Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Boyd Richie: The Texas Tribune Interview

Boyd Richie: The Texas Tribune Interview
The Texas Tribune
by Reeve Hamilton
June 14, 2010


Boyd Richie was elected
Chairman of the Texas
Democratic Party in April 2006
It’s true that of the 29 statewide offices available, the Texas Democratic Party doesn’t hold a single one. The party's chairman, Boyd Richie, says it’s legitimate to criticize the Democrats for that — but not to blame him for it. “That’s been going on for 15 years,” he said in his Austin office on Friday. “I’ve been chairman for four.”

A lawyer by trade, Richie is — like his wife Betty — a Democratic stalwart. He was elected chairman of the party in 2006 and intends to stay for a while. But this year, he is fending off a challenge from Michael Barnes, a political novice and Edcouch schoolteacher who's looking to shake up the party.

“He seems to be a very energetic, intelligent young man,” Richie says. “He’s interested in the party, and I’m tickled to see that. Anytime we have young people engaged in the process, I’m happy to see it.”

Richie is less tickled by Barnes’ suggestion that he needs to get out and about in the state more. He points to a plaque in his office commemorating his 2007 Texas Town Hall Tour, which covered 18 cities and 9,762 miles. “We travel so much that Betty and I can’t have a dog,” he says, “and if we did, it wouldn’t recognize us when we came home."

Regarding the party’s statewide success — or lack thereof — Barnes recently posed the question, “Since when is zero-for-29 a winning record?"

To that, Richie responds, “For starters, zero for 29, in a political arena, is not like a baseball manager's record.” Additionally, Richie says, the first time he was able to weigh in on candidate recruitment was in the current 2010 cycle:


Statewide candidates aside, Richie maintains, the party has experienced “major electoral gains” under his leadership. In 2008, House Democrats came within two seats of regaining the majority, which they lost in 2003. “We were able to do work and put money and resources into 17 statehouse races and won 16 of them,” Richie says. “I think that’s a record of which I’m pretty proud.”

Does Richie think the Democrats' first statewide victory in 16 years will come from among this year’s crop of candidates? “Absolutely I do,” he says:


The 2010 November election is especially crucial to the future of Texas electoral politics because it will determine the political makeup of the Legislative Redistricting Board, which will tackle the upcoming redistricting process. This fact is not lost on the chairman of the minority party, which currently has no representation on the board:


One statewide office with a slot on the board that the Democrats certainly won’t win is comptroller. They didn't even run a candidate in the race. Richie says it wasn’t for lack of trying. “That was a seat that we took very seriously,” he says, “and I’m very disappointed that we weren’t able to recruit somebody.” He says there were people considering a run who decided they didn’t have the financial wherewithal — and that the party, with it’s limited resources, couldn’t provide the requested level of support.

In fact, much of the Democrats’ electoral effort in the last five years was bankrolled by the Texas Democratic Trust, which launched in 2005 with a five-year focus on “holding a majority in the statehouse and capturing one or more statewide offices during the 2010 elections.” Many have insinuated that Matt Angle, who leads the trust, has been acting as the man behind the party’s curtain:


With the Texas Democratic Trust's commitment to the party approaching its end, Richie says the party will be, and is preparing to be, funded by small donors — something he says his opponent might not be aware of:


Another source of pride for Richie is the self-described aggressiveness with which he has gone after the opposition. Currently, the party is engaged in a legal battle in an effort to stop what Richie believes is a GOP-fueled effort to drain “D” votes by getting the Green Party on the ballot:


“I wouldn’t have a problem with the Green Party being on the ballot if it was the Green Party,” Richie says. “If their activists had been the ones out voluntarily gathering these petitions, and they got enough to get on the ballot, then more power to ‘em. That’s what elections are about.”

Instead, Richie is echoing Matt Angle’s call for long-time Perry advisor Dave Carney, who they believe is tied to the Green Party petition drive, to resign. (On Saturday, Carney told the Tribune's Ross Ramsey that he had nothing to do with the Greens.) This comes shortly after Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign called for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White to drop out of the race, alleging unethical business practices — a charge Richie calls “absurd.”

“We ought to have choices in elections,” Richie says. “Rick Perry doesn’t want anyone to have a choice except him.”

