Election System Vendors

Three large private corporations provide the systems that count more than 90% of Americas votes. The corporations, through their board members, have serious economic and political conflicts of interest. The largest companies, Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia gained some start up capital from right-wing billionaires such as Howard Ahmanson, and also have employees with criminal records related to computer fraud.

Overview of Four Main Companies

From "Whoscounting.net" [1]

There are four Big Daddies in the manufacture of our Election equipment in America:
Diebold Election Systems, E.S.&S., Sequoia Voting Systems, and Triad.

Diebold and ES&S together count 80% of our electronic vote. ES&S is the number one with two-thirds of the vote counting software and the biggest supplier of touch screen machines. Sequoia - with one-third of the voting machines on the market - is usually regarded as number two. Or Diebold. Depends who you ask. There is cloaked secrecy surrounding ownership and details about the companies, but investigative research scraping the tip of the iceberg has discovered enough to set anyone’s hair on fire...

In December 2003, Ohio - of all places - conducted a comparative study of four electronic voting systems’ vendors. The figures were revealing; ES&S led the pack with a total of 17 general security risks found, but had the lowest number of “very high security risks”-- only one, and that was the feature that could add multiple votes to the final count without warning. Diebold and Sequoia tied for second worst, each with 15 reported general risks. Five of Diebold’s were rated “very high” and 3 of Sequoia’s. Ironically, Hart Intercivic, one of the lesser used systems, rated well with only 10 general risks, however 4 of those were identified as ”very high risk.”

You may be surprised to learn that there is currently NO Federal Agency that has regulatory authority or controls over the multi-billion dollar elections industry. There are NO government standards or restrictions on who can sell and service voting machines and voting systems. Virtually anybody with money and know-how can get into the business of counting our vote! This might help explain why we keep running into criminals, political candidates, defense contractors, and other odd bedfellows in the mix when we examine the rosters of our election companies.

They are privately owned companies, some by foreign nationals, with multi-million dollar contracts, haunted by the presence of convicted felons in high places, dummy front companies, even mob connections. Yes, the people involved in the Corporations counting our American vote could be cast members in any given episode of the Sopranos. Companies shuffling name changes, “shared” executives moving back and forth between them, sales representatives from New Jersey crime families bribing public officials, ex-felons writing computer code.... it’s anything but boring being in the electronic vote industry.

Republican Computer expert, IT Auditor Chuck Herrin proclaims, “I am by trade a professional white-hat Hacker.. .so I know how easily systems can be breached, especially by insiders. Roughly 80% of all computer crimes are perpetrated by insiders, so that’s the best place to look first. When the insiders also write the code and roll out the machines… there’s NO QUESTION that they have too much power and should not be trusted---whether they support my party or not. It’s called ‘segregation of duties’ and it’s vital for system integrity.”

Who's Counting?

[2]

It matters who is doing the counting. In the US, four major companies with ties to the Republican Party do the vast majority of the counting on trade secret software.

ES&S: Election Systems & Software

About ES&S [3]

Two voting companies & two brothers will count 80 percent of U.S. election using both scanners & touchscreens [4] (2004)

Election Systems & Software, Inc. Company Profile - Yahoo! Finance [5]

ES&S - Products & Services
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/electronic_voting.html
[6]
ES&S - Products & Services: Automark
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/automark.html [7]

ESS Automark VVPB system [7]

ES&S - Products & Services
DecisionOne - Services, Telework Planning [8]

ES&S Role in Election 2004

ESS iVotronic Counted Votes Several Times [9]

Verified Voting: ES&S iVotronic [10]

Miami-Dade ESS Machines 2003 Report [11]

Hagel’s ethics filings pose disclosure issue [12]

Wichita Co. TX ESS screwups [13]

WISH-TV - Indianapolis, IN - Excerpts from Interview with Election Systems & Software (ES&S) Executive [14]

WISH-TV - Indianapolis, IN - Marion County Election Board Demands Answers from ES&S [15]

Company to pay for election problems | IndyStar.com [16]

ES&S Buys Premier (Diebold) Election Systems, for Near-Monopoly in U.S. Vote Count

Diebold Exits US Voting-Machine Business

By Veronica Dagher, Dow Jones Newswires, September 03, 2009

Diebold Inc. (DBD) has sold its money-losing U.S. election-systems business, just seven years after acquiring it amid hopes of rising demand for voting technology upgrades in the wake of the 2000 presidential election fiasco.

