As expected, an independent study of the Diebold electronic voting machines purchased by the state of Maryland has found that “The system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise.” The study was commissioned by the state and performed by SAIC. A Washington Post story by Brigid Schulte reports that SAIC “found 328 security weaknesses, 26 of them critical”.
The report is available to the public only in heavily redacted form, which in itself does not inspire confidence. What is in the redacted version is bad enough; for example, it reports that the Diebold machines didn’t even bother to encrypt the vote totals before sending them to the Board of Elections.
Diebold, which had previously said we should trust their unspecified security mechanisms, now says that we should trust them to implement unspecified fixes for these problems.
In case you have any remaining confidence in unaudited electronic voting systems, consider this: a Diebold executive told the Washington Post that the fixes will be made to the Maryland machines, but not to the 33,000 Diebold electronic voting machines already in use outside of Maryland.
The fix is In!
Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon’s VP–and he was an INDICTED conspirator in Watergate–said, as he was being taken away to face justice:
“This country is going to go so far to the right, that nobody will recognize it anymore.”
When I first heard him say that, at the time of Watergate in the 70s, I just thought he was nuts.
Now I’m rethinking that notion, because looking back now it’s become as clear as glass–that Spiro Agnew wasn’t just a criminal–he was a prophet.
I’ve been wondering of late, though, just how, 30 years ago, (and presumably using nothing but ESP), he’d been able come to that conclusion. Now that I find out about the Diebold voting machine ‘vulnerabilites’ (and remembering that before Nixon picked Agnew, Agnew had been the Governor of Maryland in the early 70s)– AND that the president of Diebold is a Republican, and further learning that his company’s voting machines cannot be verified–well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to have made that kind of prophecy.
My question–NOW what do we do, with the new National Elections less than a year away, and so much riding on those elections–is there ANYTHING that can be done, RIGHT NOW, to bring accountability (or at least, a recount if necessary) to the 2004 elections????
Because so much is riding on these next elections (I don’t believe the US Supreme Court would have balls enough to nix a re-count next time) –I pray that an IMMEDIATE investigation is launched into these machines. Doesn’t help to know that the Diebold’s CEO is a Republican, either.
My own worst-case scenario–voter apathy (due to everyone knowing that Diebold’s machines are, well, partisan to say the very least) into the foreseeable future. If I were Karl Rove, that’s what I’d be shooting for–with the help of Diebold and, of course, the current Governor of Maryland.
And I’m trying to figure out how Maryland’s governor considers that report “a positive … review.”