Florida Governor Jeb Bush has called for a
review of the state's voting machines, after Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho revealed that his county's Diebold machines were vulnerable to vote manipulation.
This is a sea change compared to Florida Secretary of State David Mann's response to Sancho's findings:
"I'm confident in the certification procedures that we went through with this department. When used within the context of a normal election and the security procedures that all supervisors follow...we're confident that that equipment operates correctly and gives accurate results."
Gov. Bush said of Sancho:
"My general thought is, probably, they're saying, 'Well, here he goes again. We don't want to deal with him because he's a maverick.' And I would suggest that, no, this is too important, that we ought to get his information, look at it carefully...If there needs to be any changes in policy as it relates to certification of machines, then we should do so."
Bush recommended a meeting between Sancho and the newly-appointed Secretary of State Sue Cobb next month when she takes over the office.
Cobb, a close personal friend of Bush's with zero election experience, has donated approx. $130,000 to Republicans in the past three years.
This comes on the heels of last week's decision by two Florida counties, Leon and Volusia, to dump their Diebold machines in favor of more secure options (though it remains to be seen if Election Systems & Software's machines are significantly more secure). Diebold also learned of two pending legal cases last week, as Scott+Scott, LLC filed a securities fraud case and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a suit in North Carolina challenging the state's swift certification of voting machines without performed mandated review of the machines.
Jeb's call for closer scrutiny is somewhat suprising, considering his past. Though, perhaps there are other motives at hand. In 1998, he deeply considered choosing then-Secretary of State Sandra Mortham as his running mate. Media reports of Mortham's bilking taxpayer dollars led to her demise, with Bush distancing himself from Mortham. That year she lost her re-election campaign to Katherine Harris and went on to become a lobbyist for voting machine company ES&S and founder of Women for Jeb Bush. In 2000, Bush okayed the creation of voting "scrub lists" by Database Technologies to remove eligibility of, well, minorities and suspected time-traveling criminals. In 2004, he removed the state's Dem. election supervisor and continued the 2000 "scrub lists" program, re-hiring DBT.
So, don't hold your breath if you're waiting for transparent, fair and democratic elections in Florida. The biggest benefactor from Bush's suggested investigation may be his friends over at ES&S.