This happened a few months ago, but I just learned about it this week. The potential for abuse is on a much larger scale than Diebold and the company involved isn't even American.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/scytl-acquires-soe-software-becoming-the-leading-election-software-provider-2012-01-11
"SCYTL, the global leader in secure electronic voting technologies, announced today the acquisition of 100% of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. The integration of these two software companies creates the industry leader in the election software market with a full range of solutions covering from Internet voting to election night reporting and online pollworker training, and a strong market presence worldwide.
SCYTL is currently the worldwide leader in the Internet voting space and the acquisition of SOE Software, with its Clarity election management software suite, significantly expands SCYTL's product portfolio beyond electronic voting. Furthermore, SOE Software's strong US presence with 900 jurisdictions as customers in 26 states, including 14 state-wide customers, complements very effectively SCYTL's customer base in the United States and internationally with customers in over 20 different countries across 5 continents, including France, Spain, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, India and Australia."
When the two companies were separate, you had two distinct sources to compare vote totals which allowed for independent verification. Now, however, one company controls both sides meaning that you only have a single source.
"It creates a vertical monopoly, in that you have one provider providing each step of the system, and a horizontal monopoly, with one provider delivering results across the majority of the geographic spectrum."
"This redirects results reporting to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global.
A mitigation against fraud by SOE insiders has been the separation of voting machine systems from the SOE results reports. Because most US jurisdictions require posting evidence of results from each voting machine at the precinct, public citizens can organize to examine these results to compare with SOE results. Black Box Voting spearheaded a national citizen action to videotape / photograph these poll tapes in 2008.
With the merger of SOE and SCYTL, that won't work (if SCYTL's voting system is used). When there are two truly independent sources of information, the public can perform its own "audit" by matching one number against the other.
These two independent sources, however, will now be merged into one single source: an Internet voting system controlled by SCYTL, with a results reporting system also controlled by SCYTL.
With SCYTL internet voting, there will be no ballots. No physical evidence. No chain of custody. No way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes, chain of custody, or the count.
SCYTL is moving into or already running elections in: the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia.
SCYTL is based in Barcelona; its funding comes from international venture capital funds including Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker."
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/8/81816.html
