot or will not fill Sancho's order for 160 voting machines for the disabled. Already, he has had to return a $564,000 federal grant to buy the machines because he has been unable to acquire the machines yet.
The article in the Washington Post goes on to say that Diebold, the largest manufacturer of voting machines in the US, will not sell to Leon County without assurances that their machines would not be subjected to further testing. Another company, Sequoia Voting Systems, said the company "lacks the capacity to fill his order." A third company, Election Systems & Software Inc., did not respond to requests for a comment.

Sancho has been generous in taking the blame and saying that he is the one being punished. It is actually the citizens, especially the disabled citizens, of Leon County who are being punished for the vigilance and careful responsibility their elections supervisor exercised on their behalf.

It will be interesting to see whether the current administration, that mandated the purchase of these machines for disabled voters, but which is also a mile deep in Diebold's pockets, will do anything to make sure those voters are able to get them.
posted by Liz @ 11:42 AM     |


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