Opinion Editorials, March 2008
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Do You Want the Military-Industrial Complex Counting Your Votes? Major Player in Military Contracts Seeks to Buy Diebold
By Kevin Zeese
ccun.org, March 11, 2008
For the last two years United Technologies has been seeking to purchase the
Diebold Corporation. Diebold’s main business is ATM machines but, it
is the manufacturer of election equipment under the name Premier Election
Solutions. Its software is responsible for counting votes throughout the
United States.
Business Week, in its report on the attempted purchase, wonders why United
Technologies would want to acquire Diebold, writing “Some analysts are
wondering how United Technologies would benefit from acquiring Diebold,
which generates more than two-thirds of its revenue from ATMs – a business
that United Technologies is not in.” Perhaps it’s not the ATM business
that United Technolgies is interested in; maybe it is the election business?
Just what does United Technologies do and who is behind it? United
Technologies, a major multinational conglomerate with a range of
technology interests, receives approximately $5 billion in military
contracts from the United States annually. Among United Technologies
products is the Black Hawk Helicopter, a tactical transport and assault
helicopter which costs $5.9 million each of which 2,600 have been built.
Their businesses include Sikorsky Aircraft which makes helicopters,
Hamilton Sunstrand which produces aircraft engines and rockets, UTC power
which creates fuel cells for defense and aerospace systems as well as
Otis Elevator and security systems.
United Technologies is also a major donor to political campaigns – the sixth
largest defense industry donor in the 2004 election with two-thirds of
their donations going to Republicans. In 2008 they are the fifth
largest defense industry contractor and have given $485,000, with 57% going
to Democrats. They have had numerous government officials on their board,
including a former secretary of defense and undersecretary of the air force.
The corporation they are trying to by is Diebold, infamous for producing
electronic voting machines that have serious security and performance
problems. Their election division became so problematic that they
created a veil of separation between their ATM business and their election
products in August 2007. They renamed the division Premier Election
Solutions and this February gave it a separate board of directors (three out
of five of the board were Diebold officials). Diebold tried to
sell the troubled election system in 2007 but was unable to find a buyer.
The former CEO of Diebold, Walden O’Dell raised distrust about Diebold as
an honest vote counter by announcing before the 2004 election in a
fundraising letter for President Bush that he would do all in his power to
deliver Ohio for Bush. He was forced to resign in 2005 as security fraud
and insider trading charges loomed. Diebold continues to have unresolved
accounting problems with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company has been caught using federally uncertified software in
elections. Security reviews of the machines have found widespread
flaws, and the machines have been known to break down in the midst of
voting. In 2004 they entered into a $2.6 million settlement with
California to resolve a lawsuit that alleged the Texas-based firm provided
false information to obtain payments from the state and counties for its
electronic voting equipment. Black Box Voting found source code of Diebold’s
on the web and shared it with a top computer security expert, Avi Rubin of
Johns Hopkins University, who published a report in 2003 that found
widespread security problems. Since then numerous reports conducted by
various states have confirmed and expanded on those security holes.
What makes the Diebold machines even more problematic is that the software
used to count the vote is secret; it cannot be completely reviewed by
computer experts. Further, many of their machines do not produce a paper
record, making it impossible to audit the result in order to verify that the
count was accurate. The machines that do have a paper record
produce a flimsy ATM-like receipt with small print that is difficult for
voters to read and challenging for election judges to count. While
many states are turning away from touch screen machines because of their
expense, unreliability, and lack of transparency, many of the states do not
require an audit of the optical scan count--op-scan machines are also
computers that rely on software and can be insecure. With no audit why
bother having a paper record?
In an editorial blog, The New York Times reminded its readers of the warning
that President Eisenhower gave the American public in 1961 as he left
office: “In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition
of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought by the military
industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power
exists and will persist.” The Times noted “we suspect that Eisenhower
would be appalled to learn that a defense contractor could be counting the
votes in the next presidential election.”
Thus far, Diebold’s board has rejected United Technologies’ $2.6 billion
offer. However, the multinational is very likely not to give up and could
take the offer to the shareholders of Diebold. So, we may see the next
election counted in large part by a defense contractor. They already
virtually determine the outcome of elections through their contributions and
their control of the media, e.g. GE’s ownership of NBC. If this purchase
goes through, they will be counting the vote in secret with no independent
review.
The problem of a military contractor counting the votes is really a symptom
of a bigger problem of corporate-government. Across the country
election administrators have outsourced vote counting to private
corporations. In fact, Diebold’s central tabulator software counted
most of the votes in the last presidential election and 80% of the votes
were counted by two corporations: Diebold and ES&S.
It is time to return voting to the responsibility of government by
non-partisan elections administrators and to make voting transparent with an
independent record that is verified by the voter. Further, audits of
initial results need to become a routine part of every election, i.e.
comparing a hand count of paper ballots with an adequate random selection of
precincts to ensure the accuracy of the vote count. Finally, recounts
need to be made not only easy for candidates to request, but also
inexpensive. The foundation of the legitimacy of government is
democracy and the foundation of democracy is voting. If we do not
trust voting the government loses its legitimacy.
Kevin Zeese is the Executive Director of Voters for Peace
(VotersForPeace.US) as well as the Executive Director of TrueVoteMD.org.
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