Judge considers bid to block merger of voting machine giants

[ensho]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/politics/story/76093.html


A federal judge in Camden, N.J., agreed late Friday to hear a request for an emergency injuction that could halt Election Systems & Software's announced acquisition of Diebold Inc.'s Premier Election Solutions.

The quietly arranged shotgun wedding between the two voting-machine giants would give ES&S control of election systems in use in almost 70 percent of the nation's voting precincts. Federal Judge Robert Kugler agreed to hear Tuesday the request for immediate injunction brought by a small competitorm, Hart InterCivic Inc.

-snip-

Although the law does not require ES&S to inform the federal government of its merger plans, the public nature of voting machines demands a certain measure of advance disclosure, Rubin maintains.

"The reason the government isn't here is because these parties did a stealth transaction in an apparent attempt to end-run the government," he said.

ES&S executives could not be reached Friday night, but have defended the merger with a weaker rival as in the public interest.
-snip-
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thank goodness!

[Joanne98]

1. YAY

[DFW]

2. I can't think of ANYTHING ESS or Diebold has done for our elections that was in the public interest

Now, if I am allowed to list what they have done AGAINST the public interest, THEN I could get wordy...........

[ensho]

3. true

nt

[ensho]

4. I'm surprised DUers are not more excited about this

??

[Peace Patriot]

5. ES&S is WORSE than Diebold. And they now control our elections in much of the country

(see BradBlog for the map). ES&S has, for its initial funder and major investor, far rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things). That's who now controls most of our voting system with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code and virtually no audit/recount controls.

This is an extremely dangerous situation!

[Vidar]

6. Please do it!