It's official: Diebold election bugware can't be trusted...

[reprehensor]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/30/diebold_hides_source">It's official: Diebold election bugware can't be trusted

The company implies as much

Published Wednesday 30th November 2005 14:50 GMT

Diebold would rather lose all of its voting machine business in North Carolina than open its source code to state election officials as required by law, the Associated Press reports.

Due to irregularities in the 2004 election traced to touch screen terminals, North Carolina has taken the very reasonable precaution of requiring vendors of electronic voting gizmos to place all of the source code in escrow. Diebold has objected to the possibility of criminal sanctions if they fail to comply, and argued for an exemption before Wake County Superior Court Judge Narley Cashwell. The judge declined to issue an exemption, and Diebold has concluded that it has no choice but withdraw from the state.

The company's explanation is that their machines contain Microsoft software, which they have no right to make available to state election officials. This seems disingenuous, as it is hard to imagine Microsoft suing Diebold for complying with the law. It would hardly be Diebold's fault if it released MS code to a lawful authority on demand; that issue would be something for MS and North Carolina to work out.

One far-fetched explanation would be that MS has licensed its software to Diebold with a provision that the company withdraw from jurisdictions where the law requires the release of its source code. It's possible, but there's no reason to believe it.

Continued at link...

[grannylib]

1. Wonder if we could get other states to pressure the thieves to do the same

since that's one of the KEY issues to reclaiming our country: verifiable, auditable, free and fair voting, NOT owned by partisan ideologues.

[NoFederales]

2. Who is in Missouri working on this?

I am ready to help.

NoFederales

[Bemis]

3. Of course it takes a British outlet...

to report about court proceedings in North Carolina, which the last time I checked was still in the US. (Yeh, they had their chance to leave in the 1860s)