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SACRAMENTO – Normally ho-hum, the campaign for secretary of state could be seen as a referendum on whether Californians trust new, federally mandated electronic voting systems and how they feel about requiring identification at the polls. The Nov. 7 election also is the first chance voters have to judge appointed incumbent Bruce McPherson, who was forced to spend most of his early tenure cleaning up a political and fiscal quagmire left by his predecessor, Kevin Shelley, a Democrat who resigned under pressure. PROFILES Bruce McPherson RepublicanAge: 62 Residence: Santa Cruz Background: Appointed secretary of state in March 2005 to fill...

Pa. Sued Over Electronic Voting Machines Voter advocates filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to stop Pennsylvania counties from using "paperless" electronic voting machines, saying that such systems leave no paper record that could be used in the event of a recount, audit or other problem. The suit asks the state's Commonwealth Court to decertify machines used in 58 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. The other counties use optical scanning systems, in which voters fill in bubbles on paper forms that are counted in scanning machines; the plaintiffs say such systems should be in use statewide. "Whatever the initial promise may have...

Rep. Cynthia McKinney, in her first public appearance since losing her re-election bid last week, said Tuesday that the black community needs to oppose electronic voting machines, which she warned can be used to steal elections. McKinney also said the state of Georgia should prohibit crossover voting among political parties in primary elections and end its system of runoff elections. You won't know who won as long as we have those electronic voting machines, with the problems that have been manifested by them,'' she said, criticizing Georgia officials for not requiring that paper records be kept of all votes. She...

McKinney rails against electronic voting By KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago Rep. Cynthia McKinney, in her first public appearance since losing her re-election bid last week, said Tuesday that the black community needs to oppose electronic voting machines, which she said are designed to steal elections. McKinney also said the state of Georgia should not allow crossover voting among political parties in primary elections. The fiery Democratic congresswoman who scuffled with a Capitol Hill police officer earlier this year and has accused the Bush administration of having advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks said she considers...

Late Wednesday afternoon, a "Manual Hand Count Request under the Election Recount Provision" was filed at the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office by CA-50 voter Barbara Gail Jacobson. The request is for a full manual hand count of all paper ballots and paper trails in the recent June 6th Busby/Bilbray special U.S. House election in which programmed, election-ready Diebold voting machines were sent home with poll workers for days prior to the election in apparent violation of new laws and provisions by both state and federal authorities. As California state election code requires that a candidate be named...

Brad Friedman Added to homepage Sun 18th Jun 2006, 09:43 AM No Confidence in the Busby/Bilbray Election I don't know how else to put it, but every voting machine used in last week's special election run-off for the U.S. House seat vacated by the disgraced Randy "Duke" Cunningham in California's 50th congressional district was illegal. By federal standards, rules and provisions and by California state rules, laws and provisions. And now, by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters own admission. More Discuss this topic (22 comments) · Posted by Wilms

Elections officials in several states are scrambling to understand and limit the risk from a "dangerous" security hole found in Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s ATM-like touch-screen voting machines. The hole is considered more worrisome than most security problems discovered on modern voting machines, such as weak encryption, easily pickable locks and use of the same, weak password nationwide. Armed with a little basic knowledge of Diebold voting systems and a standard component available at any computer store, someone with a minute or two of access to a Diebold touch screen could load virtually any software into the machine and disable...

One of the first counties in the state to embrace electronic voting is headed back to paper -- and it's not the only one. Alameda County residents going to the polls June 6 will be asked for the first time in five years to fill in ovals on paper ballots rather than casting their votes on costly touch-screen machines. "It's a little bit of back to the future," joked Elaine Ginnold, the county's acting registrar of voters. The decision to go back to paper stems from changes in state law that toughen requirements for touch-screen machines and render the county's...

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. says he now supports requiring Maryland's voting machines to produce paper receipts. And while that's a good idea, it's a shame the governor's endorsement is a day late and probably millions of dollars short. Elections officials believe the state would have to scrap its current touch-screen system and spend as much as $65 million to bring in replacement machines to do this. And that's not even the worst of it. [snip] Nevertheless, the politicians in Annapolis need to take some deep breaths and calm down before voters start taking their rhetoric seriously. Yes, paper receipts...

