Premier Elections Solutions pays up in Ohio Diebold suit, offers more faulty voting machines for free
By Darren Murph 
posted August 14th 2010 4:08PM
posted August 14th 2010 4:08PM
Man, this is rich. Some two years after being sued by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Premier Elections Solutions (formerly, and more infamously known as Diebold) has decided to settle up. Way back when, Brunner alleged that the outfit's touch-screen voting machines weren't acting as they should, and she pointed to an investigation that proved at least 11 counties were dropped in past elections when their memory cards were uploaded to servers. As of now, Premiere -- which is owned by Election Systems & Software -- has agreed to pony up just over $470,000 to the 47 counties that touched its e-voting hardware, but that's hardly the kicker. Counties are also eligible for up to $2.4 million in free Premiere software for two years, and the company's even throwing in up to 2,909 free voting machines along with a 50 percent coupon for maintenance fees. Right, because the Buckeye State is so anxious to start using the machines it found so faulty to begin with. Makes total sense.Update: We've learned from someone inside of Ohio elections that 11 counties experienced a failed upload of results from a memory card during the unofficial canvas (election night), but those results were recovered during the official canvas several days later. The statewide results included all counties. And know you know.
How long until someone makes a was it running windows joke?
@Playos Why? Electronic voting machines are worse than a BSOD. They're worse than ME. When you get a BSOD, ask if it was running Premier software.
@Playos
More to the point would be the jokes running (and ruining) the country.
(Incompetence like this doesn't happen by accident, but by design)
having the machines to rig elections is priceless...drop in the bucket payout for them.
To be fair, they sold them faulty voting machines... I don't think they did it maliciously, they just made a piece of technology that doesn't work as well as promised... and now the company has to fix it, and give them some free stuff for the trouble.
This doesn't sound so crazy...
@Playos It does, and you do too.
@HansImGlueck How? Microsoft issues security patches one Tuesday a month and when ever needed... Apple acts similarly... Red Hat and every other Linux provider just charge for installation and support of (broken) systems...
If you buy a DVD player and it doesn't play half the DVDs made, you'd expect a) a refund, or b) a replacement that could play all DVDs... This is no different... this was a settlement so Ohio decided they still want the equipment, they just want it to work...
@Playos
I like how you compare voting machines with consumer electronic ;-)
@OlliX Consumer electronics, enterprise systems, car computer system... there all deliverable, somewhat customizable, and all impossible to make bug free... Premier thought they worked, Ohio thought they worked... why is so hard to see a company agreeing to fix a system they sold, return some of the money they charged, and giving a discount on continued maintenance?
Again I'm assuming there isn't some malicious motive... if Ohio wants electronic voting systems (remember paper ballots are not perfect and are just as open to fraud) then this is result I'd expect.
@Playos We are talking about something too big for mistakes. You know there are situations were no bugs ate tolerable. Do you want a hiccup to occur while you're 30000 feet up on an airliner?
It's way easier to commit a fraud on something that has no physical record of the votes than with paper. The things should punch and spit out paper as well. And to be so quick to say it was nothing malicious is naive.
@Blaque14K I'm assuming it... because no one close to case has said otherwise... I'm also assuming the state and counties involved tested these systems as best they could before rolling them out... that's also a stretch, but in life we must make assumptions because all things are not known to us. The problems in this system were apparently not readily observable to the maker or the customer, so what is wrong with a) getting upgrades to fix issues for free, getting some swag out of the deal, and getting some savings on something they were planning on spending for anyway.
No voting system before has been perfect, so to blow a gasket because a new tech that was supposed to improve it failed to actually improve it is being a little unfair. No one died because the mistakes... and airplanes have mechanical and software failures, thankfully we have skilled pilots and flight staff to get everyone safely to the ground. Paper isn't very secure, I say this in a state that only uses mail in ballots and there is still a large amount of voter fraud, both caught and suspected.
If you want to argue that they should scrap the whole system that's one thing... but Ohio has decided to continue to try electronic systems and this is exactly the deal I'd expect them to make to salvage the money spent, punish the failure of the provider, and continue on to their desired goal.
@Playos Very naive assumptions. Here, I'll start you off: former Premier CEO Walden O'Dell was a top Bush fundraiser and promised to help give Ohio's electoral votes to Bush in 2004. Oh yeah, and Ken Blackwell was a) chief elections official of Ohio b) co-chair of committee to re-elect Bush, at the same time.
Yeah, must be a software bug.
@Playos - Yea, NICE TRY!!
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm
@Frankenstein Black Great... so take a 7 year old article about a challenge that was denied and use that as some evidence of malicious intent... oh ya... why fund raise for candidates when you plan on stealing votes for them, IT DRAWS ATTENTION TO YOUR ILLEGAL ACTION, and a stolen election is worth way more than any level of fund raising...
It make a lot more sense that code monkey working against a deadline screwed up something in a reporting mechanism than some dastardly effort to steal elections.
@Playos You're making the argument that O'Dell didn't need to raise funds for the Bush campaign, when they were planning to to give Ohio to Bush with the Diebold machines anyway? That's a very unsound argument. Doesn't matter if votes are being manipulated in a key state. You need $ to win a presidential election.
And no shit it brings attention to the illegal action, but after it's all said and done. They are getting a flick on the wrist over a year and a half after Bush has already served the entire term from the 2004 election.
@Playos - You're funny! So stop trying to convince us that the sky is purple when it is clearly blue. Sayin...
@Blaque14K I agree. Bugs are inevitable, but NASA has a higher standard when it comes to debugging software. If you make expensive machines that decide the fate of the free world, they damn well better transfer data from a memory card properly.
This is a huge fail on Diebold's part and I'd like to see them die. I'll never use electronic voting machines because of this single event. They blew it.
The really crazy part is that they will probably take them up on it.
I am so f'ing happy my state does paper ballots by mail. At least the Post Office is far less likely to lose or tamper with my vote.
Die in a volcano, Diebold.
Here is the link
Diebold = Premier Elections Solutions = shit. Simple and to the point.
@Taller PES? More like POS awwww snap!!
If it has to do with government it doesn't have to make sense or money.
@Foodtechj I'm sorry, but... what???
I don't trust electronic voting machines AT ALL. The only way I would trust them is if you had a secret username and could check what vote was entered in the system at any time and check you voted for the correct candidate. This is the only way to expose fraud and election cheating.
-François Comeau-Lapointe
@tierpast That still wouldnt work. I can show you what I want you to see when you log in. You have no way of seeing what goes on at the point that the votes are counted. It would be better if it still spit out paper that could be verified by the voter and a candidate could call for a paper count if need be.
@Blaque14K
I agree, there HAS to be a paper copy. I don't understand why election officials and voting machine makers are so against this. Why wouldn't you want extra security when it comes to deciding who the F is going to be running your government?
@warmonk ...because they are corrupting the process.
Know you know.
@mr88 Spell check is not a substitute for proofreading.
I was on a panel selecting Electronic Voting Machines for a major city in NY. Our Democratic boss wanted paper scanners, but our Republican boss wanted DREs (touch screens) - until he got a GPS. He was trying to type in an address, kept hitting "R", and the GPS kept entering "T".
The next day, he agreed that maybe we weren't ready for touch screens yet.
That is a true story.
Why is Ohio state taking a plea that includes the hardware and software that fucked up in the first place!?!
Just as a reminder, Karl Rove had 'predicted' the 're-election' of Dubya would come down to the voting results in Ohio. What a psychic!
@TheHoldSteady ...and by psychic you meant piece of shit