gregh  2006-11-03 09:41  diebold  elections  information_privacy   

The overarching problem is that this impacts far more than just Maryland voters, as other states bring these Diebold vote gathering sieves into production based on the praises of the early adopters.

The Blog | Rebecca Abrahams: The Two Faces of Diebold | The Huffington Post:

Enter the world of electronic voting machines, the 'cure' to hanging and dimpled chad.

It is a seamy world of secrecy, proprietary software, partisan executives 'committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President', politicians asking programmers to design software to flip vote totals, and lots and lots of money.

And it is a world of completely inconsistent realities. Diebold and the other manufacturers insist that their machines are safe and secure yet every single cyber security expert and computer scientist has, for years, been screaming into an empty wilderness of media attention, that . . .

The machines can be hacked, by the implanting of malicious code, at the factory.

The machines can be hacked during transport from the factory.

The machines can be hacked while on 'Sleepovers' before the election.

The machines can be hacked (in 1 minute with a .50cent mini bar key) during the election, and

These machines can be hacked, at the tabulator, after the election.

We have Constitutional guarantees of fair elections. Something really must be done about this electronic voting fiasco. There are solutions beyond the Diebold Goliath. There are a number of interesting cryptographic voting schemes that have been put forward.

Unfortunately, we appear to be stuck at a point where the elected politicians and their appointees are too eager to enact changes to claim victory ("No more hanging chads!") rather than enacting change to solve the problems.

At some point, we're going to end up back in contentious court hearings over close elections. That's inevitable, because the fundamental right to vote is too important not to protect. It's unfortunate, because it puts the courts in a dicey situation, such as in Bush v. Gore. It's a no-win for the courts in those politically charged situations, and in the end, it only results in diminished faith in the courts.

(Via Stan.)