Excoriates State Officials Who Are Attacking Leon County, FL Election Supervisor for Exposing Security Flaw in Their Diebold Voting Systems
By Brad Friedman on 3/9/2006, 4:11pm PT  

If you haven't read already what's happening down in Florida to Leon County's Election Supervisor/Hero Ion Sancho, see this article from yesterday.

On Tuesday, Fred Grimm of the Miami-Herald wrote a tremendous editorial in support of Sancho worth reading in it's entirety. It's slightly out of date, since it says that two of the three Voting Machine Companies certified to do business in Florida have refused to do business with Sancho (all three have now done so, as we reported yetserday). Nonetheless, Grimm offers tremendous support to the heroic Sancho. His editorial starts this way:

Ion Sancho may be a hero in California, where grateful election officials have verified the ''serious security vulnerabilities'' in Diebold voting machines that the Leon County election supervisor uncovered last year.

Sancho is regarded a little differently in Florida.

Florida's secretary of state's office disparaged Sancho's finding, demonstrating considerably more interest in propping up vendors than protecting elections.

California, alarmed by Sancho's report, dispatched its independent, expert-laden Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board to conduct its own investigation.

Florida, meanwhile, threatened to sue Sancho.

The piece goes on to outline a letter of support sent to Sancho from David Wagner, a University of California computer scientist on California's assessment team which confirmed Sancho's findings of hackable Diebold voting machines. (That report, amazingly, was actually used as a basis to certify Diebold in California anyway!)

Wagner says, "Our report found all of Ion Sancho's concerns were valid and, in fact, worse than anyone realized...This is incredible how he has been treated...He's the leader everyone else in the nation has been watching."

Grimm concludes by quoting Wagner this way:

"If they can drive out Ion Sancho, this is going to have a chilling effect on election supervisors across the country."

He e-mailed Sancho: "I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that some of us are grateful for your dedication to election security, even if the state of Florida can't bring themselves to thank you.

''In my mind,'' Wagner added, "You are a real hero."

In Florida, real heroes just catch hell.

The Florida Secretary of State, who has threatened [PDF] punishment of Sancho (and possible removal from office) if he doesn't do business with one of the three Voting Machine Companies certified to do business in Florida --- all three of whom have now refused to do business with him --- can be emailed with your opinions of their treatment of Sancho and their disregard for reliable, accurate and transparent elections at this web page.

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