Pfizer can only steal our money & kill us with their drugs.

Diebold steals our votes & therefore our country.

Diebold is the worst!

How come when I made my selection, the ballot came up Pat Buchanan?

Hmm... I'm going with the company that hires executives convicted of federal crimes of fraud, insider trading, etc. and makes machines that determine the future of our county yet have virtually no security.

Don't get me wrong, the pharmaceutical companies are evil too, but it's hard to choose them when the opponent is a company that has been suspected of manipulating the votes so ol' Georgey would win.

Toughest decision yet...

@SOhp101:

"a company that has been suspected of manipulating the votes so ol' Georgey would win. "

...Which is exactly ,precisely, why the founding fathers never trusted the direct election of the president to people like you. They knew that people such as yourself would be so easily duped and manipulated by every crackpot theory and rank demogogue that came down the pike.That's why these underappreciated geniuses created the electoral college (the REAL superdelegates) to take such an important matter out of the hands of ignoramuses.

Easy- Diebold. One rips us off and endangers our health. The other allows our entire country to get ripped off and endanger our health.

When the CEO says he is, "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" during the 2004 election and the senior executives Diebold were active fundraisers for Bush, that's a bad sign. I understand the executives as a person v. as representative of a company distinction. But at a certain point, it raises questions related to impartiality.

This is the toughest one yet. If the contest had been "most dangerous company' it would be an easy choice.

I went with Diebold, for all the same reasons mentioned above. BUT, I gotta say, Pfizer is WAAAAAYYYY scarier in that picture above!!

Definitely a tough decision, but I had to go with diebold because, as of yet, monkeys can't determine the future of the US by playing with a bottle of pills.

@ARP: couldn't have said it better myself.

@Snarkysnake: "down the pike", nice.

@B: Ohhhh, good one!!! :D

Pfizer's car sickness medicine for dogs (discussed in one of the links above) has also been a godsend for one of my pooches who suffers from chronic pancreatitis. Whenever he has an attack (about every 6 weeks) he gets a quick shot of this stuff (Cerenia) from the vet and his vomiting stops almost immediately. And it's cheap.

Diebold has been very closed towards any 3rd party review of their voting software. Just this alone makes the company dangerous as sin. All the other tabulating companies have accepted 3rd parties to go through their systems and find any flaws, so why not Diebold? Stubborness, IP, and politics.

To hell with Diebold and their flawed voting systems.

Now its getting interesting

I really don't care about this one.... but since I had to pick one of the two, for the first time - I've picked the current "underdog" Pfizer.

@harshmellow: Seriously, that's going to give me nightmares!

I have noticed that if I view the results and then vote after I've read the comments (leaving the vote for the very last thing), that I get thanked, but that my vote has already been counted. Is this a bug?

I don't really care about this one so much, but I'm going wih Diebold because voting is, I guess, kinda important.

Also, their name sucks. Diebold? Really?

@Snarkysnake: I don't think anyone "underappreciates" the Founding Fathers except the current administration, who repeatedly tramples on the Constitution.

A company like Diebold should be unbiased and non-partisan, but they clearly are not. Couple that with what Nighthawke said, and HOUSTON...WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

The electoral system is broken, and Diebold is part of the problem. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, and he should be president.

Diebold wins hands down.

The issue isn't crackpot theories since those always exist. The real problem is not if something happend, but how ridiculously easy it could happen. Not to mention their going after professors researching the voting machines for the public good. That is just tactless.

Finally a tough one, but my vote went to the "can't do" and "trust us" attitude of Diebold, whose manhandling of election modernization poses a greater overall danger than overpriced and overmarketed drugs. After all, without fair elections, we won't be able to get leaders who will stick it to bad companies.

@Edidid: Exactly. It WILL happen at some time even if it hasn't happened yet. And anyway, one of the main objections to electronic voting machines is that there is NO way for us to verify that election fraud did not occur already. We can't go back and audit the electrons. Thus, even if they were totally secure (which they are not), they are undermining confidence in our democracy. That alone should be reason enough to scrap them.

Wow, first time I didn't vote for the front runner. Both are bad, its just hard to figure out which is worst. I figure my vote won't count anyway if I'm dead on election day so Pfizer it is.

Okay, you really need to seed this competition the next time it comes around. There is no reason to be forced to choose from a company that wants to privitize democracy and ban independant verification of our elections and a company that wants to dupe people into doping up or doping up with more expensive drugs. Not when other races have featured silly electronics firm vs. search engine and harmless discount retailer vs. annoying electronics retailer. Either seed the competition like the NCAAs or come up with divisions or something. Retail division, internet division, etc. The the winners of each fight it out amongst themselves.

I voted Diebold because it makes Pfizer possible.

Fuck our current administration. All branches. They've fucked us quite enough already.

er rather, I voted Diebold because THEIR CRAP MACHINES can make Pfizer a reality. Not sure if that was clear enough in the first post!

But yeah, still fuck the administration. That part I'm keepin'

I voted for Pfizer because I am extremely tired of all the drug commercials on tv.

I personally think ALL drug companies are borderline evil. Remember when you used to take a prescription for a week or two and stop when you were better? Now drug companies are only interested in developing drugs that you need to take daily for the rest of your life.

