Critics: Convicted Felons Worked for Electronic Voting Companies

  Critics: Convicted Felons Worked for Electronic Voting Companies
      By Rachel Konrad
      Sarasota Herald Tribune

      Tuesday 16 December 2003

      (AP) At least five convicted felons secured management positions at a 
manufacturer of electronic voting machines, according to critics demanding 
more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine 
software.

      Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a 
subsidiary of Diebold Inc., one of the country's largest voting equipment 
vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted fraudulent 
stock transactions, and a programmer jailed for falsifying computer records.

      The programmer, Jeffrey Dean, wrote and maintained proprietary code 
used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of 
Global Election Systems Inc. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002.

      According to a public court document released before GES hired him, 
Dean served time in a Washington correctional facility for stealing money 
and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree 
of sophistication and planning."

      "You can't tell me these people passed background tests," Harris, 
author of "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," said in 
a phone interview.

      Michael Jacobsen, a spokesman for North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold, 
emphasized that the company performs background checks on all managers and 
programmers. He said many GES managers - including Dean - left at the time 
of the acquisition.

      "We can't speak for the hiring process of a company before we 
acquired it," Jacobsen said. He would not provide further details, saying 
company policy bars discussion of current or past employees.

      The former GES is Diebold's wholly owned subsidiary, Global Election 
Management Systems, which produces the operating system that touch-screen 
voting terminals use.

      Dean could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

      Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., announced a bill last week that would 
require stringent background checks on all electronic voting company 
employees who work with voting software. The bill, which the California 
Democrat plans to introduce in January, would toughen security standards 
for voting software and hardware, and require touch-screen terminals to 
include printers and produce paper backups of vote counts by the 2004 
presidential election in November.

      Harris and Andy Stephenson, a Democratic candidate for secretary of 
state in Washington, conducted a 10-day investigation in Seattle and 
Vancouver, where the men were convicted. Harris and Stephenson released the 
findings in a 17-page document online and at a news conference in Seattle.

      Also Tuesday, Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed announced 
legislation that would require electronic voting machines in Washington to 
produce a paper trail. If the legislature approves it, touch-screen 
machines in the state would be required to produce paper receipts by 2006. 
Voters would get to see but not touch or remove the receipts, which would 
be kept in a county lock box.

      Computer programmers say software bugs, hackers or electrical outages 
could cause more than 50,000 touch-screen machines used in precincts 
nationwide to delete or alter votes. California Secretary of State Kevin 
Shelley announced Nov. 21 that touch-screens in the nation's most populous 
state must provide paper receipts by 2006.

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Macdonald Stainsby
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