Custody of Voting Machine Argued in Montgomery Court

[Southpaw Bookworm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21567-2004Sep14.html">Interesting article

Keep an eye out for this one on 60 Minutes.

A volunteer Maryland election worker touched off a frenzied legal effort in Montgomery County yesterday after he refused to return a touch-screen voting machine, telling state election officials he intended to let an expert hired by CBS News examine it.

Stan Boyd, 63, a retired teacher, said he was giving CBS access to the machine because he believed it might have malfunctioned during a weekend demonstration with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a view the senator does not share, according to a spokesman.

In a Montgomery court yesterday, the county election board argued that the machine is a "demonstration unit" and that testing by the news organization could wrongly undermine confidence in the machines that are set to be used in November.

A judge ordered Boyd late yesterday to surrender the machine. But by then, Boyd said later, the "independent expert" had examined it. The machine was back in the hands of election officials last night.

Yes, we'd hate to undermine confidence in machines that don't work, now wouldn't we?

:eyes: :grr:

[Immad2]

1. Thank you for the snippet! It is great but the link does not seem to work

[Southpaw Bookworm]

4. Here's the link

The editing period has passed, or I'd fix it directly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21567-2004Sep14.html

[Immad2]

8. Thanks

[Vickers]

2. A "demonstration unit" ???

:wtf:

Are they demonstrating that it can be used to throw an election?

Then what's the fucking problem?

[librechik]

3. exactly--and that is the one Mikulsky voted on?

They let her cast a legal vote on a demo unit? Something very fishy here.

I suspect that there is a little demonstration program on that machine that was specifically designed to do something. But why did they usew a demo unit in an election for a real vote?

[ParanoidPat]

5. Not an election, a demonstration at the State Fair......

......Demo unit or not, if it contains a version of software that has been certified for use in the State of Maryland or anywhere else for that matter.......:evilgrin:

[librechik]

7. thx--I tht it was a real election! n/t

[annabanana]

6. CBS checking it out !?!

That is good news..