Friday, December 30, 2005

More Action Against Diebold's Illegal Programming Code

Response to my last post, Previously Certified Diebold Machines Approved Erroneously, has been quite good. I like that reader comments are finally starting to appear on this site, though several people who sent me e-mail yesterday have not followed up by posting their remarks. Anyway, Democratic Underground members voted the report onto the "Greatest Threads" page and VoteTrustUSA has republished the piece here. VoteTrustUSA has also recently republished two other GuvWurld posts, Further Humboldt Implications of the GAO Elections Report and A Campaign To Unite California Election Reformers (which is also here).

On Thursday, VoteTrustUSA launched an important new campaign:
VoteTrustUSA Launches Action Alert to Election Assistance Commission

By VoteTrustUSA
December 29, 2005

VoteTrustUSA has launched a campaign to hold the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) accountable for ensuring that all Diebold software is re-inspected and decertified until it can be shown that all prohibited code has been removed. We also urge the EAC to initiate the re-inspection of the election software of other vendors, which may also include software that is expressly forbidden in the FEC Voting System Standards. Please go to our action page and send an email to the EAC voicing your concern about the use of prohibited software on voting machines.
Read the rest of the campaign announcement. The action page is here and the suggested action is signing on to an open letter found here:
ITA Letter

By VoteTrustUSA
December 29, 2005

The following letter will be sent to the Election Assistance Commission and Brian Hancock, ITA Secretariat on January 3, 2006. To add your organization to the list of signers write to contact@votetrustusa.org.

Commissioners, Election Assistance Commission and
Brian Hancock, ITA Secretariat
United States Election Assistance Commission
1225 New York Avenue N.W. Suite - 1100
Washington, DC 20005

We the undersigned request that the Federal Independent Testing Authority (ITA) who inspected, for federal qualification, the software used on Diebold Optical Scan and Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines be ordered to reinspect all source code, including any code used on memory cards, looking in particular for 'interpreted' code.
Read the rest of the letter here. Expanding far beyond what I wrote about interpreted code, on Thursday VoteTrustUSA published John Washburn's excellent explanation of what interpreter code is and how it leaves voting technology vulnerable. I strongly recommend reading it for anyone interested in or concerned about election integrity. The better your understanding, the more compelling and persuasive you can be.

Finally, check out Brad Blog for the story of CA Secretary of State McPherson waving his magic wang to disappear concerns over ES&S voting equipment, also not worthy of state certification. First the company was threatened with this loss of status, but now they are again inexplicably back in the good graces of the good, good government.

1 comments

1 Comments:

I am glad to see so much recognition of the problems with our voting systems. This is no longer a fringe issue the maintainers of the status quo can dismiss as sore losers with tinfoil hats.

It seems like there's a synergy between all these issues coming out about the current administration. Although some of them are "old news," there seems to be a realization that if there are this many signs of a crooked government, we have a real problem. Questionable election practices, illegal spying on critics of the government's policies, jeopardizing security to get back at a critic, financial scandals, etc. are all in the news concurrently. Each of these could be dismissed as politics as usual, but together they paint a picture of Government Gone Wrong.

Bush, step down, and take your policies (and minions) with you!

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:36 PM  

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