DIEBOLD CEO IS COMMITTED TO DELIVERING OHIO TO BUSH
08/28/03
Julie Carr
Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus - The head of a company vying to
sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver
its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief
executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week
to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy
Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next
week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund -
partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary
of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic
voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
Blackwell's announcement is still in limbo
because of a court challenge over the fairness of the selection process by a disqualified bidder, Sequoia Voting Systems.
In his invitation letter, O'Dell asked guests
to consider donating or raising up to $10,000 each for the federal account that the state GOP will use to help Bush and other
federal candidates - money that legislative Democratic leaders charged could come back to benefit Blackwell.
They urged Blackwell to remove Diebold from
the field of voting-machine companies eligible to sell to Ohio counties.
This is the second such request in as many
months. State Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, asked Blackwell in July to disqualify Diebold after security concerns
arose over its equipment.
"Ordinary Ohioans may infer that Blackwell's
office is looking past Diebold's security issues because its CEO is seeking $10,000 donations for Blackwell's party - donations
that could be made with statewide elected officials right there in the same room," said Senate Democratic Leader Greg DiDonato.
Diebold spokeswoman Michelle Griggy said
O'Dell - who was unavailable to comment personally - has held fund-raisers in his home for many causes, including the Columbus
Zoo, Op era Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University.
Ohio GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said the party
approached O'Dell about hosting the event at his home, the historic Cotswold Manor, and not the other way around. Mauk said
that under federal campaign finance rules, the party cannot use any money from its federal account for state- level candidates.
"To think that Diebold is somehow tainted
because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair," Mauk said.
Griggy said in an e-mail statement that Diebold
could not comment on the political contributions of individual company employees.
Blackwell said Diebold is not the only company
with political connections - noting that lobbyists for voting-machine makers read like a who's who of Columbus' powerful and
politically connected.
"Let me put it to you this way: If there
was one person uniquely involved in the political process, that might be troubling," he said. "But there's no one that hasn't
used every legitimate avenue and bit of leverage that they could legally use to get their product looked at. Believe me, if
there is a political lever to be pulled, all of them have pulled it."
Blackwell said he stands by the process used
for selecting voting machine vendors as fair, thorough and impartial.
As of yesterday, however, that determination
lay with Ohio Court of Claims Judge Fred Shoemaker.
He heard closing arguments yesterday over
whether Sequoia was unfairly eliminated by Blackwell midway through the final phase of negotiations.
Shoemaker extended a temporary restraining
order in the case for 14 days, but said he hopes to issue his opinion sooner than that.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jsmyth@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272
