Reply #28: Did you see this in the NY Times last week? [View All]

[Stephanie]

Who is OUR lobbyist in Albany???

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/20/nyregion/20VOTE.html

Replacement Near, Old Vote Machines Are New York Issue
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: October 20, 2003

<snip>When Governor Pataki set up a task force to draft a plan detailing how New York would spend its cut of the expected $3.7 billion in federal funds, he passed over Thomas R. Wilkey, the executive director of the State Board of Elections, a Democrat, and instead named the deputy director, Peter S. Kosinski, a Republican, as the task force's chairman. Mr. Kosinski then filled most of the task force's other 19 seats with members of the Pataki administration or other Republicans. Mr. Wilkey has since retired from the agency.

<snip>

To pitch to Republican lawmakers in Albany, Sequoia has hired Mr. Buley, a legal consultant to the New York State Republican Committee and a counsel to Governor Pataki's 2002 campaign, at $7,500 a month. Mr. Buley said he has met with staff members from the offices of Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, and Senator Morahan, the Elections Committee chairman, among others.

Sequoia also has a Democratic lobbying firm, the law firm O'Dwyer & Bernstien, which is earning $10,000 a month. When that firm learned that Assemblyman Farrell had concerns about whether elderly voters would be able to adjust to computerized voting machines, a Sequoia machine was brought in and a demonstration was organized for Mr. Farrell's staff at a Washington Heights restaurant in northern Manhattan.

<snip>

Because of Sequoia's aggressive early lobbying, some call it the front-runner for the contract. "There is an undercurrent up here in Albany that says Sequoia is a lock," said Assemblyman Wright. "I think it is horrible."

But Sequoia is not the only firm going the lobbying route. Diebold Election Systems, based in McKinney, Tex., and known mostly for its A.T.M.'s, is spending $12,500 a month to retain Greenberg Traurig, a Manhattan law firm. Greenberg's lobbyists are Robert Harding, former deputy mayor under Rudolph W. Giuliani, and John Mascialino,
a lawyer and former first deputy commissioner of a city agency charged with buying equipment and supplies under Mr. Giuliani.

Election Systems & Software pays Davidoff & Malito, one of the state's biggest lobbying firms, $10,000 a month. Its senior partners, Sid Davidoff and Robert Malito, are former aides to Mayor John V. Lindsay.

Liberty Election Systems, a new outfit owned by the executives of an Albany printing company that has produced election ballots for decades, is spending $3,000 a month on lobbyists from Capitol Group.

<more - this is a very long article>

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