Justice Dept. Probes Voting Machine Merger

The largest voting machine company in the country bought its biggest competitor six months ago without advance fanfare. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether to unwind the merger that put a privately held Nebraska company in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation's precincts.

With midterm elections looming and a battle for control of Congress under way, a coalition of election officials from several states and voter advocate groups is pressing the Justice Department to unscramble the combination of two companies. Critics say the merger could cause foul-ups at the polls on Election Day, and some even characterize it as a national security risk.

The emergence of one megaplayer in the electronic voting machine industry may be an unintended consequence of reforms enacted after the presidential election debacle in Florida a decade ago. Few companies can afford to get into the business due to the expense of developing the electronic voting safeguards that reformers insisted on.

Senate Rules Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has raised concerns about the purchase, in which Election Systems & Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb., bought the voting machine subsidiary of Diebold Inc. of North Canton, Ohio.

In an industry plagued by equipment malfunctions, wrongly recorded votes and a lack of transparency, the need for increased quality competition — not less competition — is essential, John Bonifaz, legal director of the voter advocacy group Voter Action, wrote Schumer.

Election failure on a large scale has the potential to destabilize the nation, so ES&S must divest some of its assets, reduce the scope of election jurisdictions subject to its software and take other steps to offset the increased threat to national security, a coalition of 19 election experts and groups including Common Cause said in a Feb. 12 letter to Justice's antitrust division.

More