Diebold Strikes Back -- With an Ad Campaign (Heads-Up, Ohio DUers!)

Diebold goes on the defensive

October 06, 2003

In an effort to fight back against critics of its electronic voting machines, Diebold Election Systems in Green plans to launch a marketing counterattack that first will target Ohio election officials and voters.

The campaign - likely to include rare Diebold television and radio spots - is a response to a research report critical of the machines and subsequent national media coverage. The report, co-authored by a professor who sat on the advisory board of a Diebold Election Systems competitor, contends several flaws in Diebold's AccuVote touch-screen models make the machines susceptible to hackers and tabulation errors.

The report, as well as several newspaper editorials, called into question Diebold's ability to ensure accurate elections, and state government leaders began to ponder alternatives to the country's leading provider of electronic voting systems. Now, Diebold wants to redeem itself in the eyes of its home state consumers and resell itself to a skeptical nationwide market.

"There will be an ad campaign that focuses on some of the issues raised in the media recently," said Mark Radke, director of voter industry for Diebold Elections Systems. "The campaign speaks primarily about the fact that our equipment is secure."

More...

HA! Who do they think are they kidding? Thanks to the work of Bev Harris and many other people I do not know (though they are just as deserving of recognition here), we now know better.

I plan on blasting these bastards -- particularly the CEO who promised to deliver Ohio to Bush and the GOP in 2004 -- in a letter to my hometown paper's editorial section. If you are a Buckeye DUer, I encourage you to do the same. We cannot afford to allow the corporate machine to control our elections!

I mean, didn't Nike just get told they couldn't lie in their advertising?

:think: :think: :think:

Are you going to be at the electionreform meetup this Wednesday in Columbus ?? We can brainstorm some ideas for staying ahead of Diebold. I have an idea that I am going to try. Think we should not post too much on DU. The Liebolds are no doubt lurking.


:kick:

How about THIS flash movie I created to counterbalance --

Called VOTEREVOLUTION http://www.takebackthemedia.com/voterevolution.html

Get the word out with it..

we can win..

... this is the start of the "improve the image" campaign suggested by the ITAA. Whether or not ITAA is running this ad campaign for them, ITAA is in the background, as is R. Doug Lewis.

This is part confirmation of the info from the phone meeting David Allen sat in on.

Oops, meant to add that the point of connecting this ad blitz to ITAA is that Ohioans ought to also be on the lookout for some heavy lobbying activity taking place now or soon--the "image improvement" was only part of the strategy.

Cheers.

The Columbus Dispatch ran quarter page ads for Diebold on page 2 of the paper all last week stating that the machine would make voting secure and easy for all Ohioans. I'll check tomorrow to see if they run it again and the exact/horrible text. The worst part was this huge ad with a patriotic theme was more prominent and nearer the front of the paper, than the recall, CIA leak, or Rush info. (ARG!)