So why is it OK for Diebold to have a felon counting the votes but fomer offenders lose their right to vote?

Nathan,

In your keenness to compare American practice unfavourably with European, you may have misunderstood the Telegraph's article, which shows the difference to be even greater. The UK already allows ex-convicts to vote, and I don't know of a time when it didn't. The European Court has now ruled it illegal to prevent a *serving* convict from voting.

Even if the American states that currently bar ex-cons from voting end the bar, y'all will still have some catching up to do if Europe allows voting for all its citizens.

(and America has a much larger prison population than Europe, many of whom are inside either on unsafe convictions or for trivial offences, so I expect it would be a much more controversial issue)