Diebold's Letter to Rolling Stone and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Response

Diebold Election System software used during the 2004 presidential primary was certified by the Federal Election Commission organization and/or approved by the chief election official within each respective state.

"Diebold, along with its employees and their families, has contributed at least $300,000 to GOP candidates and party funds since 1998."

Diebold's ethics policy restricts top executives of the company and all members of the election system division from participating in fundraising activities. This was instituted in June of 2004.

"Diebold not only failed to follow up on most of the recommendations, it worked to cover them up. Michael Werthheimer, RABA"

A series of security enhancements have been added to the Diebold touch screen machines based on the RABA report. They include: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128-bit data encryption, dynamic passwords, and digitally signed memory card data.

"That year (2004), Diebold would count the votes in half of Ohio's counties."

Not a single Ohio jurisdiction deployed Diebold Election Systems' touch screen system during the 2004 presidential election. None. Zero. Two of Ohio's eighty-eight counties used the Diebold Election Systems paper ballot optical scan system. The larger of the two counties, Lucas County, overwhelmingly voted for John Kerry. The article contains additional fabricated information.

"The three counties with the most discrepancies -- Broward, Palm Beach and Miami Dade -- were also the most heavily Democratic."

None of these three counties use Diebold Election Systems voting equipment.

As regards the Princeton study referenced in the article, our response to this deeply flawed report can be found at the following address: http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/pdf/princetonstatement.pdf

"On September 12th, in Maryland's first all-electronic election, voters were turned away from the polls because election officials had failed to distribute the electronic access cards needed to operate Diebold machines."

An election official's human error of not loading voter access cards into the supply bags for the precincts is now absurdly being portrayed as a system-related problem. This issue is analogous to an election official forgetting to send paper ballots to a precinct. It is human error -- not system error.

"Electronic voting machines are making things worse instead of better."

The author of the Cal Tech/MIT study, Charles Stewart III, who is also quoted in the Rolling Stone article indicates in this report that with the implementation of new voting equipment and procedures, "this works out to a recovery of one million 'lost votes' between 2000 and 2004." This certainly indicates a dramatic improvement in voting accuracy.

"A government report uncovered large and unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in Cuyahoga County."

The ESI report was proven to be in error by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, as archived election data exactly matched official election results once the errors of the ESI report were identified by the board and corrected. As an example, 17 year old and curbside votes were not included in the studies' analysis, but of course were included in the official election totals. The Cuyahoga County Board meeting minutes disclose this fact.

"The company had barely completed its acquisition of Global Election Systems" (date referenced is May 2002).

The Global Election Systems acquisition was completed by Diebold on January 22, 2002.

Don't the readers of Rolling Stone deserve a better researched and reported article than the one penned by Mr. Kennedy? We think so. We hope that after reviewing this letter Rolling Stone will agree.

Sincerely,

David Byrd

President