News

Diebold acquires leading voter registration company

January 22, 2003

NORTH CANTON, Ohio -- Diebold Inc. (NYSE:DBD), which was praised for the success of its electronic voting system in 2002, has acquired Data Information Management Systems (DIMS), one of the United States' largest voter registration companies.

DIMS, headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., installed the largest county-based voter registration system in the country for more than 5 million voters in Los Angeles County, according to a news release. The company's voter registration systems support election data for more than 55 percent of California's registered voters.

The acquisition propels DIMS onto the national elections stage, according to Thomas W. Swidarski, Diebold's vice president of Strategic Development & Global Marketing. Swidarski also oversees Diebold Election Systems.

According to the release, DIMS has developed an electronic poll book product that can electronically provide voter registration data at individual voting locations. The book is designed to contain data on all voters within the jurisdiction and eliminate the need for and expenses associated with the printed voter registration book.

The poll book also electronically stores voter history information which can be uploaded immediately following elections, eliminating the cost and time required to manually input the data, according to the release.

Diebold was praised for a successful project after deploying more than 22,000 Accuvote-TS electronic touchscreen voting stations throughout Georgia for the Nov. 5 elections. (See story: Diebold declares Georgia touchscreen election a success)

Details of Diebold's acquisition of DIMS were not released.