Avoiding Another Florida Fiasco - ABC's Tapper on BBV

[papau]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/SciTech/Voting_machines_040305-1.html

Avoiding Another Florida Fiasco
Electronic ‘Smart Cards’ Eliminate Chad, But May Bring Other Problems

By Jake Tapper


March 5 — The controversial Florida recount still looms large in the minds of election officials seeking to put an end to paper voting systems and their hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads.

But in California and Maryland on Tuesday, the new high-tech electronic voting machines — brought in to eliminate the specter of the Florida chaos circa 2000 — created new problems of their own.

Using new voting machines called Diebold TSXs, election workers in San Diego were unable to get a "precinct control module" to work at many polling places, so the electronic "smart cards" voters use to cast their votes were not being read. A similar problem reared its head in Annapolis, Md. <snip>

Technical glitches, however, might be the least of it. Computer experts say that paperless voting — selected by Fortune magazine as "worst new technology" of 2003 — is rife with security and integrity issues. Many of these criticisms have focused on Diebold Election Systems, one of many manufacturers of electronic voting machines capitalizing on the hundreds of millions in federal dollars offered to states and counties in the Help America Vote Act of 2002, passed into law to avoid future Floridas.

"Politicians and election officials have mislaid their trust, preferring expediency and convenience, thereby leaving their voting systems subject to electronic fraud and abuse," said Michael Wertheimer, a computer security expert and former National Security Agency official who tested new Diebold machines for the state of Maryland in January. <snip>

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. the cat is out of the bag

we need S 1980 before the November elections, aka PAPER TRAILS

[Mountainman]

2. I've read a lot of these stories but nothing about anyone doing anything

about it. What is being done to protect our votes? Why can't these machines be tested before election day. And if they could commit fraud inside the machines why can't they commit fraud with the printed results too? Just have the machines record a vote for Bush but print a vote for Kerry.

[PATRICK]

3. Exposure is far short

of taking any action. It is all handwringing until these things muddle on past November.