Swing State Ohio

Cross-posted at My Daily Kos Diary.  Future Parts in this series include but are not limited to:  The Role of Diebold, Ken Blackwell, 2004, Voter Suppression, Swing State Status, and The Ohio GOP History of Corruption.  I will do my best to publish a new section at the rate of at least one per week.  If you would like to be notified when the other sections become available online, or if you have other information related to this you'd like to share, please contact me at josh_nelson_513@yahoo.com.


When most people think of unscrupulous elections and malfunctions with voting equipment in Ohio, they immediately think of Diebold.  Unfortunately, Diebold does not have a monopoly on such occurences, in fact, another company may be even more suspicious than Diebold.  In 2006, 28 of Ohio's 88 counties are using voting equipment purchases from Election Systems and Software, a Nebraska company that seems to have difficulties fulfilling contractual agreements to Boards of Elections throughout Ohio and the rest of the country.

"We can't guarantee anything 100 percent."  This was the official response to a reporter's question at the Summit County board meeting Tuesday regarding the reliablity of ES&S's voting equipment.  The purpose of the meeting was to provide ES&S an opportunity to explain the repeated voting equipment failues that the County has experienced in testing.

Here is what the fuss in Summit county is about:

The manufacturer of Summit County's new voting machines replaced memory cards in the machines Tuesday after continued problems in tests, the second time the cards have been replaced leading up to the May 2 primary, company and elections officials said.

During a test in March, 30 percent failed among the first batch of cards that should read and store vote tabulations, elections officials said. ES&S blamed faulty batteries embedded in each card.

ES&S's difficulties in fulfilling it's obligations are not limited to Ohio.  This example from Indiana illustrates the incompetence that ES&S is developing a reputation for.

Luzerne County officials gave their electronic voting machine vendor until noon Friday to divulge in writing whether it intends to supply machines and training in time for the primary election May 16.

The county, in a letter, threatened legal action against Election Systems & Software regarding the penalties and loss of $3 million in federal funding the county could face for missing the May 16 deadline.

ES&S had not responded to the county as of 4 p.m. Friday, said county Solicitor Neil O'Donnell.

This is not the first time ES&S equipment has caused people to doubt the validity of elections.  

One such example is the Hawaii elections in 1998:

Statement by Marion Higa, State Auditor, and Chair of Elections Oversight Committee:  "There was an obvious problem with seven voting units from Election Systems and Software -- out of 361 units used on Election Day..."  As a result of the problems, the integrity of the election was called into question. The controversy was compounded by close races which led to charges made - but with no proof offered - of all kinds of voting irregularities.

Believe it or not, this is also not the second time ES&S has been involved in headlines related to questionable business practices prior to counties in Ohio signing contracts with the company.

Election Systems and Software reached a one-point-two million dollar settlement with Marion County, Indiana.  The county clerk accused Election Systems and Software of installing uncertified software in its electronic voting machines.

Also, in Arkansas, former Election Systems and Software executive Tom Eschberger was granted immunity for his cooperation in a 2002 kickback and bribery investigation that ended with a conviction of Arkansas'secretary of state. At the time, Eschberger worked for Business Records Corporation, which later was acquired by Election Systems and Software.

As of late February 2006, Eschberger still works for ES&S.

ES&S makes the claim that "Maintaining voter confidence -- and enhancing the voting experience -- is at the core of our mission as a company."

This excerpt from an interview with ES&S executive Ken Carbullido, however, gives an entirely different impression.

I-Team: U.S. Senator Charles (Chuck) Hagel, a Republican, used to be chairman of this company when it operated as American Information Systems (AIS). The Hill, a political trade publication, reports that a Nebraska state official said ES&S machines tallied most of the senator's votes in his two elections. An investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee showed he still has financial and personal ties to your parent company, The McCarthy Group.

Carbullido: Obviously Senator Hagel, I know what his party affiliation is. But that has absolutely no influence at all in the day-to-day running and development of our equipment, running of our operations and our services. Senator Hagel might have had an affiliation some years ago, some role in the company.  He's completely out of the operation at all, has nothing to do with what we do, what we sell, how we service.  

I-Team: Aren't you concerned about appearances? What people might think?

Carbullido:  We take very seriously the responsibility we have as the world's largest provider of election systems to run and support the democratic process.

This seems like a stock answer and it also seems to me as if they do not take this responsibility seriously enough.

Additionally, this Free Press article outlines a few of the problems ES&S created in Ohio in 2004.

AUGLAIZE COUNTY -  A former employee of ES&S, "the company that provides the voting systems in Auglaize County, had access to and used the main computer that is used to create the ballot and compile election results...a violation of county board of election protocol...Mr. Nuss was suspended and then resigned."

MAHONING COUNTY - (1) voting machine errors included one precinct "recorded a negative 25 million votes"; (2) twenty to thirty "ES&S iVotronic machines needed to be recalibrated during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being counted for that candidate's opponent"; (3) about a dozen of these machines had to be reset because they "essentially froze."  And, (4) "there were numerous reported instances of vote hopping (in which a voter selecting Kerry for President saw the choice displayed on the machine `hop' to Bush for President)."

To me, the circumstance in Mahoning County is the most frightening.  Having your vote not count is bad enough but the thought of having your vote count for your candidate's opponent is enough to make my stomach turn.

Questions for discussion:

1.  Why isn't there more accountability required for the companies that sell the equipment Ohioans use to vote?

2.  Why do so many Ohio counties blindly trust a company that has had so many well documented issues in previous elections?

3.  What kind of image does this send to Ohio's, and the country's already apathetic potential voters?

Part two on The role of Diebold will be available in the coming days.