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"...The issue of voting machine certification is critical because of tests that have revealed teams of computer hackers sanctioned by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen were able to hack without difficulty into various vendors' touch-screen voting machines during a "top to bottom review" of every system certified by the state, according to a University of California study. Diebold touchscreen voting machine The report concluded the machines could be manipulated using "tools that can be found in a typical office and could be executed by a very low-skilled attacker." Voting equipment for the timed test included devices from Sequoia, Hart...

Canadian Pro-Life Group Opposes Ontario Proportional Representation Proposal Proposal will be a ballot question in the upcoming Oct. 10 Ontario general election TORONTO, August 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) -  Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), the political arm of the pro-life movement in Canada, has come out in opposition to the proposed alteration to Ontario voting procedures which includes a system of partial proportional representation.  The proposal will be a ballot question in the upcoming Oct. 10 Ontario general election. The following is reproduced from CLC's September newsletter: We Oppose Proportional Representation We are generating much interest regarding our position opposing proportional representation....

"..."significant and unacceptable" security risk..."

"...Florida’s optical scan voting machines are still flawed, despite efforts to fix them, and they could allow poll workers to tamper with the election results..."

"...the team was able to bypass security in every machine they tested..."

"...The Maryland Senate unanimously approved a bill yesterday that would require the state to scrap its $65 million electronic-voting system and switch to new machines that have a paper record..."

"...Weisberg said Diehold was so stunned it did not get the contract that it now believes "it's worth the time and money" of going to court to challenge the contract's award, even though the company at this stage has no hard evidence of unfair treatment. Galvin yesterday called the Diebold suit "frivolous" and unlikely to succeed. "My office made a very reasonable selection after a long, open process of evaluating the voting machines," Galvin said. "We are entirely confident we will prevail," he said..."

"HARRISON COUNTY --The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Monday to revert back to the old paper ballot voting methods here, dumping the new electronic voting machines after just a few elections. "We've had a lot of problems with the machines... the costs, I was real concerned about the problems we had last time and it was going to cost us a lot," said Harrison County Circuit Clerk Gayle Parker, who recommended scrapping the high-tech machines after problems during the November elections. Dozens of Mississippi counties reported problems with the new machines. Poll workers had trouble getting the machines to work....

"Trung Nguyen's attorneys focused on 124 so-called undervotes — electronically cast ballots on which no candidate was selected — saying that reviewing the paper audit could have shed light on the voters' intentions and whether the electronic recording of those ballots was flawed. "It seems to defy all logic that someone would travel to the polls on election day and not vote…. These machines make mistakes — sometimes large mistakes," Schroeder said. Rebecca Mercuri, a forensic computer scientist and expert on electronic voting, testified that clusters of undervotes are a sign of a potential flaw with the electronic vote that...

" differently enabled people and communities actively oppose the use of Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting systems, that they disapprove of any false suggestion that accessibility and security are somehow at odds with one another as valuable features in any proper voting system, and that they reject the cynical use of the needs for accessibility of differently enabled citizens to undermine the needs for security of all citizens, including, of course, differently enabled ones (however construed)..."

"...acknowledges wider concerns about the security and reliability of machine voting, saying that the concerns are legitimate, and "merit the combined and focused attention of federal, state, and local authorities responsible for election administration"..."

"People will stay up all night if necessary to reconcile the votes," resident Gary Katz said. Added Mandell: "We like the sense of community we have now with the present system." And fellow Selectman Daniel DeWalt: "There's everything good about us counting our own votes."

"Voters have no idea if their votes have miscarried,” he stressed, “At the end of the day, the problem with all electronic voting machines is there’s no way to know” if votes have been recorded accurately or if votes have been lost."

"The bill says that there shall be no parts of a machine that have unknown functions, both in terms of hardware and software. They would need to be disclosed. However, some parts, such as chips, could be manufactured in places where the U.S. has no jurisdiction, and so the design would need to be redone."

"...a large number of voters were forced to wait up to three hours to vote at two polling centers because of problems with electronic voting machines..."

"Ontario's provincial gambling operator has pulled 87 video slot machines out of service or physically removed them from its casinos after a CBC investigation found what appear to be subliminal messages flashing at players..."

"...By requiring 10percent you get a statistical confidence level that can guarantee that the election has integrity," said David Larson of the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project..."

"A voting system that consists of direct recording electronic voting machines," says the text, "may not be used in an election unless the system produces a voter-verified permanent paper record suitable for a manual audit." In addition, the bill as written would require the system to allow the voter to inspect and verify the paper record before the electronic vote is recorded and provide an opportunity to alter the electronic vote after viewing the paper record..."

"...keeping private how the software counts the votes could lead to voter fraud and provides no assurance that every vote is, in fact, counted..."

"Responding to bipartisan concern that electronic voting machines are susceptible to fraud and error, the House approved a bill by state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R-Fairfax) that would no longer replace them when they break down"