Two largest E-Voting Machine Companies, Diebold & ESS, want to MERGE.

[garybeck]

The two companies who count the most votes in our nation's elections, want to merge.




Voting-machine firm merger investigated
Florida's attorney general is investigating a voting-machine company merger that has voting-rights groups worried that the move will concentrate too much power over democracy in one private company.

BY MARC CAPUTO
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is conducting an anti-trust investigation of a voting-machine company merger that would create a near-monopoly over the levers of democracy in Florida and much of the United States.

McCollum's office has issued at least six subpoenas covering every major voting-machine company as part of a civil investigation of Election Systems & Software's $5 million acquisition of Diebold Inc.'s elections division -- a merger that would give a private company too much power over the machines used to castvotes, voting-rights groups say.

``Our office engaged in this issue because anti-competitive behavior can seriously harm consumers,'' McCollum said in a written statement. ``Competitive behavior encourages the best products be available to consumers, including technology, particularly in a market as sensitive as the voting systems market.''

Under the state's 1980 anti-trust law, McCollum could persuade a court to levy fines against ES&S or prevent the company from operating in Florida. By next year, the company is expected to be the exclusive provider of voting machines and services in 65 of the 67 counties in Florida, the nation's most important swing state.

That means, under the acquisition announced Sept. 2, ES&S will provide election services to 92 percent of Florida's 11.2 million voters.

More broadly, ES&S's purchase of the competitor company gives it control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's precincts, according to a federal lawsuit in Delaware filed by a rival company, Hart Intercivic. The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting its own inquiry.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/1385770.html

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Fuck

Too-big-to-fail will now be Too-big-to-count

[Ghost in the Machine]

2. Isn't ES&S owned by someone whose brother owned Sequoya...

and ALL THREE companies.. ES&S, Sequoya and Diebold... fall under the umbrella of the Carlyle Group?

I'm going from (foggy) memory here... I'll see what I can look up on this...

[garybeck]

3. it's actually Diebold and ESS, the two companies who want to merge. here you go

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0404/S00233.htm

[Ghost in the Machine]

4. Thank you, sir! Saved me a lot of googling.. I just got a new computer last week

.. and don't have all my stuff moved over to this one yet. I had the same computer for 10 years.. I've got stuffed saved in all kinds of folders and files and favorites. I almost feel naked on this new one right now... but man is it FAST!

:hi:

Peace,

Ghost

[Sebastian Doyle]

8. Carlyle? So Poppy's gonna cut out the middleman now

and steal the elections directly?

[Ghost in the Machine]

10. Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: The corporate lines — even the bloodlines —

Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: The corporate lines — even the bloodlines — of these "competitors" are so intricately mixed. For example, at Diebold — whose corporate chief, Wally O' Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, has publicly committed himself to "delivering" his home state's votes to Bush next year — the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top executive at "rival" ES&S. The brothers were originally staked in the vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing "steering group" stacked with Bushist faithful.

Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist Christian Reconstructionist movement, which openly advocates a theocratic takeover of American democracy, placing the entire society under the "dominion" of " Christ the King." This "dominion" includes the death penalty for homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians, stoning of sinners and — we kid you not — slavery, "one of the most beneficent of Biblical laws."

Ahmanson also has major holdings in ES&S, whose former CEO is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. When Hagel ran for office, his own company counted the votes; needless to say, his initial victory was reported as "an amazing upset." Hagel still has a million-dollar stake in the parent company of ES&S. In Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice for a running mate in his 1998 gubernatorial race was ES&S lobbyist Sandra Mortham, who made a mint installing the machines that counted Jeb's votes.

Sequoia also has a colorful history, most recently in Louisiana, where it was the center of a massive corruption case that sent top state officials to jail for bribery, most of it funneled through Mob-connected front firms. Sequoia executives were also indicted, but escaped trial after giving immunized testimony against state officials. The British-owned company's corporate parent is private equity firm Madison Dearborn — a partner of the Carlyle Group, where George Bush I makes millions trolling the world for war pork, privatizations and sweetheart deals with government insiders.

http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-23.htm


I was a little foggy on my details, but I knew that Carlyle had their hands in this somewhere..

:hi:

Peace,

Ghost

[Ghost in the Machine]

5. kicking back to the top.. needs more exposure.. and recs n/t

[juno jones]

6. K&R!

Because voting reform and campaign reform need to be front and center. We can't change a damn thing until we change those.

[dana_b]

7. that is some scary stuff right there

it would be hard to ever trust the vote again (not like we do now!).

[LaPera]

9. Where's BradBlog ...Yes, Brad's on it!!

http://www.bradblog.com/

[Ghost in the Machine]

11. kicking for the day shift :-)

[TexasObserver]

12. Aw, hell no!

Recommend

[Ghost in the Machine]

13. One more kick from me...

:kick: