Nobody thinks of the pencils

Ed Felten on the acquisition of one company’s e-voting computer division by another:

Yesterday Diebold sold its e-voting division, known as Premier Election Systems, to ES&S, one of Premier’s competitors. The price was low: about $5 million.

ES&S is reportedly the largest e-voting company, and Premier was the second-largest, so the deal represents a substantial consolidation in the market. The odds of one major e-voting company breaking from the pack and embracing up-to-date security engineering are now even slimmer than before. Premier had seemed like the company most likely to change its ways.

Democracy FTW.