You guys who are voting for Diebold are wrong. Here's why: It's not Diebold's fault for making faulty voting machines. Any company will make crappy, cheap products if people buy them. It's the government's fault for purchasing these crappy machines without testing them first.

Pfizer, like most pharma companies, needs to stop trying to convince the American public to go broke buying crappy drugs they don't need. They are evil.

Now this is a challenge.

I'm going with tampering with our votes as being more "evil" than being a drug company. Still, it's a tough call, since both things are pretty darn evil.

Tragic that this is a first-round matchup -- they should both have a shot at the title!

@harshmellow:

"Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, and he should be president. "

No, he shouldn't. He did not win the electoral college. I checked.

You people always have a bogeyman that screws you out of something.Get off your lazy asses,take the nose ring out of your face and vote,dammit. then you MIGHT get the person you want,if he/she wins enough electoral votes.Diebold didn't run the country between 1993 and 2001,Al Gore and somebody who's name escapes me did. People wanted change then just like they want change now.

Bill Clinton killed Vince Foster.
George Bush blew up the World Trade Center in 2001.
Bill Clinton murdered two teenagers in Arkansas.
George Bush dynamited the levees in New Orleans in 2005.
Al Gore traded money for influence with a bunch of monks.
Dick Cheney REALLY works for Halliburton.

I am appealing to the reasonable people that know this stuff is just so much bullshit. It keeps a cottage industry of nut fudge conspiracy wackos busy,but that's about it.The problem is,people are too polite to tell them that they are full of shit.

Let's not forget Pfizer also gave the world Viagra™.

@harshmellow: When you were reading the Constitution to redress grievances, did you happen to catch Article 2 Section 1?

(hint: its the clause that created the electoral college system)

If Pfizer wins, I am going to cop out and blame it on Nader.

The problem with Diebold is that any exoneration requires giving them, and the GOP, and the Bush White House, the benefit of a doubt. Which, considering their various political crimes (DOJ prosecutors, politicizing of nonpartisan gov'tal entities, "voter fraud"...), seems unwarranted. Cough. To put it mildly.

Come on Consumerist. You guys are killing me. Deibold vs. Pfizer - two increadibly bad companies. Too hard to choose.
MTV vs. TransUnion - two companies no one cares about. I mean I know they suck, but lets face it they are filler.

You gotta work out this bracket thing so that we eliminate the weak companies early. And, don't pair the heavy hitters against each other in the early rounds.

@mattatwork: Indeed

@reznicek111: I would comment further, but I've had this erection for more than 4 hours and need to seek medical attention, preferrably from a hot nurse.

@quieterhue: You're assuming that Diebold-sponsored corruption had nothing to do with all these governments picking them to produce these voting machines. I'm not convinced of that, given the company's track record and their leaders' history of being actively involved with politics and fundraisers, etc.

Easy! Pfizer, ripping us off on drugs we need to live or have a boner.

Quit whining about Diebold stealing your votes. Most of you don't EVEN VOTE, when you MUST.

I know I selected Pfizer, but for some reason it recorded my vote for Diebold!

@Snarkysnake: I said Gore won the popular vote in 2000, and this is correct.

You certainly aren't addressing me when you talk about piercings and not voting. I have never had any piercings, and I have voted in every election since 1992, thanks.

"then you MIGHT get the person you want,if he/she wins enough electoral votes."

This is exactly what I am talking about when I say the electoral system is broken. Even if the majority of people in the country choose a president, they still have to get the electoral votes in order to be the president.

I'm not even going to address your obvious issues with Clinton, or the other tangential rants your threw in there.

I used to cut PR videos for Pfizer and I can honestly say after sitting for many hours with drug reps and PR demons that I can't imagine humans with what we consider respectable jobs being more vile.

@harshmellow:

The electoral college system ensures that a shadowy group (like Diebold) can't steal an election.The electoral system is not broken. That's just wrong.The electoral system we have ensures a fair election, not a perfect one.You would praise it to the skies if Gore had had HIS people in charge where it mattered in 2000. Diebold is just a convenient "them" to rail against because the wack jobs know that they will not dignify their bullshit with a reply. Simple as that. I have no issues with Clinton (or Gore for that matter) - they won fair and square. But the tinfoil hats on the left aren't able to "move on" and realize that their guy lost in 2000. This reduces our political debate to a "can you top this consipracy" mud fight. I'm sick of it from both ends of the political spectrum and I'm calling you whiners out.

I'd say Pfizer, if Diebold's CEO hadn't promised to deliver votes for Republicans.

[www.nndb.com]

@Snarkysnake: The Electoral College made in a time when women, men not owning land and melatonin-rich people weren't wise enough to vote. You wanted a barrier between the passions of the unwashed mob and which of the powder-wigged elites got to run things.
Things are a bit different now, no?

Both are evil. But Diebold gave us W. All Diebold machines should be trashed.

@Trai_Dep:

Melanin, not melatonin.
[en.wikipedia.org]
[en.wikipedia.org]

Voting machines made by a biased company. Talk about a bad idea.

Wow, this is a clash of the mega-evils worthy of a later round. Diebold by a