Diebold, Inc., is the second largest and the fastest growing election management company in the United States. Diebold's CEO is Republican fundraiser and Bush confidant Wally O'Neil, a recent visitor to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. According to investigative reporter Bev Harris, O'Dell and Diebold Director W.H. Timken are both members of Bush's inner circle, serving on his "Pioneers" fundraising group.
Johns Hopkins analysts found "several high risks of vulnerabilities,"viii and even believed it was possible to compromise the system remotely.ix Despite the release of the Johns Hopkins study, the state of Maryland decided to purchase $55 million of Diebold equipment. The state hired its own group of analysts who found "328 software flaws, including 26 which they deemed as putting the election "'at risk of compromise.'" The analysts were easily able to hack into the system, both at polling sites and remotely, and change the vote counts in both directions. This came as no surprise to Doug Jones, a nationally regarded expert in computer security at the University of Iowa, who realized that he informed Diebold about the same gaps six years earlier.
