Diebold Stock Falls as Company Fraud is Exposed

Po', po' Diebold. Being unAmerican only pays well up to a point, we guess, as the company's stock once again begins to tumble today after a key analyst cuts his rating for the once-great "security" company, citing "possible legislative concerns in the company's voting machines business."

And even as the company continues to misrepresent their product, on their own website, via knowing lies (otherwise known as fraud).

After the voting machine company's spectacular failure over the weekend at the GOP Straw Poll in Iowa --- where anywhere from 10.5% to 32% of the ballots had to be counted by hand after Diebold's machines failed --- it's little surprise that things are coming apart for them again. The question, however, is how much farther they still have to go and what the hell they can possibly do about it at this point.

"Investors could increasingly sour on the stock if Diebold does not try to sell the unit," reports Forbes this afternoon as the stock fell some 4.5% to $47.60 today on heavy trading, after falling at least that much since a high near $54 last Thursday.

Good luck selling that clunker of a division, boys. Liabilities much?

The company, which is already under investigation by the SEC, as we reported exactly one year ago today, reportedly for misstatements of revenue concerning their voting machine business, might face even more difficulties once its investors come to fully understand the depth of the fraud which the company seems to still be perpetuating.

Here's just one fresh example of the company's continuing lies, as found on the Diebold Election System, Inc's own FAQ page on their website today.

The company claims, incorrectly, that their touch-screen voting systems "insure ballot anonymity" by scrambling "the order of cast ballots"...

That is, of course, a complete and utter lie. At least according to the computer scientists at University of California who studied the matter in CA SoS Debra Bowen's recent "Top-to-Bottom Review" and found precisely the opposite to be true...

in direct contradiction to Diebold's statement on their website, Bowen's independent study of Diebold's voting system source code [PDF] for the Diebold Accuvote TSx touch-screen system referred to above, found otherwise that ballots were not "scrambled" and thus, were easily identifiable to Election Officials who want to find out how you may have voted.

The UC scientists found that "Both the electronic and paper records of the Diebold AV-TSX contain enough information to compromise the secrecy of the ballot," and that "the AV-TSX records votes in the order in which they are cast, and it records the time that each vote is cast" making it "possible for officials to determine how individuals voted".

From the UC report's Executive Summary...

Failure to protect ballot secrecy
Both the electronic and paper records of the Diebold AV-TSX contain enough information to compromise the secrecy of the ballot. The AV-TSX records votes in the order in which they are cast, and it records the time that each vote is cast. As a result, it is possible for election workers who have access to the electronic or paper records and who have observed the order in which individuals have cast their ballots to discover how those individuals voted. Moreover, even if this vulnerability is never exploited, the fact that the AV-TSX makes it possible for officials to determine how individuals voted may be detrimental to voter confidence and participation.

As investors are beginning to get the picture, we're still waiting for an Election Official to realize how they've been defrauded by this company (and the others in the same game) so that they might be able to start filing suit and begin to get some of the tax-payers money back after these company's knowing fraud on American voters.

(P.S. We've got screenshots of the Diebold FAQ page saved, so don't bother trying to change it now, guys. Try changing your business practices instead.)

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