Election 2004: A Necessary Illusion

December 9. 2004

• 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
• There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the US voting machine industry.
• The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
• The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
• 35% of ES&S is owned by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
• Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, a long-time friend of the Bush family, was caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
• Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice- presidential candidates.
• ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the US and counts almost 60% of all US votes.
• Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
• Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail. [more]