The report claims that voting machines manufactured by Diebold Inc. subsidiary Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold Elections Systems, are equipped with a button that can be used to delete audit logs — audit logs that the federal government requires to be stored permanently on the voting system. The report also claims that the voting kiosks failed to maintain required logs of important system events and generated inaccurate data and time stamps in several cases.
The voting kiosks have a history of controversy.
In August 2003, former Diebold chief executive Walden O'Dell publically expressed support for then President George W. Bush and said Diebold would help "give" Bush the election. Shortly after his statements were made public, issues regarding the accuracy of the Diebold voting machines' tabulations began surfacing.
O'Dell resigned in 2005, facing allegations of insider trading. After subsequent allegations that the voting kiosks were providing inaccurate vote talleys, Diebold attempted to sell the voting division, but failed to shake the troubled business unit. In August 2007, the company rebranded the division to help distance itself from the controversy.
