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Saturday, July 16, 2005

And in other news....
Posted by Jill | 9:27 AM

Lost in the shuffle of Rove-a-palooza is the growing Ohio GOP scandal. It sure looks like Diebold bribed the Ohio GOP in an attempt to "encourage" selection of its voting machines for the 2004 election. Just as a memory refresher, remember that it was Diebold's CEO, Wally O'Dell, who said in GOP fundraising letter that he was prepared to do whatever it takes to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to George W. Bush.

A contractor who represents Diebold Election Systems arrived at the office of Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroder with an open checkbook on the same day the county was opening bids for voter-registration software.

Pasquale "Pat" Gallina arrived unannounced, Damschroder said.

"I’m here to give you $10,000," the elections director recalls Gallina saying. "Who do I make it payable to?"

"Well, you’re certainly not going to make it out to me," Damschroder says he told Gallina. "But I’m sure the Franklin County Republican Party would appreciate a donation."

Gallina wrote the check, and Damschroder says he took it on Jan. 9, 2004. That weekend, Damschroder said, he mailed the check to the county party. Damschroder had been executive director of the party until June 2003, when he was appointed director of the elections board.

Diebold, the highest of four bidders, didn’t get the software contract, and Damschroder says he never recommended the company.

Gallina said yesterday that the $10,000 was his money and had nothing to do with Diebold. He said he’s always supported county Republican parties in areas where he lives.

"I donate to Licking and to Franklin," he said.

The check incident remained between Gallina and Damschroder until late last month when an assistant county prosecutor called Damschroder. Election Systems & Software, a company that is suing Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell over the state’s policies for buying electronic voting machines, wanted to talk with Damschroder about allegations that Diebold was paying to play, the prosecutor told him.

Damschroder told him about the $10,000 check and had another story to tell.

In May, he said, Gallina called him and bragged about a $50,000 check he had written to Blackwell’s "political interests."

"Isn’t it great that Diebold and the county are going to do business?" he says Gallina asked him.

Damschroder said Gallina went on to tell him that he had met with Norm Cummings, a Blackwell campaign consultant, in Washington, D.C., to work out a deal: Diebold would cut the price of its electronic voting machines to $2,700 each if the company had a guarantee that it would receive all of the state’s business.

"Then Gallina tells me that he then wrote a check for $50,000 to Blackwell’s political interests."

Carlo LoParo, Blackwell’s spokesman, called Damschroder’s assertions "wild accusations" and said, "You can’t point me to anything that substantiates what he says."

LoParo acknowledged that Gallina had contributed to Blackwell’s campaigns since 1998 — Blackwell received $8,000 from Gallina during that period — but denied that any of Blackwell’s campaign interests received $50,000 from Diebold or Gallina. Blackwell is running for governor.

"I have no idea why he (Damschroder) would say anything like that other than that every encounter we’ve had with Matt Damschroder has shown a little bit about his character," LoParo said.

Gallina would not say yesterday whether he wrote a $50,000 check to any organization associated with Blackwell. He would say only that all of his donations are public record. He would not say whether he wrote a $50,000 check to a 527 organization, which does not have to report donations, or to a political fund that has not yet been required to disclose its financial statements this year.

He blamed rival election machine vendor ES &S and racism for the allegations. He is of Italian descent, and Blackwell is black.

"A lot of this has been racially driven, a lot of it is vendordriven," he said.

In April, Blackwell announced that he had negotiated a new price for touch-screen voting machines from Diebold, which would allow the state to buy enough touch screens for counties that want them. Based on state rules requiring such systems to have paper printers, Diebold’s machine would be the only choice.
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