Diebold dumpster dive yields financial documents
 
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NEW DOCUMENTS FROM DIEBOLD ELECTION SYSTEMS 
HAVE A “STINK” TO THEM
 
JULY 20, 2005: One late night in Texas, 51-year-old 
Kathleen Wynne did something she never thought she 
would consider: She jumped into a dumpster. 
 
An ordinary citizen who had become concerned about 
the integrity of Diebold voting machines, Wynne was 
amazed to find hundreds of pages of documents in the 
trash. Among them: internal notes and memos, planning 
information, problems with equipment and customers, 
price bid worksheets, staff bonuses, and financial 
statements from Diebold Election Systems. It was early 
July, just after second quarter financials, and the 
Diebold elections division seemed to be cleaning house. 
 
Wynne was a citizen volunteer then – she is now
a full-time investigator for Black Box Voting, a 
nonprofit, nonpartisan 501c(3) consumer protection 
group for elections.
 
Diebold, a company that boasts of its security, had 
made no attempt to shred the documents, or protect 
them in any way. Instead, the company was in the 
habit of discarding its internal records in various 
publicly available locations -- an apparent violation 
of the management requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley 
Act. The first batch of documents is posted here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/4466.html
 
(We’ll come back to the document stash in a minute.)
 
DIEBOLD DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN GALLINA MONEY 
 
In May, Black Box Voting broke the story of ACG Group, 
LLC, which has been funneling money from Diebold into 
the pockets of . . . someone. 
 
The ‘G’ in ACG stands for Gallina – Pasquale “Pat” 
Gallina. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Gallina 
was caught giving $10,000 to the Franklin County 
Republican Party, handed off through the Franklin 
County Director of Elections. The Dispatch also 
contains a report of a $50,000 donation by Gallina 
to Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell’s political 
interests.
 
Diebold, according to the Akron Beacon Journal, 
denies any involvement in the donations by Gallina, 
pointing to “Celebrezze & Associates” and vowing 
to fire that organization (set up by Anthony Celebrezze, 
now deceased) if it is proved to have “provided the 
check in the name of Diebold.”
 
Excerpts from the above news articles can be found here 
(scroll down): 
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/7696.html 
 
Let us now dissect the spin: 
 
1. The money was flowing through ACG Group LLC. 
A few dollars may also have wandered into Gallina’s 
pocket through “Celebrezze & Associates,” but the large, 
UNDISCLOSED cash was flowing through ACG Group LLC, 
an entity Diebold has not uttered a word about. 
 
2. Who in their right mind would write a check “in 
the name of DIEBOLD?” According to the Dispatch story, 
Gallina showed up at the Franklin County elections 
office with a check in hand and said "I'm here to give 
you $10,000. Who do I make it payable to?” Gallina 
claims the money was his own.
 
However, another principal of ACG Group LLC is Juan 
Andrade (the ‘A’ in ACG). Andrade told Black Box Voting 
on videotape that Diebold money is paid to him directly, 
and Diebold money also goes through ACG Group, for 
purposes that are largely for “persuasion.” (click 
the VIDEO camera picture at Black Box Voting (.ORG)
and select “Cook County Money Trail” to clips of 
Andrade talking about Diebold and ACG Group)  
 
More details of Andrade and Gallina and Ohio money 
dealings can be found here: 
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/7638.html
 
99 PAGES OF NEW DOCUMENTS REVEAL MORE PROBLEMS
 
Diebold financial documents found by Black Box Voting 
investigator Kathleen Wynne reveal questionable 
payments, and show that some items may have been 
untruthfully reported to government authorities. 
 
A document, first published online by Black Box Voting 
in July 2004, exposes large payments to entities 
investigated for unusual payments to political figures. 
Black Box Voting has identified a $144,000 payable to 
“Lottery Services of Georgia,” which was one of 16 
companies found to have received "pass-through" 
payments from GTECH in a 1995 probe. The same document, 
and others, show $20,000 per month payments to Andrade, 
Gallina’s partner in the Diebold-funded ACG Group. 
 
