Diebold sues Massachusetts for buying a competitor's voting machine!

[thewayne]

Could you imagine buying a new car with this logic? You go and look at a Ford, then end up buying a Mazda. And Ford turns around and sues you for not buying their car. Well, a simplification at best.

NH needed new voting machines for disabled voters. They had many criteria, including price. The one from AutoMARK evaluated very well, including using one voting form for disabled or non-disabled voters, so if there was one disabled voter in a precinct they could not be identified.

And Diebold is unhappy that AutoMARK was selected.

More and more I think courts should be able to have a corporate death sentence available. If a corporation is too stupid to live, kill 'em.

The Fine Article. And the Slashdot Thread.

Comments

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

I thought they were suing Massachusets, or are they suing NH as well?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

My bad. It's MA, not NH.

[personaminor.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I like it. Let's write our congressmen.

[vaudy.livejournal.com]

*flails* Now, I could see if they'd already signed a contract, and then changed their minds, but seriously. That whole free market system? Means people (and states!) can choose who they want to buy from.

I like the corporate death sentence. I think we should lobby for it.

[anyeone.livejournal.com]

That is truly asinine.

[silveradept]

Aww, too bad for Diebold. They won't be able to assist in stealing an election.(Or if they weren't stealing it, they don't get to have such poor security that people could conclude an election was stolen.) How sad.

I read the article and have a different take.

[joecthulhu.livejournal.com]

There are rules for procurements, and they get violated all the time, so protesting an award is common. From my prospective, the award of a government contracts are protested enough. Government procurement officials don't often play by the rules, or are often too stupid to understend them. As a professional who plays in this game, I have advised companies numerous times that they had grounds to protest an award to another firm.

What is unique in this circumstance is that they are contending that the procurement was awarded to their competitor erroneously, because their machine was better. Not better "better", but a better match to the requirements of the solicitation. I think this is potentially acceptable grounds, and that they may be correct. I'm assuming that they are very familiar with the capabilities and specifications of their competitor's equipment, and they believe they can prove according to the requirments of the solicitation, they were the obvious choice.

Re: I read the article and have a different take.

[joecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I meant aren't protested enough.