Antitrust Concerns Swirl Around Sale of Diebold Voting Machines

Sen. Charles Schumer asked the Justice Department’s antitrust division on Monday to investigate the recent sale of Diebold’s voting machines division to a competitor, saying the deal raises anti-competitiveness concerns and has “adverse implications on how our country votes.”

Wired.com

Earlier this month, Diebold announced the sale of its voting machine division, Premier Election Solutions, to top competitor ES&S for about $5 million.

The sale gives ES&S, already the largest voting machine maker in the country, a near monopoly on the voting machine industry. According to the company’s website, its systems, used in 43 states, counted “approximately 50 percent of the votes in the last four major U.S. elections.”

Hart InterCivic, a voting machine firm based in Texas, filed an antitrust suit (.pdf) on Friday, seeking a temporary and permanent injunction against the sale. According to the suit, the sale “poses a significant and imminent threat of irreparable antitrust injury to plaintiffs.”

There are many concerns with this. Namely, we would have ONE COMPANY responsible for MOST, of not ALL of the voting machines used in American elections.
With the concerns vocalized before about the ability to change elections results and widespread accusations of voter fraud in the last two presidential elections, I think this scam is going to play right into the hands of those that would eliminate the minor influence we still have on elections.

Not a good thing for democracy, or even democratic republics.

Another failure of State election officials to not have gotten rid of these things after Bush was removed. These machines are severely flawed and manipulatable. They need to be junked.

Originally posted by damwel
Another failure of State election officials to not have gotten rid of these things after Bush was removed. These machines are severely flawed and manipulatable. They need to be junked.

I agree. They need to trash them all. But alas, it would seem as though we are headed in the opposite direction. Not only are we NOT getting rid of them, we're going to make sure that ONE company has the power to manipulate ALL of the voting machines.