Diebold Will Add A Paper Trail… At A Huge Price

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the just-ask... dept

I think it’s now been determined exactly why Diebold is so afraid of adding a paper trail to their voting machines: they keep getting burned by paper trails. After emails exposed just how insecure their voting machines were, a set of internal Diebold communications show an employee suggesting that, should they be required to retrofit voting machines with paper trails that they charge ridiculously high fees to do so. Diebold has said that the cost of the printers included in a voting machine would run about $1,000 to $1,200, which may seem a bit high for a pretty simple printer. The internal memos, however, point out that this is just part of the strategy. Since they’re going in and replacing or retrofitting machines that have already been bought, Diebold sees them as captive customers who will be forced to pay whatever Diebold wants.