And good riddance, too. On Monday a North Carolina judge told Diebold it must comply with the state’s new voting machine requirements, and in response, Diebold said that it would most likely stop selling voting equipment in North Carolina.

Diebold had previously won a temporary injunction against enforcement of the law.

Responding to arguments made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a North Carolina judge today told Diebold Election Systems that the e-voting company must comply with tough North Carolina election law and dismissed the company’s case seeking broad exemptions from the law.

EFF intervened in the case earlier this month, after Diebold obtained a broad temporary restraining order that allowed it to evade key transparency requirements without criminal or civil liability. The law requires escrow of the source code for all voting systems to be certified in the state and identification of programmers. In today’s hearing, the judge told Diebold if it wanted to continue in the bidding process for certified election systems in the state, it must follow the law and if it failed to do so, it would face liability.

“The North Carolina legislature showed great leadership and courage in passing one of the most robust voting machine transparency laws in the country,” said EFF Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “The court decision reiterates what EFF had been arguing on behalf of our client all along: Diebold is not entitled to special rules.” — Electronic Frontier Foundation

“Score one for election transparency and integrity,” said EFF Media relations Coordinator Rebecca Jeschke.

In response, Diebold said that it would likely withdraw from the state’s process to gain approved vendor status.

“We will obviously have no alternative but withdraw from the process,” said Doug Hanna, a Raleigh-based lawyer representing North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold.

David Bear, a Diebold spokesman, said the company was reviewing several options after Monday’s ruling. “We’re going to do what is necessary to provide what is best for our existing clients” in North Carolina, he said.

The dispute centers on the state’s requirement that suppliers place in escrow “all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system,” as well as a list of programmers responsible for creating the software.

That’s not possible for Diebold’s machines, which use Microsoft Windows, Hanna said. The company does not have the right to provide Microsoft’s code, he said, adding it would be impossible to provide the names of every programmer who worked on Windows.

The State Board of Elections has told potential suppliers to provide code for all available software and explain why some is unavailable. That’s not enough of an assurance for Diebold, which remains concerned about breaking a law that’s punishable by a low-grade felony and a civil penalty of up to $100,000 per violation.

“You cannot have a statute that imposes a criminal violation . . . without being clear about what conduct will submit you to a criminal violation,” Hanna said. — MSNBC (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)

Okay, the Windows thing is a complete red herring. It’s pretty clear from reading the law that it was intended to apply to the voting system itself, not to the operating system on which it runs. Diebold was clearly trying to confuse this issue in court.