Diebold’s troubles piling up as reported by BradBlog. More information and details are available on the securities fraud class action suit that was filed.
The other good news for voters is that Florida finally came around and dropped Diebold after this incident (below) finally grabbed someone’s attention. The cynic in me says the legal troubles took precedent in the decision because the evidence for hacks has been around for a while.
————
BBV: Leon County, FL to Dump Diebold After Undetectable Hack Reverses Test Election!
Results Completely Flipped Despite 800 Documented Officials Told by Diebold That It Couldn't be Done!
Election Supervisor Requests Funds to Replace Diebold in County, Says 'We will never use Diebold in an election again'
The bad news keeps rolling in for Diebold. But that is hopefully good news for democracy and America! And it doesn't get any plainer than this stunning report from election watchdogs at BlackBoxVoting.org
Due to security design issues and contractual non-performance, Leon County supervisor of elections Ion Sancho told Black Box Voting that he will never use Diebold in an election again. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. He will issue a formal announcement to this effect shortly.
Finnish security expert Harri Hursti proved that Diebold lied to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the memory card.
A test election was run in Leon County today with a total of eight ballots - six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thomson and by Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked.
At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A "zero report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.
The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.
Correct results should have been: Yes:2 No:6
However the results tape read: Yes:7 No:1
The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the GEMS central tabulator. The central tabulator is the "mothership" that pulls in all votes from voting machines. The results in the central tabulator read: Yes:7 No:1
This proves that the votes themselves were changed in a one-step process that would not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure - using only a credit-card sized memory card.
Diebold Elections Systems head of research and development Pat Green specifically told the Cuyahoga County [OH] board of elections that votes could not be changed on the memory card.
According to Public Records responses obtained by Black Box Voting in response to our requests shows that Diebold promulgated this misrepresentation to as many as 800 state and local elections officials.
The story at his site comes from BlackBoxVoting and Bev Harris who has been relentless in bringing accountability to voting officials.
It’s good to see at Brad’s site that the MSM might be picking up on this as he has a link or two to AP stories.
AP has finally taken note of the Leon County, FL hack test. The extraordinary test election which was entirely flipped last Tuesday as reported here previously.
From AP’s report today on the Leon County hack, Diebold goes on the offensive and conjures up the gall to send a letter attempting to place blame for the incident on Ion Sancho, the Elections Director in the county who was wise enough to let the test move forward in hopes of determining if the machines were as vulnerable as many of us have been charging forever…
Let’s hope our good friends at Countdown lead the effort as well.
More to come soon…
I live in a Diebold county. Thank you for supplying me with information I can use to write some letters this weekend.
I want my vote back.
I’m glad it helps in some way. The Class Action suits will also affect anyone who has Diebold stock or if it’s part of an investment group in savings or retirement. It covers the period from between Oct. 22, 2003, and Sept. 21 (2005)
The complaint filed by Stull, Stull & Brody doesn’t seem to be available anywhere online yet, but the law firm’s press release is posted on their website. The other recent suit was filed by the firm of Scott+Scott LLC a day earlier, and that firm has posted a copy of the complaint (16-page PDF). The class periods in each of the lawsuits match, and the actions will assuredly be consolidated as soon as the court takes them up.
Thanks for those references and links. I’m also wondering how many people this applies to than are still unaware. I’ve seen patterns where selected companies were used as a sort of default choice in investments where no preference was specified.
Regarding a person’s awareness of their being a class plaintiff (assuming the cases are ultimately certified as such), there’s really not anything any given individual can do one way or the other to affect the direction or outcome of the lawsuit — it’s really in the hands of the attorneys. Presumably, if someone knew that they held Diebold stock, and was pissed about the drop in the share price, they’d already be following this fairly closely and could well ask for inclusion as a named plaintiff or as a potential class representative. Otherwise, the investor can basically sit back and wait to ultimately receive a settlement or distribution notice (as approved by the court), should the defendants be obligated to pay out anything.
In all likelihood, the amount going to the stockholders will end up being quite small on a per share basis, and getting the final settlement approved by the court (after the parties have provided formal notification to all registered holders of the stock) is a lengthy process in and of itself. Any stockholder of record has the opportunity prior to final approval to speak at, or submit papers to, the approval hearing and to opt out of the settlement altogether, preserving their rights to bring an individual securities fraud claim against the company and its directors.
Mind you, however, that anyone who may only indirectly hold Diebold shares (through, say, a mutual fund or their company’s pension or savings plan) does not have the right to be a class member or to bring an individual action. In all of those cases, that right would belong solely to the fund trustee or plan administrator. In general, this would probably cover those instances where a default investment was made on an individual’s behalf.
I hope I’ve made this reasonably clear.
(Note: I am not an attorney, but I do have a number of years’ worth of experience in securities fraud litigation.)
I’m not a fan of class action suits, in part because of all of the complications you mentioned. By the time it gets down to the injured parties, everyone else has taken the compensation instead.
By your reference here:
Mind you, however, that anyone who may only indirectly hold Diebold shares (through, say, a mutual fund or their company’s pension or savings plan) does not have the right to be a class member or to bring an individual action. In all of those cases, that right would belong solely to the fund trustee or plan administrator. In general, this would probably cover those instances where a default investment was made on an individual’s behalf.