Discussing the matter in his office, Richie's tone reaches levels White rarely even musters on the stump. Richie recognizes that some might desire more personality from their gubernatorial hopeful, but that’s just not White’s style — and he says that’s okay:


White isn't the only Democratic politician accused of playing it too cool under fire. President Obama has endured similar criticism since oil began spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, which hasn't helped his polling in Texas. Despite winning in a landslide nationwide, Obama wasn’t very popular in Texas when he got elected, and has become even less so as time has worn on — even with some Democrats, as Richie is well aware:


In the next presidential election, Richie says, Texas has the potential to become “a battleground configuration.” Democrats, he says, have the opportunity to “turn this thing around.” The first step will be introducing the statewide candidates and getting everyone “fired up” at the upcoming state convention, where they will also decide if Richie will be steering the party on its future course — or if he'll have to hand the helm over to Barnes.

If 2010 doesn’t go as he plans, Richie only asks one thing:

Saturday, June 12, 2010

WEAK TEA: Tea Party Looses Steam

WaPo: Last Tuesday's primary results provided fresh evidence of the amorphous network's struggle to convert activist anger and energy into winning results.
Frustrated and lacking agreement on what to, self-identified tea party leaders say the movement may be in danger of breaking apart before it ever really comes together.

Disapproval of the tea party movement is at an all-time high, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Another nationwide Gallup Poll just 28 percent of Americans say they are a “supporter” of the tea party movement.

The Coffee Party, as just one example of support for the progressive movement, has gained 199,993 Facebook fans since 26 January 2010 (over 65,000 per month, counting all of January) while its alternative the Tea Party has 165,111 since March 2009 (about 12,000 per month). That suggests that the Coffee Party, as measured by real Facebook numbers rather than the impressions of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, is around 500 percent more popular than the Tea Party.

Ronald Reagan, in his first inaugural address, famously declared that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Echoing President Coolidge, Reagan believed that “the business of America is business,” and the government should get out of the way. Industry self-regulation and “free market” economics became the substitute for government regulation. Conservative Republicans argue that they have worked hard for 30 years to "free capitalism and individual liberty" by deregulating and dismantling government oversight of business.

Conservative political thinkers continue to argue that it is impossible for government to protect the the interests of the public and the nation. For decades they have held that all government is bad and less is always better. As a result we had decades of indifferent and incompetent leadership in the regulatory agencies. In recent years they have frequently been staffed with people hostile to their basic purpose. After decades of planned neglect, mismanagement and ideological attack, the American government, across the board, has gotten out of the way of corporate America – and the country is paying a heavy price.

Reagan's conservative "small government" argument, now carried by the Tea Party movement, is that government can not and must not play any roll to protect the general welfare of the American people by ensuring that business operate on a honest, fair and level field of play. And, that government can not and must not play any roll to protect the interests of American citizens and the environment in which we live and earn a livelihood.

"Deregulation" is wonderful until we discover what happens when government regulations aren't issued or enforced. The conservative philosophy of governance has disemboweled government and handed vast responsibilities over to a private sector that will never see protecting the public interest as its primary task.

Indeed if it does anything, the disaster in the Gulf demonstrates the folly of this conservative approach to government. Internal BP documents released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the explosion and its aftermath, show that "time after time, BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense." BP took measures to cut costs in the weeks before the catastrophic blowout in the Gulf of Mexico as warning signs mounted, prompting a BP engineer to describe the doomed rig as a "nightmare well," in an e-mail April 14, six days before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

And the lesson that conservative approach to government is a failure is reinforced by the cries for help from the conservative political leadership of the Gulf Coast states – who in the past led the charge for smaller and less intrusive government. Beyond all question it demonstrates the need for competent regulation that is not controlled by the interests it is supposed to regulate. It destroys the simplistic notion that the interests of business coincide with those of the broader community.

The modern conservative movement began at conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation that Reagan brought together with the religious right and ultra-rich elites in an unholy alliance that after 30 years has culminated in disastrous energy policy, the Iraq war, skyrocketing health insurance costs, unprecedented levels of national debt, near economic collapse, record mortgage foreclosures, an exploding gap between the rich and poor, a military industrial complex spending tax payer money like drunken sailors, the freedom for multinational corporations to move American jobs off-shore and now a ruined coastal environment that will take decades to recover.