Accounts payable document: 
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/accts-payable1.pdf 
 
Documents also show payments to California lobbying 
firm Rose & Kindel, whose executive recently popped 
up with an appointment in new California Secretary of 
State Bruce McPherson’s administration. The payment, 
over $45,000, does not match the amount reported by 
Diebold for the same period (around $7,000).
 
http://www.bbvdocs.org/moneytrail/rose-kindel-pymts.pdf 
 
(copies of Diebold disclosures to California can be found here): 
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/4447.html
 
In another document, an executive memo, Diebold execs 
admit to a culture of ethics problems, and you can 
sense the gnashing of teeth as they describe trying 
to explain to the Diebold audit committee about the 
lying and obfuscating that went on during California 
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley’s administration. 
The memo states that this cost the company dearly, 
resulting in a $3 million loss for the year.
 
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/confidential-exec-memo1.pdf 
 
A document from Coconino County, Arizona describes 
refusal to pay Diebold’s bill due to quality problems 
with the machines.
 
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/coconino.pdf 
 
A hand-written note asks why voting machines originally 
sold to Canada were re-sold as “new,” tracing serial 
numbers to Mendocino County and LHS (a company that 
services Diebold accounts in New England.)
 
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/mendocino-sold-used.pdf 
 
Note that another voting organization, 
http://www.countthevote.org, has unearthed other 
devastating documents revealing specific failures 
in Georgia in 2002.
 
Additional information about problems with Georgia’s
Diebold touch-screens, and links to The Count the Vote 
documents, can be found here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/7646.html
 
The GEMS central tabulator program has been pummeled 
by computer programmers for its flawed, hack-friendly 
design. Documents found by Black Box Voting show 
flabbergasting pricing for GEMS. 
 
(Click here to see $325,000 price quote for GEMS 
on the bid worksheet for Sacramento County, California): 
 
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/sacramento-estimates.pdf 
 
For a company that sells its voting system to unions 
(especially the International Brotherhood of Electrical 
Workers), both security flaws and union-bashing tactics 
should give union members a moment of pause. 
 
Latest security failures outlined in this one-sheet: http://www.bbvdocs.org/general/BBVreport-1sheet.pdf
 
Union-squashing tactics shown in this planning sheet:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/union-busting1.pdf. 
(See page 3, plans to “research Teamsters Local 38 as to 
finances, misconduct etc).
 
Additional documents, and analysis of the current 
ones, will appear at http://www.blackboxvoting.org 
throughout this week.
 
Folks, it is YOUR tax dollars that pays for these 
shenanigans. Diebold recently achieved statewide 
touch-screen sales for Mississippi, Utah and Ohio. 
 
We may not win this battle by being “polite” and 
“working within the system.” The system has been 
broken for some years now. 
 
We need to rekindle our confidence as Americans – 
Kathleen Wynne, an ordinary citizen, has shown 
that simple actions can have lasting repercussions. 
 
It sometimes seems that we have an inferiority 
complex – instead of believing in our own innate 
good judgement, we continue to “leave it up to 
the experts.” 
 
It is the experts who got us into this mess. It 
is the experts who certified Diebold and the other 
machines (see http://www.blackboxvoting.org.BBVreport 
for a devastating technical report showing just how 
flawed these systems are.) It is the “experts” who 
gave us the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). With this 
kind of help, maybe we need to go back to basics. 
 
To participate in discussions of your local elections, 
and these issues, make friends with the “FORUMS” tab 
on our home page: http://www.blackboxvoting.org. 
 
Let us hear from you. Together, let’s fight this beast.
 
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NEWS REPORTERS: 
Contact info – 425-793-1030, 206-354-5723, or 206-335-7747 
bev@blackboxvoting.org  or Kathleen@blackboxvoting.org