Diebold struggles to bounce back from the controversy surrounding its voting machines. CNN Money

[kansasblue]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/11/13/8393084/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote

By Barney Gimbel, Fortune writer-reporter
November 3 2006: 9:46 AM EST

(Fortune Magazine) -- Here's a five-step plan guaranteed to make an obscure company absolutely notorious.

First get into a business you don't understand, selling to customers who barely understand it either. Then roll out your product without adequate testing. Don't hire enough skilled people. When people notice problems, deny, obfuscate and ignore. Finally, blame your critics when it all blows up in your face.

With missteps like those, it would be hard to succeed in the gumball business. But when your product is the hardware and software of democracy itself, that kind of performance gets you called not just incompetent but evil - an enemy of democracy. And that is what has happened to Diebold Inc. (Charts) of Canton, Ohio, since it got into the elections business in 2001.

The move seemed like a good idea at the time. The $3 billion public company, whose core products are ATMs, bank vaults and security systems, had just sold 186,000 voting machines to Brazil, where they delivered a quick and clean count in the 2000 elections.

[grasswire]

1. I believe they should be investigated for fraud

Under existing regulatory law, isn't there something that would cover such massive fraud on taxpayers?

[gristy]

2. Clearly, the author doesn't understand e-voting either

"Brazil, where they delivered a quick and clean count in the 2000 elections." I'm surprised he didn't say they were "safe" too! :rofl:

[Dosaybe]

3. Brazil's was not a clean election

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/1732770.php

[newyawker99]

7. Hi Dosaybe!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Imagevision]

4. All Diebold software/hardware should be pulled, stopped, disconnected until

further notice.

We're talking about major elections and their equipment has proven faulty while causing civil unrest among st the american people, it is NOT right for any one company to use their proprietory equipment in elections that cannot be verified!! How much more plaIn and fucking simple must this message be?!!

[Atman]

8. I'd love to buy a shitload of it low, hope they turn it around, then DONATE...

...the money to democrats and the democratic party. Such wonderful irony it would be.

(whoops...reply to #5)

.

[slackmaster]

5. Sounds like a bottom-fishing opportunity for investors

If they can get their act together and correct the problems, and the perception of problems.

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. While we're talking e-voting machines...ES&S = Hagel

Just to remind any lurkers. :hi:

The very same Hagel who's been discussed as a possible Presidential candidate for 2008:

http://www.thehill.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

Hagel’s ethics filings pose disclosure issue
By Alexander Bolton

On May 23, 1997, Victor Baird, who resigned Monday as director of the Senate Ethics Committee, sent a letter to Sen. Charles Hagel requesting “additional, clarifying information” for the personal financial disclosure report that all lawmakers are required to file annually.

Among other matters, Baird asked the Nebraska Republican to identify and estimate the value of the assets of the McCarthy Group Inc., a private merchant banking company based in Omaha, with which Hagel had a special relationship.

<snip>

Hagel, who was reelected last November by a lopsided majority, declined to comment on the ethics filing matter.

<snip>

An official at Nebraska’s Election Administration estimated that ES&S machines tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in Hagel’s 2002 and 1996 election races.

...