A history - some of which has never been published before:
The setup for mass mail balloting started in Washington state in 1985 with a plan to turn Washington blue.
At that time Republicans were very good at their mail ballot game, but absentee voting was restricted.
The Democrats effort to achieve dominance in absentee voting involved a software guy named Jeffrey Dean, who specialized in accounting software, and his brother Neil Dean, who mobilized temp workers and had a mail sorting operation.
The plan was interrupted when Jeff Dean was sentenced to prison for embezzlement from his politically connected employer.
SPECTRUM PRINT & MAIL (ballots)
As soon as he was released from prison, some unknown entity financed Jeff Dean for his own ballot printing company, to the tune of a couple million $. He was immediately given the contract to handle ballot printing for King County WA, and his brother handled mail sorting for absentees, plus provided election workers through his temp firm.
Meanwhile, embezzler Jeff got 24 hour keycard access to King County elections with total god-level admin access to both their voter registration system and their central tabulation.
Jeff hired his prison buddy, narcotics trafficker John Elder, to help run the ballot printing. Sometimes they left bags of ballot overages on the curb for night pickup.
JEFF DEAN BUYS GLOBAL ELECTION SYSTEMS
Even though he had made no attempt to pay court ordered restitution of over $300k, somehow Jeff Dean had enough financing to purchase Global Election Systems, a manufacturer of optical scan machines, DRE touchscreens, and the GEMS central tabulator.
DOUBLE SET OF BOOKS
Within weeks of purchase, Jeff Dean had ordered programmers to create a unique architecture featuring a double set of books in the central tabulator. This is interesting timing, because he had been visiting then-Los Angeles County registrar Conny McCormack to set up her central tabulation system.
California had just enacted a law requiring a hand count audit of one-half percent of its precincts. The GEMS double set of books enabled a crooked election to pass a hand count spot check:
- vote totals for each voting machine for each precinct fed into its Microsoft Access database, in two identical tables.
- when you run a results report it pulls from one of the tables.
- by entering a "-1" in a specific field, the vote data in the two tables decouple from each other.
- when doing a spot check audit (or any RLA) the precinct you are auditing will pull from a true table even if the actual data being summed up in the other table, the total, is false.
I traced this specific design to Jeffrey Dean. As a financial accounting programmer, he understood the importance of a double set of books to defeat audits.
My sources told me Jeff Dean wasn't a great programmer, but he did do the architecture specifications.
VOTE REMOTE
He brought in programmers to create "Vote Remote" which was an automated signature comparison program, with ways to set matching tolerance as loose or tight as needed for any group of ballots.
His brother Neil was working on sophisticated mail processing and sorting. Jeff did some of the programming for Neil.
FRACTIONAL COUNTS
By June 2001 Jeff had a new design specification for the central tabulator: fractional counts and a weighted race function. This allows a preset allocation of votes by assigning a percentage of each vote, which can be less than or more than one.
This appeared to be a requirement for acquisition of the merged Global Elections and ballot print & mail firm. Jeff Dean was the largest stockholder in both (put in wife's name because he still owed restitution on his embezzlement).
By 2001, Global Election Systems was basically insolvent. Two days after completing the commit on the new fractional count feature, Diebold issued a large bridge loan to Global Elections.
DIEBOLD ACQUIRES GLOBAL ELECTIONS
Diebold acquired Global in Jan. 2022. Using the trade name Diebold, but with the elections division operating as a stand-alone, "Diebold" sold its first major deal, a statewide voting system buy by the state of Georgia.
In the mean time, Jeff Dean and partner John Elder were running around California signing up customers for Vote Remote and a planned expansion of vote by mail.
ESCAPE FROM FINANCIAL PREDICAMENTS
I started writing about Jeff Dean in 2003. His convicted felon past got too hot to handle so Diebold put him at arms length with a lucrative consulting agreement.
I got his story into The Associated Press, which snowballed into a court order to cough up the $300k restitution. But Jeff shielded the millions he made on the Diebold acquisition claiming it all belonged to his wife.
In 2004, one of his Vote Remote programmers sued him for a piece of the Diebold $$ Jeff had promised him.