California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson gave conditional approval Friday for counties to use two voting machines produced by Diebold Election Systems that he had previously questioned. McPherson's office said in December that the Diebold machines failed one of the 10 criteria he established for voting machines because the source coding, or computer language, on their memory cards was not reviewed by independent investigators. The coding performs two critical tasks — securing ballot entries and later providing instructions to election officials on how to access and tally the votes. Since then, Diebold submitted the machines to further testing by University...

California lawmakers on Wednesday debated the use of open-source software in the state’s electronic voting systems in hopes it might build public confidence in the nascent technology. Sen. Debra Bowen (D-California) called the hearing, citing successful use of open-source software—programs based on widely published code—by large companies including Amazon, AOL, and IBM. No action was expected to be taken. The hearing was scheduled more in the interest of expanding discussion of open-source alternatives, said a spokesperson for Sen. Bowen. California has already taken steps toward using such software throughout the state. In 2004, the California Performance Review strongly recommended the...

ATTENTION DUMMIES! WE OWN ALL YOUR DIEBOLD MACHINES!!! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO VOTE! DO NOT ENTER THE POLL BOOTH!!! VOTING WILL DO YOU NO GOOD BECAUSE ALL DIEBOLDS ARE PRE-SET TO VOTE REPUBLICAN! YOUR PARTICIPATION IN ANY FUTURE ELECTION IS ALREADY DOOMED TO FAILURE SO SAVE YOURSELF THE FRUSTRATION BY STAYING HOME ON ELECTION DAY! THIS PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU CARE OF YOUR FRIENDLY VAST RIGHTWING CONSPIRACY!!! And if you think the DUmmies don't buy into the preceding statements then I urge you to check out this THREAD titled, "I don't understand why Diebold can't...

In the wake of successful vote-hacking tests in Florida, California is putting off approval of Diebold's latest voting system until the firm has critical software evaluated by an outside lab. Diebold Election Systems relies on its own, nonstandard software language, known as AccuBasic, to program local election details into virtually all of its voting machines, using memory cards or PC cards. Voting-system experts say the practice appears to violate federal voting system standards, and independent computer experts have been using Diebold's own code to hack vote totals on its machines. Tuesday, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson cited "unresolved significant...

The St. Louis Election Board has chosen Diebold Election Systems to provide a new hybrid voting system for the city. Officials said they were impressed by the firm's operations and equipment. The decision expands Diebold's urban presence in Missouri. The firm recently was awarded voting-system contracts in St. Charles County and Kansas City and already has voting machines in place in Jefferson County. Diebold also is among the finalists in St. Louis County, the state's largest voting jurisdiction, which expects to announce its decision this week. Election Board chairman Ed Martin said the three-person panel of two Republicans and one...

A FINNISH security expert has proved to the supervisor of elections in Leon County Florida that it is a doddle to hack Diebold voting machines. Harri Hursti took part in a fake election in Leon County using what Diebold calls unhackable technology. At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes. The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. Correct results should have been: Yes:2 ; No:6 However, just as Hursti had planned,...

<p>This post is in response to the Sunday, November 18, 2005, New York Times Op-Ed piece,originally posted by freeper 'salbam' here, which calls into question electronic voting machines. This is an argument being pushed by the liberal kook fringe because of the results in Ohio and Florida which liberals can not come to terms with.</p>

Gov. Jeb Bush said he supports reviewing voting machines after a test by an elections supervisor showed that hackers could electronically stuff some ballot boxes. TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that the state ought to consider relooking at the way it examines electronic voting machines, following a county election chief's tests that showed insiders could hack into the computers, change votes and not leave an electronic fingerprint behind. Bush, saying the subject is ''too important'' to ignore, echoed national computer-security and voting experts, and struck a dissimilar chord to acting Secretary of State David Mann, who expressed less...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18sun2.html

Dec 15, 9:36 AM EST Elections supervisor: Some Diebold voting machines can be hacked TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Some Diebold-made voting machines, which are used in Florida and elsewhere throughout the country, can be hacked to change the results of an election, according to tests conducted for Leon County's elections supervisor and a monitoring group.Ion Sancho said tests by two computer experts showed an insider could secretly change election results and the number of ballots cast on Diebold's optical-scan machines. The tests caused Sancho this week to scrap Leon's Diebold machines for a system made by Election Systems and Software,...

George Noory is interviewing Bev Harris, a political watchdog in the area of electronic voting technology and the recent DIEBOLD controversy. I thought this topic was important enough for FR since it ultimately involves remaining a free people. Ms Harris' website blackboxvoting.org is linked on the Coast-to-Coast website.