An in-depth look at ES&S, which controls around 50% of the US voting machine market and retained its position over the years despite several mishaps
based in Nebraska & employing roughly 500 people — controls around 50% of the country's election system market... meaning that some 70 million Americans vote using the company's equipment:” cc: @AveryWGardiner / @TypeMRT https://www.propublica.org/... Jennifer Cohn / @jennycohn1 : This @propublica piece does an ok job addressing ES&S's sketchy history, but omits the part where Global/Diebold—whose president founded ES&S—bought a company from a convicted embezzler who became Global's largest shareholder & Sr. VP. It also omits ... 1/ https://www.propublica.org/... @propublica : New: Half the country votes on machines made by ES&S. Many experts and election officials say the manufacturer remains dominant because there's little government regulation and almost no oversight. https://propub.li/31RYMei Jennifer Cohn / @jennycohn1 : Perhaps most concerning, the Pro Publica piece omits the specific security concerns with ES&S's new Ballot Marking Devices: ie, that not all voters will review BMD marked printouts for fraudulent or erroneous machine marks & omissions. 4/ Kontra / @counternotions : You gotta love the irony of the vulturous company that has a practical monopoly on voting machines in the US is run by private equity and headquartered on Omaha's John Galt Boulevard, but I digress. https://www.propublica.org/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The ProPublica profile lands in the middle of a decade-long credibility arc for Election Systems and Software. In 2018 the company contradicted earlier statements and admitted to Sen. Wyden that systems sold to states between 2000 and 2006 carried a remote-access feature admitted to Sen. Wyden; a year later researchers found 35 of its supposedly offline systems had been online across 10 states 35 systems found online. Security experts had already flagged that the dominant election-tech vendors failed to acknowledge or remedy known vulnerabilities vendors failed to remedy vulnerabilities.
What the profile adds is scale and structure: a Nebraska firm of roughly 500 people controls about half the US market, putting some 70 million Americans on its equipment, with experts attributing its staying power to minimal government regulation and almost no oversight. The later coverage shows how that posture eventually bent — ES&S partnered with Synack to let vetted professionals penetration-test its products Synack penetration-testing partnership, and by 2023 all three major vendors were letting researchers stress-test their software and hardware vendors open systems to researchers.
First-order effects
- State and county election officials procuring new systems now weigh ES&S's documented record directly against its market share, with security concerns specifically raised about its Ballot Marking Devices because not every voter reviews BMD printouts for erroneous or fraudulent marks.
- ES&S faces renewed congressional scrutiny of the kind Sen. Wyden's inquiry produced, forcing the company to reconcile public 'never connected to the internet' claims with researchers' findings.
Second-order effects
- Rival voting-equipment vendors are pulled into the same transparency contest: once ES&S opened some products to Synack-vetted testing, all three major makers followed by admitting outside researchers, making third-party validation a de facto competitive requirement rather than a differentiator.
- Election-security researchers and firms like Synack gain standing leverage over vendors whose market position depends on public trust, shifting pricing power toward whoever can certify resilience credibly.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — dominance persisting despite repeated mishaps — the pressure points toward formal federal certification and oversight of election-technology vendors replacing today's near-absent regulatory regime, since voluntary transparency emerged only after years of expert pressure.
- A concentrated market where one company supplies half the country's equipment makes vendor-level failures systemic risks, structurally favoring procurement reform, paper-trail requirements around BMDs, and diversification of suppliers at the state level.
The trend: US election technology is moving from opaque, unregulated vendor dominance toward externally verified security as a condition of public trust, with transparency arriving only after sustained expert and congressional pressure.