The programmer, Tae Kim, won, but Jeff and wife declared bankruptcy while also somehow funding acquisition of a plush ranch in Idaho and bankrolling son into ownership of a nearby RV resort.
Through 2006 they were tied up in bankruptcy fraud investigations.
Brother Neil's firm was acquired by Pitney Bowes, which quickly lined up several patents for signature comparison, vote by mail processing, ballot envelope design, and ballot tracking software.
By this time most of Washington State was vote by mail, all of Oregon, and it was vastly expanded in Colorado, California, and many other states.
Former drug trafficker/ballot printer John Elder went into a private consulting business helping with vote by mail and also petition signature matching.
By 2011, with vote by mail getting into full swing, Jeff Dean sat atop his hilltop ranch, horses running around, and (according to a neighbor I interviewed) "surrounded by empty vodka bottles in a room full of servers."
She had no idea what he was doing with the servers.
Jeff Dean is quite old now and probably out of the elections industry he helped launch.
He managed to reverse the judgment against him by Tae Kim and got extricated from bankruptcy.
All in all, Jeff Dean seemed to have a lot of help getting out of his financial problems.
In his depositions, he explained it was unfair to take the rap for embezzlement, claiming that certain partners at the firm had been compensating him under the table for a project that couldn't be discussed. When other partners found out, he took the fall and the firm split up.
The firm handled business for King County and the Washington State Democrats. Among its partners was Egil "Bud" Krogh, previously head of the Watergate Plumbers unit under Richard Nixon.
The shadowy bankrolling of Jeff's ballot printing plant while he was on work release from prison, his extraordinary on site access to King County voting software, and his intimate involvement with every facet of what became modern election systems nationwide, has always had me wondering if he had 3-letter agency friends.
The setup for mass mail balloting started in Washington state in 1985 with a plan to turn Washington blue.
At that time Republicans were very good at their mail ballot game, but absentee voting was restricted.
The Democrats effort to achieve dominance in absentee voting involved a software guy named Jeffrey Dean, who specialized in accounting software, and his brother Neil Dean, who mobilized temp workers and had a mail sorting operation.
The plan was interrupted when Jeff Dean was sentenced to prison for embezzlement from his politically connected employer.
SPECTRUM PRINT & MAIL (ballots)
As soon as he was released from prison, some unknown entity financed Jeff Dean for his own ballot printing company, to the tune of a couple million $. He was immediately given the contract to handle ballot printing for King County WA, and his brother handled mail sorting for absentees, plus provided election workers through his temp firm.
Meanwhile, embezzler Jeff got 24 hour keycard access to King County elections with total god-level admin access to both their voter registration system and their central tabulation.
Jeff hired his prison buddy, narcotics trafficker John Elder, to help run the ballot printing. Sometimes they left bags of ballot overages on the curb for night pickup.
JEFF DEAN BUYS GLOBAL ELECTION SYSTEMS
Even though he had made no attempt to pay court ordered restitution of over $300k, somehow Jeff Dean had enough financing to purchase Global Election Systems, a manufacturer of optical scan machines, DRE touchscreens, and the GEMS central tabulator.
DOUBLE SET OF BOOKS
Within weeks of purchase, Jeff Dean had ordered programmers to create a unique architecture featuring a double set of books in the central tabulator. This is interesting timing, because he had been visiting then-Los Angeles County registrar Conny McCormack to set up her central tabulation system.
California had just enacted a law requiring a hand count audit of one-half percent of its precincts. The GEMS double set of books enabled a crooked election to pass a hand count spot check:
- vote totals for each voting machine for each precinct fed into its Microsoft Access database, in two identical tables.
- when you run a results report it pulls from one of the tables.
- by entering a "-1" in a specific field, the vote data in the two tables decouple from each other.
- when doing a spot check audit (or any RLA) the precinct you are auditing will pull from a true table even if the actual data being summed up in the other table, the total, is false.
I traced this specific design to Jeffrey Dean. As a financial accounting programmer, he understood the importance of a double set of books to defeat audits.
My sources told me Jeff Dean wasn't a great programmer, but he did do the architecture specifications.
VOTE REMOTE
He brought in programmers to create "Vote Remote" which was an automated signature comparison program, with ways to set matching tolerance as loose or tight as needed for any group of ballots.
