those offices, found a record, bill, contract or something along those lines that showed that the computers had the tracking on them.”
“And I bet whoever was tracking Montgomery, did so because they hacked into that system and from there they were able to track him down here to St. Paul,” Mac added.
“And us,” Wire replied. “We had the laptop, Detective. That’s probably how they continued to track us to the pub. They were tracking the laptop. I got away from Sebastian’s with it and they got back on us by tracking it.”
“Well, now, if they’re still tracking it, they know we have it and from here it isn’t going anywhere.”
“That isn’t the only thing that’s interesting on this computer, Mac, let me show you what he’s been searching on the Internet recently.” Jones opened up his own laptop.
“What’s that?”
“A company named DataPoint Electronics. Among their other products, they manufacture and distribute electronic touch screen voting machines.” Jones pulled up the website for the company on his own laptop and clicked the tab marked e-voting machines.
“Can you tell what he was reviewing on the website?” Wire asked.
“Affirmative. The information on the company website is pretty basic, kind of voting machines for dummies, so to speak. That having been said, he seems to have been spending a lot of time on the operating system for the voting machines, the components, how they operate and in particular how a vote is tabulated. DataPoint Electronics produces a paperless electronic voting system.”
“By paperless, do you mean there is no paper ballot?” Mac asked with a furrowed brow, looking at the screen.
“That’s right. There is a paper report printed off the machine with the vote tabulation, but a voter does not complete a paper ballot like we’re accustomed to here in Minnesota. It’s an e-voting machine. You use the touch screen on the voting machine to make your votes. The votes are then tabulated essentially onto the memory card. The votes are tallied on the memory card and a paper report is printed as verification.”
Mac nodded and then moved over to his own laptop and one of Montgomery’s notebooks.
“So when was it he was looking at this website?” Wire asked.
“The last week or so, he started last Saturday it looks like, went through a number of the pages of the website and then he was back on them again pretty hot and heavy Tuesday and Wednesday again. And again, the biggest numbers of visits were to the pages that contain the information on the memory cards.”
“So the way these machines work is that the voter makes their selection and the vote is then tabulated onto the memory card which contains the results for the machine.”
“Right.”
Wire nodded. “It’s interesting and all, but I’m not sure what those searches have to do with the meeting.”
“Maybe it’s because the bald guy is the president of DataPoint,” Mac declared.
“What?” Wire asked surprised. “Seriously?”
Mac turned around his laptop which showed a picture of Peter Checketts, the president of DataPoint Electronics. “Look familiar?”
Wire held up a blown up photo from the meeting next to the laptop screen, “Sure looks like him.” She looked to Jones who nodded as well.
“So the owner of a voting machine company is at a late night meeting in Nowheresville, Kentucky, with the campaign manager for Vice President Wellesley. Nothing suspicious about that,” Wire uttered facetiously. “Cripes.”
“So they’re behind and they’re going to manipulate the machines to win?” Mac asked, disbelief in his voice.
“You have a better explanation?” Wire inquired.
Mac turned to Jones. “So Jupe, I know voting machines aren’t exactly your bailiwick, but let’s assume for the moment that Checketts, Connolly and these other two men are talking voting machines and let’s go with the worst case scenario, they’re trying to manipulate the machines somehow in their favor. How could they go about doing it?”
“I’d have to get into these machines a little more, Mac,” Jupe answered. “There might be any number of ways you could do it. I know I’ve read some conspiracy theories in the past about voting machine manipulation.”
“I’ve seen those as well,” Wire responded.
“So have I,” Mac added. “I saw a special on HBO once on how you could potentially manipulate voting machines by putting some sort of virus on the machine and they showed how the vote could be changed. Which was fascinating and scary all that the same time. But in the final analysis, I was never that worried about it being that big a deal.”