Which brings me to Diebold.
They've won the contracts for distributing these machines, so the economic incentive for increasing security is, apparently, non-existent. As fas as I know they don't face any significant legal challenges, so that's off their worry list. And as for bad press; well, their political connections appear to shield them from facing serious bottom line consequences from that.
[WS:] The Diebold voting system is the 21st century version of the old fashioned US political machine - pun intended. The US political machine has always been about local business getting lucrative public contracts from local politicos and in exchange delivering votes to keep those politicos in office. Diebold is no exception, it merely plays a 19th century game with the 21st century technology.
This, btw, is a perfect example of US reformists challenging individuals but not the core system. They denounce Diebold, but the problem lies with the system itself - its fragmentation, its ways of procurement of public goods (through sweetheart deals with private business), and its antiquated electoral system.
The truth is that paper-based voting allows equal, if not greater electoral fraud opportunity than the Diebold system. What is more, the main form of electoral fraud in the US is not stuffing the ballot boxes, but gerrymandering. Yet, the critics forget all that and focus on Diebold instead, I presume because it is a big organization that proposes a brand new science-based technology - two characteristics that have always been viewed with suspicion in the core American value system.
Wojtek