According to the Illinois Secretary of State Web site, Fidlar's registered agent is Ernest Riggens, who joins the odd-name parade in which Diebold spokesperson Chris Riggall is marching, along with Riggins, Idaho which is the current residence of embezzler/voting machine programmer Jeffrey Dean.
KENTUCKY
In May 2007, Kentucky voting machine programmer Harp Enterprises, owned by Roger Baird, was involved in secret negotiations to purchase the firm that does many Kentucky county Web sites. Roger Baird, owner of Harp Enterprises, is found in corporate documents also controlling the LLC for this firm, indicating that the deal was consummated. Harp programs the voting machines, prints the ballots, and provides election day technicians; Baird's other firm provides web sites and election results for Kentucky counties.
COLORADO
The Colorado middleman is the most troubling situation. LEDS, LLC has obtained a contract giving access into every voting system in Colorado, and this firm, run by a Castle Rock man named John Paulsen, is now tasked with preparing the results for the Colorado secretary of state.
Problem is, Paulsen is involved in an ethics scandal right now which has just led to the resignation of the Colorado Elections Director. According to an article in the Rocky Mountain News, there's a little matter of a half-million-dollar condo owned by Paulsen that state Elections Director Holly Lowder was living in, with no one being properly apprised of the residential arrangement as they did the deals.
Here is the contract on the LEDS LLC results middleman in Colorado:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/CO/state/LEDS-contract.pdf
(1,700 KB)
I don't get the shivers much anymore, having looked at a lot of election situations that no American should have to see, but that contract made me feel like a bully was stealing all our lunch money.
NEXT STEPS
I will be sending out an alert about these middlemen, with links to more documents, as soon as we have the new training video for Protect the Count completed, which is scheduled to go live on YouTube on Wednesday.
"PROTECT THE COUNT" ACTIONS WILL HELP PROTECT RESULTS FROM CONTAMINATION BY MIDDLEMEN
If citizens DO the Poll Tape Posse action on the upcoming Protect the Count video (capturing video of the results on the voting machine results tapes BEFORE they leave the polling place, posting on YouTube) this will kick the legs out from under man in the middle attacks.
Black Box Voting has developed training and infrastructure to upload snapshots and contribute links to video of poll tapes, but we are NOT going to attempt to organize this.
I have been involved in many conference calls to collaborate with other organizations on this, but we should not assume that it's getting done -- EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO TAKE INTIATIVE ON PROTECT THE COUNT ACTIONS, which vary according to the counting system used in your location. Please get ready for action. Plan to be out in the field for 90 minutes on Election Night.
Stay tuned.
I WISH TO THANK CLAUDIA KUHNS OF THE PUBLIC INTEGRITY PROJECT, JEAN KACZMAREK & MELISA URDA OF THE ILLINOIS BALLOT INTEGRITY PROJECT FOR THEIR HELP DIGGING INTO THESE IMPORTANT ISSUES.
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