Diebold Election Systems
Encyclopedia
Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (DESI) was a subsidiary of Diebold
that makes and sells voting machine
s. In 2009 it was sold to competitor ES&S. Another subsidiary selling electronic voting
systems in Brazil
is Diebold-Procomp, with minor market share in that nation. In 2010, Dominion Voting Systems
purchased the primary assets of Premier, including all intellectual property, software, firmware and hardware for Premier’s current and legacy optical scan, central scan, and touch screen voting systems, and all versions of the GEMS election management system from ES&S.
At the time ES&S spun off the company due to monopoly
charges its systems were in use in 1,400 jurisdictions in 33 states and serving nearly 28 million people.
, who worked in the election systems industry since 1976. In 1979, Mr. Urosevich founded American Information Systems. He served as the President of AIS now known as Election Systems & Software, Inc.
(ES&S) from 1979 through 1992. Bob's brother, Todd Urosevich, is Vice President, Aftermarket Sales with ES&S, DESI's chief competitor. In 1995, Bob Urosevich started I-Mark Systems, whose product was a touch screen voting system utilizing a smart card and biometric encryption authorization technology. Global Election Systems, Inc. (GES) acquired I-Mark in 1997, and on July 31, 2000 Mr. Urosevich was promoted from Vice President of Sales and Marketing and New Business Development to President and Chief Operating Officer. On January 22, 2002, Diebold
announced the acquisition of GES, then a manufacturer and supplier of electronic voting
terminals and solutions. The total purchase price, in stock and cash, was $24.7 million. Global Election Systems subsequently changed its name to Diebold Election Systems, Inc.
In 2006, Diebold decided to remove its name from the front of the voting machines for strategic reasons. CEO Thomas Swidarski announced he would decide in the beginning of 2007 if Diebold stays in the election business. In August 2007 the company changed its name to "Premier Election Solutions".
, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for President
George W. Bush
and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to Ohio
Republicans. In the letters he says he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Although he clarified his statement as merely a poor choice of words, critics of Diebold and/or the Republican party interpreted this as at minimum an indication of a conflict of interest
, at worst implying a risk to the fair counting of ballots. He responded to the critics by pointing out that the company's election machines division is run out of Texas
by a registered Democrat. Nonetheless, O'Dell vowed to lower his political profile lest his personal actions harm the company. O'Dell resigned his post of chairman and chief executive of Diebold on 12 December 2005 following reports that the company was facing securities fraud litigation surrounding charges of insider trading.
Avi Rubin
, Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University
and Technical Director of the Information Security Institute has analyzed the source code used in these voting machines and reports "this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts." Following the publication of this paper, the State of Maryland hired Science Applications International Corporation
(SAIC) to perform another analysis of the Diebold voting machines. SAIC concluded “[t]he system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise.”
The company RABA did a security analysis of the Diebold AccuVote in January 2004 confirming many of the problems found by Avi Rubin and finding some new vulnerabilities.
In June 2005, the Tallahassee Democrat reported that when given access to Diebold optical scan vote-counting computers, Black Box Voting, a nonprofit election watchdog group founded by Bev Harris
, hired Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti and conducted a project in which vote totals were altered, by replacing the memory card that stores voting results with one that had been tampered with. Although the machines are supposed to record changes to data stored in the system, they showed no record of tampering after the memory cards were swapped. In response, a spokesperson for the Department of State said that, "Information on a blog site is not viable or credible."
In early 2006, a study for the state of California corroborated and expanded on the problem; on page 2 the California report states that:
"Memory card attacks are a real threat: We determined that anyone who has access to a memory card of the AV-OS, and can tamper it (i.e. modify its contents), and can have the modified cards used in a voting machine during election, can indeed modify the election results from that machine in a number of ways. The fact that the results are incorrect cannot be detected except by a recount of the original paper ballots" and "Harri Hursti's attack does work: Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS is definitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server."
A new vulnerability, this time with the TSx DRE machines, was reported in May 2006. According to Professor Rubin, the machines are "much, much easier to attack than anything we've previously said... On a scale of one to 10, if the problems we found before were a six, this is a 10. It's a totally different ballgame." According to Rubin, the system is intentionally designed so that anyone with access can update the machine software, without a pass code or other security protocol. Diebold officials said that although any problem can be avoided by keeping a close watch on the machines, they are developing a fix.
