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E-voting and voter registration: The vendors

02.11.2006
The biggest vendors of e-voting machinery are also among the largest vendors of voter-registration technology. Roughly speaking, there are four significant players in the e-voting market and three in the voter-registration arena. We follow our overview of those seven companies with capsule descriptions of other companies whose technology voters may encounter around the country.

E-VOTING VENDORS: THE MAJORS

Diebold Inc.

Not the largest e-voting vendor but certainly the most controversial, Diebold has repeatedly raised hackles with its aggressive responses to computer-security professionals who have demonstrated problems with the company's hardware and software. That's leaving out entirely the ill-advised 2003 promise by Diebold CEO and Republican fund-raiser Walden O'Dell to "[help] Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." (O'Dell left Diebold in 2005 amid rumors of securities-fraud litigation and insider trading.)

The company produces the AccuVote line of direct recording electronics (DRE), DRE/VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trail) and optical scan machines. Diebold machines have figured in two high-profile tests that discovered multiple hardware and software vulnerabilities, and they compare poorly with contemporary Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. units in independent tests undertaken in Alameda, Calif. ().