Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
Have voting machine vendors violated state and federal fraud statutes?
I’ll leave the answer for that question to the attorneys. Have the vendors sold their voting systems with a promise of maintaining the secrecy of the vote? Have any of the vendors represented their DREs as being accessible? Have vendors represented their systems as being totally in compliance with the federal voting systems standards? If the answer to any one of these questions is yes then the vendor misrepresented their products. Hundreds of millions of dollars have now flowed from the tax payer, through state and local election offices to the vendors. Instead of buying more lies the people spending our money need to go back to the vendors and begin to ask questions. Prove to us that your system meets all of the accessibility mandates in the law.
Prove to us that the system you sold us maintains secrecy of the vote.
Prove to us that your system does not contain banned interpreted code.
If you can’t prove it then give us our money back. If you refuse to give our money back then be prepared to go to court.
Much more to back up the above, and the other notable voting news stories today, all linked below…
Election watchdogs say authorities influenced by ‘friendly’ relationships with e-vote companies LINK
County executive expected to say today if old lever devices to be used in November election. LINK
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
John,
You asked “Have voting machine vendors violated state and federal fraud statutes?”
I assume you mean individuals working for voting machine vendors, because corporations can only act thru agents. Criminal prosecutions of corporations is a different animal than those that prosecute people.
It would depend on what state we are talking about, because some states have modified the common law concept of fraud thru legislation.
And even in cases where they have (I say they certainly have) no competent prosecutor will prosecute the case unless and until s/he has competent evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
And the implementation of that standard will vary from jurisdiction, because the people who compose juries vary with location.
In other words a jury in San Francisco will vary from a jury in Mobile, Alabama or Biloxi, Mississippi.
I think federal prosecutions would have to be based on “wire” or mail fraud, unless there is a specific federal statute. Or perhaps RICO, but that type of litigation has very exacting standards.
John,
As to your statement “the vendor misrepresented their products”, that is an easier tact IMO.
Misrepresentation is easier to prove that fraud in most cases, because in general fraud requires a mens rea aspect, whereas misrepresentation generally does not.
An easy way to grasp it might be that misrepresentation is akin to a negligent act, whereas fraud applies to a deliberate, on purpose, act.
Under negligence a vendor can be liable for negligent misrepresentation without having specific intent to do the act complained of.
If turns on the “reasonable person” standard. That standard is “what would a reasonable person do under the circumstances involved”.
I think a much higher standard would be found for voting machine vendors than for say soda machine vendors, because democracy is more valuable.
The burden of proof is upon the plaintiff. So it would be a better tactic for election officials not to pay when a vendor shafts them. Thereby that forces the voting machine vendor to be the plaintiff and sue the election official. The vendor would have to carry the burden of proof, including the proof of a product that meets the criteria the deal was based upon.
Otherwise, if an election official sues them that election official as plaintiff has the burden of proof. In many cases there would be enough evidence that it would not matter who sued as plaintiff.