Michael I. Shamos, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University
who is a proponent of electronic voting and the examiner of electronic voting systems for Pennsylvania, stated "It's the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system." Douglas W. Jones, a professor of computer science at the University of Iowa
, stated "This is the barn door being wide open, while people were arguing over the lock on the front door." Diebold spokesman David Bear played down the seriousness of the situation, asserting that "For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software. I don't believe these evil elections people exist."
On 30 October 2006, researchers from the University of Connecticut
demonstrated new vulnerabilities
in Diebold AccuVote-OS optical scan voting terminal. The system can be compromised even if its removable memory card is sealed in place.
On 2 November 2006, HBO premiered a documentary entitled "Hacking Democracy
", concerning the vulnerability of electronic voting machines (primarily Diebold) to hacking and inaccurate vote totals. The company argued that the film was factually inaccurate and urged HBO to air a disclaimer explaining that it had not verified any of the claims. However, corroboration and validation for the exploits shown in Hacking Democracy was published in a report for the state of California (see above).
In January 2007, a photo of the key used to open Diebold voting machines was posted in the company's website. It was found possible to duplicate the key based on the photo. The key unlocks a compartment which contains a removable memory card
, leaving the machine vulnerable to tampering.
A report commissioned by Ohio’s top elections official on December 15, 2007 has found that all five voting systems used in Ohio (made by Elections Systems and Software; Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems); and Hart InterCivic) have critical flaws that could undermine the integrity of the 2008 general election.
On 17 July 2008, Stephen Spoonamore made the claim that had "fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections." Spoonamore is "the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies." He claims that Diebold Election Systems Inc. COO Bob Urosevich
personally installed a computer patch on voting machines in two counties in Georgia
, and that the patch did not fix the problem it was supposed to fix. Reports have indicated that then Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox
did not know the patch was installed until after the election.
Bill Lockyer
, joined the state of California into a false claims suit filed in November 2003 by Bev Harris and Alameda County citizen Jim March. Here is a copy of the original lawsuit and here is the article showing it became the California false claims suit:
The suit charged that Diebold had given false information about the security and reliability of Diebold Election Systems machines that were sold to the state. To settle the case, Diebold agreed to pay $2.6 million and to implement certain reforms. On August 3, 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen
decertified Diebold and three other electronic voting systems
after a "top-to-bottom review of the voting machines certified for use in California in March 2007."
In April 2007 the Maryland General Assembly
voted to replace paperless touchscreen voting machines with paper ballots counted by optical scanners, effective in time for the 2010 general (November) elections. The law, signed by the Governor in May 2007, was made contingent on the provision of funding by no later than April 2008. The Governor included such funding in his proposed budget in January 2008, but the funding was defeated by the state House in July 2008.
In March 2009, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified Diebold's GEMS version 1.18.19 after the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project discovered that GEMS had silently dropped 197 ballots from its tabulation of a single precinct in Eureka, California. The discovery was made after project members conducted an independent count using the free and open source ballot counting program Ballot Browser
.
posted the memos. U.S. Representative
Dennis Kucinich
, a Democrat
from Ohio
, placed portions of the files on his websites. The full set of these internal memos is posted here: Original Diebold Memos—FULL SET
Diebold attempted to stop the publication of these internal memos by sending cease-and-desist letters
to each site hosting these documents, demanding that they be removed. Diebold claimed the memos as their copyrighted material, and asserted that anyone who published the memos online was in violation of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
found in §512 of the United States Copyright Act.
When it turned out that some of the challenged groups would not back down, Diebold retracted their threat. Those who had been threatened by Diebold then sued for court costs and damages, in OPG v. Diebold
. This suit eventually led to a victory for the plaintiffs against Diebold, when in October 2004 Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that Diebold abused its copyrights in its efforts to suppress the embarrassing memos.
named Stephen Heller brought to light memos from Jones Day
, Diebold's attorneys, informing Diebold that they were in breach of California
law by continuing to use illegal and uncertified software in California voting machines. California Attorney General
Bill Lockyer
filed civil and criminal suits against the company, which were dropped when Diebold settled out of court for $2.6 million. In February 2006, Heller was charged with three felonies for this action. On 20 November 2006 Heller made a plea agreement to pay $10,000 to Jones Day, write an apology, and receive three years probation.
