Diebold Voting Machine Company Changes Name to Improve Image

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 21, 2007 at 9:50 AM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

Diebold Elections Systems, the company that sold San Diego County $30 million-worth of touch-screen voting machines, has changed its name. The company hopes to create a fresh image for its electronic

(Editor's note: this story aired the day after Pundits Called to Review Diebold Over Lingering Ethical Questions .)

Diebold Elections Systems, the company that sold San Diego County $30 million-worth of touch-screen voting machines, has changed its name. The company hopes to create a fresh image for its electronic voting business, after political gaffs and technical problems sullied its image. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

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“Premier Election Solutions ” is the new name for the Diebold subsidiary that makes electronic voting machines. Its technology was decertified by California’s Secretary of State, and the company’s political impartiality was compromised when CEO Walden Odell promised in 2003 to deliver Ohio to Bush.

“Premier” spokesman Chris Riggall says that reputation has followed the company ever since.

Riggall: It was a mistake and really led, I think, to some important changes.

Riggall says Premier Election Solutions has its own management team and board of directors, though it remains a subsidiary of Diebold. He says the company is working with the Secretary of State’s office to tighten up security vulnerabilities in the hopes that thousands of touch screen machines now in storage can be used in future elections.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.