His brother Neil was working on sophisticated mail processing and sorting. Jeff did some of the programming for Neil.
FRACTIONAL COUNTS
By June 2001 Jeff had a new design specification for the central tabulator: fractional counts and a weighted race function. This allows a preset allocation of votes by assigning a percentage of each vote, which can be less than or more than one.
This appeared to be a requirement for acquisition of the merged Global Elections and ballot print & mail firm. Jeff Dean was the largest stockholder in both (put in wife's name because he still owed restitution on his embezzlement).
By 2001, Global Election Systems was basically insolvent. Two days after completing the commit on the new fractional count feature, Diebold issued a large bridge loan to Global Elections.
DIEBOLD ACQUIRES GLOBAL ELECTIONS
Diebold acquired Global in Jan. 2022. Using the trade name Diebold, but with the elections division operating as a stand-alone, "Diebold" sold its first major deal, a statewide voting system buy by the state of Georgia.
In the mean time, Jeff Dean and partner John Elder were running around California signing up customers for Vote Remote and a planned expansion of vote by mail.
ESCAPE FROM FINANCIAL PREDICAMENTS
I started writing about Jeff Dean in 2003. His convicted felon past got too hot to handle so Diebold put him at arms length with a lucrative consulting agreement.
I got his story into The Associated Press, which snowballed into a court order to cough up the $300k restitution. But Jeff shielded the millions he made on the Diebold acquisition claiming it all belonged to his wife.
In 2004, one of his Vote Remote programmers sued him for a piece of the Diebold $$ Jeff had promised him.
The programmer, Tae Kim, won, but Jeff and wife declared bankruptcy while also somehow funding acquisition of a plush ranch in Idaho and bankrolling son into ownership of a nearby RV resort.
Through 2006 they were tied up in bankruptcy fraud investigations.
Brother Neil's firm was acquired by Pitney Bowes, which quickly lined up several patents for signature comparison, vote by mail processing, ballot envelope design, and ballot tracking software.
By this time most of Washington State was vote by mail, all of Oregon, and it was vastly expanded in Colorado, California, and many other states.
Former drug trafficker/ballot printer John Elder went into a private consulting business helping with vote by mail and also petition signature matching.
By 2011, with vote by mail getting into full swing, Jeff Dean sat atop his hilltop ranch, horses running around, and (according to a neighbor I interviewed) "surrounded by empty vodka bottles in a room full of servers."
She had no idea what he was doing with the servers.
Jeff Dean is quite old now and probably out of the elections industry he helped launch.
He managed to reverse the judgment against him by Tae Kim and got extricated from bankruptcy.
All in all, Jeff Dean seemed to have a lot of help getting out of his financial problems.
In his depositions, he explained it was unfair to take the rap for embezzlement, claiming that certain partners at the firm had been compensating him under the table for a project that couldn't be discussed. When other partners found out, he took the fall and the firm split up.
The firm handled business for King County and the Washington State Democrats. Among its partners was Egil "Bud" Krogh, previously head of the Watergate Plumbers unit under Richard Nixon.
The shadowy bankrolling of Jeff's ballot printing plant while he was on work release from prison, his extraordinary on site access to King County voting software, and his intimate involvement with every facet of what became modern election systems nationwide, has always had me wondering if he had 3-letter agency friends.
I'll just add this here (grain of salt because this is from memory):
Another partner at the politically connected firm wanted to run for King County Executive. He got into the gossip columns for hooking up with the girlfriend of a union boss but needed that union boss endorsement.
No worries, the union boss was soon replaced. After he was found dead. In his bathtub. Sprinkled with parmesan cheese.
And I remember that last paragraph exactly. Because who wouldn't?
Another partner at the politically connected firm wanted to run for King County Executive. He got into the gossip columns for hooking up with the girlfriend of a union boss but needed that union boss endorsement.
No worries, the union boss was soon replaced. After he was found dead. In his bathtub. Sprinkled with parmesan cheese.
And I remember that last paragraph exactly. Because who wouldn't?
As shared by @ForTheGood below, here is a link to many specific names, dates etc from an old article I wrote with Kathleen Wynne and John Howard
freepress.org/departments/di…
freepress.org/departments/di…
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