If the representative entity was actively engaged in promoting the sale/purchase of a stock, and that stock’s performance is later part of a damage award, then that entity would also stand to benefit from the class action suit?
That entity would indeed be the recipient of any portion of a damages award.
In general, it comes down to the party which is the beneficial owner of record of the corporation’s shares. Let’s say I have an account with Fidelity Investments. If I use that account to purchase shares of Diebold, an entity called National Financial Services LLC actually holds those shares on my behalf, but I am considered to be the beneficial owner, which entitles me to receive financial statements from Diebold and to participate in any shareholder votes (elections to the Board of Directors, corporate resolutions, etc.).
If, however, I purchase shares in a mutual fund, which in turn owns Diebold stock (among many other companies, obviously), it is that fund which is considered to be the beneficial owner of the stock, and thus entitled to the privileges described just above. If the mutual fund company receives cash as part of any settlement or judgment against Diebold, the amount of that award would add to the fund’s assets, and since the number of shares in the fund will not have changed, the net asset value (the fund’s share price) will increase proportionately.
As for class actions in general, while there are certainly some instances where everyone else has taken the compensation, in securities suits it’s often more a matter of the size of the settlement award. Say you possess 100 shares. If the company’s share price dropped from $40 to $30, you’ve incurred a paper loss of $1000. A fraud lawsuit is brought and results in a settlement of $85 million, which sounds like a quite sizable sum. But if the company had 100 million shares outstanding, your share of the settlement comes to only $0.85 per share, getting you back only $85 out of your $1000 loss. (In the real world, there’s actually a good possibility that many eligible shareholders of record will fail to pursue their claim, thus resulting in a larger per share award.)
Thanks for that understandable explanation.
Is the fund owner/manager chooses Diebold to include in a package that’s offered like you ‘exampled’ 🙂 generally a subsidiary of a larger group that manages many of these on a large scale? If that happens, do the awards go to the top of the chain investor?
Is this what happens with the many ‘equity groups’ that offer these investment services? Can individual subsidiaries benefit from the sale and subsequent failure of a stock, as seperate entities under the main identity, with the reward going to the top of the corporate entity? I noticed that those bonus and retirement type packages are excluded from the latest bankruptcy new law.
Have you been following the possible systematic manipulation of the bankruptcy courts of the last 5 years and longer?
I’m sorry to have to admit it, but your questions have now far exceeded anything I feel competent to answer. These are good, focused questions, but I honestly couldn’t even begin to give you a reasonable response — for these issues, I’m not even sure whether federal or state law would apply, and if the latter, there could be numerous variations in interpretation by state courts.
And, unfortunately, bankruptcy courts are similarly outside my area of knowledge, and I haven’t been following things there enough to express an intelligent opinion. Sorry.
Yeah, this is all beyond my limits of knowledge and experience but I thank you again for explaining what you did. That helped me understand better.
A lot of what I find makes the argument that there has been an organized effort in various areas to buy up distressed companies, using both foreknowledge and power of position to manipulate markets, technology, future developments, stock values and others. By governmental position, through anti-trust suits and other controls, it was possible to orchestrate the distribution of valuable assets to partners in the network.
I think this type of involvement is more of what happened to Judge Lefkow’s family rather than the official account.
Let me add to my comment above that we have a whole new set of questions for the North Carolina Election Board(s) that approved Diebold for sale against state law recently.
.
The Supervisor of Elections is the official custodian of the registration books and has the exclusive control of matters pertaining to the registration of voters, the conduct of local elections, the dissemination of election results, and the maintenance of election results. The Supervisor of Elections must receive and preserve information, such as campaign treasurer reports, relevant to local candidates, political committees and political parties.
Sancho criticized the Florida Secretary of State’s Office, which approves the voting systems used in the state, for not catching the alleged problems.
A spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office, Jenny Nash, said any faults Sancho found were between him and Diebold.
“If Ion Sancho has security concerns with his system, he needs to discuss them with Diebold”
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
eaaauw gawud
-5 + 5 = 0
Occam.
No cleaner come they.
Too,
-50000 + 50000 = 0
agh. smack.
Reel it all back in before the last of it’s destroyed and let’s see some impeachable evidence of high crimes, as far as it goes. All these dots are getting a little filmy, the less sleep I, but they cream at one another; lurching inexorably toward critical mass.
It’s just one of many possible manipulations. The simpler the better, eh? Security is lax too the way the system is set up.
From the link above…
One thousand two hundred locations in the U.S. and Canada use Diebold voting machines. In each of these locations, typically three people have a high level of inside access. Temporary employees also often have brief access to loose memory cards as machines are being prepared for elections. Poll workers sometimes have a very high level of inside access. National elections utilize up to two million poll workers, with hundreds or thousands in a single jurisdiction.
Many locations in the U.S. ask poll workers to take voting machines home with them with the memory cards inside. San Diego County (Calif) sent 713 voting machines/memory cards home with poll workers for its July 26 election, and King County (Wash.) sent over 500 voting machines home with poll workers before its Nov. 8 election.
Memory cards are held in a compartment protected by a small plastic seal. However, these simple seals can be defeated, and Hursti has found evidence that the memory card can be reprogrammed without disturbing the seal by using a telephone modem port on the back of the machine.