, Republican, asked Ohio Secretary of State
Ken Blackwell
, also a Republican, in July, 2003 to disqualify Diebold's bid to supply voting machines for the state, after security problems were discovered in its software, but was refused. Blackwell had ordered Diebold touch screen voting machines, reversing an earlier decision by the state to purchase only optical scan voting machines which, unlike the touch screen devices, would leave a "paper trail" for recount purposes. Blackwell was found in April 2006, to own 83 shares of Diebold stock, down from 178 shares purchased in January 2005, which he attributed to an unidentified financial manager at Credit Suisse First Boston
who had violated his instructions to avoid potential conflict of interest
, without his knowledge. When Cuyahoga county's
primary was held on May 2, 2006, officials ordered the hand-counting of more than 18,000 paper ballots after Diebold's new optical scan machines produced inconsistent tabulations, leaving several local races in limbo for days and eventually resulting in a reversal of the outcome of one race for state representative. Blackwell ordered an investigation by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections; Ohio Democrats demanded that Blackwell, who was also the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2006, recuse himself from the investigation due to conflicts of interest, but Blackwell did not do so.
The Republican head of the Franklin County, Ohio
Board of Elections, Matt Damschroder, said a Diebold contractor came to him and bragged of a $50,000 check he had written to Blackwell’s "political interests."
(ES&S) acquired Premier Election Solutions on September 3, 2009. ES&S President and CEO Aldo Tesi said combining the two companies will result in better products and services for customers and voters. The sale did not affect the Brazilian division.
The United States Department of Justice
objected to the acquisition on anti-trust grounds.
Diebold
Diebold, Inc. is a United States-based security systems corporation that is engaged primarily in the sale, manufacture, installation and service of self-service transaction systems , electronic and physical security products , and software and integrated systems for global financial and...
that makes and sells voting machine
Voting machine
Voting machines are the total combination of mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic equipment , that is used to define ballots; to cast and count votes; to report or display election results; and to maintain and produce any audit trail information...
s. In 2009 it was sold to competitor ES&S. Another subsidiary selling electronic voting
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
systems in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
is Diebold-Procomp, with minor market share in that nation. In 2010, Dominion Voting Systems
Dominion Voting Systems
Dominion Voting Systems is a privately-owned Denver-based company that sells electronic voting machines.In August 2010, Dominion reported that it has contracts to provide electronic voting systems to 600 jurisdictions in some 22 states of the United States, and has deployed 80,000 Dominion...
purchased the primary assets of Premier, including all intellectual property, software, firmware and hardware for Premier’s current and legacy optical scan, central scan, and touch screen voting systems, and all versions of the GEMS election management system from ES&S.
At the time ES&S spun off the company due to monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
charges its systems were in use in 1,400 jurisdictions in 33 states and serving nearly 28 million people.
History
Premier Election Solutions, Inc. is currently run by David Byrd. Previously, DESI was run by Bob UrosevichBob Urosevich
Robert J. "Bob" Urosevich has been a noted member of the election systems industry since the 1970s, founding and operating numerous companies that supply voting systems to the majority of United States.-Election industry:...
, who worked in the election systems industry since 1976. In 1979, Mr. Urosevich founded American Information Systems. He served as the President of AIS now known as Election Systems & Software, Inc.
Election Systems & Software
Election Systems & Software is an American company that provides voting services.ES&S is a subsidiary of McCarthy Group, LLC, which is jointly held by the holding firm and the Omaha World-Herald Company, the publisher of Nebraska's largest newspaper. As of 2007 it was the largest manufacturer of...
(ES&S) from 1979 through 1992. Bob's brother, Todd Urosevich, is Vice President, Aftermarket Sales with ES&S, DESI's chief competitor. In 1995, Bob Urosevich started I-Mark Systems, whose product was a touch screen voting system utilizing a smart card and biometric encryption authorization technology. Global Election Systems, Inc. (GES) acquired I-Mark in 1997, and on July 31, 2000 Mr. Urosevich was promoted from Vice President of Sales and Marketing and New Business Development to President and Chief Operating Officer. On January 22, 2002, Diebold
Diebold
Diebold, Inc. is a United States-based security systems corporation that is engaged primarily in the sale, manufacture, installation and service of self-service transaction systems , electronic and physical security products , and software and integrated systems for global financial and...
announced the acquisition of GES, then a manufacturer and supplier of electronic voting
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
terminals and solutions. The total purchase price, in stock and cash, was $24.7 million. Global Election Systems subsequently changed its name to Diebold Election Systems, Inc.
