While we’ve been concentrating on the healthcare debate, the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, another story important to American democracy has gotten inadequate attention: a single company is poised to monopolize the counting of over 75 percent of the nation’s votes.
Earlier this month, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), which counted roughly 50 percent of the ballots in the last four major U.S. elections, purchased Diebold’s electronic voting unit, Premier Election Solutions, which controls roughly a third of the voting machine market.
The merger of these two companies has set off alarm bells, and not just in the voting activist community.
Hart InterCivic, a competitor in the voting machine market, has filed a lawsuit seeking a federal court injunction to block the merger as an antitrust violation and a threat to “the integrity of the voting process in the United States.”
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, wrote Attorney General Eric Holder requesting that the Antitrust Division review the deal for possible violations. Schumer’s letter referenced a Congressional Research Service report from 2003 which indicated that having a diversity of systems and vendors might decrease the likelihood of widespread election fraud.
(Please read the rest of my article at Consortium News)