Diebold, whose main business is making automated teller machines, said Thursday it sold the voting-machine unit to privately held Election Systems & Software Inc. for $5 million, about one-fifth of what it paid in 2002.

"There were assumptions we made in that space that didn't materialize," Diebold spokesman Mike Jacobsen said, referring to the fact U.S. municipalities didn't adopt standardized voting systems.
========================================================

'Diebold has agreed to sell its elections systems business
for $5 million in cash plus future cash payments
representing 70% of any cash collected on the outstanding U.S. election systems business accounts . . .
As a result of this transaction, Diebold expects to recognize a pre-tax loss in the range of $45 million to $55 million'

--from Diebold Press Release, 09.03.09
===========================================================
Problems with paper ballots in the presidential election in 2000, which delayed the final tally and generated concerns about the legitimacy of the outcome, sparked calls for improved election systems. A federal law was passed in 2002 to provide states $2.32 billion to make required voting-technology upgrades, and industry watchers had expected standardization to follow.

Standardization - in which all voting districts would use machines built to the same specifications - would have cut down on costs of customization, but guidelines were never finalized.

Diebold, which was the industry's biggest maker of electronic voting machines heading into the 2004 presidential election, was in the spotlight as concerns increased about the reliability and security of the electronic systems.

Diebold also suffered from a perception problem when the company's then-Chief Executive Walden O'Dell very publicly supported and fundraised for President George W. Bush in his re-election campaign.

In early 2006 the company, based in North Canton, Ohio, identified the voting-systems business as non-core and started exploring a possible divestment. It essentially separated the business from the rest of Diebold in August 2007, renaming it Premier Election Solutions. Since then, Diebold maintained only a financial interest.

In the second quarter, revenue for Premier Election tumbled 65% to $9.6 million, a fraction of Diebold's total revenue for the period of $700.5 million. The company wouldn't specify how much it lost in the elections business.

Diebold will record a pretax charge of $45 million to $55 million as a result of the sale. The company's Brazilian voting systems subsidiary isn't affected by the Premier Election sale.
Diebold shares gained 2.2% Thursday to finish at $30.69.

Election Systems & Software, based in Omaha, Neb., said in a release that the combination with Premier Election will allow each business to serve jurisdictions more effectively.

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Gil Luria said the U.S. elections business is past its 2006 peak, when municipalities were stocking up on election equipment. Luria estimates the U.S. elections industry to be a $200 million to $300 million a year business.

He said Diebold's exit leaves the top privately held competitors - Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems - room to gain market share. "There could be more consolidation in the space," Luria said.

Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Diebold Press Release
http://www.news.diebold.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5006 [17]
SOURCE: Diebold, Incorporated
03 September 2009

Diebold Sells U.S. Elections Systems Business to ES&S

NORTH CANTON, Ohio, Sept. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/
Diebold, Incorporated (NYSE: DBD) announced today that it has sold its U.S. election systems business, primarily consisting of its Allen, Texas-based subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions, Inc., to Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), a leading company in the election systems industry. The sale was consummated on September 2.

Diebold has agreed to sell its elections systems business for $5 million in cash plus future cash payments representing 70% of any cash collected on the outstanding U.S. election systems business accounts receivable as of August 31, 2009. As a result of this transaction, Diebold expects to recognize a pre-tax loss in the range of $45 million to $55 million. The pre-tax loss includes the assets and liabilities of the business, certain retained legal liabilities, and other transaction costs. This business will be reported as a discontinued operation. Excluding the impact of this divestiture, Diebold's full-year earnings per share outlook for 2009 remains unchanged.

