A company, whose head is the former chairman of the Maryland Republican Party and is on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign steering committee, has won a contract from Diebold to deliver its voting machines on Election Day to precincts in 14 Maryland voting districts. I filed this story on the deal for Wired's front door.

The trucking firm, Office Movers, is owned by the family-run Kane Company, whose CEO and president is John M. Kane, chairman of the Republican Party in Maryland from 2002 until December 2006 and pictured at right with President Bush. Last November, Kane joined the steering committee for Republican presidential nominee candidate Mitt Romney, who won Tuesday's primary in Michigan.

Diebold Election Systems (now called Premier Election Solutions) has a statewide contract in Maryland. Its paperless touch-screen machines are the only machines used at Maryland polling locations (absentee and provisional ballots are cast on the company's optical-scan system). According to Diebold's state contract, the voting machine vendor is in charge of delivering its machines from warehouses to polling places on Election Day and with picking up the machines after the election.

Diebold has subcontracted part of that task to Office Movers to deliver machines for the February 12th primary and November general election in 14 of the state's 24 voting districts, including the state's largest county, Montgomery County.

The news surprised a voting activism group in Maryland and raises some concerns about possible conflict of interest and election integrity.

The story doesn't mention it, but in addition to Kane's political connections, his wife Mary was a political appointee in Maryland in 2005. She was appointed secretary of state that year by then-governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., a Republican. Ehrlich, who was elected in 2002, became the first Republican to hold that office since the mid-1960s. Shortly after his election, he appointed John Kane to head the state Republican Party.

Photo: Johnkane.net

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