ATS: Diebold Sued Over Voting Machines, CEO Resigns

A lawsuit was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against Diebold Inc. by the Scott + Scott law firm. The suit alleges that the voting machines sold by the company for use in U.S. elections were of inferior quality, condition, and "lacked sufficient internal controls." In addition, Diebold's CEO Walden W. O'Dell unexpectedly resigned as these serious allegations concerning the accuracy of the company's voting machine technology surfaced. Many conspiracy-minded people have accused Diebold of affecting vote tabulation results in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, perhaps leading to an illegitimate victory for President George W. Bush.



This is a very serious development in the saga of allegations raised against Diebold electronic voting machines. Anyone can file a lawsuit, so I don't put much value on that aspect of the story; however, the resignation of the Diebold CEO may be quite meaningful. Time will tell.

Related News Links:
www.informationweek.com
www.bradblog.com
news.com.com
www.prneswire.com



Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
The Diebold Factor
Diebold Being Sued



[edit on 12/13/2005 by djohnsto77]

Let me get this straight... A lawsuit is filed against the company claiming that its product is defective, the CEO resigns, and the stock goes up? What the h is that all about?

There's more:
www.bbvforums.org.../1954/15583.html

“On November 22, 2005, less than two business days after you sent your response, you sent an e-mail at 5:11 p.m. stating that if Black Box Voting would like to participate in the test it would have to respond by 10:00 a.m. the following morning. You also said that the time of the test would be moved from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. A true and correct copy of your November 22, 2005 response is attached as Exhibit 3.

“Less than three hours after receiving your November 22 e-mail, Black Box Voting responded by suggesting that the Protocols be changed by selecting machines from certain County election offices which have not shown a bias for Diebold. Unfortunately, you have never responded to this correspondence or permitted the inspection, despite Black Box Voting’s reasonable request under California Election Code Section 19202. As such, the Secretary of State has clearly violated Section 19202.

And this biggie...
www.bbvforums.org.../1954/15595.html

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.

What is interesting to me here is the way everyone was railing against the illegality or questionable methods. A large number of people were all excited about the NWO, etc. etc. etc. And the evil that was going on unchecked.

Now, it appears that maybe there is hope that not every politician, and not every lawyer is in the pocket of some nefarious conspiracy, and that somebnal are just as interested in preserving the democracy as you and I.

It does, in the end, provide some small comfort.

Now IF there is something done to these machines to make a paper receipt of all votes or something in place that would make for a more honest vote, I may start voting again come 2008.

...but not until.

I am suprised that this was allowed to happen in the first place - no papaer trail? Sad.

Ok, we all know that a computerized negative vote count is an error... which is what many of these machines did (made null votes)in 2000 and 2004
it now appears that this is a programmable error using this simple hack...

meaning that any poll worker that wanted to, could switch a candadites positive votes to negative...

add to that the assured (and stupid) statement by the CEO that he would do ANYTHING to make sure that Bush won...

are any of us this naive or blind?

Hell, yes, the election was corrupted... and hell yes, they might even prove it...

now my question... in this age of lawsuits...
can we sue the CEO of Diebold for the financial damage that resulted from his fixed election result? at this point it would be in the trillions...

I find this an excellent opportunity to pull up an old research thread for anyone that's not totally sure what's going down here and what Diebold is being accused of. I strongly suggest reading all the attached links and accusinations.

Election'04: Solidify our research


Flashback:

Under siege by critics, Diebold is invoking the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force website operators and ISPs to remove leaked memos -- which explain how anyone with access to [voting] machines could add or delete votes without detection -- from the Internet.

Even more damning, though, is an archive of Diebold E.S. internal software development discussions, proving that the company knows about the problems, yet would rather pretend they didn't exist than fix them, risking our free elections in the process.

This is where the University of Evansville comes in. I have provided this archive on the University Computer Science department server (here), available to the world, along with students from many other universities, as part of a campaign to keep the archive available.

Now, Diebold lawyers are sending "takedown requests", alleging copyright infringement, to the access providers of publicly available archives. U.E. has not received one yet, but I believe it soon will.


csserver.evansville.edu...
csserver.evansville.edu...
csserver.evansville.edu...



[edit on 12/14/2005 by QuietSoul]

Even when is nice to know all this now, is a littler to late to do anything about it.

But for those that claimed that the machines were fixed I said, perhaps you all were right.

When a CEO of a company Resign . . . not matter what kind of business he is on . . . is always something dark brewing with his or her departure.

But again to late.

I feel that when it comes to voting it should always be a paper trail to match the outcome.

What I want to know is who didn't want a paper trail? Everyone I talked to thought there should be one. It's freakin' common sense!!! Ah but lo and behold, these new fangled voting machines don't leave a paper trail. How convenient!

It's the new American way. By the time we find out anything has effed with it's six months or six years down the road. By that time nobody cares, and if they do voice any concern people start chiming in with "oh, that's old news now. Let's put that behind us and think of new ways to eff up..........er.........I mean fix the problem."

Citizens of America you've been raped once again.

Peace

Shouldn't a revelation of this type, warrent a congressional investigation at least. I would love to be in the GOP headquarters listening to the counterspin. I wonder what the CEOs connection to the GOP was. Here comes a cushy appointment ala "Brownie" for falling on your sword and loyalty.

