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Electronic Voting

 

Ohio Voting Problems Deemed Severe, The Associated Press, August 15, 2006

Pennsylvania Sued Over Electronic Voting Machines, The Associated Press, August 15, 2006

The Diebold Bombshell , OpEdNews.com, July 23, 2006

Blowing the Whistle on Diebold, In These Times, July 2006, Posted on Truthout, July 17, 2006

Manual Hand Count Requested in Busby/Bilbray Race! Registrar Quotes Fees for Count as High as $130,000! BradBlog.com, July 7, 2006

Scientists call Diebold security flaw 'worst ever', Inside Bay Area, May 11, 2006

Ohio Struggles to Fix Voting Problems, The Associated Press, May 2006 -- Posted on Truthout

Electronic Voting Switch Threatens Mass Confusion, Financial Times, May 1, 2006 -- posted on Truthout

Punch cards out, paper trails in, Stateline.org, March 27, 2006

Propsal by Katherine Yurica

December 14, 2005 : Due to contractual non-performance and security design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho has announced that he will never again use Diebold in an election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. On Tuesday, the most serious "hack" demonstration to date took place in Leon County. The Diebold machines succumbed quickly to alteration of the votes. This comes on the heels of the resignation of Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, and the announcement that a stockholder's class action suit has been filed. BlackboxVoting.org

Maryland House votes to oust Diebold machines, Computer World, March 10, 2006

Making Every Vote Count by Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, TomPaine.com, March 2, 2006 -- On March 2, 2006, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico will sign legislation requiring a statewide system of voter verifiable paper ballots.

In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System, Washington Post, January 22, 2006

As election season nears, efforts to upgrade voting machines bog down
About half the states missed a deadline to replace old apparatus. California is one racing to comply. Christian Science Monitor, January 19, 2006

California Demands Repairs to Software for Voting Machines, The Associated Press, December 25, 2005

The Business of Voting, New York Times, December 18, 2005

New tests fuel doubts about vote machines, Miami Herald, December 15, 2005

Diebold CEO resigns, Dailykos, December 12, 2005

Diebold Refuses to Comply With Law, State Shrugs, Dailykos, December 10, 2005

Voting Machines Under Scrutiny, The Associated Press, December 7, 2005

Has American Democracy Died an Electronic Death in Ohio 2005's Referenda Defeats? The Free Press, November 12, 2005

While We Weren't Looking, New York Times, November 13, 2005

20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA, Democratic Underground

Carter-Baker Panel to Call for Voting Fixes, Washington Post, September 19, 2005

Debugging The E-vote, TomPaine, August 17, 2005

Voting on blind faith, Terry Murray, August, 2005

A firewall for democracy, Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2005

California Rejects Diebold DRE, Oakland Tribune, July 29, 2005

Miami-Dade's elections chief urges new system, Sun-Sentinel, May 28, 2005

The Fundamental Right You Don't Have, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., TomPaine.com, March 10, 2005

The New York Times, July 23, 2004, offers ways to safeguard against electronic voting machine abuses:

In a well-run election system, electronic voting machines costing millions of dollars would not have been purchased before there were adequate standards for ensuring that they work properly. But given that nearly one-third of voters may be voting electronically this fall, it is fortunate that a number of private groups - including the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School and the Caltech/M.I.T. Voting Technology Project - have stepped forward with ideas for how election officials can minimize the risks. Kevin Shelley, the California secretary of state and a pioneer in the field, has also issued useful directives, many of which are on his official Web site.

Electronic voting machines need to leave what Representative Rush Holt calls "a parallel paper record" such as has been mandated in California.

California has banned the use of more than 14,000 electronic voting machines made by Diebold Inc. in the November election because of security and reliability concerns, Kevin Shelley, the California secretary of state, announced yesterday. He also declared 28,000 other touch-screen voting machines in the state conditionally "decertified" until steps are taken to upgrade their security. New York Times, May 1, 2004

Mr. Shelley said that he was recommending that the state's attorney general look into possible civil and criminal charges against Diebold because of what he called "fraudulent actions by Diebold."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) provides latest news updates as well Action Alerts about electronic voting. . Send your representative a letter supporting the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (HR 2239) to require openly reviewed software and voter-verifiable paper audit trails for all new e-voting machines.

The absence of such a paper trail leaves voters feeling distrustful of the results. This issue is so critical to the functioning of democracy that Paul Krugman of the New York Times asks, "Why isn't this front-page news?"

"This Is No Way to Run a Democracy" from a New York Times editorial, 1/18/04.

"How to Hack an Election," New York Times, 1/31/04:

When the State of Maryland hired a computer security firm to test its new machines, these paid hackers had little trouble casting multiple votes and taking over the machines' vote-recording mechanisms. The Maryland study shows convincingly that more security is needed for electronic voting, starting with voter-verified paper trails.

February 6, 2004:

Citing security concerns, the Department of Defense yesterday canceled plans to use an electronic voting system that would have allowed Americans overseas to cast votes over the Internet in this year's elections.

"Florida as the Next Florida," New York Times, March 14, 2004

New York Times, April 22, 2004:

California should ban the use of 15,000 touch-screen voting machines in the November election because the equipment malfunctioned in last month's primary, an advisory panel said Thursday.

The Nation, August 9, 2004:

About 61 million of the votes in November, more than half the total, will be counted in the computers of one company, the privately held Election Systems and Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Nebraska. Altogether, nearly 100 million votes will be counted in computers provided and programmed by ES&S and three other private corporations: British-owned Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, California, whose touch-screen voting equipment was rejected as insecure against fraud by New York City in the 1990s; the Republican-identified company Diebold Election Systems of McKinney, Texas, whose machines malfunctioned this year in a California election; and Hart InterCivic of Austin, one of whose principal investors is Tom Hicks, who helped make George W. Bush a millionaire.

Last updated: August-2006