I wanted to personally thank all the election associates for an outstanding effort during the November 5th election. The hard work and diligence of so many folks over the past few months led to the successes around the country on election night. Your hard work was appreciated by all the Diebold associates around the world based upon the large volume of e-mails I received on your behalf. Also, the live election coverage (CNN, CNBC, local TV stations, as well as many radio stations), was extremely positive. What you just accomplished is a major competitive advantage that will be leveraged.
There is much we can learn from this experience. As such, there are debriefing sessions planned next week with the project managers and customer service staffs. If you have comments, ideas, suggestions, etc. to improve our performance in future elections please contact a project manager or someone on Steve Moreland's staff in McKinney. Our continuous improvement is necessary to create a sustainable competitive advantage relative to our competition.
You should take great pride in your role in this historic event: over 32,000 touch screen units used; over 4,000 precincts involved; over 30,000 poll workers trained to run the units; the first state wide election run on a touch screen unit, and hundreds of Diebold associates coming together to accomplish this feat when the entire world was watching!! As the November 6 headlines in the Atlanta Journal Constitution stated, "Touch Screen Voting Machines A Hit."
So, on behalf of Diebold's executive team and the 13,000 associates around the world - Thanks.