A loss in 2006 will not be a loss at all, but a theft of democracy.
Elections workers in what is one of Maryland's largest and most prosperous counties this week gave opponents of touch-screen voting systems more ammunition when an e-voting "fiasco" prevented an unknown number of voters from casting ballots. The problem, however, wasn't so much with the machines themselves; it was caused by a human error.
On Tuesday, a procedural error temporarily left would-be primary voters in 238 precincts in Montgomery County without the ballot cards required to operate the e-voting hardware, according to elections officials. The machines used by the state are from Diebold Elections Systems Inc.
As a result of the snafu, poll workers were left scrambling to provide enough paper-based provisional ballots to voters. And in some cases, even those ran out.
Diebold has responded to the criticism aimed at it by researchers at Princeton by attacking their professionalism and testing methods. That's great, Diebold, but how about answering some of the actual concerns raise, rather than telling us what the Princeton researchers did wrong? Professor Felten has a good reputation in general and is well-known in the security community. Attacking him and his students isn't likely to win any points. It also makes you look foolish, since people like me will draw attention to the fact you haven't answered the real question: Why haven't the Diebold machines been designed securely?
Posted by kerry at September 19, 2006 06:32 PMThe access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet.