January 11, 2006 at 10:50:50

Sue Diebold

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By Rob Kall (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Rob Kall - Writer

Sue Diebold

No, that's not the name of the female owner of Diebold. It's a suggestion. I believe that Diebold has engaged in practices that have disenfranchised my rights as an American citizen and I may be able to SUE Diebold, to file litigation against the company. If you voted on a Diebold machine that miscounted, or that used an operating system that was unauthorized, then maybe YOU have an actionable cause for litigation. Maybe you have reason to sue Diebold's corporate asses.

The goal is not to get money from them, not to change them, but to win a settlement large enough to OWN them. This is not without precedent. In the past, organizations have lost lawsuits with settlements so large it either put them out of business or the businesses or organizations were taken over by the litigant. This happened in the case of a neo-nazi, aryan nation-type group, where the litigant ended up owning the property-- the land used by the the defendants was given to the victim.

I'd like to see a plethora of class action suits filed against Diebold, suits that will cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to defend, so that Diebold is gasping for air. The suits must include injunctions against Diebold being acquired by another company, like ES&S, another company also worthy of a similar litigative assault.

There are some risks involved here. The right wing has been whittling away at the individual's right to sue. This has been a major goal of megacorporate support of Republican candidates. They often take away chunks of rights, often by making it illegal to sue regarding certain issues. A recent effort to protect vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits is a good example. The lack of the right to sue health insurers under many circumstances is another, older example of ways corporate groups have pushed through legislation that takes away citizen rights.

For all I know, the HAVA law, crafted by friends of Diebold and the other voting machine companies, may already have within it protections from litigation. If that is true, it will be all the more telling that the legislation was crafted by people with conflicts of interest.

So... lawyers reading this, victims of machines in your own districts, people who feel any election was damaged by bad or illegal technology, start looking at filing civil lawsuits seeking big dollar damages. Maybe the game that must be played to beat Diebold and other companies suspected and accused of improper actions and use of technology is to beat them financially.

It would be nice if a coalition of voting integrity groups organized a class action suit, with the proceeds committed to a non-profit entity that would take over the voting machine companies being sued.

Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, (more...)

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