Diebold entered the U.S. election systems business after purchasing Global Election Systems, Inc., in January 2002. Since early 2006, Diebold has identified its U.S. elections systems business as non-core to its operations and has been pursuing strategic alternatives to ownership, including divestiture. In August 2007, Diebold announced it had realigned its U.S. elections systems subsidiary to operate as an independent entity and renamed the company, Premier Election Solutions. Since that time, Diebold has maintained only a financial interest in Premier with no direct operational involvement. In 2008, Premier generated $88.2 million in revenue, or 2.8 percent of Diebold's total reported revenue for the year.

The company's Brazilian subsidiary, which manufactures voting terminals for Brazil's national elections board, the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), is not affected by the sale of Premier Eection Solutions.

Diebold, Incorporated is a global leader in providing integrated self-service delivery and security systems and services. Diebold employs more than 17,000 associates with representation in nearly 90 countries worldwide and is headquartered in Canton, Ohio, USA. Diebold is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol 'DBD.' For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.diebold.com [18], or visit www.diebold.com/150 [19] to learn more about Diebold's 150-year history.

SOURCE Diebold, Incorporated
Media: Mike Jacobsen, +1-330-490-3796, michael.jacobsen@diebold.com;
Investors: Christopher Bast, +1-330-490-6908, christopher.bast@diebold.com [20]

NJ Federal Court TRO Hearing on ESS-Premier Merger

Source: BLT, The Blog of Legal Times
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/09/judge-to-consider-blocking-mer... [21]

Judge to Consider Blocking Merger of Two Voting Machine Makers

September 28, 2009

Tomorrow morning, a New Jersey federal judge will hold a hearing to decide whether to block the merger of the nation's two largest vote counting companies.

Jonathan Rubin, a Washington-based Patton Boggs partner who represents Hart InterCivic Inc., a smaller voting-machine maker, has asked Judge Robert Kugler of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to issue a temporary restraining order, alleging that the merger of the voting division of Ohio-based Diebold and Election Systems & Software poses a "threat of irreparable harm" to voters.

The combination of the two voting-machine giants would give ES&S control of election systems used in nearly 70 percent of the country's voting precincts.

Rubin said that jurisdictions across the country, which select voting machines based on competitive bids, would have little choice but to use the systems offered by ES&S if the acquisition goes through.
“As our economist says, we’re not talking about shampoo. These companies are in the business of something that is essential to the function of democracy,” Rubin said.

Rubin said his client is seeking to have ES&S divest Diebold Inc.'s Premier Election Solutions, the company’s voting division, but would also accept having the judge order ES&S to keep Premier Election Solutions as a separate, standalone company.

The merger has also drawn the attention of Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has asked the Justice Department to review the acquisition.

A spokesman for ES&S did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
===============
Posted by Jeff Jeffrey on September 28, 2009 at 04:13 PM

Schumer Asks DOJ Review of ESS-Premier Merger

http://www.ajc.com/business/justice-dept-review-of-138396.html?cxntlid=d... [22]

Justice Dept. Review of Vote-machines Sale Sought

The Associated Press 9.14.09

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Sen. Charles Schumer on Monday asked the Justice Department to review Diebold Inc.'s sale of its U.S. voting-machine business to a bigger competitor, saying he is concerned it could have an adverse impact on American voting.

Diebold, of North Canton, earlier this month announced the sale of its Allen, Texas-based subsidiary Premier Election Solutions Inc. to Election Systems&Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb.

Schumer, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said the sale would give one company control over three-quarters of the U.S. market for voting systems.

"Since this industry provides a product vital to American governance, I am asking that the (Justice Department's) antitrust division examine this acquisition carefully to make sure there is no anticompetitive impact on election officials, states or voters," the New York Democrat said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Schumer said a 2003 Congressional Research Service report raised concerns about the consolidation of voting systems.

"The report indicates that having a diversity of voting systems in our country may decrease the likelihood of widespread election fraud," Schumer said.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Diebold spokesman Mike Jacobson said the transaction is closed and referred questions to ES&S. ES&S spokesman Ken Fields said the transaction will result in stable service and sustainable support for upcoming elections.

