[WestMALocals] Diebold chair and CEO resign (BlackBox voting)

[Nat Fortune]

CEO IN VOTING MACHINE SCANDAL RESIGNS AS FIRM'S STOCK, PROFITS PLUMMET

DAVE SCOTT, AKRON BEACON JOURNAL - Controversial Diebold Inc. Chairman
and Chief Executive Wally O'Dell resigned Monday, only a few days after
meeting with the company's board. A company statement cited personal
reasons for the resignation, which took effect immediately.

Thomas W. Swidarski, a rising star in the company recently put in charge
of an important restructuring, was named O'Dell's successor. . .
Diebold's stock has fallen out of favor as it has dealt with poor
results from its voting machine business and disappointing cost-cutting
efforts in the automated teller machine division.

Monday's announcement came after the market closed with Diebold shares
up 11 cents to $37.73, but down 32.3 percent for the year. The shares
reached a high of $57.81 earlier this year.

The board of directors and Wally mutually agreed that his decision to
resign at this time for personal reasons was in the best interest of all
parties,'' Lauer said in a news release issued after markets closed
Monday. . .

The company had disappointing third-quarter results, seeing profits drop
45 percent. . .

O'Dell gained national attention when he invited people to a fund-raiser
for George Bush with a 2003 letter stating he planned to help "Ohio
deliver its electoral votes to the president.''  Critics howled that the
maker of voting machines should not be involved in partisan politics.
The company has since forbidden its top executives from making political
contributions.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/business/13395525.htm

> FLORIDA TEST FINDS DIEBOLD VOTE MACHINE EASY TO HACK
>
> BLACK BOX VOTING -  Due to contractual non-performance and security
> design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho
> told Black Box Voting that he will never again use Diebold in an
> election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the
> county. He will issue a formal announcement to this effect shortly.
>
> A test election was run in Leon County today with a total of eight
> ballots - six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether
> Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr.
> Herbert Thompson and by Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief
> that the Diebold machines could be hacked.
>
> At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by
> Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. 
> A
> "zero report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In 
> fact,
> however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus
> votes.
>
> The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The
> standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal
> procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting
> machine.
>
> Correct results should have been: Yes:2 No:6
>
> However, just as Hursti had planned, the results tape read:
>
> Yes:7 No:1
>
> The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine 
> into
> the GEMS central tabulator. The central tabulator is the "mother ship"
> that pulls in all votes from voting machines. The results in the 
> central
> tabulator read:
>
> Yes:7 No:1
>
> This exploit, accomplished without being given any password and with 
> the
> same level of access given thousands of poll workers across the USA,
> showed that the votes themselves were changed in a one-step process.
> This hack would not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure, and
> it required only a single a credit-card sized memory card.
>
> http://blackboxvoting.org
>


OAKLAND TRIBUNE, JULY 2005  - After possibly the most extensive testing
ever on a voting system, California has rejected Diebold's flagship
electronic voting machine because of printer jams and screen freezes,
sending local elections officials scrambling for other means of voting.

"There was a failure rate of about 10 percent, and that's not good
enough for the voters of California and not good enough for me,"
Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said.

If the machines had been used in an election, the result could have been
frustration for poll workers and long lines for thousands of voters,
elections officials and voter advocates said Thursday. "We certainly
can't take any kind of risk like that with this kind of device on
California voters," McPherson said.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_2898234

ACCORDING TO JOURNALIST Lynn Landes, 80% of all votes in the last
presidential election were counted by Diebold and ES&S

Nathanael A. Fortune, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Physics
Smith College

Clark Science Center
McConnell 315
Northampton MA 01063

(413)-585-3980 (tel)
(413)-585-3786 (fax)
nfortune at email.smith.edu