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Quote: “There are vendors everywhere… They are besieging
everyone.” Question: Who benefits? The voters or Diebold? Or the RNC? - KWC Jolted Over Electronic Voting: Report's
Security Warning Shakes Some States' Trust By Brigid Schulte, Washington
Post Staff Writer, Monday, August 11, 2003; Page A01 @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42085-2003Aug10.html The Virginia State
Board of Elections had a seemingly simple task before it: Certify an upgrade to the state's
electronic voting machines. But with a recent report by Johns Hopkins
University computer scientists warning that the system's software could easily
be hacked into and election results tampered with, the once perfunctory vote
now seemed to carry the weight of democracy and the people's trust along with
it. An outside consultant assured
the three-member panel recently that the report was nonsense. "I hope you're right,"
Chairman Michael G. Brown said, taking a leap of faith and approving Diebold
Election System's upgrades.
"Because when they get ready to hang the three of us in effigy, you
won't be here." Since
being released two weeks ago, the Hopkins report has sent shock waves across
the country. Some states have backed away from purchasing
any kind of electronic voting machine, despite a new federal law that has
created a gold rush by allocating billions to buy the machines and requiring
all states, as well as the District of Columbia, to replace antiquated voting
equipment by 2006. "The rush to buy equipment this year
or next year just doesn't make sense to us anymore," said Cory Fong, North Dakota's deputy
secretary of state. Maryland officials,
who signed a $55.6
million agreement with Diebold for 11,000 touch-screen voting machines just days before
the Hopkins report came out, have asked an international
computer security firm to review the system's security. If they don't like what they find,
officials have said, the sale will be off. The
report has brought square into the mainstream an obscure but increasingly nasty debate
between about 900 computer scientists, who warn that these machines are
untrustworthy, and state and local election officials and machine
manufacturers, who insist that they are reliable. "The computer
scientists are saying, 'The machinery you vote on is inaccurate and could be
threatened; therefore, don't go. Your vote doesn't mean anything,' " said
Penelope Bonsall, director of the Office of Election Administration at the
Federal Election Commission. "That negative perception takes years to turn
around." Still, even some
advocates of the new system are thinking twice. The
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which pushed for electronic machines to help visually
impaired and disabled voters, says the Hopkins report has given them
pause. They're calling on
President Bush and members of Congress to convene a forum of experts to hash it
out. "We have become concerned
about these questions of ballot security," said Deputy Director Nancy
Zirkin. Her group and others
supported passage of the $3.9
billion Help America Vote Act in November.
Of the $1.5 billion appropriated so far to replace old machines, rewrite outdated equipment
standards,
encourage research
to improve technology,
train poll workers and
update registration lists, about
half has been released. And that
has all gone toward buying electronic
machines, which cost as much as $4,000 a piece. "These vendors are everywhere," said David Blount, spokesman for
Mississippi Secretary of State Eric Clark. "They're
besieging everyone." The remaining money is
to be released once an Election Assistance Commission is appointed. By law, the board was to have begun
work in February. But the names of
the four commissioners, two from each major party, have yet to go to the Senate
for confirmation. The
stakes are high. The 2000 Florida
presidential election showed the shortcomings of the current system. (end of excerpts) Related articles: contact me if you want word formats of either of these How GWB won the
2004 Election @ http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html Palast: The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy @ http://www.workingforchange.com |
