He'll be visiting with us at 1pm (CDT) following our local news hour.
Steve Heller became an election integrity activist after the 2000 election debacle in Florida.
He became known to legions of election protection activists as the "Diebold Whistle-blower" in 2004. While working as a word processor at the law firm representing Diebold, Heller saw documents proving Diebold was violating state election laws by knowingly peddling voting machine software that had not received the state certification required by law. All of the press related to his case can be found here.
http://www.hellerlegaldefensefund.com/
Faced with a difficult moral dilemma -- either say nothing and respect attorney-client privilege, or expose Diebold's criminal acts against clean elections -- Steve chose to protect our elections, and thus our Republic, by copying and releasing the documents to the press and to California's Secretary of State. Heller acknowledges that he committed a serious crime in breaking attorney-client privilege. But what is illegal is not always wrong.
Partly as a result of Steve's actions, in April 2004, former California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley de-certified Diebold in California for what he called their "fraudulent," "despicable," and "deceitful behavior."
For stealing and exposing legal documents, Steve was charged by the Los Angeles District Attorney with three felonies; unauthorized access to a computer, second-degree burglary, and receiving stolen goods. The charges carried a potential of 12 years in state prison.
Eventually, Heller pleaded guilty to one felony count of unauthorized access to a computer, paid $10,000 in restitution to the law firm, and was sentenced to three years of probation. The other two charges were dropped. At this time, he is still on probation.
His case was featured in the documentary "Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections" by David Earnhardt. http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/
In November of 2004, Steve went to Columbus, Ohio as a volunteer with nonpartisan get-out-the-vote efforts. While working on election day, he was appalled to see voter suppression techniques in action. Too few voting machines for inner-city, mostly African American precincts, flyers distributed throughout impoverished, heavily Democratic neighborhoods with misinformation about voting laws and polling place locations, and people waiting to vote having to stand in line for hours on that cold, rainy November day.
As Steve said, "I saw Jim Crow strutting up and down the streets of inner city Columbus." What he witnessed that day made him more determined than ever to bring to light the crimes against the voters and against clean elections; crimes against our very Republic.
Impeachment
More recently, Steve was asked by Brad Friedman of The BRAD BLOG to join him in consultations with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) regarding Rep. Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush.
Steve contributed research, documentation, and information which was used in Article 29, "Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965."
http://www.impeachbush.tv/progress/dk_aoi_bush/index.php
He is an election integrity blogger for Velvet Revolution's Election Protection Strike Force.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, two dogs, and three cats.
3 comments:
Hey! Really excited to see you'll be talking to Steve.
Also - you can watch Steve's story up on YouTube if you want a sneak peak before the interview of what this patriotic man did.
the above link to heller defense fund has been hijacked...do not click on link.
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