Put some heat on Diebold! One easy action we can take:

Like many of us did with Sinclair, we can put heat on Diebold for its actions. Here's the list of its board members, for whoever's up for writing to them (email them at their companies' websites), followed by a list of its institutional investors and finally, a quickie draft letter you can use. If you're only going to send one letter, consider sending it to one of the institutional investors rather than to a Board member. Note that there are 2 variations of the letter's second paragraph - pick the one that's appropriate, as noted. Please freely edit the letter, of course, however you'd like.

1. Board of Directors:
Louis V. Bockius III Retired Chairman, Bocko Incorporated
Christopher M. Connor Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Sherwin-Williams Company
Richard L. Crandall Managing Director, Aspen Partners, LLC
Eric C. Evans President and Chief Operating Officer, Diebold
Gale S. Fitzgerald Director , TranSpend, Inc.
Phillip B. Lassiter Non-executive Chairman of the Board, Ambac Financial Group, Inc.
John N. Lauer Retired Chairman of the Board, Oglebay Norton Co.
William F. Massy President, The Jackson Hole Higher Education Group, Inc.
Eric J. Roorda Former Chairman, Procomp Amazonia Industria Eletronica, S.A.
W.R. Timken Jr. Non-executive Chairman of the Board, The Timken Company
Henry D.G. Wallace Retired Group Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Ford Motor Company

2. Institutional Investors (write in particular to any in that hold your money)
Fidelity Mgmt and Research (far and away the largest sharholder)
First manhattan capital Mgmt
T Rowe Price
Artisan Partners
Barclay's Global Investors Intl
Baincapital
Franklin Advisors
US Trust Corp
Aim Capital Mgmt
Pioneer Investments
State Stree Global Advisors
Banc One Investment advisors
Vanguard Group
Alliance Capital Mgmt
Transamerica Investments

3. Draft letter (note - choose one of the 2 verions of 2nd paragraph):

Dear :

I write to express my outrage at the conduct of Diebold in relation to the recent presidential election, and to suggest you consider the gravity of its actions. Diebold's performance on several fronts has been abyssmal. First, there have been numerous problems reported with the equipment that would have been caught with even rudimentary quality control processes. Second, it has been reported that Diebold was made aware of some of these problems and failed to fix them. Third, there was an utter lack of control over the computer code, which is now all over the internet.

Add for Board members only:
It is certainly an element of your fiduciary duty to shareholders to seriously consider the performance of Diebold in these respects, and I urge you to revisit your most basic operating and compliance principles and take swift and strong action to clean up Diebold's operations. In particular, your CEO made a mockery of the service you were entrusted with providing by ensuring the delivery of Ohio votes, and the world now knows. Surely you can see what poor leadership this flagrant conflict of interest constitutes. It is astounding that in this post-Enron/Worldcom environment a CEO would be so oblivious to the ramifications of his own actions. Plus it could subject Diebold to protracted and costly legal action and untold reputational damage. If he is not made to feel the grave error of his actions I think you know that the US Sentencing Guidelines for Organizational Defendants will lead any judge to be quite harsh in reviewing any case that citizens or the government bring forth. This is particularly true in that he has violated Diebold's Code of Conduct, which states," Also, every board director, officer and employee must exercise sound judgment in all matters involving business ethics and integrity and to refrain from any conduct that could be questionable, or appears to be questionable, on ethical grounds." It is clear to the country that, as things now stand, Diebold should not be entrusted with upholding the foundation of our democracy.

Add for institutional shareholders only:
Please consider that you have a fiduciary duty to shareholders to seriously consider the performance of Diebold in these respects, and I urge you to drop Diebold from your portfolios. This type of performance suggests a systemic disregard for both product quality and corporate integrity. Both of these are critical lapses in a company that provides security services and counts among its clients the financial services industry. In particular, Diebold's CEO made a mockery of the service it was entrusted with providing by assuring the delivery of Ohio votes, and the world now knows. This constitutes a flagrant conflict of interest and throws question on the integrity of the company's operations, in general. It is astounding that in this post-Enron/Worldcom environment a CEO would be so oblivious to the ramifications of his own actions. Plus it could subject Diebold to protracted and costly legal action and untold reputational damage. And the US Sentencing Guidelines for Organizational Defendants will lead any judge to be quite harsh in reviewing any case that citizens or the government bring forth.

I'll do that tomorrow!

This has been an issue for well over a year, they've heard it all and have shown that they will continue doing what they're doing. It wasn't only Diebold that had issues this last election.

We really need to be working on a SOLUTION and not dwelling on information which may be considered a conspiracy by some.

can help, as it has with other comapanies in the past, IMHO. The solution is getting them to change the way they operate, and the letter to their board members may accomplish that, or at least that's the intent. Irrespective of any conspiracy, these are facts: horrible quality control Re; equipment and programming, negligent handling of confidential information, appearance of a conflict of interest. Any of these alone should give the board pause for thought.

Good Grief! What a vapid excuse for not trying to right a wrong.

Any solution must include getting the legitimately elected candidates into office this time, repeat, this time.

I agree that complaining to the company is nothing but a tissue in the wind. What we need to wield is a battle-ax. If a lot of us here are right, that may be coming in the form of overwhelming evidence of fraud that is now beginning to accumulate. And when that day comes, we should demand no less than Kerry's rightful innauguration, and raise hell that the international media will notice until it happens.

not instead of other actions, in addition to... doing so negatively impacted Sinclair's business, and we can so the same for the Diebold monster. Use the market forces to impact change!

:kick:

. . . and though the media is still trying to pretend nothing happened, if there's enough evidence that will -- and this is critical -- ALSO CONVINCE THOSE WHO VOTED FOR BUSH, then we'll get our inauguration.

In the absence of compelling evidence (and yes, I too see this beginning to accumulate), there's no way the willingness to overturn this injustice will ever manifest itself.

But we also have to face at least two other possibilities: 1) the fraud was minor, local, and inadequate in the mass to justify overturning the election, or 2) the fraud was major, countrywide, and still inadequate in the mass to justify overturning the election. Don't forget -- even though the the Bushian shitheads are lousy at governing, fiscal responsibility, and statesmanship, they are damn good politicians. It's actually quite likely that they convinced a majority of American voters to cast their ballots for the worst president since James Buchanan!

The message to Diebold investors is that the company is incompetent, and a major symptom is that, through their incompetence, they have damaged the American electoral system -- i.e., millions of voters don't trust it.

This is worth doing, because ultimately, the market wants Diebold to sell voting machines (and all the other similar machines they make) more than it wants them to rig elections. Apply market pressure (along with all the other pressures), and there's a chance of cleaning up the voting system.

And in a fair fight, we win.

:kick: