States waking up to e-voting machines

When they started talking about and implementing computer voting systems the Chief had (and still has) a lot of question about the security of the system. I have read some on the clever and esoteric lengths that hackers are able to go through in order to crack into a data system that has something wanted.

THis ubiquitous ability would INEVITABLY be employed to tilt the results of elections if the only record of what happened in the voting booth in in the form of a bunch of 1’s and 0’s.

Apparently some of the states that were eager to adopt this are coming to a realization that additional protection needs to be used to protect the results, but the equipment providers don’t all seem to like that idea.

In North Carolina and California, officials are pressing Diebold to prove their machines are really tamper-proof. And Diebold doesn’t much like this game. In North Carolina, they’re threatening to withdraw from the state entirely if strict “escrow” provisions are enacted. Isn’t it amazing that the entire election system was ready and willing to trust but not verify (to paraphrase Ronald Reagan’s favorite Russian proverb) private vendors with our most treasured rights?

Diebold sought to be exempted, asking a judge to protect it from criminal prosecution if it didn’t disclose the code. The judge, Wake County’s Narley Cashwell, declined to issue such a blanket protection.

How about another Russian phrase for Diebold: “Toughski shitski!”