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 It’s slightly out of date, since it says that two of the three Voting Machine Companies certified to do business in Florida have refused to do business with Sancho (all three have now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:
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:
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.
The St Pete times had an article by Howard Troxler
It was kind of a fluffy thing,a couple of things he said like,"Mainstream America is not going to buy the conspiracy theory unless President Bush gets caught on tape saying, "Me and Diebold stole the election, heh, heh.",and "There are two remaining objections to a voter-verifiable ballot. One is that no such system is certified for use in Florida yet. But the Secretary of State’s Office says it is working with such a vendor to get it up to Florida standards." (bullshit)
anyway the link is here
I guess, now that I read the piece a second time,(I was pissed off about the Sancho thing the first time I read it this morning), I suppose it isn’t that bad (better than nothing!)
Great work. Americans raging against the machine like Ion is what gives me faith we can get out of this jam someday. Before our current economy was taken over by a majority of material goods made from the country of China, the philosophical seeds of Ying Yang were already rooted on our soil. One day these bastards will get theres alright. While there are losers who don’t care to know or get involved in any areas outside their little world and are willing to swallow the BUSHIT whole, there are like this Florida patriot who refuse lay down.
This is a letter I sent to Fred Grimm thanking him for his writing. He has responded to me since, and says he is forwarding my email to other writers in Fl.
I encourage you readers to write to the reporters, even if or especially if you are in another state!
To: Grimm, Fred
Cc:
Subject: Ion Sancho a hero, and FL SOS negligent
Dear Fred;
Thank you for your piece supporting Ion Sancho, a true American hero.
It is a sad sad day for all of us when the government persecutes the heros who expose criminal defects in
the machines of democracy.
It is petty and negligent of the SOS office to yank the federal funding away from Sancho’s county,
when states like North Carolina still have counties who have not bought voting machines.
As long as each county buys or leases 1 disabled accessible machine per precinct, they will
be in compliance with state and federal laws. If the county’s other equipment was decertified, they
may hand count the rest of the ballots.
The Deputy Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections advised me that
North Carolina counties can hold onto the HAVA funding even after Jan 1, 2007.
The only stipulation then is that the funds can only be spent on disabled accessible equipment.
Florida is known around the world, the entire world, as being a black hole that where
your votes and your democracy are swallowed up in paperless black box voting machines, with secret
voting counting software.
Your Secretary of State should be recalled or impeached for acting as a defender of voting machine
corporations rather than defender of the voters best interest.
Thank you for shining the light on this hipocracy, and please do not stop, until the
real criminals are hounded and harrassed.
I will not even consider vacationing in Florida as long as this travesty continues.
As a Leon county tax payer and voter. And also a lifelong Democrat who has never voted for a republican. I can say I am glad to have Ion Sancho as my election supervisor, but I am terribly dissapointed in him not following the law and costing the taxpayers of this county at least a half million dollars. I’m glad he found mistakes that could cause problems in the diebold system, but dissapointed he didn’t find the easy fixes to the system, which the California study found.
Love the Trolls.
My favorite signature Troll line: "as a lifelong Democrat"
Really "Leon County Voter" didn’t they warn you not to use that line? It’s a dead giveaway by now.
That said, apparently you don’t know much about those "easy fixes" that the California study found, since even those who worked on the analysis admitted that they don’t know whether or not the memory cards can *still* be hacked even if they are left in the machine — as according to the "easy fix" you imagine was found.
Beyond that, when none of the three voting machine companies certified to do business in Florida will do business with Sancho, how do you expect him to implement *anything*? (Answer: You don’t. You’re a troll)
Hey, Leon County Troller,
Its going to to cost this country a Billion dollars to fix this mess that was brought to you by Bob Ney R(at)-Ohio And our Republicans in congress through HAVA
Get it right, dude
And the California study occurred because of the path-breaking work of Sancho and BBV. How could Sancho do anything before he carried out the crucial tests?
And the only people standing in the way of more testing are the vendors.
Sancho has made great strides in spite of the vendors, and his actions have made it possible for others, such as CA, to move things forward.
Letter I just sent:
Dear Secretary,
I find it ludicrous that you would attempt to punish Ion Sancho simply because he exposed a serious flaw in your voting machines. It is obvious to those of us watching that this is a witchhunt intended to stop ANY scrutiny of your broken election system. Ion Sancho only sought to discover the truth, and now you and Jeb Bush and all the other "powers that be" are looking like completely corrupt power-hungry criminals to the world outside of Florida.
How dare you punish him, when ALL THREE voting machine manufacturers REFUSE to do business with him? And it’s clear WHY they won’t: BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEIR MACHINES WON’T PASS HIS TESTS.
Shame on you.
We are all watching. You will NOT get away with this obvious attempt to undermine our democracy.
Tell Sancho to buy the machines and/or parts he wants through another county in another state.
He is a "hero" and all Americans should support his efforts.
G.
I also oneself something would want to find out on this theme. Very attentively I will read every post.