I'm not sure this is your correct e-mail address, but in case it is, I wanted to briefly give you a few facts related to your portrayal of my company's role with the State of Maryland's voting system.

First, Bill Owens was never the CEO of SAIC and he has not been with the company for quite some time. There have only been two CEOs in the 35-year history of the company: Dr. J. Robert Beyster, our founder, and Kenneth Dahlberg, who took over on November 3, 2003. Neither man had any contact with the SAIC employees who conducted the Maryland study.

Second, our study for the State of Maryland on Diebold's system was relatively critical. That the state chose to proceed with the system was its prerogative. If you check the record, you will find that Professor Rubin of Johns Hopkins praised our report and believed that its findings were cause for the state to come to a different conclusion.

Third, regarding Robert Gates, he has not been on SAIC's board for some time, either. The bottom line with both Owens and Gates is that neither have been affiliated with SAIC for a number of years, and neither had any contact with the SAIC employees who conducted the review of Diebold's system.

I realize this may not fit with your theory, and I am not challenging anything else you had to say in your article. I just wanted to set the record straight with respect to SAIC.

Ben Haddad
Sr. VP for Communications
Science Applications International Corporation