Opposition
After the test election, Secretary of State Sue Cobb (R) accused Sancho of "undermining voter confidence" and the Federal Government and demanded the return of a $564,000 in grant money given to Sancho through the state to purchase voting machines that would comply with ADA standards as mandated in the Help America Vote Act Pub.L. 107-252 (HAVA), a United States federal law passed on October 29, 2002.
At Leon County Commission meetings on February 14 and February 28, 2006 the only two Republicans in the local governments of either the city of Tallahassee or Leon County government, Tony Grippa and Ed Depuy of Leon County's seven-member county commission blasted Sancho for failing to provide Leon County with accessible voting machines in attacks that Sancho believes were politically motivated.
At a Leon County Commission meeting on February 28, 2006, county staff revealed that Chuck Owen, Division Counsel for Diebold Election Systems, met with county staff behind closed doors on February 27. According to staff, Owen stated that Diebold would sell its touch-screen voting machines to the county if, and only if, the county removed Supervisor Sancho from office. That same day, Commissioner DePuy offered a motion, seconded by Commissioner Grippa to request the State Attorney to convene a grand jury to investigate why Leon County is not in compliance with the voting regulations.
Tony Grippa left the Leon County Commission in April 2006. Ed DePuy was defeated in 2008 by Democrat Akin Akinyemi.
Read more about this topic: Ion Sancho
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)