News

Diebold declares Georgia touchscreen election a success

November 5, 2002

NORTH CANTON, Ohio -- Diebold Election Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Diebold Inc., and the state of Georgia have declared victory in the country's first statewide touchscreen election.

Diebold deployed more than 22,000 Accuvote-TS electronic touchscreen voting stations throughout Georgia for the Nov. 5 elections, according to a company news release. Georgia had more than 3.7 million registered voters in 159 counties. (See story: Diebold has Georgia on its mind in election)

"Key to the success of this election was an aggressive voter education program designed to familiarize citizens with the new equipment before they arrived at the polls," said Secretary of State Cathy Cox.

Diebold put nearly 6,000 poll workers through thousands of hours of training prior to the elections. The company positioned 190 field technicians, 160 county support technicians and a dozen regional support managers throughout nearly 3,000 precincts across the state, according to the release. Additional Diebold support personnel manned two command and control centers outside Atlanta.

Georgia officials finalized a $54 million agreement with Diebold Election Systems in May to replace the state's outdated election equipment with more than 19,000 state-of-the-art touchscreen voting stations. An additional 3,000 units were purchased by individual counties.

Nearly 33,000 Diebold voting stations were used across the country in the Nov. 5 elections. The AccuVote-TS system is on display in Booth #1533 at BAI's 2002 Retail Delivery Exhibit & Conference at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta Nov. 6-7.