Waiting for reply on voting machines

In April 2005, citizens submitted written questions to the DuPage County Election Commission regarding the security and accuracy of its Diebold voting system. The Commission's executive director, Robert T. Saar, agreed to respond to the questions.

The next day, the Daily Herald ran a front-page story about this exchange. We're still waiting for his response. That was before we learned that the election commission had been destroying public records without compliance to the Illinois Local Records Act, that public records we had requested were stored and picked up for destruction at the warehouse owned by the brother of the chairman of the election commission, that the Diebold distributor had paid for the bulk of Rick Carney's lavish retirement party one year before he would vote for the touch screens, and other findings too numerous to list here.

No wonder the election commission won't respond to our questions. And, no wonder Diebold changed the name of its election division to Premier after unsuccessfully trying to sell it off. Two years ago, Bruce Funk, a Republican and county clerk of Emery County, Utah was deeply concerned with the performance of the newly purchased Diebold touch screen voting system. He requested IT experts at Princeton University to scrutinize the machines.

Their study led to the discovery of flaws widely published as national security risks, forcing Diebold to make emergency modifications to its machines. Yet Funk, an elected official, immediately lost his job for the audacity to allow such testing. He was no match for the team of Diebold attorneys who flew to Utah to address "the problem." If only DuPage leaders exhibited that kind of courage and patriotism.

Jean Kaczmarek

Illinois Ballot Integrity Project, DuPage Chapter

Glen Ellyn