[Shaping up to be another Halliburton] Republican cohorts Diebold Corp apparently want to gouge buyers of their flimsy e-voting systems. Havn't we had enough of Diebold? Is there some kind of Republican mandate to throw cash at only the most corrupt, dishonest companies?

It plans to make the modifications so expensive that city and state officials balk at the cost.

Steven Dennis at the Maryland Gazette last week unearthed correspondence from a Diebold engineer who advised that "any after-sale changes should be prohibitively expensive."

Diebold had told the Gazette that printers - required for the paper trail - would cost between $1,000 and $1,200 per machine. Given that printers can be found at Best Buy for as little as $50, voters are justified in questioning what makes a Diebold-approved printer quite so expensive.