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After weeks of defending itself against charges of bad programming and lax security, Diebold Election Systems is facing an independent, third-party audit of the software for its touch-screen voting machines. Maryland Gov. Robert L. Erhlich Jr. ordered the review after researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Rice University released a report (PDF) last month revealing numerous programming flaws and security vulnerabilities in the source code for Diebold's AccuVote-TS voting machines.

The Virginia State Board of Elections had a seemingly simple task before it: Certify an upgrade to the state's electronic voting machines. But with a recent report by Johns Hopkins University computer scientists warning that the system's software could easily be hacked into and election results tampered with, the once perfunctory vote now seemed to carry the weight of democracy and the people's trust along with it. An outside consultant assured the three-member panel recently that the report was nonsense. "I hope you're right," Chairman Michael G. Brown said, taking a leap of faith and approving Diebold Election System's upgrades....

Three computer researchers from the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, with help from a computer scientist at Rice University, say they've uncovered vulnerabilities in the software purportedly used by Diebold Election Systems. As a result, one person can cast multiple votes, elections can be delayed, the anonymity of voters can be breached, and cast votes can be modified or even deleted, the researchers say. However, the code analyzed by the researchers could be up to a year old. The code included modifications through 2002, the researchers said in a statement. The code they analyzed was discovered on a...

On Election Day 2004, How Will You Know If Your Vote Is Properly Counted? Answer: You Won't Rep. Rush Holt Introduces Legislation to Require All Voting Machines To Produce A Voter-Verified Paper Trail Washington, DC - Rep. Rush Holt today responded to the growing chorus of concern from election reform specialists and computer security experts about the integrity of future elections by introducing reform legislation, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003. The measure would require all voting machines to produce an actual paper record by 2004 that voters can view to check the accuracy of their...

Ballot boxes no more: EC to usher in era of EVMs Rana Ajit/ New Delhi Ballot boxes will no longer decide the fate of Union governments from the next general election. The Election Commission is all set to usher in the era of Electronic Voting Machines, which will be used all over India during the 2004 general elections for the Lok Sabha. After successfully utilising EVMs during the various State Assembly elections, the Commission is slowly but steadily working towards realising its goal of going fully electronic during the next general elections. To realise its goal of using EVMs...

Whistle-Blower Sues Electronic Voting Co.Wed Feb 26,11:42 PM ET By RACHEL KONRAD, Associated Press Writer A whistle-blowing computer programmer is suing an electronic-voting company, alleging that it fired him because he intended to expose major flaws in its touchscreen voting software. Daniel Spillane's lawsuit, filed Tuesday in King County, Wash., alleges several flaws in VoteHere's software, including unfinished code, software that fails to properly record votes and an inability to double-check results because of the lack of a paper trail. In an e-mail Wednesday to The Associated Press, a spokeswoman for Bellevue-based VoteHere said the lawsuit had "no merit" but...

Stanford Report, February 4, 2003 Computerized voting lacks paper trail, scholar warns Warning of programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious tampering, computer scientists from around the country, led by Stanford Professor David Dill, say computerized voting machines should provide a voter-verifiable audit trail. "The problem is not really with computerized voting systems per se," Dill says. "The problem is really that there is no way to double-check the results. It's really a problem of accountability." More than 110 computer scientists and technologists from universities and laboratories across the nation have signed Dill's "Resolution on Electronic Voting," which states that...

I'd like to hear your early voting horror stories!