"SECURITY RISK" - Justice Dept. probes voting machine merger-By PETE YOST Associated Press

[kpete]

Is a Voting Machine Merger Too Big to Stand?

Justice Dept. probes voting machine merger
as midterm elections loom and questions multiply

By PETE YOST Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON March 4, 2010 (AP)

The largest voting machine company in the country bought its biggest competitor six months ago without advance fanfare. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether to unwind the merger that put a privately held Nebraska company in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's precincts.

With midterm elections looming and a battle for control of Congress under way, a coalition of election officials from several states and voter advocate groups is pressing the Justice Department to unscramble the combination of two companies. Critics say the merger could cause foul-ups at the polls on Election Day, andsome even characterize it as a national security risk.

The emergence of one megaplayer in the electronic voting machine industry may be an unintended consequence of reforms enacted after the presidential election debacle in Florida a decade ago. Few companies can afford to get into the business due to the expense of developing the electronic voting safeguards that reformers insisted on.

Senate Rules Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has raised concerns about the purchase, in which Election Systems & Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb., bought the voting machine subsidiary of Diebold Inc. of North Canton, Ohio.

more:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10006135

[Bill Bored]

1. Chuck Schumer is not with the program. Because of his HAVA advocacy, NY is replacing lever machines

Congress wasn't going to pay for levers to be replaced because levers did not cause the debacle of FL 2000. Gore would have won FL handily if the whole state had voted on levers instead of punch cards and optical scan. There would have been no butterfly ballots, no overvotes, no vote switching and very few undervotes. And no machines counting backwards either!

But because Chuck found a broken lever machine in Brooklyn once (perhaps 1 in 1000!), he insisted that HAVA include money to do away with levers. Bad idea Chuck. VERY BAD IDEA!

Now he's got an anti-trust problem on his hands, but still apparently has no recognition of the fact that all these vendors are selling computerized vote-switching machines that can be used to rig elections.

[Vincardog]

2. all THIS vendor is selling is computerized vote-switching machines that are be used to rig elections