Conservative governance has given Americans the worst decade for the U.S. economy in modern times by a wide range of data, with zero net job growth and the slowest rise in economic output since the 1930s. On balance, American families are also worse off than any time since the 1930s

The Tea Party movement has generated a lot of media talk about “populism,” which gets defined by the media as the battle between Big Government and the Common Folk. What gets ignored is that the only feasible check on unlimited corporate power is a democratized and energized "we the people" federal government.

Corporate lobbyists — led by Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips’ Americans for Prosperity organizations — have been organizing the phony astroturf activism of "tea parties" as a "coordinated campaign" marketing action for the Republican Party and the corporate interests that fund the Republican Party.

By agitating against government, not corporatism, the Tea Party promoters serve as “faux populist” front-men for corporate interests like British Petroleum who want to make sure government doesn't force them to "waste" money on equipment and procedures that safeguard their employees, the general public interest and the environment. "

Thirty years after Reagan's inaugural pronouncement that big business, not a government elected by the people, should be responsible for the public's interest, in the midst of the worst environmental crisis in the nation's history and as the nation struggles to recover from near financial collapse at the end of President Bush's 8 years in office in 2008, Reagan's conservative anti-government philosophy, now personified in the Tea Party movement, must be critically assessed an utter failure at securing the general welfare of American citizens and the environment in which Americans live and earn their livelihood.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. The Tea Party's 15 minutes of fame created by funding from corporate lobbyists and billionaire ultra-conservatives is about done!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Gulf Oil Spill Could Devastate U.S. Eastern Seaboard


AP photographer Charles Riedel filed some of the most disturbing
images yet of the effect the oil spill is having on Gulf Coast birds.
Pictures now coming out of the gulf coast show the fate waiting estuaries, fisheries, wildlife, and the economy of the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S.

Scientists predict that the Gulf Loop Current will carry the slick around the tip of Florida, through the keys, up the Florida east coast, into the Gulf Stream and then up the eastern seaboard of the U.S.

The oil will first devastate the breaches, estuaries, fisheries, wildlife, harbors, coastal waterways and economies of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

Next to be devastated are south Florida's beaches, coastal sea grass, mangroves of the everglades, estuaries, harbors and coastal waterways and coral reef habitats.

Then, the oil slick will be carried by the Gulf Stream up the eastern seaboard of the U.S. to devastate beaches, fisheries, harbors and coastal waterways all the way to Cape Hatteras, NC and beyond.

Note: In little noticed comments to McClatchy Newspapers, Ira Leifer, University of California researcher and member of the Obama Administration's Flow Rate Technical Group, said on Monday June 7, 2010 that even BP itself estimated the worst-case flow of an oil leak in the Gulf could reach 100,000 barrels of oil a day. "In the data I've seen, there's nothing inconsistent with BP's worst case scenario," Leifer was quoted as saying.


Miami Herald — May 04, 2010


Computer model of oil spill
moving up the east coast



May 17, 2010 NASA satellite
image of oil slick



wwfus — The Exxon Valdez Disaster
20 Years Later
Huffington Post:
21 years after the Exxon Valdez disaster it is estimated that 21,000 gallons of oil still remain just below the surface of Alaska's Prince William Sound, and the long term environmental effects on the area have far exceeded scientists' original predictions. It can be hard to gauge the extent of the current disaster in the Gulf, as the oil continues to flow relentlessly into the water, and the sandy beaches and coastal marshes will certainly react differently to the pollution than Alaska's rocky terrain.

Regardless, it is clear that the damage will be dire. Many species are currently nesting and reproducing in the area, and an entire generation of hundreds of species could be lost as a result. Countless marine birds could also be affected, as the area is a primary flyway for many species, currently in its peak migratory period. Though the cause is still unknown, the numerous dead sea turtles and other creatures that have washed ashore is perhaps an early ominous sign of the marine crisis the oil is causing in the deeper waters offshore. New information also reveals that BP is using 100,000 gallons of dispersant (1/3 of the world's supply) on the oil, further contaminating the ocean with harmful chemicals. Unfortunately, the true environmental ramifications of this catastrophe won't be known for years to come.