Diebold

This section is devoted to system documentation for Diebold/Premier voting machines with some generic exceptions that would be relevant to Diebold/Premier machines.

Examples of content to be uploaded and shared from this location via downloadable file links (see at base of article) include:

Operator manuals
State-certified use procedures
Voting system contracts
Election audit logs and incident reports
Private and state-commissioned external reviews of voting system performance and vulnerabilities
Vendor correspondence with state and local election officials
Relevant legal actions
Proposed legislation with a bearing on the vendor's election products and services
Vendor-specific news articles

A brief description of what each document is appears below and before the URL address listing.

1. PhD Students from Univ. of Conn. show how The Diebold AccuVote Optical Scan can be rigged undetectably

Attachment	Size
UCON_seeA-tamperEVoting.pdf [23]	1.21 MB

Sequoia

This section is devoted to system documentation for Sequoia voting machines with some generic exceptions that would be relevant to Sequoia machines.

Examples of content to be uploaded and shared from this location via downloadable file links (see at base of article) include:

For the index to the Sequoia files, scroll down below.

This video is an interview with Debra Bowen where she says machines should never go home with workers. Posted 10-2-07.

This very short video from the CA NAACP Conference in Manhattan Beach on October 27th,2007 SOS Bowen repeats "no sleepovers" will be allowed.

QUICK DESCRIPTIONS:

1. The Redline document shows the CA SOS Decertification/Recertification Document revised in October 2007 w/changes
2. The Sequoia Appendices contain several hundred pages of specific requirements & procedures ROVs must follow-2007
3. Lowell Finley issues additional conditions including security bags for DREs dated 11-29-07
4. Required procedures for CA ROVs to follow to maintain certification of Sequoia Systems 8-31-07
5. Form to be completed and submitted to SOS on all DRE problems effective 2-5-08
6. SOS Bowen - "Recertification of the Sequoia System...will...be revisited...[if] conditions are not being met."
7. RivCo ROV reports only 15 of 720 DREs had ANY problems in 2/5/08 Presidential Primary Election
8. Sequoia AVC Edge DRE - 124 pg. operators manual from 2001 - much still applies today
9. EAC declares Sequoia used illegal double testing w/Systest & iBeta 11-20-07
10. HAVA Section 3.2.1 Error standards for all voting machines 1 in 500,000 - if not met - HAVA $$ in danger
11. RivCo ROV Letter of Denial of central count viewing and WinEDS server re 11/7/06 election
12. Desert Hot Springs Election -Denial of audit logs of 3-6-07 RivCo election
13. HAVA Implementation according to CACEO - CA Association of Clerks & Elections Officials -Scott Konopasek 4/05
14. Sequoia RivCo Contract - 2-7-06 - Amendment to original contract of 2000- sole sourced

Attachment	Size
sequoia_redline.pdf [24]	66.86 KB
Sequoia CA Procedures - Appendices Aug '07.pdf [25]	4.37 MB
Sequoia MODIFIED procedures approval 11-29-07 incl security bags.pdf [26]	19.49 KB
Sequoia CA Procedures - Ch 1-11 Ver2.01 8-31-07.pdf [27]	1.68 MB
Sequoia procedures - incident_report.pdf [28]	400.04 KB
SOS Clarification_of_Voting_System_Certification.pdf [29]	114.34 KB
Voting System Report to SoS from RivCo ROV 3-4-08.pdf [30]	666.15 KB
Seq_AVC-Edge_op-man.pdf [31]	5.14 MB
Sequoia illegal double testing Systest & iBeta 11-20-07.pdf [32]	2.08 MB
error-rates-HAVA.pdf [33]	64.79 KB
Denial of central count viewing and WinEDS server.pdf [34]	46.86 KB
Desert Hot Springs Election of 3-6-07 - ltr from Dunmore.pdf [35]	144.36 KB
County Guide to implement HAVA.pdf [36]	1.99 MB
14- Sequoia RivCo Contract - 2-7-06.pdf [37]	3.35 MB

Triad

under construction