More Calls to Vet Voting Machines

Lycos, Inc

A recent report that showed touch-screen voting machines could be vulnerable to hackers spurred the National Association of Secretaries of State, a majority of whose members are in charge of their states' elections, to consider whether the standards for the machines should be beefed up to prevent tampering.

Voting machine standards weren't on the agenda at the association's annual meeting, held in late July in Portland, Maine. But after the study by Johns Hopkins University researchers was publicly released, the group discussed asking the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, the government's standards-setting organization, to prepare a white paper on security standards for the new generation of computerized voting machines.

Computer scientists have raised concerns about the security of computerized voting machines for the past few years, but they haven't been able to gather much support from election officials, who remain confident that the systems are basically secure from tampering and breakdowns. The Johns Hopkins study is the first piece of evidence that current touch-screen technology could be seriously flawed.

While stressing that more studies will have to be conducted to find out just how vulnerable these are, "there is a sense that in the past (critics of computerized machines) were part of the black box crowd and conspiracy theorists," Albowicz said. "No one is saying that now." ---

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Mary Kiffmeyer, Minnesota's Secretary of State and the new National Association of Secretaries of State president, said there shouldn't be a "rush to judgment" to condemn the current technology used in touch-screen voting machines.

She pointed out that Georgia used new touch-screen machines in its 2002 elections without incident. But she said the association will push for the federal government to release additional funding from the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, to study what standards should be in place.
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Doesn't the very nature of the exposed flaws indicate that SHE WOULDN'T KNOW if there had been "incident"?

edit to add- the beginning of the article is a *wonderful* affirmation for all who've worked so hard on this. It really looks like it's going in the right direction. I just can't believe the MORONIC statement made to cover Kiffmeyer's keister!

She tried to deny new ballots to absentee voters after Wellstone's death.

This indicates that FAULTY VOTING MACHINE SOFTWARE, that is subject to possible fraud, HAD already been used in Georgia and elsewhere ...

This should be a LOUD clarion call to reveal those elections as tainted ....

as discouraging the locals in Mass. not to buy touch screens, as some of the "kinks" hadn't been worked out yet! Proof, proof, proof.

Because we haven't been effective at turning up the heat on the Georgia officials.

And, until we are, they will continue to use Georgia as the example to sell these machines everywhere else. Have no doubt, Cathy Cox, Britian Williams and Michael Barnes are all getting a commission on the sales to others states.

Since the press in Georgia sees fit to only print their side of the argument, Michael Barnes can say anything he pleases. Who is there to question his sales pitch at every opportunity? Certainly not the compliant Atlanta Journal Constitution. The reporters there deemed it a "non-issue" back in February.

If we can't turn up the heat in Georgia we have no hope of winning this war.

leaning Republican, right?

Some wild threads in GD lately on this topic.
Looked like the sales reps for Diebold had a convention on DU this weekend. :)

Semantics! :silly:

Will it help for those of us in other states to call GA?

I understand there is more to come on the revelation of this crime.

an "incident"..:eyes:

:kick:

According to company's spokeperson, refuting the company's earlier assertion that the code was out of date ...

Jacobsen confirmed that the source code Rubin's team examined was last used in November 2002 general elections in Georgia, Maryland and in counties in California and Kansas.

A profound admission IMHO ...