In 2006, Diebold decided to remove its name from the front of the voting machines for strategic reasons. CEO Thomas Swidarski announced he would decide in the beginning of 2007 if Diebold stays in the election business. In August 2007 the company changed its name to "Premier Election Solutions".
O'Dell's fundraising
In August 2003, Walden O'DellWalden O'Dell
Walden "Wally" O'Dell was chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Diebold, a US-based security and financial products company.He was an active fundraiser for George W...
, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
Republicans. In the letters he says he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Although he clarified his statement as merely a poor choice of words, critics of Diebold and/or the Republican party interpreted this as at minimum an indication of a conflict of interest
Conflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
, at worst implying a risk to the fair counting of ballots. He responded to the critics by pointing out that the company's election machines division is run out of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
by a registered Democrat. Nonetheless, O'Dell vowed to lower his political profile lest his personal actions harm the company. O'Dell resigned his post of chairman and chief executive of Diebold on 12 December 2005 following reports that the company was facing securities fraud litigation surrounding charges of insider trading.
Security and concealment issues
- For more information in the 2004 elections see: 2004 United States presidential election: Specific issues relating to Diebold machines and practices
Avi Rubin
Avi Rubin
Aviel David Rubin a graduate of the University of Michigan and Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University, Technical Director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins, Director of ACCURATE, President and co-founder of and an expert in systems and networking security...
, Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
and Technical Director of the Information Security Institute has analyzed the source code used in these voting machines and reports "this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts." Following the publication of this paper, the State of Maryland hired Science Applications International Corporation
Science Applications International Corporation
SAIC is a FORTUNE 500 scientific, engineering and technology applications company headquartered in the United States with numerous federal, state, and private sector clients...
(SAIC) to perform another analysis of the Diebold voting machines. SAIC concluded “[t]he system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise.”
The company RABA did a security analysis of the Diebold AccuVote in January 2004 confirming many of the problems found by Avi Rubin and finding some new vulnerabilities.
In June 2005, the Tallahassee Democrat reported that when given access to Diebold optical scan vote-counting computers, Black Box Voting, a nonprofit election watchdog group founded by Bev Harris
Bev Harris
Bev Harris is an American writer, activist, and founder of Black Box Voting Inc., a national nonpartisan, nonprofit elections watchdog group. She helped popularize the term Black Box Voting, while authoring a book of that title....
, hired Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti and conducted a project in which vote totals were altered, by replacing the memory card that stores voting results with one that had been tampered with. Although the machines are supposed to record changes to data stored in the system, they showed no record of tampering after the memory cards were swapped. In response, a spokesperson for the Department of State said that, "Information on a blog site is not viable or credible."
In early 2006, a study for the state of California corroborated and expanded on the problem; on page 2 the California report states that:
"Memory card attacks are a real threat: We determined that anyone who has access to a memory card of the AV-OS, and can tamper it (i.e. modify its contents), and can have the modified cards used in a voting machine during election, can indeed modify the election results from that machine in a number of ways. The fact that the results are incorrect cannot be detected except by a recount of the original paper ballots" and "Harri Hursti's attack does work: Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS is definitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server."
A new vulnerability, this time with the TSx DRE machines, was reported in May 2006. According to Professor Rubin, the machines are "much, much easier to attack than anything we've previously said... On a scale of one to 10, if the problems we found before were a six, this is a 10. It's a totally different ballgame." According to Rubin, the system is intentionally designed so that anyone with access can update the machine software, without a pass code or other security protocol. Diebold officials said that although any problem can be avoided by keeping a close watch on the machines, they are developing a fix.
Michael I. Shamos, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
who is a proponent of electronic voting and the examiner of electronic voting systems for Pennsylvania, stated "It's the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a voting system." Douglas W. Jones, a professor of computer science at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
, stated "This is the barn door being wide open, while people were arguing over the lock on the front door." Diebold spokesman David Bear played down the seriousness of the situation, asserting that "For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software. I don't believe these evil elections people exist."
On 30 October 2006, researchers from the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...
demonstrated new vulnerabilities
Vulnerability (computing)
In computer security, a vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's information assurance.Vulnerability is the intersection of three elements: a system susceptibility or flaw, attacker access to the flaw, and attacker capability to exploit the flaw...
in Diebold AccuVote-OS optical scan voting terminal. The system can be compromised even if its removable memory card is sealed in place.
