http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061806X.shtmlhttp://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3180More E-Voting Concerns Surface With State Primaries Underway By Catherine Komp
The NewStandard
Saturday 17 June 2006
With another election season around the corner, activists are concerned that electronic voting machines supplied by a handful of American corporations are bug-ridden and easily tampered with, but the road to redress is rough and windy.
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Last week, voter-access group Black Box Voting (BBV) released the report of Finnish computer scientist Harri Hursti, who discovered the "back door" into Diebold touch-screen systems earlier this spring when examining machines in Emery County, Utah. Bruce Funk, an Emery County clerk of 23 years, had sought independent analysis of his county's machines after he discovered numerous problems and was unsatisfied with Diebold's response.
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Upon the urgings of Shamos and other machine examiners, the Pennsylvania elections officials directed precincts to minimize security breaches by locking up machines until Election Day. Though these machines are used in numerous states, only California and Iowa, in addition to Pennsylvania, have addressed the problem. Some officials are implementing new administrative rules to compensate for the flaw, for example increasing security where machines are stored and reinstalling software immediately before the election.
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Some voters in Arizona, where primaries are not scheduled until September, are hoping a lawsuit will prevent the problems they are seeing in other states. Four plaintiffs have filed suit against Secretary of State Jan Brewer and numerous county officials to stop the implementation of touch-screen machines produced by Diebold and Sequoia Voting Systems, saying the state is wasting millions of dollars on machines that "are not trustworthy or transparent."
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