Forbes Magazine, Diebold a Reluctant Takeover Target <read>
I am not encouraged by the prospect of a military contractor taking over our voting machines. On the other hand UTC could certainly provide a higher quality product if they chose to keep and fund the voting machine division.
“The New York Stock Exchange has notified Diebold that it is at risk of delisting due to management’s failure to file timely financial statements,” Geisler said…
Diebold shareholders are somewhat in the dark, and not just by lack of SEC revenue and earnings filings. The company’s annual meeting of shareholders, which usually is held each April at a college campus near its Canton headquarters, has been postponed indefinitely.
Update: Its not just their accountants that can’t count: <read>
A failure in Diebold touch-screen voting systems in Butler County, OH resulted in votes not being included properly in Election Night results, even though the system had reported that all votes were uploaded and recorded correctly. Once the error was discovered, a subsequent upload of all of the county’s 1599 touch-screen memory cards to the Diebold central election tabulator after the election, also resulted in the failure to record the results of one of the memory cards, despite the system having reported that all results were “uploaded properly.”
United Tech. offers possibillities. Adopting standard Defense Dept. procedures, vote counts could be inflated on all elections, thereby regaining our lost Congressional seat. Winners could be declared without regards to vote results. With thousand dollar wrenches, god knows what those memory cards will cost. In any disputed elections all the ballots could be shredded, critics detained, and results could be reversed in the name of homeland (Statehouse) defense. Candidate interrogations might be a hoot. Disputed ballots would be denied and replaced by field commanders. Of course, electronic voting might take on sinister meaning.
I suppose all that could happen if we are not vigilent. However, that is why we need laws, regulations, procedures, oversight, and enforcement that a) Preserves the paper, b) provides for sufficient post-election audits, and c) Automatic, Manual Recounts.