Wednesday, March 05, 2008

A New Role for Defense Contractors? Counting Votes

Via The New York Times.

There has long been good reason to worry about Diebold voting machines. Many are “black box” electronic machines that do not produce paper records, so voters have to accept the results they report on faith.

Diebold, however, has not inspired much faith. It has been accused of illegally using uncertified software on its voting machines, exposing elections to possible tampering, and of making glitchy machines that misrecord votes.

Then there’s the little matter of the company’s CEO signing a letter before the 2004 election — in which his machines would be counting many of the votes — saying that he was committed to helping deliver Ohio to President Bush.

Now, there’s a new reason to worry that Diebold plays such a large role in presidential elections. United Technologies has made an unsolicited $3 billion bid to take over Diebold.

United Technologies is one of the nation’s leading defense contractors, which means it has an enormous corporate interest in who gets elected President.

More here.

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