Voting security


Was the 2002 Georgia election, where Republicans defied pre-election polling to upset the Democratic governor and senator, a dry run for the theft of the 2004 election?

See the London Independent's report, "All the President's votes." Then see Wired.com's report, "Did E-Vote Firm Patch Election?" on claim that Diebold Election Systems installed unauthorized software "patches" on Georgia election machines.

California becomes the first state to require e-votes to leave a paper trail. Also see See Machine Politics for Wired.com reports on the controversy over the use of electronic voting machines.

See VerifiedVoting.org, a campaign initiated by David Dill, professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University, to demand a voter-verifiable audit trail.

The Business of E-Voting, by Jason Leopold, from the 10/1/03 TPP.

Black Box Voting, online edition of electronic voting critic Bev Harris's book on ballot tampering in the 21st century, with other resources on voting security. Parts of the website are blocked by Diebold, which claimed violations of copyright law because the website is linked to other websites that contain memos detailing security problems with Diebold machines. A companion website, BlackBoxVoting.org, is completely shut down. (See Diebold Machines and Your Vote, Part 2.)

Diebold Machines and Your Vote, Part 1, outlines the susceptibility of electronic voting machines to tampering and election fraud.
Part 2 details the Diebold case timeline and the legal battles that ensued as a) the Diebold system becomes available to outside scrutiny, b) the Diebold system is revealed to be susceptible to election tampering, c) computer scientists demonstrate many critical vulnerabilities, d) Diebold CEO promises to deliver electoral votes to Bush in 2004, e) evidence that Diebold illegally tabulated votes before polls closed, and b) Diebold responds with legal action to silence critics.

A Very American Coup, articles on electronic voting.

Hacking the vote, How to stop someone from stealing the 2004 election, by Paul Boutin at Slate.com.

Voting Machine Controversy, a report on the head of Diebold Inc., one of the top electronic voting machine suppliers in the US, telling Republicans in a fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

Nightmare Scenario is Here, by Lynn Landes, on the problems of computerized voting with no paper trail.

"To Win Elections, Just Control the Voting Machines," by Thom Hartmann (reprinted in 3/1/03 TPP).

Lynn Landes' writings on electronic voting, with links to other reports on the potential for mischief in computerized voting.

Analysis of Voting Security by the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, which identified numerous security flaws in the Diebold electronic voting machines used in Virginia, Georgia, California, Kansas and other states.

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., filed Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (H.R. 2239) to require, among other things, a voter-verified paper record of each ballot cast.

Greg Palast of the BBC and the British Guardian on the Theft of the Presidency in 2000.

Resources on Electronic Voting by Rebecca Mercuri, a professor of Computer Science at Bryn Mawr College, Pa., an expert on electronic voting systems.

Resources on Voting Technology by the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting and applying the responsible use of technology to improve the democratic process.

Reports on a Cal Tech-MIT study of the 2000 election, which analyzed "residual votes" -- "uncounted, unmarked and spoiled ballots" -- and found that for the 2000 presidential race, 2.5% of all votes cast on punch-card machines were residual votes compared with 2.3% for touch-screen machines. But in gubernatorial and senatorial races, punch-card machines had a 4.7% error rate, while touch-screen machines had an alarming 5.9% error. The least problems were recorded with optical scan and paper ballots.


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