The health of countless people are at risk as oil spreads further along the coast, affecting more communities. Oil can turn into a heavy vapor that can then be inhaled by humans in the surrounding areas. The volatile chemicals in oil can cause minor immediate health problems, but have been linked to cancer over longer periods of time. In addition, these chemicals have been associated with miscarriage and can damage airways, so pregnant women and people with respiratory diseases are especially at risk. Oil is also damaging to skin, and the chemicals can be absorbed from this contact, meaning that the numerous local fisherman BP has hired to aid in clean-up efforts are at risk on many levels. In addition, as tragically seen from the Exxon Valdez disaster, local people can suffer long term personal damage from the devastation of their communities, with the escalated stress on families leading to increases in alcoholism, suicide, violence, and divorce.

Federal officials have shut down all fishing between the Mississippi River and Florida Panhandle until early-mid next week at the soonest. Fisheries in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are threatened from the effects of this disaster. Louisiana's $2.4 billion sea food industry accounts for approximately 1/3 of the shrimp, oysters, crab and craw fish in America. While the temporary fishing ban only halts 1/4 of Louisiana's seafood production, this could easily change if the oil begins to spread west. But the real impact on the seafood industry will be the long term consequences. The unknown extent of this catastrophe could have an adverse impact on the reproduction of seafood species as well the microscopic creatures that they feed on, potentially devastating the seafood operations in the area for years to come. The spill may even affect bluefin tuna stocks off Atlantic Canada—a species already intensely in decline—as they travel to the Gulf to spawn.

The Gulf Coast has long been home to pristine beaches, admired for their purity and cleanliness. Countless resorts and thriving tourist economies flourish from this natural beauty, with tourism pulling in $100 billion a year in the region. Unfortunately, the oil spill perilously threatens this vital industry with the potential to paint stretches of unspoiled beach black.

Legislation attempting to address the effects of climate change has been a long time coming. The bill, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17% lower than 2005 by 2020, also includes provisions to expand domestic production of oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. Obama’s recent announcement to expand offshore drilling was primarily seen by many as a move to gain more support for the bill from those who had opposed it. A lot of environmentalists conceded the compromise as necessary, understanding the greater good it would have getting the legislation through. In the wake of this offshore oil disaster, hope for the bill is looking bleaker than ever, with numerous lawmakers refusing to lend any support if offshore drilling measures are incorporated. The environmental crisis currently on our hands only further emphasizes the need for legislation that will truly protect our environment and lead to a clean energy America.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Canadian Company Buys Allen-based Diebold/Premier Election Solutions

Updated June 2, 2010 @ 11:58 P.M.
The company that markets the old Diebold/Premier electronic voting machines, used by Collin County voters, finally found someone to buy its failed Allen, Tx based Diebold/Premier Election Solutions business unit. Canadian-based Dominion Voting Systems, Inc has acquired the primary assets of Premier Election Solutions, including all intellectual property, software, firmware and hardware for Premier’s current and legacy optical scan, central scan, and touch screen voting systems, and all versions of the GEMS election management system. Dominion also has the right to hire former Premier employees.

Diebold's failed election division (renamed Premier Election Solutions in 2007) was purchased from Diebold for a pittance by Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) in September 2009 following a long three search for a buyer.

The Department of Justice's Anti-trust division later determined that the purchase of Diebold's Allen, TX based "Premier Election Solutions," by ES&S, resulted in a voting systems monopoly.

Collin County voters have been voting on Diebold Election Solutions DRE AccuVote touch screen voting systems, like the machine pictured left, since the March 4, 2004 primary election.

In 2008 Collin County purchased 410 of a newer version of the AccuVote voting booth machines (pictured right) to use for early voting. The newer AccuVote machine was used for the first time in Collin Co. during early voting for the November 2008 general election. Collin County continues to use the now antiquated "2004" AccuVote voting machines for Election Day voting. Collin Co. currently has a total inventory of about 1400 AccuVote voting booth machines.

On March 8, 2010 the U. S. Department of Justice, along with nine state attorneys general, filed an antitrust lawsuit in U. S. District Court in Washington, D.C. alleging that ES&S’ 2009 acquisition of Premier harmed competition. In settlement of that lawsuit ES&S agreed to look for someone willing to buy the assets of Premier.

In May 2010 Canadian-based Dominion Voting Systems, Inc agreed to acquire the assets of Premier Election Solutions from ES&S. From the Press Release announcing the acquisition:

Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. Acquires Premier
Election Solutions Assets From ES&S

Transaction Approved by the U. S. Department of Justice, Will Significantly Increase Competition in the United States Voting Systems Industry

Dominion’s Engineering and Customer Service Expertise Will Support Premier’s
Voting Products Throughout the U.S.