On 2 November 2006, HBO premiered a documentary entitled "Hacking Democracy
Hacking Democracy
Hacking Democracy is a 2006 documentary film by producer Robert Carrillo Cohen and producer / directors Russell Michaels and Simon Ardizzone, shown on HBO...
", concerning the vulnerability of electronic voting machines (primarily Diebold) to hacking and inaccurate vote totals. The company argued that the film was factually inaccurate and urged HBO to air a disclaimer explaining that it had not verified any of the claims. However, corroboration and validation for the exploits shown in Hacking Democracy was published in a report for the state of California (see above).
In January 2007, a photo of the key used to open Diebold voting machines was posted in the company's website. It was found possible to duplicate the key based on the photo. The key unlocks a compartment which contains a removable memory card
Memory card
A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital information. They are commonly used in many electronic devices, including digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, and video game consoles...
, leaving the machine vulnerable to tampering.
A report commissioned by Ohio’s top elections official on December 15, 2007 has found that all five voting systems used in Ohio (made by Elections Systems and Software; Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems); and Hart InterCivic) have critical flaws that could undermine the integrity of the 2008 general election.
On 17 July 2008, Stephen Spoonamore made the claim that had "fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections." Spoonamore is "the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies." He claims that Diebold Election Systems Inc. COO Bob Urosevich
Bob Urosevich
Robert J. "Bob" Urosevich has been a noted member of the election systems industry since the 1970s, founding and operating numerous companies that supply voting systems to the majority of United States.-Election industry:...
personally installed a computer patch on voting machines in two counties in Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, and that the patch did not fix the problem it was supposed to fix. Reports have indicated that then Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox
Cathy Cox
Lera Catharine "Cathy" Cox is a Georgia politician, a member of the Democratic Party, the former Secretary of State of Georgia, and a candidate for Governor of Georgia in 2006...
did not know the patch was installed until after the election.
States rejecting Diebold
In 2004, after an initial investigation into the company's practices, Secretary of State of California Kevin Shelley issued a ban on one model of Diebold voting machines in that state. California Attorney GeneralCalifornia Attorney General
The California Attorney General is the State Attorney General of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" The Attorney General carries out the responsibilities of the office through the California Department of Justice.The...
Bill Lockyer
Bill Lockyer
William Westwood "Bill" Lockyer is an American politician. He is the current 32nd State Treasurer of California, elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. He has also served as California Attorney General and President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate...
, joined the state of California into a false claims suit filed in November 2003 by Bev Harris and Alameda County citizen Jim March. Here is a copy of the original lawsuit and here is the article showing it became the California false claims suit:
The suit charged that Diebold had given false information about the security and reliability of Diebold Election Systems machines that were sold to the state. To settle the case, Diebold agreed to pay $2.6 million and to implement certain reforms. On August 3, 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen
Debra Bowen
Debra Lynn Bowen , a member of the Democratic Party, has been Secretary of State of California since January 8, 2007. Before that she was a member of the California State Legislature from 1992 to 2006. In March 2008, she was given the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Presidential...
decertified Diebold and three other electronic voting systems
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
after a "top-to-bottom review of the voting machines certified for use in California in March 2007."
In April 2007 the Maryland General Assembly
Maryland General Assembly
The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is a bicameral body. The upper chamber, the Maryland State Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower chamber, the Maryland House of Delegates, has 141 representatives...
voted to replace paperless touchscreen voting machines with paper ballots counted by optical scanners, effective in time for the 2010 general (November) elections. The law, signed by the Governor in May 2007, was made contingent on the provision of funding by no later than April 2008. The Governor included such funding in his proposed budget in January 2008, but the funding was defeated by the state House in July 2008.
In March 2009, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified Diebold's GEMS version 1.18.19 after the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project discovered that GEMS had silently dropped 197 ballots from its tabulation of a single precinct in Eureka, California. The discovery was made after project members conducted an independent count using the free and open source ballot counting program Ballot Browser
Ballot Browser
Ballot Browser is open source ballot counting software developed initially for the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project. In November 2008, counting performed with Ballot Browser revealed a bug in Premier Election Solutions' GEMS tabulation software...
.
