News

Diebold elects to enter voting kiosk biz

March 19, 2002

NORTH CANTON, Ohio - ATM and kiosk maker Diebold Inc. (NYSE: DBD) has revised its offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Global Election Systems Inc. (Amex: GLE; Toronto: GSM), according to a Diebold news release.

In June, Diebold, in a bid to enter the voting market, announced its intent to acquire Global.

The current offer is for 21.4 million shares on a fully diluted basis, for a combination of cash (20 percent) and stock (80 percent) valued at $1.135 per common share of Global Election Systems.

The stock portion of the consideration is subject to a maximum of .03027 Diebold shares and a minimum of .02421 Diebold shares for each Global Election Systems share, the release stated.

Diebold recently completed financing of approximately $5 million to Global, and is producing more than 500 AccuVote-TS touch screen voting terminals for Global.

Diebold expects the U.S. voting marketplace to generate $1.5 to $2 billion in hardware revenue during the next four to five years.

Procomp Amazonia Industria Eletronica, a Brazilian company purchased by Diebold in October, 1999 sold 186,800 polling terminals and accessories, software development, installation, training, logistics and service to Brazil's Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. The order, valued at $105.5 million, was the largest contract in Diebold's history.

More than 850 jurisdictions in North America utilize Global Election Systems' AccuVote (optical scan) or AccuVote-TS (touchscreen) voting systems. Its product line also includes VoteRemote, a high speed automated absentee ballot printing and processing system.