JAMESTOWN, New York .... Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. today announced that it has acquired from Premier Election Solutions, Inc. (Premier) a wholly owned subsidiary of Election Systems and Software (ES&S), the primary assets of Premier, including all intellectual property, software, firmware and hardware for Premier’s current and legacy optical scan, central scan, and touch screen voting systems, and all versions of the GEMS election management system.

As part of the transaction, Dominion also acquired an irrevocable, perpetual license for the AutoMark voting terminals used by voters with disabilities, a similar license for the VoteRemote absentee vote-by-mail processing solution, and rights to spare parts, supplies and other resources necessary to support and service these installed systems. In addition, Dominion will acquire a percentage of existing Premier inventory.

Under terms of the agreement, which was approved by the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and nine state attorneys general, Dominion has secured the right to hire current and former Premier employees and to enter into agreements with Premier dealers experienced in deploying and supporting these systems. In addition, the transaction requires that current Premier customers be provided with the opportunity to assign their existing contracts to Dominion without penalty. As part of the transaction, Dominion granted license rights back to Premier, subject to certain restrictions. The transaction also provides limitations on the ability of ES&S to continue to sell the Premier equipment going forward. Premier voting systems are currently in use in over 1,400 jurisdictions in 33 states and serve nearly 28 million American voters.

Included in the acquisition are Premier’s legacy products as well as Premier’s new ASSURE 1.2 solution suite which includes hardware, software and firmware with enhanced functionality and strengthened security and auditability features.

Updated March 8, 2010 @ 11:45 A.M.
The Department of Justice's Anti-trust division has determined that the purchase of Diebold's Allen, TX based "Premier Election Solutions", by Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S), has resulted in a voting machine monopoly.

A settlement has been struck, pending approval by a federal judge, between the DOJ, nine states, and ES&S requiring that the private company find a DoJ-approved purchaser of the Diebold/Premier assets. The proposed settlement, signed by the DoJ, ES&S, and representatives of state attorneys general in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Washington has been posted here [PDF]. Announcement of the DoJ-ordered unwinding of the merger and proposed settlement is also posted here.

Updated March 4, 2010 @ 4:49 A.M.
This story is again in the news with a just released AP news article. The AP story does not report much new news, but since it puts the story in circulation again, we'll pull our old post back up to the top of the list. The AP story includes this quote:
"If you end up with 70 percent of the voting machines and the people rely on them, and if entry into the market is difficult or impossible, it would certainly seem to be a legitimate target for antitrust enforcement," said Charles "Rick" Rule, a longtime Washington attorney who ran the Justice Department's antitrust division from 1986-89 during the merger-friendly Reagan administration.
Updated December 20, 2009 @ 10:22 A.M.
In September 2009 privately owned Omaha, Neb. based Election Systems & Software Inc., the largest voting machine company in the country, bought its biggest competitor, Diebold's Allen, TX based "Premier Election Solutions," without advance public notification.
The New York Post reports today that the U.S. Dept. of Justice and 14 states are actively investigating the already-completed merger of the two biggest makers of voting machines in advance of possible anti-trust legal action to unwind the merger as soon as next month.

The Miami Herald reports that Florida's AG office launched an investigation into the acquisition for possible violations of Florida's anti-trust statutes.
The U.S. Dept. of Justice joins Florida and 13 other states in similar investigations to investigate the merger that put privately held ES&S in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's election precincts. (Separate from Justice's review, competing voting machine firm Hart InterCivic Inc. has sued ES&S, alleging that the company holds an unfair anti-competitive monopoly on the U.S. voting machine market.)

Given ES&S is a privately held company it issues no financial reports and it was not required by law to give advanced notice to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Dept. of Justice about its acquisition of the Premier Election Solutions unit of Diebold. However, the government does have jurisdiction to take action in such transactions, if they create unfair anti-competitive monopolistic markets.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder in September 2009, just after ES&S announced its acquisition of Premere, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), the Chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed concerns over the deal and requested that the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division launch an investigation. In the September 2009 letter Schumer writes:
“If this acquisition proceeds, one company could control over three-quarters of the U.S. market for voting systems. Given other factors, including high barriers to entering the market, I am deeply concerned that local governments and taxpayers will not be getting a fair deal because too much market power will be held in too few hands.”