Leaked memos
In September 2003, a large number of internal Diebold memos, dating back to 1999, were posted to the BlackBoxVoting.org web site, resulting in the site being shut down due to a Diebold cease and desist order. Later, other website organizations Why War? and the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons, a group of student activists at Swarthmore CollegeSwarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
posted the memos. U.S. Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
, a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
from Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, placed portions of the files on his websites. The full set of these internal memos is posted here: Original Diebold Memos—FULL SET
Diebold attempted to stop the publication of these internal memos by sending cease-and-desist letters
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
to each site hosting these documents, demanding that they be removed. Diebold claimed the memos as their copyrighted material, and asserted that anyone who published the memos online was in violation of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act is United States federal law that creates a conditional safe harbor for online service providers and other Internet intermediaries by shielding them for their own acts of direct copyright infringement as well as...
provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
found in §512 of the United States Copyright Act.
When it turned out that some of the challenged groups would not back down, Diebold retracted their threat. Those who had been threatened by Diebold then sued for court costs and damages, in OPG v. Diebold
OPG v. Diebold
OPG v. Diebold, 337 F. Supp. 2d 1195 , more officially known as Online Policy Group , Nelson Chu Pavlosky, and Luke Thomas Smith v. Diebold, Incorporated and Diebold Election Systems, Incorporated , was a lawsuit involving an archive of Diebold's internal company e-mails and Diebold's contested...
. This suit eventually led to a victory for the plaintiffs against Diebold, when in October 2004 Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that Diebold abused its copyrights in its efforts to suppress the embarrassing memos.
Stephen Heller (whistleblower)
In January and February of 2004, a whistleblowerWhistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
named Stephen Heller brought to light memos from Jones Day
Jones Day
Jones Day is an international law firm founded in Cleveland, Ohio on March 1, 1893, by Judge Edwin J. Blandin and William Lowe Rice. Jones Day is the eighth largest law firm in the world by revenue, and the fourth highest grossing firm in the US with annual revenues of US$1.4 billion...
, Diebold's attorneys, informing Diebold that they were in breach of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
law by continuing to use illegal and uncertified software in California voting machines. California Attorney General
California Attorney General
The California Attorney General is the State Attorney General of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" The Attorney General carries out the responsibilities of the office through the California Department of Justice.The...
Bill Lockyer
Bill Lockyer
William Westwood "Bill" Lockyer is an American politician. He is the current 32nd State Treasurer of California, elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. He has also served as California Attorney General and President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate...
filed civil and criminal suits against the company, which were dropped when Diebold settled out of court for $2.6 million. In February 2006, Heller was charged with three felonies for this action. On 20 November 2006 Heller made a plea agreement to pay $10,000 to Jones Day, write an apology, and receive three years probation.
Diebold and Kenneth Blackwell's conflict of interest
Ohio State Senator Jeff JacobsonJeff Jacobson (Ohio)
Jeff Jacobson was a Republican member of the Ohio Senate, representing the 6th District starting 2001. Previously he was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from 1992 until 2000....
, Republican, asked Ohio Secretary of State
Ohio Secretary of State
The Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing elections in the State of Ohio. The Secretary of State also is responsible for registering business entities and granting them the authority to do business within the state, registering secured transactions, and granting access to public...
Ken Blackwell
Ken Blackwell
John Kenneth Blackwell is an American politician and activist who served as the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1979 to 1980 and Ohio Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007. A Republican, he was the first African-American to be the candidate for governor of a major party in Ohio. In 2006, Blackwell...
, also a Republican, in July, 2003 to disqualify Diebold's bid to supply voting machines for the state, after security problems were discovered in its software, but was refused. Blackwell had ordered Diebold touch screen voting machines, reversing an earlier decision by the state to purchase only optical scan voting machines which, unlike the touch screen devices, would leave a "paper trail" for recount purposes. Blackwell was found in April 2006, to own 83 shares of Diebold stock, down from 178 shares purchased in January 2005, which he attributed to an unidentified financial manager at Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston was the former name of the banking firm Credit Suisse.-History:In 1978, Credit Suisse and First Boston Corporation formed a London-based 50-50 investment banking joint venture called the Financière Crédit Suisse-First Boston...
who had violated his instructions to avoid potential conflict of interest
Conflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
, without his knowledge. When Cuyahoga county's
Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Cuyahoga County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. It is the most populous county in Ohio; as of the 2010 census, the population was 1,280,122. Its county seat is Cleveland. Cuyahoga County is part of Greater Cleveland, a metropolitan area, and Northeast Ohio, a...
primary was held on May 2, 2006, officials ordered the hand-counting of more than 18,000 paper ballots after Diebold's new optical scan machines produced inconsistent tabulations, leaving several local races in limbo for days and eventually resulting in a reversal of the outcome of one race for state representative. Blackwell ordered an investigation by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections; Ohio Democrats demanded that Blackwell, who was also the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2006, recuse himself from the investigation due to conflicts of interest, but Blackwell did not do so.
