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E-Voting's Diebold May Face Criminal Charges
(Wired.com, April 23, 2004)
After harshly chastising Diebold Election Systems for what it considered deceptive business practices, a California voting systems panel voted unanimously Thursday to recommend that the secretary of state decertify an electronic touch-screen voting machine manufactured by the company, making it likely that four California counties that recently purchased the machines will have to find other voting solutions for the November presidential election. . . . The panel also voted to send the findings of its recent Diebold investigation to the state's attorney general for possible criminal and civil charges against the firm for violating state election laws. . . . The decision was based partly on the fact that a peripheral device for the machine performed poorly in the March primary and partly on the fact that Diebold had marketed and sold the TSx to counties before it was certified by the state. The panel also said Diebold misled the state about issues pertaining to the federal certification of the system. . . . The state had conditionally certified the TSx in December so that counties that had already purchased the machines could use them in the March primary. But the company installed a last-minute peripheral device in several California counties that was still being de-bugged days before the March primary. The device, a smart card encoder that programmed voting cards to be used with the TSx, malfunctioned and produced major problems in San Diego and Alameda counties the morning of the primary. Several hundred precincts failed to open on time, thus disenfranchising voters who were turned away from the polls. . . . The panel also recommended that Shelley ask the state attorney general to examine the possibility of bringing civil and criminal charges against Diebold for violating California election codes, which state that vendors cannot change software without notifying the secretary of state's office. The codes also say that no vendor can install uncertified software on voting systems. . . . Last November, the state discovered that Diebold had installed uncertified software on its voting machines in 17 counties without notifying state officials or, in some cases, even county officials who were affected by the changes. . . . Panel member Marc Carrel, assistant secretary of state for policy and planning, said that Diebold's "spin" on the issues left him dizzy. He said that Diebold's repeated apologies were "belied by their actions and their statements." . . . "I keep hearing apologies. I keep hearing misleading statements. I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day -- it keeps repeating and repeating and repeating," he said. "I'm disgusted by the actions of this company." . . . Carrel said the "bait-and-switch" on software had resulted in the disenfranchisement of voters in various counties and resulted "in a reduction in the confidence not only in (touch-screen machines) but in voting in general. And that's very disturbing to me." . . . Carrel called the decertification "a huge embarrassment" for the company, which will have to defend its actions in California any time it tries to sell systems to other states and counties in the future. . . . "Four of their (California) clients have to deal with finding another system because of their mistakes. That's major," Carrel said. "If we had done nothing, they would have said, 'See, we're vindicated.' They clearly weren't vindicated."

[Also see: Electronic voting machine executive admits he is working for Bush]

posted by LoZo 12:15 PM