“It is in the public interest to maintain a range of choices in voting systems” -- noting that increased consolidation in the election-machine market could make elections more susceptible to fraud.
Originally Posted on September 3, 2009 @ 9:49 A.M.
After a three year search Diebold has at long last found a buyer for its Allen, TX based "Premier Election Solutions" business unit. The company announced Thursday that Premier Election Solutions, Diebold’s beleaguered voting machine division, had been acquired by Election Systems and Software (ES&S).

Collin County voters have been voting on Diebold Election Solutions DRE AccuVote touch screen voting systems, like the machine pictured left, since the March 4, 2004 primary election.

In 2008 Collin County purchased 410 of a newer version of the AccuVote voting booth machines (pictured right) to use for early voting. The newer AccuVote machine was used for the first time in Collin Co. during early voting for the November 2008 general election. Collin County continues to use the older "2004" AccuVote voting machines for Election Day voting. Collin Co. currently has a total inventory of about 1400 AccuVote voting booth machines.

In 2006, Diebold began attempts to distance itself from its election solutions division because controversies swirling around its computerized voting system line of business tarnished its mainline banking ATM business, plus, the added profits Diebold envisioned when it purchased the elections systems business never fully materialized. Diebold endured numerous lawsuits in addition to its PR problems over its Election Systems product.

Wired Magazine: Diebold, an Ohio-based maker of ATMs and security systems, purchased the elections business from Global Election Systems for $31 million in January 2002, just as Congress was passing the Help America Vote Act, which allocated billions to states to purchase new voting machines.
Instead of reaping the flow of federal HAVA funds the new Diebold Elections Systems division immediately ran headlong into controversy when Diebold Inc. CEO Walden O’Dell, a fundraiser for former President George Bush, wrote in a letter to Republican supporters in 2003 stating that the company was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president” in 2004.
[Diebold's AccuVote computers were widely used throughout Ohio and O’Dell's letter suggested to some that Diebold might install software on the AccuVote machines "rigged" to throw the Ohio vote to Bush.]
The company then became a target of additional bad "PR" after it inadvertently put its AccuVote computer source code on a public internet access FTP computer. This gave computer scientists an opportunity to examine the AccuVote software code. The computer scientists who studied the software code said they discovered numerous security problems with the voting system [that might allow someone to hack and change votes recorded on the voting machines].

Criticism of Diebold Elections Systems' voting equipment remained constant as the voting system experienced numerous problems in election districts around the country, and reports surfaced that company officials had applied untested and uncertified software updates to voting computers. [Did E-Vote Firm Patch Election?]
[Atlanta Progressive News' Matthew Cardinale filed a report reviewing the history and concerns about software patches illegally installed on Georgia's Diebold touch-screen voting systems.]
Wired Magazine: The most recent problem with the company’s system occurred in the 2008 presidential election in Humboldt County, California, when Diebold’s tabulation software randomly deleted nearly 200 votes. An examination of the system revealed that its audit logs failed to record significant events, such as someone deleting votes from the system; it also contained a delete button that allowed anyone with access to the system to erase the audit logs.

Diebold began looking for a buyer for the troubled touch-screen and optical scan voting, and electronic voter registration business in early 2006. Following a year-long failed attempt to find anyone willing to buy the e-voting business, Diebold spun it off as a wholly owned subsidiary business, renamed the subsidiary "Premier Election Solutions" and gave the business unit its own separate management team and board of directors in August 2007.

Diebold continued to actively search for someone to buy for its election system business unit until Election Systems & Software, another company in the election systems industry, finally aggre Diebold has at long last found a buyer and has sold its controversial U.S. election systems business to competitor Election Systems & Software, another company in the election systems industry. The sale closed Wednesday September 2, 2009 and consists primarily of Diebold’s Allen, Texas-based subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions.

Diebold reportedly agreed to sell the business for $5 million in cash, plus payments representing 70 percent of any cash collected on outstanding accounts that were receivable as of Aug. 31. Diebold expects to recognize a pre-tax loss in the range of $45 million to $55 million as a result of the transaction. The pre-tax loss includes the assets and liabilities of the business, certain retained legal liabilities, and other transaction costs.
Read more at: