Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman's decertification of a large number of the state's electronic voting machines a couple of days ago was hailed in the progressive blogosphere. This was all the more remarkable, one supposed, because Coffman is himself a Republican. Perhaps the occasional Rethug was chastened to his senses by his party's loss of the governor's mansion and both houses of the state legislature?
Hardly. Why, looky looky:
The political consulting company running Secretary of State Mike Coffman's congressional campaign also was working for a voting machine manufacturer when Coffman gave that company's devices his seal of approval on Monday.
Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold, was the only one of four voting machine companies to have all of its equipment conditionally approved for use in 2008 elections.
Nor did any of those of us smelling a rat think that Diebold's mahcines were any better than the decertified Sequoias and ES&Ss. The Diebolds "are known to be flawed and there was no credible basis for Coffman to certify them" -- this according to the attorney, Paul Hultin, whose suit forced Coffman to recertify the state's electronic voting machines.
The only question remaining is: Is this yet another sleazy conflict of interest? Or will it also result in the purchase of thousands of additional Diebolds?
Coffman might be resigning soon in order to concentrate his efforts on his campaign for the House seat being vacated by Tom Tancredo. But between now and then he can wreak a lot more mischief. Will he succeed?