For the second day in a row, Diebold shares have been taking a beating on Wall Street, after falling 16% on Wednesday, September 21st. Diebold shares have suffered a total drop of about 35% since the beginning of 2005, driving the share price to a new annual low. This has prompted several stock analysts to cut their ratings on Diebold stock.
Although the company is blaming Katrina and higher oil prices for a decline in operating revenues, which has led to a decline in the company's stock price, Diebold has other problems which are far more serious. Eric Evans, president and chief operating officer of Diebold has quit and has resigned from its board of directors. Last month of CFO Gregory Geswein also resigned. The Associated Press
is quoting stock analyst Yvonne M. Varano as saying:
"While the CEO is attempting to respond to the earnings issue and we recognize that the stock has declined, we do not have the confidence that these matters are going to be resolved quickly."
The U.S. Newswire is reporting,
If this wasn't enough bad news, two states using Diebold voting machines, Maryland and Georgia, this week indicated that they want voter verified paper ballots. However, the Diebold machines they have do not work with paper ballots, as discovered by California officials in July, when they rejected Diebold machines which failed a full 20 percent of the time in a recent massive test by the Republican Secretary of State. It looks like Diebold will lose millions in these two states alone.
Moreover, on Monday, the Baker/Carter Commission on Federal Election Reform issued a set of recommendations which, if followed, would cause all states to reject Diebold touchscreen voting machines without paper ballots or open and independently analyzed hardware and software.
Last Friday California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson issued a directive requiring California counties that use electronic voting systems to supply paper ballots to voters who do not want to vote electronically.
Add it up. Tabulate the numbers. Could the market be voting against Diebold at long last?
