SPECTRUM
Jeffrey Dean's wife Deborah began "Spectrum Print & Mail Ltd." According to
depositions, this firm was mostly delivering newspapers to contract deals
like the Washington ferries.
Shortly after Jeffrey Dean got out of prison, however, Spectrum Print & Mail
got into ballot printing and designing software for elections.
This ballot printing plant, using software Dean claims to have developed,
handles ballot printing and mail-ballot processing for counties like King
County (WA) and Los Angeles County, Fresno County, San Diego County,
Alameda County (CA), and for the state of Georgia and many other
locations.
The Deans were rewarded for Jeffrey Dean's ballot printing and election
software programming work in a $4 million buyout by Global Election
Systems shortly before election 2000. The Deans became the largest
stockholders of Global Election Systems, and Jeffrey Dean took a position on
the board of directors. Part of the $4 million was in stock; when Diebold
bought Global, a devaluation occured that doesn't seem clearly explained in
the SEC documents. The result was that the Deans got $3.4 million instead
of $4 million.
The Diebold ballot printing plant was an acquisition of Jeffrey Deans "Spectrum Print & Mail"
company, first owned by Dean and then purchased by Global Election Systems (making Dean the
largest stockholder of Global); Global was in turn purchased by Diebold. John Elder (Dean's Cellmate while in prison for embezzling via computer) worked for all three versions of the company, Dean supervised the first two and took a consulting arrangement for the third, Diebold.
- The Deans sold "Spectrum Print & Mail" including the Canadian branch of
Spectrum Print & Mail, to Global Election Systems in Sept. 2000.
- The Deans formed a Delaware corporation, "Spectrum NW LLC" after
selling Spectrum Print & Mail.
- The Deans provided $45,000, which they said they "gave" and which
appears in more recent documents as a debenture, to an entity they call
"Spectrum Digital" in Canada. For the past several years, this entity has
reportedly been sending about $8000 per quarter back to the Deans'
"Spectrum NW" entity. This seems an unusually generous loan repayment
arrangement, since the Deans say they do not have stock in "Spectrum
Digital," so Black Box Voting went to Canada to examine this income
stream more closely. The Deans say that "Spectrum Digital" is a printing
operation, but we could find no evidence of such a printing operation.
"Spectrum Digital" does not appear to be registered in the town where we
found its address. No business license for such an entity has ever been filed
there. Following the Maple Ridge address for Spectrum leads to a house in a
posh residential area. The address is also listed as belonging to Erica
[Jacobsen] Cardas, to whom Deborah Dean says she gave the $45,000, and
Mark Cardas, who shows up listed as a Realtor and at one time used an
email belonging to Spectrum NW.
There was once a Spectrum Print & Mail in Burnaby, B.C. (which was owned
by the Deans), but that was the one sold to Global Election Systems in
- The Canadian business for that operation, as reported to Global
Election Systems by the Deans, was "printing and other services" for ICBC,
a quasi-public auto insurance company. ICBC, the firm that prints all the
drivers licenses in B.C., revealed to Black Box Voting that the annual
contractual payments to Spectrum Print & Mail were about $540,000.
However, only half that amount appears on the Spectrum financial
statements provided to Global by the Deans. Global Election Systems
9/1/23, 4:47 PM Black Box Voting : 1-26-06: Elections Programmer Jeff Dean worked for same firm as former Watergate attorney purchased the British Columbia operations for Spectrum Print & Mail,
including the ICBC contract.
Thus, the "Spectrum" in the house in Maple Ridge, which has been sending
money to the Deans, appears to be a new or different Spectrum, and it is
unclear what its business operation does or where its printing presses would
be located.
Black Box Voting has been unable to confirm that there was ever a
physical address for any Spectrum or Spectrum Digital associated with the
Deans or Erica Cardas, other than a residence. An unrelated map-printing
company goes by the name "Spectrum Digital," located about an hour away.
We spoke with the owners, who told us they had also become curious after
receiving phone calls about Cardas's Spectrum. They drove to Maple Ridge
about a year ago trying to locate the operation. They could not find it.
Depositions of Deborah Dean in Oct. 2004 are quite vague about the income
from the Canadian "Spectrum" operation, run by a former employee of the
Deans, Erica Cardas. Ms. Dean seemed unable to remember whether, when
she handed over $45,000 to Cardas, it was a loan or not; she was unsure
whether she (Dean) was a director of the Spectrum in Canada.
Ms. Dean also claimed to be unsure of how many bank accounts were held
by Spectrum NW -- the Delaware corporaton owned by the Deans and, by
gifts of money or stock, their sons. This entity is a Delaware corporation
called "Spectrum NW." Deborah Dean claimed in depositions that she did
not know how much money was in Spectrum NW accounts, because "Jeff
does the books."
When asked what the purpose of U.S.-based Spectrum NW is, the Deans
say it is doing land development. They purchased a 750 acres ranch in
Idaho and an RV Park.
One of the depositions states that work was done to
create computer network connections between U.S.-based "Spectrum NW,"
Canadian-based "Spectrum Digital" and their Idaho properties.