The Republican head of the Franklin County, Ohio
Franklin County, Ohio
Franklin County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. In 2010 the population was 1,163,414, making it the second largest county in Ohio and the 34th largest county in population in the United States. Franklin County is also the largest in the eight-county Columbus, Ohio...
Board of Elections, Matt Damschroder, said a Diebold contractor came to him and bragged of a $50,000 check he had written to Blackwell’s "political interests."
Acquisition by Election Systems & Software
Election Systems & SoftwareElection Systems & Software
Election Systems & Software is an American company that provides voting services.ES&S is a subsidiary of McCarthy Group, LLC, which is jointly held by the holding firm and the Omaha World-Herald Company, the publisher of Nebraska's largest newspaper. As of 2007 it was the largest manufacturer of...
(ES&S) acquired Premier Election Solutions on September 3, 2009. ES&S President and CEO Aldo Tesi said combining the two companies will result in better products and services for customers and voters. The sale did not affect the Brazilian division.
The United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
objected to the acquisition on anti-trust grounds.
Acquisition by Dominion
Dominion acquired Premier on May 19, 2010. "We are extremely pleased to conclude this transaction, which will restore much-needed competition to the American voting systems market and will allow Dominion to expand its capabilities and operational footprint to every corner of the United States," said John Poulos, CEO of Dominion. The transaction has been approved by the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and nine state attorneys general.See also
- Black Box VotingBlack Box VotingBlack box voting signifies voting on voting machines which do not disclose how they operate such as with closed source or proprietary operations. The term, as described by Dr. Arnold Urken of Stephens Institute of Technology, comes from the technical jargon use of the term black box, a device or...
- ChoicePointChoicePointChoicePoint was a data aggregation company based in Alpharetta, near Atlanta, Georgia, United States, that acted as a private intelligence service to government and industry...
- DieboldDieboldDiebold, Inc. is a United States-based security systems corporation that is engaged primarily in the sale, manufacture, installation and service of self-service transaction systems , electronic and physical security products , and software and integrated systems for global financial and...
- Electoral fraudElectoral fraudElectoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
- Electronic votingElectronic votingElectronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
- Hacking DemocracyHacking DemocracyHacking Democracy is a 2006 documentary film by producer Robert Carrillo Cohen and producer / directors Russell Michaels and Simon Ardizzone, shown on HBO...
- Voting machineVoting machineVoting machines are the total combination of mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic equipment , that is used to define ballots; to cast and count votes; to report or display election results; and to maintain and produce any audit trail information...
External links
- Official site of Premier Election Solutions
- Official site of Diebold-Procomp Brazil
- Official site of Dominion Voting
Research and reports
- Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine, Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
- Analysis of an Electronic Voting System, Avi RubinAvi RubinAviel David Rubin a graduate of the University of Michigan and Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University, Technical Director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins, Director of ACCURATE, President and co-founder of and an expert in systems and networking security...
at Johns Hopkins UniversityJohns Hopkins UniversityThe Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States... - The Case of the Diebold FTP Site by Douglas W. Jones, Professor of Computer Science at the University of IowaUniversity of IowaThe University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
- Risk Assessment Report by Science Applications International CorporationScience Applications International CorporationSAIC is a FORTUNE 500 scientific, engineering and technology applications company headquartered in the United States with numerous federal, state, and private sector clients...
- Maryland Voting Systems Study, RTI InternationalRTI InternationalRTI International is the trade name of the Research Triangle Institute, an independent research institute established in 1958. The founding tenant of North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, RTI was created as part of a larger effort to harness the intellectual capital of the area’s three major...
, December 2, 2010 - Top-to-Bottom Review of voting systems by the government of California
- Online Policy Group v. Diebold case file from Electronic Frontier FoundationElectronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
- Diebold takes down blackboxvoting.org, Egan Orion, The Inquirer, September 24, 2003
- Con Job at Diebold Subsidiary, APAPA&P or AP or Ap or ap may refer to:-Education:* Advanced Placement, a program that offers college level courses at high schools across the United States and Canada* Ang Pamantasan, a Philippine university student publication...
, WiredWired (magazine)Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
, December 17, 2003