Right DR.

Your turn in the barrel Mr. and Mrs. Ms. America.

thanks for the story dj77
Peace on Earth, Good will to men

[edit on 14-12-2005 by whaaa]

Originally posted by ChemicalLaser
Let me get this straight... A lawsuit is filed against the company claiming that its product is defective, the CEO resigns, and the stock goes up? What the h is that all about?

They confirmed a $.50 - $.60 profit per share is what that's all about. Nobody cares about law suits and CEOs with personal problems. The investment community ONLY cares about profits.

The law suit is, at this stage, a meaningless factor. Like Djohnsto77 said above, "anyone can file a law suit", and that district of Ohio has been raising hells bells over GWB getting elected crying voter fraud and poll-rigging for over a year now.

I would not be surprised at all to find out the Democratic party is behind this suit. I certainly am not poo-pooing off the possibility that Diebold may have made "false statements" about the quality of their software, machines or security protocols BUT I seriously doubt they "rigged" themachines for the benefit of the Republican party.

That would be corporate suicide. You'd NEVER be able to hide the fact you set up the machines to give unfair victory to one candidate over the other. These machines, all their software and security is EASILY made public by a subpoena.

Any competent computer engineer/programmer would be able to discover something so obvious. That discovery would be the END of Diebold. There is NOTHING that the Republican party could do to save them, the Republican party would be trying to save itself.

Now I ask, WHY would Diebold enter into such an agreement?! They wouldn't unless there were idiots at the helm of the company IMHO.

Springer...

Now I ask, WHY would Diebold enter into such an agreement?! They wouldn't unless there were idiots at the helm of the company IMHO.

Corporate Idiocy happens all the time... all you need do is look at the Computer Industry in the 80s and 90s and all the locked in proprietary solutions that turned out to be "Corporate Suicide". CEO's can be anything a regular human being can be as they are still umm Human ... at least most of them are still umm human.

[edit on 14-12-2005 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by Springer

I would not be surprised at all to find out the Democratic party is behind this suit. I certainly am not poo-pooing off the possibility that Diebold may have made "false statements" about the quality of their software, machines or security protocols BUT I seriously doubt they "rigged" themachines for the benefit of the Republican party.

I certainly don't see the republican lead federal governement bothering to do any investigations into voter fraud unless it is to thier benifit (cite www.wisgop.org...) and why would republicans investigate voter fraud in Ohio when they stand to lose quite a bit if they are inadvertinly found to be liabl?

The democratic party.. IF they were invovled... has everything to gain if this is true.

Lastly Diebold itself has been known to be lead by republican partisans. IMHO Democrats are the only ones upset, and angered enough to even bother investigations.... certainly not any republicans

Originally posted by Springer
They confirmed a $.50 - $.60 profit per share is what that's all about. Nobody cares about law suits and CEOs with personal problems. The investment community ONLY cares about profits.

Fair enough amigo, but the lawsuit is clearly an escalation above the rhetoric that has been driving this story for a while now, whether it is frivolous or not.

You are probably right - profits are king, but I personally would be more inclined to sell Diebold short in the coming months than make a long term investment.

Now, if In-Q-Tel invests heavily in Diebold, then I would start to really worry.

so let's see.......

it appears quite possible that the elections were rigged....

it also seems plausable that DeLay used bribery and money laundering to win his house majority.

and, well, talking of that house majority, ummm....the supreme court will consider the constitutionality of the redistricting orchistrated by him and buddies that also helped get that majority.

I can't help but wonder.....is this great majority we have been hearing about the past few years while they try to cram all the bs down our throats simply an illusion also?

If so, and it has been gained through illegal and questionable means, well....

we have a nice (not to mention costly) war we are trying to figure out how to get out of....

a massive budget deficit.

our constitutional rights have been chipped away at...

our credibility in the world has been trashed.

our young men and women have died overseas....

we've renagged on just a few treaties we have signed.,...

broken a few international laws in the process....



if all of these allegations are found to be true in a court of law, well, the republican party might as well split up into a religious party and those truely conservatives....because the republican party will have breethed their last breath I am afraid!!


[edit on 14-12-2005 by dawnstar]

Originally posted by whaaa
I wonder what the CEOs connection to the GOP was.

All of the main companies making electronic voting equipment are related (some actually by blood) and all of them are connected to the GOP!

In fact some of the people running the companies actually run the GOP!

See: Rise of the Reconstructionists about the people running these companies, their connections and their beliefs.

Also see: The Diebold Factor along with QuietSoul's link above for lots of background.
.

Edit: link fix

[edit on 12/14/2005 by Gools]

Perhaps this will have a positive effect on the 2008 election after all...

Black Box Voting Forum

Leon County Florida dumps Diebold voting machines after proof of hackery.

Wed. December 14, 2005: Due to contractual non-performance and security design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho has announced that he will never again use Diebold in an election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. On Tuesday, the most serious “hack” demonstration to date took place in Leon County. The Diebold machines succumbed quickly to alteration of the votes.
...
Finnish security expert Harri Hursti, together with Black Box Voting, demonstrated that Diebold made misrepresentations to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the “memory card” (the credit-card-sized ballot box used by computerized voting machines.