I Blew The Whistle On Diebold

I was working as a legal word processor at a law firm in Los Angeles, which unbeknownst to me when I started temping there, represented Diebold Election Systems in California. In late January in 2004, as part of my job as a word processor, I saw some documents about Diebold that were full of smoking gun, irrefutable proof that Diebold was using and was planning to continue to use illegal, uncertified software in their California voting machines.

This presented me with a very difficult dilemma. Attorney-client privilege is a very important part of our justice system; the right of attorneys and clients to communicate in secret and the right of attorneys to create documents and other material in service to their client and keep that material secret is very important; to breach that is a serious crime. I have a great respect and appreciation for how important attorney-client privilege is… at the same time, I also have a great respect and appreciation for clean elections, and for the will of the people, via their vote, to determine who will be their government.

I had to choose between breaking attorney-client privilege and helping to protect my entire republic, or keeping my mouth shut and respecting Diebold’s right to have secret and private communications with their attorneys. The choice I made was to steal the documents and expose them. I gave them to Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, and Bev sent them to the press and to the California Secretary of State.