Judge to Consider Blocking Merger of Two Voting Machine Makers

Tomorrow morning, a New Jersey federal judge will hold a hearing to decide whether to block the merger of the nation's two largest vote counting companies.

Jonathan Rubin, a Washington-based Patton Boggs partner who represents Hart InterCivic Inc., a smaller voting-machine maker, has asked Judge Robert Kugler of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to issue a temporary restraining order, alleging that the merger of the voting division of Ohio-based Diebold and Election Systems & Software poses a "threat of irreparable harm" to voters.

The combination of the two voting-machine giants would give ES&S control of election systems used in nearly 70 percent of the country's voting precincts.

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Source: The Blog of Legal Times