News: Election 2004: Who's Reading the Words of "Internet Muckrackers"? Diebold, For a Start -- Company Responds to Internet Rumors in Letter to Paper

By ADVOCATE STAFF

A memo to all those "internet muckrakers" (to use the New York Times term for on-line election reform advocates): people are listening to you.

They may not agree, they may not respect your opinion, they may not be swayed -- yet -- to even concern themselves with the sort of electoral justice issues you hold so dear.

But they're no longer aloof to what you're doing.

That includes much-maligned Diebold, Inc., a manufacturer of electronic voting equipment frequently criticized for having allowed one of its top executives to publicly promise to "deliver" the State of Ohio for George W. Bush.

In a letter to the Eureka [CA] Reporter, Mike Jacobsen, the Director of Global Communications for Diebold, criticizes as "absurd" the "notion, circulating in some circles on the Internet, that our company may have manipulated its voting machines to abet the election of George W. Bush...[i]t's time to dismiss the notion that manufacturers are in the voting machine business to manipulate election results."

Mr. Jacobsen gave no reason why the notion should be dismissed, mentioning simply that Diebold "could and would meet whatever standards are established involving voter-verifiable record printers."

Which is great for 2006, but means nothing whatsoever for the recent election.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: According to the Mount Vernon (OH) News, Diebold is one of two vendors Ohio counties will be able to choose from as the entire state makes the switch from touch-screen, optical-scan, and punch-card balloting machines to an all optical-scan system. Right now, says The News, Diebold is "lobbying for business" in Ohio, with their efforts focused on the Ohio Association of Election Officials (OAEO) Conference in Columbus, Ohio on January 25th. The Advocate reports this letter from Diebold, Inc. against that backdrop].

While it provided thousands of voting machines to California, Texas, Georgia, Maryland, and Kansas on Election Day, Diebold had limited operations in Ohio last November 2nd, providing machines (according to Jacobsen) used by "only" 233,564 Ohio voters.

The nearly a quarter-of-a-million Ohio voters who used Diebold machines represents slightly more than 4.15% of the state's electorate, or one out of every twenty-four voters.

As election reform advocates have repeatedly noted, however, the role of Diebold in the Ohio general election pales in comparison to that of Triad GSI, the company responsible for the machines used in nearly half of Ohio's eighty-eight counties.

Scores of Ohio voters reported electronic voting machines "switching votes" on Election Day, with over 97% of the glitches reported to the non-partisan Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) favoring George W. Bush. This statistically-impossible phenomenon led many statisticians to speculate that some voting machines may have had the Republican incumbent set as a "default" for those voters who took too much time selecting their preference for President.

See Related Stories:

("Diebold Takes Issue With Letter-Writer," The Eureka Reporter, 1/14/05)

Letter


("Election Board Must Decide on New System," The Mount Vernon [OH] News, John Boyce, 1/14/05)

Article


("Election Incident Reporting System," [Courtesy of] VoteProtect.org, 1/14/05)

EIRS


("Study Shows That An Amazing 95% of Election-Day Computer Glitches Favored George W. Bush," The Nashua Advocate, Nashua Advocate Staff, 12/12/05)

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