So, what's the Cheney-Diebold connection?

[bleever]

There doesn't have to be one, necessarily, in this web of collusion, bribery, deceit, and co-option, and yet part of my mind suspects that there must be a connection that we've so far overlooked.

Is there a connection between the military/private-contractor nexus and the voting machine manufacturers?

I don't have any evidence at the moment, but I'd sure like to hear any thoughts or evidence that anyone has to offer.

[stepnw1f]

1. This Would Be Interesting

Is there enough public info to see?

[bleever]

3. We know that Rove hired Abramoff's personal assistant,

and Abramoff lobbied for Diebold.

Maybe it was just Rove's portfolio within the administration to take care of elections, and Cheney trusted him to take care of it, and yet it seems improbable that Halliburton, KBR, and others who contract so many government/security work, wouldn't have some hand, somehow, in the machinery of the elections.

[stepnw1f]

7. links pleassssse

I'll look around too.

[bleever]

8. You'll find it right away if you google Susan Ralston.

And if not, I'll dig 'em out. In the meantime, here's a link to a previous DU thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=423695

[eleny]

2. Here's one article that might connect some interesting dots

http://www.opednews.com/landes_voting_machine_fiasco.htm

"Voting Machine Fiasco:
SAIC, Bohemoth Military Contractor, Wants to Be inside Every Voting Machine; Three Way Scam on Diebold Review?
by Lynn Landes OpEdNews.Com

... Former President, Chief Operating Officer, and Vice Chairman of SAIC is Admiral Bill Owens, who is now Chairman of the Board for VoteHere. Owens also served as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was a senior military assistant to Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney. Carlucci's company is Carlyle Group, while Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer is Halliburton...."

[eleny]

4. Another article - this one from Project Censored

"And can we be sure we actually had a fair election among those who did vote? Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Diebold, and Sequoia are the companies primarily involved in implementing the new voting stations throughout the country. All three have strong ties to the Bush Administration. The largest investors in ES&S, Sequoia, and Diebold are government defense contractors Northrup-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Accenture. Diebold hired Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of San Diego to develop the software security in their voting machines. A majority of officials on SAIC's board are former members of either the Pentagon or the CIA including:

- Army Gen. Wayne Downing, formerly on the National Security Council
- Bobby Ray Inman; former CIA Director
- Retired Adm. William Owens, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- Robert Gates, another former director of the CIA."

http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/democracyfails.html

I found the two articles by doing a Google search for: diebold military contracts.

[bleever]

6. The Pentagon, going back as far at least as Frank Carlucci,

(in my memory at least) has increasingly been a training ground for defense lobbyists, and vice versa, with there seeming to be a conscious effort to meld the corporate and governmental wings of national defense.

With their interest in "perception management", how would elections not fit into their chosen purview?

[bleever]

5. Interesting link. Some excerpts:

Another former SAIC board member, also on the board of VoteHere, is ex-CIA director Robert Gates, a veteran of the Iran/Contra scandal.

VoteHere is already benefiting from the Diebold debacle, as it will be partnering with Sequoia Voting Systems, "to provide a new level of electronic ballot verification to customers of the AVC Edge touch screen voting system," according to the VoteHere website.

SAIC, which is supposed to vet Diebold's elections software, is itself in the elections business.

On a webpage of Diversified Dynamics (recently purchased by Northrop Grumman), a 1998 legal notice states, "Diversified Dynamics has brought the election process to the technological level of the new millennium by designing the world's most advanced electronic vote recording and election management system. We were supported in this effort by the engineering and software capabilities of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a world leader in systems development and integration."

All of the above companies are military defense contractors as well as information technology (IT) firms, whose clients include state governments and federal agencies.