Honest Voting

A Supreme Court ruling on whistleblower lawsuits has prompted Illinois attorneys to withdraw a case against the maker of eSlate voting machines, the system used in Kane County, Illinois.

The Supreme Court ruling requires whistleblowers to provide more specific proof of how wrongdoing occurred and the harm it caused, or be prevented from recovering financial damages, said attorney Matt Schultz, who represented whistleblower William Singer in his case against Hart Intercivic.

“In other words, a whistleblower may correctly identify fraud, but if he does not perfectly predict the ultimate way in which the fraud causes harm, then he may be precluded from recovering under the law,” Schultz said in an e-mail interview with Dan Campana, who writes for the Courier News. “This could be particularly problematic in cases, like Singer, involving an ‘evolving’ product like voting machines, in which successive, distinct iterations are used over time.”

Singer opted to withdraw the lawsuit in June, although Schultz said some voting rights advocates are looking into ways to keep the case alive.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS