Diebold

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For the electronic voting machines, see Diebold Election Systems.

An old Diebold safe.

Diebold, Inc. (NYSE: DBD) is a security systems corporation that is engaged primarily in the sale, manufacture, installation and service of self-service transaction systems (such as ATMs), electronic and physical security products (including vaults and currency processing systems), and software and integrated systems for global financial and commercial markets. Diebold was incorporated under the laws of the State of Ohio in August 1876, and is headquartered in Green, Ohio. ^[1]

1 InterBold
2 Diebold Election Systems
3 Ethics concerns
4 Competitors
- 4.1 Banking hardware
5 See also
6 Notes and references
7 External links

[edit] InterBold

Diebold and IBM created a general partnership called InterBold in 1991. The purpose of InterBold was to have IBM sell and service Diebold's ATMs outside of the United States. In exchange, IBM ceased marketing its own ATMs in the US. The InterBold partnership was dissolved in 1997 when Diebold purchased IBM's share of the partnership. IBM eventually entered into a re-distribution arrangement with a German competitor of Diebold, Wincor Nixdorf.

[edit] Diebold Election Systems

Diebold Election Systems, a subsidiary of Diebold that accounts for 2.4% of its gross revenue, has entered the business of creating electronic voting terminals and solutions for government entities. Diebold entered this industry in 2001 by purchasing the assets of Global Election Systems which had been selling election equipment since 1991. This subsidiary has been the subject of controversy amid allegations surrounding the security and reliability of some of its products.

[edit] Ethics concerns

Days after the 2004 Presidential election, Diebold agreed to pay $2.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the State of California alleging that they had sold poor quality voting equipment.^[2]

On September 30, 2004, a judge ruled that Diebold inappropriately threatened copyright violations for webmasters, and their Internet Service Providers, who published or linked to an archive of emails displaying flaws in the company's voting systems. On October 15, 2004, Diebold agreed to pay damages and legal fees of $125,000.

In December 2005, Diebold's CEO Wally O'Dell resigned following reports that the company was facing securities fraud litigation surrounding charges of insider trading. ^[3]

In May 2006, a registered lobbyist for Diebold Election Systems contributed the individual maximum of $10,000 to the election campaign of Republican Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell - whose office approved Diebold's selection as a vendor and negotiated the price of its machines for county election boards.^[4] One month earlier, Blackwell claimed that his purchase of 178 shares of Diebold stock had been the result of an oversight by his financial manager.^[5]

In November 2006, Stephen Heller, a former employee of a law firm representing Diebold, pleaded guilty of illegally accessing a computer and making copies of files that allegedly expose irregularities in some of Diebold's electronic voting machines. One of the memos warned Diebold that uncertified software it had installed in machines used by Alameda County violated California election law. Stephen Heller has been called a "quintessential whistleblower" by Michael Kohn, general counsel for the National Whistleblower Center. ^[6] However, in a statement Heller wrote to Jones Day, "I also regret any disparaging statements suggesting that Jones Day committed any unlawful acts. Upon reflection, I now believe and understand that such statements were unjustified." Heller also paid the company $10,000.

In March 2007, it was reported by the Associated Press that Diebold was considering divesting itself of its voting machine subsidiary because it was "widely seen as tarnishing the company's reputation" ^[7].