5 Felons worked for Diebold

Critics: Convicted felons worked for electronic voting companies

AP/SF Bay Area -Wed, Dec. 17, 2003 SAN FRANCISCO - A manufacturer of electronic voting machines has employed at least five convicted felons as managers, according to critics demanding more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine software.

Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a subsidiary of Diebold Inc., one of the country's largest voting equipment vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted fraudulent stock transactions, and a programmer jailed for falsifying computer records.

The programmer, Jeffrey Dean, wrote and maintained proprietary code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of Global Election Systems Inc. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002.

According to a public court document released before GES hired him, Dean served time in a Washington correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree of sophistication and planning."

"You can't tell me these people passed background tests," Harris, author of "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," said in a phone interview.

Michael Jacobsen, a spokesman for North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold, emphasized that the company performs background checks on all managers and programmers. He said many GES managers - including Dean - left at the time of the acquisition.

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