Reply #49: Ya beat me to the punch, 'reader! [View All]

[Octafish]

Congratulations! Keep up the good work! You all, too, Bev and Crew!

Voting Machine Study Divides Md. Officials, Experts

By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 26, 2003; Page B01

For some in Maryland, the report yesterday by Johns Hopkins University computer security experts that electronic voting machines could easily be hacked into set off alarm bells. But for others, including the state officials who recently signed a $55.6 million agreement to put the units in every voting precinct by March, the report is one more example of "technological hysteria."

"The study should be setting off alarm bells," said Del. William A. Bronrott (D-Montgomery). "We need to be 100 percent sure that there is no chance that our machines can be tampered with."

"Even if was completely impossible that would ever happen, the reality that it could happen should be enough to concern us," said Cheryl C. Kagan, a former delegate who opposed using electronic voting machines. "If the system can't be used with confidence, it shouldn't be used at all."

On Thursday, researchers with Johns Hopkins' Information Security Institute released their analysis of a Diebold Election Systems Inc. software code that they obtained in a fluke from an Internet site. They concluded that the system was so flawed that voters could vote multiple times, that ATM-like "Smart Cards" such as those used in Maryland could easily be copied and that an insider could program the machine to register votes incorrectly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48092-2003Jul25.html