Reply #30: Looks to me like

[Ms. Toad]

this is the source of the NYT quote (which I haven't seen elsewhere, except copied by CNET):

>>In 1967, he started John Diebold Inc., an investment firm that backed a number of ventures, including a computer leasing company and an enterprise that distributed software across Europe.<<

http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/newbusiness/2002spring_2.html

Looks pretty similar to me, except for the substitution of the second financed venture:

>>In addition to the Diebold Group, he started John Diebold Inc., an investment firm, in 1967. It financed such ventures as a computer leasing company and a well-known manufacturer of polling machines.<<

But - the NYT would never jump to conclusions, or just make stuff up to beat competitors to press ...http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/05/13/ny.times.investigation/

Seriously, I've looked and can't find any connection (other than the link placed in the CNET copy of the NYT article) between any of John Diebold's companies and the voting machine Diebold, which is a publicly traded company. I might be wrong, but I would think it would be unusual for a publicly traded company to be described as being financed by an investment firm that was not even founded until around 100 years after the 1800s inception of the company it was supposedly financing.