In September, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer joined a lawsuit alleging that Diebold sold the state shoddy hardware and software, exposing elections to hackers and software bugs. The case was originally filed late last year by a computer programmer and a voting rights advocate, who claimed that California elections officials spent at least $19 million on equipment that had critical hardware and software problems.

California's Alameda County also joined the false claims case, which could require Diebold to pay triple damages. Faulty equipment in the March primary forced at least 6,000 of 316,000 voters in the county east of San Francisco to use backup paper ballots instead of the paperless voting terminals.
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Earlier this year, California's secretary of state, Kevin Shelley, banned one Diebold voting system after he found uncertified software that "jeopardized" the outcome of elections in several counties, and state voting officials began considering filing a criminal lawsuit against the company.

- posted by Cynthia @ 4:43 PM | | | Link |