When the nation’s largest voting machine manufacturer, Election Systems and Software, acquired the voting machine business of Diebold, the nation’s second-largest manufacturer, it set off alarms for anyone who cares about election integrity. The combination meant that 70 percent of the nation’s voting machines would be provided by just one company.
The Justice Department has now announced that it intends to block certain parts of the deal on antitrust grounds. That is a very welcome step, but the department and Congress need to do more to protect the vote. . . .
Showing posts with label ESS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ESS. Show all posts
March 12, 2010
"Antitrust and Your Vote"
New York Times editorial, March 10, 2010:
December 29, 2009
December 23, 2009
December 19, 2009
"U.S. opens probe of Diebold unit sale--report"
Reuters, December 19, 2009: "The U.S. Department of Justice and 14 states have opened investigations into the sale of Diebold Inc's (DBD.N) voting machines business to Election Systems & Software that could lead to the unwinding of the September sale, the New York Post said on Saturday. . . ."
December 17, 2009
"Florida AG Probing ES&S/Diebold Merger for Anti-trust Violations"
"Demon coupling will result in company counting 92% of Sunshine State votes, at least 70% nation wide..." by Brad Friedman, BradBlog.com, December 17, 2009, quoting Florida's Herald/Times.
September 25, 2009
September 15, 2009
September 10, 2009
NY Times: "The Business of Voting Machines"
Editorial - "The Business of Voting Machines" - NYTimes.com, September 10, 2009:
Diebold announced last week that it has sold its United States voting machine division to its main rival, Election Systems & Software.
Given Diebold’s troubling record, it is hard to lament its departure from American elections, but this sale could make a bad situation worse. Regulators should take a hard look at the anticompetitive implications. And Congress, the states and cities need to push a lot harder for fundamental reforms in the voting machine business and the way Americans vote.
Diebold has long been the company that critics of electronic voting love to hate. The company has been accused of illegally installing uncertified software and of making machines that, at least sometimes, drop votes. The company raised serious doubts about its objectivity when Diebold’s then-chief executive wrote a fund-raising letter expressing his dedication to delivering Ohio for President George W. Bush in 2004. Ohio, of course, was one of the states using Diebold voting machines.
The combination of the Election Systems & Software and Diebold American voting machine divisions raises classic antitrust concerns. Election Systems & Software, which has also been criticized for making unreliable machines, would be the nation’s largest voting machine maker by far. And states and cities, which have long complained about the low quality and high cost of the machines, would have less choice or bargaining power. . . .
More fundamentally, Congress, the states and cities should look for ways to have governments own and manage their voting machines, as the reform group FairVote has advocated. It makes no sense to allow private companies to count votes using secret, proprietary software. The federal government and the states should also require that all electronic voting machines produce a paper record of every vote and mandate random hand counts to ensure the reliability of the results.
Even if this business deal deserves to be blocked, it will take a lot more than that to fix the broken voting machine industry.
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