Lobbyists, Voting Machines, and John McCain

Submitted by Linda on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 9:17am

Despite John McCain's anti-lobbying stance, he has a slew of them working for his campaign.
(h/t to Rachel Maddow and Air America)

His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.
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Black's current clients include General Motors, United Technologies, JPMorgan and AT&T.

United Technologies is the company that owns Otis Elevators and Chubb Security systems. They've been trying to buy another company.

Diebold Inc., the nation's biggest maker of automated teller machines, said Monday that its board unanimously rejected United Technologies Corp.'s $2.63 billion acquisition offer because it is too low and the timing is wrong.

Not mentioned here is that Diebold is also the leading manufacturer of faulty voting machines in the US.

So one of John McCain's top advisors is retaining his job with United Technologies, the company that is trying to purchase Diebold, the maker of most of the electronic voting machines in the US.

Hmmm.

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But, but he doesn't deal with lobbyist!

Submitted by denno on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 9:43am.

Amazing how these guys look right at the cameras and deny this stuff. Notice how the blonde (Vicky Iseman) story has quickly been shoved from view. Just another plane ride with a friend! He votes against all kinds of veteran benefits, but is still "supporting the troops". Unbelievable!

It is amazing.

Submitted by Linda on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 9:50am.

I actually find this story more disturbing than the Vicky Iseman one. I don't want the Republican nominee for President that close to the company that is trying to buy the voting machines.

Diebold said the timing was wrong - not because we are in the midst of a Presidential election - but because, according the Chicago Tribune (same article cited as above):

The background: Diebold is under investigation for accounting practices and has delayed filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company is working to bring its SEC filings up to date, making it "not the right time" for the offer, Diebold said.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi

A correction

Submitted by Kosh on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 12:00pm.

In terms of sales, ES&S is the top voting machine company in the US. Sales at Diebold have started falling and it may find itself behind Sequoia soon, since its very name is poison to election officials. People have assumed it was #1, but it has never been. Maryland is the latest state to dump their TS systems. They were, of course, driven completely from NC by the 2005 Public Confidence in Elections Act.

Knowing that, Diebold recently changed the name of its voting machine division to "Premier", which hasn't helped. Most bloggers continue to call them Diebold, and even newspapers mention them as "..formerly Diebold Election Systems).

Diebold has LOTS of problems, and stockholders would dearly love to see the voting machine division gotten rid of, since it is a major drag on the company's reputation.

Liberalism as a badge of honor! No excuses, no apologies.

Liberalism as a badge of honor!
No apologies, no excuses.

Thanks for the correction.

Submitted by Linda on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 5:13pm.

I still find it quite disturbing that one of John McCain's advisor's is Diebold's lobbyist. I find it disturbing that one of McCain's advisors is a lobbyist for anyone.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi